of the twentieth century were considered prosperous years, yet in
that time more than 300,000 men added themselves to the ranks of the
revolutionists, flinging their defiance in the teeth of bourgeois
society and taking their stand under the blood-red banner. In the
state of the writer, California, one man in twelve is an avowed and
registered revolutionist.

One thing must be clearly understood. This is no spontaneous and
vague uprising of a large mass of discontented and miserable people--
a blind and instinctive recoil from hurt. On the contrary, the
propaganda is intellectual; the movement is based upon economic
necessity and is in line with social evolution; while the miserable
people have not yet revolted. The revolutionist is no starved and
diseased slave in the shambles at the bottom of the social pit, but
is, in the main, a hearty, well-fed working-man, who sees the
shambles waiting for him and his children and recoils from the
descent. The very miserable people are too helpless to help
themselves. But they are being helped, and the day is not far
distant when their numbers will go to swell the ranks of the
revolutionists.

Another thing must be clearly understood. In spite of the fact that
middle-class men and professional men are interested in the movement,
it is nevertheless a distinctly working-class revolt. The world
over, it is a working-class revolt. The workers of the world, as a
class, are fighting the capitalists of the world, as a class. The
so-called great middle class is a growing anomaly in the social
struggle. It is a perishing class (wily statisticians to the
contrary), and its historic mission of buffer between the capitalist
and working-classes has just about been fulfilled. Little remains