MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY(共产党宣言)

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYMANIFESTO OF THECOMMUNIST PARTY edited by Friedrich EngelsTranscribed by allen lutins with assistance fromJim Tarzia111

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYCHAPTER I. BOURGEOIS ANDPROLETARIANSThe history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of n and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-masterand journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constantopposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, nowopen fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere acomplicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifoldgradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights,plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters,journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again,subordinate modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins offeudal society has not done away with clash antagonisms. It has butestablished new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms ofstruggle in place of the old ones. Our epoch, the epoch of thebourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplifiedthe class antagonisms: Society as a whole is more and more splitting upinto two great hostile camps, into two great classes, directly facing eachother: Bourgeoisie and the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of theearliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisiewere discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up freshground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets,222

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYthe colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in themeans of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, tonavigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to therevolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid feudal system of industry, under which industrial production wasmonopolised by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growingwants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its guild-masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middleclass; division of labour between the different corporate guilds vanished inthe face of division of labour in each single me the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever manufacture no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machineryrevolutionised industrial production. The place of manufacture wastaken by the giant, Modern Industry, the place of the industrial middleclass, by industrial millionaires, the leaders of whole industrial armies, themodern industry has established the world-market, for which thediscovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immensedevelopment to commerce, to navigation, to communication by development has, in its time, reacted on the extension of industry;and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, inthe same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, andpushed into the background every class handed down from the see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product ofa long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes ofproduction and of step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied bya corresponding political advance of that class. An oppressed class underthe sway of the feudal nobility, an armed and self-governing association inthe mediaeval commune; here independent urban republic (as in Italy andGermany), there taxable "third estate" of the monarchy (as in France),afterwards, in the period of manufacture proper, serving either the semi-333

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYfeudal or the absolute monarchy as a counterpoise against the nobility, and,in fact, corner-stone of the great monarchies in general, the bourgeoisiehas at last, since the establishment of Modern Industry and of the world-market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative State, exclusivepolitical sway. The executive of the modern State is but a committee formanaging the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end toall feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder themotley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors," and has leftremaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest,than callous "cash payment." It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasiesof religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism,in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worthinto exchange value. And in place of the numberless and feasiblechartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom -- FreeTrade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and politicalillusions, naked, shameless, direct, brutal bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hithertohonoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted thephysician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paidwage bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil,and has reduced the family relation to a mere money bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutaldisplay of vigour in the Middle Ages, which Reactionists so much admire,found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It has beenthe first to show what man's activity can bring about. It hasaccomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Romanaqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put inthe shade all former Exoduses of nations and bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising theinstruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and444

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYwith them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes ofproduction in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition ofexistence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising ofproduction, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlastinguncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlierones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient andvenerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed onesbecome antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air,all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sobersenses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases thebourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestleeverywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world-market givena cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet ofindustry the national ground on which it stood. All old-establishednational industries have been destroyed or are daily being are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a lifeand death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longerwork up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from theremotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home,but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied bythe productions of the country, we find new wants, requiring for theirsatisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the oldlocal and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse inevery direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as inmaterial, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations ofindividual nations become common property. National one-sidednessand narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from thenumerous national and local literatures, there arises a world bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments ofproduction, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws555

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYall, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices ofits commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down allChinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinatehatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain ofextinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them tointroduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to becomebourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. Ithas created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population ascompared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of thepopulation from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the countrydependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbariancountries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of peasants on nationsof bourgeois, the East on the bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scatteredstate of the population, of the means of production, and of property. Ithas agglomerated production, and has concentrated property in a fewhands. The necessary consequence of this was political ndent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests,laws, governments and systems of taxation, became lumped together intoone nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier and one customs-tariff. The bourgeoisie, during itsrule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and morecolossal productive forces than have all preceding generations tion of Nature's forces to man, machinery, application of chemistryto industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs,clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, wholepopulations conjured out of the ground -- what earlier century had even apresentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of sociallabour?We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whosefoundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society.666

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYAt a certain stage in the development of these means of production and ofexchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced andexchanged, the feudal organisation of agriculture and manufacturingindustry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longercompatible with the already developed productive forces; they became somany fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social andpolitical constitution adapted to it, and by the economical and politicalsway of the bourgeois class.A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modernbourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange and ofproperty, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of productionand of exchange, is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control thepowers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. Formany a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the historyof the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions ofproduction, against the property relations that are the conditions for theexistence of the bourgeoisie and of its rule. It is enough to mention thecommercial crises that by their periodical return put on its trial, each timemore threateningly, the existence of the entire bourgeois society. In thesecrises a great part not only of the existing products, but also of thepreviously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In thesecrises there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would haveseemed an absurdity -- the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenlyfinds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if afamine, a universal war of devastation had cut off the supply of everymeans of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; andwhy? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means ofsubsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productiveforces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the developmentof the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have becometoo powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soonas they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of777

