but also finance capital itself, which is no longer capable to fulfil its essential economic functions except by means of blood and iron.
The Opportunists, who, before the war, counselled the workers to moderation, in the name of the gradual transition to Socialism, who, during the war, demanded of them submission in the name of social peace and defence of the Fatherland, again ask the proletariat to practise self-denial to overcome the terrible consequences of the war. If these preachers find acceptance amongst the masses of workers, capitalist development will go on for several generations in new and more concentrated and fearful forms, with the prospect of a fresh and inescapable world-war. Fortunately for mankind this is no longer possible.
The State control of social life, against which capitalist Liberalism so strives, is become a reality. There is no turning back, either to free competition or to the domination of trusts, syndicates, and other kinds of social anomalies. The question consists solely in this: Who shall control State production in the future—the imperialist State or the State of the victorious proletariat? In other words: Is the whole of labouring humanity to become the bond slaves of the victorious bourgeoisie, who, in the name of the League of Nations, and with the aid of an "international" army, and an "international" fleet, here plunders and strangles, there throws some crumbs, but everywhere holds the proletariat in chains, with the sole object of preserving its dominance; or shall the working class take in hand the disordered and ruined society in order to ensure its reconstruction on Socialist lines?
It is only possible to shorten the duration of the present crisis by the means of proletarian dictatorship, which neither considers inherited privileges nor the rights of property, but proceeds from the necessity of saving the hungry masses, mobilises all means and strength to this end, introduces universal obligation to labour, establishes the regime of labour discipline, in order, by this means, in the course of a few years, not only to heal the gaping wounds which the war has inflicted, but also to lift mankind on to a new and unsuspected level.
The national State, to which capitalist development has given a powerful impulse, is become too narrow for the further development of the productive forces. All the more precarious will the situation of the small States scattered
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