FREDERICK ENGELS
MAY 4 IN LONDON
The May  Day celebration of
the proletariat was epoch-making not  only  in its universal
character, which made it the first international action of the
militant working  class. It also served to register most  gratifying advances in the various countries. Friend and foe agree
that on the whole Continent it was Austria, and in Austria
it was Vienna, that celebrated the holiday of the proletariat
in the most brilliant and dignified manner, and that the
Austrian, above all the Viennese, workers  thereby won  themselves an entirely different standing in the movement. Only
a few years ago the Austrian movement  had declined almost
to zero, and the workers  of the German and Slav crown
territories were split into hostile parties wasting their forces
on  internecine strife. Whoever  had affirmed, a mere three
years ago, that on  May  1, 1890, Vienna and the whole  of
Austria would  set an example for all others of how  a pro letarian class holiday should be celebrated, would  have been
laughed at. We  shall do well not  to forget this fact when
judging those squabbles stemming  from internal discord in
which the workers  of other countries are wearing away their
forces even today, as for instance, in France. Who  will
assert that Paris cannot do what Vienna has done?
But  on  May  4 Vienna was thrown  into the shade by  Lon don. And  I hold it to be the most  important and magnificent
in the entire May  Day celebration that on  May  4, 1890, the

English proletariat, rousing  itself from forty years of slum ber, re-joined the movement of its class. To  appreciate this,
one must  look into the events leading up  to May  4.
Towards the beginning  of last year the world’s largest and
most  wretched working-class district, the East End of Lon don, stirred gradually to action. On  April 1, 1889, the Gas
Workers ’ and General Labourers’ Union  was founded; today
it has a membership  of some  100,000. Largely with the cooperation of this partner union  (many are gas workers  in
winter and dock workers  in summer), the dockers’ big strike
started on  its way and shook  even the bottommost  section
of the East London  workers  out  of stagnation.216 As  a result,
trade union  upon  trade union  began to form among  these,
mostly  unskilled workers,  while those already in existence
there, which till then had barely kept themselves going,  now
blossomed  forth quickly. But  the difference between these
new  trade unions  and the old was very great. The old ones,
which admit none  but  “skilled” workers,  are exclusive; they
bar all workers  who  have not  been trained according to the
statutes of the guild concerned, and thereby even expose
themselves to competition from those not  in the guild; they
are rich, but  the richer they become, the more  they
degenerate into mere sick-funds and burial clubs; they are
conservative and they steer clear above all of that “...” so cialism, as far and as long  as they can. The new  “unskilled”
unions,  on  the other hand, admit every fellow-worker; they
are essentially, and the gas workers  even exclusively, strike
unions  and strike funds. And  while they are not  yet socialists
to a man, they insist nevertheless on  being led only  by  so cialists. But  socialist propaganda had already been going  on
for years in East End, where it was above all Mrs. E. Marx-
Aveling and her husband, Edward Aveling, who  had four
years earlier discovered the best propaganda field in the
“Radical clubs” 217 consisting almost exclusively of workers,
and had worked on  them steadily and, as is evident now,
with the best of success. During  the dock workers ’ strike
Mrs. Aveling was one of the three women  in charge of the
distribution of relief, and this earned them a slanderous
statement from Mr. Hyndman,  the runaway of Trafalgar
Square,218 who  alleged that they had had a weekly three