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYbourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. Theconditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealthcreated by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? Onthe one hand inforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on theother, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thoroughexploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for moreextensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the meanswhereby crises are weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to theground are now turned against the bourgeoisie not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring deathto itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield thoseweapons -- the modern working class -- the proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the sameproportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed -- aclass of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who findwork only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, whomust sell themselves piece-meal, are a commodity, like every other articleof commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes ofcompetition, to all the fluctuations of the to the extensive use of machinery and to division of labour, thework of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and consequently,all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine,and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquiredknack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of aworkman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that herequires for his maintenance, and for the propagation of his race. But theprice of a commodity, and therefore also of labour, is equal to its cost ofproduction. In proportion therefore, as the repulsiveness of the workincreases, the wage decreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use ofmachinery and division of labour increases, in the same proportion theburden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the workinghours, by increase of the work exacted in a given time or by increased888

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYspeed of the machinery, industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchalmaster into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses oflabourers, crowded into the factory, are organised like soldiers. Asprivates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of aperfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves ofthe bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourlyenslaved by the machine, by the over-looker, and, above all, by theindividual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly thisdespotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the morehateful and the more embittering it less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labour, inother words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more isthe labour of men superseded by that of women. Differences of age andsex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according totheir age and sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, sofar, at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by theother portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, thepawnbroker, lower strata of the middle class -- the small tradespeople,shopkeepers, retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants-- all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because theirdiminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industryis carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists,partly because their specialized skill is rendered worthless by the newmethods of production. Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classesof the proletariat goes through various stages of development. With itsbirth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first the contest iscarried on by individual labourers, then by the workpeople of a factory,then by the operatives of one trade, in one locality, against the individual999

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYbourgeois who directly exploits them. They direct their attacks notagainst the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instrumentsof production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete withtheir labour, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze,they seek to restore by force the vanished status of the workman of theMiddle this stage the labourers still form an incoherent mass scattered overthe whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition. Ifanywhere they unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet theconsequence of their own active union, but of the union of the bourgeoisie,which class, in order to attain its own political ends, is compelled to set thewhole proletariat in motion, and is moreover yet, for a time, able to do this stage, therefore, the proletarians do not fight their enemies, but theenemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute monarchy, thelandowners, the non-industrial bourgeois, the petty bourgeoisie. Thus thewhole historical movement is concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie;every victory so obtained is a victory for the with the development of industry the proletariat not only increasesin number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows,and it feels that strength more. The various interests and conditions oflife within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalised, inproportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labour, and nearlyeverywhere reduces wages to the same low level. The growingcompetition among the bourgeois, and the resulting commercial crises,make the wages of the workers ever more fluctuating. The unceasingimprovement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes theirlivelihood more and more precarious; the collisions between individualworkmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character ofcollisions between two classes. Thereupon the workers begin to formcombinations (Trades Unions) against the bourgeois; they club together inorder to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations inorder to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Hereand there the contest breaks out into riots.101010

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYNow and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The realfruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever-expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by theimproved means of communication that are created by modern industryand that place the workers of different localities in contact with oneanother. It was just this contact that was needed to centralise thenumerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one nationalstruggle between classes. But every class struggle is a political that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle Ages, with theirmiserable highways, required centuries, the modern proletarians, thanks torailways, achieve in a few organisation of the proletarians into a class, and consequently intoa political party, is continually being upset again by the competitionbetween the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again, stronger,firmer, mightier. It compels legislative recognition of particular interestsof the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among thebourgeoisie itself. Thus the ten-hours' bill in England was ther collisions between the classes of the old society further, inmany ways, the course of development of the proletariat. The bourgeoisiefinds itself involved in a constant battle. At first with the aristocracy; lateron, with those portions of the bourgeoisie itself, whose interests havebecome antagonistic to the progress of industry; at all times, with thebourgeoisie of foreign countries. In all these battles it sees itselfcompelled to appeal to the proletariat, to ask for its help, and thus, to dragit into the political arena. The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies theproletariat with its own instruments of political and general education, inother words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting r, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling classesare, by the advance of industry, precipitated into the proletariat, or are atleast threatened in their conditions of existence. These also supply theproletariat with fresh elements of enlightenment and y, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the111111

