of income returns is all the greater as incomes arise from speculation and business secrets are kept more carefully.
To make the tax effective we must have a real control, not only a control on paper. This control is impossible if it remains bureaucratic, for bureaucracy itself is linked with the bourgeoisie by thousands of ties. This is why, in the Imperialist states of Western Europe, whether monarchies or republics, the stabilisation of finance is only secured at the price of "compulsory labour," which imposes a barrack-room discipline upon the workers. Reactionary bureaucratic control is the only method known to the imperialist governments, not excepting the "democratic " republics of France and America, for placing the burdens of the war upon the proletariat and the labouring classes.
The fundamental contradiction of our government consists in the fact that in order not to clash with the bourgeoisie, in order not to break the "coalition," it is obliged to instal a reactionary bureaucratic control, to call it "revolutionary-democratic," and thus, at each step, to deceive and irritate and exasperate the masses who have just over-thrown Tsarism.
Now revolutionary-democratic measures, i.e., the grouping into associations of the oppressed classes, of the workers and peasant masses, are exactly what is required to exercise the most effective control over the rich and to wage an efficacious struggle against the concealment of incomes.
It is necessary, in order to combat fiduciary inflation, to encourage the use of cheques. It is a step which in no way affects the poor, for they live from day to day and only establish their budget for their week; at the end of which they have given back to the capitalists the few pence which they have earned in working for them. But as far as the rich are concerned, the exclusive use of cheques would be of immense importance. It would allow the state—especially if accompanied by the nationalisation of banking and the suppression of business secrecy—to exercise a real control over the incomes of the capitalists, to really "democratise" the financial system and at the same time to regulate it.
The unfortunate thing about the present situation is that there is a fear of assailing the privileges of the bourgeoisie and of breaking the "coalition." For, without truly revolutionary measures, without some degree of coercion, the capitalists will not
