Page:The Manifesto of the Moscow International - tr. Henry James Stenning (1919).djvu/9

 geois democracy is like demanding of a man who is defending his life and existence against robbers that he should follow the fencing rules of the French ring, which have been framed by his enemy, who does not himself follow them.

In this region of destruction, where not only the means of production and transport, but also the institutions of political democracy exhibit bloody ruins, the proletariat must create its own machinery, to serve, above all, as cement for the working class, and to assure for it the possibility of a revolutionary influence on the further development of mankind. This machinery is the worker's councils. The old parties, the old trade unions, have in the persons of their leaders proved incapable of understanding the tasks imposed by the new epoch, to say nothing of carrying them out. The proletariat created a new form of machinery, which comprised the whole of the working class, irrespective of calling and political intelligence, an elastic apparatus, which is capable of constantly renewing and extending itself, which is always attracting to its orbit new sections, and which opens its doors to the labouring sections of the town and country which stand close to the proletariat. This indispensable organisation for the self-government of the working class will be put to the test in its struggles and in the future conquest of various countries, and represents the greatest achievement and the most powerful weapon of the proletariat of our time.

In all countries where the masses are mentally awake, Workers, Soldiers and Peasants' Councils will be formed. To strengthen and elevate the Councils, and to oppose them to the State machinery of the bourgeoisie—that is now the chief task of the class-conscious and honest workers of all countries. By means of the Councils the working class will be able to save itself from the decomposition set up in their midst by the hell-tortures of the war and of hunger, and by the violence of the possessing classes and the treason of their former leaders. By means of the Councils the working class will the most surely and easily attain to power in all countries where the Councils constitute the majority of the labouring population. By means of the Councils the working class which has attained to power will administer every sphere of economic and cultural life, as is already the case in Russia at this moment.

The collapse of the imperialist State, from the Czarist State to the most democratic ones, takes place simul-