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15 nineteenth century this center was in France, and sometimes in England. In 1848 Germany entered the ranks of revolutionary nations. The new century is being ushered in by such events as induce us to think that we are confronted by a further removal of the revolutionary center, namely, to Russia. Russia, which has imbibed so much revolutionary initiative from the West, is now perhaps itself ready to serve as a source of revolutionary energy. The Russian revolutionary movement, which is now bursting into flame, will, perhaps, become the strongest means for the extermination of the senile philistinism and sedate politics which is beginning to spread in our ranks, and will again rekindle the militant spirit and the passionate devotion to our great ideals. Russia has long ceased to be for Western Europe a simple prop for reaction and obsolutism. The case now may be said to be reversed. It is Western Europe that is now becoming the mainstay of reaction and absolutism in Russia. As far as the Czar is concerned, the Russian revolutionists would perhaps have coped with him long ago, had they not been compelled to fight simultaneously his ally, European capital. Let us hope that they will find themselves able this time to settle both enemies, and that the new 'Holy Alliance' will crash to the ground sooner than its predecessor. But however the present struggle in Russia may end, the blood of the martyrs who have sprung from it, unfortunately in too great numbers, will not have been shed in vain. It will nourish the shoots of the social revolution throughout the civilized world, and make them flourish more quickly. In 1848 the Slavs were that crackling frost which killed the flowers of spring of the awakening peoples; perhaps now they are destined to be that storm which will break through the ice of reaction and will irresistably [sic] bring with it the new, happy spring of the peoples." (Karl Kautsky: "The Slavs and the Revolution," article in Iskra, the Russian Social-Democratic revolutionary paper, 1902, No. 18, March 10).

How well did Kautsky write eighteen years ago!