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYprocess of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within thewhole range of society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that asmall section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins therevolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. Just as,therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to thebourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to theproletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, whohave raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically thehistorical movement as a all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, theproletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decayand finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat is itsspecial and essential product. The lower middle class, the smallmanufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fightagainst the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractionsof the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, butconservative. Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back thewheel of history. If by chance they are revolutionary, they are so only inview of their impending transfer into the proletariat, they thus defend nottheir present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint toplace themselves at that of the "dangerous class," the social scum, that passively rotting massthrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may, here and there, beswept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life,however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of the conditions of the proletariat, those of old society at large arealready virtually swamped. The proletarian is without property; hisrelation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common withthe bourgeois family-relations; modern industrial labour, modernsubjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as inGermany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law,morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which121212

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYlurk in ambush just as many bourgeois the preceding classes that got the upper hand, sought to fortifytheir already acquired status by subjecting society at large to theirconditions of appropriation. The proletarians cannot become masters ofthe productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previousmode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode ofappropriation. They have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify;their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of,individual previous historical movements were movements of minorities, orin the interests of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in theinterests of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum ofour present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the wholesuperincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariatwith the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of eachcountry must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own depicting the most general phases of the development of theproletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging withinexisting society, up to the point where that war breaks out into openrevolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays thefoundation for the sway of the to, every form of society has been based, as we have alreadyseen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But inorder to oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it underwhich it can, at least, continue its slavish existence. The serf, in theperiod of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune, just asthe petty bourgeois, under the yoke of feudal absolutism, managed todevelop into a bourgeois. The modern laborer, on the contrary, instead ofrising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below theconditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, andpauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. And here131313

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYit becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the rulingclass in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society asan over-riding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assurean existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help lettinghim sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed byhim. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, itsexistence is no longer compatible with essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of thebourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; thecondition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively oncompetition between the laborers. The advance of industry, whoseinvoluntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of thelabourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due toassociation. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts fromunder its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces andappropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, aboveall, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat areequally inevitable.141414

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYCHAPTER II. PROLETARIANSAND COMMUNISTSIn what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as awhole?The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to otherworking-class have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariatas a do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which toshape and mould the proletarian Communists are distinguished from the other working-classparties is only: (1) In the national struggles of the proletarians of thedifferent countries, they point out and bring to the front the commoninterests of entire proletariat, independently of nationality. (2) In thevarious stages of development which the struggle of the working classagainst the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhererepresent the interests of the movement as a Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the mostadvanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of everycountry, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand,theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantageof clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimategeneral results of the proletarian immediate aim of the Communist is the same as that of all theother proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class,overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based onideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or thatwould-be universal reformer. They merely express, in general terms,151515

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYactual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historicalmovement going on under our very eyes. The abolition of existingproperty relations is not at all a distinctive feature of property relations in the past have continually been subject tohistorical change consequent upon the change in historical French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property infavour of bourgeois distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition ofproperty generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modernbourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of thesystem of producing and appropriating products, that is based on classantagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in thesingle sentence: Abolition of private Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishingthe right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man's ownlabour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personalfreedom, activity and -won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean theproperty of the petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of propertythat preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; thedevelopment of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and isstill destroying it do you mean modern bourgeois private property?But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour,and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a newsupply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its presentform, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage-labour. Let usexamine both sides of this be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a socialstatus in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by theunited action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united161616

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYaction of all members of society, can it be set in l is, therefore, not a personal, it is a social , therefore, capital is converted into common property, into theproperty of all members of society, personal property is not therebytransformed into social property. It is only the social character of theproperty that is changed. It loses its us now take average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage, i.e., thatquantum of the means of subsistence, which is absolutely requisite in bareexistence as a labourer. What, therefore, the wage-labourer appropriatesby means of his labour, merely suffices to prolong and reproduce a bareexistence. We by no means intend to abolish this personal appropriationof the products of labour, an appropriation that is made for themaintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surpluswherewith to command the labour of others. All that we want to do awaywith, is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which thelabourer lives merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only in sofar as the interest of the ruling class requires bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increaseaccumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but ameans to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; inCommunist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois societycapital is independent and has individuality, while the living person isdependent and has no the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois,abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolitionof bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeoisfreedom is undoubtedly aimed freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions ofproduction, free trade, free selling and buying. But if selling and buyingdisappears, free selling and buying disappears also. This talk about freeselling and buying, and all the other "brave words" of our bourgeoisie171717

