Socialism and the General Strike in Germany

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Ferdinand August Bebel was a German socialist politician, writer, and orator. He is best remembered as one of the founders of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany in 1869,
Here we present, for the first time in an e-book format, "Bebel's Great Speech on the Political General Strike, Delivered at the Social Democratic Congress in Jena" . This book contains 2 versions of the speech; the full transcript and then, as a bonus, edited version . Also included is a short About the Author and a bonus graphic. Edited for minor grammatical mistakes, published by the Anarcho-Communist Institute for future generations of revolutionaries and political history junkies!
Quotes from the
"Just a word here concerning the anarcho-socialists. It is necessary to consider for a moment the historical materialism which they have so much abused in order to understand this development. This standpoint enables us to comprehend what is otherwise unintelligible.
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We socialists find ourselves in the very favorable position that whatever our opponents do to oppose us we grow continually larger. We must grow because the capitalist society grows and constantly creates the conditions that produce socialists. Just as little as they were able to master us under the "laws of exception," just as little will they be able to master us when some day they make new force laws. Oh! I know that there are many in our ranks who would rejoice if this should happen. . Then we would show them again what sort of confounded rascals we are? .
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And even if a few comrades should go to prison -- well most of us have already sat there and it might easily happen that the time would come when, in order to make good we would have to show that we had been in prison.
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The general strike of the German Socialists is not the ordinary sympathetic strike for economic improvement, such as is of frequent occurrence in all capitalistic countries, nor is it the unorganized universal strike in all branches of industry and all employments dreamed of by the Anarchists, as a preface to the final catastrophe. It is an organized strike for political as distinguished from economic ends, in which the organized workers of as many trades as may prove expedient will take part; the larger the mass of organized workers, the more far-reaching its effects. It presupposes a highly developed trade-union movement, a powerful Socialist Party, and, what is of still greater importance, harmony between the two and the consciousness of a common aim. "
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