Manifesto of the Industrial Socialist League

OUR PREAMBLE

The interests of the Working Class and of the Employing Class are diametrically opposed. There can be no peace as long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people, and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.

Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the all the toilers come together on the industrial field, and take and hold what they produce by their labour, through an economic organisation of the working class, without affiliation to any political party.

The rapid gathering of wealth and the centring of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands make the Trade Unions unable to cope with the ever-growing power of the employing class, because the Trades Unions foster a state of things which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. The Trades Unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.

These sad conditions can be only be changed, and the interests of the working class upheld by an organisation formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry - or in all industries if necessary- cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.

OUR OBJECTS

The abolition of the wage system and the establishment of a Socialist Commonwealth based on the principle of self-governing industries, in which the workers will work and control the instruments of production, distribution and exchange for the benefit of the entire community.

OUR METHODS AND PRINCIPLES

By propagating by every means in our power, the principles of Industrial Unionism.
By advising and assisting the working class in the establishment of such forms of industrial organisation as will enable them not only to improve their present condition but eventually take over complete control of all industries.
The League is strictly anti-political and anti-militarist.

Cape Town, February 1920
Source: The Bolshevik, Cape Town, February 1920


	Manifesto of the Industrial Socialist League OUR PREAMBLE The interests of the Working Class and of the Employing Class are diametrically opposed. There can be no peace as long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people, and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the all the toilers come together on the industrial field, and take and hold what they produce by their labour, through an economic organisation of the working class, without affiliation to any political party. The rapid gathering of wealth and the centring of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands make the Trade Unions unable to cope with the ever-growing power of the employing class, because the Trades Unions foster a state of things which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. The Trades Unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers. These sad conditions can be only be changed, and the interests of the working class upheld by an organisation formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry - or in all industries if necessary- cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all. OUR OBJECTS The abolition of the wage system and the establishment of a Socialist Commonwealth based on the principle of self-governing industries, in which the workers will work and control the instruments of production, distribution and exchange for the benefit of the entire community. OUR METHODS AND PRINCIPLES By propagating by every means in our power, the principles of Industrial Unionism. By advising and assisting the working class in the establishment of such forms of industrial organisation as will enable them not only to improve their present condition but eventually take over complete control of all industries. The League is strictly anti-political and anti-militarist. Cape Town, February 1920 Source: The Bolshevik, Cape Town, February 1920