Besides, a revolution which arises out of a war is a sign of weakness of the revolutionary class, often a cause of further weakness, if only through the sacrifice which it brings with it, as well as through the moral and intellectual degradation which it causes. We thus have an enormous increase of the burdens of the revolutionary government, and at the same time a weakening of its strengths That is why a revolution which irises out of a war collapses more easily or loses sooner its original impulse. How differently turned out the bourgeois revolution in France, where it arose from an insurrection of the people, to that in Germany, where it was imported by a number of wars! And the cause of the proletariat in Paris would have derived far greater benefits from the rising of the Paris proletariat, if it had not been forced upon it by the war of 1870–71, but had taken place later, when the Parisians would have attained sufficient strength to expel Louis Napoleon and his gang without war.
Thus we have not the slightest reason to wish for a forcible acceleration of our march by means of a war.
But our wishes are of no account. Certainly men make their own history, but they do not choose at will the problems which they have to solve, or the circumstances under which they live, or the means wherewith to solve. Had it all depended on our wishes, who of us would not prefer a peaceful solution to a violent, to which our personal strength is not perhaps equal, which may, perhaps, even get the better of us ? But our duty is not to utter pious wishes and to demand of the world that it shall accommodate itself to them, but to recognise the given tasks, circumstances, and means in order to be able to apply suitably the latter to the solution of the former.
Investigation of the actual, that is the foundation of a rational policy. If I am of the opinion that we are approaching a revolutionary epoch, as to the date of which, however, it is impossible to say anything, I have come to this conclusion through my examination of the actual facts, not through any of my wishes. I might even wish that I may be wrong, and those right who think the greatest difficulties of the transition from capitalism to Socialism are already behind and that we have gained all the essentials for a peaceful progress to Socialism. Unfortunately, I cannot see my way to accepting this view. The greatest and most difficult things, the struggle for possession of political power, is still before us; it will only be decided in the course of a long and hard wrestling in which we will have to exert all our energies to the uttermost.
No worse service to the proletariat can be done than to advise it to disarm, in order to meet half-way an apparent conciliatory move on the part of the bourgeoisie. That means in the present state of affairs, nothing less than handing it over to the bourgeoisie, to bring the proletariat into intellectual and political dependence on
