THE News Line sends its revolutionary greetings to the workers and the oppressed peoples of the world on this historic May Day.
The world crisis of capitalism has brought the most advanced nation states to the brink of bankruptcy and complete collapse. This has subjected the working class and the poor of the world to huge price rises, and massive unemployment for both young and old, driving forward revolutionary explosions in country after country.
This crisis has driven the capitalist class throughout the world to declare open war on ‘their own’ working classes as they attempt to dump the entire crisis onto their backs. At the same time, they wage bloody imperialist wars to grab the world’s oil.
In the United States the crisis has reached such proportions that one of the main credit agencies has issued a warning about the country’s credit rating, saying that its massive indebtedness is threatening US capitalism with bankruptcy, and the world with a massive slump.
This crisis has prompted the US ruling class to launch a massive attack on state spending with $4 trillion being cut from the Federal Budget, destroying social benefits and jobs.
This attack is forcing the working class to break with the Democratic Party. It will found its own Labour Party to fight for socialism.
In the European Union the crisis has already forced Ireland, Greece and Portugal over the edge, with the rest of Europe not far behind.
In all these countries, the bailouts organised by the EU Central Bank and the IMF have attached to them austerity measures that are driving the working class to revolution.
In Britain the working class is faced with a coalition government that is determined to break the back of the welfare state, destroy the NHS, and smash benefits, wages, jobs and pension rights for all.
Capitalism has to go, and the bankrupt and crisis-ridden EU must be overthrown and replaced by the Socialist United States of Europe.
Nowhere has the world crisis driven the revolutionary movement of the masses more explosively than in the Middle East and North Africa.
Here the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt have been toppled, and the pro-imperialist ruling classes of Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, the Yemen, and the UAE are fighting for their lives against huge mass movements.
Throughout the Middle East the working class has shown its revolutionary essence, through its leadership of the struggle for democratic rights. These can only be achieved and secured through carrying out socialist measures and overthrowing capitalism.
Where counter-revolution, openly assisted by imperialism, has sought to take advantage of the situation, such as in Libya, the masses have stood fast behind the leadership of Colonel Gadaffi, deepening the crisis of UK and French imperialism.
Now the youth of Palestine and Iraq and the workers of Syria are surging forward.
The Palestinian youth have forced Hamas and Fatah to reunite and have created the conditions for the revolution to establish the state of Palestine. In Iraq the masses of the youth are demanding that all US troops quit Iraq and that the puppet Maliki regime resigns.
The anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist workers of Syria are fighting for their rights against a bourgeoisie that wants Syria to remain a prison for the working class. Meanwhile throughout Asia, especially in India and Sri Lanka, the working class is on the march and demanding socialism.
We have entered the epoch for completing the world socialist revolution. The workers of the world must unite, and the workers of the major capitalist states must boldly declare that their enemy is at home and oppose all imperialist interventions.
The need of the hour is the building of sections of the Fourth International in all countries to lead the world socialist revolution to its victory.
