Page:Wilhelm Liebknecht - Socialism; What It Is and What It Seeks to Accomplish - tr. Mary Wood Simons (1899).djvu/37

 The Gotha programme brought true union. It has been impossible since then to split the German social democracy. Sectarianism has not existed since, nor can it exist. A few immature and suspicious individuals have fallen off, but the labor party has remained one, and, while the fears of Marx have not been fulfilled, all that we foresaw, hoped for and prophesied has been fulfilled.

We Eisenaehers, since with our programme we were more scientific at first, reached the hand to the brothers who had climbed the mountain with us but were somewhat behind, and drew them up to us. But it was not for long. Soon the Lassallians stood on the same plane with us and shared in our views.

The old demands of the Lassallians, for productive associations with state, assistance, etc., were recognized as outgrown, through the development of the movement and of circumstances, even by the former Lassallians themselves, without the respect for Lassalle being destroyed; and before long every difference between the aim of the Eisenaehers and the former Lassallians was done away with.

And if the spiritual, centrifugal force and the life strength of the party, which are accounted for purely through its need for culture, ever appeared great, they did during the supremacy of the anti-socialist legislation. I do not mean the conflict that for twelve years, day by day, night by night, we were obliged to fight—that straggle explains itself; we had been destroyed if we had not fought and won, for it was a matter of life—I do not mean that, but the spiritual, the intellectual activity of the party during the conflict. Throughout the incessant struggle the party along with it developed mentally.

Theory must, by all means, subside behind the