Chapter 3: The Feasability of the Revolution

Socialism emerges from the seas of blood and lies in which the world has been submerged by Capitalist Imperialism.

Out of the struggle between the Great Powers of the world comes the proletariat and pits its strength against Capitalism.

The proletariat will win in this fight, and will establish Communism, for Communism is the base of our existence, the foundation on which rested for many generations the existence of humanity.

The period of individualism, of private property, is as a moment compared with the centuries of Tribal Communism. Now, the old foundation of human existence is found again.

Communism, from which everything that is useful has developed, all our wealth, all that is noble in the hearts of men, will be set up again. Communism, of which the great philosophers like Plato have dreamt; Communism which was the seed and aim of the early Christians; Communism which is described and depicted in the sacred pictures of all great religions; Communism, for which all the poor and oppressed classes have struggled throughout the period of private ownership up to our own times; Communism which was imagined by our Utopists; for which our comrades of all lands have given their lives; the Communism which our great leader, Karl Marx, foresaw, knew, and understood, the modern Communism based on scientific knowledge, of which he laid the foundation stone; this now comes forth in all its wonder and beauty.

And we "blessed ones" can see it and fight for it. Already it lives in one country—Russia, and like a golden flame spreads the light of revolution over all the world.

If the proletariat is united; if the proletariat of all lands unite, and fight all Imperialisms as one, nothing can withstand them.

If, on the other hand, they do not now unite, the golden flame will be extinguished and not re-kindled for many years.

It is now our task as theoreticians of the proletariat to examine with clear eyes, and to demonstrate the feasibility of, the world revolution.

If a god had ordained the destiny of mankind, and if he had prescribed the line of development, matters could not be better arranged by the victory of Socialism.

Capitalism itself has developed the necessary basis for the victory.

How different everything has turned out from what our great master, Marx, expected. Just as he had underestimated the power of Capitalism to expand into monopoly and Imperialism, so had he underestimated the mental, moral and material power that the workers would have to use in order to destroy Capitalism. Neither did he see the new causes of war.

He believed that Capitalism would break down through an economic crisis, and be displaced by the proletariat. Indeed, capital in its spread over the world does come up against political obstacles , which it will only be able to overcome by curtailing its own power. This will bring frightful sufferings to the workers, and these will lead to the revolution—to the overthrow of Capitalism.

Everything is now at hand and in alphabetical order that is necessary for the revolution. There are many things here which make the revolution feasible. Men and means—material and spritual [sic] power for its realisation, and the hunger need, the first and greatest—indeed, the one and only maker of revolution—are here.

Not in one country alone, but throughout the whole world has suffering come through the war. Hunger creates pain, revolt, and hate; pain on account of loss and destruction, revolt against the Capitalist class, and hate against Capitalism above all else.

The human and psychological factors that make for revolution are here, and they will develop the longer the war lasts.

The material means are here because Capitalism has centralised production, and the transport and distribution of goods.

Miracle upon miracle. The material productive powers introduced by Capitalism during the war are no longer the weapons with which Capitalism can defend a Capitalist State.

It is as though a god or wizard had touched them with a magic wand, and transformed them from Capitalist instruments into proletarian instruments for an entirely different state of society.

Capitalism, Imperialism, and the war have made the necessary material and psychological conditions for Socialism. They have done more—they have fleeced and robbed each other, and they now confront the proletariat weaker than ever before; they can no longer govern. They have placed weapons of war in the hands of the proletariat; weapons which can be used to destroy Capitalism. The proletariat is armed.

One after another countries are being annexed, oppressed, and robbed of their freedom. They can only obtain a return of this freedom through the triumph of the working class. These countries weaken Capitalism, and strengthen Socialism.

It has been shown during the war how quickly the foundations of society can be changed, and if the most reactionary power, Czardom, can be overthrown, that, more than anything else, is a great moral example.

That example—the Russian Revolution—stands before the workers now. It has produced the first great proletarian revolutionary leaders.

It is now our task to examine, separately and closely, these spiritual and material means in order that the international proletariat may see that the revolution is possible, and may thus hasten it.

In speaking about the feasibility of the revolution, we would remark that there is no difference between revolution during the war and after the war. So far as it is possible to judge by appearance, the revolution will come during the war; through defeat, through hunger, through the endless bloodshed from which there is no escape.

