Austria and Italy find themselves in the same situation as Russia, and the experience of the Russian Revolution_teaches that the Social Revolution by no means will begin in the place where Capitalism is at its highest stage of development. Even the strongest capitalistic organization is not able to protect the masses from the unspeakable sufferings which capitalist anarchy creates, it is much better suited, as the government of the young capitalist countries, to hold the masses down.
The Socialist Revolution starts first in those countries in which the capitalist organization is not so strong. Those capitalist countries with the most unsettled organs for oppression are the breaches where Socialism may break through, there the social revolution will begin. It is difficult for it to break through within the national boundaries, because after crushing its own bourgeoisie, it is threatened by the bourgeoisie of the remaining capitalist countries. The Socialist Revolution can only be successful if it breaks out on the entire continent; but as the Socialist Revolution cannot wait until the proletariat of the whole world rises to one single call, on the contrary, as national Socialist revolutions are themselves a product of international, capitalist disintegration, they furnish the accelerating element. In this way the answer is given to the first question which confronts the international proletariat: When can the Socialist Revolution begin? It can and will begin in every country in which the conditions created by capital for the working class become unbearable. The sufferings of the people jeer at the statistics of Cunow and Company, and the volcanoes of revolution are not waiting until the scholastic statisticians of Also-Marxism give them a signal. Whoever proves to the masses of the people by means of tables of statistics the impossibility of the Socialist Revolution, shows that he understands Marx not at all. Friedrich Engels may have made a mistake when he thought in the 80's that the end of Capitalism was at hand. But the possibility of such a mistake shows that he had nothing to do with this statistical conception of his and Marx's theory. This
— 18 —
