Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution and On the Morrow of the Social Revolution - tr. John Bertram Askew (1903).djvu/106

42 But not only discipline, the ability to organise also is very little developed under a petty-bourgeois and peasant conditions. There are in such a society no large masses which could be associated for systematic co-operation. At this economic stage only the armies offer an opportunity for the organisation of large masses. The great military commanders are also great organisers. The capitalist method of production transfers the task of organising big masses of men to industry. The capitalists, as is well known, have their captains and their leaders, and naturally all those among them who distinguish themselves, are great organisers. Correspondingly the talent for organisation is highly appreciated by capitalism among its employees, and is well paid by it. In this way countless organising talents are being fostered and bred which the proletarian régime will know how to utilise with advantage. We will not condemn the factory managers and leaders of the trusts to idleness.

Capitalism, however, also requires intelligent labour, and thus, we see that the struggle of competition everywhere necessitates an improvement in at least the technical education. On the other hand, the growth of the means of communication and of the press naturally widens the horizon of the workers.

But not only the endeavour of the capitalists to exploit the great mass of the working people, but equally so the struggle of the proletariat against this exploitation, creates the psychological conditions of Socialist production: it develops discipline—certainly, as we have seen, of a totally different character than the one imposed by capitalism; then, however, it also develops a capacity for organisation, since it is only by the unanimous co-operation of its vast numbers that the proletariat can hold its own in the struggle against capitalism and the capitalist State. Organisation is the strongest weapon of the proletariat, and almost all its great leaders are also great organisers. To the money of the capitalist and the weapons of the militarist State the proletariat has nothing to oppose except its economic indispensability and its organisation. That with these and through these its intelligence also grows requires no proof.

The proletariat will require high intelligence, strong discipline, perfect organisation of its great masses; and these must, at the same time, have become most indispensable in economic life if it is to attain the strength sufficient to overcome so formidable an opponent. We may expect that it will only succeed in the latter when it will have developed these qualities in the highest degree, and that, therefore, the domination of the proletariat, and with it the Social Revolution, will not take place until not only the economic, but also the psychological, conditions of a Socialist society are sufficiently ripened. Since for that it is not necessary that men should be angels, we shall not have to wait too long for this psychological maturity.