Marx and Engels, in this early
pronunciamento, were purposely ambiguous in their language. For example,
they demand "the extension of factories and instruments of production
owned by the state." This is plainly a conservatively capitalistic or a
revolutionary Socialist measure entirely according to the degree to
which, and the hands by which, it is carried out--and the same is
evidently true of the appropriation of land rent and the abolition of
inheritance. This is what Marx means when he says that every such
measure is "self-contradictory and must be such of necessity." Up to a
certain point they put capitalism on "a larger basis"; if carried beyond
that, they may, _in the right hands_, become steps in Socialism.

Marx and Engels were neither able nor willing to lay out a program which
would distinguish sharply between measures that would be transitional
and those that would be Socialist sixty or seventy years after they
wrote, but merely gave concrete illustrations of their policy; they
stated explicitly that such reforms would vary from country to country,
and only claimed for those they mentioned that they would be "pretty
generally applicable." Yet, understood in the sense in which it was
originally promulgated and afterwards explained, this early Socialist
program still affords the most valuable key we have as to what Socialism
is, if we view it on the side of its practical efforts rather than on
that of abstract theories. Marx and Engels recognize that the measures I
have mentioned must be acknowledged as "insufficient and untenable,"
because, though they involve "inroads on the rights of property," they
do not go far enough to destroy capitalism and establish a Socialistic
society. But they reassure their Socialistic critics by pointing out
that these "insufficient" and "transitory" measures, "in the course of
the movement, outstrip themselves, _necessitate further inroads on the
old social order_, and are indispensable as a means of entirely
revolutionizing the mode of production." (My italics.)

That is, "State Socialism" is indispensable as a basis for Socialism,
indeed necessitates it, provided Socialists look upon "State Socialist"
measures chiefly as transitory _means_ "to raise the proletariat to the
position of ruling class"; for this rise of the proletariat to the
position of ruling class is necessarily "the _first step_ in the
revolution of the working class."

From the day of this first step the wh