{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_32644/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_32644","id":"gutenberg_32644","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32644","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Category: Sociology","History -- Philosophy","Marx, Karl, 1818-1883. Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei","Materialism","Socialism"],"text":"Produced by Brian Foley, Martin Pettit and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\nESSAYS on the Materialistic Conception of History\n\n\nby\n\nANTONIO LABRIOLA\n_Professor in the University of Rome_\n\n\ntranslated by CHARLES H. KERR\n\n\nChicago\nCHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY\nCO-OPERATIVE\n\n\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT 1908\nBY CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY\nCHICAGO\n\n\nJOHN F. HIGGINS\nPRINTER AND BINDER\n\n[Illustration: Logo]\n\n376-382 MONROE STREET\nCHICAGO, ILLINOIS\n\n\n\n\nTRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.\n\n\nOn the tenth of March, 1896, the same year that the last despairing\nrevolt of the small producer against capitalism in America was to end in\nthe overwhelming defeat of Bryan, an Italian scholar published in the\ncity of Rome the remarkable work which is now for the first time offered\nto American readers.\n\nTo publish this book in America at that time would have been an\nimpossibility. The American socialist movement was then hardly more than\nan association of immigrants who had brought their socialism with them\nfrom Europe. Today it numbers at least half a million adherents, and its\nplatform is an embodiment of the ideas first adequately stated in the\nCommunist Manifesto of 1848, and now first adequately explained and\nelaborated in this remarkable work of Labriola.\n\nThe central and fundamental proposition of socialism is not any scheme\nfor reconstructing society, on a cut-and-dried programme, nor again is\nit any particular mathematical formula showing to what extent the\nlaborer is robbed by the present system of the fruits of his labor; it\nis precisely this Historical Materialism, which Labriola has so\nadmirably explained in the present work.\n\nSome idea of the place accorded to this book by European socialists may\nbe gathered from the preface to the French edition by G. Sorel, one of\nthe most prominent socialists of France.\n\nHe says: \"The publication of this book marks a date in the history of\nsocialism. The work of Labriola has its place reserved in our libraries\nby the side of the classic works of Marx and Engels. It constitutes an\nillumination and a methodical development of a theory which the masters\nof the new socialist thought have never yet treated in a didactic form.\nIt is therefore an indispensable book for whoever wishes to understand\nsomething of _proletarian ideas_. More than the works of Marx and Engels\nit is addressed to that public which is unacquainted with socialist\npreconceptions. In these pages the historian will find substantial and\nvaluable suggestion for the study of the origin and transformation of\ninstitutions.\"\n\nThe economic development of the United States has reached a point where\nthe growth of the Socialist Party must henceforth go forward with\nstartling rapidity. That the publication of this volume may have some\neffect in clarifying the ideas of those who discuss the principles of\nthat party, whether with voice or pen, is the hope of the\n\nTRANSLATOR.\n\n\n\n\nESSAYS ON THE MATERIALISTIC CONCEPTION OF HISTORY\n\n\nI.\n\nIn Memory of the Communist Manifesto            7\n\nII.\n\nHistorical Materialism                         93\n\n\n\n\nESSAYS on the Materialistic Conception of History\n\n\n\n\nPART I\n\nIN MEMORY OF THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO.\n\n\nI.\n\nIn three years we can celebrate our jubilee. The memorable date of the\npublication of the Communist Manifesto (February, 1848) marks our first\nunquestioned entrance into history. To that date are referred all our\njudgments and all our congratulations on the progress made by the\nproletariat in these last fifty years. That date marks the beginning of\nthe new era. This is arising, or, rather, is separating itself from the\npresent era, and is developing by a process peculiar to itself and thus\nin a way that is necessary and inevitable, whatever may be the\nvicissitudes and the successive phases which cannot yet be foreseen.\n\nAll those in our ranks who have a desire or an occasion to possess a\nbetter understanding of their own work should bring to mind the causes\nand the moving forces which determined the genesis of the Manifesto, the\ncircumstances under which it appeared on the eve of the Revolution which\nburst forth from Paris to Vienna, from Palermo to Berlin. Only in this\nway will it be possible for us to find in the present social form the\nexplanation of the tendency toward socialism, thus showing by its\npresent necessity the inevitability of its triumph.\n\n\nIs not that in fact the vital part of the Manifesto, its essence and its\ndistinctive character?\n\nWe surely should be taking a false road if we regarded as the essential\npart the measures advised and proposed at the end of the second chapter\nfor the contingency of a revolutionary success on the part of the\nproletariat,--or again the indications of political relationship to the\nother revolutionary parties of that epoch which are found in the fourth\nchapter. These indications and these measures, although they deserved to\nbe taken into consideration at the moment and under the circumstances\nwhere they were formulated and suggested, and although they may be very\nimportant for forming a precise estimate of the political action of the\nGerman communists in the revolutionary period from 1848 to 1850,\nhenceforth no longer form for us a mass of practical judgments for or\nagainst which we should take sides in each contingency. The political\nparties which since the International have established themselves in\ndifferent countries, in the name of the proletariat, and taking it\nclearly for their base, have felt, and feel, in proportion as they are\nborn and develop, the imperious necessity of adopting and conforming\ntheir programme and their action to circumstances always different and\nmultiform. But not one of these parties feels the dictatorship of the\nproletariat so near that it experiences the need or desire or even the\ntemptation to examine anew and pass judgment upon the measures proposed\nin the Manifesto. There are really no historic experiences but those\nthat history makes itself. It is as impossible to foresee them as to\nplan them beforehand or make them to order. That is what happened at the\nmoment of the Commune, which was and which still remains up to this day\nthe only experience (although partial and confused because it was sudden\nand of short duration) of the action of the proletariat in gaining\ncontrol of political power. This experience, too, was neither desired\nnor sought for, but imposed by circumstances. It was heroically carried\nthrough and it has become a salutary lesson for us to-day. It might\neasily happen that where the socialist movement is still in its\nbeginnings, appeal may be made, for lack of personal direct\nexperience--as often happens in Italy--to the authority of a text from\nthe Manifesto as if it were a precept, but these passages are in reality\nof no importance.\n\n\nAgain, we must not, as I believe, seek for this vital part, this\nessence, this distinctive character, in what the Manifesto says of the\nother forms of socialism of which it speaks under the name of\n_literature_. The entire third chapter may doubtless serve for defining\nclearly by way of exclusion and antithesis, by brief but vigorous\ncharacterizations, the differences which really exist between the\ncommunism commonly characterized to-day as scientific,--an expression\nsometimes used in a mistaken and contradictory way,--that is to say,\nbetween the communism which has the proletariat for its subject and the\nproletarian revolution for its theme, and the other forms of socialism;\nreactionary, bourgeois, semi-bourgeois, petit-bourgeois, utopian, etc.\nAll these forms except one[1] have re-appeared and renewed themselves\nmore than once. They are reappearing under a new form even to-day in the\ncountries where the modern proletarian movement is of recent birth. For\nthese countries and under these circumstances the Manifesto has\nexercised and still exercises the function of contemporary criticism and\nof a literary whip. And in the countries where these forms have already\nbeen theoretically and practically outgrown, as in Germany and Austria,\nor survive only as an individual opinion among a few, as in France and\nEngland, without speaking of other nations, the Manifesto from this\npoint of view has played its part. It thus merely records as a matter\nof history something no longer necessary to think of, since we have to\ndeal with the political action of the proletariat which already is\nbefore us in its gradual and normal course.\n\nThat was, to anticipate, the attitude of mind of those who wrote it. By\nthe force of their thought and with some scanty data of experience they\nhad anticipated the events which have occurred and they contented\nthemselves with declaring the elimination and the condemnation of what\nthey had outgrown. Critical communism--that is its true name, and there\nis none more exact for this doctrine--did not take its stand with the\nfeudalists in regretting the old society for the sake of criticising by\ncontrast the contemporary society:--it had an eye only to the future.\nNeither did it associate itself with the petty bourgeois in the desire\nof saving what cannot be saved:--as, for example, small proprietorship,\nor the tranquil life of the small proprietor whom the bewildering action\nof the modern state, the necessary and natural organ of present society,\ndestroys and overturns, because by its constant revolutions it carries\nin itself the necessity for other revolutions new and more fundamental.\n\nNeither did it translate into metaphysical whimsicalities, into a sickly\nsentimentalism, or into a religious contemplation, the real contrasts of\nthe material interests of every day life: on the contrary, it exposed\nthose contrasts in all their prosaic reality. It did not construct the\nsociety of the future upon a plan harmoniously conceived in each of its\nparts. It has no word of eulogy and exaltation, of invocation and of\nregret, for the two goddesses of philosophic mythology, justice and\nequality, those two goddesses who cut so sad a figure in the practical\naffairs of everyday life, when we observe that the history of so many\ncenturies maliciously amuses itself by nearly always contradicting their\ninfallible suggestions. Once more these communists, while declaring on\nthe strength of facts which carry conviction that the mission of the\nproletarians is to be the grave diggers of the bourgeoisie, still\nrecognize the latter as the author of a social form which represents\nextensively and intensively an important stage of progress, and which\nalone can furnish the field for the new struggles which already give\npromise of a happy issue for the proletariat. Never was funeral oration\nso magnificent. There is in these praises addressed to the bourgeoisie a\ncertain tragical humor,--they have been compared to dithyrambics.\n\nThe negative and antithetical definitions of other forms of socialism\nthen current, which have often re-appeared since, even up to the present\ntime, although they are fundamentally beyond criticism both in their\nform and their aim, nevertheless, do not pretend to be and are not the\nreal history of socialism; they furnish neither its outlines nor its\nplan for him who would write it. History in reality does not rest upon\nthe distinction between the true and the false, the just and the unjust\nand still less upon the more abstract antithesis between the possible\nand the real as if the things were on one side and on another side were\ntheir shadows and their reflections in ideas. History is all of a piece,\nand it rests upon the process of formation and transformation of\nsociety; and that evidently in a fashion altogether objective and\nindependent of our approval or disapproval. It is a dynamic of a special\nclass to speak like the positivists who are so dainty with expressions\nof this sort but are often dominated by the new phrases which they have\nput out. The different socialist forms of thought and action which have\nappeared and disappeared in the course of the centuries, so different in\ntheir causes, their aspects, and their effects, are all to be studied\nand explained by the specific and complex conditions of the social life\nin which they were produced. Upon a close examination it is seen that\nthey do not form one single whole of continuous process because the\nseries is frequently interrupted by changes in the social fabric and by\nthe disappearance and breaking off of the tradition. It is only since\nthe French Revolution that socialism presents a certain unity of\nprocess, which appears more evident since 1830 with the definite\npolitical supremacy of the capitalist class in France and England and\nwhich finally becomes obvious, we might say even palpable, since the\nrise of the International. Upon this road the Manifesto stands like a\ncolossal guide post bearing a double inscription: on one side the first\nsketch of the new doctrine which has now made the circle of the world;\non the other, the definition of its relations to the forms which it\nexcludes, without giving, however, any historic account of them.\n\nThe vital part, the essence, the distinctive character of this work are\nall contained in the new conception of history which permeates it and\nwhich in it is partially explained and developed. By the aid of this\nconception communism, ceasing to be a hope, an aspiration, a\nremembrance, a conjecture, an expedient, found for the first time its\nadequate expression in the realization of its very necessity, that is to\nsay, in the realization that it is the outcome and the solution of the\nstruggles of existing classes. These struggles have varied according to\ntimes and places and out of them history has developed; but, they are\nall reduced in our days to the single struggle between the capitalist\nbourgeoisie and the workingmen inevitably forced into the ranks of the\nproletariat. The Manifesto gives the genesis of this struggle; it\ndetails its evolutionary rhythm, and predicts its final result.\n\nIn that conception of history is embodied the whole doctrine of\nscientific communism. From that moment the theoretical adversaries of\nsocialism have no longer had to discuss the abstract possibility of the\ndemocratic socialization of the means of production;[2] as if it were\npossible in this question to rest their judgment upon inductions based\nupon the general and common aptitudes of what they characterize as human\nnature. Thenceforth, the question was to recognize, or not to recognize,\nin the course of human events the necessity which stands over and above\nour sympathy and our subjective assent. Is or is not society in the\ncountries most advanced in civilization organized in such a way that it\nwill pass into communism by the laws inherent in its own future, once\nconceding its present economic structure and the friction which it\nnecessarily produces within itself, and which will end by breaking and\ndissolving it? That is the subject of all discussion since the\nappearance of this theory and thence follows also the rule of conduct\nwhich imposes itself upon the action of the socialist parties whether\nthey be composed of proletarians alone or whether they have in their\nranks men who have come out from the other classes and who join as\nvolunteers the army of the proletariat.\n\nThat is why we voluntarily accept the epithet of scientific, provided we\ndo not thus confuse ourselves with the positivists, sometimes\nembarrassing guests, who assume to themselves a monopoly of science; we\ndo not seek to maintain an abstract and generic thesis like lawyers or\nsophists, and we do not plume ourselves on demonstrating the\nreasonableness of our aims. Our intentions are nothing less than the\ntheoretical expression and the practical explanation of the data offered\nus by the interpretation of the process which is being accomplished\namong us and about us and which has its whole existence in the objective\nrelations of social life of which we are the subject and the object, the\ncause and the effect. Our aims are rational, not because they are\nfounded on arguments drawn from the reasoning of reason, but because\nthey are derived from the objective study of things, that is to say,\nfrom the explanation of their process, which is not, and which cannot\nbe, a result of our will but which on the contrary triumphs over our\nwill and subdues it.\n\nNot one of the previous or subsequent works of the authors of the\nManifesto themselves, although they have a much more considerable\nscientific leaning, can replace the Manifesto or have the same specific\nefficacy. It gives us in its classic simplicity the true expression of\nthis situation; the modern proletariat exists, takes its stand, grows\nand develops in contemporary history as the concrete subject, the\npositive force whose necessarily revolutionary action must find in\ncommunism its necessary outcome. And that is why this work while giving\na theoretical base to its prediction and expressing it in brief, rapid\nand concise formulae, forms a storehouse, or rather an inexhaustible\nmine of embryonic thoughts which the reader may fertilize and multiply\nindefinitely; it preserves all the original and originating force of the\nthing which is but lately born and which has not yet left the field of\nits production. This observation is intended especially for those who\napplying a learned ignorance, when they are not humbugs, charlatans, or\namiable dilettanti, give to the doctrine of critical communism\nprecursors, patrons, allies and masters of every class without any\nrespect for common sense and the most vulgar chronology. Or again, they\ntry to bring back our materialistic conception of history into the\ntheory of universal evolution which to the minds of many is but a new\nmetaphor of a new metaphysics. Or again they seek in this doctrine a\nderivative of Darwinism which is an analogous theory only in a certain\npoint of view and in a very broad sense; or again they have the\ncondescension to favor us with the alliance or the patronage of that\npositive philosophy which extends from Comte, that degenerate and\nreactionary disciple of the genial Saint-Simon, to Spencer, that\nquintessence of anarchical capitalism, which is to say that they wish to\ngive us for allies our most open adversaries.\n\n\nIt is to its origin that this work owes its fertilizing power, its\nclassic strength, and the fact that it has given in so few pages the\nsynthesis of so many series and groups of ideas.[3]\n\nIt is the work of two Germans, but it is not either in its form or its\nbasis the expression of personal opinion. It contains no trace of the\nimprecations, or the anxieties, or the bitterness familiar to all\npolitical refuges and to all those who have voluntarily abandoned their\ncountry to breathe elsewhere freer air. Neither do we find in it the\ndirect reproduction of the conditions of their own country, then in a\ndeplorable political state and which could not be compared to those of\nFrance and England socially and economically, except as regards certain\nportions of their territory. They brought to their work, on the\ncontrary, the philosophic thought which alone had placed and maintained\ntheir country upon the level of contemporary history:--this philosophic\nthought which in their hands was undergoing that important\ntransformation which permitted materialism, already renewed by Feuerbach\ncombined with dialectics, to embrace and understand the movement of\nhistory in its most secret and until then unexplored causes,--unexplored\nbecause hidden and difficult to observe. Both were communists and\nrevolutionists, but they were so neither by instinct, by impulse nor by\npassion. They had elaborated an entirely new criticism of economic\nscience and they had understood the connection and the historic meaning\nof the proletarian movement on both sides of the Channel, in France and\nin England, before they were called to give in the Manifesto the\nprogramme and the doctrine of the Communist League. This had its center\nin London and numerous branches on the continent; it had behind it a\nlife and development of its own.\n\nEngels had already published a critical essay in which passing over all\nsubjective and one-sided corrections he brought out for the first time\nin an objective fashion the criticism of political economy and of the\nantitheses inherent in the data and the concepts of that economy itself,\nand he had become celebrated by the publication of a book on the\ncondition of the English working class which was the first attempt to\nrepresent the movements of the working class as the result of the\nworkings of the forces and means of production.[4] Marx, in the few\nyears preceding, had become known as a radical publicist in Germany,\nParis and Brussels. He had conceived the first rudiments of the\nmaterialistic conception of history. He had made a theoretically\nvictorious criticism of the hypotheses of Proudhon and the deductions\nfrom his doctrine, and had given the first precise explanation of the\norigin of surplus value as a consequence of the purchase and the use of\nlabor power, that is to say the first germ of the conceptions which were\nlater demonstrated and explained in their connection and their details\nin Capital. Both men were in touch with the revolutionists of the\ndifferent countries of Europe, notably France, Belgium and England;\ntheir Manifesto was not the expression of their personal theory, but the\ndoctrine of a party whose spirit, aim and activity already formed the\nInternational Workingmen's Association.\n\n\nThese are the beginnings of modern socialism. We find there the line\nwhich separates it from all the rest.\n\n_The Communist League_ grew out of the _League of the Just_; the latter\nin its turn had been formed with a clear consciousness of its\nproletarian aims through a gradual specialization of the generic group\nof the refugees, the exiles. As a type, bearing within itself in an\nembryonic design the form of all the later socialist and proletarian\nmovements, it had traversed the different phases of conspiracy and of\nequalitarian socialism. It was metaphysical with Gruen and utopian with\nWeitling. Having its principal seat at London it was interested in the\nChartist movement and had had some influence over it. This movement\nshowed by its disordered character, because it was neither the fruit of\na premeditated experience, nor the embodiment of a conspiracy or of a\nsect, how painful and difficult was the formation of a proletarian\npolitical party. The socialist tendency was not manifested in Chartism\nuntil the movement was near its end and was nearly finished (though\nJones and Horner can never be forgotten). The _League_ everywhere\ncarried an odor of revolution, both because the thing was in the air and\nbecause its instinct and method of procedure tended that way: and as\nlong as the revolution was bursting forth effectively, it provided\nitself, thanks to the new doctrine of the Manifesto, with an instrument\nof orientation which was at the same time a weapon for combat. In fact,\nalready international, both by the quality and differences of origin of\nits members, and still more by the result of the instinct and devotion\nof all, it took its place in the general movement of political life as\nthe clear and definite precursor of all that can to-day be called modern\nsocialism, if by modern we mean not the simple fact of extrinsic\nchronology but an index of the internal or organic process of society.\n\nA long interruption from 1852 to 1864 which was the period of political\nreaction and at the same time that of the disappearance, the dispersion\nand the absorption of the old socialist schools, separates the\nInternational of the _Arbeiterbildungsverein_ of London, from the\nInternational properly so called, which, from 1864 to 1873, strove to\nput unity into the struggle of the proletariat of Europe and America.\nThe action of the proletariat had other interruptions especially in\nFrance, and with the exception of Germany, from the dissolution of the\nInternational of glorious memory up to the new International which\nlives to-day through other means and which is developing in other ways,\nboth of them adapted to the political situation in which we live, and\nbased upon riper experience. But just as the survivors of those who in\nDecember, 1847, discussed and accepted the new doctrine, have\nre-appeared on the public scene in the great International, and later\nagain in the new International, the Manifesto itself has also\nre-appeared little by little and has made the tour of the world in all\nthe languages of the civilized countries, something which it promised to\ndo but could not do at the time of its first appearance.\n\nThere was our real point of departure; there were our real precursors.\nThey marched before all the others, early in the day, with a step rapid\nbut sure, over this exact road which we were to traverse and which we\nare traversing in reality. It is not proper to give the name of our\nprecursors to those who followed ways which they later had to abandon,\nor to those who, to speak without metaphor, formulated doctrines and\nstarted movements, doubtless explicable by the times and circumstances\nof their birth, but which were later outgrown by the doctrine of\ncritical communism, which is the theory of the proletarian revolution.\nThis does not mean that these doctrines and these attempts were\naccidental, useless and superfluous phenomena. There is nothing\nirrational in the historic course of things because nothing comes into\nexistence without reason, and thus there is nothing superfluous. We\ncannot even to-day arrive at a perfect understanding of critical\ncommunism without mentally retracing these doctrines and following the\nprocesses of their appearance and disappearance. In fact these doctrines\nhave not only passed, they have been intrinsically outgrown both by\nreason of the change in the conditions of society and by reason of the\nmore exact understanding of the laws upon which rest its formation and\nits process.\n\nThe moment at which they enter into the past, that is to say, that at\nwhich they are intrinsically outgrown, is precisely that of the\nappearance of the Manifesto. As the first index of the genesis of modern\nsocialism, this writing, which gives only the most general and the most\neasily accessible features of its teaching, bears within itself traces\nof the historic field within which it is born, which was that of France,\nEngland and Germany. Its field for propaganda and diffusion has since\nbecome wider and wider, and it is henceforth as vast as the civilized\nworld. In all countries in which the tendency to communism has developed\nthrough antagonisms under aspects different but every day more evident\nbetween the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the process of its first\nformation is wholly or partly repeated over and over. The proletarian\nparties which are formed little by little have traversed anew the stages\nof formation which their precursors traversed at first; but this process\nhas become from country to country and from year to year always more\nrapid by reason of the greater evidence, the pressing necessity and\nenergy of the antagonisms, and because it is easier to assimilate a\ndoctrine and a tendency than to create both for the first time. Our\nco-workers of 50 years ago were also from this point of view\ninternational, since by their example they started the proletariat of\nthe different nations upon the general march which labor must\naccomplish.\n\n\nBut the perfect theoretical knowledge of socialism to-day, as before,\nand as it always will be, lies in the understanding of its historic\nnecessity, that is to say, in the consciousness of the manner of its\ngenesis; and this is precisely reflected, as in a limited field of\nobservation and in a hasty example, in the formation of the Manifesto.\nIt was intended for a weapon of war and thus it bears upon its own\nexterior the traces of its origin. It contains more substantial\ndeclarations than demonstrations. The demonstration rests entirely in\nthe imperative force of its necessity. But we may retrace the process of\nthis formation and to retrace it is to understand truly the doctrine of\nthe Manifesto. There is an analysis which while separating in theory the\nfactors of an organism destroys them in so far as they are elements\ncontributing to the unity of the whole. But there is another analysis,\nand this alone permits us to understand history, which only\ndistinguishes and separates the elements to find again in them the\nobjective necessity of their co-operation toward the total result.\n\nIt is now a current opinion that modern socialism is a normal and thus\nan inevitable product of history. Its political action, which may in\nfuture involve delays and set-backs but never henceforth a total\nabsorption, began with the _International_. Nevertheless the Manifesto\nprecedes it. Its teaching is of prime importance in the light which it\nthrows on the proletarian movement, which movement indeed had its birth\nand development independently of any doctrine. It is also more than this\nlight. Critical communism dates from the moment when the proletarian\nmovement is not merely a result of social conditions, but when it has\nalready strength enough to understand that these conditions can be\nchanged and to discern what means can modify them and in what direction.\nIt was not enough to say that socialism was a result of history. It was\nalso necessary to understand the intrinsic causes of this outcome and to\nwhat all its activity tended. This affirmation, that the proletariat is\na necessary result of modern society, has for its mission to succeed the\nbourgeoisie, and to succeed it as the producing force of a new social\norder in which class antagonisms shall disappear, makes of the Manifesto\na characteristic epoch in the general course of history. It is a\nrevolution--but not in the sense of an apocalypse or a promised\nmillennium. It is the scientific and reflected revelation of the way\nwhich our _civil society_ is traversing (if the shade of Fourier will\npardon me!).\n\nThe Manifesto thus gives us the inside history of its origin and\nthereby justifies its doctrine and at the same time explains its\nsingular effect and its wonderful efficacy. Without losing ourselves in\ndetails, here are the series and groups of elements which, reunited and\ncombined in this rapid and exact synthesis, give us the clue to all the\nlater development of scientific socialism.\n\n\nThe immediate, direct and appreciable material is given by France and\nEngland which had already had since 1830 a working-class movement which\nsometimes resembles and sometimes differentiates itself from the other\nrevolutionary movements and which extended from instinctive revolt to\nthe practical aims of the political parties (Chartism and Social\nDemocracy for example) and gave birth to different temporary and\nperishable forms of communism and semi-communism like that to which the\nname of socialism was then given.\n\nTo recognize in these movements no longer the fugitive phenomenon of\nmeteoric disturbances but a new social fact, there was need of a theory\nwhich should explain them,--and a theory which should not be a simple\ncomplement of the democratic tradition nor the subjective correction of\nthe disadvantages, thenceforth recognized, of the economy of\ncompetition: although many were then concerned with this. This new\ntheory was the personal work of Marx and Engels. They carried over the\nconception of historical progress through the process of antitheses from\nthe abstract form, which the Hegelian dialectic had already described\nin its most general features, to the concrete explanation of the class\nstruggle; and in this historic movement where it had been supposed that\nwe observed the passage from one form of ideas to another form they saw\nfor the first time the transition from one form of social anatomy to\nanother, that is from one form of economic production to another form.\n\nThis historic conception, which gave a theoretic form to this necessity\nof the _new social revolution_ more or less explicit in the instinctive\nconsciousness of the proletariat and in its passionate and spontaneous\nmovements, recognizing the intrinsic and imminent necessity of the\nrevolution, changed the concept of it. That which the sects of\nconspirators had regarded as belonging to the domain of the will and\ncapable of being constructed at pleasure, became a simple process which\nmight be favored, sustained and assisted. The revolution became the\nobject of a policy the conditions of which are given by the complex\nsituation of society; it therefore became a result which the proletariat\nmust attain through struggles and various means of organization which\nthe old tactics of revolts had not yet imagined. And this because the\nproletariat is not an accessory and auxiliary means, an excrescence, an\nevil, which can be eliminated from the society in which we are living\nbut because it is its substratum, its essential condition, its\ninevitable effect and in turn the cause which preserves and maintains\nsociety itself; and thus it cannot emancipate itself without at the\nsame time emancipating every one, that is to say, revolutionizing\ncompletely the form of production.\n\nJust as the _League of the Just_ had become _The Communist League_ by\nstripping itself of the forms of symbolism and conspiracy and adopting\nlittle by little the means of propaganda and of political action from\nand after the check attending the insurrection of Barbes and Blanqui\n(1839), so likewise the new doctrine, which the _League_ accepted and\nmade its own, definitely abandoned the ideas which inspired the action\nof conspiracies, and conceived as the outcome and objective result of a\nprocess, that which the conspirators believed to be the result of a\npre-determined plan or the emanation from their heroism.\n\n\nAt that point begins a new ascending line in the order of facts and\nanother connection of concepts and of doctrines.\n\nThe communism of conspiracy, the Blanquism of that time, carries us up\nthrough Buonarotti and also through Bazard and the \"Carbonari\" to the\nconspiracy of Baboeuf, a true hero of ancient tragedy who hurled himself\nagainst fate because there was no connection between his aim and the\neconomic condition of the moment, and he was as yet incapable of\nbringing upon the political scene a proletariat having a broad class\nconsciousness. From Baboeuf and certain less known elements of the\nJacobin period, past Boissel and Fauchet we ascend to the intuitive\nMorelly and to the original and versatile Mably and if you please to\nthe chaotic _Testament_ of the _cure_ Meslier, an instinctive and\nviolent rebellion of \"good sense\" against the savage oppression endured\nby the unhappy peasant.\n\nThese precursors of the socialism of violence, protest and conspiracy\nwere all equalitarians; as were also most of the conspirators. Thus by a\nsingular but inevitable error they took for a weapon of combat,\ninterpreting it and generalizing it, that same doctrine of equality\nwhich developing as a _natural right_ parallel to the formation of the\neconomic theory, had become an instrument in the hands of the\nbourgeoisie which was winning step by step its present position to\ntransform the society of privilege into that of liberalism, free\nexchange and the civil code.[5]\n\nFollowing this immediate deduction which at bottom was a simple\nillusion, that all men being equal in nature should also be equal in\ntheir enjoyments, it was thought that the appeal to reason carried with\nit all the elements of propaganda and persuasion, and that the rapid,\nimmediate and violent taking possession of the exterior instruments of\npolitical power was the only means to set to right those who resisted.\n\nBut whence come and how persist all these inequalities which appear so\nirrational in the light of a concept of justice so simple and so\nelementary? The Manifesto was the clear negation of the principle of\nequality understood so naively and so clumsily. While proclaiming as\ninevitable the abolition of classes in the future form of collective\nproduction, it explains to us the necessity, the birth and the\ndevelopment of these very classes as a fact which is not an exception,\nor a derogation of an abstract principle, but the very process of\nhistory.\n\nEven as the modern proletariat involves the bourgeoisie, so the latter\ncannot exist without the former. And both are the result of a process of\nformation which rests altogether upon the new mode of production of the\nobjects necessary to life, that is to say, which rests altogether upon\nthe manner of economic production. The bourgeois society grew out of the\ncorporative and feudal society and it grew out of it through struggle\nand revolution in order to take possession of the instruments and means\nof production which all culminate in the formation, the development and\nthe multiplication of capital. To describe the origin and the progress\nof the bourgeoisie in its different phases, to explain its successes in\nthe colossal development of technique and in the conquest of the world\nmarket, and to point out the political transformations which followed\nit, which are the expression, the defense and the result of these\nconquests is, at the same time, to write the history of the proletariat.\nThe latter in its present condition is inherent in the epoch of\nbourgeois society and it has had, it has, and will have as many phases\nas that society itself up to the time of its extinction. The antithesis\nof rich and poor, of happy and unhappy, of oppressors and oppressed is\nnot something accidental which can easily be put on one side as was\nbelieved by the enthusiasts of justice. Still further it is a fact of\nnecessary correlation, once granted the directing principle of the\npresent form of production which makes the wageworker a necessity. This\nnecessity is double. Capital can only take possession of production by\nconverting laborers into proletarians and it cannot continue to live, to\nbe fruitful, to accumulate, to multiply itself and to transform itself\nexcept on the condition of paying wages to those whom it has made\nproletarians. The latter, on their side, can only live and reproduce\ntheir kind on the condition of selling themselves as labor power, the\nuse of which is left to the discretion, that is to say, to the good\npleasure of the possessors of capital. The harmony between capital and\nlabor is wholly contained in this fact that labor is the living force by\nwhich the proletarians continually put in motion and reproduce by adding\nto it the labor accumulated in the capital. This connection resulting\nfrom a development which is the whole inner essence of modern history,\nif it gives the key to comprehend the true reason of the new class\nstruggle of which the communist conception has become the expression,\nis of such a nature that no sentimental protest, no argument based on\njustice can resolve it and disentangle it.\n\nIt is for these reasons which I have explained here as simply as\npossible that equalitarian communism remained vanquished. Its practical\npowerlessness blended with its theoretical inability to account for the\ncauses of the wrongs or of the inequalities which it desired, bravely or\nstupidly, to destroy or eliminate at a blow.\n\n\nTo understand history became thenceforth the principal task of the\ntheorists of communism. How could a cherished ideal be still opposed to\nthe hard reality of history? Communism is not the natural and necessary\nstate of human life in all times and in all places and the whole course\nof historic formations cannot be considered as a series of deviations\nand wanderings. One does not reach communism nor return to it by Spartan\nabnegation or Christian resignation. It can be, still more it must be\nand it will be the consequence of the dissolution of our capitalist\nsociety. But the dissolution cannot be inoculated into it artificially\nnor imported from without. It will dissolve by its own weight as\nMachiavelli would say. It will disappear as a form of production which\nengenders of itself and in itself the constant and increasing rebellion\nof its productive forces against the conditions (juridical and\npolitical) of production and it continues to live only by augmenting\n(through competition which engenders crises, and by a bewildering\nextension of its sphere of action) the intrinsic conditions of its\ninevitable death. The death of a social form like that which comes from\nnatural death in any other branch of science becomes a _physiological\ncase_.\n\nThe Manifesto did not make, and it was not its part to make the picture\nof a future society. It told how our present society will dissolve by\nthe progressive dynamics of its forces. To make this understood it was\nnecessary above all to explain the development of the bourgeoisie and\nthis was done in rapid sketches, a model philosophy of history, which\ncan be retouched, completed and developed, but which cannot be\ncorrected.[6]\n\nSaint-Simon and Fourier, although neither their ideas nor the general\ntrend of their development were accepted, found their justification.\nIdealists both, they had by their heroic vision transcended the\n\"liberal\" epoch which in their horizon had its culminating point at the\nepoch of the French revolution. The former in his interpretation of\nhistory substituted social physics for economic law and politics, and in\nspite of many idealistic and positivistic uncertainties, he almost\ndiscovered the genesis of the third estate. The other, ignorant of\ndetails which were still unknown or neglected, in the exuberance of his\nundisciplined spirit imagined a great chain of historic epochs vaguely\ndistinguished by certain indications of the directing principle of the\nforms of production and distribution. He thereupon proposed to himself\nto construct a society in which the existing antitheses should\ndisappear. From all these antitheses he discovered by a flash of genius\nand he, more than any other, developed \"the vicious circle of\nproduction\"; he there unconsciously reached the position of Sismondi,\nwho at the same epoch, but with other intentions and along different\nroads, studying crises and denouncing the disadvantages of the large\nscale industry and of unbridled competition, announced the collapse of\nthe newly established economic science. From the summit of his serene\nmeditation on the future world of the harmonians he looked down with a\nserene contempt upon the misery of civilization and unmoved wrote the\nsatire of history. Ignorant both, because idealists, of the bitter\nstruggle which the proletariat is called upon to maintain before putting\nan end to the epoch of exploitation and of antitheses, they arrived\nthrough a subjective necessity at their conclusions, in the one case\nscheme-making, in the other utopianism. But as by divination they\nforesaw some of the direct principles of a society without antitheses.\nThe former reached a clear conception of the technical government of\nsociety in which should disappear the domination of man over man, and\nthe other divined, foresaw and prophesied along with the extravagances\nof his luxuriant imagination a great number of the important traits of\nthe psychology and pedagogy of that future society in which according\nto the expression of the Manifesto, \"the free development of each is the\ncondition of the free development of all.\"\n\nSaint-Simonism had already disappeared when the Manifesto appeared.\nFourierism, on the contrary, was flourishing in France and in\nconsequence of its nature not as a party but as a school.\n\nWhen the school attempted to realize its utopia by means of the law, the\nParisian proletarians had already been beaten in those days of June by\nthat bourgeoisie which through this victory was preparing a master for\nitself: it was a military adventurer whose power lasted twenty years.\n\n\nIt is not in the name of a school, but as the promise, the threat, and\nthe desire of a party that the new doctrine of critical communism\npresented itself. Its authors and its adherents did not feed upon the\nutopian manufacture of the future but their minds were full of the\nexperience and the necessity of the present. They united with the\nproletarians whom instinct, not as yet fortified by experience, impelled\nto overthrow, at Paris and in England, the rule of the bourgeois class\nwith a rapidity of movement not guided by well-considered tactics. These\ncommunists disseminated their revolutionary ideas in Germany: they were\nthe defenders of the June martyrs, and they had in the Neue Rheinische\nZeitung a political organ, extracts from which, reproduced occasionally\nafter so many years, still carry authority.