Manifesto of the Communist Party PDF

CHAPTER, 1·...

CHAPTER, 1· ,1 Classic Approaches. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, scholars seeking to understand revo- lution concentrated their efforts on the French Revolution of 1789. Attempts to :,_\',..:.i:,;;! ,·_;_:i.'\/: ', l ,' :.,1,,_ ;,',,'1: ,.' 'i',,.,,/1 ,; '., ;.''\.'. \'.,,;},. ,I , ' \r \ '.~~i '.' I ' ! , ] ' ' I\ ' I ,\ ~·.ii( i. 1-/ Ma,pifesto ef the\~o.m,m4n{~t~Pr'rty~ I 1, \ \I >1, I\., ' ' )\ ',~ \ 1 ' ,'. , t ' ' ,l '~~ \ \ , ; , ' I\ ~I / ;\~l\f'I ,/1~,(, )1',' ,If ,\ I 'l KAR.L 'MAR~ 'AND F~'ED~fICK ET'J.GE~s,·· ' 1: / './ '1 ,.'. ' ,. ; i,\ 1 ' ,,.~~~~y 9n r ,evolution ever written. Marx and Engel~·,.v.iewed ·Eur?p.~ari h~.s.tci~fs,i~(:;,: ~~ ·Middle Ages as a progression ~rough various. mo?es of,t6ct~,~Hon:,;'.il': [1P.~~~,:.cilP:i-~~~~~t-, jn the future, sqcialist,-.' -,.each more fruitful thah ~~;last.·fF:hej ;:Fos.~ulated\'lho~e!Ver', I , \ \ '\I ,1. that \,,I ,. ',,' ,,,1 \, I,, I., the transition between, 'these m~des_'had Il,O,t r:been ~ ~i\d \~ o~l~. not -~,e ~ p~aceful becaus~ ·, jn ~_ach:. of the~e' modes:'~ pan~c.Y,~~f ;,~o~,l ~( ~l~ s,: ~~-~ inated ' ~odety.. T~is dominc)Ilt:class ,would have to be µislodgecJ bY:~. 11~t p~µ.:ti0.ni\>e:fore the ti~nsition to the next mode,of,. producti.o q.coulp be, ~ompleted~The-: i\~µth Revohitiqn was an example of a revoluti?n w.~ged. tb disl~'dg~.t~e;:.-p,t ivil'~ged 'feudal aristocracy and '. clear the way for capitalism. Howe".:e-r, ·¥arX'1a~d Ehgels ~rgu.ed that,the new po~ litical freedoms and· material ben~fi~s follc;rw:ing' the ovedhrow-~f the aristocracy ~ t only to the class of professi,onals'. ~nd ,busihes~men·- ·-. the bourieoisie'-. that dominated.the capitalist., society. Thef J7rench ' Rev:qiufinn dQS ,thus eSSt;:ntially a. "bourgeois" revoll!tion. A further revoluti~n·-.in the 'name ,o f workers-was nec- essary to extend the benefits of rrtqderO, i~dustrial. technology to·· all. :Yhe ,major tenets of this view are that reyolutions ·1are -_related to great historical transitions; that revolution is a necessary agent of change, and that revolutions are- pr_ogressive and beneficial. · Also; capitalism, even thou h it is ro ··essive; benefits pnly a mi- norit so socialis evo utfons are n··' 'cl to benefit sqciety. ··. · ail These tenets have become articles of faith for, many, mo ern revolution'aries. Asking to what extent these conclusions of Marx and Engels are valid poses one of  24 Cfassh· Approaches. f research p roblems for modern scholars. In.the following excerpt from.the th e ch1e Manifesto, Marx and Engels outline their theory_ofh1story, applaud the accomplish- ments of capitalism, and predict its future demise. The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman , in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a re,·o- lutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. In the earlier epochs ofhi~tory, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangem ent of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we ha,·e patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, 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 establish~d new classes, new conditions of op- pression, new forms of struggle in place of the old on~s. · Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeois~~ possesses, _h owever, this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisr,ns. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great~ camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. '~ ·. · From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers ~f the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed. The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground. for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonization of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and ther:eby, to the revolutionary element in the t~ttering ~eudal sodety, a rapid development. The feudal system of industry,.:under which industrial production was monopolized by closed guilds, now no longer suffice'dvor the growing wahts of the new markets. The manu- facturing system took its place. The guild-maste·rs were pushed on one side by the manufac- turing middle class; division of labor between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labor in each single workshop. ' Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even manufac:ture no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery revolutionized industrial production. The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, Modern Industry, the place of the indus- trial middle class, by industrial millionaires, the leaders of whole industrial armies, the mod- ern bourgeois. Modern industry has established the world-market, for which the discovery of Am erica paved the way. This market has given an immense developm ent to comm erce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in its turn, reacted on the extension of in- dustry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same From The Marx-Engels Reader, edited by Rohm C. Tucker. Cof'}'ri9ht © 197 J hy W W Norton&._ Company.  