Page:Wilhelm Liebknecht - No Compromises No Political Trading (1900).pdf/64

 striving in the same direction owing to circumstances is just as little a contract, an alliance or a compromise, as the reciprocal touching of the pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope is a contract, an alliance or a compromise. Whether the shaking power is a mechanical one, or is the force of organized law is all the same. Such approaches are without any obligations, are productions of the moment, born of the moment and swept away with the moment.

It is no less incorrect to compare coöperation at special test elections to such alliances as were proposed for the Prussian legislative elections and were actually made for the Bavarian elections. Such coöperation is only an episode of the battle at the polls which is fought by the party as a whole. After the first and chief election day an after battle follows, in which the undecided points are fought out. That we, in these subsequent test elections in electoral districts where we cannot ourselves put up a candidate, should vote for that one of the opposition candidates, whose election offers the most advantages to our party, is a requirement of elementary intelligence. I previously advocated this as an act of self- evident desirability at a time when some of those who are to-day enthusiastic for a participation in the Prussian legislative elections, accused me of a half-betrayal of our principles. If, at a time when an exception law exists, or is in sight, we did not give our votes in these special elections to that one of two bourgeois candidates who was opposed to the exception law we would be asses worthy of the cudgel. But that is no compromise. We pledge ourselves to nothing, we sacrifice no principle, we sacrifice no interest; on the contrary, we act solely in our own interest which we should have injured had we acted otherwise. The obligations rest upon our opponents. This tactics is so simple and natural that it was only brought into question for a time