Speech by George Mavrikos for the 80th Anniversary of the WFTU in Paris October 3rd, 2025
Honorary President WFTU – President of International Workers Institute

To know where we are going, we must know where we come from. We go far to the abolition of exploitation.

Dear brothers and sisters, Dear comrades,
Today, October 3, 2025, we are here in Paris, from every continent,
to honor 80 years since the founding of the WFTU.
We stand in front of the global working class with respect, with responsibility, and with pride.

Respect – Responsibility – Pride.

Yes, the WFTU was founded 80 years ago.
But its seed and its roots go long back.
Our principles and values come from long ago and will continue far into the future.
All those who planted the first seeds, all the pioneers, are happy today because they see their struggles were not in vain.
Here today with us are:
Spartacus and the rebel slaves;
tomorrow they will march with us in the streets of Paris.
Here with us, smiling, are the giants of world thought, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
Here also are the workers of 1886 from Chicago: August Spies,
Georg Engel, Adolf Fischer, Albert Parsons.
Here too is Lozovsky and the leadership of Profintern, the Red Trade Union International,
the forerunner of the WFTU.
Αnd countless other fighters who gave their lives in class struggles.

Βecause
We come from far back in history, and we move far into the future.

This is how we arrived at October 1945:
The Nazis were defeated by the heroic Red Army.
The Japanese militarists were defeated by the heroic Chinese People.
In a spirit of hope and victory, the WFTU was founded.
On solid, cement, steel foundations.
Internationalism.
End of exploitation and colonialism. Class struggle.
Trade union and democratic freedoms.
Class unity and coordination.
From the beginning, we stood on the right side of history.
In the struggles of workers everywhere, for jobs, pensions, wages, and rights.
On the banners of the WFTU, many workers’ demands were written for the first time.
From the beginning, we were in the frontlines of the struggles against colonialism and apartheid.

From the beginning:
on the side of Korea,
the Chinese Long March,
the Cuban Revolution,
the heroic struggle of the Vietnamese People,
the Palestinian People.
On the side of all peoples who fought and fight to decide their own future: the peoples of Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela, and many others.
We are proud of the WFTU, always standing with ordinary people.

The world bourgeoisie, monopolies, multinationals, and imperialists were always against us—with attacks, lies, attempts to divide us.
They paid and still pay anti-worker groups inside the international union movement.
Paid bureaucrats, corrupt elites, barking like wild dogs.
The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.

The Red Caravan of the WFTU moves on!

Dear comrades,
Today’s event is not only a celebration.
It is a celebration, but more than that it is recognition of the work of the WFTU over 80 years.
It is recognition of sacrifices and contributions.

We stand with respect because today, before us, march the countless martyrs of our class, the dead of our struggles. Marching too are the great leaders of the WFTU
L. Sayan,
Lazaro Peña,
Moses Mabhida,
Dange,
Ibrahim Zakaria,
Gensus,
Giuseppe Vittorio,
Kuznetsov.

It is recognition.

At the same time, it is a commitment from all of us for the hard struggles ahead. Struggles that are complex, on every level, on every front.
I want to underline one struggle, one duty, which I believe is central:
The battle for History.
I would call it “the mother of battles.”

The bourgeoisie tries to rewrite history, to win the minds of the young, for the benefit of monopolies and multinationals.
They have money, programs, universities, professors, the media; they have puppets everywhere.
An army of ruthless people across the world.
This makes the ideological and theoretical battle very important.
We are in an ideological war.
We must not allow them to erase the truth of history—the history of struggles and social conflicts.
Together, we must expose their plans. We must use our scientists and historians, who serve the working class, to write articles, books, seminars, union programs, and give the younger generations our history, our truth.
Because history is not just the past. It is a tool for the present and the future.
Because yesterday still has many lessons for the struggles of tomorrow.
To know where we are going,
we must know where we come from.

Finally,
I want to thank you all.

We fought shoulder to shoulder with most of you.
We are worthy successors of those who came before us.
We received a WFTU wounded, and together we made it strong and mighty again.

We delivered a WFTU as a leading force, with more than 110 million members in every corner of the planet. With strong alliances and strong friends. Fearless and brave against the bourgeoisie and against the imperialists, and proud in the face of the yellow trade union leaderships and their puppets.
The red caravan moves forward. We march ahead united, with our new leadership, with all our cadres in the front line. I feel lucky we walked together, and lucky we continue together. All together, let us help the next generations become more capable than us. Those who come after must become better than those before. And the WFTU must become ever more capable of meeting modern demands.

I thank you from my heart, and I finish with an appeal to everyone: never forget—
It is our personal responsibility and our collective duty to make the WFTU stronger and to protect it.
It is our personal responsibility to keep the WFTU on a militant, class path. It is our personal responsibility and collective duty to keep the WFTU always on the front line of struggles!

Long live the WFTU! The struggle continues—until final victory