ist party would be very contemptible and very cowardly if each one of us did not express his own thought without any more support than that furnished by reason alone.
No, we do not need to seek the authority or protection of any one in our effort to find the most convenient road, the broadest, clearest, pleasantest, and quickest way of reaching our goal. We make our effort openly, and the proletariat joins with us.
And to tell the truth, I think that in Liebknecht's own mind these ideas, at once so noble and so practical, were counteracted and clouded by too many different or even contrary theories to be able to exert a profound and useful influence. I think the time has come to ponder them seriously, and to make them the very foundation of our policy and our theory, instead of only a brilliant side-issue. I think that if the Socialist party refused to allow these thoughts to remain general formulas, if it embodied them in a political platform of broad and just evolution toward a well defined Communism, if it gave the impression of being at once generous and practical, ardent and the friend of peace, firm in its opposition to unjust institutions and decided in its resolution to do away with them methodically, and conciliatory, too, toward individuals, it would hasten the true Social Revolution by fifty years, the Revolution that will be embodied in conditions, in laws, and in our hearts; and it would free the great
