The influential French Socialist, Guesde, agrees with Kautsky that a peaceful solution is highly improbable, and that the revolution must be one of an overwhelming majority of the people, not artificially created, but brought about by the ruling classes themselves.
Of course a peaceful revolution might be accomplished gradually and by the most orderly means. If, however, these peaceful and legal means are later made illegal, or widely interfered with, if the ballot is qualified or political democracy otherwise thwarted, or if the peaceful acts of labor organizations, with the extension of government ownership, are looked upon as mutiny or treason,—then undoubtedly the working people will regard as enemies those who attempt to legalize such reaction, and will employ all available means to overthrow a "government" of such a kind.
From Marx and Bebel none of the most prominent spokesmen of the international movement have doubted that the capitalists would use such violent and extreme measures as to create a world-wide counter-revolution, and began to make their preparations accordingly. This is why, half a century ago, they passed beyond mere "revolutionary talk," to "revolutionary action." This practical "revolutionary evolution," as he called it, was described by Marx (in resigning from a communist society) in 1851: "We say to the working people, 'You will have to go through ten, fifteen, fifty years of civil wars and wars between nations not only to change existing conditions, but to change yourselves and to make yourselves worthy of political power.'" (My italics.)
"Revolutionary evolution" means that Socialists expect, not a single crisis, but a long-drawn-out series of revolutionary, political, civil, and industrial conflicts. If we substitute for the insurrectionary civil wars of Marx's time, i.e. of the periods of 1848 and 1870, the industrial civil wars to-day, i.e. the more and more widespread and successful, the more and more general, strikes that we have been witnessing since 1900, in countries so widely separated and representative as France, England, Sweden, Portugal, and Russia and Argentine Republic, Marx's view is that of the overwhelming majority of Socialists to-day.[290]
The suppression of such widespread strikes will become especially costly as "State Socialism" brings a larger and larger proportion of the wage earners under its policy of "efficiency wages," so that their incomes will be considerably above the mere subsistence level. A large part of these increased wages can and doubtless will be used against capitalism. Socialists believe that strikes will become more and more extended and protracted, until the capitalists will be forced, sooner or later, either to repressive violence, or to begin to make vital economic or political concessions that will finally insure their unconditional surrender.
Already many non-Socialist observers have firmly grasped the meaning of revolutionary Socialism. As a distinguished American editor recently remarked, "Universal suffrage and universal education mean universal revolution; it may be—pray God it be not—a revolution of brutality and crime."[291] The ruling minority have put down revolutions in the past by "brutality and crime" under the name of martial "law." Socialists have new evidences every day that similar measures will be used against them in the future, from the moment their power becomes formidable.
FOOTNOTES:
[284] Rose Luxemburg, "Social-Reform oder Revolution."
[285] "La Guerre Sociale" (Paris), April 20, 1910.
[286] Kautsky, "The Road to Power," Chapter V.