(resistance to the capitalists), form one harmonious and well-planned entity. In this concentric attack, as it were, lies the strength and invincibility of the German movement.
It is due to this advantageous situation on the one hand, to the insular peculiarities of the British, and to the cruel oppression of the French movements on the other, that for the present moment the German workers form the vanguard of the proletarian struggle. How long events will allow them to occupy this post of honour cannot be foreseen. But as long as they are placed in it, let us hope that they will discharge their duties in the proper manner. To this end it will he necessary to double our energies in all the spheres of struggle and agitation. It is the specified duty of the leaders (illegible text) gain an ever-clearer understanding of the theoretical problems, to free themselves more and more from the influence of traditional phrases inherited from the old conception of the world, and constantly to keep in mind that Socialists having become a science, demands the same treatment as every other science—it must be studied. The task of the leaders will be to bring understanding thus acquired and clarified, to the working masses, to spread it with increased enthusiasm, to close the ranks of the party organisations and of the labor unions with ever-greater energy. …
If the German workers proceed in this way they may not march exactly at the head of the movement—it is not in the interest of the movement that the workers of one country should march at the head of all—but they will occupy an honourable place on the battle line, and they will stand armed battle when other unexpected grave trials or momentous events will demand heightened courage, heightened determination, and the will to act.[1]
Engels' words proved prophetic. Within a few years, the German workers were subjected to severe trials in the form of the anti-Socialist laws; but they were fully armed to meet the situation, and succeeded in emerging from it victoriously.
The Russian workers will have to undergo trials immeasurably more severe; they will have to take up the fight against a monster compared with which anti-Socialist laws in a constitutional country are but pigmies. History has now confronted us with an immediate task which is more revolutionary than all the immediate tasks that confront the proletariat of any other country. The fulfilment of this task, the destruction of the most powerful bulwark, not only of European, but also (it may now he said) of Asiatic reaction places the Russian proletariat in the vanguard of the international revolutionary proletariat. We shall have the right to count upon acquiring the honourable title already earned by our predecessors, the revolutionists of the seventies, if we succeed in inspiring our movement—which is a thousand times wider and deeper—with the same devoted determination and vigour.
- ↑ Third Edition, Leipzig, 1875. [English translation, pp. 27–30.—Ed.]
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