') |..Proletarians, for the Ten-Hour Bill without sharing their 
illusions about the results of this measure.’ 


We have seen, moreover: 

The Communists do not put forward a new theory of private 
property. They merely state the historical fact that the <means of 
production) > bourgeois production relations and with them 
bourgeois property relations <and> <eith) <certain) of the 

<devel> <social> development of the social forces of production 
no longer <are appropriate> and therefore to the development 
of industry itself) <¢and) in t.... 

But do not argue with us because you measure <oppose)> the 
abolition of bourgeois property by your bourgeois ideas of freedom, 
culture, etc.! Your ideas themselves <are only> <prod> <are) 

<correspond) are products of the <existingy bourgeois produc- 
tion and property relations, as your legal system is merely the will of 
your class elevated into law. (Your> A will whose content is 
determined by the material living conditions of your class. 

<Your> You share with all ruling classes that have perished the 
biased idea of transforming <the> your <bourgeois) production 
and property relations from historical, <and merely> transitory 
relations corresponding only to a certain <stage in the) develop- 
ment of the productive forces, into eternal laws of nature and 
reason. 


* The first two lines are in Jenny Marx’s hand. The rest in Marx’s.—Ed. 
> Deletions in the original are given here in angular brackets.— Ed. 


578 Page from the Rough Draft of the Manifesto of the Communist Party 


What you comprehend for feudal property, you no longer 
comprehend for bourgeois <(conditi> property. 

And yet, you cannot deny the fact that <in the course) with the 
development of <bourgeois> industry the one-sided, on....@ 

The Communists do not put forward any new theory of property. 
They state a fact. You deny the most striking facts. You have to deny 
them. You are backward looking utopians.