Page:Wilhelm Liebknecht - No Compromises No Political Trading (1900).pdf/28

 thereby suffer. And this has been done without exception ever since the German Social Democracy entered the arena as an independent party. For myself, I need only to mention the fact that in 1865 I was expelled from Prussia because I foiled Bismarck's attempt to crush the Progressive party with the aid of the Socialists as between two millstones. I can say with a good conscience that in all my struggles against the Bismarckian reaction I have fought for political liberty. And in my oft-quoted pamphlet on the political attitude of the Social Democracy I emphasized the democratic character of our movement not less than has been done recently by Bernstein, who recommends to us as brand new wisdom what we have already been practicing for thirty odd years.

I must here say a word about my above mentioned pamphlet on tactics. The speech out of which it arose was delivered in the year 1869 at the time of the North German Confederation; this was a temporary arrangement which could not possibly last and which would have to end either with the breaking down of Bismarck's Great-Prussian policy or with its victory by a union with the South German States excepting Austria. In this temporary state or interim the tactics forced upon us by the logic of the facts was that of opposition at any price. Bismarck had introduced a universal suffrage of the Napoleonic pattern, not to establish the sovereignty of the people, but to cover up his despotic dictatorship. As Napoleon through his prefects directed the universal suffrage as he pleased, so Bismarck thought he could do the same through his local counsellors. It seemed to him an instrument easier to handle than the three class