force? Why is law, peace and public security sanctified to-day if they were not so yesterday? Because the revolutionary holds the rudder? Just as Mirabeau and Lafayette were supplanted by Danton, and just as the latter was taken from power by Robespierre and Marat, and just as Lwow and Miljukow were supplanted by Kerenski, and just as Kerenski was removed by Lenin and Trotzki—the sequence of events here had to be just the same.
The working classes were particularly susceptible to exaggeration owing to the revolutionary idea of Marxism with which they had grown up. The position of the socialists who are determined to create the longed-for revolution is far more advantageous than those who try to exercise a moderating influence upon it. It is in vain that they are in the right, they are unable to banish the spirits which they have called up.
If a social democrat who disapproved of the revolution pointed out that even according to the teaching of Marx the social-democratic ideal can only be established in a society whose riches are on the increase, and not in an impoverished state, as ours was, then this argument is refuted by the assertion that in such a case all hope would have to be abandoned, as it is particularly difficult to create a revolution in a society which is growing richer and richer. The completely opposite development of affairs also destroyed the belief that, according to the prophecy of Marx, the development of capitalism would cause the revolution automatically sooner or later, as the working classes would
