oke.

IX

The immediate effect of the revolutionary judicial decision in England
was to arouse the workers to the necessity for class-conscious political
action. The cry went up that the unions must adopt a policy of
independent political action. There is no doubt whatever that the
tremendous advance of the Socialist movement in England during the past
few years began as a result of the attack made upon the funds of the
labor unions. From the moment of the Taff Vale decision the Socialist
movement in England took rapid strides. A similar process is going on in
this country, gathering momentum with every injunction against organized
labor, every hostile enactment of legislatures, and every use of the
judicial and executive powers to defeat the workers in their struggle
against capitalism. The workers are being educated to political
Socialism by the stern experiences resulting from capitalist rule.
Underneath the thin veneer of party differences, the worker sees the
class identity of the great political parties, and cries out, "A plague
on both your houses!" The Socialist argument comes to him with a twofold
force: not only does it show him how he is enslaved and exploited as a
producer, but it convinces him that as a citizen he has it in his power
to control the government and make it what he will. He can put an end to
government by injunctions, to the use of police, state, and federal
troops to break strikes, and to the sequestration of union funds by
hostile judges. He can, if he so decides, own and control the
government, and, through the government, own and control the essentials
of life: be master of his own labor, his own bread, his own life.

If we take for granted that the universal increase of Socialist
sentiment, and the growth of political Socialism, as measured by its
rapidly increasing vote, presage this great triumph of the working
class; that the heretofore despised and oppressed proletariat is, in a
not far distant future, to rule instead of being ruled, the question
arises, will the last state be better than the first? Will society be
bettered by the change of masters?

The very form of the question must be denied. It is not a movement for a
change of masters. To regard this struggle of the classes as one of
revenge, of exploited masses ready to overturn the social structure that
they may become exploiters instead of exploited, is to misread the whole
movement. The political and economic conquest o