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 more than an apparatus for the oppression of one class by another, in a democratic republic, not a whit less than in a Monarchy. At the best the State is an evil inherited by the proletariat after coming out victorious in the struggle for class supremacy. This victorious proletariat, just like the Commune, will be obliged immediately to amputate the worst features of this evil, until such time as a new generation, brought up under new and free social conditions, will prove capable of throwing on the dust-heap all the useless old rubbish of State organization."

Engels cautioned the Germans, in the event of the Monarchy being replaced by a Republic, not to forget the fundamentals of Socialism on the question of the State in general. His warnings now read like a direct lesson to Messrs. Tseretelli and Tchernoff, who revealed in their coalition tactics a superstitious faith in and respect towards the State!

Two more points. (1) When Engels says that in a democratic republic, "not a whit less" than in a Monarchy, the State remains "an apparatus for the oppression of one class by another," this by no means signifies that the form of oppression is a matter of indifference to the proletariat as some Anarchists "teach." A wider, more free and open form of the class struggle and class oppression enormously assists the proletariat in its struggles for the annihilation of all classes. (2) Why only a new generation will be able completely to scrap the ancient lumber of the State;—this question is bound up with the question of the supersession of Democracy, to which we now turn.

Engels had occasion to speak on this subject in connection with the question of the "scientific" incorrectness of the term "Social-Democrat."

In the introduction to his edition of his articles of the 'seventies on various subjects, mainly on international questions ("Internationales aus dem Volksstaat"), dated January 8, 1894 (that is, a year and a half before his death), Engels wrote that in all his articles he used the word "Communist" not "Social-Democrat" because at that time it was the Proudhonists in France and the Lassalleans in Germany who called themselves Social-Democrats.

"For Marx and for me [Engels continues], it was, therefore, quite impossible to use such an elastic term to describe our particular point of view. At the present time things are different, and this word (Social-Democrat) may, perhaps, pass muster,