In the first volume I have already stated that all the formidable events which have changed the aspect of the world were carried through, not by the written but by the spoken word. On that point there was a long discussion in a certain section of the Press during the course of which our shrewd bourgeois people strongly opposed my thesis. But the reason for this attitude confounded the sceptics. The bourgeois intellectuals protested against my attitude simply because they themselves did not have the force or ability to influence the masses through the spoken word; for they always relied exclusively on the help of writers and did not enter the arena themselves as orators for the purpose of arousing the people. The development of events necessarily led to that condition of affairs which is characteristic of the bourgeoisie to-day, namely,