Communist Manifesto 1848. Alignment with the "Communist Manifesto"! Property is the master key of all problems

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Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels
Communist Manifesto 1
The Communist Manifesto is the greatest programmatic document of scientific communism. “This little booklet is worth entire volumes: the whole organized and fighting proletariat of the civilized world still lives and moves in its spirit” (Lenin). Written by K. Marx and F. Engels as a program of the Communist League, the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" was first published in London in February 1848 in a separate edition of 23 pages. In March-July 1848, the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" was published in the democratic organ of German emigrants "Deutsche Londoner Zeitung" ("German London newspaper"). The German text was reprinted in London in the same 1848 as a separate pamphlet of 30 pages, in which some typographical errors of the first edition were corrected and punctuation improved. This text was subsequently put by Marx and Engels as the basis for subsequent authorized editions. In 1848, the Manifesto was also translated into a number of European languages (French, Polish, Italian, Danish, Flemish and Swedish). The names of the authors of the Manifesto were not mentioned in the editions of 1848; for the first time they were listed in print in 1850 with the publication of the first English translation in the Chartist organ "Red Republican") ("Red Republican") in a preface written by the editor of this journal, J. Gurney.
In 1872 a new German edition of the Manifesto was published with minor corrections by the author and with a preface by Marx and Engels. This edition, like the subsequent German editions of 1883 and 1890, came out under the title The Communist Manifesto.
The first Russian edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party was published in 1869 in Geneva in a translation by Bakunin, who distorted the contents of the Manifesto in a number of places. The shortcomings of the first edition were eliminated in the edition published in Geneva in 1882 in Plekhanov's translation. The Plekhanov translation marked the beginning of the widespread dissemination of the ideas of the Manifesto in Russia. Attaching great importance to the propaganda of Marxism in Russia, Marx and Engels wrote a special preface to this edition.
After Marx's death, a number of editions of the Manifesto came out, reviewed by Engels: in 1883 a German edition with a preface by Engels; in 1888 an English edition translated by S. Moore, edited by Engels and supplied by him with a preface and notes; in 1890 a German edition with a new preface by Engels. Engels also wrote several notes to the latest edition. In 1885, the newspaper Socialiste (Socialist) published a French translation of the Manifesto, made by Marx's daughter Laura Lafargue and reviewed by Engels. Engels wrote a preface to the Polish edition of the Manifesto in 1892 and to the Italian edition of 1893. – 419.

A ghost haunts Europe - the ghost of communism. All the forces of old Europe have united for the sacred persecution of this ghost: the pope and the tsar, Metternich and Guizot, the French radicals and the German policemen.

Where is the opposition party that its opponents in power would not slander as communist? Where is the opposition party which, in its turn, does not throw the stigmatizing accusation of communism both at the more advanced representatives of the opposition and at its reactionary opponents?

Two conclusions follow from this fact.

Communism is already recognized as a force by all European forces.

It is time for the communists to openly state their views, their goals, their aspirations before the whole world, and to oppose the tales of the specter of communism with the manifesto of the party itself.

To this end, communists of various nationalities gathered in London and drew up the following "Manifesto", which is published in English, French, German, Italian, Flemish and Danish.

I
BOURGEOS AND PROLETARIANS 2
The bourgeoisie is understood as the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production, using hired labor. By the proletariat is meant the class of modern wage-workers who, deprived of their own means of production, are compelled to sell their labor power in order to live. (Engels' note to the 1888 English edition)

History of all hitherto existing societies 3
That is, the whole history that has come down to us in written sources. In 1847, the prehistory of society, the social organization that preceded all written history, was still almost completely unknown. During the time that has elapsed since then, Haxthausen discovered communal ownership of land in Russia, Maurer proved that it was the social basis that served as the starting point for the historical development of all Germanic tribes, and it gradually became clear that the rural community with common ownership of land is or was in the past everywhere primitive form of society, from India to Ireland. The internal organization of this primitive communist society, in its typical form, was elucidated by Morgan, who crowned the matter with his discovery of the true nature of the clan and its position in the tribe. With the disintegration of this primitive community, the stratification of society into special and ultimately antagonistic classes begins. I have tried to follow this process of decomposition in Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigentums und des Staats, 2. Aufl., Stuttgart, 1886 (The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, 2nd ed., Stuttgart, 1886) . (Engels' note to the 1888 English edition) (218)

It was a history of class struggle. 4
Engels included this note also in the German edition of the Communist Manifesto of 1890, omitting only the last sentence. - 424.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, landowner and serf, master 5
The workshop foreman is a full member of the workshop, the master inside the workshop, and not his foreman. (Engels' note to the 1888 English edition)

And the apprentice, in short, the oppressor and the oppressed were in eternal antagonism to each other, waged an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open struggle, which always ended in a revolutionary reorganization of the entire social edifice or in the general death of the struggling classes.

In previous historical epochs we find almost everywhere the complete dismemberment of society into different classes, a whole ladder of different social positions. In ancient Rome we meet patricians, horsemen, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages - feudal lords, vassals, guild masters, apprentices, serfs, and besides, in almost each of these classes - there are still special gradations.

Coming out of the bowels of the lost feudal society, modern bourgeois society has not eliminated class contradictions. It only put new classes, new conditions of oppression and new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, differs, however, in that it has simplified class contradictions: society is more and more splitting into two large hostile camps, into two large classes facing each other—the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

From the serfs of the Middle Ages came the free population of the first cities; from this class of townspeople developed the first elements of the bourgeoisie.

The discovery of America and the sea route around Africa created a new field of activity for the rising bourgeoisie. The East Indian and Chinese markets, the colonization of America, exchange with the colonies, the increase in the number of means of exchange and goods in general, gave an impetus hitherto unheard of to trade, navigation, industry, and thus caused the rapid development of the revolutionary element in the disintegrating feudal society.

The former feudal or guild organization of industry could no longer satisfy the demand that grew with the new markets. Manufactory took its place. The guild masters were supplanted by the industrial middle class; the division of labor between the various corporations disappeared, giving way to a division of labor within the individual workshop.

But the markets were growing, the demand was increasing. Manufactory could no longer satisfy him. Then steam and the machine revolutionized the industry. The place of manufacture has been taken by modern large-scale industry, the place of the industrial middle class has been taken by millionaire industrialists, the leaders of entire industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.

Large-scale industry has created a world market, prepared by the discovery of America. The world market has caused a colossal development of trade, navigation and means of overland communication. This, in turn, had an effect on the expansion of industry, and in the same measure that industry, trade, navigation, railways grew, the bourgeoisie developed, it increased its capitals and pushed into the background all the classes inherited from the Middle Ages.

We see, therefore, that the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long process of development, of a series of revolutions in the mode of production and exchange.

Each of these stages in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political success. The oppressed estate under the rule of the feudal lords, the armed and self-governing association in the commune, 6
"Communes" were called in France emerging cities even before the time when they won back local self-government and political rights of the "third estate" from their feudal lords and masters. Generally speaking, here England is taken as a typical country of the economic development of the bourgeoisie, and France as a typical country of its political development. (Engels' note to the 1888 English edition)
Commune - this is how the citizens of Italy and France called their urban community, after they bought or won the first rights of self-government from their feudal lords. (Note by Engels to the German edition of 1890)

Here - an independent city republic, there - the third, taxable estate of the monarchy, 7
In the English edition of 1888, edited by Engels, after the words "independent city republic" the words are inserted: "(as in Italy and Germany)", and after the words "the third, taxable estate of the monarchy" - "(as in France)". Ed.

