He admits that in republican or very free countries 'one can conceive' (only 'conceive'!) of a peaceful development towards socialism, but in Germany, he repeats, 'in Germany, where the government is almost almighty and the Reichstag and all other representative bodies have no real power, to proclaim such a thing in Germany and moreover when there is no need to do so is to remove the fig leaf from absolutism, and use it to screen one's own nakedness.'