I’m currently in Northfield, Massachusetts where Peggy and I are spending the month of July with two of our grandchildren, Eva (15) and Orlando (12). Both are attending a summer session at Eva’s Northfield Mt. Hermon prep school. Eva is acting as a teaching associate for a beloved math instructor there as he teaches summer students pre-cal. Orlando is taking courses in physics and economics. In our spare time, we’re discussing “The Communist Manifesto,” and are planning an overview of the Bible.
To help with the former and to make discussion easier, I’ve done a rough “translation” of Marx and Engels’ “Communist Manifesto.” The basis for the translation below is a version of the text that sophomore students discussed at Berea College in a required course called “Religious and Historical Perspectives.” During my 40 years at Berea, I taught many sections of that two-semester “Great Books” course along with about 15 colleagues drawn from disciplines across the curriculum (each of whom had her or his own section). It was one of the best educational experiences of my life.
I want both Eva and Orlando to tackle the actual text before reading the summary. (I think it’s important for them to be able to claim having read the “Manifesto” which few of its critics can say for themselves.)
Please excuse any typos, obscurities of expression, and other faults in what follows. I pretty much dashed it off.
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The Communist Manifesto
In the revolutionary year of 1848, Karl Marx and his friend Friedrich Engels published “The Communist Manifesto.” Here’s what their declaration said:
The threat and fear of Communism has spread across Europe. Opposition to Communism has united everyone from the Pope himself to heads of state in Russia, France, Germany, and Italy.
In fact, virtually any opposition to the way things are is identified as “communist.”
Such universal opposition indicates that Communism has become a world “Power” on a par with the European “leaders” just mentioned. It also means that it’s high time that Communists should openly declare what they stand for.
So, Communists from across Europe have gathered in London to write and publish their Manifesto for all to read.
I
Bourgeois (town dwellers) and Proletarians (members of the working class)
The engine of historical change is class struggle.
That is, lower classes have always rebelled against their exploiters: e.g., slaves vs. their masters in the slave system, and serfs against their lords in the feudal system [an economic, political, and military arrangement where “serfs” (agricultural workers) were given land by their “lords” in exchange for their labor and military service)].
Modern bourgeois society (i.e., the “middle class” between royalty and agricultural workers) has given rise to brand new classes with severe tensions between them.
In fact, society is currently splitting into two camps hostile to one another, viz., the bourgeoisie and the proletariat (working class).
The bourgeoisie emerged from town dwellers (millers, miners, blacksmiths, furniture makers, shopkeepers, lawyers, politicians, clergy, etc.) who no longer were directly connected to agricultural life.
The discovery of America expanded this class to the “New World.”
Thus emerged a serious manufacturing system that overcame the power of guilds (closed associations of craftspeople and/or merchants).
A great leap forward occurred when the steam engine was invented (James Watt 1769). It gave rise to massive increases in production and the emergence of a factory system controlled by millionaires.
The new system conjoined with European colonialism and advances in navigation and railroads sold products across the planet.
In this way the bourgeoisie accumulated enormous power displacing royalty as Europe’s dominant class. The bourgeoisie established governments that function as mere managers of those powerful manufacturing interests. The resulting laws serve the bourgeoisie not the proletariat.
Moreover, bourgeois culture has destroyed tradition and religious values, replacing them with naked self-interest and cash payment. Under the new system personal worth is determined by one’s degree of wealth. The concept of freedom is reduced to Free Trade.
As a result, non-capitalists (physicians, lawyers, priests, poets, scientists. . ..) have become a wage-laborers.
Bourgeois developments have also reduced families to mere cogs in their machine held together by concern for money.
Nonetheless, it must be acknowledged that the achievements of the bourgeoisie have surpassed even the pyramids of Egypt, the aqueducts of Rome, and the cathedrals of the middle ages.
Still, the bourgeois system cannot continue without constantly improving its means of production and without those improvements changing human relationships – thus sweeping aside even the most sacred traditional social relationships.
Neither can the system continue without expanding across the globe.
This latter development drives out of business local industries displacing their laborers and creating new wants satisfiable only by imports from foreign lands. Thus, nations across the globe can no longer be self-sufficient. There even arises a world literature as well.
