38
to the landowners and capitalists. We have also seen that the only way out of this is to take the means of production out of the hands of the capitalist class (whether they be individual capitalists, or trusts, or a bourgeois State), and to transfer them into the hands of the working class. This can be done and is being done, now, that the workers and peasants possess such a strong weapon as is their Workers' Soviet Government.
It is perfectly understood that the first thing to be done in this direction is to deprive capital of its most essential and most important means of control: to take the principal economic fortresses of capital. The second is to begin with that which is not only easier to take, but easier also to organise and have control and account over, and which can be arranged in the smoothest way. We already know that the task of the working class and the poor peasantry does not consist in depriving the rich of their wealth, distributing this wealth among themselves, robbing and sharing the spoils. No; it consists in constructing society on the basis of labour, working according to a definite plan, and organising the production and distribution of products. Hence it follows that the working class must first of all take possession of these organisations which have up till now existed only for the profits of the capitalist, and divert them to their own use, by putting them on a different footing, thus making them serve not capitalists and landowners, not speculators and sharks, but the labouring mass.
That is why our party has put forward the demand (since carried into execution) for the nationalisation of banks, that is to say, for the transfer of banks into the hands of the workers' and peasants' Government.
It is generally believed that the chief significance of banks lies in the fact that their vaults are packed with piles of gold and heaps of paper money and valuables, for which reason the Communists are so eager to get the banks. But in reality this is not the case.
Modern banks are not only filled with money bags. Banks, as a matter of fact, represent the pinnacle of capitalist organisation which rules industry. The industrial capitalists make profits uninterruptedly, and capital flows to them in a continuous stream. What does the capitalist do with the profit acquired? A part of it is spent on eating, drinking and dissipation. Another part, considerably larger, is saved for extending his business at any given moment: he can only do so when a large enough
