Communists, socialists, anarchists and anticapitalists of all shades celebrated International Worker’s Day on Sunday by staging rallies, protests and riots around the world. While Communist countries like China, North Korea, Cuba and Vietnam continue to hold massive Soviet-style parades every May 1, anticapitalist activists in the non-Communist world set aside May Day as a time of protests against the bourgeoisie.

May Day protests in Seattle, Washington, turned violent as protesters threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at the police. One officer from the Seattle Police Department sustained a facial laceration. Another officer was bitten, and yet another hit by a Molotov cocktail. Nine people were arrested during this May Day mayhem: three for assault, one for property destruction, five for obstruction.

Several hundred anticapitalist demonstrators, many wearing masks, marched through the streets of Montreal, Quebec, on May Day, waving signs and chanting anticapitalist slogans. This demonstration turned violent after about an hour, when protesters started throwing projectiles and breaking windows at a downtown police station. The Montreal Anticapitalist Convergence, a Canadian anarchist organization, issued a statement saying the goal of the event was to “disrupt commercial activity dominated by the local bourgeoisie.'’

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn joined thousands of May Day protesters in central London on Sunday. The crowd of people he addressed carried flags with images of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and a literal red flag emblazoned with a hammer-and-sickle emblem. Corbyn is the first Labour Party leader to address a May Day crowd in decades.

Hooded youths clashed with police in Paris, France, this May Day. During a rally against planned labor reforms, a crowd of about 300 people clashed with police, hurling bottles and other projectiles at the officers. Police dispersed the crowd with tear gas but only arrested three people. About 80,000 people marched throughout France on Sunday, including up to 17,000 in Paris.

During the past century, it has been common for far-left radicals to protest, riot and attack police officers every International Worker’s Day. More recently, however, such violent protests have become common during other times of the year. Just last week, demonstrators rolled over cars, broke windows, and threw bricks in protest against a speech given by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Costa Mesa, California. Such wanton displays of violence are eliciting comparisons to Weimar-era Germany, when left-wing socialists and right-wing nationalists warred against each other in violent street clashes.

Increasingly, people seem to be abandoning the rule of law for the law of the jungle. This way of handling things will not bring peace or human rights; it can only lead to revolution and war. Left unchecked, this escalating civil unrest will completely transform both America and Europe!

To understand the effects of this civil strife in America, please read editor in chief Gerald Flurry’s article “The Roots of America’s Dangerous Turn Left.” To see the direction Europe is heading, read “The Resurgence of Nazi Germany,” a chapter from our booklet Germany and the Holy Roman Empire.