The Communist Manifesto
By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
(rewritten in intermediate English by Adina Meyer)
All of Europe is afraid of communism: Russia, Austria, Germany, France and England. If
politicians do not like their opponents, they call them “communists.” But what is communism?
It is time for Communists to explain their views clearly. We have met in London and written this
manifesto. We will publish it in English, French, German, Italian, Flemish and Danish.
I. Bourgeoisie and Proletariat
The bourgeoisie is a class of capitalists. These are people who own the means of production,
like factories, in this modern age. They employ wage laborers. The proletariat class members
are the wage laborers, the workers. They do not own any means of production, so they sell their
labor (their work) so they can earn money to live.
The entire history of all human societies has been the story of class struggle.
Masters and slaves in the ancient age, lords and serfs in the middle ages, in every age of history,
these two classes have been against each other. Sometimes their fight is hidden, and sometimes
it is out in the open. Sometimes a revolution happens, and the society changes. Sometimes both
classes are ruined for a while, but soon the struggle reappears.
In every previous age of history, people have been ranked, arranged into higher and lower social
classes. For example, in the middle ages we had lords, vassals, peasants, and serfs. Even within
each class there were higher or lower people.
Today we have the modern bourgeois society. This society came from medieval society, but it
has not ended the struggle of the classes. Today we have new classes, new forms of oppression
and struggle, in place of the old ones.
However, the age we are in now, the era of the bourgeoisie, has simplified this struggle. More
and more, society is splitting up into just two great classes directly facing each other: the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
The serfs of the middle ages turned into the earliest townspeople. These developed into the first
members of the bourgeoisie. After that, the bourgeoisie rose more and more. With the discovery
of America, the increase in trade to Asia and across the world, it grew and gained wealth quickly.
Instead of individual craftsmen making products, the manufacturing system took over.
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People wanted more manufactured goods. The industrial revolution brought steam power and
machinery. Giant, modern industries now manufacture most products that people want. The
leaders of this revolution are the members of the bourgeoisie. They are a wealthy class. They
continue to increase their wealth with shipping, railroads, and other methods of transportation so
they can sell their goods all over the world. In this way, they have pushed all other classes into
the background.
As the bourgeoisie has gained economic power, it has also gained political power. Members of
the third estate in France overthrew the monarchy, for example. In the modern state, the elected
officials are just committees to manage the affairs of the bourgeoisie. So we can see that the
bourgeoisie has played a very revolutionary part in history.
The bourgeoisie has destroyed all loyalty to monarchs or feudal lords. It has destroyed much
religious belief. It cares only about free trade. Instead of personal value, it only sees economic
or monetary value. The monarchy and the clergy exploited people during the middle ages, but
the bourgeoisie has replaced this with naked, shameless, direct and brutal exploitation.
The ruling classes in previous ages were conservative. But the bourgeoisie has to constantly
improve its methods of production. The modern, bourgeois age is full of change, uncertainty and
disturbance of all social conditions. The bourgeoisie needs a bigger and bigger market for its
goods, so it is always on the move. Old industries are constantly being replaced by new ones.
New raw materials are being found in faraway places. Instead of each region being selfsufficient, we have trade between nations. And not just material trade, but trade of ideas as well.
The bourgeoisie continues to improve all its factories, and makes goods that are cheaper and
cheaper. All nations have now adopted the bourgeois mode of production. And people in all
nations want to be “civilized,” which means they want to buy the products and become bourgeois
themselves. Huge cities have grown up, and more and more people are living in cities. In the
past, the city depended on the countryside, but now the countryside depends on the cities, and the
less developed countries depend on the more developed ones. Population is concentrated into
urban areas, and political power is concentrated into the hands of the bourgeoisie.
Progress has been huge: agricultural machinery, steam engines, railroads, electric telegraphs,
clearing of forests, building canals…what previous age has ever seen these things in so short a
time period? As these advances have come, there is no way the feudal system of the middle ages
could survive. Instead, the free market has arrived, with the political and social systems that
come with it, and the triumph of the bourgeoisie.
