jurisdiction, behind which stands the entire mass of the working
class. In a word: from the first moment of victory the workers
must no longer level their distrust against the defeated
reactionary party, but direct it against their former allies,
who would seek to exploit the common victory for their own ends.
The workers must be armed and organised to enable them to
threaten energetic opposition to this party, whose treason to
the workers will commence in the first hour of victory. The
arming of the whole proletariat with rifles and ammunition must
be carried out at once, and steps taken to prevent the reviving
of the old militia, which would be directed against the workers.
But should this not be successful, the workers must endeavour to
organise themselves as an independent guard, choosing their own
chief and general staff, with orders to support not the State
power, but the councils formed by the workers. Where workers are
employed in State service, they must arm and organise in a
special corps, with a chief chosen by themselves, or form a part
of the Proletarian Guard. Under no pretext must they give up
their arms and equipment, and any attempt at disarmament must
be forcibly resisted. Destruction of the influence of the
middle-class democrats over the workers, immediate independent
and armed organisation of the workers, and the imposition of the
most irksome and compromising conditions possible upon the rule
of the bourgeois democracy, which is for the time
unavoidable.... We have noted that the Democrats come to power
in the next phase of the movement, and how they will be obliged
to impose measures of a more or less Socialistic nature. It will
be asked what contrary measures should be proposed by the
workers. Naturally, in the beginning of the movement the workers
cannot propose actual Communist measures, but they can (1)
compel the Democrats to attack the old social order from as many
sides as possible, disturb its regular course, and compromise
themselves, and concentrate in the hands of the State as much as
possible of the productive forces, means of transport,
factories, railways, etc. (2) When the Democrats propose
measures which are not revolutionary, but merely reformist, the
workers must press them to the point of turning such measures
into direct attacks on private property; thus, for example, if
the small middle class propose to purchase the railways and
factories the workers must demand that such railways and
factories, being the property of the reactionaries, shall be
simply confiscated by the State, without compensation. If the
Democrats propose a proportional tax, the workers must demand a
progressive tax; if the Democrats themselves declare for a
moderate progressive tax, the workers must insist on a tax so
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