Page:Wilhelm Liebknecht - Socialism; What It Is and What It Seeks to Accomplish - tr. Mary Wood Simons (1899).djvu/46

 unfruitful; all attempts to remove the "protuberances" while the foundation of capitalism remains are Utopian. These "protuberances" are the logical result, the unavoidable consequence of the capitalistic system. Whoever would do away with them must remove the cause, capitalism itself. Through this demand the social democracy differentiates itself from all other parties and is marked as revolutionary, since all other parties, without exception, stand on the foundation of private ownership in the means of production.

In consideration of its pre-eminent importance we have formulated this point more clearly and sharply in the draft before you than was the case in the first outline. It was said then that all other parties mutually stood on the principle of capitalism and therefore were altogether at enmity to the laboring class. Exception is taken to this and it is claimed that there is an endeavor in Germany that, if not of political significance, yet aims equally with us to clip the wings of capital, so far at least as it has grown to "great capital." I mean the aim of the members of trades organizations, the guild enthusiasts and the anti-Semites. We cannot designate their aim as capitalistic, hut, as we have pointed out in the draft, they stand on the basis of private property in the means of production, and on this ground they are in common with all other parties. The social democracy stands as a compact body opposed to all parties resting on that foundation. There can be no alliance, no compromise. Between us and the army of our united opponents yawns a chasm, a chasm that daily grows more deep and wide; a chasm which to be sure, since yonder bank is higher, can be economically leaped from there here, and daily, hourly, out of the ranks of our opponents, through the weight and logic of economic development, masses that till now fought on the other