PREFACE, 1894
In the preface (January 3, 1894), Engels
says, inter alia, that in all these articles
(1871-75) he calls himself a Communist
and not a Social-Democrat, for
at that
time
the Proudhonists in France, and
Lassalleans in Germany called themselves
Social-Democrats (p. 6).
Communists
or
Social-
Democrats?
âFor Marx and myself, therefore, it was quite
impossible to choose such a loose expression to
denote our special standpoint. Today things are
different and the word
[1]
may be allowed to pass,
however unsuitable it is for a party whose economic
programme is not merely socialist, but directly
communist, and whose ultimate political goal is
to overcome the whole state and, therefore, demo-
cracy as well. The names of
actual
[Engelsâs
italics] political parties, however, never fully
correspond to them; the party develops, the name
persistsâ (p. 7).
N.B.
N.B.
N.B.