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYabout freedom in general, have a meaning, if any, only in contrast withrestricted selling and buying, with the fettered traders of the Middle Ages,but have no meaning when opposed to the Communistic abolition ofbuying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production, and of thebourgeoisie are horrified at our intending to do away with private in your existing society, private property is already done away withfor nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due toits non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us,therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessarycondition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for theimmense majority of one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with yourproperty. Precisely so; that is just what we the moment when labour can no longer be converted into capital,money, or rent, into a social power capable of being monopolised, i.e.,from the moment when individual property can no longer be transformedinto bourgeois property, into capital, from that moment, you sayindividuality must, therefore, confess that by "individual" you mean no otherperson than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. Thisperson must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made ism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the productsof society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate thelabour of others by means of such has been objected that upon the abolition of private property allwork will cease, and universal laziness will overtake ing to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone tothe dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work,acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything, do not work. The wholeof this objection is but another expression of the tautology: that there canno longer be any wage-labour when there is no longer any objections urged against the Communistic mode of producing and181818

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYappropriating material products, have, in the same way, been urged againstthe Communistic modes of producing and appropriating intellectualproducts. Just as, to the bourgeois, the disappearance of class property isthe disappearance of production itself, so the disappearance of classculture is to him identical with the disappearance of all culture, the loss of which he laments, is, for the enormousmajority, a mere training to act as a don't wrangle with us so long as you apply, to our intendedabolition of bourgeois property, the standard of your bourgeois notions offreedom, culture, law, etc. Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of theconditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just asyour jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a law for all, awill, whose essential character and direction are determined by theeconomical conditions of existence of your selfish misconception that induces you to transform into eternallaws of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from your presentmode of production and form of property-historical relations that rise anddisappear in the progress of production -- this misconception you sharewith every ruling class that has preceded you. What you see clearly inthe case of ancient property, what you admit in the case of feudal property,you are of course forbidden to admit in the case of your own bourgeoisform of ion of the family! Even the most radical flare up at thisinfamous proposal of the what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based?On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form this familyexists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds itscomplement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians,and in public bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when itscomplement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children bytheir parents? To this crime we plead guilty.191919

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYBut, you will say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when wereplace home education by your education! Is not that also social, and determined by thesocial conditions under which you educate, by the intervention, direct orindirect, of society, by means of schools, etc.? The Communists havenot invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek toalter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from theinfluence of the ruling bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about thehallowed co-relation of parent and child, becomes all the more disgusting,the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all family ties among theproletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simplearticles of commerce and instruments of you Communists would introduce community of women, screamsthe whole bourgeoisie in bourgeois sees in his wife a mere instrument of production. Hehears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common,and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion than that the lot of beingcommon to all will likewise fall to the has not even a suspicion that the real point is to do away with thestatus of women as mere instruments of the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the virtuous indignation ofour bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to beopenly and officially established by the Communists. The Communistshave no need to introduce community of women; it has existed almostfrom time bourgeois, not content with having the wives and daughters oftheir proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes,take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other's ois marriage is in reality a system of wives in common and thus,at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with, isthat they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed,an openly legalised community of women. For the rest, it is self-evident202020

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYthat the abolition of the present system of production must bring with itthe abolition of the community of women springing from that system, i.e.,of prostitution both public and Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolishcountries and working men have no country. We cannot take from them whatthey have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire politicalsupremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constituteitself the nation, it is, so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeoissense of the al differences and antagonisms between peoples are daily moreand more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, tofreedom of commerce, to the world-market, to uniformity in the mode ofproduction and in the conditions of life corresponding supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is one of the firstconditions for the emancipation of the proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another is put anend to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nationvanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an charges against Communism made from a religious, aphilosophical, and, generally, from an ideological standpoint, are notdeserving of serious it require deep intuition to comprehend that man's ideas, viewsand conceptions, in one word, man's consciousness, changes with everychange in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relationsand in his social life?What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectualproduction changes its character in proportion as material production ischanged? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of itsruling people speak of ideas that revolutionise society, they do but212121

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYexpress the fact, that within the old society, the elements of a new onehave been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keeps evenpace with the dissolution of the old conditions of the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religionswere overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its death battle withthe then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious liberty andfreedom of conscience merely gave expression to the sway of freecompetition within the domain of knowledge."Undoubtedly," it will be said, "religious, moral, philosophical andjuridical ideas have been modified in the course of historical religion, morality philosophy, political science, and law, constantlysurvived this change.""There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc. thatare common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternaltruths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constitutingthem on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction to all past historicalexperience."What does this accusation reduce itself to? The history of all pastsociety has consisted in the development of class antagonisms,antagonisms that assumed different forms at different whatever form they may have taken, one fact is common to allpast ages, viz., the exploitation of one part of society by the other. Nowonder, then, that the social consciousness of past ages, despite all themultiplicity and variety it displays, moves within certain common forms,or general ideas, which cannot completely vanish except with the totaldisappearance of class Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditionalproperty relations; no wonder that its development involves the mostradical rupture with traditional let us have done with the bourgeois objections to have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the workingclass, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling as to win the battle222222

