| Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei Karl Marx (1848) | |||
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| 共產黨宣言 | The Communist Manifesto | ||
| 一、資產者和無產者[1] | I. BOURGEOIS AND PROLETARIANS | ||
| 到目前為止的一切社會的歷史[2]都是階級鬥爭的歷史。 自由民和奴隸、貴族和平民、領主和農奴、行會師傅[3]和幫工，一句話，壓迫者和被壓迫者，始終處於相互對立的地位，進行不斷的、有時隱蔽有時公開的鬥爭，而每一次鬥爭的結局都是整個社會受到革命改造或者鬥爭的各階級同歸於盡。 在過去的各個歷史時代，我們幾乎到處都可以看到社會完全劃分為各個不同的等級，看到由各種社會地位構成的多級的階梯。在古羅馬，有貴族、騎士、平民、奴隸，在中世紀，有封建領主、陪臣、行會師傅、幫工、農奴，而且幾乎在每一個階級內部又有各種獨特的等第。 從封建社會的滅亡中產生出來的現代資產階級社會並沒有消滅階級對立。它只是用新的階級、新的壓迫條件、新的鬥爭形式代替了舊的。 但是，我們的時代，資產階級時代，卻有一個特點：它使階級對立簡單化了。整個社會日益分裂為兩大敵對的陣營，分裂為兩大相互直接對立的階級：資產階級和無產階級。 從中世紀的農奴中產生了初期城市的城關市民；從這個市民等級中發展出最初的資產階級分子。 美洲的發現、繞過非洲的航行，給新興的資產階級開闢了新的活動場所。東印度和中國的市場、美洲的殖民化、對殖民地的貿易、交換手段和一般的商品的增加，使商業、航海業和工業空前高漲，因而使正在崩潰的封建社會內部的革命因素迅速發展。 以前那種封建的或行會的工業經營方式已經不能滿足隨著新市場的出現而增加的需求了。工場手工業代替了這種經營方式。行會師傅被工業的中間等級排擠掉了；各種行業組合之間的分工隨著各個作坊內部的分工的出現而消失了。 但是，市場總是在擴大，需求總是在增加。甚至工場手工業也不再能滿足需要了。於是，蒸汽和機器引起了工業生產的革命。現代大工業代替了工場手工業；工業中的百萬富翁，整批整批產業軍的統領，現代資產者，代替了工業的中間等級。 大工業建立了由美洲的發現所準備好的世界市場。世界市場使商業、航海業和陸路交通得到了巨大的發展。這種發展又反過來促進了工業的擴展，同時，工業、商業、航海業和鐵路愈是擴展，資產階級也愈是發展，愈是增加自己的資本，愈是把中世紀遺留下來的一切階級都排擠到後面去。 由此可見，現代資產階級本身是一個長期發展過程的產物，是生產方式和交換方式的一系列變革的產物。 資產階級的這種發展的每一個階段，都有相應的政治上的成就[4]伴隨著。它在封建領主統治下是被壓迫的等級，在公社[5]裡是武裝的和自治的團體，在一些地方組成獨立的城市共和國[6]，在另一些地方組成君主國中的納稅的第三等級[7]，後來，在工場手工業時期，它是等級制君主國或專制君主國中同貴族抗衡的勢力，甚至是大君主國的主要基礎；最後，從大工業和世界市場建立的時候起，它在現代的代議制國家裡奪得了獨占的政治統治。現代的國家政權不過是管理整個資產階級的共同事務的委員會罷了。 資產階級在歷史上曾經起過非常革命的作用。 資產階級在它已經取得了統治的地方把一切封建的、宗法的和田園詩般的關係都破壞了。它無情地斬斷了把人們束縛於天然首長的形形色色的封建羈絆，它使人和人之間除了赤裸裸的利害關係，除了冷酷無情的「現金交易」，就再也沒有任何別的聯係了。它把宗教的虔誠、騎士的熱忱、小市民的傷感這些情感的神聖激發，淹沒在利己主義打算的冰水之中。它把人的尊嚴變成了交換價值，用一種沒有良心的貿易自由代替了無數特許的和自力掙得的自由。總而言之，它用公開的、無恥的、直接的、露骨的剝削代替了由宗教幻想和政治幻想掩蓋著的剝削。 資產階級抹去了一切向來受人尊崇和令人敬畏的職業的靈光。它把醫生、律師、教士、詩人和學者變成了它出錢招雇的雇傭勞動者。 資產階級撕下了罩在家庭關係上的溫情脈脈的面紗，把這種關係變成了純粹的金錢關係。 資產階級揭示了，在中世紀深受反動派稱許的好勇鬥狠，是以懶散怠惰作為它的相應的補充的。它第一次証明了，人的活動能夠取得什麼樣的成就。它創造了完全不同於埃及金字塔、羅馬水道和哥德式教堂的奇蹟；它完成了完全不同於民族大遷移和十字軍東征的遠征。 資產階級除非使生產工具，從而使生產關係，從而使全部社會關係不斷地革命化，否則就不能生存下去。反之，原封不動地保持舊的生產方式，卻是過去的一切工業階級生存的首要條件。生產的不斷變革，一切社會關係不停的動蕩，永遠的不安定和變動，這就是資產階級時代不同於過去[8]一切時代的地方。一切固定的古老的關係以及與之相適應的素被尊崇的觀念和見解都被消除了，一切新形成的關係等不到固定下來就陳舊了。一切固定的東西都煙消雲散了，一切神聖的東西都被褻瀆了。人們終於不得不用冷靜的眼光來看他們的生活地位、他們的相互關係。 不斷擴大產品銷路的需要，驅使資產階級奔走於全球各地。它必須到處落戶，到處創業，到處建立聯係。 資產階級，由於開拓了世界市場，使一切國家的生產和消費都成為世界性的了。不管反動派怎樣惋惜，資產階級還是挖掉了工業腳下的民族基礎。古老的民族工業被消滅了，並且每天都還在被消滅。它們被新的工業排擠掉了，新的工業的建立已經成為一切文明民族的生命攸關的問題；這些工業所加工的，已經不是本地的原料，而是來自極其遙遠的地區的原料；它們的產品不僅供本國消費，而且同時供世界各地消費。舊的、靠國產品來滿足的需要，被新的、要靠極其遙遠的國家和地帶的產品來滿足的需要所代替了。過去那種地方的和民族的自給自足和閉關自守狀態，被各民族的各方面的互相往來和各方面的互相依賴所代替了。物質的生產是如此，精神的生產也是如此。各民族的精神產品成了公共的財產。民族的片面性和局限性日益成為不可能，於是由許多種民族的和地方的文學形成了一種世界的文學[9]。 資產階級，由於一切生產工具的迅速改進，由於交通的極其便利，把一切民族甚至最野蠻的民族都捲到文明中來了。它的商品的低廉價格，是它用來摧毀一切萬里長城、征服野蠻人最頑強的仇外心理的重炮。它迫使一切民族──如果它們不想滅亡的話──採用資產階級的生產方式；它迫使它們在自己那裡推行所謂文明制度，即變成資產者。一句話，它按照自己的面貌為自己創造出一個世界。 資產階級使鄉村屈服於城市的統治。它創立了巨大的城市，使城市人口比農村人口大大增加起來，因而使很大一部分居民脫離了鄉村生活的愚昧狀態。正像它使鄉村從屬於城市一樣，它使未開化和半開化的國家從屬於文明的國家，使農民的民族從屬於資產階級的民族，使東方從屬於西方。 資產階級日甚一日地消滅生產資料、財產和人口的分散狀態。