It is obvious that the army program of the socialists was unrealisable in bourgeois society, above all during an epoch in which the class struggle was continually growing more acute. To abolish barracks signifies the abolition of the places where the workers and the peasants are trained to become the executioners of their own class brothers. It signifies the abolition of the only places in which it is possible to transform the workers into an army which will be ready to use its weapons against other nations at any moment which may suit the capitalists. To abolish the officers’ caste signifies the abolition of the beast tamers who are alone competent to maintain an iron discipline, and who are alone able to subject the armed people to the will of the bourgeois class. The election of officers would enable the armed workers and peasants to choose officers from among themselves, officers who would not be bourgeois. For the bourgeoisie to agree to such proposals would mean that it was consenting to the formation of an army which was intended to subvert its own regime.
The whole history of capitalism in Europe has demonstrated and continues to demonstrate the impossibility of carrying out the old army program of the socialist party within the framework of bourgeois society, of carrying it out while society is divided into classes and in days when the class struggle is growing more acute. In proportion as the class struggle is intensified do we find that the bourgeois rulers are disinclined to arm the whole nation and are determined to put arms in the hands of their trusted White Guards only. The army program of the socialists, in so far as they hoped to realise it in the bourgeois regime, was, therefore, nothing but petty-bourgeois utopism.
Is it not possible, however, that the program was formulated with the definite aim of overthrowing the bourgeois regime? This was not the case. The bourgeoisie wishes to defend itself against the working class, which hopes to seize power. It will therefore never entertain the idea of arming the workers. The bourgeoisie has introduced universal military