Page:Wilhelm Liebknecht - Socialism; What It Is and What It Seeks to Accomplish - tr. Mary Wood Simons (1899).djvu/42

 a pure strife of words. That the state corresponds to the form of society, that the industrial society utilizes every form of state for the purpose of exploitation, that the industrial state under all circumstances must be a class state, and that so long as industrial society remains the state will be a class state; that is to say, politically organized exploitation—these are truths that as a matter of course are evident to every thinking social democrat. For me the question is merely this, whether the form and organization which society will take after the class state, together with industrial society and capitalistic production has been abolished, can be called a state or not. I have not been able to find—and herein I differ from my various friends—that the idea of oppression and exploitation necessarily lie in the word and idea "state."

The word "state" has a very wide meaning. It signifies generally organized society. One speaks of the "bee-state," of the "ant-state" and of the "learned state," in connection with which exploitation and slavery are not thought of, but only the conception of a closed, organized community is expressed. As it is, however, we cannot use the word "states" in the new social democratic platform; first, because the idea is questionable; second, because we now have to deal with the state only so far as it stands hostilely opposed to us.

What we wish to make clear is that the state now represents, and must represent, the ruling classes, so long as class rule remains it must be a class state; and this state we are obliged to struggle against in a political conflict and to utilize all the weapons that we have, in order to acquire political power and free ourselves from it. We have nothing to do with the state in any other manner.

And now I will enter on the main principles of the