536

p The entile history of the USA is the history of the struggle of classes. ’The proletariat and the bourgeoisie—the two antipodes.....comprise the basis of the social structure of American society. They are divided by irreconcilable class contradictions inherent in the capitalist system.

p The struggle of the working class in the United States, as well is in other capitalist countries, develops under the impact of internal and external economic and political factors. This struggle has not only specific national features, but also common features characteristic of the international labor movement as a whole.

p The labor movement in the USA developed unevenly. It had certain distinctive features at each stage of the general crisis of capitalism, lips and downs were observed in the labor movement in the period boturen the two world wars. Thus, in 1918-1919 there were large scale strike actions against the monopolies, especially in the steel and coal industries and , maritime and railway transport. These were years of an upsurge of the labor movement. However, in the second half of the 1920s, during the period of “prosperity”, there was a marked ebb of the labor movement, although in some industries the workers’ struggle was sharp. At the end of that decade, the influence of bourgeois ideology on the workers increased, contributing factors being the economic situation and the propaganda of Gompersism. Many labor leaders and the unions that followed them embarked on the road of so-called union capitalism.

537

p A new surge of labor’s struggle, which manifested itself in an unprecedented sweep of the unemployed movement and strike actions arid in the creation of industrial unions, was triggered by the economic crisis and depression of the 1930s. Direct results of the sharpened class conflicts were the split of the AFL and the emergence of the CIO.

p During World War II, the general crisis of capitalism entered a new stage. Under these conditions, the forces of the working class were consolidated under the leadership of the big unions and their national centers, the AFL and CIO. Moreover, the struggle against fascism imparted a political character to the labor movement.

p In the postwar years, working-class actions, mainly of an economic character, were broad in scope, especially between 1946 arid 1948 and in 1952. The working people succeeded in defending their economic positions. An important event was the merger in 1955 of the AFL and CIO into a single center, the AFL-CIO.

p In the second half of the 1950s capitalism entered the third stage of its general crisis, when the internal contradictions in the capitalist countries were sharply aggravated. The years that followed saw new economic and political developments, and technological advances brought about qualitative changes in industry clue to automation. New industries—the atomic, electronic, missile, synthetic materials, cybernetic devices and others—came into being. The production process itself was automated to a high degree, as a result of which labor productivity increased. Advances in cybernetics also promoted progress in the reorganization of accounting.

p The International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties in 1969 made a thorough analysis of the new socio-economic processes taking place in the world and, above all, in the labor and communist movement. The Meeting recognized with high appreciation the unprecedented opportunities offered by the scientific arid tec hnological revolution, but at the same time stressed that under conditions of monopoly domination it “leads to the reproduction of social antagonisms on a growing scale and’in a sharper form”. In the United States, technological advances led to heavy social consequences and the expansion of class conflicts. “The depth 538 of the crisis in the capitalist world,” the document of the Meeting says, “is also strikingly revealed hy the advance of the mass struggle in the United States itself, that main pillar of world imperialism.”   [538•1 

p Mass actions by workers in defense of their economic and social interests are a law of capitalism, the inevitable fruit of its production relations. According to Marx, this struggle of the workers represents the “reactions of labour against the previous action of capital".  [538•2  The capitalists are out to raise the maximum rate of profit, but “the fixation of its actual degree is only settled by the continuous struggle between capital and labour.... The matter resolves itself into a question of the respective powers of the combatants."  [538•3 

p The present work shows through numerous examples the correlation of opposing forces at different stages of the economic and political development of the country. The unevenness of the strike movement in the USA in the recent period stemmed from the fluctuations in the economic situation, particularly the cycles of industrial upturns, crises and recessions and the changes in the economic condition of the working class connected with them.  [538•4 

p Statistics and the facts of every-day life refute the assertions made by American historians and economists that the class struggle is dying out. They show that in recent years the working class has “demonstrated organization, a militant spirit, and readiness to take resolute actions".  [538•5  Strikes in the postwar period were on a larger scale and more effective than those between the two world wars.

