The Worker received the following articles on the topic of International Workers Day dating back to the Party Organizer of the 1930s. We republish these to make them available not only for historical purposes but because they contain information useful to organizers today. May 1, International Workers Day approaches in less than a month. This is the first of several articles we will be providing to commemorate the great international proletarian holiday.
PREPARING FOR MAY DAY APRIL 1931 NO.3 VOL IV
ON the eve of the great international proletarian holiday the workers of the world are faced with major burning problems of unemployment, hunger, terror, wage-cuts, revolutions and the impending attack against the Soviet Union.
May Day must be a day of struggle against capitalism on all fronts on these issues. The preparations for May Day must take the form of intensification of all our day to day activities with special emphasis on the organization of workers in the shops into May Day Committees, TUUL Unions, Shop Committees, Grievance Committees and the organization of Unemployment Councils, League of Struggle for Negro Rights, and all our mass organizations, at the same time recruiting the best elements into the Party.1
Over a million workers took active part in our unemployment struggles and activities. Tens of thousands of workers are and were on strike under our leadership since last May Day. Tens of thousands of Negro workers actively participated or sympathized with our movement for Negro Rights.
A hundred thousand workers voted Communist last year. About 150 thousand foreign born workers read our press and take part in our struggles. 40,000 copies of the Daily Worker reach about twice that number of workers each and every day. Another 100,000 read Labor Unity, Liberator, Labor Defender, Young Worker, etc.2
These masses of proletarian fighters must be mobilized to DOWN TOOLS and take part in our May Day demonstrations in the form of May Day strikes, marches, parades, demonstrations and mass meetings. Preparations for these vast demonstrations can only be conducted successfully on the basis of continued and intensified struggle reaching a high peak of international proletarian unity on May Day.
The United Front Conferences must include representatives from all workers’ organizations and groups, especially from the shops.
Test of Our Organizational Ability
Mobilization for this year’s May Day will be a real test of our organizational ability. As Communists and Bolsheviks we are leaders and organizers of the masses.
Ever growing masses of workers accept our leadership. We must undertake this responsibility and organize these masses for struggle. Half a million workers took part in our Feb. 25th demonstrations.
On May Day we must not only double, triple and quadruple this number but organize them into powerful disciplined marches and parades. Not only just May Day witness a vast quantitative increase but in addition we must achieve a profound qualitative improvement in our work.
Primarily the Party Committees (Central Committee, District Committees, Section Committees, Unit Buros) are responsible for these tasks, but each individual Communist must acquaint himself with our organizational problem in mass work. Each comrade must thoroughly study the C.C. Org. Directives for May Day and Regulations for Marches and Demonstrations.
MAY FIRST PARADES VOL II MARCH 1934 NO.3
By Sidney Bloomfield
MAY first will soon be upon us and workers’ parades and demonstrations must be planned immediately. The effectiveness of our demonstrations can be increased if we pay attention to some important details and the sooner the better. In the feverish days of the last world war, when the streets resounded daily to the tread of marching feet, opposed as one might have been to the flood of patriotism, nevertheless, when a fife and drum corps or military band passed by, the stirring strains went through one’s system like an electric current.
In our parades, particularly in New York City, we have several bands, but the line of march is so long that the effect is lost upon the marchers and the bystanders as well. The music cannot be heard beyond four or five blocks down the line. The marchers do not walk in rhythm and the effect is a line of stragglers shuffling along like a tired and discouraged army in retreat. The sloppy and slovenly demeanor of the marchers has a very bad effect upon the onlookers. The result is that the value of the demonstration as a means of impressing and winning over or neutralizing hostile people along the line of march is lost.
It should not be necessary to propagandize the value of stirring music. Every two or three hundred marchers should be led by a band, a bugle or fife and drum corps. We need scores of bands, with plenty of brass instruments. It will put a militant and challenging spirit into our parades and in this atmosphere the spirit is caught up by the masses.
The masses feel closer to a movement about which they can feel proud of. Every workers club, every branch of the International Labor Defense, International Workers Order3, every trade union and every youth club should make a drive for the collection of funds to outfit a band, to pay for the music instruction for those unable to do so, and to attract such elements to the organization who like music. Many bourgeois organizations attract new members by advertising that they are going to organize a band or orchestra and upon this basis of interest they call for those who can play and those who would like to learn to play.
The Workers Music League4 can build up its movement upon the basis of a vigorous campaign to organize bands and orchestras in all workers’ organizations. Such a campaign should be started at once. The immediate goal should be not less than twenty-five workers’ bands in New York City by May First. The appearance of that many more well organized bands will greatly stimulate the entire demonstration and will add prestige to our movement beyond expectation. It can be done with proper organization work and immediately.
