Communism; Industrial Workers of the World; Socialism
"Seizure of political power by the proletariat means destruction of
the political power of the bourgeoisie. The organized power of the
bourgeoisie is in the civil State, with its capitalistic army under
control of bourgeoisie-junker officers, its police and gendarmes,
jailers and judges, its priests, government officials, etc.
Conquest of the political power means not merely a change in the
personnel of ministries, but annihilation of the enemy's apparatus
of government; disarmament of the bourgeoisie of the
counter-revolutionary officers, of the White Guard; arming of the
proletariat, the revolutionary soldiers, the Red Guard of
workingmen; displacement of all bourgeois judges and organization
of proletarian courts; elimination of control by reactionary
government officials and substitution of new organs of management
of the proletariat.... Not until the proletariat has achieved this
victory and broken the resistance of the bourgeoisie can the former
enemies of the new order be made useful, by bringing them under
control of the Communist system and gradually bringing them into
accord with its work....
"The Dictatorship of the Proletariat does not in any way call for
partition of the means of production and exchange; rather, on the
contrary, its aim is further to centralize the forces of production
and to subject all of production to a systematic plan. As the first
steps--socialization of the great banks which now control
production; the taking over by the power of the proletariat of all
government-controlled economic utilities; the transferring of all
communal enterprises; the socializing of the syndicated and
trustified units of production, as well as all other branches of
production in which the degree of concentration and centralization
of capital makes this technically practicable; the socializing of
agricultural estates and their conversion into co-operative
establishments....
"As far as smaller enterprises are concerned, the proletariat must
gradually unite them, according to the degree of their importance.
It must be particularly emphasized that small properties will in no
way be expropriated and that small property owners who are not
exploiters of labor will not be forcibly dispossessed....
"The task of the Proletarian Dictatorship in the economic field can
only be fulfilled to the extent that the proletariat is enabled to
create centralized organs of management and to institute workers'
control. To this end it must make use of its mass organizations
which are in closest relation to the process of production....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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