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Samsung’s factories run 24/7 in South Korea, and in three shifts.[1] But on Thursday, April 23, their usual production cycle was interrupted by approximately 40,000 Samsung chip-factory workers who protested outside the company’s semiconductor plant in Pyeongtaek, South Korea.[2] In a brilliant display of the power of organized labor, during the shift that coincided with the protest, Samsung production of foundry chips in Korea dropped 58%, and its production of memory chips dropped 18%.[3] It’s also notable that Samsung stock in general fell 2% in the country’s market.[4]
The Samsung Electronics chapter (SELU) of the Samsung Group United Union (SGUU), which headed the protest, promises an 18-day strike beginning at the private residence of Samsung executive and chairman, Lee Jae-yong, on May 21st if their demands for bonuses equivalent to 15% of Samsung’s operating profit and the abolishment of Samsung’s current cap on bonus pay are not met.[5] While this is labor in action and with great effect, something to praise and to support, we Communists should not be like the non-class socialists and the Trotskyites who baptize every up-thrust of the workers with revolutionary aesthetics, and thus lend ourselves to their opportunism. While we stand in the utmost solidarity with the workers of the entire Korean peninsula and with their upcoming strike and protest actions, we, and they, must also understand the limits of trade union politics, and the limits of the labor movement when it is not guided by scientific socialism, that is, principled Marxism-Leninism.
We can see these limits already in the SGUU movement against the Samsung owners. Their protest is motivated by the spontaneous competition of the capitalists’ system, the gaining of better wages and compensation for their members from the owners, and not on socialist revolutionary goals against that system and the entire class of owners, a feature it must gain if it actually wants to liberate the workers of South Korea and not just grant them miniscule and temporary relief in the way of reforms. The SGUU’s movement has not developed this specifically Marxist consciousness. Protesters and union members have been cited saying that it is the better conditions and pay provided to the workers by rival chip-producer, SK Hynix (who caved to its own union pressures and abolished its bonus pay caps last year)[6], which motivates the protest, with many workers feeling they are entitled to similar benefits as SK Hynix ones.[7] It’s within this context of competition that the union is making gains; not doing so with any kind of forward thinking political consciousness, but following the spontaneous demands of its membership and the labor market itself, chasing immediate reward. In other words, a petty trade-unionist consciousness is currently driving the demands being made against Samsung. While workers and their unions must certainly take advantage of the struggles between competing owners and gain victories for their class, they should be reminded that they will never be liberated except by opposing the owners wholesale as a class and adopting Marxist-Leninist science, which is the method that teaches them how to do so.
Still, when the Communist movement in South Korea inevitably grasps hold of the labor movement, building a firm political unity and making use of the 90,000 laborers in the SGUU[8] (this being part of the general trend of Communists guiding the whole class of workers into political consciousness and political rule), we will see just what a great a thing the Korean workers have done with their organizing, even without a proper political consciousness! The chip-makers’ struggle against Samsung -- how it is energetic, organized (though it needs to be more so), and able to assert itself throughout South Korean society and, indeed, throughout the whole world -- is a prime example of the revolutionary potential of the working class; particularly within dependent countries like South Korea. The workers showcase their power and ability to survive when they take up this struggle, often in the face of very repressive anti-labor measures on the part of the respective government and those of their imperial overlords. This is a stark contrast to how labor operates in the dominant imperial countries, as an appendage of capital more often than not. This situation will change, and it will change especially when it is helped along by the active resistance of labor from the dependent countries, who, in taking back the capital and productive forces of their own nation, will deprive the monopolist financiers of the dominant imperialist countries the returns on their capital, actively eroding the imperial relation globally and tottering the parasitical chains of production that keep the dominated dominated and the dominant dominant. It is because of this immense role that the workers in the dependent countries play for the entire global socialist revolution that Stalin says:
>The road to victory of the revolution in the West lies through the revolutionary alliance with the liberation movement of the colonies and dependent countries against imperialism.[9]
However, the South Korean workers will need the education that can only come from practical experience and the work of principled Marxist agitators and propagandists before they are ready to take up this historical role. As open Communist organizing is heavily frustrated by South Korean law,[10] Communists in South Korea should form a specifically underground media group of the kind we propose in Where to Begin When We Already Started?: Revisionism and Organizational Strategy. While some of the work proposed in that pamphlet (like content geared to the public and posted through social media), will not be able to be completed safely, since South Korea has energetic unions and labor movements, the “public” can be deemphasized in favor of the class, specifically the class organizations of the proletariat.