[7] After the disappearance\nof the historic situations which in 1848 had pushed the proletarians to\nthe front of the political stage, the doctrines of the Manifesto no\nlonger found either a foundation or a field for diffusion. Many years\nwere required before it circulated again and that because many years\nwere required before the proletariat could re-appear by other roads and\nunder other methods as a political force upon the scene, making of this\ndoctrine its intellectual organ and directing its course by it.\n\nBut from the day when the doctrine appeared it made its anticipated\ncriticism of that _socialismus vulgaris_ which was flourishing in Europe\nand especially in France from the coup d'Etat to the International; the\nlatter moreover in its short period of life had not time to vanquish and\neliminate it. This vulgar socialism found its intellectual food (when\nnothing even more incoherent and chaotic was at hand) in the doctrine\nand especially in the paradoxes of Proudhon who had already been\nvanquished theoretically by Marx[8] but who was not vanquished\npractically until the time of the Commune when his disciples, and it was\na salutary lesson in affairs, were forced to act in opposition to their\nown doctrines and those of their master.\n\nFrom the time of its appearance this new communist doctrine carried an\nimplied criticism of all forms of State socialism from Louis Blanc to\nLassalle. This State socialism, although mingled with revolutionary\ndoctrines, was then summed up in the empty dream, in the abracadabra, of\nthe _Right to Work_. This is an insidious formula if it implies a demand\naddressed to a government even of revolutionary bourgeois. It is an\neconomic absurdity if by it is meant to suppress the unemployment which\nensues upon the variations of wages, that is to say upon the conditions\nof competition. It may be a tool for politicians, if it serves as an\nexpedient to calm a shapeless mass of unorganized proletarians. This is\nvery evident for any one who conceives clearly the course of a\nvictorious proletarian revolution which cannot proceed to the\nsocialization of the means of production by taking possession of them,\nthat is to say, which cannot arrive at the economic form in which there\nis neither merchandise nor wage labor and in which the right to work and\nthe duty of working are one and the same, mingled in the common\nnecessity of labor for all.\n\nThe mirage of the right to work ended in the tragedy of June. The\nparliamentary discussion of which it was the object in the sequel was\nnothing but a parody. Lamartine, that tearful rhetorician, that great\nman for all proper occasions, had pronounced the last, or the next to\nthe last of his celebrated phrases, \"Catastrophes are the experiences of\nnations,\" and that sufficed for the irony of history.\n\n\nThe brevity and simplicity of the Manifesto were wholly foreign to the\ninsinuating rhetoric of faith or creed. It was of the utmost\ninclusiveness by virtue of the many ideas which it for the first time\nreduced to a system and it was a series of germs capable of an immense\ndevelopment. But it was not, and it did not pretend to be a code of\nsocialism, a catechism of critical communism, or the handbook of the\nproletarian revolution. We may leave its \"quintessence\" to the\nillustrious Dr. Schaeffle, to whom also we willingly leave the famous\nphrase, \"The social question is a question of the stomach.\"\n\nThe \"ventre\" of Dr. Schaeffle has for long years cut a fine enough\nfigure in the world to the great advantage of the dilettanti in\nsocialism and to the delight of the politicians. Critical communism, in\nreality, scarcely begun with the Manifesto it needed to develop and it\nhas developed effectively.\n\nThe sum total of the teachings customarily designated by the name of\n\"Marxism\" did not arrive at maturity before the years 1860-1870. It is\ncertainly a long step from the little work Wage Labor and Capital[9] in\nwhich is seen for the first time in precise terms how from the purchase\nand the use of the labor-commodity is obtained a product superior to the\ncost of production, this being the clue to the question of surplus\nvalue--it is a long step from this to the complex and multiple\ndevelopments of \"Capital.\" This book goes exhaustively into the genesis\nof the bourgeois epoch in all its inner economic structure, and\nintellectually it transcends that epoch because it explains its course,\nits particular laws and the antitheses which it organically produces and\nwhich organically dissolve it.\n\nIt is a long step also from the proletarian movement which succumbed in\n1848 to the present proletarian movement which through great\ndifficulties after having re-appeared on the political scene has\ndeveloped with continuity and deliberation. Until a few years ago this\nregularity of the forward march of the proletariat was observed and\nadmired only in Germany. The social democracy there had normally\nincreased as upon its own field (from the Workingmen's Conference of\nNuremburg, 1868, to our day). But since then the same phenomenon has\nasserted itself in other countries, under various forms.\n\nIn this broad development of Marxism and in this increase of the\nproletarian movement in the limited forms of political action, has there\nnot been, as some assert, an alteration from the militant character of\nthe original form of critical communism? Has there not been a passing\nfrom revolution to the self-styled evolution? Has there not been an\nacquiescence of the revolutionary spirit in the exigencies of the reform\nmovement?\n\nThese reflections and these objections have arisen and arise continually\nboth among the most enthusiastic and most passionate of the socialists\nand among the adversaries of socialism whose interest it is to give an\nappearance of uniformity to the special defeats, checks and delays, so\nas to affirm that communism has no future.\n\n\nWhoever compares the present proletarian movement and its varied and\ncomplicated course with the impression left by the Manifesto when one\nreads it without being provided with knowledge from other sources, may\neasily believe that there was something juvenile and premature in the\nconfident boldness of those communists of fifty years ago. There is in\nthem the sound as of a battle cry and an echo of the vibrant eloquence\nof some of the orators of Chartism; there is the declaration of a new\n'93 with no room left for a new Thermidor.\n\nAnd Thermidor has re-appeared several times since in various forms, more\nor less explicit or disguised, and their authors have been since 1848\nFrench ex-radicals, or Italian ex-patriots, or German bureaucrats,\nadorers of the god State and practically slaves of the god Mammon,\nEnglish parliamentarians broken by the artifices of the art of\ngovernment, or even politicians under the guise of anarchists. Many\npeople believe that the constellation of Thermidor is destined never to\ndisappear from the heaven of history, or to speak in a more prosaic\nfashion, that liberalism, that is to say a society where men are equal\nonly in law, marks the extreme limit of human evolution beyond which\nnothing remains but a return backward. That is the opinion of all those\nwho see in the progressive extension of the bourgeois form over the\nwhole world the reason and the end of all progress. Whether they are\noptimists or pessimists here are, for them, the columns of Hercules of\nthe human race. Often it happens that this sentiment in its pessimistic\nform operates unconsciously upon some of those, who with others\nunclassified, go to swell the ranks of anarchism.\n\nThere are others who go further and who theorize upon the objective\nimprobabilities of the assertions of critical communism. That\naffirmation of the Manifesto that the reduction of all class struggles\nto a single one carries within itself the necessity of the proletarian\nrevolution, would seem to them intrinsically false. That doctrine would\nbe without foundation because it assumes to draw a theoretical deduction\nand a practical rule of conduct from the prevision of a fact which,\naccording to these adversaries, would be a simple theoretical point\nwhich might be displaced and set ahead indefinitely. The assumed\ninevitable collision between the productive forces and the form of\nproduction would never take place because it is reduced, as they claim,\nto an infinite number of particular cases of friction, because it\nmultiplies itself into the partial collisions of economic competition,\nand because it meets with checks and hindrances in the expedients and\nattacks of the governmental art. In other words, our present society,\ninstead of breaking up and dissolving would in a continuous fashion\nrepair the evils which it produced. Every proletarian movement which is\nnot repressed by violence as was that of June, 1848, and that of May,\n1871, would perish of slow exhaustion as happened with Chartism which\nended in trade unionism, the war horse of this fashion of arguing, the\nhonor and glory of the economists and of the vulgar sociologists. Every\nmodern proletarian movement would be regarded as meteoric and not\norganic, it would be a disturbance and not a process, and according to\nthese critics, in spite of ourselves, we should be still utopians.\n\n\nThe historic forecast which is found in the doctrine of the Manifesto\nand which critical communism has since developed by a broad and detailed\nanalysis of the actual world, has certainly taken on by reason of the\ncircumstances in which it was produced a warlike appearance and a very\naggressive form. But it did not imply, any more than it implies now,\neither a chronological datum or a prophetic picture of the social\norganization like those in the apocalypses and the ancient prophesies.\n\nThe heroic Father Dolcino did not re-appear with the prophetic war cry\nof Joachino del Fiore. We did not celebrate anew at Muenster the\nresurrection of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. There were no more Taborites\nnor millenarians. Nor was there another Fourier waiting in his house at\na fixed hour year after year for the \"candidate of humanity.\" Nor again,\nwas there an initiator of a new life, beginning with artificial means to\ncreate the first nucleus of an association proposing to make man over,\nas was the case with Beller, Owen, Cabet, and the enterprise of the\nFourierites in Texas, which was the tomb of utopianism, marked by a\nsingular epitaph: the dumbness which succeeded the fiery eloquence of\nConsiderant. Neither is there here a sect which retires modestly and\ntimidly from the world in order to celebrate in a closed circle the\nperfect idea of communism as in the socialist colonies of America.\n\nHere, on the contrary, in the doctrine of critical communism, it is\nsociety as a whole which at a moment of its general process discovers\nthe cause of its destined course and at a critical point asserts itself\nto proclaim the laws of its movement. The foresight indicated by the\nManifesto was not chronological, it was not a prophecy nor a promise,\nbut a morphological prevision.\n\n\nBeneath the noise of the passions over which our daily conversation\nextends itself, beyond the visible movements of the persons who formed\nthe material at which the historians stop, beyond the juridical and\npolitical apparel of our civil society, far enough from the meanings\nwhich religion and art give to life, there remains, grows and develops\nthe elementary structure of society which supports all the rest. The\nanatomical study of this underlying structure is economics. And as human\nsociety has several times changed, partially or entirely, in its most\nvisible exterior form, or in its ideological, religious or artistic\nmanifestations, we must first find the cause and the reason of these\nchanges, the only ones which historians relate, in the transformations\nmore hidden, and at first less visible, of the economic _processus_ of\nthis structure. We must set ourselves to the study of the differences\nwhich exist between the various forms of production when we have to deal\nwith historic epochs clearly distinct and properly designated; and when\nwe have to explain the succession of these forms, the replacing of one\nby the other, we must study the causes of erosion, and of the\ndestruction of the form which disappears; and finally when we wish to\nunderstand the historic fact determined and concrete, we must study the\nfrictions and the contrasts which take their rise from the different\ncurrents, that is to say, the classes, their subdivisions and their\nintersections which characterize a given society.\n\nWhen the Manifesto declared that all history up to the present time has\nbeen nothing but the history of class struggles and that these are the\ncause of all revolutions as also of all reactions, it did two things at\nthe same time, it gave to communism the elements of a new doctrine and\nto the communists the guiding thread to discover in the confused events\nof political life the conditions of the underlying economic movement.\n\nIn these last fifty years the generic foresight of a new historic era\nhas become for socialists the delicate art of understanding in every\ncase what it is expedient to do, because this new era is in itself in\ncontinual formation. Communism has become an art because the\nproletarians have become, or are on the point of becoming, a political\nparty. The revolutionary spirit is embodied to-day in the proletarian\norganization. The desired union of communists and proletarians is\nhenceforth an accomplished fact.[10] These last fifty years have been\nthe ever stronger proof of the ever growing revolt of the producing\nforces against the forms of production. We \"utopians\" have no other\nanswer to offer than this lesson from events to those who still speak of\nmeteoric disturbances which, as they would have it, will disappear\nlittle by little and will all resolve themselves into the calm of this\nfinal epoch of civilization. And this lesson suffices.\n\n\nEleven years after the publication of the Manifesto, Marx formulated in\nclear and precise fashion the directing principles of the materialistic\ninterpretation of history in the preface to a book which is the\nforerunner of \"Capital.\"[11]\n\n\n\"The first work which I undertook for the purpose of solving the doubts\nwhich perplexed me was a critical re-examination of Hegel's Philosophy\nof Law. The introduction to this work appeared in the German-French Year\nBooks, published in Paris in 1844.\n\nMy investigation ended in the conviction that legal relations and forms\nof government cannot be explained either by themselves or by the\nso-called general development of the human mind, but on the contrary,\nhave their roots in the conditions of man's physical existence, whose\ntotality Hegel, following the English and French writers of the\neighteenth century, summed up under the name of civil society; and that\nthe anatomy of civil society must be sought in political economy.\n\nThe study of the latter which I began at Paris was continued at Brussels\nwhither I had betaken myself in consequence of an order of Guizot\nexpelling me from France.\n\nThe general result which I arrived at and which, once obtained, served\nas a guide for my subsequent studies, can be briefly formulated as\nfollows:\n\nIn making their livelihood together men enter into certain necessary\ninvoluntary relations with each other, industrial relations which\ncorrespond to whatever stage society has reached in the development of\nits material productive forces.\n\nThe totality of these industrial relations constitutes the economic\nstructure of society, the real basis upon which the legal and political\nsuperstructure is built, and to which definite forms of social\nconsciousness correspond.\n\nThe method of producing the material livelihood determines the social,\npolitical and intellectual life process in general.\n\nIt is not men's consciousness which determines their life; on the\ncontrary, it is their social life which determines their consciousness.\n\nAt a certain stage of their development the material productive forces\nof society come into conflict with the old conditions of production or,\nto use a legal expression, with the old property relations under which\nthese forces have hitherto been exerted. From forms of development of\nthe productive forces these relations turn into fetters of production.\nThen begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the\neconomic basis the whole vast superstructure undergoes sooner or later a\nrevolution.\n\nIn considering such revolutions one must constantly distinguish between\nthe industrial revolution, to be carefully posited scientifically, which\ntakes place in the economic conditions of production, and the legal,\npolitical, religious, artistic or philosophical, in short ideological,\nforms wherein men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. As\nlittle as we judge an individual by what he himself thinks he is, just\nas little can we judge such a revolutionary epoch by its own\nconsciousness. We must rather explain this consciousness out of the\nantagonisms of men's industrial life, out of the conflict existing\nbetween the forces of social production and the relations of social\nproduction.\n\nA form of society never breaks down until all the productive forces are\ndeveloped for which it affords room. New and higher relations of\nproduction are never established, until the material conditions of life\nto support them have been prepared in the lap of the old society itself.\nTherefore mankind always sets for itself only such tasks as it is able\nto perform; for upon close examination it will always be found that the\ntask itself only arises where the material conditions for its solution\nare already at hand or are at least in process of growth.\n\nWe may in broad outlines characterize the Asiatic, the antique, the\nfeudal and the modern capitalist methods of production as progressive\nepochs in the economic evolution of society.\n\nThe industrial relations arising out of the capitalistic method of\nproduction constitute the last of the antagonistic forms of social\nproduction; antagonistic not in the sense of an individual antagonism,\nbut of an antagonism growing out of the social conditions of\nindividuals.\n\nBut the productive forces which are developed in the lap of capitalistic\nsociety create at the same time the material conditions needed for the\nabolition of this antagonism. The capitalist form of society therefore,\nbrings to a close this prelude to the history of human society.\"\n\n\nMarx had some years before left the political arena and he did not\nreturn to it until later with the International. The reaction had\ntriumphed in Italy, Austria, Hungary and Germany over the patriotic,\nliberal or democratic revolution. The bourgeoisie on its side had\novercome the proletarians of France and England. The indispensable\nconditions for the development of a democratic and proletarian movement\nsuddenly disappeared. The battalion small in numbers indeed of the\nManifesto communists who had taken part in the revolution and who had\nparticipated in all the acts of resistance and popular rebellion against\nreaction saw its activity crushed by the memorable process of Cologne.\nThe survivors of the movement tried to make a new start at London, but\nsoon Marx, Engels and others separated themselves from the\nrevolutionaries and retired from the movement. The crisis was passed. A\nlong period of repose followed. This was shown by the slow disappearance\nof the Chartist movement, that is to say, the proletarian movement of\nthe country which was the spinal column of the capitalist system.\nHistory had for the moment discredited the illusions of the\nrevolutionaries.\n\nBefore giving himself almost entirely to the long incubation of the\nalready discovered elements of the critique of political economy, Marx\nillustrated in several works the history of the revolutionary period\nfrom 1848 to 1850 and especially the class struggles in France, showing\nthus that if the revolution in the forms which it had taken on at that\nmoment had not succeeded, the revolutionary theory of history was not\ncontradicted for all that.[12] The suggestions given in the Manifesto\nfound here their complete development.\n\nLater the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte[13] was the first attempt to\napply the new conception of history to a series of facts contained\nwithin precise limits of time. It is extremely difficult to rise from\nthe apparent movement to the real movement of history and to discover\ntheir intimate connection. There are indeed great difficulties in rising\nfrom the phenomena of passion, oratory, Parliaments, elections and the\nlike to the inner social gearing to discover in the latter the different\ninterests of the large and small bourgeois, of the peasants, the\nartisans, the laborers, the priests, the soldiers, the bankers, the\nusurers and the mob. All these interests act consciously or\nunconsciously, jostling each other, eliminating each other, combining\nand fusing, in the discordant life of civilized man.\n\nThe crisis was passed and this was precisely true in the countries which\nconstituted the historic field from which critical communism proceeded.\nAll that the critical communists could do was to understand the\nreaction in its hidden economic causes because, for the moment, to\nunderstand the reaction was to continue the work of the revolution. The\nsame thing happened under other conditions and other forms 20 years\nlater when Marx, in the name of the International made in the \"Civil War\nin France\" an apology for the Commune which was at the same time its\nobjective criticism.\n\nThe heroic resignation with which Marx after 1850 abandoned political\nlife was shown again when he retired from the International after the\ncongress at the Hague in 1872. These two facts have their value for\nbiography because they give glimpses of his personal character. With\nhim, in fact, ideas, temperament, policy and thought were one and the\nsame. But, on the other hand, these facts have a much greater bearing\nfor us. Critical communism does not manufacture revolutions, it does not\nprepare insurrections, it does not furnish arms for revolts. It mingles\nitself with the proletarian movement, but it sees and supports that\nmovement in the full intelligence of the connection which it has, which\nit can have, and which it must have, with all the relations of social\nlife as a whole. In a word it is not a seminary in which superior\nofficers of the proletarian revolution are trained, but it is neither\nmore nor less than the consciousness of this revolution and especially\nthe consciousness of its difficulties.\n\nThe proletarian movement has grown in a colossal fashion during these\nlast thirty years. In the midst of numberless difficulties, through\ngains and losses, it has little by little taken on a political form. Its\nmethods have been elaborated and gradually applied. All this is not the\nwork of the magic action of the doctrine scattered by the persuasive\nvirtue of written and spoken propaganda. From their first beginnings the\ncommunists had this feeling that they were the extreme left of every\nproletarian movement, but in proportion as the latter developed and\nspecialized it became their necessity and duty to assist, (through the\nelaboration of programmes, and through their participation in the\npolitical action of the parties) in the various contingencies of the\neconomic development and of the political situation growing out of it.\n\nIn the fifty years which separate us from the publication of the\nManifesto the specialization and the complexity of the proletarian\nmovement have become such that there is henceforth no mind capable of\nembracing it in its completeness, of understanding it in its details and\ngrasping its real causes and exact relations. The single International,\nfrom 1864 to 1873, necessarily disappeared after it had fulfilled its\ntask. The preliminary equalization of the general tendencies and of the\nideas common and indispensable to all the proletariat, and no one can\nassume or will assume to re-constitute anything like it.\n\nTwo causes, notably, contributed in a high degree to this\nspecialization, this complexity of the proletarian movement. In many\ncountries the bourgeoisie felt the need of putting an end in the\ninterest of its own defense to some of the abuses which had arisen in\nconsequence of the introduction of the industrial system. Thence arose\nlabor legislation, or as it has been pompously called social\nlegislation. This same bourgeoisie in its own interest or, under the\npressure of circumstances has been obliged, in many countries to\nincrease the generic conditions of liberty, and notably to extend the\nright of suffrage. These two circumstances have drawn the proletariat\ninto the circle of daily political life. They have considerably\nincreased its chance for action and the agility and suppleness thus\nacquired permit it to struggle with the bourgeoisie in elective\nassembles. And as the _processus_ of things determines the _processus_\nof ideas, this practical multiform development of the proletariat is\naccompanied by a gradual development of the doctrines of critical\ncommunism, as well in the manner of understanding history or\ncontemporary life as in the minute description of the most infinitesimal\nparts of economics: in a word, it has become a science.\n\n\nHave we not there, some ask, a deviation from the simple and imperative\ndoctrine of the Manifesto? Others again say, have we not lost in\nintensity and precision what we have gained in extension and complexity?\n\nThese questions, in my opinion, arise from an inexact conception of the\npresent proletarian movement and an optical illusion as to the degree of\nenergy and revolutionary valor of the former movements.\n\nWhatever be the concessions that the bourgeoisie can make in the present\neconomic order even if it be a very great reduction in the hours of\nlabor, it always remains true that the necessity for exploitation upon\nwhich the whole present social order rests imposes limits beyond which\ncapital as a private instrument of production has no more reason for\nexistence. If a concession to-day can allay one form of discontent in\nthe proletariat, the concession itself can do nothing less than to give\nrise to the need of new and ever increasing concessions. The need of\nlabor legislation arose in England before the Chartist movement and it\ndeveloped afterwards along with it. It had its first successes in the\nperiod which immediately followed the fall of Chartism. The principles\nand the reasons of this movement in their causes and their effects were\nstudied in a critical manner by Marx in Capital and they afterwards\npassed, through the International, into the programmes of the different\nsocialist parties. Finally this whole process, concentrating itself into\nthe demand for eight hours, became with the 1st of May an international\nmarshalling of the proletariat, and a means for estimating its progress.\nOn the other hand, the political struggle in which the proletariat takes\npart democratizes its habits; still more a real democracy takes birth\nwhich, with time, will no longer be able to adapt itself to the present\npolitical form. Being the organ of a society based on exploitation it is\nconstituted as a bureaucratic hierarchy, as a judicial bureaucracy and a\nmutual aid society of the capitalists for the defense of their special\nprivileges, the perpetual income from the public debt, the rent of land\nand the interest on capital in all its forms. Consequently the two\nfacts, which according to the discontented and the hypercritical seem to\nmake us deviate infinitely from the lines laid down by communism,\nbecome, on the contrary, new means and new conditions which confirm\nthese lines. The apparent deviations from the revolution are, at bottom,\nthe very thing which is hastening it.\n\nMoreover, we must not exaggerate the significance of the revolutionary\nfaith of the communists of fifty years ago. Given the political\nsituation of Europe, if they had a faith, it was that they were\nprecursors, and this they have been; they hoped that the political\nconditions of Italy, Austria, Hungary, Germany and Poland might\napproximate to modern forms, and this has happened later, in part, and\nthrough other means; if they had a hope, it was that the proletarian\nmovement of France and England might continue to develop. The reaction\nwhich intervened upset many things and stopped more than one development\nwhich had already begun. It upset also the old revolutionary tactic, and\nin these last years a new tactic has arisen. Therein lies all the\nchange.[14]\n\n\nThe Manifesto was designed for nothing else than the first guiding\nthread to a science and a practice which nothing but experience and time\ncould develop. It gives only the scheme and the rhythm of the general\nmarch of the proletarian movement.\n\nIt is perfectly evident that the communists were influenced by the\nexperience of the two movements which they had before their eyes, that\nof France, and especially the Chartist movement which the manifestation\nof April 10th was soon to strike with paralysis. But this scheme does\nnot fix in any invariable fashion a tactic of war, which indeed had\nalready been made frequently. The revolutionists had often indeed\nexplained in the form of catechism what ought to be a simple consequence\nof the development of events.\n\nThis scheme became more vast and complex with the development and\nextension of the bourgeois system. The rhythm of the movement has become\nmore varied and slower because the laboring mass has entered on the\nscene as a distinct, political party, which fact changes the manner and\nthe measure of their action and consequently their movement.\n\nJust as in view of the improvement of modern weapons the tactic of\nstreet riots has become inopportune, and just as the complexity of the\nmodern state shows the insufficiency of a sudden capture of a municipal\ngovernment to impose upon a whole people the will and the ideas of a\nminority, no matter how courageous and progressive, even so, on its\nside, the mass of the proletarians no longer holds to the word of\ncommand of a few leaders, nor does it regulate its movements by the\ninstructions of captains who might upon the ruins of one government\nraise up another. The laboring mass where it has developed politically\nhas made and is making its own democratic education. It is choosing its\nrepresentatives and submitting their action to its criticism. It\nexamines and makes its own the ideas and the propositions which these\nrepresentatives submit to it. It already knows, or it begins to\nunderstand according to the situation in the various countries, that the\nconquest of the political power cannot and should not be made by others\nin its name, and especially that it cannot be the consequence of a\nsingle blow. In a word it knows, or it is beginning to understand that\nthe dictatorship of the proletariat which shall have for its task the\nsocialization of the means of production cannot be the work of a mass\nled by a few and that it must be, and that it will be, the work of the\nproletarians themselves when they have become in themselves and through\nlong practice a political organization.\n\nThe development and the extension of the bourgeois system have been\nrapid and colossal in these last fifty years. It already invades sacred\nand ancient Russia and it is creating, not only in America, Australia\nand in India, but even in Japan, new centers of modern production, thus\ncomplicating the conditions of competition and the entanglements of the\nworld market. The consequences of political changes have been produced,\nor will not be long to wait for. Equally rapid and colossal has been the\nprogress of the proletariat. Its political education takes each day a\nnew step toward the conquest of political power. The rebellion of the\nproductive forces against the form of production, the struggle of living\nlabor against accumulated labor, becomes every day more evident. The\nbourgeois system is henceforth upon the defensive and it reveals its\ndecadence by this singular contradiction; the peaceful world of industry\nhas become a colossal camp in which militarism develops. The peaceful\nperiod of industry has become by the irony of things the period of the\ncontinuous invention of new engines of war.\n\nSocialism has forced itself into the situation. Those semi-socialists,\neven those charlatans who encumber with their presence the press and the\nmeetings of our party and who often are a nuisance to us, are a tribute\nwhich vanity and ambitions of every sort render in their fashion to the\nnew power which rises on the horizon. In spite of the foreseen antidote\nwhich scientific socialism is, the truth of which many people have not\ncome to understand, there is a group of quacks on the social question,\nall having some particular specific to eliminate such or such a social\nevil: land nationalization, monopoly of grains in the hands of the\nState, democratic taxes, statization of mortgages, general strike, etc.\nBut social democracy eliminates all these fantasies because the\nconsciousness of their situation leads the proletarians when once they\nhave become familiar with the political arena to understand socialism in\nan integral fashion. They come to understand that they should look for\nonly one thing, the abolition of wage labor; that there is but one form\nof society which renders possible and even necessary the elimination of\nclasses,--the association which does not produce commodities, and that\nthis form of society is no longer the State, but its opposite, that is\nto say, the technical and pedagogical administration of human society,\nthe self-government of labor. Behind the Jacobins are the gigantic\nheroes of 1793 and their caricatures of 1848.\n\n\n_Social democracy!_ But is not that, say some, an evident attenuation of\nthe communist doctrine as it is formulated in the Manifesto in terms so\nringing and so decisive?\n\nThis is not the moment to recall that the phrase _social democracy_ has\nhad in France many significations from 1837 to 1848, all of which were\nbased upon a vague sentimentalism. Neither is it necessary to explain\nhow the Germans have been able in this nomenclature to sum up all the\nrich and vast development of their socialism from the episode of\nLassalle now passed over and transformed up to our own days. It is\ncertain that _social democracy_ can signify, has signified and signifies\nmany things which have not been, are not, and never will be, either\ncritical communism or the conscious march toward the proletarian\nrevolution. It is also certain that contemporary socialism even in the\ncountries where its development is most advanced, carries with it a\ngreat deal of dross which it throws off little by little along the road.\nIt is certain also, in fine, that this broad designation of social\ndemocracy serves as an escutcheon and a buckler to many intruders. But\nhere we need to fix our attention only upon certain points of capital\nimportance.\n\nWe must insist upon the second term of the expression in order to avoid\nany equivocation. Democratic was the constitution of the _Communist\nLeague_; democratic was its fashion of welcoming and discussing each new\nteaching; democratic was its intervention in the revolution of 1848 and\nits participation in the rebellious resistance against the invasion of\nreaction; democratic finally was the very way in which the League was\ndissolved. In this first type of our present parties, in this first cell\nso to speak, of our complex organism, elastic and highly developed,\nthere was not only the consciousness of the mission to be accomplished\nas precursor, but there was already the form and the method of\nassociation which alone are suitable for the first initiators of the\nproletarian revolution. It was no longer a sect; that form was already,\nin fact, outgrown. The immediate and fantastic domination of the\nindividual was eliminated, what predominated was a discipline which had\nits source in the experience of necessity and in the precise doctrine\nwhich must proceed from the reflex consciousness of this necessity. It\nwas the same with the International, which appeared authoritarian only\nto those who could not make their own authority prevail in it. It must\nbe the same, and it is so, in the working class parties and where this\ncharacter is not or cannot yet be marked, the proletarian agitation\nstill elementary and confused simply engenders illusions and is only a\npretext for intrigues, and when it is not so, then we have a passover\nwhere men of understanding touch elbows with the madman and the spy; as\nfor example the society of The International Brothers which attached\nitself like a parasite to the International and discredited it; or again\nthe co-operative which degenerates into a business and sells itself to\ncapitalists; the labor party which remains outside politics and which\nstudies the variations of the market to introduce its tactic of strikes\ninto the sinuosities of competition; or again a group of malcontents,\nfor the most part social outcasts and little bourgeois, who give\nthemselves up to speculations on socialism considered as one of the\nphases of political fashion. Social democracy has met all these\nimpedimenta upon its way and it has been obliged to relieve itself of\nthem as it will have to do again from one time to another. The art of\npersuasion does not always suffice. Oftener it was necessary and it is\nnecessary to resign ourselves and wait until the hard school of\ndisillusion serves to instruct, which it does better than reasonings can\ndo.\n\n\nAll these intrinsic difficulties of the proletarian movement, which the\nwily bourgeoisie oftener than not stirs up of itself and which it makes\nthe most of, form a considerable part of the internal history of\nsocialism during these last years.\n\nSocialism has not found impediments merely in the general conditions of\neconomic competition and in the resistance of the political power, but\nalso in the very conditions of the proletarian mass and in the mechanism\nsometimes obscure although inevitable of its slow, varied, complex\nmovements, often antagonistic and contradictory. That prevents many\npeople from seeing the increasing reduction of all class struggles to\nthe single struggle between the capitalists and the proletarianized\nworkers.\n\nEven as the Manifesto did not write, as the utopians did, the ethics and\nthe psychology of the future society, just so it did not give the\nmechanism of that formation and of the development in which we find\nourselves. It is surely enough that these few pioneers have opened the\nroad. We must walk upon it to arrive at understanding and experience.\nMoreover man is distinctively the experimental animal; that is why he\nhas a history, or rather that is why he makes his own history.\n\nUpon this road of contemporary socialism which constitutes its\ndevelopment because it is its experience, we have met the mass of the\npeasants.\n\nSocialism which at first kept itself practically and theoretically to\nthe study and experience of the antagonisms between capitalists and\nproletarians in the circle of industrial production properly so called,\nhas turned its activity toward that mass in which _peasant stupidity_\nblossoms. To capture the peasants is the question of the hour, although\nthe quintessential Schaeffle long ago mobilized the anti-collectivist\nbrains of the peasants for the defense of the existing order. The\nelimination and the capture of domestic industry by capital, the passage\nmore and more rapid of agrarian industry into the capitalist form, the\ndisappearance of small proprietorship, or its lessening through\nmortgages, the disappearance of the communal domaines, usury, taxes and\nmilitarism, all this is beginning to work miracles even in those brains\nassumed to be props of the existing order.\n\nThe Germans have been the pioneers in this field. They were brought to\nit by the very fact of their immense expansion; from the cities they\nhave gone to the smallest centers and they thus arrive inevitably at the\nfrontiers of the country. Their attempts will be long and difficult;\nthis fact explains, excuses, and will excuse, the errors which have been\nand will be committed.[15] As long as the peasant shall not be gained\nover we shall always have behind us this _peasant stupidity_ which\nunconsciously repeats, and that because it is stupid, the errors of the\n18th Brumaire and the 2d of December. The development of modern society\nin Russia will probably proceed on parallel lines with this conquest of\nthe country districts. When that country shall have entered into the\nliberal era with all its imperfections and all its disadvantages, with\nall the purely modern forms of exploitation and of proletarization, but\nalso with the compensations and the advantages of the political\ndevelopment of the proletariat, social democracy will no longer have to\nfear the threat of unforeseen perils from without, and it will at the\nsame time have triumphed over the internal perils by the capture of the\npeasants.\n\n\nThe example of Italy is instructive. This country after having opened\nthe capitalist era dropped out for several centuries from the current\nhistory. It is a typical case of decadence which can be studied in a\nprecise fashion from original documents in all its phases. It partly\nreturned into history at the time of the Napoleonic domination. It\nreconquered its unity and became a modern state after the period of the\nreaction and conspiracies, and under circumstances known to all, and\nItaly has ended by having all the vices of parliamentarism, of\nmilitarism and of finance without having at the same time the forms of\nmodern production and the resulting capacity for competition on equal\nterms. It cannot compete with countries where industry is more advanced\nby reason of the absolute lack of coal and scarcity of iron, the lack of\ntechnical ability,--and it is waiting, or hoping now, that the\napplication of electricity may permit it to regain the time lost. It is\nthis which gave the impulse to different attempts from Biella to Schio.\nA modern state in a society almost exclusively agricultural and in a\ncountry where agriculture is in great part backward, it is that which\ngives birth to this general sentiment of universal discontent.\n\nThence come the incoherence and the inconsistency of the parties, the\nrapid oscillations from demagogy to dictatorship, the mob, the\nmultitude, the infinite army of the parasites of politics, the makers of\nfantastic projects. This singular social spectacle of a development\nprevented, retarded, embarrassed and thus uncertain, is brought out in\nbold relief by a penetrating spirit which, if it is not always the fruit\nand the expression of a modern, broad and real culture nevertheless\nbears within itself as the relic of an excellent civilization the mark\nof great cerebral refinement. Italy has not been for reasons easy to\nguess a suitable field for the indigenous formation of socialist ideas\nand tendencies. The Italian Philippe Buonaroti, at first the friend of\nthe younger Robespierre, become the companion of Babeuf and later\nattempted to re-establish Babeufism in France, after 1830. Socialism\nmade its first appearance in Italy at the time of the International, in\nthe confused and incoherent form of Bakuninism; it was not, moreover, a\nlabor movement, but it was the work of the small bourgeois and\ninstinctive revolutionists.[16] In these last years socialism has fixed\nitself in a form which _almost_ reproduces the general type of _social\ndemocracy_.[17] Now in Italy the first sign of life which the\nproletariat gave is in the shape of the rising of the Sicilian peasants\nfollowed by other revolts of the same kind on the continent to which\nothers will perhaps succeed in the future. Is it not very significant?\n\nAfter this incursion into the history of contemporary socialism we\ngladly return to our precursors of fifty years ago, who put on record in\nthe Manifesto how they took possession of an advance post on the road of\nprogress. And that is true not merely of the theorizers, that is to say,\nMarx and Engels. Both of these men would have exercised, under other\ncircumstances and at all times either by tongue or pen, a considerable\ninfluence over politics and science such was the force and originality\nof their minds and the extent of their knowledge even if they had never\nmet on their way the _Communist League_. But I am referring to all the\n\"unknown\" according to the exclusive and vain jargon of bourgeois\nliterature:--of the shoemaker, Bauer, the tailors, Lessner and Eccarius,\nthe miniature painter, Pfaender, the watchmaker, Moll,[18] of Lochner,\netc., and many others who were the first conscious initiators of our\nmovement. The motto, \"Workingmen of all countries, unite,\" remains as\ntheir monument. The passage of socialism from utopia to science marks\nthe result of their work. The survival of their instinct and of their\nfirst impulse in the work of to-day is the ineffaceable title which\nthese precursors have acquired to the gratitude of all socialists.