Page:Marx and Engels on Revolution in America - Heinz Neumann.djvu/38

 struggle, but with the complete maintenance of the political independence and the organization of the Marxist nucleus with the great mass party.

E have already pointed out that Marx and Engels never wanted to give up the maintenance of a real Marxist party of the most class-conscious and progressive elements of the native and foreign-born in the working class within the great mass party. For thirty years, in their correspondence with the American Socialists, they rejected any endeavor to set up a mechanical distinction between the Marxist party and the labor party, as two opposites which exclude each other. The sectarians in the German S. L. P., who accused them of "liquidating the leading role of the Marxist party," were criticized unmercifully by them. More than that, year after year they pointed out through the results of the progressing labor movement in America that the leading role of the Marxist party can be best realized and can only be realized within the great revolutionary mass party. Only when the Marxist—or putting it in modern phraseology—the Bolshevik party fulfills this task within an extensive proletarian mass party—a labor party—can the historically conditioned backwardness of the American movement be overcome by the practical experience of the masses themselves, and can the