The Communist Manifesto

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1 KARL MARX & FREDERICK ENGELS INTERNA T IONAL - ' PUBLISHERS

MANIFESTO OF THE

COMMUNIST PARTY BY KARL MARX AND FREDERlCK ENGELS

AUTIlORlZED ENGUSH TRANSLATION

EDITED .AND ANNOT.A TEO BY FREDERICK ENGEL~

INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

PREFACE By FREDERICK ENGELS

All rt/ererut nllmWJ in tal rt/er llJ IWUJ IHginninKon p. "'5

@ 1948 by International Publishers Co., Inc.

This printing 2007

ISBN 13 978-0.7178-024 1_8

The ManifeJto was published as the platform of the Communist league, a wotkingmen's association, firSt exclusively German, later 00 international, and, under the political conditions of the Continent before 1848, unavoidably a secret society. At a Congress of the League, held in l oncon in November 1847. Man: and Engels were commissioned to prepare for publication a complete theoretical and practical party program. Drawn up in German. in January 1848. the manuscript was sent to the printer in London a few w~ before the French revolution of February 24th.1 A French tnlIlSlation was brought OUt in Paris. shortly before the insurrection of June 1848.2 The first English translation. by Miss He1en MacfarIan e. ap~ed in George Julian Harney's Red RepubJium, LoDdon, 1850. A Danish and a Polish edition had also been published. The defeat of the Parisian insurrection of June 1848--rhe first great battle between proletariat and bourgeoisie--drove again intO the background, for a time, the social and political aspiratioll5 of the European working class. Thenceforth, the struggle for supremacy was again. as it had been before the revolution of February, soldy between different sections of the propenied class; the working class was reduced to a fight for political dhow.room, and to the position of extr~e wing of the middle-class Radicals. Wh~ever independent proletarian movemenrs continued to show signs of life, they were ruthlessly hunted down. Thw the Prussian police hunted out the Cenrral Board of the Communist League, then located in Cologne. The members were arrested, and, after eighteen months· imprisonment, they were tried in October 1852. This celebrated "Cologne Communist Trial" lasted from October 4th till November 12th; seven of the prisooen were scmcoced to tClDlS of imprisoo(l )

ment io a fonr~ varying from thr~ to six years. Immediat~ly after th~ sent~e, th~ League was formally dissolved by th~ remain· iog members. As to the Man'I_lIo, it ~ theac~forth to be doomed to oblivion. When the European working class bad tKOVered sufficient sueogth for another attack on the ruling classes, the: International Working· men's Association sprang up. But this association, formed with the express aim of welding into one body the whole militant proletariat of Europe and America, could nor: at once proclaim the principles laid down in the ManileJJo. The International was bound to have a program broad enough to be acceprable to the English uade unions, to the followers of Proudhon' in France, Bdgium, Italy, and Spain, and to the Lassalleans~ in Germany. Marx, who drew up thu ptOgram to the satisfaction of all parties, entirely truSted to the intellectual development of the wocking class, which was sure to result from combined action and mUNal discussion. The very events and vicissitudes of the struggle against capital, the defeatS even more than the victories, could not help bringing home to men's minds th~ insufficiency of their various favorite nostrums, and preparing th~ way for a more complete insight into the tru~ conditions of working<.lass emancipation. And Man: was right. The International, on its breaking up in 1874, left the workers quite different men from what it had found them in 1864. Pcoudhonism in France, Ussa.lleanism in Germany were dying out,.and ev~n me conservative English uad~ unions, [hough most of them had long since severed their connection with th~ International, were gradually advancing towards that point at which, last year at Swansea, their president could say in their name "continental Socialism has lost its t~rrors for us." In fact, the principles of th~ ManileJlo had mad~ considerable headway among th~ worldngmen of all countries. The Mi#UI_JIO itself thus came to th~ front again. Since 1850 the German ten had b«n reprinted several times in Switztrlaoo. England, and America. In 1872, it was uanslated into English in New YocJc, where the uanslation was published in WoodhNU tI1Id Cltl,I«J W.uly. From this English version, a French ODe was made

in lA SocUJiJle of New YOlk. Since then at l~st twO more English translations, mor~ or less mutilated, have been brought OUt in America, and one of them has been r~printed in England. The fi.rsr Russian rransladon, made by Bakunin, was published at Henen's Kolak- ol office in Geneva, about 1863; a second one, by the heroic Vera Zasulich, also in Geneva, in 1882.' A new Danish edition is to be found in $ociaJdemokt'tU'sk Biblio/hd, Copenhagen, 1885; a fresh French translation in lA Sodaliste, Paris, 1886. From this latter, a Spanish version was prepared and published in Madrid, in 1886. Not counting the German reprines there had been at least rwclve editions. An Armenian translation, which was to be pub· lished in Consrantioopl~ some months ago, did not see the light, I am told, because the publish~r was afraid of bringing OUt a book with the name of Man: on it, while the translator declined to call it his own production. Of further translations into other languages I have heard, but have not s«n. Thus the history of the AfanifeJlo reBeets, to a great extent, the histOry of th~ modern working·class movement; at present it is undoubtedly the most widespread, the most internatinnal production of all Socialist literaruce, the common platform acknowledged by millions of workingmen from Siberia to California. Yet, when it was written, we could not have called it a Soda/ill manifesto. By SocialiSts, in 1847. were understood, on the one band, the adherentS of the various Utopian syStems: Owenites' in England, PourieristS7 in France, both of them already reduced to the posi· tion of mere sectS, and gradually dying OUt; on the other hand. the most multifarious social quacks, who, by all manners of tinkering, professed to redress, without any danger to capital and profit, all sorrs of social grievanc~s, in both cases m~n outsid~ the working class movement, and looking rather co the "educated" classes for support. Whatever portion of th~ working class had b«ome con· vinced of the insufficiency of mere political revolutions, and had proclaimed the necessity of a total social chan~, called itself Com· munist. It was a crude, rough.hewn, pure1y instinctive SOrt of Communism; st~ it touched che cardinal point and was powerful

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enough amongst the working class to produce the Utopian Communism of Cabet3 in Fmnce, and of Weiding' in Germany. Thus. in 1847, Socialism was a middle
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" H~er much tbe s~ of things may bave altered dwing the last 25 years, the general principles laid down in this Manifesto are, on the whole, as correct today as ever. Hue and thue some deu.il aUght be improved. The practical appl.ication of the principles will depend, a5 tbe Manifeslo itself states, everywhue and at all times. on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section 11. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded reday. In view of the gigantic strides of modern indUStry since 1848, and of tbe accompanying improved and extended organization of the work.ing class, in view of the praaicai experience gained, first in the February revolution. and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held pol.itical power for twO whole months, this program has in some details become antiquated. One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that 'the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes: (See The CWil War in Prance; AdJrell by Ihe GmeraJ Co,mcu oflh, InllNJlllion.J WrwkingmIWs Allocialum, 1871, where this point is further developed.) Funher, it is self-evident, that the criticism of Socialist literature is deficient in relatioo to the present time, because it comes down oruy to 1847; also that the remarks on the relation of the Communists to the vari~ opposition parties (Section IV), altbough in principle still correct, yer in practice are antiquated, because the political situation has been entirdy changed, aDd the progress of histOry has swept from off tbe earth the greater portion of the political parties there coumerated. "But then, the Mani/eJlo has become a liistorical document which we have no longer any right to alter." The present translation is by Mr. Samud Moore, the uanslatot of the gre:\ter portions of Marx's C4pitaJ. We have revised it in common, and I have added a few notes explanatory of historicaJ allusions. London, J"'U""f 30, 1888.

