Page:Karl Radek - The Development of Socialism from Science to Action.djvu/9

 of the powers of production under the rule of Capitalism would result in ever increasing anarchy and enslavement of the masses, but also how by means of the concentration of industry, the formation of a strong working class and the realization by them intellectually and emotionally of the coming of a new order, and the strong will to attain it, the foundations of Socialism would also be created. Marx and Engels showed the international proletariat the historic necessity of its victory—the victory of Socialism. At the same time they showed it also that this victory of the disinherited and the enslaved was not going to fall mechanically into their lap when a certain stage of historic development had been reached, but that the workers must prepare themselves for this victory in the sweat of their brows, by the uninterrupted struggles of their brains, fighting day by day against the bourgeoisie in all spheres of social life, in order then in the direct revolutionary struggle, class against class, to conquer. This final revolutionary struggle which will result in the iron dictatorship of the proletariat, this alone will guide the workers into the promised land of Socialism.

The theory of Marx and Engels as to the conditions of the victory of the proletariat remains true, it has been untouched by the tooth of time, it stands like a granite boulder. The seventy years which seperate us from the day on which these magnificent young men saw the future of mankind sharply illumined and pointed it out to us in the unforgetable Communist Manifesto, have caused many changes in the capitalist structure, to comprehend which has been the not always well performed task of successors of Marx. But the outlines of the development have not changed and only at the present time, during the first Socialist Revolution which the world has ever experienced, do we really comprehend the theory of Communism. Through the first Socialist revolution, through its stern necessities, we can see the splendid proof of the prophetic power of the intellect of our teachers. Communism is a theory of revolution and therefore it can only be understood in its entire significance during a period of revolution. On this