In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a\u00a0whole?<\/p>\r\n
The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other\u00a0working-class parties.<\/p>\r\n
They have no interests separate and apart from those of the\u00a0proletariat as a whole.<\/p>\r\n
They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own,\u00a0by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.<\/p>\r\n
The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties\u00a0by this only: (1) In the national struggles of the proletarians\u00a0of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front\u00a0the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of\u00a0all nationality. (2) In the various stages of development which the\u00a0struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass\u00a0through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the\u00a0movement as a whole.<\/p>\r\n
The Communists, therefore, are, on the one hand, practically,\u00a0the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class\u00a0parties of every country, that section which pushes forward\u00a0all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over\u00a0the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly\u00a0understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate\u00a0general results of the proletarian movement.<\/p>\r\n
The immediate aim of the Communist is the same as that of all\u00a0the other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into\u00a0a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of\u00a0political power by the proletariat.<\/p>\r\n
The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way\u00a0based on ideas or principles that have been invented or\u00a0discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer. They\u00a0merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from\u00a0an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on\u00a0under our very eyes. The abolition of existing property\u00a0relations is not at all a distinctive feature of Communism.<\/p>\r\n
All property relations in the past have continually been subject\u00a0to historical change consequent upon the change in historical\u00a0conditions.<\/p>\r\n
The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in\u00a0favour of bourgeois property.<\/p>\r\n
The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of\u00a0property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But\u00a0modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete\u00a0expression of the system of producing and appropriating products,\u00a0that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the\u00a0many by the few.<\/p>\r\n
In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in\u00a0the single sentence: Abolition of private property.<\/p>\r\n
We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing\u00a0the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a\u00a0man's own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork\u00a0of all personal freedom, activity and independence.<\/p>\r\n
Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the\u00a0property of the petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of\u00a0property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to\u00a0abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent\u00a0already destroyed it and is still destroying it daily.<\/p>\r\n
Or do you mean modern bourgeois private property?<\/p>\r\n
But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not\u00a0a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which\u00a0exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon\u00a0condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the\u00a0antagonism of capital and wage-labour. Let us examine both sides\u00a0of this antagonism.<\/p>\r\n
To be a capitalist is to have not only a purely personal, but a\u00a0social status in production. Capital is a collective product,\u00a0and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last\u00a0resort, only by the united action of all members of society,\u00a0can it be set in motion.<\/p>\r\n
Capital is, therefore, not a personal, it is a social power.<\/p>\r\n
When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into\u00a0the property of all members of society, personal property is not\u00a0thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social\u00a0character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character.<\/p>\r\n
Let us now take wage-labour.<\/p>\r\n
The average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage, i.e.,\u00a0that quantum of the means of subsistence, which is absolutely requisite in bare existence as a labourer. What, therefore, the\u00a0wage-labourer appropriates by means of his labour, merely suffices to prolong and reproduce a bare existence. We by no\u00a0means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labour, an appropriation that is made for the\u00a0maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labour of others. All that we\u00a0want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase\u00a0capital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of\u00a0the ruling class requires it.<\/p>\r\n
In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase\u00a0accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour\u00a0is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence\u00a0of the labourer.<\/p>\r\n
In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present;\u00a0in Communist society, the present dominates the past. In\u00a0bourgeois society, capital is independent and has individuality,\u00a0while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.<\/p>\r\n
And the abolition of this state of things is called by the\u00a0bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly\u00a0so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois\u00a0independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at.<\/p>\r\n
By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of\u00a0production, free trade, free selling and buying.<\/p>\r\n
But if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying\u00a0disappears also. This talk about free selling and buying, and\u00a0all the other \"brave words\" of our bourgeoisie about freedom in\u00a0general, have a meaning, if any, only in contrast with restricted\u00a0selling and buying, with the fettered traders of the Middle Ages,\u00a0but have no meaning when opposed to the Communistic abolition of\u00a0buying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production,\u00a0and of the bourgeoisie itself.<\/p>\r\n