Then, in the period of manufacture, as a counterbalance to the nobility in estate or absolute monarchy and the main basis of great monarchies in general, finally, since the establishment of large-scale industry and the world market, it has won itself exclusive political dominance in the modern representative state. Modern state power is only a committee that manages the common affairs of the entire bourgeois class.

The bourgeoisie has played an extremely revolutionary role in history.

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has achieved dominance, has destroyed all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. She ruthlessly tore apart the motley feudal fetters that tied a person to his "natural masters", and left no other connection between people, except for bare interest, a heartless "chistogan". In the icy water of selfish calculation, she drowned the sacred awe of religious ecstasy, chivalrous enthusiasm, petty-bourgeois sentimentality. It has transformed the personal dignity of man into an exchangeable value, and has replaced innumerable freedoms granted and acquired with one unscrupulous freedom of trade. In a word, it has replaced exploitation covered by religious and political illusions with open, shameless, direct, callous exploitation.

The bourgeoisie deprived of the sacred halo all kinds of activity, which until then were considered honorable and which were looked at with reverent awe. She turned a doctor, a lawyer, a priest, a poet, a man of science into her paid employees.

The bourgeoisie tore away their touchingly sentimental veil from family relations and reduced them to purely monetary relations.

The bourgeoisie has shown that the crude display of strength in the Middle Ages, which is so admired by the reactionaries, found its natural complement in laziness and immobility. She showed for the first time what human activity can achieve. She created marvels of art, but of a very different kind than Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; she made completely different campaigns than the migration of peoples and the crusades.

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly causing upheavals in the instruments of production, without revolutionizing, consequently, the relations of production, and, consequently, the totality of social relations. On the contrary, the first condition for the existence of all former industrial classes was the preservation of the old mode of production unchanged. Incessant upheavals in production, the constant upheaval of all social relations, eternal uncertainty and movement distinguish the bourgeois era from all others. All frozen, rusted relations, together with their accompanying, centuries-honored ideas and views, are destroyed, all newly emerging ones turn out to be outdated before they have time to ossify. Everything classy and stagnant disappears, everything sacred is defiled, and people finally come to the need to look with sober eyes at their life situation and their mutual relations.

The need for ever-increasing sales of products is driving the bourgeoisie all over the globe. Everywhere it must infiltrate, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.

The bourgeoisie, by exploiting the world market, has made the production and consumption of all countries cosmopolitan. To the great chagrin of the reactionaries, it tore the national soil from under the feet of industry. The original national industries have been destroyed and continue to be destroyed every day. They are supplanted by new branches of industry, the introduction of which is becoming a matter of life for all civilized nations - branches that no longer process local raw materials, but raw materials brought from the most remote regions of the globe, and produce factory products that are consumed not only within a given country, but also in all parts of the world. Instead of the old needs, which were satisfied by domestic products, new ones arise, for the satisfaction of which the products of the most remote countries and the most diverse climates are required. The old local and national isolation and existence at the expense of the products of one's own production are being replaced by all-round communication and all-round dependence of nations on each other. This applies equally to both material and spiritual production. The fruits of the spiritual activity of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and out of the multitude of national and local literatures one world literature is formed.

The bourgeoisie, by its rapid improvement of all the instruments of production and the endless facilitation of the means of communication, draws into civilization all, even the most barbarous, nations. The cheap prices of her goods are the heavy artillery with which she destroys all the Chinese walls and forces the barbarians' most stubborn hatred of foreigners to capitulate. Under pain of death, it forces all nations to adopt the bourgeois mode of production, forces them to introduce so-called civilization, i.e., to become bourgeois. In a word, she creates the world for herself in her own image and likeness.

The bourgeoisie subordinated the countryside to the rule of the city. It created huge cities, increased the urban population to a high degree in comparison with the rural population, and in this way wrested a significant part of the population from the idiocy of village life. Just as she made the countryside dependent on the city, so she made the barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilized countries, the peasant peoples on the bourgeois peoples, the East on the West.

The bourgeoisie is more and more destroying the fragmentation of the means of production, property and population. It condensed the population, centralized the means of production, and concentrated property in the hands of a few. A necessary consequence of this was political centralization. Independent, almost exclusively allied regions with different interests, laws, governments and customs duties, turned out to be united into one nation, with one government, with one legislation, with one national class interest, with one customs border.

The bourgeoisie, in less than a hundred years of its class rule, has created more numerous and more grandiose productive forces than all previous generations put together. The conquest of the forces of nature, machine production, the use of chemistry in industry and agriculture, shipping, railways, the electric telegraph, the development of whole parts of the world for agriculture, the adaptation of rivers for navigation, whole masses of the population, as if summoned from underground, - what of the former centuries could have suspected that such productive forces lay dormant in the depths of social labor!

So we have seen that the means of production and exchange, on the basis of which the bourgeoisie was formed, were created in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and exchange, the relations in which the production and exchange of feudal society, the feudal organization of agriculture and industry, in a word, feudal property relations, took place no longer corresponded to the developed productive forces. They slowed down production instead of developing it. They have become his shackles. They had to be broken, and they were broken.

Their place was taken by free competition, with a corresponding social and political system, with the economic and political domination of the bourgeois class.

A similar movement is taking place before our very eyes. Modern bourgeois society, with its bourgeois relations of production and exchange, bourgeois property relations, which has created, as if by magic, such powerful means of production and exchange, is like a magician who is no longer able to cope with the underground forces caused by his spells. For several decades now, the history of industry and commerce has been nothing but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern production relations, against those property relations that are the condition for the existence of the bourgeoisie and its domination. It suffices to point out the commercial crises which, recurring from time to time, more and more menacingly call into question the existence of the entire bourgeois society. During commercial crises, each time a significant part of not only manufactured products is destroyed, but even the productive forces that have already been created. During crises, a social epidemic breaks out, which would have seemed absurd to all previous eras - an epidemic of overproduction. Society is suddenly thrown back to a state of sudden barbarism, as if famine, a general devastating war, deprived it of all means of subsistence; it seems that industry, trade are destroyed - and why? Because society has too much civilization, too many means of subsistence, too much industry and commerce. The productive forces at his disposal no longer serve the development of bourgeois property relations; on the contrary, they have become unreasonably large for these relations, bourgeois relations retard their development; and when the productive forces begin to overcome these barriers, they throw the whole of bourgeois society into disarray, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. Bourgeois relations became too narrow to contain the wealth they created. – How does the bourgeoisie overcome crises? On the one hand, through the forced destruction of a whole mass of productive forces, on the other hand, through the conquest of new markets and the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. What, therefore? In that it prepares more comprehensive and more crushing crises and reduces the means of counteracting them.

The weapon with which the bourgeoisie overthrew feudalism is now directed against the bourgeoisie itself.

But the bourgeoisie has not only forged weapons that bring death to them; it has also given birth to people who will use this weapon against it - modern workers, proletarians.

To the same extent that the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, develops, so does the proletariat, the class of modern workers, who can only exist when they find work, and find it only as long as their labor increases capital. These workers, compelled to sell themselves by the piece, are as much a commodity as any other article of trade, and are therefore equally subject to all the accidents of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.

