CorCom urges workers, peasants to seek better life
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, April 30 2018:
On the occasion of the International Workers' Day (May Day or May 1), the CorCom has called upon all the workers and peasants of Manipur to unite and work collectively in search of a better, dignified life.
A statement issued by CorCom media coordinator Ksh Yoiheiba conveyed warm greetings to all workers and peasants of the world in general and Manipur in particular.
Exploitation of the common masses including peasants and workers by the capitalist class has been a continuing process throughout history across the world.
The history of Middle Age Europe is largely a narrative of the exploitation of peasants by landlords.
With the passage of time, machines and big industries became the dominant economic force in all industrialised Nations.
By the 18th century, Industrial Revolution swept all across Europe and capitalism became the most dominant force in western countries.
The capitalist class set up a number of big factories and they were pressed into service day and night leading to astronomical surge in industrial production.
Hundreds of thousands of labourers working in these factories were forced to work like machines and they were paid paltry sums as wages.
By the 1850s, workers of the industrialised countries started raising their voices against inhuman exploitation by the capitalist class, and they demanded reduction of working hours to 8 hours in a day.
The workers' demand was first fulfilled in Australia in 1856.As the workers' movement steadily gained strength, the same movement turned its attention towards complete abolition of capitalism, Yoiheiba said.
A convention of the Federation of Organised Trade and Labour Union held at Chicago in 1884 resolved that the maximum eight-hour Workday should be enacted as a law and also to stage widespread protest demonstration on May 1 of the following year.
Workers took out rallies and held meetings at different places across the USA on May 1, 1886.More than 40,000 workers suspended their daily works and staged a massive protest at Chicago.
The movement gained greater momentum on May 3 and many workers were injured in police action.
On the next day, a large number of aggrieved workers assembled together at the Hay Market Square and shouted a number of slogans against political rulers and capitalist class but police opened fire killing and injuring a large number of workers.
Since then, May 1 is being observed as the International Workers' Day, recalled the CorCom media coordinator.
Revolutionary leader Karl Marx foresaw workers as a strong force which can bring extensive changes in any society.
He wrote a number of books, theories and articles related to workers and their struggle for better life.
It was the collective strength of peasants which enabled Mao Zedong to build modern China in 1949 even though China had very few industries at that time.
There are numerous testimonies in history about how workers and peasants brought massive socio-economic as well as political revolutions.
But in Manipur (Kangleipak), the life of peasants and workers is rather pathetic.
On account of being a small State where there are very few big industries, and prolonged existence under alien rule, workers and peasants are unable to forge collective strength and they have been living a wretched life, CorCom remarked.
It then appealed to all the workers and peasants of Manipur to unite and work collectively in search of a way toward dignified life and a vibrant society.
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