Page:Georges Sorel, Reflections On Violence (1915).djvu/167

Rh and the constructions made by men entirely devoid of higher culture. Marx had acquired in Germany a taste for very condensed formulas, and these formulas were so admirably suited to the conditions in the midst of which he worked that he naturally made great use of them. When he wrote, there had been none of the great and numerous strikes which would have enabled him to speak with a detailed knowledge of the means by which the proletariat may prepare itself for the revolution. This absence of knowledge gained from experience very much hampered Marx's thought; he avoided the use of too precise formulas which would have had this inconvenience of giving a kind of sanction to existing institutions, which seemed valueless to him; he was therefore happy to be able to find in German academic writing a habit of abstract language which allowed him to avoid all discussion of detail.

No better proof perhaps can be given of Marx's genius than the remarkable agreement which is found to exist between his views and the doctrine which revolutionary Syndicalism is to-day building up slowly and laboriously, keeping always strictly to strike tactics.

For some time yet, the conception of the general strike will have considerable difficulty in becoming acclimatised in circles which are not specially dominated by strike tactics. I think it might be useful at this point to enquire