International Workers’ Day or May Day is celebrated this year, when under neoliberalism, working class and oppressed peoples of the world are passing through one of the darkest periods in history. Since world imperialist system is in an unprecedented crisis, and as all the inter-imperialist contradictions are sharpening, as manifested through the various local and regional conflicts and ongoing Trump-led ‘trade wars’ across the world, the entire burden of these crises and contradictions are shifted to the shoulders of the working class and all oppressed at a global level. And, to facilitate this process, the close nexus between most corrupt corporate billionaires and the far-right reactionary political leadership in both imperialist countries and in oppressed Afro-Asian-Latin American neocolonial countries are resorting to neofascism and unleashing super-exploitation and oppression on world working class and all oppressed, snatching away all their hard-earned democratic rights.
For almost a quarter century following the Second World War, due to the presence of an ideologically equipped International Communist Movement and continuing National Liberation struggles, imperialism was forced to envisage a ‘welfare state’ with provisions for social and democratic rights. However, since the 1970s, when the imperialist crisis bounced back with intensified vigour, on account of the ideological-political setbacks, the International Left was in disarray. Taking advantage of this situation, imperialist regimes and their lackeys across the world abandoned ‘welfare capitalism’ and embraced neoliberal globalisation with unrestrained and unfettered global mobility for financial oligarchs to super-exploit the working class and plunder nature. To counter working class struggles, imperialist think-tanks and neoliberal institutions formulated a host of post-Marxist and postmodern theories, to disorient and depoliticise the workers and oppressed, and thereby laying down the ideological-political background for the unprecedented corporate-fascist offensive.
In the post-Cold War phase following the collapse of Soviet Union, using the internationalisation of capital as material foundation, and through Islamophobia and anti-Communism and a whole set of reactionary ideologies such as racism, xenophobia, religious fundamentalism, neo-atheism and even neo-tribalism and so on as ideological base, neofascist regimes sprang up across the world, and are superimposing draconian laws and biggest-ever inhuman burdens over workers, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in imperialist countries. It further intensified the super-exploitation of workers and all-round oppression on people. As a consequence, using the latest advancements in technology including AI, which have brought about several-fold increase in productivity of labour, a new international division of labour and ‘flexible specialisation’ are imposed the world over. Thus, rather than contributing to an increase in workers’ real wages and reduction in their working time, these new technologies are used for keeping the workers in a state of slaves or bonded labourers. The working class is increasingly becoming informal or unorganised devoid of any collective bargaining power as the production process itself is decomposed into several stages and relocated globally. And an increasing trend under the neoliberal-neofascist context is the spectacular growth in speculative-financial sectors relative to job-oriented real production such that the world itself is transforming into a ‘waste-land of unemployment’.
Global neofascism, with its anti-Communist, Islamophobic, racist and xenophobic orientation, as already noted, has sharpened all inter-imperialist contradictions, geopolitical tensions, imperialist sponsored wars, and even protectionist trade wars as under Trump regime in US today. The continuing war in Ukraine with its twists and turns, the holocaust unleashed on Palestinians in Gaza by Zionist-US evil axis transforming the entire Gaza into a massive grave yard, where the official death toll alone has crossed 52000, and the imperialist-instigated regional wars within Africa, intensifying tensions in South Asia and Asia-Pacific are manifestations. The intimidating and bullying tariffs imposed across the world by Trump has shocked the entire Western imperialist bloc with the threat of global stagflation. This was in continuation of neofascist Trump’s massive deportation of immigrants to their countries of origin in gross violation of all international procedures. At the same, imperialist China’s cold response to Trump’s tariff war by imposing equivalent retaliatory tariffs on US and the consequent collapse in US stock and financial markets and erosion in profit of US MNCs worth trillions of dollars have already challenged postwar imperialist hegemony of US itself.
