Such is the language used against revolutions by conservatives or reactionaries. Never has it been so applied by a Marx or an Engels, a Liebknecht, a Kautsky or a Bebel. Without underestimating the enormous cost of revolutions, the most eminent Socialists reckon them as nothing compared with the probable gains, or the far greater costs of continuing present conditions. The assertion of manhood that is involved in every great revolution from below in itself implies, in the Socialist view, not retrogression, but a stupendous advance; and any reversion to semi-barbarism that may take place in the course of the revolution is likely, in their opinion, to be far more than compensated in other directions, even during the revolutionary period (to say nothing of ultimate results). Revolutionary phrases and scares are of course abhorred by capitalistic parties, and considered dangerous, unless there is some very strong occasion for reverting to their use. But such occasions are becoming more and more frequent. Conservative capitalists are more and more grateful for any outbreak that alarms or burdens the neutral classes and serves as a useful pretext for that repression or reaction which their interests require. Progressive capitalists, on the other hand, use the very same disturbances to urge reforms they desire, on the ground that such measures are necessary to avoid "revolution." The disturbance may be as far as possible from revolutionary at bottom. It is only necessary that it should be sufficiently novel and disagreeable to attract attention and cause impatience and irritation among those who have to pay for it. Like the British strikes of 1911, it may not cost the capitalist class as a whole one-hundredth part of one per cent of its income. And it might be possible to repress, within a short time and at no greater expense, a movement many times more menacing. Provided it serves to put the supporters of capitalism on their feet, whatever they do as a result, whether in the way of repression or of reform, will be but to carry out long-cherished plans for advancing their own interests, plans that would have been the same even though there had been no shadow of a "revolutionary" movement on the horizon. The only difference is that such pseudo-revolutionary or semi-revolutionary disturbances serve as stimuli to put the more inert of the capitalist forces in motion, and, until the disturbances become truly menacing, strengthen the capitalist position.