The next problem is that of banners and placards. The getting up of banners and slogans is important for the effect they have upon the masses. Many placards are carried on sticks that are too small. The result is that the placard is not raised sufficiently high to be seen or the one carrying it gets tired holding his arm above his head, or the signs are carried in such manner as to be useless for the purpose intended. The committees must not be stingy with the length of sticks. Another bad practice is the tendency to make fancy lettering on the placards. This is bad and must be stopped. Fancy lettering cannot be read quickly and easily as the marchers pass by and the meaning of the slogans are lost upon the spectators. The most effective is heavy, wide, bold and plain but neat and distinct lettering—and the less words, with good English and logical phrasing, the more effective.
Some slogans are written and composed in such bad English that the meaning is the direct opposite of what was intended. Some slogans are so bad grammatically, that people are amused at seeing them. Slogans should be discussed first, not merely slapped onto cardboard. In many cases the slogans are wrong from the standpoint of political content and meaning. Also it is best to carry a placard on a slight angle, with wording facing the sidewalks. When signs are carried directly forward, those upon the sidewalks and in the tenement windows cannot easily read our message.
The spacing of banners, streamers, placards, etc., should be carefully planned before the parade starts and the leaders or captains must see to it that these are kept sufficiently apart so that the placard or banner in front does not hide the ones behind. Too many in one spot and no signs at another, spoil the effect. When signs are massed, only the first few in front can be read while the many scores of signs that are crammed and hidden behind each other are simply wasted Proper spacing should be planned so that every sign stands out by itself, is read easily and therefore serves its purpose well.
Finally, the question of making proper use of streamers that are carried by two or more people. Streamers must be watched more carefully than placards, because too much tension on either side of the carriers may rip the banners, or as is most common, too much looseness tends to cause folds in the streamer. Folds cover the lettering, thus making it impossible to read the inscriptions.
These are important matters and should be taken care of by the responsible committees in planning demonstrations.
- The TUUL, Trade Union Unity League, was a CP-led organization uniting Communist and militant unions (“red” unions) while struggling for unity with the rank-and-file of the “yellow” or bourgeois unions. The TUUL evolved from the earlier Trade Union Education League (TUEL) which united Communist Party workers’ schools and red contingents in the broader ranks of organized labor. The TUUL practiced both a “boring from within” strategy of winning leadership over the broader unions and the “dual union” strategy of establishing red unions existing side-by-side with the yellow unions in the same industries and workplaces, varying these approaches at different times and different situations.
Shop Committees were one of the union structures along with Grievance Committees in which Party militants organized, with their actions and direction responsible to the Party Unit organized at the shop.
The Unemployed Councils were Party-led organizations of the masses of unemployed workers established during the Great Depression, which led combative demonstrations demanding social security, unemployment relief, and work, under the slogan “Work or Wages” while also resisting evictions, utilities shut-offs, etc.
The League of Struggle for Negro Rights was a mass organization of the Party formed from the earlier American Negro Labor Congress. It organized for civil rights for Black people, against union segregation, against police brutality and imperialist aggression, and raised the slogan of self-determination for the “Black Belt” in the South following the Communist International resolutions which determined that the land question in the South was unresolved due to the oppression of the Black sharecroppers. The League organized support around the famous CP-led campaign in defense of the “Scottsboro Boys”. ↩︎ - The Daily Worker was the central organ of the CPUSA, emerging from The Worker in 1924 whose founding statement we have republished here.
Labor Unity was the monthly magazine of the Trade Union Unity League (see footnote 1).
The Liberator was the publication of the League of Struggle For Negro Rights (see footnote 1).
Labor Defender was the magazine of the International Labor Defense, the Party-led organization which succeeded the International Red Aid section in the USA. The Defender and the ILD organized and led struggles against legal repression of Communist militants, trade union activists, and the masses broadly who faced political repression for struggling for their rights and conquests. The ILD famously led the campaign in defense of the trade unionists Sacco and Vanzetti and the campaign in defense of the Scottsboro Boys. The ILD and its precursor and successor organizations were important forces in fundraising for and organizing legal defense for Communist militants and leaders who faced harsh repression from the state from the very beginnings of the Communist Party.
Young Worker was the magazine of the youth league of the CPUSA. The “etc.” contains many more Party publications and Party-influenced publications, for instance dedicated to geographic-industrial regions, to women workers, or against preparations for imperialist war.
The Daily Worker and other organs of the CPUSA were liquidated when the party fell to revisionism, placing the deformed “CP” currently in existence as a tail-end of the Democratic Party Mafia. The reconstitution of the Daily Worker remains a pending task today for revolutionaries of the USA, subordinated to the principal task of the reconstitution of the Communist Party USA. ↩︎ - The International Workers Order was a mutual aid/insurance society led by the Party. It was popular and successful, non-discriminatory and low cost, including for workers in dangerous occupations. ↩︎
- The Workers Music League was a collective of musicians and composers led by the Party, boasted of as the cream of the crop of American musical talent in the 1930s. It popularized and archived/notated folk, protest, and picket line songs, and attempted to generate a New Culture in music with new musical forms and methods and also by propagating revolutionary music. It formed out of the John Reed Club, a literary society run by the Party. ↩︎
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