The Workers, Parliament and Communism

Crisis and Poverty.

Society is in crisis. Trade and industry are shrinking more and more, large companies have shut down. Unemployment reigns as never before. Millions of workers on earth have no jobs, for several years, and can barely support themselves on a small allowance. The growing young generation is not getting a job. The states close themselves off from each other through high import duties and destroy international traffic. The farmers cannot find an outlet for their products. There is a feeling everywhere, that our capitalist society is somehow going wrong. What in earlier years was felt to be an unbearable condition: the strong exploitation, the fierce jerking off, the always threatening uncertainty of existence, the dreary future of always remaining a proletarian — this now seems almost an ideal state which one wishes would return. But there is every chance that it will not return. Even if the crisis passes and activity returns — which no one knows exactly — the situation will still have changed. It may very well be that a new revival will come in the new countries in America and Asia, and that in old Europe industry will permanently decline.1 Downfall, deep poverty and misery for the workers seems to be the near future.

And why? Society is richer than ever before, richer by its ability to create wealth. Science and technology, by their application, enable agriculture and industry to produce abundance for all. As early as fifty years ago, it was calculated that with the technology of the time, a labor time of five hours a day was sufficient to provide an upper middle class existence for each. And only now has an economic engineering firm under an American scholar, Scott, calculated that at a labor time of two hours a day, mankind would be able to produce an abundant income for each.

So why this horrible contradiction between actual and increasingly imminent poverty and the possibility of abundance? Because there is a conflict, a contradiction between the mode of labor and the form of ownership. The forms of property no longer fit the forms of labor.

The conflict between Labor and Property.

In earlier times of small business, the man who labored owned the tools with which he worked and, of course, the product he made. The artisan owned his tools and sold his product; the farmer owned land and livestock and sold what he did not consume himself. Private property belonged to the small business.

The boss took servants to help him; tool and product remained his own. In place of implements came large machines; the capitalist bought them, employed workers and paid as wages what they needed to live. Still he owned the implements and the products; out of what the value of the product made by the workers was more than he paid, he got his profit and thus increased his capital. Giant in the century of big industry, capital grew out of the labor of the workers, while they received no more than what was needed precisely for life, and sometimes not even that.

Now the situation is like this. The bulk of all products are made in factories by organizations of cooperating workers, engineers and technical personnel, who handle all the machinery together. (The machines themselves are the product of other groups of workers.) But the product does not belong to them; from the proceeds they receive only wages, and the rest is for the capitalists. These are the shareholders, who together appoint the management of the factory, but are themselves completely outside the labor company. They live in villas somewhere and have no role in production other than to pocket the lion's share of the proceeds. They are the parasites of society. Is this foolish and nonsensical? It is the role of private property, since it has become capitalist property.

Even worse: these shareholders are the owners, the masters over the factory, their property, they only make it work if there is a profit to be made; whether the people need the product, they do not care, if these cannot pay enough for it. If there is no profit to be made, they shut down. Like now, in the world crisis. There the machines stand unused, rusting; there the workers stand, eager to set them in motion. They could create abundance for them all. But the owners of these means of production do not want this, they prevent it. Therefore there is want and poverty, although the conditions for wealth: excellent means of production and millions of willing hands, stand ready. Is this madness? It is the role of property rights handed down from the time of small business.

So this is the conflict: labor has become communal and ownership has remained personal. And from this comes exploitation and crisis as inevitable consequences.

How can this conflict be eliminated? It is not possible to return labor to its former form, smash the machines and restore small business. So property rights must be reconciled with labor.

Today's tools, the big machines, the factories are handled by a community of workers. Then the community must also have the right of disposal of tool and product. From personal, as before, labor has become collective, communal. So property must also become collective, communal. Not outside parasites but those who do the work themselves must have a say over the work. This is communism, which must replace capitalism.

The Struggle of the Classes.

How is this change to be brought about?

