Page:Landmarks of Scientific Socialism-Anti-Duehring-Engels-Lewis-1907.djvu/19

 and moves on without a qualm to the destruction of free governments in South Africa. Backward and unprogressive peoples jeer, it is true, and thereby show their political ineptitude, for even the American Republic, having freed the negro under the banner of "eternal truth" annexes the Philippines and raids Panama in defiance of it.

And so since the days of 1875 the world has come to accept the general correctness of Engels point of view.

The enemy which Engels was most anxious to dislodge was "mechanical socialism," a naive invention of a perfect system capable of withstanding the ravages of time, because founded upon eternal principles of truth and justice. That enemy has now obeyed the law of the dialectic and passed away. Nobody builds such systems, nowadays. They have ceased their building however not in obedience to the commands of Friedrich Engels but because the lapse of time and the change in conditions have proved the dialectic to the revolutionist. With the annihilation of "eternal truths," system building ceased to be even an amusing pastime. The revolutionist has been revolutionized. He no longer fancies that he can make revolutions. He knows better. He is content to see that the road is kept clear so that revolutions may develop themselves. Your real revolutionist, for example, puts no obstacle in the path of the Trust, he is much too wise. He leaves that to the corrosion of time and the development of his pet dialectic. He sees the contradiction concealed in the system which apparently triumphs, and in the triumph of the system he sees also the triumph of the contradiction. He waits until that shadowy proletariat which haunts the system takes on itself flesh and blood and shakes the system with which it has grown up. But this waiting for the development of the