You are horrified at our intending to do away with private\u00a0property. But in your existing society, private property is\u00a0already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its\u00a0existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with\u00a0intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any\u00a0property for the immense majority of society.<\/p>\r\n
In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your\u00a0property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.<\/p>\r\n
From the moment when labour can no longer be converted into\u00a0capital, money, or rent, into a social power capable of being\u00a0monopolized, i.e., from the moment when individual property can\u00a0no longer be transformed into bourgeois property, into capital,\u00a0from that moment, you say individuality vanishes.<\/p>\r\n
You must, therefore, confess that by \"individual\" you mean no\u00a0other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of\u00a0property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and\u00a0made impossible.<\/p>\r\n
Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the\u00a0products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the\u00a0power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such\u00a0appropriation.<\/p>\r\n
It has been objected that upon the abolition of private property\u00a0all work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us.<\/p>\r\n
According to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone\u00a0to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who\u00a0work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything, do not\u00a0work. The whole of this objection is but another expression of\u00a0the tautology: that there can no longer be any wage-labour when\u00a0there is no longer any capital.<\/p>\r\n
All objections urged against the Communistic mode of producing\u00a0and appropriating material products, have, in the same way,\u00a0been urged against the Communistic modes of producing and\u00a0appropriating intellectual products. Just as, to the bourgeois,\u00a0the disappearance of class property is the disappearance of\u00a0production itself, so the disappearance of class culture is to\u00a0him identical with the disappearance of all culture.<\/p>\r\n
That culture, the loss of which he laments, is, for the enormous\u00a0majority, a mere training to act as a machine.<\/p>\r\n
But don't wrangle with us so long as you apply, to our intended\u00a0abolition of bourgeois property, the standard of your bourgeois\u00a0notions of freedom, culture, law, etc. Your very ideas are but\u00a0the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and\u00a0bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of\u00a0your class made into a law for all, a will, whose essential\u00a0character and direction are determined by the economical\u00a0conditions of existence of your class.<\/p>\r\n
The selfish misconception that induces you to transform into\u00a0eternal laws of nature and of reason, the social forms\u00a0springing from your present mode of production and form of\u00a0property\u2014historical relations that rise and disappear in the\u00a0progress of production\u2014this misconception you share with every\u00a0ruling class that has preceded you. What you see clearly in the\u00a0case of ancient property, what you admit in the case of feudal\u00a0property, you are of course forbidden to admit in the case of\u00a0your own bourgeois form of property.<\/p>\r\n
Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this\u00a0infamous proposal of the Communists.<\/p>\r\n
On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family,\u00a0based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed\u00a0form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this\u00a0state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of\u00a0the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution.<\/p>\r\n
The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its\u00a0complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of\u00a0capital.<\/p>\r\n
Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of\u00a0children by their parents? To this crime, we plead guilty.<\/p>\r\n
But, you will say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations\u00a0when we replace home education by social.<\/p>\r\n
And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the\u00a0social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention,\u00a0direct or indirect, of society, by means of schools, etc.? The\u00a0Communists have not invented the intervention of society in\u00a0education; they do but seek to alter the character of that\u00a0intervention and to rescue education from the influence of the\u00a0ruling class.<\/p>\r\n
The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about\u00a0the hallowed co-relation of parent and child, becomes all the\u00a0more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all\u00a0family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their\u00a0children transformed into simple articles of commerce and\u00a0instruments of labour.<\/p>\r\n
But you Communists would introduce community of women, screams\u00a0the whole bourgeoisie in chorus.<\/p>\r\n
The bourgeois sees in his wife a mere instrument of production.\u00a0He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited\u00a0in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion than\u00a0that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the\u00a0women.<\/p>\r\n
He has not even a suspicion that the real point is to do away\u00a0with the status of women as mere instruments of production.<\/p>\r\n
For the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the\u00a0virtuous indignation of our bourgeois at the community of women\u00a0which, they pretend, is to be openly and officially established\u00a0by the Communists. The Communists have no need to introduce a community of women; it has existed almost from time immemorial.<\/p>\r\n
Our bourgeois, not content with having the wives and daughters\u00a0of their proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common\u00a0prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other's\u00a0wives.<\/p>\r\n
Bourgeois marriage is, in reality, a system of wives in common\u00a0and thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly\u00a0be reproached with, is that they desire to introduce, in\u00a0substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalized\u00a0community of women. For the rest, it is self-evident that the\u00a0abolition of the present system of production must bring with it\u00a0the abolition of the community of women springing from that\u00a0system, i.e., of prostitution both public and private.<\/p>\r\n
The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish\u00a0countries and nationality.<\/p>\r\n