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I

MANIFFSTO OF TIiE COMMUNJST PARTY BOURGEOIS AND PROLETARIANSu By KAR.l MARX AND FREDERlCK ENGELS A sp«tet is haunting Europe--the speeler of Communism. All the powers of old Euto~ have' entered into a holy alliance to aot. cise this !peaer: Pope and Uar, Metteroich and Guizot, French Radicals lt and ~tman police-spies. Where is the party in opposition that has nO( been decried as communistic by itS opponents in power? Where the Opposition that has DOt hurled back the branding reproach of Communism, against the more advanced opposition panies, as well as against its reactionary adversaries? Two things result from this fact: I. Communism is already acknowledged by all Euro~ powers to be iudf a power. n. It is high time that Communists should openly. in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the specter of Communism with a manifesto of the party irself. To this end, Communists of various nationalities have assembled in London, and sketched the following manifesto, to be published in the English, French, German, Italian., Flemish, and Danish Iaogua~

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The history of all h.it:berto o:isting society'l is the hisrory of class muggles. Frttman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster H and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition [0 one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at luge, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. In the earlier epochs of history, we find almOSt everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians. slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudaJ lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almOSt all of these c:Ia.nes. again, subordinate gradations. The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society, has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of suuggle in place of the old oncs. Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: It has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into twO great hostile camps, into twO great classes directly facing each Other-bourgeoisie and proletariat. From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the cba.nered burghen lll of the earliest towns. From these bur~sses cbe first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed. The discovery of America, the rounding of the Ca~, opened

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up fresb ground foe rhe rising bourgcoisie. The wt Indian and Chinese markets. the colonization of America. uade wim the co~ nies, the increase in me means of excbange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to indusuy, an impulse never before known. and thereby, to me revolutionary de. mcnt in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development. The feudal system of industry, in whicb industrial production was monopolized by closed guilds,18 now no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new marketS. The manufacturing syst~ took its place. The guild-masters were pusbed aside by tbe manu. facruring middle class; division of labor between the different cotporate guilds vanished in the face of division of la.bo£ in each single workshop. Meantime the markets kept ever growing. the demand ever rising. Even manufacrure no longer sufficed.. Thereupon, steam and machinery tevolutioni2:ed. industrial production. The place of manulacrure was taken by the giant, modem indusuy, the place of the industrial middle class, by industtial millionaires-the leaders of whole industrial armies, the modem bourgeois. Modern indusuy has established the world marker, for which the discovay of America paved the way. This market ha! given an immense development [0 commerce, to navigation, to com. munication by land. 1bis development ha!, in its rum, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as indusuy, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed intO the background cvay class handed down from the Middle Ages. We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product 01 a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange. Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding poLitical advance of that class. An oppreued class under the sway of the feudal nobiLity, it became an armed and self·governing association io the medieval commune;11 here independent urban republic (as in haly and Gemu.ny) , there

tttable "third estate" of the mOlW'Cby (as in Ftanee); after· wards, in the period of manufacture proper, serving eiebet the semi·feudal or the absolute monateby as a counterpoise against the nobility, and, in fact, cornerstone of the .great monarchies in ,general--
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ditioru that p.1t in tht shade aJl former migrations of narions and cnuod... 1be bourgeoisie cannor exist without coflS(anriy revolutionizing the instruments of produaion, and thertby tht relatioos of pro_ duaion, and with them me whole relarions of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaherod form, was, on tbe contrary, the first condition of existence for all t:arlier industriaJ clas.ses. Constant revolutionizing of produaion, uninterrupted disrurbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncenainty and agitation distinguish the bourgt:Ois epoch from aJl earller ont:S. AIl fixed, fast-frozen rt:lations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept" away, all new-formed ones becOD'e antiquated before they can ossify. AJi that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last corn. pelIt:
inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so aJso in in· tellectuaJ production. The intellectual creatioos of indivtdual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures there arises a world literarure. The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production. by the immensely facilitated means of communica· rion, draws all nations. even the most barbarian, into civilization. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extionion, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them lO introduce what it calls civ ilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In a word, it creates a world after i[5 own image. The bourgeoisie has subjected the COUntry to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, SO it has made baJ:barian and semi-barbJ.cian countries dependent on the civi lized ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the EaSt on the West. More and more the bourgeoisie ketps doing away with the SCattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralized means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralization. Independent, or but loosely conneaed provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together ioto one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class interest, ooe frontier, and one customs tariff. The bourgeoisie. during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has cteared more massive and more colossal productive forces than

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have all preceding generations together. Subjection of nature's iMce3 to man, machinery, application of chemistry to indwtry and agriculture, steam-n2Vig2tlon, railways, electric tdegraphs., clearing of whole continents for cultivation. canalis:ation of riven, whole popul:ations conjured out of the ground-wh:at e:arlier century h:ad even :a presentiment th:at such productive forces slumbem:I in the J:ap of social l:abour? We see then that the mc:an.s of production 2nd of exch:ange, which served u the foundation for the growth of the bourgeoisie, were generated in feud:al society. At 2 ceruin stage in the development of these means of production and of exch:ange. the conditiom under which leud:al society produced :and exchanged. the feud:al org:anis:ation of :agriculture :and m:anuf:acturing industry, in a word, the feud:al rcl:ations of property became no longer compatible with the alrc:ady developed productive forcesj they became 10 many fetters. They h:ad to be bunt asunder; they were burst uunder. Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted to it, and by the economic and politic:al sw:ay of the bourgeois class. A simil:ar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modem bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange and of property. a society that has conjured up such gigantic me:ans 01 production and of exchange. is like the sorcerer who is no longer 2ble to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For nuny a dcc:ade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces :against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeoisie and of its rule. It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put tbe existence of the entire bourgeois &ociety on trial, each time more threateningly. In these crises a great part: not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises thue breaks out an epidemic that, in all [ 14 J

earlier epochs. would have seemed an absurdity-the epidemic of over.production. Society suddenly finds itself put back intO a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine. a universal war of devastation had cu[ 011 the supply of every means of subsistence; induStry and commerce seem to be destroyed. And why? Ikcause there is too much civilization, tOO much means of subsistence, tOO much industry, tOO much commerCe. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer (end [0 further the de· velopment of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become tOO powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered. and no sooner do they overcome these fetters than Ihey bring disorder intO [he whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are 100 narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand, by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces ; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the mo~e thoro ough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paVID~ ~e way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by dlrnlDishing the means whereby crises are prevented. The weapons with which the bourgeoisie feUed feudalism to the ground are now rurned against the bourgeoisie itself. . Bur not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bnng dearh to itself; it has also called into o;istenCe the men who are to wield those weapons-the modern working c1ass-tbe proletarians. In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working cla.u, developed---a class of laborers, who live only SO long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labor increases capital. These Iaborers, who muSt sell themselves piecemeal. are a commodi()" like every other article of commerce, and are con· sequently exposro to all the vicissirudes of competition. to all the fluctuations of the market. Owing ID the extensive use of machinery and to division of

