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THE FIGHT FOR EXISTENCE 223
proletariat no longer believed in the efficacy of our present
tactics; if we found that we could no longer maintain
intact the organization and cohesion of the party,
what would happen We should simply declare— we
have no more to do with the guidance of the party; we
can no longer be responsible. The men in power do not
wish that the party should continue to exist it is
; hoped
— to destroy us well, no party allows itself to be destroyed,
for there is above all things
the law of self-defense,
of self-preservation, and, if the organized direction
fails, you will have a condition of anarchy, in which
everything is left to the individual. And do you really
believe— you who have so often praised the bravery of
the Germans up to the heavens, when it has been to your
interest to do so— do you really believe that the hundreds
of thousands of German social-democrats are cowards
Do you believe that what has happened
in Russia
would not be possible in Germany if you succeeded in
bringing about here the conditions which exist there"
(33) Both Bebel and Liebknecht taunted the Chancellor
with his failure to drive the socialists to commit acts
of violence. "The Government may be sure," said Liebknecht
in
1886, "that we shall not, now or ever, go upon
the bird-lime, that we shall never be such fools as to play
the game of our enemies by attempts
. . . the more
madly you carry on, the sooner you will come to the end ;
the pitcher goes to the well until it breaks." (34)
At the end of this year the reports given from the
several states of the working out of the anti-socialist
law were most discouraging to the Chancellor. From
everywhere the report came that agitation was unintermittent,
and being carried on with zeal and success. And
Bebel said publicly that nowhere was the socialist party
more numerous or better organized than in the districts