THE SOVIET POWER

farthing. Paper laws are of no use to the working class unless the possibility of their realisation exists. But such a possibility of realisation does not exist under the capitalist regime, cannot exist under the system in which the capitalists own all the wealth. Even if the workers enjoy on paper the right of meeting, they often find it quite impossible to exercise such a right. For instance, the innkeepers, incited by the big sharks of capital, or moved by their own hostility to the workers, will frequently refuse to let rooms for meetings — and the workers have nowhere else to go. Here is another example. The workers wish to publish a newspaper, and they have the legal right to do so. But to exercise this right they need money, paper, offices, a printing press, etc. All these things are in the hands of the capitalists. The capitalists won’t relax their grip. Nothing doing! Out of the workers’ paltry wage it is impossible to accumulate adequate funds. The result is that the bourgeoisie has masses of newspapers and can cheat the workers to its heart’s content day after day; whereas the workers, notwithstanding their legal