{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_61/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_61","id":"gutenberg_61","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61","summary":null,"tags":["Banned Books from Anne Haight's list","Category: Economics","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Communism","Philosophy","Politics","Socialism"],"text":"The Communist Manifesto\n\nby Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels\n\n\n[From the English edition of 1888, edited by Friedrich Engels]\n\n\n\n\nContents\n\n I. BOURGEOIS AND PROLETARIANS\n II. PROLETARIANS AND COMMUNISTS\n III. SOCIALIST AND COMMUNIST LITERATURE\n IV. POSITION OF THE COMMUNISTS IN RELATION TO THE VARIOUS EXISTING OPPOSITION PARTIES\n\n\n\n\nA spectre is haunting Europe\u2014the spectre of Communism. All the Powers\nof old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this\nspectre: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and\nGerman police-spies.\n\nWhere is the party in opposition that has not been decried as\nCommunistic by its opponents in power? Where is the Opposition that has\nnot hurled back the branding reproach of Communism, against the more\nadvanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary\nadversaries?\n\nTwo things result from this fact.\n\nI. Communism is already acknowledged by all European Powers to be\nitself a Power.\n\nII. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the\nwhole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and\nmeet this nursery tale of the Spectre of Communism with a Manifesto of\nthe party itself.\n\nTo this end, Communists of various nationalities have assembled in\nLondon, and sketched the following Manifesto, to be published in the\nEnglish, French, German, Italian, Flemish and Danish languages.\n\n\n\n\nI.\nBOURGEOIS AND PROLETARIANS\n\n\nThe history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class\nstruggles.\n\nFreeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master\nand journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant\nopposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now\nopen fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary\nre-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the\ncontending classes.\n\nIn the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a\ncomplicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold\ngradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights,\nplebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals,\nguild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these\nclasses, again, subordinate gradations.\n\nThe modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal\nsociety has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but\nestablished new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of\nstruggle in place of the old ones. Our epoch, the epoch of the\nbourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has\nsimplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more\nsplitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes,\ndirectly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.\n\nFrom the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the\nearliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the\nbourgeoisie were developed.\n\nThe discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh\nground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets,\nthe colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in\nthe means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce,\nto navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby,\nto the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid\ndevelopment.\n\nThe feudal system of industry, under which industrial production was\nmonopolised by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing\nwants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The\nguild-masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle\nclass; division of labour between the different corporate guilds\nvanished in the face of division of labour in each single workshop.\n\nMeantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even\nmanufacture no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery\nrevolutionised industrial production. The place of manufacture was\ntaken by the giant, Modern Industry, the place of the industrial middle\nclass, by industrial millionaires, the leaders of whole industrial\narmies, the modern bourgeois.\n\nModern industry has established the world-market, for which the\ndiscovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense\ndevelopment to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This\ndevelopment has, in its time, reacted on the extension of industry; and\nin proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in\nthe same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital,\nand pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle\nAges.\n\nWe see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of\na long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes\nof production and of exchange.\n\nEach step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a\ncorresponding political advance of that class. An oppressed class under\nthe sway of the feudal nobility, an armed and self-governing\nassociation in the mediaeval commune; here independent urban republic\n(as in Italy and Germany), there taxable \u201cthird estate\u201d of the monarchy\n(as in France), afterwards, in the period of manufacture proper,\nserving either the semi-feudal or the absolute monarchy as a\ncounterpoise against the nobility, and, in fact, corner-stone of the\ngreat monarchies in general, the bourgeoisie has at last, since the\nestablishment of Modern Industry and of the world-market, conquered for\nitself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway.\nThe executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the\ncommon affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.\n\nThe bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part.\n\nThe bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to\nall feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn\nasunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his \u201cnatural\nsuperiors,\u201d and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man\nthan naked self-interest, than callous \u201ccash payment.\u201d It has drowned\nthe most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous\nenthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of\negotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange\nvalue, and in place of the numberless and indefeasible chartered\nfreedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom\u2014Free Trade. In\none word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political\nillusions, naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.\n\nThe bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto\nhonoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the\nphysician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into\nits paid wage labourers.\n\nThe bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and\nhas reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.\n\nThe bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal\ndisplay of vigour in the Middle Ages, which Reactionists so much\nadmire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It\nhas been the first to show what man\u2019s activity can bring about. It has\naccomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts,\nand Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the\nshade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades.\n\nThe bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the\ninstruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and\nwith them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes\nof production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first\ncondition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant\nrevolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social\nconditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the\nbourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen\nrelations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and\nopinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before\nthey can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is\nprofaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his\nreal conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.\n\nThe need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the\nbourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle\neverywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.\n\nThe bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world-market given\na cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every\ncountry. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under\nthe feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All\nold-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily\nbeing destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose\nintroduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised\nnations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material,\nbut raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose\nproducts are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the\nglobe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the productions of the\ncountry, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the\nproducts of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and\nnational seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every\ndirection, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material,\nso also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of\nindividual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and\nnarrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the\nnumerous national and local literatures, there arises a world\nliterature.\n\nThe bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of\nproduction, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws\nall, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap\nprices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters\ndown all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians\u2019 intensely\nobstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations,\non pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it\ncompels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst,\n_i.e_., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world\nafter its own image.\n\nThe bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It\nhas created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population\nas compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of\nthe population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the\ncountry dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and\nsemi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of\npeasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.\n\nThe bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state\nof the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has\nagglomerated production, and has concentrated property in a few hands.\nThe necessary consequence of this was political centralisation.\nIndependent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate\ninterests, laws, governments and systems of taxation, became lumped\ntogether into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one\nnational class-interest, one frontier and one customs-tariff. The\nbourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created\nmore massive and more colossal productive forces than have all\npreceding generations together. Subjection of Nature\u2019s forces to man,\nmachinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture,\nsteam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole\ncontinents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations\nconjured out of the ground\u2014what earlier century had even a presentiment\nthat such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?\n\nWe see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose\nfoundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal\nsociety. At a certain stage in the development of these means of\nproduction and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society\nproduced and exchanged, the feudal organisation of agriculture and\nmanufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property\nbecame no longer compatible with the already developed productive\nforces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they\nwere burst asunder.\n\nInto their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and\npolitical constitution adapted to it, and by the economical and\npolitical sway of the bourgeois class.\n\nA similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern bourgeois\nsociety with its relations of production, of exchange and of property,\na society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of\nexchange, is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the\npowers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For\nmany a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the\nhistory of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern\nconditions of production, against the property relations that are the\nconditions for the existence of the bourgeoisie and of its rule. It is\nenough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return\nput on its trial, each time more threateningly, the existence of the\nentire bourgeois society. In these crises a great part not only of the\nexisting products, but also of the previously created productive\nforces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises there breaks out an\nepidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an\nabsurdity\u2014the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds\nitself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a\nfamine, a universal war of devastation had cut off the supply of every\nmeans of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and\nwhy? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of\nsubsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive\nforces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the\ndevelopment of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary,\nthey have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are\nfettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring\ndisorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of\nbourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow\nto comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie\nget over these crises? On the one hand inforced destruction of a mass\nof productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and\nby the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by\npaving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by\ndiminishing the means whereby crises are prevented.\n\nThe weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground\nare now turned against the bourgeoisie itself.\n\nBut not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to\nitself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield\nthose weapons\u2014the modern working class\u2014the proletarians.\n\nIn proportion as the bourgeoisie, _i.e_., capital, is developed, in the\nsame proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class,\ndeveloped\u2014a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find\nwork, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital.\nThese labourers, who must sell themselves piece-meal, are a commodity,\nlike every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to\nall the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the\nmarket.\n\nOwing to the extensive use of machinery and to division of labour, the\nwork of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and\nconsequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the\nmachine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most\neasily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of\nproduction of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of\nsubsistence that he requires for his maintenance, and for the\npropagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore\nalso of labour, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion\ntherefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage\ndecreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division\nof labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also\nincreases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by increase of\nthe work exacted in a given time or by increased speed of the\nmachinery, etc.\n\nModern industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal\nmaster into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of\nlabourers, crowded into the factory, are organised like soldiers. As\nprivates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a\nperfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves\nof the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and\nhourly enslaved by the machine, by the over-looker, and, above all, by\nthe individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this\ndespotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the\nmore hateful and the more embittering it is.\n\nThe less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labour,\nin other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is\nthe labour of men superseded by that of women. Differences of age and\nsex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working\nclass. All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use,\naccording to their age and sex.\n\nNo sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, so\nfar at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon\nby the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper,\nthe pawnbroker, etc.\n\nThe lower strata of the middle class\u2014the small tradespeople,\nshopkeepers, retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and\npeasants\u2014all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because\ntheir diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern\nIndustry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the\nlarge capitalists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered\nworthless by the new methods of production. Thus the proletariat is\nrecruited from all classes of the population.