en years, from the International Congress at Paris in 1900,
have reiterated or strengthened the old position. The Congress of Paris
in 1900 adopted a resolution introduced by Kautsky which declared that
the "Social Democracy has taken to itself the task of organizing the
working people into an army ready for the social war, and it must,
therefore, above all else, make sure that the working classes become
conscious of their interests and of their power." The great task of the
Socialists at the present time is the preparation of the social war of
the future, and not any effort to improve the capitalists' society. The
working classes are to be made conscious of _their own strength_--which
will surely not be brought about by any reforms which, however much they
may benefit the workers, favor equally or to a still greater degree the
capitalistic and governing classes.

The resolution continued: "The proletariat in a modern democratic State
cannot obtain political power accidentally. It can do so only when the
long and difficult work of the political and economic organization of
the proletariat is at an end, when its physical and moral regeneration
have been accomplished, and when more and more seats have been won in
municipal and other _legislative_ bodies.... But where the government is
centralized, political power cannot be obtained step by step." (The
italics are mine.)[198]

According to the proposer and mover of this resolution and its
supporters, nearly all, if not all, modern governments are at the bottom
centralized in one form or another. So the resolution amounts to saying
that political power cannot be obtained step by step. The election of
Socialist minorities in the legislatures can only be used to urge
capitalism on its work of bringing up the physical condition and
industrial productivity of the masses, and not for the purpose of
organizing and educating them with the object of seizing the reins of
power, of overthrowing capitalism, and revolutionizing the present form
of government.

The resolution adopted at the following International Congress at
Amsterdam (in 1904) was necessitated by certain ambiguities in the
former one. Yet Kautsky's explanation of his own meaning makes it quite
clear that even the Paris resolution was revolutionary in its intent,
and the Amsterdam Congresses, moreover, readopted its main proposition
that "the Social Democracy could not accept any participation in
government in capit