Because the day of May 1st is officially proclaimed "International Workers' Day" we must go back to the Congress of Paris in 1889, which gave way to the Second International. That date was chosen to commemorate one of the many conflicts – with deaths, injuries, arrests and convictions – between strikers and the police which led to the historic conquest of the 8-hour working day (''If 8 hours seem few to you, try to work / and you will understand the difference between working and commanding'', was the incipit of a popular song that articulated the reasons for that hard battle).
Obviously the first calendar day of the month of roses was not chosen by chance. May 1, 1886 a general strike had taken place in Chicago - in support of that historical claim - by the workers of the Haymarket (slaughterhouse), during which the police had opened fire on the strikers. In the days immediately following there had been other clashes in an agricultural machinery factory: as a response from the workers, a demonstration was organized on 4 May in the Haymarket square, during which an unknown man, who remained unknown, had thrown a bomb at a police department (causing deaths and injuries).
Police he had retaliated by mowing down other workers. It has never been ascertained how many people were killed in that circumstance. Some anarchist workers were accused and convicted of the attack, whose innocence was subsequently ascertained. The date of that event - the news circulated around the world provoking popular reactions everywhere - was taken as a symbol of all the struggles for the emancipation of work. And therefore today, May 1, 2020, honor is not only paid to the fallen of Chicago (choosing the day on which the riots began), but to all the workers who, in every part of the world, fought and fell for the affirmation of their rights.
Today, for these same reasons, let us lower our ideal flags at half-mast in front of the bodies of those doctors and nurses who fell in the fight against the epidemic. It was not easy, even in Europe and in Italy, to obtain recognition as a civil and national holiday of May 1st. Between the two wars of the "short century" the fascist regimes forbade the celebration of this anniversary or they tried to absorb it in their rites. In Italy Labor Day was included in the day of April 21 when the foundation of Rome was celebrated. The difference between the opposing totalitarianisms is understandable, in the sense that in the countries of real socialism, that day was an opportunity to play the bass drum of the regimes.
May 1st became a national holiday in republican Italy; but in Portella delle Ginestre, in the province of Palermo, in 1947 the band of Salvatore Giuliano shot a peaceful demonstration of peasants causing a massacre. In 1955 the first day of May also became a religious holiday dedicated to St. Joseph the worker.
Returning to the relationship between Labor Day and dictatorships, it is not necessary to resurrect the events of the XNUMXth century, when Bava Beccaris fed the hungry with lead. The writer had the opportunity to perform an unforgettable experience on May 1, 1982.
On that day I was in Santiago de Chile to participate and intervene (I have had hundreds of rallies in my life, but none compare to that) at the demonstration (forbidden by Pinochet) of the Coordinadora Sindical, the organization that brought together the unions (and indirectly also the opposition parties). The presence of a foreign trade unionist (we Italians sent a representation every year) was a way of ''protecting'' the initiative, because the regime did not like being talked about internationally or having problems with the embassies (I was naturally in contact with the Italian one).
The mission entrusted to me by the CGIL began in Chile, but continued in Uruguay, Argentina and ended in Brazil: all countries that – albeit with significant differences: in Argentina the Falklands war was underway – they were still subjected to vicious military dictatorships. On the morning of that distant 1st May, I was woken up in the hotel (it was next to the Palazzo della Moneda) by the blades of the helicopters which controlled the city from above and gave the order not to move from home via loudspeakers. I heard the same noise of blades and the same sound invitations last April 25th over the skies of Bologna. Unfortunately this will also be the case on May 1st. And the streets will be deserted.