labor, the work of the proletarians has lost aU individual charac· ter, and, consequendy, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the ~ simpl~ most monOf:OOOUS, and most easily acquired knack, that IS requited of him. Hence, the cost of produCtion of a workman is resuiCted, almOSt entirely, to the means of subsistence that be requires for his mainreuance, and for the propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labor, is equal. to itS COSt of production. In proportion, therefore, as the .repulslven.ess of the work increases, the wage decreases. Nay more, In proportion as the use of machinery and division of labor increases, in the same proportion the burden of roil also increases, wbether by prol~ga­ cion 01 the working hours, by increase of the work exacted !O a given I ime, or by increased sp«d 01 the machinery, etc. Modern industry has converted the little workshop of the pauiarchal master into the great lactory of the industrial capitalist. Ma.s.ses of laOOrees, crowded inlo the factory, are organized like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois state; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the over-looker. and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacrurer hims.elf. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more peny, tbe more hateful and the more embittering it is. The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labor, in other words, the more modern indusuy develops, the more is the labor of men superseded by that of women. Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinCtive social validity for ~he working class. All are instruments of labor, more or less expenSIVe ro use, according to their age and sex. No sooner has the laboret received his wages in cash, for the moment escaping exploitation by the manufacrurer, than he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, tbe landl<¥d, the sbopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etC.

TIle lower strata of the middle ~ small mdespeoplt, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicralwnen and peasantS-all these sink gradually into the proleta£iat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which modern industry is carried on, and is swamped in the compedtion with the large capitalists, parlly because their specialized skill is rendered wonhless by new methods of production. Thw the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population. The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first the con· test is carried on by individual laborers, then by the work people of a factory, then by the operatives of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploitS them. They direct their attacks not against [he bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instruments of produCtion themseJves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labor, they smash machinery to pieces, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished StatuS of the workman of the Middle Ages. At this stage the labarers still form an incoherenr mass scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition. If anywhere they unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet the consequence of their own active union, but of the union of the bourgeoisie, which class., in order to attain its own political ends, is compelled 10 Set the whole proletariat in motion, and is moreover still able to do so for a time. At this stage, therefore, the proletarians do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the noo.industrial bourgeois, the petty bourgeoisie. Thus the whole historical movement is concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory SO obtained is a victory for the bourgeoisie. But with the development of industry the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes (OocenU3ted in greater masses, its strength grows, and it fttls tbat Strength more. The various inter· estS and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat ue more and more equalized, in proportion as machinery obliterates all

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distincrioru of labo! and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level. The growing competition among the bourgeois, and the resulting commercial crises, make rhe wages of the workers ever more fluctuating. The unceasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their livelihood more and more prcrarious; the coll isions between individual workmen and indi· vidual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between twO dasses.. Thereupon the workers begin to form combi-

by the improved means of communication which are created by modern industry, and which place the workers of different localities in contact with one another. It was just this contact that was needed [Q centralize the numerous local struggles, 1.11 of the same maracter, into one national struggle betwttn classes. But every class struggle is a political struggle. And that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the mooem proletarians, thanks to railways, achieve in a few years. This organization of the proletarians into a class, and coosequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again, sttonger, firmer, mightier. It compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself. Thus the ten-hour bill18 if' England was carried. Altogemer, collisions between me daMes of tbe old society further the course of development of the proletariat in many ways. The bourgeoisie linds irself involved in a conStant battle. At lirst with the: aristocracy; lattt on. with those portions of the bourgeoisie itSelf

whose interests have become antagonistic [Q the progress of industry; at all times with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries. In all these battles it s~ itseU compelled to appeal [Q the proletariat, [Q ask for its help, and thus, to drag it ioto the politial arena. The boutgoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for light ing the bourgeoisie. Further, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling classes are, by the advance of industry, precipitated into the proletariat, or are at least threatened in their conditions of existence. These also supply ~ proletariat with fresh elements of enlightenment and progress. Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hoor, the process of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring charaCter, thac a small s«tion of the ruJing class CUts itself adrift, and joins the re:volutionary class, the class that holds the futUre in itS hands. JUSt as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, $0 now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole: . Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoISie today, the prolecariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The ochec classes decay and finally disappear in the face of modem industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product. The lower middle class, che smaU manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan., the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are reaCtionary, for they If}' to roll bade. the wheel of history. If by chance they are revolutionary, they are 50 only in view of rhe~r impending transfer into the proletariat; they thUS, defend nOt th~lr present, but their future interests; they desert [beu own staIldpolDt ro adopt that of the proletariat.

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nations (trade unions) against the bourgeoisie; they club together in order [0 keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent ass!> clarions in order [0 make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and there the comest breaks oU[ into riors. Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of theif battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers. This union is furthcre
The Hdangerous class," the social scum (LumpenproielaNal), that passively roning mass thrown olf by the lowest layers of old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletuian revolution; itS conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue. !be social conditions of the old society no longer exist for the proletariat. The proletarian is without properry; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with bourgeois fami ly relations; modern industrial labor, modem subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national charaaer. law, moraliry, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudice:s.. behind which lurk in ambush JUSt as many bourgeois interests.. All the preceding classes that got the upper hand, sought to fortify their already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their conditions of appropriation. The proletarians cannot become masters of the produCtive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. They have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual propeny. All previous historical movements were movementS of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest str'atum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincurobent strata of official society being sprung into the ait. Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at fust a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with itS own bourgeoisIe. In depicting the most general phases of the development of t~ proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war brealu OUt intO

open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariaL Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But in order to oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at least, continue itS slavish existence. The KIf, in the petiod of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the com· mune, just as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a bourgeois. The modem laboter, 00 the contrary, instead of rising with the progre5S of iooustry, s.inb deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. And here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an overriding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannOt help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society. The essential condition for the existence and sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the coodition for capital is wage-Iabor. Wage-labor rests exclusively on competition between the hOOrers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the laborers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of modern indusUf, therefore, CUtS from under its feet the vet}' foundation on which tbe bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie t~refore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

[ 201

[21]

The theoretical coodusions of the Commun istS are in 00 w.y

based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered.

