Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

Schonerer's efforts were not successful, but his most terrible fears came true.
Thus neither man realized his ultimate goal. Lueger could no longer save Austria, and
Schonerer could no longer save the German people from ruin.
It is infinitely instructive for our present day to study the causes for the failure of both
parties. This is particularly useful for my friends, since in many points conditions today are
similar to then and errors can thereby be avoided which at that time caused the end of the
one movement and the sterility of the other.
To my mind, there were three causes for the collapse of the Pan-German movement in
Austria.
In the first place, its unclear conception of the significance of the social problem, especially
for a new and essentially revolutionary party.
Since Schonerer and his followers addressed themselves principally to bourgeois circles, the
result was bound to be very feeble and tame.
Though some people fail to suspect it, the German bourgeoisie, especially in its upper circles,
is pacifistic to the point of positive self-abnegation, where internal affairs of the nation or
state are concerned. In good times that is, in this case, in times of good government such an
attitude makes these classes extremely valuable to the state; but in times of an inferior
regime it is positively ruinous. To make possible the waging of any really serious struggle, the
Pan-German movement should above all have dedicated itself to winning the masses. That it
failed to do so deprived it in advance of the elemental impetus which a wave of its kind
simply must have if it is not in a short time to ebb away.
Unless this principle is borne in mind and carried out from the very start, the new party
loses all possibility of later making up for what has been lost. For, by the admission of
numerous moderate bourgeois elements, the basic attitude of the movement will always be
governed by them and thus lose any further prospect of winning appreciable forces from the
broad masses. As a result, such a movement will not rise above mere grumbling and
criticizing. The faith bordering more or less on religion, combined with a similar spirit of
sacrifice, will cease to exist; in its place will arise an effort gradually to grind off the edges of
struggle by means of 'positive' collaboration; that is, in this case, by acceptance of the
existing order, thus ultimately leading to a putrid peace.
And this is what happened to the Pan-German movement because it had not from the outset
laid its chief stress on winning supporters from the circles of the great masses. It achieved
'bourgeois respectability and a muffled radicalism.'
From this error arose the second cause of its rapid decline.
At the time of the emergence of the Pan-German movement the situation of the Germans in
Austria was already desperate. From year to year the parliament had increasingly become an
institution for the slow destruction of the German people. Any attempt at salvation in the
eleventh hour could offer even the slightest hope of success only if this institution were
eliminated.
Thus the movement was faced with a question of basic importance:
Should its members, to destroy parliament, go into parliament, in order, as people used to
say, 'to bore from within,' or should they carry on the struggle from outside by an attack on
this institution as such?
They went in and they came out defeated.
To be sure, they couldn't help but go in.
To carry on the struggle against such a power from outside means to arm with unflinching
courage and to be prepared for endless sacrifices. You seize the bull by the horns, you suffer
many heavy blows, you are sometimes thrown to the earth, sometimes you get up with
broken limbs, and only after the hardest contest does victory reward the bold assailant. Only
the greatness of the sacrifices will win new fighters for the cause, until at last tenacity is
rewarded by success.
But for this the sons of the broad masses are required.