Ludwig Frank hoped--and he expressed this hope in the language of a belated Lassallian--that later, after a victorious war, he would devote himself to the work of the "internal building up" of the state. There is no doubt that Germany will need this "internal building up" after a victory no less than before the War. But will a victory make this work easier? There is nothing in Germany’s historical experiences any more than in those of any other country to justify such a hope. "We regarded the doings of the rulers of Germany [after the victories of 1870] as a matter of course," says Bebel in his _Autobiography_. "It was merely an illusion of the Party Executive to believe that a more liberal spirit would prevail in the new order. And this more liberal régime was to be granted by the same man who had till then shown himself the greatest enemy, I will not say of democratic development, but even of every liberal tendency, and who now as victor planted the heel of his Cuirassier boot on the neck of the new Empire." (Vol. II, p. 188.) There is absolutely no reason to expect different results now from a victory from above. On the contrary. In 1870 Prussian Junkerdom had first to adapt itself to the new imperial order. It could not feel secure in the saddle all at once. It was eight years after the victory over France that the anti-Socialist laws were passed. In forty-four years Prussian Junkerdom has become the imperial Junkerdom. And if, after half a century of the most intense class struggle, Junkerdom should appear at the head of the victorious nation, then we need not doubt that it would not have felt the need of Ludwig Frank’s services for the internal building up of the state had he returned safe from the fields of German victories. But far more important than the strengthening of the class position of the rulers is the influence a German victory would have upon the proletariat itself. The war grew out of imperialistic antagonisms between the capitalist states, and the victory of Germany, as stated above, can produce only one result--territorial acquisitions at the expense of Belgium, France and Russia, commercial treaties forced upon her enemies, and new colonies. The class struggle of the proletariat would then be placed upon the basis of the imperialistic hegemony of Germany, the working class would be interested in the maintenance and development of this hegemony, and revolutionary Socialism would for a long time be condemned to the rôle of a propagandist sect. Marx was right when in 1870 he foresaw, as a result of the German victories, a rapid development for the German labor movement under the banner of scientific Socialism. But now the international conditions point to the very opposite prognosis. Germany’s victory would mean the taking of the edge off the revolutionary movement, its theoretic shallowing, and the dying out of the Marxist ideas.