\n\nThe proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its\nbirth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first the contest is\ncarried on by individual labourers, then by the workpeople of a\nfactory, then by the operatives of one trade, in one locality, against\nthe individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. They direct their\nattacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against\nthe instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares\nthat compete with their labour, they smash to pieces machinery, they\nset factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status\nof the workman of the Middle Ages.\n\nAt this stage the labourers still form an incoherent mass scattered\nover the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition. If\nanywhere they unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet the\nconsequence of their own active union, but of the union of the\nbourgeoisie, which class, in order to attain its own political ends, is\ncompelled to set the whole proletariat in motion, and is moreover yet,\nfor a time, able to do so. At this stage, therefore, the proletarians\ndo not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the\nremnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial\nbourgeois, the petty bourgeoisie. Thus the whole historical movement is\nconcentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory so obtained\nis a victory for the bourgeoisie.\n\nBut with the development of industry the proletariat not only increases\nin number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength\ngrows, and it feels that strength more. The various interests and\nconditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and\nmore equalised, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions\nof labour, and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level.\nThe growing competition among the bourgeois, and the resulting\ncommercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more fluctuating.\nThe unceasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing,\nmakes their livelihood more and more precarious; the collisions between\nindividual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the\ncharacter of collisions between two classes. Thereupon the workers\nbegin to form combinations (Trades Unions) against the bourgeois; they\nclub together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found\npermanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these\noccasional revolts. Here and there the contest breaks out into riots.\n\nNow and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real\nfruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the\never-expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by the\nimproved means of communication that are created by modern industry and\nthat place the workers of different localities in contact with one\nanother. It was just this contact that was needed to centralise the\nnumerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national\nstruggle between classes. But every class struggle is a political\nstruggle. And that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle\nAges, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the modern\nproletarians, thanks to railways, achieve in a few years.\n\nThis organisation of the proletarians into a class, and consequently\ninto a political party, is continually being upset again by the\ncompetition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again,\nstronger, firmer, mightier. It compels legislative recognition of\nparticular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the\ndivisions among the bourgeoisie itself. Thus the ten-hours\u2019 bill in\nEngland was carried.\n\nAltogether collisions between the classes of the old society further,\nin many ways, the course of development of the proletariat. The\nbourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle. At first with\nthe aristocracy; later on, with those portions of the bourgeoisie\nitself, whose interests have become antagonistic to the progress of\nindustry; at all times, with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries. In\nall these battles it sees itself compelled to appeal to the\nproletariat, to ask for its help, and thus, to drag it into the\npolitical arena. The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the\nproletariat with its own instruments of political and general\neducation, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons\nfor fighting the bourgeoisie.\n\nFurther, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling classes\nare, by the advance of industry, precipitated into the proletariat, or\nare at least threatened in their conditions of existence. These also\nsupply the proletariat with fresh elements of enlightenment and\nprogress.\n\nFinally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the\nprocess of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within\nthe whole range of society, assumes such a violent, glaring character,\nthat a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins\nthe revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands.\nJust as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility\nwent over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes\nover to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois\nideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending\ntheoretically the historical movement as a whole.\n\nOf all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today,\nthe proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other\nclasses decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the\nproletariat is its special and essential product. The lower middle\nclass, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the\npeasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from\nextinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are\ntherefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are\nreactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by\nchance they are revolutionary, they are so only in view of their\nimpending transfer into the proletariat, they thus defend not their\npresent, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint\nto place themselves at that of the proletariat.\n\nThe \u201cdangerous class,\u201d the social scum, that passively rotting mass\nthrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may, here and there, be\nswept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of\nlife, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of\nreactionary intrigue.\n\nIn the conditions of the proletariat, those of old society at large are\nalready virtually swamped. The proletarian is without property; his\nrelation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with\nthe bourgeois family-relations; modern industrial labour, modern\nsubjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as\nin Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law,\nmorality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind\nwhich lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.\n\nAll the preceding classes that got the upper hand, sought to fortify\ntheir already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their\nconditions of appropriation. The proletarians cannot become masters of\nthe productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own\nprevious mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous\nmode of appropriation. They have nothing of their own to secure and to\nfortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and\ninsurances of, individual property.\n\nAll previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in\nthe interests of minorities. The proletarian movement is the\nself-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the\ninterests of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum\nof our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without\nthe whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into\nthe air.\n\nThough not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat\nwith the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat\nof each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its\nown bourgeoisie.\n\nIn depicting the most general phases of the development of the\nproletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within\nexisting society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open\nrevolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the\nfoundation for the sway of the proletariat.