Page:James Connolly - Socialism Made Easy (1909).djvu/60

58 of men and women who meet together to formulate a policy and programme to vote upon. They set up a political ticket in the hope of getting people, most of whom they do not know, to vote for them, and when that vote is at last cast, it is cast by men whom they have not organized, do not know, and cannot rely upon to use in their own defense. We have proven that such a body can make propaganda, and good propaganda, for socialist principles, but it can never function as the weapon of an industrially organized working class. To it, such a party will always be an outside body, a body not under its direct control, but the political weapon of the Industrially Organized Working Class will be a weapon of its own forging and wielded by its own hand. I believe it to be incumbent upon organized Labor to meet the capitalist class upon every field where it can operate to our disadvantage. Therefore I favor direct attacks upon the control of governmental powers through the ballot-box, but I wish to see these attacks supported by the economic organization. In short, I believe that there is no function performed by a separate political party that the economic organization cannot help it perform much better and with greater safety to working class interests. Let us be clear as to the function of Industrial Unionism. That function is to build up an industrial republic inside the shell of the political State, in order that when that industrial republic is fully organized it may crack the shell of the political State and step into its place in the scheme of the universe. But in the process of up-building, during the period of maturing, the mechanism of the political State can be utilized to assist in the formation of the embryo Industrial Republic. Or, to change the an-