>> I'm not sure that's true. Didn't Marx suggest that England might
>> advance to socialism without a violent revolution, via reform?
>
> Where?
Chris Brooke, as usual, has the perfect quote ready to hand. But he's having temporary trouble posting to the list, so he sent to me offlist. And having seen how solid it is, I feel duty-bound to post it against myself.
<Past this point is all Chris where it isn't quoted material>
> Where?
In two places.
The better known is in the speech to the Congress of the International in 1872 in Amsterdam:
*** We do not deny that there exist countries like America, England, and, if I knew your institutions better, I would add Holland, where the workers may be able to attain their ends by peaceful means. If that is true we must also recognize that inmost of the countries of the Continent force must be the lever to which it will be necessary to resort for a time in order to attain the dominion of labour. ***
There's also a letter to Hyndman from 1880 or so, where he repeats the thought: the working class possesses its liberties in England legally, he says there, and if it knows how to use them, then a passage to socialism can be non-violent; but that's not possible in Germany, where the state is nothing but a despotism and has to be overthrown with violence.
Chris