ions." (Italics mine.)[191]

"Neither a railroad [that is, its administration] nor a ministry can be
changed gradually, but only at a single stroke," says Kautsky, to
illustrate the sort of a change Socialists expect. The need of such a
complete change does not decrease on account of any reforms that are
introduced before such a change takes place. "There are some
politicians," he says, "who assert that only _despotic_ class rule
necessitates revolution; that revolution is rendered superfluous by
_democracy_. It is claimed that we have to-day sufficient democracy in
all civilized countries to make possible a peaceable revolutionless
development." (My italics.) As means by which these politicians hope to
achieve such a revolutionless development, Kautsky mentions the gradual
increase of the power of the trade unions, the penetration of Socialists
into local governments, and finally the growing power of Socialist
minorities in parliaments where they are supposed to be gaining
increasing influence, pushing through one reform after another,
restricting the power of the capitalists by labor legislation and
extending the functions of the government. "So by the exercise of
democratic rights upon existing grounds, the capitalist society is
[according to these opportunists] gradually and without any shock
growing into Socialism."[192]

"This idyl becomes true," Kautsky says, "only if we grant that but one
side of the opposed forces [the proletariat] is growing and increasing
in strength, while the other side [the capitalists] remains immovably
fixed to the same spot." But he believes that the very contrary is the
case, that the capitalists are gaining in strength all the time, and
that the advance of the working class merely goads the capitalists on
"_to develop new powers and to discover and apply new methods of
resistance and repression_."[193]

Kautsky says that the present form of democracy, though it is to the
Socialist movement what light and air are to the organism, hinders in no
way the development of capitalism, the organization and economic powers
of which improve and increase faster than those of the working people.
"To be sure, the unions are growing," say Kautsky, "but simultaneously
and faster grows the concentration of capital and its organization into
gigantic monopolies. To be sure, the Socialist press is growing, but
simultaneously grows the partyless and characterless press that poisons
and unnerves even wi