Thus  in  the  Legislatures  the  Social  Democrats  can  never  become  a
majority  party."

30


450      THE   EVOLUTION    OP  MODEEN   GEEMANY

the  sum  total  of  misery  increases,  at  least  relatively ;  that  the
middle-class  is  gradually  disappearing;  and  that  before  long
there  will  be  on  one  side  a  handful  of  large  owners  of  the  means
of  production  and  on  the  other  an  enormous  proletariate,  so  that
we  only  need  to  win  this  proletariate  in  order  to  triumph. Yet
all  the  time  we  see  a  new  and  numerous  middle  class — largely
drawn  from  the  proletariate  itself — growing  up  and  interposing
itself  between  the  proletariate  and  capital."

"  The  highest  interest  of  this  middle  class,  common  to  all  its
members,"  Herr  Fischer  continued,  "is  undoubtedly  the  right
to  exist,  yet  this  right  Social  Democracy  has  denied  it. We
have  tried  to  win  the  small  peasant  by  showing  him  that  under
the  pressure  of  the  large  estates  he  will  be  crushed. And  yet  he
is  not  pressed  by  the  large  estates,  and  instead  of  being  ruined
the  small  farmers  have  greatly  increased  and  economically  have
strengthened  their  position. The  small  peasant  is  better  off
to-day  than  ten  or  fifteen  years  ago."

Herr  Fischer  estimates  this  new  middle  or  lower  middle  class
at  five  and  a  half  millions,  counting  to  it  all  the  peasants,
tradesmen,  artisans,  foremen,  the  minor  civil  and  municipal
servants,  teachers,  and  other  professional  men  who  have  during
the  past  two  decades  emerged  from  the  wage-earning  class  by  an
evolution  which  is  still  in  full  operation  to-day. It  is  not  too
much  to  say  that  hitherto  this  large  class  has,  wilfully  or  not,
been  absolutely  ignored  by  Social  Democracy,  and  it  is  only  its
emphatic  assertion  of  self-consciousness  that  has  compelled  the
Socialists  to  face  and  acknowledge  the  fact  that  they  have  all
along  been  working  on  wrong  lines. The  whole  argument  and
appeal  of  Socialism  involves  the  assumption  that  the  triumph  of
its  ideas  can  only  be  achieved  by  the  destruction  of  the  small
middle  class. 