By Colombo Action Committee
This May Day is celebrated by the working class all over the world, in the midst of the great danger of an emerging World War III – a nuclear war threatening a mass extinction – and the counter attack of the international working class fighting out the dire conditions imposed by the capitalist class rule all over the world.
The super rich elite is endeavoring to cope with the contradictions of their own world order with catastrophic consequences.
They have no choices left, other than continuing their drive towards war and destruction. Over last three decades, US imperialism was continuously waging aggressive wars in the middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe, without an exception of even a single day. May it be in Balkan Peninsula, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Syria, they had their own reasons to kill innocent civilians and had bogus justifications, which they were not even bothered to
maintain over the years. The proxy war launched by the NATO against Russia in Ukraine is threatening a nuclear war and mass extinction. US provocations against China has been increased recently with senior US officials openly declaring that a military conflict with China is inevitable.
After three quarter centuries of the defeat of Nazism, the working class is confronted with the danger of fascism, which is showing its ugly face again over Europe, America and many parts of the world. The main capitalist parties are competing with each other in proving their fascistic potentials and trying to impress the ultra-rightist chauvinistic elements in the society. Democratic rights are being suppressed and the so-called ‘saviors of democracy’ are openly defending its ultimate violations.
The international working class is battling the dire consequences of austerity measures which is added to the still bleeding wounds of the Covid-19 pandemic, that has claimed over 21 million lives as of today. The capitalist governments have maintained a criminal recklessness towards
the pandemic, and allowed this massive loss of life willingly, for the sake of profits and glory of a tiny layer of individuals, belonging to the elite
super-rich. This barbarous attitude was not limited to Covid-19, but was common towards the lives of the poor, and towards war.
In Sri Lanka, it is a common knowledge that there is a pathetic scarcity in some critical medicines, for number of critical illnesses. But, this is not a phenomenon limited to Sri Lanka, or the ‘developing’ countries, but even the most powerful nations of the world are also going through the same
fate. According to the Director of the division of molecular imaging and therapeutics at the University of Alabama, Jonathan McConathy, even in US, “People,” are going to “die from this shortage, for sure” (reported in World Socialist Web Site on 26 April 2023)
Whilst imperialism is moving towards a catastrophic nuclear war and suppressing the democratic rights, the international working class has been steadily moving towards counter action. The following quote from David North describes this phenomenon vividly:
“During the past decade there has been a steady escalation of the class struggle. A striking characteristic of the class struggle has been its international character. The revolutionary advances in communications technology are dissolving the barriers between the workers of different countries. Regardless of where it begins, the social conflict in any particular country almost immediately acquires an international audience and becomes a world event. Even the age-old barrier of language is being overcome by the application of translation and transcription programs that make documents and speeches, regardless of the languages in which they were written and spoken, easily comprehensible to a global audience.” (WSWS, 08 April 2023)
Accordingly, the working class is responding to the attacks of the ruling classes, surpassing the national boundaries. They are armed with new
developments of communication technologies and, challenging the prevailing world order of national governments and global economy. The capitalist profit system and imperialism are directly obstructing the development of technology, science, culture and human development, dividing people over their nationality, race, religion and skin colour. What is essentially required is their unavoidable organizational tool, which unites them independently, against the capitalist class and all of its agents promoting politics of class collaboration among the workers to misguide them against the vicious attacks the capitalist class is preparing for them.
The Colombo Action Committee is calling workers all over the country and around the globe, to build organizations of their own independent action committees (rank-and-file-committees) to counter the vicious attack of imperialism –the world order of the super-rich and financial oligarchy – to discuss, debate and fight for their own solution to the ongoing social crisis of starvation, death and destruction.
Commemorating the May Day 2023, we call upon our class brothers and sisters in the country and around the world to rise, build their own independent rank-and-file-committees, factory and neighborhood committees, to discuss the actions and programs of countering the capitalist attacks on them as well as the drive towards the world war, and to unite with their international comrades to build the International Workes’ Alliance of Rank-and-File-Committees (IWA-RFC) against these attacks.
We fully support and stand together with the call of the World Socialist Web Site and the International Committee of the Forth International (ICFI) to build such an alliance and, insist the Sri Lankan branch of the ICFI, the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), to respond our request for unity and common action, in convening the Democratic and Socialist Congress of Workers and the Rural Masses (DSC).
Down with imperialist war drive!
Workers of the world, unite!!
Image courtesy of WSWS
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