In all countries the revolutionary proletariat must rise against their own Governments, and demand and enforce immediate peace. Secondly, they must have an international understanding, and to have this they must establish a new International.

If the representatives of the revolutionary workers in all countries could meet together, and call a general strike in the munition factories, and demand that the soldiers cease fighting against the external enemy—then, indeed, the revolution would be an accomplished fact.

When we speak of the World Revolution, though we mean all countries in the world, we have England and Germany especially in mind, for there the material conditions are most ripe for Socialism. In other countries the revolution will break out and conquer; but it is certain if the revolution in England and Germany wins, the victory will be made easier for the rest of the world.

And, thirdly, it should be said here that we do not prophecy the duration of the revolution or its character; for it is possible that the fight which Socialism will have to wage against Capitalism, Militarism, and Imperialism, may last for years. It is also possible that Socialism may win speedily. The power of the contending classes is great, and the incentive strong; but as to the duration of the fight we will say nothing, simply calling the whole struggle the revolution. As to the method of the revolution there is nothing positive to say.

Karl Marx presumed it possible for the revolution to take place without force in England. Who does not heartily wish this could be so everywhere? Who would not hope that an end could be put to all strife and suffering without the spilling of a drop of blood? But in all countries, England included, the opposing classes are armed, and a forcible revolution seems inevitable everywhere.

We speak, then, of the revolution in a general sense, including peaceable and forcible methods, of long or short duration, during or after the war.

Now, as to the practicability of the revolution.

The Capitalist State, the better to conduct the war, was forced to take over the control of the world production and distribution—the coal mines, railways, agriculture, shipping, banks, etc.

It had the distribution of food supplies and raw materials in its hands.

This was so in both belligerent and neutral nations.

That which people declared to be impossible, and which the reformists repudiated—one great central control of wealth production and distribution in the Capitalist State—is realised. It is with us.

Stern necessity has enforced in three years of war what more than half-a-century of peace could not have accomplished—social control of labour.

Socialism rests on the social control of labour, of production, of distribution. Therefore the foundations for Socialism are laid. Capitalism in its highest development has laid the foundation for Socialism—the central control of world production and distribution.

The workers now find to their hands the means to establish and build up Socialism. In proof of this there stands clearly another fact. In all countries before the war there were innumerable small businesses, each working independently of the others; and many large establishments did likewise.

During the war vast numbers of them, either voluntarily or by State compulsion, amalgamated in trusts and combines.

The proletariat must take control of these now centralised means of production. They must never allow industry, trade, agriculture, transport, and the banks, to again revert to the hands of Capitalist owners.

It must be said here that production and distribution are questions, of general economy, and they will remain so. But during the war they have been taken under the control of the State, although the instruments of production were not the property of the State, these still belonging to the private owners—the Capitalists.

The State in the hands of the Capitalists is used as a means of oppressing and exploiting the workers. If it directs production and distribution in any way, then it does so in the interests of Capitalists, and it is to them that the profits will go. Its function is to rob the worker.

This must be altered. The proletariat of the world, of England and Germany in particular, must see to it that private property and interests, whether vested in the State or individuals, are overthrown.

But how can this be done if the Capitalists are all-powerful in the State; are, in fact, the State itself?

There is no other way but to conquer political power and establish the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

You must destroy the power of the old State, and in its stead set up the new State-power of the workers. You must change the dictatorship of the Capitalist States into that of the proletariat.

That this is feasible we will show later on—but we must first recognise that the necessary material is here.

Having demonstrated that the material conditions are here, we have now to show that the proletariat must seize political power, on personal, human, and psychological grounds.

During this war Capitalism has destroyed much of its productive machinery. Millions of workers have been killed, many more helplessly crippled, and widows and orphans now form a large proportion of the population in all countries.

Scarcely any goods are being produced. There is a shortage of raw material. Machinery stands idle or has become useless. All industry is diverted to war purposes. The means of transport are in a wretched state; whole fleets of ships lie at the bottom of the sea. Fields are untilled or badly cultivated, and are producing much less than formerly. The supply of cattle is decreasing. The production of the necessaries of life dwindles. Indeed, we are faced with a world famine. Small business men are ruined by the million, and farmers have lost everything. Nations are burdened with enormous debts, the interest on which exceeds in some cases the total pre-war incomes.

The State can repudiate these debts; but that would ruin the Capitalists. It can endeavour to pay them; but then they must bleed the peoples dry. In either case the workers have a very poor outlook.

