the right thing in the party to make revolutionary speeches, and point
to the coming day of account when mankind were to be emancipated at one
blow; but that was not a road they could make any progress by. And as
for boycotting, which had been spoken of, he declared he was all for
boycotting; but it was the boycotting of the military in such a way as
to give them no occasion for the use of their weapons. Liebknecht, the
chief leader of the party, followed, and was quite as emphatic in the
same line. People spoke of revolution, he said; but they should remember
that roast pigeons don't fly into one's mouth by themselves. It was easy
enough to make bitter speeches, and any fool and donkey could throw
bombs; but the misadventures of the anarchists showed plainly enough
that nothing could be done in that way. The socialists had now 20 per
cent. of the population; but what could 20 per cent. do against 80 per
cent. by the use of force? No, it was not force; it was reason they must
use if they would succeed. What, then, he asked, was the Social
Democracy to do? They must avoid divisions among themselves, and go out
and convert the still indifferent masses. The electoral suffrage was
their best weapon of agitation, and their surest means of increasing the
party. Prince Bismarck had been represented in a popular book as
practising peasant-fishery and elector-fishery. "Peasant-fishery and
elector-fishery--" said Liebknecht, amid much applause, "that is the
word for the Social Democrats to-day."
Another suggestion of the extreme section was that the party should now
assail the Church and religion, as socialist and revolutionary parties
have so generally done; but this bit of their old traditional policy
received scant regard from the Halle Congress. A strong feeling was
expressed that the party had damaged itself in the past by its assaults
on the Church, and that its present policy ought, in self-preservation,
to be one of religious neutrality and toleration. "Instead," said
Liebknecht, "of squandering our strength in a struggle with the Church
and sacerdotalism, let us go to the root of the matter. We desire to
overthrow the State of the classes. When we have done that, the Church
and sacerdotalism will fall with it, and in this respect we are much
more radical and much more definite in purpose than our opponents, for
we like neither the priests nor the anti-priests." The old revolutionary
policy of stirring up hatred against all existing institutions is thus
relegated from the present to the distant future, after the present
class-State is overthrown and the working-class or socialist State
established in its place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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