n PROLETARIANS AND COMMUNISTS In what relacion do Ih~ Communists srnnd to the prolemrians as :a whole? The Communists do nOt" form a separate parry opposed to ()(her

work ing-class parties. They have no inre~sts separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. They do not Set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape :lnd mould the proletarian movement. The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class panies by this only: I. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point OUt and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages o f development which the Struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pus through, they a.lways and everywhere represent rhe interests of the movement as Il whole. The Communists, therefore, aft on the one hand, practically, {he most advanced and resolute section of the working
J

by this or that would-be universal reformet. They merely express, in general terms, actual relatioos springing from an existing class struggle, from a bistorical movement going on under our very eyes. The abolition of existing property relations is nO( u all a distinctive feature of Communism. All property relations in the past have continually been subject to historical cbange consequent upon the change in historical conditions. The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in favor of bourgeois properry. The distinguishing feature of Communism is nor the abolition of property generally, hut the abolition of bourgeois propcrry. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating produru that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few. In this sense, the theory of the CommunistS may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property 3$ the fruit of a man's own tabor, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity. and independence. Hard.won, self·acquired, self-eamoo property! Do you mean the properry of the petty artisan and of tbe small peasant. It fonn of properly that preceded the bour.geois form? There is no need to &ba/isb that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still desuoying it daily. Or do yeu mean modern bourgeois private property? But does wuge·labor create any property for the laborer? Nor a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind o( properry which exploiu wage-labor. and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage·bbor for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital ilI1d wage.labor. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism.. [23 J

To be a apiralist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social shllllJ in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of .society, can it be set in rn(){ion. Capital is therefore not a personal, it is a .social, power. When. therefore, capital is converted intO commoo property, intO the proputy of all members o f .society. personal property is not thereby uansformed into social property. It is only the .social char· acter of the property that is changed. It loses its class character. Let w now take wage-labor. The average price of wage-Iabor. is the minimum. wage, i.e., that quanrum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely requisite to keep the laboret in bare existence as a laborer. What, therefore, the wage-Iaborer appropriates by means of his labor, merely suffices to prolong and reproduce a bare existence. We by no means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the producrs of labor, an appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life. and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labor of others. All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation. under which the laborer lives merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only insofar as the interest of the ruling class requires it. In bourgeois sociel)', living Jabor is but a means to increase accumulated Jabor. In Communist society, accumulated labor is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the laborer. In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the ptesent; in Communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality. And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freWom! And rightly so. The ab0lition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at.

[24 )

I I

I

By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying. But if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying dis· appears also. This talk about free selling and buying, and all the other "brave words" of our bourgeoisie about freedom in general, have a meaning. if any, only in COntrast with remicted selling and buying, with the fettered ttaders of the Middle Ages, but have no meaning when opposed to the Communist abolition of buying and se-lling, of the bourgeois conditions of production, and of the bourgeoisie itself. You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its exiStence for [he few is solely due to ics non-existence in the hands of those nine-temhs. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of properl)', the necessary condition for whose existence is the nonexistence of any property fOf: the immense majority of society. In a word, you reproach w with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend. From the moment when Labor can no longer be convened intO capital, money, Of: tent, into a social power capable of being monopolized, i.e., from the momem when individual property can no longer be uansformed into bourgeois property, into apical, from that moment, you say, individuality vanishcs. You must, therefore, confess that by "individual" you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person mwt, indeed. be swept OUt of the way, and made impossible. Communism deprives no maD of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the Lahor of others by means of such appropriation. It has been objected, that upon the abolit ion of private pIOpeny all work will cease, and universal laziness will OVertake us. According to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who

[25 )

work. acquire oIXhing, and dtose who acquire anything, do DOt work. The whole of this objection is but anOlher expression of the tautology: There can no longer be any wage·labor when mere is no longer any capital. All objections urged against t~ Communist mode of producing and appropriating material products, have, in the same way, been urged against me Communist modes of producing and appropriating intellectual productS. Just as, to the bourgeois, me disapporance of class property is the disappearance of produaioo itSelf, so the disappearance of class culrure is to him identical with the disappearance of all culture. That culrure, the loss of which he laments, is. for the enormous majority, a mere training to aa as a machine. But don'r wrangle with us so long as you apply, to our intended aboIition of bourgeois property, the standard of your bourgeois ncnoos of freedom, culture, law, ete. Your very ideas are but the OUtgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois produaion and bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into a law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of existence of your c.Iass. The selfish misconception that induces you to transform into eternal laws of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from your present mode of production and form of property- historical relations that rise and disappear in the progtt5S of produccioo-tbis misconception you share with every ruling class thu has preceded you. What you see clearly iD the case of ancient property, what you admit in the case of feudal property, you are of course forbidden to admit in the case of your own bourgeois form of propeny. Abol..idon of the family! Even tbe most radical Bare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists. 00 what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its ccimpletely developed form this family oists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of things finds itS complement in the practical absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution.

[26 J

The bourgeou family will vanish as a matter of course wh~ its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital Do you char~ us with wanting to StOp the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty. But, you will say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations. when we replace home education by social And your educuion! Is not that also social. and determined by the social conditions under which you educate, by the interventioa of society, direct or indirc<:t. by means of schools, etc.? The CornmWlists have not invented the intervention of society in educuioo; they do but seek to alter the charaCt"er of tbat intervention. and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class. The bourgeois c1apuap about the family and education. about the hallowed cc-relation of parent and child, becomes :ill the more disguSTing, the more, by the action of modern industry, all family tits among t~ proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed intO simple articles of commerce and instruments of

Iabo,. But you Communists would introduce community of women, screams the whole bourgeoisie in chorus. The bourgeois sees in his wife a mere instrument of production. He hear:s that the instrUments of production are to be exploited in common, and, oaruraiJy, can come to no other conclusion than that the lot of being common to all will likewise faJl TO the women. He has nOt even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the stams of women as mere instrument~ of pro;iuc:rion. For the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the VIrtuOUS mdlgoa. tioo of our bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is to be openly and officially established by the Communists. The Communists have no need to introduce community of women; it has existed almost from time immemorial OJr bourgeois, not content with having the wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposaL not to speak of common prostinnes, take me greatest pleasure in seducing each ochet's wives. {27]

Bourgeois marriage is in reality a syst~ of wives in common and thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with is that they desire to introollce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalized community of women. For cbe rest, it is self-evident, mat the abolition of the present systern of production must bring with it the abolition of the community of women springing from that system, Le.. of prostitution both public and private. The Communists are funher reproacbed with desiring to abolish counrries and nationality. The workingmen have no country. We cannot take from them what they have Dot" got. Since the proletariat mUSt first of alJ acquire political su~macy. must rise fO be the leading class of the nation. muse constitute itself the nation, it is, so far, itself national. though not in the bourgeois sense of the word. National differences and antagonisms betwttn peoples are vanishing gradually from day co day, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the rooditions of life corrcsponwng thereto. TIle supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster. Unit~ actioo. of the leading civiJiz~ countries at least, is one of the (ll"St conditions (or the emancipation of the proletariat. In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another is put an end ro, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism betwero classes within the nation vanishes, the hosdlity of one nation to anOther will come to an end. The charges against Communism made from a religious, a philosophical, and, generaUy, from an ideological srandpoiot, are not deserving of serious examinuion. Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man's ideas, views, and conceptions, in one word, man's consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material e::a:istence, in his social relations and in his social life?

