Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/85

 Who, then, would be foolish enough to think that one can bring about the emancipation of labour by a system which would stop the economic development of the country?

We should indeed have expressed ourselves badly if we have led the reader to conclude from the foregoing remarks that we considered impossible, or even undesirable, the intervention of the workmen in the domain reserved up to the present to employers. We can make no more unfortunate mistake than to consider employers' functions as immovable and eternal. We should not dare to call ourselves Socialists did we not see in the total organization of labour by the workers themselves, for their profit, the aim in view. We are discussing just now only the question of what method to employ, and it must be admitted that the method which we have been criticizing at the moment has many grave objections. The working class, as a collective whole, can intervene in the industrial domain simply as organized consumers. Perhaps we shall have occasion to deal with this point later in connection with the co-oper-