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FOREWORD.
By the courtesy of our Comrade Karl Kautsky—to whom we are indebted, not only for his readily accorded permission to reproduce in English, but also for his personal correction of the proofs of our translation—we are able to publish as our second contribution to the Socialist library which we are anxious to build up, the first section of Kauteky's famous book, Das Erfurter Programme, a section which has already appeared through the colunms of the Party Organ, The Socialist Standard.
From so eminent a member of the International Socialist movement, this examination of the existing (capitalist) mode of production will doubtless have an exceedingly high value to those who have made some ordered study of the underlying causes of the many social problems which press upon the attention of the student to-day, the more so because Kautsky's name will be familiar to them as one whose intimate knowledge of the subject dealt with is probably unsurpassed by any living writer.
But however desirable or necessary it may be to bring this work under the notice of such, the real object which we have in view in reproducing it is to help the working class of this country, or that portion of the working class we can reach, to an understanding of the origin, the growth, the structure, the trend and the ultimate end of the system of Society in which they find themselves to-day, and to an appreciation of the reasons why that Society has, even in its most favourable aspect, so much of insecurity, and hardship, and unhappiness for them.
At a time when the increasing pressure of economic circumstance forcing the working class to cast about for some means of escape om the miseries they are either experiencing or fear to experience; at a time when they are clutching desperately at every straw within reach in an endeavour to avert the doom that daily threatens to engulf them, it is more than ever incumbent upon those who have been enabled to set their feet upon the rock of truth to do all that men may to assist their fellows on to as firm a foundation, so that without the waste of energy, the disappointment and the despair which their present aimless ill-directed efforts have engendered, they may effectually point their energies toward the eradication of the real causes of their condition, to the end that their physical and mental wants may find a satisfaction at present almost entirely denied them, and so that they may attain to that measure of security and comfort and joy in living to which, as the indisputable producers of all the wealth of the world, they may justly lay claim.
As it is, their lack of knowledge has made of them easy prey to political charlatans dishonestly concerned with personal aggrandisement, or economic quacks honestly anxious to administer their paltry pill for the cure of the social earthquake. Under such leadership it is not surprising that the working class are largely engaged to-day in ploughing the sands of impotence or beating the air of despair.
It is our purpose, as members of the working class, to combat the evil effects of the work of these black-hearted or muddle-headed misleaders by assisting our fellows, through our Press and from our platforms, to strike off the shackles of ignorance so that they may seriously consider with us the problem of their poverty; to induce them to give ear while we shew cause why the solution of that problem can only lie in the common, collective ownership by the whole of the wealth producers, of the land and the machinery they operate in the process
