The Communist Manifesto

by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Published in 1848

A polemical pamphlet that argues history is driven by class struggle and the evolving conflict between bourgeoisie and proletariat. Marx and Engels outline the rise of capitalism, critique its social consequences, and call for proletarian revolution, ending with the famous rallying cry, "Workers of the world, unite."

Genres: Political Science, Philosophy, Sociology

Tags: communism, class struggle, capitalism, revolution, socialism, manifesto

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 Index: original.md
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 # The Communist Manifesto
 ## Preface (Timeless Library Edition)
 This book is part of the Timeless Library project, which aims to make old texts more accessible to modern audiences with the aid of AI. For more information, please visit: [timelesslibrary.org](https://timelesslibrary.org)
 ## I. - BOURGEOIS AND PROLETARIANS
+> **Quote:** "The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles."
+The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class
+struggles.
+Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman—in a word, oppressor and oppressed—carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight that ended each time in revolutionary reconstruction or common ruin.
+Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master
+and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant
+opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now
+open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary
+re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the
+contending classes.
+Earlier periods presented everywhere a complex hierarchy. In ancient Rome: patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves. In the Middle Ages: feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; and within these classes, further gradations.
+In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a
+complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold
+gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights,
+plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals,
+guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these
+classes, again, subordinate gradations.
+Modern bourgeois society, risen from feudalism's ruins, has not abolished class antagonisms but established new ones. Its distinctive feature: it has simplified class conflict. Society increasingly splits into two great hostile camps: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.
+The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal
+society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but
+established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of
+struggle in place of the old ones. Our epoch, the epoch of the
+bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has
+simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more
+splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes,
+directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.
+From medieval serfs came the chartered townsfolk; from them, the bourgeoisie. Discovery of America and the Cape route opened new territory. East Indian and Chinese markets, colonization, expanded trade gave commerce, navigation, and industry unprecedented momentum, accelerating development within crumbling feudalism.
+From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the
+earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the
+bourgeoisie were developed.
+The guild monopoly could not satisfy growing markets. Manufacturing replaced it, pushing aside guild-masters; division of labor between guilds gave way to division within each workshop. As markets grew, manufacturing proved insufficient. Steam and machinery revolutionized production. Modern Industry replaced manufacturing; industrial millionaires replaced the industrial middle class.
+The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh
+ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets,
+the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in
+the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce,
+to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby,
+to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid
+development.
+Modern industry established a world market, leading to immense development of commerce, navigation, land communication. This expansion fueled industry; as all grew, the bourgeoisie grew, increasing capital and pushing medieval classes aside.
+The feudal system of industry, under which industrial production was
+monopolised by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing
+wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The
+guild-masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle
+class; division of labour between the different corporate guilds
+vanished in the face of division of labour in each single workshop.
+Each bourgeois advance brought corresponding political power. From oppressed class under feudal nobility, it became self-governing communes (independent republics in Italy and Germany, taxable "third estate" in France). Under manufacturing, it served monarchy against nobility. Since Modern Industry, it has conquered exclusive power in the modern representative State.
+Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even
+manufacture no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery
+revolutionised industrial production. The place of manufacture was
+taken by the giant, Modern Industry, the place of the industrial middle
+class, by industrial millionaires, the leaders of whole industrial
+armies, the modern bourgeois.
+> **Quote:** "The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie."
+Modern industry has established the world-market, for which the
+discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense
+development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This
+development has, in its time, reacted on the extension of industry; and
+in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in
+the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital,
+and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle
+Ages.
+The bourgeoisie has played a most revolutionary role. Wherever dominant, it ended feudal, patriarchal, and idyllic relations, pitilessly tearing apart feudal ties and leaving no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest and callous "cash payment." It drowned religious fervor, chivalrous enthusiasm, and provincial sentimentality in the icy water of egotistical calculation; resolved personal worth into exchange value; and replaced countless freedoms with the single unconscionable freedom—Free Trade. In short, it replaced veiled exploitation with naked, shameless, direct, and brutal exploitation.
+We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of
+a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes
+of production and of exchange.
+It stripped the halo from every honored occupation, converting doctor, lawyer, priest, poet, and scientist into paid wage-laborers. It tore the sentimental veil from the family, reducing family relations to money relations. It revealed medieval strength matched by sluggish laziness, and first showed what human activity could achieve. Its wonders surpass Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, Gothic cathedrals; its expeditions eclipse all previous migrations and crusades.
+Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a
+corresponding political advance of that class. An oppressed class under
+the sway of the feudal nobility, an armed and self-governing
+association in the mediaeval commune; here independent urban republic
+(as in Italy and Germany), there taxable “third estate” of the monarchy
+(as in France), afterwards, in the period of manufacture proper,
+serving either the semi-feudal or the absolute monarchy as a
+counterpoise against the nobility, and, in fact, corner-stone of the
+great monarchies in general, the bourgeoisie has at last, since the
+establishment of Modern Industry and of the world-market, conquered for
+itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway.
+The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the
+common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.
+The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing production instruments, relations, and thus all social relations. Preserving old modes was the condition of earlier classes. Constant revolution, uninterrupted disturbance, and everlasting uncertainty distinguish the bourgeois era.
+The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part.
+> **Quote:** "All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind."
+The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to
+all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn
+asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural
+superiors,” and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man
+than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment.” It has drowned
+the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous
+enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of
+egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange
+value, and in place of the numberless and indefeasible chartered
+freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom—Free Trade. In
+one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political
+illusions, naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.
+The need for a constantly expanding market chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere. Through world-market exploitation, it has cosmopolitanized production and consumption, pulling national ground from under industry. Old national industries are destroyed, displaced by new industries processing remote materials for global markets. Old local needs give way to needs requiring distant products. Local seclusion yields to universal interdependence, applying equally to intellectual production. National literatures yield world literature.
+The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto
+honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the
+physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into
+its paid wage labourers.
+Improving production and communication, the bourgeoisie draws all nations into civilization. Its commodity prices batter down Chinese walls, compelling all nations to adopt its mode of production or face extinction. It creates a world in its own image. It has subjected countryside to town, creating enormous cities and rescuing a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it made country dependent on town, it made underdeveloped nations dependent on civilized ones, peasants on bourgeois, East on West.
+The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and
+has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.
+It eliminates scattered population, production, and property, concentrating them in few hands. This necessitated political centralization: independent provinces with separate laws and governments were lumped into one nation with one government, law, interest, frontier, and tariff.
+The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal
+display of vigour in the Middle Ages, which Reactionists so much
+admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It
+has been the first to show what man’s activity can bring about. It has
+accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts,
+and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the
+shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades.
+In scarcely one hundred years, the bourgeoisie has created more massive productive forces than all preceding generations: mastery over nature, machinery, chemistry applied to industry, steam navigation, railways, telegraphs, cleared continents, canalized rivers, populations conjured from earth. What earlier century imagined such forces slumbered in social labor?
+The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the
+instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and
+with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes
+of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first
+condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant
+revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social
+conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the
+bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen
+relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and
+opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before
+they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is
+profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his
+real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.
+The bourgeoisie's means of production and exchange were generated within feudal society. At a certain stage, feudal property relations became incompatible with developed forces; they became chains to be broken. In their place stepped free competition, with a social and political constitution adapted to bourgeois rule.
+The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the
+bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle
+everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.
+A similar movement occurs now. Modern bourgeois society, having conjured gigantic productive forces, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For decades, industry and commerce have chronicled productive forces revolting against bourgeois conditions. Periodic commercial crises put bourgeois society on trial, destroying products and productive forces.
+The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world-market given
+a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every
+country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under
+the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All
+old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily
+being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose
+introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised
+nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material,
+but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose
+products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the
+globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the productions of the
+country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the
+products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and
+national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every
+direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material,
+so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of
+individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and
+narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the
+numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world
+literature.
+In these crises, an absurd epidemic emerges—over-production. Society falls into temporary barbarism, as if famine or war destroyed all means of subsistence. Why? Because there is too much civilization, too many means of subsistence, too much industry and commerce. Forces become too powerful for bourgeois conditions, bringing disorder and endangering bourgeois property. How does the bourgeoisie respond? By destroying productive forces and conquering new markets, paving the way for more destructive crises.
+The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of
+production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws
+all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap
+prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters
+down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely
+obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations,
+on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it
+compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst,
+_i.e_., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world
+after its own image.
