“On Control of the State by the Working Class. 1919” in “Class Warrior”
On Control of the State by the Working Class 1919
This article by Kingsley was published in the inaugural issue of his short-lived Labor Star newspaper in January 1919, during a period when he occupied a leadership role in the Federated Labor Party of British Columbia. While wide sections of the British Columbian and Canadian working class were gravitating toward syndicalism and the revolutionary industrial unionism that would be embodied in the One Big Union movement later that year, Kingsley remained steadfast in his orientation toward working-class political action as the only appropriate strategy for workers to defeat capitalist exploitation.
Control of State through Political Action Must Be Secured by Forces of United Labor If Certain Victory Is to Be Achieved
The sole motive of modern industry is the exploitation of enslaved human labor and the turning of the results of such exploitation to the benefit, aggrandizement and enrichment of the ruling class. Since the first slave was shackled and the institution of slavery became the cornerstone of civilization, everything that has been incorporated into the mechanism of that civilization, whether principle, theory or fact, has been so incorporated solely because it furthered, buttressed, bulwarked and made perfect the efficiency of the means of turning the proceeds of exploitation to the upbuilding and strengthening of the ruling class empire of pomp, magnificence and power. Ruling class industry, with its complicated and powerful machinery, represents the achievement of the ages in the production of ruling class requirements and all that is embodied in the superstructure of this vulgar and brutal civilization. The grand climax of that achievement has been indelibly written in letters of fire and blood during the last four years. And this grand climax has all but wrecked the ruling class and its civilization of horror and rapine.
From the aftermath of the blood debauch of the last four years that civilization can never recover. Intellectual, moral and material bankruptcy of the ruling class of the world is manifest in every act of the ruffianly rulers and their tools, in every utterance of their statesmen and diplomats, and in every fact that figuratively stands forth upon the pages of their day books and ledgers. And the long ages of slavery and torture have at last conjured forth the Nemesis, in the shape of an awakening proletariat, that will swiftly sweep this rotten ruling class civilization and its kindred crimes from the pathway of the human race and make it possible for men and women to live upon this earth without being ruled and robbed for the glory and vulgar aggrandizement of slave masters and drivers.
There has never yet been discovered but one means whereby slaves can be held in bondage and ruled, robbed and tortured by their owners and masters. That means is commonly termed government. The modern state is the instrument of the ruling class. It is the instrument designed, developed and brought to its present high state of efficiency, solely for the purpose of holding slaves in subjection to their masters and owners and rendering them docile and tame to the exactions and schemes of their rulers. Government is unthinkable except for such a purpose. And it has thus far proven itself amply efficient for that purpose. So long as it can bamboozle or cajole the slaves into docility and quiet under the lash of exploitation, it cheerfully does so, no doubt because that is the cheaper way, but whenever that method becomes no longer effective, the lash, the knout, the club, the gun, the bayonet, the jail and the gibbet are used with equal cheerfulness and aplomb, for, no matter what the cost in brutality and blood, the property rights in human flesh must be held intact to the owners and masters and the game of profitably ruling and robbing slaves must not be broken up. Never was such gigantic plunder gathered from the slaves of the earth year by year as is the case at the present time. The magnificence and wealth of the ancient empires of Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Greece and Rome, pale into significance alongside of that of the vulgar capitalist empires of this enlightened age. All the vast power of the chattel slavery and feudalism of the past was unequal to the task of staging such a stupendous and magnificent exhibition of ruling class efficiency and splendor, as that pulled off to the music of capitalist class machinery during the four years. And let none overlook the fact that governments alone called the tune to which millions of slaves danced to their death in the glorious spectacle and millions more crippled and maimed themselves in the gallant attempt. Let it not be forgotten that the common people, the useful people of no land had anything to say; either one way of another, in regard to staging the delectable performance. Rulers, ruffians, governments, attended to all of that, and they are now busily but ludicrously endeavoring to save themselves from the ruins of their own show.
Happily we are democrats, hereon this western continent. In fact we are now democrats all over the earth, since wicked autocracy has been so sweepingly defeated by the self-sanctified nations of the earth and the pure in heart. Well, in democracies we are told that the people rule themselves. That is what Lincoln termed “a government of the people; by the people and for the people.” Granted that this be so, although it be a something absolutely unthinkable and Mr. Lincoln did not know what he was talking about, then it is up to the people of these alleged democracies to take steps to see that their precious governments let up on the club, the gun, the bayonet, the bomb, the jail and the gibbet, and arrange for at least a more decent and tolerable state of affairs than that which has prevailed in the past and which is even now promising to become far worse. If the people really govern here in Canada and in other equally enlightened democracies, then it is time that the ruling and robbing of the producers by the masters of industry, trade and commerce was brought to an end. It is high time that the intelligent people (may God forgive us) took a hand in their own affairs to the end that poverty and misery in a land and age of plenty might be brought to an end.
