Page:Karl Liebknecht - Militarism (1917).djvu/81

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CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM
49

and riots. They are very numerous and spread all over the country, of great mobility, and can be concentrated, shifted and mobilized at a moment's notice; at Tervueren, near Brussels, they have general barracks for their flying brigade, and they swarm out during strikes and such like movements all over the country like a flight of wasps. Most of them are former non-commissioned officers of the army, they are well paid, excellently armed, in short, an élite force. Whilst the civic guard is as if created for its task in the class-struggle, because it represents nothing less than a special military mobilization of the capitalist bourgeoisie, which is well aware of its interests, the "watch-dogs" of capitalism, organized in the constabulary, play their part no less efficiently for the present, according to the rule that they must play the tune called for by him who pays the piper.

Japan, a country in about the same capitalist-feudal stage of development as Germany, has in spite of her insular position, which is similar to that of England, and in consequence of her strained foreign relations, of late become even