hey saw their material interests endangered, and the democratic
guarantees, that were to uphold their interests, made doubtful.
Hence, they drew closer to the workingmen. On the other hand, their
parliamentary representatives--the Mountain--, after being shoved aside
during the dictatorship of the bourgeois republicans, had, during the
last half of the term of the constitutive convention, regained their
lost popularity through the struggle with Bonaparte and the royalist
ministers. They had made an alliance with the Socialist leaders. During
February, 1849, reconciliation banquets were held. A common program
was drafted, joint election committees were empanelled, and fusion
candidates were set up. The revolutionary point was thereby broken off
from the social demands of the proletariat and a democratic turn given
to them; while, from the democratic claims of the small traders' class,
the mere political form was rubbed off and the Socialist point was
pushed forward. Thus came the Social Democracy about. The new Mountain,
the result of this combination, contained, with the exception of some
figures from the working class and some Socialist sectarians, the
identical elements of the old Mountain, only numerically stronger. In
the course of events it had, however, changed, together with the class
that it represented. The peculiar character of the Social Democracy is
summed up in this that democratic-republican institutions are
demanded as the means, not to remove the two extremes--Capital and
Wage-slavery--, but in order to weaken their antagonism and transform
them into a harmonious whole. However different the methods may be that
are proposed for the accomplishment of this object, however much the
object itself may be festooned with more or less revolutionary fancies,
the substance remains the same. This substance is the transformation
of society upon democratic lines, but a transformation within the
boundaries of the small traders' class. No one must run away with
the narrow notion that the small traders' class means on principle to
enforce a selfish class interest. It believes rather that the special
conditions for its own emancipation are the general conditions under
which alone modern society can be saved and the class struggle avoided.
Likewise must we avoid running away with the notion that the Democratic
Representatives are all "shopkeepers," or enthuse for these. They
may--by education and individual standing--be as