“Comrade workers! May Day is coming, the day when the workers of all lands celebrate their awakening to a class-conscious life, their solidarity in the struggle against all coercion and oppression of man by man, the struggle to free the toiling millions from hunger, poverty, and humiliation. Two worlds stand facing each other in this great struggle: the world of capital and the world of labour, the world of exploitation and slavery, and the world of brotherhood and freedom.” – Vladimir Lenin

This week, despite countless attempts by the ruling class to erase it, around the world, millions of working and oppressed people will celebrate International Workers’ Day, also known as May Day. May Day was born through struggle, specifically the militant struggles waged by workers in the battle for the eight-hour workday. As such, May Day remains both a celebration of the militant history of the working class and a call for rebellion to all class-conscious workers worldwide.

On May 1st, 1886, in what was the largest worker mobilization in United States history up to that point, over 300,000 workers across the country went on strike or walked off the job in support of the demand for an eight-hour day. This event had been years in the making. Throughout the nineteenth century, workers who at the time often worked sixteen-hour days were engaged in constant struggles to attempt to win the eight-hour workday. Preparations for the May 1, 1886, strike began in 1884 when, at its national convention in Chicago, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions proclaimed, “eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labor from and after May 1, 1886.” A call that trade union, anarchist, and socialist organizations across the country took up. The lead-up to May 1st, 1886, saw a sharp increase in worker militancy; in 1885, over 250,000 workers participated in 700 strikes (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1937). This was an increase of nearly 100,000 workers going on strike compared to the previous year. Workers’ organizations also swelled by the hundreds of thousands in the two years leading up to the day. Across the country, rallies were being held by different organizations in support of the eight-hour day. Twenty thousand workers attended a rally in New York City.

Come May 1, 1886, the impact of these organizing efforts became evident. Before the date was even reached, 30,000 workers had already won demands for a shorter work day (Terence V. Powderly, 1889). When May 1^st came, more than 300,000 workers, from 13,000 workplaces stretched across the United States, joined forces, walking off their jobs to demand an eight-hour workday. In Chicago, which had been the epicenter of the labor movement and the eight-hour day movement, 40,000 workers walked off their jobs, and 80,000 marched up Michigan Avenue. In the days following May 1st, more and more workers joined the struggle. On May 3rd, a rally was held in Chicago outside of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company plant, where workers had been striking for months. As steelworkers and supporters agitated against scabs who were leaving their shift at the plant, Chicago police indiscriminately opened fire on the crowd, killing at least two steelworkers and seriously injuring many more.

Rightfully angered, workers across the city called for militant demonstrations in support of the people’s justice against those who killed the steelworkers. Local anarchists led in these calls and organized a rally the next day at Haymarket Square. At the rally, a crowd much smaller than what had gathered in previous days listened to speeches by anarchists August Spies and Albert Parsons. As rain began to pour, many left the rally, and as the concluding remarks were being given, close to two hundred police stormed into the event and ordered everyone to disperse. As the speakers climbed down, a bomb suddenly flew through the air and exploded among the crowd of police. One officer, Mathias J. Degan, died immediately, and six more died over the next two weeks due to their injuries.

A ruling class frenzy followed; bourgeois press outlets published statements calling the strikers murderers, and Mayor Carter Harrison of Chicago ordered police to break up all large gatherings. A massive police operation was organized; at least fifty supposed “hang-outs” of local radicals were raided. Over one hundred were arrested, many without any charges. Eight anarchists—Albert Parsons, August Spies, Samuel Fielden, Oscar Neebe, Michael Schwab, George Engel, Adolph Fischer, and Louis Lingg—were charged specifically with the bombing and murder of the police officers, despite there being virtually no evidence; the majority of those charged hadn’t even been at Haymarket Square that day. The events in Chicago also ignited a wave of repression across the country as police departments moved to crush strikes in other cities.

On October 11th, 1887, seven of the eight were convicted and sentenced to death by a jury made up almost entirely of business leaders. A nationwide campaign was organized in defense of the Haymarket Eight, led by the wife of Albert Parsons, Lucy Parsons. Events were held across the country. Despite the campaign, on November 11, 1887, after several failed appeals, Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fischer, and George Engel were hanged to death by the state. Louis Lingg was also scheduled to be executed; however, in protest, he committed suicide before he could be hanged. Michael Schwab and Samuel Fielden were granted a last-minute commutation from Governor Richard J. Oglesby.

The events in Chicago and specifically at Haymarket Square would live on amongst working-class people around the world. In 1889, at its congress, the Second International, in solidarity with the struggles of workers in the United States, declared May 1, 1890, a day for international demonstration. May 1st, 1890, was celebrated by workers’ organizations across Europe and North America. In 1891, the Second International would expand the purpose of the day to also include other demands that serve the “deepening of the class struggle.” Today, the memory and militant spirit of the Haymarket martyrs live on among the working class. The working class will never forget the blood shed by its best children. Every year, millions of working and oppressed people across the world celebrate International Workers’ Day.

May 1st, 1886, was one of the early battles in the struggles that would eventually lead to the formation of a class-conscious labor movement in the United States. Today, another movement of class-conscious workers is re-emerging. However this time, we are armed with the lessons of those workers who came more than a century before us as we seek to pick up the torch of the cause and aims of the international proletariat, as expressed in commemorations like International Workers’ Day.