Page:The Social General Strike - Arnold Roller (1912).djvu/29

 Everything was obtained they wished to gain, for on the third or fourth day of the strike Gioletti, the President of the Ministry, announced through all telegraph bureaus and newspapers, as well as in Parliament, that from now it would be forbidden for ever that the soldiers use firearms against the strikers in riots and street revolts during a strike. All these General Strikes really were only skirmishes, but they also furnish a schooling for the ultimate Social General Strike of the future; like the 300 smaller peasant revolts (Jacqueries) which preceded the great victorious French Revolution.

Thus we see how the proletariat everywhere instinctively seizes this weapon against the will of its leaders, even though it be at present only for the purpose of gaining political rights.

But the working people are beginning to recognise the unnecessary roundabout ways of Parliamentarism, when they can obtain their demands without the aid of political leaders, directly through the Social General Strike.

So far the General Strike idea was treated:—


 * 1. As a weapon.


 * 2. As a creative source for reorganisation.


 * 3. Historically.

Now a few more words about its philosophy.

Philosophy? Certainly. The General Strike has its philosophy as well as Marxism and Social Democracy. The philosophy of the General Strike—that is, the logical system of which this idea is built up—however, is very much more simple, much less complicated than the Marxian, and more easily comprehensible to every normal mind.

The Marxist teachings are based upon deductive logic and especially upon the dialectic method. The deductive logic, which concludes all the rest from single fundamental principles, which, starting from one principle carries it over all the other fields, though it is the method of poets, and creates fastasia, always was and always will be the logic of autocracy and theology. Modern science is inductive, from the sum of single views it concludes the principle, from experiences and events in practice it builds its theory.

The Marxist dialectic is a mode of deductive logic, and through its "ingenious" jumping back and forth and many turns it comes to nothing. It is characteristic of the dialectic system, this theory that the commonwealth will be born of its own accord from the completed misery of the people; that evil is the cause of good!

In order to destroy the existing State, according to the Marxian theory, it is necessary first to conquer the power of the State. It opposes the present State, but at the same time raves about State monopoly, a condition in which the working men would be still more oppressed and exploited than by private capitalism.

The struggle of the Marxists and the form of their politics entirely correspond with the deductive dialectic system of their theory. The incorporation of the means of production shall not come out of the people and be operated by the people; no, the power