e German workers should have been willing to have listened to any
other means of action. What indeed else was there to do?

It is too long a story to go into the discussions over this question.
Perhaps a principle of Bebel's gives the clearest explanation of the
thought which eventually decided the tactics of the socialists. Bebel
has said many times that he always considered it wise in politics to
find out what his opponent wanted him to do, and then not to do it. And,
to the minds of Bebel, Liebknecht, and others of the more clear-headed
leaders, there was no doubt whatever that Bismarck was trying to force
the socialists to commit crimes and outrages. Again and again Bismarck's
press declared: "What is most necessary is to provoke the
social-democrats to commit acts of despair, to draw them into the open
street, and there to shoot them down."[28] Well, if this was actually
what Bismarck wanted, he failed utterly, because, as a matter of fact,
and despite every provocation, no considerable section of the socialist
party wavered in the slightest from its determination to carry on its
work. There was a moment toward the end of '79 when the situation seemed
to be getting out of hand, and a secret conference was held the next
year at Wyden in Switzerland to determine the policies of the party. In
the report published by the congress no names were given, as it was, of
course, necessary to maintain complete secrecy. However, it seemed clear
to the delegates that, if they resorted to terrorist methods, they would
be destroyed as the Russians, the French, the Spanish, and the Italians
had been when similar conditions confronted them. In view of the present
state of their organization, violence, after all, could be merely a
phrase, as they were not fitted in strength or in numbers to combat
Bismarck. One of the delegates considered that Johann Most had exercised
an evil influence on many, and he urged that all enlightened German
socialists turn away from such men. "Between the people of violence and
the true revolutionists there will always be dissension."[29] Another
speaker maintained that Most could be no more considered a socialist. He
is at best a Blanquist and, indeed, one in the worst sense of the word,
who had no other aim than to pursue the bungling work of a revolution.
It is, therefore, necessary that the congress should declare itself
decidedly against Most and should expel him from the party.[30] The
word "revoluti