Even amid this unprecedented imperialist crisis, wealth concentration with world’s corporate billionaires has now reached hitherto unknown levels, while workers, majority of whom are condemned to subsist on unorganised/informal sectors, are subjected to horrific levels of super-exploitation and surplus-value extraction. Today, more than 60 percent of the world working class is in unorganised sectors where 8-hour work, job and social security, etc., have become a thing of past. In India, the most populous country today, the unorganised or informal workers now comprise around 95 percent of the working class, the largest contingent of international proletariat today. The fascist Modi regime in India, whose reins are with RSS, the biggest and longest-running fascist organisation, has already abolished 44 labour laws that prevailed till the advent of far-right corporate fascism. Instead, it has brought forward 4 pro-corporate Labour Codes along with many other draconian laws and constitutional amendments in tune with the role of Modi government as a ‘corporate facilitator’. In this way, far-right RSS fascism is serving the most corrupt corporate capital, both Indian and global, by compelling the Indian workers to sell their labour power at the cheapest wages and on a casual/contract basis devoid of any basic democratic rights. And all the long-cherished goals of the working class such as 8-hour working day, permanent employment, pension system, equal pay for equal work, gender-friendly working conditions and so on have become a myth under fascist Modi regime. Even the annual budgetary allocation to the Employment Guarantee Scheme is also drastically reduced over the years, at a time when India is undergoing the biggest unemployment in recorded history.
Today, the consequences of far-right neofascism in India, with around 145 crore people, are incomparably more horrific than that in any other country. Under Modi, who came to power on an anti-corruption plank in 2014, India has become one among world’s most corrupt countries and a flourishing example of crony capitalism defined as the unholy nexus between corrupt corporates and ruling regime. Policy decisions are made in corporate board rooms while parliament remains as a mere spectator. On account of the corporate-friendly labour, tax, and environmental policies, and consequent super-exploitation of workers and corporate plunder of nature, the widening of the gap between the poor and the rich reached spectacular levels. As a result, the top one percent of super-rich Indians holds more income than that under British colonialism, while that of bottom 50 percent today is less than what it was in 1951. Corporate crony capitalists in whom India’s wealth is concentrated and who are totally depending on imperialist centres for technology and expertise are least interested in employment-generating real production and are engaged in money-spinning speculative businesses. The earnings of working class and oppressed people are steeply going down and they are unable to subsist due to sky-rocketing prices of food, fuel, medicine and other items. With world’s majority of “absolute poor”, India is called a “citadel of global poverty” today.
And, effectively utilising the reactionary ideologies of Brahmanical casteism, anti-Muslimness/Islamophobia, and anti-Communism, far-right RSS is in the maddening pace towards its ultimate goal of a majoritarian, Manuvadi Hindu Rashtra. Through a series of constitutional amendments and administrative moves such as abrogation of Article 370, CAA, pro-Hindutva SC judgement for constructing Ram Mandir at the very site of demolished Babri Masjid, 103rd Constitutional Amendment incorporating upper-caste oriented Economic Reservation and thereby undermining caste-based reservation, anti-Muslim Waqf Act, UCC and so on, the fascist regime is steadily moving ahead with its heinous agenda. Even the latest terrorist attack on tourists at Pahalgam is also used as a godsend opportunity for shoring up Islamophobia and for majoritarian polarisation in the society. More heinous is Modi government’s unholy links with the Zionist regime as part of the Evangelist-Zionist- Saffron nexus and altogether abandonment of India’s erstwhile solidarity with the Palestine liberation struggle. Of course, it needs to be seen in the broader context of the innumerable overseas extensions and affiliates of RSS and its links with neofascist forces at a global level.
At this critical neoliberal-neofascist context, when we observe International Workers’ Day, the task of the working class and all oppressed are more tedious than any other previous period in history. Of course, workers and oppressed peoples across the world are coming forward resisting fascism and imperialism in manifold ways. However, what conspicuously lacks, both at the global level and in India, is the badly needed political alternative on the part of Left. That is, while the reactionary global capital is unleashing the biggest-ever corporate fascist offensive on world people, even regarding the understanding and approach to 21st century fascism, basic differences are there among many self-professed communist parties and groups. Regarding the analysis of imperialism too, fundamental differences are there among the broad Left. Of course, this ideological-political and organisational weakness of the Left is an opportune situation for the fascist regimes to intensify neoliberal-neofascist oppression on the one hand, while enabling corporate think-tanks to hoodwink and depoliticise the people on the other. Hence, while observing May Day, the most urgent task on the part of all genuine Communists, progressive and democratic forces today is to build up the necessary ideological-political and organisational alternative which is capable to resist and overthrow fascism and neoliberal imperialism, and move towards a people’s democratic society.
Long Live May Day!
Workers and Oppressed Peoples of the World, Unite!
Overthrow Fascism and Imperialism!
March Towards People’s Democracy!
CPI (ML) Red Star