它使人口密集起來，使生產資料集中起來，使財產聚集在少數人的手裡。由此必然產生的後果就是政治的集中。各自獨立的、幾乎只有同盟關係的、各有不同利益、不同法律、不同政府、不同關稅的各個地區，現在已經結合為一個擁有統一的政府、統一的法律、統一的民族階級利益和統一的關稅的國家了。 資產階級在它的不到一百年的階級統治中所創造的生產力，比過去一切世代創造的全部生產力還要多，還要大。自然力的征服，機器的採用，化學在工業和農業中的應用，輪船的行駛，鐵路的通行，電報的使用，整個整個大陸的開墾，河川的通航，仿佛用法術從地下呼喚出來的大量人口，──過去哪一個世紀能夠料想到有這樣的生產力潛伏在社會勞動裡呢？ 由此可見，資產階級賴以形成的生產資料和交換手段，是在封建社會裡造成的。在這些生產資料和交換手段發展的一定階段上，封建社會的生產和交換在其中進行的關係，封建的農業和工業組織，一句話，封建的所有制關係，就不再適應已經發展的生產力了。這種關係已經在阻礙生產而不是促進生產了[10]。它變成了束縛生產的桎梏。它必須被打破，而且果然被打破了。 起而代之的是自由競爭以及與自由競爭相適應的社會制度和政治制度、資產階級的經濟統治和政治統治。 現在，我們眼前又進行著類似的運動。資產階級的生產關係和交換關係，資產階級的所有制關係，這個曾經仿佛用法術創造了如此龐大的生產資料和交換手段的現代資產階級社會現在像一個巫師那樣不能再支配自己用符咒呼喚出來的魔鬼了。幾十年來的工業和商業的歷史，只不過是現代生產力反抗現代生產關係、反抗作為資產階級及其統治的存在條件的所有制關係的歷史。要証明這一點，只要指出在周期性的循環中愈來愈危及整個資產階級社會生存的商業危機就夠了。在商業危機期間，總是不僅有很大一部分製成的產品被毀滅掉，而且有很大一部分已經造成的生產力被毀滅掉。在危機期間，發生一種在過去一切時代看來都好像是荒唐現象的社會瘟疫，即生產過剩的瘟疫。社會突然發現自己回到了一時的野蠻狀態，仿佛是一次飢荒、一場普遍的毀滅性戰爭，吞噬了社會的全部生活資料，仿佛是工業和商業全被毀滅了，──這是什麼緣故呢？因為社會上文明過度，生活資料太多，工業和商業太發達。社會所擁有的生產力已經不能再促進資產階級文明和[11]資產階級所有制關係的發展，相反，生產力已經強大到這種關係所不能適應的地步，它已經受到這種關係的阻礙；而它一著手克服這種障礙，就使整個資產階級社會陷入混亂，就使資產階級所有制的存在受到威脅。資產階級的關係已經太狹窄了，再容納不了它本身所造成的財富了。──資產階級用什麼辦法來克服這種危機呢？一方面不得不消滅大量生產力，另一方面奪取新的市場，更加徹底地利用舊的市場。這究竟是怎樣的一種辦法呢？這不過是資產階級準備更全面更猛烈的危機的辦法，不過是使防止危機的手段愈來愈少的辦法。 資產階級用來推翻封建制度的武器，現在卻對準資產階級自己了。 但是，資產階級不僅鍛造了置自身於死地的武器；它還產生了將要運用這種武器的人──現代的工人，即無產者。 資產階級即資本愈發展，無產階級即現代工人階級也在同一程度上跟著發展；現代的工人只有當他們找到工作的時候才能生存，而且只有當他們的勞動增殖資本的時候才能找到工作。這些不得不把自己零星出賣的工人，像其他任何貨物一樣，也是一種商品，所以他們同樣地受到競爭方面的一切變化的影響，受到市場方面的一切波動的影響。 由於機器的推廣和分工的發展，無產者的勞動已經失去了任何獨立的性質，因而也失去了對工人的任何吸引力。工人變成了機器的單純的附屬品，要求他做的只是極其簡單、極其單調和極容易學會的操作。因此，花在工人身上的費用，幾乎只限於維持工人生活和延續工人後代所必需的生活資料。但是，商品的價格，從而勞動的價格[12]，是同它的生產費用相等的。因此，勞動愈使人感到厭惡，工資也就愈減少。不僅如此，機器愈推廣，分工愈細致，勞動量也就愈增加，這或者是由於工作時間的延長，或者是由於在一定時間內所要求的勞動量的增加，機器運轉的加速，等等。 現代工業已經把家長式的師傅的小作坊變成了工業資本家的大工廠。擠在工廠裡的工人群眾就像士兵一樣被組織起來。他們是產業軍的普通士兵，受著各級軍士和軍官的層層監視。他們不僅是資產階級的、資產階級國家的奴隸，並且每日每時都受機器、受監工、首先是受各個廠主資產者本人的奴役。這種專制制度愈是公開地把發財致富宣布為自己的最終[13]目的，它就愈是可鄙、可恨和可惡。 手的操作所要求的技巧和氣力愈少，換句話說，現代工業愈發達，男工也就愈受到女工的排擠[14]。對工人階級來說，性別和年齡的差別再沒有什麼社會意義了。他們都只是勞動工具，不過因為年齡和性別的不同而需要不同的費用罷了。 當廠主對工人的剝削告一段落，工人領到了用現錢支付的工資的時候，馬上就有資產階級中的另一部分人──房東、店主、當鋪老板等等向他們捕來。 以前的中間等級的下層，即小工業家、小商人和小食利者，手工業者和農民──所有這些階級都降落到無產階級的隊伍裡來了，有的是因為他們的小資本不足以經營大工業，經不起較大的資本家的競爭；有的是因為他們的手藝已經被新的生產方法弄得一錢不值了。無產階級的隊伍就是這樣從居民的所有階級中得到補充的。 無產階級經歷了各個不同的發展階段。它反對資產階級的鬥爭是和它的存在同時開始的。 最初是個別的工人，然後是某一工廠的工人，然後是某一地方的某一勞動部門的工人，同直接剝削他們的個別資產者作鬥爭。他們不僅僅攻擊資產階級的生產關係，他們攻擊生產工具本身[15]；他們毀壞那些來競爭的外國商品，搗毀機器，燒毀工廠，力圖恢復已經失去的中世紀工人的地位。 在這個階段上，工人們還是分散在全國各地並為競爭所分裂的群眾。廣大工人群眾的團結，還不是他們自己聯合的結果，而是資產階級聯合的結果，當時資產階級為了達到自己的政治目的必須而且暫時還能夠把整個無產階級發動起來。因此，在這個階段上，無產者不是同自己的敵人作鬥爭，而是同自己的敵人的敵人作鬥爭，即同君主專制的殘餘、地主、非工業資產者和小資產者作鬥爭。因此，整個歷史運動都集中在資產階級手裡；在這種條件下取得的每一個勝利都是資產階級的勝利。 但是，隨著工業的發展，無產階級不僅人數增加了，而且它結合成更大的集體，它的力量日益增長，它愈來愈感覺到自己的力量。機器使勞動的差別愈來愈小，使工資幾乎到處都降到同樣低的水平，因而無產階級的利益和生活狀況也愈來愈趨於一致。資產者彼此間日益加劇的競爭以及由此引起的商業危機，使工人的工資愈來愈不穩定；機器的日益迅速的和繼續不斷的改良，使工人的整個生活地位愈來愈沒有保障；個別工人和個別資產者之間的衝突愈來愈具有兩個階級的衝突的性質。工人開始成立反對資產者的同盟[16]；他們聯合起來保衛自己的工資。他們甚至建立了經常性的團體，以便一旦發生衝突在生活上有所保障。有些地方，鬥爭轉變為起義。 工人有時也得到勝利，但這種勝利只是暫時的。他們鬥爭的真正成果並不是直接取得的成功，而是工人的愈來愈擴大的團結。