Owing to their historical position, it became the vocation of the 
aristocracies of France and England to write pamphlets against 
modern bourgeois society. In the French revolution of July 1830, 
and in the English reform agitation, these aristocracies again 
succumbed to the hateful upstart. Thenceforth, a serious political 
contest was altogether out of question. A literary battle alone 
remained possible. But even in the domain of literature the old cries 
of the restoration period* had become impossible. 

In order to arouse sympathy, the aristocracy were obliged to lose 
sight, apparently, of their own interests, and to formulate their 
indictment against the bourgeoisie in the interest of the exploited 
working class alone. Thus the aristocracy took their revenge by 
singing lampoons on their new master, and whispering in his ears 
sinister prophecies of coming catastrophe.* 

In this way arose feudal Socialism; half lamentation, half lampoon; 
half echo of the past, half menace of the future; at times, by its bitter, 
witty and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very 
heart’s core; but always ludicrous in its effect, through total 
incapacity to comprehend the march of modern history. 

The aristocracy, in order to rally the people to them, waved the 
proletarian alms-bag in front for a banner. But the people, so often 
as it joined them, saw on their hindquarters the old feudal coats of 
arms, and deserted with loud and irreverent laughter. 

* Not the English Restoration 1660 to 1689, but the French Restoration 1814 to 
1830. [Note by Engels to the English edition of 1888.] 

* In the German editions the end of this sentence reads: ‘and whispering in his 
ears more or less sinister prophecies.”— Ed. 

One section of the French Legitimists and “Young England”! 
exhibited this spectacle. 

In pointing out that their mode of exploitation was different to 
that of the bourgeoisie, the feudalists forget that they exploited 
under circumstances and conditions that were quite different, 
and that are now antiquated. In showing that, under their rule, 
the modern proletariat never existed, they forget that the 
modern bourgeoisie is the necessary offspring of their own form of 
society. 

For the rest, so little do they conceal the reactionary character of 
their criticism that their chief accusation against the bourgeoisie 
amounts to this, that under the bourgeois régime a class is being 
developed, which is destined to cut up root and branch the old order 
of society. 

What they upbraid the bourgeoisie with is not so much that it 
creates a proletariat, as that it creates a revolutionary proletariat. 

In political practice, therefore, they join in all coercive measures 
against the working class; and in ordinary life, despite their 
high-falutin phrases, they stoop to pick up the golden apples 
dropped from the tree of industry,* and to barter truth, love, and 
honour for traffic in wool, beetroot-sugar, and potato spirits.* 

As the parson has ever gone hand in hand with the landlord,” so 
has Clerical Socialism with Feudal Socialism. 

Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge. 
Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against 
marriage, against the State? Has it not preached in the place of these, 
charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic 
life and Mother Church? Christian‘ Socialism is but the holy water 
with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the 
aristocrat. 

* This applies chiefly to Germany where the landed aristocracy and squirearchy 
have large portions of their estates cultivated for their own account by stewards, and 
are, moreover, extensive beetroot-sugar manufacturers and distillers of potato spirits. 
The wealthier British aristocracy are, as yet, rather above that; but they, too, know how 
to make up for declining rents by lending their names to floaters of more or less shady 
joint-stock companies. [Note by Engels to the English edition of 1888.] 

* The words “dropped from the tree of industry” were added in the English 
edition of 1888.— Ed. 

> The German editions have here “feudal lord” .— Ed. 

“ The German editions of 1848 have “holy” instead of “Christian” (the texts of 

these editions contain an obvious misprint: “heutige”’—of today—for “heilige’— 
holy).—Ed. 

Manifesto of the Communist Party 509 

b. Petty-Bourgeois Socialism 

The feudal aristocracy was not the only class that was ruined by the 
bourgeoisie, not the only class whose conditions of existence pined 
and perished in the atmosphere of modern bourgeois society. The 
medieval burgesses and the small peasant proprietors were the 
precursors of the modern bourgeoisie. In those countries which are 
but little developed, industrially and commercially, these two classes 
still vegetate side by side with the rising bourgeoisie. 

In countries where modern civilisation has become fully devel- 
oped, a new class of petty bourgeois has been formed, fluctuating 
between proletariat and bourgeoisie and ever renewing itself as a 
supplementary part of bourgeois society. The individual members of 
this class, however, are being constantly hurled down into the 
proletariat by the action of competition, and, as modern industry 
develops, they even see the moment approaching when they will 
completely disappear as an independent section of modern society, 
to be replaced, in manufactures, agriculture and commerce, by 
overlookers, bailiffs and shopmen. 

In countries like France, where the peasants constitute far more 
than half of the population, it was natural that writers who sided with 
the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, should use, in their criticism 
of the bourgeois régime, the standard of the peasant and petty 
bourgeois, and from the standpoint of these intermediate classes” 
should take up the cudgels for the working class. Thus arose 
petty-bourgeois Socialism. Sismondi was the head of this school, not 
only in France but also in England. 

This school of Socialism dissected with great acuteness the 
contradictions in the conditions of modern production. It laid bare 
the hypocritical apologies of economists. It proved, incontrovertibly, 
the disastrous effects of machinery and division of labour; the 
concentration of capital and land in a few hands; over-production 
and crises; it pointed out the inevitable ruin of the petty bourgeois 
and peasant, the misery of the proletariat, the anarchy in produc- 
tion, the crying inequalities in the distribution of wealth, the indus- 
trial war of extermination between nations, the dissolution of old 
moral bonds, of the old family relations, of the old nationalities. 