What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production changes its character in proportion as material produaioo is changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.. When people speak of ideas that revolutionize .society, they do but express the fact that within the old society the elements of a new ooe have been created, and that the dissolution of the old idos k«pS even pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence. When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religions were overcome by Christianity. Whcu Christian idos succumbed io the 18!h century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its deathbattle with the theo revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious liberty aocl freedom of conscience, merely gave expression to [he sway of free competition within the domain of knowledge. "Undoubtedly," it will be said, "religion, moral, philosophical, and juridical ideas have been modified in the course of historical development. But religion, morality, philosophy, political science, and law, constantly survived this change. "There are, besides, etemal truths. such as Freedom, Justice, erc., that are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it therefore actS in contradiction to all past hiSTorical experience." What does this accusation r~uce itself to? The history of all past society has roosis.ed in the developmcut of class antagonism!, antagonisms that assumed different forms at different epochs. But whatever fotm they may have taken, one faa is common to all past ages, viz., the exploitation of one part of society by I~ other. No wonder, then, that the scx:ial consciousness of past ag~, despite all the mutiplicity and variety je displays, moves within certain common forms, or general idos, which cannot completely w,n ish except with the t()ta.t disappearance of class anragonisflu. The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with II I ditional property relations; 00 "WOnder thar its development In¥1WtI the m06t radical rupture with traditional ideas.

( 281

(291

But le!: us have done with the bourgeois objections [Q Communism. We haW' seen above, that the firse step in the revolution by the ....orking class, is to raise the proletari:::t to the position of ruling dass, to establish democracy. The proletaraiat will use its polirical supremacy to wrest, by degrees. all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the toral of productive forces as rapidly as possible. Of course, in the beginning, this cann()( be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the COUI'S(! of the movement, ouuuip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production. These measures will of course be differenr in different countries. Nevenheless in the most advanced rounuies, the following win be pretty generally applicable. l. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. AboIilion of all righ: of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. Centralizarion of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralization of the means of communication and uanspon in the hands of the state. 7. :Extension of factor ies and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands., and the im· provement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. 8. Equal obligation of all 10 work. Establishment of indusuial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Combination of agriculture with manuheturwg industries;

graduaJ abolition of the distinction between town and coumry, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country. 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of child factoty labot in its prescnt form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. Whcn, in the: course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has becn concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is mcrely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its COntest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organizc itself as a class; if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and. as such sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existenCe of class antagonisms, and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class. In place of the old bourgeois society, with iu classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all

{30 ]

ClI]

ID SOCIALIST AND COMMUNIST UTERA11.JR.E I. REAcnONARY SocIALlSM

Owing to their historical position, it became the vocation of the :uiscocracies of France and England to write pamphlets against modern bourgeois society. In the French revolution of July 1830,1' and in the English reform agitation, these aristocracies again succumbed to the hateful upstart. Thencefonh, a serious political snuggle was altogether Out of the question. A literary battle alone remained possible. But even in the domain of literature the old cr~ of the restoration period 20 had become impossible. In order (0 arouse sympathy, the aristocracy was obliged to I~ sight, apparemlr, of its own imeresrs, and (0 formulate its indiament against the bourgeoisie in the interest of the exploited working class alone. Thus the aristocracy took its revenge by singing lampoons against its new master, and whispering in his ears sinister prophecies of coming catastrophe. In this way arOSe Feudal Socialism : Half lamentation, hall lampoon; half echo of the past, half menace of the future; at times, by its bitter, witty, and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very heart's core, but always ludicrous in its effect through total incapacity to comprehend the march of modern history. The aristocracy, in order to rally the people to them, waved the proletarian alms-bag in front for a banner. But the people, as often as it joined them, saw 00 their hindquarters the old feudal coats of arms. and deserted with loud and irreverent laughter.

[32 )

One section of the French ugitimists,:t1 and 'Youog England,":: exhibited this spectacle. In pointing out that their mode of exploitation was different from that of the bourgeoisie, the feudalists forget that they exploited under circumstances and conditions that were quite different, and that are now antiquated. In showing that, under their rule, the modern proletariat never existed, they forget that the modern bourgeoisie is tbe necessary offspring of their own form of society. For the rest, SO liule do :hey conceal the reactionary character of their criticism, that their chief accusation against the bourgeoisie amounts to this, that under the bourgeois regime It class is being developed, which is destined to cut up root and branch the old order of society. What they upbraid the bourgeoisie with is not: so much that it creates a proJetlltiar, as that it creates a ,.cvolutronary proletariat. 10 political practice, therefore, they join in all coercive measures against the working class; and in ordinary life, despite their high. falutin phrases, they stoop to pick up the golden apples dropped from the tree of industry, and to barter truth, love, and honor for traffic in wool, beetroot-sugar, and potato spirits.:>'! As the parson has ever gone hand in hand with the landlord, so has Clerical Socialism with Feudal Socialism. Nothing is easier than ro give Christiao asceticism a Socialist tinge. Has not Christianity d(Xlaimed against private property, against marriage, against me srate? Has it nOt preached in the place of these, charity and povuty, celibacy and moni6cation of the flesh, monastic Life and Mother Church? ChriStian Socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heartbumin&, of the aristocrat. h. Pelty Bourgeou SocUdinn The feudal aristocracy was nOt the only class that was ruined b)' the bourgeoisie, not the only class whose conditions of ezistence pined and perished in the aonosphere of modern bourgeois sockt)"

[33 )

The medieval burgesses and the small ~sant proprietors were the precursors of llu~ modern bourgcoisie. In those countries which arc but little developro, industrially and commercialiy, these twO cla.sscs still vegetate side by side with the rising bourgeoisie. In Countries where modem civilization has become fully develo~ a new class of petty bourgcois has been formed, fluctuating between proletariat and bourgeoisie, and ever renewing itself as a supplementary part of bourgeois sociery. The individual members of this class, however, are being cooscandy hurled down into the p roletariat by the action of competition, and, as modern industry develops, they even see the moment approaching when they will completely disappear as an independent section of modern society, to be replaced, in manufactures, agriculture, and commerce, by overlooken, bailiffs, :lOd shopmen. In countries, like France, where the peasanrs constitute far more than half of the population, it was natural that writers who sided with the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, should use, in their Cfidcism of the bourgeois regime, the standard of the peasant and petry bourgeois, and from the scandpoint of these intermediate classes should take up the cudgels for the working; class. Thus arose petry bourgeois Socialism Sismondi24 was the head of this school, not only in France but also in England. This school of Socialism dissected with great acuten~ the contradictions in the conditions of modem production. It laid bare the hypocritical apologies of e(:onomists. It proved, incontrovertibly, me disastrous effects of machinery and division of labor; the concentration of capital and !aDd in a few hands; overproduction and crises; it pointed OUt the inevitable ruin of the perry bour· geois and peasant, the misery of the proletariat, the anarchy in production, the crying inequalities in the distribution of wealth, the industrial war of exterminatioD between nations, the dissolution of old moral bonds, of the old family relations, of the old nationalities. In its positive aims. however, this form of Socialism aspires either to restoring tbe old means of produCtion and of exchange, and with them the old propeny relations, and the oLd society, or to cramping

[ 34J

the modern means of production and of exchange within the frame · work of the old propeny relations that have been, and were bound to be, explCKIed by those means. In either case, it is botb reactionary and utopian. Its last words arc: Corporate guilds for manufacture; patriarchal relations iD agrirulrure. Ultimately, when stubborn historical faCtS had dispersed all intoxicating effects of self-deception, this form of Socialism ~ed in a miserable fit of the blues. c. German

