Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1890-07-12
MANIFESTO
OF THE
COMMUNIST PARTY
BY
KARL MARX & FREDERICK ENGELS.
AUTHORIZED ENGLISH EDITION,
.DITED AND ANNOTATED BY FREDERICK ENGELs
(COntinued.)
III.
SOCIALIST AND COMMUNIST LITERATURE.
/. Reactionary Socialism.
q. Feudal Socialism.

a. Feudal Socialism.
Owing to their historical position, it
became the vocation of the aristocracies
of France and England to write pam
phlets against modern bourgeois society.
In the French revolution of July 1880,
and in the English reform agitation,
these aristocracies again succumbed to
the hateful upstart. Thenceforth, Sc
rious political contest was altogether out
of question. A literary battle alone
remained possible. But even in the
domain of literature the old cries of the
restoration period (a) had become impos-
sible.
In order to arouse sympathy, the arts
tocracy were obliged to lose sight, ap-
parently, of their own interests, and to
formulate their Indictment against the
bourgeoisie in the interest of the ex-
plotted working class alone. Thus the
aristocracy took their revenge by singing
lampoons on their new master, and
whispering in his ears sinister prophecies
Of coming catastrophe.
In this way arose feudal socialism;
half lamentation, half lampoon; half
echo of the past, half menace of the
future, at times by its bitter, witty and
incisive criticism, striking the bour-
geoisie to the very hearts core, but always
ludicrous in its effects, through total
incapacity to comprehend the march of
modern history.
The aristocracy, in order to rally the
people to them waved the proletarian
aims bag in front for banner. But the
people, so often as it joined them, saw
on their headquarters the old feudal
coats of arms and deserted with loud
and irreverent laughter.
One section of the French Legitimists,
and Young England, exhibited this
spectacle.
In pointing out that their mode of
exploitation was different to that of the
bourgeols;e, the feudalists forget that
they exploited under circumstances and
conditions that were quite different and
that are now Anticipated. In showing
that under their rule the modern prole-
tariat never existed they forget that
the modern bourgeoisie is the necessary
offspring of their own form of society.
For the rest, SO little do they conceal
the reactionary character of their criti-
cism, that their chief accusation against
the bourgeoisie amounts to this: that
under the bourgeoisie regime a class is
being developed, which is destined to
cut up root and branch the old order
of society.
What they upbraid the bourgeoisie
with is not so much that it creates a
proletariat, as that it creates a reuolu-
tiondry proletarlat.
In political practice, therefore, they
Join in all coercive measures against the
working class; and in ordinary life
despite their high falutin phrases, they
stoop to pick up the golden apples drop
ped from the tree of industry, and to
barter truth, love, and honor for traffic
in wool, beet-root sugar and potato
spirit (b).
As the parson has ever gone hand in
hand with the landlord, so has Clerical
Socialism with Feudal Socialism.
Nothing is easier than to give Chris
tan asceticism Socialist tinge. Has
not Christianity acclaimed against pri-
vate property, against marriages, against
the Slater Has it not preached in the
place of these charity and poverty, cell
bacy and modification of the flesh,
monastic life and Mother Church? Chris,
tan Socialism is but the Holy Water
with which the priest consecrates the
heart-burnings of the aristocrat.
b. Petty Bourgeois Socialism.
The feudal aristocracy was not the
only class that was ruined by the bour-
geoisie, not the only class whose con-
ditions of existence pinned and persisted
in the atmosphere of modern bourgeois
society. The medieval burgesses and
the small peasant proprietors were the
precursors of the modern bourgeoisie
! In those countries which are but little
developed, industrially and CONNER
cially these two classes still vegetate
side by side with the rising bourgeoisie.
IL COUNT, ICES where modern civilization
has become fully developed. new class
of petty bourgeois has been formed.
tiuctuating between proletariat and
bourgeoisie. and ever renewing itself as
a supplementary part of bourgeois so
!