Chapter VIII: Foreword: G (3)

The prime of my life has been wasted in preaching as truths the dogmas of the Christian theology, the representations of which I now believe, with the overwhelming majority of educated people, to be at best so many symbols and at worst superstitions.

But though I do not now and probably never shall again believe in the existence of a conscious, personal god, a knowledge of and obedience to whose will is necessary to salvation, yet an injustice is done me by those who say I have abandoned god and religion.

Every one who desires and endeavors to fulfill the requirements of a law which is independent of his will and beyond his control has a god and a religion. I desire and endeavor this in the case of two such laws and so have two gods and two religions. Both of my divinities are trinities. One is in the physical realm and the other in the moral one.

In the physical realm my triune god is: matter, the father; force, the son, and motion, the spirit.

In the moral realm, my triune god is: fact, the father; truth, the son, and life, the spirit.

For me the triune divinity of Christianity is a symbol of these trinities and it is my desire and effort to discover and fulfill what they require of me, in order that I may make my own physical, psychical and moral life as long, happy and complete as possible and help others in doing this for themselves. This desire and effort is at once my morality and religion, my politics and patriotism, and they are spiritual realities.

On account of the first of these sets of spiritual virtues (morality and religion) I claim to be a Christian of the highest type, and that any accusation which is raised against me because of alleged disloyalty to any essential of Christianism is an injustice.

On account of the second of these sets of spiritual virtues (politics and patriotism) I claim to be an American of the highest type, and that any accusation which is raised against me because of alleged disloyalty to an essential of Americanism is an injustice.

From the viewpoint of the self-styled one hundred per cent Christians, I am a betrayer of Brother Jesus because I do not believe that he ever had any existence as a god and that, if he was at any time a man, the world does not now and never can know of one thing that he did or of one word that he said.

From the viewpoint of the self-styled one hundred per cent Americans, I am a traitor to Uncle Sam, because I did oppose his going into the English-German war, and because I do object to the partiality which he shows to his rich nephews and nieces.

Still Jesus and Uncle Sam are as dear to me as ever and indeed dearer, yet not as objective, conscious personalities, but as symbols, ideals or patterns.

However, though I love my Brother Jesus and Uncle Sam all the time, as a child does Santa Claus at Christmas time, I am no longer childish enough at any time to look to either of them to do anything for me, because I know that what is done for me must be done either by myself or by men, women and children, and that as objective, conscious personalities, my Brother Jesus and Uncle Sam have had no more to do with my life than the man-in-the-moon.

Your observation concerning the American government as being the standard to which all governments will ultimately conform challenges an earnest word of friendly dissent.

Our government is what all the governments of the world are (with the single exception of the Russian) a government in the interest of a small class, the representatives of which own the means and machines of production and distribution and who produce and distribute things for profit, each for himself.

The representatives of one class produce things socially, and those of another class appropriate them individually. This is capitalistic anarchy, the worst of possible anarchism, and it must have an end soon or the world will be lost.

Robbery is the essence of anarchy and Marx showed that every cent of profit made under the existing system of economics (and in the United States it amounts to several billions of dollars every year) is so much robbery of the many who make and operate the machines, because they are paid less in wages than the value of the products made and distributed by them.

We are hearing much in these days about the anarchy of those who are dissatisfied with the capitalistic governments, but the governments themselves and those in whose interests they exist are the real anarchists. The flesh and blood of anarchism are robbery and lying, and these are the meat and drink of capitalism.

The English-German war was the most flagrant act of anarchy in the whole history of mankind. The peace of Versailles and the blockade of Russia were outrageous acts of anarchy, and so also are the terrorism and tyranny of which every capitalistic country is so full, our own with the rest.

Morality is the very heart of civilization and of all that really makes for it; but morality is impossible on a capitalistic basis, for it is founded on the most immoral things in the world, robbery, lying, murder, ignorance, poverty and slavery.

If I am right in the conviction that the United States is more wholly given over to capitalism than any other nation, not excepting even England, it is the greatest robber, liar and murderer on earth. How then, can the United States become the standard for the governments of the nations?

If the government of Russia holds its own, it, rather than that of the United States, will become the standard to which all governments must measure up or else go down.

Yes, not the government of the United States but that of Russia is destined to become the standard of all peoples, for the aim of our government is money, more money, and then some, for the few, while the infinitely higher aim of theirs is life, more life, fuller life for every man, woman and child.

Within my generation the vanguard of humanity has passed from the age of traditionalism to that of scientism and this transition is the greatest and most salutary event in the whole history of humanity. It is impossible to exaggerate its importance. It marks the time when man began consciously to realize that he must look to himself rather than to any god for salvation.

From time immemorial man has realized that ignorance is his ruin and knowledge his salvation, but during the too many and too long ages of traditionalism he made the fatal mistake of supposing that he was dependent upon a supernatural revelation by an unconscious, personal god for the necessary knowledge. But now the leading people of the world, the shepherds of the sheep, are seeing with increasing clearness that man has naturally inherited his knowledge and must naturally acquire by his own experience, reason and investigation every addition to it.

