Page:Karl Kautsky - The Road to Power - tr. A. M. Simons (1909).pdf/125

 Even in the best cases the only gain will be to the  who have carried out the sale.

Whoever looks upon the Socialist party as a means for the freeing of the proletariat, must decisively oppose any and all forms of participation by that party in the ruling corruption. If there is anything that will rob us of the confidence of all honorable elements in the masses, and that will gain us the contempt of all those sections of the proletariat that are capable of and willing to fight, and that will bar the road to our progress, it is participation of the Socialists in any coalition or "bloc" policy.

The only elements that would be served by such a policy would be those to whom our party is nothing more than a ladder by which they can personally climb—the strivers and the self-seekers. The less of such elements we attract to us and the more we can drive away, the better for our battle.

How what has been said will be applied in individual cases it is impossible to say definitely. Never was it more difficult than now to foretell the form and tempo of the coming developments, where all the factors that are to be considered, with the exception of the proletariat, are so indefinite, incalculable.

The only certain thing is universal uncertainty. It is certain that we are entering upon a period of universal unrest, of shifting of power, and that whatever form this may take, or how long it may continue, a condition of permanent stability will not be reached until the proletariat shall have gained the power to expropriate politically and economically the capitalist class and thereby to inaugurate a new era in the world's history.

Whether this revolutionary period will continue as long as that of the bourgeoisie, which began in 1789 and lasted until 1871, is, naturally, impossible to foresee. To be sure, all forms of evolution proceed much more rapidly now than previously, but, on the other hand, the field of