The Militant Proletariat

by Austin Lewis

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911. Excerpt: ... II THE MILITANT PROLETARIAT Kautsky has called attention in "The Class Struggle," from which we have quoted so often, because it is probably the best interpretation of Marxism and the Erfurt Program, to the fact that a militant body arises in the masses of the proletarians. He puts it in the following language: Thus, there has gradually formed from skilled and unskilled workers a body of proletarians who are in the movement of labor, or the labor movement. It is the part of the proletariat which is fighting for the interests of the whole class, its church militant, as it were. This division grows at the expense both of the "Aristocrats of labor" and of the common mob which still vegetates, helpless and hopeless. We have already seen that the laboring proletariat is constantly increasing; we know, further, that it tends more and more to set the pace in thought and feeling for the other working classes. We now see, that, in this growing mass of workers, the militant division increases not only absolutely, but relatively. No matter how fast the proletariat may grow, this militant division of it grows still faster. But, it is precisely this militant proletariat which is the most fruitful recruiting ground for socialism. The socialist movement is nothing more than the part of this militant proletariat which has become conscious of its goal. In fact, these two, socialism and the militant proletariat, tend constantly to become identical. In Germany and Austria their identity is already an accomplished fact. 40 This says, essentially, that among the proletarian element there is a growing body which adopts an attitude of revolt towards the existing system and that the members of this body constitute the active revolutionary part of the proletariat, which becomes S...

90 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009