Page:Marx and Engels on Revolution in America - Heinz Neumann.djvu/34

 in order to avoid the opportunist interpretation of any schematic comparison of the situation of the American labor movement at that time with "the situation in Europe prior to 1848":

In his letter to Mrs. Wischnewetsky dated December 28, 1886, Engels again emphasized that the American Marxists should not pooh pooh the proletarian "Third Party" from without, but revolutionize it from within." He again uses unminced words in condemning the German sectarians in America and their dogma of the "role of the party" which in reality, then as now, renders impossible for the party to fulfill its role in the proletarian revolution by separating it from the masses. The remarks made by Engels in this passage on the dialectic-materialist conception of the role of theory are moreover the direct point of departure from which Lenin developed his doctrine of the importance of theory in the proletarian revolution:

"It is far more important that the movement should spread, proceed harmoniously, take root and