Page:The Paris Commune - Karl Marx - ed. Lucien Sanial (1902).djvu/29

xxii previous blunders. True, it subjected the "dangerous experiment" (or expédient forcé) to conditions that apparently made it incumbent upon the "socialist" minister Millerand to instantly resign his portfolio if he had any respect for that international body, and upon his "socialist" supporters to immediately repudiate him if he failed to do so. But, in that circuitous phraseology which consists in substituting the conditional for the positive form of speech, it actually held out the hope that some "good" might result from such an experiment if "the Socialist Party, in its great majority, approved of it."

Of course, the Ministerialists were not slow in availing themselves of this declaration. They boldly claimed that they were "the great majority" of the Socialist Party of France; and in order to make their claim good before the world they immediately set to the task of "wiping the earth" with their mighty opponent, the Parti Ouvrier Français. This was for them a second expédient forcé, and, like the previous one, it was a "dangerous experiment." They did their best, however, and failed miserably.

The third and last part of the document under consideration is an addition made to the original Kautsky motion by the eminent Russian delegate Plechanoff, who was otherwise opposed to that motion. It is as follows:

"At any rate, the Congress is of opinion, that, even in those extreme cases, the socialist minister must resign