In its positive aims, however, this form of Socialism aspires either 
to restoring the old means of production and of exchange, and with 

* The German editions have “this class still vegetates” instead of “these two classes 
still vegetate” —Ed. 
The German editions have “the petty bourgeoisie” instead of “these inter- 
mediate classes” .— Ed. 

them the old property relations, and the old society, or to cramping 
the modern means of production and of exchange, within the 
framework of the old property relations that have been, and were 
bound to be, exploded by those means. In either case, it is both 
reactionary and Utopian. 

Its last words are: corporate guilds for manufacture; patriarchal 
relations in agriculture. 

Ultimately, when stubborn historical facts had dispersed all 
intoxicating effects of self-deception, this form of Socialism ended in 
a miserable fit of the blues.? 

c. German, or “True”, Socialism 

The Socialist and Communist literature of France, a literature that 
originated under the pressure of a bourgeoisie in power, and that 
was the expression of the struggle against this power, was introduced 
into Germany at a time when the bourgeoisie, in that country, had 
just begun its contest with feudal absolutism. 

German philosophers, would-be philosophers, and beaux esprits,” 
eagerly seized on this literature, only forgetting, that when these 
writings immigrated from France into Germany, French social 
conditions had not immigrated along with them. In contact with 
German social conditions, this French literature lost all its immediate 
practical significance, and assumed a purely literary aspect.‘ Thus, to 
the German philosophers of the Eighteenth Century, the demands 
of the first French Revolution were nothing more than the demands 
of “Practical Reason”” in general, and the utterance of the will of 
the revolutionary French bourgeoisie signified in their eyes the laws 
of pure Will, of Will as it was bound to be, of true human Will 
generally. 

The work of the German literati consisted solely in bringing the 
new French ideas into harmony with their ancient philosophical 
conscience, or rather, in annexing the French ideas without 
deserting their own philosophic point of view. 

* In the German editions this sentence reads: ‘In its further development this 
trend ended in a cowardly fit of the blues.” —Ed. 

> In the German editions the beginning of this sentence reads: “German 
philosophers, semi-philosophers and lovers of fine phrases” .— Ed. 

© In the German editions of 1848 there follows: “It must have appeared as idle 

speculation on true society, on the realisation of humanity.” In subsequent German 
editions the words “on true society” were omitted.— Ed. 

Manifesto of the Communist Party 511 

This annexation took place in the same way in which a foreign 
language is appropriated, namely, by translation. 

It is well known how the monks wrote silly lives of Catholic Saints 
over the manuscripts on which the classical works of ancient 
heathendom had been written. The German literati reversed this 
process with the profane French literature. They wrote their 
philosophical nonsense beneath the French original. For instance, 
beneath the French criticism of the economic functions of money, 
they wrote “Alienation of Humanity”, and beneath the French 
criticism of the bourgeois State they wrote, “Dethronement of the 
Category of the General”, and so forth.* 

The introduction of these philosophical phrases at the back of the 
French historical criticisms? they dubbed “Philosophy of Action”, 
“True Socialism”, “German Science of Socialism”, “Philosophical 
Foundation of Socialism’, and so on. 

The French Socialist and Communist literature was thus complete- 
ly emasculated. And, since it ceased in the hands of the German to 
express the struggle of one class with the other, he felt conscious of 
having overcome “French one-sidedness” and of representing, not 
true requirements, but the requirements of Truth; not the interests 
of the proletariat, but the interests of Human Nature, of Man in 
general, who belongs to no class, has no reality, who exists only in the 
misty realm of philosophical fantasy. 

This German Socialism, which took its schoolboy task so seriously 
and solemnly, and extolled its poor stock-in-trade in such mounte- 
bank fashion, meanwhile gradually lost its pedantic innocence. 

The fight of the German, and, especially, of the Prussian 
bourgeoisie, against feudal aristocracy and absolute monarchy, in 
other words, the liberal movement, became more earnest. 

By this, the long wished-for opportunity was offered to “True” 
Socialism of confronting the political movement with the Socialist 
demands, of hurling the traditional anathemas against liberalism, 
against representative government, against bourgeois competition, 
bourgeois freedom of the press, bourgeois legislation, bourgeois 
liberty and equality, and of preaching to the masses that they had 
nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by this bourgeois movement. 

4 In the German editions this sentence reads: “For instance, beneath the French 
criticism of money relations they wrote, ‘Alienation of Humanity’, and beneath the 
French criticism of the bourgeois State they wrote, ‘Elimination of the domination of 
the abstractly General’, etc.’ —Ed. 

5 The German editions have “French theories” instead of ‘French historical 
criticisms” .— Ed. 

DLZ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 

German Socialism forgot, in the nick of time, that the French 
criticism, whose silly echo it was, presupposed the existence of 
modern bourgeois society, with its corresponding economic’ condi- 
tions of existence, and the political constitution adapted thereto, the 
very things whose attainment was the object of the pending struggle 
in Germany. 

To the absolute governments,” with their following of parsons, 
professors, country squires and officials, it served as a welcome 
scarecrow against the threatening bourgeoisie. 

It was a sweet finish after the bitter pills of floggings and bullets 
with which these same governments, just at that time,‘ dosed the 
German working-class risings. 

While this “True” Socialism thus served the governments as a 
weapon for fighting the German bourgeoisie, it, at the same time, 
directly represented a reactionary interest, the interest of the 
German Philistines. In Germany the petty-bourgeois class, a relic of the 
sixteenth century, and since then constantly cropping up again 
under various forms, is the real social basis of the existing state of 
things. 

To preserve this class is to preserve the existing state of things in 
Germany. The industrial and political supremacy of the bourgeoisie 
threatens it with certain destruction; on the one hand, from the 
concentration of capital; on the other, from the rise of a 
revolutionary proletariat. ““True” Socialism appeared to kill these 
two birds with one stone. It spread like an epidemic. 

