Page:Karl Kautsky - The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) - tr. William Edward Bohn (1910).djvu/124

 of our system of production. These facts are more eloquent and convincing than the most brilliant pictures of the future order could be. The best that such pictures can do is to show that the socialist commonwealth is not impossible. But they are bound to be defective; they can never cover all the details of social life; they will always leave some loophole through which an enemy can insinuate an objection. That, however, which is shown to be inevitable is thereby shown, not only to be possible, but to be the only thing possible. If indeed the socialist commonwealth were an impossibility, then mankind would be cut off from all further economic development. In that event modern society would decay, as did the Roman empire nearly two thousand years ago, and finally relapse into barbarism.

As things stand today capitalist civilization cannot continue; we must either move forward into socialism or fall back into barbarism.

In view of this situation it is wholly unnecessary to endeavor to move the enemies of socialism by means of a captivating picture. Anyone to whom the occurrences of the modern system of production do not loudly announce the necessity of the socialist commonwealth will be totally deaf to the praises of a system which does not yet exist and which he cannot realize nor understand.

Moreover, the construction of a plan upon which the future social order is to be built has become, not only purposeless, but wholly irreconcilable with the point of view of modern