+The weapons that felled feudalism now turn against the bourgeoisie. But it has also forged its own grave-diggers—the modern working class, the proletarians.
+The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It
+has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population
+as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of
+the population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the
+country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and
+semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of
+peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.
+As capital develops, so does the proletariat. These workers live only by finding work, and find work only when their labor increases capital. Selling themselves piecemeal, they are commodities exposed to market competition and fluctuations. Machinery and division of labor strip proletarian work of individual character and appeal.
+The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state
+of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has
+agglomerated production, and has concentrated property in a few hands.
+The necessary consequence of this was political centralisation.
+Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate
+interests, laws, governments and systems of taxation, became lumped
+together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one
+national class-interest, one frontier and one customs-tariff. The
+bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created
+more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all
+preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man,
+machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture,
+steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole
+continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations
+conjured out of the ground—what earlier century had even a presentiment
+that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?
+> **Quote:** "He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him."
+We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose
+foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal
+society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of
+production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society
+produced and exchanged, the feudal organisation of agriculture and
+manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property
+became no longer compatible with the already developed productive
+forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they
+were burst asunder.
+Thus the worker's cost is limited to subsistence and reproduction. As work grows more repulsive, wages fall. Machinery and division of labor increase the burden through extended hours, intensified work, and faster machines.
+Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and
+political constitution adapted to it, and by the economical and
+political sway of the bourgeois class.
+Modern industry transformed the small workshop into the factory, organizing masses of workers like soldiers under a hierarchy of officers. They are slaves of the bourgeois class, state, machine, supervisor, and manufacturer. The more openly this despotism pursues profit, the more hateful it becomes.
+A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern bourgeois
+society with its relations of production, of exchange and of property,
+a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of
+exchange, is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the
+powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For
+many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the
+history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern
+conditions of production, against the property relations that are the
+conditions for the existence of the bourgeoisie and of its rule. It is
+enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return
+put on its trial, each time more threateningly, the existence of the
+entire bourgeois society. In these crises a great part not only of the
+existing products, but also of the previously created productive
+forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises there breaks out an
+epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an
+absurdity—the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds
+itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a
+famine, a universal war of devastation had cut off the supply of every
+means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and
+why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of
+subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive
+forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the
+development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary,
+they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are
+fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring
+disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of
+bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow
+to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie
+get over these crises? On the one hand inforced destruction of a mass
+of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and
+by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by
+paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by
+diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented.
+The less skill required, the more men's labor is replaced by women's. Age and sex differences lose validity; all are merely labor instruments, more or less expensive. No sooner does the manufacturer pay wages than the landlord, shopkeeper, pawnbroker, and others exploit the worker.
+The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground
+are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself.
+Lower middle class—small tradespeople, shopkeepers, craftspeople, peasants—sink into the proletariat, their capital insufficient for modern industry and skills rendered worthless. The proletariat recruits from all classes.
+But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to
+itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield
+those weapons—the modern working class—the proletarians.
+The proletariat's struggle begins at birth: first individual workers, then factory workers, then entire trades, attack not bourgeois conditions but instruments of production—destroying competing goods, smashing machinery, burning factories, trying to restore medieval status.
+In proportion as the bourgeoisie, _i.e_., capital, is developed, in the
+same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class,
+developed—a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find
+work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital.
+These labourers, who must sell themselves piece-meal, are a commodity,
+like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to
+all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the
+market.
+At this stage, workers form an unorganized mass divided by competition. Any unity comes from bourgeois action for its own political ends, not workers' own union. Thus proletarians fight not their enemies but their enemies' enemies—monarchy remnants, landowners, non-industrial bourgeoisie. The historical movement remains in bourgeois hands.
+Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to division of labour, the
+work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and
+consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the
+machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most
+easily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of
+production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of
+subsistence that he requires for his maintenance, and for the
+propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore
+also of labour, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion
+therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage
+decreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division
+of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also
+increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by increase of
+the work exacted in a given time or by increased speed of the
+machinery, etc.
+But industry develops the proletariat: it grows in number, concentrates in larger masses, and its strength increases. Machinery erases labor distinctions and reduces wages to the same low level, making proletarian conditions increasingly similar. Bourgeois competition and commercial crises destabilize wages further; rapid machinery improvement makes livelihood precarious. Individual collisions become class collisions. Workers form trade unions to maintain wages and prepare for revolt. Victories are temporary; the real fruit is ever-expanding union, aided by modern communication that centralizes local struggles into national class struggle.
+Modern industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal
+master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of
+labourers, crowded into the factory, are organised like soldiers. As
+privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a
+perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves
+of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and
+hourly enslaved by the machine, by the over-looker, and, above all, by
+the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this
+despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the
+more hateful and the more embittering it is.
+> **Quote:** "But every class struggle is a political struggle."
+The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labour,
+in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is
+the labour of men superseded by that of women. Differences of age and
+sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working
+class. All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use,
+according to their age and sex.
+What medieval citizens needed centuries to achieve with poor roads, modern proletarians achieve in years with railways.
+No sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, so
+far at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon
+by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper,
+the pawnbroker, etc.
+This organization into class and political party is continually disrupted by worker competition, but always rises stronger. It forces legislative recognition of worker interests by exploiting bourgeois divisions, as with England's ten-hour bill.
+The lower strata of the middle class—the small tradespeople,
+shopkeepers, retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and
+peasants—all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because
+their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern
+Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the
+large capitalists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered
+worthless by the new methods of production. Thus the proletariat is
+recruited from all classes of the population.
+Collisions with old society's classes develop the proletariat. The bourgeoisie battles aristocracy, conflicting bourgeois factions, and foreign bourgeoisie, compelled to appeal to the proletariat and drag it into politics, furnishing it with weapons to fight the bourgeoisie. Sections of ruling classes thrown into the proletariat provide fresh enlightenment. As the decisive hour nears, dissolution within the ruling class becomes so violent that a portion breaks away to join the revolutionary class, particularly bourgeois ideologists who understand the historical movement.
+The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its
+birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first the contest is
+carried on by individual labourers, then by the workpeople of a
+factory, then by the operatives of one trade, in one locality, against
+the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. They direct their
+attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against
+the instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares
+that compete with their labour, they smash to pieces machinery, they
+set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status
+of the workman of the Middle Ages.
+Of all classes facing the bourgeoisie, only the proletariat is truly revolutionary. Others decay before modern industry. The lower middle class fights conservatively to preserve its existence, reactionarily trying to roll back history. Its revolutionary impulse comes only from impending proletarianization.
+At this stage the labourers still form an incoherent mass scattered
+over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition. If
+anywhere they unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet the
+consequence of their own active union, but of the union of the
+bourgeoisie, which class, in order to attain its own political ends, is
+compelled to set the whole proletariat in motion, and is moreover yet,
+for a time, able to do so. At this stage, therefore, the proletarians
+do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the
+remnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial
+bourgeois, the petty bourgeoisie. Thus the whole historical movement is
+concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory so obtained
+is a victory for the bourgeoisie.
+The "dangerous class," the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may join the revolution but is more prepared to be a bribed tool of reaction.
+But with the development of industry the proletariat not only increases
+in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength
+grows, and it feels that strength more. The various interests and
+conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and
+more equalised, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions
+of labour, and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level.
+The growing competition among the bourgeois, and the resulting
+commercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more fluctuating.
+The unceasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing,
+makes their livelihood more and more precarious; the collisions between
+individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the
+character of collisions between two classes. Thereupon the workers
+begin to form combinations (Trades Unions) against the bourgeois; they
+club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found
+permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these
+occasional revolts. Here and there the contest breaks out into riots.
+Proletarian conditions destroy old society's conditions. The proletarian has no property; his family relations differ from bourgeois ones; industrial labor strips him of national character. Law, morality, religion are bourgeois prejudices hiding bourgeois interests.
+Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real
+fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the
+ever-expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by the
+improved means of communication that are created by modern industry and
+that place the workers of different localities in contact with one
+another. It was just this contact that was needed to centralise the
+numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national
+struggle between classes. But every class struggle is a political
+struggle. And that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle
+Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the modern
+proletarians, thanks to railways, achieve in a few years.