Society does not change of its own accord; the people have to do it. The capitalists have no reason to want a change; of course they resist with all their might the removal of their ownership of the means of production. But even the smaller middlemen oppose a change, because they count on advancing in property through their business. Even though they themselves are so squeezed by big business, they value their property that makes them non-possessive proletarians. Even for most peasants, owning their farm, however burdened by mortgages, always gives them hope of coming out on top through hard work. They believe that communism is targeting their small properties. Because they do not know how capitalist property rights work.

Only the working class has a direct interest in communism. It alone can put an end to its poverty and insecurity of life. The workers can achieve this goal only through struggle, through the struggle of the working class against the possessing classes. The workers form the majority in the large industrial countries of Western Europe and America, and an ever-growing majority at that. This already gives it the certainty of being able to win this struggle. Moreover, they are the most indispensable class; without their labor, society cannot exist for a moment. It has the whole apparatus of production in its hands, not de jure, but de facto; if the whole working class unanimously uses this power, the paper law of the capitalist class is powerless against it. The capitalists, on the other hand, possess all the power that the possession of money can give; it pays all the brains to govern, organize, defend its society; it buys armed troops if necessary to keep the workers under it by force of arms. By the press, the school, the church, the radio, the cinema, by all spiritual power and means she tries to keep the workers in spiritual dependence. Added to this, as its principal means of power, is its political rule, its power over the state. State power is a solidly built organization of officials, who rule the people from one point led everywhere, supported if necessary by armed troops, police and army. Any attempt by the working class to oppose the existing state of exploitation and distress is promptly suppressed by state power. State power is like a solid fortress wall, which capital has built around itself. If the working class is to win its class struggle and bring down the capitalists, it must overcome state power, it must conquer political rule.

Its aim is to change the right of ownership, to turn the means of production from private property into common property. The right of property is regulated by law; and the codes, like all laws, are established by the political organs of the state. Whoever is master of the state is also master of law and justice. That is why the working class must master political rule. Conquest of political power is the necessary condition for the change of property law that must ensure freedom and abundance to the working people.

How can the workers conquer political rule?

This brings us to elections.

Parliamentarism as a means of Liberation.

The social democrats consider parliamentarism, that is, making use of elections, as a means for the workers to gain rule.

For who is this government, which exercises political power and makes the laws? First of all, the parliament, the two chambers composed of elected representatives of the people. In the Western European countries, first in England, then in France through the Great Revolution, then in other countries, the possessing class has secured power for itself by making the elected parliament the actual power of government.

The so-called government, the ministers who are at the head of the state, of the civil servants, of the army, and have all the means of power of the state in their hands, cannot govern if parliament will not have them, and are therefore dependent on the parliamentary majority. Since the workers won universal suffrage after much struggle, the majority of the people also elect the majority of the Chambers. That is democracy. So when in a country the workers make up the majority of the population, they can also elect the majority in parliament, if only they choose well and do not allow themselves to be deceived by fine talk from their enemies. To this end, they then form their own political party, a workers' party. And then they are masters of the government, that is, of state power. Then they regulate law and justice according to their conception and their interest. Thus the working class, if only it uses its mind, can free itself by good use of the ballot paper.

The new government, made up of workers' representatives, then has the task of expropriating the capitalist enterprises and making them into state (or locally municipal) enterprises, starting with the largest monopolies and banks, and then including smaller and smaller enterprises. In these, production is no longer for profit but for need. State organs provide the central direction of this production; the workers are employed by these organs of the community; they are sure of their livelihood, crises and unemployment no longer occur. Because no profit is deducted for capitalists, the entire proceeds, after deducting necessary expenses for management, for public services such as education, health, means of transport and the like, come to the workers. Since the best labor methods are applied and an end is put to the unproductive fiddling that wastes so much labor today, abundance for all is produced in short labor time.

The Leaders as Liberators.

So it is quite simple. The workers need only vote the right way as a majority and capitalism is vanquished.

