Page:The Paris Commune - Karl Marx - ed. Lucien Sanial (1902).djvu/40

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PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION
xxxiii

vide the party by opposing him." He was an honest man, an able man also; and since he was "there" he should be given a chance to carry out "his" good intentions, to develop "his" plans, and to show to the world what a socialist minister could do, even when hampered by bourgeois colleagues.—And the international proletariat kept very cool, very patient, hoping that its delegates to the Paris Congress might succeed in restoring harmony "in France," but in the meantime growing very watchful, and very thoughtful also, concerning harmony in other countries.

It is safe to say that the Kautsky resolution did not meet with its unanimous and unqualified approval; that the withdrawal of the Parti Ouvrier Français from the ministerially packed congress of the French organizations held immediately after the International body had adjourned, did not greatly surprise it; that the further withdrawal of the Blanquists and the Communists, besides important trade federations, from the similarly packed Lyons "Congress of Unity" a few months later, was viewed with satisfaction by a large portion of it; and that the news of the final union of the Social-Revolutionary forces of France against the Ministerialists and all such bourgeois gentry, was greeted with intense delight by all true socialists, whose rallying cry is, and must remain till the glad evening of Revolution Day, "No Compromise!"

If there are still any abroad who, mistakenly calling this only possible union a "split," fear its results, we can only deplore their intellectual blindness, despite which, however, they must soon perforce have to know better. Of Millerand's acts and "participation" we cannot undertake here to write the history. Nor is it needful that we should do so. With the exception of the secret use