Page:Karl Radek - The Development of Socialism from Science to Action.djvu/11

 In Germany the Junkers, together with the larger bourgeoisie, were occupied with the at that time important problem of creating a unified capitalist state. The forces which tried in the year 1848 by revolutionary means to found a united German Republic proved themselves too weak, and what they were not in a position to accomplish—the founding of the German state as an organ of the German bourgeoisie—was accomplished by the bourgeoisie and the Junkers. They executed this task by rearing the reactionary structure of a bureaucratic-capitalistic federation of states, in which a clique of big capitalists, together with the Junkers and the Generals, with the Hohenzollerns at the head, guided the destiny of the German Empire. At such a time, Lassalle was trying to make the working class into a power, which, even though it had not the power to guide the destinies of the German people, could still be in a position to wring concessions from the governing class. The Communist propaganda was directed to this narrow object, as Lassalle disseminated it among the workers. In order to be able to get across as much of his propaganda as possible in spite of the oppression prevailing in the reactionary period of Bismarck, he attempted to give Communism as innocent a look as possible. The young lion whose paws were not yet in a state to deal death to the enemy, was to be led upon the meadows disguised as a lamb. Lassalle tried to present Communism as a movement which could succeed by peaceful means. By means of the ballot, the workers were to gain influence over the state and were to use it to organize co-operative societies which gradually would change a capitalist society into a socialist society. This propaganda developed in the workers a respect for the idea of the State regardless of whether the State was in the hands of the capitalists or of the victorious workers. This idea was indeed put to a severe test in so far as the relations with the Bismarck Government were concerned during the era of the fierce persecutions of the workers movement in the period from 1878 to 1880, when the violent pressure from above, and the baiting of the workers' movement created intense hatred against the capitalist state in the front