ic field from which critical communism proceeded.
All that the critical communists could do was to understand the
reaction in its hidden economic causes because, for the moment, to
understand the reaction was to continue the work of the revolution. The
same thing happened under other conditions and other forms 20 years
later when Marx, in the name of the International made in the "Civil War
in France" an apology for the Commune which was at the same time its
objective criticism.

The heroic resignation with which Marx after 1850 abandoned political
life was shown again when he retired from the International after the
congress at the Hague in 1872. These two facts have their value for
biography because they give glimpses of his personal character. With
him, in fact, ideas, temperament, policy and thought were one and the
same. But, on the other hand, these facts have a much greater bearing
for us. Critical communism does not manufacture revolutions, it does not
prepare insurrections, it does not furnish arms for revolts. It mingles
itself with the proletarian movement, but it sees and supports that
movement in the full intelligence of the connection which it has, which
it can have, and which it must have, with all the relations of social
life as a whole. In a word it is not a seminary in which superior
officers of the proletarian revolution are trained, but it is neither
more nor less than the consciousness of this revolution and especially
the consciousness of its difficulties.

The proletarian movement has grown in a colossal fashion during these
last thirty years. In the midst of numberless difficulties, through
gains and losses, it has little by little taken on a political form. Its
methods have been elaborated and gradually applied. All this is not the
work of the magic action of the doctrine scattered by the persuasive
virtue of written and spoken propaganda. From their first beginnings the
communists had this feeling that they were the extreme left of every
proletarian movement, but in proportion as the latter developed and
specialized it became their necessity and duty to assist, (through the
elaboration of programmes, and through their participation in the
political action of the parties) in the various contingencies of the
economic development and of the political situation growing out of it.

In the fifty years which separate us from the publication of the
Manifesto the specialization and the complexity of t