"All who are weary and heavy laden; all who suffer under injustice; all who suffer from the outrages of the existing bourgeois society; all who have in them the feeling of the worth of humanity, look to us, turn hopefully to us, as the only party that can bring rescue and deliverance. And if we, the opponents of this unjust world of violence, suddenly reach out the hand of brotherhood to it, conclude alliances with its representatives, invite our comrades to go hand in hand with the enemy whose misdeeds have driven the masses into our camp, what confusion must result in their minds! ... It must be that for the hundreds and thousands, for the millions that have sought salvation under our banner, it was all a colossal mistake for them to come to us. If we are not different from the others, then we are not the right ones – the Savior is yet to come; and the Social Democracy was a false Messiah, no better than the other false ones! Just in this fact lies our strength, that we are not like the others, and that we are not only not like the others, and that we are not simply different from the others, but that we are their deadly enemy, who have sworn to storm and demolish the Bastile of Capitalism, whose defenders all those others are. Therefore we are only strong when we are alone. This is not to say that we are to individualise or to isolate ourselves. We have never lacked for company, and we never shall so long as the fight lasts. On the essentially true but literally false phrase about a “single reactionary mass,” the Social Democracy has never believed since it passed from the realm of theory to that of practice. We know that the individual members and divisions of the “single reactionary mass” are in conflict with each other, and we have always used these conflicts for our purposes. We have used opponents against opponents, but have never allowed them to use us."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Liebknecht
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Wilhelm Liebknecht
1826 – 1900
deutscher Publizist und Politiker ([[SPD]])
56 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Wilhelm Liebknecht →
Related Quotes
"It would be an unparalleled case of flying the track and going astray if the German Social Democracy, which has had s…"
"The bureaucratic, though capitalistic, spirit of our governments tends towards a which, in fact, is only , but which …"
"What is it that has made of us in Germany the pivotal part? ... It is the avalanche-like increase of our supporters t…"
"A practical surrender of our party principles appears to me far more dangerous than all of Bernstein’s theoretical wi…"
"In reference to the Prussian three-class the views of many of the s had in the course of time undergone a change. It …"
"Socialism without democracy is pseudo-socialism, just as democracy without socialism is pseudo-democracy."
"When I speak here of our policy, I use the word without regard to anything immaterial and superficial, but in the sen…"
"For our party and for our party tactics there is but one valid basis: the basis of the class struggle, out of which t…"
"The importance of a seat in the Prussian legislature was not overlooked by anyone. But it was looked upon as more imp…"
"As Prince Bismarck, in the ’60s, wanted to move the “Acheron” of socialism, ... it was of course not love for sociali…"