ve freely. The democratic
State offers such a field of battle; there the final decisive
struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat can best be fought
out."

The reader might understand this somewhat vacillating position on the
whole to favor democracy, but only a few pages further on Kautsky
explains his reasons for opposing the initiative and referendum, and we
see that when the point of action arrives, his democratic idealism is
abandoned:--

"In our opinion it follows from the preceding that the initiative
and referendum do _not_ belong to those democratic institutions
which must be furthered by the proletariat in the interest of its
own struggle for emancipation everywhere and under all
circumstances. The referendum and initiative are institutions which
may be very useful under certain circumstances if one does not
overvalue these uses, but under other circumstances may cause
great harm. The introduction of the initiative and referendum is,
therefore, not to be striven for everywhere and under all
circumstances, but only in those places where certain conditions
are fulfilled.

"Among these conditions precedent we reckon, above all, the
preponderance of the city population over that of the country--a
condition which at the present moment has only been reached in
England. A further condition precedent is a highly developed
political party life which has taken hold of the great masses of
the population, so that the tendency of direct legislation to break
up parties and to bridge over party opposition are no more to be
feared.

"But the weightiest condition precedent is the lack of an
overwhelmingly centralized governmental power, standing
independently against the people's representatives."[238] (My
italics.)

The first condition mentioned I have discussed in the previous chapter;
the second indicates that Kautsky, speaking for many German Socialists,
for the present at least, puts party above democracy.

The industrial proletariat is supposed to have the mission of saving
society. Even when it is not politically "self-conscious," or educated
to see the great role it must play in the present and future
transformation of society, it is supposed that it is _compelled_
ultimately "by the logic of events" to fill this role and attempt the
destruction of capitalism and the social