revolutionization of the American labor movement, which he foresaw as unavoidable, would begin under tremendous difficulties and would experience incessant ups and downs, but would then develop "with colossal rapidity and energy." His letter to Schlueter dated March 30, 1892, concludes with the sentence:
"When the Americans once begin, they will do so with an energy and virulence, in comparison with which we in Europe will be children."
VIII.
The International Role of the American Labor Movement.
IN his letter to Mrs. Wischnewetzky dated June 3, 1886, Engels writes:
"… one thing is certain: the American working class is moving, and no mistake. And after a few false starts, they will get into the right track soon enough. This appearance of the Americans upon the scene I consider ONE OF THE GREATEST EVENTS OF THE YEAR.
"What the breakdown of RUSSIAN CZARISM would be for the great military monarchs of Europe—THE SNAPPING OF THEIR MAINSTAY—that is for the bourgeoisie of the whole world THE BREAKING OUT OF CLASS WAR in America. For America after all was the ideal of all the bourgeoisie: a country rich, vast, expanding with purely bourgeois institutions unleavened by feudal remnants or monarchial traditions and without a permanent and hereditary proletariat. Here42