The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what\u00a0they have not got. Since the proletariat must, first of all, acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of\u00a0the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is, so far,\u00a0itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word.<\/p>\r\n
National differences and antagonisms between peoples are daily\u00a0more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the\u00a0bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world-market, to\u00a0uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of\u00a0life corresponding thereto.<\/p>\r\n
The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still\u00a0faster. United action, of the leading civilized countries at\u00a0least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of\u00a0the proletariat.<\/p>\r\n
In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another\u00a0is put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will\u00a0also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between\u00a0classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation\u00a0to another will come to an end.<\/p>\r\n
The charges against Communism made from a religious, a\u00a0philosophical, and, generally, from an ideological standpoint,\u00a0are not deserving of serious examination.<\/p>\r\n
Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man's ideas,\u00a0views and conceptions, in one word, man's consciousness, changes\u00a0with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in\u00a0his social relations and in his social life?<\/p>\r\n
What else does the history of ideas prove, than that\u00a0intellectual production changes its character in proportion as\u00a0material production is changed? The ruling ideas of each age\u00a0have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.<\/p>\r\n
When people speak of ideas that revolutionize society, they do\u00a0but express the fact, that within the old society, the elements\u00a0of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the\u00a0old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old\u00a0conditions of existence.<\/p>\r\n
When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient\u00a0religions were overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the 18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal\u00a0society fought its death battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience merely gave expression to the sway of free competition\u00a0within the domain of knowledge.<\/p>\r\n
\"Undoubtedly,\" it will be said, \"religious, moral, philosophical\u00a0and juridical ideas have been modified in the course of\u00a0historical development. But religion, morality philosophy,\u00a0political science, and law, constantly survived this change.\"<\/p>\r\n
\"There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice,\u00a0etc. that are common to all states of society. But Communism\u00a0abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all\u00a0morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it, therefore, acts in contradiction to all past historical experience.\"<\/p>\r\n
What does this accusation reduce itself to? The history of\u00a0all past society has consisted in the development of class\u00a0antagonisms, antagonisms that assumed different forms at\u00a0different epochs.<\/p>\r\n
But whatever form they may have taken, one fact is common to all\u00a0past ages, viz., the exploitation of one part of society by the\u00a0other. No wonder, then, that the social consciousness of past\u00a0ages, despite all the multiplicity and variety it displays,\u00a0moves within certain common forms, or general ideas, which\u00a0cannot completely vanish except with the total disappearance of\u00a0class antagonisms.<\/p>\r\n
The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with\u00a0traditional property relations; no wonder that its development\u00a0involves the most radical rupture with traditional ideas.<\/p>\r\n
But let us have done with the bourgeois objections to Communism.<\/p>\r\n
We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the\u00a0working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of\u00a0ruling as to win the battle of democracy.<\/p>\r\n
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by\u00a0degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all\u00a0instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the\u00a0proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the\u00a0total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.<\/p>\r\n
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by\u00a0means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures,\u00a0therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable,\u00a0but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are\u00a0unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of\u00a0production.<\/p>\r\n
These measures will of course be different in different\u00a0countries.<\/p>\r\n
Nevertheless, in the most advanced countries, the following will\u00a0be pretty generally applicable.<\/p>\r\n\r\n
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have\u00a0disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the\u00a0hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power\u00a0will lose its political character. Political power, properly so-called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing\u00a0another. If the proletariat during its contest with the\u00a0bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to\u00a0organize itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it\u00a0makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force\u00a0the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these\u00a0conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of\u00a0class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have\u00a0abolished its own supremacy as a class.<\/p>\r\n
In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and\u00a0class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which\u00a0the free development of each is the condition for the free\u00a0development of all.<\/p>","rendered":"
In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a\u00a0whole?<\/p>\n
The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other\u00a0working-class parties.<\/p>\n
They have no interests separate and apart from those of the\u00a0proletariat as a whole.<\/p>\n
They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own,\u00a0by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.<\/p>\n
The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties\u00a0by this only: (1) In the national struggles of the proletarians\u00a0of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front\u00a0the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of\u00a0all nationality. (2) In the various stages of development which the\u00a0struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass\u00a0through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the\u00a0movement as a whole.<\/p>\n