M

'7'rue" SocM#sm

The Socialist and Communist literature of France, a literuure that originated under the pressure of a bourgeoisie in power, and that was the expression of the struggle against this power, was introduced into Germany at a time when the bourgeoisie, in that country, had just begun its contest with feudal absolutism. German philosophers, would-be philosophers, and men of letters eagerly seized on this literature, only forgetting that when these writings immigrated from France into Germany, French social ~­ ditions had not immigrated along with them. In contaCt With German social conditions, this French literature lost ill its immaliate practical significance, and assumed a purely literary aspect. Thus, to the German philosophers of the 18th century, the demands of the first French Revolution were nothing more than the demands of "Practical Reason" in general, and the unerance of the will of the revolutionary French bourgeoisie signified in their eyes the laws ?f pure will, of will as it was bound to be, of true human Will generally. The work of the German lit8f'llIi consisted solely in bringing the new French ideas intO harmony with their ancient philosophical conscience, or rather, in annexing the French ideas without deseniDB their own philosophic point of view. This annexation rook place in the same way in which a foreign language is appropriated, namely by translation. [3jJ

1t is w~ll known how the monks wnx~ silly liv~ of Catholic saints over the manuscripts on which the classical works of ancient heathendom had been writt~n. The German literal; reversed (his process with the profane French lit~rature. They wrot~ their philosophical nonsense beneath the French original. For irutanc~, benoth th~ Fr~nch criticism of the «ooomic functions of money, they wrote "alienation of humanity," and beneath the French criticism of the bourgeois state, they wrot~, "dethrooement of th~ category of the general," and so forth. Th~ introdunion of th~ philosophical pIu~ at the back of the French historical criticisms they dubbed "Philosophy of Action," "True Socialism.," "German Sci~nc~ of Socialism," "PbiJosophica1 Foundatioa of Socialism," and 50 on. The French Socialist and Communist literature was thus cornpletdy emasculated. And. since it ceased in the hands of tbe German to express tbe struggle of one class with the O[h~r, he felt conscious of having ov~rcome "French ooe-sidedndS" and of representing, not true requirements, but the requirements of truth; not tbe imerests of the proletariat, bm the interest of human nature, of man in general, who belongs 10 no class, ha.! no reality, who exists only in the misty realm of philosophical phanrasy. This German Socialism, which took itS school-boy taSk so seriowly and solemnly, and extolled its poor stock-in-trade in such mount~­ banJc: fashion, meanwhile gradually lost itS pedantic innocence. The fight of the German and ~pecially of the Prussian bourgeoisie against feudal aristocracy and absolut~ mooarchy, in other words, tbe Jiberal movement, became more earnest. By this, the long-wished-for oppocrunity was offered to ''True" Socialism of confronting the political movement with the Socialist demands, of hurling the traditional anathemas against liberalism, against representative government, against bourgeois coro~tition, bourgeois freedom of the press, bourgeois legislation. bourgeois liberty and equality, and of preaching to the masses tbat they bad nothing to gain, and everything to Jose, by tbis bourgeois movement. German Socialism forgot, in ~ nick of time, that the French

[ 36]

(CIUC1srn, whose silly echo it was, presupposed tbe existence of modern bourgeois society, with its corresponding economic conditions of existence, and the political constitution adapted thereto, rhe very things whose attainment was the object of the pending struggle in Germ3.1lY. To the absolute governments, with their foll owing of parsons, professors, country squires, and officials, it served as a welcome scarecrow against the threatening bourgeoisie. Ir was a sweet finish after the bitter pills of floggings and bullets, with which these same governments, JUSt at thnl rime, dosed the risings of the German working class. While this 'True" Social ism thus served the governments as a weaJX>D for fighting the German bourgeoisie, it, at the same time, directly represented a reaaionary interest, the interest of the German Philistines. In Germany the peny bourgeois class, a relic of the 16th century, and since then constantly cropping up again under various forms, is the re:ll social basis of the existing state of things. To preserve this class, is to preserve rhe existing state of things in Germany. !be indusuial and political supremacy of the bourgeoisie thre:ltens it with certain dcstruaion-on the one hand, from the concentration o f capital; OD the other, from (he rise of a revolutionary proletariat. ''True'' Socialism appeared to kill these twO birds with one stone. It spread like an epidemic. The robe of speculative cobwebs, embroidered with flowers of rhetoric, steeped in the dew of sickly sentiment, this transcendental robe in which the German Socialists wrapped tbeir sorry "eternal truths," all skin and bone, served to increase wonderfully the sale of their goods amongst such a public. And on itS put, German Socialism recognized, more and more, in own calling as the bombastic representative of the petty bourgeois Philistine. h proclaimed the German nation to be the model nation, and the German petty Philistin~ to be the rypical man. To every villainous meanness of this mood man it gave a hidden, higher, socialistic interpretation, the exaa contrary of his real character. It went to (37)

the

ertreme

length of directly opposing the "bruWly desttuetive"

tendeoq of Communism. and of proclaiming its supceme and impartial (X)DteDlpt of all class struggles. With ..ery few acepcioos, all the so-called Socialist and Communist publications that now (1847) circulate in Germany belong to the domain of this foul and eae:rvating literarure.

2.

CoNsmLVATIVB OR BoUllGOOlS SocLu.tsM

A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social griev-

ances. in order to secure the continued e:ristence of bourgeois society. To this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarians, improvers of the condition of the working class, organizers of charity, members of societic:5 for the prevention of cruelty to animals, temperance fanatics, hole-andourgeois want all the advantages of modern sociaJ conditions without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting therefrom. They desire the aisting state of society minus its rnolutiona.ry and disintegrating elements. They wish for a bourgeoisie without a proletariat. The bourgeoisie naturally conceives the world in which it is supreme to be the best; and bourgeois Socialism develops this comfonable conception intO various more or less complete systems. In requiring the proletariat to carry OUt such a syStem, and thereby to march suaightway intO the social New Jerusalem, it but requires in reality, that tbe proletariat should remain within the bounds of existing society, but should cast away all its hateful ideas concerning the bourgeoisie. A second and more practical, but less systematic, form of this Socialism sought to depreciate every revolutionary movement in me eyes of tbe working class, by showing that no mere political rdorm, but onI, a change in the material conditions of existence, in eco[lB]

nomic relations, could be of any advantllge to tht:m. By changes in the material conditions of aistence, this form of Socialism, bowC'Ver, by no means understands abolition of the bourgeois relations of production, an abolition that can be dfected only by a ~olutioo, but administrative reforms. ba.sed on the continued a~rence of th~ relations; reforms, therefore, that in no respect aHect the relations between capital and labor, but, at the best, lessen the cost, and simplify the administrative work of bourgeois government. Bourgeois Socialism attains adequate expression, when. and onl, when, it becomes a mere 680re of speech. Free trade: For the benefit of the work.ing class.. Protective duties: For the benefit of the working class. Prison reform: For the benefit of the working class. These are the last words and the only seriOWily meant words of bourgeois Socillism.. It is summed up in the phrase: the bourgeois are bourgeoi!-for the bene1it of the working class.

