Page:Theses Presented to the Second World Congress of the Communist International (1920).pdf/24

 tively the bases of the capitalist order. The increase of wages, obtained one day by the economic struggle of one or other category of workers, is the next day nullified by the high prices, which must continue to rise, because the capitalist class of the victorious countries, ruining by their policy of exploitation Central and Eastern Europe, is not only not in a position to organize world economy, but is indefatigably disorganising it. For the success of their economic struggle, the larger masses of workers who up to this time have stood apart from the labour unions, are now flowing into their ranks in a powerful stream. In all capitalist countries a tremendous development of the labour unions is to be noticed, which now become organisations of the chief masses of the proletariat, not only of its advanced parts. Flowing into the labour unions, these masses strive to make them their weapons of battle. They compel the labour unions to lead strikes, which flow in a broad wave over the entire capitalist world, constantly interrupting the process of capitalist production and exchange. Increasing their demands In proportion to the rising prices and their own exhaustion, the working masses undermine the bases of all capitalist calculations—that elementary premise of every well-organised economic management. The labour unions, which during the war had been organs of compulsion over the working masses, become in