Once every four years the worker fills out a ballot paper. That is all he has to do; his delegate does the rest. He does not himself constantly fight for his cause; he hands over his struggle to another, who must fight for him. Parliamentarianism is a struggle through others, through leaders. It comes down to these others, the deputies, to their ability to fight in the Chambers; therefore they are the leaders, who do the actual work, who therefore know best and therefore naturally have the most to say.

We talk about democracy because there is universal suffrage. But this parliamentary democracy is not a government of the people themselves, but a government of parliamentarians. Only on election day is the electorate in charge; but oh woe, if it does not choose well then! For four years it then has nothing to say and the MPs can do whatever they want. Of course the gentlemen do remember that after four years there will be another 'day of reckoning'; but they then count on using the necessary fairground advertising, with big words, beautiful principles and clever speeches to work the voters in such a way that only in very bad cases will there be something like a real reckoning — and then Pete will be replaced by Klaas, who is not much different. Moreover: do the voters in a district themselves pick the man who goes to The Hague as their trustee? No way: the various large and small political parties appoint the candidates between whom the voters may choose. Only with great difficulty do groups of voters themselves sometimes succeed in putting up and getting elected a “wild” candidate (that's what they call it); in the Chamber such a person stands alone and has no influence. In the Chambers, the major political parties play the game for power with each other.

Parliamentary democracy is a sham democracy.

Parliamentarianism is not an instrument of the workers to liberate themselves; it is a way of being liberated. By others who say: elect us, and we will provide you with socialism. By the parliamentarians, by the leaders, by the socialist party. The workers vote, that is, they order the socialist leaders: liberate us, introduce socialism, destroy capitalism. And the socialist majority in the House goes to work, sends away the previous ministers, appoints new socialist ones, puts together laws for socializing, and meanwhile keeps all the resistance under it with their state power. And then comes the hardest part: organizing and leading social production. It goes without saying that the Social Democrats, who see the workers' struggle mainly as a struggle of leaders, cannot imagine a socialist society other than led by competent leaders either. A large organization of bureaucrats will be needed to command production; and on their ability above all will depend whether things run smoothly. They regulate and the workers obey and work. So both in the revolution and in the building of socialism, the workers play virtually no role. They may vote, support, applaud, and otherwise carry out what the leaders determine. But the essential work is done by the leaders; and these will therefore also have — in democratic forms — the essential power. The workers have elected themselves new masters instead of the old ones, good masters instead of bad ones. And these will bring us socialism, freedom and abundance.

So it is very simple. So simple that one wonders if it is also too simple, to be true.

And with how little effort! In earlier centuries the citizens had to fight with all their effort, sacrifice good and blood, make violent revolutions to gain power. But the workers need only use their minds and throw the right bill in the ballot box. That is all they need to do for their liberation. And that while a ruling class stands before them, as powerful in money and property, in knowledge and energy, in material and spiritual means of violence as never was any class before!

Can anyone believe that it will be quietly dispossessed, when the workers elect a socialist majority in the Chambers? Every worker, even if he knows nothing else, knows and understands that the conquest of power in society can only be the fruit of a long struggle, of the greatest effort and of heavy sacrifice. That his liberation is possible only through struggle, effort and sacrifice of his own.

That therefore liberation by parliament and ballot is a delusion. In this representation of the parliamentary conquest of power, the workers are hardly mentioned. And also the bourgeoisie is apparently not there and plays no role. Only political parties, members of parliament and ministers are mentioned. Such a childish conception of an economic upheaval, more violent than the world has ever seen, can only occur to people who see only politics. But behind all the parliamentary and political fuss stand the classes, stands the bourgeoisie and stands the working class. And the struggle of these classes determines all social development.

The Bourgeoisie is There too.

The owning class has, of course, made sure in advance that parliaments do not have too much to say. The supremacy of the parliamentary majority is only appearance. Alongside parliament are other political powers.

A parliamentary majority can force a ministry to resign.