The world is indeed passing through a long, dark night, but neither the longest nor the darkest, and since at last a great and rapidly increasing multitude happily realize that humanity must work out its own salvation through the living of its own knowledge by its own inherited and increased strength, not by a supernatural grace, we of this generation may rationally hope, as those of no other did or could, for the dawning of the longest and brightest of all days.

As an old year dies into a new one, and as flourishing generations die into rising ones, so the old traditional ages, when nations and sects looked to their rival gods in the skies for help, are happily dying into the new scientific age, when all sensible and good men, relying upon the strength of a common divinity which is within themselves, will unite in an all-inclusive brotherhood for the promotion of the ideal civilization, a universal reign of righteousness.

It is night,--midnight. The clock is striking twelve. But this is the very hour and the very minute, when all the saviours of mankind have always been and ever will be born. Then it is that the Virgin, Nature, comes to this dark world with her new born Son, Truth, whom to know and follow is morality, religion, politics and life. It is then that those who give expression to the highest ideals and deepest longings of mankind, hear the angels, Reason and Hope, sing: On earth peace and good will towards men.

Very cordially and gratefully yours, WM. M. BROWN.

Brownella Cottage, Galion, Ohio.

FOOTNOTES:

[H] The difference between a political republic, such as America has developed, and an industrial republic, such as Russia is developing, is that the administrators of the former are elected from the geographical divisions and those of the latter from the productive divisions into which the population is divided.

If we liken states to fruit trees, the American tree may be said to have been evolutionized for the purpose of producing the fruit of commodities for the profit of the owning class, and the Russian, the fruit of commodities for the use of the working class.

[I] See appendix.

[J] Nevertheless I consider church-going to be a bad habit, and if I could live my life over, I would not allow myself to become addicted to it.

COMMUNISM AND CHRISTIANISM

ANALYZED AND CONTRASTED FROM THE MARXIAN AND DARWINIAN POINTS OF VIEW

Appendix.

I Scientific Socialism.

II God and Immortality.

III Mythical Character of Old and New Testament Personages.

IV Would Socialism Change Human Nature?

V What Will be the Form of the Workers' State?

VI Withdrawal of Prize Offer.

VII Afterword.

Morality is the greatest thing in the world; but paradoxical as it
may seem, there is one greater thing, liberty--the liberty which is
freedom to learn, interpret, live and teach the truth as it is
revealed by the facts or acts of nature. Without this freedom there
can be no morality, and of course no true religion, politics or
civilization.

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.

In northern climes, the polar bear
Protects himself with fat and hair,
Where snow is deep and ice is stark,
And half the year is cold and dark;
He still survives a clime like that
By growing fur, by growing fat.
These traits, O bear, which thou transmittest
Prove the Survival of the Fittest.

To polar regions waste and wan,
Comes the encroaching race of man,
A puny, feeble, little bubber,
He has no fur, he has no blubber.
The scornful bear sat down at ease
To see the stranger starve and freeze;
But, lo! the stranger slew the bear,
And ate his fat and wore his hair;
These deeds, O Man, which thou committest
Prove the Survival of the Fittest.

In modern times the millionaire
Protects himself as did the bear:
Where Poverty and Hunger are
He counts his bullion by the car:
Where thousands perish still he thrives--
The wealth, O Croesus, thou transmittest
Proves the Survival of the Fittest.

But, lo, some people odd and funny,
Some men without a cent of money--
The simple common human race
Chose to improve their dwelling place;
They had no use for millionaires,
They calmly said the world was theirs,
They were so wise, so strong, so many,
The Millionaires?--there wasn't any.
These deeds, O Man, which thou committest
Prove the Survival of the Fittest.

--Mrs. Charlotte Stetson.

I. SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM.

The working class and the employing class have nothing in common.
There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among
millions of working people and the few, who make up the employing
class, have all the good things of life.

Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers
of the world organize as a class, take possession of the earth and
the machinery of production, and abolish the wage system.

We find that the centering of management of the industries into
fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with
the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions
foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be
pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby
helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions
aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that
the working class have interests in common with their employers.

These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working
class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all
its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary,
cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department
thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.

Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair
day's work", we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary
watchword, "Abolition of the wage system".

It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with
capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for
the every-day struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on
production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By
organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new
society within the shell of the old.--Preamble of the Industrial
Workers of the World.

The following Synopsis of Scientific Socialism will serve both as a summary of and supplement to my little book. It is the introductory part of a catechism (a series of questions and answers) entitled "Scientific Socialism Study Course" published by Charles H. Kerr & Company, 341 East Ohio Street, Chicago, and is reprinted here by their consent, with certain changes in the interests of brevity and perspicuity. As a whole this short Study Course of only thirty small pages in large type is the greatest piece of catechetical literature of which I have any knowledge. Even the synopsis as given here contains more of the education which makes for the good of the world than all the catechisms of all the churches. The Catechism was published in 1913.