\n\nHitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already\nseen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But in\norder to oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it\nunder which it can, at least, continue its slavish existence. The serf,\nin the period of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune,\njust as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of feudal absolutism,\nmanaged to develop into a bourgeois. The modern laborer, on the\ncontrary, instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper\nand deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He\nbecomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population\nand wealth. And here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit\nany longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its\nconditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit\nto rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave\nwithin his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a\nstate, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society\ncan no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its\nexistence is no longer compatible with society.\n\nThe essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the\nbourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the\ncondition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on\ncompetition between the laborers. The advance of industry, whose\ninvoluntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the\nlabourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due\nto association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts\nfrom under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie\nproduces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore,\nproduces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory\nof the proletariat are equally inevitable.\n\n\n\n\nII.\nPROLETARIANS AND COMMUNISTS\n\n\nIn what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a\nwhole?\n\nThe Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other\nworking-class parties.\n\nThey have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat\nas a whole.\n\nThey do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to\nshape and mould the proletarian movement.\n\nThe Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties\nby this only: (1) In the national struggles of the proletarians of the\ndifferent countries, they point out and bring to the front the common\ninterests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.\n(2) In the various stages of development which the struggle of the\nworking class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always\nand everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.\n\nThe Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most\nadvanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every\ncountry, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other\nhand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat\nthe advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the\nconditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian\nmovement.\n\nThe immediate aim of the Communist is the same as that of all the other\nproletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class,\noverthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by\nthe proletariat.\n\nThe theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on\nideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or\nthat would-be universal reformer. They merely express, in general\nterms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from\na historical movement going on under our very eyes. The abolition of\nexisting property relations is not at all a distinctive feature of\nCommunism.\n\nAll property relations in the past have continually been subject to\nhistorical change consequent upon the change in historical conditions.\n\nThe French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in favour\nof bourgeois property.\n\nThe distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of\nproperty generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern\nbourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of\nthe system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on\nclass antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.\n\nIn this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the\nsingle sentence: Abolition of private property.\n\nWe Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the\nright of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man\u2019s own\nlabour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal\nfreedom, activity and independence.\n\nHard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property\nof the petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that\npreceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the\ndevelopment of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and\nis still destroying it daily.\n\nOr do you mean modern bourgeois private property?\n\nBut does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit.\nIt creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits\nwage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of\nbegetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property,\nin its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and\nwage-labour. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism.\n\nTo be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social\n_status_ in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by\nthe united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the\nunited action of all members of society, can it be set in motion.\n\nCapital is, therefore, not a personal, it is a social power.\n\nWhen, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the\nproperty of all members of society, personal property is not thereby\ntransformed into social property. It is only the social character of\nthe property that is changed. It loses its class-character.\n\nLet us now take wage-labour.\n\nThe average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage, _i.e_., that\nquantum of the means of subsistence, which is absolutely requisite in\nbare existence as a labourer. What, therefore, the wage-labourer\nappropriates by means of his labour, merely suffices to prolong and\nreproduce a bare existence. We by no means intend to abolish this\npersonal appropriation of the products of labour, an appropriation that\nis made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that\nleaves no surplus wherewith to command the labour of others. All that\nwe want to do away with, is the miserable character of this\nappropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase\ncapital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the\nruling class requires it.\n\nIn bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase\naccumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a\nmeans to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer.\n\nIn bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in\nCommunist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society\ncapital is independent and has individuality, while the living person\nis dependent and has no individuality.\n\nAnd the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois,\nabolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition\nof bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois\nfreedom is undoubtedly aimed at.\n\nBy freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of\nproduction, free trade, free selling and buying.\n\nBut if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying\ndisappears also. This talk about free selling and buying, and all the\nother \u201cbrave words\u201d of our bourgeoisie about freedom in general, have a\nmeaning, if any, only in contrast with restricted selling and buying,\nwith the fettered traders of the Middle Ages, but have no meaning when\nopposed to the Communistic abolition of buying and selling, of the\nbourgeois conditions of production, and of the bourgeoisie itself.\n\nYou are horrified at our intending to do away with private property.\nBut in your existing society, private property is already done away\nwith for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is\nsolely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You\nreproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of\nproperty, the necessary condition for whose existence is the\nnon-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.\n\nIn one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your\nproperty. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.\n\nFrom the moment when labour can no longer be converted into capital,\nmoney, or rent, into a social power capable of being monopolised,\n_i.e_., from the moment when individual property can no longer be\ntransformed into bourgeois property, into capital, from that moment,\nyou say individuality vanishes.\n\nYou must, therefore, confess that by \u201cindividual\u201d you mean no other\nperson than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property.\nThis person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.\n\nCommunism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of\nsociety; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate\nthe labour of others by means of such appropriation.