Title | Revolutionary essays |
Series Title | International socialist library, 15 |
Creator (LCNAF) |
|
Publisher | British Socialist Party |
Place of Creation (TGN) |
|
Date | 1920 |
Subject.Topical (LCSH) |
|
Subject.Geographic (TGN) |
|
Genre (AAT) |
|
Language | English |
Type (DCMI) |
|
Original Item Extent | 46 pages; 18 cm. |
Original Item Location | HX256.K84 |
Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b8304436~S11 |
Original Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/scpamp |
Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
Repository URL | http://libraries.uh.edu/branches/special-collections |
Use and Reproduction | This item is in the public domain and may be used freely. |
File Name | index.cpd |
Title | Image 14 |
Format (IMT) |
|
File Name | uhlib_1028723_013.jpg |
Transcript | The Western proletariat will not be able to evade its historical destiny : it must become revolutionary. The May Day of 1918 will be the last of the series of dual First of May celebrations. It will be followed by the true May celebrations of the victorious, ruling proletarian class. This May Day is not only a symbo'l, but a signal. It is the symbol of the existence of the International, the signal for the world-revolution. Marx and the Middle Classes. ("Pravda," May 4th, 1918.) "The internal enemy" of the proletarian Russian Revolution is constituted first and foremost by the lower middle classes. The expropriation of the expropriators being carried out at present does not represent the most serious obstacle in the path of proletarian dictatorship. In the path of the expropriation of capital the obstacles are of a purely objective nature. The small group of large capitalists has not the masses on its side, and therefore speedily becomes powerless in face of the armed proletariat. The lower middle classes of society, on the other hand, represent a considerable section of the population, especially in Russia—to say nothing of the propertied section of the peasantry. To reckon with the wishes of these lower middle classes would mean the halting half-way of the work of the Revolution : it would mean an end of the aspirations towards the destruction of capitalism. Exactly because the lower middle-class mass is numerically large, it has retained an influence over the working-class movement. But every concession to this influence represents a departure from the Marxian standpoint, because it was precisely Marx who freed Socialism from lower middle-class adulterations. The behaviour of the middle-class Socialist parties during the opening encounters and the final decisive struggle of the proletarian revolution doubly imposes on us the duty of recalling, on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of our first teacher, what his views were on the subject of the lower middle classes. And, though the representatives of various shades of lower middle-class Socialism are constantly referring to Marx, in reality there is no greater sacrilege than this. (12) ■..'■•'.-'. |