p The strike was labor’s powerful weapon. Workers resorted to it both during years of crisis and depression and in years of economic recovery, taking strike actions with greater caution during a crisis, when the threat of mass unemployment hung 539 over them, and with more resolve during years of industrial upturn as they sought to take advantage of the favorable economic situation. Marx and Lenin revealed and explained this feature of the workers’ strike struggle during phases of industrial upturn.  [539•1 

p The American proletariat’s Achilles’ heel continues to be the lack of integrated economic and political struggle. Nevertheless, the strike as one of the forms of the labor movement has always been an important means of defending the vital interests of the workers. Their high degree of organization and tenacity often forced employers to make concessions. Bourgeois propaganda widely publicizes the fact that the economic condition of a large section of the working people has improved. But the apologists for capitalism say little or nothing about what it cost the workers to achieve this, about the fierce battles they had to fight to wrest concessions from capital. Moreover, they claim that the present standard of living of the working people, for which they are allegedly obliged to the monopolies, is prosperity. However, this is refuted by Department of Labor data indicating that the annual earnings of even the highest-paid workers in the manufacturing industry amounted to only two-thirds of what was required for a “moderate” expense budget for a family of four, which in 1969 was already $10,300.  [539•2 

p As a rule, strikes were not just momentary events for the workers. Regardless of their scope or results, they were and remain a school of mass struggle for them. It was through mass strikes that the workers succeeded in creating and strengthening trade unions as their class organizations.

p In its efforts to subordinate the labor movement to itself, the bourgeoisie increasingly sought help from the state, using its machine of coercion. During the period of recent history, especially since the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, government interference in labor relations became a characteristic practice. The Roosevelt administration pursued a flexible and subtle policy of “regulating” labor relations, agreeing as it did 540 so to substantial economic and legal concessions to the workers. Government interference increased in the postwar years. This was strikingly evident in the passage by Congress of a number of anti-labor laws and in the activity of labor relations boards, congressional committees and mediation services.

p What the dominant class feared most of all was that mass actions of the American proletariat would turn into a militant political movement. That is why the bourgeoisie did and still does everything possible to keep the labor movement within the bounds of trade-unionism. This was also the line taken by the New Deal, whose immediate objective was to overcome the economic and political consequences of the crisis of 1929-1933. Roosevelt took the road of bourgeois reformism and of increasing the regulating role of the government.

p As the New Deal reforms began to take effect, the monopoly bourgeoisie became increasingly uneasy and therefore sought to gain control over the various New Deal institutions. But its fears in the face of Roosevelt’s bourgeois reforms were really groundless, for not only did they not undermine the foundations of capitalism; they were instrumental in restoring the capitalist economy. Despite all their limitations, Roosevelt’s measures to a certain extent met the immediate interests of labor and at the same time helped stabilize the economic situation in the country, which in the final analysis served the political interests of capitalism.

p The history of the United States attests to the democratic character of many actions of the American proletariat. Prominent among them was the unemployed movement during ihe world economic crisis. Fully applicable to that movement are Marx’s words that “out of the separate economic movements of the workers there grows up everywhere a political movement, that is to say, a class movement, with the object of enforcing its interests in a general form, in a form possessing general, socially coercive force".  [540•1 

p The democratic traditions of American labor manifested themselves also in the movement for the creation of FarmerLabor parties in the states. Some local unions became collective members of such organizations and took an active part in their 541 work. Underlying the movement for a third party was the discontent of progressive workers and farmers with the policies of the bourgeois parties. However, this movement, which unfolded in the mid-1920s and the 1930s, and again at the end of the 1940s, failed to achieve its objectives. The broad masses of Americans, who were under the strong influence of bourgeois propaganda, were not ready for a third party. The ruling circles, fearing that the idea of a third patty might turn into a real force for social progress, used every means at their disposal to suppress popular sentiment in favor of breaking with the two-party political system.

p Moreover, the rightist labor leaders came out against freeing the labor movement from the influence of the two-party system. Most of them were against a third party. As for political figures like La Follette or Wallace who headed FarmerLabor or Progressive Party movements, they themselves were not spokesmen for the interests of the broad masses of working people and therefore could not become their real ideological and militant leaders. Third parties ultimatelysuffered defeat.

