Page:Wilhelm Liebknecht - Socialism; What It Is and What It Seeks to Accomplish - tr. Mary Wood Simons (1899).djvu/53

 industrial society itself in its further development more and more puts the means for abolishing it into their hands.

Here the double character of our party is plainly expressed; the scientific character, which refuses, according to the anarchistic Bismarckian prescription of blood-and-iron politics, to view the historical movement as an arbitrary one, which man after his own will can lead to revolution or reaction, but recognizes that there exist firm, unalterable laws for the social movement, and the practical character of our party, which is demonstrated in that it would show to the laborer the way to the end that it has already pointed out to him; how only through the attainment of political power we can hasten the decomposing process of present society, and, organizing ourselves more and more, can accomplish our object.

I come now to the separate demands. At the head we have placed, as in all early platforms, the fundamental demand for universal equal suffrage. It is known to every one of you that we have not rated this too highly and I will not repeat what has been said a hundred times—that this question belongs to tactics and must not be considered here. Since I must study brevity I will only dwell on those points that offer exceptions to the earlier plaatform,platform [sic] or require mention on other grounds. In the demand for suffrage we have said directly that we recognize no differences on account of sex. In the former platform we advocated the equal rights of women, yet in a somewhat modest form, only indirectly. As we on the whole insist on the absolute equal rights of both sexes, so now we demand clearly the suffrage for women. It will not repay the trouble to waste words over a discussion as to whether there is a separate woman's question. The emancipation of women in general must come with the emancipation of