In 1891, at the party meeting at Erfurt, a new programme, superseding that of Gotha, was adopted; and as it may fairly be regarded as the most developed expression of the Social Democratic principles yet put forth by any body of working men, we give it here entire for the perusal and study of our readers.[4] ‘The economic development of the _bourgeois_ society leads by a necessity of nature to the downfall of the small production, the basis of which is the private property of the workman in his means of production. It separates the workman from his means of production, and transforms him into a proletarian without property, whilst the means of production become the monopoly of a comparatively small number of capitalists and great landowners. ‘This monopolising of the means of production is accompanied by the supplanting of the scattered small production through the colossal great production, by the development of the tool into the machine, and by gigantic increase of the productivity of human labour. But all advantages of this transformation are monopolised by the capitalists and great landowners. For the proletariat and the sinking intermediate grades—small tradesmen and peasant proprietors—it means increasing insecurity of their existence, increase of misery, of oppression, of servitude, degradation, and exploitation. ‘Ever greater grows the number of the proletarians, ever larger the army of superfluous workmen, ever wider the chasm between exploiters and exploited, ever bitterer the class struggle between _bourgeoisie_ and proletariat, which divides modern society into two hostile camps, and is the common characteristic of all industrial lands. ‘The gulf between rich and poor is further widened through the crises which naturally arise out of the capitalistic method of production, which always become more sweeping and destructive, which render the general insecurity the normal condition of society, and prove that the productive forces have outgrown the existing society, that private property in the means of production is incompatible with their rational application and full development.