ority, even as it is in Russia now, sought to establish its dominion.
But it is well known that after the failure of the Paris Commune, in 1871,
Marx once and for all abandoned all belief in this form of the
"dictatorship of the proletariat," and in the possibility of securing
Socialism through the conspiratory action of minorities. He was even rather
unwilling that the _Manifesto_ should be republished after that, except as
a purely historical document. It was in that spirit of reaction that he and
Engels wrote in 1872 that passage--to which Lenine has given such an
unwarranted interpretation--in which they say that the Commune had shown
that "the working classes cannot simply take possession of the ready-made
state machine and set it in motion for their own aims."

It was no less an interpreter of Marx than his great collaborator and
friend, Frederick Engels, who, in 1895, stated the reasons for abandoning
all belief in the possibility of accomplishing anything through political
surprises and through the action of small conscious and determined
minorities at the head of unconscious masses:

History proved that we were wrong--we and those who like us, in
1848, awaited the speedy success of the proletariat. It became
perfectly clear _that economic conditions all over the Continent
were by no means as yet sufficiently matured for superseding the
capitalist organization of production_. This was proved by the
economic revolution which commenced on the continent of Europe
after 1848 and developed in France, Austria-Hungary, Poland, and,
recently, also in Russia, and made Germany into an industrial
state of the first rank--all on a capitalist basis, _which shows
that in 1848 the prevailing conditions were still capable of
expansion_. And to-day we have a huge international army of
Socialists.... If this mighty proletarian army has not yet reached
its goal, if it is destined to gain its ends only in a long drawn
out struggle, making headway but slowly, step by step, this only
proves how impossible it was in 1848 to change social conditions
by forcible means ... the time for small minorities to place
themselves at the head of the ignorant masses and resort to force
in order to bring about revolutions, is gone. _A complete change
in the organization of society can be brought about only by the
conscious co-operation of the masses_; they must be alive