Page:Marx and Engels on Revolution in America - Heinz Neumann.djvu/23



From the rise of a mass movement, therefore, Engels hopes not only for the revolutionization of the "native" workers, but at the same time the overcoming of a sectarian spirit and of doctrinairism amongst the foreign-born proletarians. The shifting of the center of gravity to the native workers in the trade unions is in no way intended to limit the historical role of the "foreign element," but to extend it by the exploitation of the latter's "greater mobility" and by linking together the two elements of the American working class.

Engels considered the antagonism between the native-born and the immigrants one of the principal obstacles to the development of a mass party.