About the publication:
There Will Come a Day… Imperialism and the Working Class. By Gotfred Appel [Futura 1971, 31 p.]
English edition of : Gotfred Appel: Der kommer en dag… : Imperialisme og arbejderklasse. Kbh, Futura, 1971, 29 s.
Contains a number of articles that were first published in “Kommunistisk Orientering” (Communist Orientation) in 1967 and 1968, as well as a flyer, that was distributed at B & W Shipyard Christianshavn in May 1968. The articles deal with opportunism and the work of the workers in Western Europe in the light of imperialism, and the consequences for the Communists’ work in the rich part of the world.
ContentS
Foreword to There Will Come a Day
s. 5:
The six articles in this pamphlet were originally published in “Communist ORIENTATION” in the years 1967 and 1968. They were the result of long-term deliberations and thorough discussions among a group of people in Communist Working Circle (CWC), and they were published anonymously as an expression of the view of this organisation.
Collective Agreement and Parasite State
p. 7-10:
The economic-trade union demands involved in the present and a number of former collective agreement situations are manifestations of needs and wishes on a material level (and spiritual-ideological level) characteristic of a working class in a country, where the capitalists have been able to give and have had a direct interest in giving the workers a share in the super profits of western capitalism as a whole from the exploitation of the majority of mankind – the peoples of the present and former colonial, semicolonial and dependent countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
There is n o direct road from a parasite state of Denmark’s kind to socialism!
Split up by Economism
p. 11-12:
“The almost 100.000 votes against, the some 170.000 votes in favour at the voting, and the some 270.000 votes which were not cast at all thus expressly serve to show that the working class has been split up, is without common determination, without genuine class solidarity, without genuine class consciousness. When this is said, and in our opinion it m u s t be said, it must also be said and heavily stressed that this situation in the Danish working class is a temporary and transitory phenomenon. It is a phenomenon which has been caused by a certain historical, economic and ideological development, and it will change again under a new historical, economic and ideological development.”
“The almost 100.000 votes against, the some 170.000 votes in favour at the voting, and the some 270.000 votes which were not cast at all thus expressly serve to show that the working class has been split up, is without common determination, without genuine class solidarity, without genuine class consciousness. When this is said, and in our opinion it m u s t be said, it must also be said and heavily stressed that this situation in the Danish working class is a temporary and transitory phenomenon. It is a phenomenon which has been caused by a certain historical, economic and ideological development, and it will change again under a new historical, economic and ideological development.”
The Poison of the Superprofits
p. 13-18:
“Lenin made his speech at the Second Congress of Comintern on the basis of the then existing situation in Europe.
He could not foresee the fact that imperialism in the West European and North American countries would prove able to use still more of its superprofits for bribery. He could not foresee that opportunism was not only a “protracted disease”, but that it had struck root so deeply in the West European working class that not even Fascism and World War 11 could exterminate it. He could not foresee that it was n e v e r exterminated in one single West European communist party.
He could not foresee that the workers of the imperialist countries would not only allow a World War II, but that even after that war they still “gaily share the feast” of the increased and manifold intensified exploitation of the oppressed peoples of Asia, Africa. and Latin America.”
On Wanting Socialism
p. 19-22:
“It was self-evident to Lenin that the then existing small minority did not want socialism introduced and wanted capitalism back again, when the socialist revolution had taken place.
For us today it is self-evident that since by now it is the great majority, when, it is the class as a whole, who live well under capitalism, of course this majority do not want socialism – and it is self-evident to us that they will not start wanting socialism by being even better off under capitalism! They will only get to want socialism by being badly off.”
Socialism and the Bourgeois Way of Life
p. 23-26:
“Should we strive to lead the workers in the struggle for higher wages, shorter working hours, mobilize it to demand more bourgeois “social benefits”, more “spare time benefits”, to satisfy its bourgeois needs for “leisure”?”
“Should we not openly say that the whole of this struggle for the fulfilment of bourgeois needs is leading the working class directly away from a socialist way of thinking? That the trade union activity at the present level of development of the parasite state is directly harmful and a hindrance to the struggle for socialism?”
There Will Come a Day…
p. 27-31:
HANDBILL,, particularly distributed for B&W, Christianshavn (machine factory) 3rd May 1968.
“We have said it again and again, and we are going to continue saying it. It has come about because, as Engels wrote, from the beginning of colonialism the workers “have gladly taken their share of the booty” from the exploitation of the colonial peoples.
AND BECAUSE NO ONE HAS TOLD THEM, THAT THAT WAS WHAT THEY WERE DOING!
This has come about because no one has told them that it would take them directly into the bourgeois, uncanny, horrible, stinking imperialist pool, if they did not stop in time to think things over.”
