Page:Karl Marx The Man and His Work.pdf/119

Rh diate and ultimate aim to struggle for, with the social revolution as the objective before it, the Socialist movement can not fail to be a truly revolutionary movement, and must by necessity formulate tactics just as revolutionary as the aim that gave birth to them.

We have seen from the foregoing that the economic power of the workers slumbers in their class-consciousness; furthermore, that this class-consciousness can only be effectively aroused and reared in the proletarians with the aid of Socialist education predicated upon a Socialist or revolutionary objective. Therefore, all so-called "Socialist propaganda" and activity not based upon such an aim, or advancing it as the "ultimate demand", and advocating as "immediate demands" an endless string of palliatives or reforms, cannot be considered as Socialist activity, and the adherents and votes obtained through such a propaganda can not be considered class-conscious adherents or votes. The Socialist aim must, in consequence, be jealously guarded and kept intact by the Socialist movement and can not be sacrificed to the aspirations of political quacks or Charlatans. The question what organic form is this economic power, this proletarian class-consciousness, to take on in its battle against the economic power of the capitalist class is now in order, and will be taken up in as detailed a form as the limited space at our disposal permits.

As an introduction to this phase of Constructive Socialism we desire to affirm the necessity of utilizing both wings, of practising political as well as industrial action in the conduction of the class war. Admitting the imperativeness of both, it now remains to establish the function of each and their relative importance in preparing for and carrying out the act of emancipation.

We will first examine the function played by politics in the class struggle. It is now generally recognized that the existence