01/05/2026
Remembering Lenin (April 22, 1870 — January 21, 1924) in stirring times like ours!
— Revolutionary Workers' Party of India (RWPI)
In February 2026, after an accident involving a worker at the Panipat refinery of the Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), over 30,000 contract workers unitedly stopped work for five days, and rose in protest against 12-hour shifts, meagre salaries and delayed pay.
The moral influence of the strikes has been contagious. Two months since then, workers’ strikes have rapidly spread to other parts of the country, bringing thousands of workers on the streets, from Surat, Delhi, Noida, Rohtak and Manesar to Nainital, Neemrana, Bhiwadi, Mau and Hapur.
In response, the fascist BJP — the most loyal representatives of the capitalist class — has left no stone unturned to suppress the movement. From kidnapping thousands of workers to arresting labour activists supporting their demands, the fear and desperation of the capitalist class stands exposed!
While such stirring times reflect the widespread misery of the working class, they also offer hope. For guidance, we must turn to the great teacher of the proletariat, Lenin.
In 1899, in an article titled ‘On Strikes’, Lenin explains the conditions leading to strikes, and how the emerging contradictions materially alter the worldview of the striking workers. He writes:
"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."
On the “moral influence” of strikes in forging a collective consciousness among workers and paving the path towards socialism:
"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 more workers become socialists."
On the importance of raising class consciousness among workers and, conversely, on the futility of incorrectly interpreting every isolated violent act as a conscious act against capitalism and in service of the revolution:
"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."
On how strikes expose the reality of “laws” under capitalism:
"The worker does not know the laws, he has no contact with government officials, especially with those in the higher posts... 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. 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."
On how strikes make workers realise that the class interests of the capitalist and the worker cannot be reconciled:
"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."
Importantly, Comrade Lenin warns us to not bow down to economism by treating the demands of the strikes as the end goal itself.
"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!”
On his birth anniversary, Revolutionery Workers’ Party of India (RWPI) salutes the revolutionary legacy of Vladimir Lenin, the great teacher of Marxism.
Long live revolution!

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