There must, then, according to Bolshevik theory, be armed conflict sooner or later, if the injustices of the present economic system are ever to be remedied.  Not only do they assume armed conflict:  they have a fairly definite conception of the way in which it is to be conducted.  This conception has been carried out in Russia, and is to be carried out, before very long, in every civilized country.  The Communists, who represent the class-conscious wage-earners, wait for some propitious moment when events have caused a mood of revolutionary discontent with the existing Government.  They then put themselves at the head of the discontent, carry through a successful revolution, and in so doing acquire the arms, the railways, the State treasure, and all the other resources upon which the power of modern Governments is built.  They then confine political power to Communists, however small a minority they may be of the whole nation.  They set to work to increase their number by propaganda and the control of education.  And meanwhile, they introduce Communism into every department of economic life as quickly as possible.

Ultimately, after a longer or shorter period, according to circumstances, the nation will be converted to Communism, the relics of capitalist institutions will have been obliterated, and it will be possible to restore freedom.  But the political conflicts to which we are accustomed will not reappear.  All the burning political questions of our time, according to the Communists, are questions of class conflict, and will disappear when the division of classes disappears.  Accordingly the State will no longer be required, since the State is essentially an engine of power designed to give the victory to one side in the class conflict.  Ordinary States are designed to give the victory to the capitalists; the proletarian State (Soviet Russia) is designed to give the victory to the wage-earners.  As soon as the community contains only wage-earners, the State will cease to have any functions.  And so, through a period of dictatorship, we shall finally arrive at a condition very similar to that aimed at by Anarchist Communism.

Three questions arise in regard to this method of reaching Utopia.  First, would the ultimate state foreshadowed by the Bolsheviks be desirable in itself?  Secondly, would the conflict involved in achieving it by the Bolshevik method be so bitter and prolonged that its evils would outweigh the ultimate good?  Thirdly, is this method likely to lead, in the end, to the state which the Bolsheviks desire, or will it fail at some point and arrive at a quite different result?  If we are to be Bolsheviks, we must answer all these questions in a sense favourable to their programme.

As regards the first question, I have no hesitation in answering it in a manner favourable to Communism.  It is clear that the present inequalities of wealth are unjust.  In part, they may be defended as affording an incentive to useful industry, but I do not think this defence will carry us very far.  However, I have argued this question before in my book on Roads to Freedom, and I will not spend time upon it now.  On this matter, I concede the Bolshevik case.  It is the other two questions that I wish to discuss.