Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 16 - From Marx to Mao

310V. I. LENINattention should be turned to it. “All our experiences sofar have been skirmishes at the outposts, mere trifles,”said Bebel in his closing remarks. The main struggle liesahead. And from the standpoint of this main struggle, thewhole tactics of the opportunists are the height of spinelessnessand short-sightedness.Bebel only speaks in hints about the coming struggle.Never once does he say outright that revolution is impendingin Germany, although such, undoubtedly, is the idea inhis mind—all his references to the aggravation of contradictions,the difficulty of reforms in Prussia, the inextricableposition of the government and the classes in command,the growth of resentment among the masses, the dangerof a European war, the intensification of the economic yoke asa result of the high cost of living, the amalgamation of thecapitalists in trusts and cartels, etc., etc.—all are clearlyintended to open the eyes of the Party and the masses tothe inevitability of a revolutionary struggle.Why is Bebel so cautious? Why does he confine himselfto pointed references? Because the maturing revolution inGermany encounters a special, peculiar political situationthat does not resemble other pre-revolutionary periods inother countries and for that reason requires from the leadersof the proletariat the solution of a somewhat new problem.The chief feature of this peculiar pre-revolutionary situationconsists in the fact that the coming revolution mustinevitably be incomparably more profound, more radical,drawing far broader masses into a more difficult, stubbornand prolonged struggle than all previous revolutions. Yetat the same time this pre-revolutionary situation is markedby the greater (in comparison with anything hitherto)domination of legality, which has become an obstacle tothose who introduced it. There lies the peculiarity of thesituation, there lies the difficulty and novelty of the problem.The irony of history has brought it about that the rulingclasses of Germany, who have created the strongest stateknown in the whole second half of the nineteenth century,who have consolidated conditions for the most rapid capitalistprogress and conditions for the most stable constitutionallegality, are now most unmistakably coming to a