ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects upon the erosion of May Day's utopian dimension and the prospects for its resurrection. Inge Marolek imagines a Bremen worker from the 1890s, transported to the year 1990, watching the May Day demonstration in the city. The narrative presents a private and nostalgic image of a future May Day, against the background of an only vaguely sketched socialist society in which everybody is provided for according to his/her needs. May Day demands turned more and more defensive, less future-orientated, and their connection with an envisioned just' society increasingly fragile. In the last decades, however, the future of May Day seems increasingly threatened by the mounting difficulties labour movements are facing in going beyond the defence of acquired positions, connecting concrete demands with perspectives that explore the possible and press for change in the prevailing order.