\n\nAs an Italian, I return so much the more willingly to these beginnings\nof modern socialism because for me, at least, this recent warning of\nEngels' is not without importance. \"Thus the discovery that everywhere\nand always political conditions and events find their explanation in\neconomic conditions would not have been made by Marx in 1845, but rather\nby Loria in 1886. He has at least succeeded in impressing this belief\nupon his compatriots, and since his book has appeared in French even\nupon some Frenchmen and he may now go on inflated with pride and vanity\nas if he had discovered an epoch-making historic theory until the\nItalian socialists have time to despoil the illustrious Mr. Loria of the\npeacock feathers which he has stolen.\"[19]\n\n\nI would willingly close here, but more remains to be said.\n\nOn all sides and from all camps protests arise and objections are urged\nagainst historical materialism. And some times these voices are swelled\nhere and there by newly converted socialists, socialists who are\nphilosophical, socialists who are sentimental and sometimes hysterical.\nThen reappears, as a warning, the \"question of the belly.\" Others devote\nthemselves to exercise of logical gymnastics with abstract categories of\negoism and altruism; for others again the inevitable struggle for\nexistence always turns up at the right moment.\n\n\nMorality! But it is high time that we understand the lesson of this\nmorality of the bourgeois epoch in the fable of the bees by Mandeville,\nwho was contemporary with the first projection of classic economics.\n\nAnd has not the politics of this morality been explained in classic\nphrases that can never be forgotten by the first great political writer\nof the capitalist epoch Machiavelli, who did not invent Machiavellism,\nbut who was its secretary and faithful and diligent editor. And as for\nthe logical tourney between egoism and altruism, has it not been in full\nview from the time of the Reverend Malthus up to that empty, prolix and\ntiresome reasoner, the indispensable Spencer? Struggle for existence!\nBut could you wish to observe, study and understand a struggle more\nimportant for us than the one which has its birth and is taking on\ngigantic proportions in the proletarian agitation? Perhaps you would\nreduce the explanation of this struggle which is developing and working\nin the supernatural domain of society, which man himself has created in\nthe course of history, through his labor, through improved processes and\nthrough social institutions, and which man himself can change through\nother forms of labor, processes and institutions,--you would perhaps\nreduce it to the simple explanation of the more general struggle in\nwhich plant and animals, and men themselves in so far as they are\nanimals, are contending in the bosom of nature.\n\n\nBut let us return to our subject.\n\nCritical communism has never refused, and it does not refuse, to welcome\nthe multiple and valuable suggestions, ideological, ethical, psychologic\nand pedagogic which may come from the knowledge and from the study of\nall forms of communism from Phales of Chalcedon down to Cabet.[20] More\nthan this, it is by the study and the knowledge of these forms that the\nconsciousness of the separateness of scientific socialism from all the\nrest becomes developed and fixed. And in making this study who is there\nwho will refuse to recognize that Thomas More was a heroic soul and a\ngreat writer on socialism? Who will not find in his heart a large\ntribute of admiration for Robert Owen who first gave to the ethics of\ncommunism this indisputable principle, that the character and the morals\nof men are the necessary result of the conditions in which they live and\nof the circumstances which surround them? And the partisans of critical\ncommunism believe it is their duty, traversing history in thought, to\nclaim fellowship with all the oppressed, whatever may have been their\ndestiny, which was that of remaining oppressed and of opening the way\nafter an ephemeral success for the rule of new oppressors.\n\nBut the partisans of critical communism differentiate themselves clearly\non one point from all other forms or manners of communism, or of\nsocialism, ancient, modern or contemporaneous, and this point is of\ncapital importance.\n\nThey cannot admit that the ideologies of the past have remained without\neffect and that the past attempts of the proletariat have been always\novercome by pure chance, by pure accident, by the effect of a caprice\nof circumstances. All these ideologies although they reflected in fact\nthe sentiment directly due to social antitheses, that is to say, the\nreal class struggles, with a lofty sense of justice and a profound\ndevotion to an ideal, nevertheless all reveal ignorance of the true\ncauses and of the effective nature of the antitheses against which they\nhurled themselves by an act of revolt spontaneous and often heroic.\nThence their utopian character. We can moreover explain why the\noppressive conditions of other epochs although they were more barbarous\nand cruel did not bring that accumulation of energy, that concentration\nof force, or that continuity of resistance which is seen to be realizing\nitself and developing in the proletariat of our time. It is the change\nof society in its economic structure; it is the formation of the\nproletariat in the bosom of the great industry and of the modern state.\nIt is the appearance of the proletariat upon the political scene,--it is\nthe new things, in fine, which have engendered the need of new ideas.\nThus critical communism is neither moralizer, nor preacher, nor herald,\nnor utopian--it already holds the thing itself in its hands and into the\nthing itself it has put its ethics and its idealism.\n\nThis orientation which seems harsh to the sentimentalists because it is\ntoo true, too realistic and too real, permits us to retrace the history\nof the proletariat and of the other oppressed classes which preceded it.\nWe see their different phases; we take account of the failures of\nChartism, of the Conspiracy of Equals and we explore still further back\nto attempts at relief, to acts of resistance, and to wars,--to the\nfamous peasants' war in Germany, to the Jacquerie and to Father Dolcino.\nIn all these facts and in all these events we discover forms and\nphenomena relating to the future of the bourgeoisie in proportion as it\ntears to pieces, overthrows, triumphs over and issues from the feudal\nsystem. We can do the same with the class struggles of the ancient world\nbut with less clearness. This history of the proletariat and of the\nother oppressed classes, of the vicissitudes of their struggles and\ntheir revolts, is already a sufficient guide to assist us in\nunderstanding why the ideologies of the communism of other epochs were\npremature.\n\nIf the bourgeoisie has not yet arrived everywhere at the final stage of\nits evolution, it surely has arrived in certain countries at its\naccomplishment. In fact, in the most advanced countries it is subjecting\nthe various older forms of production, either directly or indirectly, to\nthe action and to the law of capital. And thus it simplifies, or it\ntends to simplify, the different class struggles of former times, which\nthen obscured each other by their multiplicity, into this single\nstruggle between capital which is converting into merchandise all the\nproducts of human labor indispensable to life and the mass of\nproletarians which sells its labor power,--now also become simple\nmerchandise. The secret of history is simplified. It is all prosaic. And\njust as the present class struggle is the simplification of all other,\nso likewise, the communism of the Manifesto simplifies into rigid and\ngeneral theoretical formulas the ideologic, ethic, psychologic and\npedagogic suggestion of the other forms of communism not by denying but\nby exalting them. All is prosaic and communism itself partakes of this\ncharacter, it is now a science.\n\nThus there are in the Manifesto neither rhetoric nor protestations. It\ndoes not lament over pauperism to eliminate it. It sheds tears over\nnothing. The tears are transformed of themselves into a spontaneous\nrevolutionary force. Ethics and idealism consist henceforth in this, to\nput the thought of science at the service of the proletariat. If this\nethics does not appear moral enough for the sentimentalists, usually\nhysterical and silly, let them go and borrow altruism from its high\npriest Spencer who will give a vague and insipid definition of it, such\nas will satisfy them.\n\n\nBut, again, should the economic factor serve alone to explain the whole\nof history!\n\nHistoric factors! But that is an expression of empiricists or\nideologists who repeat Herder. Society is a complex whole or an organism\naccording to the expression of some who waste their time in discussions\nover the value and the analogical use of this expression. This\n_complexus_ has formed itself and has changed several times. What is the\nexplanation of this change?\n\nEven long before Feuerbach gave a final blow to the theological\nexplanation of history (man makes religion and not religion man) the\nold Balzac[21] had made a satire of it by making men the puppets of God.\nAnd had not Vico already recognized that Providence does not act in\nhistory from without? And this same Vico, a century before Morgan, had\nhe not reduced history to a process which man himself makes through\nsuccessive experimentation consisting in the invention of language,\nreligion, customs and laws? Had not Lessing affirmed that history is an\neducation of the human race? Had not Rousseau seen that ideas are born\nfrom needs? Had not Saint Simon guessed when he did not lose himself in\nthe distinction between organic and inorganic epochs the real genesis of\nthe Third Estate, and did not his ideas translated into prose make of\nAugustin Thierry a reconstructor of historical research? In the first\nfifty years of this century and notably in the period from 1830 to 1850\nthe class struggles which the ancient historians and those of Italy\nduring the Renaissance had described so clearly, instructed by the\nexperience of these struggles in the narrow domain of their own urban\nrepublic had grown and had reached on both sides of the Channel greater\nproportions and an evidence always more palpable. Born in the midst of\nthe great industry, illuminated by the recollection and by the study of\nthe French Revolution they have become intuitively instructive because\nthey found with more or less clearness and consciousness their actual\nand suggested expression in the programmes of the political parties:\nfree exchange or tariffs on grain in England, and so on. The conception\nof history changed to the observer in France, on the right wing as on\nthe left wing of the literary parties, from Guizot to Louis Blanc and to\nthe modest Cabet. Sociology was the need of the time and if it sought in\nvain its theoretic expression in Auguste Comte, a belated scholastic, it\nfound its artist in Balzac who was the actual inventor of class\npsychology. To put into the classes and into their frictions the real\nsubject of history and the movement of this in their movement,--this is\nwhat was then on the point of being studied and discovered, and it was\nnecessary to fix a theory of this in precise terms.\n\nMan has made his history not by a metaphorical evolution nor with a view\nof walking on a line of preconceived progress. He has made it by\ncreating his own conditions, that is to say, by creating through his\nlabor an artificial environment, by developing successively his\ntechnical aptitudes and by accumulating and transforming the products of\nhis activity in this new environment. We have but one single history and\nwe cannot compare real history, which is actually made, with another\nwhich is simply possible. Where shall we find the laws of this formation\nand of this development? The very ancient formations are not evident at\nfirst sight. But bourgeois society because it is born recently and has\nnot yet reached its full development, even in all parts of Europe, bears\nwithin itself the embryonic traces of its origin and its _processus_,\nand it puts them in full evidence in countries where it is in process\nof birth before our eyes, as for example, in Japan. In so far as it is\nsociety which transforms all the products of human labor into\ncommodities by means of capital, society which assumes the proletariat\nor creates it and which bears within itself the anxiety, the trouble and\nthe uncertainty of continuous innovations, it is born in determined\ntimes according to clear methods which can be indicated although they\nmay be varied. In fact in different countries it has different modes of\ndevelopment. In Italy, for example, it begins before all the others and\nthen stops. In England it is the product of three centuries of economic\nexpropriation of the old forms of production, or of the old\nproprietorship, to speak the language of the jurists. In one country it\nelaborates itself little by little combining itself with pre-existing\nforces, as was the case in Germany, and it undergoes their influences\nthrough adaptation; in another country it breaks its envelope and\ncrushes out resistance violently, as happened in France, where the great\nrevolution gives us the most intense and the most bewildering example of\nhistoric action that is known, and thus forms the greatest school of\nsociology.\n\nAs I have already indicated this formation of modern or bourgeois\nhistory has been summed up in rapid and masterly strokes in the\nManifesto, which has given its general anatomical profile with its\nsuccessive aspects, the trade guild, commerce, manufacture and the great\nindustry and has also indicated some of the organs and appliances of a\nderived and complex character, law, political forms, etc. The elements\nof the theory which was to explain history by the principle of the class\nstruggle were already implicitly contained in it.\n\nThis same bourgeois society which revolutionized the earlier forms of\nproduction had thrown light upon itself and its _processus_ in creating\nthe doctrine of its structure, economics. In fact it has not developed\nin the unconsciousness which characterized primitive societies but in\nthe full light of the modern world beginning with the Renaissance.\n\n\nEconomics, as is known, was born by fragments, and its origin was\nassociated with that of the first bourgeoisie, which was that of\ncommerce and the great geographical discoveries, that is to say, it was\ncontemporary with the first and second phases of mercantilism. And it\nwas born to answer special questions: for example, is interest\nlegitimate? Is it advantageous for states and for nations to accumulate\nmoney? It continued to grow, it occupied itself with the most complex\nsides of the problem of wealth; it developed in the passage from\nmercantilism to manufacture and then more rapidly and more resolutely in\nthe passage from the latter to the great industry. It was the\nintellectual soul of the bourgeoisie which was conquering society. It\nhad already as discipline almost defined its general lines on the eve of\nthe French Revolution; it was the sign of the rebellion against the old\nforms of feudalism, the guild, privilege, limitations of labor, that is\nto say it was the sign of liberty. The theory of \"natural right\" which\ndeveloped from the precursors of Grotius to Rousseau, Kant, and the\nConstitution of 93, was nothing else than a duplicate and the\nideological complement of economics, to the extent that often the thing\nand its complement are confounded in one in the mind and in the\npostulates of writers; of this we have a typical example in the\nPhysiocrats.\n\nIn so far as it was a doctrine it separated, distinguished and analyzed\nthe elements and the forms of the _processus_ of production, of\ncirculation and of distribution and reduced them all into categories:\nmoney, money capital, interest, profit, land rent, wages, etc. It\nmarched, sure of itself, accumulating its analyses from Petty to\nRicardo. The sole mistress of the field, it met only rare objections. It\nstarted from two hypotheses which it did not take the trouble to justify\nsince they appeared so evident; namely, that the social order which it\nillustrated was the natural order, and that private property in the\nmeans of production was one and the same thing with human liberty; all\nof which made wage labor and the inferiority of the wage laborers into\nnecessary conditions. In other terms, it did not recognize the historic\ncharacter of the forms which it studied. The antitheses which it met on\nits way in its attempt at systematization, after several vain attempts\nit tried to eliminate logically as was the case with Ricardo in his\nstruggle against the income from land rents.\n\nThe beginning of the nineteenth century is marked by violent crises and\nby those first labor movements which have their immediate origin in the\ndistress attending lockouts. The ideal of the \"natural order\" is\noverthrown. Wealth has engendered poverty. The great industry in\nchanging all social relations has increased vices, maladies and\nsubjection. It has, in a word, caused degeneration. Progress has\nengendered retrogression. What must be done that progress may engender\nnothing else but progress, that is to say, prosperity, health, security,\neducation and intellectual development equal for all? With this question\nOwen is wholly concerned and he shares with Fourier and Saint Simon this\ncharacteristic that he no longer appeals to self-sacrifice and to\nreligion, and that he wishes to resolve and surmount the social\nantitheses without diminishing the technical and industrial energy of\nman, but rather to increase this. It is by this road that Owen became a\ncommunist and he is the first who became so in the environment created\nby modern industry. The antithesis rests entirely on the contradiction\nbetween the mode of production and the mode of distribution. This\nantithesis must, then, be suppressed in a society which produces\ncollectively. Owen becomes utopian. This perfect society must needs be\nrealized experimentally and to this he devotes himself with a heroic\nconstancy and unequalled self-sacrifice bringing a mathematical\nprecision even into his thoughts of its details.\n\nThe antithesis between production and distribution once discovered,\nthere arose in England from Thompson to Bray a series of writers of a\nsocialism which is not strictly utopian, but which should be qualified\nas one-sided for its object is to correct the manifest vices of society\nby as many appropriate remedies.[22]\n\nIn fact the first stage of all those who are on the road toward\nsocialism is the discovery of the contradiction between production and\ndistribution. Then, these ingenuous questions immediately arise: Why not\nabolish poverty? Why not eliminate lockouts? Why not suppress the middle\nman? Why not favor the direct exchange of products in consideration of\nthe labor that they contain? Why not give the worker the entire product\nof his labor, etc.? These demands reduce the _things_, tenacious and\nresistant, of real life, into as many reasonings, and they have for\ntheir object to combat the capitalist system as if it were a machine\nfrom which one can take away or to which one can add pieces, wheels and\ngearings.\n\nThe partisans of critical communism have broken definitely with all\nthese tendencies. They have been the successors and the continuers of\nclassical economics.[23] What is the doctrine of the structure of\npresent society? No one can combat this structure in practice, in\npolitics or in revolution without first taking an exact account of its\nelements and its relations and making a fundamental study of the\ndoctrine which explains it. These forms, these elements and these\nrelations arise in certain historic conditions but they constitute a\nsystem and a necessity. How can it be hoped to destroy such a system by\nan act of logical negation and how eliminate it by reasoning? Eliminate\npauperism? But it is a necessary condition of capitalism. Give the\nworker the entire product of his labor? But what would become of the\nprofit of capital, and where and how could the money expended in the\npurchase of commodities be increased if among all the commodities which\nit meets and with which it makes exchanges there were not a particular\none which returns to the buyer more than it costs him; and is not this\ncommodity precisely the labor power of the wage worker? The economic\nsystem is not a tissue of reasonings but it is a sum and a complexus of\nfacts which engenders a complex tissue of relations. It is a foolish\nthing to assume that this system of facts which the ruling class has\nestablished with great pains through the centuries by violence, by\nsagacity, by talent and by science will confess itself vanquished, will\ndestroy itself to give way to the demands of the poor and to the\nreasonings of their advocates. How demand the suppression of poverty\nwithout demanding the overthrow of all the rest? To demand of this\nsociety that it shall change its law which constitutes its defense is to\ndemand an absurd thing. To demand of this State that it shall cease to\nbe the buckler and the defense of this society and of this law is\nplunging into absurdities.[24] The one-sided socialism which without\nbeing clearly utopian starts from the hypothesis that society admits of\ncertain errata without revolution, that is to say without a fundamental\nchange in the general elementary structure of society itself, is a mere\npiece of ingenuity. This contradiction with the rigid laws of the\nprocess of things is shown in all its evidence in Proudhon, who,\nreproducing without knowing it, or copying directly, some of the\none-sided English socialists, wished to arrest and change history, armed\nwith a definition and a syllogism.\n\nThe partisans of critical communism recognized that history has the\nright to follow its course. The bourgeois phase can be outgrown and it\nwill be. But as long as it exists it has its laws. The relativity of\nthese consists in the fact that they grow and develop in certain\ndetermined conditions, but their relativity is not simply the opposite\nof necessity, a mere appearance, a soap-bubble. These laws may disappear\nand they will disappear by the very fact of the change of society, but\nthey do not yield to the arbitrary suggestion which demands a change,\nproclaims a reform, or formulates a programme. Communism makes common\ncause with the proletariat because in this resides the revolutionary\nforce which, bursts, breaks, shakes and dissolves the present social\nform and creates in it, little by little, new conditions; or to be more\nexact, the very fact of its movement shows to us that these new\nconditions are already born.\n\nThe theory of the class struggle was found. It was seen to appear both\nin the origins of the bourgeoisie (whose intrinsic _processus_ was\nalready illustrated by the science of economics), and in this new\nappearance of the proletariat. The relativity of economic laws was\ndiscovered, but at the same time their relative necessity was\nunderstood. Herein lies the whole method and justification of the new\nmaterialistic conception of history. Those deceive themselves who,\ncalling it the economic interpretation of history, think they understand\nit completely. That designation is better suited, and is only suited, to\ncertain analytic attempts,[25] which, taking separately and in a\ndistinct fashion on the one side the economic forms and categories, and\non the other, for example, law, legislation, politics, customs,--proceed\nto study the reciprocal influences of the different sides of life\nconsidered in an abstract fashion. Quite different is our position. Ours\nis the organic conception of history. The totality of the unity of\nsocial life is the subject matter present to our minds. It is economics\nitself which dissolves in the course of one process, to reappear in as\nmany morphological stages, in each of which it serves as a substructure\nfor all the rest. Finally, it is not our method to extend the so-called\neconomic factor isolated in an abstract fashion over all the rest, as\nour adversaries imagine, but it is, before everything else, to form an\nhistoric conception of economics and to explain the other changes by\nmeans of its changes. Therein lies our answer to all the criticisms\nwhich come to us from all the domains of learned ignorance, not\nexcepting the socialists who are insufficiently grounded and who are\nsentimental or hysterical. And we explain our position thus as Marx has\ndone in his Capital, not the first book of critical communism, but the\nlast great book of bourgeois economics.\n\n\nAt the moment when the Manifesto was written the historic horizon did\nnot go beyond the classic world, the scarcely studied German antiquities\nand the Biblical tradition which had only lately been reduced to the\nprosaic conditions of all profane history. Our historic horizon is now\nquite another thing, since it extends to the Aryan antiquities and to\nthe ancient deposits of Egypt and Mesopotamia which precede all the\nSemitic traditions. And it extends still further back into prehistory,\nthat is to say, into, unwritten history. Morgan has given us a knowledge\nof ancient society, that is to say a pre-political society, and the key\nto understand how from it came all the later forms marked by monogamy,\nthe development of the paternal family, the appearance of property,\nfirst of the _gens_, then of the family, lastly individual, and by the\nsuccessive establishment of the alliances between _gentes_ which are the\norigin of the State. All this is illustrated by the knowledge of the\nprocess of technique in the discovery and in the use of the means and\ninstruments of labor and by the understanding of the effect of this\nprocess upon the social complexus, urging it in certain directions and\nmaking it traverse certain stages. These discoveries may still be\ncorrected at certain points, notably by the study of the different\nspecific fashions according to which in different parts of the world the\npassage from barbarism to civilization has been effected. But,\nhenceforth, one fact is indisputable, namely, that we have before our\neyes the general embryogenic record of human development from primitive\ncommunism to those complex formations as at Athens or at Rome with their\nconstitutions of citizens arranged in classes according to census which\nnot long ago constituted the columns of Hercules for research into\nwritten tradition. The classes which the Manifesto assumed have been\nlater resolved into their process of formation and in this can already\nbe recognized the plexus of reasons and of different economic causes for\nthe categories of the economic science of our bourgeois epoch. The dream\nof Fourier to find a place for an epoch of civilization in the series of\na long and vast process has been realized. A scientific solution has\nbeen found for the problem of the origin of inequality among men which\nRousseau had tried to solve by arguments of an original dialectic,\nrelying however upon too few real data.\n\nAt two points, the extreme points for us, the human process is palpable.\nOne of these is the origin of the bourgeoisie, so recent and in the full\nlight of the science of economics; the other is the ancient formation of\nthe society divided into classes, which marks the passage from higher\nbarbarism to civilization (the epoch of the State) to use expressions\nemployed by Morgan. All that is found between these two epochs is what\nhas, up to this time, formed the subject matter of the chroniclers, the\nhistorians properly so-called, the jurists, the theologians and the\nphilosophers. To traverse and reanimate all this domain with the new\nhistoric conception is not an easy thing. We must not be over-hasty in\ntabulating it. At the very beginning we must understand the economics\nrelative to each epoch,[26] in order to explain specifically the classes\nwhich develop in it, avoiding hypothetical and uncertain data and taking\ncare not to carry over our own conditions into each epoch. For that,\nskilled fingers are needed. Thus, for example, what the Manifesto says\nof the first origin of the bourgeoisie proceeding from the serfs of the\nMiddle Ages incorporated little by little into the cities is not a\ngeneral truth. This mode of origin is peculiar to Germany and to the\nother countries which reproduce its process. It is not the case either\nin Italy, nor in Southern France, nor in Spain, which were the fields\nupon which began the first history of the bourgeoisie, that is to say,\nof modern civilization. In this first phase are found all the premises\nof the whole capitalist society as Marx informed us in a note to the\nfirst volume of Capital.[27] This first phase which reaches its perfect\nform in the Italian municipalities forms the pre-historic background for\nthat capitalist accumulation which Marx has explained with so many\ncharacteristic details in the evolution of England. But I will stop\nthere.\n\nThe proletarians can have in view nothing but the future. That with\nwhich all scientific socialists are primarily concerned is the present\nin which are spontaneously developed and in which are ripening the\nconditions of the future. The knowledge of the past is practically of\nuse and of interest only in so far as it throws light upon and explains\nthe present. For the moment it is enough to say that the partisans of\ncritical communism fifty years ago conceived the elements of the new and\ndefinite philosophy of history. Soon this fashion of seeing will impose\nitself because it will be impossible to think the contrary; and this\ndiscovery will have the fate of Columbus' egg. And perhaps before an\narmy of scientists has made an application of this conception to the\ncontinuous narration of the whole history, the success of the\nproletariat will have become such that the bourgeois epoch will appear\nto all as something that must be left behind because it will nearly be\nso in reality. _To understand is to leave behind_ (Hegel).\n\n\nWhen, fifty years ago, the Manifesto made of the proletarians, of the\nunfortunates who excited pity, the predestined grave-diggers of the\nbourgeoisie, the circumference of this burial place must have appeared\nvery small to the imagination of the writers who scarcely concealed in\nthe gravity of their style the idealism of their intellectual passion.\nThe probable circumference in their imagination then embraced only\nFrance and England, and it would scarcely have touched the frontiers of\nother countries, for instance, Germany. To-day the circumference appears\nto us immense by reason of the rapid and colossal extension of the\nbourgeois form of production which by inevitable reaction enlarges,\nmakes universal and multiplies the movement of the proletariat and\nimmensely expands the scene upon which is projected the picture of the\ncoming communism. The burial place extends as far as the eye can reach.\nThe more productive forces this magician calls forth, the more he\nexcites and prepares forces that must rebel against himself.\n\nAll those who were communists ideological, religious and utopian, or\neven prophetic and apocalyptic in the past have always believed that the\nreign of justice, equality and happiness was destined to have the world\nfor its theatre. To-day the world is invaded by civilization and\neverywhere is developing that society which lives upon class antagonisms\nand class domination, the form of bourgeois production. (Japan may serve\nus for an example.) The coexistence of the two nations in one and the\nsame state, which the divine Plato had already described, is\nperpetuated. The earth will not be won over to communism to-morrow. But\nas the confines of the bourgeois world enlarge, more numerous are those\nwho enter into it, abandoning and leaving behind the lower forms of\nproduction,--and thus the attempt of communism gains in firmness and\nprecision; especially because in the domain and struggle of competition,\nthe deviations due to conquest and colonization are diminishing. The\nproletarian International, while embryonic in the Communist League of\nfifty years ago, henceforth becomes Interoceanic and it affirms on the\nfirst of every May that the proletarians of the whole world are really\nand actively united. The future grave-diggers of the bourgeoisie and\ntheir descendants to many generations will ever remember the date of the\nCommunist Manifesto.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] I refer to that form which the Manifesto designates ironically under\nthe name of \"German or 'True' Socialism.\" This paragraph, which is\nunintelligible for those who are not well versed in the German\nphilosophy of that epoch, notably in certain of its tendencies marked by\nacute degeneracy, has, with good reason, been suppressed in the Spanish\ntranslation.\n\n[2] It is better to use the expression \"democratic socialization of the\nmeans of production\" than that of \"collective property\" because the\nlatter implies a certain theoretical error in that, to begin with, it\nsubstitutes for the real economic fact a juridical expression and\nmoreover in the mind of more than one it is confused with the increase\nof monopolies, with the increasing _statization_ of public utilities and\nwith all the other fantasmagoria of the ever recurring State socialism,\nthe whole effect of which is to increase the economic means of\noppression in the hands of the oppressing class.\n\n[3] Twenty-five octavo pages in the original edition (London, February,\n1848) for a copy of which I am indebted to the special kindness of\nEngels. I should say here in passing that I have resisted the temptation\nto affix any bibliographical notes, references and citations, for I\nshould then have been making a work of scholarship, or a book, rather\nthan a simple essay. I hope the reader will take my word for it that\nthere are in this essay no allusions, or statements of fact or opinion,\nwhich I could not substantiate with authorities.\n\n[4] The \"Umrisse zu einer Kritik der National-oekonomie\" appeared in the\nGerman-French Year Book, Paris, 1844, pp. 85-114; and his book on \"The\nCondition of the Working Class in England\" at Leipzig in 1845.\n\n[5] In these last years many jurists have thought they found in the\nre-adjustment of the civil Code a practical means for ameliorating the\ncondition of the proletariat. But why have they not asked the pope to\nbecome the head of the free thought league? The most delightful of these\nis that Italian author who occupying himself with the class struggle\nasks that by the side of the code which establishes the rights of\ncapital another be elaborated which should guarantee the rights of\nlabor.\n\n[6] This development has been given in Marx's Capital which can be\nconsidered as a philosophy of history.\n\n[7] It was not until after the publication of the Italian edition of\nthis essay that I had at my disposal for some months a complete\ncollection of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung for which I owe hearty thanks\nto the Partei-Archiv of Berlin. The impression derived from this reading\nsurpasses expectation. It is desirable either that this journal which\nnow has become very rare, be reprinted entire or that the most important\narticles and letters in it be reproduced.\n\n[8] Misere de la Philosophie, by Karl Marx, Paris and Brussels, 1847;\nnew edition, Paris, Giard and Briere, 1896.\n\n[9] This is made up of articles which appeared in 1849 in the Neue\nRheinische Zeitung and which reproduced the lectures given by Marx to\nthe German Workingmen's Circle of Brussels in 1847. It has since been\npublished as a propaganda leaflet.\n\n[10] See Chapter II. of the Manifesto.\n\n[11] Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie, Berlin, 1859, pp. IV.-VI. of\nthe preface. (Instead of retranslating this extract from the French I\nhave availed myself of the assistance of Comrade Hitch, who has\ntranslated direct from the German of Marx. C. H. K.)\n\n[12] These articles which appeared in the Neue Rheinische\nPolitischokonomische Review, Hamburg, 1850, have recently been brought\ntogether into a pamphlet by Engels (Berlin, 1895) under the title of\n\"Die Klassenkampfe in Frankreich 1848 bis 1850.\" The little work has a\npreface by Engels.\n\n[13] Appeared for the first time in New York in 1852 in a review.\nSeveral editions have since been made in Germany. A French translation\nappeared in 1891 published by Delory, Lille.\n\n[14] In the preface to the \"Class Struggle in France in 1848-50\" and\nelsewhere Engels treated fundamentally the objective development of the\nnew revolutionary tactic. (It is well to remember that the first Italian\nedition of this essay appeared June 18th, and the second, October 15,\n1895.)\n\n[15] In my opinion this is the case in France. The recent discussions of\nthe agrarian programme submitted to the deliberations of the social\ndemocracy in Germany confirm the reasons which I have indicated.\n\n[16] It was otherwise in Germany. After 1830 socialism was imported\nthere and became a current literature; it underwent philosophical\nalterations of which Gruen was the typical representative. But already\nbefore the _new doctrine_ socialism had received a characteristic\nimprint which was proletarian, thanks to the propaganda and the writings\nof Weitling. As Marx said in 1844 in the Paris Vorwaerts, \"it was the\ngiant in the cradle.\"\n\n[17] It is what many people call Marxism. Marxism is and remains a\ndoctrine. Parties can draw neither their name nor their justification\nfrom a doctrine. \"I am no Marxist\" said--guess who? Marx himself.\n\n[18] It is he who established the first relations between Marx and the\nLeague and who served as intermediary in the publication of the\nManifesto. He fell in the insurrection of 1849 at Murg.\n\n[19] Marx's Capital, Vol. III., Hamburg, 1894, pp. xix-xx. The date of\n1845 refers principally to the book \"Die heilige Familie, Frankfort,\n1845,\" which was produced in collaboration by Marx and Engels. This book\nis indispensable to an understanding of the theoretical origin of\nhistorical materialism.\n\n[20] I stop with Cabet who lived at the epoch of the Manifesto. I do not\nthink I ought to go as far as the sporadic forms of Bellamy and Hertzka.\n\n[21] The Balzac of the 17th century.\n\n[22] It is these writers whom Menger thought he had discovered as the\nauthors of scientific socialism.\n\n[23] It is for this reason that certain critics, Wieser for example,\npropose to abandon Ricardo's theory of value because it leads to\nsocialism.\n\n[24] Thus there arises notably in France the illusion of a social\nmonarchy which, succeeding the liberal epoch, should solve harmoniously\nwhat is called the social question. This absurdity reproduces itself in\ninfinite varieties of socialism of the pulpit and State socialism. To\nthe different forms of ideological and religious utopianism is joined a\nnew form of bureaucratic and fiscal utopianism, the Utopia of the\nidiots.\n\n[25] For example in the essays of Th. Rogers.\n\n[26] Who would have thought a few years ago of the discovery and the\nauthentic interpretation of an ancient Babylonian law?\n\n[27] Note 189, p. 740, of the 3rd German edition.\n\n\n\n\nPART II\n\nHISTORICAL MATERIALISM.\n\n\nI.\n\nThis class of studies, like many others, but this more than any other,\nis confronted with a great difficulty, indeed an irksome hindrance, in\nthat vice of minds educated by literary methods alone which is\nordinarily called _verbalism_. This bad habit creeps into and spreads\nitself through all domains of knowledge; but in studies which relate to\nthe so-called moral world, that is to say, to the historico-social\n_complexus_, it very often happens that the cult and the dominion of\nwords succeed in corrupting and blotting out the real and living sense\nof things.\n\nIn the field where a long observation, repeated experiences, the certain\nuse of improved instruments, the general or partial application of the\ncalculus have resulted in putting the mind into a constant and\nmethodical relation with things and their variations, as in the natural\nsciences properly so-called,--there the myth and superstition of words\nare left behind and vanquished; there the questions of terminology no\nlonger have more than the secondary value of pure convention. In the\nstudy of human relations and actions, on the contrary, the passions, the\ninterests, the prejudices of school, sect, class and religion, the\nliterary abuse of the traditional means of representing thought, and\nscholasticism, ever vanquished and always reborn, conceal the actual\nthings, or transform them involuntarily into terms, into words, into\nabstract and conventional fashions of speech.\n\nWe must, first of all, take account of this difficulty when we use the\nexpression or the formula \"materialistic conception of history.\" Many\nhave imagined, do imagine, and will imagine that it is possible and\nconvenient to penetrate into the sense of the phrase by the simple\nanalysis of the words which compose it instead of arriving at it from\nthe context of an explanation, from the genetic study of the formation\nof the doctrine,[28] or from the polemical writings in which its\npartisans refute the objections of its opponents. Verbalism tends always\nto shut itself up in purely formal definitions; it gives rise in the\nminds to this erroneous belief, that it is an easy thing to reduce into\nterms and into simple and palpable expressions the agitated and immense\n_complexus_ of nature and history and that it is easy to picture the\nmultiform and complicated interlacings of causes and effects; in clearer\nterms, it obliterates the meaning of the problems because it sees in\nthem nothing but questions of nomenclature.\n\n\nIf, moreover, it then happens that verbalism finds a support in certain\ntheoretical hypotheses, for example, that _matter_ indicates something\nwhich is below or opposed to another higher or nobler thing which is\ncalled spirit; or if it happens to be at one with that literary habit\nwhich opposes the word materialism, understood in a disparaging sense,\nto all that, in a word, is called idealism, that is to say, to the sum\ntotal of the anti-egoistic inclinations and acts; then our embarrassment\nis extreme! Then we are told that in this doctrine it is attempted to\nexplain the whole of man by the mere calculation of his material\ninterests and that no value whatever is allowed to any ideal interest.\nThe inexperience, the incapacity and the haste of certain partisans and\npropagandists of this doctrine have also been a cause of these\nconfusions. In their eagerness to explain to others what they themselves\nonly half understand, at a time when the doctrine itself is only in its\nbeginnings and still has need of many developments, they have believed\nthey could apply it, such as it was, to whatever historic fact they were\nconsidering, and they have almost reduced it to tatters, exposing it\nthus to the easy criticism and the ridicule of people on the watch for\nscientific novelties, and other idle persons of the same type.\n\n\nSince it has been my privilege in these first pages simply to rebut\nthese prejudices (in a preliminary fashion) and unmask the intentions\nand the tendencies underlying them, it must be remembered that the\nmeaning of this doctrine ought, before all else, to be drawn from the\nposition which it takes and occupies with regard to the doctrines\nagainst which it is in reality opposed, and particularly with regard to\nthe ideologies of every sort;--that the proof of its value consists\nexclusively in the more suitable and more appropriate explanation of the\nsuccession of human events which is derived from it;--that this doctrine\ndoes not imply a subjective preference for a certain quality or a\ncertain sum of human interests opposed by free choice to other\ninterests, but that it merely affirms the objective co-ordination and\nsubordination of all interests in the development of all society; and\nthis it affirms, thanks to that genetic _processus_ which consists in\ngoing from the conditions to the conditioned, from the elements of\nformation to the things formed.\n\n\nLet the verbalists reason as they like over the value of the word\n_matter_ in so far as it implies or recalls a metaphysical conception,\nor in so far as it is the expression of the last hypothetical substratum\nof experience. We are not here in the domain of physics, chemistry or\nbiology; we are only searching for the explicit conditions of human\nassociation in so far as it is no longer simply animal. It is not for us\nto support our inductions or our deductions upon the data of biology,\nbut, on the contrary, to recognize before all else the peculiarities of\nhuman association, which form and develop through the succession and the\ngrowing perfection of the activity of man himself in given and variable\nconditions, and to find the relations of co-ordination and\nsubordination of the needs which are the substratum of will and action.