+Previous classes fortified their status by imposing their appropriation conditions. Proletarians can only master productive forces by abolishing all previous appropriation modes. They have nothing to secure; their mission is to destroy all previous property securities.
+This organisation of the proletarians into a class, and consequently
+into a political party, is continually being upset again by the
+competition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again,
+stronger, firmer, mightier. It compels legislative recognition of
+particular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the
+divisions among the bourgeoisie itself. Thus the ten-hours’ bill in
+England was carried.
+Previous movements were minority movements. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air.
+Altogether collisions between the classes of the old society further,
+in many ways, the course of development of the proletariat. The
+bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle. At first with
+the aristocracy; later on, with those portions of the bourgeoisie
+itself, whose interests have become antagonistic to the progress of
+industry; at all times, with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries. In
+all these battles it sees itself compelled to appeal to the
+proletariat, to ask for its help, and thus, to drag it into the
+political arena. The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the
+proletariat with its own instruments of political and general
+education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons
+for fighting the bourgeoisie.
+Though not in substance, the proletarian struggle is at first national in form. Each country's proletariat must first settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.
+Further, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling classes
+are, by the advance of industry, precipitated into the proletariat, or
+are at least threatened in their conditions of existence. These also
+supply the proletariat with fresh elements of enlightenment and
+progress.
+All societies have been based on class antagonism. To oppress a class requires guaranteeing its slavish existence. The serf could rise to commune membership; the petty bourgeois could become bourgeois. The modern worker, however, sinks below his class's conditions, becoming a pauper. Poverty develops faster than population and wealth. This proves the bourgeoisie is unfit to rule: it cannot ensure its slave's existence, must feed rather than be fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie; its existence is incompatible with society.
+Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the
+process of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within
+the whole range of society, assumes such a violent, glaring character,
+that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins
+the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands.
+Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility
+went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes
+over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois
+ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending
+theoretically the historical movement as a whole.
+Bourgeois existence requires capital, which requires wage-labor, which rests on worker competition. Industry's advance replaces worker isolation with revolutionary combination, cutting the foundation from under bourgeois production and appropriation.
+Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today,
+the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other
+classes decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the
+proletariat is its special and essential product. The lower middle
+class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the
+peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from
+extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are
+therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are
+reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by
+chance they are revolutionary, they are so only in view of their
+impending transfer into the proletariat, they thus defend not their
+present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint
+to place themselves at that of the proletariat.
+> **Quote:** "What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable."
+The “dangerous class,” the social scum, that passively rotting mass
+thrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may, here and there, be
+swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of
+life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of
+reactionary intrigue.
+In the conditions of the proletariat, those of old society at large are
+already virtually swamped. The proletarian is without property; his
+relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with
+the bourgeois family-relations; modern industrial labour, modern
+subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as
+in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law,
+morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind
+which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.
+All the preceding classes that got the upper hand, sought to fortify
+their already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their
+conditions of appropriation. The proletarians cannot become masters of
+the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own
+previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous
+mode of appropriation. They have nothing of their own to secure and to
+fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and
+insurances of, individual property.
+All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in
+the interests of minorities. The proletarian movement is the
+self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the
+interests of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum
+of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without
+the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into
+the air.
+Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat
+with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat
+of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its
+own bourgeoisie.
+In depicting the most general phases of the development of the
+proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within
+existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open
+revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the
+foundation for the sway of the proletariat.
+Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already
+seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But in
+order to oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it
+under which it can, at least, continue its slavish existence. The serf,
+in the period of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune,
+just as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of feudal absolutism,
+managed to develop into a bourgeois. The modern laborer, on the
+contrary, instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper
+and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He
+becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population
+and wealth. And here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit
+any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its
+conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit
+to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave
+within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a
+state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society
+can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its
+existence is no longer compatible with society.
+The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the
+bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the
+condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on
+competition between the laborers. The advance of industry, whose
+involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the
+labourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due
+to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts
+from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie
+produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore,
+produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory
+of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
 ## II. - PROLETARIANS AND COMMUNISTS
+The Communists form no separate party opposed to other working-class parties. They share the interests of the proletariat as a whole and advance no dogmatic principles to shape the movement. They differ only in two ways: they emphasize the common interests of the entire working class across national boundaries, and they represent the overall movement through every stage of its development. The Communists are thus the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, pushing others forward; and they have the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate results of the proletarian movement.
+In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a
+whole?
+> **Quote:** "The immediate aim of the Communist is the same as that of all the other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat."
+The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other
+working-class parties.
+The Communists' conclusions are not drawn from ideas invented by reformers. They merely express, in general terms, the actual relations arising from the class struggle before our eyes. Abolition of property relations is not unique to Communism—all property relations have changed throughout history. The French Revolution abolished feudal property for bourgeois property. What defines Communism is not abolition of property generally, but of bourgeois property, which is the final expression of production and appropriation based on class conflict and exploitation.
+They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat
+as a whole.
+> **Quote:** "In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."
+They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to
+shape and mould the proletarian movement.
+We are criticized for wanting to abolish the right to acquire property through one's own labor—the supposed foundation of freedom.
+The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties
+by this only: (1) In the national struggles of the proletarians of the
+different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common
+interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.
+(2) In the various stages of development which the struggle of the
+working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always
+and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.
+Do you mean the property of artisans and small farmers? That is already being destroyed by industry; no need to abolish it.
+The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most
+advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every
+country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other
+hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat
+the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the
+conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian
+movement.
+Or do you mean bourgeois property? Does wage labor create property for the worker? No—it creates capital, which exploits wage labor and must constantly generate more wage labor to exploit. Property today is based on the capital-wage labor conflict.
+The immediate aim of the Communist is the same as that of all the other
+proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class,
+overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by
+the proletariat.
+Capital is not personal but social—a collective product set in motion by society's joint action. Converting it into common property does not transform personal property into social property; it only changes the social character of that property, stripping it of its class identity.
+The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on
+ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or
+that would-be universal reformer. They merely express, in general
+terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from
+a historical movement going on under our very eyes. The abolition of
+existing property relations is not at all a distinctive feature of
+Communism.
+As for wage labor, its average price is the minimum needed to sustain and reproduce the worker's existence. We do not seek to abolish this personal acquisition of necessities, but only its miserable character, where the worker lives to increase capital and is kept alive only as long as ruling class interests require.
+All property relations in the past have continually been subject to
+historical change consequent upon the change in historical conditions.
+> **Quote:** "In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer."
+The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in favour
+of bourgeois property.
+In bourgeois society, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society, capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent. The bourgeoisie calls abolition of this the abolition of freedom—and they are right. We do aim to abolish bourgeois individuality, independence, and freedom.
+The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of
+property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern
+bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of
+the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on
+class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.
+Their "freedom" means free trade, buying and selling. But if trade disappears, so does free trade. These 'brave words' about freedom only have meaning in contrast to the restricted trade of the Middle Ages, but are meaningless when opposed to the Communist abolition of bourgeois production itself.
+In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the
+single sentence: Abolition of private property.
+You are horrified at our intention to abolish private property. But society has already abolished it for nine-tenths of the population; it exists for the few because it does not exist for the many. You accuse us of wanting to abolish your property. Precisely—that is what we intend.
+We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the
+right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own
+labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal
+freedom, activity and independence.
+When labor can no longer be converted into capital, you say individuality vanishes. You thus admit that "individual" means only the bourgeois property owner. That person must indeed be made impossible.
+Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property
+of the petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that
+preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the
+development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and
+is still destroying it daily.
+Communism deprives no one of acquiring society's products, only of enslaving others' labor through acquisition.
+Or do you mean modern bourgeois private property?
+But, you say, abolishing private property will cause universal laziness. If so, bourgeois society would have collapsed long ago, since those who work acquire nothing while those who acquire do not work. This objection merely restates that wage labor disappears with capital.
+But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit.
+It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits
+wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of
+begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property,
+in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and
+wage-labour. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism.
+All objections to Communist production of material goods apply equally to intellectual goods. To the bourgeois, ending class property means ending production; ending class culture means ending all culture. > **Quote:** "That culture, the loss of which he laments, is, for the enormous majority, a mere training to act as a machine."
+To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social
+_status_ in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by
+the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the
+united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion.
+Do not argue using bourgeois notions of freedom, culture, and law. Your ideas are products of your production and property conditions, just as your law is your class's will made universal, determined by your economic conditions.
+Capital is, therefore, not a personal, it is a social power.