p All this, however, does not mean that the formation of a third party is no longer a task of the American labor movement. Everything said above merely re-emphasizes the difficulties involved in the struggle to bring it about. The new program of the American Communists calls for the creation of a people’s party. The Communists say: “We are for maximum political struggle, for independent positions and forms, within the two-party vise. But the historical direction we see in this struggle, the desired goal, is creation ot a new people’s party.”   [541•1 

p The democratic traditions of the proletariat manifested themselves also in the struggle for the creation of industrial unions, as a result of which a progressive association, the CIO, was founded. Its creation was a major success for the left forces in the labor movement. Like the demonstrations of unemployed in the crisis years, this mass action of the second half of the 1930s was anti-monopoly in character. At ihe same time, underlying the movement for the CIO was the desire to 542 draw the broad masses of unorganized workers into the struggle against the domination of the monopolies, the desire for unity of actions and freedom from the influence of the conservative AFL clique. In its militant spirit, mass involvement and radicalism, the movement for the creation of the CIO was in direct line with the best democratic traditions of the American working class.

p One of the important political results of the democratic movement in the USA was the emergence in 1919 of the Communist Party. It owed its appearance, among other factors, also to the preceding struggle of the two trends in the labor movement. The creation of this party was a victory for the revolutionary trend. It was formed at a time when the labor movement was on the upsurge and under the influence of the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia. However, from the very outset, the Communist Party encountered hostility toward itself on the part of not only the nation’s ruling circles but also Gompers, and later his followers, Green, Meany, Woll, Dubinsky and other labor officials who waged a frenzied campaign against it, banning Communists from the unions or preventing them from holding office.

p In the late 1920s, the party overcame considerable difficulties connected with the internal ideological crisis brought on by right-wing capitulators headed by Jay Lovestone. It developed extensive work among the masses in the 1930s and was in the front ranks of the movement of unemployed against hunger and poverty. The party made a significant contribution to the building of industrial unions and the CIO, and to the movement against fascism and war. Together with other democratic organizations, it took part in the struggle in 1942-1943 for a second front in Europe. During the war it had to go through a second and even graver ideological and organizational crisis precipitated by the Browder group of right opportunists.

p In the early postwar years, American reaction went over to a policy of cold war and persecuting progressive forces. At that time, the Communists took an active part in the movement for peace and strengthened their ties with certain democratic organizations.

p In the second half of the 1950s, a group headed by Gates 543 and acting in opposition to Marxist-Leninist teaching launched a new campaign to liquidate the party. This move was another relapse of right-wing revisionism in the party’s ranks. The 16th and 17th conventions in 1957 and 1959 concentrated on combatting the capitulators, for as a result of the subversive activities of the right-wing elements, the party faced a serious political, ideological and organizational crisis. One of the difficulties, the 16th convention pointed out, was the fact that the labor movement was unable to assess the full significance of the attacks being made against the Communists and did not come out in support of their rights.

p The party had to live and work under the difficult conditions of a police regime within the country. But even so, in 1967 and 1969 it managed to hold its 18th and 19th conventions, which discussed urgent questions of struggle. In recent years, the party has been able to revive its political work.

p At the 19th convention, the General Secretary Gus Hall, speaking of the tasks of the party in the light of the domestic political situation, stressed the further deepening and aggravation of the crisis of imperialism. He said that while the rank-and-file union members more actively joined in the class struggle, labor union officialdom more and more openly pursued a policy of conciliation with the bourgeoisie. The convention outlined the immediate tasks of the Communists in the struggle against the monopolies, for peace, and against the war in Vietnam. The convention denounced those who took the revisionist line of rejecting the dictatorship of the proletariat.

p One of the main topics at the convention was the adoption of the new party program. It gives a Marxist analysis of the economic, political and social processes in the United States and outlines the tasks of the Communists. The program calls for the creation of an anti-monopoly alliance of American working people, directed against the two-party system.

p The American Communists continue their fight for equality and civil rights and against the oppression of Blacks, Puerto Ricans, Indians, Mexican Americans and other groups who because of their race or nationality cannot fully exercise their civil rights. The party defines the struggle against racism and chauvinism in the trade union movement and in the economic 544 and political life of the nation as one of the basic tasks of the Communists.

p The nationality and racial question is of great importance in the labor movement of the USA. Black workers are an organic pan of the American proletariat. There is no independent Black labor movement; there is a movement of the American proletariat as a whole. At the same time, the mass struggle of ihe Blacks, which markedly intensified in the 1960s, has become nationwide, and this has inevitably affected the labor movement as a whole. The tactics of the emancipation struggle of the Blacks constitute one of the most complex problems standing before the American people and the working class in particular.

