Together we can win

The immediate aim of socialist revolution is to overthrow the capitalist class and the creation of a classless and stateless society in which the guiding principle will be ‘From each according to ability, to each according to need’. We live in a world dominated by capitalism, a system which allows a small minority of capitalists to oppress and exploit the great majority of humanity. Nevertheless, capitalism cannot grow without organising its workers and teaching them the virtues of a form of ‘solidarity’ of working together. The mutual economic interests, the daily association, the common experiences of the social conflict, must surely develop that solidarity without which the proletariat may struggle in vain, but with which it must inevitably assert its supremacy. The slogans of the proletariat, "an injury to one is an injury to all" and "workingmen of all countries—unite," mean something.

What every worker must realize is that through trade union struggle we are not fighting the causes which is capitalism but only its symptoms. We are fighting against the effects of the system and not against the system itself. What trade union struggles really do is to fight to improve the conditions of the working class within the framework of the capitalist system. They do not challenge capitalism itself. Every wage increase that is won by the workers is immediately offset by the employers by more intensive work, by stricter supervision etc. and by a general price increase. So that, usually the worker is back to from where he started.

What all workers must understand is that their misery is due to exploitation carried on by the capitalist class. The capitalists, of course, try to present their rule and their system of exploitation as eternal. The capitalist lives by exploiting the worker and the worker lives for the day he can end this exploitation. Trade unionism merely restricts their struggle to attempts at lessening this exploitation. It does not fight to end exploitation i.e. to end the capitalist system and replace it by socialism. This is the fatal limitation of trade union struggles. The union is a defensive weapon only.

We do not, of course, therefore oppose trade union struggles or refuse to participate in them. It is very essential to organize workers and help them to fight for their day to day demands. Because, it is only in the course of these fights, that the workers learn about the system of capitalist exploitation and the need to abolish it. Trade union struggles are necessary. What is wrong is to stop at that stage, limiting ourselves to trade union struggles. Workers must know how to fight for wage increases but they must go further and abolish the wage system itself. There are no solutions within the capitalist system. It is necessary to fight not – only for a living wage, but to fight for the complete overthrow of the capitalist system of exploitation.

Capitalist society is based on the exploitation of the working class by the capitalist class and that all the evils of this society arise from that. There is only one way that all the suffering caused by capitalism can be finally ended – by wiping out its source, capitalism. And there is only one force in society that can bring this about – the working class uniting against the capitalists all those who suffer under their rule. This is why the aim of the working class, through all its daily battles against the capitalists, must not only be to win whatever concessions. can be wrung from them today, but to build the strength and unity of the working class and build for the day when it will be able to overthrow the capitalists altogether. The working class has a long and proud history of militant struggle, which has won unions many gains for the working class, paid for many times over in blood.  Each time we must pick up the pieces to start all over again. But each time wiser, each time more determined. And union workers who have fought and sacrificed so much to bend the capitalists can and will break them.