Page:The guilt of William Hohenzollern.djvu/21

Rh remains a struggle against definite institutions and persons, as the bearers of definite social functions.

From the Marxian standpoint, therefore, one can at most say that the object of the struggle is not the punishment of the individuals against whom it is directed. Every man is merely the product of the conditions in which he grows up and lives. It is unjust to punish even the worst of criminals. The task of society is rather to take from him the possibility of doing further mischief, to make him, if possible, a useful, not a mischievous, member of society, and to remove those conditions which made him what he was and gave him the possibility and the power of doing harm.

And this is the position which a Marxist should take up towards the authors of the world-war. But it is by no means the Marxian doctrine that we should divert investigation from the guilty persons by dwelling on the impersonal guilt of Capitalism.

Marx and Engels never contented themselves with general disquisitions on the destructive effects of capital. They were just as much concerned with tracing out the working of particular institutions and parties, and their political leaders, such as Palmerston and Napoleon. To follow the same course in regard to those who brought about the world-war is not only our right, but our duty; and that not alone from a consideration of foreign but also of home politics, so that the return of the persons and institutions guilty of this fearful ruin shall be made for ever impossible.