Page:Karl Kautsky - Georgia - tr. Henry James Stenning (1921).pdf/46

 to be captured, is not advantageous in the founding of economic organisations.

In this case it is necessary to make careful preparation to be sure of the ground before advancing, and not to go farther than is allowed by the available resources. In economics it is not the same as in war, where a vigorous offensive often obtains the best result, but not in every case. The Bolshevist outlook, which envisages the socialistic reorganisation of the processes of production as a problem in military tactics, is generally doomed to failure. In the economic domain over-hasty procedure always leads to disasters, which may sometimes jeopardise the whole movement, and entails the buying of experience very dearly.

The Georgian methods of socialisation are, with all their energy, quite free from over-haste and the danger of reaction. Thanks to the fact that they are based on democracy, they have kept clear of that species of State and Barrack Socialism, which imagines that social poductionproduction [sic] can be introduced by rigid centralisation of the entire productive forces, and their subjection to the dictatorship of a small committee, excluding all self-government.

Our Georgian comrades know that many roads lead to Socialism as well as to Rome. The problem of social production! may be attacked from many sides, and State control forms only one of those starting points. Finally, socialistic production is impossible without the fullest development of the capabilities of the workers, which can be attained only by the complete liberty of political parties, trade unions, co-operative societies, the municipalities, and provinces. The stretching of all these institutions upon the procrustean bed of an all-oppressive and all-reaching centralised dictatorship means death to that kind of Socialism which signifies the emancipation of the proletariat. The latter Socialism is what we should aim at.

Democracy, and that alone, can provide for the