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYof proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, allcapital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production inthe hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class;and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means ofdespotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions ofbourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appeareconomically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of themovement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the oldsocial order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising themode of measures will of course be different in different heless in the most advanced countries, the following will bepretty generally applicable.1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents ofland to public purposes.2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means ofa national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transportin the hands of the State.7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by theState; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and theimprovement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrialarmies, especially for agriculture.9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradualabolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equabledistribution of the population over the country.10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of232323

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYchildren's factory labour in its present form. Combination of educationwith industrial production, &c., &, in the course of development, class distinctions havedisappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of avast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its politicalcharacter. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organisedpower of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during itscontest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances,to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself theruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions ofproduction, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away theconditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally,and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and classantagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free developmentof each is the condition for the free development of all.242424

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYCHAPTER III SOCIALIST ANDCOMMUNIST LITERATURE 1. REACTIONARY SOCIALISM A. Feudal Socialism Owing to their historical position, it became the vocation of thearistocracies of France and England to write pamphlets against modernbourgeois society. In the French revolution of July 1830, and in theEnglish reform agitation, these aristocracies again succumbed to thehateful upstart. Thenceforth, a serious political contest was altogether outof the question. A literary battle alone remained possible. But even inthe domain of literature the old cries of the restoration period had order to arouse sympathy, the aristocracy were obliged to lose sight,apparently, of their own interests, and to formulate their indictment againstthe bourgeoisie in the interest of the exploited working class alone. Thusthe aristocracy took their revenge by singing lampoons on their newmaster, and whispering in his ears sinister prophecies of this way arose Feudal Socialism: half lamentation, half lampoon;half echo of the past, half menace of the future; at times, by its bitter, wittyand incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very heart's core; butalways ludicrous in its effect, through total incapacity to comprehend themarch of modern aristocracy, in order to rally the people to them, waved theproletarian alms-bag in front for a banner. But the people, so often as itjoined them, saw on their hindquarters the old feudal coats of arms, anddeserted with loud and irreverent section of the French Legitimists and "Young England" exhibited252525

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYthis pointing out that their mode of exploitation was different to that ofthe bourgeoisie, the feudalists forget that they exploited undercircumstances and conditions that were quite different, and that are nowantiquated. In showing that, under their rule, the modern proletariatnever existed, they forget that the modern bourgeoisie is the necessaryoffspring of their own form of the rest, so little do they conceal the reactionary character of theircriticism that their chief accusation against the bourgeoisie amounts to this,that under the bourgeois regime a class is being developed, which isdestined to cut up root and branch the old order of they upbraid the bourgeoisie with is not so much that it creates aproletariat, as that it creates a revolutionary political practice, therefore, they join in all coercive measuresagainst the working class; and in ordinary life, despite their high falutinphrases, they stoop to pick up the golden apples dropped from the tree ofindustry, and to barter truth, love, and honour for traffic in wool, beetroot-sugar, and potato the parson has ever gone hand in hand with the landlord, so hasClerical Socialism with Feudal g is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage,against the State? Has it not preached in the place of these, charity andpoverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic life and MotherChurch? Christian Socialism is but the holy, water with which the priestconsecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat. B. Petty-Bourgeois SocialismThe feudal aristocracy was not the only class that was ruined by thebourgeoisie, not the only class whose conditions of existence pined andperished in the atmosphere of modern bourgeois society. The mediaevalburgesses and the small peasant proprietors were the precursors of themodern bourgeoisie. In those countries which are but little developed,industrially and commercially, these two classes still vegetate side by side262626

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYwith the rising countries where modern civilisation has become fully developed, anew class of petty bourgeois has been formed, fluctuating betweenproletariat and bourgeoisie and ever renewing itself as a supplementarypart of bourgeois society. The individual members of this class, however,are being constantly hurled down into the proletariat by the action ofcompetition, and, as modern industry develops, they even see the momentapproaching when they will completely disappear as an independentsection of modern society, to be replaced, in manufactures, agriculture andcommerce, by overlookers, bailiffs and countries like France, where the peasants constitute far more thanhalf of the population, it was natural that writers who sided with theproletariat against the bourgeoisie, should use, in their criticism of thebourgeois regime, the standard of the peasant and petty bourgeois, andfrom the standpoint of these intermediate classes should take up thecudgels for the working class. Thus arose petty-bourgeois di was the head of this school, not only in France but also school of Socialism dissected with great acuteness thecontradictions in the conditions of modern production. It laid bare thehypocritical apologies of economists. It proved, incontrovertibly, thedisastrous effects of machinery and division of labour; the concentrationof capital and land in a few hands; overproduction and crises; it pointedout the inevitable ruin of the petty bourgeois and peasant, the misery of theproletariat, the anarchy in production, the crying inequalities in thedistribution of wealth, the industrial war of extermination between nations,the dissolution of old moral bonds, of the old family relations, of the its positive aims, however, this form of Socialism aspires either torestoring the old means of production and of exchange, and with them theold property relations, and the old society, or to cramping the modernmeans of production and of exchange, within the framework of the oldproperty relations that have been, and were bound to be, exploded by those272727

