We are not making this demand for the sake of a principle, but in the interests of the proletarian class.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that demands are made not as a matter of principle but for the welfare of the working class.
Clara Zetkin's quote highlights the idea that certain demands arise from the necessity to protect and uplift the proletarian class rather than merely adhering to abstract principles. It conveys a sense of urgency and practical concern for the wellbeing of the working class, stressing that actions and demands are rooted in the real conditions and struggles faced by workers.
In practice
In a speech advocating for workers' rights, one might quote Clara Zetkin to emphasize that demands are rooted in the interests of the working class.
In individual industries where female labour pays an important role, any movement advocating better wages, shorter working hours, etc., would not be doomed from the start because of the attitude of those women workers who are not organized.
When the men are silent, it is our duty to raise our voices in behalf of our ideals.
For reforms ameliorate the situation of the working class, they lighten the weight of the chains labour is burdened with by capitalism, but they are not sufficient to crush capitalism and to emancipate the workers from their tyranny.
When the men kill, it is up to us women to fight for the preservation of life.
Each reform, therefore, improving the economical and political situation of the workers proves to be an arm that increases the energy with which the proletarian struggle of classes is fought.
The socialist parties of all countries are duty bound to fight energetically for the implementation of universal women's suffrage which is to be vigorously advocated both by agitation and by parliamentary means. When a battle for suffrage is conducted, it should only be conducted according to socialist principles, and therefore with the demand of universal suffrage for women and men.
I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations; but, on a candid examination of history, we shall find that turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions, which, in republics, have, more frequently than any other cause, produced despotism.
One of the most pervasive political visions of our time is the vision of liberals as compassionate and conservatives as less caring.
Communism didn't fall. It was pushed.
So efficient are the available instruments of slavery; fingerprints, lie detectors, brain washings, gas chambers; that we shiver at the thought of political change which might put these instruments in the hands of men of hate.
No foreign policy - no matter how ingenious - has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a few and carried in the hearts of none.
It is from weakness that people reach for dictators and concentrated government power. Only the strong can be free. And only the productive can be strong.
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