The rate of union participation generally in South Korea is not high, but it climbed from 10.3% to 14.2% in just the years between 2016-2021, which outpaces the growth of employment during that period, which only grew about 1% each year.[11] While the country-wide rate of union participation has been sitting at roughly 13% in years since, when it comes to companies with more than 300 employees, the rate shoots up to 35.1%.[12] As these large companies are much more primary to the economy, the proletariat is in a good position here. Additionally, and of great significance to the movement of socialism in South Korea, just this past February, under pressure from the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), the second-most populous union organization in South Korea,[13] a substantial reform was gained for the entire country: the “Yellow Envelope Act.” This law, which went into effect March 10, specifically defines any company that commands employees as an “employer,” whereas this title was often limited to only companies with which employees had a direct employment contract with previously[14] (a shameless loophole). Now, big companies can’t sit above union negotiations, letting the lesser bourgeoisie they subcontract to do their dirty work for them. This is a significant victory, and it is bringing union efforts to a higher and more effective level.
In the face of this climate, comrades of the media group should make every effort to infiltrate the labor unions, worker associations, and their events through personal contacts, distributing Communist materials and media group content to those they can, and through the course of this work and the contacts made, tie numerous labor organizations (or at least a good portion of their membership), to the underground media group organization and the global Communist cause it represents. Through this unity, the Communist Party can take shape. Due to the repressive laws, there are no official Communist Parties in South Korea currently, so this Communist Party could be the sole party for the South Korean Communist movement immediately upon its founding (so long as its leaders do not fall into adventurism and are able to organize a sound structure of this Party [we advise through the use of the media group] before its “official” founding). While the draconian anti-Communism of the country’s “National Security Act” frustrates the work of our South Korean comrades to a significant degree, their conditions display, again and for the millionth time to us Marxists, how the anti-Communism of our enemies grants our movement opportunities, and, that by repressing us, the bourgeoisie only guarantee that our attack will be all the more effective, ferocious, and popular, later; for a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of South Korea, based in the labor movement (through the labor organizations or contacts therein) and molded in illegality, would burst onto a revolutionary scene like a shooting fireball, enjoying the popular support of the masses and capable of making rapid gains before authorities could even catch their bearings. Comparing this circumstance to the fishbowl of “First World” “free speech,” wherein politics is performed in public for all to see with numerous bourgeois “Communist” parties -- all without any real tie to the laboring class -- funded, primed, and actively funneling every variety of classes away from socialism, and we might even get envious of our South Korean comrades’ specific organizational advantage in this respect.
As Communists, it is our duty, especially in these conditions of low class consciousness, to create organizations to raise the consciousness of the proletariat. As Communists, we recognize that the forces of production will do this of themselves, but that we cannot sit idly by as the dialectical push and pull of the classes tear each other apart in the slow and uneven march to proletarian victory; we must actively enter into the struggle of the classes on the side of the proletariat. We do this not as individuals but (again) as Communists, which means building organizations among the masses that direct and carry out the goals of the proletarian struggle. This seems to be a point that’s missed, but Lenin understood it, which is why he advocated for an “All-Russian Newspaper” as a necessary initial form for a revolutionary Communist Party,[*] and didn’t confine the socialist movement to “join your local union.” We advocate a similar strategy when we advocate for the establishment of a countrywide media group, which, again, is laid out in more detail in our pamphlet, Where to Begin When We Already Started?: Revisionism and Organizational Strategy.
