Page:Nikolai Bukharin - Programme of the World Revolution (1920).djvu/13

 and harrows. Hut oven here they were mercilessly fleeced. The greater the peasant's need for land, the greater was the rent charged by the landowners, thus holding the pour peasant in real bondage. What enabled him to do that? The fact that the land was his, the landowner's land; the fact that the land constituted the private property of the landowning class.

Capitalist society is divided into two classes: those who work a great deal and feed scantily, and those who work little or not at all, hut eat well and plentifully. That is not at all in accordance with the Scriptures, where it says: "He that does not work, neither shall he eat." This circumstance, however, does not prevent the priests of all faiths and tongues from lauding the capitalist order; for these priests everywhere (except in the Soviet Republic) are maintained by increment derived from private or church property.

Another question now arises. How is it possible for a group of parasites to retain private ownership over the means of labour, so indispensable to all? How has it come about that private ownership by the idle classes is maintained to the present day? Where does the reason lie?

The reason lies in the perfect organisation of the enemies of the labouring class. To-day there does not exist a single capitalist country where the capitalists act individually. On the contrary, each one of them is infallibly a member of some economic organisation. And it is these economic unions that hold everything in their hands, having tens of thousands of faithful agents to serve them, not out of fear, but as a matter of conscience. The entire economic life of every capitalist country is at the complete disposal of special economic organisations: syndicates, trusts, and unions of many banking concerns. These combines own and direct everything.

The most important industrial and financial combine is the Bourgeois State. This combine holds in its hands the reins of government and power. Here everything is weighed and measured, everything is premeditated and arranged in such a manner, as to crush instantly any attempt at rebellion on the part of the working class against the domination of capital. The State has at its disposal, forces (such as spies, police, judges, executioners, and trained soldiers, who have become soulless machines), as well as mental influences which gradually pervert the workers and poorer elements of society, imbuing them with fallacious ideas. For this purpose the bourgeois State utilises