May Day Rally Speech of Former Member of Parliament and Former Minister of Forest and Housing, Kerala, representing the Communist Party of India (CPI), A member of the CPI National Secretariat and the State Secretary of CPI Kerala State Committee – Comrade Binoy Viswam

(-2024.05.01 – Colombo-)

My dear Comrades, a red salute to you all.

You all came here to celebrate the great May Day, the day of the working class all over the world. Remember those days when the workers of the world were oppressed and suppressed under the rule of the capitalists? They possessed no rights, endured unlimited working hours and were treated even worse than slaves during that period. It happened in Chicago. We can never forget that day when the workers united, struggled and shouted for eight hours of labour. That is our right. As human beings, we have that right.

But on that day, the capitalists very cruelly suppressed our comrades. How can we forget it? There were trials in the courts of the capitalists in Chicago, America. They were ready to die for the cause of workers. They told the court of the capitalists that a day would come when our silence would become more powerful than your thundering rules. That day has come in Sri Lanka. Our silences have become more powerful. Now, on May Day in Sri Lanka, we have come to celebrate the victory.

It was told here at the last May Day by Anura, our dear leader and the President. He, like a prophet, told us that next year, when we celebrate May Day, it would be a victorious May Day for the people and the workers of Sri Lanka. That day has come.

We remember Marx and Engels, who wrote The Communist Manifesto and in the last part, they declared: “Workers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to win.” That world will come. For that, we struggled, in country after country, continent after continent; we struggled for that dream, the dream of this victory. One after another, these victories have come true.

We remember those days when the fall of a set of unions happened. They were telling the imperialists, the capitalists, and all those forces were telling that the end of history had come. Workers had no future; the red flag had no future. They said this flag would disappear from the minds of the people because red had disappeared from the world. With that idea in mind, they thundered: “The end of history.” But what happened? History can never end like that. History has to continue, for the victory of the workers. Now, it has happened here.

They shouted in those days: “There is no alternative only one way,” and that way was the American way, the way of the capitalists. They told us there was no other alternative, and that we were wrong, comrades. But we were right, because we have proven that there is an alternative, there is a way out. And Sri Lanka, of late, has shown that way. That way is a promise of an alternative. And this government of the people of Sri Lanka, the JVP government, that government has shown a way for the people of Sri Lanka and for the working people all over the world.

You have shown that if we are united and ready to fight, we will win — and we can never be defeated. That is the importance of May Day in Sri Lanka.

That is why, comrades of India, we feel so proud and happy that we could witness this moment, the participation of comrades, women and men, with red flags in their hearts and hands, coming to celebrate the victory of the people’s struggles. We can celebrate this in the future also.

One more thing to be told here: they will not stay idle. As I was told here, the reaction of the opposition in Sri Lanka are saying that their day will come. They are saying that red must fail in Sri Lanka too. We tell them, this flag will not fail because this is the flag of the workers. This red flag is the flag of the working people and this colour red is the colour of the blood and sweat of those people. That flag, that colour, can never be defeated.

With this conclusion, we are here. They will try their best. Some will try their best. Some of them are threatening the whole world with tariff challenges and tariff burdens. They are saying they will control the world. How can they control the world when people all over the world, the working masses, the toiling people, when all of them have a dream for the future and are ready for a united struggle? It is sure that, whatever they may say, they will fail and we will win.

So, this victory of Sri Lanka, we can tell you, is not only a Sri Lankan story. This is the story of our comrades, the story of the present-day world, the story of the dreams of present-day men and women. And this is the story of the future and that future will come to this world.

Comrades, once again I salute you. I salute you.

Long live May Day!

Long live, long live!

Workers of the world, unite. Red salute!