Page:Nikolai Bukharin - Programme of the World Revolution (1920).djvu/15

  socialist revolutionaries, and the rest of that fraternity, are inviting the workers and peasants to obey.

 

In every capitalist country small capital has practically vanished; of late it has been eaten up by the big sharks of capitalism. At first, a struggle went on between the individual capitalists for customers; at the present time when there are only a few of them left (as the small fry is absolutely ruined), the remaining ones have united, organised, and have it their own way in their country, just as in the olden times the barons had full power over their domains; a few American bankers own the whole of America, just as formerly a single capitalist owned his factory. A few French usurers have subjugated the whole French people; five of the biggest banks hold the fate of the German people in their hands. The same thing happens in other capitalist countries. It may therefore be said that the present capitalist States, or as they are called, "Fatherlands," have become huge factories owned by an industrial combine, just as formerly a single capitalist owned his particular factory.

It is not surprising that such combines, unions of various capitalist countries, are now carrying on among themselves the same sort of struggle which was formerly carried on between individual capitalists; the English capitalist State is fighting the German capitalist State, just as formerly in England or in Germany respectively one individual manufacturer was struggling against another. Only now the State is a thousand times bigger, and the struggle for the increase of profits is being waged by means of human life and human blood.

In this struggle, which has spread over the whole globe, the first to perish were small weak countries. At the beginning it is always the small colonial people that perish. Weak, uncivilised tribes are dispossessed of their lands by the great plundering States. A struggle ensues for the division of the remaining "free" lands, i.e., lands not yet looted by the