這種團結由於大工業所造成的日益發達的交通工具而得到發展，這種交通工具把各地的工人彼此聯係起來。只要有了這種聯係，就能把許多性質相同的地方性的鬥爭匯合成全國性的鬥爭，匯合成階級鬥爭。而一切階級鬥爭都是政治鬥爭。中世紀的市民靠鄉間小道需要幾百年才能達到的團結，現代的無產者利用鐵路只要幾年就可以達到了。 無產者組織成為階級，從而組織成為政黨這件事，不斷地由於工人的自相競爭而受到破壞。但是，這種組織總是一次又一次地重新產生，並且一次比一次更強大，更堅固，更有力。它利用資產階級內部的分裂，迫使他們用法律形式承認工人的個別利益。英國的十小時工作日法案就是一個例子。 一般說來，舊社會內部的衝突在許多方面都促進了無產階級的發展。資產階級處於不斷的鬥爭中：最初是反對貴族，後來又反對其利益同工業進步相矛盾的一部分資產階級，並且經常反對一切外國的資產階級。在這一切鬥爭中，資產階級都不得不向無產階級呼籲，要求無產階級援助，這樣就把無產階級捲進了政治運動。於是，資產階級自己就把自己的教育因素[17]即反對自身的武器給予了無產階級。 其次，我們已經看到，工業的進步把統治階級中的整個整個的階層拋到無產階級隊伍裡去，或者至少也使他們的生活條件受到威脅。他們也給無產階級帶來了大量的教育因素[18]。 最後，在階級鬥爭接近決戰的時期，統治階級內部的、整個舊社會內部的瓦解過程，就達到非常強烈、非常尖銳的程度，甚至使得統治階級中的一小部份人脫離統治階級而歸附於革命的階級，即掌握著未來的階級。所以，正像過去貴族中有一部份人轉到資產階級方面一樣，現在資產階級中也有一部份人，特別是已經提高到從理論上認識整個歷史運動這一水平的一部分資產階級思想家，轉到無產階級方面來了。 在當前同資產階級對立的一切階級中，只有無產階級是真正革命的階級。其餘的階級都隨著大工業的發展而日趨沒落和滅亡，無產階級卻是大工業本身的產物。 中間等級，即小工業家、小商人、手工業者、農民，他們同資產階級作鬥爭，都是為了維護他們這種中間等級的生存，以免於滅亡。所以，他們不是革命的，而是保守的。不僅如此，他們甚至是反動的，因為他們力圖使歷史的車輪倒轉。如果說他們是革命的，那是鑒於他們行將轉入無產階級的隊伍，這樣，他們就不是維護他們目前的利益，而是維護他們將來的利益，他們就離開自己原來的立場，而站到無產階級的立場上來。 流氓無產階級是舊社會最下層中消極的腐化的部分，他們有時也被無產階級革命卷到運動裡來，但是，由於他們的整個生活狀況，他們更甘心於被人收買，去幹反動的勾當。 舊社會的生活條件在無產階級的生活條件中已經被消滅了。無產者是沒有財產的；他們和妻子兒女的關係同資產階級的家庭關係再沒有共同之處了，現代的工業勞動，現代的資本壓迫，無論在英國或法國，無論在美國或德國，都是一樣的，都使無產者失去了任何民族性。法律、道德、宗教，在他們看來全都是掩蓋資產階級利益的資產階級偏見。 過去一切階級在爭得統治之後，總是使整個社會服從於它們發財致富的條件，企圖以此來鞏固它們已經獲得的生活地位。無產者只有消滅自己的現存的占有方式，從而消滅全部現存的占有方式，才能取得社會生產力。無產者沒有什麼自己的東西必須加以保護，他們必須摧毀至今保護和保障私有財產的一切。 過去的一切運動都是少數人的或者為少數人謀利益的運動。無產階級的運動是絕大多數人的、為絕大多數人謀利益的[19]獨立的運動。無產階級，現今社會的最下層，如果不炸毀構成官方社會的整個上層，就不能抬起頭來，挺起胸來。 如果不就內容而就形式來說，無產階級反對資產階級的鬥爭首先是一國範圍內的鬥爭。每一個國家的無產階級當然首先應該打倒本國的資產階級。 在敘述無產階級發展的最一般的階段的時候，我們循序探討了現存社會內部或多或少隱蔽著的國內戰爭，直到這個戰爭轉變為公開的革命，無產階級用暴力推翻資產階級而建立自己的統治。 我們已經看到，到目前為止的一切社會都是建立在壓迫階級和被壓迫階級的對立之上的。但是，為了有可能壓迫一個階級，就必須保証這個階級至少有能夠維持它的奴隸般的生存的條件。農奴曾經在農奴制度下掙扎到公社社員的地位，小資產者曾經在封建專制制度的束縛下掙扎到資產者的地位。現代的工人卻相反，他們並不是隨著工業的進步而上升，而是愈來愈降到本階級的生存條件以下。工人變成赤貧者，貧困比人口和財富增長得還要快。由此可以明顯地看出，資產階級再不能做社會的統治階級了，再不能把自己階級的生存條件當做支配一切的規律強加於社會了。資產階級不能統治下去了，因為它甚至不能保証自己的奴隸維持奴隸的生活，因為它不得不讓自己的奴隸落到不能養活它反而要它來養活的地步。社會再不能在它統治下生活下去了，就是說，它的存在不再同社會相容了。 資產階級生存和統治的根本條件，是財富在私人手裡的積累，是資本的形成和增殖[20]，資本的生存條件是雇傭勞動。雇傭勞動完全是建立在工人的自相競爭之上的。資產階級無意中造成而又無力抵抗的工業進步，使工人通過聯合而達到的革命團結代替了他們由於競爭而造成的分散狀態。於是，隨著大工業的發展，資產階級賴以生產和占有產品的基礎本身也就從它的腳下被挖掉了。它首先生產的是它自身的掘墓人。資產階級的滅亡和無產階級的勝利是同樣不可避免的。 [2] 確切地說，這是指有文字記載的歷史。在1847年，社會的史前狀態，全部成文史以前的社會組織，幾乎還完全沒有人知道。後來，哈克斯特豪森發現了俄國的土地公有制，毛勒証明了這種所有制是一切條頓族的歷史發展所由起始的社會基礎，而且人們逐漸發現，土地公有的村社是從印度起到愛爾蘭止各地社會的原始形態。最後，摩爾根發現了氏族的真正本質及其對部落的關係，這一卓絕發現把這種原始共產主義社會的內部組織的典型形式揭示出來了。隨著這種原始公社的解體，社會開始分裂為各個獨特的、終於彼此對立的階級。關於這個解體過程，我曾經試圖在《家庭、私有制和國家的起源》（1886年斯圖加特第2版）中加以探討。（恩格斯在1888年英文版上加的註。在1890年德文版中刪去了這個註的最後一句話。） [3] 行會師傅就是在行會中享有全權的會員，是行會內部的師傅，而不是行會的首領。（恩格斯在1888年英文版上加的註） [4] 「相應的政治上的成就」在1888年英文版中是：「這個階級的相應的政治上的成就」。──譯者註 [5] 法國的新興城市，甚至在它們從封建領主手裡爭得地方自治和「第三等級」的政治權利以前，就已經稱為「公社」了。一般說來，這裡是把英國當做資產階級經濟發展的典型國家，而把法國當做資產階級政治發展的典型國家。（恩格斯在1888年英文版上加的註） 義大利和法國的市民，從他們的封建領主手中買得或爭得最初的自治權以後，就把自己的城市共同體稱為「公社」。（恩格斯在1890年德文版上加的註） [6] 在1888年英文版中這裡加上了：「（例如在義大利和德國）」。──譯者註 [7] 在1888年英文版中這裡加上了：「（例如在法國）」。