Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/31

 division of political life into countless differing communities, must be added the fact that in classical antiquity and many times also in the Middle Ages, the means for the suppression of a rising class were relatively insignificant. There were no bureaucracies, or at least never where there was the most active political life, and where the class struggle was most fiercely waged. In the Roman world, for example, bureaucracy was first developed under the empire. The internal relations of communities as well as their commerce with each other were simple, easy to comprehend and presupposed no expert knowledge. The governing classes could easily secure the necessary governing officials out of their own number, and this is all the more true in that at that time the governing class was also accustomed to engage in artistic, philosophic and political activity. The ruling class did not simply reign, it also governed.

On the other side the mass of the people were not wholly defenceless. It was in just the golden age of classical antiquity that the militia system was the rule, under which every citizen was armed. Under those conditions a very slight alteration in the balance of power of classes was sufficient to bring a new class into control. Class antagonisms could not well reach such a height that the idea of a complete transformation of all existing institutions could become firmly rooted in the minds of an