Page:Marx and Engels on Revolution in America - Heinz Neumann.djvu/36

 and 1848—to go in for any real general working class movement. ACCEPT ITS FAKTISCHEN STARTING POINT as such and work It gradually up to the theoretical level by pointing out how every mistake made, every reverse suffered, was a necessary consequence of mistaken theoretical orders in the original program: they ought, in the words of the Communist Manifesto: IN DER GEGENWART DER BEWEGUNG DIE ZUKUNFT DER BEWEGUNG REPRESENTIEREN. But above all give the movement time to consolidate, do not make THE INEVITABLE CONFUSION OF THE FIRST START worse confounded by forcing down people's throats things which, at present, they cannot properly understand but which they soon will learn. A MILLION OR TWO WORKINGMEN'S VOTES NEXT NOVEMBER FOR A BONAFIDE WORKINGMEN'S PARTY IS WORTH INFINITELY MORE AT PRESENT THAN A HUNDRED THOUSAND VOTES FOR A DOCTRINALLY PERFECT PLATFORM. The very first attempt—soon to be made if the movement progresses—to consolidate the moving masses on a national basis—will bring them all face to face, Georgites, K. of L., Trade Unionists, and all; … then will be the time for them to criticize the views of the others and thus, by showing up the inconsistencies of the various standpoints, to bring them gradually to understand their own actual position, the postionposition [sic] made for them by the correlation of capital and wage labor. But anything that might