The robe of speculative cobwebs, embroidered with flowers of 
rhetoric, steeped in the dew of sickly sentiment, this transcendental 
robe in which the German Socialists wrapped their sorry “eternal 
truths”, all skin and bone, served to wonderfully increase the sale of 
their goods amongst such a public. 

And on its part, German Socialism recognised, more and more, its 
own calling as the bombastic representative of the petty-bourgeois 
Philistine. 

It proclaimed the German nation to be the model nation, and the 
German petty Philistine to be the typical man. To every villainous 
meanness of this model man it gave a hidden, higher, Socialistic 
interpretation, the exact contrary of its real character. It went to the 
extreme length of directly opposing the “brutally destructive” 
tendency of Communism, and of proclaiming its supreme and 

“ ‘The German editions have “material’’ instead of “economic’”.— Ed. 

> The German editions have “To the German absolute governments” .— Fd. 
© The words “just at that time” were added in the English edition of 1888.—Ed. 

Manifesto of the Communist Party 513 

impartial contempt of all class struggles. With very few exceptions, 
all the so-called Socialist and Communist publications that now 
(1847) circulate in Germany belong to the domain of this foul and 
enervating literature.* 

2. CONSERVATIVE, OR BOURGEOIS, SOCIALISM 

A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social 
grievances, in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois 
society. 

To this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarians, 
improvers of the condition of the working class, organisers of 
charity, members of societies for the prevention of cruelty to 
animals, temperance fanatics, hole-and-corner reformers of every 
imaginable kind. This form of Socialism has, moreover, been worked 
out into complete systems. 

We may cite Proudhon’s Philosophie de la Misére as an example of 
this form. 

The Socialistic bourgeois want all the advantages of modern social 
conditions? without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting 
therefrom. They desire the existing state of society minus its 
revolutionary and disintegrating elements. They wish for a 
bourgeoisie without a proletariat. The bourgeoisie naturally con- 
ceives the world in which it is supreme to be the best; and bourgeois 
Socialism develops this comfortable conception into various more or 
less complete systems.” In requiring the proletariat to carry out such 
a system, and thereby to march straightway into the social‘ New 
Jerusalem, it but requires in reality, that the proletariat should 
remain within the bounds of existing society, but should cast away all 
its hateful ideas concerning the bourgeoisie. 

A second and more practical, but less systematic, form of this 
Socialism sought to depreciate every revolutionary movement in the 
eyes of the working class, by showing that no mere political reform, 
but only a change in the material conditions of existence, in 

* The revolutionary storm of 1848 swept away this whole shabby tendency and 
cured its protagonists of the desire to dabble further in Socialism. The chief 
1epresentative and classical type of this tendency is Herr Karl Grün. [ Note by Engels to 
the German edition of 1890.] 

* The German editions have: “‘want the living conditions of modern society” .— Ed. 
> The German editions have here: ‘a more or less complete system”.— Ed. 
© This word was added in the English edition of 1888.— Ed. 

economical relations, could be of any advantage to them. By changes 
in the material conditions of existence, this form of Socialism, — 
however, by no means understands abolition of the bourgeois 
relations of production, an abolition that can be effected only by a 
revolution, but administrative reforms, based on the continued 
existence of these relations; reforms, therefore, that in no respect 
affect the relations between capital and labour, but, at the best, less- 
en the cost, and simplify the administrative work, of bourgeois 
government. 

Bourgeois Socialism attains adequate expression, when, and only 
when, it becomes a mere figure of speech. 

Free trade: for the benefit of the working class. Protective duties: 
for the benefit of the working class. Prison Reform: for the benefit 
of the working class. This is the last word and the only seriously 
meant word of bourgeois Socialism. 

It is summed up in the phrase: the bourgeois is a bourgeois—for 
the benefit of the working class. 

3. CRITICAL-UTOPIAN SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM 

We do not here refer to that literature which, in every great 
modern revolution, has always given voice to the demands of the 
proletariat, such as the writings of Babeuf and others. 

The first direct attempts of the proletariat to attain its own ends, 
made in times of universal excitement, when feudal society was being 
overthrown, these attempts necessarily failed, owing to the then 
undeveloped state of the proletariat, as well as to the absence of the 
economic conditions for its emancipation, conditions that had yet to 
be produced, and could be produced by the impending bourgeois 
epoch alone.» The revolutionary literature that accompanied these 
first movements of the proletariat had necessarily a reactionary 
character. It inculcated universal asceticism and social levelling in its 
crudest form. 

The Socialist and Communist systems properly so called, those of 
Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen and others, spring into existence in the 
early undeveloped period, described above, of the struggle between 
proletariat and bourgeoisie (see Section I. Bourgeois and Pro- 
letarians). 

* The German editions have here: “Solitary confinement” .— Ed. 

> The German editions have “material conditions” instead of “economic 
conditions”, and the end of the sentence is: “and could be only the product of the 
bourgeois epoch” .—Ed. 

Manifesto of the Communist Party 515 

The founders of these systems see, indeed, the class antagonisms, 
as well as the action of the decomposing elements in the prevailing 
form of society. But the proletariat, as yet in its infancy, offers to 
them the spectacle of a class without any historical initiative or any 
independent political movement. 

Since the development of class antagonism keeps even pace with 
the development of industry, the economic situation, as they find it, 
does not as yet offer to them the material conditions for the 
emancipation of the proletariat. They therefore search after a new 
social science, after new> social laws, that are to create these 
conditions. 

Historical* action is to yield to their personal inventive action, 
historically created conditions of emancipation to fantastic ones, and 
the gradual, spontaneous¢ class organisation of the proletariat to an 
organisation of society specially contrived by these inventors. Future 
history resolves itself, in their eyes, into the propaganda and the 
practical carrying out of their social plans. 