This affects even the most backward and barbarous peoples where the attraction of mass-produced cheap products overcomes local resistance to foreign presence.
In the process, enormous cities are created which increasingly exert political, economic, and social control over the countryside. In this way, agrarian cultures become dependent on urbanized cultures. The East (like India and China) becomes dependent on the West (like England and other European colonial powers).
As means of production become centralized in fewer and fewer hands, so does world political power. Small provinces (with their separate laws and governments) disappear and nation states surface under one government and a unified code of laws.
More particularly, in scarcely 100 years the entire world has been transformed by chemistry applied to agriculture, by steam navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, and canalization of rivers. Entire forests have been cleared for growing food. All these developments have destroyed the remnants of feudal relationships.
Free competition has also put the bourgeoisie in charge not only of production and economics, but also of politics and law.
The bourgeoisie have unwittingly assumed the role of a sorcerer who has called up the powers of the nether world that he can no longer control. Thus, capitalist overproduction produces periodic depressions that threaten the existence of the bourgeoisie themselves. This gives rise to wars (i.e., attempts to destroy competitors’ machines and factories) and to intensified and more widespread colonialization (in search of new markets).
The result of all this is rebellion from below, whereby the weapons the bourgeoisie used in the service of their revolution against the royal classes are turned against the bourgeoisie itself.
To wit, bourgeois manufacturing processes have not only created the weapons that will bring about their own demise; they’ve also created an army that will use those weapons against them, viz., the proletariat which has developed step by step with the emergence of the bourgeoisie.
Workers have become mere commodities (things to be bought and sold) subject to laws of supply and demand.
They’ve become extensions of the machines they tend without skill or understanding. As such, workers are completely interchangeable and receive wages sufficient only to keep body and soul together and to produce other workers. Machines and division of labor (i.e. the breakdown of the productive process into small, isolated operations) makes production rapid but increasingly meaningless and burdensome – a reality intensified by long workdays and the need to keep up with the intensified speed of machinery.
Crowded into ever-larger factories, workers are organized like soldiers and slaves of the capitalist, the bourgeois state, the foreman and the boss.
Machines with their independence from human physical strength have also made it possible for increasing numbers of women and children to enter the workforce – and keep wages low.
But that’s not the end of capitalist exploitation. As soon as workers leave the factory’s area of control, they fall under the control of other members of the bourgeoisie – the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc.
Similarly, the lower portions of the middle class (small tradespeople, shopkeeper, handicraftsmen, and peasants) all eventually lose their source of income and fall into the proletariat. They simply can’t compete with the low-cost products of their larger competitors. In the face of machines, their special skills become meaningless.
Workers’ rebellion against all this is first directed against the means of production themselves. In their efforts to restore the status they once held in the Middle Ages, laborers destroy the products they produce, smash the factories’ machines (“sabotage”}, and burn down the factories themselves.
Still, the bourgeoisie (the real enemies of the working class) succeed in persuading workers to fight their wars, i.e., to fight the enemies of the proletariat’s enemy (the bourgeoisie itself).
But as the size of the workforce increases and as everyone’s reduced to the same low-income level while the economy in general experiences increasingly frequent depressions and economic setbacks, the workers’ rebellious instincts turn more and more against the bourgeoisie itself. In practice, rebellion takes the form of workers’ unions (with strikes wherein the workers refuse to work unless their demands are met) and at times of riots.
The workers’ rebellion is enabled by improvements in means of communication (including railways) which transform local struggles into national ones.
England’s 10-hour bill represents an example of successful worker struggle despite many setbacks caused by divisions among the workers themselves.
However, the bourgeoisie experiences its own sources of tension – with the old aristocracy, with national competitors, and with the bourgeoisie of other countries. In such struggles, it is compelled to seek help from the proletariat. This requires education, raising the political awareness of the working class, and other measures which eventually can be turned against the bourgeoisie itself.
Additional elements of enlightenment and progress are supplied to the working class by the members of the ruling class that fall into the proletariat.
