On May 1, 1886, a general strike broke across the United States. Within days it would culminate in the events forever associated with the name Haymarket. In 1889 the founding congress of a new, second, Marxist International named that day, May Day, for worldwide actions of the proletariat.
Through all the twists and explosions of these past hundred years, the tradition of May Day has developed and spread: as a day when class-conscious proletarians of all countries take stock of their situation, make their plans for the year ahead, celebrate proletarian internationalism, and declare their determination to carry their struggle through to the final goal of communism throughout the world.
In many countries, battles rage to proclaim May Day as a day of revolutionary struggle after years where it has been suppressed or gutted by revisionists.
in 1984 the newly formed Revolutionary Internationalist Movement issued its Declaration on May First and since then has called for celebrations and struggle on May First in countries across the planet under unified revolutionary slogans. Today, just as throughout the past century, May Day concentrates in embryo the leaps and prospects of the world revolution.