An economic and a financial crisis are approaching together. General poverty will then come upon the whole world.

The demobilised soldiers will be confronted with unemployment. When there is no raw material, or factories have been destroyed by war, where are they to get work?

An economic war will inevitably follow the war of the military forces; but in no case will the raw materials be available for industry, and high prices must be the order of the day.

These terrible conditions will affect not only the working classes, but also the small tradesmen and farmers. And along with these conditions we shall have the new Imperialism, the preparations for the new war, whose horrid spectre I have already described.

The psychological and spiritual conditions favouring revolution are not less than the palpable or material.

People say, however, that the general poverty, misery, and scarcity of raw material, machinery, and capital, will be an obstacle, not an aid, to Socialism.

They evidently think that Socialism can only be established out of riches and abundance. This is a very misleading argument, for out of this disorder, poverty, and destruction, the Capitalist has to reconstruct and make secure again his position. Capital and Labour are confronted with the same material; and with so many elements advantageous to revolution, and with the workers' thoughts always turning in this direction, the greater possibility is on the side of Labour. If the destruction is no obstacle to Capitalism, then it can be no obstacle to Socialism.

This question, then, presents itself: Who is best able to establish a new society? The answer is that the proletariat can much better and more speedily establish Socialism than can the Capitalists reconstruct the Capitalist system.

How will Capitalism go to work in its task? How will it deal with the difficulties? It has a new economic system to set up. That means that it will simply revert to the old one and create anew surplus wealth. It has to produce more surplus wealth than ever in order to balance and exceed its unproductive expenditure. At the same time it will have huge armies to maintain, millions of unemployed to support, a host of crippled and wounded from the war, together with widows and orphans. It will have, in addition, an enormous debt to pay, and the cost of new preparations for war to meet.

The founding of a new economy; the restoration of the old one; the making of new gains greater than their losses; helping the crippled in the war; interest on National Debt to pay; new armaments and military establishments to maintain—all this Capitalism has to face. And this is an impossible feat for Capitalism. Why so? Because capital helps capital and must save it. Because it cannot take from itself the millions required for reconstruction, and thus expropriate itself. Because production is for the few, not for the many. Because it is not the duty of all men to produce.

It cannot divest itself of its capital and wealth in order to help the poor and workless. It cannot annul or repudiate its debt or refuse to pay the interest. It cannot tax itself to the extent now necessary. It cannot prevent preparations for war, and thus liberate the productive forces for useful work.

It cannot even stop luxury and permit the labour thus absorbed to be diverted to useful channels.

It cannot in this great crisis set its productive forces going in a sufficiently active manner—just because it is itself. It cannot establish itself on a new foundation—because it is itself.

It follows from all this that Capitalism is in a quagmire from which it cannot extricate itself. It shows that the destruction of its productive forces in the war has brought it to a crisis out of which only a revolution can come, and out of which crisis only a revolution can erect the necessary productive power.

It is quite clear that Imperialism has put a shackle around productive power from which it cannot free itself. Only the revolution can do this.

Certainly Capitalism will struggle to survive. It will attempt to gather from the ruins of war the materials for building anew the Capitalist edifice.

It will be aided in its endeavours by the Reformists, the Social Patriots, the false Marxists. An old form of society does not go under without a struggle.

By what method will it try to save itself?

Certainly by a method not pleasant: for the proletariat—the traditional, old-established way—by the vigorous exploitation, oppression, and enslavement of the proletariat; by the extraction of abundant surplus wealth from their labour.

Men like Scheidemann, Legien, Henderson, Vandervelde, Thomas, Turati, Kautsky, will aid in this.

For Capitalism there is only one way—the way of increased exploitation.

The new surplus wealth can have only one source—the already over-burdened workers. They will be urged, indeed forced, to toil harder than ever before. They will be inadequately paid; the soldiers who remain in the armies will be also underpaid, and the unemployed will starve. All will be heavily burdened with taxation.

By what means can the Capitalists enforce their will on the workers? By the State.

The State will compel the workers, small tradesmen, the crippled, widows and orphans, to live in misery and poverty.

The State will maintain armed forces for the purpose of keeping the workers in subjection—paying one section of workers to browbeat the others.

It will regulate production in the interests of Capitalism.

It will retain conscription.

