7. “Freedom of meeting” may be taken as an example of the demands for “pure democracy.” Any conscious workman who has not broken with his own class will understand immediately that it would be stupid to permit freedom of meetings to exploiters at this period, and under the present circumstances, when the exploiters are resisting their overthrow, and are fighting for their privileges. When the bourgeoisie was revolutionary, in England in 1649, and in France in 1793, it did not give “freedom of meetings” to monarchists and nobles who were calling in foreign troops and who were “meeting” to organize attempts at restoration. _If the present bourgeoisie, which has been reactionary for a long time now, demands of the proletariat that the latter guarantee in advance freedom of meetings for exploiters no matter what resistance the capitalists may show to the measures of expropriation directed against them, the workmen will only laugh at the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie._ On the other hand, the workmen know very well that “freedom of meetings,” even in the most democratic bourgeois republic, is an empty phrase, for the rich have all the best public and private buildings at their disposal, and also sufficient leisure time for meetings and for the protection of these meetings by the bourgeois apparatus of authority. The proletarians of the city and of the village and the poor peasants--that is, the overwhelming majority of the population, have none of these three things. So long as the situation is such, “equality”--that is, “pure democracy”--is sheer fraud. In order to secure genuine equality, in order to realize in fact democracy for the toilers, one must first take away from the exploiters all public and luxurious private dwellings, one must give leisure time to the toilers, _one must protect the freedom of their meetings by armed workmen, and not by noble or capitalist officers with browbeaten soldiers_. Only after such a change can one speak of freedom of meetings and of equality, without scoffing at workmen, toilers, and the poor. And no one can bring about this change except the advance-guard of the toilers--that is, the proletariat--by overthrowing the exploiters, the bourgeoisie.