Page:Friedrich Engels - The Revolutionary Act - tr. Henry Kuhn (1922).pdf/36

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

which, in this case, means the peasants. The slow work of propaganda and parliamentary activity are here also recognized as the next task of the party. Success did not fail to come. Not only has a whole series of Municipal Councils been conquered, but in the Chamber there are fifty Socialists, and these have already overthrown three Ministries and one President of the Republic. In Belgium, the workers have last year conquered the franchise, and have won in one quarter of the election districts. In Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, aye, even in Bulgaria and Rumania, the Socialists are represented in the respective Parliaments. In Austria all parties are agreed that access to the Reichsrat can no longer be denied us. That we shall gain access is certain, and the only question at issue is through which door. Even in Russia, when the celebrated Zemskij Sobor is assembled—the National Assembly against which the young Nicholas has so vainly balked—even there we may reckon with certainty that we shall be represented.

Of course, our comrades abroad have not abandoned the right to revolution. The right to revolution is, in the last analysis, the only real "historic right" upon which all modern States rest without exception, including even Mecklenburg where the revolution of the nobility was terminated in 1755 through the "inheritance agreement," the glorious confirmation of feudalism valid this very day. The right to revolution is so thoroughly recognized in the inner consciousness of

­— 35 —