In the formation of their plans they are conscious of caring chiefly 
for the interests of the working class, as being the most suffering 
class. Only from the point of view of being the most suffering class 
does the proletariat exist for them. 

The undeveloped state of the class struggle, as well as their own 
surroundings, causes Socialists of this kind to consider themselves 
far superior to all class antagonisms. They want to improve 
the condition of every member of society, even that of the 
most favoured. Hence, they habitually appeal to society at large, 
without distinction of class; nay, by preference, to the ruling class. 
For how can people, when once they understand their system, 
fail to see in it the best possible plan of the best possible state of 
society? 

Hence, they reject all political, and especially all revolutionary, 
action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, and 
endeavour, by small experiments, necessarily doomed to failure, 
and by the force of example, to pave the way for the new social 
Gospel. 

Such fantastic pictures of future society, painted at a time when 
the proletariat is still in a very undeveloped state and has but a 
fantastic conception of its own position, correspond with the first 

- » phe words “‘as yet in its infancy” were added in the English edition of 1888.— Ed. 
6 In both cases the word “new” was added in the English edition of 1888.—Ed. 

“ The German editions have “Social” instead of “Historical” — Ed. 

“ The word “spontaneous” was added in the English edition of 1888 .— Fd. 

IS-- 1826 

instinctive yearnings of that class for a general reconstruction of 
society. 

But these Socialist and Communist publications contain also a 
critical element. They attack every principle of existing society. 
Hence they are full of the most valuable materials for the 
enlightenment of the working class. The practical measures pro- 
posed in them—such as the abolition of the distinction between 
town and country, of the family, of the carrying on of industries for 
the account of private individuals, and of the wage system, the 
proclamation of social harmony, the conversion of the functions of 
the State into a mere superintendence of production, all these 
proposals point solely to the disappearance of class antagonisms 
which were, at that time. only just cropping up, and which, in these 
publications, are recognised in their earliest indistinct and undefined 
forms only. These proposals, therefore, are of a purely Utopian 
character. 

The significance of Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism 
bears an inverse relation to historical development. In proportion as 
the modern? class struggle develops and takes definite shape, this 
fantastic standing apart from the contest, these fantastic attacks on it, 
lose all practical value and all theoretical justification. Therefore, 
although the originators of these systems were, in many respects, 
revolutionary, their disciples have, in every case. formed mere 
reactionary sects. They hold fast by the original views of their 
masters, in opposition to the progressive historical development of 
the proletariat. They, therefore, endeavour, and that consistently, to 
deaden the class struggle and to reconcile the class antagonisms. 
They still dream of experimental realisation of their social Utopias, 
of founding isolated “phalansteres”, of establishing “Home Col- 
onies’’, of setting up a “Little Icaria”*—duodecimo editions of the 
New Jerusalem—and to realise all these castles in the air, they are 
compelled to appeal to the feelings and purses of the bourgeois. By 

* Phalansteres were Socialist colonies on the plan of Charles Fourier; Icaria was the 
name given by Cabet to his Utopia and, later on, to his American Communist colony. 
[Note by Engels to the English edition of 1888.} 

“Home Colonies” were what Owen called his Communist model societies. 
Phalansteres was the name of the public palaces planned by Fourier. Icaria was the 
name given to the Utopian land of fancy, whose Communist institutions Cabet 
portrayed. [Note by Engels to the German edition of 1890.) 

* In the German editions the beginning of this sentence reads as follows: ‘““Their 
positive propositions concerning the future society, for example, abolition ot the 
contradiction between town and country, of the family. ot private profit...”.— Ed. 

> This word was added in the English edition of 1888.— Ed. 

Manifesto of Communist Party 517 

degrees they sink into the category of the reactionary [or]? conser- 
vative Socialists depicted above, differing from these only by more 
systematic pedantry, and by their fanatical and superstitious belief 
in the miraculous effects of their social science. 

They, therefore, violentiy oppose all political action on the part of 
the working class; such action, according to them, can only result 
from blind unbelief in the new Gospel. 

The Owenites in England, and the Fourierists in France, 
respectively oppose the Chartists and the Réformistes.?°° 

* In the English edition of 1888 the word “or” is omitted, but it is given in all 
other authorised editions.— Ed. 
> The German editions have “fanatical superstition” — Ed. 

IV 

POSITION OF THE COMMUNISTS 
IN RELATION TO THE VARIOUS EXISTING 
OPPOSITION PARTIES 

Section II has made clear the relations of the Communists to the 
existing working-class parties, such as the Chartists in England and 
the Agrarian Reformers in America.?™ 

The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, 
for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; 
but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take 
care of* the future of that movement. In France the Communists ally 
themselves with the Social-Democrats,* against the conservative and 
radical bourgeoisie, reserving, however, the right to take up a critical 
position in regard to phrases and illusions traditionally handed down 
from the great Revolution. 

In Switzerland they support the Radicals, without losing sight of 
the fact that this party consists of antagonistic elements, partly of 
Democratic Socialists, in the French sense, partly of radical 
bourgeois. 

In Poland they support the party that insists on an agrarian 
revolution as the prime condition for national emancipation, that 
party which fomented the insurrection of Cracow in 1846.%% 

* The party then represented in Parliament by Ledru-Rollin, in literature by Louis 
Blanc, in the daily press by the Réforme. The name of Social-Democracy signified, with 
these its inventors, a section of the Democratic or Republican party more or less tinged 
with Socialism. [Note by Engels to the English edition of 1888.) 

The party in France which at that time called itself Socialist-Democratic was 
represented in political life by Ledru-Rollin and in literature by Louis Blanc; thus it 
differed immeasurably from present-day German Social-Democracy. [ Note by Engels to 
the German edition of 1890.] 

* The words “and take care of” were added in the English edition of 1888.— Ed. 

