mangled and oppressed by the State that "scientific" economists have the ignorance to confound with the guilds of the Middle Ages! What the great Revolution swept away as harmful to industry was not the guild, nor even the trade-union; it was a piece of machinery both useless and harmful.
But what the Revolution took good care not to sweep away—was the power of the State over industry and over the factory-serf.
Do you remember the discussion, which took place at the Convention—at the terrible Convention—about a strike? To the grievances of the strikers the Convention answered (I quote from memory): "The State alone has a right to watch over the interests of all citizens. In striking, you are organising a coalition, you are creating a State within the State. Therefore—death!"
In this answer we see the bourgeois character of the French Revolution. But—has that answer not a still deeper meaning? Does it not summarize the attitude of the State that found its most complete and logical expression towards the whole of society in the Jacobinism of 1793?
"If yon have a grievance, complain to the State! It alone has the right to redress its subjects' grievances. As to combining to protect yourselves—never!" It was in this sense that the Republic called itself one and indivisible.
Does not the modern Jacobin-Socialist think the same? Has not the Convention expressed the depth of his thought with the severe logic peculiar to it?
In this answer of the Convention is summed up the attitude of all States towards all combinations and all private societies, whatever be their aim.
As to a strike it is even now in Russia considered a crime of high treason against the State. In a great measure too in Germany, where young William said the other day: "Appeal to me; but if you ever allow yourselves to take action on your own behalf, you will make the acquaintance of my soldiers' bayonets!" It is still almost always the case in France. And even in England, it is only after struggling a hundred years by means of secret societies, dagger thrusts for traitors and masters, explosive powder under machinery (not further back than 1860), emery thrown into axle-boxes, and so forth, that English workmen have begun to conquer the right to strike; and they will soon have it entirely, if they do not fall into the traps that the State is already laying for them in trying to impose its obligatory arbitration in exchange for an eight-hour law.
More than a century of terrible struggles! And what sufferings!
