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 the machinery of repression, that is, the power of the State. Such a course of events compels the Revolution "to concentrate all the forces of destruction" against the State, and to regard the problem as one not of perfecting the machinery of the State, but of breaking up and annihilating it.

It was not logical theorizing, but the practical course of events, the living experience of the years 1848–51, that produced such a statement of the problem. We can see to what extent Marx held strictly to the solid ground of historical experience from the fact that, in 1852, he did not as yet deal concretely with the question of what was to replace this state machinery that had to be destroyed. Experience had not as yet yielded concrete data sufficient for the solution of such a problem: History placed it on the order of the day later on, in 1871. In 1852 it could only be laid down, with the accuracy that comes with scientific historical observation, that the proletarian revolution had arrived at the stage when it must consider the problem of "concentrating all the forces of destruction" against the State, of "breaking up" the Governmental machine.

Here the question may arise: Is it correct to generalize the experience, observation and conclusions of Marx, and to apply them to a wider scene of action than that of France during three years (1848–51)? In the discussion of this point, let us recall, first of all, a remark of Engels, and then proceed to examine our facts:

"France," wrote Engels in his introduction to the Third Edition of the Eighteenth Brumaire, "France is a country in which the historical struggle of classes, more than in any other, was carried each time to a decisive conclusion. In France were hammered into most definite shapes those changing political forms within which that class struggle went on, and through which its results found expression. The centre of Feudalism, during the Middle Ages; the model country, with the most centralized monarchy, based on rigid ranks and orders after the Renaissance, France shattered Feudalism during the Great Revolution, and founded the undiluted supremacy of the middle class with such classical clearness as was to be found in no other European country. And the struggle of the revolting proletariat against the capitalist tyranny is in its turn taking here an acute form which is unknown elsewhere." *Edition 1907, p. 4.)

The last sentence is out of date, inasmuch as there has been a lull in the revolutionary struggle of the French proletariat since 1871; though, long as this lull may be, it in no way excludes the