Manifesto of the Communist Party 519 

In Germany they fight with the bourgeoisie whenever it acts in a 
revolutionary wav, against the absolute monarchy, the feudal 
squirearchy, and the petty bourgeoisie.” 

But they never cease, for a single instant, to instil into the working 
class the clearest possible recognition of the hostile antagonism 
between bourgeoisie and proletariat, in order that the German 
workers may straightway use, as so many weapons against the 
bourgeoisie, the social and political conditions that the bourgeoisie 
must necessarily introduce along with its supremacy, and in order 
that, after the fall of the reactionary classes in Germany, the fight 
against the bourgeoisie itself may immediately begin. 

The Communists turn their attention chiefly to Germany, because 
that country is on the eve of a bourgeois revolution that is bound to 
be carried out under more advanced conditions of European 
civilisation, and with a much more developed proletariat, than that 
of England was in the seventeenth, and of France in the eighteenth 
century, and because the bourgeois revolution in Germany will be 
but the prelude to an immediately following proletarian revolution. 

In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary 
movement against the existing social and political order of things. 

In all these movements they bring to the front, as the leadin 

uestion in each, the property question, no matter what its degree o 
development at the time. 

Finally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of 
the democratic parties of all countries. 

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 Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing 
to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. 

WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! 

“ In the German editions the end of this sentence reads: “against the absolute 
monarchy, the feudal landowners and philistinism [Kleinbirgerei]”.— Ed. 

Frederick Engels 

THE MOVEMENTS OF 1847°° 

The year 1847 was certainly the most stormy we have experienced 
for a very long time. A constitution and a United Diet in Prussia; 
an unexpectedly rapid awakening in political life and a general 
arming against Austria in Italy; a civil war in Switzerland; a new 
Parliament of pronounced radical complexion in Britain; in France 
scandals and Reform banquets; in America the conquest of Mexico 
by the United States—that is a series of changes and movements such 
as no other recent year can show. 

The last turning point in history was the year i830. The July 
revolution in France and the Reform Bill in Britain finally secured 
the victory of the bourgeoisie; and in Britain this was, indeed, 
the victory of the industrial bourgeoisie, the manufacturers, 
over the non-industrial bourgeoisie, the rentiers. Belgium, and to a 
certain extent Switzerland, followed suit; here again the bourgeoisie 
triumphed.” Poland rose in revolt,?” Italy chafed under Metter- 
nich’s heel. Germany was seething. All countries were preparing for 
a mighty struggle. 

But after 1830 there was everywhere a set-back. Poland fell, the 
insurgents in Romagna were dispersed,”’' the movement in Germa- 
ny was suppressed. The French bourgeoisie defeated the republicans 
in France itself, and betrayed the liberals of other countries whom it 
had spurred on to revolt. The liberal ministry in Britain could 
accomplish nothing. Finally, in 1840, reaction was in full swing. 
Poland, Italy, and Germany were politically dead: the Berliner 
politisches Wochenblatt* sat enthroned in Prussia; Herr DahImann’s 

“The allusion is to Frederick William 1V, who patronised this reactionary 
newspaper.— Ed. 

The Movements of 1847 521 

all-too-clever constitution was repealed in Hanover?”; the decisions 
of the Vienna Conference of 1834 were in full force.?”> The 
Conservatives and the Jesuits were thriving in Switzerland. In 
Belgium, the Catholics were at the helm. Guizot ruled supreme over 
France. In Britain, under pressure from the growing power of Peel, 
the Whig government was in its last throes, and the Chartists were 
vainly endeavouring to reorganise their ranks after their great defeat 
of 1839.2” Everywhere the reactionary party was victorious; 
everywhere the progressive parties were broken up and dispersed. 
The arrest of the historical movement—this seemed to be the final 
result of the mighty struggles of 1830. 

1840 was, however, also the peak of reaction just as 1830 had been 
the peak of the revolutionary movement of the bourgeoisie. From 
1840 onward the movements against the existing state of affairs 
began afresh. Though often defeated, in the long run they gained 
more and more ground. While in England the Chartists reorganised 
themselves and became stronger than ever, Peel was forced time and 
again to betray his party, dealing it a fatal blow by the repeal of the 
Corn Laws,’ and finally himself to resign. The radicals gained 
ground in Switzerland. In Germany, and especially in Prussia, the 
liberals were pressing their demands more vigorously with every 
year. The liberals emerged victorious from the Belgian elections of 
1847. France was an exception, for there the reactionary ministry 
secured a triumphant majority in the 1846 elections; and Italy 
remained dead, until Pius IX mounted the papal throne, and at the 
end of 1846 attempted a few dubious reforms. 

So came the year 1847, and with it a series of victories for the 
progressive parties of nearly all countries. Even where they sustained 
defeat, this was more advantageous to them than an immediate 
victory would have been. 

The year 1847 decided nothing, but everywhere it brought the 
parties into sharp and clear confrontation; it brought no final 
solution of any questions, but it posed al] questions in such a way that 
now they must be solved. 

Among all the movements and changes of the year 1847 the most 
important were those in Prussia, in Italy and in Switzerland. 