\nIt is not proposed to discover an intention nor to formulate a\ncriticism; it is merely the necessity arising from the facts that must\nbe put in evidence.\n\nAnd as men, not by free choice, but because they could not act\notherwise, satisfy first certain elementary needs, which, in their turn,\ngive rise to others in their upward development, and as for the\nsatisfaction of their needs, whatever they may be, they invent and\nemploy certain means and certain tools and associate themselves in\ncertain definite fashions, the materialism of historical interpretation\nis nothing else than an attempt to reconstruct by thought with method\nthe genesis and the complexity of the social life which develops through\nthe ages. The novelty of this doctrine does not differ from that of all\nthe other doctrines which after many excursions through the domains of\nthe imagination have finally arrived, very painfully, at reaching the\nprose of reality and halting there.\n\n\nII.\n\nThere is a certain affinity, apparently at least, between that formal\nvice of verbalism and another defect of the mind, whose origins may,\nhowever, be varied. In consideration of some of its most common and\npopular effects I will call it _phraseology_, although this word is not\nan exact expression of the thing and does not set forth its origin.\n\nFor long centuries men have written on history, have explained it, have\nillustrated it. The most varied interests, from the interests more\nimmediately practical to the interests purely aesthetic, have moved\ndifferent writers to conceive and to execute this type of composition.\nThese different types have always taken birth in different countries\nlong after the origins of civilization, of the development of the state\nand of the passage from the primitive communist society to the society\nwhich rests upon class differences and class antagonisms. The\nhistorians, even if they have been as artless as Herodotus, were always\nborn and formed in a society having nothing ingenuous in it, but very\ncomplicated and complex, and at a time when the reasons for this\ncomplication and complexity were unknown and their origins forgotten.\nThis complexity, with all the contrasts which it bears within itself and\nwhich it reveals later and makes burst forth in its various\nvicissitudes, stood forth before the narrators as something mysterious\nand calling for an explanation, and if the historian wished to give some\nsequence and a certain connection to the things narrated, he was obliged\nto add certain general views to the simple narration. From the jealousy\nof the gods of Father Herodotus to the environment of M. Tame, an\ninfinite number of concepts serving as means of explanation and as\ncomplements to the things related have been imposed upon the narrators\nby the natural voices of their immediate thought. Class tendencies,\nreligious ideas, popular prejudices, influences or imitations of a\ncurrent philosophy, excursions of imagination and a desire to give an\nartistic appearance to facts known only in a fragmentary fashion, all\nthese causes and other analogous causes have contributed to form the\nsubstratum of the more or less artless theory of events which is\nimplicitly at the bottom of the narration, or which serves at least to\nflavor and adorn it. Whether men speak of chance or of destiny, whether\nthey appeal to the providential direction of human events, or adhere to\nthe word and concept of chance, the only divinity left in the rigid and\noften coarse conception of Machiavelli, or whether they speak, as is\nfrequent enough at the present time, of the logic of events, all these\nconceptions were and are effects and results of ingenuous thought, of\nimmediate thought, of thought which cannot justify to itself its course,\nand its products, either by the paths of criticism or by the methods of\nexperience. To fill up with conventional causes (e. g., _chance_) or\nwith a statement of theoretical plausibility (e. g., the _inevitable\ncourse of events_ which sometimes is confused in the mind with the\nnotion of progress) the gaps of our knowledge as to the fashion in which\nthings have been actually produced by their own necessity without care\nfor our free will and our consent, that is the motive and the result of\nthis popular philosophy, latent or explicit, in the chroniclers, which\nby reason of its superficial character dissolves as soon as scientific\ncriticism appears.\n\n\nIn all these concepts and all these imaginings which in the light of\ncriticism appear as simple provisional devices and effects of an unripe\nthought, but which often seem to \"cultured people\" the _non plus ultra_\nof intelligence,--in all these a great part of the human _processus_ is\nrevealed and reflected; and, consequently, we should not consider them\nas gratuitous inventions nor as products of a momentary illusion. They\nare a part and a moment in the development of what we call the human\nmind. If later it is observed that these concepts and these imaginings\nare mingled and confounded in the accepted opinions of cultured people,\nor of those who pass for such, they make up an immense mass of\nprejudices and they constitute an impediment which ignorance opposes to\nthe clear and complete vision of the real things. These prejudices turn\nup again as etymological derivations in the language of professional\npoliticians, of so-called publicists and journalists of every kind, and\noffer the support of rhetoric to self-styled public opinion.\n\n\nTo oppose and then to replace this mirage of uncritical conceptions,\nthese idols of the imagination, these effects of literary artifice, this\nconventionalism by the real subjects, or the forces which are positively\nacting--that is to say, men in their various and diversified social\nrelations,--this is the revolutionary enterprise and the scientific aim\nof the new doctrine which renders objective and I might say naturalizes\nthe explanation of the historical _processus_.\n\n\nA certain definite nation, that is to say, not a certain mass of\nindividuals, but a _plexus_ of men organized in such and such a fashion\nby natural relations of consanguinity, or following such or such an\nartificial or customary order of relationship and affinity, or by reason\nof permanent proximity;--this nation, on a certain circumscribed and\nlimited territory, having such and such fertility, productive in such\nand such a manner acquired through certain definite forms by continuous\nlabor;--this nation, thus distributed over this territory and thus\ndivided and articulated by the effect of a definite division of labor\nwhich is scarcely beginning to give birth to or which has already\ndeveloped and ripened such and such a division of classes, or which has\nalready disintegrated or transformed a whole series of classes;--this\nnation which possesses such and such instruments from the flint stone to\nthe electric light and from the bow and arrow to the repeating rifle,\nwhich produces according to a certain fashion and shares its products,\nconformably to its way of producing;--this nation, which by all these\nrelations constitutes a society in which either by habits of mutual\naccommodation or by explicit conventions, or by acts of violence\nsuffered and endured, has already given birth, or is on the point of\ngiving birth to legal-political relations which result in the formation\nof the state;--this nation, which by the organization of the state,\nwhich is only a means for fixing, defending and perpetuating\ninequalities, by reason of the antagonisms which it bears within itself,\nrenders continuously unstable the organization itself, whence result the\npolitical movements and revolutions, and therefore the reasons for\nprogress and retrogression:--there is the sum of what is at the bottom\nof all history. And there is the victory of realistic prose over all the\nfantastic and ideological combinations.\n\nCertainly it requires some resignation to see things as they are,\npassing beyond the phantoms which for centuries have prevented right\nvision. But this revelation of realistic doctrine was not and is not\ndesigned to be the rebellion of the material man against the ideal man.\nIt has been and is, on the contrary, the discovery of the principles and\nthe motives which are real and which belong to all human development,\nincluding all that we call the ideal in positive conditions, determined\nby facts which carry in themselves the reasons and the law and the\nrhythm of their own development.\n\n\nIII.\n\nBut it would be a complete error to believe that the writers who\nnarrate, explain, or illustrate have themselves invented and given life\nto this enormous mass of unripe concepts, imaginings, and explanations\nwhich, thanks to the force of prejudice, concealed for centuries the\nreal truth. It may happen, and it certainly does happen, that some of\nthese concepts are the fruit and the product of personal views, or of\nliterary currents formed in the narrow professional circle of the\nuniversities and academies. The people in this case are absolutely\nignorant of them. But the important fact is that history itself has put\non these veils; that is to say, that the very actors and workers of the\nhistoric events--great masses of people, directing and ordering classes,\nmasters of state, sects or parties, in the narrowest sense of the word,\nif we make exception for an occasional moment of lucid interval--never\nhad up to the end of the past century a consciousness of their own work,\nunless it be through some ideological envelope which prevented any sight\nof the real causes. Already at the distant epoch when barbarism was\npassing over into civilization, that is to say, when the first\ndiscoveries of agriculture, the stable establishment of a population\nupon a definite territory, the first division of labor in society, the\nfirst alliances of different gentes, gave the conditions in which\ndeveloped property and the state, or at least the city,--even then, at\nthe epoch of all the first social revolutions, men ideally transformed\ntheir work, seeing in it the miraculous acts of gods and heroes. So much\nso that, while acting as they could and as they must, granted the\nnecessity and the fact of their relative economic development, they\nconceived an explanation of their own work as if it did not belong to\nthem. This ideological envelope of human works has changed since then\nmore than once in form, in appearance, in combinations and in relations\nin the course of the centuries, from the immediate production of the\ningenuous myths up to the complicated theological systems and to _The\nCity of God_ of St. Augustine--from the superstitious credulity in\nmiracles down to the bewildering miracles of the metaphysicians, that is\nto say, down to the _Idea_ which for the _decadents_ of Hegelianism\nengenders of itself, in itself, by its own disaggregation the most\nincongruous variations of social life in the course of history.\n\nNow, precisely because the visual angle of ideological interpretation\nhas not been finally outgrown until very lately, and because it is only\nin our days that a sum total of the real and really acting relations has\nbeen clearly distinguished from the ingenuous reflections of myth and\nthe more artificial reflections of religion and metaphysics, our\ndoctrine states a new problem and carries within itself grave\ndifficulties for whoever wishes to fit it for providing a specific\nexplanation of the history of the past.\n\n\nThe problem consists in this: that our doctrine necessitates a new\ncriticism of the sources of history. And I do not wish to be understood\nas speaking exclusively of the criticism of documents in the proper and\nordinary sense of the word, because as for this we may content ourselves\nwith what is delivered to us ready made by the critics, the scholars,\nand the professional philologists. But I would speak of that immediate\nsource which is behind the so called documents properly and which,\nbefore expressing itself and fixing itself in these, resides in the\nspirit and in the form of the consciousness in which the actors\naccounted to themselves for the motives of their own work. This spirit,\nthat is to say, this consciousness, is often inadequate to the causes\nwhich we are now in a position to discover, from which it follows that\nthe actors seem to us enveloped, as it were, in a circle of illusions.\nTo strip the historic facts from these envelopes which clothe the very\nfacts while they are developing--this is to make a new criticism of the\nsources in the realistic sense of the word and not in the formal\ndocumentary sense. It is, in short, to make react upon the knowledge of\npast conditions the consciousness of which we are now capable, and\nthereby to reconstruct them anew.\n\n\nBut this revision of the most direct sources, if it marks the extreme\nlimit of the historic self-consciousness which may be reached, may be an\noccasion for falling into a serious error. As we place ourselves at a\npoint of view which is beyond the ideological views to which the actors\nin history were indebted for a consciousness of their work and in which\nthey often found both the motives and the justification of their action,\nwe may falsely believe that these ideological views were a pure\nappearance, a simple artifice, a pure illusion in the vulgar sense of\nthe word. Martin Luther, like the other great reformers, his\ncontemporaries, never knew, as we know to-day, that the Reformation was\nbut an episode in the development of the Third Estate, and an economic\nrevolt of the German nation against the exploitation of the Papal court.\nHe was what he was, as an agitator and a politician, because he was\nwholly taken up with the belief which made him see in the class movement\nwhich gave an impulse to the agitation a return to true Christianity and\na divine necessity in the vulgar course of events. The study of remote\neffects, that is to say, the increasing strength of the bourgeoisie of\nthe cities against the feudal lords, the increase of the territorial\ndominion of the princes at the expense of the inter-territorial and\nsuper-territorial power of the emperor and the pope, the violent\nrepression of the movement of the peasants and the more properly\nproletarian movement of the Anabaptists permit us now to reconstruct the\nauthentic history of the economic causes of the Reformation,\nparticularly in the final proportions which it took, which is the best\nof proofs. But that does not mean that we are privileged to detach the\nfact arrived at from the mode of its realization and to analyze the\ncircumstantial integrality by a posthumous analysis altogether\nsubjective and simplified. The inner causes, or, as would be said now,\nthe profane and prosaic motives of the Reformation, appear to us clearly\nin France, where it was not victorious; clearly again in the Low\nCountries, where, apart from the differences of nationality, the\ncontrasts of economic interests are shown strikingly in the struggle\nagainst Spain; very clearly again in England, where the religious\nrenovation realized, thanks to political violence, placed in full light\nthe passage to those conditions which are for our modern bourgeoisie the\nforerunners of capitalism. _Post factum_, and after the tardy\nrealization of unforeseen consequences, the history of the real\nmovements which were the inner causes of the Reformation, in great part\nunknown to the actors themselves, will appear in full light. But that\nthe fact came about precisely as it did come about, that it took on\ncertain determined forms, that it clothed itself in certain vestments,\nthat it painted itself in certain colors, that it put in movement\ncertain passions, that it displayed a special degree of fanaticism,--in\nthese consist its specific character, which no analytic ability can make\notherwise than as it was. Only the love of paradox inseparable from the\nzeal of the passionate popularizers of a new doctrine can have brought\nsome to believe that to write history it was sufficient to put on record\nmerely the _economic moment_ (often still unknown and often unknowable),\nand thereupon to cast to the earth all the rest as a useless burden with\nwhich men had capriciously loaded themselves, as a superfluity, a mere\ntrifle, or even, as it were, something not existent.\n\n\nFrom the fact that history must be taken in its entirety and that in it\nthe kernel and the husk are but one, as Goethe said of all things, three\nconsequences follow:--\n\nFirst, it is evident that in the domain of historico-social determinism,\nthe linking of causes to effects, of conditions to the things\nconditioned, of antecedents to consequents, is never evident at first\nsight in the subjective determinism of individual psychology. In this\nlast domain it was a relatively easy thing for abstract and formal\nphilosophy to discover, passing above all the baubles of fatalism and\nfree will, the evidence of the motive in every volition, because, in\nfine, there is no wish without its determining motive. But beneath the\nmotives and the wish there is the genesis of both, and to reconstruct\nthis genesis we must leave the closed field of consciousness to arrive\nat the analysis of the simple necessities, which, on the one side, are\nderived from social conditions, and on the other side are lost in the\nobscure background of organic dispositions, in ancestry and in atavism.\nIt is not otherwise with historical determinism, where, in the same way,\nwe begin with motives religious, political, aesthetic, passionate, etc.,\nbut where we must subsequently discover the causes of these motives in\nthe material conditions underlying them. Now the study of these\nconditions should be so specified that we may perceive indubitably not\nonly what are the causes, but again by what mediations they arrive at\nthat form which reveals them to the consciousness as motives whose\norigin is often obliterated.\n\nAnd thence follows indubitably this second consequence that in our\ndoctrine we have not to re-translate into economic categories all the\ncomplex manifestations of history, but only to explain in the _last\nanalysis_ (Engels) all the historic facts _by means of the underlying\neconomic structure_ (Marx), which necessitates analysis and reduction\nand then interlinking and construction.\n\nIt results from this, in the third place, that, passing from the\nunderlying economic structure to the picturesque whole of a given\nhistory, we need the aid of that complexus of notions and knowledge\nwhich may be called, for lack of a better term, social psychology. I do\nnot mean by that to allude to the fantastic existence of a social psyche\nnor to the concept of an assumed collective spirit which by its own\nlaws, independent of the consciousness of individuals and of their\nmaterial and definable relations, realizes itself and shows itself in\nsocial life. That is pure mysticism. Neither do I wish to allude to\nthose attempts at generalization which fill up treatises on social\npsychology and the general idea of which is to transport and apply to a\nsubject which is called social consciousness the known categories and\nforms of individual psychology. Nor again do I wish to allude to that\nmass of semi-organic and semi-psychological denominations by the aid of\nwhich some attribute to the social being, as Schaeffle does, a brain, a\nspinal column, sensibility, sentiment, conscience, will, etc. But I\nwish to speak of more modest and more prosaic things, that is to say, of\nthose concrete and precise states of mind which make us know as they\nreally were the plebeians of Rome at a certain epoch, the artisans of\nFlorence at the moment when the movement of the Ciompi burst forth, or\nthose peasants of France within whom was engendered, to follow Taine's\nexpression, the \"spontaneous anarchy\" of 1789, those peasants who\nfinally became free laborers and small proprietors, or, aspiring to\nproperty, transformed themselves rapidly from victors over the foreigner\ninto automatic instruments of reaction. This social psychology, which no\none can reduce to abstract canons because, in most cases, it is merely\ndescriptive, this is what the chroniclers, the orators, the artists, the\nromancers and the ideologists of every sort have seen and up to now have\nconceived as the exclusive object of their studies. In this, psychology,\nwhich is the specific consciousness of men in given social conditions,\nthe agitators, orators and propagandists trust to-day, and to it they\nappeal. We know that it is the fruit, the outcome, the effect of certain\nsocial conditions actually determined;--this class, in this situation,\ndetermined by the functions which it fulfills, by the subjection in\nwhich it is held, by the dominion which it exercises;--and finally,\nthese classes, these functions, this subjection and this dominion\ninvolve such and such a determined form of production and distribution\nof the immediate means of life, that is to say, a determined economic\nstructure. This social psychology, by its nature always circumstantial,\nis not the expression of the abstract and generic process of the\nself-styled human intellect. It is always a specified formation from\nspecified conditions. We hold this principle to be indisputable, that it\nis not the forms of consciousness which determine the human being, but\nit is the manner of being which determines the consciousness (Marx).\n\nBut these forms of consciousness, even as they are determined by the\nconditions of life, constitute in themselves also a part of history.\nThis does not consist only in the economic anatomy, but in all that\ncombination which clothes and covers that anatomy even up to the\nmulticolored reflections of the imagination. In other words, there is no\nfact in history which does not recall by its origin the conditions of\nthe underlying economic structure, but there is no fact in history which\nis not preceded, accompanied and followed by determined forms of\nconsciousness, whether it be superstitious or experimental, ingenuous or\nreflective, impulsive or self-controlled, fantastic or reasoning.\n\n\nIV.\n\nI was saying a moment ago that our doctrine makes history objective and\nin a certain sense naturalizes it, going from the explanation of the\ndata, evident at first sight, of the personalities acting with design,\nand of the auxiliary conceptions of the action, to the causes and the\nmotives of the will and the action, in order to find thereupon the\nco-ordination of these causes and of these motives in the pre-elementary\n_processus_ of the production of the immediate means of existence.\n\nNow this term \"naturalizing\" has led more than one mind into confusing\nthis order of problems with another order of problems, that is to say,\ninto extending to history the laws and the manners of thinking which\nhave already appeared suitable to the study and explanation of the\nmaterial world in general and of the animal world in particular. And\nbecause Darwinism succeeded in carrying, thanks to the principle of the\ntransformation of species, the last citadel of the metaphysical fixity\nof things, and in discerning, in the organisms, phases, as it were, and\nmoments of a real and proper natural history, it has been imagined that\nit was a commonplace and simple enterprise to borrow for an explanation\nof the future and the history of human life the concepts, the principles\nand the methods of examination to which that animal life is subjected\nwhich in consequence of the immediate conditions of the struggle for\nexistence is unfolding to topographical environments not modified by the\naction of labor. Darwinism, political and social, has, like an epidemic,\nfor many years invaded the mind of more than one thinker, and many more\nof the advocates and declaimers of sociology, and it has been reflected\nas a fashionable habit and a phraseological current even in the daily\nlanguage of the politicians.\n\nIt seems at first sight that there is something immediately evident and\ninstinctively plausible in this fashion of reasoning, which it may be\nsaid is principally distinguished by its abuse of analogy and by its\nhaste in drawing conclusions. Man is without doubt an animal, and he is\nlinked by connections of descent and affinity to other animals. He has\nno privileges of origin or of elementary structure, and his organism is\nmerely one particular case of general physiology. His first immediate\nfield was that of simple nature not modified by work, and from thence\nare derived the imperious and inevitable conditions of the struggle for\nexistence, with the consequent forms of adaptation. Thence are born\nraces in the true and authentic sense of the word; that is to say, in so\nfar as they are immediate determinations of black, white, yellow,\nwoolly-haired, straight-haired, etc., and not secondary historico-social\nformations, that is to say, peoples and nations. Thence are born the\nprimitive instincts of sociability and in life in promiscuity arise the\nfirst rudiments of sexual selection.\n\nBut if we can reconstruct in imagination the primitive savage, by\ncombining our conjectures, it is not given us to have an empirical\nintuition of him, just as it is not given us to determine the genesis of\nthat hiatus, that is to say, that break in continuity, thanks to which\nhuman life is found detached from animal life to rise, in the sequel, to\nan ever higher level. All men who live at this moment on the earth's\nsurface and all those who, having lived in the past, were the objects\nof any trustworthy observation, are found, and were found, already\nsufficiently removed from the moment when purely animal life had ceased.\nA certain social life with customs and institutions, even if it be of\nthe most elementary form that we know, that is to say, of the Australian\ntribes, divided into classes and practising the marriage of all the men\nof one class with all the women of another class, separates human life\nby a great interval from animal life. If we consider the _maternal\ngens_, of which the classic type, the Iroquois type, has, thanks to\nMorgan's work, revolutionized prehistoric science, while giving us at\nthe same time the key to the origins of history properly so called, we\nhave a form of society already much advanced by the complexity of its\nrelations. At that stage of social life which, according to our\nknowledge, seems very elementary, that is to say, in the Australian\nsociety, not only does a very complicated language differentiate men\nfrom all other animals (and language is a condition and an instrument, a\ncause and an effect of sociability), but the specialization of human\nlife, apart from the discovery of fire, is manifested by the use of many\nother artificial means by which the needs of life are satisfied. A\ncertain territory acquired for the common use of a tribe, a certain art\nof hunting--the use of certain instruments of defense and attack and the\npossession of certain utensils for preserving the things acquired--and\nthen the ornamentation of the body, etc., all this means that at bottom\nthis life rests upon an artificial, although very elementary, basis,\nupon which men endeavor to fix themselves and adapt themselves,--upon a\nbasis which is after all the condition of all further progress.\nAccording as this artificial basis is more or less formed, the men who\nhave produced it and who live in it are considered more or less savage\nor barbarous. This first formation constitutes what we may call\npre-history.\n\nHistory, according to the literary use of the word, namely, that part of\nthe human _processus_ whose traditions are fixed in the memory, begins\nat a moment when the artificial basis has been formed for a considerable\nlength of time. For example, the canalization of Mesopotamia gives us\nthe ancient pre-Semitic Babylonian state, while the extremely ancient\nEgyptian civilization rests upon the application of the Nile to\nagriculture. Upon this artificial basis, which appears in the extreme\nhorizon of known history, lived, as now, not shapeless masses of\nindividuals, but organized groups whose organization was fixed by a\ncertain distribution of tasks, that is to say, of labor and by\nconsecutive methods of co-ordination and subordination. These relations,\nthese connections, these ways of living were not and are not the result\nof the crystallization of customs under the immediate action of the\nanimal struggle for existence. What is more, they presuppose the\ndiscovery of certain instruments, and, for example, the domestication of\ncertain animals, the working of minerals and even of iron, the\nintroduction of slavery, etc., instruments and methods of economy which\nhave first differentiated communities from each other and have\nsubsequently differentiated the component parts of these communities\nthemselves. In other words, the works of men in so far as they live\ntogether react upon the men themselves. Their discoveries, and their\ninventions, by creating artificial ways of living, have produced not\nonly habits and customs (clothing, cooking of food, etc.), but relations\nand bonds of coexistence proportioned and adapted to the mode of\nproduction and reproduction of the means of immediate life.\n\nAt the dawn of traditional history economics is already operating. Men\nare working to live, on a foundation which has been in great part\nmodified by their work and with tools which are completely their work.\nAnd from that moment they have struggled among themselves to conquer\neach from the other a superior position in the use of these artificial\nmeans; that is to say, they have struggled among themselves whether as\nserfs and masters, subjects and lords, conquered and conquerors,\nexploited and exploiters, both where they have progressed and where they\nhave retrograded and where they have halted in a form which they have\nnot been capable of outgrowing, but never have they returned to the\nanimal life by the complete loss of their artificial foundation.\n\n\nHistorical science has, then, as its first and principal object the\ndetermination and the investigation of this artificial foundation, its\norigin, its composition, its changes and its transformations. To say\nthat all this is only a part and a prolongation of nature, is to say a\nthing which by its too abstract and too generic character has no longer\nany meaning.\n\nThe human race, in fact, lives only in earthly conditions, and we cannot\nsuppose it to be transplanted elsewhere. Under these conditions it has\nfound from its very first beginnings down to the present day the\nimmediate means necessary for the development of labor, that is to say,\nfor its material progress as for its inner formation. These natural\nconditions were and they are always indispensable to the sporadic\nagriculture of the nomads, who sometimes cultivated the earth merely for\nthe pasturage of animals, as well as for the refined products of\nintensive modern horticulture. These earthly conditions, precisely as\nthey have furnished the different sorts of stones suited for the\nfabrication of the first weapons, furnish now also, with coal, the\nelements of the great industry; precisely as they gave the first\nlaborers osiers and willows to plait, they give now all the materials\nnecessary to the complicated technique of electricity.\n\nIt is not, however, the natural materials themselves which have\nprogressed. On the contrary, it is only men who progress, through\ndiscovering little by little in nature the conditions which permit them\nto produce in more and more complex forms, thanks to the labor\naccumulated in experience. This progress does not consist merely in the\nsort of progress with which subjective psychology is concerned that is\nto say, the inner modifications which would be the proper and direct\ndevelopment of the intellect, the reasoning and the thought. Moreover,\nthis inner progress is but a secondary and derived product, in\nproportion as there is already a progress realized in the artificial\nfoundation which is the sum of the social relations resulting from the\nforms and the distributions of labor. It is, then, a meaningless\naffirmation to say that all this is but a simple prolongation of nature,\nunless one wishes to employ this word in so generic a sense that it no\nlonger indicates anything precise and distinct; that which is not\nrealized by the work of man.\n\nHistory is the work of man in so far as man can create and improve his\ninstruments of labor, and with these instruments can create an\nartificial environment whose complicated effects react later upon\nhimself, and which by its present state and its successive modifications\nis the occasion and the condition of his development. There are, then,\nno reasons for carrying back that work of man which is history to the\nsimple struggle for existence. If this struggle modifies and improves\nthe organs of animals, and if in given circumstances and methods it\nproduces and develops new organs, it still does not produce that\ncontinuous, perfected and traditional movement which is the human\n_processus_. Our doctrine must not be confounded with Darwinism, and it\nneed not invoke anew the conception of a mythical, mystical or\nmetaphorical form of fatalism. If it is true in effect that history\nrests, before all else, upon the development of technique, that is to\nsay, if it is true that the successive discovery of tools gives rise to\nthe successive distributions of labor, and therewith to the inequalities\nwhose sum total, more or less stable, forms the social organism, it is\nequally true that the discovery of these instruments is at once the\ncause and the effect of these conditions and of those forms of the inner\nlife to which, isolating them by psychological abstraction, we give the\nname of imagination, intellect, reason, thought, etc. By producing\nsuccessively the different social environment, that is to say, the\nsuccessive artificial foundations, man has produced himself, and in this\nconsists the serious kernel, the concrete reason, the positive\nfoundation of that which by various fantastic combinations and by a\nvaried logical architecture has suggested to the ideologists the notion\nof the progress of the human mind.\n\n\nNevertheless, this expression of _naturalizing_ history, which,\nunderstood in too broad and too generic a sense, may be the occasion of\nthe equivocations of which we have spoken, when it is, on the contrary,\nemployed with proper precaution and in a tentative fashion, sums up\nbriefly the criticism of all the ideological views which, in the\ninterpretation of history, start from this hypothesis, that human work\nor activity are one and the same with free will, free choice and\nvoluntary designs.\n\nIt was easy and convenient for the theologians to carry back the course\nof human events to a preconceived plan or design, because they passed\ndirectly from the facts of experience to an assumed mind which ruled the\nuniverse. The jurists, who first had occasion to discover in the\ninstitutions which formed the object of their studies a certain guiding\nthread through the forms which manifestly succeeded each other, carried\nover, as they still carry over as cheerfully, the reasoning faculty\nwhich is their own quality, to serve as an explanation for the whole\nvast social fabric, however complicated. The men of politics, who\nnaturally take their point of departure in this datum of experience,\nthat the officers of the state, whether by the acquiescence of the\nsubject masses or profiting by the antitheses of interests of the\ndifferent social groups, may set aims for themselves and realize them\nvoluntarily and in a deliberate fashion,--these men are brought to see\nin the succession of human events only a variation of these designs,\nthese projects and these intentions. Now our conception, while\nrevolutionizing in their foundations the hypotheses of the theologians,\nthe jurists and the politicians, terminates in this affirmation, that\nhuman labor and activity in general are not always one and the same\nthing in the course of history with the will which acts with design,\nwith preconceived plans and with its free choice of means; that is to\nsay, that they are not one and the same thing with the reasoning\nfaculty. All that has happened in history is the work of man, but it\nwas not, and is not, with rare exceptions, the result of a critical\nchoice or of a reasoning desire. Moreover, it was and is through\nnecessity that, determined by external needs and occasions, this\nactivity engenders an experience and a development of internal and\nexternal organs. Among these organs we must include intelligence and\nreason which also are the result and consequence of repeated and\naccumulated experience. The integral formation of man in his historical\ndevelopment is henceforth no longer a hypothetical datum nor a simple\nconjecture. It is an intuitive and palpable truth. The conditions of the\n_processus_ which engenders a step of progress are henceforth reducible\ninto a series of explanations; and up to a certain point we have under\nour eyes the schedule of all historical developments, morphologically\nconceived. This doctrine is the clear and definite negation of all\nideology, because it is the explicit negation of every form of\nrationalism, understanding by this word this concept, that things in\ntheir existence and their development answer to a norm, an ideal, a\nmeasure, an end, in an implicit or explicit fashion. The whole course of\nhuman events is a sum, a succession of series of conditions which men\nhave made and laid down for themselves through the experience\naccumulated in their changing social life, but it represents neither the\ntendency to realize a predetermined end nor the deviation of a first\nprinciple from perfection and felicity. Progress itself implies merely\nthat empirical and circumstantial notion of a thing which is at present\ndefined in our mind, because, thanks to the development thus far\nrealized, we are in a position to estimate the past and to foresee, at\nleast in a certain sense and in a certain measure, the future.\n\n\nV.\n\nIn this fashion a serious ambiguity is dissolved and the errors carried\nwith it are removed. Reasonable and well founded is the tendency of\nthose who aim to subordinate the sum total of human events in their\ncourse to the rigorous conception of determinism. There is, on the\ncontrary, no reason for confusing this derived, reflex and complex\ndeterminism with the determinism of the immediate struggle for existence\nwhich is produced and developed on a field not modified by the continued\naction of labor. Legitimate and well founded, in an absolute fashion, is\nthe historical explanation which proceeds in its course from the\nvolitions which have voluntarily regulated the different phases of life,\nto the motives and objective causes of every choice, discovered in the\nconditions of environment, territory, accessible means of existence and\nconditions of experience. But there is, on the contrary, no foundation\nfor that opinion which tends to the negation of every volition by\nconsequence of a theoretical view which would substitute automatism for\nvoluntarism. There is nothing in it, as a matter of fact, but a pure and\nsimple conceit.\n\nWherever the means of production have developed, to a certain point,\nwherever the artificial foundation has acquired a certain consistency,\nand wherever the social differentiations and their resulting antitheses\nhave created the need, the possibility and the conditions of an\norganization more or less stable or unstable, there, always and\nnecessarily, appear premeditated designs, political views, plans of\nconduct, systems of law and finally maxims and general and abstract\nprinciples. In the circle of these products, and of these derived and\ncomplex developments of the second degree, spring up also the sciences\nand arts, philosophy and learning, and history as a literary fashion of\nproduction. This circle is what the rationalists and the ideologists,\nignorant of its real foundations, have called, and call, in an exclusive\nfashion, civilization. And, in fact, it has happened, and it happens,\nthat some men, and especially professional scientists, lay or clerical,\nhave found, and find, the means of intellectual livelihood in the closed\ncircle of the reflex and secondary products of civilization, and that\nthey have been able and are able consequently to submit all the rest to\nthe subjective view which they have elaborated under these conditions;\nthat is, the origin and explanation of all the ideologies. Our doctrine\nhas definitely outgrown the visual angle of ideology. The premeditated\ndesigns, the political views, sciences, systems of law, etc., instead of\nbeing the means and the instrument of the explanation of history, are\nprecisely what require to be explained, because they are derived from\ndetermined conditions and situations. But that does not mean that they\nare pure appearances, soap bubbles. If they are things which have been\ndeveloped and derived, that does not imply that they are not real\nthings; and that is so true that they have been, for centuries, to the\nunscientific consciousness, and to the scientific consciousness still on\nthe way towards its formation, the only ones which really existed.\n\n\nBut that is not all.\n\nOur doctrine, like others, may lead to reverie and offer an occasion and\na theme for a new inverted ideology. It was born on the battlefield of\ncommunism. It assumes the appearance of the modern proletariat on the\npolitical stage, and it assumes that alignment upon the origins of our\npresent society which has permitted us to reconstruct in a critical\nmanner the whole genesis of the bourgeoisie. It is a doctrine\nrevolutionary from two points of view; because it has found the reasons\nand the methods of development of the proletarian revolution which is in\nthe making, and because it proposes to find the causes and the\nconditions of development of all other social revolutions which have\ntaken place in the past, in the class antagonisms which arrived at a\ncertain critical point, by reason of the contradiction between the forms\nof production and the development of the producing forces. And this is\nnot all. In the light of this doctrine what is essential in history is\nsummed up in these critical moments, and it abandons, momentarily at\nleast, what unites these different moments to the learned ministrations\nof the professional narrators. As a revolutionary doctrine it is, before\nall else, the intellectual consciousness of the actual proletarian\nmovement in which, according to our assertion, the future of communism\nis preparing long beforehand; so much so that the open adversaries of\nsocialism reject it as an opinion, which, under a scientific mask, is\nonly working out another utopia.\n\nThus it may happen, and that has already resulted, that the imagination\nof people unfamiliar with the difficulties of historic research, and the\nzeal of fanatics, find a stimulus and an opportunity even in historic\nmaterialism for forming a new ideology and drawing from it a new\nphilosophy of systematic history, that is to say, history conceived as\nschemes or tendencies and designs. And no precaution can suffice. Our\nintellect is rarely contented with purely critical research; it is\nalways attempting to convert into an element of pedantry and into a new\nscholasticism every discovery of thought. In a word, even the\nmaterialistic conception of history may be converted into a form of\nargumentation for a thesis and serve to make new fashions with the\nancient prejudices like that of a history based on syllogisms,\ndemonstrations and deductions.\n\nTo guard against this, and especially to avoid the reappearance in an\nindirect and disguised fashion of any form whatever of finality, it is\nnecessary to resolve positively upon two things: First, that all known\nhistoric conditions are circumstanced, and, second, that progress has\nthus far been circumscribed by various obstacles and that for this\nreason it has always been partial and limited.\n\n\nOnly a part, and, until recent times, only a small part of the human\nrace, has traversed completely all the stages of the _processus_ by the\neffect of which the most advanced nations have arrived at modern civil\nsociety, with the advanced technical forms founded upon the discoveries\nof science and with all the consequences, political, intellectual,\nmoral, etc., which correspond to this development. By the side of the\nEnglish,--to take the most striking example--who, transporting European\nmanners with them to New Holland, have created there a center of\nproduction which already holds a notable place in the competition of the\nworld's market, there still live, like fossils of prehistoric times, the\nAustralian aborigines, capable only of disappearing, but incapable of\nadapting themselves to a civilization which was not imported among them,\nbut next to them. In America, and especially in North America, the\nseries of events which have brought on the development of modern society\nbegan with the importation from Europe of domestic animals and\nagricultural tools, the use of which in ancient times gave birth to the\nslow moving civilization of the Mediterranean; but this movement\nremained entirely inside the circle of those descended from the\nconquerors and colonists, while the aborigines are lost in the mass\nthrough the intermingling of races or perish and disappear completely.