pounds  sterling paid to them for it from the strike fund.
Mrs. Aveling led almost unaided last winter’s strike in
Silvertown, 219 also in East End, and on  the gas workers ’
committee she represents a women ’s section she has founded
there.
Last autumn  the gas workers  won  an eight-hour working
day here in London,  but  lost it again, after an unhappy
strike,220 in the southern  part of the city, acquiring sufficient
proof that this gain is by  no  means safe in the northern  part
either. Is it surprising, then, that they readily accepted Mrs.
Aveling’s proposal to hold the May  Day celebration, decided
on  by  the Paris Congress,  in favour of a legalised eight-hour
working  day in London?  In common  with several socialist
groups,  the Radical clubs and the other trade unions  in East
End, they set up  a Central Committee  that was to organise
a large demonstration for the purpose  in Hyde  Park. As  it
turned out  that all attempts to hold the demonstration on
Thursday, May 1, were bound  to fail this year, it was
decided to put  it off till Sunday, May  4.
To  ensure that, as far as possible, all London  workers
took  part, the Central Committee  invited, with uninhibited
naivete, the London  Trades Council as well. This is a body
made up  of delegates from the London  trade unions,  mostly
from the older corporations of “skilled” workers,  a body  in
which, as might be expected, the anti-socialist elements still
command a majority. The Trades Council saw that the
movement  for an eight-hour day threatened to grow  over its
head. The old trade unions  stand likewise for an eight-hour
working  day, but  not  for one to be established by  law. By
an eight-hour day they mean that normal daily wages should
be paid for eight hours — so-and-so much  per hour — but  that
overtime should be allowed any number  of hours  daily, pro vided every overtime hour  is paid at a higher rate— say, at
the rate of one and a half or  two  ordinary hours. The point
therefore was to channel the demonstration into the fairway
of this kind of working  day, to be won  by  “free” agreement
but  certainly not  to be made obligatory by  parliamentary
act. To  this end the Trades Council allied itself with the
Social-Democratic Federation of the above-mentioned Mr.
Hyndman,  an association which poses  as the only  true church

of British Socialism, which had very consistently concluded
a life-and-death alliance with the French Possibilists and
sent a delegation to their congress and which therefore
regarded in advance the May  Day celebration decided on
by  the Marxist Congress  as a sin against the Holy  Ghost.
The movement  was growing  over the head of the Federation
as well; but  to adhere to the Central Committee  would  mean
placing itself under “Marxist” leadership; on  the other hand,
if the Trades Council were to take the matter into its own
hands and if the celebration were held on  the 4th of May
instead of on  the 1st, it would  no  longer be anything like the
wicked “Marxist” May  Day celebration and so  they could
join in. Despite the fact that the Social-Democratic Federation calls in its programme  for a legalised eight-hour day,
it eagerly clasped the hand proffered by  the Trades Council.
Now  the new  allies, strange bedfellows though  they
were, played a trick on  the Central Committee  which would,
it is true, be considered not  only  permissible but  quite skilful
in the political practice of the British bourgeoisie, but  which
European and American workers  will probably find very
mean. The fact is that in the case of popular meetings in
Hyde  Park the organisers must  first announce their intention
to the Board of Workers  and reach an agreement with it on
particulars, securing specifically permission  to drive over the
grass the carts that are to serve as platforms. Besides,
regulations say that after a meeting has been announced, no
other meeting may be held in the Park on  the same day. The
Central Committee  had not  yet made the announcement; but
the organisations allied against it had scarcely heard the
news  when  they announced a meeting in the Park for May  4
and obtained permission  for seven platforms, doing it behind
the backs of the Central Committee.
The Trades Council and the Federation believed thereby
to have rented the Park for May  4 and to have victory in
their pocket. The former called a meeting of delegates from
the trade unions,  to which it also invited two  delegates from
the Central Committee; the latter sent three, including Mrs.
Aveling. The Trades Council treated them as if it had been
master of the situation. It informed them that only trade
unions,  that is to say, no  socialist unions  or political clubs,
26*

could take part in the demonstration and carry banners.
Just  how  the Social-Democratic Federation was to participate
in the demonstration remained a mystery. The Council had
already edited the resolution to be submitted to the meeting,
and had deleted from it the demand for a legalised eight-
hour  day; discussion on  a proposal for putting  that demand
back in the resolution was not  allowed, nor  was it voted on.
And  lastly, the Council refused to accept Mrs. Aveling as a
delegate because, it said, she was no  manual worker  (which
is not  true), although its own  President, Mr. Shipton,  had
not  moved  a finger in his own  trade for fully fifteen years.
The workers  on  the Central Committee  were outraged by
the trick played on  them. It looked as if the demonstration
had been finally put  into the hands of two  organisations
representing only  negligible minorities of London  workers.
There seemed to be no  remedy for it but  to storm  the platforms of the Trades Council as the gas workers  had
threatened. Then Edward Aveling went  to the Ministry  and
secured, contrary to regulations, permission  for the Central
Committee  as well to bring  seven platforms to the Park. The
attempt to juggle with the demonstration in the interest of
the minority  failed; the Trades Council pulled in its horns
and was glad to be able to negotiate with the Central Com mittee on  an equal footing over arrangements for the
demonstration.
One  has to know  this background to appreciate the nature
and significance of the demonstration. Prompted by  the East
End workers  who  had recently joined in the movement,  the
demonstration found such a universal response that the two
organisations— which were no  less hostile to each other than
both  of them together were to the fundamental idea of the
demonstration— had to ally themselves in order to seize the
leadership and use the meeting to their own  advantage. On
the one  hand, a conservative Trades Council preaching equal
rights for capital and labour; on  the other, a Social-Democratic Federation playing at radicalism, and talking of social
revolution whenever  it is safe to do so, and the two  allied
to do a mean trick with an eye to capitalising on  a demon stration thoroughly  hateful to both. Owing  to these incidents,
the May  4 meeting was split into two  parts. On  one side

