Schwiedland’s brief review credits Louis’s critique of the class state while questioning both its rigidity and the practical basis of his revolutionary programme.
Die Hälfte dieses Buches enthält eine wichtige Kritik des heutigen „Klassenstaates“, dem, als Organ der jeweils herrschenden Klassen, jede Wandlungsfähigkeit abgesprochen wird.
English translation: Half of this book contains an important critique of the present-day "class state," to which, as the organ of the classes ruling at any given time, all capacity for transformation is denied.
The acknowledgement of an “important critique” is qualified by Louis’s denial that the state can change. Schwiedland then identifies an equally doctrinaire demand that trade unions move from corporatism to syndicalism. He interprets the general strike as a route toward anarchy, cautiously presenting this as Louis’s apparent aim.
Darüber, wie die radikalen Gewerkschaften die tatsächliche Macht erringen und wie sie sie dann benutzen sollen, schweigt übrigens der im kritischen Teil des Buches sehr konkret denkende Verfasser.
English translation: As to how the radical trade unions are to attain actual power and how they are then to use it, the author, who in the critical part of the book thinks very concretely, is, moreover, silent.
This closing contrast supplies the review’s central judgment: concrete social criticism does not establish a workable strategy for acquiring or exercising power. Its relevance lies in distinguishing the force of Louis’s diagnosis from the unanswered institutional questions of his proposed transformation.
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