In Prussia, Frederick William IV was at length forced to grant a 
constitution. The sterile Don Quixote of Sans-Souci,?” after long 
struggles and labour-pains, was delivered of a constitution which was 
to establish for all time the victory of the feudalist, patriarchal, 
abolutist, bureaucratic, and clerical reaction. But he had miscalcu- 
lated. The bourgeoisie was strong enough by then to turn even that 
constitution into a weapon against the king and all the reactionary 

classes of society. In Prussia, as everywhere else, the bourgeoisie 
began by refusing him money. The king was in despair. One could 
say that in the first days after the refusal of the money Prussia was 
without a king. The country was in the throes of revolution without 
knowing it. Then by good luck came the fifteen million from Russia; 
Frederick William was king again, the bourgeoisie of the Diet 
crumpled up in alarm, and the revolutionary storm clouds scattered. 
The Prussian bourgeoisie was, for the time being, defeated. But it 
had made a great step forward, had won for itself a forum, had given 
the king a proof of its power, and had worked the country up into a 
great state of agitation. The question: who shall govern Prussia—the 
alliance of nobles, bureaucrats, and priests headed by the king, or the 
bourgeoisie—is now posed in such a way that it must be decided in 
favour of one side or of the other. In the United Diet a compromise 
between the two parties was still possible, but today no longer. Now it 
is a matter of life-and-death struggle between the two. To make 
matters worse, the committees (those unhappy inventions of the 
Berlin constitution manufacturers) are now assembling.”” They will 
make the already complicated legal issues so enormously more 
involved, that no man will any longer know where he stands. They 
will tie matters up into a Gordian knot which will have to be cut with 
the sword. They will complete the final preparations for the bourgeois 
revolution in Prussia. 

We can therefore await the advent of this Prussian revolution with 
the utmost calm. The United Diet will have to be convened in 1849 
whether the king wants it or not. We will give His Majesty a 
breathing space till then, but not a moment longer. Then he will have 
to resign his sceptre and his “unimpaired” crown?’ to the Christian 
and the Jewish bourgeois of his realm. 

Thus 1847 was politically a very good year for the Prussian 
bourgeoisie in spite of their temporary defeat. The bourgeoisie and 
petty bourgeoisie of the other German states have also noted this and 
shown the most heartfelt sympathy towards them. They know that 
the victory of the Prussian bourgeoisie is their own victory. 

In Italy we have witnessed the amazing spectacle of the man who 
occupies the most reactionary position in the whole of Europe, who 
represents the petrified ideology of the Middle Ages, the Pope,* 
taking the lead in a liberal movement. The movement grew to power 
in a night, carrying along with it the Austrian archduke of ‘Tuscany? 
and the traitor Charles Albert of Sardinia, undermining the throne 

* Pius [X.—Ed. 
i Leopold II, duke of Tuscany.— Ed. 

The Movements of 1847 523 

of Ferdinand of Naples, its waves sweeping over Lombardy to the 
Tyrolese and Styrian Alps. 

Today the movement in Italy resembles that which took place in 
Prussia from 1807 to 1812.?” As in Prussia of those days, there are 
two issues: external independence and internal reforms. For the 
moment there is no demand for a constitution, but only for 
administrative reforms. Any serious conflict with the government is 
avoided in the meantime so as to maintain as united a front as 
possible in face of the foreign overlord. What kind of reforms are 
these? To whose advantage are they? In the first place to that of the 
bourgeoisie. The press is to be favoured; the bureaucracy to be made 
to serve the interests of the bourgeoisie (cf. the Sardinian reforms, 
the Roman consulta,**° and the reorganisation of the ministries); the 
bourgeois are to be granted extended influence on communal 
administration; the bon plaisir of the nobles and of the bureaucracy 
is to be restricted; the bourgeoisie is to be armed as guardia civica. 
Hitherto all the reforms have been and could be only in the interests 
of the bourgeoisie. Compare the Prussian reforms of Napoleonic 
times. These are exactly the same, only that in many respects they go 
further: the administration made subservient to the interests of the 
bourgeoisie; the arbitrary power of the nobility and the bureaucracy 
broken; municipal self-government established; a militia inaugu- 
rated; the corvée abolished. As earlier in Prussia, so today in Italy, 
the bourgeoisie, owing to its growing wealth and, in particular, to the 
growing importance of industry and commerce in the life of the 
people as a whole, has become the class upon which the country’s 
liberation from foreign domination mainly depends. 

The movement in Italy is thus a decisively bourgeois movement. 
All the classes now inspired with a zeal for reform, from the princes 
and the nobility down to the pifferari and the lazzaroni,”*' appear for 
the nonce as bourgeois, and the Pope himself is the First Bourgeois 
in Italy. But once the Austrian yoke has finally been thrown off, all 
these classes will be greatly disillusioned. Once the bourgeoisie has 
finished off the foreign enemy, it will start on the separation of 
the sheep from the goats at home; then the princes and the counts 
will again call out to Austria for help, but it will be too late, and then 
the workers of Milan, of Florence, and of Naples will realise that their 
work is only really beginning. 

Finally Switzerland. For the first time in its history, this country has 
played a definite part in the European system of states, for the first 
time it has dared to act decisively and has had the courage to enter 

* Power of arbitrary decision. — Ed. 

t 

the arena as a federal republic instead of as heretofore an 
agglomeration of twenty-two antagonistic cantons, utter strangers to 
one another. By most resolutely putting down the civil war, it has 
assured the supremacy of the central power—in a word, has become 
centralised. The de facto centralisation will have to be legalised 
through the impending reform of the Federal Pact. 

Who, we again ask, is going to profit by the outcome of the war, by 
federal reform, by the reorganisation of the Sonderbund cantons? 
The victorious party, the party which was victorious in the individual 
cantons from 1830 to 1834, the liberals and radicals, 1.e., the 
bourgeoisie and the peasantry. The rule of the patriciate in the 
former imperial towns was already overthrown as a result of the July 
revolution. Where it had been practically restored, as in Berne and 
Geneva, revolutions followed in 1846. Where it as yet remained in- 
tact, as for instance in Basle City, it was shaken to its foundations 
in the same year. There was little feudal aristocracy in Switzerland, 
and where it still survived it found its chief strength in an alliance 
with the herdsmen of the upper Alps. These men were the last, the 
most obstinate and the most rabid enemies of the bourgeoisie. They 
were the mainstay of the reactionary elements in the liberal cantons. 
Aided by the Jesuits and the pietists,282 they covered the whole of 
Switzerland with a network of. reactionary conspiracies (cf. the 
canton of Vaud). They thwarted all the plans laid before the Diet 
by the bourgeoisie, and hindered the final defeat of the philistine 
patriciate in the former imperial cities. 