And finally, there are certain members of the ruling class that on principle and recognition of history’s direction leave their class loyalties behind and join the workers’ rebellion voluntarily.
Nonetheless, the proletariat remains the only truly revolutionary class.
The others – the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the craftsman, the farmer – fight the bourgeoisie to save their traditional positions in society. They are therefore conservative, not revolutionary. They are trying to return to a bygone age that will never return.
In all this, the “social scum” (the “lumpenproletariat”) at times joins the revolution. But they can easily be bribed by the bourgeoisie to be counterrevolutionary.
For the proletariat, bourgeois values around family, morality, religion, and law are just so many bourgeois prejudices invoked to advance the capitalist agenda of profit maximization.
Any class that achieves superiority will always attempt to restructure society in ways that will solidify its property holdings and position of control. For its part and to get the upper hand, the proletariat (who own nothing) must create a clean slate abolishing all forms of ruling class property.
Unlike previous historical movements (which were minority movements – i.e., of slave holders, royalty, and bourgeoisie), the proletarian revolution is that of the world’s immense majority. Its intention must therefore be to destroy the entire social structure which has been shaped by the minority to keep the majority in a subservient position.
At first, the proletariat must rebel against its own national bourgeoisie.
Whereas previous rising classes [serfs and small businesspeople (“petty bourgeoisie”)] rose with the progress of industry, today’s revolutionary class (the proletariat) sinks lower and lower into poverty as capitalism develops. This difference completely discredits the bourgeoisie and its laws.
Bourgeois rule depends for its continuance on increased capital accumulation. Such accumulation demands wage labor. In the process, the wages of workers are driven down by competition with other workers. Workers combat the downward trend in wages by forming the above-mentioned unions which will inevitably overthrow the capitalist class.
II
Proletarians & Communists
The Communists are not interested in setting up a political party separate from other workers’ parties. Their interests are international – those of the proletariat itself. The Communist agenda is the same as that of the whole international proletariat.
As the most advanced and determined segment of the working class, the Party supplies a vision of the future, a sense of history, and guiding principles to the workers’ movement so understood.
Communist goals are (1) formation of the proletariat into a class (i.e., helping them develop class consciousness), (2) the overthrow of bourgeois supremacy, and (3) the attainment of political power by the proletariat.
Communist theory develops from an analysis of history and experience; it does not originate from the reflections of this or that philosopher.
Neither have the Communists originated the idea of abolishing existing property relationships.
For example, the French Revolution (1789-1799) abolished feudal property in favor of bourgeois property.
Property wise, the goal of Communism is not the abolition of property in general, but of bourgeois property (i.e., the means of production) based on the exploitation of the many by the few.
That’s Communist theory in a nutshell: abolition of private property. (i.e., private ownership of the means of production – factories, land, forests, etc.
Communists do not seek the abolition of property belonging to the petty artisan or small farmer. The development of industry has already done away with such property.
Wage labor creates no property for the worker. Instead, it creates property for his or her exploiters.
Capitalist success depends on the cooperation of whole societies.
It is a social power.
When capital is converted into community property it loses its class-character.
As for wage-labor . . ..
Minimum wage = what is necessary for workers to keep body and soul together.
Communist emphasis is on the present not on inheritances from the past. We are against the individuality, independence and freedom of the bourgeoisie. For the latter, freedom = free trade, free selling and buying.
Communists oppose free buying and selling, bourgeois conditions of production, and the bourgeoisie itself.
Are you scandalized by communist abolition of private property? It is already abolished for 9/10 of the population!
Yes, we intend to do away with your private property!
But, you ask, what about individuality?
Your question is really about bourgeois individuality. It’s that individuality that must be swept away.
Abolition of private property is in no way about depriving people of the products of society. It’s about forbidding owners of such products to subjugate the labor of others.
But won’t abolition of private property make people lazy and reluctant to work?
In fact, it is the bourgeoisie that are reluctant to work. They are the lazy ones. “Work” for the bourgeoisie refers to the exploited activity of workers within the present system. Yes, workers are reluctant to continue doing that. In that sense, they are lazy.