But it cannot appoint new ministers. A king or a president does that. Around these kings and presidents is a circle of influential people, noble lords, high officers, old distinguished politicians, rich capitalists; and from their circle and their supporters, or on their recommendation, the new ministers are appointed. They form a power that works behind the scenes, supported by the richest and most powerful part of the bourgeoisie.

Supposing, however, that in the event of a conflict they do settle for a raw democrat from the Chamber, that man's hands are nevertheless tied as a minister. The whole line of high and low officials who govern the people and execute the laws, in the ministries and outside, remain the same; some are even legally unremovable, such as the judges. These do not all suddenly change direction when the ministers change. Besides, they themselves belong to the bourgeoisie and feel at one with the possessing class; and even on the lowest rungs of the ladder, as policemen or desk clerks, they feel they are a piece of government, called to rule over the people. Can anyone believe that this civil service corps would turn into a tool for introducing socialism, as soon as a ministry of social democrats would be established?

Thus a parliamentary majority of socialist workers' representatives would come up against an opposition that it cannot overcome by its own means.

Against these fuses which the bourgeoisie has placed in the state organization, all ballots, all speeches and all party chatter are powerless. The Social Democrats themselves know this very well, and their program includes the conquest of “full democracy. This can only be achieved by appealing to the workers. These must then, not through the ballot paper, but in a more forceful way bring their power into the field against that of the bourgeoisie.

Conversely, it can also happen that the possessing class finds the increasing parliamentary influence of the workers too dangerous; then it can abolish universal suffrage while it still has the majority. Nothing can be done against this with the resources of parliament. Only action by the working masses themselves could prevent it. It is certain that in part the fear of such mass action by the workers has deterred the bourgeoisie from attacking universal suffrage.2

Twenty-five years ago the abolition of the Reichstag suffrage was busily discussed in Germany, and the political work strike was proposed in opposition to it. Today the bourgeoisie has a better means than that abolition, namely, the elimination of parliament and its replacement by a dictatorship — as in ltaly, in Germany and other countries. Against the real forces in society, against the will and power of the bourgeoisie to rule, parliamentary election is virtually powerless. For the essential struggle for power, for essential changes in society, the workers themselves must act. That force, which remained unused in the parliamentary delusion, the strength of the working class in its action as the masses themselves, is the only force that can stand up to the bourgeoisie.

The Usefulness of Parliament, Past and Present.

Now the question arises: if the rationale of liberation by parliament is wrong, hasn't the use of parliament always been a wrong tactic? Wasn't participating in elections always a waste of power?

Now it must be kept in mind that society is constantly changing. What is right and efficient in one state may be ineffective and wrong in another. Capitalist society has changed very much in the last half century.

When capitalism emerged, the bourgeoisie consisted of a numerous class of moderately wealthy capitalists who could only rule by making parliaments powerful over princes and nobility.

Then the working class also formed as impoverished artisans and sons of peasants moved off the land into the factories without any understanding of the new capitalist relations. To organize them, awaken class consciousness and show them the world as workers, elections then proved to be an excellent means. That drew them to meetings, into the stream of public political life, of interest in social issues; and so an understanding of socialism and organizational consciousness was awakened in them. Where workers had no suffrage, the struggle for universal suffrage worked in the same direction by arousing the growing working masses in the industrial regions to struggle against capitalism.

Thereby the doctrine applied that through this use of suffrage in the long run socialism, the liberation of the working people would come. In actual practice, however, it served to make capitalism a bearable and possible condition for the workers. In capitalism, capitalists and workers are both needed; they have to fight each other for their conflicting interests, but both fulfill their roles. Normal capitalism can exist only if the workers are free people, able to defend their life interests, provided with rights and freedoms of free citizens, with the right of association, the right to strike, freedom of opinion and assembly, with the right to vote to defend all this. Without all this, that is, without a workers' party that defends the direct interests of the workers in parliament and everywhere, capitalism is incomplete. Therefore, social democracy, as much as the trade unions, is an indispensable organ of capitalist society — the organ, through which all the interests that the workers have within capitalism can be regularly expressed.

