red flag
image courtesy of marxists.org

May 1st is May Day, which is also known as International Workers Day. This holiday recognizes the achievements of the working people and it is celebrated in locales and countries all around the world.  


May 1st also marks the anniversary of the beginning of the 1886 nation-wide strike in support of the eight-hour workday.  In Chicago, a mass meeting in support of the workers' movement ended tragically with the "Haymarket Massacre" on May 4. 

Marxists.org maintains an extensive subject archive that chronicles the history of May Day.

"Over the heads of the capitalist robbers, over the heads of their predatory governments, we extend a hand to the workers of all countries, and cry:

Hail the First of May!"

Selection from "The Worker's Maypole"
by Walter Crane (1894)

Be ye many or few drawn together,
     Let your message be clear on this day;
Be ye birds of the spring, of one feather
     In this--that ye sing on May-Day.

Of the new life that still lieth hidden,
     Though its shadow is cast before;
The new birth of hope that unbidden
     Surely comes, as the sea to the shore.

Stand fast, then, Oh Workers, your ground,
     Together pull, strong and united:
Link your hands like a chain the world round,
     If you will that your hopes be requited.

When the World's Workers, sisters and brothers,
     Shall build, in the new coming years,
A lair house of life--not for others,
     For the earth and its fullness is theirs.


Further Reading
May Day Action by the Revolutionary Proletariat  V.I. Lenin 1913
May Day  J.V. Stalin   May 1, 1945
Order of the Day, No. 20  May 1, 1945  J.V. Stalin
Berlin Impressions  (After I. Kudrevatykh)  May 1945