But the revolution is thoroughgoing. It is still traveling through

purgatory. It does its work methodically. By December 2, 1851, it had

completed half of its preparatory work; now it is completing the other

half. It first completed the parliamentary power in order to be able to

overthrow it. Now that it has achieved this, it completes the executive

power, reduces it to its purest expression, isolates it, sets it up

against itself as the sole target, in order to concentrate all its

forces of destruction against it. And when it has accomplished this

second half of its preliminary work,

Europe will leap from its seat and exult: Well burrowed, old mole!

[paraphrase from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5: "Well said, old mole!" — Ed.]

18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon-- VII

Karl Marx