cultural state into a highly organized co-operative commonwealth. You are going to jump out of the eighteenth century into the twenty-second."
"We are going to have a new social order," they replied, "but we don't depend on jumping or magic. We depend upon the massed power of the workmen and peasants."
"But where are the brains to do this?" I interrupted. "Think of the colossal ignorance of the masses."
"Brains!" they exclaimed hotly. "Do you think we bow down before the brains of our 'betters'? What could be more brainless and stupid and criminal than this war? And who are guilty of it? Not the working classes, but the governing classes in every country. Surely the ignorance and inexperience of workmen and peasants could not make a worse mess than generals and statesmen with all their brains and culture. We believe in the masses. We believe in their creative force. And we must make the Social Revolution anyhow."
"And why?" I asked.
"Because it is the next step in the evolution of the race. Once we had slavery. It gave way to feudalism. That in turn gave way to capitalism. Now capitalism must leave the stage. It has served its purpose. It has made possible large scale production, world-wide industrialism. But now it must make its exit. It is the breeder of imperialism and war, the strangler of labor, the destroyer of civiliza-