\n\nIt has been objected that upon the abolition of private property all\nwork will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us.\n\nAccording to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the\ndogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work, acquire\nnothing, and those who acquire anything, do not work. The whole of this\nobjection is but another expression of the tautology: that there can no\nlonger be any wage-labour when there is no longer any capital.\n\nAll objections urged against the Communistic mode of producing and\nappropriating material products, have, in the same way, been urged\nagainst the Communistic modes of producing and appropriating\nintellectual products. Just as, to the bourgeois, the disappearance of\nclass property is the disappearance of production itself, so the\ndisappearance of class culture is to him identical with the\ndisappearance of all culture.\n\nThat culture, the loss of which he laments, is, for the enormous\nmajority, a mere training to act as a machine.\n\nBut don\u2019t wrangle with us so long as you apply, to our intended\nabolition of bourgeois property, the standard of your bourgeois notions\nof freedom, culture, law, etc. Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of\nthe conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property,\njust as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a\nlaw for all, a will, whose essential character and direction are\ndetermined by the economical conditions of existence of your class.\n\nThe selfish misconception that induces you to transform into eternal\nlaws of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from your\npresent mode of production and form of property\u2014historical relations\nthat rise and disappear in the progress of production\u2014this\nmisconception you share with every ruling class that has preceded you.\nWhat you see clearly in the case of ancient property, what you admit in\nthe case of feudal property, you are of course forbidden to admit in\nthe case of your own bourgeois form of property.\n\nAbolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this\ninfamous proposal of the Communists.\n\nOn what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based?\nOn capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form this\nfamily exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things\nfinds its complement in the practical absence of the family among the\nproletarians, and in public prostitution.\n\nThe bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its\ncomplement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of\ncapital.\n\nDo you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by\ntheir parents? To this crime we plead guilty.\n\nBut, you will say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when we\nreplace home education by social.\n\nAnd your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the\nsocial conditions under which you educate, by the intervention, direct\nor indirect, of society, by means of schools, etc.? The Communists have\nnot invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek\nto alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education\nfrom the influence of the ruling class.\n\nThe bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the\nhallowed co-relation of parent and child, becomes all the more\ndisgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all family ties\namong the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed\ninto simple articles of commerce and instruments of labour.\n\nBut you Communists would introduce community of women, screams the\nwhole bourgeoisie in chorus.\n\nThe bourgeois sees in his wife a mere instrument of production. He\nhears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common,\nand, naturally, can come to no other conclusion than that the lot of\nbeing common to all will likewise fall to the women.\n\nHe has not even a suspicion that the real point is to do away with the\nstatus of women as mere instruments of production.\n\nFor the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the virtuous indignation\nof our bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to\nbe openly and officially established by the Communists. The Communists\nhave no need to introduce community of women; it has existed almost\nfrom time immemorial.\n\nOur bourgeois, not content with having the wives and daughters of their\nproletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes,\ntake the greatest pleasure in seducing each other\u2019s wives.\n\nBourgeois marriage is in reality a system of wives in common and thus,\nat the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with, is\nthat they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically\nconcealed, an openly legalised community of women. For the rest, it is\nself-evident that the abolition of the present system of production\nmust bring with it the abolition of the community of women springing\nfrom that system, _i.e_., of prostitution both public and private.\n\nThe Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish\ncountries and nationality.\n\nThe working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they\nhave not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political\nsupremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must\nconstitute itself _the_ nation, it is, so far, itself national, though\nnot in the bourgeois sense of the word.\n\nNational differences and antagonisms between peoples are daily more and\nmore vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom\nof commerce, to the world-market, to uniformity in the mode of\nproduction and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto.\n\nThe supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still\nfaster. United action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is\none of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat.\n\nIn proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another is put\nan end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put\nan end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the\nnation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an\nend.\n\nThe charges against Communism made from a religious, a philosophical,\nand, generally, from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving of\nserious examination.\n\nDoes it require deep intuition to comprehend that man\u2019s ideas, views\nand conceptions, in one word, man\u2019s consciousness, changes with every\nchange in the conditions of his material existence, in his social\nrelations and in his social life?\n\nWhat else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual\nproduction changes its character in proportion as material production\nis changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of\nits ruling class.\n\nWhen people speak of ideas that revolutionise society, they do but\nexpress the fact, that within the old society, the elements of a new\none have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps\neven pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence.\n\nWhen the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religions\nwere overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the\n18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its death\nbattle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious\nliberty and freedom of conscience merely gave expression to the sway of\nfree competition within the domain of knowledge.\n\n\u201cUndoubtedly,\u201d it will be said, \u201creligious, moral, philosophical and\njuridical ideas have been modified in the course of historical\ndevelopment. But religion, morality philosophy, political science, and\nlaw, constantly survived this change.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc.\nthat are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes\neternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of\nconstituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to\nall past historical experience.\u201d\n\nWhat does this accusation reduce itself to? The history of all past\nsociety has consisted in the development of class antagonisms,\nantagonisms that assumed different forms at different epochs.\n\nBut whatever form they may have taken, one fact is common to all past\nages, viz., the exploitation of one part of society by the other. No\nwonder, then, that the social consciousness of past ages, despite all\nthe multiplicity and variety it displays, moves within certain common\nforms, or general ideas, which cannot completely vanish except with the\ntotal disappearance of class antagonisms.\n\nThe Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional\nproperty relations; no wonder that its development involves the most\nradical rupture with traditional ideas.\n\nBut let us have done with the bourgeois objections to Communism.\n\nWe have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the\nworking class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling as\nto win the battle of democracy.\n\nThe proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees,\nall capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of\nproduction in the hands of the State, _i.e_., of the proletariat\norganised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive\nforces as rapidly as possible.