It will take industry under its protection—making the proletariat State workers, industrial soldiers. It will turn them into slaves of the companies, syndicates and trusts. The State will be a house of correction. State Socialism will be introduced in the interests of Capitalism, in which State Capitalism will be all-powerful, and the workers reduced to complete slavery.

The State will become the most relentless of exploiters; the strike will be made impossible.

The Army will be used to enforce all this.

The same Army mobilised in 1914 to fight for Imperialism and Capitalism, now leavened with an introduction of aristocratic and Capitalist elements, will be used to keep the workers in subjection after the war.

During every economic or political strike this Army will be used, and the cannon and rifles, machine guns, aeroplanes and bombs, manufactured by the workers, will be turned on them in order to subdue them.

In short, the leaders of Capitalism will use the State and the Army to save Capitalism, and to obtain for themselves an ever-increasing surplus wealth, to be obtained only by the most frightful forms of oppression.

But all these horrors will compel the dispossessed and subject classes, the workers, unemployed, demobilised soldiers, etc., to rebel.

Since Capitalism has no other means of defence but the State, then the fight will be against the State, this being the embodiment of Capitalism itself. The fight against Imperialism will have developed into a fight against Capitalism itself—a fight for the Social Revolution.

Can the proletariat accomplish what Capitalism will fail to do—build order out of chaos, give food and comfort to millions of workers? Can it at one and the same time save humanity?

Most assuredly it can.

It can do this because many of the obstacles confronting Capitalism will not be before the proletariat.

Certainly it will be a hard task to build a new order from such waste and ruin. It will be like taking over a bankrupt business. Yet the proletariat will do it better and more quickly than the bourgeoisie, because it will not require to haggle or negotiate to please Capitalism.

In the first place, all the wealth and means of production to hand can be used for the benefit of all.

It would first assume control of industry, trade, transport, banks and agriculture. These would be controlled and regulated by a centralised authority a development much advanced by Capitalism itself. A vast amount of unnecessary labour would thereby be saved and labour itself would be more equitably apportioned and unemployment thus avoided.

Kaisers, Kings, bankers, industrial magnates, junkers, landlords, etc.—all on whose personal account special groups of labour were ordered will disappear, and the labour directed to productive channels.

The proletariat will not require to maintain an economic war. It will be able to arrange, internationally, trade, transport, and exchange, in a manner never possible to Capitalism. Labour will be organised and centralised internationally.

The proletariat will have no interest to pay, as it will repudiate all national debts.

The proletariat will establish instead of State Capitalism, which only benefits the monopolists, real Socialism, which is for the benefit of all. Owing to the fact that production and distribution will be regulated by the proletariat, only really necessary goods will be produced; and the duty of labour, which will be imposed upon all the able-bodied, will result in a far greater production of all things needful.

The proletariat will thus be able to establish a new Society better and more speedily than is possible by the Capitalists.

We will not enumerate here the many other circumstances which will enable the proletariat to achieve success.

The following, however, will come by degrees:—Education; the harmonising and unification of productive labour; the application of the highest technical knowledge to transport, industry, and agriculture. These are a few of the most important and necessary in the meantime.

We can now see that the material and physical conditions, the spiritual needs and the material means; the possibility and feasibility of the overthrow of Capitalism are here.

The greatest, incentive, the most encouraging fact for the proletariat, is the knowledge that the whole future is for the workers; that the workers alone can reconstruct society.

In order to confiscate the wealth and means of production, it will be necessary for the workers to capture political power.

But people will say that the Russian Revolution has partly failed; Germany has crushed it in many parts, and that it is in danger of being entirely suppressed. Will not the World Revolution also be suppressed?

The answer to that is: The conditions of the Western European Revolution, especially in England and Germany, are entirely unlike, and cannot be compared with, those of the Russian Revolution.

In the first place the industrial workers in Russia were very few in numbers compared with the whole population. Russia is not a manufacturing country, but an agricultural one.

The Revolution could only be won by the Bolsheviks with the aid of the poor peasantry. This difficulty was the greater for the Revolutionists, because they were at the same time attacked from without.

England and Germany have a preponderance of industrial workers. The Russian Revolution serves as an example to Western Europe. It is a symbol, a teacher, a forerunner. It has shown the way. It has drawn up a programme that the proletariat of Western Europe must adopt as their own.

