, and proclaimed the necessity of being guided by political
expediency rather than inflexible dogmas. Between the two a wordy
warfare was carried on for some time in pedantic, technical language;
but though habitually brandishing their weapons and denouncing their
antagonists in true Homeric style, they were really allies, struggling
towards a common end--two sections of the Social Democratic party
differing from each other on questions of tactics.

The two divergent tendencies have often reappeared in the subsequent
history of the movement. During ordinary peaceful times the economic
or trade-unionist tendency can generally hold its own, but as soon as
disturbances occur and the authorities have to intervene, the political
current quickly gains the upper hand. This was exemplified in the labour
troubles which took place at Rostoff-on-the-Don in 1902. During the
first two days of the strike the economic demands alone were put
forward, and in the speeches which were delivered at the meetings of
workmen no reference was made to political grievances. On the third day
one orator ventured to speak disrespectfully of the Autocratic Power,
but he thereby provoked signs of dissatisfaction in the audiences. On
the fifth and following days, however, several political speeches were
made, ending with the cry of "Down with Tsarism!" and a crowd of 30,000
workmen agreed with the speakers. Thereafter occurred similar strikes
in Odessa, the Caucasus, Kief, and Central Russia, and they had all a
political rather than a purely economic character.

I must now endeavour to explain clearly the point of view and plan
of campaign of this new movement, which I may call the revolutionary
Renaissance.

The ultimate aim of the new reformers was the same as that of all their
predecessors--the thorough reorganisation of Society on Socialistic
principles. According to their doctrines, Society as at present
constituted consists of two great classes, called variously the
exploiters and the exploited, the shearers and the shorn, the
capitalists and the workers, the employers and the employed, the tyrants
and the oppressed; and this unsatisfactory state of things must go on so
long as the so-called bourgeois or capitalist regime continues to exist.
In the new heaven and the new earth of which the Socialist dreams this
unjust distinction is to disappear; all human beings are to be equally
free and independent, all are to cooperate spontaneously with br