Munljesro ~/the Communist Parr._y 25 proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into ,the backgrquncl ev~ class handed down from the Middle Ages. ' \_ We see, therefor~, how the m~dern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long coutse of development, ~fa series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange..:) Each step m the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class. An oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility, an arm~d and_ self-governing association in the medieval commune; here independent urban re- public (as m Italy and Germany), there taxable "third estate" of the monarchy (as in France), afterwards, in the period of manufacture proper, serving either the semi-feudal or the ab- solute m~na~chy as a counterpoise against the n~bility, and, in fact, cornerstone of the great monarchies m general, the ,bourgeoisie has.at last since the establishment of Modern Indus- try and of the world-market, conquered for' itself, in the modern representative State, ex- clusive political sway. The executive of the mocl,ern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeois,ie.. , The bourgeoisie, historically, has played ·a most revolutio~ary part. The bourgeoisie, ,whenever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, pa- triarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn ·asunder the motley feudal ties that bbund man to his "natural superiors," and has left remc,1ining no o,t her nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous !'cash payment." It has drowned the most heavenly ec- stasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sent~mentalism, in the icy , water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved 'personal worth into ·exchange 1value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, uncon- sciom1ble freedom-Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and po- litical illusions, it has su.b stituted naked, shamele~s, direct, brutal exploitation. The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted th~ physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into.its paid wage-laborers. '' · , ·· The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its. sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation. ,. The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigor in the Middle Ages, which Reactionists so much admire, foun'd its fi_tt_ing comp_lement in the most 1 slothful indolence. It has been the first ·tb show what mans act1v1ty can brmg about. It has ac- complished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Goth~c cathe- drals; it has conducted expe~itions that ,p~t in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades. The bourgeoisie cannot exist without con~tantly rev~lutionizing the instrume~ts of pro- duction, and thereby the relations of product10n, and with them the whole reactions of so-. t y. c onserva t·10n o f the old modes of production in unaltered form was, on lthe contrary, c1e f. · · o f exis th e fi rst con d 1t1on · t ence 1,cor all , earlier industrial classes. Constant revo ut10mzmg o · pro cl uct1on, · unmterrup t e d d.1s turbance - of all social conditions, everlastmg uncertamty. and · · c1·1stmgms ag1tat1on · · h th e b o urgeoi·s epoch from. all.earlier ones...All, fixed, fast-frozen relat10ns, w1·th th e1r · tram· o f anc1en · t an d venerable preJud1ces and opm1ons, are swept. away,. all new- c 1orme d ones b ecome anuqua · t ed before they can ossify. All that is solid melts. mto air,. all. that ·1s ho ly 1s. proiane c cl , an d man 1s· at last compelled to face with sober senses his real cond1t1ons of life , and his relations with his kind  'I ''' I 26 Cfa.~tic Approache.< I '' 1 1' I 11 , 'i ; l. ' , ,, i' ', \'., I ' ·' '. , eed Ofa Co nsta~tly e~p.a11£ling m,arket for its. ·p'rddu(::ts c.hases the bourgro,· s,· , Th en.... , r , ,·. , , , ~-. l 1) the whole ·surface of the globe. lt.~~st,ri~stI~ · ~~er;11h~re, settle everywhere, establish c,1 1 11 1 h I\ nections everywhere. , · · ( ,,·' · :., I ,,·.,. · :.: : , ·. , , :, 'I I I I / I , ' I ' '. ! I '~ ·' i \ \ I 1 1 J I ,1 '.:\ \ I. Tl;e bourgeoisie has throughi'it~ explf?,i~,a~i1~n ::.of ~1e ~orld-~arket given a cosmopoln.. char~cter to production arr.I co~tJu-~1jJtion ,j~.·~Yi~ry,' ~ountr Y:'_T? the great chagrin or RC',:.. tionists, it has drawn frdm under,, the. fre,; of industtythe ,nat1onal ground on which il St O(J(' 1 All old -established nationa1' indu~tries1µave b~in·~i,est1\oy.e,d ·or a~e daily being destroyed. Thei are dislodged by new industri'r ,s,.whqse': i,httoquction '.bec6n1es,a life -and death guesti on r(,r. all civilized nati~n·s,,hy indu~t~ies)n :~t n6 lopg~r.o/,9rk:~H i:n,digenous raw material, hu t q, , I' t \'' ,1 /1.· I ' ' 'I material drawn from the remotes,t ~.ones'\ industr:i'e'(who~e prod,ucts are consumed, 110l on:, at horn e' but in every quar te":of the gr~o~'. h/ pli t gl' f \he:01~,:w~nts, satisfied by cl,e produ,. tion~ of the country, w:e fiqd·d~w :"".ants·, ,:requi~i~& fdrl ~i r s~ti~f~.c t.io~ the products or dist;ir t lands. and dim.es : :In place of 'the :·b.ld'. loc;~~ a~9 n~ ti_cin~l:$,~~l~si.on,·~n,dtself-s.ufficiency, we h,n r intercourse in every dirediion, uni v.ers~l ir,itfr~;eg~n·d er~.~.!:o.f.~.~t~o~s : And as in material , ~. 1 also in inte~lectual procluct_io~1.. The. ui.t~Ilech.~,a c;fecl,~ions.9~}~9~~i~l~~Inations becom e co rr,. ·. mon_ property. National'one-'.idi,cll!~s! and 1'1_:ir~ii:!l';:~.i,?,~~~ii,i~~,~~.c~!l'e more and more im- poss1bl,e, and from th'e nµm~rpu~ :r1·at1~nahln.p,lopavx a ,. I''·I ,,,. ,· '\... , '- 1 \, ' 'I ;.' ' :,., ,, '' ~o/~)' I ' ' \/ 'I ' ,,. The bourgeoisie keeps mOr~:ih , rnore doirt;\ w/th the SC~ttered state of the popul,1· ti on, of the means of1Jroduction 1 · 'd '' f '· ' ·, I ' · I.ized means of. production. and, h::io· , a,n '.° prope~ty:-..1 ~ t, ,, , 1as agglomerated · population, centr.1. , - c1uence of this. was politic·al· , c ' ti--s conc;entrateu;property 1· · ,1[ I · in a Iew hands. The necessary conSl - wit 1. separate 1 ' · interest