Once organ of capitalism, social democracy cannot separate itself from this soil. It cannot at the same time be organ of capitalism and organ of revolution. It does, of course, talk a lot about revolution. But if it were to call the working masses to their own action, revolutionary, against the state, the state power would immediately dissolve its organization, confiscate its coffers, imprison its leaders, and thus its existence and its work would be ended. That is why it fears a workers' revolution through mass actions. However, should these arise outside of her and be successful, she will try to take control of the leadership in order to dampen the movement and turn it into greater governmental power for herself.

Thus, she can only use the workers as voters. Therefore, her highest goal is to get a parliamentary majority through elections so that she can then become a minister. However, how much she feels herself to be an organ of capitalism at the service of the workers' interests within capitalism is shown by her practice, now that she does not yet have a majority, of having socialist ministers form a government together with other parties. In doing so, these social democrats must then at the same time become agents of the possessing class, of capitalist interests; they are then no more than socially feeling bourgeois politicians. The German Socialist Party made things even worse when power fell into the hands of the workers at the 1918 revolution. It allowed the revolutionary part of the workers to be crushed by Noske and the generals, then formed a “socialist” government, but for the implementation of socialism did no more than appoint a commission to investigate which large companies were ripe for nationalization. Under the protection of the socialist government, which sweet-talked the workers, German capital was able to recover and rebuild its power. Then the socialist ministers were sent home; and now the German workers are reaping the fruits of this attitude.

Social democracy used to be able to work for the daily interests of the workers in parliament. But in this half century of development, capitalism has also changed. Capital has contracted tremendously in that time; there is not much left of the large class of average independent capitalists, and giant banks, conglomerates and monopolies dominate economic life. These big capitalists can observe their interests much better behind the scenes with monarchs, presidents and ministers than in parliament. That is why the parliaments are losing more and more of their power; sometimes they are eliminated completely and a dictatorship sets in; elsewhere they become unimportant talking-shops, to which only the social democratic workers still look with reverence.

Does electing to the Chambers then no longer serve any purpose?

Oh yes, it has another great use — namely, for capital.

While it used to have its use for the workers, at the same time it had its use for the bourgeoisie because thereby capitalism could develop quietly and undisturbedly, without the workers constantly erupting into riots.

Now that its usefulness for the workers has become insignificant, it still retains its great usefulness for capitalism. For as long as the workers elect and expect something from it, they do not think of other actions that would really affect capitalism.

Workers who participate in elections thereby express: We are still bravely letting ourselves be taken in; capitalism can rest easy, it is still safe.

The Communist Party.

Social democracy has always been spoken of here; but the Communist Party is entirely different; it always calls the workers to revolution and action. Certainly, it differs in that it uses thicker words, swears at the capitalists and their spokesmen in fiercer language, and urges revolution in resounding terms of force. But in purpose and in practice it does not really differ from social democracy. It works in the same way with elections; and with the same effect: when the workers read with approval how the party communists in the Chamber cut loose on the bourgeoisie, they say: those guys dare, we must have them, they will liberate us! And then they throw a red bill in the ballot box and forget that they themselves must fight against capitalism.

The Communist Party wants to carry out the workers' revolution in large-industrial Western Europe in the same way as the Bolshevik revolution in weak-industrial peasant Russia, viz. under the leadership of the Party. In Russia, state capitalism prevails; there an all-powerful state and party bureaucracy leads and regulates all industry. The workers are commanded from above and from above their wages and working hours are regulated. This rule of party leaders over the working class and this regulation of industry by a leadership organization is also its goal for Western Europe.

The Direct Mass Actions.

In earlier times, too, actions by the working masses occurred where the power of parliament fell short. For example, half a century ago mass demonstrations and political work strikes to conquer universal suffrage in Belgium. Social democracy regards these as sometimes necessary but then abnormal events, as a kind of cleansing storm after which normal parliamentary business then resumes. This was possible because these actions succeeded and the bourgeoisie soon gave in. But, if once the bourgeoisie does not give in, because it is about its rule?

