Page:Friedrich Engels - The Revolutionary Act - tr. Henry Kuhn (1922).pdf/19

 error, but also it transformed completely the conditions under which the proletariat will have to battle. The fighting methods of 1848 are today obsolete in every respect, and that is a point which right here deserves closer investigation.

Hitherto, all revolutions implied the elimination of one form of class rule by another; hitherto, all ruling classes formed but small minorities as compared with the ruled popular mass. Whenever one minority was overthrown, another minority instead took hold of the reins of power and remodeled the State institutions according to its interests. In every instance it was that minority group which, according to the degree of economic development, was capable and therefore called upon to rule, on that account and principally, because it always happened that the ruled majority either aided the revolution on the side of the ruling minority, or at least passively tolerated the same. But, leaving aside the concrete contents in each case, the common form of all these revolutions was that they were minority revolutions. Even when the majority cooperated, it was done—consciously or not—only in the service of a minority; and the latter obtained thereby, or even through the passive, unresisting attitude of the majority, the appearance of being the representative of all the people.

After the first great success, the minority as a rule split; one half was content with what had been gained, while the other half, wanting to go further, set up new