PROLETARIANS AND COMMUNISTS

In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as arnwhole?rnrnThe Communists do not form a separate party opposed to otherrnworking-class parties.rnrnThey have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariatrnas a whole.rnrnThey do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which tornshape and mould the proletarian movement.rnrnThe Communists are distinguished from the other working-class partiesrnby this only: (1) In the national struggles of the proletarians of therndifferent countries, they point out and bring to the front the commonrninterests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.(2) In the various stages of development which the struggle of thernworking class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they alwaysrnand everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.rnrnThe Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the mostrnadvanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of everyrncountry, that section which pushes forward all others; on the otherrnhand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariatrnthe advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, thernconditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarianrnmovement.rnrnThe immediate aim of the Communist is the same as that of all the otherrnproletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class,rnoverthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power byrnthe proletariat.rnrnThe theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based onrnideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this orrnthat would-be universal reformer. They merely express, in generalrnterms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, fromrna historical movement going on under our very eyes. The abolition ofrnexisting property relations is not at all a distinctive feature ofrnCommunism.rnrnAll property relations in the past have continually been subject tornhistorical change consequent upon the change in historical conditions.rnrnThe French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in favourrnof bourgeois property.rnrnThe distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition ofrnproperty generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modernrnbourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression ofrnthe system of producing and appropriating products, that is based onrnclass antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.rnrnIn this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in thernsingle sentence: Abolition of private property.rnrnWe Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing thernright of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s ownrnlabour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personalrnfreedom, activity and independence.rnrnHard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the propertyrnof the petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property thatrnpreceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; therndevelopment of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, andrnis still destroying it daily.rnrnOr do you mean modern bourgeois private property?rnrnBut does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit.rnIt creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploitsrnwage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition ofrnbegetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property,rnin its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital andrnwage-labour. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism.rnrnTo be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a socialrn_status_ in production. Capital is a collective product, and only byrnthe united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by thernunited action of all members of society, can it be set in motion.rnrnCapital is, therefore, not a personal, it is a social power.rnrnWhen, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into thernproperty of all members of society, personal property is not therebyrntransformed into social property. It is only the social character ofrnthe property that is changed. It loses its class-character.rnrnLet us now take wage-labour.rnrnThe average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage, _i.e_., thatrnquantum of the means of subsistence, which is absolutely requisite inrnbare existence as a labourer. What, therefore, the wage-labourerrnappropriates by means of his labour, merely suffices to prolong andrnreproduce a bare existence. We by no means intend to abolish thisrnpersonal appropriation of the products of labour, an appropriation thatrnis made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and thatrnleaves no surplus wherewith to command the labour of others. All thatrnwe want to do away with, is the miserable character of thisrnappropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increaserncapital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of thernruling class requires it.rnrnIn bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increasernaccumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but arnmeans to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer.rnrnIn bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; inrnCommunist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois societyrncapital is independent and has individuality, while the living personrnis dependent and has no individuality.rnrnAnd the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois,rnabolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolitionrnof bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeoisrnfreedom is undoubtedly aimed at.rnrnBy freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions ofrnproduction, free trade, free selling and buying.rnrnBut if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buyingrndisappears also. This talk about free selling and buying, and all thernother “brave words” of our bourgeoisie about freedom in general, have arnmeaning, if any, only in contrast with restricted selling and buying,rnwith the fettered traders of the Middle Ages, but have no meaning whenrnopposed to the Communistic abolition of buying and selling, of thernbourgeois conditions of production, and of the bourgeoisie itself.rnrnYou are horrified at our intending to do away with private property.rnBut in your existing society, private property is already done awayrnwith for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few isrnsolely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. Yournreproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form ofrnproperty, the necessary condition for whose existence is thernnon-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.rnrnIn one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with yourrnproperty. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.rnrnFrom the moment when labour can no longer be converted into capital,rnmoney, or rent, into a social power capable of being monopolised,rn_i.e_., from the moment when individual property can no longer berntransformed into bourgeois property, into capital, from that moment,rnyou say individuality vanishes.rnrnYou must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no otherrnperson than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property.rnThis person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.rnrnCommunism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products ofrnsociety; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugaternthe labour of others by means of such appropriation.rnrnIt has been objected that upon the abolition of private property allrnwork will cease, and universal laziness will overtake us.rnrnAccording to this, bourgeois society ought long ago to have gone to therndogs through sheer idleness; for those of its members who work, acquirernnothing, and those who acquire anything, do not work. The whole of thisrnobjection is but another expression of the tautology: that there can nornlonger be any wage-labour when there is no longer any capital.rnrnAll objections urged against the Communistic mode of producing andrnappropriating material products, have, in the same way, been urgedrnagainst the Communistic modes of producing and appropriatingrnintellectual products. Just as, to the bourgeois, the disappearance ofrnclass property is the disappearance of production itself, so therndisappearance of class culture is to him identical with therndisappearance of all culture.rnrnThat culture, the loss of which he laments, is, for the enormousrnmajority, a mere training to act as a machine.rnrnBut don’t wrangle with us so long as you apply, to our intendedrnabolition of bourgeois property, the standard of your bourgeois notionsrnof freedom, culture, law, etc. Your very ideas are but the outgrowth ofrnthe conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property,rnjust as your jurisprudence is but the will of your class made into arnlaw for all, a will, whose essential character and direction arerndetermined by the economical conditions of existence of your class.rnrnThe selfish misconception that induces you to transform into eternalrnlaws of nature and of reason, the social forms springing from yourrnpresent mode of production and form of property—historical relationsrnthat rise and disappear in the progress of production—thisrnmisconception you share with every ruling class that has preceded you.rnWhat you see clearly in the case of ancient property, what you admit inrnthe case of feudal property, you are of course forbidden to admit inrnthe case of your own bourgeois form of property.rnrnAbolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at thisrninfamous proposal of the Communists.rnrnOn what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based?rnOn capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form thisrnfamily exists only among the bourgeoisie. But this state of thingsrnfinds its complement in the practical absence of the family among thernproletarians, and in public prostitution.rnrnThe bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when itsrncomplement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing ofrncapital.rnrnDo you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children byrntheir parents? To this crime we plead guilty.rnrnBut, you will say, we destroy the most hallowed of relations, when wernreplace home education by social.rnrnAnd your education! Is not that also social, and determined by thernsocial conditions under which you educate, by the intervention, directrnor indirect, of society, by means of schools, etc.? The Communists havernnot invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seekrnto alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue educationrnfrom the influence of the ruling class.rnrnThe bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about thernhallowed co-relation of parent and child, becomes all the morerndisgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all family tiesrnamong the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformedrninto simple articles of commerce and instruments of labour.rnrnBut you Communists would introduce community of women, screams thernwhole bourgeoisie in chorus.rnrnThe bourgeois sees in his wife a mere instrument of production. Hernhears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common,rnand, naturally, can come to no other conclusion than that the lot ofrnbeing common to all will likewise fall to the women.rnrnHe has not even a suspicion that the real point is to do away with thernstatus of women as mere instruments of production.rnrnFor the rest, nothing is more ridiculous than the virtuous indignationrnof our bourgeois at the community of women which, they pretend, is tornbe openly and officially established by the Communists. The Communistsrnhave no need to introduce community of women; it has existed almostrnfrom time immemorial.rnrnOur bourgeois, not content with having the wives and daughters of theirrnproletarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes,rntake the greatest pleasure in seducing each other’s wives.rnrnBourgeois marriage is in reality a system of wives in common and thus,rnat the most, what the Communists might possibly be reproached with, isrnthat they desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocriticallyrnconcealed, an openly legalised community of women. For the rest, it isrnself-evident that the abolition of the present system of productionrnmust bring with it the abolition of the community of women springingrnfrom that system, _i.e_., of prostitution both public and private.rnrnThe Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolishrncountries and nationality.rnrnThe working men have no country. We cannot take from them what theyrnhave not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire politicalrnsupremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, mustrnconstitute itself _the_ nation, it is, so far, itself national, thoughrnnot in the bourgeois sense of the word.rnrnNational differences and antagonisms between peoples are daily more andrnmore vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedomrnof commerce, to the world-market, to uniformity in the mode ofrnproduction and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto.rnrnThe supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish stillrnfaster. United action, of the leading civilised countries at least, isrnone of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat.rnrnIn proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another is putrnan end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be putrnan end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within thernnation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to anrnend.rnrnThe charges against Communism made from a religious, a philosophical,rnand, generally, from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving ofrnserious examination.rnrnDoes it require deep intuition to comprehend that man’s ideas, viewsrnand conceptions, in one word, man’s consciousness, changes with everyrnchange in the conditions of his material existence, in his socialrnrelations and in his social life?rnrnWhat else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectualrnproduction changes its character in proportion as material productionrnis changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas ofrnits ruling class.rnrnWhen people speak of ideas that revolutionise society, they do butrnexpress the fact, that within the old society, the elements of a newrnone have been created, and that the dissolution of the old ideas keepsrneven pace with the dissolution of the old conditions of existence.rnrnWhen the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religionsrnwere overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in thern18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its deathrnbattle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religiousrnliberty and freedom of conscience merely gave expression to the sway ofrnfree competition within the domain of knowledge.rnrn“Undoubtedly,” it will be said, “religious, moral, philosophical andrnjuridical ideas have been modified in the course of historicalrndevelopment. But religion, morality philosophy, political science, andrnlaw, constantly survived this change.”rnrn“There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice, etc.rnthat are common to all states of society. But Communism abolishesrneternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality, instead ofrnconstituting them on a new basis; it therefore acts in contradiction tornall past historical experience.”rnrnWhat does this accusation reduce itself to? The history of all pastrnsociety has consisted in the development of class antagonisms,rnantagonisms that assumed different forms at different epochs.rnrnBut whatever form they may have taken, one fact is common to all pastrnages, viz., the exploitation of one part of society by the other. Nornwonder, then, that the social consciousness of past ages, despite allrnthe multiplicity and variety it displays, moves within certain commonrnforms, or general ideas, which cannot completely vanish except with therntotal disappearance of class antagonisms.rnrnThe Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditionalrnproperty relations; no wonder that its development involves the mostrnradical rupture with traditional ideas.rnrnBut let us have done with the bourgeois objections to Communism.rnrnWe have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by thernworking class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling asrnto win the battle of democracy.rnrnThe proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees,rnall capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments ofrnproduction in the hands of the State, _i.e_., of the proletariatrnorganised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productivernforces as rapidly as possible.rnrnOf course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means ofrndespotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions ofrnbourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appearrneconomically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course ofrnthe movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon thernold social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirelyrnrevolutionising the mode of production.rnrnThese measures will of course be different in different countries.rnrnNevertheless in the most advanced countries, the following will bernpretty generally applicable.rnrn1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of landrnto public purposes.rnrn2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.rnrn3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.rnrn4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.rnrn5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of arnnational bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.rnrn6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in thernhands of the State.rnrn7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by thernState; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and thernimprovement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.rnrn8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrialrnarmies, especially for agriculture.rnrn9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradualrnabolition of the distinction between town and country, by a morernequable distribution of the population over the country.rnrn10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition ofrnchildren’s factory labour in its present form. Combination ofrneducation with industrial production, &c., &c.rnrnWhen, in the course of development, class distinctions haverndisappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of arnvast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose itsrnpolitical character. Political power, properly so called, is merely thernorganised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariatrnduring its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force ofrncircumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of arnrevolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps awayrnby force the old conditions of production, then it will, along withrnthese conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence ofrnclass antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby havernabolished its own supremacy as a class.rnrnIn place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and classrnantagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the freerndevelopment of each is the condition for the free development of all.