PCMLE: May 1 Manifesto – United, let us continue the struggle against the enemies of the workers and the people

En Marcha #2091 from April 24 to May 7, 2024 [ pcmle.org/EM/spip.php?article13101 , occasionally articles are posted in English; The PCMLE website has been re-done?  Slightly edited.] 

Central Organ of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador

MAY 1 MANIFESTO

United, let us continue the struggle against the enemies of the workers and the people

[photo]

Workers

The streets and plazas will once again be covered with the voices of indignation and the demands of millions of workers around the world on May 1st. There are sufficient reasons for this: we live in a society in which those who work for exhausting daily hours live badly, while the owners of capital increase their wealth by the minute. Workers all over the world stand up and exclaim that the struggle for social emancipation is present and growing!

In our country, the commemoration of this exemplary day takes place in very particular circumstances. Due to the very nature of the prevailing capitalist system and the action (or inaction) of the different governments in power, Ecuador is immersed in a serious crisis of bourgeois institutions: corruption and organized crime; the drug trafficking mafias have penetrated all state institutions; they are in the Executive, the Legislature, the Justice System; they are present in the leadership of the Police and the Army, in the political parties of the right. The activity of these groups has been promoted and covered up at the highest levels, and legal frameworks have been created to prevent their punishment and guarantee them impunity.

But that is not all. Day by day, unemployment, underemployment, poverty, forced migration, school dropouts and many other serious social problems are increasing. Daniel Noboa's government has not been able to solve these problems, simply because it is not interested in doing so. He is in Carondelet [translator:  the president’s residence] to benefit his class: the big business people, the owners of capital. Didn't he forgive them about two billion dollars of debts they owed to the state, of which 80 million dollars went to the companies of his father, Álvaro Noboa? For the rich, forgiveness of their debts and tax exemptions; for the poor, an increase in the VAT, an increase in the price of gas, a reduction in the budget for health and education, minimal investment in public works!

Noboa is a president who lies and does not fulfill his campaign promises. The people have identified him as such, which is why in the referendum of April 21 he had a hard defeat where it hurts the most: on the questions that sought greater levels of exploitation of the workers and protection of international capital.

The political maneuver of the bourgeoisie and its government was to mark questions D and E in their favor in the midst of a discourse that put at the center – almost as the only element – the issue of the fight against insecurity and criminal violence. However, the people have an important capacity for discernment and did not fall into the trap; they understood that the struggle for security is one thing and it is quite another thing to allow anti-popular policies and attacks on the sovereignty of the country to be applied.

Noboa and the big business owners were defeated in the referendum, and he was defeated by the trade unions, students, teachers, merchants, youth and women's organizations, the left-wing parties and movements, and all those who voted and called for a NO vote on questions D and E.

New fights are coming, this time in the streets. The government has in its plans the increase in the price of fuel, the privatization of state companies, the increase in electricity rates, among other anti-popular measures; it is negotiating with the International Monetary Fund in exchange for receiving new loans that will be used to pay outstanding debts to international creditors, not to meet the needs of the people. The government's interest is also to economically strangle the IESS [Ecuadorian Social Security Institute], it wants to bankrupt it in order to privatize the social security system. We must prevent this.

The new struggles demand the strengthening of the unity of the workers, of all popular sectors, the left-wing political organizations that have demonstrated political consistency with the interests of the people; unity of action in a political-social front that, while raising popular demands, proposes and fights for an economic-political program that takes the country out of the crisis, without affecting the interests of the people; that has as its banner that the crisis be paid for by the rich, who are responsible for it.

Workers

The world is going through difficult times. The interests of the big international monopolies, the inter-imperialist struggles are the cause of the armed conflicts that threaten to become widespread in Europe and the Middle East. Israeli Zionism is responsible for the genocide against the Palestinian people, and has the support of imperialist powers such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and reactionary governments such as Javier Milei of Argentina or Daniel Noboa of Ecuador; We condemn this genocide, as well as all those who support it; We also reject the imperialist war that has Ukraine as their field of operations. The peoples of the world want peace; The imperialist powers promote war because it is also a source of conquest and accumulation of wealth for the monopolies!

Our Party salutes the struggle of the working class, of the workers of the city and countryside, the youth and women of the popular sectors who are confronting the anti-popular policies of their governments, all those who rise up against the exploitation and domination of capital and fight for revolutionary transformations. That is the meaning of the commemoration of May 1, the day of struggle of the proletariat and peoples of the world.

The PCMLE, a member of the International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations, raises its banners together with these struggles; it is the millions of exploited and oppressed, with their unity and struggle, who will sink capitalism-imperialism and build the society of the future, socialism-communism.

Long live the International Day of the Working Class!

Long live the struggle of the workers and peoples of Ecuador for their emancipation!

Long live the international solidarity of the peoples!

With Marxism-Leninism, for revolution and socialism

Central Committee of the PCMLE

Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Ecuador