This being certain and inevitable, it is as well to be prepared for
it, and to conduct propaganda accordingly. Those who pretend that
pacific methods can lead to the realization of Communism are false
friends to the wage-earners; intentionally or unintentionally, they
are covert allies of the bourgeoisie.

There must, then, according to Bolshevik theory, be armed conflict
sooner or later, if the injustices of the present economic system are
ever to be remedied. Not only do they assume armed conflict: they have
a fairly definite conception of the way in which it is to be
conducted. This conception has been carried out in Russia, and is to
be carried out, before very long, in every civilized country. The
Communists, who represent the class-conscious wage-earners, wait for
some propitious moment when events have caused a mood of revolutionary
discontent with the existing Government. They then put themselves at
the head of the discontent, carry through a successful revolution, and
in so doing acquire the arms, the railways, the State treasure, and
all the other resources upon which the power of modern Governments is
built. They then confine political power to Communists, however small
a minority they may be of the whole nation. They set to work to
increase their number by propaganda and the control of education. And
meanwhile, they introduce Communism into every department of economic
life as quickly as possible.

Ultimately, after a longer or shorter period, according to
circumstances, the nation will be converted to Communism, the relics
of capitalist institutions will have been obliterated, and it will be
possible to restore freedom. But the political conflicts to which we
are accustomed will not reappear. All the burning political questions
of our time, according to the Communists, are questions of class
conflict, and will disappear when the division of classes disappears.
Accordingly the State will no longer be required, since the State is
essentially an engine of power designed to give the victory to one
side in the class conflict. Ordinary States are designed to give the
victory to the capitalists; the proletarian State (Soviet Russia) is
designed to give the victory to the wage-earners. As soon as the
community contains only wage-earners, the State will cease to have any
functions. And so, through a period of dictatorship, we shall finally
arrive at a condition very similar to that aimed at by Anarchist
Communism.