only the present standing army, but also the militia, that in Switzerland not excepted, is armament of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. I consider it necessary to prove this elementary truth; it is sufficient to point to the mobilization of troops during and against strikes in all the capitalistic countries.
The armament of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat is one of the most important features of capitalist society. And with this fact in view, the revolutionary Socialist should accept the "demand" for disarmament! That would be complete abandonment of our class policy and of every thought of the revolution. We claim: armament of the proletariat to overthrow, to expropriate and disarm the bourgeoisie, as the only possible tactic prepared by, based on and forced upon us by the objective development of capitalist militarism. Only after the disarmament of the bourgeoisie by the proletariat can the latter, without betraying its world historical task, throw armaments on the scrap heap, and it will do this—but not until then.
When the social popes and the petty bourgeois point to the terror and fear in armed force, the blood and death produced by this war, we answer: Capitalist society has always been a terror without end. And if this most reactionary of all wars should prepare an end of the terror of this society, there should be no reason to despair. From an objective standpoint, the theory, the demand, or, better, the illusion of disarmament is a result at this moment of despair, since it is now clearly apparent that the bourgeoisie itself prepares the way for the only acceptable revolutionary war, the civil war against the imperialistic bourgeoisie.
Those who call this "pure theory" and "only theoretical talk" are referred to two facts in the world's history: the influence of the trusts and woman labor, and the Paris Commune and the events of 1905 in Russia. [And, again, the Russian Revolution of 1917.]
It is a necessity for the bourgeoisie to further develop the trusts and to send women and children into the factories, to torture and exploit them. We do not support this development, we do not co-operate in this horror: we fight against it. But how do we fight? We explain that trusts and woman labor are transitory periods. We want to go back neither to hand-work and pre-concentrated Capitalism, nor to the period of domestic work for women. On towards the future, beyond trusts, etc., and through them to Socialism.