However, the bourgeoisie is like a magician who has cast a spell he can no longer control. The
bourgeoisie has forged weapons that will bring death to itself. It has created the class of people
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who will pick up those weapons: the proletariat. These are workers who must sell their labor to
the bourgeoisie. Because of the machines they use, the proletarians have lost all their individual
character. The worker becomes just another part of the machine. The work is simple, boring,
and easy to learn. Hours are longer, wages are lower, and the work is a burden. In factories,
workers are organized like soldiers. They are slaves of the bourgeois class and of the bourgeois
state. They are enslaved by the machines, by the state, by the supervisor, and most of all by the
individual bourgeois manufacturer. The more modern industry develops, the less strength and
skill the worker needs. Therefore, women and children can do most jobs, and they are less
expensive to use. It is petty, hateful and embittering.
And as soon as the worker receives his money, he is “attacked” by other members of the
bourgeoisie: the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc. But soon, these small
townspeople and businessmen gradually sink down into the proletariat, because they cannot
compete on a large scale with the giant companies. Small craftsmen, shopkeepers, and retired
tradesmen all eventually sink into the proletariat class. Their specialized skills are made
worthless by the new methods of production.
The proletariat goes through several stages of development. At its birth, it begins its struggle
with the bourgeoisie. At first, individual laborers, then work people of one factory, then the
members of one occupation or another, struggle against the individual bourgeois who exploits
them. At first, they direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but
just against individual means of production: they destroy imported goods, they smash machinery
or set fire to factories. They are trying to return to the status they had in the middle ages.
At this point, the proletariat is still controlled by the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie, motivated by
its desire for political control, will sometimes make some groups of the proletariat unite against
other groups. In this way, the proletariat is not fighting its enemies, but the enemies of their
enemies (the bourgeoisie): landowners, what remains of the nobility, etc. and thus every victory
is a victory for the bourgeoisie.
But with the development of industry, the proletariat increases in number. It becomes stronger.
The proletariat is more united as they face crisis after crisis, seeing their wages go up and down
depending on the market. The collisions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois
start to look more and more like collisions between two classes. The workers form trade unions;
they join together against the bourgeoisie. These unions attempt to keep wages higher, and plan
for conflict with the factory owners. Sometimes these conflicts turn into riots.
Sometimes the workers are successful, but only for a short time. True success can only come
from expanding union of all workers. Workers can communicate with each other more and more
easily, over long distances. This communication is necessary to unite the workers from different
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places, into one national struggle between classes. The burghers of the middle ages spent
centuries trying to fight the feudal lords, but modern proletarians, thanks to railways, can achieve
this same unity in just a few years.
Sometimes this unity is upset because the workers are competing with each other. However,
gradually the proletariat will achieve political unity and class consciousness. They will be
stronger, and force the bourgeoisie to listen to them. This just happened in England with the
passage of the Ten Hours Bill. (Adina’s note: The Factory Act of 1847, also known as the Ten
Hours Act, restricted the working hours of women and children in British factories to effectively
10 hours per day. Source: Wikipedia) Sometimes the classes of the old society are still
competing with each other. The bourgeoisie is fighting against the old aristocracy, and against
the bourgeoisie of foreign countries. The bourgeoisie asks the proletariat for help, and drags the
workers into its political battles. The proletariat gets more education, and thus more weapons for
its battle. Furthermore, whole sections of the former ruling class have been dragged down into
the proletariat, and these people give even more assistance and education to the workers.
Finally, a small section of the ruling class joins the revolutionary class. Just as when a small
section of the nobility joined the bourgeoisie, now a small section of the bourgeoisie joins the
proletariat. These are people who understand the movement of history. Finally, the only really
revolutionary class is the proletariat; all other classes disappear into it. The proletariat is the
special product of modern industry. The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the
shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight the bourgeoisie so they can stay in a middle
class. This means they are not truly revolutionary. They are trying to roll back the clock, but
this is not possible, and eventually they too must join the proletariat. The “dangerous class,” the
lowest underclass of people, might become revolutionaries, but their lives prepare them more for
being bribed tools of the bourgeoisie.