As a result of the increasing use of machinery and the division of labor, the labor of the proletarians lost all independent character, and at the same time all attractiveness for the worker. The worker becomes a mere appendage of the machine; only the simplest, most monotonous, most easily assimilated methods are required of him. The cost of the worker is therefore reduced almost exclusively to the means of subsistence necessary for his maintenance and procreation. But the price of every commodity, and consequently of labour, 8
In the works of a later period, Marx and Engels used, instead of the concepts "value of labor", "price of labor", more precise concepts introduced by Marx - "value of labor power", "price of labor power" (see the preface to this volume, p. IX ). – 431.

Equal to the cost of its production. Therefore, to the same extent that the unattractiveness of work increases, wages decrease. Moreover, to the same extent that the use of machinery and the division of labor increase, so does the amount of labor, either through an increase in the number of working hours, or as a result of an increase in the amount of labor required at any given time interval, the acceleration of machines, etc. d.

Modern industry has transformed the small workshop of the patriarchal craftsman into the large factory of the industrial capitalist. The masses of workers crowded into the factory are organizing like soldiers. Like the rank and file of an industrial army, they are placed under the supervision of a whole hierarchy of non-commissioned officers and officers. They are slaves not only of the bourgeois class, of the bourgeois state; daily and hourly they are enslaved by the machine, by the overseer, and above all by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. This despotism is the more petty, the more hateful, the more it hardens, the more frankly its goal is to gain.

The less skill and strength manual labor requires, that is, the more modern industry develops, the more male labor is supplanted by female and child labor. In relation to the working class, distinctions of sex and age lose all social significance. There are only working tools that require different costs depending on age and sex.

When the exploitation of the worker by the manufacturer ends and the worker finally receives his wages in cash, other parts of the bourgeoisie—the house owner, the shopkeeper, the usurer, etc.—pounce on him.

The lower strata of the middle class: small industrialists, small merchants and rentiers, artisans and peasants - all these classes sink into the ranks of the proletariat, partly because their small capital is not enough to run large industrial enterprises and it cannot compete with larger capitalists, partly because that their professional skills are devalued as a result of the introduction of new methods of production. This is how the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population.

The proletariat passes through various stages of development. Its struggle against the bourgeoisie begins with its existence.

First the struggle is waged by individual workers, then by the workers of one factory, then by the workers of one branch of labor in one locality against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. The workers direct their blows not only against bourgeois production relations, but also against the instruments of production themselves; they destroy competing foreign goods, smash cars, set fire to factories, try to restore by force the lost position of the medieval worker.

At this stage, the workers form a mass scattered throughout the country and fragmented by competition. The rallying of the working masses is not yet the result of their own unification, but only the result of the unification of the bourgeoisie, which, in order to achieve its own political aims, must, and still can, set the entire proletariat in motion. At this stage, the proletarians are fighting, therefore, not against their enemies, but against the enemies of their enemies—the remnants of the absolute monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial bourgeois, the petty bourgeois. The entire historical movement is thus concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory won under such conditions is a victory for the bourgeoisie.

But with the development of industry, the proletariat not only grows in numbers; he accumulates in large masses, his strength grows, and he feels it more and more. The interests and conditions of life of the proletariat are more and more equalized in proportion as the machines more and more blur the distinctions between the individual types of labor and reduce wages almost everywhere to an equally low level. The growing competition of the bourgeoisie among themselves and the commercial crises that it causes lead to the fact that the wages of the workers become more and more unstable; the ever faster developing, continuous improvement of machines makes the living situation of the proletarians ever less secure; clashes between the individual worker and the individual bourgeois are increasingly taking on the character of clashes between two classes. Workers start by forming coalitions 9
In the English edition of 1888, after the word "coalitions" is inserted: "(trade unions)". Ed.

Against the bourgeois; they act together to protect their wages. They even establish permanent associations in order to provide themselves with the means in case of possible collisions. In some places, the struggle turns into open uprisings.

The workers win from time to time, but these victories are only temporary. The real result of their struggle is not an immediate success, but an ever-widening union of the workers. It is facilitated by all the growing means of communication created by large-scale industry and establishing links between the workers of different localities. Only this connection is required in order to centralize the many local centers of struggle, which are everywhere of the same character, and to merge them into one national, class struggle. And every class struggle is a political struggle. And the unification, for which it took centuries for medieval townspeople with their country roads, is achieved by modern proletarians, thanks to railways, within a few years.

This organization of the proletarians into a class, and thus into a political party, is destroyed again every minute by competition among the workers themselves. But it arises again and again, each time becoming stronger, stronger, more powerful. It compels the individual interests of the workers to be recognized by law, using for this the strife between individual sections of the bourgeoisie. For example, the law on the ten-hour working day in England.

In general, clashes within the old society contribute in many respects to the development of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie wages a continuous struggle: first against the aristocracy, later against those sections of the bourgeoisie itself whose interests come into conflict with the progress of industry, and constantly against the bourgeoisie of all foreign countries. In all these battles it is compelled to appeal to the proletariat, to call on its help and thus draw it into the political movement. It therefore itself transmits to the proletariat the elements of its own education, 10
In the English edition of 1888, instead of the words "elements of one's own education", it is printed: "elements of one's own political and general education." Ed.

That is, a weapon against itself.

Further, as we have seen, the progress of industry pushes whole sections of the ruling class into the ranks of the proletariat, or at least threatens their living conditions. They also bring to the proletariat a large number of elements of education.

Finally, in those periods when the class struggle approaches its denouement, the process of disintegration within the ruling class, within the entire old society, assumes such a stormy, such a sharp character that a small part of the ruling class renounces it and joins the revolutionary class, the class that belongs to the future. That is why, just as before a part of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a part of the bourgeoisie is going over to the proletariat, namely, a part of the bourgeois ideologists who have risen to a theoretical understanding of the entire course of the historical movement.

Of all the classes that now oppose the bourgeoisie, only the proletariat is the truly revolutionary class. All other classes decline and are destroyed with the development of large-scale industry, while the proletariat is its own product.

The middle classes: the small industrialist, the small tradesman, the artisan and the peasant - they all fight against the bourgeoisie in order to save their existence from destruction as the middle classes. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Even more, they are reactionary: they want to turn back the wheel of history. If they are revolutionary, it is insofar as they are about to pass into the ranks of the proletariat, insofar as they defend not their present, but their future interests, insofar as they leave their own point of view in order to take the point of view of the proletariat.

The lumpen proletariat, that passive product of the decay of the lowest strata of the old society, is in some places drawn into the movement by the proletarian revolution, but by virtue of its whole position in life it is much more inclined to sell itself to reactionary machinations.

The living conditions of the old society have already been destroyed in the living conditions of the proletariat. The proletarian has no property; his relation to his wife and children has nothing more to do with bourgeois family relations; modern industrial labour, the modern yoke of capital, the same in England as in France, as in America as in Germany, has wiped out all national character from him. Laws, morality, religion - all this for him is nothing more than bourgeois prejudices, behind which bourgeois interests are hidden.

All the former classes, having won their dominance, sought to consolidate the position they had already acquired in life, subjecting the whole of society to conditions that ensured their mode of appropriation. The proletarians, on the other hand, can conquer the social productive forces only by destroying their own present mode of appropriation, and thereby the entire mode of appropriation that has hitherto existed as a whole. The proletarians have nothing of their own that they need to protect, they must destroy everything that has hitherto protected and ensured private property.

