to conquer the machinery of State increase in intensity.
To be sure it has been claimed that this comprehension of the newest socialist phenomena does not take account of the undeniable fact that the development proceeds in other directions also. It is claimed also that the contrast between proletariat and bourgeoisie is not increasing, and in every modern State there are enough democratic arrangements to make it possible for the proletariat, if not to gain the power, still to gain power gradually, step by step and steadily increasing, so that the necessity of a social revolution ceases. Let us see in how far these exceptions are justified.
THE SOFTENING OF CLASS ANTAGONISMS.
Let us turn next to the first objection that the social antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat is diminishing. I do not here refer to the question of industrial crises whose amelioration was claimed a few years ago. This idea has been so energetically confuted since then by notorious facts that I only need to refer to it here without attempting to enter upon a discussion which would lead us too far away. I do not wish either to make any further contribution to the debate over the already over-discussed, so-called theory of increasing misery, which, with a sort of cleverness, when one desires, can be endlessly spun out and which with us has more and more tended to turn on the definition of the word "misery" than on the determination of