p It is all the more important, therefore, to stress that the Black question has still not found the place it deserves in the labor movement. Among labor leaders there are still many who are against admitting Blacks into the unions. Gompers, Green, Meany and their like were always proponents of discrimination and jinn row policies. It is not surprising that even today there are only 1.5 million Blacks in unions. Trade union leaders display inertia in supporting the mass Black movement. Only in the CIO unions was a progressive policy in the Black question pursued and did opposition develop to the chauvinism of the reactionary leaders.

p The entire history of the American Blacks is one of continuous struggle against humiliation and discrimination. In such a rich country as the USA, Black workers find themselves on the lowest rung of the social ladder, living in conditions of poverty. For many long years the Black movement followed a peaceful course and was under the influence of the religious concept of non-violent resistance. Despite this, the racist elements and authorities in the southern states responded to the peaceful protest of the Black masses with brutal reprisals. The authorities, for their part, restricted themselves merely to passing laws banning segregation in the schools and public transport, which, though important, were not effectively enforced.

However, the events in the period 1966-1968 showed the world on whose side the government was. It brutally suppressed Black uprisings in Los Angeles, Newark, Detroit,

116,0 5117,

Sources: Historical Statistics of the United States. Colonial Times to 1957 (figures for 1918-1957); Historical Statistics of the United States. Colonial Times to 1957. Continuation to 1962 and Revisions (figuresfor 1958-1962); Statistical Abstract of the United Slates, 1965, (figures for 1963-1964); Monthly Labor Review, August 1966, p. 952 (figures for 1965).

4740 3353 1240 2 8 5 g| O> O) O> 0> <3> O> TO CO TO TO CD t** 00 O> TO TO TO TO o> o» a> at 5 oi 0) ( O> O> « Strike Movement in the USA from From 1918 through 1965, 143,853 strikes took place in the USA, involving a total of 74,998,000 workers and resulting in 972.8 million man-days idle ——-number of work stoppages ——-number of workers involved (in thousands) ——-number of man-days idle (in millions). (Figures for 1918-1926 not available.) 545 New York, Milwaukee, Washington, Birmingham, Portland and many other cities.

p In the hot summer of 1967, the White House and Congress waged a real war against the people. President Johnson and the military command directed operations to suppress the Black uprisings. Government troops were sent into dozens of cities to help local police and National Guard units. Soldiers fired upon thousands of people in Black ghettoes.

p In April 1968, the famous Black leader, Martin Luther King, who devoted his life to the cause of emancipating his people, was assassinated in Memphis. Washington, in whose streets Black unrest broke out in protest against this wanton act of violence, looked like a front-line city. The death of Martin Luther King triggered a new wave of uprisings in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Baltimore and dozens of other cities. Simultaneously with these actions, the progressive forces of America organized a march of poor people on Washington. But its participants were subjected to brutal repressive actions. Since the time of the hunger marches in the early 1930s, these events have been the most significant in the history of mass movements in the USA.

p The American proletariat has not been indifferent to developments in the world. By virtue of their kinship with the proletariat of other countries in terms of their common social and economic status, the progressive American workers have sympathized with the struggle of their class brothers and displayed solidarity and internationalism. It is not surprising that the ruling circles tried hard to hide from the working people the truth about the revolutionary movement in Russia and Western Europe. Those workers who learned the truth about the events in Russia welcomed the proletarian revolution of 1917. From the very first days they came out in its defense under the slogan “Hands Off Soviet Russia.” Progressive unions took an active part in collecting money and food for the starving workers of Russia. Lenin expressed high appreciation of this help.  [545•1 

p John Reed, William Haywood, Charles Ruthenberg, William 546 Foster, Albert Rhys Williams, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and many others tarried the truth about Soviet Russia to the masses.

p In the late 1930s a movement was mounted against fascism and war. Taking part in it were progressive CIO unions, a number of AFL organizations, some Farmer-Labor parties, and a large segment of democratically-minded intelligentsia. The participants of this movement came out in defense of the Spanish Republic, and many fought in the battles against fascism. However, the movement was unable to become wide or effective enough to force the ruling circles to abandon the policy of “non-intervention”. The Soviet Union’s proposal for collective security was rejected. Under those circumstances, there was no force capable of preventing a second world war. The working class in the United States, as in other countries of bourgeois democracy, was also divided.