All the movements that have taken place so far have been movements of a minority, or in the interests of a minority. The proletarian movement is the independent movement of the vast majority in the interests of the vast majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of modern society, cannot rise, cannot straighten itself without the entire superstructure rising above it from the strata that make up official society is blown into the air.

If not in content, then in form, the struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of every country must, of course, first do away with its own bourgeoisie.

Describing the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we have traced the more or less covert civil war within existing society up to the point at which it turns into an open revolution and the proletariat establishes its rule through the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie.

All hitherto existing societies have been based, as we have seen, on the antagonism between the oppressor and the oppressed classes. But in order to be able to oppress any class, it is necessary to provide conditions under which it could drag out at least its slavish existence. The serf in the state of serfdom has risen to the position of a member of the commune, just as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of feudal absolutism, has risen to the position of a bourgeois. On the contrary, with the progress of industry, the modern worker does not rise, but sinks more and more below the conditions of existence of his own class. The worker becomes a pauper, and pauperism grows even faster than population and wealth. This clearly shows that the bourgeoisie is incapable of remaining the ruling class of society any longer and of imposing on the whole of society the conditions for the existence of its class as a regulating law. She is incapable of dominating because she is unable to provide her slave with even a slave level of existence, because she is forced to let him sink to a position where she herself must feed him, instead of being fed at his expense. Society can no longer live under her rule, that is, her life is no longer compatible with society.

The main condition for the existence and domination of the bourgeois class is the accumulation of wealth in the hands of private individuals, the education and increase of capital. The condition for the existence of capital is hired labor. Wage labor rests solely on the competition of workers among themselves. The progress of industry, the involuntary bearer of which is the bourgeoisie, powerless to resist it, replaces the disunity of the workers by competition with their revolutionary unification through association. Thus, with the development of large-scale industry, the very foundation on which it produces and appropriates products breaks out from under the feet of the bourgeoisie. It produces above all its own grave-diggers. Its death and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

In this work, with brilliant clarity and brightness, a new worldview is outlined, consistent materialism, which also embraces the field of social life, dialectics, as the most comprehensive and profound doctrine of development, the theory of the class struggle and the world-historical revolutionary role of the proletariat, the creator of a new, communist society.

Bourgeois and proletarians
Proletarians and Communists
Socialist and communist literature
1. reactionary socialism
  1. Feudal socialism
  2. Petty-bourgeois socialism
  3. German or "true" socialism
2. Conservative or bourgeois socialism
3. Critically utopian socialism and communism
Attitude of communists towards various opposition parties

Meaning

In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels, for the first time in social science, defined a place in the history of mankind, showed its progressiveness in comparison with previous formations and the inevitability of its death. The founders of scientific communism showed that the entire history of society, with the exception of the primitive communal system (as Engels added in the preface to the German edition of the Manifesto, 1883), was the history of class struggle. In bourgeois society, an irreconcilable struggle between themselves is waged by two main classes hostile to each other - and. Having become the economically dominant class, the bourgeoisie has seized state power and is using it as a weapon to defend its selfish class interests and to suppress the working people. Marx and Engels revealed in the Manifesto the irreconcilable internal contradictions of bourgeois society. The capitalist relations of production, which contributed to the enormous growth of the productive forces, at a certain stage become an obstacle to the further development of production. The contradiction between the social nature of production and the private form of appropriation - the main contradiction of capitalism - gives rise to economic crises, during which a significant part of finished products and productive forces are constantly destroyed.

In The Communist Manifesto, the world-historical role of the proletariat as the gravedigger of capitalist society and the builder of communism, the only completely consistent revolutionary class acting in the interests of all working people, is open and comprehensively substantiated. It is the working class that will deliver society from the yoke of capitalism by destroying the capitalist form of property and replacing it with public property. But to accomplish this task, the authors of the Manifesto point out, the working class can only use revolutionary violence against the bourgeoisie, through the proletarian socialist revolution. Marx and Engels substantiated the need to create a political party of the proletariat, revealed its historical role, defined its tasks, and explained the relationship between the party and the working class. In practice, the Communists, wrote the authors of the Manifesto,

“... they are the most resolute part of the workers’ parties of all countries, always impelling to move forward, and in theoretical terms they have an advantage over the rest of the mass of the proletariat in understanding the conditions, course and general results of the proletarian movement”

Although Marx and Engels in the "Manifesto" did not yet use the term "", however, the idea of the proletarian dictatorship in this work was already expressed and substantiated by them.

“... The first step in the workers' revolution,” wrote Marx and Engels, “is the transformation of the proletariat into the ruling class, the conquest of democracy. The proletariat uses its political domination to wrest all capital from the bourgeoisie step by step, to centralize all the instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., the proletariat organized as the ruling class, and to increase the sum of the productive forces as quickly as possible.

The "Manifesto of the Communist Party" emphasizes that the destruction of the capitalist system, the elimination of the exploitation of man by man will put an end to national oppression and ethnic hatred. Marx and Engels noted that one of the main principles of the revolutionary activity of communists in various countries is their mutual assistance and support in the struggle against social oppression and exploitation, due to their common goals. The substantiation of this principle - the principle of proletarian internationalism - permeates the entire content of the Manifesto. Explaining the great and humane goals of the communists, Marx and Engels showed the complete groundlessness of the attacks on the communists by bourgeois ideologists, revealed the class limitations and self-serving nature of the bourgeoisie's ideas about marriage, morality, property, fatherland, etc.

In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels subjected the socialist and communist literature of those years to scientific criticism; they revealed the class essence of the concepts underlying feudal socialism, petty-bourgeois socialism, the so-called German or "true" socialism, as well as conservative or bourgeois socialism. The founders of scientific communism expressed their attitude towards the systems of critical utopian socialism, showed the unreality of these systems and at the same time revealed rational elements in the views of utopian socialists -,. Marx and Engels put forward important propositions on the tactics of the proletarian party. Communists, the Manifesto explained, are members of a consistently revolutionary party. They are

“...they fight for the immediate goals and interests of the working class, but at the same time, in the movement of today, they also defend the future of the movement”

The "Manifesto of the Communist Party" opened the way to a new era in the history of mankind, marked the beginning of a great revolutionary movement for the socialist transformation of the world. This little book, - V. I. Lenin wrote about the "Manifesto", - is worth whole volumes: the entire organized and fighting proletariat of the civilized world still lives and moves in its spirit.

Specificity of transformations

When presenting the content of the measures carried out by the proletariat, it is stipulated that in different countries their set may be different. Thus, in the most advanced countries, the following measures can be applied:

Expropriation of landed property and conversion of land rent to cover public expenditures.
High progressive tax.
Cancellation of inheritance rights.
Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
Centralization of credit in the hands of the state through a national bank with state capital and with an exclusive monopoly.
Centralization of all transport in the hands of the state.
An increase in the number of state factories, tools of production, clearing for arable land and improvement of land according to the general plan.
The same obligation of labor for all, the establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
The connection of agriculture with industry, the promotion of the gradual elimination of the distinction between town and country.
Public and free education of all children. Elimination of factory labor of children in its modern form. The combination of education with material production, etc.

Recognizing that "arbitrary interference with property rights and bourgeois production relations" are measures "which seem economically insufficient and untenable", the authors of the Manifesto emphasized that in the course of the movement (these processes) these measures "outgrow themselves", and that they are inevitable as "a means for a revolution in the whole mode of production", and not as an end in themselves. It is significant that Marx at the same time harshly criticized the utopian "crude and ill-conceived communism" of those who simply extended the principle of private property to everyone ("common private property"). Crude communism, according to Marx, is the product of "worldwide envy".

