Workmen's advocate., 1890-06-07

heard, but nave nOt seen thelil' lHus the history of the Manifesto reflects, to great extent, the history of the modern working class movement; at present It is undoubtedly the most widespread, the most international production Of all Socialist Literature, the common platform acknowledged by millions of working men from Siberia to California.
 Yet, when it was written, we could not have called it Socialist Manifesto. By Socialists, in 1S47. were understood, on the one hand, the adherents of the various Utopian systems: Owentes ln England, Fourierists in France, both Of them already reduced to the position of mere sects, and gradually dying out; on the other hand, the most multlfarlous social quacks, who, by all manners of tnkering, professed to redress, without any danger to capital and profit, all sorts
 of social grievances in both cases men
 outside the workings class movement,
 and looking rather to the "educated'
 classes for support. Whatever portion
 of the working classes had become con
 vinced of the insufiiciency of mere politi-
 cal revolutions, and had proclaimed the
 necessity of a total social change, that
 portion, then, called itself Communist.
 1t was a crude, rough-hewn, purely in-
 stinctive sort of Communism; still, It
 touched the cardinal point and was
 powerful enough among the working
 class to produce the Utopian Commun- ism, in France, of Cabet, and in Ger
 many of Weitling. Thus, Socialism was, in 1S47, middleclass movement, Com
 munism a wOrking-class movement. | Socialism was, on the Continent at least,
 ''respectable"; Communism was the very
 opposite. And as our notion, from the
 very beginning, was that "the emancl-
 patton of the working class must be the
 act of the working class itself" there
 could be no doubt as to which of the two
 names we must take. Moreover, we
 have, ever since, been far from repudl-
 ating it.
 The Manifesto" being our joint pro-
 duction, l consider myself bound to
 state that the fundamental proposition
 which forms it's nucleus belongs to
 Marx. That proposition is: that in every
 historical epoch, the prevailing mode of
 economic production and exchange, and
 the social organization necessarily fol-
 lowing from it, form the basis upon
 which is built up, and from which alone
 | Cdu D6 ApldIltu, lllC DOHIiodi diN iheSi lectual history of that epoch; that con- sequently the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal , society, holding land in common owner
 ship has been history of class strug- gl, s, contests between exploiting and , exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; , that the history of these class struggles , forms series of evolution in which, 7 nowadays, a stage has been reached where the exploited and the oppressed class--the proletariat-cannot attain it's l emancipation from the sway of the ex-
 plotting and ruling class-the bourgeoisie I without, at the same time, and once r for all, emancipating society at large - from all exploitation, oppression, class n distinctions and class-struggles.
 l This proposition, which, in my opin- n ion, is destined to do for history what f Darwins theory has done for biology, f we, both of us, had been gradually ap- n preaching for some years before 1S45. Il How far had independently progressed q toward it, is best shown by my Con h dition of the Working Class in Eng if land" But when again met Marx d at Brussels in the spring of lS45, he had il r. ready worked out, and put it before me l. in terms almost as clear as those in . which have stated it here.
 p. From our joint preface to the German h edition of 1872, quote the following:- n "However much the state of things ts may have altered during the last 2 st years, the general principles laid dOwl le in this Manifesto are, on the whole, a le correct to-day as ever. Here and tber' ir some detail might be improved. Tn, r. practical application of the principle lt will depend, as the manifesto itsel ss states, everywhere and at all times, ol t.. the historical conditions for the tim in being existing, and for that reason, m nt special stress is laid on the revolutionar, in measures proposed at the end of Sectio1 al- II. That passage would, in many re Id spects, be very differently worded to ,s' day. In view of the gigantic strides 0 lg Modern Industry since 1S4S, and of tn he accompanying improved and extende lg organization of the working class; | at view of the practical experience gained in first in the February revolution, an as then, still more, in the Paris Commune n. where the proletariat for the first tim n- held political power for two whol ng months, this programme has in som
 details become anticipated. One thin he especially was proved by the Commune m, viz, that "the working classs canno in simply lay hold of the ready made Stat In machinery, and wield it for it's ow in purposes" See "The Civil War ,as France; Address of the General Counc n's of the International Workingmen's Asst a ciation," London, Truelove, 1871, p. | te" where this point is further developed wo Further, it is self-evident, that u ess criticism of socialist literature is defiC in ent in relation to the present time, b zen cause 1t comes down only to lS4i; als o, thot tha ramarks pn the relation nf fl