times in zig-zags, sometimes retracing our steps, sometimes giving up the course once selected and trying various others? And people who are so ignorant and inexperienced (it is all right if this is due to their youth—the Lord Himself has ordained that during a certain time the young should talk such nonsense) are supported in this uncompromising attitude—directly or indirectly, openly or covertly, wholly or partially—by certain Dutch Communists!
After the first Socialist revolution of the proletariat, upon the overthrow of the bourgeoisie in a country, the proletariat remains for a time weaker than the bourgeoisie, simply by virtue of the latter's far-reaching international connections, and also on account of the ceaseless and spontaneous re-birth of capitalism and the bourgeoisie, through the small producers of commodities in the country which has overthrown them. To overcome so potent an enemy is possible only through the greatest effort and by dint of the obligatory, thorough, careful, attentive and skilfull utilization of every breach, however small, between the enemies; of every clash of interests between the bourgeoisie of all countries, between various groups and species of bourgeoisie within individual countries; of every possibility, however small, of gaining an ally, even though he be temporary, shaky, unstable, unreliable and conditional. Who has not grasped this has failed to grasp one iota of Marxism and of scientific modern Socialism in general. Whoever has failed to prove in practice, during a considerable period of time and insufficiently varied political situations, his ability to apply this truth, has not yet learned to aid the revolutionary class in its struggle for the liberation of all toiling humanity from its exploiters. All this applies equally to the period before and after the conquest of political power by the proletariat.
Our theory is not a dogma but a manual of action, said Marx and Engels; and the greatest mistake, the greatest crime of "patented" Marxists like Karl Kautsky, Otto Bauer, etc., is that they have not understood this, that they were unable to apply it in the most important moments of the proletarian revolution. "Political activity is not the pavement of the Nevsky Prospect," (the clean, broad, level pavement of the
