ight of suffrage or to crush the unions by limiting the
right of labor to organize. If he predicted a revolutionary crisis, it
was to come from a life-and-death struggle of the working people in
self-defense, in a desperate effort to protect economic and political
rights, but especially _political_ rights, which, as the labor unionist,
von Elm, said at this congress, were "the key to all." A revolutionary
conflict was anticipated, to be fought out by economic means, but only
as part of a political crisis--in which the majority of the people would
be on the side of the Socialists and the labor unions. Similarly, in
America, Mr. Victor Berger stated at the Socialist Convention of 1908
that he had no doubt that "in order to be able to shoot even, some day,
we must have the powers of the political government in our hands, at
least to a great extent."

While neither the political revolution involved in the capture of
government by Socialist voters, nor the economic revolution that would
follow a wholly successful general strike would lead necessarily to
revolution in its narrow sense of a great but relatively brief crisis,
or to revolutionary violence; while either political or economic
overturn, or both, combined in a single movement, might be accomplished
peacefully and by degrees, capitalist governments are just as likely to
seize the one as the other, as the occasion for attempts at violent
repression. A complete political victory would thus lead to the same
crisis and violence as a victorious general strike.

As Bebel says, Socialists are not trying to create a revolutionary
crisis. But they have little doubt that the capitalists themselves will
precipitate one as soon as Socialism becomes truly menacing, as may
happen within a few years in some countries. "The politicians of the
ruling class have reached a condition where they are ready to risk
everything upon a single throw of the dice," says Kautsky, on the
supposition that Socialism is _already_ a real menace in Germany. "They
would rather take their chances in a civil war than endure the fear of a
revolution," he continues. "The Socialists on the other hand, not only
have no reason to follow suit in this policy of desperation, but should
rather seek by every means in their power to postpone any such insane
uprising [of the capitalists] even if it be recognized as inevitable, to
a time when the proletariat will be so powerful as to be able at once to
whip the enrag