The proletariat, meanwhile, has lost everything. Workers do not own any property. Their
relationships with wives and children are nothing like the family relationships of the bourgeoisie.
They don’t have any real national character: the same thing is happening to the workers in
England, France, America, Germany. Law, morality, religion, are just bourgeois prejudices.
They have nothing of their own to protect, and so their mission is to completely abolish private
property.
All previous historical movements were movements of minorities. The proletarian movement is
in the interests of the immense majority. When the proletariat raises itself up, the entire society
will change. The proletariat of each country must struggle against the bourgeoisie in that
country. The violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the rule of the
proletariat.
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Up until this point, every form of society has been based on a war between oppressing and
oppressed classes. Sometimes the war is hidden, and sometimes it is open. But the modern age
is different from previous ages because the proletariat cannot pull itself up in the same way that
the serfs pulled themselves up, or the bourgeoisie overthrew the monarchy. Instead of rising up,
the proletariat is sinking lower and lower, becoming poorer and poorer. Yet at the same time, the
bourgeoisie is dependent on the proletariat!
In order to exist and maintain control, the bourgeoisie needs capital. And for capital, it needs
wage labor. For wage labor to exist, workers must compete with each other. But capitalism
brings workers together, in a revolutionary combination. Therefore, modern industry cuts its very
foundation from under its own feet. The bourgeoisie, therefore, digs its own grave. Its fall, and
the victory of the proletariat, is inevitable. This is the outcome of the dialectical progression of
history.
II. Proletarians and Communists
The Communist party is different from other political parties because it does not make any
distinctions between different nations. Communists understand that they represent the interests
of the entire proletarian class. They are the most advanced of all the political parties, because
they understand where the proletariat has come from and where it is going. The goal of the
Communists is to overthrow the bourgeoisie and to gain political power for the proletariat. Their
goal is to abolish private property.
Communists have been attacked for saying we want to get rid of private property. People say
that a man should be able to own the fruits of his labor, and that private property is the basis for
all freedom, activity, and independence. Hard-won, self-earned property! Do you mean the
personal property of the small peasant or artisan? The bourgeoisie is already destroying this kind
of property every day. Or do you mean bourgeois private property?
But does wage labor create any property for the worker? Not at all! It creates capital, a kind of
property that exploits wage labor. Member of the bourgeoisie who own capital, gain social
status. When the property is owned collectively, by all the member of society, it loses its class
character.
Now let us look at wage labor. We do not want to get rid of people’s ability to acquire things by
working. What we do want to get rid of is people building up excess capital that they then use to
control and exploit others. Right now, the existence of most wage laborers is miserable. In
communist society, labor will be used to enrich people’s existence, not just prolong people’s
misery. You say communists want to get rid of individuality and freedom, but there is no true
individuality in bourgeois society.
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Yes, we do want to abolish certain kinds of freedom, but it is bourgeois freedom and free trade,
free selling and buying. We will abolish buying and selling, and all other bourgeois conditions
of production. We want to abolish the bourgeoisie itself. You are horrified that we want to get
rid of private property. But in modern society, most private property is already in the hands of
just 10 percent or fewer of the people. For the bourgeoisie to have its private property, it must
take property from most other people.
You say that if you can’t convert labor into capital, money, or rent, in other words into an
instrument of social power, into bourgeois property, you say individuality will disappear. You
must admit that when you say “individual,” you mean the middle-class property owner. And
yes, this person must be swept out of the way. Communism will not prevent a person from
owning things; it will prevent him from oppressing another person through that ownership. It
will stop the exploitation of the labor of others.
You say that if there is no private property, there will be no motive for work, and people will
become lazy. But in bourgeois society, the people who work the hardest don’t acquire anything,
and the people who acquire the most do no work! You say that if class property disappears,
intellectual and cultural products will disappear: art, music, and the finer things of life. But for
the vast majority of people in modern society, those products just prepare people to act like
machines. Your ideas of culture are a result of your bourgeois production and bourgeois
property, just as your court system is the will of your class made into a law for all. And your
will is to preserve the economic conditions that preserve your class.
