V. I.

Lenin

On Strikes [2]

In recent years, workers’ strikes have become extremely frequent in
Russia. There is no longer a single industrial gubernia in which there
have not occurred several strikes. And in the big cities strikes never
cease. It is understand able, therefore, that class-conscious workers and
socialists should more and more frequently concern themselves with the
question of the significance of strikes, of methods of conducting them,
and of the tasks of socialists participating in them.

We wish to attempt to outline some of our ideas on these questions. In our
first article we plan to deal generally with the significance of strikes
in the working-class movement; in the second we shall deal with
anti-strike laws in Russia; and in the third, with the way strikes were
and are conducted in Russia and with the attitude that class-conscious
workers should adopt to them.

I

In the first place we must seek an explanation for the outbreak and spread
of strikes. Everyone who calls to mind strikes from personal experience,
from reports of others, or from the newspapers will see immediately that
strikes break out and spread wherever big factories arise and grow in
number. It would scarcely be possible to find a single one among the
bigger factories employing hundreds (at times even thousands) of workers
in which strikes have not occurred. When there were only a few big
factories in Russia there were few strikes; but ever since big factories
have been multiplying rapidly in both the old industrial districts and in new towns
and villages, strikes have become more frequent.

Why is it that large-scale factory production always leads to strikes? It
is because capitalism must necessarily lead to a struggle of the workers
against the employers, and when production is on a large scale the
struggle of necessity takes on the form of strikes.

Let us explain this.

Capitalism is the name given to that social system under which the land,
factories, implements, etc., belong to a small number of landed
proprietors and capitalists, while the mass of the people possesses no
property, or very little property, and is compelled to hire itself out as
workers. The landowners and factory owners hire workers and make them
produce wares of this or that kind which they sell on the market. The
factory owners, furthermore, pay the workers only such a wage as provides
a bare subsistence for them and their families, while everything the
worker produces over and above this amount goes into the factory owner’s
pocket, as his profit. Under capitalist economy, therefore, the people in
their mass are the hired workers of others, they do not work for
themselves but work for employers for wages. It is understandable that the
employers always try to reduce wages; the less they give the workers, the
greater their profit. The workers try to get the highest possible wage in
order to provide their families with sufficient and whole some food, to
live in good homes, and to dress as other people do and not like
beggars. A constant struggle is, therefore, going on between employers
and workers over wages; the employer is free to hire whatever worker he
thinks fit and, therefore, seeks the cheapest. The worker is free to hire
himself out to an employer of his choice, so that he seeks the dearest,
the one that will pay him the most. Whether the worker works in the
country or in town, whether he hires himself out to a landlord, a rich
peasant, a contractor, or a factory owner, he always bargains with the
employer, fights with him over the wages.

But is it possible for a single worker to wage a struggle by himself? The
number of working people is increasing: peasants are being ruined and flee
from the countryside to the town or the factory. The landlords and factory
owners

are introducing machines that rob the workers of their jobs. In the cities
there are increasing numbers of unemployed and in the villages there are
more and more beggars; those who are hungry drive wages down lower and
lower. It becomes impossible for the worker to fight against the employer
by himself. If the worker demands good wages or tries not to consent to a
wage cut, the employer tells him to get out, that there are plenty of
hungry people at the gates who would be glad to work for low wages.

When the people are ruined to such an extent that there is always a large
number of unemployed in the towns and villages, when the factory owners
amass huge fortunes and the small proprietors are squeezed out by the
millionaires, the individual worker becomes absolutely powerless
in face of the capitalist. It then becomes possible for the capitalist to
crush the worker completely, to drive him to his death at slave labour
and, indeed, not him alone, but his wife and children with him. If we
take, for instance, those occupations in which the workers have not yet
been able to win the protection of the law and in which they cannot offer
resistance to the capitalists, we see an inordinately long working day,
sometimes as long as 17-19 hours; we see children of 5 or 6 years of age
overstraining themselves at work; we see a generation of permanently
hungry workers who are gradually dying from starvation. Example: the
workers who toil in their own homes for capitalists; besides, any worker
can bring to mind a host of other examples! Even under slavery or serfdom
there was never any oppression of the working people as terrible as that
under capitalism when the workers cannot put up a resistance or cannot win
the protection of laws that restrict the arbitrary actions of the
employers.

