Page:Lenin - The Collapse of the Second International - tr. Sirnis (1919).pdf/19

 that the revolution will break out. The manifesto lays stress on clearly defined facts and tendencies. Those who, when referring to these thoughts and arguments portrayed in the manifesto, say that the expected revolution proved illusory, revealed not a Marxian, but a Struvist and reactionary police attitude towards the revolution. It is plain to Marxists that a revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation. But every revolutionary situation does not lead directly to a revolution.

What are, as a rule, the symptoms of a revolutionary situation? We shall certainly be on the right track in pointing out three main symptoms: (1) A ruling class finds it impossible to retain its domination intact, due to its passing through a crisis which stimulates the oppressed class to revolt against its rule. For revolu­tion to break out it is not enough for those at the bottom to be content to live as they did before, they must also see to it that it becomes impossible for those at the top to continue their old policy; (2) want and suffering are experienced by the oppressed class in a more intense degree than ordinarily; (3) the causes indicated compel increased activity amongst the masses. During "times of peace" they calmly allow them­selves to be fleeced, but in times of stress they are stimulated by the staging of the crisis, together with the action of those at the top, to enter the arena as an independent historical force. Without these objective changes independent of the will, not only of the separate groups and parties, but even of separate classes—revolution is, as a rule, impossible. Taken in the sum, these objective changes constitute what is called a revolutionary situation. Such a situation existed in Russia in 1905, and in all the revolutionary periods in the west. Such was also the situation in Germany in the sixties of the 19th century, and in 1859-1861 and 1879-1880 in Russia, though no revolution took place in these cases. And for what reason? Because a revolution is not produced by every revolu­tionary situation; it is produced when, in addition to the objective changes enumerated above, certain subjec­tive changes take place, viz., ''when a revolutionary class shows ability to take revolutionary mass action sufficiently forceful to break, or at least to damage, the existing government. Even in times of crisis, govern­ments do not "tumble down of their own accord," but require a force to "overthrow" them.''