The result of those measures was manifest at the Stuttgart Congress, where the business proceeded with dispatch and in comparative order. Delegates to the number of 886 were assembled from twenty-six nationalities, and discussed matters of importance relating to the international social movement. The revival of the International could be regarded as an accomplished fact. But it was a revival in a new form and under conditions which had undergone a marvellous change. The old International has been compared by Vandervelde to a brilliant general staff without an army. In many countries the socialist cause had hardly begun to move; in no country had it attained to any real strength. Now socialism had powerful and well-organised parties in most of the leading countries of Europe, and it counted its adherents by millions. The Bureau at Brussels does not perform the functions of the general council of the old International. It has no commanding mind and will, like that of Karl Marx, to supply initiative and energy. It serves as a connecting link between the national parties; it tends to co-ordinate theories, tactics, and action. But the vitality and moving force of the new International are found in the different national groups. We may say, then, that the new International only in a limited measure realises the thought of Marx. The idea of using political power as an instrument of social amelioration originated with the Chartists and L. Blanc. Marx in the communist manifesto first made it international and revolutionary, and he claimed also to have made it scientific. It was scientific in so far as it was a reasoned and comprehensive expression of real forces. In the International as we now have it we may perceive an organisation of the real forces which Marx had the insight to foresee and enjoin. A long series of resolutions have been passed by the various Congresses which have met since 1889. If we take those resolutions along with the elaborate programmes that have been formulated by the various national parties, and of which the Erfurt programme may be regarded as the type, we have a set of documents which may undoubtedly be considered official and authoritative. Both resolutions and programmes are the result of a long labour of thought and debate by their best minds. They agree generally in their exposition of principles and tactics. We may, therefore, have no doubt that they contain a reliable statement of the prevalent socialism. We give an abstract of the most important points on which socialists of all lands agree:— (1) The goal of the whole movement is an economic revolution or transformation—the transference to society of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. (2) The conquest of political power by the organised action of the working class of all lands is the chief means towards this great end.