──譯者註 [8] 「過去，在1890年德文版中是：「其他」。──譯者註 [9] 這句話中的「文學」（Literatur）一詞是指科學、藝術、哲學等等方面的書面著作。──譯者註 [10] 在1888年英文版中沒有這句話。──譯者註 [11] 在1872、1883和1890年德文版中刪去了：「資產階級文明和」。──譯者註 [12] 在比較後期的各種著作中，馬克思和恩格斯用「勞動力的價值」和「勞動力的價格」等等比較確切的概念（這是由馬克思開始採用的）分別代替了「勞動的價值」和「勞動的價格」等等概念。 [13] 在1890年德文版中刪去了：「最終」。──譯者註 [14] 「受到女工的排擠」在1848年第一個德文版（2月出版的二十三頁本）中是：「受到女工和童工的排擠」。──譯者註 [15] 這句話在1888年英文版中是：「他們不是攻擊資產階級的生產關係，而是攻 擊生產工具本身」。──譯者註 [16] 在1888年英文版中這裡加上了：「（工聯）」。──譯者註 [17] 「教育因素」在1888年英文版中是：「政治教育和普通教育的因素」。──譯者註 [18] 「大量的教育因素」在1888年英文版中是：「啟蒙和進步的新因素」。──譯者註 [19] 在1888年英文版中這裡加上了：「自覺的」。──譯者註 [20] 這句話在1888年英文版中是：「資產階級生存和統治的根本條件是資本的形成和增殖。──譯者註 | The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations. The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes, directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed. The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development. The feudal system of industry, under which industrial production was monopolised by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The guild-masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle class; division of labour between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labour in each single workshop. Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even manufacture no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery revolutionised industrial production. The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, Modern Industry, the place of the industrial middle class, by industrial millionaires, the leaders of whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois. Modern industry has established the world-market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in its time, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages. We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange. Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class. An oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility, an armed and self-governing association in the mediaeval commune; here independent urban republic (as in Italy and Germany), there taxable “third estate” of the monarchy (as in France), afterwards, in the period of manufacture proper, serving either the semi-feudal or the absolute monarchy as a counterpoise against the nobility, and, in fact, corner-stone of the great monarchies in general, the bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of Modern Industry and of the world-market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part. The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors,” and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment.” It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless and indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom—Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation. The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers. The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation. The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigour