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Class struggle means insurrection, rebellion, revolution; and these forces are to be rendered superfluous by social reforms. e. concerned that 'something' should be done for the workers- whatever that 'something' may be. Stumm and Eugen Richter, the patriarchal-absolutist and the Manchester businessman respectively, can no longer count on any meaningful support from the intelligentsia. The condemnation of capital and solidarity with the proletariat- if not with the fighting at least with the exploited proletariat - has become fashionable, and Harcourt's words 'We are all socialists now' are beginning to be true for these circles.

The actions of governments and capitalists thus lead to a situation in which the economic life of the nation increasingly comes to be dependent on wage-labour, becoming dominated by it to the extent that the proletariat becomes conscious of its power. Everywhere the economic power of the proletariat is growing, in despotic as well as in democratic countries, in Russia as well as in Switzerland, and this constitutes the basis for the inevitable victory of the working class, the most important event of our century.

It does not need to elaborate tactics specifically to meet catastrophes, nor in order to carry out peaceful small-scale work at all periods. Its tactics do not ignore crises, catastrophes, revolutions, nor do they speculate about them. It utilises every situation and never commits itself in advance. Independent or dependent politics [ ... ] If Bernstein's writings were to have any effect at all, it should above all be to correct the confused conceptions about us spread by our opponents, and to give new vitality and depth to our analyses, a task which in fact has taken up a good portion of our life's work.