3.

ClunCAL-UTOPiAN

Soc:Lu.lsM AND COMMUNISM

We do not: here rrfer to that litenrure which, in every great modern revolution, has always given voice to the drmands of thr proletariat, such ... the writings of Babc:upG and oc:bers. The nm direct attempts of the proletariat to antin its own ends -madr in times of universal excitement, when feudal .society W2S hl'ing ovenruowD-oecessarily failed, owing to the then undeveloped stllte of the proletariat, as well as to the absence of the eronoaUc conditions for its emancipation, conditions that had yet to be pr0duced., and could be produced by the impending bourgeois epoch alone. The revolutionary literature that accompanied thrse first movements of the proletariat had necessarily a reactionary charaerer. It inculcated universal asceticism and .social levrlling in its crud('St form. The Socialist and Communist systems properly SO called, those of St. Simon,H Pourier, Owen, and oc:hers, spring into existence in the early undeveloped period, described above, of the struggle between

[ 19]

I

an organization of society specially conuived by the~ inventOrs. Furure history, resolves itself, in their eyes, into the propaganda and the practical carrying out of their social plans. In the formation of their plans they are conscious of caring chieBy for the intereSts of the working class, as being the most suffering class. Only from the point of view of being the most suffering class does the proletariat exist for them. The undeveloped Slate of the class struggle, as well as their own surroundings, causes Socialists of this kind to consider themsdves fu superior (0 all class uuagonisms. They want to improve the condi. tion of every member of society, even that of the most lavored. Hence, they habiruaUy appeal to society at Large, without distinction of class; nay, by preference, to the ruling class. For how can people, when once they understand their system, fail to see in it the best possible plan of the best possible state of society? H ence. they reject all political and especially all revoJutioouy action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, and en. deavor, by small experiments, necessarily doomed to failure, and by the force of example, to pave the way for the new social gospel.

Such fantastic pictures of future society, painted u • time whm the proletariat is still in a very undevdoped stlUe and has but a fantastic conception of its own position, correspond with the firsl instinctive yeamings of that class for a general reconstruction of society. But these Socialist and Communist writings conoin also. critical elemmt. They attack every principle of existing society. Hence mey are full of the most valuable materials for the enlightenment of the working class. The practical measures proposed in them.such as the abolition of the disrinction between tOwn and country; abolition of the family, of private gain, and of the wage-system; the proclamation of social harmony; the conversion of the functions of the state into a mere superintendence of production--a.ll these pr0posals point solely to the disappearance of class antagonisms which were, at that time, only just cropping up, and which, in these publicatioDS, are recognized in their earliest, indistinCt, and undefined forms only. These proposals, therefore, are of a purely utopian charaCter. The significance of Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism bears an inverse relation to historical development. In proportion as the modem class struggle develops and rakes definite shape, this fantastic standing apart from the contest, these fantasti<: atracks on it, lose all practical value and all theoretical justification. Thereface, although the originators of these systems were, in many respects, revolutionary, their disciples have, in every case, formed mere reactionary sects. They hold fast by the original views of their masters, io opposition to the progressive historical deveIopmem of the proletariaL They, therefore. endeavor, and that consistently, (0 deaden me c.Lass struggle and to reconcile the cLa.s.s antagonisms. They still dream of experimental realization of their social Utopias, of founding isolated phalanllereJ, of establishing "Home Colonies," or setting up a "little lcaria"::1-pocket editions of the New Jeru· salem--and to realize aJl these castles in the air, they are compelled to appeal to the feelings and purses of the bourgeois. By degrees they sink ioto the cnegory of the reactionary consenrative Socialists

[ 40]

[ 41]

proletariat and bourg~i$ie (see Section 1. Bourgeois and Prolctarians). The founders of these systems see, ind~. the class anragonisms, as well as the action of the decomposing elements in the prevailing form of society. Bur the proletariat, as yet in its infancy, offers ro them the spectacle of a class without any historical initiative or any independent political movement. Since the dcvdopmem of class antagonism keeps even pac(' with the development of indusuy, the economic situation, as such Socialists find it, does not as yet offer (0 them the material condi. tions for the emancipation of the proletariat. They therefore search after a new social science, alter new .social laws, that are to create these conditions..

Historical aCtion is to yield to their personal inventive action; historically created conditions of emancipation to fantastic ones; and the gradual, spontaneous class organitation of the proletariat to

depicted alxJve. differing from thoe only by more systematk. pedantty, and by their fUlatical and superstitious belief in the miraculous dfeas of their social science. They, therefore, violently oppose all political action on the pan of the working class; such action, according to them, can only result from blind unbelief in the new gospel The Owenites in England, and the Fourierisrs in Fraoce, respecthdy, oppose the Chartistr' and the RJ/ormiJm.

IV POSITION OF TIlE COMMUNISTS IN RELATION ID TIlE VARJOUS EXISTING OPPOSITION PARTIES Section 11 has made dear the relations of the Communists ro the existing workiog-
[42J

r 41 J

n«n5Uily introduce along with its supremacy, and in order that, after the faU of the reactionary classes in Germany, the figbt against tbe bourgeoisie itself may immediarely begin. The CommunislS turn their anemion chieBy to Germany, because that country is on the eve of a bourgeois revolution that is bound to be carried oU[ under more advanced conditions of European civilization and with a much more developed proletariat than what existed in England in the 17th and in France in the 18th century, and because the bourgeois revolution in Germany will be but the prelude to an immediately following proletarian revolution. 10 shon, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. In all these movements they bring to the front, as the leading question in each ~, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time. Finally, they labor everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parries of all countries. The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. let the ruling c1a.s.ses tremble at a Communist tevolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to Win. Workingmen of aU countries, unite!

NOTES (All unsigned notes are those made by Engcb in the English edilion cl 1888; all others were prepared by the editor and are so marked. Where il was found neceuary to enlarge upon Enseb' notes, the additions .ppev in brackcu.)

I. King Louis Philippe was deposed Uld • republic proclaimed • the t""olution in Paris, Febt\l.l.rJ 22·24, 1848.-Ed'.

~h

of

2. The rising of the Parisian ....orken, June 23-27. 1848_ TIle irmureaion wu suppressed by General CavLigDlIC with gleas. ilaughter.-Ed.

3. Pierre Josepb PrOlldhon (IS09·1865} .-french publicist and poliricaJ economisr; leading eJ:poneo.t of petty-bourgeois Socialism.-E#. 4. Lasulle [Ferdinand Lusalle, l82~ · I S641 al .... ays acknowledsed hinueU to us personally to be a disciple of Mau Ind, as soch, !I<XXI on the ground of the M.mifesto. But in his publif: l8illltion, 1862-64, he did nOt: go beyond demanding cooperative worluhops supported by $lD.te credit. ~. The Rus.sian versiOfl published 11. Geneva in 1882 Wall made by flde.hanov nOt by Vera Zasulich. Bakunin·s tr.nsl.tion appeared in 1870. -eJ.

