nt testimony to the truthfulness of this
claim could be produced. But I shall content myself with two
witnesses--chosen from the multitude of available witnesses for reasons
which will unfold themselves. The first witness is Marx himself. I
choose his testimony, mainly, because there is no other name so great as
his, and, secondly, to show that his profoundest thought rejected the
idea of sudden social transformations which at times he seemed to favor.
It is 1850. Marx is in London, actively engaged in a German Communist
movement with its Central Committee in that great metropolis. The
majority are impatient, feverishly urging revolt; they are under the
illusion that they can make the Social Revolution at once. Marx tells
them, on the contrary, that it will take fifty years "not only to change
existing conditions but to change yourselves and make yourselves worthy
of political power." They, the majority, say on the other hand, "We
ought to get power at once, or else give up the fight." Marx tries
vainly to make them see this, and resigns when he fails, scornfully
telling them that they "substitute revolutionary phrases for
_revolutionary evolution_."[198] Mark well that term, "revolutionary
evolution," for it bears out the description I have attempted of the
sense in which we speak of revolution in the Socialist propaganda of
to-day. And mark well, also, that Marx gave them fifty years simply to
make themselves worthy of political power.

As the second witness, I choose Liebknecht, whose name must always be
associated with those of Marx, Engels, and Lassalle, in Socialist
history. Not alone because of the fact that Liebknecht, more than almost
any other man, has influenced the tactics of the international Socialist
movement, but for the additional reason that detached phrases of his are
sometimes quoted in support of the opposite view. Words spoken in
oratorical and forensic passion, or in the bravado of irresponsible
youthfulness, and texts torn from their contexts, are used to show that
Liebknecht anticipated the violent transformation of society. But heed
this, one of many similar statements of his maturest and profoundest
thought: "_But we are not going to attain Socialism at one bound. The
transition is going on all the time_, and the important thing for us ...
is not to paint a picture of the future--which in any case would be
useless labor--_but to forecast a practical programme for the
intermediate period, to fo