its struggle for class interests into a struggle for liberty and
justice for all members of the community." According to this
interpretation, the Socialist Party, starting out from the standpoint of
the economic interests of the "manual laborers," comes to represent the
interests of all classes, except the capitalists. We may doubt as to
whether the other non-capitalist classes will take kindly to this
subordination or "benevolent assimilation" by the manual workers.
Kautsky seems to have no question on this matter, however; for he
considers that the abolition of the oppression and exploitation of the
wage earners, _the class at the bottom_, can only be effected by the
abolition of all exploitation and oppression, and that therefore "all
friends of universal liberty and justice, whatever class they may spring
from, are compelled to join the proletariat and to fight its class
struggles."[237] Even if this is true, these other classes will demand
that they should have an equal voice in carrying on this struggle in
proportion to their numbers, and Socialist parties have usually (though
not always) given them that equal voice.

The kernel of the working class, "the layers of the industrial
proletariat which have reached political self-consciousness," provides
the chief supporters of the Socialist movement, according to Kautsky,
although the latter is the representative "not alone of the industrial
wage workers, but of all the working and exploited layers of the
community, that is, the great majority of the total population, what one
ordinarily calls 'the people.'" While Socialism is to represent all the
producing and exploited classes, the industrial proletariat is thus
considered as the model to which the others must be shaped and as by
some special right or virtue it is on all occasions to take the
forefront in the movement. This position leads inevitably to a
considerably qualified form of democracy.

"The backbone of the party will always be the fighting proletariat,
whose qualities will determine its character, whose strength will
determine its power," says Kautsky. "Bourgeois and peasants are
highly welcome if they will attach themselves to us and march with
us, but the proletariat will always show the way.

"But if not only wage earners but also small peasants and small
capitalists, artisans, middle-men of all kinds, small officials,
and so forth--in short, the whole so-c