+The selfish misconception of transforming your historically specific production relations into eternal laws of nature is one you share with past ruling classes. You admit this about ancient and feudal property, but not about your own.
+When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the
+property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby
+transformed into social property. It is only the social character of
+the property that is changed. It loses its class-character.
+Abolition of the family! Even radicals rage at this infamous proposal.
+Let us now take wage-labour.
+The modern bourgeois family rests on capital and private gain, existing fully only among the bourgeoisie. For the working class, family life is practically absent, supplemented by public prostitution. The bourgeois family will vanish naturally with capital.
+The average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage, _i.e_., that
+quantum of the means of subsistence, which is absolutely requisite in
+bare existence as a labourer. What, therefore, the wage-labourer
+appropriates by means of his labour, merely suffices to prolong and
+reproduce a bare existence. We by no means intend to abolish this
+personal appropriation of the products of labour, an appropriation that
+is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that
+leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labour of others. All that
+we want to do away with, is the miserable character of this
+appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase
+capital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the
+ruling class requires it.
+You accuse us of stopping parents from exploiting their children? We plead guilty.
+In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase
+accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a
+means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer.
+But you say we destroy sacred relationships by replacing home education with social education.
+In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in
+Communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society
+capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person
+is dependent and has no individuality.
+Is your education not already social, shaped by conditions and societal intervention through schools? Communists invented nothing; we only seek to change that intervention's character and rescue education from ruling-class influence.
+And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois,
+abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition
+of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois
+freedom is undoubtedly aimed at.
+Bourgeois rhetoric about the sacred parent-child bond becomes disgusting as industry tears apart working-class families, turning children into trade items and labor tools.
+By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of
+production, free trade, free selling and buying.
+"But you Communists would introduce the sharing of women!" the bourgeoisie screams in chorus.
+But if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying
+disappears also. This talk about free selling and buying, and all the
+other “brave words” of our bourgeoisie about freedom in general, have a
+meaning, if any, only in contrast with restricted selling and buying,
+with the fettered traders of the Middle Ages, but have no meaning when
+opposed to the Communistic abolition of buying and selling, of the
+bourgeois conditions of production, and of the bourgeoisie itself.
+The bourgeois sees his wife as an instrument of production. Hearing that instruments of production will be common property, he naturally assumes women will be shared. He does not suspect that our aim is to end women's status as instruments of production.
+You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property.
+But in your existing society, private property is already done away
+with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is
+solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You
+reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of
+property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the
+non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.
+Nothing is more ridiculous than bourgeois indignation about this "community of women." Communists need not introduce what has existed from time immemorial. Our bourgeois, not content with access to workers' wives and daughters—to say nothing of prostitutes—delight in seducing each other's wives.
+In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your
+property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.
+Bourgeois marriage *is* a system of shared wives. At most, Communists might be reproached with wanting to replace a hypocritically concealed community of women with an openly legalized one. The abolition of the current production system will abolish both public and private prostitution.
+From the moment when labour can no longer be converted into capital,
+money, or rent, into a social power capable of being monopolised,
+_i.e_., from the moment when individual property can no longer be
+transformed into bourgeois property, into capital, from that moment,
+you say individuality vanishes.
+The Communists are also criticized for wanting to abolish countries.
+You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other
+person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property.
+This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.
+> **Quote:** "The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got."
+Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of
+society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate
+the labour of others by means of such appropriation.
+But the working class must first become the ruling class and constitute itself as the nation, though not in the bourgeois sense. National differences are disappearing through bourgeois development, free trade, and the global market. Working-class rule will hasten this. The liberation of the proletariat requires united action among leading civilized countries. When exploitation of individuals ends, so will exploitation of nations; when class conflict disappears within nations, so will international hostility.
+It has been objected that upon the abolition of private property all
+work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us.
+Religious, philosophical, and ideological charges against Communism merit no serious examination.
+According to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the
+dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work, acquire
+nothing, and those who acquire anything, do not work. The whole of this
+objection is but another expression of the tautology: that there can no
+longer be any wage-labour when there is no longer any capital.
+Does it require deep insight to see that consciousness changes with material conditions?
+All objections urged against the Communistic mode of producing and
+appropriating material products, have, in the same way, been urged
+against the Communistic modes of producing and appropriating
+intellectual products. Just as, to the bourgeois, the disappearance of
+class property is the disappearance of production itself, so the
+disappearance of class culture is to him identical with the
+disappearance of all culture.
+> **Quote:** "The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class."
+That culture, the loss of which he laments, is, for the enormous
+majority, a mere training to act as a machine.
+What does the history of ideas prove but that intellectual production changes with material production? When people speak of revolutionary ideas, they merely express that new society's elements are forming within the old, and old ideas dissolve with old conditions.
+But don’t wrangle with us so long as you apply, to our intended
+abolition of bourgeois property, the standard of your bourgeois notions
+of freedom, culture, law, etc. Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of
+the conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property,
+just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a
+law for all, a will, whose essential character and direction are
+determined by the economical conditions of existence of your class.
+"Certainly," they say, "ideas have changed, but religion, morality, philosophy, and law have survived."
+The selfish misconception that induces you to transform into eternal
+laws of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from your
+present mode of production and form of property—historical relations
+that rise and disappear in the progress of production—this
+misconception you share with every ruling class that has preceded you.
+What you see clearly in the case of ancient property, what you admit in
+the case of feudal property, you are of course forbidden to admit in
+the case of your own bourgeois form of property.
+"There are eternal truths—Freedom, Justice—common to all societies. Communism abolishes them!"
+Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this
+infamous proposal of the Communists.
+What does this accusation amount to? All past society consisted of class exploitation. It is no wonder that past social consciousness, despite its variety, moved within common forms that cannot vanish until class conflict disappears.
+On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based?
+On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form this
+family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things
+finds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the
+proletarians, and in public prostitution.
+The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional property relations and ideas.
+The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its
+complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of
+capital.
+The first step is raising the proletariat to ruling class status—winning the battle for democracy. It will use its political power to strip capital from the bourgeoisie, centralize all production tools in the hands of the State (the organized proletariat), and increase productivity rapidly. In the beginning, this can only be achieved through despotic inroads on the rights of property and the conditions of bourgeois production—measures which appear economically insufficient, but which necessitate further inroads and are unavoidable as a means of revolutionizing the mode of production.
+Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by
+their parents? To this crime we plead guilty.
+They will vary by country, but in advanced nations the following generally apply:
+But, you will say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we
+replace home education by social.
+. Abolition of private land ownership; use all land rents for public purposes.
+. Heavy, progressive income tax.
+. Abolition of all inheritance rights.
+. Confiscation of emigrants' and rebels' property.
+. Centralize credit in a national bank with state capital and exclusive monopoly.
+. Centralize communication and transport in state hands.
+. Expand state-owned factories and production tools; cultivate waste-lands and improve soil according to a common plan.
+. Equal obligation to work; establish industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
+. Integrate agriculture and industry; gradually abolish town-country distinction through even population distribution.
+. Free public education for all children; abolish current child factory labor; integrate education with industrial production, etc.
+And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the
+social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention, direct
+or indirect, of society, by means of schools, etc.? The Communists have
+not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek
+to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education
+from the influence of the ruling class.
+When class distinctions disappear and all production concentrates in a vast national association, public power loses its political character. Political power is organized power of one class to oppress another. When the proletariat, organized as a class, makes itself the ruling class through revolution and sweeps away old production conditions, it will also sweep away class conflict and classes generally, thereby abolishing its own supremacy.
+The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the
+hallowed co-relation of parent and child, becomes all the more
+disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all family ties
+among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed
+into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labour.
+> **Quote:** "In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all."
+But you Communists would introduce community of women, screams the
+whole bourgeoisie in chorus.
+The bourgeois sees in his wife a mere instrument of production. He
+hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common,
+and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion than that the lot of
+being common to all will likewise fall to the women.
+He has not even a suspicion that the real point is to do away with the
+status of women as mere instruments of production.
+For the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the virtuous indignation
+of our bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to
+be openly and officially established by the Communists. The Communists
+have no need to introduce community of women; it has existed almost
+from time immemorial.
+Our bourgeois, not content with having the wives and daughters of their
+proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes,
+take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other’s wives.
