prize beasts." He develops his theory with greater force in "After the Storm."

"We are not called upon to gather the fruits of the past, but to be its torturers and persecutors. We must Judge it, and learn to recognise it under every disguise, and immolate it for the sake of the future."

Herzen thus challenged the theory now known as the inevitability of gradualism. He denied the constitutional social democratic idea that the proletariat should conquer political power under Capitalism. Radically at one with Marx in his analysis of capitalism and his theory of the class struggle. He was opposed to both Marx and Engels wherever they diluted the revolutionary theory with a suggestion of parliamentary programmes. Herzen denied that the possible triumph of social democratic politicians was a triumph of socialism. He denied that Jesus had conquered Caesar when Constantine established the Church of the Capitol. He saw throughout the ages the original plan of tyranny being developed and improved in detail, re-named, and re-decorated from time to time, but never abandoned nor destroyed so long as leaders pursued personal power and the masses remained in subjection. The Reformation, headed by Luther, did not emancipate the people. It averted revolution and saved clericalism. Did not Luther compromise his opposition to the superstition of the physical real presence in disgust at the peasants' rebellion and to express his opposition to the communism of the Annabaptists? The French Revolution, Herzen argued, finally did not destroy authority. It conserved authority, but the coming social revolution would uproot and destroy. It would put an end to the ages of cant. It would not widen the power of States but destroy their entire political structure.

As one follows Herzen in the development of this theory, one may not endorse all the details of his approach. The present writer, for example, considers that the French Revolution did not destroy authority, but that it was arrested in its expression. There can be no doubt, however, that, fundamentally, the message of Herzen is the message of working-class emancipation. It defines the chaos and points the way out. It is a revolutionary negation of parliamentarism. Would that the workers of Europe had hearkened to it. It spells the establishment of Soviet responsibility. In the last analysis, that is the social revolution and the sole foundation of proletarian freedom.