The Communists, therefore, are, on the one hand, practically,\u00a0the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class\u00a0parties of every country, that section which pushes forward\u00a0all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over\u00a0the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly\u00a0understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate\u00a0general results of the proletarian movement.<\/p>\n
The immediate aim of the Communist is the same as that of all\u00a0the other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into\u00a0a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of\u00a0political power by the proletariat.<\/p>\n
The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way\u00a0based on ideas or principles that have been invented or\u00a0discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer. They\u00a0merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from\u00a0an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on\u00a0under our very eyes. The abolition of existing property\u00a0relations is not at all a distinctive feature of Communism.<\/p>\n
All property relations in the past have continually been subject\u00a0to historical change consequent upon the change in historical\u00a0conditions.<\/p>\n
The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in\u00a0favour of bourgeois property.<\/p>\n
The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of\u00a0property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But\u00a0modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete\u00a0expression of the system of producing and appropriating products,\u00a0that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the\u00a0many by the few.<\/p>\n
In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in\u00a0the single sentence: Abolition of private property.<\/p>\n
We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing\u00a0the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a\u00a0man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork\u00a0of all personal freedom, activity and independence.<\/p>\n
Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the\u00a0property of the petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of\u00a0property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to\u00a0abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent\u00a0already destroyed it and is still destroying it daily.<\/p>\n
Or do you mean modern bourgeois private property?<\/p>\n
But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not\u00a0a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which\u00a0exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon\u00a0condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the\u00a0antagonism of capital and wage-labour. Let us examine both sides\u00a0of this antagonism.<\/p>\n
To be a capitalist is to have not only a purely personal, but a\u00a0social status in production. Capital is a collective product,\u00a0and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last\u00a0resort, only by the united action of all members of society,\u00a0can it be set in motion.<\/p>\n
Capital is, therefore, not a personal, it is a social power.<\/p>\n
When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into\u00a0the property of all members of society, personal property is not\u00a0thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social\u00a0character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character.<\/p>\n
Let us now take wage-labour.<\/p>\n
The average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage, i.e.,\u00a0that quantum of the means of subsistence, which is absolutely requisite in bare existence as a labourer. What, therefore, the\u00a0wage-labourer appropriates by means of his labour, merely suffices to prolong and reproduce a bare existence. We by no\u00a0means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labour, an appropriation that is made for the\u00a0maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labour of others. All that we\u00a0want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase\u00a0capital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of\u00a0the ruling class requires it.<\/p>\n
In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase\u00a0accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour\u00a0is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence\u00a0of the labourer.<\/p>\n
In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present;\u00a0in Communist society, the present dominates the past. In\u00a0bourgeois society, capital is independent and has individuality,\u00a0while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.<\/p>\n
And the abolition of this state of things is called by the\u00a0bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly\u00a0so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois\u00a0independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at.<\/p>\n
By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of\u00a0production, free trade, free selling and buying.<\/p>\n
But if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying\u00a0disappears also. This talk about free selling and buying, and\u00a0all the other “brave words” of our bourgeoisie about freedom in\u00a0general, have a meaning, if any, only in contrast with restricted\u00a0selling and buying, with the fettered traders of the Middle Ages,\u00a0but have no meaning when opposed to the Communistic abolition of\u00a0buying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production,\u00a0and of the bourgeoisie itself.<\/p>\n
You are horrified at our intending to do away with private\u00a0property. But in your existing society, private property is\u00a0already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its\u00a0existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with\u00a0intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any\u00a0property for the immense majority of society.<\/p>\n
In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your\u00a0property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.<\/p>\n
From the moment when labour can no longer be converted into\u00a0capital, money, or rent, into a social power capable of being\u00a0monopolized, i.e., from the moment when individual property can\u00a0no longer be transformed into bourgeois property, into capital,\u00a0from that moment, you say individuality vanishes.<\/p>\n
