State or of revolutionary democracy. For, if they understood it, they would be compelled to admit that a movement forward must be a step towards Socialism.
Everyone talks about imperialism. But imperialism is only monopolistic capitalism.
That capitalism has become monopolistic in Russia also is sufficiently shown by the existence of metal, sugar, coal and other combines. The sugar combine, moreover, gives us a typical example of the transformation of monopolist capitalism into State monopoly.
Now, what is the State? It is the organisation of the ruling class: for example, in Germany of the junkers and capitalists. Thus what the German Plekhanovs (Scheidemann, Leutsch and others) call "War Socialism" is really wartime state monopoly or, to put it more clearly and more simply, a military prison for the workers, a military defence for the capitalists.
Try to substitute for this capitalist State of the junkers (that is, the great landed proprietors) the State of the revolutionary democracy (that is, the State which destroys all privileges and which does not hesitate to attain by revolutionary means a true democracy) and you will see that, in the true state of revolutionary democracy, capitalist State monopoly marks inevitably a step towards Socialism.
For a great capitalist undertaking which has happened to secure a monopoly works for the whole population. If it become a State monopoly, as a result the State directs it (the State, that is, the armed organisation of the people and in the first place of the workers and peasants, on condition that revolutionary democracy has been achieved). But in whose interest does the State direct it?
Either in the interests of the great landowners and capitalists, in which case there is not a State of revolutionary democracy, but a State of reactionary bureaucracy, an imperialist republic, or else in the interests of the revolutionary democracy, in which case it is a step towards Socialism.
For Socialism is simply the next step after capitalist State monopoly. In other words, Socialism is the Monopolist State in the service of the people and thus ceasing to be a capitalist monopoly.
The trend of evolution is such that, from monopolies (the number, function and importance of which have been greatly increased by the war) it is impossible to advance without approaching Socialism. Therefore it is necessary to choose between:—
