Page:Friedrich Engels - The Revolutionary Act - tr. Henry Kuhn (1922).pdf/45

 The answer merits more thorough than offhand treatment in the Letter Box. Both the question and the answer will fitly supplement the discussion which closes in this issue with the answers to Rice's questions.

What our correspondent desires is to avoid a division of energy. A wise desire. Does his plan answer his desire? Evidently he fails to see that it does not. The only interpretation his plan admits of is the organizing of a military, of an armed force to back up the revolutionary ballot. The division of energy is not avoided. It is only transferred to an armed, instead of to an economic organization.

Seeing that, in either case, the evil of divided energies is incurred, and cannot be escaped, the question resolves itself into this—which of the two organizations is it preferable to divide energies with, the economic or the military?

A military organization implies not one, or two, it implies a number of things. Bombs, explosives, generally, may be left out of the reckoning. They may be of incidental, but not of exclusive, use by an organized force.

First of all powder is needed. The best of powder needs bullets and balls to do the business. The best of powder, bullets and balls are useless without guns. Nor are inferior guns of much avail when pitted against the up-to-date guns at the command of the capitalist class. The military organization of the revolutionary proletariat will need the most effective weapons. The question