Voltairine de Cleyre Quotes

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

Am I allowed to suggest that we owe much to these stubborn and sectarian people, those indefatigable strikers who take over our factories and bring disorder to our streets, these obstinate creatures who ceaselessly fought for reforms while fantasizing of the Revolution, these Marxists who, marching against the current of History, disturbed the complacent sleep of capitalism? … Communism is dead. Let us rejoice.

The history of all countries shows that, by its own efforts, the working class can develop only a trade-union consciousness—that is, the realization of the need of getting together in unions in order to fight employers and to demand from the government the passing of laws necessary for the workers.

Any member of the party who … advocates crime, sabotage, or other methods of violence as a weapon of the working class to aid in its emancipation, shall be expelled from membership of the party.

Ever greater grows the mass of the proletariat, ever vaster the army of the unemployed, ever sharper the contrast between oppressors and oppressed, ever fiercer that war of classes between bourgeoisie and proletariat which divides modern society into two hostile camps and is the common characteristic of ever industrial country.

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

If the workers took a notion they could stop all speeding trains; every ship upon the ocean they can tie with mighty chains.

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

When the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century brought a rapid increase in wealth, the demand of workers for a fair share of the wealth they were creating was conceded only after riots and strikes.

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.

What shall the workers do? Sit idly by and see the vast resources of nature and the human mind be utilized and monopolized for the benefit of the comparative few? No. The laborers must learn to think and act, and soon, too, that only by the power of organization, and common concert of action, can either their manhood be maintained, their rights to life (work to sustain it) be recognized, and liberty and rights secured.

The strongest form of fight against the capitalist class is the strike. Strikes are necessary, ever again, against the capitalists’ tendency to increase their profits by lowering wages and increase the hours or the intensity of work.

It was the spirit of the workers that was dangerous. They are always marching and singing. The tired, gray crowds ebbing and flowing perpetually into the mills had waked and opened their months to sing.

Juridically they are equal; but economically the worker is the serf of the capitalist … The worker always has the right to leave his employer, but has he the means to do so? No, he does it in order to sell himself to another employer. He is driven to it by the same hunger which forces him to sell himself to the first employer.

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

Voting for socialism is not socialism any more than a menu is a meal.... Of far greater importance is the economic organization of the working class.

Regardless of the degree of class consciousness of their members, the trade unions are, by their very nature, driven on to the revolutionary goal.

No strike is a loss or failure to the workers, even if the point sought is not gained for the time being. If naught else they teach the capitalists that they are expensive luxuries.

Trade unionism means the enslavement of the workers by the bourgeoisie.

Labor and capital may be partners in theory, but they are enemies in fact.

The worker retains no respect for the property “rights” of the profit-takers … He knows that the present laws of property were made by and for the capitalists. Therefore he does not hesitate to break them.

The Socialist Party emphatically rejects the proposal that in times of war, the workers should suspend their struggle for better conditions.

The Socialists are no fomenters of strikes; they know too well that a strike is a two-edged weapon, wounding the proletariat more deeply and more grievously than the capitalist. But, when the strike is declared, they take their part in the fight. They organize and assist the workers, protecting them against the snares of the police and the brutality of the military, and giving them such moral and material support as is in their power

Again and again it has been said to us, 'Beware how you attempt to attack class interests. The victory won by the worker must be for all.' For me I must say, No! A hundred times, No! I know no class but that of man.