p During the war, the democratic traditions in the American labor movement manifested themselves in the solidarity movement with the countries fighting against fascism, which demanded rendering them effective aid with arms, medicines and food. It broadened after Hitler Germany attacked the Soviet Union. When the USA entered the war it developed further as it took up the call for a second front in 1942-1943. On the whole, this movement, directed toward the total defeat of fascism, was also distinctly of a political character.

p An important aspect of the labor movement in the United States was the international activity of the American labor unions. Prior to World War II they did not have strong ties even with the reformist Amsterdam International. However, in the 1930s, when the threat of fascism and war hung over the world, interest in international events grew noticeably in progressive American labor circles. World War II intensified the desire for unity among the workers of the countries that had fought against fascism. As a result, the CIO took an active part in the creation of the World Federation of Trade Unions. At the same time, the AFL refused to take part in the action. In the postwar period, the American unions became more active in the international arena. The ruling circles of the USA undertook to use the labor leaders for their own ends, to connect their activity with the government’s foreign policy line 547 and especially with the State Department. The AFL and CIO leaders themselves were no less interested in these connections. They were the ones who engineered the split of the WFTU and created the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions to counterbalance it.

p In the meantime, the policies and tactics of the AFL and the CIO were becoming more and more alike. The objectives of the ruling circles’ cold war and anti-communism appealed to the top leaders of both associations. In 1949 and 1950, the reactionary elements in the CIO leadership openly embarked on splitting action and brought about the expulsion of progressive unions, with a total of over a million members, from the CIO. As the balance of forces within the CIO shifted, the rightist leaders began to wield greater influence also in the international activities of this organization. In 1955, they began to move toward merger with the AFL. The initiators were the top officials of both trade union centers. Sooner or later, the nature of this merger was bound to affect the destiny of the new federation. The conservative line of its leaders, headed by Meany, was bound to clash with the democratic aspirations of progressive union figures and the broad cross-section of organized labor. But this would take years to happen. In the meantime, in the second half of the 1950s, the merger of the AFL and CIO strengthened the positions of Meany’s group not only within the labor movement in the USA, but in Europe as well. In the ICFTU it managed to push aside the leaders of Britain’s Trades Union Congress, and, consequently, laid claim to the dominant position in that confederation.

p At the same time, the American labor leaders encountered resistance from progressive forces in the international labor movement and above all from the WFTU. Within the ICFTU itself, the influence of opponents to the cold war policy increased. The trade unions of former colonial countries and dependencies became an increasingly important factor in the international labor movement.

p At the close of the 1960s, acute contradictions threatened to precipitate a rupture of relations between the AFL-CIO and the ICFTU. The Americans accused the confederation of being bureaucratic and unwilling to combat communism in the developing countries. In December 1968, the executive council 548 of the AFL-CIO decided not to take part in the activities of the ICFTU, and in 1969 broke with the confederation completely. This move was a direct result of the reactionary, divisive, anti-labor policy of the AFL-CIO leaders, who could not bear being even in such an international organization as the ICFTU simply because democratic sentiments had appeared in it.

p Thus, the history of the American labor movement shows that a continuous battle has been going on between the revolutionary and opportunist trends in its ranks.₍ The standard bearers of the revolutionary trend were outstanding leaders of the socialist and communist movements. Among these, gaining wide recognition were Eugene Debs, William Haywood, John Reed, Charles Ruthenberg, William Foster, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Eugene Dennis, Henry Winston and Gus Hall. There were also many democratically-minded trade union leaders who played a prominent role in progressive CIO unions. These include such popular figures as Harry Bridges, Ben Gold, Albert Fitzgerald, John Clark and Reid Robinson. Leading exponents of the opportunist trend include Samuel Gompers, William Green, John Frey, George Meany, Matthew Woll, David Dubinsky, William Hutcheson, Jay Lovestone. However, substantial differences in views and sentiments frequently arose among the conservative leaders as well. To turn a blind eye to these divergences would mean to deny the positive role that was played in the history of the labor movement by such leaders as John L. Lewis, Philip Murray, Sidney Hillman, Charles Howard, Allan Haywood, R.J.Thomas, Walter Reuther, Michael Quill, Joseph Curran, Emil Rieve and many others. In the trying years of crisis and depression they headed the mass movement for the creation of industrial unions and the CIO. They broke with the GreenWoll clique in the AFL and joined battle against it.

