Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution and On the Morrow of the Social Revolution - tr. John Bertram Askew (1903).djvu/36

24 idea of revolution, and to represent it as a worthless method. They endeavour to detach from the revolutionary proletariat a Social Reform wing, and help thereby to divide and weaken it.

This, so far, has been the sole result of the commencing conversion of the Intellectuals to Socialism.

By the side of the "new middle-class," the old one, the petty bourgeoisie, is still dragging on its existence. This species of middle-class was formerly the backbone of all Revolution; vigorous and militant, it readily, when circumstances were favourable, rose against any and every kind of oppression and exploitation from above, against bureaucracy and militarism, against feudal and priestly privileges. It formed the advance guard of the bourgeois democracy. Just as a portion of the new middle-class to-day, too, the old one was at various times inspired with sympathy for the proletariat, co-operated with it, and gave to and received from it intellectual inspiration and material support. But just as the new, so the old one, too, always was an untrustworthy ally, precisely because of its intermediate position between the exploited and the exploiting classes. As already said by Marx, the petty bourgeois is neither a thorough proletarian nor yet fully a bourgeois, and feels himself, according to circumstances, now the one, then the other.

From this double situation there arises a split in the ranks of the petty bourgeoisie. One portion of it identifies itself with the proletariat, the other with its opponents.

The fate of the petty industry is sealed and its decay is irresistible. But this shows itself but slowly in the reduction of small undertakings, although very rapidly in their ruin. Some of the petty owners become entirely dependent on the large capital, and turn into mere home workers, wage slaves, who instead of working in a factory, work for the employer at home. Others, especially small dealers and small publicans, remain independent, but find their only customers among the working-class, so that their existence is entirely bound up with the fortunes of the workers. These sections draw more and more closely to the fighting proletariat.

Quite different it is with those sections of the petty bourgeoisie which have not yet become completely subjected to the large capital, but stand on the verge of ruin, as well as with those who look for their customers in other than proletarian circles. They doubt their ability to raise themselves by their own efforts, and expect everything from above, from the upper classes and the State. And, since all progress is a source of danger to them, they are bitterly opposed to it in any and every sphere of life. Servility and the need for reaction makes them ready accomplices and fanatical defenders of the Monarchy, the Church, and the nobility. With all that, they remain democratic, because only under democratic forms of government can they exercise political influence and secure through it the support of the State.