In 1847 these last enemies of the Swiss bourgeoisie were 
completely broken. 

In almost all the cantons the Swiss bourgeoisie had had a pretty 
free hand in commerce and industry. In so far as the guilds still 
existed, they did little to hamper bourgeois development. Tolls 
within the country hardly existed. Wherever the bourgeoisie had 
developed to any considerable extent, political power was in its 
hands. But although it had made good progress in the individual 
cantons and had found support there, the main thing was still 
lacking, namely centralisation. Whereas feudalism, patriarchalism, 
and philistinism flourish in separated provinces and individual 
towns, the bourgeoisie needs for its growth as wide a field as possible; 
instead of twenty-two small cantons it needed one large Switzerland. 
Cantonal sovereignty, which best suited the conditions in the old 
Switzerland, had become a crushing handicap for the bourgeoisie. 
The bourgeoisie needed a centralised power, strong enough to 

* The original has by mistake “1846” .— Fd. 

The Movements of 1847 525 

impose a particular course of development on the legislation of the 
individual cantons and, by sheer weight of influence, to cancel out 
the differences in their constitutions and laws, to wipe out the 
vestiges of the feudal, patriarchal and philistine legislation, and 
energetically to represent the interests of the Swiss bourgeoisie in 
relation to other countries. 

The bourgeoisie has won for itself this centralised power. 

But did not the peasants also help in overthrowing the Sonder- 
bund? Certainly they did! So far as the peasants are concerned, they 
will play the same part towards the bourgeoisie as they played for so 
long towards the petty bourgeoisie. The peasants will remain the 
exploited arm of the bourgeoisie, they will fight its battles for it, 
weave its calico and ribbons, and provide the recruits for its 
proletariat. What else can they do? They are owners, like the 
bourgeois, and for the moment their interests are almost identical 
with those of the bourgeoisie. All the political measures which thev 
are strong enough to put through, are hardly more advantageous to 
the bourgeoisie than to the peasants themselves. Nevertheless, they 
are weak in comparison with the bourgeoisie, because the latter are 
more wealthy and have in their hands the lever of all political power 
in our century—industry. With the bourgeoisie, the peasantry can 
achieve much; against the bourgeoisie, nothing. 

It is true that a time will come when the fleeced and impoverished 
section of the peasantry will unite with the proletariat, which by then 
will be further developed, and will declare war on the bour- 
geoisie—but that does not concern us here. 

Enough that the expulsion of the Jesuits and their associates, those 
organised opponents of the bourgeoisie, the general introduction of 
civil instead of religious education, the seizure of most of the church 
estates by the state, benefit above all the bourgeoisie. 

Thus the common factor in the three most noteworthy movements 
of the year 1847 is that all are primarily and chiefly in the interests of 
ile bourgeoisie. The party of progress was, everywhere, the party of 
the bourgeoisie. 

It is indeed the characteristic feature of these movements that 
those countries which remained backward in 1830 are precisely those 
which last year took the first decisive steps to raise themselves to the 
ievel of 1830—that 1s, to secure the victory of the bourgeoisie. 

So far, then, we have seen that the year 1847 was a brilliant vear 
for the bourgeoisie. 

Let us proceed. 

In Britain a new parliament has assembled, a parhament which. in 
the words of John Bright the Quaker, is the most hourgecis ever 

convened. John Bright is the best authority in the matter, seeing that 
he himself is the most determined bourgeois in the whole of Britain. 
But the bourgeois John Bright is not the bourgeois who rules in 
France or who thunders with pathetic bravado against Frederick 
William IV. When John Bright speaks of a bourgeois he means a 
manufacturer. Ever since 1688, separate sections of the bourgeois 
class have been ruling in England. But, in order to facilitate their 
seizure of power, the bourgeoisie has allowed the aristocrats, its 
dependent debtors, to retain their rule in name. Whereas, in reality, 
the struggle in England is between sections of the bourgeoisie, 
between rentiers and manufacturers, the manufacturers are able to 
represent it as a struggle between the aristocracy and the 
bourgeoisie, or, in case of necessity, as a struggle between the 
aristocracy and the people. The manufacturers have no interest in 
maintaining the appearance of government by the aristocracy, for 
the lords, the baronets and the squires do not owe them a farthing. 
On the other hand they have a great interest in destroying this 
appearance, for with it the rentiers lose their last sheet-anchor. The 
present bourgeois or manufacturers’ parliament will see to this. It 
will change the old feudal-looking England into a more or less 
modern country of bourgeois organisation. It will bring the British 
constitution nearer to those of France and of Belgium. It will 
complete the victory of the English industrial bourgeoisie. 

Another advance of the bourgeoisie: for an advance within the 
bourgeoisie is also an extension and a strengthening of bourgeois 
rule. 

France alone appears to be an exception. The power which fell into 
the hands of the whole of the big bourgeoisie in 1830 is being year by 
year increasingly limited to the rule of the wealthiest section of this 
big bourgeoisie, to the rule of the rentiers and the stock exchange 
speculators. They have made the majority of the big bourgeoisie 
serve their interest. The minority, which is headed by a section of the 
manufacturers and shipping owners, is continually diminishing. This 
minority has now made common cause with the middle and petty 
bourgeoisie who have no electoral rights and celebrates its alliance at 
reform banquets. It despairs of ever coming to power with the 
present electorate. After long hesitation, it has made up its mind to 
promise a share of political power to the sections of the bourgeoisie 
next below itself, and especially the bourgeois ideologists, as being 
the least dangerous—the lawyers, doctors, and so on. It is, of 
course, still very far from being able to keep its promise. 

