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IV.
THE LOGIC OF THE STORM.
The proletarian revolution is above all else a great work of organisation. The power of the Government should be organised as the mechanism of the power of the working class; the proletarian army should be organised as a sure support of this power, and the class-war should be organised on a Socialist basis.
Many observations made in the course of this work of organisation demand a special treatment which we have no intention of giving them here. Here we intend to indicate merely the main directing lines which experience has shown us to be necessary to follow in organising revolution.
In the practical work of Government organisation we were at the outset led into the right path through a general strike of officials. In spite of all our wanderings in the paths of Liberalism, the entire management of State and communal affairs fell into the hands of the organised workers from the moment the officials had decided unanimously to strike. In places a certain number kept at work, but generally speaking their aim was either sabotage or to help the butchers to make war. This happened on the railways and in the post and telegraph offices. As far as the latter are concerned, we should perhaps have played our game better by dismissing all employees known for their bourgeois opinions, even if this had dislocated and diminished, or for that matter almost entirely suspended the telegraphic service for a time: for as long as the war was in progress front to front, it was dangerous to permit adversaries and deserters to continue at their work in the railway and telegraph services. A free telephone service could be used for the purposes of military espionage by members of the bourgeois class remaining on our side of the front. Moreover, its use during the time of open struggle ought to have been reduced to a minimum, since a really effective control cannot be exercised in any case.
As a result of the general strike of managers and technical experts, the organisation of production went partly in the direction desired by the workers, i.e., that of socialisation, much more rapidly and completely than our Social-Democracy had wished it to go. First of all came, naturally,
