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In the same article Engels expresses his profound esteem for Vaillant, and speaks of the "undeniable merit" of the latter (who, like Guesde, was one of the most prominent leaders of international Socialism prior to August, 1914, when both turned traitor to the cause of Socialism). But Engels does not leave an apparent mistake without a detailed analysis. Of course, to very young and inexperienced revolutionists, as well as to petit-bourgeois revolutionists (even though very experienced and of a very respectable age), it seems most dangerous, incomprehensible and incorrect to allow compromises. And many sophists, by virtue of their being super- or over-"experienced" politicians, reason the same way as the English leaders of Opportunism, mentioned by Comrade Lansbury:—"If the Bolsheviks permit themselves compromises, why should not we be allowed them?" But proletarians, schooled in manifold strikes (to take only this manifestation of the class war), usually comprehend perfectly this most profound (philosophical, historical, political and psychological) truth, as expounded by Engels. Every proletarian who has gone through strikes has experienced compromises with the hated oppressors and exploiters, when the workers had to get back to work, sometimes without obtaining their demands, sometimes consenting to a partial compliance only. Every proletarian, because of that state of the class struggle and intensification of class antagonisms in which he lives, distinguishes between a compromise extorted from him by objective conditions (such as lack of funds in the treasury, no support from without, starvation, and the last stage of exhaustion)—a compromise which in no way lessens the revolutionary devotion and readiness of the worker to continue the struggle—and, on the other hand, the compromise of traitors, who ascribe to objective reasons their own selfishness (strike breakers also effect a "compromise"), to their cowardice, to their desire to fawn upon capitalists, and to their readiness to yield sometimes to threats, sometimes to persuasion, sometimes to sops and flattery on the part of capitalists. Such treacherous compromises are especially plentiful in the history of the English labor movement, made by leaders of the English trade unions; but in one form or another nearly all workers in every country have witnessed similar instances.