You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no\u00a0other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of\u00a0property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and\u00a0made impossible.<\/p>\n
Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the\u00a0products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the\u00a0power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such\u00a0appropriation.<\/p>\n
It has been objected that upon the abolition of private property\u00a0all work will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us.<\/p>\n
According to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone\u00a0to the dogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who\u00a0work, acquire nothing, and those who acquire anything, do not\u00a0work. The whole of this objection is but another expression of\u00a0the tautology: that there can no longer be any wage-labour when\u00a0there is no longer any capital.<\/p>\n
All objections urged against the Communistic mode of producing\u00a0and appropriating material products, have, in the same way,\u00a0been urged against the Communistic modes of producing and\u00a0appropriating intellectual products. Just as, to the bourgeois,\u00a0the disappearance of class property is the disappearance of\u00a0production itself, so the disappearance of class culture is to\u00a0him identical with the disappearance of all culture.<\/p>\n
That culture, the loss of which he laments, is, for the enormous\u00a0majority, a mere training to act as a machine.<\/p>\n
But don’t wrangle with us so long as you apply, to our intended\u00a0abolition of bourgeois property, the standard of your bourgeois\u00a0notions of freedom, culture, law, etc. Your very ideas are but\u00a0the outgrowth of the conditions of your bourgeois production and\u00a0bourgeois property, just as your jurisprudence is but the will of\u00a0your class made into a law for all, a will, whose essential\u00a0character and direction are determined by the economical\u00a0conditions of existence of your class.<\/p>\n
The selfish misconception that induces you to transform into\u00a0eternal laws of nature and of reason, the social forms\u00a0springing from your present mode of production and form of\u00a0property\u2014historical relations that rise and disappear in the\u00a0progress of production\u2014this misconception you share with every\u00a0ruling class that has preceded you. What you see clearly in the\u00a0case of ancient property, what you admit in the case of feudal\u00a0property, you are of course forbidden to admit in the case of\u00a0your own bourgeois form of property.<\/p>\n
Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this\u00a0infamous proposal of the Communists.<\/p>\n
On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family,\u00a0based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed\u00a0form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this\u00a0state of things finds its complement in the practical absence of\u00a0the family among the proletarians, and in public prostitution.<\/p>\n
The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its\u00a0complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of\u00a0capital.<\/p>\n
Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of\u00a0children by their parents? To this crime, we plead guilty.<\/p>\n
But, you will say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations\u00a0when we replace home education by social.<\/p>\n
And your education! Is not that also social, and determined by the\u00a0social conditions under which you educate, by the intervention,\u00a0direct or indirect, of society, by means of schools, etc.? The\u00a0Communists have not invented the intervention of society in\u00a0education; they do but seek to alter the character of that\u00a0intervention and to rescue education from the influence of the\u00a0ruling class.<\/p>\n
The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about\u00a0the hallowed co-relation of parent and child, becomes all the\u00a0more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all\u00a0family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their\u00a0children transformed into simple articles of commerce and\u00a0instruments of labour.<\/p>\n
But you Communists would introduce community of women, screams\u00a0the whole bourgeoisie in chorus.<\/p>\n
The bourgeois sees in his wife a mere instrument of production.\u00a0He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited\u00a0in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion than\u00a0that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the\u00a0women.<\/p>\n
He has not even a suspicion that the real point is to do away\u00a0with the status of women as mere instruments of production.<\/p>\n
For the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the\u00a0virtuous indignation of our bourgeois at the community of women\u00a0which, they pretend, is to be openly and officially established\u00a0by the Communists. The Communists have no need to introduce a community of women; it has existed almost from time immemorial.<\/p>\n
Our bourgeois, not content with having the wives and daughters\u00a0of their proletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common\u00a0prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other’s\u00a0wives.<\/p>\n
Bourgeois marriage is, in reality, a system of wives in common\u00a0and thus, at the most, what the Communists might possibly\u00a0be reproached with, is that they desire to introduce, in\u00a0substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalized\u00a0community of women. For the rest, it is self-evident that the\u00a0abolition of the present system of production must bring with it\u00a0the abolition of the community of women springing from that\u00a0system, i.e., of prostitution both public and private.<\/p>\n
The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish\u00a0countries and nationality.<\/p>\n
The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what\u00a0they have not got. Since the proletariat must, first of all, acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of\u00a0the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is, so far,\u00a0itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word.<\/p>\n
National differences and antagonisms between peoples are daily\u00a0more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the\u00a0bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world-market, to\u00a0uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of\u00a0life corresponding thereto.<\/p>\n
The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still\u00a0faster. United action, of the leading civilized countries at\u00a0least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of\u00a0the proletariat.<\/p>\n