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYmeans. In either case, it is both reactionary and last words are: corporate guilds for manufacture, patriarchalrelations in tely, when stubborn historical facts had dispersed allintoxicating effects of self-deception, this form of Socialism ended in amiserable fit of the blues. C. German, or "True," SocialismThe Socialist and Communist literature of France, a literature thatoriginated under the pressure of a bourgeoisie in power, and that was theexpression of the struggle against this power, was introduced intoGermany at a time when the bourgeoisie, in that country, had just begun itscontest with feudal philosophers, would-be philosophers, and beaux esprits,eagerly seized on this literature, only forgetting, that when these writingsimmigrated from France into Germany, French social conditions had notimmigrated along with them. In contact with German social conditions,this French literature lost all its immediate practical significance, andassumed a purely literary aspect. Thus, to the German philosophers ofthe eighteenth century, the demands of the first French Revolution werenothing more than the demands of "Practical Reason" in general, and theutterance of the will of the revolutionary French bourgeoisie signified intheir eyes the law of pure Will, of Will as it was bound to be, of truehuman Will world of the German literate consisted solely in bringing the newFrench ideas into harmony with their ancient philosophical conscience, orrather, in annexing the French ideas without deserting their ownphilosophic point of annexation took place in the same way in which a foreignlanguage is appropriated, namely, by is well known how the monks wrote silly lives of Catholic Saintsover the manuscripts on which the classical works of ancient heathendomhad been written. The German literate reversed this process with theprofane French literature. They wrote their philosophical nonsense282828

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYbeneath the French original. For instance, beneath the French criticism ofthe economic functions of money, they wrote "Alienation of Humanity,"and beneath the French criticism of the bourgeois State they wrote"dethronement of the Category of the General," and so introduction of these philosophical phrases at the back of theFrench historical criticisms they dubbed "Philosophy of Action," "TrueSocialism," "German Science of Socialism," "Philosophical Foundation ofSocialism," and so French Socialist and Communist literature was thus completelyemasculated. And, since it ceased in the hands of the German to expressthe struggle of one class with the other, he felt conscious of havingovercome "French one-sidedness" and of representing, not truerequirements, but the requirements of truth; not the interests of theproletariat, but the interests of Human Nature, of Man in general, whobelongs to no class, has no reality, who exists only in the misty realm ofphilosophical German Socialism, which took its schoolboy task so seriouslyand solemnly, and extolled its poor stock-in-trade in such mountebankfashion, meanwhile gradually lost its pedantic fight of the German, and especially, of the Prussian bourgeoisie,against feudal aristocracy and absolute monarchy, in other words, theliberal movement, became more this, the long wished-for opportunity was offered to "True"Socialism of confronting the political movement with the Socialistdemands, of hurling the traditional anathemas against liberalism, againstrepresentative government, against bourgeois competition, bourgeoisfreedom of the press, bourgeois legislation, bourgeois liberty and equality,and of preaching to the masses that they had nothing to gain, andeverything to lose, by this bourgeois movement. German Socialismforgot, in the nick of time, that the French criticism, whose silly echo itwas, presupposed the existence of modern bourgeois society, with itscorresponding economic conditions of existence, and the politicalconstitution adapted thereto, the very things whose attainment was the292929

