Page:The German Spartacists, Their Aims and Objects (1919).djvu/5



The establishment of the Socialist order of society is the greatest task that ever fell to the lot of a class and of a revolution in the course of human history. This task involves the complete reconstruction of the State and an entire change in the social and economic foundation of society.

This change and this reconstruction cannot be accomplished by a decree issued by some officials; committee, or parliament. They can only be accomplished by the mass of the people themselves.

In all preceding revolutions it was a small minority of people who conducted the revolutionary struggle. This minority determined the goal, gave direction to the fight, and used the masses only as tools to secure victory for their own interests, the interests of the minority. The Socialist revolution is the first revolution which can secure victory for and through the great majority of the workers themselves.

It is the task of the proletarian mass not only clearly and consciously to determine the aim and direction of the revolution. It must also establish Socialism step by step through its own activity.

The main feature of the Socialist society is to-be found in the fact that the great mass of workers will cease to be a governed mass, but, on the contrary, will itself live the full political and economic life and direct that life in conscious and free self-determination.

Therefore the proletarian mass must substitute its own class organs—the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils—for the inherited organs of capitalist class rule: the Federal Councils, Municipal Councils, Parliaments; applying this principle from the highest authority in the State to the smallest community. The proletarian mass must fill all governmental positions, must control all functions, must test all requirements of the State on the touchstone of Socialist aims and the interests of its own class.

Only by means of a constant, mutual action upon each other on the part of the masses and their organs—the