Editions

The Manifesto is one of the most widespread works of scientific and political thought. In terms of the number of publications, it can be compared, perhaps, only with. The Communist Manifesto was first published in 1848 in London in German. It has been published in at least 70 countries, in more than 100 languages, over 1,000 times, with a total circulation of over 30 million copies. Almost 120 years ago, Engels already had every reason to state that “The history of the Manifesto largely reflects the history of the modern labor movement; at the present time it is undoubtedly the most widespread, most international work of all socialist literature, a common program recognized by millions of workers from Siberia to California..

According to incomplete data, during the period 1848-71 there were about 770 editions in 50 languages. In the USSR, as of January 1, 1973, 447 editions of the Communist Manifesto were published with a total circulation of 24,341,000 copies in 74 languages.

Translations into Russian

1869 - the first edition of the "Manifesto" in Russian in Geneva. The authorship of the translation is attributed, although the translator was not indicated on the book itself. The translation distorted the most important provisions of this document
1882 - edition of the "Manifesto" in translation. With a special preface by Marx and Engels.
1948 - anniversary edition of the "Manifesto" by IMEL (the translation of 1939 has been updated)
1955 - Volume 4 of the "Works" of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (2nd edition) prepared by the Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin Institute under the Central Committee of the CPSU is published. The volume includes the latest translation of the Communist Manifesto.

Notes

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Rejection of the catechism

In 1847, Karl Mark and Friedrich Engels joined the "Union of the Just" - an offshoot of the secret revolutionary organization "Union of Outcasts". The "Manifesto" they wrote was a piece of software created to order. Interestingly, the manifesto was originally supposed to be called "Draft Communist Creed." Engels wrote to Marx: "Think about the Symbol of Faith." I think the best thing to do would be to drop the catechism form and call this thing the "Communist Manifesto". After all, it will have to shed some light on the history of the question, for which the present form is completely unsuitable. "It must be said that the change in name is one of the few merits of Engels.

Women's question

One of the most interesting and witty passages in the Manifesto is Marx's discourse about the fears of the bourgeoisie about the socialization of wives with the advent of communism. According to Marx, such fears can only be explained by the fact that women are recognized by the bourgeois as tools of production, while communism, on the contrary, wants to free women from such perception. Marx writes: "Our bourgeois, not content with the fact that they have at their disposal the wives and daughters of their workers, not to mention official prostitution, see a special pleasure in seducing each other's wives." It is noteworthy that Marx himself will have an illegitimate daughter from a maid, whom Engels will have to marry in order to conceal his friend's connection.

Proletarians, unite!

The maxim "Proletarians of all countries, unite!" turned out to be incredibly durable. Under this slogan the revolution took place in Russia. Interesting, however, is the very concept of the proletariat. It is quite ambiguous. On the one hand, in ancient Rome, this was the name given to poor citizens, declassed elements, useful to society only by their offspring. In Dahl's dictionary, "proletarian" means a bean, that is, on the contrary, a childless person. In this sense, "workers of all countries, unite!" sounds strange to say the least.

The ghost of communism

The original version of the Communist Manifesto did not include Karl Marx's ghostly introduction. It appeared only after the final editing by Marx in the autumn of 1847. Spectacular opening "A ghost haunts Europe - the ghost of communism" was an invention of Karl Marx. Obviously, this formulation was a consequence of Marx's fascination with mysticism. Charles was born in Trier, a city where ancient ruins alternate with Gothic cathedrals. It is not surprising, therefore, that in his youth he experienced a fascination with romanticism. At that time, Edgar Poe was incredibly popular in Europe, so the visible and frightening image of the “ghost of communism” affected people in the most direct way.

Translations

The Communist Manifesto is still one of the most popular and translated works. Even before the October Revolution, many of his translations were published. Of the most exotic - three Japanese translations and one Chinese. Most of the publications were in Russian (70) and the languages of the Russian Empire (35): 11 in Polish, 7 in Yiddish, 6 in Finnish, 5 in Ukrainian, 4 in Georgian, 2 in Armenian. 55 editions of the Manifesto were published in Germany, and in the Habsburg Empire - 9 in Hungarian and 8 in Czech (of which 3 in Croatia and one each in Slovenia and Slovakia), 34 in English (including in the USA, where the first a translation appeared in 1871), 26 in French and 11 in Italian. In addition, 7 editions were published in Bulgarian, 4 in Serbian, 4 in Romanian and one printed in Thessaloniki in Sephardic. Northern Europe was moderately represented, with 6 publications in Danish, 5 in Swedish and 2 in Norwegian.

Unexpected glory

For almost 25 years, the manifesto did not receive wide publicity. Nothing foreshadowed his success and future influence on world history. The situation was radically changed by the trial of the leaders of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, accused of high treason - Wilhelm Liebknecht, August Bebel and Adolf Hepner. In March 1872, the prosecution read out the text of the manifesto in the courtroom, which gave the Social Democrats the opportunity to publish it legally, in large numbers, as part of the proceedings. It was the 1872 edition (until that time changes were made to the document during publication) that became the basis for all subsequent versions of the manifesto.

religious question

Marx deliberately avoids religious questions in The Communist Manifesto, giving them the most insignificant place. Marx, a convinced atheist and theomachist, could cross the emotional line in religious discussions. His relationship with God was not just "strained", he was a hardened atheist and wrote blasphemous poetry. In the party manifesto, these "passions" would be excessive. Here is one of his poems in which he compares himself to Lucifer himself.

"Spells of the Desperate"

I'm left with nothing but revenge
I will raise my throne high
Cold and terrible will be its peak,
Its basis is superstitious trembling.
Master of Ceremonies! Blackest agony!
Who will look with a sane eye -
Turns away, deathly pale and numb,
Caught in a blind and cold death.

To the 168th anniversary of the publication

"Manifesto of the Communist Party" - the first and greatest programmatic document of scientific communism. Written by K. Marx and F. Engels as a program of the Union of Communists, the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" was first published in London in February 1848. In 1848, the Manifesto was also translated into a number of European languages (French, Polish, Italian, Danish, Flemish and Swedish). Subsequently, the "Manifesto" was published in other countries. The Manifesto was widely disseminated in the communist and workers' movement. F. Engels in 1890 wrote that “ the history of the "Manifesto" to a certain extent reflects the history of the modern labor movement since 1848 » ( K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., v.22, p.62).

The "Manifesto of the Communist Party" is the pinnacle of creativity of the founders of communism before the revolution of 1848. In it, for the first time, Marxism was presented in a harmonious and systematized form.

« A ghost haunts Europe - the ghost of communism ”- with these words the “Manifesto” begins. “It is time for the communists to openly state their views, their goals, their aspirations before the whole world, and to oppose the tales of the specter of communism with the manifesto of the party itself.”

In the Manifesto, Marx paints with brilliant skill a picture of the origin, development and inevitable death of capitalism and gives a detailed rationale world-historical mission of the proletariat .

Marx writes that class struggle is the driving force of historical development in class antagonistic societies .

« The history of all hitherto existing societies, - writes Marx, - has been the history of the class struggle" (later Engels will clarify: with the exception of primitive society) "Free and slave, patrician and plebeian, landowner and serf, master and journeyman, in short, oppressor and oppressed were in eternal antagonism to each other, waged an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open struggle, which always ended in a revolutionary reorganization of the whole society or in the general death of the struggling classes ».

