Mayday

Day of international resistance and solidarity against capitalism. Originally a day of carnivalesque suspension of the social order of work and control, prevalent among peasant communities in mediaeval Europe. A continuation of earlier pagan festivities which continued in a syncretic way during the Christian era, with rituals such as the maypole retained. (This was originally a pagan fertility ritual). It became a focus of international resistance for two reasons: firstly, because the campaign for Mayday to be made into a holiday was an important early campaign of the workers' movement, and secondly and more importantly, because of the Haymarket martyrs, anarchists stitched up over a bombing at a protest.