Source

For twelve years [1878–1890] the government adhered to this belief; but anyone with an opportunity to observe the effects of the Anti-Socialist Law firsthand, in industrial centers such as those so numerous in the Düsseldorf district, soon arrived at a completely different opinion. The observer noticed how heavily the oppression, particularly the expulsions, affected the mood of the workers, their views of justice, and the state’s care for the underprivileged; how [socialist] doctrine, though ridiculed, was spread secretly, instead of publicly, by word of mouth, from workshop to workshop, at the pub and in the comfort of the workers’ own homes. He discovered that forcible means failed completely, that they might address external symptoms but could never eradicate underlying convictions. Ultimately, the only thing achieved was a hundredfold increase in the bitterness found in working-class circles, a saintly aura of martyrdom around the head of every false tribune who was persecuted, and a hundredfold strengthening of conviction that the existing political and social situation was reprehensible and intolerable. One had dammed the waters instead of making them disappear, and when the floodgates were opened they swept through the land with ten times the strength.