Out of the bowels of the dead feudal society, writes Marx, came the modern bourgeois society. But it did not eliminate class contradictions. " Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, is distinguished by the fact that it has simplified class contradictions: society is more and more splitting into two large hostile camps, into two large classes facing each other - the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. ».

The discovery of America and the sea route around Africa, the penetration of the Indian and Chinese markets, the colonization of America - all this gave impetus to the development of trade, navigation, and industry. Manufactory took the place of guild craft, and steam and machine took the place of manufactory, which revolutionized industry, created a large-scale industry and a world market. Along with the development of industry and trade, new revolutionary elements developed in the depths of feudalism - the bourgeois class, which increased its capital and pushed into the background all the classes inherited from the Middle Ages.

But the bourgeoisie not only won economic domination by creating large-scale industry and a world market, but also achieved political dominance in the modern state. Marx writes: Modern state power is only a committee that manages the common affairs of the entire bourgeois class. ».

Marx exposes the essence of the modern representative state as organ of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie , protecting the interests of the exploiting class and aimed at suppressing the resistance of the oppressed classes.

"The bourgeoisie has played an extremely revolutionary role in history," continues Marx. The bourgeoisie destroyed all feudal, patriarchal relations between people and left nothing between them but naked interest, heartless "chistogan" . A doctor, a lawyer, a priest, a poet, a man of science - she turned everyone into her paid employees. The bourgeoisie reduced family relations to purely monetary relations. By exploiting the world market, it has made the production and consumption of all countries cosmopolitan. " In a word, writes Marx, she made the world for herself in her own image and likeness. ».

In less than a hundred years of its class rule, the bourgeoisie has created gigantic productive forces. The conquest of the forces of nature, machine production, the use of chemistry in industry and agriculture, shipping, railways, the electric telegraph, the development of whole parts of the world for agriculture, the adaptation of rivers for navigation, whole masses of the population, as if summoned from underground - all this, as it were magically created by the bourgeoisie.

“So,” writes Marx, “we have seen that the means of production and exchange, on the basis of which the bourgeoisie was formed, were created in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and exchange, the relations in which the production and exchange of feudal society, the feudal organization of agriculture and industry, in a word, feudal property relations, took place no longer corresponded to the developed productive forces. They slowed down production instead of developing it. They have become his shackles. They had to be broken, and they were broken.

Their place was taken by free competition, with a corresponding social and political system, with the economic and political domination of the bourgeois class ”(Lenin will later show how capitalism develops into monopoly capitalism, imperialism ).

Marx on the basis of the objective law of the development of human society discovered by him - the law of correspondence of production relations to the level of development of productive forces - shows the death of feudal society and the birth of a new, bourgeois mode of production.

But, Marx continues, a similar movement is taking place before our very eyes. Bourgeois society can no longer ensure the further progressive development of the productive forces it has created. This contradiction between bourgeois production relations and increased productive forces is expressed in crushing economic crises that shake the world economy of capitalism. .

Marx writes about bourgeois society:

“The productive forces at his disposal no longer serve the development of bourgeois property relations; on the contrary, they have become prohibitive for these relations; bourgeois relations retard their development; and when the productive forces begin to overcome these barriers, they throw the whole of bourgeois society into disarray and endanger the existence of bourgeois property relations. Bourgeois relations became too narrow to contain the wealth they created.

The weapon with which the bourgeoisie overthrew feudalism is now directed against the bourgeoisie itself.

But the bourgeoisie has not only forged weapons that bring death to them; it also gave birth to people who will use these weapons against it - modern workers, proletarians.

In these words of Marx, the main position of scientific communism is formulated about the inevitable death of capitalism and the world-historical mission of the proletariat as the grave-digger of the bourgeoisie. .

Under these conditions, the worker has no choice but to rise up in the struggle against the bourgeoisie. . First, the struggle is waged by individual workers, the workers of one factory, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. The workers direct their blows not only against bourgeois relations, but also against the tools of labor, they smash machines, set fire to factories, they try by force to restore the relations of the medieval worker.

At this stage of the struggle, the workers form a scattered and fragmented mass throughout the country. But with the development of industry, the proletariat grows in numbers and its strength grows. The clashes between workers and capitalists are increasingly taking on the character of a clash between two classes. There is an organization and rallying of workers. Local centers of struggle are gradually merging into one, national, class struggle. .

«… Every class struggle is a political struggle ».

Marx writes that the proletariat is the only fully revolutionary class . “The proletarians have nothing of their own that they need to protect, they must destroy everything that has so far protected and ensured private property.” The petty industrialist, the petty trader, the artisan and the peasant - they are all fighting the bourgeoisie in order to save their existence from destruction as the middle classes. If they are revolutionary, then insofar as they are about to pass into the ranks of the proletariat, insofar as they defend not their present, but their future interests, insofar as they leave their point of view in order to take the point of view of the proletariat. .

In the future, Lenin, based on this position of Marx, will justify his brilliant the doctrine of the alliance of the proletariat and the peasantry . Lenin will show that the petty-bourgeois strata of the population must be drawn into the building of socialism under the leadership of the proletariat on the basis of the socialist cooperation of small-scale production.

In modern conditions, the ally of the proletariat is not only the working peasantry, but also the working intelligentsia - doctors, teachers, among whom there is a large proportion of female labor .

The class struggle of the proletariat, writes Marx, eventually comes down to " to the point where it turns into an open revolution and the proletariat establishes its dominance through the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie ».

Marx summarizes: the world-historical mission of the proletariat is that it is the grave-digger of the bourgeoisie. Its death and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable. .

In the Manifesto, Marx formulates the foundations of the Marxist doctrine of the proletarian party and the dictatorship of the proletariat .

Marx writes that the communists are the most resolute part of the working class of all countries, always impelling to move forward, and theoretically they have an advantage over the rest of the mass of the proletariat in understanding the conditions, course and general results of the proletarian movement.

Marx defines the immediate tasks of the communists: the formation of the proletariat into a class, the overthrow of the rule of the bourgeoisie, the conquest of political power by the proletariat ».

Communists set themselves the goal of destroying bourgeois private property based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the majority by the minority.

« In this sense, communists can express their theory in one proposition: the abolition of private property ».

The bourgeoisie accused the communists of wanting to destroy property, to abolish freedom and the individual, to destroy the family, to abolish the fatherland.

Marx answers them:

« You are horrified that we want to destroy private property. But in your present society, private property has been destroyed for nine-tenths of its members; it exists precisely because it does not exist for nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with wanting to abolish property, which presupposes as a necessary condition the absence of property in the vast majority of society.

In a word, you reproach us that we want to destroy YOUR property. Yes, we really want to do it. ».

Abolish personality and freedom? But the bourgeoisie understands by freedom freedom of exploitation someone else's labor, under the personality - the personality of the bourgeois himself .

Destroy a family? But isn't bourgeois marriage a community of wives? " Our bourgeoisie, not content with having at their disposal the wives and daughters of their workers, not to mention official prostitution, see particular delight in seducing each other's wives. ».

Cancel the fatherland? Marx writes:

“The workers have no fatherland. They can't take away what they don't have. Since the proletariat must first of all win political domination, rise to the position of a national class” (in the English edition of 1888, instead of the words “to rise to the position of a national class”, it is printed: “ rise to the position of the nation's leading class », K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., v.4, p.444), to be constituted as a nation, he himself is still national, although not at all in the sense that the bourgeoisie understands it.