In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another\u00a0is put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will\u00a0also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between\u00a0classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation\u00a0to another will come to an end.<\/p>\n
The charges against Communism made from a religious, a\u00a0philosophical, and, generally, from an ideological standpoint,\u00a0are not deserving of serious examination.<\/p>\n
Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man’s ideas,\u00a0views and conceptions, in one word, man’s consciousness, changes\u00a0with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in\u00a0his social relations and in his social life?<\/p>\n
What else does the history of ideas prove, than that\u00a0intellectual production changes its character in proportion as\u00a0material production is changed? The ruling ideas of each age\u00a0have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.<\/p>\n
When people speak of ideas that revolutionize society, they do\u00a0but express the fact, that within the old society, the elements\u00a0of a new one have been created, and that the dissolution of the\u00a0old ideas keeps even pace with the dissolution of the old\u00a0conditions of existence.<\/p>\n
When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient\u00a0religions were overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the 18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal\u00a0society fought its death battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience merely gave expression to the sway of free competition\u00a0within the domain of knowledge.<\/p>\n
“Undoubtedly,” it will be said, “religious, moral, philosophical\u00a0and juridical ideas have been modified in the course of\u00a0historical development. But religion, morality philosophy,\u00a0political science, and law, constantly survived this change.”<\/p>\n
“There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice,\u00a0etc. that are common to all states of society. But Communism\u00a0abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all\u00a0morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it, therefore, acts in contradiction to all past historical experience.”<\/p>\n
What does this accusation reduce itself to? The history of\u00a0all past society has consisted in the development of class\u00a0antagonisms, antagonisms that assumed different forms at\u00a0different epochs.<\/p>\n
But whatever form they may have taken, one fact is common to all\u00a0past ages, viz., the exploitation of one part of society by the\u00a0other. No wonder, then, that the social consciousness of past\u00a0ages, despite all the multiplicity and variety it displays,\u00a0moves within certain common forms, or general ideas, which\u00a0cannot completely vanish except with the total disappearance of\u00a0class antagonisms.<\/p>\n
The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with\u00a0traditional property relations; no wonder that its development\u00a0involves the most radical rupture with traditional ideas.<\/p>\n
But let us have done with the bourgeois objections to Communism.<\/p>\n
We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the\u00a0working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of\u00a0ruling as to win the battle of democracy.<\/p>\n
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by\u00a0degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all\u00a0instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the\u00a0proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the\u00a0total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.<\/p>\n
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by\u00a0means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures,\u00a0therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable,\u00a0but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are\u00a0unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of\u00a0production.<\/p>\n
These measures will of course be different in different\u00a0countries.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, in the most advanced countries, the following will\u00a0be pretty generally applicable.<\/p>\n
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have\u00a0disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the\u00a0hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power\u00a0will lose its political character. Political power, properly so-called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing\u00a0another. If the proletariat during its contest with the\u00a0bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to\u00a0organize itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it\u00a0makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force\u00a0the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these\u00a0conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of\u00a0class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have\u00a0abolished its own supremacy as a class.<\/p>\n
In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and\u00a0class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which\u00a0the free development of each is the condition for the free\u00a0development of all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":251,"menu_order":3,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[48],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-38","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","chapter-type-numberless"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/communistmanifesto\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/communistmanifesto\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/communistmanifesto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/communistmanifesto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/251"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/communistmanifesto\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/38\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/communistmanifesto\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/38\/revisions\/122"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/communistmanifesto\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/communistmanifesto\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/38\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/communistmanifesto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/communistmanifesto\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/communistmanifesto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/communistmanifesto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}