contains the following four salient points: The point of origin is the specific national peculiarities of the American conditions. The principal task is, to begin with, the "real arousing" of the workers. The forms of tactic can only be found through the practice of the movement itself. Linking up with the actual needs of the working class is of more importance than the theoretical platform.
He sums up this method in a classic form in his letter to Mrs. Wischnewetsky dated January 27, 1887:
"The movement in America, just at this moment, is I believe best seen from across the ocean. On the spot personal bickerings and local disputes must obscure much of the grandeur of it. And THE ONLY THING that could really delay its march would be the consolidation of these differences into established sects. To some extent that will be unavoidable, but the less of it the better… Our theory is a theory of evolution, not of dogma to be learned by heart and to be repeated mechanically. The less it is hammered into the Americans from the outside and the more they test it through their own experience… the more will it become part of their own flesh and blood."
III.
The Historical Peculiarities of the American Labor Movement.
BOTH England and America have always offered a number of particularly knotty problems for the exponents of Marxism. In practice, both
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