Page:Marx and Engels on Revolution in America - Heinz Neumann.djvu/27

 in order to help it or to hasten its development, in the right direction, they may do a deal of good and play a decisive part in it: if they stand aloof, they will dwindle down into a dogmatic sect, and will be brushed aside as people who do not understand their own principles."

The problems of the mass party and of its relation to the trade unions, is dealt with by Engels in close connection with the, at that time, equally acute trade union problem in England. In his letter to Sorge dated December 7, 1889, he reminds the American socialists of the Hyndman Social-Democratic Federation in England—which should serve them as a warning—which was "Marxist," it is true, but which became a sect in consequence of its fanatic aversion to the trade union movement:

"Here it is demonstrated that a great nation cannot have something hammered into it in such a simple dogmatic and doctrinaire fashion, even if one has the best theory, as well as trainers who have grown up in these special living conditions and who are relatively better than those in the S. L. P. The movement is finally under way, and, as I believe, for good. But not directly socialists; and those persons amongst the British who have best understood our theory, are outside of it; Hyndman, because he is an incorrigible brawler, and Bax, because he is a savant without practical experience. The movement is first of all formally a trade union movement, but entirely different from