To the Spanish Workers on May Day 1893

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Author(s) Frederick Engels
Written April 1893


Written in April 1893
First published in El Socialista, No. 373, Madrid, May 1, 1893
Printed according to the rough manuscript
Translated from the French
Published in English for the first time in MECW vol. 27
Collection(s): El Socialista
Keywords : May Day, Spain

Engels wrote the May Day greeting to the Spanish workers at the request of Pablo Iglesias, a prominent figure in the Spanish working-class and socialist movement. In April 1893, Iglesias sent Engels a letter asking for an article for the May Day issue of the newspaper El Socialista

It seems that the proletarian revolution overturns everything, even chronology. Thus, in Spain at least, May 1 comes after May 2, [1] whatever the calendar may say about it. Formerly the Spanish workers used to celebrate May 2, today they celebrate the 1st of the same month.

From May 2 to May 1, we have made a good deal of progress. What, in fact happened on May 2, 1808? The foreign invasion, on the one hand, the people of Madrid on the other. [2] It all seems simple. And yet the situation was very complicated. In order to fight the foreign invasion and the tyranny of Napoleon, the Spanish people also had to fight the French Revolution, [3] and to regain its independence the same Spanish people was forced to re-establish the despotic rule of the fanatical idiot Ferdinand VII, supported by the nobles and the priests.

And it was the same in Italy and in Germany, even in France; these two countries could only rid themselves of the Napoleonic yoke by turning themselves over, to the monarchist, feudal and clerical reactionaries.

Thus do wars between one people and another make apparently the most simple and straightforward situations complex and confused.

But it is a tremendous step forward from May the 2nd to May the 1st: May the 1st denotes a clear and transparent situation; two quite distinct camps opposing each other; on the one side the international proletariat marching to victory beneath the red flag of world liberation; on the other the property-owning classes and reactionaries of all countries, united in the defence of their privileges as exploiters. The struggle is in the open, the red flag is unfurled, victory is certain—forwards!

  1. ↑ On May 2, 1808, a popular uprising against the Napoleonic troops occupying Spain took place in Madrid. It was the opening event in the Spanish people’s national liberation campaign. May 2 is a national holiday in Spain in tribute to those who fell fighting for its liberation.
  2. ↑ Crossed out in the manuscript is the following passage: “Behind the foreign army, Napoleon, the self-styled representative of the bourgeois revolution, in actual fact the domestic despot, the conqueror of neighbouring peoples. Behind the people of Madrid, the royalty of the imbecilic Bourbons, the feudal nobility, the priests. Strange confusion!”— Ed.
  3. ↑ The following is crossed out in the manuscript: "of which Napoleon was the son".— Ed.
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