Mein Kampf
about so-called “governmental authority” or “peace and good order” was a suitable basis for the intellectual driving force of a life-and-death battle.
Because there was no real intellectual basis for the struggle, Bismarck was obliged to entrust the carrying-out of his Socialistic legislation to the judgment and good will of the very institution which itself was born of the Marxist way of thought. When the Iron Chancellor left his war on Marxism to the good will of bourgeois Democracy, he was setting the fox to watch the geese.
But all this was only the inevitable result, since there was no new fundamental world-concept, of imperious, conquering will, opposed to Marxism. The sole result of Bismarck’s struggle, consequently, was a severe disappointment.
But were conditions at the beginning of the World War in any way different? Unfortunately not.
The more I thought about the necessary change in the attitude of the government toward Social Democracy, as the momentary embodiment of Marxism, the more I recognized the absence of a workable substitute for this doctrine. What could they have given to the masses, supposing Social Democracy to have been broken? Not one movement existed that could be expected to succeed in getting the great hordes of now more or less leaderless workers under its influence. It is silly and more than stupid to suppose that the international fanatic, having left his class party, will at once join a bourgeois party, that is to say, a new class organization. For disagreeable as it may be to various organizations, there is no denying the fact that bourgeois politicians very largely take class division for granted, so long as the political results do not work out to their disadvantage. Denial of this fact proves only the impudence and the stupidity of the liars.
In general we must avoid thinking the masses stupider than they are. In political matters feeling often decides more truly than understanding. The belief that the masses’ stupid interna-
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