It is necessary to improve the health of the country, which suffers from chronic hunger, it is necessary to put an end to the current state of affairs, in which tens of millions of workers of the earth are forced to periodically undergo hunger strikes with all its horrors: it is unthinkable to watch with folded arms as hungry fathers and mothers, with tears in their eyes, “sell off for a pittance” their daughters and sons!

The identity of opposites (it would be more correct, perhaps, to say their ‘unity’, – although the difference between the terms identity and unity is not particularly important here. In a certain sense both are correct) is the recognition (discovery) of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature (including mind and society). The condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world in their ‘self-movement’, in their spontaneous development, in their real life, is the knowledge of them as a unity of opposites. Development is the ‘struggle’ of opposites.

Sylvia was a remarkable woman with a big heart, who devoted herself heart and soul, and at whatever cost, to the cause of the downtrodden and oppressed masses.

She recognised the working class as the ruling class of a future society, even if she did not understand the form that rule would take in its early days or the compromises that might need to be made in a country where the working class was only the minority of the population.

She was fearless, she was a great orator and she was a great organiser. She espoused every progressive cause with enthusiasm and flair.

But what her example teaches us is that to serve the working class properly what is needed is not only courage, dedication, self-sacrifice and deep love of the people, but also the scientific understanding that comes from a deep knowledge of Marxism.