Uploaded as part of the Anarchism in Australia project.

Author: Sydney Anarchist Group

Originally Published: 1959

Retrieved from: Melbourne Anarchist Club website.

Thanks to an anonymous volunteer for the transcription (below).

MAY DAY 1959

AN ANARCHIST MESSAGE

(Anarchists believe in freedom, and reject the necessity for any form of authority. Their aim is a free life, based on individual responsibility, mutual aid, and co-operation.)

Today the whole world is celebrating May Day!

WHY?

CHICAGO, 1886 …… Eight Anarchists were framed on a police-manufactured charge of bomb-throwing. Five paid with their lives, three more spent years in jail, before it was revealed that ALL WERE INNOCENT. Their real crime …. leading the movement for an eight-hour working day. In their honour, the international Labor movement proclaimed May 1st a “HOLIDAY”, a day on which workers everywhere would down tools and demonstrate their brotherhood and solidarity.

But what is really happening?

The eastern world under Bolshevik tyranny is marching to celebrate the significance of 1st May, but how? and who? Marshalls, generals, officers, politicians of all kinds, decorated with medals, are marching in front of millions of workers and soldiers turned into mute robots and numbers within the perfected state — while these same officials are the real enemies of the workers’ solidarity and brotherhood. What a monsterous demonstration of hypocrisy! What a betrayal!

The workers of the western world are marching behind their trade-union bosses and politicians, betrayed and disunited, misinformed about the real meaning of 1st of May.

In this treacherous reality, we are obliged to remind the toiling world of the real facts about May Day.

DIRECT WORKER ACTION REMAINS THE ONLY HOPE for HUMANITY.

The dangerous game being played in Berlin by the so-called leaders of the world power blocs may explode into the destruction of all human kind IF THE WORKERS OF THE WORLD CONTINUE TO RELY ON LEADERS AND “AUTHORITY”. Here and there, renewed stirrings give reason for fresh optimism.

In U.S.A. a group of drenched and bruised Peace Pickets held their ground at the Vandenburg Air Force base murder-missile launching pads in California, while the U.S. Air Force attempted to break up their protest with high-pressure water hoses. The group, of mixed political beliefs, united for a common purpose WITH NO DISCIPLINE OTHER THAN SELF-DISCIPLINE, held for their position while a professional army went to pieces.

In Britain at the same time (Dec. ’58) the Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War organized another demonstration at the rocket launching site under construction near Swaffham, Norfolk. The missiles that could be fired from this site are designed to destroy three million human beings with one shot — and noone knows what secondary effects they would have on generations yet unborn. The Committee stated: “WE CONTINUE TO BELIEVE WE HAVE A MORAL OBLIGATION. WORDS ARE NOT ENOUGH; WE MUST ACT…”

The Australian working class is a part of mankind, and cannot afford — cannot wish – to ignore the events in the world today. Can we leave affairs to the Government? Do the politicians know best? Do we approve of Nuclear War? Do we approve of any war, or do we know it to be a shame and a degradation? Let every one of us remember the meaning of May Day, and reexamine our own position.

PEOPLE EVERYWHERE LONG FOR A FREE AND PEACEFUL LIFE, AND THIS CAN BE OBTAINED ONLY BY DIRECT ACTION OF THE PEOPLE – US – AWARE AND RESPONSIBLE.

THIS IS THE ANARCHIST-SYNDICALIST MESSAGE FOR MAY DAY 1959,

as it has been every year since 1886 ………

AGAINST WARE ……………. AGAINST CAPITALISM ……… AGAINST DICTATORSHIP …..

F O R A F R E E S O C I E T Y ………..

THROUGH DIRECT ACTION.

Printed for the SYDNEY ANARCHIST GROUP by Edna Dash, 26 Edgeware Rd, Enmore.