As the South Korean comrades construct a media group based on Marxist-Leninist principles, they will doubtlessly find many willing and able comrades in the current active labor movement. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions plans to back up the country’s implementation of the “Yellow Envelope Act” with its own actions, scheduling general strikes this July to force companies to the table with the employees of their subcontractors.[15] This, as well as the efforts by the SGUU, who are following up their own labor victories against Samsung with further political actions, shows the energy of South Korean labor in general, energy that the Communists must not fail to utilize for the movement of socialism. The SGUU represents over 70% of Samsung employees in South Korea,[16] and to ignore them or any other prominent organization of labor that struggles against the owners is to ignore the proletarian struggle. It is the duty of comrades now to construct a media group and to build connections between the media group and the active labor organizations, to grow these connections into lasting revolutionary ones, and to put the people it has connected to work on practical goals of the movement, hopefully as members of the media group. In this way, the media group can develop a firm structure throughout the whole labor movement, maturing along with the movement of the South Korean workers to the point that the situation is politically ripe, at which point (if it has done its job well) it and its allied labor organizations should found a Communist Party of South Korea for the entire national boundary, perhaps keeping the Party itself underground, but perhaps not as the situation unfolds.
The path to socialism for South Korea still has many a dark road ahead, but the road is brighter thanks to the workers’ recent actions against Samsung and monopoly capital, and the pressure organized labor has put onto the capitalist government to pass legislation that benefits the labor struggle. We stand in solidarity with their just cause to claw back from the capitalist owners as much of their own labor value as they can, and we know their claws will only grow sharper and more capable as time goes on.
[*] The argument for an “All-Russian Newspaper” is a primary point in both Where to Begin? and What is to Be Done?.
[1] Reuters. “Samsung's chip output drops overnight as workers protest over pay, union says.” Reuters. 24 Apr 2026. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/sustainable-finance-reporting/samsungs-chip-output-dropped-amid-workers-rally-union-says-2026-04-24/.
[2] Matsuura, Nami. “Samsung union demands higher bonus pay, threatening strike.” Nikkei Asia. 25 Apr 2026. https://asia.nikkei.com/business/tech/semiconductors/samsung-union-demands-higher-bonus-pay-threatening-strike.
[3] Reuters. “Samsung's chip output drops overnight...”
[4] Matsuura.
[5] Mun-Gyu, Cho. “Samsung Electronics' labor union will hold rally in front of chairman's house.” Korea JoonAng Daily. 24 Apr 2026. https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2026-04-24/business/industry/Samsung-Electronics-labor-union-will-hold-rally-in-front-of-chairmans-house/2577519.
[6] Matsuura.
[7] Jin, Hyunjoo & Yang, Heekyong. “Samsung workers protest over huge pay gap with SK Hynix, threaten long strike.” 24 Apr 2026. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/unionised-samsung-workers-hold-rally-south-korea-labour-unrest-grows-2026-04-22/.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Stalin, J. V. The Foundations of Leninism. Pravda. No. 24. 1924. J. V. Stalin: Works. Vol 6. Foreign Languages Publishing House. 1953. Pg. 146.
[10] Korea Legislation Research Institute. “National Security Act.” Statute of the Republic of Korea. Last updated 16 Mar 2017. https://elaw.klri.re.kr/kor\_service/lawView.do?hseq=39798&lang=KOR.
[11] Kwon, Hyunji. “(Labor) Recent Trends in Increasing Unionization Rates and Generation-specific Perception of Unions.” Ministry of Data and Statistics. 2023. https://mods.go.kr/board.es?mid=b10104000000&bid=12046&tag=&act=view&list\_no=432649&ref\_bid=.
[12] So-jeong, Park. “Korea unionization rate holds at 13% as membership edges up.” ChosunBiz. 4 Dec 2025. https://biz.chosun.com/en/en-policy/2025/12/04/UF3OJF2TXJAA5IYF3PLBPB4LLU/.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Bo-sun, Gang. “'D-1' Yellow Envelope Act, Won and Subcontract Direct Negotiation Era Begins... ‘ Conversation and Cooperation Need to Be Resolved.” Press News Agency. 9 Mar 2026. https://www.pressna.com/news/newsview.php?ncode=1381197024858598.
[15] Sang-jin, Yun. “Korean Confederation of Trade Unions Demands Hyundai Negotiations, Strikes.” The Chosun Daily. 15 Apr 2026. https://www.chosun.com/english/national-en/2026/04/15/DAMRY4E4MJAG3IACRWDMZVW7VE/.
[16] Jin & Yang.