\n\nOf course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of\ndespotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of\nbourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear\neconomically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of\nthe movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the\nold social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely\nrevolutionising the mode of production.\n\nThese measures will of course be different in different countries.\n\nNevertheless in the most advanced countries, the following will be\npretty generally applicable.\n\n1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land\nto public purposes.\n\n2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.\n\n3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.\n\n4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.\n\n5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a\nnational bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.\n\n6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the\nhands of the State.\n\n7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the\nState; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the\nimprovement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.\n\n8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial\narmies, especially for agriculture.\n\n9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual\nabolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more\nequable distribution of the population over the country.\n\n10. Free education for all children in public schools.     Abolition of\nchildren\u2019s factory labour in its present form.     Combination of\neducation with industrial production, &c., &c.\n\nWhen, in the course of development, class distinctions have\ndisappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a\nvast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its\npolitical character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the\norganised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat\nduring its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of\ncircumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a\nrevolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away\nby force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with\nthese conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of\nclass antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have\nabolished its own supremacy as a class.\n\nIn place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class\nantagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free\ndevelopment of each is the condition for the free development of all.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\nSOCIALIST AND COMMUNIST LITERATURE\n\n1. REACTIONARY SOCIALISM\n\n_A. Feudal Socialism_\n\n\nOwing to their historical position, it became the vocation of the\naristocracies of France and England to write pamphlets against modern\nbourgeois society. In the French revolution of July 1830, and in the\nEnglish reform agitation, these aristocracies again succumbed to the\nhateful upstart. Thenceforth, a serious political contest was\naltogether out of the question. A literary battle alone remained\npossible. But even in the domain of literature the old cries of the\nrestoration period had become impossible.\n\nIn order to arouse sympathy, the aristocracy were obliged to lose\nsight, apparently, of their own interests, and to formulate their\nindictment against the bourgeoisie in the interest of the exploited\nworking class alone. Thus the aristocracy took their revenge by singing\nlampoons on their new master, and whispering in his ears sinister\nprophecies of coming catastrophe.\n\nIn this way arose Feudal Socialism: half lamentation, half lampoon;\nhalf echo of the past, half menace of the future; at times, by its\nbitter, witty and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the\nvery heart\u2019s core; but always ludicrous in its effect, through total\nincapacity to comprehend the march of modern history.\n\nThe aristocracy, in order to rally the people to them, waved the\nproletarian alms-bag in front for a banner. But the people, so often as\nit joined them, saw on their hindquarters the old feudal coats of arms,\nand deserted with loud and irreverent laughter.\n\nOne section of the French Legitimists and \u201cYoung England\u201d exhibited\nthis spectacle.\n\nIn pointing out that their mode of exploitation was different to that\nof the bourgeoisie, the feudalists forget that they exploited under\ncircumstances and conditions that were quite different, and that are\nnow antiquated. In showing that, under their rule, the modern\nproletariat never existed, they forget that the modern bourgeoisie is\nthe necessary offspring of their own form of society.\n\nFor the rest, so little do they conceal the reactionary character of\ntheir criticism that their chief accusation against the bourgeoisie\namounts to this, that under the bourgeois _regime_ a class is being\ndeveloped, which is destined to cut up root and branch the old order of\nsociety.\n\nWhat they upbraid the bourgeoisie with is not so much that it creates a\nproletariat, as that it creates a _revolutionary_ proletariat.\n\nIn political practice, therefore, they join in all coercive measures\nagainst the working class; and in ordinary life, despite their high\nfalutin phrases, they stoop to pick up the golden apples dropped from\nthe tree of industry, and to barter truth, love, and honour for traffic\nin wool, beetroot-sugar, and potato spirits.\n\nAs the parson has ever gone hand in hand with the landlord, so has\nClerical Socialism with Feudal Socialism.\n\nNothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge.\nHas not Christianity declaimed against private property, against\nmarriage, against the State? Has it not preached in the place of these,\ncharity and poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic\nlife and Mother Church? Christian Socialism is but the holy water with\nwhich the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat.\n\n_B. Petty-Bourgeois Socialism_\n\n\nThe feudal aristocracy was not the only class that was ruined by the\nbourgeoisie, not the only class whose conditions of existence pined and\nperished in the atmosphere of modern bourgeois society. The mediaeval\nburgesses and the small peasant proprietors were the precursors of the\nmodern bourgeoisie. In those countries which are but little developed,\nindustrially and commercially, these two classes still vegetate side by\nside with the rising bourgeoisie.\n\nIn countries where modern civilisation has become fully developed, a\nnew class of petty bourgeois has been formed, fluctuating between\nproletariat and bourgeoisie and ever renewing itself as a supplementary\npart of bourgeois society. The individual members of this class,\nhowever, are being constantly hurled down into the proletariat by the\naction of competition, and, as modern industry develops, they even see\nthe moment approaching when they will completely disappear as an\nindependent section of modern society, to be replaced, in manufactures,\nagriculture and commerce, by overlookers, bailiffs and shopmen.\n\nIn countries like France, where the peasants constitute far more than\nhalf of the population, it was natural that writers who sided with the\nproletariat against the bourgeoisie, should use, in their criticism of\nthe bourgeois _regime_, the standard of the peasant and petty\nbourgeois, and from the standpoint of these intermediate classes should\ntake up the cudgels for the working class. Thus arose petty-bourgeois\nSocialism. Sismondi was the head of this school, not only in France but\nalso in England.\n\nThis school of Socialism dissected with great acuteness the\ncontradictions in the conditions of modern production. It laid bare the\nhypocritical apologies of economists. It proved, incontrovertibly, the\ndisastrous effects of machinery and division of labour; the\nconcentration of capital and land in a few hands; overproduction and\ncrises; it pointed out the inevitable ruin of the petty bourgeois and\npeasant, the misery of the proletariat, the anarchy in production, the\ncrying inequalities in the distribution of wealth, the industrial war\nof extermination between nations, the dissolution of old moral bonds,\nof the old family relations, of the old nationalities.\n\nIn its positive aims, however, this form of Socialism aspires either to\nrestoring the old means of production and of exchange, and with them\nthe old property relations, and the old society, or to cramping the\nmodern means of production and of exchange, within the framework of the\nold property relations that have been, and were bound to be, exploded\nby those means. In either case, it is both reactionary and Utopian.\n\nIts last words are: corporate guilds for manufacture, patriarchal\nrelations in agriculture.\n\nUltimately, when stubborn historical facts had dispersed all\nintoxicating effects of self-deception, this form of Socialism ended in\na miserable fit of the blues.