+Bourgeois marriage is in reality a system of wives in common and thus,
+at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with, is
+that they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically
+concealed, an openly legalised community of women. For the rest, it is
+self-evident that the abolition of the present system of production
+must bring with it the abolition of the community of women springing
+from that system, _i.e_., of prostitution both public and private.
+The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish
+countries and nationality.
+The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they
+have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political
+supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must
+constitute itself _the_ nation, it is, so far, itself national, though
+not in the bourgeois sense of the word.
+National differences and antagonisms between peoples are daily more and
+more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom
+of commerce, to the world-market, to uniformity in the mode of
+production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto.
+The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still
+faster. United action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is
+one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat.
+In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another is put
+an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put
+an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the
+nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an
+end.
+The charges against Communism made from a religious, a philosophical,
+and, generally, from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving of
+serious examination.
+Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man’s ideas, views
+and conceptions, in one word, man’s consciousness, changes with every
+change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social
+relations and in his social life?
+What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual
+production changes its character in proportion as material production
+is changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of
+its ruling class.
+When people speak of ideas that revolutionise society, they do but
+express the fact, that within the old society, the elements of a new
+one have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps
+even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence.
+When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religions
+were overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the
+th century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its death
+battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious
+liberty and freedom of conscience merely gave expression to the sway of
+free competition within the domain of knowledge.
+“Undoubtedly,” it will be said, “religious, moral, philosophical and
+juridical ideas have been modified in the course of historical
+development. But religion, morality philosophy, political science, and
+law, constantly survived this change.”
+“There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc.
+that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes
+eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of
+constituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to
+all past historical experience.”
+What does this accusation reduce itself to? The history of all past
+society has consisted in the development of class antagonisms,
+antagonisms that assumed different forms at different epochs.
+But whatever form they may have taken, one fact is common to all past
+ages, viz., the exploitation of one part of society by the other. No
+wonder, then, that the social consciousness of past ages, despite all
+the multiplicity and variety it displays, moves within certain common
+forms, or general ideas, which cannot completely vanish except with the
+total disappearance of class antagonisms.
+The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional
+property relations; no wonder that its development involves the most
+radical rupture with traditional ideas.
+But let us have done with the bourgeois objections to Communism.
+We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the
+working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling as
+to win the battle of democracy.
+The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees,
+all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of
+production in the hands of the State, _i.e_., of the proletariat
+organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive
+forces as rapidly as possible.
+Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of
+despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of
+bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear
+economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of
+the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the
+old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely
+revolutionising the mode of production.
+These measures will of course be different in different countries.
+Nevertheless in the most advanced countries, the following will be
+pretty generally applicable.
+. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land
+to public purposes.
+. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
+. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
+. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
+. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a
+national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
+. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the
+hands of the State.
+. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the
+State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the
+improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
+. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial
+armies, especially for agriculture.
+. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual
+abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more
+equable distribution of the population over the country.
+. Free education for all children in public schools.     Abolition of
+children’s factory labour in its present form.     Combination of
+education with industrial production, &c., &c.
+When, in the course of development, class distinctions have
+disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a
+vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its
+political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the
+organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat
+during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of
+circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a
+revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away
+by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with
+these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of
+class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have
+abolished its own supremacy as a class.
+In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class
+antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free
+development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
 ## III. - SOCIALIST AND COMMUNIST LITERATURE
 . REACTIONARY SOCIALISM
 _A. Feudal Socialism_
+Defeated once more by the bourgeoisie in the French Revolution of July 1830 and the English reform movement, the aristocracies of France and England turned to writing pamphlets against the hateful upstart. Political struggle being impossible, only a literary battle remained—yet even there, the old restoration slogans were obsolete.
+Owing to their historical position, it became the vocation of the
+aristocracies of France and England to write pamphlets against modern
+bourgeois society. In the French revolution of July 1830, and in the
+English reform agitation, these aristocracies again succumbed to the
+hateful upstart. Thenceforth, a serious political contest was
+altogether out of the question. A literary battle alone remained
+possible. But even in the domain of literature the old cries of the
+restoration period had become impossible.
+To gain sympathy, they masked their interests as concern for the exploited workers, taking revenge with satirical attacks and dark prophecies of catastrophe.
+In order to arouse sympathy, the aristocracy were obliged to lose
+sight, apparently, of their own interests, and to formulate their
+indictment against the bourgeoisie in the interest of the exploited
+working class alone. Thus the aristocracy took their revenge by singing
+lampoons on their new master, and whispering in his ears sinister
+prophecies of coming catastrophe.
+> **Quote:** "In this way arose Feudal Socialism: half lamentation, half lampoon; half echo of the past, half menace of the future; at times, by its bitter, witty and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very heart’s core; but always ludicrous in its effect, through total incapacity to comprehend the march of modern history."
+In this way arose Feudal Socialism: half lamentation, half lampoon;
+half echo of the past, half menace of the future; at times, by its
+bitter, witty and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the
+very heart’s core; but always ludicrous in its effect, through total
+incapacity to comprehend the march of modern history.
+They waved the worker's begging bag as their banner, but the people, seeing the old feudal coats of arms on their hindquarters, abandoned them with loud and irreverent laughter. The French Legitimists and "Young England" provided this spectacle.
+The aristocracy, in order to rally the people to them, waved the
+proletarian alms-bag in front for a banner. But the people, so often as
+it joined them, saw on their hindquarters the old feudal coats of arms,
+and deserted with loud and irreverent laughter.
+The feudalists forget that they exploited under wholly different, now antiquated conditions, and that the modern bourgeoisie is the inevitable offspring of their own society. They so little hide their reactionary character that they chiefly accuse the bourgeoisie of creating a class destined to uproot the old social order.
+One section of the French Legitimists and “Young England” exhibited
+this spectacle.
+> **Quote:** "What they upbraid the bourgeoisie with is not so much that it creates a proletariat, as that it creates a _revolutionary_ proletariat."
+In pointing out that their mode of exploitation was different to that
+of the bourgeoisie, the feudalists forget that they exploited under
+circumstances and conditions that were quite different, and that are
+now antiquated. In showing that, under their rule, the modern
+proletariat never existed, they forget that the modern bourgeoisie is
+the necessary offspring of their own form of society.
+In practice they support repression of the working class, and in daily life—despite high-flown rhetoric—stoop to pick up the golden apples dropped from the tree of industry, and to barter truth, love, and honor for traffic in wool, beet sugar, and potato spirits.
+For the rest, so little do they conceal the reactionary character of
+their criticism that their chief accusation against the bourgeoisie
+amounts to this, that under the bourgeois _regime_ a class is being
+developed, which is destined to cut up root and branch the old order of
+society.
+As ever, the priest goes hand in hand with the landlord, and Clerical Socialism with Feudal Socialism. Nothing is easier than giving Christian asceticism a socialist coloring. Did Christianity not preach against private property, marriage, and the state? Did it not advocate charity, poverty, celibacy, mortification, monastic life, and Mother Church?
+What they upbraid the bourgeoisie with is not so much that it creates a
+proletariat, as that it creates a _revolutionary_ proletariat.
+> **Quote:** "Christian Socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat."
+In political practice, therefore, they join in all coercive measures
+against the working class; and in ordinary life, despite their high
+falutin phrases, they stoop to pick up the golden apples dropped from
+the tree of industry, and to barter truth, love, and honour for traffic
+in wool, beetroot-sugar, and potato spirits.
+As the parson has ever gone hand in hand with the landlord, so has
+Clerical Socialism with Feudal Socialism.
+Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge.
+Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against
+marriage, against the State? Has it not preached in the place of these,
+charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic
+life and Mother Church? Christian Socialism is but the holy water with
+which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat.
 _B. Petty-Bourgeois Socialism_
+The bourgeoisie also ruined the medieval townspeople and small-scale farmers, predecessors of the bourgeoisie itself. In underdeveloped countries, these classes still exist alongside the rising bourgeoisie. In developed countries, a petty bourgeoisie forms between proletariat and bourgeoisie, constantly renewing itself yet constantly pushed down into the proletariat by competition. Modern industry threatens its complete disappearance, replaced by managers and clerks.
+The feudal aristocracy was not the only class that was ruined by the
+bourgeoisie, not the only class whose conditions of existence pined and
+perished in the atmosphere of modern bourgeois society. The mediaeval
+burgesses and the small peasant proprietors were the precursors of the
+modern bourgeoisie. In those countries which are but little developed,
+industrially and commercially, these two classes still vegetate side by
+side with the rising bourgeoisie.
