ABSTRACT
SINCE the bulk of the writings of Marx and Engels occurred during the period of slowly emerging legal labor movements, they themselves tended increasingly to accept the logic of gradual change, of the need to build workers’ organizations of all varieties, parties, unions, and cooperatives. It was wrong to try to speed up the pace of revolution. Socialism’s triumph would follow from the inevitable growth of such movements to a position of power as capitalist industrialization created a majority of proletarians employed under conditions of large-scale industry, who would develop class consciousness as a result of the inherent conflicts with the owning class.…
