The book prefaced by the following pages treats of a subject which I
originally intended to deal with in a single chapter of a more comprehensive
work on the social history of England. However, the importance of that subject
soon made it necessary for me to investigate it separately.

The condition of the working-class is the real basis and point of departure
of all social movements of the present because it is the highest and most
unconcealed pinnacle of the social misery existing in our day. French and
German working-class Communism are its direct, Fourierism and English
Socialism, as well as the Communism of the German educated bourgeoisie, are its
indirect products. A knowledge of proletarian conditions is absolutely
necessary to be able to provide solid ground for socialist theories, on the one
hand, and for judgments about their right to exist, on the other; and to put an
end to all sentimental dreams and fancies pro and con. But proletarian
conditions exist in their classical form, in their perfection, only in
the British Empire, particularly in England proper. Besides, only in England
has the necessary material been so completely collected and put on record by
official enquiries as is essential for any in the least exhaustive presentation
of the subject.

Twenty-one months I had the opportunity to become acquainted with the
English proletariat, its strivings, its sorrows and its joys, to see them from
near, from personal observation and personal intercourse, and at the same time
to supplement my observations by recourse to the requisite authentic sources.
What 1 have seen, heard and read has been worked up in the present book. I am
prepared to see not only my standpoint attacked in many quarters but also the
facts I have cited, particularly when the book gets into the hands of the
English. I know equally well that here and there I may be proved wrong in some
particular of no importance, something that in view of the comprehensive nature
of the subject and its far-reaching assumptions even an Englishman might be
unable to avoid; so much the more so since even in England there exists as yet
not a single piece of writing which, like mine, takes up all the workers. But
without a moment's hesitation I challenge the English bourgeoisie to prove that
even in a single instance of any consequence for the exposition of my point of
view as a whole I have been guilty of any inaccuracy, and to prove it by data
as authentic as mine.

A description of the classical form which the conditions of existence of the
proletariat have assumed in Britain is very important, particularly for Germany
and precisely at the present moment. German Socialism and Communism have
proceeded, more than any other, from theoretical premises; we German
theoreticians still knew much too little of the real world to be driven
directly by the real relations to reforms of this "bad reality". At any rate
almost none of the avowed champions of such reforms arrived at Communism
otherwise than by way of the Feuerbachian dissolution of Hegelian speculation.
The real conditions of the life of the proletariat are so little known among us
that even the well-meaning "societies for the uplift of the working-classes",
in which our bourgeoisie is now mistreating the social question, constantly
start out from the most ridiculous and preposterous judgments concerning the
condition of the workers. We Germans more than anybody else stand in need of a
knowledge of the facts concerning this question. And while the conditions of
existence of Germany's proletariat have not assumed the classical form that
they have in England, we nevertheless have, at bottom, the same social order,
which sooner or later must necessarily reach the same degree of acuteness as it
has already attained across the North Sea, unless the intelligence of the
nation brings about in time the adoption of measures that will provide a new
basis for the whole social system. The root-causes whose effect in England has
been the misery and oppression of the proletariat exist also in Germany and in
the long run must engender the same results. In the meantime, however, the
established fact of wretched conditions in England will impel us to
establish also the fact of wretched conditions in Germany and will
provide us with a yardstick wherewith to measure their extent and the magnitude
of the danger -- brought to light by the Silesian and Bohemian disturbances --
which directly threatens the tranquillity of Germany from that quarter.

Finally, there are still two remarks I wish to make. Firstly, that I have
used the word Mittelklasse all along in the sense of the English word
middle-class (or middle-classes, as is said almost always). Like the French
word bourgeoisie it means the possessing class, specifically that
possessing class which is differentiated from the so-called aristocracy -- the
class which in France and England is directly and in Germany, figuring as
"public opinion", indirectly in possession of political power. Similarly, I
have continually used the expressions workingmen (Arbeiter) and
proletarians, working-class, propertyless class and proletariat as equivalents.
Secondly, that in the case of most of the quotations I have indicated the party
to which the respective authors belong, because in nearly every instance the
Liberals try to emphasise the distress in the rural areas and to argue away
that which exists in the factory districts, while the Conservatives,
conversely, acknowledge the misery in the factory districts but disclaim any
knowledge of it in the agricultural areas. For the same reason, whenever I
lacked official documents for describing the condition of the industrial
workers, I always preferred to present proof from Liberal sources in
order to defeat the liberal bourgeoisie by casting their own words in their
teeth. I cited Tories or Chartists in my support only when I could confirm
their correctness from personal observation or was convinced of the
truthfulness of the facts quoted because of the personal or literary reputation
of the authorities I referred to.

Barmen, March 15, 1845