After the demise of communism the importance of May Day has taken a back seat. But the notion that communism was a triumph for the working peoples of the world were misplaced in spirit and reality. Communist Manifestos famous call, Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but the chains, was abused by the too jealous and ruthless communist dictators. Lenin, Stalin or Mao did not have any love for the working class people. This is a sheer myth and a brazen lie although they claimed total allegiance to Marxism and its economic principles, but in fact they mercilessly tried to control their lives in the name of saving socialism. The urgency to chart out a human working condition was felt at the height of the Industrial Revolution in Europe. This was a social necessity in the face of appalling working conditions in the gloomy factories in Europe, especially in England, France and Germany. Karl Marx in his famous book Das Capital gave a formula what could and should be done to improve the situation. The issue was a social, economic and a humanitarian one which needed urgent attention. During the soviet and Mao Tse Dung era we saw huge rallies in Moscow and Beijing on May Day with millions of red flags. Those rallies did not really mean anything rather that trumpeting the rigorous and repressive communist regimes. In the western nations the condition of the working class people was much better than the so called socialist economies. But despite saying all these we must agree that many improvements are needed to be done in many countries. Working class people still suffer from poverty, lack of education, better medical facilities and they also suffer from social inequalities.
Akbar Hussain
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