Appendix II
Excerpts from the Communist Manifesto
Excerpt From Preface By Fredrich Engels
“The MANIFESTO was published as the platform of the Communist League, a working man’s association, first exclusively German, later on international, and, under the political conditions of the Continent before 1848, unavoidably a secret society…. Drawn up in German in January, 1848.…at present it is undoubtedly the most widespread, the most international production of all socialist literature…The MANIFESTO being our joint production, I consider myself bound to state that the fundamental proposition which forms its nucleus belongs to Marx. That proposition is:
the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal society, holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; that the history of these class struggles forms a series of evolutions in which, nowadays, a stage has been reached where the exploited and oppressed class—the proletariat—cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting class—the bourgeoisie—without at the same time, and once and for all, emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions and class struggles.
This proposition, which in my opinion is destined to do for history what Darwin’s theory has done for biology, we, both of us, had been gradually approaching for some years before 1845.”
—Written January 30, 1888
Excerpt From Communist Manifesto
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles…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.
“The social conditions of the old society no longer exist for the proletariat. The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with bourgeois family relations; modem industrial labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law, morality, religion are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests…
“The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all the other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.
“…the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: abolition of private property…
“And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at…
“Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the communists.. . The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital...
“The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish countries and nationality. The workingmen have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got…
“The charges against Communism made from a religious, a philosophical, and, generally, from an ideological standpoint are not deserving of serious examination.
“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 existence, in his social relations and in his social life?
“When the ancient world was in its last throes the ancient religions were overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the 18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its death-battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisies. The ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience merely gave expression to the 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, eternal truths such as freedom, justice, etc., 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 reduce itself to? The history of all past society has consisted in the development of class antagonisms, antagonisms that assumed different forms at different epochs.
“The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional property relations;…
“We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to establish democracy.
“The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest by degrees all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state…
“Of course, in the beginning this cannot be effected except by means of despotic in-roads on the rights of property and on the conditions of bourgeois production…
“Nevertheless, in the most advanced countries the following will be pretty generally applicable:
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization 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 transport in the hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of child factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.
“In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things…
“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 classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win…
“Workingmen of all countries, unite!..
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