Ernest had largely planned the First Revolt, and the date set had been somewhere early in the spring of 1918.  In the fall of 1917 we were not ready; much remained to be done, and when the Revolt was precipitated, of course it was doomed to failure.  The plot of necessity was frightfully intricate, and anything premature was sure to destroy it.  This the Iron Heel foresaw and laid its schemes accordingly.

We had planned to strike our first blow at the nervous system of the Oligarchy.  The latter had remembered the general strike, and had guarded against the defection of the telegraphers by installing wireless stations, in the control of the Mercenaries.  We, in turn, had countered this move.  When the signal was given, from every refuge, all over the land, and from the cities, and towns, and barracks, devoted comrades were to go forth and blow up the wireless stations.  Thus at the first shock would the Iron Heel be brought to earth and lie practically dismembered.

At the same moment, other comrades were to blow up the bridges and tunnels and disrupt the whole network of railroads.  Still further, other groups of comrades, at the signal, were to seize the officers of the Mercenaries and the police, as well as all Oligarchs of unusual ability or who held executive positions.  Thus would the leaders of the enemy be removed from the field of the local battles that would inevitably be fought all over the land.

Many things were to occur simultaneously when the signal went forth.  The Canadian and Mexican patriots, who were far stronger than the Iron Heel dreamed, were to duplicate our tactics.  Then there were comrades (these were the women, for the men would be busy elsewhere) who were to post the proclamations from our secret presses.  Those of us in the higher employ of the Iron Heel were to proceed immediately to make confusion and anarchy in all our departments.  Inside the Mercenaries were thousands of our comrades.  Their work was to blow up the magazines and to destroy the delicate mechanism of all the war machinery.  In the cities of the Mercenaries and of the labor castes similar programmes of disruption were to be carried out.

In short, a sudden, colossal, stunning blow was to be struck.  Before the paralyzed Oligarchy could recover itself, its end would have come.  It would have meant terrible times and great loss of life, but no revolutionist hesitates at such things.  Why, we even depended much, in our plan, on the unorganized people of the abyss.  They were to be loosed on the palaces and cities of the masters.  Never mind the destruction of life and property.  Let the abysmal brute roar and the police and Mercenaries slay.  The abysmal brute would roar anyway, and the police and Mercenaries would slay anyway.  It would merely mean that various dangers to us were harmlessly destroying one another.  In the meantime we would be doing our own work, largely unhampered, and gaining control of all the machinery of society.