Page:Karl Kautsky - The Road to Power - tr. A. M. Simons (1909).pdf/99

 house of Hohenzollern, and at the same time as democratic politicians sought to restrict militarism and refused to grant the Hohenzollerns the miltary force with which to perform their task. They were destroyed by their own contradictions.

Whoever stands for the colonial policy must also stand for competitive armament. Whoever would check this must convince the people of the uselessness and indeed of the ruinousness of the colonial policy.

In the present situation that is the most imperative political task of the militant proletariat; that is the "positive" policy that it must follow. Until this problem is solved there is little hope of securing any "reforms" of any importance in the face of the growth of employers' associations, of the rise in the cost of living, of the flood of low standard workers, of the universal stagnation in all legislative social reform, of the growth of the national expenses under this burden.

The improvement of the right of suffrage for the Reichstag, the conquest of equal and secret ballot for the Landtags, especially of Saxony and Prussia, the gaining of a dominant position for the Reichstag not only over the imperial government, but also over the individual states, these are the special tasks of the German proletariat. The battle against imperialism and militarism is the common task of the whole international proletariat.

Many may think that the accomplishment of these tasks would not bring any great advance. Does not Switzerland offer an example of a state that fulfills all these conditions—complete democracy, popular militia system, and no colonial policy? Yet social reform stagnates in Switzerland and the proletariat is exploited and enslaved by the employers just as everywhere else.

On this point the first thing to note is that the Swiss do not escape the consequences of the competitive armament that is going on around them, but, on the contrary,