John Blair Quotes

I was working with C. L. R. James; I believed in Marxist ideas about the labor and movement and the workers being the secret to the future. And I learned differently just by being in Detroit and being married to Jimmy Boggs.

Be it Resolved, That we urgently call upon the wage earning class to arm itself in order to be able to put forth against their exploiters such an argument which alone can be effective: Violence.

No worker has any business to enlist in the capitalist class war (World War I) or fight a capitalist class battle. It is our duty to enlist in our own war and fight our own battle.

Fellow workers and peasants, this is the socialist and democratic revolution of the working people, with the working people, and for the working people. And for this revolution of the working people, by the working people, and for the working people we are prepared to give our lives.

We have always lived in slums and holes in the wall. We will know how to accommodate ourselves for a while. For you must not forget that we can also build. It is we who built these palaces and cities, here in Spain and America and everywhere. We, the workers. We can build others to take their place. And better ones. We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth

The important part of the present development is the anti-capitalist sentiment that is permeating our people.

The worker of the world has nothing to lose, but their chains, workers of the world unite.

The General Strike has taught the working class more in four days than years of talking could have done.

Occupy Wall Street didn't just spring from the earth organically, out of thin air. This was all part of the global socialist movement.

It is we the workers who built these palaces and cities here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers, can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins.

The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade-union consciousness.

I can't talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement.

The working classes in every country only learn to fight in the course of their struggles.

Early in 1888 one or two of us got together to establish our own Sheffield Socialist Society.

Long live the workers' republic that the Workers Party fights for!

Solidarity forever …. We stand outcast and starving from the wonders we have made.

Ever since I left college, my political interests have been centered in the work of the Communist Party …. My poetry has contained social implications that can be resolved only by the success of the Communist Party.

A struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the Earth and the machinery of production, and abolish the wage system.

The working men of Europe felt instinctively that the Star Spangled Banner carried the destiny of their class.

Revolution is the duty of the worker and the peasant masses and not of just a few heroes, hence the necessity to organize these masses and draw them into the struggle.

While at present the people of the world are divided into various groups, calling themselves nations, while one nation defies another—in most cases considers the others as competitive—we, the workers of the world, shall stretch out our hands towards each other with brotherly love. To the fulfillment of this idea I shall devote all my energy, and, if necessary, render my life for it

That's the Rebel Girl, That's the Rebel Girl. To the working class she's a precious pearl. She brings courage, pride and joy To the fighting Rebel Boy We've had girls before, but we need some more In the Industrial Workers of the World For it's great to fight for freedom With a Rebel Girl

I came out of the womb into the Labour movement.

If change is to come, it must come from the working class. That's why telling their story is important. That's why knowing our history is important.

What the underdog socialist has forgotten is that the story of the left ought to be a narrative of hope and progress.