+In peasant-heavy France, writers defending workers from the peasant and small-business standpoint created petty-bourgeois socialism; Sismondi led this school in France and England.
+In countries where modern civilisation has become fully developed, a
+new class of petty bourgeois has been formed, fluctuating between
+proletariat and bourgeoisie and ever renewing itself as a supplementary
+part of bourgeois society. The individual members of this class,
+however, are being constantly hurled down into the proletariat by the
+action of competition, and, as modern industry develops, they even see
+the moment approaching when they will completely disappear as an
+independent section of modern society, to be replaced, in manufactures,
+agriculture and commerce, by overlookers, bailiffs and shopmen.
+This school brilliantly analyzed modern production's contradictions: machinery, division of labor, capital concentration, overproduction, crises. It exposed economists' hypocrisy, proving the ruin of small owners and peasants, working-class misery, anarchic production, wealth inequality, national industrial war, and dissolution of families and national identity.
+In countries like France, where the peasants constitute far more than
+half of the population, it was natural that writers who sided with the
+proletariat against the bourgeoisie, should use, in their criticism of
+the bourgeois _regime_, the standard of the peasant and petty
+bourgeois, and from the standpoint of these intermediate classes should
+take up the cudgels for the working class. Thus arose petty-bourgeois
+Socialism. Sismondi was the head of this school, not only in France but
+also in England.
+> **Quote:** "In its positive aims, however, this form of Socialism aspires either to restoring the old means of production and of exchange, and with them the old property relations, and the old society, or to cramping the modern means of production and of exchange, within the framework of the old property relations that have been, and were bound to be, exploded by those means. In either case, it is both reactionary and Utopian."
+This school of Socialism dissected with great acuteness the
+contradictions in the conditions of modern production. It laid bare the
+hypocritical apologies of economists. It proved, incontrovertibly, the
+disastrous effects of machinery and division of labour; the
+concentration of capital and land in a few hands; overproduction and
+crises; it pointed out the inevitable ruin of the petty bourgeois and
+peasant, the misery of the proletariat, the anarchy in production, the
+crying inequalities in the distribution of wealth, the industrial war
+of extermination between nations, the dissolution of old moral bonds,
+of the old family relations, of the old nationalities.
+Its final goals are corporate guilds for manufacturing and patriarchal relations in agriculture. When historical facts finally dispelled this self-deception, the school ended in miserable dejection.
+In its positive aims, however, this form of Socialism aspires either to
+restoring the old means of production and of exchange, and with them
+the old property relations, and the old society, or to cramping the
+modern means of production and of exchange, within the framework of the
+old property relations that have been, and were bound to be, exploded
+by those means. In either case, it is both reactionary and Utopian.
+Its last words are: corporate guilds for manufacture, patriarchal
+relations in agriculture.
+Ultimately, when stubborn historical facts had dispersed all
+intoxicating effects of self-deception, this form of Socialism ended in
+a miserable fit of the blues.
 _C. German, or “True,” Socialism_
+French socialist literature, born under a dominant bourgeoisie, entered Germany just as the German bourgeoisie began its contest with feudal absolutism.
+The Socialist and Communist literature of France, a literature that
+originated under the pressure of a bourgeoisie in power, and that was
+the expression of the struggle against this power, was introduced into
+Germany at a time when the bourgeoisie, in that country, had just begun
+its contest with feudal absolutism.
+German philosophers, would-be philosophers, and *beaux esprits* eagerly seized this literature, forgetting that French social conditions didn't travel with it. In Germany, it lost practical significance, becoming purely literary—mere demands of "Practical Reason" and "pure Will."
+German philosophers, would-be philosophers, and _beaux esprits_,
+eagerly seized on this literature, only forgetting, that when these
+writings immigrated from France into Germany, French social conditions
+had not immigrated along with them. In contact with German social
+conditions, this French literature lost all its immediate practical
+significance, and assumed a purely literary aspect. Thus, to the German
+philosophers of the eighteenth century, the demands of the first French
+Revolution were nothing more than the demands of “Practical Reason” in
+general, and the utterance of the will of the revolutionary French
+bourgeoisie signified in their eyes the law of pure Will, of Will as it
+was bound to be, of true human Will generally.
+Their work was simply to translate French ideas into German philosophical language, adopting them without abandoning their own perspective.
+The world of the German _literati_ consisted solely in bringing the new
+French ideas into harmony with their ancient philosophical conscience,
+or rather, in annexing the French ideas without deserting their own
+philosophic point of view.
+Where medieval monks wrote saint biographies over pagan manuscripts, German intellectuals wrote philosophical nonsense beneath French originals: "Alienation of Humanity" under critiques of money, "Dethronement of the Category of the General" under critiques of the bourgeois state, and so on.
+This annexation took place in the same way in which a foreign language
+is appropriated, namely, by translation.
+They called this "Philosophy of Action," "True Socialism," "German Science of Socialism," and similar names.
+It is well known how the monks wrote silly lives of Catholic Saints
+_over_ the manuscripts on which the classical works of ancient
+heathendom had been written. The German _literati_ reversed this
+process with the profane French literature. They wrote their
+philosophical nonsense beneath the French original. For instance,
+beneath the French criticism of the economic functions of money, they
+wrote “Alienation of Humanity,” and beneath the French criticism of the
+bourgeois State they wrote “dethronement of the Category of the
+General,” and so forth.
+> **Quote:** "Thus, this French literature lost all its immediate practical significance in the hands of the German literati. The class struggle was diluted into a struggle between 'humanity' and 'the individuals who do not live up to its requirements,' which is to say, the individuals who do not live up to the requirements of the German literati. Thus, the 'True' Socialists, with the German nation as their model, placed themselves above all class antagonisms by representing not true requirements but the requirements of truth; not the interests of the proletariat but the interests of human nature, which belongs to no class and has no reality save in the realm of philosophical fantasy."
+The introduction of these philosophical phrases at the back of the
+French historical criticisms they dubbed “Philosophy of Action,” “True
+Socialism,” “German Science of Socialism,” “Philosophical Foundation of
+Socialism,” and so on.
+This German socialism, taking its schoolboy tasks so seriously and promoting its poor intellectual stock like a charlatan, gradually lost its pedantic innocence.
+The French Socialist and Communist literature was thus completely
+emasculated. And, since it ceased in the hands of the German to express
+the struggle of one class with the other, he felt conscious of having
+overcome “French one-sidedness” and of representing, not true
+requirements, but the requirements of truth; not the interests of the
+proletariat, but the interests of Human Nature, of Man in general, who
+belongs to no class, has no reality, who exists only in the misty realm
+of philosophical fantasy.
+As the German—and especially Prussian—bourgeoisie's fight against feudal aristocracy and absolute monarchy (the liberal movement) grew serious, "True" Socialism got its chance to denounce liberalism, representative government, bourgeois competition, press freedom, legislation, liberty, and equality, preaching to the masses that they had nothing to gain from this movement. It conveniently forgot that French criticism presupposed the very modern bourgeois society Germany was still fighting to achieve.
+This German Socialism, which took its schoolboy task so seriously and
+solemnly, and extolled its poor stock-in-trade in such mountebank
+fashion, meanwhile gradually lost its pedantic innocence.
+To absolute governments and their followers—priests, professors, country squires, officials—it served as a welcome scarecrow against the rising bourgeoisie. It was a pleasant supplement to the bitter pills of floggings and bullets these same governments were feeding German working-class uprisings.
+The fight of the German, and especially, of the Prussian bourgeoisie,
+against feudal aristocracy and absolute monarchy, in other words, the
+liberal movement, became more earnest.
+While serving governments against the bourgeoisie, "True" Socialism also represented the German petty bourgeoisie—a sixteenth-century relic and the real foundation of Germany's current state. Preserving this class means preserving Germany's status quo. Bourgeois supremacy threatens it with destruction through capital concentration and the revolutionary proletariat. "True" Socialism promised to kill both birds with one stone.
+By this, the long wished-for opportunity was offered to “True”
+Socialism of confronting the political movement with the Socialist
+demands, of hurling the traditional anathemas against liberalism,
+against representative government, against bourgeois competition,
+bourgeois freedom of the press, bourgeois legislation, bourgeois
+liberty and equality, and of preaching to the masses that they had
+nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by this bourgeois movement.
+German Socialism forgot, in the nick of time, that the French
+criticism, whose silly echo it was, presupposed the existence of modern
+bourgeois society, with its corresponding economic conditions of
+existence, and the political constitution adapted thereto, the very
+things whose attainment was the object of the pending struggle in
+Germany.
