Three thousand workers at the burial of a victim; none to hold the perpetrator accountable

The workers who are currently on strike are ill advised.

And it is not because they did not foresee in the columns of the La Huelga General that if the strikers appealed only to the Civil Government, to the mayor’s office and to the protection of politicians, their cause was lost. Apparently it will be necessary to constantly repeat that the producing class has nothing to expect from the public powers or from those who claim to be able to settle the economic question with laws which, in short, are voted and applied by the privileged. Not to mention that the politicians do not believe a word of what they promise nor are they willing to make the slightest sacrifice for the good of the cause they claim to defend.

It will turn out badly, very badly for them if they imagine that with collections and appeals to charity they will be able to dominate bourgeois pride and capital. Energy is needed.

It is not an energetic act to declare a strike and limit oneself to public demonstrations that, like two peas in a pod, resemble those carried out by the holders of social wealth.

Attending a civil funeral may seem good from the point of view of free-thinking propaganda; although, if we reflect on it, we fall into the same defects as our enemies without thinking: lavish funerals, inaugurations of monuments, laying of first stones, processions, etc., all of which are very good for confusing the foolish people of the town.

But we must not deceive ourselves. If many of us already know what we can demand, let us not waste time on ceremonies that lead to nothing practical.

Neither ask for alms, nor request support from anyone, nor appoint commissions for trips, nor make peaceful demonstrations. If we are not strong enough to take what belongs to us, let us not cease to propagate the ideas of emancipation among our comrades until we ourselves can have applied them to those who are still our masters.

We are so convinced that this regime of privileges and monopolies is sustained thanks to the fact that its religious, patriotic and governmental pomp dazzles the popular understanding, that the one who writes this does not even practice the cult of the dead, believing it to be an offense to the living who suffer in jails and prisons, lack a roof over their heads or die of hunger because of the detestable social organization.

And since we like to lead by example, if we do not attend any funeral or greet the passing of any corpse, it is because our family knows that no one will come to our funeral, not even them. The living really need the time dedicated to the dead.

For this reason, when a few days ago the funeral of that girl who died of hunger, the daughter of a striker, passed under the editorial office, seeing so many workers behind a victim of the bosses’ greed, we had to make an effort not to go out to the balcony and shout to our friends: “Do not accompany her to the cemetery! Go to the home of her executioners!”