And so, in order to stave off their reduction to such extremities, the
workers begin a desperate struggle. As they see that each of them,
individually, is completely powerless and that the oppression of capital
threatens to crush him, the workers begin to revolt jointly against their
employers. Workers’ strikes begin. At first the workers often fail to
realise what they are trying to achieve, lacking consciousness of the
wherefore of their action; they simply smash the machines and
destroy the factories. They merely want to display their wrath to the
factory owners; they are trying out their joint strength in order to get out of an unbearable situation,
without yet understanding why their position is so hopeless and what they
should strive for.

In all countries the wrath of the workers first took the form of isolated
revolts—the police and factory owners in Russia call them
“mutinies.” In all countries these isolated revolts gave rise to
more or less peaceful strikes, on the one hand, and to the all-sided
struggle of the working class for its emancipation, on the other.

What significance have strikes (or stoppages) for the struggle of the
working class? To answer this question, we must first have a fuller view
of strikes. The wages of a worker are determined, as we have seen, by an
agreement between the employer and the worker, and if, under these
circumstances, the individual worker is completely powerless, it is
obvious that workers must fight jointly for their demands, they are
compelled to organise strikes either to prevent the employers from
reducing wages or to obtain higher wages. It is a fact that in every
country with a capitalist system there are strikes of workers. Everywhere,
in all the European countries and in America, the workers feel themselves
powerless when they are disunited; they can only offer resistance to the
employers jointly, either by striking or threatening to strike. As
capitalism develops, as big factories are more rapidly opened, as the
petty capitalists are more and more ousted by the big capitalists, the
more urgent becomes the need for the joint resistance of the workers,
because unemployment increases, competition sharpens between the
capitalists who strive to produce their wares at the cheapest (to do which
they have to pay the workers as little as possible), and the fluctuations
of industry become more accentuated and crises [1] more acute. When industry prospers, the factory owners make big profits
but do not think of sharing them with the workers; but when a crisis breaks out, the factory owners try to push the
losses on to the workers. The necessity for strikes in capitalist society
has been recognised to such an extent by everybody in the European
countries that the law in those countries does not forbid the organisation
of strikes; only in Russia barbarous laws against strikes still remain in
force (we shall speak on another occasion of these laws and their
application).

However, strikes, which arise out of the very nature of capitalist
society, signify the beginning of the working-class struggle against that
system of society. When the rich capitalists are confronted by individual,
propertyless workers, this signifies the utter enslavement of the
workers. But when those propertyless workers unite, the situation
changes. There is no wealth that can be of benefit to the capitalists if
they cannot find workers willing to apply their labour-power to the
instruments and materials belonging to the capitalists and produce new
wealth. As long as workers have to deal with capitalists on an individual
basis they remain veritable slaves who must work continuously to profit
another in order to obtain a crust of bread, who must for ever remain
docile and inarticulate hired servants. But when the workers state their
demands jointly and refuse to submit to the money-bags, they cease to be
slaves, they become human beings, they begin to demand that their labour
should not only serve to enrich a handful of idlers, but should also
enable those who work to live like human beings. The slaves begin to put
forward the demand to become masters, not to work and live as the
landlords and capitalists want them to, but as the working people
themselves want to. Strikes, therefore, always instil fear into the
capitalists, because they begin to undermine their supremacy. “All
wheels stand still, if your mighty arm wills it,” a German workers’ song
says of the working class. And so it is in reality: the factories, the
landlords’ land, the machines, the railways, etc., etc., are all like
wheels in a giant machine—the machine that extracts various
products, processes them, and delivers them to their destination. The
whole of this machine is set in motion by the worker who tills
the soil, extracts ores, makes commodities in the factories, builds
houses, work shops, and railways. When the workers refuse to work, the entire machine threatens to stop. Every strike reminds the capitalists
that it is the workers and not they who are the real masters—the
workers who are more and more loudly proclaiming their rights. Every
strike reminds the workers that their position is not hopeless, that they
are not alone. See what a tremendous effect strikes have both on the
strikers themselves and on the workers at neighbouring or nearby factories
or at factories in the same industry. In normal, peaceful times the worker
does his job without a murmur, does not contradict the employer, and does
not discuss his condition. In times of strikes he states his demands in a
loud voice, he reminds the employers of all their abuses, he claims his
rights, he does not think of himself and his wages alone, he thinks of all
his workmates who have downed tools together with him and who stand up for
the workers’ cause, fearing no privations. Every strike means many
privations for the working people, terrible privations that can be
compared only to the calamities of war—hungry families, loss of
wages, often arrests, banishment from the towns where they have their
homes and their employment. Despite all these sufferings, the workers
despise those who desert their fellow workers and make deals with the
employers. Despite all these sufferings, brought on by strikes, the
workers of neighbouring factories gain renewed courage when they see that
their comrades have engaged themselves in struggle. “People who
endure so much to bend one single bourgeois will be able to break the
power of the whole bourgeoisie,” [3] said one great teacher of socialism, Engels, speaking of the strikes of
the English workers. It is often enough for one factory to strike, for
strikes to begin immediately in a large number of factories. What a great
moral influence strikes have, how they affect workers who see that their
comrades have ceased to be slaves and, if only for the time being, have
become people on an equal footing with the rich! Every strike brings
thoughts of socialism very forcibly to the worker’s mind, thoughts of the
struggle of the entire working class for emancipation from the oppression
of capital. It has often happened that before a big strike the workers of
a certain factory or a certain branch of industry or of a certain town
knew hardly anything and scarcely ever thought about socialism; but after
the strike, study circles and associations become much more widespread among them and more and wore
workers become socialists.