1. How do you explain the phenomena of History?

Ans.: History, from the capitalist point of view, is a record of political and intellectual changes and revolutions of so-called great men, wherein the economic causes for these acts and changes are ignored or concealed; but, from the socialist view point, history reveals a series of class struggles between an exploited wealth-producing class and an exploiting ruling class over the wealth produced.

2. What effect have "great men" had on history?

Ans.: Great men were simply ideal expressions of the hopes of some class in society that was becoming economically powerful. They formed a nucleus around which a class gathered itself in attaining economic conquests in its own interest, and in establishing social institutions in harmony with, and for the perpetuation of, such class interests. These men had to embody some vital principles from the economic conditions of their time and represent some class interest. The same men with the same ideas would not be great men under a different mode of production when the time for their ideas was not ripe.

3. What great factor is responsible for the rise of "great men?"

Ans.: The fact that the ideas of these men coincided with the class interests of some class in society that was becoming economically powerful. Therefore economic conditions must exist or be developing which find their highest expression in the ideas of such men.

4. Why do social institutions change and not remain fixed?

Ans.: Because the process of economic evolution will not permit them to remain fixed. The development and improvement of the means of production and distribution produce economic changes, therefore social institutions (the state, church, school and even the family) are forced to change to conform with changing economic conditions. These are due to evolutionary and revolutionary processes connected with the means of production and distribution.

5. What is responsible for the birth of new ideas, and do they occur to some one individual only?

Ans.: New ideas, theories and discoveries emanate from material conditions, and such conditions act upon individuals. The same idea or discovery may be brought out by different individuals independently and apart from each other. This proves that it is not great men who are responsible for material conditions, but that material conditions (modes of production and distribution) produce the men best able to marshal the facts and express the idea; usually in the interest of some class.

6. What single great idea occurred to both Darwin and Wallace independently?

Ans.: The theory of "Natural Selection" which showed that the closely allied ante-type was the parent stock from which the new form had been derived by variation.

7. What single great idea occurred to both Marx and Engels independently?

Ans.: The "Materialistic Conception of History."

8. Name the three great ideas developed by Marx and Engels which now form the bed-rock basis for the socialist philosophy.

Ans.: (1) the Materialistic Conception of History, or, the law of economic determinism, (2) the Law of Surplus Value, and (3) the Class Struggle.

9. Explain, briefly, the "materialistic conception of history."

Ans.: "In every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange and the social organization necessarily following from it forms the basis upon which is built up and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch." The laws, customs, education, religion, public opinion and morals are in the long run controlled and shaped by economic conditions; or, in other words, by the dominant ruling class which the economic system of any given period forces to the front.

10. What is the most important question in life?

Ans.: The problem of securing food and shelter.

11. What bearing does this have on the materialistic conception of history?

Ans.: It gives us the only key by which we can understand the history of the past, and within limits, predict the course of future development.

12. What effect does the prevailing mode of production and exchange in any particular epoch, have on the social organization and political and intellectual history of that epoch?

Ans.: "Anything that goes to the roots of the economic structure and modifies it (the food and shelter question in life) will inevitably modify every other branch and department of human life, political, ethical, religious and moral. This makes the social question primarily an economic one and all our thought and effort should be concentrated on it."

13. Do the ideas of the ruling class, in any given epoch, correspond with the prevailing mode of economic production?

Ans.: They correspond exactly, as all connective institutions, civil, religious, legal, educational, political and domestic have been moulded in the interest of the economically dominant class who control these institutions in a manner to uphold their class interests where their ideas find expression.

14. What effect do these ideas of the ruling class have on the interests of the subject class?

Ans.: The effect is detrimental to the interests of the subject class as the different class interests conflict. Therefore the ruling class finds the institutions mentioned very useful in either persuading or forcing the so-called "lower classes" to submit to the economic conditions that are absolutely against their interest, even though they are the wealth producing class.

15. Distinguish natural environment from man-made environment.

Ans.: Natural environment which consisted of the fertility of the soil, climatic conditions, abundance of fruits, nuts, game and fish was all-important in the early stage of man's development. With the progress of civilization this nature-made environment loses its supreme importance and the man-made economic environment becomes equally important.

16. Explain, briefly, the law of Surplus Value.

Ans.: It is the difference between what the working class as a whole gets for its labor power at its value in wages, say an average of five dollars per day, for producing commodities, and what the employing class as a whole gets, say an average of twenty-five dollars, for the same commodities when sold at their value. According to this conservative estimate capital is upon the whole and in the long run robbing labor of four-fifths of the value of its productive power. Capitalism is therefore the great robber, the Beelzebub of robbers.