In the second place, we might say that the Revolutions in the Ukraine and Finland were only partly destroyed because the Western European workers did not rise. If they had risen, then the Socialist Soviet would still be standing there victorious.

But the Western workers will revolt during or after the war, and with the help of the Russian proletariat will achieve complete victory. But it may be objected that real revolutionaries amongst the Western proletariat are very few in number, and therefore will not be able to win. Again, let us turn to Russia. The Maximalists there during the war and before the Revolution were in a minority. Famine conditions converted them into a majority. The same causes will operate to bring" about the same result in other countries.

It may be said that though the proletariat are more numerous in Western Europe than any other single class, yet they do not exceed in numbers all the other classes put together. In Germany the number of industrial workers is estimated at 15 millions. In England their number, in proportion to the population, is much greater. To this must be added the farm labourers, who will throw in their lot with the revolutionary proletariat, as we shall show. Their organisations, both political and industrial, are powerful. In England they number have millions. In Germany between three millions and four millions are organised. In other countries like conditions prevail. In all of them a large number of the population will act with and support the revolutionaries in the coming struggle. They need only to be exposed to the rays of the sun of revolution to have their latent strength quickened and made manifest in all its grandeur.

The fight is now between "big business" and the proletariat. The issue is, who shall receive the surplus wealth, the Capitalists or the workers? Either the Capitalists will continue to appropriate it by the oppression of State Socialism, or the proletariat will take it by setting up real Socialism.

How the struggle will end depends largely upon what attitude is taken by the middle class, especially the lower middle class; which in England and Germany is the most numerous.

The Capitalists will be forced to tax themselves. But the debts and requirements of the States are so great that in order to provide for these, and maintain and increase their power, they will be compelled to oppress all other classes, including the middle class. In addition to exploiting the working class, they will lay the heaviest possible burdens upon the middle class, shopkeepers and farmers. They will keep down the salaries of their officials and employees. All this, combined with famine, scarcity of raw materials, and of work, and high prices will drive the middle class to the side of the workers.

That part of surplus wealth that went to the middle class was always small. After the war and under Imperialism it will be smaller still. To this class, or at least to the lower portion of it, a Socialist society offers more than the Capitalist State. Real Socialism would be better for them than State Socialism.

The patient, persistent propaganda of the last thirty years has done its work. Millions in Western Europe now know what Socialism means. They will realise ere long that now is the time to decide. There is only one choice possible: Imperialistic Capitalism or Socialism. The question to be decided is: Which shall be dictator of the world—Capital or Labour, Imperialism or Socialism?

The terrible plight into which Imperialism has brought the world has made possible the international unity of the workers, and the adhesion to their ranks of the lower middle classes.

And so there rises before us the possibility of almost immediately realising Socialism. Shall the workers conquer the world? Shall they unite humanity in one great whole? Shall the human race be freed once and for all from the shackles of Capitalism and Imperialism? It depends upon the workers themselves—upon whether they are sufficiently brave, sufficiently educated, and sufficiently united.

There is one danger to be guarded against—the danger of disunity. The Imperialists of the victorious belligerent group will unite with those of the defeated nations, and with the reformists and social-patriots, against the proletariat. There will thus be formed one front: on one side the Capitalist classes, reformists and chauvinists; on the other the revolutionaries. If a national proletariat prefers one Imperialism to another; if it allows itself to be bribed by its national rulers, or to be deceived by treacherous Labour leaders; if it accepts the State Socialism of its national Capitalists; if the international proletariat remains divided, one section betraying and deserting the others; if one part after another is allowed to be smashed by international Imperialism—then the success of the Revolution will be impossible, and we shall have to endure a new era of Capitalism, Imperialism, and Militarism.

But even if defeated at the first attempt, international unity, even if it takes years to accomplish, must be established. It should, in any case, be the result of this first world war.

In the beginning of the great struggle for Socialism, the proletariat of each country will, of course, fight against its own national Capitalism; but as the struggle progresses, the necessary international unity will be established. There will be set up an International like a Trade Union or a federation of Trade Unions, in which the members will be pledged to support and defend one another. As in a Trade Union when a member acts as a blackleg, or as in a federation when one of the affiliated bodies fails to strike in sympathy with the others, so in the new International, when the proletariat of a nation does not play its part in the emancipation of humanity, it will be considered a national scab.

We shall now endeavour to sketch the programme which such an International should endeavour to carry out.