ization of capital. This
prediction may _ultimately_ prove true, but time is the most vital
element in any calculation, and Kautsky himself acknowledges that the
industrial proletariat "had existed a long time before giving any
indication of its independence," and that during all this long period
"no militant proletariat was in existence."

The chief practical reason for relying so strongly on the industrial
wage earners as stated by Bebel and other Socialists is undoubtedly that
"the proletariat increases more and more until it forms the overwhelming
majority of the nation." No doubt, in proportion as this tendency
exists, the importance of gathering certain parts of the middle class
into the movement becomes less and less, and the statement quoted, if
strongly insisted upon, even suggests a readiness to attempt to get
along entirely without these elements. The figures of the Census
indicate that in this country, at least, we are some time from the point
when the proletariat will constitute even a bare majority, and that it
is not likely to form an overwhelming majority for decades to come. But
the European view is common here also.

The moderate Vandervelde also says that the Socialist program has been
"formulated by or for the workingmen of large-scale industry."[239] This
may be true, but we are not as much interested to know who formulated
the program of the movement as to understand its present aim. Its aim,
it is generally agreed, is to organize into a single movement all
anti-capitalistic elements, all those who want to abolish capitalism,
those exploited classes that are not too crushed to revolt, those whose
chief means of support is socially useful labor and not the ownership of
capital or possession of some privileged position or office. In this
movement it is generally conceded by Socialists that the workingmen of
industry play the central part. But they are neither its sole origin nor
is their welfare its sole aim.

The best known of the Socialist critics of Marxism, Edward Bernstein,
shares with some of Marx's most loyal disciples in this excessive
idealization of the industrial working class. Indeed, he says, with more
truth than he realizes, that in proportion as revolutionary Marxism is
relegated to the background it is necessary to affirm more sharply the
class character of the Party. That is to say, if a Socialist Party
abandons the principles of Socialism, then the only way it can be
distinguishe