\n\n_C. German, or \u201cTrue,\u201d Socialism_\n\n\nThe Socialist and Communist literature of France, a literature that\noriginated under the pressure of a bourgeoisie in power, and that was\nthe expression of the struggle against this power, was introduced into\nGermany at a time when the bourgeoisie, in that country, had just begun\nits contest with feudal absolutism.\n\nGerman philosophers, would-be philosophers, and _beaux esprits_,\neagerly seized on this literature, only forgetting, that when these\nwritings immigrated from France into Germany, French social conditions\nhad not immigrated along with them. In contact with German social\nconditions, this French literature lost all its immediate practical\nsignificance, and assumed a purely literary aspect. Thus, to the German\nphilosophers of the eighteenth century, the demands of the first French\nRevolution were nothing more than the demands of \u201cPractical Reason\u201d in\ngeneral, and the utterance of the will of the revolutionary French\nbourgeoisie signified in their eyes the law of pure Will, of Will as it\nwas bound to be, of true human Will generally.\n\nThe world of the German _literati_ consisted solely in bringing the new\nFrench ideas into harmony with their ancient philosophical conscience,\nor rather, in annexing the French ideas without deserting their own\nphilosophic point of view.\n\nThis annexation took place in the same way in which a foreign language\nis appropriated, namely, by translation.\n\nIt is well known how the monks wrote silly lives of Catholic Saints\n_over_ the manuscripts on which the classical works of ancient\nheathendom had been written. The German _literati_ reversed this\nprocess with the profane French literature. They wrote their\nphilosophical nonsense beneath the French original. For instance,\nbeneath the French criticism of the economic functions of money, they\nwrote \u201cAlienation of Humanity,\u201d and beneath the French criticism of the\nbourgeois State they wrote \u201cdethronement of the Category of the\nGeneral,\u201d and so forth.\n\nThe introduction of these philosophical phrases at the back of the\nFrench historical criticisms they dubbed \u201cPhilosophy of Action,\u201d \u201cTrue\nSocialism,\u201d \u201cGerman Science of Socialism,\u201d \u201cPhilosophical Foundation of\nSocialism,\u201d and so on.\n\nThe French Socialist and Communist literature was thus completely\nemasculated. And, since it ceased in the hands of the German to express\nthe struggle of one class with the other, he felt conscious of having\novercome \u201cFrench one-sidedness\u201d and of representing, not true\nrequirements, but the requirements of truth; not the interests of the\nproletariat, but the interests of Human Nature, of Man in general, who\nbelongs to no class, has no reality, who exists only in the misty realm\nof philosophical fantasy.\n\nThis German Socialism, which took its schoolboy task so seriously and\nsolemnly, and extolled its poor stock-in-trade in such mountebank\nfashion, meanwhile gradually lost its pedantic innocence.\n\nThe fight of the German, and especially, of the Prussian bourgeoisie,\nagainst feudal aristocracy and absolute monarchy, in other words, the\nliberal movement, became more earnest.\n\nBy this, the long wished-for opportunity was offered to \u201cTrue\u201d\nSocialism of confronting the political movement with the Socialist\ndemands, of hurling the traditional anathemas against liberalism,\nagainst representative government, against bourgeois competition,\nbourgeois freedom of the press, bourgeois legislation, bourgeois\nliberty and equality, and of preaching to the masses that they had\nnothing to gain, and everything to lose, by this bourgeois movement.\nGerman Socialism forgot, in the nick of time, that the French\ncriticism, whose silly echo it was, presupposed the existence of modern\nbourgeois society, with its corresponding economic conditions of\nexistence, and the political constitution adapted thereto, the very\nthings whose attainment was the object of the pending struggle in\nGermany.\n\nTo the absolute governments, with their following of parsons,\nprofessors, country squires and officials, it served as a welcome\nscarecrow against the threatening bourgeoisie.\n\nIt was a sweet finish after the bitter pills of floggings and bullets\nwith which these same governments, just at that time, dosed the German\nworking-class risings.\n\nWhile this \u201cTrue\u201d Socialism thus served the governments as a weapon for\nfighting the German bourgeoisie, it, at the same time, directly\nrepresented a reactionary interest, the interest of the German\nPhilistines. In Germany the _petty bourgeois_ class, a _relique_ of the\nsixteenth century, and since then constantly cropping up again under\nvarious forms, is the real social basis of the existing state of\nthings.\n\nTo preserve this class is to preserve the existing state of things in\nGermany. The industrial and political supremacy of the bourgeoisie\nthreatens it with certain destruction; on the one hand, from the\nconcentration of capital; on the other, from the rise of a\nrevolutionary proletariat. \u201cTrue\u201d Socialism appeared to kill these two\nbirds with one stone. It spread like an epidemic.\n\nThe robe of speculative cobwebs, embroidered with flowers of rhetoric,\nsteeped in the dew of sickly sentiment, this transcendental robe in\nwhich the German Socialists wrapped their sorry \u201ceternal truths,\u201d all\nskin and bone, served to wonderfully increase the sale of their goods\namongst such a public. And on its part, German Socialism recognised,\nmore and more, its own calling as the bombastic representative of the\npetty-bourgeois Philistine.\n\nIt proclaimed the German nation to be the model nation, and the German\npetty Philistine to be the typical man. To every villainous meanness of\nthis model man it gave a hidden, higher, Socialistic interpretation,\nthe exact contrary of its real character. It went to the extreme length\nof directly opposing the \u201cbrutally destructive\u201d tendency of Communism,\nand of proclaiming its supreme and impartial contempt of all class\nstruggles. With very few exceptions, all the so-called Socialist and\nCommunist publications that now (1847) circulate in Germany belong to\nthe domain of this foul and enervating literature.\n\n2. CONSERVATIVE, OR BOURGEOIS, SOCIALISM\n\nA part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances,\nin order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society.\n\nTo this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarians,\nimprovers of the condition of the working class, organisers of charity,\nmembers of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals,\ntemperance fanatics, hole-and-corner reformers of every imaginable\nkind. This form of Socialism has, moreover, been worked out into\ncomplete systems.\n\nWe may cite Proudhon\u2019s _Philosophie de la Mis\u00e8re_ as an example of this\nform.\n\nThe Socialistic bourgeois want all the advantages of modern social\nconditions without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting\ntherefrom. They desire the existing state of society minus its\nrevolutionary and disintegrating elements. They wish for a bourgeoisie\nwithout a proletariat. The bourgeoisie naturally conceives the world in\nwhich it is supreme to be the best; and bourgeois Socialism develops\nthis comfortable conception into various more or less complete systems.\nIn requiring the proletariat to carry out such a system, and thereby to\nmarch straightway into the social New Jerusalem, it but requires in\nreality, that the proletariat should remain within the bounds of\nexisting society, but should cast away all its hateful ideas concerning\nthe bourgeoisie.\n\nA second and more practical, but less systematic, form of this\nSocialism sought to depreciate every revolutionary movement in the eyes\nof the working class, by showing that no mere political reform, but\nonly a change in the material conditions of existence, in economic\nrelations, could be of any advantage to them. By changes in the\nmaterial conditions of existence, this form of Socialism, however, by\nno means understands abolition of the bourgeois relations of\nproduction, an abolition that can be effected only by a revolution, but\nadministrative reforms, based on the continued existence of these\nrelations; reforms, therefore, that in no respect affect the relations\nbetween capital and labour, but, at the best, lessen the cost, and\nsimplify the administrative work, of bourgeois government.\n\nBourgeois Socialism attains adequate expression, when, and only when,\nit becomes a mere figure of speech.\n\nFree trade: for the benefit of the working class. Protective duties:\nfor the benefit of the working class. Prison Reform: for the benefit of\nthe working class. This is the last word and the only seriously meant\nword of bourgeois Socialism.\n\nIt is summed up in the phrase: the bourgeois is a bourgeois\u2014for the\nbenefit of the working class.\n\n3. CRITICAL-UTOPIAN SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM\n\nWe do not here refer to that literature which, in every great modern\nrevolution, has always given voice to the demands of the proletariat,\nsuch as the writings of Babeuf and others.