Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/93

 do this if they are to be able to resist their opponents. The strength not only of the former but of the latter as well is greater than under absolutism. They use their forces recklessly and more harshly than the government itself, which no longer stands above them, but rather beneath them.

The revolutionary circles have also to deal not only with the government but also with the powerful organizations of the exploiters. And the revolutionary circles no longer represent as in the early revolutions an overwhelming majority of the people opposed to a handful of exploiters. To-day they represent in reality only one class, the proletariat, to which not only the whole body of the exploiting class, but also the great mass of the farmers, and a great majority of the intellectuals stand opposed.

Only a fraction of the intellectuals and the very small farmers and the little bourgeois who are actually wage-workers and dependent on their custom unite with the proletariat. But these are decidedly uncertain allies; they are all greatly lacking in just that weapon from which the proletariat draws all its strength—organization.

While the former revolutions were uprisings of the populace against the government, the coming revolution with the exception perhaps of Russia will have more of the character of the struggle of one portion of the people against another, and therein, and only therein, resemble