Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/347

Rh trade unions, etc., had forced upon them the conclusion that state and church are no mere superstructure, as Marx contended (Marx's own thought was obscure, since he conceived the superstructure, now as the state, now as political ideals, and now again as law). Moreover, in the work of practical politics the Marxist learned to prize nationality as an independent social organisation side by side with the organisation of state and church—in a word, he came to recognise that the complicated organisation of society cannot be accurately conceived in accordance with the simplifying formula of historical materialism. At the same time the practical Marxist learned that the social democracy and its program were less radically distinct from the other democratic parties and their programs than the founder of the social democracy had assumed and than many of its leaders still assume. Bernstein's phrase "from sect to party" affords a summary watchword of the new view which through the discussion of tactics has come to prevail widely among the Marxists of all lands.

This discussion of tactics relates in especial to the possible participation of the social democrats in the government. If the discussion laid especial stress upon the question of the acceptance of office by socialists and upon the question of voting for the state budget, the restriction of outlook, though comprehensible enough, is uncritical, for participation in local government is essentially of the same nature as participation in the government of the state—quite apart from the consideration that a Berlin town councillor may have more important functions than a minister in Baden.

In the last resort, the discussion of tactics must lead to a revision of the concept of social revolution; the terms revolution, reform, and evolution, must be accurately defined. The social democrat who enters parliament as a deputy, who enters a bourgeois institution, participates in the working of the state which in theory he boycotts and negates. In practice, therefore, he has decided in favour of the tactics of reform, for history has taught him that the time for the definitive social revolution anticipated by Engels and Marx has not yet arrived. In truth the people who expect too much are of as little practical use as were their forerunners the millenarians. In practice, the Marxist who is dominated by the revolutionary mood and aspires to the (definitive) social revolution is faced with a dilemma. According to his program, extant society Rh