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 of the Opportunists, if such an alteration, in their program were suggested to them. Let them howl. The capitalist class will pat them on the back for it.

In the meantime, however, we shall go on with our work. In revising the program of our party, Engels' and Marx's advice must undoubtedly be taken into consideration in order to come nearer to the truth, to re-establish Marxism, to purge it from distortion, to direct the struggle for freedom of the working class into the right channels. Among the Bolsheviks there will certainly be none opposed to the advice of Engels and Marx. Difficulties may, perhaps, crop up regarding terminology. In German there are two words meaning "Commonwealth," of which Engels used the one which does not denote a single community, but the sum of all, a system of communities, In Russian there is no such word, and perhaps we may have to choose the French word "Commune," although this also has its drawbacks,

"The Commune was no longer a State in the proper sense of the word." Here is Engels' most important theoretical proposition. After what has been said above, this statement is quite intelligible. The Commune ceased to be a State in so far as it had to repress, not the majority but a minority of the population (the exploiters); it had broken the bourgeois machinery of government, and, in the place of a special repressive force, the whole population itself was coming on the scene. All this is a departure from the State in its proper sense. And had the Commune become consolidated, the relics of the State would of themselves have "withered away" within it; there would have been no need for the State to "abolish" its institutions, they would have ceased to function in proportion as less and less was left for them to do.

"The Anarchists throw into our teeth the 'People's State.'" In saying this, Engels has in mind especially Bakunin and his attacks on the German Social-Democrats. Engels admits these attacks to be justified in so far as the "People's State" is as senseless and as far removed from Socialism as the "Free People's State." Engels tries to alter the character of the controversy of the German Social-Democrats with the Anarchists to make it true to principle, and to clear it from Opportunist prejudice concerning the “State.” Alas! Engels’ letter has been stowed away for thirty-six years. We shall see below that, even after the publication of Engels' letter, Kautsky still obstinately continues to repeat those very mistakes against which Engels gave his warning.

Bebel replied to Engels in a letter dated September 21, 1875,