This summation was given by Socialist Equality Party (UK) assistant national secretary Thomas Scripps at the International May Day 2025 Online Rally, held Saturday, May 3.

Today’s May Day rally has focussed on the central themes of the world capitalist crisis.

• The turn by governments internationally towards dictatorial forms of rule, in a violent realignment of the state to correspond with the true character of class relations under modern capitalism.

• The development of trade war and preparation of ever bloodier military conflicts, rooted in the drive by the imperialist powers for a new redivision of the world.

• The normalization of genocide.

• The squandering of trillions of dollars, which could be spent alleviating poverty and want, on rearmament programmes on a scale not seen since the Second World War.

• The cultivation of fascist movements, nationalism, xenophobia and all forms of backwardness to divide and smash an emerging movement of the international working class.

We have analysed these dangers not as passive observers, but as fighters for the socialist alternative. We have presented a political perspective for the working class that you will find nowhere else.

Now it’s time to decide what you’re going to do.

Our speakers have stressed the central importance of building a revolutionary leadership in the working class to prepare for the struggles that lie ahead. In the end, that is what will decide the future of humanity.

We appeal to you this May Day to take up this challenge.

Establish a rank-and-file committee at your workplace, as part of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees, the new form of organization required by the working class to wage a global struggle in defence of jobs and living standards, and against trade war and imperialist war.

Contact the International Committee of the Fourth International, the Socialist Equality Parties and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality, and join the fight to build the Trotskyist movement to put an end to capitalism.

Set up a regular monthly donation to the World Socialist Web Site—the indispensable tool for the education and organisation of the international working class in the 21st century.

Expand your Marxist library by purchasing literature from Mehring Books, and educate yourself on the history of the socialist movement.

And remember: we do not have unlimited time.

Our speakers have explained the methods of fascism and military violence now being employed by the ruling class to deal with their crisis.

We must stop this catastrophe by overthrowing the world’s capitalist governments, expropriating the oligarchy and building a world socialist society based on freedom and social equality.

Make May Day 2025 the day you committed to joining the fight for socialism.