THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAPITALISTIC SOCIAL ORDER

each step in capitalist development, the proletariat grows more numerous. It is like the Hydra, the many-headed monster of fable; if you cut off one of its heads, ten new ones grow. When the bourgeoisie suppressed a working-class rising, it thereby strengthened the capitalist system. But the development of this capitalist system ruined petty proprietors and peasants by the million, throwing them under the feet of the capitalists. By this very process it increased the number of proletarians, the enemies of the capitalist class. But the increase in strength of the working class was not numerical merely. In addition, the working class became more strongly integrated. Why did this happen? Because, as capitalism developed, there was an increase in the number of great factories. Each great factory assembles within its walls a thousand workers, sometimes as many as ten thousand. These workers labour shoulder to shoulder. They recognise how their capitalist employer is exploiting them. They perceive that to each worker his fellow-workers are friends and comrades. In the course of their work the proletarians, united in the factory, learn how to unite forces. They more readily come to an agreement one with another. That is why, as capitalism develops, there is not merely an increase in the number of the workers, but an increase in working-class solidarity.