Page:Friedrich Engels - The Revolutionary Act - tr. Henry Kuhn (1922).pdf/20

 demands which in part were really or apparently in the interest of the great mass of the people. The more radical demands would in some isolated cases be enforced, but more often only for the moment; the more moderate party would again get the upper hand and that which had been won last was again lost in whole or in part; the vanquished would then shout treason or would attribute the defeat to accident. In reality the lay of the land was usually this: the gains of the first victory were made secure only through the second victory of the radical party; whenever that, and thereby momentary needs had been attained, the radicals and their successes would vanish from the scene.

All the more modern revolutions, beginning with the great English revolution of the 17th century, exhibited these features which seem inseparable from every revolutionary struggle. They appear applicable also to the struggles of the proletariat for its emancipation, applicable the more so since, just in 1848, those could be counted who even in a measure understood in which direction emancipation was to be looked for. The proletarian masses themselves, even after their Paris victory, were absolutely at sea as to the course to be pursued. And yet, there was the movement—instinctive, spontaneous, irrepressible. Was not that just the situation wherein the revolution must succeed, led by a minority, it is true, but this time not in the interest of that minority but in the most specific interest of the majority? If in all the longer revolutionary