Jean Jaurès

“ Nevertheless the Crimean war did shake the old system in Russia. In that direction the formidable obstacle that Marx feared is at least diminished if not destroyed. I think it extremely doubtful whether Russia could now interfere successfully as she did in 1848 and 1849 to crush a revolutionary movement, even if a Socialist revolution were to break out in all Western Europe, if the proletariat were for a moment master of the situation in Paris, Vienna, Rome, Berlin, and Brussels, as the democracy had been in 1848. ”

“ Well, it is a republican democracy that is firmly planted in France, and that is henceforth invincible. The political and economic action of the organised working class there grows slowly but surely. In Belgium, the constitution inclines more and more toward democracy, and the proletariat almost grasps universal suffrage. In Germany, by one of those extraordinary ironical turns of history that bear witness to the invincible power of the democracy, we may say that Russia was unwittingly the instrument that helped forward universal suffrage and Socialism itself. ”

“ Moreover, the working class in Germany, which could not become fully conscious of its unity, and therefore of its existence as a class, in a divided and broken-up Germany, has developed its great political activity over the vast area of a united Germany.
To sum up, the way democracy has grown in Western European States has defeated and still defeats all attempts at violent intervention by the powers of oppression. It is not by any sudden explosion that democracy takes possession of States, and Socialism takes possession of the democracy. ”

“ When the revolution of 1848 had been crushed everywhere, in France, in Germany, in Italy, in Austria, and in Hungary, when the proletariat had been beaten by the bourgeoisie and the liberal bourgeoisie by the reaction, the Communist and working-class party, having lost the liberty of the press and the right to hold meetings, in other words all the legal means of gaining its ends, was forced to enter on subterranean methods and to organise itself in secret societies. ”

“ The democracy of small proprietors not only accepted the Republic but acclaimed it from the beginning. It did not take part in the battle against it. There is no bad feeling between the Socialist workman and the peasant. There will not be any. And we must see to it that no misunderstandings arise in the future, so that the rural democracy may come over gradually to Socialism as it has come over to the Republic. ”

“ Russia had just played the part of the great instrument of reaction in Europe, and it seemed to Marx that while the Imperial autocracy remained unbroken any revolution in Western Europe would be impossible. ”

“ Naturally, in these obscure and enthusiastic little societies, embittered as they were by defeat, hot for revenge, and unbalanced by the very absence of the steadying contact of ordinary life, puerile plans of conspiracy were abundant. Defeat, however, had not deprived Marx, who was a member of the central committee, of his lucidity and his large view of life in its complications and its evolution. ”

“ Russia was not crushed, and the European Social Revolution did not break out as a result of the Crimean war, as Marx, overtaken himself by that fever of impatience and illusion which in 1850 he had objected to in his colleagues of the London committee, had for a moment hoped. ”

“ The laws by which, from 1860 to 1885, England has obtained an almost universal suffrage are as far-reaching in their effect as revolutions, and yet no one except persons of a certain learning knows the exact date at which they were passed. ”

“ But the autocracy, annoyed by all sorts of internal opposition and undoubtedly preoccupied in strengthening itself within, could not bring to bear on Europe the power that it had at its command a half-century ago. ”

“ The majority [i.e., his opponents] has substituted the dogmatic spirit for the critical, the idealistic interpretation of events for the materialistic. Simple will-power, instead of the true relations of things, has become the motive force of revolution. ”