Rosa Luxemburg
What Are the Origins of May Day?
Written: 1894, First published in Polish
in Sprawa Robotnicza
Published: From Selected
Political Writings of Rosa Luxemburg, tr. Dick Howard (NY: Monthly Review Press,
1971), pp. 315-16.
Online Version: marxists.org April, 2002
Transcribed: http://www.ultrared.org/lm_mayday.html
The happy idea of using a proletarian holiday celebration as a means to
attain the eight-hour daywas first born in Australia. The workers there decided in 1856 to organize a day of complete stoppage
together with meetings and entertainment as a demonstration in favor of
the eight-hour day. The day of this celebration was to be April 21. At
first, the Australian workers intended this only for the year 1856. But
this first celebration had such a strong effect on the proletarian masses
of Australia, enlivening them and leading to new agitation, that it was
decided to repeat the celebration every year.
In fact, what could give the workers greater courage and faith in their own
strength than a mass work stoppage which they had decided themselves? What could
give more courage to the eternal slaves of the factories and the workshops than
the mustering of their own troops? Thus, the idea of a proletarian celebration
was quickly accepted and, from Australia, began to spread to other countries
until finally it had conquered the whole proletarian world.
The first to follow the example of the Australian workers were the Americans.
In 1886 they decided that May 1 should be the day of universal work stoppage. On
this day 200,000 of them left their work and demanded the eight-hour day. Later,
police and legal harassment prevented the workers for many years from repeating
this [size] demonstration. However in 1888 they renewed their decision and
decided that the next celebration would be May 1, 1890.
In the meanwhile, the workers' movement in Europe had grown strong and
animated. The most powerful expression of this movement occurred at the
International Workers' Congress in 1889. At this Congress, attended by four
hundred delegates, it was decided that the eight-hour day must be the first
demand. Whereupon the delegate of the French unions, the worker Lavigne from
Bordeaux, moved that this demand be expressed in all countries through a
universal work stoppage. The delegate of the American workers called attention
to the decision of his comrades to strike on May 1, 1890, and the Congress
decided on this date for the universal proletarian celebration.
In this case, as thirty years before in Australia, the workers really thought
only of a one-time demonstration. The Congress decided that the workers of all
lands would demonstrate together for the eight-hour day on May 1, 1890. No one
spoke of a repetition of the holiday for the next years. Naturally no one could
predict the lightninglike way in which this idea would succeed and how quickly
it would be adopted by the working classes. However, it was enough to celebrate
the May Day simply one time in order that everyone understand and feel that May
Day must be a yearly and continuing institution [. . .].
The first of May demanded the introduction of the eight-hour day. But even
after this goal was reached, May Day was not given up. As long as the struggle of the workers against the bourgeoisie and the
ruling class continues, as long as all demands are not met, May Day will
be the yearly expression of these demands. And, when better days dawn,
when the working class of the world has won its deliverance then too humanity
will probably celebrate May Day in honor of the bitter struggles and the
many sufferings of the past.
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