Thus also in France we see approaching the struggle within the 
bourgeoisie which in Britain has already been almost ended. But, as 

The Movements of 1847 527 

always in France, the situation is more sharply defined, more 
revolutionary than elsewhere. This distinct division into two camps is 
also an advance for the bourgeoisie. 

In Belgium the bourgeoisie won a decisive victory in the elections 
of 1847. The Catholic ministry was forced to resign, and here also 
the liberal bourgeoisie now rule for the time being. 

In America we have witnessed the conquest of Mexico and have 
rejoiced at it.**° It is also an advance when a country which has 
hitherto been exclusively wrapped up in its own affairs, perpetually 
rent with civil wars, and completely hindered in its development, a 
country whose best prospect had been to become industrially subject 
to Britain—when such a country is forcibly drawn into the historical 
process. It is to the interest of its own development that Mexico will 
in future be placed under the tutelage of the United States. The 
evolution of the whole of America will profit by the fact that the 
United States, by the possession of California, obtains command of 
the Pacific. But again we ask: “Who is going to profit immediately by 
the war?” The bourgeoisie alone. The North Americans acquire new 
regions in California and New Mexico for the creation of fresh 
capital, that is, for calling new bourgeois into being, and enriching 
those already in existence; for all capital created today flows into the 
hands of the bourgeoisie. And what about the proposed cut through 
the Tehuantepec isthmus?*** Who is likely to gain by that? Who else 
but the American shipping owners? Rule over the Pacific, who will 
gain by that but these same shipping owners? The new customers 
for the products of industry, customers who will come into being in 
the newly acquired territories—who will supply their needs? None 
other than the American manufacturers. 

Thus also in America the bourgeoisie has made great advances, 
and if its representatives now oppose the war, that only proves that 
they fear that these advances have in some ways been bought too 
dear. 

Even in quite barbarous lands the bourgeoisie is advancing. In 
Russia, industry is developing by leaps and bounds and is succeeding 
in converting even the boyars into bourgeois. Both in Russia and 
Poland serfdom is being restricted and the nobility thereby 
weakened in the interest of the bourgeoisie, and a class of free 
peasants is being created which the bourgeoisie everywhere needs. 
The Jews are being persecuted—entirely in the interest of the settled 
Christian bourgeois, whose business was spoiled by the pedlars.—In 
Hungary, the feudal magnates are more and more changing into 
wholesale corn and wool merchants and cattle dealers, and 
consequently now appear in the Diet as bourgeois.—What of all 

the glorious advances of “civilisation” in such lands as Turkey, 
Egypt, Tunis, Persia, and other barbarous countries? They are 
nothing else but a preparation for the advent of a future bourgeoisie. 
In these countries the word of the prophet is being fulfilled: 
“Prepare ye the way of the Lord....* Lift up your heads, O ye gates; 
and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shali 
come in. Who is this King of glory?”’ The bourgeois! 

Wherever we look, the bourgeoisie are making stupendous 
progress. They are holding their heads high, and haughtily 
challenge their enemies. They expect a decisive victory, and their 
hopes will not be disappointed. They intend to shape the whole 
world according to their standard; and, on a considerable portion of 
the earth’s surface, they will succeed. 

We are no friends of the bourgeoisie. That is common knowledge. 
But this time we do not grudge the bourgeoisie their triumph. We 
can chuckle over the haughty looks which the bourgeois deign to 
bestow (especially in Germany) upon the apparently tiny band of 
democrats and Communists. We have no objection if everywhere 
they force through their purposes. 

Nay more. We cannot forbear an ironical smile when we observe 
the terrible earnestness, the pathetic enthusiasm with which the 
bourgeois strive to achieve their aims. They really believe that they 
are working on their own behalf! They are so short-sighted as to 
fancy that through their triumph the world will assume its 
final configuration. Yet nothing is more clear than that they are 
everywhere preparing the way for us, for the democrats and the 
Communists; than that they will at most win a few years of troubled 
enjoyment, only to be then immediately overthrown. Behind them 
stands everywhere the proletariat, sometimes participating in their 
endeavours and partly in their illusions, as in Italy and Switzerland, 
sometimes silent and reserved, but secretly preparing the overthrow 
of the bourgeoisie, as in France and Germany; finally, in Britain and 
America, in open rebellion against the ruling bourgeoisie. 

We can do still more. We can say all this to the bourgeoisie straight 
out, we can lay our cards on the table. Let them know in advance that 
they are working only in our interest. They still cannot for that 
reason give up their fight against the absolute monarchy, the 
nobility, and the clergy. They must conquer—or already now go 
under. 

In Germany in a very short time they will even have to ask for our 
help. 

* Isaiah 40 : 3.— Ed. 

> Psalms 24 : 7, 8.— Ed. 

The Movements of 1847 529 

So just fight bravely on, most gracious masters of capital! We need 
you for the present; here and there we even need you as rulers. You 
have to clear the vestiges of the Middle Ages and of absolute 
monarchy out of our path; you have to annihilate patriarchalism; 
you have to carry out centralisation; you have to convert the more or 
less propertyless classes into genuine proletarians, into recruits for 
us; by your factories and your commercial relationships you must 
create for us the basis of the material means which the proletariat 
needs for the attainment of freedom. In recompense whereof you 
shall be allowed to rule for a short time. You shall be allowed to 
dictate your laws, to bask in the rays of the majesty you have 
created, to spread your banquets in the halls of kings, and to take 
the beautiful princess to wife—but do not forget that 

“The hangman stands at the door!’