\nWestern Asia and Egypt, which already in very ancient times, as the\nfirst cradle of all our civilization, gave birth to the great\nsemi-political formations which marked the first phases of certain and\npositive history, have appeared to us for centuries as crystallizations\nof social forms incapable of moving on of themselves to new phases of\ndevelopment. Upon them is the age-long weight of the barbaric camp--the\ndominion of the Turk. Into this stiffened mass is introduced by secret\nways a modern administration, and in the name of business interests the\nrailroads and the telegraphs push in,--bold outposts of the conquering\nEuropean bank. All this stiffened mass has no hope of resuming life,\nheat and motion except by the ruin of the Turkish dominion, for which\nare being substituted in the different methods of direct and indirect\nconquest the dominion and the protectorate of the European bourgeoisie.\nThat a process of transformation of backward nations or of nations\narrested in their march, can be realized and hastened under external\ninfluences, India stands as a proof. This country, with its own life\nstill surviving, re-enters vigorously under the action of England into\nthe circulation of international activity even with its intellectual\nproducts. These are not the only contrasts in the historic physiognomy\nof our contemporaries. And while in Japan, by an acute and spontaneous\nphenomenon of imitation, there has developed, in less than thirty years,\na certain assimilation of western civilization which is already moving\nnormally the country's own energies, the forcible law of Russian\nconquest is dragging into the circle of modern industry, and even into\ngreat industry, certain notable portions of the country beyond the\nCaspian, as an outpost of the approaching acquisition to the sphere of\ncapitalism of Central Asia and Upper Asia. The gigantic mass of China\nappeared to us but a few years ago as motionless in the hereditary\norganization of its institutions, so slow is every movement there, while\nfor ethnic and geographical reasons almost all Africa remained\nimpenetrable, and, it seemed, even up to the last attempts at conquest\nand colonization, that it was destined to offer only its borders to the\nprocess of civilization, as if we were still in the times not even of\nthe Portuguese, but of the Greeks and Carthaginians.\n\nThese differentiations of men on the track of written and unwritten\nhistory seem to us easily explicable when they can be referred to the\nnatural and immediate conditions which impose limits upon the\ndevelopment of labor. This is the case with America, which up to the\narrival of the Europeans had but one cereal, maize, and but one domestic\nanimal for labor, the llama, and we can rejoice that the Europeans\nimported with themselves and their tools the ox, the ass and the horse,\ncorn, cotton, sugarcane, coffee and finally the vine and the orange\ntree, creating there a new world of that glorious society which produces\nmerchandise and which with an extraordinary swiftness of movement has\nalready traversed the two phases of the blackest slavery and the most\ndemocratic wage system. But where there is a real halt and even an\nattested retrogression, as in Western Asia, in Egypt, in the Balkan\nPeninsula and in Northern Africa,--and this arrest cannot be attributed\nto the change of natural conditions,--we find the problem before us\nwhich is awaiting its solution from the direct and explicit study of the\nsocial structure studied in the internal modes of its development, as in\nthe interlacings and complications of the different nations upon that\nfield which is ordinarily called the scene of historic struggles.\n\n\nThis same civilized Europe, which by the continuity of its tradition,\npresents the most complete diagram of its _processus_, so much so that\nupon this model have been conceived and constructed, thus far, all the\nsystems of historical philosophy, this Western and Central Europe, which\nproduced the epoch of the bourgeoisie and has sought and is seeking to\nimpose that form of society upon the whole world by different modes of\nconquest, direct or indirect,--this Europe is not completely uniform in\nthe degree of its development, and its various agglomerations, national,\nlocal and political, appear disturbed, as it were, over a decidedly\nsloping ladder. Upon these differences depend the conditions of relative\nsuperiority and inferiority of one country to another and the reasons,\nmore or less advantageous or disadvantageous, for economic exchange;\nand thereon have depended, and still depend, not only the frictions and\nthe struggles, the treaties and the wars, but also everything that with\nmore or less precision the political writers have been able to relate to\nus since the Renaissance, and certainly with increasing evidence, from\nLouis XIV. and Colbert to our own time.\n\nThis Europe in itself is highly variegated. Here is the consummate\nflower of industrial and capitalist production, namely, England, while\nat other points survives the artisan, vigorous or rickety, at Paris and\nat Naples, to grasp the fact in its extreme points. Here the land is\nalmost industrialized, as in England; and elsewhere vegetates, in\nvarious traditional forms, the stupid peasant, as in Italy and in\nAustria, and in the latter country more than in the former. In one\ncountry the political life of the state--suited to the prosaic\nconsciousness of a bourgeoisie which knows its business because it has\nconquered the space that it occupies--is exerted in the surest and most\nopen fashion of an explicit class domination (it will be understood that\nI am speaking of France). Elsewhere, and particularly in Germany, the\nold feudal customs, the hypocrisy of Protestantism and the cowardice of\na bourgeoisie which exploits favorable economic circumstances without\nbringing to them either intelligence or revolutionary courage,\nstrengthen the existing state by preserving the lying appearances of an\nethical mission to be accomplished. (With how many unpalatable sauces\nthis state ethics, Prussian into the bargain, has been served up by the\nheavy and pedantic German professors!) Here and there modern capitalist\nproduction is edging its way into countries which from other points of\nview do not enter into our movement and especially into its political\nside, as is the case with unhappy Poland; or again this form only\npenetrates indirectly, as in the Slavonic countries. But now comes the\nsharpest contrast, which seems destined to put under our eyes, as in an\nepitome, all the phrases, even the most extreme, of our history.\n\nRussia could not have advanced, as it is now advancing, toward the great\nindustry, without drawing from Western Europe, and especially from our\ncharming French _Chauvinism_, that money which she would in vain have\nsought within her own borders, that is to say, from the conditions of\nher obese territorial mass, where vegetate in ancient economic forms\nfifty million peasants. Russia, in order to become an economic modern\nsociety ripening the conditions of a corresponding political revolution,\nand preparing the means which will facilitate the addition of a large\npart of Asia to the capitalist movement, has been led to destroy the\nlast relics of agrarian communism (whether its origins be primitive or\nsecondary) which had been preserved within herself up to this point in\nsuch characteristic forms and on so large a scale. Russia must\ncapitalize herself, and to this end she must, to start with, convert\nland into merchandise capable of producing merchandise, and at the same\ntime transform into miserable proletarians the excommunists of the\nland. And, on the contrary, in Western and Central Europe we find\nourselves at the opposite point of the series of development which has\nscarcely begun in Russia. Here, with us, where the bourgeoisie, with\nvaried fortunes and triumphing over such a variety of difficulties, has\nalready traversed so many stages of its development, it is not the\nrecollection of primitive or secondary communism, which scarcely\nsurvives through learned combinations in the heads of scholars, but the\nvery form of bourgeois production, which engenders in the proletarians\nthe tendency to socialism, which presents itself in its general outlines\nas an indication of a new phase of history and not as the repetition of\nwhat is inevitably perishing in the Slavonic countries under our eyes.\n\n\nWho could fail to see in these illustrations, which I have not sought\nout, but which have come almost by chance, and which can be indefinitely\nprolonged in a volume of economic-political geography of the present\nworld, the evident proof of the manner in which historic conditions are\nall circumstanced in the forms of their development? Not only races and\npeoples, nations and states, but parts of nations and various regions of\nstates, even orders and classes, are found, as it were, upon so many\nrounds of a very long ladder, or, rather, upon the various points of a\ncomplicated and slowly developing curve. Historic time has not marched\nuniformly for all men. The simple succession of generations has never\nbeen the index of the constancy and intensity of the _processus_. Time\nas an abstract measure of chronology and the generations which succeed\none another in approximate periods give no criterion and furnish no\nindication of law or of process. The developments thus far have been\nvaried because the things accomplished in one and the same unit of time\nwere varied. Between these varied forms of development there is an\naffinity or rather a similarity of movements, that is, an analogy of\ntype, or again an identity of form; thus the advance forms may by simple\ncontact or by violence accelerate the development of backward forms. But\nthe important thing is to comprehend that progress, our notion of which\nis not merely empirical, but always circumstanced and thus limited, is\nnot suspended over the course of human events like a destiny or a fate,\nnor like a commandment. And for this reason our doctrine cannot serve to\nrepresent the whole history of the human race in a unified perspective\nwhich repeats, _mutatis mutandis_, the historic philosophy from thesis\nto conclusion, from St. Augustine to Hegel, or, better, from the prophet\nDaniel to M. De Rougemont.\n\nOur doctrine does not pretend to be the intellectual vision of a great\nplan or of a design, but it is merely a method of research and of\nconception. It is not by accident that Marx spoke of his discovery as a\nguiding thread, and it is precisely for this reason that it is analogous\nto Darwinism, which also is a method, and is not and cannot be a modern\nrepetition of the constructed or constructive natural philosophy as\nused by Shelling and his school.\n\n\nThe first to discover in the notion of progress an indication of\nsomething circumstantial and relative was the genial Saint Simon, who\nopposed his way of seeing to the doctrine of the eighteenth century\nrepresented by the party of Condorcet. To that doctrine, which may be\ncalled unitary, equalitarian, formal, because it regards the human race\nas developing upon one line of process, Saint Simon opposes the\nconception of the faculties and of the aptitudes which substitute\nthemselves and compensate for each other, and thus he remains an\nideologist.\n\nTo penetrate the true reasons for the relativity of progress another\nthing was necessary. It was necessary, first of all, to renounce those\nprejudices which are involved in the belief that the obstacles to the\nuniformity of human development rest exclusively upon natural and\nimmediate causes. These natural obstacles are either sufficiently\nproblematical, as is the case with races, no one of which shows the\nprivilege of birth in its history, or they are, as is the case in\ngeographical differences, insufficient to explain the development of the\ncompletely different historico-social conditions on one and the same\ngeographical field. And as the historic movement dates precisely from\nthe time when the natural obstacles have already been in great part\neither vanquished or notably circumscribed, thanks to the creation of\nan artificial field upon which it has been given to men to develop\nthemselves further, it is evident that the successive obstacles to the\nuniformity of progress must be sought in the proper and intrinsic\nconditions of the social structure itself.\n\nThis structure has thus far started in forms of political organization,\nthe object of which is to try to hold in equilibrium the economic\ninequalities; consequently this organization, as I have said more than\nonce, is constantly unstable. From the point where there is a known\nhistory; it is the history of society tending to form the state, or\nhaving already constructed it completely. And the state is this\nstruggle, within and without, because it is, above all, the organ and\nthe instrument of a larger or smaller part of society against all the\nrest of society itself, in so far as the latter rests upon the economic\ndomination of man over man in a more or less direct and explicit\nfashion, according as the different degree of the development of\nproduction, of its natural means and its artificial instruments,\nrequires either chattel slavery, or the serfdom of the soil, or the\n\"free\" wage system. This society of antitheses, which forms a state, is\nalways, although in different forms and various modes, the opposition of\nthe city to the country, of the artisan to the peasant, of the\nproletarian to the employer, of the capitalist to the laborer, and so on\n_ad infinitum_, and it always ends, with various complications and\nvarious methods, in an hierarchy, whether it be in a fixed scaffolding\nof privilege, as in the Middle Ages, or whether, under the disguised\nforms of supposed equal rights for all, it be produced by the automatic\naction of economic competition, as in our time.\n\nTo this economic hierarchy corresponds, according to various modes, in\ndifferent countries, in different times, in different places, what I may\ncall almost a hierarchy of souls, of intellects, of minds. That is to\nsay, that culture, which, for the idealists, constitutes the sum of\nprogress, has been and is by the necessities of the case very unequally\ndistributed. The greater portion of mankind, by the quality of their\noccupations, are composed of individuals who are disintegrated, broken\ninto fragments and rendered incapable of a complete and normal\ndevelopment. To the economics of classes and to the hierarchy of social\npositions corresponds the psychology of classes. The relativity of\nprogress is then for us the inevitable consequence of class\ndistinctions. These distinctions constitute the obstacles which explain\nthe possibility of relative retrogression, up to the point of degeneracy\nand of the dissolution of an entire society. The machines, which mark\nthe triumph of science, become, by reason of the antithetic conditions\nof the social plexus, instruments which impoverish millions and millions\nof artisans and free peasants. The progress of technique, which fills\nthe towns with merchandise, makes more miserable and abject the\ncondition of the peasants, and in the cities themselves it further\nhumbles the condition of the humble. All the progress of science has\nserved thus far to differentiate a class of scientists and to keep ever\nfurther from culture the masses who, attached to their ceaseless daily\ntoil, are thus feeding the whole of society.\n\nProgress has been and is, up to the present time, partial and one-sided.\nThe minorities which share in it call this human progress; and the proud\nevolutionists call this human nature which is developing. All this\npartial progress, which has thus far developed upon the oppression of\nman by man, has its foundation in the conditions of opposition, by which\neconomic distinctions have engendered all the social distinctions; from\nthe relative liberty of the few is born the servitude of the greater\nnumber, and law has been the protector of injustice. Progress, thus seen\nand clearly appreciated, appears to us as the moral and intellectual\nepitome of all human miseries and of all material inequalities.\n\nTo discover this inevitable relativity it was necessary that communism,\nborn at first as an instinctive movement in the soul of the oppressed,\nshould become a science and a political party. It was then necessary\nthat our doctrine should give the measure of value for all past history,\nby discovering in every form of social organization, antithetical in its\norigin and organization, as they have all been up to this time, the\ninnate incapacity for producing the conditions of a universal and\nuniform human progress, that is to say, by discovering the fetters which\nturn each benefit into an injury.\n\n\nVI.\n\nThere is one question which we cannot evade: What has given birth to the\nbelief in _historic factors_?\n\nThat is an expression familiar to many and often found in the writings\nof many scholars, scientists and philosophers, and of those commentators\nwho, by their reasonings or by their combinations, add a little to\nsimple historic narration and utilize this opinion as an hypothesis to\nfind a starting point in the immense mass of human facts, which, at\nfirst sight and after first examination, appear so confused and\nirreducible. This belief, this current opinion, has become for reasoning\nhistorians, or even for rationalists, a semi-doctrine, which has\nrecently been urged several times, as a decisive argument, against the\nunitary theory of the materialistic conception. And indeed, this belief\nis so deeply rooted and this opinion so widespread, of history being\nonly intelligible as the juncture and the meeting of various factors,\nthat, in consequence, many of those who speak of social materialism,\nwhether they be its partisans or adversaries, believe that they save\nthemselves from embarrassment by affirming that this whole doctrine\nconsists in the fact that it attributes the preponderance or the\ndecisive action to the _economic factor_.\n\nIt is very important to take account of the fashion in which this\nbelief, this opinion, or this semi-doctrine takes its rise, because\nreal and fruitful criticism consists principally in knowing and\nunderstanding the motive of what we declare an error. It does not\nsuffice to reject an opinion by characterizing it as false doctrine.\nError always arises from some ill-understood side of an incomplete\nexperience, or from some subjective imperfection. It does not suffice to\nreject the error; we must overcome it, explain it and outgrow it.\n\nEvery historian, at the beginning of his work, performs, so to speak, an\nact of elimination. First, he makes erasures, as it were, in a\ncontinuous series of events; then he dispenses with numerous and varied\nsuppositions and precedents; more than this, he tears up and decomposes\na complicated tissue. Thus, to begin with, he must fix a point, a line,\na boundary, as he chooses; he must say, for example: I wish to relate\nthe beginning of the war between the Greeks and the Persians, or to\ninquire how Louis XVI. was brought to convene the States General. The\nnarrator finds himself, in a word, confronted with a _complexus_ of\naccomplished facts and of facts on the point of being produced, which in\ntheir totality present a certain aspect. Upon the attitude which he\ntakes depends the form and the style of every narration, because to\ncompose it he must take his point of departure from things already\naccomplished, in order to see henceforth how they have continued to\ndevelop.\n\nYet into this _complexus_ he must introduce a certain degree of\nanalysis, resolving it into groups and into aspects of facts, or into\nconcurrent elements, which afterwards appear at a certain moment as\nindependent categories. It is the state in a certain form and with\ncertain powers; it is the laws, which determine, by what they command or\nwhat they prohibit, certain relations; it is the manners and customs\nwhich reveal to us tendencies, needs, ways of thinking, of believing, of\nimagining; altogether it is a multitude of men living and working\ntogether, with a certain distribution of tasks and occupations; he\nobserves then the thoughts, the ideas, the inclinations, the passions,\nthe desires, the aspirations which arise and develop from this varied\nmode of coexistence and from its frictions. Let a change be produced,\nand it will show itself in one of the sides or one of the aspects of the\nempirical _complexus_, or in all of these within a longer or a shorter\ntime; for example, the state extends its boundaries, or changes its\ninternal limits as regards society by increasing or diminishing its\npowers and its attributes, or by changing the mode of action of one or\nthe other; or, again, the law modifies its dispositions, or it expresses\nand affirms itself through new organs; or, again, finally, behind the\nchange of exterior and daily habits, we discover a change in the\nsentiments, the thoughts and the inclinations of the men variously\ndistributed in the different social classes, who mingle, change, replace\neach other, disappear or reappear. All this may be sufficiently\nunderstood, in its exterior forms and outlines, through the usual\nendowments of normal intelligence which is not yet aided, corrected or\ncompleted by science strictly so-called. Assembling within precise\nlimits a conception of such facts is the true and proper object of\nnarration, which is so much the clearer, more vivid and more exact, as\nit takes the form of a monograph; witness Thucydides in the\nPeloponnesian war.\n\nSociety already evolved in a certain fashion, society already arrived at\na certain degree of development, society already so complicated that it\nconceals the economic substructure which supports all the rest, has not\nrevealed itself to the simple narrators, except in these visible facts,\nin these most apparent results, and in these most significant symptoms\nwhich are the political forms, the legal dispositions and the partisan\npassions. The narrator, both because he lacks any theoretical doctrine\nregarding the true sources of the historic movement, and by the very\nattitude which he takes on the subject of the things which he unites\naccording to the appearances which they have come to assume, cannot\nreduce them to unity, unless it be as a result of a single, immediate\nintuition, and if he is an artist, this intuition takes on a color in\nhis mind and transforms itself there into dramatic action. His task is\nfinished if he succeeds in massing a certain number of facts and events\nin certain limits and confines over which the observer may look as on a\nclear perspective; in the same way, purely descriptive geography has\naccomplished its task, if it sums up in a vivid and clear design a\nconcourse of physical causes which determine the immediate aspect of\nthe Gulf of Naples, for example, without going back to its genesis.\n\nIt is in this need of graphic narration that arises the first intuitive,\npalpable, and, I might almost say, aesthetic and artistic occasion for\nall those abstractions and those generalizations, which are finally\nsummed up in the semi-doctrine of the so-called factors.\n\nHere are two notable men, the Gracchi, who wished to put an end to the\nprocess of appropriation of the public land and to prevent the\nagglomeration of the _latifundium_, which was diminishing or causing to\ncompletely disappear the class of small proprietors, that is to say, of\nthe free men, who are the foundation and the condition of the democratic\nlife of the ancient city. What were the causes of their failure? Their\naim is clear, their spirit, their origin, their character, their heroism\nare manifest. They have against them other men with other interests and\nwith other designs. The struggle appears to the mind at first merely as\na struggle of intentions and passions, which unfolds and comes to an end\nby the aid of means which are permitted by the political form of the\nstate and by the use or abuse or the public powers. Here is the\nsituation: the city ruling in different manners over other cities or\nover territories which have lost all character of autonomy; within this\ncity a very decided differentiation between rich and poor; and facing\nthe comparatively small group of the oppressors and the all-powerful,\nstands the immense mass of the proletarians, who are on the point of\nlosing or who have already lost the consciousness and the political\nstrength of a body of citizens, the mass which therefore suffers itself\nto be deceived and corrupted, and which will soon decay till it is but a\nservile accessory to its aristocratic exploiters. There is the material\nof the narrator, and he cannot take account of the fact otherwise than\nin the immediate conditions of the fact itself. The complete whole is\ndirectly seen and forms the stage on which the events unfold, but if the\nnarration is to have solidity, vividness and perspective there must be\npoints of departure and ways of interpretation.\n\nIn this consists the first origin of those abstractions, which little by\nlittle take away from the different parts of a given social _complexus_\ntheir quality of simple sides or aspects of a whole, and it is their\nensuing generalization which little by little leads to the doctrine of\nfactors.\n\n\nThese factors, to express it in another way, arise in the mind as a\nsequence of the abstraction and generalization of the immediate aspects\nof the apparent movement, and they have an equal value with that of all\nother empirical concepts. Whatever be the domain of knowledge in which\nthey arise, they persist until they are reduced and eliminated by a new\nexperience, or until they are absorbed by a conception more general,\ngenetic, evolutionary or dialectic. Was it not necessary that in the\nempirical analysis and in the immediate study of the causes and the\neffects of certain definite phenomena, for example the phenomena of\nheat, the mind should first stop at this presumption and this\npersuasion, that it could and should attribute them to a subject, which\nif it was never for any physicist a true and substantial entity, was\ncertainly considered as a definite and specific force, namely, heat. Now\nwe see that at a given moment, as a result of new experiences, this heat\nis resolved in given conditions into a certain quantity of motion. Still\nfurther, our thought is now on the way toward resolving all these\nphysical factors into the flux of one universal energy, in which the\nhypotheses of the atoms, in the extent to which it is necessary, loses\nall residue of metaphysical survival.\n\nWas it not inevitable, as a first step of knowledge in what concerns the\nproblem of life, to spend a considerable time in the separate study of\nthe organs and to reduce them to systems? Without this anatomy, which\nseems too material and too gross, no progress in these studies would\nhave been possible; and nevertheless, above the unknown genesis and\nco-ordination of such an analytic multiplicity, there were evolving,\nuncertain and vague, the generic conceptions of life, soul, etc. In\nthese mental creations have long been seen that biological unity which\nhas finally found its object in the certain beginning of the cell and in\nits _processus_ of immanent multiplication.\n\nMore difficult certainly was the way which the thought had to traverse\nto reconstruct the genesis of all the facts of psychic life, from the\nmost elementary successions up to the most complex derived products. Not\nonly for reasons of theoretical difficulties, but in consequence of\npopular prejudices, the unity and continuity of psychic phenomena\nappeared, up to the time of Herbart, as separated and divided into so\nmany factors, faculties of the soul.\n\nThe interpretation of the historico-social _processus_ met the same\ndifficulties; it also was obliged to stop at first in the provisional\nview of factors. And that being so, it is easy for us now to find again\nthe first origin of that opinion in the necessity that the historians\nhave of finding in the facts that they relate with more or less artistic\ntalent and in different professional views, certain points of immediate\norientation, such as may be offered by the study of the apparent\nmovement of human events.\n\n\nBut in this apparent movement, there are the elements of a more exact\nview. These concurrent factors, which abstract thought conceives and\nthen isolates, have never been seen acting each for itself. On the\ncontrary, they act in such a manner that it gives birth to the concept\nof reciprocal action. Moreover, these factors themselves arise at a\ngiven moment, and it is not until later that they acquired that\nphysiognomy which they have in the particular narration. This State, it\nis well known, arose at a given moment. As for every rule of law, it may\neither be remembered or conjectured that it went into effect under such\nor such circumstances. As for many customs, it may be remembered that\nthey were introduced at a given moment; and the simplest comparisons of\nthe facts in different times or different places would show how society,\nas a whole, and in its character of being an aggregation of different\nclasses, had taken and took continuously various forms.\n\nThe reciprocal action of the different factors, without which not even\nthe simplest narration would be possible, like the more or less exact\ninformation upon the origins and the variations of the factors\nthemselves, called for research and thought more than did the\nconstructive narration of those great historians who are real artists.\nAnd, in effect, the problems which arise spontaneously from the data of\nhistory, combined with other theoretical elements, gave birth to the\ndifferent so-called practical disciplines, which in a more or less rapid\nfashion and with varying success, have developed from the ancients up to\nour days, from ethics to the philosophy of law, from politics to\nsociology, from law to economics.\n\nNow with the rise and formation of so many disciplines, through the\ninevitable division of labor, _points of view_ have been multiplied out\nof all proportion. It is certain that for the first and immediate\nanalysis of the multiple aspects of the social _complexus_, a long labor\nof partial abstraction was necessary: which has always inevitably\nresulted in one-sided views. This can be shown, in a clearer and more\nevident manner than for any other domain, in that of law and its\nvarious generalizations, including the philosophy of law. By reason of\nthese abstractions, which are inevitable in particular and empirical\nanalysis, and by the effect of the division of labor, the different\nsides and different manifestations of the social _complexus_ were, from\ntime to time, fixed and stratified in general conceptions and\ncategories. The works, the effects, the emanations, the effusions of\nhuman activity,--law, economic forms, principles of conduct,\netc.,--were, so to speak, translated and transformed into laws, into\nimperatives and into principles which remained placed above man himself.\nAnd from time to time it has been necessary to discover anew this simple\ntruth: that the only permanent and sure fact, that is to say, the only\ndatum from which departs and to which returns every practical detail of\ndiscipline, is men grouped in a determined social form by means of\ndetermined connections. The different analytical disciplines, which\nillustrate the facts that develop in history, have finally given rise to\nthe need of a common and general social science, which renders possible\nthe unification of the historic _processus_, and the materialistic\ndoctrine marks precisely the final term, the apex of this unification.\n\nBut that has not been, nor ever will be, lost time which is expended in\nthe preliminary and lateral analysis of complex facts. To the methodical\ndivision of labor we owe precise learning, that is to say, the mass of\nknowledge passed into the sieve, systematized, without which social\nhistory would always be wandering in a purely abstract domain, in\nquestions of form and terminology. The separate study of the\nhistorico-social factors has served, like any other empirical study\nwhich does not transcend the apparent movement of things, to improve the\ninstrument of observation and to permit us to find again in the facts\nthemselves, which have been artificially abstracted, the keystones which\nbind them into the social _complexus_. The different disciplines which\nare considered as isolated and independent in the hypotheses of the\nconcurrent factors in the formation of history, both by reason of the\ndegree of development which they have reached, the materials which they\nhave gathered, and the methods which they have elaborated, have to-day\nbecome quite indispensable for us, if one desires to reconstruct any\nportion out of past times. Where would our historic science be without\nthe one-sidedness of philology, which is the fundamental instrument of\nall research, and where should we have found the guiding thread of a\nhistory of juridical institutions, which returns again from itself to so\nmany other facts and to so many other combinations, without the\nobstinate faith of the Romanists in the universal excellence of the\nRoman law, which engendered with generalized law and with the philosophy\nof law so many problems which serve as points of departure for\nsociology?\n\n\nIt is thus, after all, that the historic factors, of which so many\nspeak, and which are mentioned in so many works, indicate something\nwhich is much less than the truth, but much more than simple error, in\nthe ordinary sense of a blunder, of an illusion. They are the necessary\nproduct of a knowledge which is in the course of development and\nformation. They arise from the necessity of finding a point of departure\nin the confused spectacle which human events present to him who wishes\nto narrate them; and they serve thenceforth, so to speak, as a title,\ncategory or index to that inevitable division of labor, by the extension\nof which the historico-social material has, up to this time, been\ntheoretically elaborated. In this domain of knowledge, as well as in\nthat of the natural sciences, the unity of real principle and the unity\nof formal treatment are never found at the first start, but only after a\nlong and troublous road. So that again from this point of view the\nanalogy affirmed by Engels between the discovery of historical\nmaterialism and that of the conservation of energy appears to us\nexcellent.\n\nThe provisional orientation, according to the convenient system of what\nare called factors, may, under given circumstances, be useful also to us\nwho profess an altogether unitary principle of historic interpretation,\nif we do not wish simply to rest in the domain of theory, but wish to\nillustrate, through personal research, a definite period of history. As\nin that case we must proceed to direct and detailed research, we must\nfirst of all follow the groups of facts that seem pre-eminent,\nindependent, or detached in the aspects of immediate experience. We\nshould not imagine, in fact, that the unitary principle so well\nestablished, at which we have arrived in the general conception of\nhistory, may, like a talisman, act always and at first sight, as an\ninfallible method of resolving into simple elements the immense area and\nthe complicated gearing of society. The underlying economic structure,\nwhich determines all the rest, is not a simple mechanism whence emerge,\nas immediate, automatic and mechanical effects, institutions, laws,\ncustoms, thoughts, sentiments, ideologies. From this substructure to all\nthe rest, the process of derivation and of mediation is very\ncomplicated, often subtile, tortuous and not always legible.\n\nThe social organization is, as we already know, constantly unstable,\nalthough that does not seem evident to every one, except at the time\nwhen the instability enters upon that acute period which is called a\nrevolution. This instability, with the constant struggles in the bosom\nof that same organized society, excludes the possibility for men coming\nto an agreement which might involve a new start at living an animal\nlife. It is the antagonisms which are the principal cause of progress\n(Marx). But it is equally true, notwithstanding, that in this unstable\norganization, in which is given to us the inevitable form of domination\nand subjection, intelligence is always developed not only unequally, but\nquite imperfectly, incongruously and partially. There has been and there\nis still in society what we may call a hierarchy of intelligence,\nsentiments and conceptions. To suppose that men, always and in all\ncases, have had an approximately clear consciousness of their own\nsituation, and of what was the most rational thing to do, is to suppose\nthe improbable and, indeed, the unreal.\n\nForms of law, political acts and attempts at social organization were,\nand they still are, sometimes fortunate, sometimes mistaken, that is to\nsay, disproportionate and unsuitable. History is full of errors; and\nthis means that if all was necessary, granted the relative intelligence\nof those who have to solve a difficulty or to find a solution for a\ngiven problem, etc., if everything in it has a sufficient reason, yet\neverything in it was not reasonable, in the sense which the optimists\ngive to this word. To state it more fully, the determined causes of all\nchanges, that is to say the modified economic conditions, have ended and\nend by causing to be found, sometimes through tortuous ways, the\nsuitable forms of law, the appropriate political orders and the more or\nless perfect means of social adjustment. But it must not be thought that\nthe instinctive wisdom of the reasoning animal has been manifested, or\nis manifested, definitely and simply, in the complete and clear\nunderstanding of all situations, and that we have left only the very\nsimple task of following the deductive road from the economic situation\nto all the rest. Ignorance--which, in its turn, may be explained--is an\nimportant reason for the manner in which history is made; and, to\nignorance we must add the brutishness which is never completely subdued\nand all the passions, and all the injustices, and the various forms of\ncorruption, which were and are the necessary product of a society\norganized in such a way, that the domination of man over man in it is\ninevitable, and that from this domination falsehood, hypocrisy,\npresumption and baseness were and are inseparable. We may, without being\nutopians, but simply because we are critical communists, foresee, as we\ndo in fact foresee, the coming of a society which, developing from the\npresent society and from its very contrasts by the laws inherent in its\nhistoric development, will end in an association without class\nantagonisms; which will have for its consequence that regulated\nproduction will eliminate from life the element of chance which, thus\nfar, has been revealed in history as a multiform cause of accidents and\nincidents. But that is the future, and it is neither the present nor the\npast. If we propose to ourselves, on the contrary, to penetrate into the\nhistoric events which have developed up to our own times, by taking, as\nwe do, for a guiding thread the variations of the forms of the\nunderlying economic structure up to the simplest datum in the variations\nof the tool of production, we must become fully conscious of the\ndifficulty of the problem which we are setting ourselves: because here\nwe have not merely to open our eyes and behold, but to make a supreme\neffort of thought, with the aim of triumphing over the multiform\nspectacle of immediate experience to reduce its elements into a genetic\nseries. That is why I said that, in particular investigations, we must\nourselves start from those groups of apparently isolated facts, and\nfrom this heterogeneous mass, in a word, from that empirical study,\nwhence arose the belief in factors, which afterwards became a\nsemi-doctrine.\n\nIt is useless to attempt at counterbalancing these essential\ndifficulties by the metaphorical hypothesis, often equivocal, and after\nall of a purely analogical value, of the so-called social organism. It\nwas necessary too that the mind should pass through even this\nhypothesis, which so shortly became phraseology pure and simple. It\nindeed prepares the way for the comprehension of the historic movement\nas springing from the laws immanent in society itself, and thereby\nexcludes the arbitrary, the transcendental and the irrational. But the\nmetaphor has no further application; and the particular, critical and\ncircumstantial research into historic facts is the sole source of that\nconcrete and positive knowledge which is necessary to the complete\ndevelopment of economic materialism.\n\n\nVII.\n\nIdeas do not fall from heaven, and nothing comes to us in a dream. The\nchange in the ways of thinking, lately produced by the historic doctrine\nwhich we are here examining and commenting upon, takes place at first\nslowly and afterwards with an increasing rapidity, precisely in that\nperiod of human development, in which were realized the great\npolitico-economic revolutions, that is to say, in that epoch which,\nconsidered in its political forms, is called liberal, but which,\nconsidered in its basis, by reason of the domination of capital over the\nproletarian mass, is the epoch of anarchical production. The change in\nideas, even to the creation of new methods of conception, has reflected\nlittle by little the experience of a new life. This, in the revolutions\nof the last two centuries, was little by little despoiled of the\nmythical, religious and mystical envelopes in proportion as it acquired\nthe practical and precise consciousness of its immediate and direct\nconditions. Human thought, also, which sums up this life and theorizes\nupon it, has little by little been plundered of its theological and\nmetaphysical hypotheses to take refuge finally in this prosaic\nassertion: in the interpretation of history we must limit ourselves to\nthe objective co-ordination of the determining conditions and of the\ndetermined effects. The materialistic conception marks the culminating\npoint of this new tendency in the investigation of the historic-social\nlaws, in so far as it is not a particular case of a generic sociology,\nor of a generic philosophy of the State, of law, and of history, but the\nsolution of all doubts and all uncertainties which accompany the other\nforms of philosophizing upon human affairs, and the beginning of their\nintegral interpretation.\n\nIt is thus an easy thing, especially in the way it has been done by\ncertain shallow critics, to find precursors for Marx and Engels, who\nfirst defined this doctrine in its fundamental points. And when did it\never occur to any of their disciples, even of the strictest school, to\nrepresent these two thinkers as miracle-workers? What is more, if we\nwish to go on a search after the premises of the logical creation of\nMarx and Engels, it will not suffice to stop at those who are called the\nprecursors of socialism, Saint-Simon for example, and his predecessors,\nor the philosophers, particularly Hegel, or the economists who had laid\nbare the anatomy of the society which produces commodities; we must go\nback to the very formation of modern society, and then at last declare\ntriumphantly that the theory is a plagiarism from the things that it\nexplains.\n\nThe truth is that the real precursors of the new doctrine were the facts\nof modern history, which has become so transparent and so explanatory of\nitself since the accomplishment in England of the great industrial\nrevolution at the end of the eighteenth century, and since the great\nsocial upheaval took place in France. These things, _mutatis mutandis_,\nhave subsequently been reproduced, in various combinations and in milder\nforms, throughout the whole civilized world. And what else is our\nthought at bottom if not the conscious and systematic complement of\nexperience, and what is this last if not the reflection and the mental\nelaboration of the things and the processes which arise and unfold\neither outside our volition, or through the work of our activity; and\nwhat is genius but the individualized, derived and acute form of\nthought, which arises through the suggestion of experience, in many men\nof the same epoch, but which remains in most of them fragmentary,\nincomplete, uncertain, wavering and partial?\n\n\nIdeas do not fall from heaven; and what is more, like the other products\nof human activity, they are formed in given circumstances, in the\nprecise fullness of time, through the action of definite needs, thanks\nto the repeated attempts at their satisfaction, and by the discovery of\nsuch and such other means of proof which are, as it were, the\ninstruments of their production and their elaboration. Even ideas\ninvolve a basis of social conditions; they have their technique; thought\nalso is a form of work. To rob the one and the other, ideas and thought,\nof the conditions and environment of their birth and their development,\nis to disfigure their nature and their meaning.