It will defend its "holy of holies"—its profits and privileges of exploitation tooth and nail. It will defend them with the cold-blooded viciousness which it manifested during the history of its colonial policy and during the last world war. It will move heaven and hell against the workers. It will mobilise the peasantry against the industrial workers. It will set the backward elements of the proletariat against the vanguard of Socialism. It will get its officers to commit massacres. It will attempt to nullify Socialist measures by a hundred-and-one methods of passive resistance. It will put in the way of the revolution twenty uprisings à la Vandée. To save itself it will invoke the assistance of the foreign enemy, the murderous armed force of a Clemenceau, a Lloyd George, or a Wilson. It will sooner turn the country into a smoking heap of ruins than voluntarily relinquish its power to exploit the working class.
This resistance must be put down with an iron hand, with the utmost energy. The power of the bourgeois counter-revolution must be met by the revolutionary power of the working class. The plots, schemes, and intrigues of the capitalist class must be countered by the ceaseless vigilance, clearness of vision, and readiness of the proletarian mass for action at any moment. The threatening dangers of counter-revolution must be met by the arming of the people and the disarming of the ruling classes. The obstructionist manœuvres in Parliament on behalf of the capitalist class must be met by the active organisation of the workers and soldiers. The presence of the bourgeoisie everywhere and the thousands of means at its command must be overcome by the concentrated compact power of the working class developed to the highest possible degree. Only the united front of the entire German proletariat—the South German with the North German, the city workers with the agricultural workers, the working men with the soldiers—and the living spiritual bond of the German revolution with the International, the elevation of the German revolution to the height of the world revolution of the proletariat, can create that granite’ foundation upon which the structure of the future must be based.
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