+It spread like a contagion. The robe of speculative cobwebs, embroidered with rhetorical flowers and soaked in sickly sentiment—this metaphysical cloak wrapping their fragile "eternal truths"—dramatically increased their appeal. German Socialism increasingly recognized its calling as pompous spokesperson for the petty-bourgeois Philistine.
+To the absolute governments, with their following of parsons,
+professors, country squires and officials, it served as a welcome
+scarecrow against the threatening bourgeoisie.
+It proclaimed the German nation the model nation and the German petty bourgeois the typical man, giving every sordid baseness of this model a hidden socialist interpretation that inverted its real nature. It directly opposed Communism's "brutally destructive" tendency and proclaimed supreme contempt for all class struggle. With few exceptions, all so-called Socialist and Communist publications in Germany (1847) belong to the domain of this foul and enervating literature.
+It was a sweet finish after the bitter pills of floggings and bullets
+with which these same governments, just at that time, dosed the German
+working-class risings.
+While this “True” Socialism thus served the governments as a weapon for
+fighting the German bourgeoisie, it, at the same time, directly
+represented a reactionary interest, the interest of the German
+Philistines. In Germany the _petty bourgeois_ class, a _relique_ of the
+sixteenth century, and since then constantly cropping up again under
+various forms, is the real social basis of the existing state of
+things.
+To preserve this class is to preserve the existing state of things in
+Germany. The industrial and political supremacy of the bourgeoisie
+threatens it with certain destruction; on the one hand, from the
+concentration of capital; on the other, from the rise of a
+revolutionary proletariat. “True” Socialism appeared to kill these two
+birds with one stone. It spread like an epidemic.
+The robe of speculative cobwebs, embroidered with flowers of rhetoric,
+steeped in the dew of sickly sentiment, this transcendental robe in
+which the German Socialists wrapped their sorry “eternal truths,” all
+skin and bone, served to wonderfully increase the sale of their goods
+amongst such a public. And on its part, German Socialism recognised,
+more and more, its own calling as the bombastic representative of the
+petty-bourgeois Philistine.
+It proclaimed the German nation to be the model nation, and the German
+petty Philistine to be the typical man. To every villainous meanness of
+this model man it gave a hidden, higher, Socialistic interpretation,
+the exact contrary of its real character. It went to the extreme length
+of directly opposing the “brutally destructive” tendency of Communism,
+and of proclaiming its supreme and impartial contempt of all class
+struggles. With very few exceptions, all the so-called Socialist and
+Communist publications that now (1847) circulate in Germany belong to
+the domain of this foul and enervating literature.
 . CONSERVATIVE, OR BOURGEOIS, SOCIALISM
+A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances,
+in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society.
+A bourgeois faction seeks to remedy social grievances to preserve bourgeois society. This includes economists, philanthropists, humanitarians, charity organizers, and hole-and-corner reformers of every imaginable kind—developed into complete systems.
+To this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarians,
+improvers of the condition of the working class, organisers of charity,
+members of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals,
+temperance fanatics, hole-and-corner reformers of every imaginable
+kind. This form of Socialism has, moreover, been worked out into
+complete systems.
+We can cite Proudhon's *Philosophy of Poverty* as an example.
+We may cite Proudhon’s _Philosophie de la Misère_ as an example of this
+form.
+> **Quote:** "They desire the existing state of society minus its revolutionary and disintegrating elements. They wish for a bourgeoisie without a proletariat."
+The Socialistic bourgeois want all the advantages of modern social
+conditions without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting
+therefrom. They desire the existing state of society minus its
+revolutionary and disintegrating elements. They wish for a bourgeoisie
+without a proletariat. The bourgeoisie naturally conceives the world in
+which it is supreme to be the best; and bourgeois Socialism develops
+this comfortable conception into various more or less complete systems.
+In requiring the proletariat to carry out such a system, and thereby to
+march straightway into the social New Jerusalem, it but requires in
+reality, that the proletariat should remain within the bounds of
+existing society, but should cast away all its hateful ideas concerning
+the bourgeoisie.
+The bourgeoisie naturally believes its world is the best of all possible worlds; bourgeois Socialism makes this a system. Requiring the proletariat to march into a social "New Jerusalem," it demands they remain within existing society but discard all hatred of the bourgeoisie.
+A second and more practical, but less systematic, form of this
+Socialism sought to depreciate every revolutionary movement in the eyes
+of the working class, by showing that no mere political reform, but
+only a change in the material conditions of existence, in economic
+relations, could be of any advantage to them. By changes in the
+material conditions of existence, this form of Socialism, however, by
+no means understands abolition of the bourgeois relations of
+production, an abolition that can be effected only by a revolution, but
+administrative reforms, based on the continued existence of these
+relations; reforms, therefore, that in no respect affect the relations
+between capital and labour, but, at the best, lessen the cost, and
+simplify the administrative work, of bourgeois government.
+A second, more practical form devalued revolutionary movements, arguing only economic changes—not political reforms—could help workers. But these "economic changes" meant merely administrative reforms within existing production relations, not their revolutionary abolition.
+Bourgeois Socialism attains adequate expression, when, and only when,
+it becomes a mere figure of speech.
+Bourgeois Socialism finds its true expression only when it becomes a mere figure of speech.
+Free trade: for the benefit of the working class. Protective duties:
+for the benefit of the working class. Prison Reform: for the benefit of
+the working class. This is the last word and the only seriously meant
+word of bourgeois Socialism.
+Free trade: for the benefit of the working class. Protective tariffs: for the benefit of the working class. Prison reform: for the benefit of the working class. This is the final, seriously intended word of bourgeois Socialism.
+It is summed up in the phrase: the bourgeois is a bourgeois—for the
+benefit of the working class.
+> **Quote:** "It is summed up in the phrase: the bourgeois is a bourgeois—for the benefit of the working class."
 . CRITICAL-UTOPIAN SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM
+We do not here refer to that literature which, in every great modern
+revolution, has always given voice to the demands of the proletariat,
+such as the writings of Babeuf and others.
+We do not refer here to literature voicing proletarian demands in great modern revolutions, such as Babeuf's writings.
+The first direct attempts of the proletariat to attain its own ends,
+made in times of universal excitement, when feudal society was being
+overthrown, these attempts necessarily failed, owing to the then
+undeveloped state of the proletariat, as well as to the absence of the
+economic conditions for its emancipation, conditions that had yet to be
+produced, and could be produced by the impending bourgeois epoch alone.
+The revolutionary literature that accompanied these first movements of
+the proletariat had necessarily a reactionary character. It inculcated
+universal asceticism and social levelling in its crudest form.
+The proletariat's first direct attempts during feudalism's overthrow inevitably failed, due to its own undeveloped state and absence of necessary economic conditions yet to be produced by the bourgeois era. Its revolutionary literature was necessarily reactionary, advocating crude asceticism and social leveling.
+The Socialist and Communist systems properly so called, those of
+Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen and others, spring into existence in the
+early undeveloped period, described above, of the struggle between
+proletariat and bourgeoisie (see Section 1. Bourgeois and
+Proletarians).
+The Socialist and Communist systems properly so-called—those of Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen, and others—emerged during the early, undeveloped period of the struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie.
+The founders of these systems see, indeed, the class antagonisms, as
+well as the action of the decomposing elements, in the prevailing form
+of society. But the proletariat, as yet in its infancy, offers to them
+the spectacle of a class without any historical initiative or any
+independent political movement.
+The founders saw class antagonisms, but to them the infant proletariat lacked historical initiative or independent political movement. Since class antagonism develops with industry, they lacked the material conditions for proletarian emancipation and thus sought a new social science to create them.
+Since the development of class antagonism keeps even pace with the
+development of industry, the economic situation, as they find it, does
+not as yet offer to them the material conditions for the emancipation
+of the proletariat. They therefore search after a new social science,
+after new social laws, that are to create these conditions.
+Historical action must yield to their personal invention; real emancipation conditions to imaginary ones; spontaneous proletarian organization to their engineered systems. Future history becomes merely the propaganda and implementation of their plans.
+Historical action is to yield to their personal inventive action,
+historically created conditions of emancipation to fantastic ones, and
+the gradual, spontaneous class-organisation of the proletariat to the
+organisation of society specially contrived by these inventors. Future
+history resolves itself, in their eyes, into the propaganda and the
+practical carrying out of their social plans.
