Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/91

 is so extremely complicated as to be impossible of determination from a previous stage. So it came about that even the people who through fundamental and comprehensive knowledge of the social relations of other civilized countries and by methodical and fruitful methods of research far exceeded all their contemporaries, as for example, Marx and Engels, were able to determine the direction of economic development for many decades in a degree that the course of events has magnificently justified. But even these investigators could strikingly err when it came to the question of predicting the velocity and form of the development of the next month.

There is only one thing I think that one can certainly say to-day about the approaching revolution. It will be wholly different from any of its predecessors. It is one of the greatest mistakes that revolutionists as well as their opponents frequently commit to present the coming revolution according to the model of past ones for there is nothing easier than to prove that such revolutions are no longer possible. The conclusion is then at hand that the idea of a social revolution is an entirely outgrown one. It is the first time in the history of the world that we are confronted with a revolutionary struggle to be fought out under the application of democratic forms by organizations created upon the foundation of democratic freedom against resources such as the world has not yet seen, prominent among which are organizations