day-to-day interests. They were spontaneous efforts by workers to
restrict the effects of competition in the labor market. ¹¹ Unions were
class organizations, which came into existence to protect the worker
against the employer. It was the pressure of the employer which
drove the worker to revolt. Soon, however, labor established

permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these
occasional revolts . . . Now and then the workers are victorious but only
for a time. The real fruit of their battle lies not in the immediate result
but in the expanding union of workers. The union is helped on by the
improved means of communication that are created by modern industry
and that place the workers of different localities in contact with one
another. It was just this contact that was needed to centralize the
numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national
struggle between classes. But every class struggle is a political struggle. ¹²

This statement, although it was written in 1847, expressed the
essentials of the Marxist view of trade unionism, even though Marx
continued to write for 35 years and Engels for almost 50 years after
these words appeared. Union organizations were an attempt to sup-
port the revolts made inevitable by the exploitation by the capitalist.
Labor might have been able to gain temporary concessions but not
permanent relief. Therefore, the isolated revolts had to be continually
enlarged until they became the living embodiment of the struggle
between classes. In line with his views on the origin and nature of
trade unionism, Marx inspired a resolution at the first congress of
the International Workingmen's Association (First International)
which advised the trade unions to seek actively the abolition of the
wage system. The trade unions ¹³ were more than institutions for
the daily struggle with employers. They were a means of mobilizing
the strength of labor against the capitalist class. "While, however, the
trade unions are absolutely indispensable in the daily struggle between
labour and capital, still more important is their other aspect, as instru-
ments for transforming the system of wage labour and for over-
throwing the dictatorship of capital." ¹⁴

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