+They consciously cared chiefly for the working class as the most suffering class—the only perspective from which the proletariat existed for them. The undeveloped class struggle and their own position made them feel superior to all antagonisms. Wanting to improve every member of society, even the privileged, they appealed to society at large—especially the ruling class—believing all must see their system as the best possible plan.
+In the formation of their plans they are conscious of caring chiefly
+for the interests of the working class, as being the most suffering
+class. Only from the point of view of being the most suffering class
+does the proletariat exist for them.
+Therefore they reject political and revolutionary action, seeking peaceful means through doomed small experiments and example, paving the way for a new social Gospel.
+The undeveloped state of the class struggle, as well as their own
+surroundings, causes Socialists of this kind to consider themselves far
+superior to all class antagonisms. They want to improve the condition
+of every member of society, even that of the most favoured. Hence, they
+habitually appeal to society at large, without distinction of class;
+nay, by preference, to the ruling class. For how can people, when once
+they understand their system, fail to see in it the best possible plan
+of the best possible state of society?
+These fantastic visions corresponded to the proletariat's first instinctive yearnings for reconstruction, painted while the class remained undeveloped and held only fantastic conceptions of its position.
+Hence, they reject all political, and especially all revolutionary,
+action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, and
+endeavour, by small experiments, necessarily doomed to failure, and by
+the force of example, to pave the way for the new social Gospel.
+Yet these publications contained a critical element, attacking every principle of existing society and providing valuable material for proletarian enlightenment. Their proposals—abolishing town-country distinction, family, private industry, and wage labor; proclaiming social harmony; reducing the state to production supervision—all pointed to class antagonisms' disappearance. But these antagonisms were only emerging, recognized in indistinct form, making the proposals purely Utopian.
+Such fantastic pictures of future society, painted at a time when the
+proletariat is still in a very undeveloped state and has but a
+fantastic conception of its own position correspond with the first
+instinctive yearnings of that class for a general reconstruction of
+society.
+> **Quote:** "The significance of Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism bears an inverse relation to historical development."
+But these Socialist and Communist publications contain also a critical
+element. They attack every principle of existing society. Hence they
+are full of the most valuable materials for the enlightenment of the
+working class. The practical measures proposed in them—such as the
+abolition of the distinction between town and country, of the family,
+of the carrying on of industries for the account of private
+individuals, and of the wage system, the proclamation of social
+harmony, the conversion of the functions of the State into a mere
+superintendence of production, all these proposals, point solely to the
+disappearance of class antagonisms which were, at that time, only just
+cropping up, and which, in these publications, are recognised in their
+earliest, indistinct and undefined forms only. These proposals,
+therefore, are of a purely Utopian character.
+As the class struggle develops, this imaginary detachment loses all value. Though the originators were revolutionary, their disciples formed reactionary sects, holding fast to original views against the proletariat's progressive development. They consistently deaden class struggle and reconcile antagonisms, dreaming of experimental utopias—'phalansteries,' 'Home Colonies,' a 'Little Icaria' (duodecimo editions of the New Jerusalem)—and to realize these castles in the air, they are compelled to appeal to the feelings and purses of the bourgeois. Gradually they sink into reactionary conservatism, differing only by systematic pedantry and fanatical belief in their social science's miraculous effects.
+The significance of Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism bears an
+inverse relation to historical development. In proportion as the modern
+class struggle develops and takes definite shape, this fantastic
+standing apart from the contest, these fantastic attacks on it, lose
+all practical value and all theoretical justification. Therefore,
+although the originators of these systems were, in many respects,
+revolutionary, their disciples have, in every case, formed mere
+reactionary sects. They hold fast by the original views of their
+masters, in opposition to the progressive historical development of the
+proletariat. They, therefore, endeavour, and that consistently, to
+deaden the class struggle and to reconcile the class antagonisms. They
+still dream of experimental realisation of their social Utopias, of
+founding isolated “phalansteres,” of establishing “Home Colonies,” of
+setting up a “Little Icaria”—duodecimo editions of the New
+Jerusalem—and to realise all these castles in the air, they are
+compelled to appeal to the feelings and purses of the bourgeois. By
+degrees they sink into the category of the reactionary conservative
+Socialists depicted above, differing from these only by more systematic
+pedantry, and by their fanatical and superstitious belief in the
+miraculous effects of their social science.
+They violently oppose all working-class political action, seeing it as blind lack of faith in their Gospel. The Owenites in England and the Fourierists in France, respectively, oppose the Chartists and the "Reformists."
+They, therefore, violently oppose all political action on the part of
+the working class; such action, according to them, can only result from
+blind unbelief in the new Gospel.
+The Owenites in England, and the Fourierists in France, respectively,
+oppose the Chartists and the “Réformistes.”
 ## IV. - POSITION OF THE COMMUNISTS IN RELATION TO THE VARIOUS EXISTING OPPOSITION PARTIES
+Section II has made clear the relationship between the Communists and existing working-class parties, such as the Chartists in England and the Agrarian Reformers in America.
+Section II has made clear the relations of the Communists to the
+existing working-class parties, such as the Chartists in England and
+the Agrarian Reformers in America.
+The Communists fight for the immediate goals and temporary interests of the working class, while representing and safeguarding the future of the movement. In France, they ally with the Social-Democrats against the conservative and radical bourgeoisie, reserving, however, the right to take a critical stance toward the slogans and illusions traditionally handed down from the great Revolution. In Switzerland, they support the Radicals, a party of conflicting elements—Democratic Socialists (in the French sense) and radical members of the bourgeoisie. In Poland, they support the party that demands agrarian revolution as the prerequisite for national liberation—the party that sparked the Cracow uprising of 1846.
+The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the
+enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the
+movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the
+future of that movement. In France the Communists ally themselves with
+the Social-Democrats, against the conservative and radical bourgeoisie,
+reserving, however, the right to take up a critical position in regard
+to phrases and illusions traditionally handed down from the great
+Revolution.
+In Germany, they fight alongside the bourgeoisie whenever it acts revolutionarily against absolute monarchy, feudal squirearchy, and the petty bourgeoisie. Yet they never cease to instill in workers the clearest recognition of the hostile conflict between bourgeoisie and proletariat, so that German workers may immediately turn the social and political conditions of bourgeois rule into weapons against the bourgeoisie itself, so that, once the reactionary classes have fallen, the struggle against the bourgeoisie itself may immediately begin.
+In Switzerland they support the Radicals, without losing sight of the
+fact that this party consists of antagonistic elements, partly of
+Democratic Socialists, in the French sense, partly of radical
+bourgeois.
+The Communists focus on Germany because it stands on the eve of a bourgeois revolution under more advanced conditions than seventeenth-century England or eighteenth-century France, with a far more developed proletariat. The German bourgeois revolution will be but the immediate prelude to a proletarian revolution.
+In Poland they support the party that insists on an agrarian revolution
+as the prime condition for national emancipation, that party which
+fomented the insurrection of Cracow in 1846.
+In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order. In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter its degree of development. Finally, they work everywhere to unite the democratic parties of all countries.
+In Germany they fight with the bourgeoisie whenever it acts in a
+revolutionary way, against the absolute monarchy, the feudal
+squirearchy, and the petty bourgeoisie.
+The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their goals can be achieved only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution.
+But they never cease, for a single instant, to instil into the working
+class the clearest possible recognition of the hostile antagonism
+between bourgeoisie and proletariat, in order that the German workers
+may straightaway use, as so many weapons against the bourgeoisie, the
+social and political conditions that the bourgeoisie must necessarily
+introduce along with its supremacy, and in order that, after the fall
+of the reactionary classes in Germany, the fight against the
+bourgeoisie itself may immediately begin.
+> **Quote:** "The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win."
+The Communists turn their attention chiefly to Germany, because that
+country is on the eve of a bourgeois revolution that is bound to be
+carried out under more advanced conditions of European civilisation,
+and with a much more developed proletariat, than that of England was in
+the seventeenth, and of France in the eighteenth century, and because
+the bourgeois revolution in Germany will be but the prelude to an
+immediately following proletarian revolution.
+> **Quote:** "WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!"
+In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary
+movement against the existing social and political order of things.
+In all these movements they bring to the front, as the leading question
+in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of
+development at the time.
+Finally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the
+democratic parties of all countries.
+The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly
+declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow
+of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a
+Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their
+chains. They have a world to win.
+WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!

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