\n\nTo show how the materialistic conception of history arises precisely in\ngiven conditions, not as a personal and tentative opinion of two\nwriters, but as the new conquest of thought by the inevitable suggestion\nof a new world which is in process of birth, that is to say the\nproletarian revolution, that was the object of my first essay, \"In\nMemory of the Communist Manifesto.\" That is, to repeat, a new historic\nsituation found its complement in its appropriate mental instrument.\n\nTo imagine now that this intellectual production might have been\nrealized at any time and at any place, would be to take absurdity for\nthe ruling principle in research. To transport ideas arbitrarily from\nthe basis and the historic conditions in which they arise to any other\nbasis whatever, is like taking the irrational for the basis of\nreasoning. Why should one not fancy equally that the ancient city, in\nwhich arose Greek art and science and Roman law, remaining all the while\nan ancient democratic city, with slavery, might at the same time acquire\nand develop all the conditions of modern technique? Why not believe that\nthe trade guild of the Middle Ages, remaining all the while on its\ninflexible mould, should take its way to the conquest of the world\nmarket without the conditions of unlimited competition, which actually\nbegan by its destruction and negation? Why not imagine a fief which,\nremaining a fief all the while, should become a factory producing\ncommodities exclusively? Why could not Michel de Lando have written the\nCommunist Manifesto? Why could we not also believe that the discoveries\nof modern science could have proceeded from the brains of men of no\nmatter what other time and place, that is to say, before determined\nconditions had given rise to determined needs, and before repeated and\naccumulated experiences should have provided for the satisfaction of\nthese needs?\n\nOur doctrine assumes the broad, conscious and continuous development of\nmodern technique, and with it that society which produces commodities in\nthe antagonisms of competition, that society which as a first condition\nand an indispensable means for its own perpetuation presupposes\ncapitalist accumulation in the form of private property; that society\nwhich continually produces and reproduces proletarians, and which if it\nis to perpetuate itself, must incessantly revolutionize its tools, and\nwith them the State and its legal gearings. This society, which, by the\nvery laws of its movement, has laid bare its own anatomy, produces by\nits reaction the materialistic conception. Even as it has produced in\nsocialism its positive negation, so it has engendered in the new\nhistoric doctrine its ideal negation. If history is the product, not\narbitrary, but necessary and normal, of men in so far as they are\ndeveloping, and if they are developing in so far as they are making\nsocial experiments, and if they are experimenting in so far as they are\nmaking improvements in their labor, which accumulate and preserve\nproducts and results, the phase of development in which we live cannot\nbe the last and final phase, and the contrasts which are intimately\nbound to it and inherent in it are the productive forces of new\nconditions. And this is how the period of the great economic and\npolitical revolutions of these last two centuries has ripened in the\nmind these two concepts: the immanence and constancy of the _processus_\nin historic facts, and the materialist doctrine, which is at bottom the\nobjective theory of social revolutions.\n\nIt is beyond doubt that to reascend through the centuries and\nreconstruct in our thought the development of social ideas to the extent\nthat we find their documents in writers, is something always very\ninstructive, and serving especially to add to our critical knowledge of\nour concepts as of our ways of thinking. Such a return of the mind over\nits historic premises, when it does not lead us astray into the\nempiricism of a boundless erudition, and does not lead us to set up\nhastily vain analogies, serves without any doubt to give suppleness and\na persuasive force to the forms of our scientific activity. In the sum\nof our science we find again, in fact and through the approximative\ncontinuity of tradition, the excellence of all that has been found,\nconceived and proved, not only in modern times but even in ancient\nGreece, where first begins precisely and in a definite fashion for the\nhuman race the orderly development of conscious, reflective and\nmethodical thought. It would be impossible to take a single step in\nscientific research without employing means long ago found and tried,\nsuch for example as logic and mathematics. To think otherwise would be\nto assume that each generation must begin over again all the work done\nsince the childhood of humanity.\n\nBut it was not given either to the ancient authors in the limited circle\nof their urban republics, nor to the writers of the Renaissance, always\ndrifting between an imaginary return to antiquity and the need of\ngrasping intellectually the new world in process of birth, to arrive at\nthe precise analysis of the last elements from which society results,\nand which the incomparable genius of Aristotle did not see, and did not\nunderstand beyond the limits within which passes the life of the typical\ncitizen.\n\nThe investigation of the social structure, considered in its manners of\norigin and _processus_, became active and penetrating and took on\nmultiform aspects in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when\neconomics took shape and when under the different names of \"Natural\nRights,\" \"The Spirit of the Laws,\" or \"The Social Contract,\" it was\nattempted to resolve into causes, into factors and into logical and\npsychological data, the multiform and often obscure spectacle of a life\nin which was preparing the greatest revolution ever known. These\ndoctrines, whatever may have been the subjective intention and spirit of\nthe authors--as in the contrasting cases of the conservative Hobbes and\nthe proletarian Rousseau--were all revolutionary in their substance and\ntheir effects. Under all of them is always found, as a stimulus and\nmotive, the material and moral needs of a new age, which, by reason of\nhistoric conditions, were those of the bourgeoisie. Thus it was\nnecessary to wage war in the name of liberty upon tradition, the Church,\nprivileges, fixed classes, that is to say, the orders and conditions,\nand consequently upon the State which was or appeared to be their\nauthor, and then upon the special privileges of commerce, the arts,\nlabor and science. And man was studied in an abstract fashion, that is\nto say, individuals taken separately, emancipated and delivered by a\nlogical abstraction from their historic connection and from every social\nnecessity: in the mind of many the concept of society was reduced to\natoms, and it even seemed natural to the greatest number to believe that\nsociety is only the sum of the individuals composing it. The abstract\ncategories of individual psychology sufficed for the explanation of all\nhuman facts; and this is how in all these systems, nothing is spoken of\nbut fear, self-love, egoism, voluntary obedience, tendency toward\nhappiness, the original goodness of man, the freedom of contract and of\nthe moral consciousness, and of the moral instinct or sense, and also\nmany other similar abstract and generic things, as if they were\nsufficient to explain history, and to create a new history out of its\nfragments.\n\nBy the fact that all society was entering upon an acute crisis, its\nhorror at the antique, at what was superannuated, at what was\ntraditional and had been organized for centuries, and the presentiment\nof a renovation of all human life, finally produced a total eclipse of\nthe ideas of historic necessity and social necessity, that is to say, of\nthose ideas which, barely indicated by the ancient philosophers, and so\ndeveloped in our century, had at this period of revolutionary\nrationalism only rare representatives, like Vico, Montesquieu, and, in\npart, Quesnay. In this historic situation, which gave birth to a\nliterature that was nimble, destructive and very popular, is found the\nreason for what Louis Blanc with a certain emphasis has called\nindividualism. Later some have thought they saw in this word the\nexpression of a permanent fact in human nature, which especially might\nserve as a decisive argument against socialism.\n\nA singular spectacle, and a singular contrast! Capital, however\nproduced, tended to overcome all previous forms of production, and,\nbreaking every bond and boundary, to become the direct or indirect\nmaster of society, as, in fact, it has become in the greater part of the\nworld; hence it resulted, that apart from all forms of modern misery and\nthe new hierarchy in which we live, there was realized the most acute\nantithesis of all history, that is to say, the existing anarchy of\nproduction in the whole of society, and an iron despotism in the mode of\nproduction in each workshop and each factory! And the thinkers, the\nphilosophers, the economists and the popularizers of the eighteenth\ncentury saw nothing but liberty and equality! All reasoned in the same\nway; all started from the same premises, which brought them to conclude\nthat liberty must be obtained from a government of pure administration,\nor that they were democrats or even communists. The approaching reign of\nliberty was before the eyes of all as a certain event, provided they\ncould suppress the bonds and fetters which forced ignorance and the\ndespotism of church and state had imposed upon men, good by nature.\nThese fetters did not appear to be conditions and boundaries within\nwhich men were found by the laws of their development, and by the effect\nof the antagonistic and thus uncertain and tortuous movement of history,\nbut simply obstacles from which the methodical use of reason was to\ndeliver us. In this idealism, which reached its culminating point in\ncertain heroes of the French Revolution, is the seed of a limitless\nfaith in the certain progress of the whole human race. For the first\ntime, the concept of humanity appeared in all its branches, unmingled\nwith religious ideas or hypotheses. The boldest of these idealists were\nthe extreme materialists, because, denying every religious fiction, they\nassigned this earth as a certain domain to the necessity of happiness\nprovided that reason might open the way.\n\n\nNever were ideas abused in so inhuman a fashion as between the close of\nthe eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. The lesson\nof things was very hard, the saddest disillusions arose and a radical\nupheaval followed in the minds of men. Facts, in a word, proved to be\ncontrary to all expectations; and this at first produced a profound\ndiscouragement among the disillusioned, which, notwithstanding, gave\nrise to the desire and the need of new investigations. We know that\nSaint Simon and Fourier, in whom operated precisely at the beginning of\nthe century, in the exclusive forms of the ideas of premature genius,\nthe reaction against the immediate results of the politico-economic\nrevolution, arose resolutely, the first against the jurists, and the\nsecond against the economists.\n\nIn fact, when once the obstacles to liberty, which had been\ncharacteristic of other times, had been suppressed, new obstacles,\ngraver and more painful, had replaced them, and, as equal happiness for\nall was not realized, society remained in its political form as it had\nbeen before, an organization of inequalities. It must be, then, that\nsociety is something autonomous, innate, a complex automaton of\nrelations and conditions, which defies the subjective good intentions of\neach of the members who compose it, and which escapes from the illusions\nand the designs of the idealists. It thus follows a course of its own\nfrom which we may infer certain laws of process and development, but\ndoes not suffer us to impose laws upon it. By this transformation in the\nminds of men, the nineteenth century heralded itself as the century of\nhistoric science and of sociology.\n\nThe principle of development has, indeed, since then, invaded all\ndomains of thought. In this century, the grammar of history has been\ndiscovered, and thus the key has been found to explore the genesis of\nmyths. The embryonic traces of pre-history have been sought out, and,\nfor the first time, the processes of political and legal forms have been\narranged into a series. The nineteenth century heralded itself as the\ncentury of sociology in the person of Saint Simon, in whom, as happens\nwith the self-taught precursors of genius, we find confused together the\ngerms of so many contradictory tendencies. In this aspect the\nmaterialistic conception is a result; but it is a result which is the\ncomplement of the whole process of formation; and as a result and a\ncomplement it is also the simplification of all historic science and of\nall sociology, because it takes us back from things derived and from\ncomplex conditions to elemental functions. And that is brought about by\nthe direct suggestion of new dynamic experience.\n\nThe laws of economics, such as they are of themselves and their own\ninherent force, have triumphed over all illusions and have shown\nthemselves to be the directing power of social life. The great\nindustrial revolution which was produced made it clear that social\nclasses, if they are not a fact of nature, are still less a consequence\nof chance and of free will; they arise historically and socially in a\ndetermined form of production. And who, in truth, has not seen the birth\nunder his eyes of new proletarians upon the economic ruin of so many\nclasses of small proprietors, small peasants and artisans; and who has\nnot been in a position to discover the method of this new creation of a\nnew social status, to which so many men were reduced and in which they\nwere necessarily obliged to live. Who has not been in a position to\ndiscover that money, transformed into capital, had succeeded, in a few\nyears, in becoming master by the attraction which it exercises over the\nlabor of free men, in whom the necessity of selling themselves freely as\nwage workers had been prepared long before by so many ingenious legal\nprocesses and by violent or indirect expropriation? And who has not seen\nthe new cities rise around factories and create around their\ncircumference this desolating poverty, which is no longer the effect of\nindividual misfortune, but the condition and the source of wealth? And\nin this new poverty were numerous women and children, arising for the\nfirst time from an unknown existence to take their place on the page of\nhistory as a sinister illustration of a society of equals. And who did\nnot feel--even if that had not been announced in the so-called doctrine\nof the Rev. Malthus--that the number of guests which this mode of\neconomic organization can entertain, if it is sometimes insufficient for\nhim who, by reason of the favorable state of production, has need of\nhands, is often also superabundant, and therefore finds no occupation\nand becomes a source of danger? It becomes evident, also, that the rapid\nand violent economic transformation which was accomplished openly in\nEngland had succeeded there, because that country had been able to build\nup for itself, as compared with the rest of Europe, a monopoly till then\nunknown, and because to maintain this monopoly an unscrupulous policy\nhad been rendered necessary, and that permitted all, for one happy\nmoment, to translate into prose the ideological myth of the state, which\nwas to be the guardian and the preceptor of the people.\n\nThis immediate perception of these consequences of the new life was the\norigin of the pessimism, more or less romantic, of the _laudatores\ntemporis acti_ from De Maistre to Carlyle. The satire of liberalism\ninvaded minds and literature at the beginning of the nineteenth century.\nThen begins that criticism of society, which is the first step in all\nsociology. It was necessary before all else to overthrow the ideology,\nwhich had accumulated and expressed itself in so many doctrines of the\nNatural Right or the Social Contract. It was necessary to get into\ncontact with the facts which the rapid events of so intensive a\n_processus_ imposed upon the attention in forms so new and startling.\n\nHere appears Owen, incomparable at all points of view, but especially\nfor the clearness which he displayed in the determination of the causes\nof the new poverty, even though he was but a child in his quest of the\nmeans for overcoming it. It was necessary to arrive at the objective\ncriticism of economics, which appeared for the first time, in one-sided\nand reactionary forms, in Sismondi. In this period where the conditions\nof a new historic science were ripening, arose so many different forms\nof socialism, utopian, one-sided or completely extravagant, which never\nreached the proletarians, either because these had no political\nconsciousness, or if they had any, it manifested itself in sudden\nstarts, as in the French conspiracies and riots from 1830 to 1848, or\nthey kept on the political ground of immediate reforms, as is the case\nwith the Chartists. And nevertheless all this socialism, however\nUtopian, fantastic and ideological it may have been, was an immediate\nand often salutary criticism of economics--a one-sided criticism,\nindeed, which lacked the scientific complement of a general historical\nconception.\n\nAll these forms of criticism, partial, one-sided and incomplete had\ntheir culmination in scientific socialism. This is no longer subjective\ncriticism applied to things but the discovery of the self-criticism\nwhich is in the things themselves. The real criticism of society is\nsociety, itself, which, by the antithetic conditions of the contrasts\nupon which it rests, engenders from itself, within itself, the\ncontradiction, and finally triumphs over this by its passage into a new\nform. The solution of the existing antitheses is the proletariat, which\nthe proletarians themselves know or do not know. Even as their misery\nhas become the condition of present society, so in their misery is the\njustification of the new proletarian revolution. It is in this passage\nfrom the criticism of subjective thought, which examines things outside\nand imagines it can correct them at once, to the understanding of the\nself-criticism exercised by society over itself in the immanence of its\nown _processus_--it is in this only that the dialectic of history\nconsists, which Marx and Engels, in so far as they were materialists,\ndrew from the idealism of Hegel. But on the final reckoning it matters\nlittle whether the literary men, who knew no other meaning for\ndialectics than that of an artificial sophistry nor whether the doctors\nand scholars who are never apt to go beyond the knowledge of particular\nfacts can ever account themselves for these hidden and complicated forms\nof thought.\n\n\nBut the great economic transformation, which has furnished the materials\ncomposing modern society, in which the empire of capitalism has arrived\nat the limit of its complete development, would not have been so\nimmediately and so suggestively instructive, if it had not been\nluminously illustrated by the bewildering and catastrophic movement of\nthe French Revolution. This put in evidence, like a tragedy on the\nstage, all the antagonistic forces of modern society, because this\nsociety has developed on the ruins of previous forms, and because, in so\nshort a time and with so hasty a march, it has traversed the phases of\nits birth and its establishment.\n\nThe revolution ensued from the obstacles which the bourgeoisie had to\novercome by violence, since it appeared from evidence that the passage\nfrom the old forms to the new forms of production--or of property, if we\nborrow the language of jurists--could not be realized by the quieter\nways of successive and gradual reforms. It brought in its train the\nupheaval, the friction and the intermingling of all the old classes of\nthe Ancient Regime, and the rapid and bewildering formation at the same\ntime of new classes, in the very rapid but very intensive period of ten\nyears, which, compared with the ordinary history of other times and\nother countries, seems to us like centuries. This rapid succession of\nmonumental events brought to light the most characteristic moments and\naspects of the new or modern society, and that so much the more clearly\nsince the militant bourgeoisie had already created for itself\nintellectual means and organs which had given it with the theory of its\nown work the reflex consciousness of its movement.\n\nThe violent expropriation of the great part of the old property, that is\nto say, of the property crystallized in fiefs, in royal and princely\ndomains and in mortmain, with the real and personal rights derived\ntherefrom, put at the disposal of the state, which by the necessity of\nthings had become an exceptional, terrible and all-powerful government,\nan extraordinary mass of economic resources; thus, there were, on the\none side, the singular policy of the assignats which finally annulled\nthemselves, and on the other side, the formation of the new proprietors\nwho owed their fortune to the chances of gambling, to intrigue and to\nspeculation. And who again would have dared thereafter to swear upon the\nancient, sacred altar of property, when his recent and authentic title\nrested in so evident a manner upon the knowledge of fortunate\ncircumstances? If it had ever passed through the head of so many\ntroublesome philosophers, beginning with the Sophists, that law is a\ncreation of man, useful and convenient, this heretical proposition might\nseem thenceforth a simple and intuitive truth to the meanest of the\nbeggars in Paris. Had not the proletarians with all the common people\ngiven the impulse to the revolution in general by the expected movements\nof April, 1789, and did they not afterwards find themselves, as it were,\ndriven anew from the stage of history after the failure of the revolt of\nPrairial in 1795? Had they not carried on their shoulders all the ardent\ndefenders of liberty and equality? Had they not held in their hands the\nParis Commune, which was, for a time, the impulsive organ of the\nAssembly and of all France; had they not finally the bitter disillusion\nof having created new masters for themselves with their own hands? The\nbewildering consciousness of this disillusion constitutes the\npsychological motive, rapid and immediate, of the conspiracy of Babeuf,\nwhich, for that very reason, is a great fact in history, and bears in\nitself all the elements of objective tragedy.\n\nThe land which fief and mortmain had, as it were, bound to a body, to a\nfamily, to a title, now, delivered from its bonds, had become a\ncommodity, to serve as a basis and instrument for the production of\nmerchandise; so docile a commodity, that it was put into circulation in\nthe form of morsels of paper. And around these symbols, multiplied to\nsuch a degree over the things that they were to represent that they\nfinished by no longer having any value, Business came forth, a giant,\narising, from all sides, on the shoulders of those most wretched in\ntheir poverty, and through all the devious ways of politics; it was\nespecially shameless in its way of taking part in war and its glorious\nsuccesses. Even the rapid progress of technique, hastened by the urgency\nof circumstances, gave material and occasion to the prosperity of\nbusiness.\n\nThe laws of bourgeois economics, which are those of individual\nproduction in the antagonistic field of competition, revolted furiously,\nthrough violence and ruse, against the idealistic efforts of a\nrevolutionary government which, strong in its certainty of saving its\ncountry, and stronger still in its illusion of founding for eternity the\nliberty of equals, believed it was possible to suppress gambling by the\nguillotine, to eliminate Business by closing the Stock Exchange and to\nassure existence to the common people by fixing the maximum of prices\nfor objects of prime necessity. Commodities, prices and Business\nreasserted with violence their own liberty against those who wished to\npreach to them and impose ethics upon them.\n\nThermidor, whatever may have been the original intentions of the\nThermidorians, whether vile, cowardly, or misguided, was, in its hidden\ncauses as in its apparent effects, the triumph of Business over\ndemocratic idealism. The constitution of 1793, which marks the extreme\nlimit that can be reached by the democratic ideal, was never put into\npractice. The grave pressure of circumstances, the menace of the\nforeigner, the different forms of internal rebellion, from the\nGirondists to the Vendee, rendered necessary an exceptional government,\nwhich was the Terror, born of fear. In proportion as dangers ceased, the\nneed of the terror ceased. But the democracy shattered itself against\nthe Business which was bringing into existence the property of new\nproprietors. The constitution of the year III. consecrated the principle\nof moderate liberalism, whence proceeds all the constitutionalism of the\nEuropean continent; but it was, before all else, the road leading to the\nguaranty of property. To change the proprietors while preserving\nproperty--that is the banner, the watchword, the ensign which defied\nthrough the years from Aug. 10, 1792, the violent tumults as well as the\nbold designs of those who attempted to found society upon virtue,\nequality and Spartan abnegation. But the Directory was the footpath by\nwhich the revolution arrived at the downfall of itself as an idealistic\neffort; and with the Directory, which was open and professed corruption,\nthis banner became a reality; the proprietors are changed, but property\nis saved. And, indeed, to raise upon so many ruins a stable edifice,\nthere was need of real force; and this was found in that strange\nadventurer of incomparable genius, upon whom fortune had imperially\nsmiled, and he was the only one who possessed the virtue of putting an\nend to this gigantic fable, because there was in him neither shadow nor\ntrace of moral scruples.\n\nIn this furor of events strange things happened. The citizens armed for\nthe defense of their country, victorious beyond its frontiers over\nsurrounding Europe, into which with their conquest they carried the\nrevolution, transformed themselves into a soldiery to oppress the\nliberty of their country. The peasants who, at a moment of imperious\nsuggestion, produced over the feudal estates the anarchy of 1789, now\nhaving become soldiers, or small proprietors, or small farmers, and\nhaving remained for a moment the advance sentinels of the revolution,\nfell back into the silent and stolid calm of their traditional life,\nwhich, without risks and without movements, served as a sure basis for\nthe so-called social order. The petty bourgeois of the cities, and the\nformer members of the guilds rapidly developed, in the camp of economic\nstruggle, into free traffickers in manual labor. The freedom of trade\nrequired that every product become easily merchantable, and thus it\ntriumphed over the last obstacle, by enforcing the demand that labor\nalso become for it a free commodity.\n\nAll changed at this moment. The state, which for centuries so many\nmillion deluded ones had regarded as a sacred institution or a divine\nmandate, allowed its sovereign to be beheaded by the prosaic means of a\ntechnical machine, and thereby lost its sacred character. The state,\nalso, was becoming a technical appliance, which substituted bureaucracy\nfor hierarchy. And as the ancient titles no longer assured their\npossessors the privilege of exercising diverse functions, this new state\ncould become the prey of all those who wished to seize upon it; it found\nitself, in a word, put up at auction, with the provision that the\nsuccessful aspirants must be the solid guarantors of the property of the\nnew and the old proprietors. The new state, which had need of its\nEighteenth Brumaire to become an orderly bureaucracy, supported upon\nvictorious militarism, this state which completed the revolution in the\nact which denied it, could not dispense with its scripture, and it found\nit in the Civil Code, which is the golden book for a society which\nproduces and sells commodities. It is not in vain that generalized\njurisprudence had preserved and annotated for centuries, in the form of\na scientific discipline, this Roman law, which was, which is and ever\nshall be, the typical and classical form of the law of every shopkeeping\nsociety, until communism puts an end to the possibility of buying and\nselling.\n\nThe bourgeoisie, which, by the concurrence of so many singular\ncircumstances effected the revolution with the concurrence of so many\nother classes and semi-classes which after a short lapse of time almost\nall disappeared from the political stage, seemed, in the moments of the\nmost violent shocks, as if moved by motives inspired by an ideology,\nwhich would have absolutely no relation with the effects which actually\nsupervene and perpetuated themselves. The meaning of that is that in the\nheat of struggle the bewildering change of the economic substructure\nappeared, as if it were, disguised by ideals and obscure by the\ninterlacings of so many intentions and designs, whence sprung so many\nacts of cruelty and of unparalleled heroism, so many currents of\nillusion and hard facts of disenchantment. Never had so powerful a faith\nin the ideal of progress sprung from human breasts. To deliver the human\nrace from superstition, and even from religion, to make of each\nindividual a citizen, or of every private man a public man; those are\nits beginnings:--and then on the line of this programme to sum up, in\nthe short activity of a few years, an evolution which appears to the\nmost idealistic of to-day as the work of several centuries to come--that\nis the idealism of that time! And why should it revolt at the pedagogy\nof the guillotine?\n\nThat poetry, grand certainly, if not joyous, left behind it a prose that\nwas severe enough. And it was the prose of the proprietors who owned\ntheir property to chance, it was that of the high finance and the newly\nrich purveyors, marshals, prefects, journalists and mercenary men of\nletters; it was the prose of the court of that strange man to whom the\nqualities of military genius grafted upon the soul of a brigand, had,\nwithout any doubt, conferred the right of treating as an ideologist\nwhoever did not admire the bare fact which, in life, as it was with him,\ncan be nothing else than the simple brutality of success.\n\nThe French Revolution hastened the course of history in a large part of\nEurope. To it attaches, on the Continent, all that we call liberalism\nand modern democracy, except in the case of the false imitation of\nEngland, and up to the establishment of Italian unity, which was and\nwill remain perhaps the last act of the revolutionary bourgeoisie. This\nrevolution was the most vivid and most instructive example of the\nfashion in which a society transforms itself and how new economic\nconditions develop, and in developing co-ordinate the members of society\ninto groups and classes. It was the palpable proof of the fashion in\nwhich law is found, when it is necessary for the expression and the\ndefense of definite relations, and how the state is created, and how\ndisposal is made of its means, its forces and its organs. Here is seen\nhow ideas arise from the fields of social institutions, and how\ncharacters, tendencies, sentiments, volitions, that is to say, in a\nword, moral forces, are produced and develop into conditions governed by\ncircumstances. In a word, the data of social science were, so to speak,\nprepared by society itself, and it is no wonder if the revolution,\nwhich was preceded ideologically by the most acute form of rationalistic\ndoctrinairism ever known, ended finally by leaving behind it the\nintellectual need of an anti-doctrinaire historical and sociological\nscience, like that which our own century has attempted to construct.\n\n\nAnd here, both by what we have seen and by what is known generally, it\nis useless to recall anew, how Owen forms one of the same group with\nSaint Simon and Fourier, and to repeat through what ways scientific\nsocialism took its birth. The important thing is in these two points;\nthat historical materialism could not arise but from the theoretical\nconsciousness of socialism; and that it can henceforth explain its own\norigin with its own principles, which is the greatest proof of its\nmaturity.\n\nThus I have justified the phrase at the beginning of this chapter: ideas\ndo not descend from heaven.\n\n\nVIII.\n\nThe road traversed thus far has enabled us to take exact account of the\nprecise and relative value of the so-called doctrine of factors; we know\nalso how its adherents come to eliminate objectively those provisional\nconcepts, which were and are a simple expression of a thought not fully\narrived at maturity.\n\nAnd, nevertheless, it is necessary that we speak further of this\ndoctrine, in order to explain better and more in detail for what\nreasons two of the so-called factors, the state and the law, have been\nand are still considered as the principal and exclusive subject of\nhistory.\n\nHistorians have indeed for centuries placed in these forms of social\nlife the essence of development. Moreover, they have perceived this\ndevelopment only in the modification of these forms. History has for\ncenturies been treated as a discipline relative to the\njuridico-political movement and even to the political movement\nprincipally. The substitution of society for politics is a recent thing,\nand much more recent still is the reduction of society to the elements\nof historical materialism. In other words, sociology is of quite recent\ninvention, and the reader, I hope, will have understood for himself that\nI employ this term for the sake of brevity, to indicate in a general\nmanner the science of social functions and variations, and that I do not\nhold to the specific sense given it by the Positivists.\n\nIt is more satisfactory to say that, up to the beginning of this\ncentury, the data bearing upon usages, customs, beliefs, etc., or even\nupon the _natural conditions_, which serve as the foundation and\nconnection for social forms, were not mentioned in political histories\nunless as objects of simple curiosity, or as accessories and complements\nof the narration.\n\nAll this cannot be a simple accident, and indeed is not. There is, then,\na double interest in taking account of the tardy appearance of social\nhistory, both because our doctrine justifies yet again by this means\nits reason for existence, and because we thus eliminate, in a definite\nmanner, the so-called factors.\n\n\nIf we make an exception of certain critical moments in which social\nclasses, by an extreme incapacity for adapting themselves to a condition\nof relative equilibrium, enter into a crisis of more or less prolonged\nanarchy, and if we make an exception of those catastrophes in which an\nentire world disappears, as at the fall of the Roman Empire of the West,\nor at the dissolution of the Califate, then it may be said that, ever\nsince there has been a written history, the state appears not only as\nthe creation of society but also as its support. The first step that\nchild-like thought had made in this order of considerations is in this\nstatement: That which governs is also that which creates.\n\nIf, moreover, we make an exception of certain short periods of democracy\nexercised with the vivid consciousness of popular sovereignty, as was\nthe case in a few Greek cities, especially at Athens, and in a few\nItalian cities, and especially Florence (the former nevertheless were\ncomposed of free men who were proprietors of slaves, and the latter of\nprivileged citizens who exploited foreigners and peasants) the society\norganized into a state was always composed of a majority at the mercy of\nthe minority. And thus the majority of men has appeared in history as a\nmass sustained, governed, guided, exploited and ill treated, or at least\nas a variegated conglomeration of interests, which a few had to govern,\nmaintaining in equilibrium the divergences, either by pressure or by\ncompensation.\n\nThence the necessity of an art of government, and as it is this before\nall else which strikes those who are studying collective life, it was\nnatural that politics should appear as the author of the social order\nand as the sign of the continuity in the succession of historic forms.\nTo say politics is to say activity, which, up to a certain point, is\nexercised in a desired direction, until the moment at least when\ncalculations dash themselves against unknown or unexpected obstacles. By\ntaking the state as an imperfect experience would suggest for the author\nof society, and politics for the author of the social order, it resulted\nthat the narrators or philosophical historians were driven to place the\nessence of history in a succession of forms, institutions and political\nideas.\n\nWhence the state drew its origin, where the basis of its performance was\nfound, that mattered not, as that matters not in current reasoning. The\nproblems of the genetic order arose, as is known, rather late. The state\nis and it finds its reason for existence in its present necessity; that\nis so true that the imagination has not been able to adapt itself to the\nidea that it has not always existed, and so it has prolonged its\nconjectural existence back to the first origins of the human race. The\ngods or demigods and heroes were its founders, in mythology at least,\njust as in mediaeval theology the Pope is the first and therefore the\ndivine and perpetual source of all authority. Even in our time,\ninexperienced travelers and imbecile missionaries find the state where\nthere is, as among savages and barbarians, nothing but the gens, or the\ntribe of gentes, or the alliance of gentes.\n\nTwo things were necessary that these prejudices of the judgment should\nbe overcome. In the first place, it was necessary to recognize that the\nfunctions of the state arise, increase, diminish, alter and follow each\nother with the variations of certain social conditions. In the second\nplace, it was necessary to arrive at a comprehension of the fact that\nthe state exists and maintains itself in that it is organized for the\ndefense of certain definite interests, of one part of society against\nall the rest of society itself, which must be made in such a way, in its\nentirety, that the resistance of the subjects, of the ill treated and\nthe exploited, either is lost in multiple frictions, or is tempered by\nthe partial advantages, wretched though they be, to the oppressed\nthemselves. Politics, that art so miraculous and so admired, thus brings\nus back to a very simple formula; to apply a force or a system of forces\nto the total of resistances.\n\nThe first step, and the most difficult, is taken when the state has been\nreduced to the social conditions whence it draws its origin. But these\nsocial conditions themselves have been subsequently defined by the\ntheory of classes, the genesis of which is in the manner of the\ndifferent occupations, granted the distribution of labor, that is to\nsay, granted the relations which co-ordinate and bind men together in a\ndefinite form of production.\n\nThenceforth the concept of the state has ceased to represent the direct\ncause of the historic movement as the presumed author of society,\nbecause it has been seen that in each of its forms and its variations\nthere is nothing else than the positive and forced organization of a\ndefinite class rule, or of a definite compact between different classes.\nAnd then by an ulterior consequence from these premises, it is finally\nto be recognized that politics, as the art of acting in a desired\ndirection, is a comparatively small part of the general movement of\nhistory, and that it is but a feeble part of the formation and the\ndevelopment of the state itself, in which many things, that is to say,\nmany relations, arise and develop by a necessary compact, by a tacit\nconsent, or by violence endured and tolerated. The reign of the\nunconscious, if by that we mean what is not decreed by free choice and\nforethought, but what is determined and accomplished by a succession of\nhabits, customs, compacts, etc., has become very considerable in the\ndomain of the data which form the object of the historic sciences; and\npolitics, which has been taken as an explanation, has itself become\nsomething to explain.\n\n\nWe know now in a positive way the reasons in consequence of which\nhistory had necessarily to appear under a purely political form.\n\nBut this does not mean that we ought to believe that the state is a\nsimple excrescence, a mere accessory of the social body, or of free\nassociation, as so many Utopians and so many ultra-liberal thinkers of\nanarchist tendencies have imagined. If society has thus far culminated\nin the state, it is because it has had need of this complement of force\nand authority, because it is at first composed of units which are\nunequal by reason of economic differentiations. The state is something\nvery real, a system of forces which maintain equilibrium and impose it\nthrough violence and repression. And to exist as a system of forces it\nhas been compelled to develop and to establish an economic power,\nwhether this latter rests upon robbery, the result of war, or whether it\nconsists in direct property in the domain, or whether it is constituted\nlittle by little, thanks to the modern method of public taxes, which\ntakes on the constitutional appearance of a self-imposed system of\ntaxation. It is in this economic power, so considerable in modern times,\nthat its capacity for acting is founded. It results, that by reason of a\nnew division of labor, the functions of state give rise to special\norders and conditions, that is to say, to very particular classes,\nwithout including the class of parasites.\n\nThe state, which is and which must be an economic power that in its\ndefense of the ruling classes it may be furnished with means to repress,\nto govern, to administer and to make war, creates in a direct or an\nindirect manner an aggregation of new and particular interests, which\nnecessarily react upon society. Thus the state, by the fact that it has\narisen and that it maintains itself as a guaranty of the social\nantitheses, which are a consequence of economic differentiations,\ncreates around itself a circle of persons interested directly in its\nexistence.\n\nTwo consequences follow therefrom. As society is not a homogeneous\nwhole, but a body of specialized articulations, or, rather, a multiform\ncomplexus of objects and interests, it happens that sometimes the\ndirectors of the state seek to isolate themselves, and by this isolation\nthey oppose themselves to the whole of society, and then, in the second\nplace, it happens that organs and functions, created first for the\nadvantage of all, end by no longer serving any interest but those of\ngroups, and permit abuses of power on the part of coteries and camorras.\nThence arise aristocracies and hierarchies born from the use of the\npublic power, thence arise dynasties; in the light of simple logic these\nformations appear wholly irrational.\n\nFrom the first beginnings of written history the state has increased or\ndiminished its powers, but it has never disappeared, because ever since\nthere have been, in the society of men unequal in consequence of\neconomic differentiation, reasons for maintaining and for defending,\nthrough force or conquest, slavery, monopolies, or the predominance of\none form of production, with the domination of man over man. The state\nhas become, as it were, the field of an endless civil war, which is\ndeveloping always, even if it does not always show itself under the\nstartling form of Marius and Sylla, days of June and wars of Secession.\nWithin the state, the corruption of man by man has always flourished,\nbecause, if there is no form of domination which does not meet\nresistance, there are no forms of resistance which, in consequence of\nthe pressing needs of life, may not degenerate into a passive compact.\n\nFor these reasons, historic events, seen on the surface of the ordinary\nmonotonous narrative, appear like the repetition of the same type, with\nfew variations, like a series of kaleidoscopic pictures. We need not be\nastonished if the idealistic Herbart and the caustic or pessimistic\nSchopenhauer arrived at this conclusion, that there is no history, in\nthe sense of any actual _processus_, which is to say in common language;\nhistory is a tiresome song.