Later, Lenin warned the communists against unilateral understanding of Marx's position that the workers have no fatherland. Lenin wrote:

"AT " Communist manifesto It is said that the workers have no fatherland.

Fair. But it says Not only this is. It also says that in the formation of national states the role of the proletariat is somewhat special. If we take the first position (workers have no fatherland) and forget its connection with the second (the workers are constituted as a class nationally, but not in the sense of the bourgeoisie), then this would be arch-incorrect.

What is this connection? In my opinion, it is in the fact that democratic movement (at such a moment, in such a concrete situation), the proletariat cannot refuse to support it (and, consequently, from defending the fatherland in a national war).

Marx and Engels said in The Communist Manifesto that the workers have no fatherland. But the same Marx called to national war more than once: Marx in 1848, Engels at 18 59 (the end of his pamphlet Po and the Rhine, where national feeling of the Germans, they are directly called to war national). Engels in 1891 in view of the then threatened and impending war of France (Boulanger) + Alexander III against Germany directly recognized the "defence of the fatherland."

Were Marx and Engels confused, saying one thing today and another tomorrow? No. In my opinion, the recognition of "defence of the fatherland" in the national war quite corresponds to Marxism" ( V.I. Lenin, Soch., 4th ed., v.35, p.200-201).

Marx leaves the objections of the bourgeoisie against the communists and continues: the first step in the workers' revolution is the transformation of the proletariat into the ruling class, the conquest of democracy ».

In essence, in these words, Marx formulates the thesis about dictatorship of the proletariat . He's writing:

« The proletariat uses its political dominance to wrest all capital from the bourgeoisie step by step, to centralize all the instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e. the proletariat organized as the ruling class, and it is possible to increase the sum of the productive forces more rapidly ».

In the future communist society, along with the disappearance of class distinctions and the concentration of all production in the hands of society, political power will also disappear. The state is the organized violence of one class to suppress another.

« In place of the old bourgeois society with its classes and class antagonisms comes an association in which the free development of each is a condition for the free development of all. ».

"Manifesto" ends military call to the proletarians of all countries to unite in the struggle for the accomplishment of the communist revolution:

“Communists consider it a contemptible thing to hide their views and intentions. They openly declare that their goals can only be achieved by the violent overthrow of the entire existing social order. Let the ruling classes tremble before the Communist Revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose in it except their chains. They will gain the whole world.

Proletarians of all countries, unite!”

The creation of this first ever program of the international communist movement was the greatest creation of Marx and Engels. The "Manifesto" became the programmatic banner of the fighting proletariat for centuries. The Manifesto, when read, makes an indelible impression. Incredibly bright and accessible, Marx outlined his main conclusions and ideas, which he came to before the revolution of 1848. The program provisions of communism outlined in the Manifesto, despite the fact that more than a hundred and fifty years have passed since its publication, are just as alive and in demand today , are the guiding document for all communists. "Manifesto" - a reference book for every fighter who dedicated his life to the struggle for the liberation of the working class .

Grigory Paveliev

In February 1848, the Manifesto of the Communist Party was published. It was the first program and at the same time a militant appeal of an international organization based on the principles of scientific communism. As V.I. Lenin, this little booklet is worth whole volumes: "the entire organized and fighting proletariat of the civilized world still lives and moves in its spirit."

A ghost wandered through Europe

LET'S read again the poetic, penetrating, dignified, and convinced tocsin lines of the Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: “A ghost roams Europe - the ghost of communism. All the forces of old Europe have united for the sacred persecution of this ghost: the pope and the tsar, Metternich and Guizot, the French radicals and the German policemen.

Yes, in 1848 there were very few in Europe, only a few hundred people who had risen to the realization of the historical role of the proletariat. They had to work underground, gathering furtively, in small groups. Yes, only a few voices in 1848 responded to the call "Proletarians of all countries, unite!". But, as F. Engels wrote in the preface to the German edition of the Manifesto in 1890, “at present, it (“Manifesto.” - A.P.) is undoubtedly the most widespread, most international work of all socialist literature, general program of many millions of workers in all countries from Siberia to California.

A hundred years have passed. In the 90s of the last century, I came across many articles, brochures, books that presented communism as a kind of historical accident, amok (an attack of madness), which, thank God, has ended.

Another twenty-five years have passed. It turned out that communism is alive! This is not even a ghost, but an influential ideology and political movement.

In the 167 years that have passed since the publication of the Manifesto, there have been quite a few people who have united in the "holy persecution" of the communist movement. Following the pope (then it was Pius IX), the tsar (Nicholas I), Bismarck, the author of the "exceptional law" against the socialists, and Hitler, the most aggressive hater of the humanistic ideology of communism and the bloodthirsty theorist and practitioner of anti-communism, the liberal Churchill and Fascist Mussolini. Then this "sacred mission" was accepted with pleasure by American presidents - from Truman to Obama.

Well, in Russia, the great-grandson of Nicholas I, Nicholas II, earned himself fame on the fields of war with the communist idea. A hundred years later, in the 90s of the 20th century, the shifter Yeltsin and the whole pack of de-communizers, de-Stalinizers, etc., who inherited him, showed themselves here.

With hope for the working class

And now let us trace the fate of the social ideas and forecasts set forth in the Manifesto.

“The history of all hitherto existing societies has been the history of class struggle,” wrote Marx and Engels. Actually, they did not discover the class struggle. Plato also noted that in any state "there are always two states hostile to each other: one is the state of the poor, the other is the state of the rich." And a number of French historians of the Restoration period (1815 - 1830) considered the class struggle the key to understanding the whole history of France.

The discovery of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels consists primarily in substantiating the world-historical role of the working class. The Manifesto shows the history of the development and struggle of the proletariat since the formation of bourgeois society. I emphasize: not only development, but also struggle. After all, many thinkers and writers of the 19th and early 20th centuries showed the working class suffering and oppressed, but almost no one was fighting. In reality, the proletariat passes through various stages of development. "His struggle against the bourgeoisie begins with his existence."

One of the first organized forms of workers' struggle against exploitation was the Luddite movement in England. The Luddites destroyed machines and factory buildings, believing that technology was the cause of their disasters, including unemployment and famine. However, some of the Luddites believed that by destroying the machines they were striking at the property of the capitalists, and therefore they hoped to force the manufacturers to make concessions.

The workers created secret organizations and nominated leaders from their ranks. One of these leaders of the resistance of the British workers, Medgerson, is shown in the book of Soviet writers R. Shtilmark and

V. Vasilevsky "Heir from Calcutta". Here is how he described himself:

“I am fifty years old, and I gave twenty of them to the struggle for the truth. I'm still remembered in Lancashire. There the poor showed me the honor: I was elected to the first strike committee fourteen years ago. For this I was sentenced to death, but the workers attacked the police cart and snatched us, the five convicts, from the hands of the executioners. Then I moved to Spitfield, near London. For almost ten years we fought there for our rights... Soldiers shot at us - we did not give up. Many were seized and hanged…”

The English Parliament passed a law on the death penalty for damage to cars. What kind of liberals are humanists after all!

