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eighteenth century, storm swiftly from success to success; their dra-matic effects outdo each other; men and things seem set in sparkling brilliants: ccsłasy is the everyday spirit; but they are short-lived; soon they have attained their zenith, and a long crapulent depression lays hołd of society before it learns soberly to assimilate the results of its storm-and-stress period. On the other hand, proletarian revoluti-ons, like those of the nineteenth century, criticize themselves constant-ly, interrupt themselves continually in their own course, come back to the apparently accomplished in order to begin it afresh, deride with unmerciful thoroughness the inadequacies, weaknesses, and paltrinesses of their first attempts, seem to throw down their adversary only in order that he may draw new strength from the earth and rise again, morę gigantic, before them, recoil ever and anon from the indefinite prodigiousness of their own aims, until a situation has been created which makes all turning back impossible, and the conditions them-selves ery out: Hic Rhodus, hic saltaU¹ (Underlined by A. Ż.)

Accordingly, in bourgeois revolutions crapulent depression was fol-lowed by eestasy. That crapulent depression lasted until the bour-geoisie, the class whose interests were identified, at one historical moment, with those of all the oppressed, definitely got rid of its form-er allies - working men and peasantry, and until the society realized that the revolution did not abolish the class society, and that new clas-ses appeared on the historical scene. Onlv when the bourgeoisie had forsaken all its illusions of its former allies, when it »has drowned the most heavenly eestasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of Philistine sentimentalism in the icy water of egotistical calculati-on«,² the society realised what was left and became capable of »adopt-

From Marx’s standpoint, proletarian, socialist revolutions are not likely to follow that psychological course of bourgeois revolutions. Such a point of view is based on his concepts of the socialist revo!u-tion and historical role of the proletariat, but also on the experience of the proletarian fights at that time.

The socialist revolution will possibly avoid the amplitudes of eestasy and crapulent depression, for it is not a »partial, only a political revolution« like bourgeois revolutions. The winning of political power is not its goal of utmost importance and therefore it is not accomplished by gaining power. Socialism wants to win power, that »political act«, only if it is likely to destroy the bourgeois society. However, »when its organised actwity starts, when its self-purpose emerges, its soul, socialism rejects its political disguise«.³

The proletariat, as the carrier of the socialist revolution, does not consequently tend toward the goals of all the former social classes: to win power and immortalize the rule of the winning class. The proletariat wants to abolish any class distinction in the society, and accord-

477

1

* K. Marx: »The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte*; Marx & Engels: Basic Writings on Poliłics and P/iilosophy, cd. by L. S. Fcucr, Doubleday, Garden

City, N. Y.. 1959, p. 324.    .    .

2

   Marx-Enge!s: »Manifesto of the Communist Party*, op. cit., p. 9.

ing soberly the results of its Sturm-und-Drang period«.

3

   Marx-Engcls: Werkc, Band 1, Dictz Ycrlag, Berlin, S. 409.