(b) The Labour Economic Revolution

The economic, like the political, revolution of the workers is usually visualized by their revolutionary representatives upon the model of the Middle Class Revolution. On a former page we have quoted the expressions used by Rosa Luxemburg in her book upon The Russian Revolution, wherein she reveals herself a true Bolshevist in not drawing any distinction between the Middle Class and the Labour Revolution. Her remarks concerning the latter apply to every great revolution.

We have already seen that the two types of revolution are distinguished by the fact that absolutism is the starting-point of the Middle Class Revolution, while the Labour Revolution takes its rise in democracy. An armed struggle, or civil war, is a necessary accompaniment of the former, while civil war represents an abnormality for the Labour Revolution.

The Labour Revolution may be peacefully consummated, under the forms of complete legality and without coercion, and the economic revolution of Labour will succeed the sooner and bear more lasting fruit the more peaceful the conditions amid which it proceeds.

For its object is quite different from that of the Middle Class Revolution. This object is not so simple and insensitive an organism as that of the small business which is co-extensive with the family, either producing itself or drawing from the immediate neighbourhood all that it needs. It is an organism with infinitely ramified division of labour, existing in the closest dependence upon numerous other economic organisms, which are frequently scattered over the whole world. This organism is indeed highly adaptable, and this has lately been shown in an astonishing manner by the world war and the rapid adaptation of the great industry to its needs. But its vitality is dependent upon its being directed by an experienced organizer.

The primitive small business does not need an organizer at all, for the only division of labour which characterizes it is that which is ordained by nature between man and woman. Its management devolves, as a matter of course, upon the head of the family, who is often the solitary worker in such a business. As a child the worker gains the experience he needs from observing his elders, and tradition provides him with all the knowledge he requires. To organize and manage a large modern business, on the other hand, requires comprehensive scientific training, both of a technical and economic kind, and a constant study of the development of science as well as of the market. Without such knowledge, it is quite impossible to adapt a large undertaking to new tasks with any prospect of success.

And how enormous is the damage when an amateur undertakes to introduce a novelty into this organism, or to stand it on its head!

With the small business, however, the injury wrought by an unfortunate experiment is correspondingly small. It may enjoy the luxury of the principle: practice goes before theory. In the big business this principle would be fatal.

Consequently, during the stage of the Middle Class Revolution, the small business was seldom obliged to test a novelty. It was an extremely conservative institution.

Now the capitalist mode of production is subject to continual transformation. New inventions are continuously made now in one, now in another branch of production, which not only profoundly affect the branch of business concerned, but also others that are connected with it. Communications are always growing, opening up new markets, new classes of consumers, with new requirements, etc.

The big business is as sensitive to shocks as the small business was indifferent to disturbances which did not spell its total destruction. While the small business is conservative, the large-scale undertaking is adaptable.

And this is very fortunate for us, as the Labour Economic Revolution is distinguished from the Middle Class Revolution, not merely by its object – in the one case, the small business, in the other, the large-scale undertaking – but also by the tasks it has to perform.

The Middle Class Revolution is not called upon to alter the prevailing type of business which it finds in existence; it has merely to free it from burdens and impediments. The chief task of the Labour Economic Revolution is the adaptation of the forms of industry and transport to the needs of the working class, in such wise as to satisfy them both as producers and consumers. The method of solving this problem is not so obvious as is the removal of the clearly defined feudal burdens. The problem must be thoroughly explored and the ground prepared, and this requires time. I do not mean time for timorous hesitations or hostile acts, but for zealous and conscientious work.

The solution will be impossible from the outset, if to the difficulties that beset the problem are added disturbances and fluctuations of the kind that are necessarily bound up with the Middle Class Revolution – assignats, civil war, the lawless arbitrariness of dictatorship, all of which defeat every consistent plan and every calculation and determination of the conditions of production, and degrade the entire process of production to an unsystematic habit of living from hand to mouth.

Small industry may perforce survive under such circumstances, as its means of production can mostly be produced overnight; not so a modern big undertaking, with means of production and transport frequently requiring years for their completion.

There are Socialists who deem it their most important duty to figure as revolutionaries, whether the occasion be appropriate or not. Such Socialists are fond of the metaphor that a new social building has to be constructed, and therefore the old social house in which we dwell must be razed to the ground.

Now the metaphor of the house is not very appropriate, for society is not a building which can be constructed according to a specific plan. It is rather to be compared with an organism which grows and develops. If, however, we must use the metaphor of the house, there is one thing that should not be forgotten: the site on which the old house stands is the only site on which we can dwell, produce, and live. Where should we live during the interval between the pulling down of the old house and the construction of the new?

To keep to the metaphor of the house, it is clear that our new building must be a reconstruction of the old building, a reconstruction which must be effected while we continue to live in the house. The task of the Labour Revolution is not the rapid and ruthless breaking up of the old, but the careful study of its structure for the purpose of making the most convenient use of it as the foundation of the new. Marx devoted the best part of his life to the investigation of the capitalist mode of production, which would have been quite superfluous if our task were merely the most rapid and ruthless destruction of capital.

If we may continue to use the metaphor of the house, in order to bring out the difference between the Middle Class and the Labour Revolution, we may say that the Middle Class Revolution had the task of erecting a new political, but not a new economic, building. It did not have to reconstruct the house in which society carried on its functions. But a heavy fall of snow had accumulated on its roof, which threatened to push it in and to destroy the whole building. It was therefore necessary to force open the locked doors leading to the roof, in order to proceed with all energy to sweeping the heaped-up snow into the streets.