Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution and On the Morrow of the Social Revolution - tr. John Bertram Askew (1903).djvu/54

42 form to its predecessors. It is one of the greatest mistakes, often made both by revolutionists and their opponents, that they imagine the coming revolution after the style of the old, and as nothing is easier than to prove that such revolutions are nowadays impossible, the conclusion seems obvious that the idea of the Social Revolution is entirely obsolete. It is the first time in the world's history that we are confronted with revolutionary struggles which will be fought out under democratic forms between organisations built on the basis of democratic liberties, and forces such as the world has never seen before—that is to say, the employers' associations, before which even monarchs bow, and whose strength is increased by the weapons of the State, the bureaucracy and the army, which absolutism has called into existence and perfected.

One of the peculiarities of the present situation, consists also in the fact, that as already mentioned, it is not as a rule the Governments who offer us the greatest opposition. Under absolutism, against which former revolutions were directed, the Government was all-powerful, and the class antagonism could not distinctly develop itself; the Government did not merely prevent the exploited but also the exploiters from freely defending their interests. And, by the side of the Government there stood only a portion of the exploiting classes; the other, the greater portion of the exploiters, especially the industrial capitalists, were in the opposition, as well as the mass of the working people—not only the proletariat, but also the petty bourgeoise and peasants—certain backward districts excepted. The Government was thus isolated also in the nation, it had no support in any broad section of the people, and represented the most prominent force which oppressed and robbed the people. To overthrow it was, under these circumstances, but a matter of one bold coup de main.

Under democracy, not only the exploited, but also the exploiting classes can develop their organisations more freely; they must do so if they wish to resist the growing strength of their opponent. Not only the strength of the former, but also that of the latter is greater than under absolutism; they use their weapons more unscrupulously and sharply than the Government itself, which no more stands over them, but under them.

The revolutionary parties have thus no longer to deal with the Government alone, but also with powerful organisations of the exploiters. And the revolutionary parties no longer represent, as in previous revolutions, the enormous mass of the people as against a handful of exploiters. They represent to-day essentially only one class, the proletariat, which is confronted not only by the whole of the exploiting classes, but also by the majority of the petty bourgeoisie and the peasants, with a great part of the Intellectuals.

Only a fraction of the Intellectuals, as well as the petty peasantry and the lower middle class, who are practically wage workers or are dependent on the custom of wage workers unite