inion, the course and procedure of the
general strike, with special reference to the railroads and allied
industries, will follow something in this order.

"General strikes will succeed one another intermittently, each
becoming more 'general,' the method finally establishing itself as
a settled policy of the workers in enforcing their demands. Some
may fail, but from time to time they will grow more 'general' and
more powerful, and will wrest more concessions from the owners,
until the point is reached where the railroad business will return
practically no private profits to its owners. And when this point
is reached, or the certainty of its being reached is plainly seen,
then mastership will make its next shift. There will be two
alternatives.

"The first is literal, physical suppression, by the armed forces of
the nation still under control of the capitalists, and greatly
augmented for the purpose. This, however, for a multitude of
reasons, is a most dangerous policy and much more 'impossible' than
the general strike. Instead of postponing social revolution, it
rather accelerates its approach.

"The other alternative, and the one by all means most likely to be
adopted, is government ownership of the railroads, with the
capitalists, of course, as owners of the government. This will
undoubtedly be ushered in as 'State Socialism.' Laws will be passed
constituting the railroad workers as direct servants of the State,
and forbidding the general strike or any other kind of strike.

"The prohibition will not have the desired effect. If attempted to
be enforced, it merely throws capitalist society back on the first
dangerous alternative policy we have mentioned. But it will give
capitalism a breathing spell, and a chance to 'spar for wind' for a
while, which is the best it can expect. The general strike will
still be utilized to assail the capitalist State and its property.

"The final struggle will be a political one, for the capture of the
State from the hands of the capitalists, and such capture will mean
the transfer of capitalist State-owned property to collective
property and the establishment of industrial democracy, or
Socialism."

FOOTNOTES:

[271] The following quotations are taken from the brochure, "Der
Generalstreik," by Henriette