The Luddite movement was mercilessly suppressed by the troops. But the struggle of the working class continued. In France and Germany it took the form of armed uprisings. Lyon revolt of 1831. Then the Lyon uprising of 1834, when the workers for the first time put forward not only economic - wage increases - but also political demands. For the first time in history, they marched under the red banner. And finally, the June uprising of the workers in Paris in 1848, four months after the publication of the Manifesto. These uprisings showed that the proletariat in Europe had declared itself as an independent political force.

The working class, Marx and Engels argued, is not only capable of independent struggle for its interests within the framework of bourgeois society. He must become the "gravedigger" of this society. The historical task of the proletariat is to replace the capitalist system with a socialist system by revolution. “Of all the classes that now oppose the bourgeoisie,” wrote the authors of the Communist Manifesto, “only the proletariat is a truly revolutionary class ... The proletarian has no property: his attitude towards his wife and children has nothing in common with bourgeois family relations ; Modern industrial labour, the modern yoke of capital, the same in England as in France, as in America as in Germany, has wiped out all national character from him. Laws, morality, religion - all this for him is nothing more than bourgeois prejudices, behind which bourgeois interests are hidden.

Property is the master key of all problems

And now let's move on to the main thing. How did the working class and its advanced representatives, the communists, treat property, family, fatherland then, at the time of writing the Manifesto? How do we, communists of the 21st century, solve these problems?

Let's start with property relations. We read in the Manifesto: "Communists can express their theory in one proposition: the abolition of private property." The authors of the first communist program propose specific measures for this. They emphasize: “The proletariat uses its political dominance in order to wrest all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all the instruments of production in the hands of the state... This can, of course, happen at first only with the help of despotic interference in the right to property and in bourgeois production relations...”

It is noteworthy that when Marx and Engels outline ten specific measures that the proletariat of the advanced countries will take after they come to power, seven of them concern property relations:

1. Expropriation of landed property and conversion of land rent to cover government spending.

2. High progressive tax.

3. Cancellation of the right to inherit.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state through a national bank with state capital and with an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralization of all transport in the hands of the state.

7. Increase in the number of state factories.

To some, point 3 will seem strange: the abolition of the right to inherit. But after all, back in the 17th century it was preached in the theory of "labor property" by the founder of liberalism, John Locke. Proclaiming property inviolable and sacred, he assured that the bourgeois has the right only to the property that he himself created by the labor of his hands and head. Marx and Engels really relied on all the richness of the previous social thought of mankind.

The measures proposed by Marx and Engels, which contribute to a radical change in property relations, were continued and developed in the work of V.I. Lenin's "Impending catastrophe and how to deal with it", and then were largely repeated in the anti-crisis program of the Communist Party.

Our cause is just, victory will be ours

The "Manifesto of the Communist Party" began with sublimely poetic lines.

As F. Mehring rightly remarked, "Marx could compete with the best masters of German literature in the strength and imagery of language." With no less force, it ends:

“Communists consider it contemptible to hide their intentions. They openly declare that their goals can be achieved by the violent overthrow of the entire existing social order. Let the ruling classes tremble before the Communist Revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose in it but their chains. They will gain the whole world.

Proletarians of all countries, unite!”

And then I hear the voice of the reader: and where is this communist revolution of yours? I answer: the one that Marx and Engels wrote about in the Manifesto in 1848 began 70 years later. In 1917 in Russia. And the ruling classes of all bourgeois countries really shuddered before it, not to mention the ruling classes of the bourgeois-landlord Russian Empire.

Why did the Great October Socialist Revolution win? Its success was determined primarily by the fact that the prerequisites for it were ripe in Russia: economic, class and political contradictions became extremely aggravated. It makes sense to add psychological prerequisites to them. Under the conditions of a world war, when millions of soldiers were killed and maimed at the front, tens of millions of working people suffered from hunger and deprivation in the rear, when the poverty of the masses assumed horrendous proportions, the workers and peasants had the feeling that they had nothing to lose but their chains. It multiplied the strength of the people tenfold and helped them to win in 1917.

After 73 years, the counter-revolution won in Russia. How long?

As a result of the bourgeois counter-revolution and the restoration of capitalism, the country ended up in the hands of private individuals - firstly, tycoon oligarchs, whose names are widely known, and secondly, smaller owners, such as the owners of the Dmitrov Trikotazh enterprise where I work.

The working class of the Soviet Union has again become the proletariat of bourgeois Russia exploited by the capitalists. It does not matter that a worker may own an apartment, a dacha, a car. In order to have a livelihood and pay, say, a property tax, he is forced to sell his labor force. In production, each of us falls into a petty and often humiliating dependence on the owner and his representatives - the director, etc. The workers at my enterprise say so: "We are slaves." The exploitation of workers is growing due to the fact that the staff is reduced, and the duties of the dismissed are distributed among the remaining ones. An increase in the intensity of labor does not lead to any increase in wages. All this serves only one thing: the profit of the rich, those 10% of the population who own 80% of the national wealth.

A program for the modern proletariat

It seems that the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" was written by Marx and Engels about modern Russia. Read here:

“When the exploitation of the worker by the manufacturer ends and the worker finally receives his wages in cash, other parts of the bourgeoisie—the house owner, the shopkeeper, the usurer, etc.—pounce on him.”

In our time, the same homeowner “attacks” the worker (payment for housing and communal services, overhaul, etc.). And along with it, retail chains, banks and, alas, medical institutions, which also became part of the bourgeois system, etc. etc. We, the workers, have been deprived of public property, social guarantees have been taken away, the respect that the working people enjoyed in Soviet times has been taken away. I, like the people around me, have the feeling that we really have nothing to lose, that the country, and we, along with it, are heading to a dead end.

It is not true that the proletariat is absolutely passive. Pockets of resistance appear more and more often, Pravda constantly writes about them.

Let's remember the words of the Manifesto:

“First the struggle is waged by individual workers, then by the workers of one factory, then by the workers of one branch of labor in one locality against an individual bourgeois ...”

We have recently raised the workers of one industry - truck drivers. Against one bourgeois - Rotenberg. And soon this protest went beyond the struggle against one capitalist.

The Manifesto was enthusiastically received by the then small vanguard of scientific socialism. Moreover, with the defeat of the uprising of the Parisian workers in 1848, he faded into the background.

After the reaction caused by the defeat of the European revolution of 1848, the labor movement began to rise in the 1860s, culminating in the creation of the First International in 1864. Then the defeat of the heroic Paris Commune in 1871 and again the onset of reaction. Dissolution of the First International in 1876.

The rise of the labor movement and the creation of mass social democratic parties in European countries in the last third of the 19th century. Creation of the Second International (1889). On the eve of the First World War, the International had become a formidable force. And - the collapse of the Second International due to the betrayal of its leadership (1914).

The socialist revolution in Russia in 1917, the building of socialism in the USSR, the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, the creation of the world socialist system, the development of the international communist movement - and the catastrophe of the 1990s.

What do we see? Following defeats, sometimes very serious, catastrophic, comes the inevitable rise in the influence of the ideas of the Manifesto, the rise of the workers' movement.

What are the tasks of the communists now in putting into practice the ideas of the "Communist Manifesto"?

I think we should first get the requirements of the truckers. It is necessary to lead the struggle of the proletariat and, as the Manifesto says, "do away with your own bourgeoisie."

Let the ruling classes tremble before the coming communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose in it but their chains. They will gain the whole world. And I don't agree to anything less.

Proletarians of all countries, unite!

Communist Manifesto 1848. Alignment with the "Communist Manifesto"! Property is the master key of all problems

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