were doomed to perish on the battlefields, not on behalf of their own cause but on behalf of that of their enemies. They were doomed to work themselves to death, not for their own sake or for that of their comrades or their children, but for the sake of their oppressors.
31. The Collapse of Capitalism, and the working Class.
In this manner, at the outset,the war contributed to the centralisation and organisation of the capitalist economy. That which the syndicates, the banks, the trusts, and the combined undertakings, had not yet fully achieved, was speedily finished by State capitalism. It created a network out of all the organs regulating production and distribution. Thus it prepared the ground even more fully than before for the time when the proletariat would be able to take the now centralised large-scale production into its own hands.
It was inevitable that the war, whose burden pressed so heavily on the working class, should in due course lead to a rising of the proletarian masses. The leading characteristic of the war was that it was murderous to an unparalleled degree. The levying of troops advanced with giant strides. The proletariat was positively decimated on the battlefields. The reports show that down to March, 1917, the number of dead, wounded, and missing, totalled 25 millions; by January 1, 1918, the number of the killed had been approximately 8 millions. If we assume the average weight of a soldier to 150 lb., this means that between August 1, 1914, and January 1, 1918, the capitalists had brought to market twelve hundred million pounds of putrid human flesh. To estimate the real loss in human beings, we must add a few millions permanently invalided. Considering syphilis alone, this disease has been diffused by the war to an almost incredible extent, so that infection is now nearly universal. In consequence of the war people have become far less fit physically; the most healthy, the most effective clements, those which formed the flower of the nations, have been destroyed. It need hardly be