17. Since the economic factor is the determining factor, what does the law of Surplus Value furnish us?

Ans.: "Surplus Value is the key to the whole present economic organization of society. The end and object of capitalist society is the formation and accumulation of surplus value; or in other words, the systematic, legal robbery of the subject working class."

18. Define value and state how measured.

Ans.: Value is the average amount of human labor time socially, not individually, necessary under average, not special, conditions for the production or reproduction of commodities.

19. What determines the value of labor power?

Ans.: It is determined precisely like the value of every other commodity, i. e., by the amount of labor time socially necessary for its production or reproduction by the raising and support of children to succeed their parents as wage-earning slaves.

20. Since labor power is a commodity, what condition is it subject to?

Ans.: It is subject to the same conditions that all other commodities are subject to without regard to the fact that it is the source of all social value. The worker in whom the commodity labor power is embodied, does not get the value of the product of his labor, but only about one-fifth of it, enough to keep him in working order and reproduce more labor power in his children. If the worker received the value of the product of his labor he would receive much more than enough to keep him in working order and to raise his family. Such an economic condition would abolish all forms of surplus value or profit, also the wage system, by substituting economic and social organization in the interest of the working class. No other class could remain in existence and the class struggle would be ended.

21. In what economic system, past or present, does surplus value appear?

Ans.: It is the root of all social systems since the rise of the institution of private property, but only under the present system (capitalism) has labor power assumed the commodity form. Labor power is a commodity with a two fold character: it has a use and an exchange value. Its use value consists in its being capable of producing values over and above its own needs for sustenance and reproduction. Its exchange value consists in the amount of socially necessary labor time required for its production and reproduction.

The chattel and feudal systems of slavery were not directly concerned with the production of commodities for the profit of the masters, but rather with the producing of the necessities of life for all, masters and slaves, and the luxuries for some, the masters. That which was not produced for immediate consumption was sold, if opportunities presented themselves, and occasionally the professional traders developed, for example, the Phoenicians; but they were an exception to the rule. The same holds good for feudalism, except that during the latter stages of that system commercialism arose; but this commercialism was no feature of feudalism--it was the rising capitalism that began to unfold and assert itself.

22. Name the three great systems of economic organization upon which the structure of past history and social institutions have their basis.

Ans.: (1) Chattel slavery, (2) serfdom, or feudal slavery and (3) wage slavery.

23. Explain, briefly, how the subject class was exploited under each of these economic systems.

Ans.: 1. Under chattel slavery the laborer was a chattel (possession or property) the same as a mule or horse, and only received his "keep," that is, enough food, clothing and shelter to keep him in working order and to reproduce labor power by raising children. All he produced (use values and children) was taken by his master. The body of the slave was the property of his master. 2. Under serfdom or feudal slavery, the worker produced what was necessary to keep him in working order and to raise a family of slaves, and then the balance of his time produced use values for his feudal lord. The body of the slave was his own, though he could not go about with it from one place to another; for it was bound to the land of his master. 3. Under the wage slavery, the worker receives wages which again equals only the amount necessary to keep him in working order and to reproduce more labor power in his children. His entire product belongs to the capitalist, and out of this resource he pays the wages for the commodity labor, also for other commodities such as raw materials, and appropriates all of the balance and converts it into capital with which he not only continues but increases the exploitation of his workers. The body of the capitalist's slave is indeed his own as under the feudal system but with this difference, that if he does not like his master, or he is disliked by him, he can or must go abroad with it from one place to another looking for a job--a liberty or necessity which is to the advantage of the owning class and the disadvantage of the working class. Unemployment is necessary to the existence of capitalism, but this necessity is a danger to the system and will ultimately destroy it in all countries as it has in Russia.

24. Define the "Class Struggle."

Ans.: It is the direct clash between two hostile class interests wherein the employing class makes every effort to appropriate more of the wealth produced by the working class, and the working class ever struggles to retain more of the wealth which it produces. The capitalist class strives to get more surplus value and the working class strives to get more wages.

The class consciousness of those who live by working has found one of its best expressions in the following paragraphs:

"The world stands upon the threshold of a new social order. The
capitalist system of production and distribution is doomed;
capitalist appropriation of labor's product forces the bulk of
mankind into wage slavery, throws society into the convulsions of
the class struggle, and momentarily threatens to engulf humanity in
chaos and disaster.

Since the advent of civilization human society has been divided
into classes. Each new form of society has come into being with a
definite purpose to fulfill in the progress of the human race. Each
has been born, has grown, developed, prospered, become old,
outworn, and, has finally been overthrown. Each society has
developed within itself the germs of its own destruction as well
as the germs which went to make up the society of the future.

The capitalist system rose during the seventeenth, eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries by the overthrow of feudalism. Its great and
all-important mission in the development of man was to improve,
develop, and concentrate the means of production and distribution,
thus creating a system of co-operative production. This work was
completed in advanced capitalist countries about the beginning of
the 20th century. That moment capitalism had fulfilled its historic
mission, and from that moment the capitalist class became a class
of parasites.

