Page:Studies in socialism 1906.djvu/134

84 proletariat? The French proletariat has not yet fully grasped the importance of organisation and propaganda, and that is why up to the present moment it has been beaten with perfect regularity.

"The lesson of the Commune seems, happily, to have served a useful purpose in educating the proletariat. Our French comrades are hard at work perfecting their organisation and are spreading propaganda, especially in country districts.

"The German Socialists, on the contrary, have long understood the importance of propaganda and the necessity of winning over the small shop-keeping class and the small farmers.

"A tiny minority alone demands that the Socialist movement shall be limited to the wage-earning class.

"The frothy and theatrical phrases of the fanatic supporters of the 'Class-Struggle' dogma were at bottom a cover for Machiavellian schemes of reactionary feudalism.

"The hyper-revolutionary dress-parade Socialism, that addresses itself exclusively to 'the horny-handed sons of toil,' has two advantages for the reaction. First, it limits the Socialist movement to a class that in Germany at least is not large enough to bring about a revolution; and besides this, it is an excellent way of frightening the main body of the people who are half indifferent, especially the peasants and the petty bourgeoisie, who have not yet organised any independent political activity."