You are like every ruling class that has come before you. You describe eternal laws of justice, of
nature and of reason, but they are just excuses for you to cling to your bourgeois way of life.
Every ruling class describes the conditions of its time and says they are based on eternal laws.
For example, you talk about property rights, but that is because you are property owners.
You say that communists want to abolish the family, but really you have already abolished the
family, because you force parents to sell their children’s labor. The warm family ties you
describe can only exist among the members of the bourgeoisie. You say we want to abolish
education, but we only want to change the way children are educated. Your talk of the family
and education is actually disgusting, because modern industry causes family ties between
members of the proletariat to be destroyed, as their children are turned into articles of commerce
and instruments of labor.
You scream that we want to have communal love, and abolish marriage. The bourgeoisie
already sees his wife as his property, so when he hears about communal ownership, he thinks
that will apply to women as well. Our bourgeois males take advantage of the wives and
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daughters of our proletarians; they also use prostitutes and seduce each other’s wives. In this
way, bourgeois marriage is already a system of wives in common. The abolition of wage labor
will see the end of prostitution and this kind of hypocrisy.
You say that Communists want to get rid of countries and nationality. The working men have no
country. We cannot take from them what they do not have. National differences, wars between
nations are already disappearing because of the world market. These differences will disappear
even more when the proletariat is supreme. When exploitation of one individual by another is
ended, then exploitation of one nation by another will also end. As the war between classes
ends, wars between nations will also end.
Religious objections to communism don’t even deserve a serious response. Isn’t it obvious that
man’s ideas, man’s consciousness, changes with every material change in the conditions of life?
The entire history of ideas proves that ideas change as material production changes. The main
ideas of each age of history are the ideas of the ruling class. Ancient religions, the ruling ideas
of the ancient age, were defeated by Christianity, which was the ruling idea in feudal society.
Then those ideas lost to rationalism and the enlightenment, the ideas of life, liberty and property
that expressed the free market of capitalism.
“Well of course ideas have changed,” you will argue, “but religion, morality, philosophy, and
political science, have all survived. Additionally, there are eternal truths such as Freedom and
Justice are universal. But communism wants to abolish all eternal truths!”
In fact, the history of all past societies is the history of class struggle. This struggle has taken
different forms in different ages. But in all ages, one truth has remained the same: the
exploitation of one part of society by the other. No wonder certain ideas never change! These
ideas cannot change until exploitation and class struggle disappears. The communist revolution
is a radical change, and it will of course change all traditional bourgeois ideas.
But let us stop talking about bourgeois objections to communism. The first step in the revolution
is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy. The
proletarian will then use its power to take all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all
instruments of production in the hands of the state.
There will be various methods of accomplishing this, and will be different in different countries.
However, in general, these following things will pretty much happen:
1. Abolition of private property in land. All rents of land will be used for public purposes.
2. A high progressive income tax.
3. Abolition of all inheritance.
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4. Confiscation of property of emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state. National bank with state credit and sole
monopoly.
6. Centralization of all methods of communication and transportation in the hands of the state.
7. Increasing the number of factories owned by the state. State farming of land, with
improvement of the soil.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial and agricultural armies.
9. The population being more evenly distributed across the land, agriculture and industry more
evenly distributed.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor
.
When class differences are gone, and all production is in the hands of the whole nation, political
power as we know it will disappear. When the proletariat becomes the ruling class, there will be
no real ruling class, because there will be nobody to exploit any more. In place of the old
bourgeois society, with class struggle and exploitation, we will have a place where the
development of the whole society depends on the development of each person.
The Communists pay attention mostly to Germany, because that country is on the eve of a
bourgeois revolution. This will be a prelude to a proletarian revolution that will follow it. The
Communists support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political
order of things. In all these movements, they want people to pay most attention to the question
of property. They want all democratic parties of all countries to agree and work together. We
are not trying to hide our view or our goals. Our goals can only be achieved through the forcible
overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist
revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
WORKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!
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