Page:James Connolly - Socialism Made Easy (1909).djvu/49

Rh in the work of our representatives on the various public bodies to which they have been elected. The various measures against the evils of capitalist poverty brought forward by, or as a result of the agitation of Socialist representatives on legislative bodies are figured as being of the nature of constructive Socialism. As we have shown the political state of capitalism has no place under Socialism, therefore measures which aim to place under Socialism, therefore measures which aim to place industries in the hands of or under the control of such a political state are in no sense steps towards that ideal; they are but useful measures to restrict the greed of capitalism and to familiarize the workers with the conception of common ownership. This latter is indeed their chief function. But the enrollment of the workers in unions patterned closely after the structure of modern industries, and following the organic lines of industrial development is par excellence the swiftest, safest, and most peaceful form of constructive work the Socialist can engage in. It prepares within the framework of capitalist society the working form of the Socialist Republic, and thus while increasing the resisting power of the worker against present encroachments of the capitalist class it familiarizes him with the idea that the union he is helping to build up is destined to supplant that class in the control of the industry in which he is employed.

The power of this idea to transform the dry detail work of trade union organization into the constructive work of revolutionary Socialism, and thus to make of the unimaginative trade unionist a potent factor in the launching of a new system of society cannot be overestimated. It invests the sordid details of the daily incidents of the class struggle with a new and beauti-