\n\nThe first direct attempts of the proletariat to attain its own ends,\nmade in times of universal excitement, when feudal society was being\noverthrown, these attempts necessarily failed, owing to the then\nundeveloped state of the proletariat, as well as to the absence of the\neconomic conditions for its emancipation, conditions that had yet to be\nproduced, and could be produced by the impending bourgeois epoch alone.\nThe revolutionary literature that accompanied these first movements of\nthe proletariat had necessarily a reactionary character. It inculcated\nuniversal asceticism and social levelling in its crudest form.\n\nThe Socialist and Communist systems properly so called, those of\nSaint-Simon, Fourier, Owen and others, spring into existence in the\nearly undeveloped period, described above, of the struggle between\nproletariat and bourgeoisie (see Section 1. Bourgeois and\nProletarians).\n\nThe founders of these systems see, indeed, the class antagonisms, as\nwell as the action of the decomposing elements, in the prevailing form\nof society. But the proletariat, as yet in its infancy, offers to them\nthe spectacle of a class without any historical initiative or any\nindependent political movement.\n\nSince the development of class antagonism keeps even pace with the\ndevelopment of industry, the economic situation, as they find it, does\nnot as yet offer to them the material conditions for the emancipation\nof the proletariat. They therefore search after a new social science,\nafter new social laws, that are to create these conditions.\n\nHistorical action is to yield to their personal inventive action,\nhistorically created conditions of emancipation to fantastic ones, and\nthe gradual, spontaneous class-organisation of the proletariat to the\norganisation of society specially contrived by these inventors. Future\nhistory resolves itself, in their eyes, into the propaganda and the\npractical carrying out of their social plans.\n\nIn the formation of their plans they are conscious of caring chiefly\nfor the interests of the working class, as being the most suffering\nclass. Only from the point of view of being the most suffering class\ndoes the proletariat exist for them.\n\nThe undeveloped state of the class struggle, as well as their own\nsurroundings, causes Socialists of this kind to consider themselves far\nsuperior to all class antagonisms. They want to improve the condition\nof every member of society, even that of the most favoured. Hence, they\nhabitually appeal to society at large, without distinction of class;\nnay, by preference, to the ruling class. For how can people, when once\nthey understand their system, fail to see in it the best possible plan\nof the best possible state of society?\n\nHence, they reject all political, and especially all revolutionary,\naction; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, and\nendeavour, by small experiments, necessarily doomed to failure, and by\nthe force of example, to pave the way for the new social Gospel.\n\nSuch fantastic pictures of future society, painted at a time when the\nproletariat is still in a very undeveloped state and has but a\nfantastic conception of its own position correspond with the first\ninstinctive yearnings of that class for a general reconstruction of\nsociety.\n\nBut these Socialist and Communist publications contain also a critical\nelement. They attack every principle of existing society. Hence they\nare full of the most valuable materials for the enlightenment of the\nworking class. The practical measures proposed in them\u2014such as the\nabolition of the distinction between town and country, of the family,\nof the carrying on of industries for the account of private\nindividuals, and of the wage system, the proclamation of social\nharmony, the conversion of the functions of the State into a mere\nsuperintendence of production, all these proposals, point solely to the\ndisappearance of class antagonisms which were, at that time, only just\ncropping up, and which, in these publications, are recognised in their\nearliest, indistinct and undefined forms only. These proposals,\ntherefore, are of a purely Utopian character.\n\nThe significance of Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism bears an\ninverse relation to historical development. In proportion as the modern\nclass struggle develops and takes definite shape, this fantastic\nstanding apart from the contest, these fantastic attacks on it, lose\nall practical value and all theoretical justification. Therefore,\nalthough the originators of these systems were, in many respects,\nrevolutionary, their disciples have, in every case, formed mere\nreactionary sects. They hold fast by the original views of their\nmasters, in opposition to the progressive historical development of the\nproletariat. They, therefore, endeavour, and that consistently, to\ndeaden the class struggle and to reconcile the class antagonisms. They\nstill dream of experimental realisation of their social Utopias, of\nfounding isolated \u201cphalansteres,\u201d of establishing \u201cHome Colonies,\u201d of\nsetting up a \u201cLittle Icaria\u201d\u2014duodecimo editions of the New\nJerusalem\u2014and to realise all these castles in the air, they are\ncompelled to appeal to the feelings and purses of the bourgeois. By\ndegrees they sink into the category of the reactionary conservative\nSocialists depicted above, differing from these only by more systematic\npedantry, and by their fanatical and superstitious belief in the\nmiraculous effects of their social science.\n\nThey, therefore, violently oppose all political action on the part of\nthe working class; such action, according to them, can only result from\nblind unbelief in the new Gospel.\n\nThe Owenites in England, and the Fourierists in France, respectively,\noppose the Chartists and the \u201cR\u00e9formistes.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nIV.\nPOSITION OF THE COMMUNISTS IN RELATION TO THE VARIOUS EXISTING\nOPPOSITION PARTIES\n\n\nSection II has made clear the relations of the Communists to the\nexisting working-class parties, such as the Chartists in England and\nthe Agrarian Reformers in America.\n\nThe Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the\nenforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the\nmovement of the present, they also represent and take care of the\nfuture of that movement. In France the Communists ally themselves with\nthe Social-Democrats, against the conservative and radical bourgeoisie,\nreserving, however, the right to take up a critical position in regard\nto phrases and illusions traditionally handed down from the great\nRevolution.\n\nIn Switzerland they support the Radicals, without losing sight of the\nfact that this party consists of antagonistic elements, partly of\nDemocratic Socialists, in the French sense, partly of radical\nbourgeois.\n\nIn Poland they support the party that insists on an agrarian revolution\nas the prime condition for national emancipation, that party which\nfomented the insurrection of Cracow in 1846.\n\nIn Germany they fight with the bourgeoisie whenever it acts in a\nrevolutionary way, against the absolute monarchy, the feudal\nsquirearchy, and the petty bourgeoisie.\n\nBut they never cease, for a single instant, to instil into the working\nclass the clearest possible recognition of the hostile antagonism\nbetween bourgeoisie and proletariat, in order that the German workers\nmay straightaway use, as so many weapons against the bourgeoisie, the\nsocial and political conditions that the bourgeoisie must necessarily\nintroduce along with its supremacy, and in order that, after the fall\nof the reactionary classes in Germany, the fight against the\nbourgeoisie itself may immediately begin.\n\nThe Communists turn their attention chiefly to Germany, because that\ncountry is on the eve of a bourgeois revolution that is bound to be\ncarried out under more advanced conditions of European civilisation,\nand with a much more developed proletariat, than that of England was in\nthe seventeenth, and of France in the eighteenth century, and because\nthe bourgeois revolution in Germany will be but the prelude to an\nimmediately following proletarian revolution.\n\nIn short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary\nmovement against the existing social and political order of things.\n\nIn all these movements they bring to the front, as the leading question\nin each, the property question, no matter what its degree of\ndevelopment at the time.\n\nFinally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the\ndemocratic parties of all countries.\n\nThe Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly\ndeclare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow\nof all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a\nCommunistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their\nchains. They have a world to win.\n\nWORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!","title":"The Communist Manifesto","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":11467}