Page:Karl Kautsky - The Road to Power - tr. A. M. Simons (1909).pdf/9

 not come at the time set, do not draw the conclusion that industrial development may have altered the form and character of the coming revolution from what might have been expected from the experience of previous capitalist revolutions. On the contrary, they at once conclude that, under the changed conditions, revolutions are not to be expected, are not necessary, and indeed are hurtful.

On one side they conclude that a further extension of the achievements already gained—labor legislation, trade unions, co-operation—will suffice to drive the capitalist class out of one position after another, and to quietly expropriate it, without a political revolution, or any change in the nature of governmental power. This theory of the gradual growth into (hineinwachsen) the future state is a modern form of the old anti-political utopianism and Proudhonism.

On the other hand it is thought to be possible for the proletariat to obtain political power without a revolution, that is without any important transfer of power in the state, simply by a clever policy of co-operation with those bourgeois parties which stand nearest to the proletariat, and by forming a coalition government which is impossible for either party alone.

In this manner they think to get around a revolution as an outgrown barbaric method, which has no place in our enlightened century of democracy, ethics and brotherly love.

When this attitude is carried to its logical conclusion it throws the whole system of Socialist tactics founded by Marx and Engels into the street. The two cannot be reconciled. To be sure that is no reason why such a position should be declared false without examination. But it is a reason why everyone who, after careful study has become convicted of its erroneous character, should energetically oppose it, and this not merely because of a