\n\nWhen political history is once reduced to its quintessence, the state\nremains illuminated in all its prose. Thenceforth there is no more trace\neither of theological divination, nor of metaphysical\ntransubstantiation, so much in vogue among certain German\nphilosophers,--for whom the state is the Idea, the State Idea which is\nrealized in history, the state is the full realization of the\npersonality, and other stupidities of the same sort. The state is a real\norganization of defense to guarantee and perpetuate a mode of\nassociation, the foundation of which is a form of economic production,\nor a compact and a transaction between forms. To sum up, the state\nassumes, either a system of property, or a compact between several\nsystems of property. There is the foundation of all its art, the\nexercise of which demands that the state itself became an economic\npower, and that it also dispose of means and processes to make property\npass from the hands of some into the hands of others. When, by the\neffect of an acute and violent change of the forms of production, it is\nnecessary to resort to an unusual and extraordinary readjustment of the\nrelations of property (for example, the abolition of mortmain and fiefs,\nthe abolition of commercial monopolies), then the old political form is\ninsufficient and revolution is necessary to create a new organ which may\noperate the new economic transformation.\n\n\nIf we make an exception of the very ancient times which are unknown to\nus, all history is developed in the contacts and the antagonisms of the\ndifferent tribes and communities, and thereafter of the different\nnations and different states; that is to say, that the reasons for the\ninternal antitheses in the circle of each society are always more and\nmore complicated with frictions with the outside world. These two\nreasons for antagonism condition each other reciprocally, but in ways\nwhich are always varying. Often it is internal disturbance which urges a\ncommunity or a city to enter into external collisions; at other times it\nis these collisions which alter the internal relations.\n\nThe principal motive for the different relations between the different\ncommunities has been from the beginnings, even as it is to-day,\n_commerce_ in the broad sense of the word, that is to say, exchange,\nwhether it is a matter of giving up, as in the poor tribes, merely the\nsurplus in exchange for other things, or whether it is a matter, as\nto-day, of production on a large scale, which is carried on with the\nexclusive intention of selling so as to draw from a sum of money a\nlarger sum of money. This enormous mass of events exterior and\ninterior, which accumulate and pile upon each other in history, is such\na trouble to the historians who content themselves with exploring it and\nsummarizing it, that they become lost in the infinite attempts at\nchronological groups and bird's-eye views. Whoever, on the contrary,\nknows the internal development of the different social types in their\neconomic structure, and who considers political events as the particular\nresults of the forces acting in society, ends by triumphing over the\nconfusion born out of the multiplicity and the uncertainty of first\nimpressions, and instead of a chronological or synchronous series, or a\nview of the whole, he can arrive at the concrete series of a real\n_processus_.\n\n\nIn the presence of these realistic conditions all the ideologies founded\non the ethical mission of the state or on any such conception, fall to\nthe ground. The state is, so to speak, fitted into its place, and it\nremains encased, as it were, in the surroundings of the social\ndevelopment, in its capacity of a form resulting from other conditions,\nand in its turn, by reason of its existence, reacting naturally upon the\nrest.\n\nHere arises another question.\n\nWill this form ever be outgrown?--or can there be a society without a\nstate?--or can there be a society without classes?--and if we must be\nmore explicit, will there ever be a form of communist production with a\ndistribution of labor and of tasks such that there will be no room in it\nfor the development of inequalities, that source of domination of man\nover man?\n\nIt is in the affirmative answer to this question that _scientific\nsocialism_ consists, in so far as it affirms the coming of communistic\nproduction, not as a postulate, nor as the aim of a free volition, but\nas the result of the _processus_ immanent in history.\n\nAs is well known, the premise of this prevision is in the actual\nconditions of present capitalist production. This, socializing\ncontinually the mode of production, has subjected living labor more and\nmore with its regulations to the objective conditions of the technical\nprocess, it has day after day concentrated the property in the means of\nproduction more and ever more into the hands of a few, who as\nstockholders, or speculators, are always found to be more and more\nremoved from immediate labor, the direction of which passes over to\nintelligence and science. With the increased consciousness of this\nsituation among the proletarians, whose instruction in solidarity comes\nfrom the actual conditions of their employment, and with the decrease of\nthe capacity of the holders of capital to preserve the private direction\nof productive labor, a moment will come, when in one fashion or another,\nwith the elimination in every form of private rent, interest, profit,\nthe production will pass over to the collectivist association, that is\nto say, will become communistic. Thus will disappear all inequalities,\nexcept those of sex, age, temperament and capacity, that is to say, all\nthose inequalities will cease which engender economic classes, or which\nare engendered by them, and the disappearance of classes will put an end\nto the possibility of the state, as domination of man over man. The\ntechnical and pedagogical government of intelligence will form the only\norganization of society.\n\nIn this fashion, scientific socialism, in an ideal fashion at least, has\ntriumphed over the state; and its triumph has given it a complete\nknowledge both of its mode of origin and the reasons for its natural\ndisappearance. It has understood it precisely because it does not rise\nup against it in a one-sided and subjective fashion, as did more than\nonce, at different epochs, the cynics, the stoics, the epicureans of all\nsorts, the religious sectaries, the visionary monks, the utopians and\nfinally, in our days, the anarchists of every stripe. Still more,\ninstead of rising up against it, scientific socialism is proposing to\nshow how the state continually rises up of itself against itself, by\ncreating in the means with which it cannot dispense, as, for example, a\ncolossal system of taxation, militarism, universal suffrage, the\ndevelopment of education, etc., the conditions of its own ruin. The\nsociety which has produced it will reabsorb it; that is to say, that\njust as society in organizing a new form of production will eliminate\nthe antagonisms between capital and labor, so, with the disappearance of\nproletarians and the conditions which render proletarians possible, will\ndisappear all dependence of men upon his fellow man in any form of\nhierarchy, whatever it may be.\n\nThe terms in which the genesis and the development of the state evolve,\nfrom its initial point of appearance in a particular community, where\neconomic differentiation is beginning, up to the moment where this\ndisappearance begins to foreshadow itself, make it henceforth\nintelligible to us.\n\nThe State has been reduced till it is but a necessary complement of\ncertain definite economic forms, and thus the theory which would have\nseen in it an independent factor in history is thenceforth forever\neliminated.\n\n\nIt is henceforth relatively easy to take account of the fashion in which\n_law_ has been raised up to the rank of a decisive factor of society,\nand thus of history, directly or indirectly.\n\nBefore all else, we must remember in what fashion arose this philosophic\nconception of justice generalized, which is the principal foundation of\nthe theory which maintains that history is dominated by the progress of\nindependent legislation.\n\n\nWith the precocious dissolution of the feudal society in certain parts\nof Central and Northern Italy, and with the birth of the Communes, which\nwere republics of production grouped in trade guilds and merchant\nguilds, the Roman law was forced into a place of honor. This law\nflowered anew in the Universities. It entered into a struggle with the\nbarbaric laws and also in part with the canon law; it was then evidently\na form of thought which answered better to the needs of the\nbourgeoisie, which was beginning to develop.\n\nIn fact, considering the peculiarities of rival laws, which were either\ncustoms of barbarous nations, or corporation privileges, or papal or\nimperial concessions, this law appeared as the universality of _written\nreason_. Had it not arrived at the point of regarding human personality\nin its most abstract and human relations, since a certain Titius is\ncapable of becoming debtor and creditor, of selling and buying, of\nmaking a cession, a donation, etc.? Roman law, although elaborated in\nits last editing at the command of emperors by servile parasites,\nappeared then, amid the decline of mediaeval institutions, as a\nrevolutionary force, and as such it constituted a great step of\nprogress. This law, so universal that it gave the means of overthrowing\nbarbaric laws, was certainly a law which corresponded to human nature\nconsidered under its generic relations; and by its opposition to private\nlaws and privileges it appeared as a natural law.\n\nWe know, moreover, how this ideology of natural law arose. It acquired\nits greatest distinction in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries;\nbut it had long been prepared for by the jurisprudence which took for\nits base the Roman law, whether it adopted it, revised it, or corrected\nit.\n\nTo the formation of the ideology of natural law another element\ncontributed, the Greek philosophy of later epochs. The Greeks, who were\nthe inventors of those definite arts of the mind which are sciences,\nnever, as is known, drew from their multiple local laws a discipline\ncorresponding to that which we call the science of law. On the contrary,\nby the rapid progress of abstract research in the circle of their\ndemocracies, they arrived very soon at a logical, rhetorical and\npedagogical discussion on the nature of justice, the state, the law,\npenalty; and in their philosophy we may trace the rudimentary forms of\nall later discussions. But it is not until later, that is to say, in the\nHellenistic epoch, when the limits of Greek life were sufficiently\nenlarged to be mingled with those of the civilized world, that, in the\ncosmopolitan environment which carried with it the need of searching in\neach man for the generic man, the rationalism of justice arose--of\njustice or of natural right in the form given it by the stoic\nphilosophy. The Greek rationalism which had already furnished a certain\nformal element to the logical codification of Roman law reappeared in\nthe eighteenth century in the doctrine of natural right.\n\nThat ideology, whose criticism has served as an arm and an instrument\nfor giving a juridical form to the economic organization of modern\nsociety, has had, consequently, various sources. Yet, in fact, this\njuridical ideology reflects, in the struggle for law and against law,\nthe revolutionary period of the bourgeois spirit. And, although it takes\nits doctrinal point of departure in a return to the traditions of the\nancient philosophy, in the generalization of Roman jurisprudence, in\neverything else, and in all its development, it is completely new and\nmodern. Roman law, although it was generalized by scholasticism and by\nmodern elaboration, still remains within itself a collection of special\ncases which have not been deduced according to a preconceived system,\nnor preordained by the systematic mind of the legislator. On the other\nhand, the rationalism of the stoics, their contemporaries and their\ndisciples, was a work of pure contemplation, and it produced no\nrevolutionary movement around it. The ideology of natural law, which\nfinally took the name of philosophy of law, was, on the contrary,\nsystematic, it started always from general formulae, it was aggressive\nand polemic, and still more, it was at war with orthodoxy, with\nintolerance, with privilege, with constituted bodies; in fine, it fought\nfor the liberties which to-day constitute the formal conditions of\nmodern society. It is with this ideology, which was a method of\nstruggle, that arose for the first time, in a typical and decisive form,\nthat idea that there is a law which is one and the same with reason. The\nlaws against which the struggle was carried on appear as deviations,\nbackward steps, errors.\n\nFrom this faith in rational law arose the blind belief in the power of\nthe legislator, which grew into fanaticism at the critical moments of\nthe French Revolution.\n\nThence the belief that society as a whole is to be submitted to one\nsingle law, equal for all, systematic, logical, consistent. Thence the\nconviction that a law guaranteeing to all a legal equality, that is to\nsay, the privilege of contracting, guaranteed also liberty to all.\n\nThe triumph of true law assures the triumph of reason, and the society\nwhich is regulated by a law equal for all is a perfect society!\n\nIt is useless to say that there were illusions at the bottom of these\ntendencies. We all know to what this universal liberation of men was to\nlead. But what is most important here is the fact that these persuasions\narose from a conception of law, which considered it as detached from the\nsocial causes which produced it. Likewise that reason, to which these\nideologies appealed, reduced itself to relieving labor, association,\ntraffic, commerce, political forms and conscience from all limits and\nall obstacles which prevented free competition. I have already shown in\nanother chapter how the great Revolution of the eighteenth century may\nserve us for experience. And if there is still some one to-day who\ninsists on speaking of a rational law which dominates history, of a law,\nin short, which would be a _factor_, instead of being a simple _fact_ in\nhistoric revolution, that means that he is living out of our time and\nthat he has not understood that our liberal and equalitarian\ncodification has already, in fact, marked the end and the term of that\nwhole school of natural law.\n\nBy different ways we have arrived in this century at reducing law,\nconsidered previously as a rational thing, into a material thing, and\nthus into a thing corresponding to definite social conditions.\n\nIn the first place, the interest in history gained in extent and in\ndepth, and it led students to recognize that to understand the origins\nof law, it was not sufficient to stop at the data of pure reason, nor at\nthe study of Roman law alone. Barbaric laws, the usages and customs of\nnations and societies, so despised by the rationalists, have been\ntheoretically restored to honor. That was the only way to arrive,\nthrough the study of the most ancient forms, at an understanding of how\nthe most recent forms could have been successively produced.\n\nCodified Roman law is a very modern form; that personality, which it\nassumes as a universal subject, is an elaboration of a very advanced\nepoch, in which the cosmopolitanism of social relations was dominated by\na military-bureaucratic constitution. In this environment, in which a\nwritten code of reason had been built up, there was no longer any trace\nof spontaneity or popular life, there was no more democracy. This same\nlaw, before arriving at this crystallization, had arisen and had\ndeveloped: and if we study it in its origins and in its developments,\nand especially if, in this study, we employ the comparative method, we\nrecognize that, upon many points, it is analogous to the institutions of\ninferior societies and nations. It therefore becomes evident that the\ntrue science of law can be nothing less than the genetic history of the\nlaw itself.\n\nBut, while the European continent had created in the codification of\ncivil law the type and the textbook of practical bourgeois judgment, was\nthere not in England another self-originating form of law, which arose\nand developed in a purely practical manner, from the very conditions of\nthe society which produced it without system, and without the action of\nmethodical rationalism having any part in it? The law, which actually\nexists and is applied, is therefore a much simpler and much more modest\nthing than was imagined by the enthusiasts who sing the praises of\nwritten judgment, of the empire of reason. For their defense, it must\nnot be forgotten that they were the ideal precursors of the great\nRevolution. For ideology it was necessary to substitute the history of\nlegal institutions. The philosophy of law ended with Hegel; and if\nobjectors mention the books published since, I reply that the works\npublished by professors are not always the index of the progress of\nthought. The philosophy of law thus became the philosophical study of\nthe history of law. And it is not necessary to repeat here again how\nhistoric philosophy ended in economic materialism and in what sense\ncritical communism is the reversal of Hegel.\n\n\nThis revolution, apparently a revolution in ideas alone, is merely an\nintellectual reflection of the revolutions which have been produced in\npractical life.\n\nIn our century, legislating has become an epidemic; and reason enthroned\nin legal ideology has been dethroned by parliaments. In these the\nantitheses of class interests have taken on the form of parties; and the\nparties struggle for or against definite laws; and all law appears as a\nsimple fact, or as a thing which it is useful or not useful to do.\n\nThe proletariat has arisen; and wherever the struggle of the laborers\nhas taken definite form, the bourgeois codes have been convicted of\nfalsehood. Written judgment has shown itself powerless to save the\nwage-workers from the oscillations of the market, to guarantee women and\nchildren against the oppressive hours of the factories, or to find an\nexpedient to solve the problem of forced idleness. The partial\nlimitation of the hours of labor has, itself alone, been the subject and\nthe occasion of a gigantic struggle. The small and the large\nbourgeoisie, agrarians and manufacturers, advocates of the poor and\ndefenders of accumulated wealth, monarchists and democrats, socialists\nand reactionaries, have bitterly contended over extracting profit from\nthe action of the public authorities and over exploiting the\ncontingencies of politics and parliamentary intrigue, to find the\nguaranty and the defense of certain definite interests in the\ninterpretation of existing law, or in the creation of a new law. This\nnew legislation has more than once been revised, and the strangest\noscillations may be observed in it; extending from the humanitarianism\nwhich defends the poor and even animals, to the promulgation of martial\nlaw. Justice has been stripped of its mask and has become merely a\nprofane thing.\n\nThe consciousness of experience has come to us and has given us a\nformula as precise as it is modest; every rule of law has been and is\nthe customary, authoritative, or judicial defense of a definite\ninterest; the reduction of law to economics is then almost immediately\naccomplished.\n\nIf the materialistic conception finally came to furnish to these\ntendencies an explicit and systematic view, it is because its\norientation has been determined by the visual angle of the proletariat.\nThis last is the necessary product and the indispensable condition of a\nsociety in which all the persons are, from an abstract point of view,\nequal before the law, but where the material conditions of development\nand the liberties of each are unequal. The proletarians are the forces\nthrough which the accumulated means of production reproduce themselves\nand reconstitute themselves into new wealth; but they themselves live\nonly by enrolling themselves under the authority of capital; and from\none day to the next they find themselves out of work, impoverished and\nexiles. They are the army of social labor, but their chiefs are their\nmasters. They are the negation of justice in the empire of law, that is\nto say, that they are the irrational element in the pretended domain of\nreason.\n\nHistory then has not been a _processus_ for arriving at the empire of\nreason in law; it has thus far been nothing else than a series of\nchanges in the form of subjection and servitude. History then consists\nentirely in the struggle of interests, and law is but the authoritative\nexpression of the interests which have triumphed.\n\nThese formulae indeed do not permit us to explain, by the immediate\nexamination of the various interests which are at its base, every\nparticular law which has appeared in history. The facts of history are\nvery complicated; but these general formulae suffice to indicate the\nstyle and the method of research which has been substituted for legal\nideology.\n\n\nIX.\n\nHere I must give certain formulae.\n\nGranted the conditions of the development of labor and the instruments\nappropriated to it, the economic structure of society, that is to say,\nthe form of production of the immediate means of life, determines, on an\nartificial field, _in the first place and directly_, all the rest of the\npractical activity of those associated, and the variation of this\nactivity in the _processus_ which we call history, that is to say:--the\nformation, the frictions, the struggles and the erosions of the\nclasses;--the corresponding regulations relative to law and\nmorality;--and the reasons and modes of subordination and subjection of\nmen toward men and the corresponding exercise of dominion and authority,\nin fine, that which gives birth to the State and that which constitutes\nit. It determines, _in the second place_, the tendency and in great\npart, _in an indirect fashion_, the objects of imagination and of\nthought in the production of art, religion and science.\n\nThe products of the _first_ and of the _second stage_, in consequence of\nthe interests which they create, the habits which they engender, the\npersons whom they group and whose spirit and inclinations they specify,\ntend to fix themselves and isolate themselves as independent entities;\nand thence comes that empirical view, according to which different\nindependent factors, having an efficacy and a rhythmic movement of their\nown, contribute to form the historic _processus_ and the social\nconfigurations which successively result from it. It is the social\nclasses, in so far as they consist in differentiations of interests,\nwhich unfold in definite ways and in forms of opposition (--whence come\nthe friction, the movement, the process and the progress--), which have\nbeen the factors--if it was ever necessary to employ this\nexpression:--the real, proper and positive factors of history, from the\ndisappearance of primitive communism until to-day.\n\nThe variations of the underlying (economic) structure of society which,\nat first sight, show themselves intuitively in the agitation of the\npassions, develop consciously in the struggles against law and for law,\nand become realized in the shaking and in the ruin of a definite\npolitical organization, have in reality their adequate expression only\nin the change in the relations which exist between the different social\nclasses. And these relations change with the change of the relations\nwhich previously existed between the productivity of labor and the\n(legal-political) conditions of co-ordination of those who co-operate in\nproduction.\n\nAnd finally, these connections between the productivity of labor and\nthe co-ordination of those who co-operate in it are changed with the\nchanging of the instruments--in the broad sense of the word--necessary\nto production. The _processes_ and the progress of technique, as they\nare the index, are also the condition of all the other _processus_ and\nof all progress.\n\nSociety is for us a fact, which we cannot solve, unless it be by that\nanalysis which reduces the complex forms to the simpler forms, the\nmodern forms to the older forms: but that is to remain always,\nnevertheless, in a society which exists. History is but the history of\nsociety--that is to say, the history of the variations of human\nco-operation, from the primitive horde down to the modern State, from\nthe immediate struggle against nature, by the means of a few very simple\ntools, down to the present economic structure, which reduces itself to\nthese two poles; accumulated labor (capital) and living labor\n(proletarians). To resolve the social _complexus_ into simple\nindividuals, and to reconstruct it afterwards by the acts of free and\nvoluntary thought; to construct, in fine, society with its reasons, is\nto misunderstand the objective nature and the immanence of the historic\n_processus_.\n\nRevolutions, in the broadest sense of the word, and in the specific\nsense of the destruction of a political organization, mark the real and\nproper dates of historic epochs. Seen from afar, in their elements, in\ntheir preparation and their effects, at long range, they may appear to\nus as moments of a constant evolution, with minute variations; but\nconsidered in themselves, they are definite and precise catastrophes,\nand it is only as catastrophes that they are historic events.\n\n\nX.\n\nEthics, art, religion, science, are they then but products of economic\nconditions?--expositions of the categories of these very\nconditions?--effluvia, ornaments, emanations and mirages of material\ninterests?\n\nAffirmations of this sort, announced with this nudity and crudity, have\nalready for some time passed from mouth to mouth, and they are a\nconvenient assistance to the adversaries of materialism, who use them as\na bugbear. The slothful, whose number is great even among the\nintellectuals, willingly fit themselves to this clumsy acceptance of\nsuch declarations. What a delight for all careless persons to possess,\nonce for all, summed up in a few propositions, the whole of knowledge,\nand to be able with one single key to penetrate all the secrets of life!\nAll the problems of ethics, aesthetics, philology, critical history and\nphilosophy reduced to one single problem and freed thus from all\ndifficulties!\n\nIn this way the simpletons might reduce the whole of history to\ncommercial arithmetic; and finally a new and authentic interpretation of\nDante might give us the Divine Comedy illustrated with the process of\nmanufacturing pieces of cloth which the wily Florentine merchants sold\nfor their greater profit!\n\nThe truth is that the declarations which involve problems are converted\nvery easily into vulgar paradoxes in the heads of those who are not\naccustomed to triumph over the difficulties of thought by the methodical\nuse of appropriate means. I shall speak here, in general terms, of these\nproblems, but, as it were, by aphorisms; and certainly I do not propose\nto write an encyclopedia in this short essay.\n\n\nAnd first of all, ethics.\n\nI do not mean systems and catechisms, religious or philosophic. Both of\nthese have been and are above the ordinary and profane course of human\nevents in most cases, as Utopias are above things. Neither do I speak of\nthose formal analyses of ethical relations, which have been elaborated\nfrom the Sophists down to Herbart. This is science and not life. And it\nis formal science, like logic, geometry and grammar. The one who latest\nand with so much profundity defined these ethical relations (Herbart),\nknew well that ideas, that is to say, the formal points of view of the\nmoral judgment, are in themselves powerless. Therefore he put into the\ncircumstances of life and into the pedagogic formation of character the\nreality of ethics. He might have been taken for Owen if he had not been\na retrograde.\n\nI am speaking of that ethics which exists prosaically and in an\nempirical and current fashion, in the inclinations, the habits, the\ncustoms, the counsels, the judgments and the appreciations of ordinary\nmortals. I am speaking of that ethics which as suggestion, as impulse\nand as bridle, appears in different degrees of development, and more or\nless unmistakably, although in a fragmentary fashion, among all men; by\nthe very fact of association because each occupies a definite position\nin the association, they naturally and necessarily reflect upon their\nown works and the works of others, and they conceive obligations and\nappreciations and all the first elements of general precepts.\n\nThere is the _factum_; and what is most important is that this _factum_\nappears to us varied and multiple in the different conditions of life,\nand variable through history. This _factum_ is the _datum_ of research.\nFacts are neither true nor false, as Aristotle already knew. Systems, on\nthe contrary, theologic or rational, may be true or false because they\naim to comprehend, explain and complete the fact, by bringing that fact\nto another fact, or integrating it with another.\n\nSome points of preliminary theory are henceforth settled, in all that\nconcerns the interpretation of this _factum_.\n\nThe will does not choose of itself, as was supposed by the inventors of\n_free will_, that product of the impotency of the psychological analysis\nnot yet arrived at maturity. Volitions, in so far as they are facts of\nconsciousness, are particular expressions of the psychic mechanism.\nThey are a result, first of necessities, and then, of all that precedes\nthem up to the very elementary organic impulse.\n\nEthics does not place itself nor does it engender itself. There is no\nsuch universal foundation of the ethical relations varied and variable,\nas that spiritual entity which has been called the _moral conscience_,\none and unique for all men. This abstract entity has been eliminated by\ncriticism like all other such entities, that is to say, like all the\nfaculties of the soul. What a beautiful explanation of the fact, in\ntruth, to assume the generalization of the fact itself as a means of\nexplanation. People reasoned thus: the sensations, the perceptions, the\nintuitions at a certain moment are found imagined, that is to say,\nchanged in their form, therefore the imagination has transformed them.\nTo this class of inventions belongs the _moral conscience_, which was\naccepted as a postulate of the ethical estimates, which are always\nconditioned. The moral conscience which really exists is an empirical\nfact; it is an index or a summary of the relative ethical formation of\neach individual. If there can be in it material for science, this cannot\nexplain the ethical relations by means of the conscience, but the very\nthing it needs is to understand how that conscience is formed.\n\nIf volitions are derived, and if morality results from the conditions of\nlife, ethics, in its completeness, is but a formation; its problem is\naltogether pedagogic.\n\nThere is a pedagogy which I will call individualistic and subjective,\nwhich, granted the generic conditions of human perfectibility,\nconstructs abstract rules by which men, who are still in a period of\nformation, may be led to be strong, courageous, truthful, just,\nbenevolent, and so on through the entire extent of the cardinal or\nsecondary virtues. But again, can subjective pedagogy construct of\nitself a social background upon which all these beautiful things ought\nto be realized? If it constructs it, it simply elaborates a Utopia.\n\nAnd, in truth, the human race, in the rigid course of its development,\nnever had time nor occasion to go to the school of Plato or of Owen, of\nPestalozzi or Herbart. It has done as it has been forced to do.\nConsidered in an abstract manner, all men can be educated and all are\nperfectible; as a matter of fact, they have always been perfected and\ninstructed as much as and in the measure that they could, granted the\nconditions of life in which they were obliged to develop. It is here\nprecisely that the word environment is not a metaphor, and that the use\nof the word compact is not metaphorical. Real morality always presents\nitself as something conditioned and limited, which the imagination has\nsought to outgrow, by constructing Utopias, and by creating a\nsupernatural pedagogue, or a miraculous redemption.\n\nWhy should the slave have had the ways of seeing and the passions and\nthe sentiments of the master whom he feared? How could the peasant\nrelieve himself of his invincible superstitions, to which he was\ncondemned by his immediate dependence upon nature and his mediate\ndependence upon a social mechanism unknown to him, and by his blind\nfaith in the priest, who stands to him as a magician and sorcerer. In\nwhat fashion could the modern proletarian of the great industrial\ncities, exposed continuously to the alternatives of misery or\nsubjection, how could he realize that way of living, regulated and\nmonotonous, which was the one suited to the members of the trade guilds,\nwhose existence seemed imbedded in a providential plan? From what\nintuitive elements of experience could the hog merchant of Chicago, who\nfurnishes Europe with so many products at a cheap rate, extract the\nconditions of serenity and intellectual elevation which gave to the\nAthenian the qualities of the noble and good man, and to the Roman\ncitizen, the dignity of heroism? What power of docile Christian\npersuasion will extract from the souls of the modern proletarians their\nnatural reasons of hate against their determined or undetermined\noppressors? If they wish that justice be done, they must appeal to\nviolence; and before the love of one's neighbor as a universal law can\nappear possible to them, they must imagine a life very different from\nthe present life, which makes a necessity of hatred. In this society of\ndifferentiations, hatred, pride, hypocrisy, falsehood, baseness,\ninjustice and all the catechism of the cardinal vices and their\naccessories make a sad appendage to the morality, equal for all, upon\nwhich they constitute the satire.\n\nEthics then reduces itself for us to the historical study of the\nsubjective and objective conditions of how morality develops or meets\nobstacles to its development. In this only, that is to say, within these\nlimits, we can recognize some value in the affirmation that morality\ncorresponds to the social situations, and, _in the last analysis_, to\nthe economic conditions. Only an idiot could believe that the individual\nmorality of each one is proportionate to his individual economic\nsituation. That is not only empirically false, but intrinsically\nirrational. Granted the natural elasticity of the psychic mechanism, and\nalso the fact that no one lives so shut up in his own class that he does\nnot undergo the influence of other classes, of the common environment\nand of the interlacing traditions, it is never possible to reduce the\ndevelopment of each individual to the abstract and generic type of his\nclass and his social status. We are dealing there with the phenomena of\nthe mass, of those phenomena which form, or should form, the objects of\n_moral statistics_: the discipline which has thus far remained\nincomplete, because it has taken for the objects of its combinations\ngroups which it creates of itself by the addition of numbers of cases\n(for example, adulteries, thefts, homicides) and not the groups which,\nas classes, conditions, or situations exist really, that is to say,\nsocially.\n\nTo recommend morality to men while assuming or ignoring their\nconditions, this was hitherto the object and the class of argument of\nall the catechists. To recognize that these are given by the social\nenvironment, that is what the communists oppose to the utopia and the\nhypocrisy of the preachers of morality. And as they see in morality not\na privilege of the elect, nor a gift of nature, but a result of\nexperience and education, they admit human perfectibility through\nreasons and arguments which are, in my opinion, more moral and more\nideal than those which have been given by the ideologists.\n\n\nIn other words, man develops, or produces himself, not as an entity\ngenerically provided with certain attributes, which repeat themselves,\nor develop themselves, according to a rational rhythm, but he produces\nand develops himself as at once cause and effect, as author and\nconsequence, of certain definite conditions, in which are engendered\nalso definite currents of ideas, of opinions, of beliefs, of\nimaginations, of expectations, of maxims. Thence arise ideologies of\nevery sort, as also the generalization of morality in catechisms, in\ncanons and in systems. We must not be surprised if these ideologies,\nonce arisen, are afterwards cultivated alone by themselves, if they\nfinally appear, as it were, detached from the living field whence they\ntook their birth, nor if they hold themselves above man as imperative\nrules and models.\n\nThe priests and the doctrinaires of every sort have given themselves\nfor centuries to this labor of abstraction, and have forced themselves\nto maintain the resulting illusions. Now that the positive sources of\nall ideologies have been found in the mechanism of life itself, we must\nexplain realistically their mode of generation. And as that is true of\nall ideologies, it is true also and, in particular of those which\nconsist in projecting ethical estimates beyond their natural and direct\nlimits, making of them anticipations of divine announcements or\npresuppositions of universal suggestions of conscience.\n\nTherein lies the object of the special historic problems. We cannot\nalways find the tie which unites certain ethical ideas to practical\ndefinite conditions. The concrete social psychology of past times often\nremains impenetrable to us. Often the commonest things remain for us\nunintelligible, for example, the animals considered as unclean, or the\norigin for the repugnance at marriage between persons of remote degrees\nof relationship. A prudent course of study leads us to conclude that the\nmotives of many details will remain always concealed. Ignorance,\nsuperstition, singular illusions, symbolisms, these with many others are\ncauses of that unconscious element, often found in customs, which now\nconstitutes for us the unknown and the unknowable.\n\nThe principal cause of all difficulty is precisely in the tardy\nappearance of what we call reason, so that the traces of the proximate\nmotives of ideas have been lost or have remained enveloped in the ideas\nthemselves.\n\n\nOn the subject of science we can be much more brief.\n\nFor a long time history has been made in an artless fashion. Granted and\nadmitted that the different sciences have their statements in manuals\nand encyclopedias, it seemed sufficient to work out chronologically the\nappearance of the different formulas, resolving the total of the\nsystematic summary into the elements which have successively served to\ncompose it. The general presupposition was simple enough; underneath\nthis chronology is the rational conception which develops and\nprogresses.\n\nThis method, if so it could be called, had within itself a certain\ndisadvantage; it permitted us at best to understand how, one stage of\nscience being granted, another stage of science may be derived from it\nby reason, but it did not permit us to discern by what condition of\nfacts men were driven to discover science for the first time, that is to\nsay, to reduce considered experience into a new and definite form. The\nquestion was, then, to find why there is an actual history of science,\nto find the origin of the scientific necessity, and what unites in a\ngenetic fashion that necessity to our necessities in the continuity of\nthe social _processus_.\n\nThe great progress of modern technique, which really constitutes the\nintellectual substance of the bourgeois epoch, has worked, among other\nmiracles, this one also, of revealing to us for the first time the\npractical origin of the _scientific attitude_. (We can never forget the\nFlorentine Academy, which produced this phrase, when Italy was in the\ntwilight of its past grandeur and when modern society was in the dawn of\nthe great industry.) Henceforth we are in a position to take up the\nguiding thread of what, by abstraction, is called the scientific spirit;\nand no one is any longer astonished at finding that everything in\nscientific discoveries has come about, as was the case in other\nprimitive times, when the clumsy elementary geometry of the Egyptians\narose from the necessity of measuring the fields exposed to the annual\ninundations of the Nile, and when the periodicity of these inundations\nsuggested, in Egypt and in Babylon, the discovery of the rudiments of\nthe astronomical movements.\n\nIt is certainly true that when science is once created and partially\nripened, as had already happened in the Hellenic period, the work of\nabstraction, of deduction and of combination continues among scientists\nin such a way that it possibly obliterates the consciousness of the\nsocial causes of the first production of science itself. But if we\nexamine in their main features the epochs of the development of science,\nand if we confront the periods which the ideologists would characterize\nas periods of progress and of retrogression of intelligence, we perceive\nclearly the social reason for the impulses, sometimes increasing,\nsometimes decreasing, toward scientific activity. What need had the\nfeudal society of Western Europe for this ancient science, which the\nByzantines preserved, at least materially, while the Arabs, free\nagriculturists, industrious artisans, or skillful merchants, had\nsucceeded in increasing it a little. What is the Renaissance, if not the\njoining of the initiatory movement of the bourgeoisie to the traditions\nof ancient learning, which had become usable? What is all the\naccelerated movement of scientific knowledge, since the seventeenth\ncentury, but the series of acts accomplished by intelligence, refined by\nexperience, to assure human labor, in the forms of an improved\ntechnique, the dominion over natural forces and conditions? Thence\narises the war against darkness, superstition, the Church, religion;\nthence arise naturalism, atheism, materialism; thence the installation\nof the domain of reason. The bourgeois epoch is the epoch of minds in\nfull play. (Vico.) It is worth remembering that this government of the\nDirectory, which was the prototype and the compendium of all liberal\ncorruption, was the first to introduce in the University and at the\nAcademy in a formal and solemn fashion the science of free inquiry with\nLamark! This science, which the bourgeois epoch has, through its\ninherent conditions, stimulated and made to grow like a giant, is the\nonly heritage of past centuries which communism accepts and adopts\nwithout reserve.\n\nIt would not be useful to stop here for the discussion of the so-called\nantithesis between science and philosophy. If we accept those fashions\nof philosophizing which are confounded with mysticism and theology,\nphilosophy never means a science or doctrine separate from its\nappropriate and particular things, but it is simply a degree, a form, a\nstage of thought with relation to the things which enter into the domain\nof experience. Philosophy is, then, either a generic anticipation of the\nproblems which science has still to elaborate specifically, or a summary\nand a conceptual elaboration of the results at which the sciences have\nalready arrived. As for those who, that they may not appear behind the\ntimes, talk now of scientific philosophy, if we do not wish to stop over\nthe humorous element that there is in that expression, it will suffice\nto say that they are simply fools.\n\n\nI said some pages back, in my statement of formulas, that the economic\nstructure determines in the second place the direction, and in great\npart and indirectly, the objects of imagination and of thought in the\nproduction of art, of religion and of science. To express this\notherwise, or to go further, would be to put one's self voluntarily on\nthe road toward the absurd.\n\nBefore all else, in this formula, we are opposing the fantastic opinion,\nthat art, religion and science are subjective developments and\nhistorical developments of a pretended artistic, religious or scientific\nspirit, which would go on manifesting itself successively through its\nown rhythm of evolution, favored or retarded on this side or that by\nmaterial conditions. By this formula, it is desired to assert, moreover,\nthe necessary connection, through which every fact of art and of\nreligion is the exponent, sentimental, fantastic and thus derived, of\ndefinite social conditions. If I say _in the second place_, it is to\ndistinguish these products from the facts of legal-political order which\nare a true and proper projection of economic conditions. And if I say\n_in great part and indirectly the objects_ of these activities, it is to\nindicate two things: that in artistic or religious production the\nmediation from the conditions to the products is very complicated, and\nagain that men, while living in society, do not thereby cease to live\nalone by themselves in nature, and to receive from it occasion and\nmaterial for curiosity and for imagination.