Celebrating International Workers’ Day and the Birthday of Karl Marx: The Revolutionary Path Forward in the Era of Capitalist Decay

Today, on May 1, the international proletariat celebrates International Workers’ Day, a day born from the struggle of the working class against capitalist exploitation. Just four days from now, on May 5, we commemorate the birth of Karl Marx, the great revolutionary thinker whose scientific socialism laid the foundation for our struggle against the tyranny of capital. These two occasions are deeply intertwined—Marx’s revolutionary theory arms the working class with the understanding that they can only achieve emancipation by overthrowing capitalism and establishing socialism.

The Crisis of Capitalism and the March Toward War

Capitalism is in its death throes. The global system, riddled with contradictions, lurches from one crisis to another—economic instability, rampant inequality, environmental devastation, and the ever-present specter of imperialist war. The ruling class, desperate to maintain its power, seeks to offload its crises onto the backs of workers through austerity, wage suppression, and militarization.

Today, the world stands on the precipice of a new inter-imperialist war as the US, NATO, and their rivals scramble for global dominance. The genocide in Gaza, the war in Ukraine, rising tensions in Asia, and raging conflicts everywhere else all signal that imperialism, in its decay, is dragging humanity toward catastrophe. As Lenin warned, capitalism breeds war, and only overthrowing the capitalist system can bring lasting peace.

The Necessity of Socialist Revolution and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

Reformism is a dead end. The capitalist state cannot be “fixed” or “tamed.” We must smash and replace it with a socialist state—the dictatorship of the proletariat—the revolutionary rule of the working class. Such a replacement is not a mere change of government but the complete reorganization of society, where the means of production are seized from the bourgeoisie and placed under workers’ control.

Marx and Engels, in the Communist Manifesto, declared that “the proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.” Building on this foundation, Lenin explained in The State and Revolution—and proved through the October Revolution—that the working class, led by a disciplined Communist Party, could overthrow capitalism and begin constructing socialism. Today, this task remains urgent.

The Indispensable Role of the Communist Party

The proletariat cannot achieve victory spontaneously. Without the Communist Party—the most advanced detachment of the working class, armed with Marxist-Leninist theory—the struggle remains fragmented, easily crushed or co-opted by the bourgeoisie. History has shown that revolutions succeed only when guided by a revolutionary party.

In this country, the working class faces immense challenges: a bourgeoisie that controls both major political parties, a repressive state apparatus, and a ruling class that sows division among workers, to say nothing of all the opportunist and revisionist formations that continue to parasitize the revolutionary movement. To break these chains, we must rebuild the Communist Party—not as a passive discussion club but as a revolutionary vanguard capable of leading the masses toward revolution.

Onward to Socialism-Communism!

This May Day, as we honor the legacy of Karl Marx and the proletarian movement, we reaffirm our commitment to revolution, not reform; socialism, not barbarism. The crisis of capitalism will only deepen, and the ruling class will resort to ever more violent means to preserve its rule. If we hope to confront this violence, we must take up the necessary tasks at hand: to organize the working class under the banner of Marxism-Leninism; to rebuild the Communist Party as the instrument of revolution; to prepare for the inevitable clashes with the capitalist state; to fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat and the construction of socialism.

The future belongs to the working class.

Long live International Workers’ Day!

Long live Karl Marx!

Build the Communist Party!