The same is true of intellectual property identified by the bourgeoisie as “culture” (i.e. all the ways of life including arts, beliefs and institutions of a population that are passed down from generation to generation.) Class culture must disappear just as class property must vanish.
Bourgeois culture is nothing but the training of society’s majority to act like machines.
Bourgeois ideas like freedom, culture, and law are mechanisms for controlling the working class.
Like all previous forms of property and law (e.g., those belonging to slave and feudal, arrangements) bourgeois forms pretend to be natural and eternal.
And yes, the Communists do in fact propose abolition of the family as we know it. Don’t be shocked by that. The bourgeois family in question is based on private gain. Under capitalism, children are transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labor. Additionally, capitalist production makes family practically impossible for the proletarians. It encourages public prostitution. It encourages the exploitation of children by their parents. Communists plead guilty to advocating the abolition of all those aberrations – child labor, public prostitution, and parental abuse.
The same holds true for education. Communists propose removing all ruling class influence from educational processes.
But what about bourgeois complaints that Communism introduces a “community of women?” Actually, it is capitalism, not Communism that reduces women to common property – to a pool of cheap labor whose members are nameless and without personality or individuality and whose purpose is to drive down all workers’ wages. At the same time, the bourgeoisie refuse to compensate women for their labor at home (begetting, feeding, clothing, educating, etc. their children so they too can contribute to the “community” of nameless ciphers in the pool of unemployed workers seeking a place in the industrial system.)
As for the bourgeoisie themselves. . .. As a class, they exhibit little aversion towards their dreaded “community of women.” They freely exchange wives through their divorce processes. They take great pleasure in seducing one another’s females. Routinely, they sexually exploit their employees. They frequent public prostitutes and anonymous females desperately displaying their bodies.
In short, “The Communists have no need to introduce community of women. It has existed almost from time immemorial.” (It’s part of the patriarchy.)
Similarly, Communists are accused of advocating the abolition of countries and nationalities.
Face it: proletarians are already people without countries. You cannot take from them what they do not have. The system treats them the same no matter where they live; it gives no value to country borders or nationalities. If workers do have a nationality, it is “proletarian.”
As workers recognize this fact, nation states will become less important and will vanish altogether under proletarian leadership. Thus, international conflict will eventually end.
Philosophical and religious objections to Communism are hardly worth noting.
History shows that human consciousness (along with human relationships) transforms along with changes in material circumstances. “THE RULING IDEAS OF EACH AGE HAVE EVER BEEN THE IDEAS OF THE RULING CLASS” (My caps.)
As means of production change, so do ideas. For example, with the dawn of 18th century “Enlightenment,” ideas about freedom of religion and conscience “merely gave expression to the sway of free competition within the domain of knowledge.”
The bourgeois concept of “eternally valid truths” is nothing but a reflection of the fact that class antagonisms (along with slightly modified versions of their supporting ideologies) have always characterized human history.
With the abolition of classes, such perceptions of “eternal verities” will also disappear.
The first step in revolution by the working class is to establish the latter as the ruling class – i.e., to win the battle of democracy (in the sense of government by the people). This entails employment of despotic measures to deprive bourgeois property owners of their property.
Towards that end, Communists advocate the following practical measures:
- Abolition of private ownership of land and the application of land rental to public benefit.
- A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
- Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
- Confiscation of the property of all who flee from or rebel against the new order.
- Centralization of the banking system in the hands of the public as represented by the State.
- Similar centralization of all means of communication and transport in the hands of the public.
- State administration of factories, conversion of wastelands into farms, and general environmental development under State (i.e. public) administration.
- Excluding no one on principle from obligation to perform manual labor.
- Repopulation of the countryside to restore balance and absence of distinction between town and country.
- Public schooling for everyone. Elimination of child labor in its present form.
Once class distinctions have disappeared, and all means of production have been concentrated in public hands, the State will lose its political character (since “political power, properly so called is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another”). The proletariat will thus abandon its dictatorship. “In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”
IV
Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties
“The Communists everywhere (in France, Switzerland, Poland, Germany, etc.) support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.”
Communist aims can only be secured by the forceable overthrow of all existing social conditions.
“Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
“Working men of all countries, unite!”
About Things That Matter 