Page:Marx and Engels on Revolution in America - Heinz Neumann.djvu/26

 And this necessity is present in America and is being realized. The entrance of the masses of native workers into the movement in America is for me one of the great events of 1886…" (Letter to Sorge dated April 29, 1886).

In his correspondence with the American Socialists, which lasted for decades, Engels repeatedly emphasized that the German Marxist Socialist Labor Party is of much less importance than the development of a mass party of the native-born workers, even if the latter is not consciously Marxist. On the other hand he replied to the objections which were already then raised by the German immigrants, to the effect that he was thus "denying the role of the Party," and was "showing preference for the 100 per cent Americans," with the sentences of the above-quoted letter; that amongst the conscious Marxian immigrants, there still remains

Engels writes even more lucidly to Mrs. Wischnewetsky on February 9, 1887:

"As soon as there was a national American working class movement independent of the Germans, my standpoint was clearly indicated by the facts of the case. The great national movement, no matter what its first form, is the real starting point of American working class development; if the Germans join it