The reaction of socialist workingmen, however, to the situation created by the "case Millerand" was of a more complicated character. While the entrance of a socialist minister into the government aroused hopes and expectations in the minds of many, to others it seemed the beginning of the end of socialism. Habitually regarding socialism as a class-movement, imbued with the ideas of class and class-struggle, they were shocked and grieved at the "collaboration of classes" which Millerand practised in the government and the Socialists in Parliament. To these socialist workingmen the danger seemed the greater because it presented itself as a crowning act of a policy that had been pursued for some time by all the socialists. As we have seen, even the revolutionary Guesdists had become more and more moderate. They had co-operated in Parliament with the republican parties and had concluded alliances during elections with "bourgeois" parties. At the general Congress of socialists in Paris in 1899, M. Briand in a clever and somewhat biting speech pointed out to the revolutionary socialists that their policy had made the "case Millerand" possible. "It seems," said Briand, "that great astonishment has been aroused in our comrades of the _Parti Ouvrier_ (Guesdists) by the entrance of our comrade Millerand into a bourgeois government. But, citizens of the _Parti Ouvrier_, what has taken place is the very consequence of the policy which by successive concessions you have forced upon the entire socialist party."[146] And Briand pointed out these "successive concessions" which deprived the Guesdists of their revolutionary character. To quote M. Briand again: [146] _Congrès Général des Organisations Socialistes_ (Paris, 1899), p. 152. Yes, you become interested in these [electoral] struggles which gave immediate results, and little by little our militant comrades also became interested in them, took a liking for them to such a degree that they soon came to believe that in order to triumph definitely over the capitalist society nothing was necessary but to storm the ballot-boxes. Thus within recent years the country could gain the impression that the socialist party was no longer a revolutionary party.[147] [147] _Ibid._, p. 155.