Mayday

# 671

May Day reminds us that Spring is here, we have survived another Winter, and this Winter, the Winter of 2010, the worst Winter I can ever remember. There is perhaps no single day with such varied significance. The last words heard on a ship going down in the water or a plane going down in the sky are the words “mayday” … A distress call. In Europe, England and Germanic countries, particularly on college campuses, a symbolic Maypole is an institution. Decorated a variety of ways, students dance around the Maypole, symbolic of spring and a new year of energy.

In Communist countries, May Day is a time for parades displaying and demonstrating the strengths of the totalitarian system.

I was in Moscow, for the U.S.S.R. May Day parade in 1964. In movie shorts and news broadcasts I had heard the May Day parade and such a political system described. At the Kremlin, near Lenin's tomb, from which the Communist government leaders viewed the parade, my guide arranged for me to stand with the Cuban delegation. As in America, it is difficult to distinguish between those of different ideologies. The Cuban Communists looked just like the rest of us and were particularly wholesome in their attitude. Perhaps they thought I was an American Communist. I have known some in my time, and most Communists are far more alert to the social and political world than their dry, ignorant, non-attentive fellow Americans.

The weather was still cold in Moscow, May 1. The marchers, men and women, had on the same type and color uniform, had one other thing in common, all were smiling. They carry large banners which I could not read, large picture posters of their political and industrial leaders. A loud speaker would bark out the industrial contingent involved along with their accomplishments to the applause of the audience. (For instance, a large unit would have an outstanding attendance record for work or accomplishment in some other way.) Everything was built around the totalitarian philosophy of advancement … Bigger and better.

This was, evidently, the only holiday of the year since one day is very much like any other day in the Communist world … No religious observance days or national days of any type. In the Communist system, there are no vacations. I noticed on this day, many soldiers were walking with new brides, evidence by young girls dressed in a white bridal gown. In the Communist system, Russia, China or elsewhere I have observed, little emphasis is put on sex … you seldom see children. Only the older women wear dresses … everyone else in uniform.

On another May Day I was in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. As in every Communist country, you are assigned to the tourist hotel, where the government can keep a very close, critical eye on you. Any time you leave the hotel, you can be sure you are being followed by someone. In America, we have instruments in our homes now with which the government can keep us under surveillance … total police state control. This is old hat for the Communist system, with their peep holes, listening devices everywhere.

I finally decided to attend the May Day parade. Very few foreigners were in the hotel, or the city. I went through five checkpoints to reach my location. Can you imagine, my camera bag searched five times, my person searched five times? They had an ancient television filming system with which evidently, they were sending out evidences of their May Day parade to the rest of the world. The officials would keep moving me from one place to another, obviously to portray foreigners watching their parade. Marchers, banners, poster picture signs, smiling peasants, marching to the sound of recorded music … government sedans taking the Commissars to the viewing stands. I tired quickly of the entire looney tunes totalitarian pretension, eased out into a group of marchers and marched with them to the end of the parade where I judged my hotel was close by.

Marching and observing Communist May Day parades, I can well understand why it is a call for help in the civilized world.

Real knowledge of any subject humbles you. So many people talk about things which they know nothing about. Like the man, in a very different time in America, the time when, at any laundry, there would be a sign which read, “trousers pressed while you wait.” One man went into the laundry, pulled off his trousers, (in the old days a small room was furnished in which you could wait) handed his trousers to an astonished manager. The manager said, “we don't do that here, we just make the signs”.

Why if you just make the sign, do you put the sign in the window? If your parade is a pretension, why have it? The secret of the plight of the Communist worker is a matter of history. The uselessness of dancing around a Maypole is a matter of useless tradition. Stay with things that mean something.

May Day is just one other day in the year. Labor Day, Thanksgiving day, President's Day, Veteran's Day … all these days at one time meant something. Sunday, a day of rest and worship has become just another holiday. Most veterans I know, are busy working, trying to survive on the day that honors them. Days set aside to observe anything are only important after their importance is lost. Before you take down a fence, remember the reason for putting it up in the first place.