Page:Marx and Engels on Revolution in America - Heinz Neumann.djvu/15

 "And both these circumstances REACT UPON AMERICA IN A REVOLUTIONARY DIRECTION. The small and medium property of the farmer working for himself, the foundation of America's whole political system, fails more and more victim to the competition of the giant farms, while at the same time, is formed for the first time a NUMEROUS PROLETARIAT in the industrial districts together with a FABULOUS CONCENTRATION OF CAPITAL."

This utterance immediately precedes the famous prophecy that "the Russian revolution will be the signal for a workers' revolution in the West." Both of these statements fall in that period of Engels' work, in which he had already recognized the decisive changes characterizing the transformation from the capitalism of free competition to imperialism. With the Paris Commune, the period of the First International had to all intents concluded, although it continued to exist formally. Marx and Engels continue to view the problems of the labor movement from the standpoint of the basic principles of the International Working Men's Association. However, at the same time, they seek a new form of labor movement which, corresponding with the changed historical form of development of capitalism itself, rises above the level of the past. In "The Civil War in France" and in the "Letters to Kugelmann," the Marxian theory of the State is developed to its utmost issue; at the same time the leading role of the Communist Party in the struggle of the proletariat is definitely expressed. Lenin always