In fact, they are organized upon the basis of a class struggle.
"The history of society," they say, "is a history of class
struggles. Patrician struggled with plebeian in early Rome; the
king and the burghers, with the nobles in the Middle Ages; later on,
the king and the nobles with the bourgeoisie; and today the struggle
is on between the triumphant bourgeoisie and the rising proletariat.
By 'proletariat' is meant the class of people without capital which
sells its labor for a living.

"That the proletariat shall conquer," (mark the note of fatalism),
"is as certain as the rising sun. Just as the bourgeoisie of the
eighteenth century wanted democracy applied to politics, so the
proletariat of the twentieth century wants democracy applied to
industry. As the bourgeoisie complained against the government
being run by and for the nobles, so the proletariat complains
against the government and industry being run by and for the
bourgeoisie; and so, following in the footsteps of its predecessor,
the proletariat will possess itself of the government, apply
democracy to industry, abolish wages, which are merely legalized
robbery, and run the business of the country in its own interest."

"Their aim," they say, "is to organize the working class, and those
in sympathy with it, into a political party, with the object of
conquering the powers of government and of using them for the
purpose of transforming the present system of private ownership of
the means of production and distribution into collective ownership
by the entire people."

Briefly stated, this is the battle plan of these 450,000 men who
call themselves "socialists." And, in the face of the existence of