Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) grew up in Russian-ruled Poland and was involved in underground activism while still in high school. She became one of the most formidable theorists and organisers of her generation, penning a major critique of Marx’s Capital, sparring with Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin and, most importantly, polemicising against the growing reformist current in the German Social Democratic Party from about 1903 (in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, socialists/ Marxists called themselves “social democrats”).
The SPD was founded in 1875. Its first political program was criticised by Marx and, by the end of his life, Engels was beginning to grapple with the party leaders’ attempts to transform revolutionary socialism into evolutionary socialism—the idea that socialism could be brought about by parliamentary legislation backed by a mass movement of workers. Luxemburg became a strident critic of this new reformism, eventually leading a breakaway revolutionary group when SPD parliamentarians voted to fund Germany’s participation in the First World War, which left tens of millions of workers across Europe dead or maimed.
During the war, Luxemburg was imprisoned for several years but continued her polemics from jail before being released on 8 November 1918 as the German revolution entered its opening phase. Two months later, the SPD government ordered a crackdown. Luxemburg was assassinated on 15 January 1919 in Berlin.
“What Are the Origins of May Day?” was written in 1894 and published in Sprawa Robotnicza (Workers’ Cause), a paper co-founded by Luxemburg the previous year.
What are the origins of May Day?
The happy idea of using a working-class holiday celebration as a means to attain the eight-hour day was first born in Australia. The workers there decided in 1856 to organise a day of complete stoppage together with meetings and entertainment as a demonstration in favour of the eight-hour day. The day of this celebration was to be 21 April. At first, the Australian workers intended this only for the year 1856. But this first celebration had such a strong effect on the working 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 that 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 working-class celebration was quickly accepted and, from Australia, began to spread to other countries until finally it had conquered the whole working-class world.
The first to follow the example of the Australian workers were the Americans. In 1886, they decided that 1 May 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 from repeating this demonstration for many years. However, in 1888, they renewed their decision and decided that the next celebration would be on 1 May 1890.
In the meantime, 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 400 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 1 May 1890, and the congress decided on this date for the universal working-class celebration.
In this case, as 30 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 1 May 1890. No one spoke of a repetition of the holiday for the next years. Naturally, no one could predict the lightning-like way in which this idea would succeed and how quickly it would be adopted by the working classes. However, it was enough to celebrate 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 capitalists 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 honour of the bitter struggles and the many sufferings of the past.
