Page:Eleven Blind Leaders (1910?).pdf/30

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ELEVEN BLIND LEADERS

not as independent divisions of miners, of lumber workers, of builders, and of others; but as a whole, with all parts related and inter-related one with another.

It must be organized "for the every-day struggle with the capitalists," that is, for contests of power over wages, hours of labor, and shop conditions. Active resistance and aggression develop power; and so the every-day struggle in the shops is essential to the process of uniting and drilling the working class.

The army of production must be organized to "overthrow capitalism," not by "buying out the capitalists" or "taxing" them to death, or voting or shooting them out of existence; but by replacing the capitalist system of class owned and controlled industry by the organic structure of Industrial Democracy—that is, by the socially owned and socially controlled system of industry.

That transformation cannot be achieved by politicians, whether "socialist" or any other kind, who may be placed in control of the governmental machinery of the capitalist political state. That transformation from Capitalism to the Co-operative Commonwealth can be brought about only by "forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old," that is, by building up the organized form of the Industrial Commonwealth within the framework of capitalist society.

There is no other way; and those who imagine that the capitalist class will peaceably or otherwise surrender the industries to an unorganized working class, are hugging a dangerous delusion.

On the other hand, that the capitalist class will refuse to surrender them to an industrially organized working class, is inconceivable, whether or not at the same time the working class is in possession of the governmental machinery of the capitalist state.

CONCLUSION

On the above principle hinges the vital difference be-