Page:Marx and Engels on Revolution in America - Heinz Neumann.djvu/28

 the old trade unions of the skilltdskilled [sic] laborers, of the labor aristocracy.

"These people are attacking the problem in an altogether different way, are leading much more colossal masses into battle, are shaking the foundations of society much more profoundly, and are making much more far-reaching demands; the eight-hour day, a general federation of all organizations, complete solidarity… moreover, these people consider their demands of the moment as only provisional, although they themselves do not yet know the goal towards which they are striving. But this vague notion is deeply enough embedded in them to influence them to elect only declared socialists as their leaders. Just as all the others, they must learn through their own experience, and through the consequences of their own mistakes. But that will not last very long since they, in contradiction to the old trade unions, deceive with scornful laughter any reference to the identity of the interests of capital and labor."

Eighteen years prior to this letter, Karl Marx wrote in his letter to F. Bolte, a member of the New York Provisional Federal Council, the following famous passage:

"The International was founded in order to set the real organization of the working class for the struggle in the place of the socialist or semi-socialist sects: The original statutes as well as the inaugural address show that at a glance. On the other hand, the International would not have been able to maintain itself, if the course of history had not already destroyed sectarianism. The development of socialist sectarianism has