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYobject of the pending struggle in the absolute governments, with their following of parsons,professors, country squires and officials, it served as a welcome scarecrowagainst the threatening was a sweet finish after the bitter pills of floggings and bullets withwhich these same governments, just at that time, dosed the Germanworking-class this "True" Socialism thus served the governments as a weaponfor fighting the German bourgeoisie, it, at the same time, directlyrepresented a reactionary interest, the interest of the German Germany the petty-bourgeois class, a relic of the sixteenth century, andsince then constantly cropping up again under various forms, is the realsocial basis of the existing state of preserve this class is to preserve the existing state of things inGermany. The industrial and political supremacy of the bourgeoisiethreatens it with certain destruction; on the one hand, from theconcentration of capital; on the other, from the rise of a revolutionaryproletariat. "True" Socialism appeared to kill these two birds with onestone. It spread like an robe of speculative cobwebs, embroidered with flowers of rhetoric,steeped in the dew of sickly sentiment, this transcendental robe in whichthe German Socialists wrapped their sorry "eternal truths," all skin andbone, served to wonderfully increase the sale of their goods amongst sucha on its part, German Socialism recognised, more and more, its owncalling as the bombastic representative of the petty- bourgeois proclaimed the German nation to be the model nation, and theGerman petty Philistine to be the typical man. To every villainousmeanness of this model man it gave a hidden, higher, Socialisticinterpretation, the exact contrary of its real character. It went to theextreme length of directly opposing the "brutally destructive" tendency ofCommunism, and of proclaiming its supreme and impartial contempt of allclass struggles. With very few exceptions, all the so-called Socialist and303030

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYCommunist publications that now (1847) circulate in Germany belong tothe domain of this foul and enervating literature. 2. CONSERVATIVE, OR BOURGEOIS,SOCIALISMA part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances, inorder to secure the continued existence of bourgeois this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarians,improvers of the condition of the working class, organisers of charity,members of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, temperancefanatics, hole-and-corner reformers of every imaginable kind. This formof Socialism has, moreover, been worked out into complete may cite Proudhon's Philosophie de la Misere as an example ofthis Socialistic bourgeois want all the advantages of modern socialconditions without the struggles and dangers necessarily resultingtherefrom. They desire the existing state of society minus itsrevolutionary and disintegrating elements. They wish for a bourgeoisiewithout a proletariat. The bourgeoisie naturally conceives the world inwhich it is supreme to be the best; and bourgeois Socialism develops thiscomfortable conception into various more or less complete systems. Inrequiring the proletariat to carry out such a system, and thereby to marchstraightway into the social New Jerusalem, it but requires in reality, thatthe proletariat should remain within the bounds of existing society, butshould cast away all its hateful ideas concerning the bourgeoisie.A second and more practical, but less systematic, form of thisSocialism sought to depreciate every revolutionary movement in the eyesof the working class, by showing that no mere political reform, but only achange in the material conditions of existence, in economic relations,could be of any advantage to them. By changes in the materialconditions of existence, this form of Socialism, however, by no means313131

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYunderstands abolition of the bourgeois relations of production, an abolitionthat can be effected only by a revolution, but administrative reforms, basedon the continued existence of these relations; reforms, therefore, that in norespect affect therelations between capital and labour, but, at the best, lessen the cost,and simplify the administrative work, of bourgeois ois Socialism attains adequate expression, when, and onlywhen, it becomes a mere figure of trade: for the benefit of the working class. Protective duties: forthe benefit of the working class. Prison Reform: for the benefit of theworking class. This is the last word and the only seriously meant wordof bourgeois is summed up in the phrase: the bourgeois is a bourgeois -- for thebenefit of the working class. 3. CRITICAL-UTOPIAN SOCIALISM ANDCOMMUNISMWe do not here refer to that literature which, in every great modernrevolution, has always given voice to the demands of the proletariat, suchas the writings of Babeuf and first direct attempts of the proletariat to attain its own ends, madein times of universal excitement, when feudal society was beingoverthrown, these attempts necessarily failed, owing to the thenundeveloped state of the proletariat, as well as to the absence of theeconomic conditions for its emancipation, conditions that had yet to beproduced, and could be produced by the impending bourgeois epoch revolutionary literature that accompanied these first movements of theproletariat had necessarily a reactionary character. It inculcated universalasceticism and social levelling in its crudest Socialist and Communist systems properly so called, those ofSaint-Simon, Fourier, Owen and others, spring into existence in the early323232

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYundeveloped period, described above, of the struggle between proletariatand bourgeoisie (see Section 1. Bourgeois and Proletarians).The founders of these systems see, indeed, the class antagonisms, aswell as the action of the decomposing elements, in the prevailing form ofsociety. But the proletariat, as yet in its infancy, offers to them thespectacle of a class without any historical initiative or any independentpolitical the development of class antagonism keeps even pace with thedevelopment of industry, the economic situation, as they find it, does notas yet offer to them the material conditions for the emancipation of theproletariat. They therefore search after a new social science, after newsocial laws, that are to create these ical action is to yield to their personal inventive action,historically created conditions of emancipation to fantastic ones, and thegradual, spontaneous class-organisation of the proletariat to theorganisation of society specially contrived by these inventors. Futurehistory resolves itself, in their eyes, into the propaganda and the practicalcarrying out of their social the formation of their plans they are conscious of caring chiefly forthe interests of the working class, as being the most suffering class. Onlyfrom the point of view of being the most suffering class does theproletariat exist for undeveloped state of the class struggle, as well as their ownsurroundings, causes Socialists of this kind to consider themselves farsuperior to all class antagonisms. They want to improve the condition ofevery member of society, even that of the most favoured. Hence, theyhabitually appeal to society at large, without distinction of class; nay, bypreference, to the ruling class. For how can people, when once theyunderstand their system, fail to see in it the best possible plan of the bestpossible state of society?Hence, they reject all political, and especially all revolutionary, action;they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, and endeavour, by smallexperiments, necessarily doomed to failure, and by the force of example,333333

