ABSTRACT
In his Introduction to Marx’s The Class Struggles in France, Engels celebrates the new methods of struggle developed by the German working class in making use of universal suffrage. Compared with other political systems, he argues, those based on universal suffrage have one inestimable advantage: that it accurately informed us concerning our own strength and that of all hostile parties, and thereby provides us with a measure of proportion for our action second to none, safeguarding us from untimely timidity as much as from untimely foolhardiness (Marx and Engels, 1970, p.660, henceforth MESW).