In the course of human progress mankind has passed (through class
rule, private property, and individualism in production and
exchange) from the enforced and inevitable want, misery, poverty,
and ignorance of savagery and barbarism to the affluence and high
productive capacity of civilization. For all practical purposes,
co-operative production has now superseded individual production.

Capitalism no longer promotes the greatest good of the greatest
number, It no longer spells progress, but reaction. Private
production carries with it private ownership of the products.
Production is carried on, not to supply the needs of humanity, but
for the profit of the individual owner, the company, or the trust.
The worker, not receiving the full product of his labor, can not
buy back all he produces. The capitalist wastes part in riotous
living; the rest must find a foreign market. By the opening of the
twentieth century the capitalist world--England, America, Germany,
France, Japan, China, etc.--was producing at a mad rate for the
world market. A capitalist deadlock of markets brought on in 1914
the capitalist collapse popularly known as the World War. The
capitalist world can not extricate itself out of the debris.
America today is choking under the weight of her own gold and
products.

This situation has brought on the present stage of human
misery--starvation, want, cold, disease, pestilence, and war. This
state is brought about in the midst of plenty, when the earth can
be made to yield a hundredfold, when the machinery of production is
made to multiply human energy and ingenuity by the hundreds. The
present state of misery exists solely because the mode of
production rebels against the mode of exchange. Private property in
the means of life has become a social crime. The land was made by
no man; the modern machines are the result of the combined
ingenuity of the human race from time immemorial; the land can be
made to yield and the machines can be set in motion only by the
collective effort of the workers. Progress demands the collective
ownership of the land on and the tools with which to produce the
necessities of life. The owner of the means of life today partakes
of the nature of a highwayman; he stands with his gun before
society's temple; it depends upon him whether the million mass may
work, earn, eat, and live. The capitalist system of production and
exchange must be supplanted if progress is to continue.

In place of the capitalist system we must substitute a system of
social ownership of the means of production, industrially
administered by the workers, who assume control and direction as
well as operation of their industrial affairs."

25. Define "class consciousness."

Ans.: Class consciousness of the workers means that they are conscious of the fact that they, as a class, have interests which are in direct conflict with the interests of the capitalist class.

26. What function does the state perform in the class struggle?

Ans.: "The state is a class instrument, and is the public power of coercion created and maintained in human societies by their division into classes, a power which, being clothed with force, makes laws." It is, therefore, used by the dominant class to keep the subject working class in subjection in accordance with the interests of the ruling and owning class. It is also used to prevent the workers from altering the economic structure of society in the interests of the working class.

As the author of the catechism, of which these twenty-six questions and answers constitute a small part, says:

"Society is a growth subject to the laws of evolution. When evolution reaches a certain point, revolution becomes necessary in order to break the bonds of the old and bring in the new. As the chicken grows through evolution until it reaches the point where it must break its shell (the revolution) in order to continue its growth, so do classes of people come to the point in their evolution where revolution is necessary in order to continue their growth, bring in the new society and consummate the next step in civilization."

Since 1913, when the foregoing catechism was published, we have had the war to end war and to make the world safe for democracy--a fateful and mournful war in which millions of lives were lost and other millions wrecked with the result of multiplying wars and increasing imperialism.

It was a war between national groups of capitalists with conflicting interests for commercial advantages, which is unexpectedly issuing in three great crises: (1) the imminent bankruptcy of capitalism; (2) the communist revolution in Russia, and (3) the imminent taking over of the world by the revolutionary proletariat.

Hitherto, the sons and daughters of capitalism have owned the earth with all that thereon and therein is. Henceforth, the sons and daughters of the useful workers shall be the owners.

The future belongs to the workers, but not until they organize themselves into one big revolutionary union. What ideas and aims are involved in the faith and endeavor of Revolutionary Unionism will appear from this passage in Comrade Philip Kurinsky's Industrial Unionism and Revolution, a brilliant pamphlet, published by The Union Press, Box 205, Madison Square, New York City:

"Slavery is not abolished. It is merely a change in the struggle
which throws itself hither and thither like the waves of the seas.
In ancient times chattel slavery existed. Feudalism then took its
place. Feudalism in its turn was overthrown by capitalism which at
present reigns supreme. As the immortal Tolstoy explained, 'The
abolition of the old slavery is similar to that which Tartars did
to their captives. After they had cut up their heels they placed
stones and sand in the wounds and then took the chains off. The
Tartars were sure that when the feet of their prisoners were
swollen, that they could not run away and would have to work even
without chains. Such is the slavery of wages'.