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYto pave the way for the new social fantastic pictures of future society, painted at a time when theproletariat is still in a very undeveloped state and has but a fantasticconception of its own position correspond with the first instinctiveyearnings of that class for a general reconstruction of these Socialist and Communist publications contain also a criticalelement. They attack every principle of existing society. Hence theyare full of the most valuable materials for the enlightenment of theworking class. The practical measures proposed in them -- -such as theabolition of the distinction between town and country, of the family, of thecarrying on of industries for the account of private individuals, and of thewage system, the proclamation of social harmony, the conversion of thefunctions of the State into a mere superintendence of production, all theseproposals, point solely to the disappearance of class antagonisms whichwere, at that time, only just cropping up, and which, in these publications,are recognised in their earliest, indistinct and undefined forms proposals, therefore, are of a purely Utopian significance of Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism bearsan inverse relation to historical development. In proportion as themodern class struggle develops and takes definite shape, this fantasticstanding apart from the contest, these fantastic attacks on it, lose allpractical value and all theoretical justification. Therefore, although theoriginators of these systems were, in many respects, revolutionary, theirdisciples have, in every case, formed mere reactionary sects. They holdfast by the original views of their masters, in opposition to the progressivehistorical development of the proletariat. They, therefore, endeavour, andthat consistently, to deaden the class struggle and to reconcile the classantagonisms. They still dream of experimental realisation of their socialUtopias, of founding isolated "phalansteres," of establishing "HomeColonies," of setting up a "Little Icaria" -- duodecimo editions of theNew Jerusalem -- and to realise all these castles in the air, they arecompelled to appeal to the feelings and purses of the bourgeois. Bydegrees they sink into the category of the reactionary conservative343434

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYSocialists depicted above, differing from these only by more systematicpedantry, and by their fanatical and superstitious belief in the miraculouseffects of their social , therefore, violently oppose all political action on the part of theworking class; such action, according to them, can only result from blindunbelief in the new Owenites in England, and the Fourierists in France, respectively,oppose the Chartists and the . POSITION OF THE COMMUNISTS IN RELATION TO THEVARIOUS EXISTING OPPOSITION PARTIESSection II has made clear the relations of the Communists to theexisting working-class parties, such as the Chartists in England and theAgrarian Reformers in Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, forthe enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but inthe movement of the present, they also represent and take care of thefuture of that movement. In France the Communists ally themselves withthe Social-Democrats, against the conservative and radical bourgeoisie,reserving, however, the right to take up a critical position in regard tophrases and illusions traditionally handed down from the great Switzerland they support the Radicals, without losing sight of thefact that this party consists of antagonistic elements, partly of DemocraticSocialists, in the French sense, partly of radical Poland they support the party that insists on an agrarian revolutionas the prime condition for national emancipation, that party whichfomented the insurrection of Cracow in Germany they fight with the bourgeoisie whenever it acts in arevolutionary way, against the absolute monarchy, the feudal squirearchy,and the petty they never cease, for a single instant, to instil into the workingclass the clearest possible recognition of the hostile antagonism betweenbourgeoisie and proletariat, in order that the German workers may353535

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTYstraightaway use, as so many weapons against the bourgeoisie, the socialand political conditions that the bourgeoisie must necessarily introducealong with its supremacy, and in order that, after the fall of the reactionaryclasses in Germany, the fight against the bourgeoisie itself mayimmediately Communists turn their attention chiefly to Germany, because thatcountry is on the eve of a bourgeois revolution that is bound to be carriedout under more advanced conditions of European civilisation, and with amuch more developed proletariat, than that of England was in theseventeenth, and of France in the eighteenth century, and because thebourgeois revolution in Germany will be but the prelude to animmediately following proletarian short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionarymovement against the existing social and political order of all these movements they bring to the front, as the leading questionin each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development atthe y, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of thedemocratic parties of all Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openlydeclare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of allexisting social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communisticrevolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. Theyhave a world to win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!363636