Page:Marx and Engels on Revolution in America - Heinz Neumann.djvu/32

Marx thus demanded, in consequence of the changes which had taken place in the United States since the Civil War, the "constitution of an earnest workers' party." In this connection it is of great importance that he emphasized the special role of the farmers in view of the agrarian crisis and of the land expropriation in direct connection with the formation of the mass party of the proletariat.

A decade later Engels touches upon the same problem in his letter to Sorge dated November 29, 1886. He clearly and unmistakably demands that the American socialists work within the Knights of Labor to arouse the masses. Despite his designating this order as one of "confused principles and a ridiculous organization," he demands that the American Marxists "build up within this still wholly plastic mass a nucleus of persons," who will have to take over after the inevitable split of this "Third Party" the leadership of the latter's proletarian elements:

"To tell the truth, the Germans have not been able to use their theory as a lever to set the American masses in motion. To a great extent they do not understand the theory themselves and treat it in a doctrinaire and dogmatic fashion as if it were something which must be committed to memory, but which then suffices for all purposes without further ado. FOR THEM IT IS A CREDO, NOT A GUIDE FOR ACTION … hence the American masses must seek their own road and APPEAR for the moment to have found it in the K. of L. whose confused principles and ridiculous organization APPEAR to con-

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