\n\nAfter all, this is all reduced to a more general formula; man does not\nmake several histories at the same time, but all these alleged different\nhistories (art, religion, etc.) make up one alone. And it is not\npossible to take account of that clearly except at the characteristic\nand significant moment of the production of new things, that is to say\nin the periods which I will call revolutionary. Later, the acceptance of\nthe things that have been produced, and the traditional repetition of a\ndefinite type, obliterated the sense of the origins of things.\n\nTry, if you will, to detach the ideology of the _fables_ which are at\nthe foundation of the Homeric poems, from that moment of historic\nevolution where we find the dawn of Aryan civilization in the basin of\nthe Mediterranean, that is to say, from that phase of the higher\nbarbarism in which arises, in Greece and elsewhere, the epic. Or try to\nimagine the birth and the development of Christianity elsewhere than in\nRoman cosmopolitanism, and otherwise than by the work of those\nproletarians, those slaves, those unfortunates, those desperate ones,\nwho had need of the redemption of the Apocalypse and of the promise of\nthe Kingdom of God. Find, if you will, the ground for supposing that in\nthe beautiful environment of the Renaissance the romanticism should\nbegin to appear, which scarcely appeared in the decadent Torquato Tasso;\nor that one might attribute to Richardson or to Diderot the novels of\nBalzac, in whom appears, as a contemporary of the first generation of\nsocialism and sociology, the _psychology of classes_. Far back, farther,\nfarther, at the first origins of the mythical conceptions, it is evident\nthat Zeus did not assume the characters of father of gods and men until\nthe power of the _patria potestas_ was already established, and that\nseries of _processus_ began which culminated in the State. Zeus thus\nceases to be what was at first the simple _divus_ (brilliant) or the\nThunderer. And it is to be observed that at an opposite point of\nhistoric evolution, a great number of thinkers of the past century\nreduced to a single abstract God, who is a simple regent of the world,\nall that variegated image of the unknown and transcendental type,\ndeveloped in so great a wealth of mythological, Christian or pagan\ncreations. Man felt himself more at home in nature, thanks to\nexperience, but felt himself better able to penetrate the gearing of\nsociety, the knowledge of which he possessed in part. The miraculous\ndissolved in his mind, to the point where materialism and criticism\ncould afterwards eliminate that poor remnant of transcendentalism,\nwithout taking up war against the gods.\n\nThere is certainly a history of ideas; but this does not consist in the\nvicious circle of ideas that explain themselves. It lies in rising from\nthings to the idea. There is a problem; still more, there is a multitude\nof problems, so varied, multiple, multiform and mingled are the\nprojections which men have made of themselves and of their\neconomic-social conditions, and thus of their hopes and their fears, of\ntheir desires and their deceptions, in their artistic and religious\nconcepts. The method is found, but the particular execution is not easy.\nWe must above all guard against the scholastic temptation of arriving by\ndeduction at the products of historic activity which are displayed in\nart and in religion. We must hope that philosophers like Krug, who\nexplained the pen with which he wrote by a process of dialectic\ndeduction, have remained forever buried in the notes of Hegel's logic.\n\n\nHere I must state certain difficulties.\n\nBefore attempting to reduce secondary products (for example, art and\nreligion) to the social conditions which they idealize, one must first\nacquire a long experience of specified social psychology, in which the\ntransformation is realized. Therein consists the justification of that\nsum of relations, which is designated in another form of language, under\nthe name of Egyptian _world_, Greek _consciousness_, _spirit_ of the\nRenaissance, _dominant ideas_, _psychology of nations_, of society or of\nclasses. When these relations are established, and men have become\naccustomed to certain conceptions and certain modes of belief or of\nimagination, the ideas transmitted by tradition tend to become\ncrystallized. Thus they appear as a force which resists new formations;\nand as this resistance shows itself through the spoken word, through\nwriting, through intolerance, through polemics, through persecution, so\nthe struggle between the new and the old social conditions takes on the\nform of a struggle between ideas.\n\nIn the second place, through the centuries of history properly\nso-called, and as a consequence of the heredity of the pre-history of\nsavagery and of the conditions of subjection and those of inferiority in\nwhich the majority of men were and are placed, resulted acquiescence in\nwhat is traditional, and the ancient tendencies are perpetuated as\nobstinate survivals.\n\nIn the third place, as I have said, men living socially, do not cease to\nlive also in nature. They are not, of course, bound to nature as animals\nare, because they live on an artificial groundwork. Every one\nunderstands, moreover, that a house is not a cave, that agriculture is\nnot natural pasturage, and that pharmacy is not exorcism. But nature is\nalways the immediate subsoil of the artificial groundwork, and it is the\nenvironment which contains us. The industrial arts have put between us\nsocial animals, and nature, certain intermediaries which modify, set\naside or remove the natural influences; but it has not for all that\ndestroyed the efficacy of these, and we continually feel their effects.\nAnd even as we are born men or women, as we die almost always in spite\nof ourselves, and as we are dominated by the instinct of generation, so\nwe also bear in our temperament certain special conditions which\neducation in the broad sense of the word, or social compact, can modify,\nit is true, within certain limits, but which they can never suppress.\nThese conditions of temperament, repeated in infinite cases throughout\nthe centuries, constitute what is called the race. For all these\nreasons, our dependence upon nature, although it has diminished since\nprehistoric times, continues in our social life, just as the food which\nthe sight of nature affords to the curiosity and the imagination\ncontinues also in our social life. Now these effects of nature, and the\nsentiments immediate or mediate which result from it, although they have\nbeen perceived, since history began, only on the visual angle which is\ngiven us by the conditions of society, never fail to reflect themselves\nin the products of art and of religion, and that adds to the\ndifficulties of a realistic and complete interpretation of both.\n\n\nXI.\n\nIn employing this doctrine as a new principle of research, as a precise\nmeans of defining our position, and as a visual angle, will it really be\npossible finally to arrive at a new narrative history? It is not\npossible to make an affirmative answer in general to this generic\ndemand. Because, in fact, if we assume that the critical communist, the\nsociologist of economic materialism, or as he is commonly called, the\nMarxist, has the necessary critical preparation, the habit of historical\nstudy, and also the gift required for an orderly and vivacious\nnarration, there is no reason for affirming that he cannot write\nhistory, as heretofore the partisans of all other political schools have\nwritten it.\n\nWe have the example of Marx, and there is an argument from fact which\nadmits of no reply. But he was the first and the principal author of the\ndecisive concepts of this doctrine, reducing it at once into an\ninstrument of political orientation, in his character of an incomparable\npublicist, during the revolutionary period of 1848 to 1850. And then he\napplied it with the greatest precision in that essay entitled Eighteenth\nBrumaire of Louis Bonaparte, of which it may be said today, at a great\ndistance, and after so many publications, if we except certain\ninfinitesimal details and certain false forecasts, that it would be\npossible to make neither corrections nor important complements. I will\nnot repeat, since I am not writing a bibliography, the list of the\ndifferent writings of Marx or Engels--of which we have so many attempts\nfrom the Peasants' War (1850) down to his posthumous writings on The\nPresent Unity of Germany--which are an application of the doctrine, nor\nthose of their successors and of the popularizers of scientific\nsocialism. Even in the socialist press we may read, from time to time,\nvaluable attempts at explanation of certain political events, in which\nis found, precisely by reason of historic materialism, a clearness of\nvision which would be sought in vain among the writers and the\ndisputants who have not yet torn away the fantastic veils and\nideological envelopes of history.\n\nHere is not the place to take up the defense of an abstract thesis, as\nan advocate would do. It is evident, nevertheless, in all the histories\nwhich have been written up to the present time, that there is always at\nbottom, if not in the explicit intentions of the writers, certainly in\ntheir spirit, a tendency, a principle, a general view of life; and so\nthis doctrine, which has enabled us to study the social structure in an\nobjective manner, must finally direct with precision the researches of\nhistory, and must end in a narrative complete, transparent and integral.\n\n\nHelps are not lacking.\n\n_Economics_, which, as everyone sees it today, had its birth and\ndevelopment as the science of bourgeois production, after being puffed\nup with the illusion of representing the absolute laws of all forms of\nproduction, has through the dear school of experience entered since, as\neveryone knows, upon a period of self-criticism. Just as this\nself-criticism gave birth, on one side, to critical communism, so on the\nother side it has given birth, through the labor of the calmest, the\nwisest and the most prudent of the academic tradition, to the\n_historical school of economic phenomena_. Thanks to this school, and\nthrough the effect of the application of the descriptive and comparative\nmethods, we are henceforth in possession of a vast sum of knowledge on\nthe different historical forms of _economics_, from the most complex\nfacts and those best specified through essential differences of types,\ndown to the special domain of a cloister or a trade guild of the Middle\nAges. The same thing has taken place with _statistics_, which, by the\nindefinite combination of its sources, succeeds now in throwing light,\nwith a sufficient approximation, upon the movement of population in past\ncenturies.\n\nThese studies, certainly, are not made in the interest of our doctrine,\nand oftener than not they are made in a spirit hostile to socialism;\nsomething not observed, we may say in passing, by those foolish readers\nof printed papers who so often confuse _economic history_, _historical\neconomics_, and _historical materialism_. But these studies, apart from\nthe materials which they gather, are remarkable in that they witness the\nprogress which is in course of making the _internal history_ which,\nlittle by little, is taking the place of the _external history_ with\nwhich, for centuries, the men of letters and artists were occupied.\n\nA good part of these materials that have been gathered must always be\nsubmitted to new corrections, as for that matter happens in every domain\nof empirical knowledge, which oscillates continually between what is\nheld for certain and what is simply probable, and what must, later, be\nintegrated or eliminated.\n\nThe deductions and the combinations of the historians of economics, or\nof those who relate history in general, availing themselves of the\nguiding thread of economic phenomena, are not always so plausible or so\nconclusive, that one does not feel the need of saying to them: All this\nmust be taken back and worked over. But that which is undoubted is the\nfact that in this present time all writing of history tends to become a\nscience, or, better, a social discipline; and when that movement, now\nuncertain and multiform, shall be accomplished, the efforts of the\nscholars and inquirers will lead inevitably to the acceptance of\neconomic materialism. By this incidence of efforts and of scientific\nlabors, which start from points so opposite, the materialistic\nconception of all history will end by penetrating men's minds as a\ndefinite conquest of thought; and this will finally take away from\npartisans and adversaries the attempt to speak _pro_ and _con_ as for\npartisan theses.\n\nApart from the direct helps just enumerated, our doctrine has many\nindirect helps, so that it can profitably employ the results of many\ndisciplines, in which by reason of the greater simplicity of the\nrelations, it has been possible more easily to make the application of\nthe genetic method. The typical case is furnished by glottology, and in\na more special fashion by the study which has for its object the ancient\nlanguages.\n\nThe application of historical materialism is certainly, hitherto, very\nfar from that evidence and that clearness of _processus_ of analysis and\nof reconstruction. It would be consequently a vain attempt to try, at\nthis moment, to write a summary of universal history, which should\npropose to develop all the varied forms of production in order to deduce\nfrom them afterwards all the rest of human activity, in a particular and\ncircumstantial fashion. In the present state of knowledge, he who should\ntry to give this _compendium_ of a new _Kulturgeschichte_ would do\nnothing but translate into economic phraseology the points of general\norientation which, in other books, for example, in Hellwald, give it in\nDarwinian phraseology.\n\nIt is a long step from the acceptance of the principle to its complete\nand particular application to the whole of a vast province of facts, or\nto a great succession of phenomena.\n\nSo the application of our doctrine must be kept for a moment to the\nexposition and the study of definite parts of history. The modern forms\nare clear to all. The economic developments of the bourgeoisie, the\nmanifest knowledge of the different obstacles which it has had to\novercome in the different countries, and, consequently, the development\nof the different revolutions, taking this word in its broadest sense,\ncontribute to make our understanding of it easy. To our eyes the\npre-history of the bourgeoisie, at the moment of the decline of the\nMiddle Ages, is equally clear, and it would not be difficult to find,\nfor example, in the development of the city of Florence, an attested\nseries of developments, in which the economic and statistical movement\nfinds a perfect correspondence in the political relations and a\nsufficient illustration in the contemporary development of intelligence\nalready reduced into prose and stripped, in great part, of ideological\nillusions. Nor would it be impossible to reduce, now, under the definite\nvisual angle of materialism, the whole of ancient Roman history. But for\nthat, and particularly, for the primitive period, there are no direct\nsources; they are, on the contrary, abundant in Greece, from popular\ntradition, the epic, and the authentic juridical inscriptions, down to\nthe pragmatic studies of the historical social relations. At Rome, on\nthe other hand, the struggles for political rights carry with them\nalmost always the economic reasons upon which they rest. Thus, the\ndecline of definite classes, the formation of new classes, the movement\nof conquest, the change of the laws and of the forms of political array,\nappear to us with perfect clearness. This Roman history is hard and\nprosaic; it was never clad with these ideological complements which\nwere suited to Greek life. The rigid prose of conquest, of planned\ncolonization, of institutions and of the forms of law, conquered and\ndevised for solving the problems arising from definite frictions and\ncontrasts, makes all Roman history a chain of events which follow each\nother in a sequence which is grossly evident.\n\n\nThe true problem consists, indeed, not in substituting sociology for\nhistory, as if the latter had been an appearance which conceals behind\nit a secret reality, but in understanding history as a whole, in all its\nintuitive manifestations, and in understanding it through the aid of\neconomic sociology. It is not a question of separating the accident from\nthe substance, the appearance from the reality, the phenomenon from the\nintrinsic kernel, or applying any other formula used by the partisans of\nany species of scholasticism, but of explaining the connection and the\n_complexus_ precisely in so far as it is a connection and a _complexus_.\nIt is not merely a question of discovering and determining the social\ngroundwork, and then of making men appear upon it like so many\nmarionettes, whose threads are held and moved, no longer by Providence\nbut by economic categories. These categories have themselves developed\nand are developing, like all the rest--because men change as to the\ncapacity and the art of vanquishing, subduing, transforming and\nutilizing natural conditions; because men change in spirit and attitude\nthrough the reaction of their tools upon themselves; because men change\nin their respective and co-associated relations; and therefore as\nindividuals depending in various degrees upon one another. We have, in\nfine, to do with history, and not with its skeleton. We are dealing with\nnarration and not with abstraction, with the explaining and treating of\nthe whole, and not merely with resolving and analyzing it; we have to\ndo, in a word, now, as always, with an art.\n\nIt may be that the sociologist who follows the principles of economic\nmaterialism proposes to keep himself simply to the analysis, for\nexample, of what the classes were at the moment when the French\nRevolution broke out, and to pass then to the classes that result from\nthe Revolution and survive it. In that case the titles, the indications\nand the classifications of the materials to analyze are definite; they\nare, for example, the city and the country, the artisan and the laborer,\nthe nobles and the serfs, the land which is freed from feudal charges,\nand the small proprietors who came into being, commerce which frees\nitself from so many restrictions, money which accumulates, industry\nwhich prospers, etc. There is nothing to object to in the choice of this\nmethod, which, because it follows the track of embryonic origins, was\nindispensable to the preparation of historical research according to the\ndirection of the new doctrine.[29]\n\nBut we know that the study of embryonic origins does not suffice to\nmake us understand animal life, which is not a scheme, but is composed\nof living beings which struggle, and in their struggle employ forces,\ninstincts and passions. And it is the same, _mutatis mutandis_, with men\nalso, in so far as they live historically. These particular men, moved\nby certain passions, urged by certain circumstances, with such and such\ndesigns, such intentions, acting in such an attempt with such an\nillusion of their own, or with such a deception, of another, who,\nmartyrs of themselves or of others, enter on harsh contests and\nreciprocal suppressions of each other--there is the real history of the\nFrench Revolution. If, however, it is true that all history is but the\nunfolding of definite economic conditions, it is equally true that it\ndevelops only in definite forms of human activity,--whether the latter\nbe passionate or reflective, fortunate or unsuccessful, blindly\ninstinctive or deliberately heroic.\n\nTo understand the interlacings and the _complexus_ in its inner\nconnection and its outer manifestations; to descend from the surface to\nthe foundation, and then to return from the foundation to the surface;\nto analyze the passions and the intentions, in their motives, from the\nclosest to the most remote, and then to bring back the data of the\npassions and of the intentions and of their causes to the most remote\nelements of a definite economic situation; there is the difficult art\nwhich the materialistic conception must realize.\n\nAnd as we must not imitate that teacher who on the bank taught his\npupils to swim by the definition of swimming, I beg the reader to await\nthe examples which I shall give in other essays in a real historical\nnarration, working over into a book which for some time I have already\nbeen doing in my teaching.\n\nIn this way certain secondary and derivative questions are once for all\ncleared up.\n\nWhat, for example, is the meaning of the lives of the great men?\n\nIn these later times, answers have been given, which, in one sense or\nanother, have an extreme character. On the one side, there are the\nextreme sociologists, on the other side the individualists who, after\nthe fashion of Carlyle, put the heroes into the first rank of their\nhistory. According to some it is sufficient to show what were the\nreasons, for example, of Caesarism, and Caesar matters little. According\nto others, there are no objective reasons of classes and social\ninterests which suffice to explain anything; it is the great minds which\ngive the impulse to the whole historic movement; and history has, so to\nspeak, its lords and its monarchs. The empiricists of narration extract\nthemselves from embarrassment in a very simple fashion, putting together\nat hazard men and things, objective necessities of fact and subjective\ninfluences.\n\nHistorical materialism goes beyond the antithetical views of the\nsociologists and the individualists, and at the same time it eliminates\nthe eclecticism of the empirical narrators.\n\nFirst of all the _factum_.\n\nLet this particular Caesar, as Napoleon was, be born in such a year, let\nhim follow such a career, and find himself ready for the Eighteenth\nBrumaire. All this is completely accidental with relation to the general\ncourse of things which was pushing the new class, mistress of the field,\nto save from the Revolution that which appeared to it necessary to save,\nand that necessitated the creation of a bureaucratico-military\ngovernment. It was, however, necessary to find the man, or the men. But\nwhat actually happened came about in the fashion that we know. It\ndepended on this fact, that it was Napoleon who directed the enterprise\nand not a pitiable Monk, or a ridiculous Boulanger. And from that moment\nthe accident ceases to be accident, precisely because it is this\ndefinite person who gives his imprint and physiognomy to the events,\ndetermining the fashion or the manner in which they have unfolded.\n\nThe very fact that all history rests upon antitheses, contrasts,\nstruggles and wars, explains the decisive influence of certain men in\ndefinite occasions. These men are neither a negligible accident of the\nsocial mechanism, nor miraculous creators of what society, without them,\ncould have made in no other fashion. It is the very interlacings of the\nantithetic conditions, which causes the fact that definite individuals,\ngenerous, heroic, fortunate, mischievous, are called at critical moments\nto say the decisive word. As long as the particular interests of the\ndifferent social groups are in such a state of tension, that all the\nparties in the struggle reciprocally paralyze each other, then to make\nthe political gearing move, there is need of the individual\nconsciousness of a definite individual.\n\nThe social antitheses, which make of every human community an unstable\norganization, give to history, especially when it is seen and examined\nrapidly and in its main features, the character of a drama. This drama\nin all its relations is repeated from community to community, from\nnation to nation, from state to state, because the inner inequalities\nconcurring with the external differentiations, have produced and produce\nthe whole movement of wars, conquests, treaties, colonizations, etc. In\nthis drama have always appeared, in the role of leaders of society, the\nmen who are characterized as eminent, as great, and empiricism has\nconcluded from their presence that they were the principal authors of\nhistory. To carry back the explanation of their appearance to the\ngeneral causes and the common conditions of the social structure, is a\nthing which harmonizes perfectly with the data of our doctrine; but to\ntry to eliminate them, as certain affected objectivists of sociology\nwould willingly do, is pure capriciousness.\n\n\nAnd to conclude, the partisan of historical materialism who sets himself\nthe task of explaining, or relating, cannot do it through schemes.\n\nHistory has always received a definite form, with an infinite number of\naccidents and variations. It has a certain grouping, it has a certain\nperspective.\n\nIt is not enough to have eliminated preventively the hypothesis of\nfactors, because the narrator constantly finds himself in the presence\nof things which seem incongruous, independent, and self-directing. To\npresent the whole as a whole, and to discover in it the continuous\nrelations of the events which border on each other, there is the\ndifficulty.\n\nThe sum of events narrowly consecutive and precise gives the whole of\nhistory; and this is equivalent to saying that it is all that we know of\nour being, in so far as we are social beings and not simply natural\nbeings.\n\n\nXII.\n\nIn the successive whole, and in the continuous necessity of all\nhistorical events, is there, then, some ask, any meaning, any\nsignificance? This question, whether it comes from the camp of the\nidealists, or whether it comes to us from the mouth of the most\ncircumspect critics, certainly, and in all cases, demands our attention,\nand requires an adequate answer.\n\nIn fact, if we stop at the premises, intuitive or intellectual, from\nwhich is derived the conception of _progress_ as an idea which incloses\nand embraces the total of the human _processus_, it is seen that these\npresumptions all rest upon the mental need, which is in us, of\nattributing to one or more series of events a certain sense and a\ncertain signification. The conception of progress, for whoever examines\nit carefully in its specific nature, always implies judgments of\nestimation, and therefore, there is no one who can confuse it with the\ncrude and bare notion of simple development, which does not contain that\nincrement of clue which makes us say of a thing that it is progressing.\n\n\nI have already said, and, it seems to me, at sufficient length, how it\nis that progress does not exist as something imperative or regulative\nover the natural and immediate succession of the generations of men.\nThat is as intuitive as is the actual coexistence of peoples, of nations\nand of states, which find themselves, at the same time, in a different\nstage of development; so undeniable is the actual condition of relative\nsuperiority and inferiority of nation as compared with nation; and again\nso certain is the partial and relative retrogression which has been\nproduced several times in history, as Italy has exemplified for\ncenturies. Still more, if there is a convincing proof of how progress\nmust be understood in the sense of immediate law, and, to use a strong\nexpression, of a physical and inevitable law, it is precisely this\nfact,--that social development by the very reasons of the _processus_\nwhich are inherent in it, often leads to retrogression. It is evident,\non the other hand, that the faculty of progressing, like the possibility\nof retrogressing, does not constitute, to begin with, an immediate\nprivilege, or an innate defect of a race, nor is either one the direct\nconsequence of geographical conditions. And, in fact, the primitive\ncenters of civilization were multiple, those centers have been removed\nin the course of centuries, and finally the means, the discoveries, the\nresults and the impulses of a definite civilization, already developed,\nare, within certain limits, communicable to all men indefinitely. In a\nword, progress and retrogression are inherent in the conditions and the\nrhythm of social development.\n\n\nNow then, the faith in the universality of progress, which appeared with\nso much violence in the eighteenth century, rests upon this first\npositive fact, that men, when they do not find obstacles in external\nconditions, or do not find them in those which result from their own\nwork in their social environment, are all capable of progress.\n\nMoreover, at the bottom of this supposed or imagined unity of history,\nin consequence of which the _processus_ of the different societies would\nform one single series of progress, there is another fact, which has\noffered motive and occasion for so many fantastic ideologies. If all\nnations have not progressed equally, still more, if some have stopped\nand have followed a backward route, if the _processus_ of social\ndevelopment has not always, in every place and in all times, the same\nrhythm and the same intensity, it is nevertheless certain that, with the\npassage of the decisive activity from one people to another people in\nthe course of history, the useful products, already acquired by those\nwho were in decadence, have been transmitted to those who were growing\nand rising. That is not so true of the products of sentiment and\nimagination, which nevertheless are themselves preserved and perpetuated\nin literary tradition, as of the results of thought, and especially of\nthe discovery and of the production of technical means, which, once\nfound, are communicated and transmitted directly.\n\nNeed we remind the reader that writing was never lost, although the\npeoples who invented it have disappeared from historic continuity? Need\nwe recall again that we all have in our pockets, engraved on our\nwatches, the Babylonian dial, and that we make use of algebra, which was\nintroduced by those Arabs, whose historical activity has since been\ndispersed like the sands of the desert? It is useless to multiply these\nexamples, because it is sufficient to think of technology and the\nhistory of discoveries in the broad sense of the word, for which the\nalmost continuous transmission of the instruments of labor and\nproduction is evident.\n\nAnd after all, the provisional summaries which are called universal\nhistories, although they always reveal, in their aim and in their\nexecution, something forced and artificial, would never have been\nattempted if human events had not offered to the empiricism of the\nnarrators a certain thread, even though subtle, of continuity.\n\nTake for example the Italy of the sixteenth century, which is evidently\nin decadence; but while it is declining, it transmits to the rest of\nEurope its intellectual weapons. These are not all that pass to the\ncivilization which continues, but even the world market establishes\nitself upon the foundation of those geographical discoveries, and those\ndiscoveries in the naval art, which were the work of Italian merchants,\ntravelers and sailors. It is not only the methods of the art of war and\nthe refinements of political diplomacy which passed outside of Italy\n(though it is only with these that men of letters ordinarily concerned\nthemselves), but even the art of making money, which had acquired all\nthe evidence of an elaborate commercial discipline, and one after the\nother the rudiments of the science, upon which is founded modern\ntechnique, and to begin with all the methodical irrigation of fields and\nthe general laws of hydraulics. All that is so precisely true, that an\namateur in conjectural theses might come to the point of asking himself\nthis question: what would have become of Italy, in this modern bourgeois\nepoch, if, executing the project of the Venetian Senate (1504) of making\nsomething which would have resembled in its effects a piercing of the\nIsthmus of Suez, the Italian navy had found itself in a direct struggle\nwith the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean, at the very moment when the\nshifting of historical activity from the Mediterranean to the ocean\nprepared the decadence of Italy? But enough of fantasy!\n\n\nA certain historical continuity, in the empirical and circumstantial\nsense of the transmission and the successive increase of the means of\ncivilization, is then an incontestable fact. And, although this fact\nexcludes all idea of preconceived design, of intentional or hidden\nfinality, or pre-established harmony, and all the other whimsicalities\nin regard to which there has been such a deal of speculation, it does\nnot exclude, for all that, the _idea of progress_, which we can utilize\nas an _estimation_ of the course of human development. It is undeniable\nthat progress does not embrace _materially_ the succession of\ngenerations, and that its conception implies nothing categorical,\nconsidering that societies have also been in retrogression, but that\ndoes not prevent this idea from serving as a guiding thread and a\n_measure_ to give a meaning to the historical _processus_. There is no\ncommon ground for critics who are prudent, in the use of specific\nconcepts as in the method of their application, and those poor extreme\nevolutionists, who are scientists without the grammar and the principle\nof science, that is to say, without logic.\n\nAs I have said several times, ideas do not fall from heaven, and even\nthose which, at a given moment arise from definite situations with the\nimpetuosity of faith and with a metaphysical garb, carry always within\nthemselves the index of their correspondence with the order of the\nfacts, of which the explanation is sought or attempted. The idea of\nprogress, as the unifier of history, appears with violence and becomes a\ngiant in the eighteenth century, that is to say, in the heroic period of\nthe intellectual and political life of the revolutionary bourgeoisie.\nJust as this engendered, in the order of its works, the most intensive\nperiod of history that is known, it also produced its own ideology in\nthe notion of progress. This ideology in its substance means that\ncapitalism is the only form of production which is capable of extending\nall over the earth and of reducing the whole human race to conditions\nwhich resemble each other everywhere. If modern technique can be\ntransported everywhere, if all the human race appear on a single field\nof competition and all the world as a single market, what is there\nastonishing in the ideology which, reflecting intellectually these\nconditions of fact, reaches the affirmation that the present historical\nunity has been prepared by everything which precedes it? Translating\nthis concept of pretended _preparation_ into the altogether natural\nconcept of _successive condition_, and there is opened before us the\nroad by which the passage is made from the ideology of progress to\nhistorical materialism; and now we arrive at the affirmation of Marx,\nthat this form of bourgeois production is the last antagonistic form of\nthe _processus_ of society.\n\nThe miracles of the bourgeois epoch, in the unification of the social\n_processus_, find no parallel in the past. Here are the whole New World,\nAustralia, Northern Africa, and New Zealand! And they all resemble us!\nAnd the rebound in the extreme East is made through imitation, and in\nAfrica through conquest! In the presence of this universality and this\ncosmopolitanism, the acquisition of the Celts and the Iberians to Roman\ncivilization, and of the Germans and that the Slavs to the cycle of\nRoman Byzantine Christian civilization shrink into insignificance. This\never-growing unification is reflected more every day in the political\nmechanism of Europe; this mechanism, because founded on the economic\nconquest of the other parts of the world, oscillates henceforth with the\nflux and reflux which come from the most distant regions. In this most\ncomplicated mingling of action and reactions the war between Japan and\nChina, made with methods imitated, or directly borrowed, from European\ntechnique, leaves its traces, deep and far-reaching, in the diplomatic\nrelations of Europe, and still clearer traces in the stock exchange,\nwhich is the faithful interpreter of the consciousness of our time. This\nEurope, mistress of all the rest of the world, has recently seen the\nrelations of the politics of the states of which it is composed\noscillate in consequence of a revolt in the Transvaal, and in\nconsequence of the ill success of the Italian armies in Abyssinia in\nthese last days.[30]\n\nThe centuries which have prepared and carried to its present form the\neconomic domination of bourgeois production have also developed the\ntendency to a unification of history under a general view; and in this\nfashion we find explained and justified the ideology of progress, which\nfills so many books of the philosophy of history and of\n_Kulturgeschichte_. The unity of social form, that is to say, the unity\nof the capitalistic form of production, to which the bourgeoisie has\ntended for centuries, is reflected in the conception of the unity of\nhistory in more suggestive forms than the mind could ever have received\nfrom the narrow cosmopolitanism of the Roman empire or the one-sided\ncosmopolitanism of the Catholic Church.\n\n\nBut this unification of the social life, by the working of the\ncapitalist form of production, developed itself from the beginning, and\ncontinues to develop itself, not according to preconceived rules, plans\nand designs, but, on the contrary, by reason of frictions and struggles,\nwhich in their sum form a colossal complication of antitheses. War\nwithout and war within. Struggle incessant among the nations, and\nstruggles incessant between the members of each nation. And the\ninterlacings of the deeds and the action of so many emulators,\ncompetitors and adversaries is so complicated, that the co-ordination of\nevents very often escapes the attention, and it is a very difficult\nthing to discover their intimate connection. The struggle which actually\nexists among men, the struggles which now, with various methods, are\nunfolding among nations and within nations, have come to make us\nunderstand better in the midst of what difficulties the history of the\npast has unfolded. If the bourgeois ideology, reflecting the tendency to\ncapitalist unification, has proclaimed the progress of the human race,\nhistorical materialism, on the contrary, and without proclamation, has\ndiscovered that these are the antitheses which have thus far been the\ncause and the motive of all historical events.\n\nThus the movement of history, taken in general, appears to us as it were\noscillating;--or rather, to use a more appropriate image, it seems that\nit is unfolding on a line often interrupted, and at certain moments it\nseems to return upon itself, sometimes it stretches out, removing itself\nfar from the point of departure:--in an actual zigzag.\n\nGranted the internal complication of every society, and granted the\nmeeting of several societies on the field of competition (from the\ningenuous forms of robbery, rapine and piracy to the refined methods of\nthe elegant sport of the stock exchange) it is natural that every\nhistorical result, when it is measured in the one measure of individual\nexpectation, appears very often like chance, and afterwards, considered\ntheoretically, becomes for the mind more inextricable than the track of\nmeteors.\n\nSpeaking of the irony which sits as a sovereign above history is not a\nsimple phrase; because, in truth, if there is no god of Epicurus\nlaughing above over human affairs, here below human affairs are of\nthemselves playing a divine comedy.\n\nWill this irony of human destinies ever cease? Will that form of\nassociation ever be possible which gives room for the possible complete\ndevelopment of all aptitudes, in such a way that the ulterior\n_processus_ of history may become a real and true evolution? And, to\nspeak like the amateurs of high-sounding phrases, will there ever be a\nhumanization of all men? When once in the communism of production the\nantitheses which are now the cause and the effect of economic\ndifferentiations are eliminated, will not all human energies acquire a\nvery high degree of efficacy and intensity in co-operative effects, and\nat the same time will they not develop with a greater liberty of\nself-expression among all individuals?\n\nIt is in the affirmative answers to these questions that consists what\n_critical communism_ says, that is to say foresees, of the future. But\nit does not say it and it does not foretell it as if it were discussing\nan abstract possibility, or like him who wishes, by his will, to give\nlife to a state of things which he desires and which he dreams. But it\nsays and predicts because what it announces must inevitably happen by\nthe immanent necessity of history, seen and studied henceforth in the\nfoundation of its economic substructure.\n\n\"It is only in an order of things where there will no longer be classes\nand class antagonisms that social revolutions will cease to be political\nrevolutions.[31]\n\n\"To the old bourgeois society with its classes and class antagonisms\nwill succeed an association in which the free development of each is the\ncondition of the free development of all.[32]\n\n\"The relations of bourgeois production are the last antagonistic form of\nthe social _processus_ of production--a form antagonistic not in the\nsense of individual antagonism, but of the antagonism which proceeds\nfrom the conditions of the social life of individuals; but the\nproductive forces which are developing in the lap of bourgeois society\nare creating at the same time the material conditions to terminate that\nantagonism. With this social organization ends the prehistory of the\nhuman race.[33]\n\n\"With the taking possession of the means of production on the part of\nsociety, is excluded the production of commodities, and with it the\ndominance of the product over the producer. The anarchy which dominates\nin social production will be succeeded by conscious organization. The\nstruggle for individual existence will cease. Only in this way man will\ndetach himself, in a certain sense, from the animal world in a definite\nfashion, and will pass from a condition of animal existence to\nconditions of human existence. The entire sum of the conditions of life\nwhich has thus far dominated men will pass under the rule and the\nexamination of men themselves, who will thus for the first time become\nthe real masters of nature, because they will be the masters of their\nown association. The laws of their own social activity, which had been\noutside of them like foreign laws imposed upon them, will be applied and\nmastered by the men themselves, with full knowledge of their cause.\nTheir very association, which appeared to men as if imposed by nature\nand history, will become their own and their free work. The foreign and\nobjective forces, which till then dominated history, will pass under the\ncare of men. Only from that moment will men make their own history with\nfull understanding; only from that moment will the social causes which\nthey put in motion, be able to arrive, in great part and in a proportion\never increasing, at the desired effects. It is the leap of the human\nrace from the reign of necessity into that of liberty. To accomplish\nthis action emancipating the world, such is the historic mission of the\nmodern proletariat.\"\n\nIf Marx and Engels had been phrasemakers, if their spirit had not been\nmade prudent, even scrupulous, by the daily and minute use and\napplication of scientific methods, if the permanent contact with so many\nconspirators and visionaries had not given them a horror of every\nUtopia, opposing it indeed up to the point of pedantry, these formulas\nmight pass for good-natured paradoxes, which criticism need not examine.\nBut these formulas are, as it were, the close, the effective conclusion\nof the doctrine of historic materialism. They are the direct result of\nthe criticism of economies and of historical dialectics.\n\nIn these formulas, which may be developed, as I have had occasion to\nshow elsewhere, is, summed up every forecast of the future, which is not\nand is not intended for a romance or a Utopia. And in these very\nformulas there is an adequate and conclusive response to the question\nwith which this chapter began: Is there in the series of historic events\na meaning and a significance?\n\n\nTHE END.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[28] This genetic study forms the subject of my first essay, _In Memory\nof the Communist Manifesto_, which is the indispensable preamble to an\nunderstanding of all the rest.\n\n[29] (I allude to the excellent work of Karl Kautsky, _Die\nKlassengensaetze von 1789_.)\n\n[30] The Italian edition of this Essay bears the date of March 10, 1896.\n\n[31] Marx, Misere de la Philosophie, Paris, 1817, p. 178.\n\n[32] Communist Manifesto, p. 16.\n\n[33] Marx, Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie, Berlin, 1859, p. 6\nPref. Compare my first Essay, pp. 48-50.","title":"Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":59182}