On International Workers’ Day, the Communist Party calls on the labour and trade union movement to build massive and sustained mobilisations for peace and socialism.
May Day is celebrated by workers across the world from Cuba to New Caledonia. This year millions will march in support of Cuba’s socialist revolution amidst the crisis created by the illegal US blockade and Trump’s executive order to strangle energy supplies to the socialist island that has already suffered sixty years of economic, commercial, and financial siege warfare.
Undaunted by US imperialism’s threats, the Workers’ Central Union of Cuba (CTC) and its national unions are calling May Day celebrations across the island under the slogan: “The homeland must be defended” (‘La Patria se defiende’) .
Since International Workers’ Day was first celebrated on 1 May 1890, socialists have always linked demands of the workers’ movement for shorter working hours, better rights and social justice with calls for peace and against militarism and war.
In 1913, Polish revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg wrote, “The brilliant basic idea of May Day is the autonomous, immediate stepping forward of the proletarian masses, [in] a direct, international mass manifestation: the strike as a demonstration and means of struggle for the eight-hour day, world peace, and socialism.”
4 May 2026 also marks the centenary of the British general strike, which began at one minute past midnight on Tuesday 4 May 1926 and ended in betrayal and despair with the TUC’s ignominious surrender nine days later.
The betrayal of the British general strike on 13 May 1926 after nine days of exemplary militancy and class solidarity, saw organised labour falter and fall back in disarray from which it did not recover for almost half a century. 1926 was also an inflection point in the drive to militarism and war.
Today, workers face many parallels. Just as in the 1920s, bosses demanded pay cuts, so in 2026, politicians, arms dealers and military top brass demand cuts to public spending to fund military expenditure.
For trade unionists, the warning could not be clearer. The demand for ever-increasing proportions of GDP to be spent on military spending is a direct and deliberate attack on the living standards of workers and their families.
The new Cold War warriors in Britain, France and Germany, following the example of Donald Trump in the US see the new arms race as an opportunity to achieve the swingeing cuts in the welfare state that they have dreamed of for so long.
The Communist Party calls on trade unionists to support the International Meeting Against War at Westminster Central Hall on Saturday, 20 June 2026. The Communist Party calls on workers on May Day to march for peace and socialism.
Long live May Day!
Build the United Front against imperialism and war!
Communist Party of Britain
1 May 2026