6. The follow-en of Robert Owen (1 77 1· 185S), leading Euglish uIOpian Socil li.H. He envisioned a collect.ive economic and social life organized in small communist communes, .... here property VIOU.ld be owned in COID-

mon.-EJ,

7. The followers of Francois Charles Pouder (I772-18H). leading French utopian Socialist, .... ha urged • system of mlonics on a social.ist plan. His criticism of bourgeois society was rccognited lIS basic boch by Man: Il.I1d Engcls.- EA. 8. Etienne Cabel (1788-1856).-A French uropillll., exiled to England for his ~w:ipltion in the July Revolution of 1830. In his book, Vo,.,. ,." , , _, he pictures life in • Communist society.-l!d".

9. Wilhelm Weiding (1808- 1871 l.-A German. utopian Socialist who took p.n in the rcvo1utionary movement of 1848 .nd aertal sreat inlluence .moDS the German workers. He came 10 America where be acried on 'Ocialist qitation r-moog GermUl -workers.-Ed'. 10. Th. CQflJi/;o" of th, WOf'",v", CUss;" 1!",t-J ;" 1844, by Frederick &gel" tfUlsUtcd by Florence K. Wt.chneweuky, .00 1ater usumed her

(44J

(4~

1

maiden name 01 Florence KeUey Md was .. well-known social worker ill 11. Mmernich

bt-anch cl the Bourboo fllIDil, WI.I dri~ OUI, and Louis Philippe, cl the J'OWI.&er OJ: Odeans bnAc:h, bea.me "Kin& of the Frencb. -I!4. N

luMriCL-EJ.

(I773-18'59).-<:haO('ellor of the Austrian ~piu: Ind

adnowled~ I~cr of the Europe-Ml r~ion. GUilet (1787· 1874) W" cbe

Fre1'lch intcllC'Crual protagoniSt of hiah finlnce Ind of the industrial hourInd Ihe irreconcilable foe of rhe prolen.ia! The French bdicah Mat~1 (I802.18'52). Carn<x (.18~1.1888). and M~ie (179'5·1870) polemIc "'Irfare 181-1051 the SoclalUts Ind Communists.-&l. ~;Slt

",.ged

12. By bourgeoisie is meant the dlss of modern ,apitdists, owners of the mean. of social production and employers of wage-labot; by proletariat, the. ellS' of modern _ge_Jabor.., •• who, having no means of productioo of then own, ue rf:duced to selliog their laoot po,.,cr in order to live.

13 .. 11Iu is: aI,l wriJl~. history" In 184;. the prc-hismry of society, the toCIaI or~mutlon nlSllOS prI':V1OUI ro recorded hiuory. ,.,as .11 bUI un. known. SlI1ce.,bcn HIX~ausro .(August von, 1792.1866) diKovered corn. mon O'Wlm"~.p of lan~ 111 RUSSIa, !-burer fGeorg Ludwig von ] pro"ed it to be !he $oClal foundallon from whIch all Teulonic BCes staned in hinory an~, .by and by, village. communities were found to be, or 10 have been, th~ prlmlt.ve form of SOCiety everywhere from India to !rdand. The inner org~iution of this pd.mitive. communistic society wu laid bare, in its typIcal form, by Morgan 5 [Lew., H., IRI8·1881] crowning discovery of the true nature of the K#ftl md its relation to the trib~. With the di5K)iut;on of these primeval commu~it!es, society begins to be diffeTfiltiated into lepa. nre and finally antagonistIC c1uses. I have attempted to retr.ce this procns of diS50lution in Th. Orig;'" 01 rb. P_ily, Pri","# ProJnrty ,,.,,,1

rH Su,..

1.01. Guild.muter, thu is a full merober of I guild a muter within 00f. hNCI. of • guild. "

U. OIarrered burgbens were freemen who hlld been IIdmitted 10 the pri"j. leges of a dlanered borough thus pos.sessing full political rights.-eJ. 16. Craft guilds, made up of acluJi"e and privileged groups of aniS&nJ _re~ .during the. !eudal period! g""flted monopoly rights to muktu by mumapal authorltles. The gullch Impo:sc-d minute regularions on their

20. NO( the English Restoratioo, 1660 1814 10 1830.

to

1689, but the French Restoration,

21. Tbe FretKb legitimists f....ored the claims of the elder branch of the Bourbon fllIDily, IS against the Qrlesnists, the younger braoch.-8:l. 22. "Young England" included I group of philanthropic tories md youthful sprigs of the BriWh and Irish ari$t"OO"aq', who suongly opposed indU$uial capitalism and wished to restore leudalism.- E4'.

23. This applies midly to German, where the landed aristocracy Ind tquirearchy hive large ponioru of their eswes cultivated foe their own account by steward,. and lte, moreover, eztensive beetroot-sugar manufal;rutel"S and distillers of potIIto spiri rs. The wealthier British ui$roc:rars ace, as yet, rather abo-re that; but thq, 100, know how 10 toake up for declining rents by leD
27. PhJ.rns/~er ~e socialist colonies 00 the plan of Charles Fouriet; learia was the name given b, c..bet ro his Utopia and, lata on, to his American Communist colon,_

worltiog hours ...,;ages prica tOOls and ' , , ,

28. Chartism lISted -as a more or leu organized radical political movetDetlt of. the British workers from 1837 10 1848. The People's Charter, for whkh the Chanists fought, demanded an immediate improvtmenl in the workers' conditions u well as legislative rdotms.-8:l.

17. "Commune" was the name taken in France by the nascent towns even before Ihey hlld conquered from their feudal lords and muters loo:ai Itlf. &O"erM"leol an~ political rights 1.1 the ''Third Estate." Generally speaking, for the . ecDIIOfDlC development of the bourseoisie, England is here taken _ the typlW rounuy, for its poliriaJ. dt't"elopmetlr, France.

29. Reference is IIlIde to the leaders of "Young America" who, during the sr.ruggle of the New York farmers against high rena, demanded the "'-tionali ution of the land and limitation of fums to 160 acres. AfTer a f_ paltry reforms had been obtained in the field of agrttian legislation, ~ movelDenr petered out.-Ea'.

18. The to·Hour Bill, lor ... hich the' English workers had been fightillJ for 30 yean, "1.1 made a la... in 1S47.-U

19, 10 July 1830, the Puisi." rose in rn-olt apinsr Curies X. The elder

)(). The poltlJ the:o represented in Puliament by Ledru-Rollin, in literllCUre by Louis Blanc (1811-1882), in the dail, preu by the Rllrwm#. The name of Social·Democracy ~igni6.es, with these itS inve:otors, a -ICCtion of the Democratic Of Republican PItf}' .IIlI)re Of less tingm .... ith Socialism.

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[ 471

memben controlling such mltters the hitin, of .... orkers.-Ed.

1.1

31 Kkntburz"ti ill the German orisin.!. Man: and Engels used this to describe the rC'SCttonal1' detnems of the urban peny bourgeoisie ,upponed the rule of the feudal nobility and me .b50lute monarch,.. ideal of these e1em~Q 11'l1li the guild system of the Middle Ago. In

(('fm who

The Ger-

many this section 01 the popula.tioo. was "err numerous in tD05t ol me cides &Dd towDS.-BII.

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