Page:Friedrich Engels - The Revolutionary Act - tr. Henry Kuhn (1922).pdf/27

 in the shape of the anti-Socialist law. For the moment, the party was dispersed, the vote sank to 312,000 in 1881. But that was soon overcome, and now, under pressure of the exceptional law, without a press, without a legal organization, without the right of assembly, began the most rapid growth in spite of all. 1884: 550,000; 1887: 763,000; 1890: 1,427,000 votes. Then the hand of the State was lamed. The anti-Socialist law vanished, the Socialist vote rose to 1,787,000, more than a quarter of the entire vote cast. The Government and the ruling classes had exhausted all their means—uselessly, purposelessly, unsuccessfully. The most palpable proofs of their own impotence which the authorities, from night watchman to chancellor, had been made to swallow—and from the despised workers, at that—these proofs could be counted by the million. The State had got to the end of its resources, the workers were but at the beginning of theirs.

The German workers had, moreover, rendered to their cause a second great service, besides the first of their mere existence as the strongest, the best disciplined and the most rapidly growing Socialist party; they had furnished their comrades in all countries with a new and one of the sharpest weapons, by showing them how to utilize the general franchise.

The general franchise had for a long time existed in France, but had there fallen into bad repute through the misuse it had been put to by the Bonapartist Government. After the Commune, there was no labor