Of this slavery does revolutionary unionism speak in the name of
the revolutionary worker. It analyzes the present society and shows
that it is divided into two economic classes. One class, the
capitalist class, is the master class which controls all the
factories, mills, mines, railroads, lands and fields and all the
finished and raw materials. This class possesses all the natural
riches of the world and this economic supremacy gives it control of
the state, of the church, and of all educational institutions. In
short, this class owns everything and controls the whole social and
political life of each country. The other class, the working class,
owns nothing. It produces all and enjoys little. It uses the
machines and tools but does not possess them, and is therefore
forced to sell its only possession, its labor power, to the master
class. And the latter uses the opportunity to buy that wonderful
power like any raw material or some other commodity (some of the
representatives of craft unionism wish to deny this but
unsuccessfully). For the commodity which the worker is compelled to
sell in order that he might live, he receives a wage which is
determined as is the price of every other commodity. The price is
always smaller than the value of the product which the worker
produces for the capitalist.

Between these two classes there must, naturally, exist a
tremendous struggle which often has the character of actual war. No
one urges the workers to this war--not the terrible I. W. W.'s nor
the political socialist, neither the Bolsheviks nor the Anarchists,
but the war naturally and inevitably arises from existing
conditions.

On the one hand, the capitalists are continually chasing after
higher profits which results in the employment of cheap labor under
the worst conditions. Naturally the ideal of the capitalist class
is to keep the workers in a condition of slavery. If the workers
attempt to revolt, as they do daily, their masters try to suppress
the revolt with all the power at their command. On the other hand,
the workers struggle with all their power to lighten their burdens.
They strive to get better conditions, higher wages and shorter
hours, and in general the ideal of the working class is to throw
off the yoke of capitalism.

No one rightfully can say that this struggle is merely a theory. We
can see this struggle in the attempts of the capitalist class to
destroy the victorious Russian Proletariat. It is mirrored before
our eyes in the continual strikes. Nothing can stop this struggle
except the abolition of exploitation.

No matter how hard the Citizens' Committees, Boards of Arbitration,
of Conciliation and of Mediation, with their so-called impartial
members try to convince the world that it is possible to bring the
warring classes into closer relations, their attempts are doomed to
failure. At best their success is only temporary and their efforts
succeed only in blinding the eyes of the working masses. And if at
some time these boards claim a victory, the credit is not due to
them, but to the force exerted by the workers. It is the
strike-weapon, held in reserve by the toilers, that brings victory
to the workers--not the efforts of the philanthropic gentlemen.
Furthermore the efforts of these gentlemen greatly harm the
workers, for at times when the workers can attain success through
the use of the strike, these philanthropists interfere, and deaden
the initiative and aggressiveness of the strikers. Often this
causes strife between the strikers themselves. They lose confidence
in one another, and the existence of the organizations which the
workers succeeded in building up through their efforts and
sacrifices are jeopardized.

The "Conciliation," however, can bring no conciliation between the
employers and workers, because that is unnatural. On the contrary,
the hatred of one side to the other is intensified and war breaks
out oftener and assumes a more bitter and more obstinate character.

Thus viewing the two struggling classes of capitalist society,
revolutionary industrial unionism comes to the logical conclusion
that between capital and labor there exists nothing in common, that
the struggle must go on and peace can come only when economic
oppression will cease, which is possible only when the program of
revolutionary unionism will be realized; namely, when the workers
will take over the means of production and abolish the system of
private ownership. The autocratic control of industry, the unequal
division of products will then disappear and society will be built
on a socialist foundation, where the industries will be owned and
operated by the workers, organized in a truly democratic manner,
and where the individual will receive the full product of his
labor.

These are the principles of revolutionary unionism, the principles
of the international proletariat. They are the true expressions of
the class struggle and because of that, revolutionary unionism
attracts more and more followers whose ideal is to develop within
the working masses a consciousness of their historic mission."

In the words of an eloquent representative of the organized workers in the United States, I exhort the working men and working women of America: Keep your eyes on Russia. Watch what is going on there and what the capitalist plunderbund will try to do. Do not be misled by the lies and slanders that are daily dished up to you. Bear in mind that those who tell you these yarns have an interest to mislead you. They want to use you as a makeweight in their game of wresting from the Russian workers their dearly-won liberty. It is of no use to enumerate the lies that have already been punctured because they will invent new ones faster than one can write and print. Let your reason guide you. Think yourselves into the shoes of your Russian fellow workers. Think how you would act if placed in the same position and then draw the conclusion that they act about the same way that you would, because they are like you moved by the same emotions, the same desires, the same aspirations. You, too, would like to keep for yourselves the fruits of your toil, if you only knew how to go about it, if you had the organization that would make it possible. But as yet you do not know and you have not that organization. In politics you still vote against one another in the Republican or Democratic camp. You will have to wait until you do know and until you do have the means--the Industrial Unions of the entire working class that will be able to take and hold and administer industry for the reason that it will have the might, the power to do so. And when you have expressed through the ballot your will for that new society, which will guarantee to you the full fruits of your labor, remember the slogan of revolutionary Russia: "All power to the Soviets," and let your slogan then be: "All power to the Industrial Unions!"