A strike teaches workers to understand what the strength of the employers
and what the strength of the workers consists in; it teaches them not to
think of their own employer alone and not of their own immediate workmates
alone but of all the employers, the whole class of capitalists and the
whole class of workers. When a factory owner who has amassed millions from
the toil of several generations of workers refuses to grant a modest
increase in wages or even tries to reduce wages to a still lower level
and, if the workers offer resistance, throws thousands of hungry families
out into the street, it becomes quite clear to the workers that the
capitalist class as a whole is the enemy of the whole working class and
that the workers can depend only on themselves and their united action. It
often happens that a factory owner does his best to deceive the workers,
to pose as a benefactor, and conceal his exploitation of the workers by
some petty sops or lying promises. A strike always demolishes this
deception at one blow by showing the workers that their
“benefactor” is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

A strike, moreover, opens the eyes of the workers to the nature, not only
of the capitalists, but of the government and the laws as well. Just as
the factory owners try to pose as benefactors of the workers, the
government officials and their lackeys try to assure the workers that the
tsar and the tsarist government are equally solicitous of both the factory
owners and the workers, as justice requires. The worker does not know the
laws, he has no contact with government officials, especially with those
in the higher posts, and, as a consequence, often believes all this. Then
comes a strike. The public prosecutor, the factory inspector, the police,
and frequently troops, appear at the factory. The workers learn that they
have violated the law: the employers are permitted by law to assemble and
openly discuss ways of reducing workers wages, but workers are declared
criminals if they come to a joint agreement! Workers are driven out of
their homes; the police close the shops from which the workers might
obtain food on credit, an effort is made to incite the soldiers against
the workers even when the workers conduct themselves quietly and
peacefully. Soldiers are even ordered to fire on the workers and when they kill unarmed workers by shooting the fleeing
crowd in the back, the tsar himself sends the troops an expression of his
gratitude (in this way the tsar thanked the troops who had killed striking
workers in Yaroslavl in 1895). It becomes clear to every worker that the
tsarist government is his worst enemy, since it defends the capitalists
and binds the workers hand and foot. The workers begin to understand that
laws are made in the interests of the rich alone; that government
officials protect those interests; that the working people are gagged and
not allowed to make known their needs; that the working class must win for
itself the right to strike, the right to publish workers’ newspapers, the
right to participate in a national assembly that enacts laws and
supervises their fulfilment. The government itself knows full well that
strikes open the eyes of the workers and for this reason it has such a
fear of strikes and does everything to stop them as quickly as
possible. One German Minister of the Interior, one who was notorious for
the persistent persecution of socialists and class-conscious workers, not
without reason, stated before the people’s representatives: “Behind
every strike lurks the hydra [monster] of revolution.” [4]
Every strike strengthens and develops in the workers the understanding
that the government is their enemy and that the working class must prepare
itself to struggle against the government for the people’s rights.

Strikes, therefore, teach the workers to unite; they show them that they
can struggle against the capitalists only when they are united; strikes
teach the workers to think of the struggle of the whole working class
against the whole class of factory owners and against the arbitrary,
police government. This is the reason that socialists call strikes
“a school of war,” a school in which the workers learn to make war
on their enemies for the liberation of the whole people, of all who
labour, from the yoke of government officials and from the yoke of
capital.

