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THE NEWEST ANARCHISM 257
Without going needlessly far into this subject,
it
seems safe to conclude that the State is no more terrifying
to the modern socialist than it was to Marx and
Engels. There is not a socialist party in any country
that has not used its
power to force the State to undertake
collective enterprise. Indeed, all the immediate
programs of the various socialist parties advocate the
strengthening of the economic power of the State. They
are adding more and more to its functions ; they are
broadening its scope ; and they are, without question,
vastly increasing its power. But, at the same time, they
are democratizing the State. By direct legislation, by a
variety of political reforms, and by the power
of the
great socialist parties themselves, they are really wresting
the control of the State from the hands of special
privilege. Furthermore— and this is
something neither
the anarchists nor the syndicalists will see— State socialism
is in itself undermining and slowly destroying the
class character of the State. According to the view of
Marx, the State is
to-day "but a committee for managing
the common affairs of the whole capitalist class." (26)
And it is this because the economic power of the capitalist
class is
supreme. But by the growth
of State socialism
the economic power of the private capitalists is
steadily weakened. The railroads, the mines, the forests,
and other great monopolies are taken out of their hands,
and, to the extent that this happens, their control over
the State itself disappears. Their only power to control
the State is their economic power, and, if that were entirely
to disappear, the class character of the State would
disappear also. "The State is not abolished. It dies
out"; to repeat Engels' notable words. "As soon as there
is no longer any social class to be held in subjection,
. . .
nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special