These are prophetic words written fifty years ago by Frederick Engels:

Since the historical appearance of the capitalist mode of
production, the appropriation by society of all the means of
production has often been dreamed of, more or less vaguely, by
individuals, as well as by sects, as the ideal of the future. But
it could become possible, could become a historical necessity, only
when the actual conditions for its realization were there. Like
every other social advance, it becomes practicable, not by men
understanding that the existence of classes is in contradiction to
justice, equality, etc., not by the mere willingness to abolish
these classes, but by virtue of certain new economic conditions....
So long as the total social labor only yields a produce which but
slightly exceeds that barely necessary for the existence of all; so
long, therefore, as labor engages all or almost all the time of the
great majority of the members of society--so long, of necessity,
this society is divided into classes....

But if, upon this showing, division into classes has a certain
historical justification, it has this only for a given period, only
under given social conditions. It was based on the insufficiency of
production. It will be swept away by the complete development of
modern productive forces. And, in fact, the abolition of classes in
society presupposes a degree of historical evolution, at which the
existence, not simply of this or that particular ruling class, but
of any ruling class at all, has become an obsolete anachronism....

With the seizing of the means of production by society, production
of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery
of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is
replaced by systematic, definite organization. The struggle for
individual existence disappears. Then for the first time man, in a
certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal
kingdom, and emerges from mere animal conditions into really human
ones.... It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to
the kingdom of freedom.

The capitalist countries are ruled through banks, and a bank is necessarily an institution of the owning class.

Russia is ruled through Soviets, and a soviet is necessarily an institution of the working class.

Banks and Soviets are so many headquarters for big unions. In capitalist countries the banks are such for the one big union of the owners, and in Russia the soviets are this for the one big union of the workers. These big unions cannot co-exist and flourish in the same country.

All owners everywhere see the necessity for their one big union and in all capitalistic countries, nowhere more than in the United States, they have the advantage of being on the ground floor and indeed on all the floors of all the sky scrapers with their union which is the most universally inclusive and the most relentlessly efficient organization on earth.

Some workers everywhere see the necessity for their one big union, but nowhere is it seen as generally and clearly as in Russia,--the only country in which the workers have held the ground floor for any considerable time against all comers.

In all countries a beginning has been made by the workers in laying the foundation for their one big union, but in only one country, Russia, has progress been made with the superstructure, and here as everywhere the owners have hindered the workers so that they must defend themselves with their right hand while they build with their left. Nevertheless wonderful progress is being made and when the industrial structure has been completed, as it soon must be, else the world is doomed to destruction, it shall tower above its capitalist rival as a mountain over a foot hill.

After all, the power of the owner is money and it is not a real potentiality, for within the social realm there is in reality only one potentiality, the power of productivity which exclusively belongs to the worker.

In the sky there is no god, and on earth there is no king or priest like unto Labor, the lord of gods, the tzar of kings and the pope of priests.

Labor is high above all potentialities. The motto, "All Power to the Workers," which the class-conscious proletarians inscribe on their banners, is not the expression of an ideal fiction, but the declaration of a practical reality, the greatest among all realities, that reality in which the whole social realm lives, moves and has its being.

Down with the one big union of the owners. Long live the one big union of the workers.

II. GOD AND IMMORTALITY.

We have done with the kisses that sting,
With the thief's mouth red from the feast,
With the blood on the hands of the king,
And the lie on the lips of the priest.

--Swinburne.

Many critics contend that socialism and supernaturalism are not, as I represent, incompatibilities; but they lose sight of four facts: (1) this is a scientific age; (2) Marxian socialism is one of the sciences; (3) the vast majority of men of science reject all supernaturalism, including of course the gods and devils with their heavens and hells, and (4) only in the case of one of the sciences, psychology, is this majority greater than in the science of sociology.

The truth of the last two of these representations will be overwhelmingly evident from the chart on the next page. It and its explanation given in the following quotation is taken with the kind consent of the author and also of the publishers of a book entitled God and Immortality, by Professor James H. Leuba, the Psychologist of Bryn Mawr College. This book is having a great influence and I strongly recommend it to all who think that I am wrong in the contention that conscious, personal existence is limited to earth; that, therefore, we are having all that we shall ever know of heaven and hell, here and now, and that whether we have more of heaven and less of hell depends altogether upon men and women, not at all upon gods and devils. The second edition of Professor Leuba's book is now in the press of The Open Court Publishing Company, 122 South Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. Here is the quotation in support of our contentions:

PARTIAL SUMMARY OF RESULTS]

What, then, is the main outcome of this research? Chart XI, Partial
Summary of Results, shows that in every class of persons
investigated, the number of believers in God is less, and in most
classes very much less than the number of non-believers, and that
the number of believers in immortality is somewhat larger than in a
personal God; that among the more distinguished, unbelief is very
much more frequent than among the less distinguished; and finally
that not only the degree of ability, but also the kind of knowledge
possessed, is significantly related to the rejection of these
beliefs.