“A school of war” is, however, not war itself. When strikes are
widespread among the workers, some of the workers (including some
socialists) begin to believe that the working class can confine itself to
strikes, strike funds, or strike associations alone; that by strikes alone
the working class can achieve a considerable improvement in its conditions or even its emancipation. When they see what power there is in a united
working class and even in small strikes, some think that the working class
has only to organise a general strike throughout the whole country for the
workers to get everything they want from the capitalists and the
government. This idea was also expressed by the workers of other countries
when the working-class movement was in its early stages and the workers
were still very inexperienced. It is a mistaken idea. Strikes are
one of the ways in which the working class struggles for its
emancipation, but they are not the only way; and if the workers do not
turn their attention to other means of conducting the struggle, they will
slow down the growth and the successes of the working class. It is true
that funds are needed to maintain the workers during strikes, if strikes
are to be successful. Such workers’ funds (usually funds of workers in
separate branches of industry, separate trades or workshops) are
maintained in all countries; but here in Russia this is especially
difficult, because the police keep track of them, seize the money, and
arrest the workers. The workers, of course, are able to hide from the
police; naturally, the organisation of such funds is valuable, and we do
not want to advise workers against setting them up. But it must not be
supposed that workers’ funds, when prohibited by law, will attract large
numbers of contributors, and so long as the membership in such
organisations is small, workers’ funds will not prove of great
use. Furthermore, even in those countries where workers’ unions exist
openly and have huge funds at their disposal, the working class can still
not confine itself to strikes as a means of struggle. All that is
necessary is a hitch in the affairs of industry (a crisis, such as the one
that is approaching in Russia today) and the factory owners will even
deliberately cause strikes, because it is to their advantage to cease work
for a time and to deplete the workers’ funds. The workers, therefore,
cannot, under any circumstances, confine themselves to strike actions and
strike associations. Secondly, strikes can only be successful where
workers are sufficiently class-conscious, where they are able to select an
opportune moment for striking, where they know how to put forward their
demands, and where they have connections with socialists and are able to
procure

leaflets and pamphlets through them. There are still very few such workers
in Russia, and every effort must be exerted to increase their number in
order to make the working-class cause known to the masses of workers and
to acquaint them with socialism and the working-class struggle. This is a
task that the socialists and class-conscious workers must undertake
jointly by organising a socialist working-class party for this
purpose. Thirdly, strikes, as we have seen, show the workers that the
government is their enemy and that a struggle against the government must
be carried on. Actually, it is strikes that have gradually taught the
working class of all countries to struggle against the governments for
workers’ rights and for the rights of the people as a whole. As we have
said, only a socialist workers’ party can carry on this struggle by
spreading among the workers a true conception of the government and of the
working-class cause. On another occasion we shall discuss specifically how
strikes are conducted in Russia and how class-conscious workers should
avail themselves of them. Here we must point out that strikes are, as we
said above, “a school of war” and not the war itself, that
strikes are only one means of struggle, only one aspect of the
working-class movement. From individual strikes the workers can and must
go over, as indeed they are actually doing in all countries, to a struggle
of the entire working class for the emancipation of all who labour. When
all class-conscious workers become socialists, i.e., when they strive for
this emancipation, when they unite throughout the whole country in order
to spread socialism among the workers, in order to teach the workers all
the means of struggle against their enemies, when they build up a
socialist workers’ party that struggles for the emancipation of the people
as a whole from government oppression and for the emancipation of all
working people from the yoke of capital—only then will the working
class become an integral part of that great movement of the workers of all
countries that unites all workers and raises the red banner inscribed with
the words: “Workers of all countries, unite!”

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Notes:
[1]
We shall deal elsewhere in greater detail with crises in industry and
their significance to the workers. Here we shall merely note that during
recent years in Russia industrial affairs have been going well, industry
has been “prospering,” but that now (at the end of 1899) there are
already clear signs that this “prosperity” will end in a
crisis: difficulties in marketing goods, bankruptcies of factory owners,
the ruin of petty proprietors, and terrible calamities for the workers
(unemployment, reduced wages, etc.).
— Lenin

[2]
Lenin wrote “On Strikes” for Rabochaya Gazeta when he was in exile (see the “Letter to the Editorial
Group,” p. 207 of this volume). Only the first part of the article is in
the archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism; it is not known whether
the other parts were written.

[3]
Frederick Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England
(Marx and Engels, Selected Works , Vol. II, Moscow, 1958,
p. 260).

[4]
Lenin quotes a statement made by the Prussian Minister of
the Interior, von Puttkamer.