were the conservative workers,  whose  horizon  does not  go
beyond  the wage-labour system,  flanked by  a narrow-minded
but  ambitious socialist sect; on  the other side, the great bulk
of workers  who  had recently joined in the movement  and
who  do not  want to hear any more  of the Manchesterism of
the old trade unions 221 and want to win  their complete
emancipation by  themselves, jointly with allies of their own
choice, and not  with those imposed by  a small socialist
coterie. On  one side was stagnation represented by  trade
unions  that have not  yet quite freed themselves from the
guild spirit, and by  a narrow-minded sect backed by  the
meanest allies; on  the other, the living free movement  of the
re-awakening British proletariat. And  it was apparent even
to the blindest where there was fresh life in that two-faced
gathering and where stagnation. Around  the seven platforms
of the Central Committee  were dense, immense  crowds,
marching up  with music and banners, over a hundred
thousand in the procession, reinforced by  almost as many
who  had come severally; everywhere was harmony  and
enthusiasm, and yet order and organisation. At the platforms of the combined reactionaries, on  the other hand,
everything seemed dull; their procession was much  weaker
than the other, poorly  organised, disorderly and mostly
belated, so  that in some  places things got  under way there
only  when  the Central Committee  was already through.
While the Liberal leaders of some  Radical clubs, and the
officials of several trade unions  rallied to the Trades
Council, the members  of the very same unions — in fact, four
entire branches of the Social-Democratic Federation—
marched with the Central Committee. For  all that, the
Trades Council succeeded in winning  some  attention, but  the
decisive success was achieved by  the Central Committee.
What the numerous  onlooking  bourgeois  politicians took
home  with them as the overall effect was the certainty that
the English proletariat, which for fully forty years had
trailed behind the big Liberal party and served it as voting
cattle, had awakened at last to new,  independent life and
action. There can be no  doubt  about that: on  May  4, 1890,
the English working  class joined the great international
army. And  that is an epoch-making fact. The English pro 
letariat has its roots  in most  advanced industrial development
and, moreover,  possesses the greatest freedom of political
movement. Its long  slumber — a result, on  the one hand, of
the failure of the Chartist movement  of 1836-50 and, on  the
other hand, of the colossal industrial upswing  of 1848-80—
is finally broken. The grandchildren of the old Chartists are
stepping into the line of battle. For  eight years already the
wide masses have been stirring now  here, now  there. Socialist groups  have emerged, but  none  has been able to outgrow
the bounds  of a sect; agitators and alleged party leaders,
including mere speculators and pushers, they have remained
officers without  soldiers. It has almost always been like the
famous Robert  Blum  column  of the Baden campaign of
1849 222: one colonel, eleven officers, one bugler and one
private. And the bickering among  those various Robert
Blum  columns  over the leadership of the future proletarian
army has been anything but  edifying. This will stop  before
long, just as it has stopped in Germany  and in Austria. The
powerful movement  of the masses will put  an end to all these
sects and little groups  by  absorbing the men  and showing
the officers their proper  places. Those who  don’t like it may
sneak away. It won ’t come off without  friction, but  come off
it will, and the English proletarian army will, much  sooner
than some  expect, be as united, as well organised and as
determined as any, and will be jubilantly hailed by  all its
comrades on  the Continent  and in America.
between May  5 and 21, 1890
Published in Arbeiter-Zeitung Translated from the German
No.  21, May  23, 1890