St. Paul, Minn.
In your answer to Arturo Giovannitti you say
“Accordingly, the civilized revolutionary organization proclaims the Right, demands it, argues for it, and willingly submits to the civilized method of polling the votes. And it organizes itself with the requisite physical force in case its defeated adversary should resort to the barbarous way of enforcing his will.”
Now my question is: How is the organization to know when its adversary is defeated? Is there any probability that the political machine that counts the votes will become good or terror-stricken, and honestly count the votes, and thereby proclaim the defeat of the idle class by the working class?
A political movement knows from a thousand and one sources whether its numerical forces are strong or weak. In this city, for instance, Hearst was elected Mayor two years ago. Everybody knows that. The reason he is not in the City Hall to-day is that he was not equipped with the physical force to enforce his victory. The counting out of Hearst deceived nobody.
The above answer is on the supposition that the political movement of Labor would triumph, and the Capitalist Class then attempt the trick played on Hearst. The chances are against such a contingency. The chances are as stated several weeks ago in the answer to Hoffman. Some capitalist outrage on the economic field will precipitate war. In that case the issue will depend upon the degree of integrally industrial organization that the proletariat may find itself in.
If they should find themselves in so weak a degree of integrally industrial organization as they now are in, or in a stronger one, yet not possessed of the minimum of strength needed for resistance, cohesion and attraction, then the armed force of the capitalist class will mop the earth with them. Then there will be born an “Underground America,” as there has long been an “Underground Russia.” The handful of revolutionists will be forced into surreptitious propaganda, and the Revolution will have to raise itself above ground by its own boot-straps.
If, however, the proletariat should, at such a time, find themselves organized to such a degree of integral industrialism (and the more strongly the better) that sufficient resistance could be offered to the capitalist, and sufficient attraction could be exercised upon the rest and not yet organized workers,—then the proletariat would mop the earth with the capitalist class. It would be able to do so because its industrial form of organization would not only furnish, it the required physical force, but would also enable it forthwith to conduct production. But –
But that possibility, or eventuality, is out of all question if the industrial organization were to start upon the theory that there is actual war now. If it did, it would be throttled in short order. Only by recognizing the civilized method of peaceful trial of strength, implied in political action, will the proletariat be able to recruit the physical force (industrially organized workers) with the aid of which, under the first supposition, it will be in position to enforce its political triumph; or with the aid of which it may be able, under the second supposition, to meet successfully capital brutality.
Thus, in either case, political action is as necessary as industrial organization is indispensable.—Ed. The People