Neither Italian fascism nor German national "socialism" have anything in common with such a [Soviet socialistic] society, primarily because private ownership of factories, plants, lands, banks, means of transportation, etc., remain untouched there, and, therefore, capitalism in Germany and Italy remains in full force.

We Social-Democrats always stand for democracy, not "in the name of capitalism," but in the name of clearing the path for our movement, which clearing is impossible without the development of capitalism.

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.

But democracy is by no means a limit one may not overstep; it is only one of the stages in the course of development from feudalism to capitalism, and from capitalism to Communism.

Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's children.

In capitalist society, under the conditions most favorable to its development, we have more or less complete democracy in the democratic republic. But this democracy is always restricted by the narrow framework of capitalist exploitation and consequently always remains, in reality, a democracy for the minority, only for the possessing classes, only for the rich.