Can the working class still overcome the bourgeoisie through such mass actions?

Of course, we cannot accurately predict future events.

Still less can anyone advise now how the workers should then, later, act. One can only infer to some extent from what has taken place in mass actions so far, as well as in earlier revolutions, what forces and what effects are involved.

We state here that the workers form the mass of the population and that the ruling class is a minority. But this minority relies on state power. The state power consists of an organization of officials, scattered everywhere among the population as administrators, itself a minority, but united by a punishing organization, animated by one spirit, guided by one will from the center of government; and, moreover, it has at its disposal, if necessary, armed force of police and army. Thus it can rule over a population majority of loose people without unity and connection.

However, when the workers rise as a solidly united mass in a giant demonstration against the government, it feels it as a rebellion that attacks the core of its power. It cannot remain indifferent and say let them go their way; nor does it want to give in immediately. So she tries with her power to break this new power. She proclaims prohibitions, makes prohibition laws, sends in police against them. If, however, the cohesion, the determination, the number of the demonstrating masses is so great that it will not allow itself to be scattered, authority has already received a blow. State power has even stronger weapons; it has an army. But experience has shown that in the long run against mass actions the soldiers, who are themselves children of the people, become shaky and insecure. Workers also have stronger means: mass strikes that throw the whole social fabric into disarray. If the government cannot subdue them, that is, cannot restore, as it is called, “order,” then it loses even more authority. Moreover, a traffic strike, if it becomes very general, breaks the link between the local authorities and the central government; each mayor has to act on his own, the unity and fixed coherence of the whole state power is disrupted. Of course, conversely, the government, together with the possessing class, tries to break the organization3 and unity of the struggling working masses: by martial law, by imprisonment of leaders or spokesmen, by violence here, by promises or partial concessions elsewhere, and by spreading false reports of failures in order to attack the self-confidence of the workers. And especially also by playing off the old splits of the workers into all kinds of unions and parties and directions and faiths, by sending leaders of these unions or faiths out to sow division and distrust. In every action, therefore, it comes down to which of the contending powers is inwardly the strongest and most solid; each, by its own solidity, brings the solidity of the opponent to dissolution.

In their first mass actions — which may arise sometimes from political conflicts, sometimes from great strikes, sometimes from a state of emergency, the strength of the workers is still slight; they can sometimes achieve partial success, if it is for a limited purpose; but often they suffer defeat. The inner divisions in many unions and parties still have an effect, self-confidence, insight, solidarity are still insufficient. As long as they also put their trust in others and believe that the social democratic or communist party can liberate them through parliament, they will be deterred by the difficulties and sacrifices of direct action. But in the end they must, again and again, forced by the necessities of capitalism. In each experience of struggle, their strength and cohesion grows.

Not all at once, but only in a series of revolutionary mass movements can the working class overcome; for the essence of its victory is: to make itself into a solid fighting force, unassailable by steely solidarity, against which all attempts at oppression on the part of the state power deflect powerlessly.

Of course this is not easy; what is said here in a few simple summary words will encompass an era, how long we do not know, a severe struggle, to which later generations will look back as the most important era of revolution in history. Never before in past revolutions has the rising class faced such a strong, equipped enemy, but also never did it have such forces within itself. The bourgeoisie will fight to the hilt, for for it is a matter of life and death. If a government system collapses, it will find the means to establish a new one. If mass strikes threaten, it will organize armies of strikebreakers to keep the key industries going. Are the soldiers unreliable, she will raise fanatical volunteer troops from petty-bourgeois and unconscious proletarian elements, to fight for her. From modern war technology she will extract more gruesome weapons of attack against insurgent workers. Attempting to make the workers by occupation of factories into fulcrums of struggle, she will try to fill the factories with obedient yellow elements [strike-breakers; F.K.]. All this may help her in an individual case; but afterwards it will again increase the determination and contiguity of the working masses to greater strength. For these always draw new strength from the fact, that they are the workers who carry the world (their world), that they must win their freedom, while the others form a parasite class made redundant by development, artificially trying to stretch its rule. There is no other end possible than that state power is pulverized and turned to dust, its authority dissipated and the former bourgeoisie rendered powerless. Then the working class has conquered political rule, power over society. This is the condition that Marx called the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The Workers' Councils.

