Worker's Rights Quotes

Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

The existing pseudo-government which was not elected by the people and which is not accountable to the people must be replaced by a government recognized by the people, elected by representatives of the workers, soldiers and peasants and held accountable to their representatives.

What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist — the right to life as the rich woman has the right to life, and the sun and music and art. You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have also. The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too. Help, you women of privilege, give her the ballot to fight with.

The entire press of our propertied class speaks only by permission of the government, becoming silent at the slightest nod. At the present time the whole Russian press is prohibited by the Government not only from speaking on the labor question, but even to publish such words as “labor question” or “proletariat”. The working class only uses the free press it has itself created, regarding it as valuable enough to be worth risking imprisonment for.

The thing I don't understand is why so often one hears discussion of the fruits of human labor as if it's all the creation of some alien race.

The general fact of surplus value, namely that the workmen does not get the full value of his labours, and that he is taken advantage of by the capitalist, is obvious.

Surely we can afford to make a distinction between the people whose only capital is their mettle and physical energy and the people whose income is derived from investments. Such a distinction would mean much to millions of American workers and would be an added inspiration to the man who must provide a competence during his few productive years to care for himself and his family when his earnings capacity is at an end.

We know what we want. To us it means nothing that there is a Soviet Union somewhere in the world, for the sake of whose peace and tranquility the workers of Germany and China were sacrificed to Fascist barbarians by Stalin. We want revolution here in Spain, right now, not maybe after the next European war. We are giving Hitler and Mussolini far more worry with our revolution than the whole Red Army of Russia. We are setting an example to the German and Italian working class on how to deal with Fascism.