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P.N. SAMPATH

May Day is a truly significant date
To contemplate the past, to assemble and debate.
To restructure strategy, re-define issues,
Pledge solidarity and exchange views;
The workers� lot had not improved in one jump:
It was a saga of toil, turmoil and triumph.

Now when the world is engulfed in toxic flames of hate.
Religious and ethnic strife, terrorism without abate,
While vast multitudes are tormented by privation and want.
Whom endless everyday worries haunt�
Soviet Union’s abandonment of the Communist creed.
Dismantling of the edifice with such devastating speed.
Like a meteor that blazes a while and is soon forgot.
The citadel of World Communism fell, eased out of the slot.

The trail-blazing October Revolution and its impact
shall nevertheless endure this human failure, this hard fact
­Comrades everywhere experienced a jolting shock;
Only a single model had failed, Marxism stands as a rock�
Karl Marx, that messiah of hope for the benighted masses
Shall continue to guide the exploited classes:
His exhortation for workers� unity over all
Shall remain the motivating clarion call�
Let May Day inspire the expansive labour folk
To help the economy to get on the growth track,
To recapture the zest for the quest,
To register success in every struggle, every test.