The revolutionary struggle of the working class is presented here as essentially a deconstructive, destructive force; the organs of the old authority of the bourgeoisie must be overcome and in the process perish. Of course, new organs embodying the unity and cohesion of the workers must then be built at the same time. Since unity of action implies central leadership, and since this leadership, as the representative of the whole, must be democratically elected, it is often thought that a new state power, a government and a parliament must be established by the victorious workers, especially in order to legislate the introduction of the new socialist right of property. So one ends up, it seems, with the same thing that social democracy wants after all.

Yet this is only appearance. First, it is not true that new forms of property must be introduced by a law. A law can only establish as a binding rule what is already largely a reality in the world. During the struggle itself, the workers have already taken possession of the means of production, the factories, because they need them to work, to produce the necessities of life, which are needed all the time. The legal regulation comes afterwards.

It is also true that the victorious working class will create organs for unity of action. But these will look very different from parliaments and governments. Those grow up out of social necessities and begin to form already in the struggle itself.

In any great struggle, e.g., a strike over many factories, the workers must ensure unity of action through constant consultation. Since not all these masses can deliberate in one meeting, each staff sends its representatives. In mass movements that extend over larger areas, this is even more necessary; there the meetings of the delegates of the individual factories and workshops become the important bodies that have central leadership. These are the workers' councils. They are entirely different from parliaments, because these councils are only representatives of the business groups they send out, say and do what these groups think and want, and can be recalled at any time and replaced by others. So they have nothing of independent leaders; the workers themselves always have to decide on everything and are themselves responsible. This is the principle of workers' democracy, true democracy as opposed to the sham democracy of parliamentarism.

As the power of the workers increases in revolutionary movements and that of the bourgeois state apparatus weakens, these workers' councils take on ever greater and more important tasks; they must take on all kinds of forms according to the demands of the moment: here a strike center, there an organ for food care or production, elsewhere a governmental body for the maintenance of the new order. For as the workers gain greater power, their organs become more and more the legitimate authority in society, while the former possessing class which by its opposition disturbs this new order must be kept under it.

The workers' councils are the political organs of the dictatorship of the proletariat. By the manner in which they are elected, the bourgeoisie is completely outside it. Whoever sees in this an offence against democracy, against equal rights for every human being, must remember that the bourgeoisie no longer has any right to exist and must disappear — in contrast to capitalism, where bourgeoisie and working class are both needed and must therefore both be able to assert themselves. In the new society there are only workers, who jointly regulate and decide their work, both in industry and agriculture, both in the small measure of the factory and in the great measure of people, state, and of humanity which has to regulate and organize the coherence in total world production.

Thus it appears that the liberation of humanity from capitalism is not possible through parliamentarianism, where the workers hand over their struggles to leaders. It is possible only through mass movements of the workers themselves. ln its efforts to suppress these mass movements, state power, the organ of the ruling class will finally perish in an age of revolutions. The victorious working class builds the new communist society and organizes labor according to the principle of workers' councils.

The liberation of the working class can only be its own work.

• 1Thus the breeding ground of the “gradual elevation of the standard of living” has been destroyed and the impoverishment of the masses continues.
• 2In another part, it was the belief that universal suffrage as a safety valve, through which the discontent of the masses can be discharged, ensures peaceful capitalist development.
• 3When we speak of organization here, we naturally never mean membership of an association, but only a firm, unbreakable unanimity in action.