Page:Karl Kautsky - The Road to Power - tr. A. M. Simons (1909).pdf/94

 of the crisis and the reappearance of prosperity, the proletariat need expect no repetition of the former glorious industrial era.

Let it be repeated that this does not mean that the unions will be powerless or by any means superfluous. They will remain the great mass-organizations of the proletariat without which it would be delivered up helpless to be completely despoiled. The change in the situation does not lessen their importance, but only demands that their methods of fighting be transformed. Where they have to deal with powerful employers' associations they can accomplish little directly, but their battles with such organizations grow to gigantic proportions, and where all concessions are refused by the employers such conflicts may shake all society and the state and influence governments and parliaments.

Strikes in those branches of industry that are dominated by employers' associations, and which play an important part in the general economic life tend more and more to take on a political character. On the other hand, opportunities come with increasing frequency in the purely political struggles (for example, battles for the suffrage) in which mass-strikes may be used as an effective weapon.

So it is that the unions are compelled more and more to take up political tasks. In England as in France, in Germany as well as in Austria, they are turning more and more toward politics. This is the justified kernel of the syndicalism of the Romance countries. Unfortunately, however, as a result of its anarchistic origin this kernel is buried in a desert of anti-parliamentarism. And yet this "direct action" of the unions can operate effectively only as an and  and not as a  parliamentary action.

The center of gravity of the proletarian movement is again resting, even more than during the last two decades, in politics. In the first place, proletarian interests are