p During World War II these CIO leaders exerted no little effort to mobilize the labor unions to back the Roosevelt administration’s military measures. They were for strengthening US preparedness for war against fascism. Democraticallyminded leaders in local unions acted even more vigorously. They took part in the movements for solidarity with the countries fighting fascism, for opening the second front in Europe, for joint actions with Soviet and British trade unions, 549 and for the creation of the World Federation of Trade Unions. There were many union officials, not only in the CIO but also in some AFL organizations, who denounced the anti-labor line of the conservative AFL leaders. As noted in the report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to the 22nd Congress of the CPSU: “Right-wing Socialist leaders and many trade union bosses have long since betrayed the interests of the working class and faithfully serve monopoly capital. But among the Social-Democratic rank and file, among the functionaries and even within the leadership there are many honest people who sincerely want to take part in the common struggle for working-class interests. They have lately been putting up increasing resistance to the policy of the Right-wing leaders.”   [549•1 

p Events in 1965-1970, which go beyond the chronological bounds of the present study, only confirm the need to take this development into account. The struggle for unity in the American labor movement assumed increasing significance. A number of union leaders took important steps toward activating their unions. For example, in August 1966, on behalf of the United Auto Workers, Walter Reuther came out openly against Meany’s policies. He disassociated himself from the AFL-CIO executive council’s resolution on Vietnam, calling it unworthy of American labor. In February 1967, in protest against Meany’s reactionary line, this union withdrew its representatives from the AFL-CIO executive council.

p In April 1968, the UAW convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, adopted a resolution to withdraw the union from the AFL-CIO. Long before this happened, Meany’s bureaucratic upper clique had expelled the two-million-strong teamsters’ union. That action dealt a heavy blow to the AFL-CIO. Now, the withdrawal from the AFL-CIO of the big auto workers’ union, with a membership of over 1.5 million that year, was a new blow to the federation.

p This situation in the labor movement came as a result of the further rift in the US working class, for which the Meany clique was to blame. These events also confirm the fact that the merger of the AFL and CIO in 1955 was the outcome of a deal 550 between top leaders who were far from looking for any real democratic unity of the labor movement. The working masses were not the active motive force behind this merger, and as a result, conservative-minded trade union officials seized the initiative for the merger into their own hands. The latter were unable to overcome the internal contradictions existing between the AFL and CIO.

p In May 1969, representatives of the Teamsters and United Auto Workers held a joint conference in Washington. The conference decided to create an Alliance for Labor Action, and its participants attacked the AFL-CIO leadership’s policies within the labor unions and their stand on foreign policy issues. They called on organized workers to set the unions into motion again, to take concrete action with regard to pressing economic and social problems, and to launch a campaign for an end to the American intervention in Vietnam.

p In a half-century of its history the working class of the USA traversed an arduous road of struggle. It lay through setbacks and defeats and entailed sacrifices and deprivations. The bourgeoisie realizes the growing role and political significance of the working class in the historical destiny of the nation. That is why it has always striven to stifle labor’s urge for unity and independent political struggle.

p Never considering repressive measures to be the only way of dealing with the labor movement, the ruling class has always sought to influence it by bringing the working class into ideological subordination. To accomplish these ends, the bourgeoisie makes wide use of the propaganda machine of the American monopolies and state. Their propaganda is designed to hide the main social antagonisms and defects in contemporary American society, to blunt the class consciousness of the working people and their will to struggle, to cultivate individualism in workers and draw them away from politics and efforts to solve fundamental social problems. And many rightist labor leaders as well as a large body of historians, economists and sociologists help the bourgeoisie in pursuing this line.

p History has convincingly shown the role of the working class as the motive force behind the development of modern society 551 along the road of progress. It confirms the words of the outstanding American, Abraham Lincoln, who said in his time: “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital."  [551•1 

As Marx and Engels said about the proletariat, “not in vain does it go through the stern but steeling school of labour".  [551•2  For the proletariat, this school is struggle against the monopolies—an objective and law-governed process determined by the social and economic position of the proletariat under capitalism. In this connection, the following words of Marx and Engels are of particular significance today: “It is not a question of what this or that proletarian, or even the whole proletariat, at the moment regards as its aim. It is a question of what the proletariat is, and what, in accordance with this being, it will historically be compelled to do. Its aim and historical action is visibly and irrevocably foreshadowed in its own life situation as well as in the whole organisation of bourgeois society today."  [551•3