in the Middle Ages, which Reactionists so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It has been the first to show what man’s activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades. The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind. The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere. The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world-market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the productions of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature. The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, _i.e_., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image. The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West. The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralisation. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier and one customs-tariff. The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground—what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour? We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organisation of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder. Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted to it, and by the economical and political sway of the bourgeois class. A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeoisie and of its rule. It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put on its trial, each time more threateningly, the existence of the entire bourgeois society. In these crises a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity—the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand inforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented. The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself. But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons—the modern working class—the proletarians. In proportion as the bourgeoisie, _i.e_., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed—a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piece-meal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market. Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for his maintenance, and for the propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labour, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by increase of the work exacted in a given time or by increased speed of the machinery, etc. Modern industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organised like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the over-looker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is. The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labour, in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labour of men superseded by that of women. Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex. No sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, so far at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc. The lower strata of the middle class—the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants—all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered worthless by the new methods of production. Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population. The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first the contest is carried on by individual labourers, then by the workpeople of a factory, then by the operatives of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labour, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status of the workman of the Middle Ages. At this stage the labourers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition. If anywhere they unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet the consequence of their own active union, but of the union of the bourgeoisie, which class, in order to attain its own political ends, is compelled to set the whole proletariat in motion, and is moreover yet, for a time, able to do so. At this stage, therefore, the proletarians do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial bourgeois, the petty bourgeoisie. Thus the whole historical movement is concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory so obtained is a victory for the bourgeoisie. But with the development of industry the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that strength more. The various interests and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalised, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labour, and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level. The growing competition among the bourgeois, and the resulting commercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more fluctuating. The unceasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious; the collisions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes. Thereupon the workers begin to form combinations (Trades Unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and there the contest breaks out into riots. Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever-expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by modern industry and that place the workers of different localities in contact with one another. It was just this contact that was needed to centralise the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle between classes. But every class struggle is a political struggle. And that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the modern proletarians, thanks to railways, achieve in a few years. This organisation of the proletarians into a class, and consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier. It compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself. Thus the ten-hours’ bill in England was carried. Altogether collisions between the classes of the old society further, in many ways, the course of development of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle. At first with the aristocracy; later on, with those portions of the bourgeoisie itself, whose interests have become antagonistic to the progress of industry; at all times, with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries. In all these battles it sees itself compelled to appeal to the proletariat, to ask for its help, and thus, to drag it into the political arena. The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own instruments of political and general education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie. Further, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling classes are, by the advance of industry, precipitated into the proletariat, or are at least threatened in their conditions of existence. These also supply the proletariat with fresh elements of enlightenment and progress. Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the process of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole. Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product. The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by chance they are revolutionary, they are so only in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat, they thus defend not their present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat. The “dangerous class,” the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue. In the conditions of the proletariat, those of old society at large are already virtually swamped. The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family-relations; modern industrial labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests. All the preceding classes that got the upper hand, sought to fortify their already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their conditions of appropriation. The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. They have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property. All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interests of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air. Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie. In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat. Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But in order to oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at least, continue its slavish existence. The serf, in the period of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a bourgeois. The modern laborer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. And here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society. The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable. | ||
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