Communism; Industrial Workers of the World; Socialism
"The capitalist class is now making its last stand in its history.
It was intrusted with the government of the world. It is
responsible for the prevailing chaos. The events of recent years
have conclusively demonstrated that capitalism is bankrupt, and has
become a dangerous impediment to progress and human welfare. The
working class alone has the power to redeem and to save the
world....
"It now becomes more than ever the immediate task of international
Socialism to accelerate and organize the inevitable transfer of
political and industrial power from the capitalist class to the
workers. The workers must recognize the economic structure of human
society by eliminating the institution of the private ownership of
natural wealth and of the machinery of industry, the essence of the
war-breeding system of international commercial rivalry. The
workers of the world must recognize the economic structure of human
society by making the natural wealth and the machinery of industry
the collective property of all....
"The workers of Great Britain, France and Italy, the workers of the
newly created nations, and the workers of the countries which
remained neutral during the war, are all in a state of
unprecedented unrest. In different ways and by different methods,
either blindly impelled by the inexorable conditions which confront
them, or clearly recognizing their revolutionary aims, they are
abandoning their temporising programs of pre-war labor reform. They
are determined to control the industries, which means control of
the governments.
"In the United States capitalism has emerged from the war more
reactionary and aggressive, more insolent and oppressive than it
has ever been....
"But even in the United States the symptoms of a rebellious spirit
in the ranks of the working masses are rapidly multiplying.
Widespread and extensive strikes for better labor conditions, the
demand of the 2,000,000 railway workers to control their industry,
sporadic formation of labor parties, apparently, though not
fundamentally, in opposition to the political parties of the
possessing class, are promising indications of a definite tendency
on the part of American labor to break away from its reactionary
and futile leadership and to join in the great emancipating
movement of the more advanced revolutionary workers of the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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