The correlation shown, without exception, in every one of our
groups between eminence and disbelief appears to me of momentous
significance. In three of these groups (biologists, historians, and
psychologists) the number of believers among the men of greater
distinction is only half, or less than half the number of believers
among the less distinguished men. I do not see any way to avoid the
conclusion that disbelief in a personal God and in personal
immortality is directly proportional to abilities making for
success in the sciences in question.

A study of the several charts of this work with regard to the kind
of knowledge which favors disbelief shows that the historians and
the physical scientists provide the greater; and the psychologists,
the sociologists and the biologists, the smaller number of
believers. The explanation I have offered is that psychologists,
sociologists, and biologists in very large numbers have come to
recognize fixed orderliness in organic and psychic life, and not
merely in inorganic existence; while frequently physical scientists
have recognized the presence of invariable law in the inorganic
world only. The belief in a personal God as defined for the purpose
of our investigation is, therefore, less often possible to students
of psychic and of organic life than to physical scientists.

The place occupied by the historians next to the physical
scientists would indicate that for the present the reign of law is
not so clearly revealed in the events with which history deals as
in biology, economics, and psychology. A large number of
historians continue to see the hand of God in human affairs. The
influence, destructive of Christian beliefs, attributed in this
interpretation to more intimate knowledge of organic and psychic
life, appears incontrovertibly, as far as psychic life is
concerned, in the remarkable fact that whereas in every other group
the number of believers in immortality is greater than that in God,
among the psychologists the reverse is true; the number of
believers in immortality among the greater psychologists sinks to
8.8 per cent. One may affirm it seems that, in general, the greater
the ability of the psychologist, the more difficult it becomes for
him to believe in the continuation of individual life after bodily
death.

Within the generation to which I belong Darwin and Marx, the greatest teachers that the world has had, went over the top of entrenched ignorance with the greatest books of the world, worth infinitely more to it than all its bibles together. Darwin did this in 1859 with his Origin of Species by Natural Selection and Marx in 1867 with his Capital, a Critique of Political Economy.

Darwin with his book is driving the Christian church out of its trench of supernaturalism and uniqueism by showing that the different kinds of vegetable and animal life are not, according to the representation of its bible, so many separate creations by a personal, conscious divinity, but interrelated evolutions by an impersonal, unconscious nature, the higher out of the lower, and that, therefore, man is so far from being a special creation, having his most vital relationships with a celestial divinity and his most glorious prospects in a heavenly place with him, that he is really more or less closely related to every living thing on earth, and is as hopelessly limited to it, as an elephant, a tree or even a mountain.

Marx with his book is driving the states out of the trench of imperialism and capitalism.

As Darwin is driving the conscious, personal gods out of the realm of biology, placing all animal and human life of body, mind and soul on essentially the same footing, so Marx is driving all such divinities out of the realm of sociology, placing all life of family, state, church, lodge, store and shop on essentially the same level.

According to Darwin, all animal life is what it is at any time by reason of the effort to accommodate the physical organism to its environment.

According to Marx, human civilization is what it is at any time because of the economic system by which people feed, clothe and house themselves.

This Darwinian-Marxian interpretation of terrestrial life in general, and of the human part of it in particular, is known as materialism. It is the materialistic, naturalistic, levelistic interpretation of history, and differs fundamentally from the spiritualistic, supernaturalistic, uniqueistic interpretation of Christian preachers. The contrast between these interpretations is especially strong in the case of human history.

On the one hand the Christian preacher says, man's history is what it is because of the directing providence of a God, the Father, Son and Spirit, and because of His directing inspiration of great leaders, such as Washington, Luther, Caesar and Moses.

On the other hand Darwin and Marx agree in saying that both the triune god and the inspired leader are what they are, because society is what it is; that, again, the character of society depends upon the economic system by which it feeds, clothes and houses itself, and that finally all such systems owe their existence to the machinery in use for the production of the basic necessities of life, the primal machine being the human hand to which all other machines are auxiliaries.

The most insatiable and universal among all human longings is for freedom--freedom from economic want, social inequality and imperialistic tyranny, also freedom to learn, think, live and teach truths.

Socialism of the Marxian type is the gospel of freedom, because a classless god, nature, reveals it in the interest of a classless world: therefore, it is true, and slavery, of which there never was so much before on the earth, and nowhere is there more than in the United States, is utterly incompatible with truth, and classless interests.

All the supernaturalistic gospels are revealed by a class god (Jesus, Jehovah, Allah, Buddha) in the interest of the capitalist class: therefore, they are false and freedom is utterly incompatible with falsehood and class interest.

Ignorance is the destroyer-god and capitalism is the diabolical scourge by which he afflicts the wage-earner with many unnecessary sufferings, especially the crushing ones arising from the great trinity of evils, war, poverty and slavery.

Knowledge is the saviour-god and Marxism is his divine gospel of freedom from these capitalistic sufferings.

III. MYTHICAL CHARACTER OF OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT PERSONAGES.