Page:Georgii Valentinovich Plekhanov - The Bourgeois Revolution- Its Attainments and Its Limitations - tr. Henry Kuhn (1926).pdf/25

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But the latter, under the conditions then prevailing, was simply unthinkable for two closely connected reasons: neither did the proletariat of that day possess the requisite capacity, nor did the means of production of that day meet even the elementary requirements for socialization. Therefore, neither the proletariat of the time, nor its most advanced representatives could even conceive of the idea, It is true that in the pre-revolutionary French literature we find a few Communist Utopias, but these, for the reasons stated, could not find either currency or recognition. Under these circumstances, what was left for the momentarily victorious "mob" to do? If socialization of the means of production was not to be thought of, then private property therein necessarily must continue, and the indigent populace was limited to casual and forcible encroachments upon its realm. And because of such encroachments, the "mob" is being blamed by all bourgeois historians to this very day. Forcible encroachments upon the realm of private property made a "lawful" republic

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