It is time that governments were forced to spend less of their time in aiding and abetting the schemes of exploiters and commercial brigands to gather their profits at the expense of the producers of wealth, and more of it for the purpose of relieving the pressure upon the producers and breaking the stranglehold of rulers upon their lives and fortunes. And wherever the people of a country possess the franchise they have it in their power to legally deprive their governments of the power to continue as the instruments of class tyranny, rapine and eventual slaughter. Having the franchise and outnumbering the masters many to one, the workers and farmers of Canada can take possession of the reins and powers of government at any election that may occur, except under a “War Time Election Act,” and turn those powers to any purpose they see fit. Those powers can be used to stop the present exploitation and impoverishment of the wealth producers, just as effectively as they are now used to further the exploitation and make that impoverishment inevitable.
Of course, where a “War Time Election Act” is in force, it is somewhat different for under such an infamy the last vestige of even the alleged democracy of our day is destroyed, and purposely so. But with even the limited rights of franchise that prevailed at the outbreak of the war, there is no reason why a ruling class government should continue in power, except that of a lack of intelligence upon the part of the working class electorate. So long as the farmers and city workers draw all of their political and economic inspiration from ruling class sources, however, their very ignorance will cause them to use their franchise wherewith to cut their own economic and political throats. That is what they have been doing in the past, but there is no longer any excuse for such folly. A true understanding of their position in present day society is now easily obtainable, unless they are too mentally lazy to grasp it. A voluminous literature explaining it all is now afloat and it is increasing tremendously in volume. Meetings are being held almost everywhere and the attendance is rapidly increasing. The very atmosphere is even now surcharged with the electricity of revolutionary change. The decades immediately to come will mark the most stupendous changes in social and industrial institutions the world has ever seen. The day of freedom for the toilers of the earth is about to dawn.
For the workers, both rural and urban; for the progressive thinkers; for those who earnestly look forward to a better order, a more decent arrangement of the social and economic affairs of men; for all who have had enough of slavery, of competition, of brutality and war, the time has come for an alignment of forces for the conquest of the public powers for the common good and welfare of all. If all who really believe in democracy were to move in solid political phalanx against the common foe of all progress and human liberty, the citadel of ruling class power would crumble to ruins and that baneful and sinister instrument of class tyranny and rapine—government—would be shorn of its power for evil, and with its teeth pulled and its claws trimmed might be turned into a useful and beneficent administrative instrument wherewith to peacefully and decently carry out the requirements of a civilization not based upon slavery and slaughter. It is the mission of this publication to do all within its power to rouse the workers, the useful, the thoughtful, the progressive people of the land, to the necessity of united and emphatic action along political lines for the purpose of wresting from the brutal and conscienceless ruling class of this dominion and of the world, control of that government instrument of oppression and repression whereby the wealth producers are held in the torture of exploitation and robbery in times of peace, and driven ruthlessly into the shambles of ruling class bloodlust and slaughter, in times when rulers and robbers fall out and quarrel over the division of the plunder. United political action by all workers and progressives generally, against the robber class of this and all other lauds, is the first consideration, and where these have the franchise there it would be folly to advocate or advise resort to any other means. We still have the franchise in Canada and the United States. Let us use that franchise in our own behalf and that of our class. When we have been deprived of that franchise it will then be time to consider the advisability of using some other equally legal weapon wherewith to effect the deliverance of our class from its age long bondage. In such case even the club would be legal, as any legal gentleman will cheerfully admit, that is if he be paid for the admission. The tactics and methods forced upon the workers and peasants of Russia are not yet necessary here. Let us hope they never will be necessary, but let us also hope, and also solemnly affirm, that whenever it does become necessary to do as the Russian workers have done, that we will not be so lacking in manly courage as to lay down on the job. But the conquest of the public powers by and for the working class, and that too by the use of whatever means may be determined by the ruling class itself, is the first task in hand. It is up to that class whether the change that is coming shall come peacefully, or come “in full panoply of war, with wild dishevelled locks and shod in iron sandals.”
E. T. Kingsley
—“Control of State through Political Action Must Be Secured by Forces of United Labor If Certain Victory Is to be Achieved,” Labor Star (Vancouver), 16 Jan. 1919, 1–2.
We use cookies to analyze our traffic. Please decide if you are willing to accept cookies from our website. You can change this setting anytime in Privacy Settings.