Comrades of the Struggle in Pakistan have sent us this picture gallery of mobilisations on 1 May across the whole of Pakistan from Karachi in the south to Kashmir in the north. A report will follow.

The Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign (PTUDC) will be intervening on the many May Day rallies across the country and have produced a special poster for the occasion which we make available here for our readers.

In 2008 the people of Pakistan voted into office the PPP, hoping that this would bring genuine change, i.e. a real improvement in their living conditions. Instead we have a worsening economic situation, real suffering of the millions of poor, and warfare killing many innocent civilians. Meanwhile the PPP leadership is busying itself applying the IMF-imposed policies of cuts and privatisations. In these conditions it is not surprising that many are asking themselves what democracy has meant for them.

Jammu Kashmir National Students Federation held a protest in Rawlakot on 15^th April to support the strike of 450,000 government employees in Indian Jammu and Kashmir, who are protesting for the payment of their salaries. The participants of the rally supported the Joint Action Forum which is leading the protests and raised slogans against the state authorities which are attacking the workers.

A worker has lost his hand while working in the unsafe conditions of Unilever in Rahim Yar Khanu. Management have attempted a cover up by taking the worker to a hospital where no one, including the unions, are allowed to visit him. The PTUDC is raising a campaign of protest.

The work of the Pakistani Marxists of The Struggle has been noted, both by our friends in the labour movement and also our enemies. The work has been extremely successful. Unfortunately, in the course of building a principled Marxist tendency, some comrades can fall victims of opportunist adaptation. This is the case of former IMT member and ex-member of the National Assembly, Manzoor Ahmed. In this Statement of the EC of The Struggle we set the record straight on what happened.

Protests against power cuts and price hikes are continuing in Pakistan. Here we have a report from Rawlakot where thousands came out on the streets and were faced with the police firing live ammunition on the crowds, injuring several, among them Marxists from the Jammu Kashmir National Students Federation, JKNSF.

The latest news coming in from Pakistan indicates how tense the situation has become. Spontaneous protest rallies broke out yesterday, continuing today, sparked off by increased transport costs, but also against the long power cuts the people have to endure. The police have responded in some cases by firing on the protestors.

In an area heavily dominated by the presence of Taliban forces, the Marxists in Pakistan organized a meeting of the PTUDC, with the participation of several important trade union leaders, with guest speaker Lal Khan, the editor of the Asian Marxist Review, speaking on the world crisis of capitalism and how it affects the South Asian subcontinent.

In a Taliban dominated area of Pakistan a Marxist lawyer has defeated the candidate of the Islamic fundamentalists. In spite of a Fatwa being issued against him, comrade Ahad stood firmly on the ideas of revolutionary socialism and won the position of President of the Malakand District Bar Association.

The Annual convention of Unemployed Youth Movement, BNT (Berozgar Naujawan Tehreek), was held on Sunday, January 17, 2010, in which 70 youngsters from all over the district participated with full devotion and revolutionary enthusiasm.

As a result of the great struggle and pressure of PTCL workers, a referendum is being conducted. The management wants to use this referendum to ensnare and divide the workers, but the workers have to use this democratic process to organize and unite in the struggle for their rights. If the privatization of PTCL (Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited) is retracted then workers from all over the country will follow their footsteps and end privatizations in their own institutions. We publish here a leaflet by the PTUDC which was distributed throughout Pakistan.

The crisis in Pakistan is becoming more complex and severe. Corruption is not the cause of failure of this system, rather it is the fundamental necessity and creation of this system. The class contradictions are also expressing itself in the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party. The country is moving to an inevitable social explosion.

The battle for universal health access for every Pakistani can only be won through joining it with the struggle for a socialist transformation of the society. So it is time for the doctors and nurses to join the struggle because now it’s the struggle to save the medical and healthcare system as well.

After years of military dictatorships followed by sham democracy, the situation in Pakistan has reached such a point that the masses are yearning for radical change. Their suffering is immense as the people at the top continue to enrich themselves at the expensive of the workers and peasants, collaborating with imperialism as it rides rough-shod over the people of Pakistan. Everything is moving to an inevitable revolutionary explosion.