``Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie . . . has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.'' Then follows a history of the fall of feudalism, leading to a description of the bourgeoisie as a revolutionary force. ``The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part.'' ``For exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.'' ``The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe.'' ``The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.'' Feudal relations became fetters: ``They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder. . . . A similar movement is going on before our own eyes.'' ``The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself. But not only has the bourgoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons-- the modern working class--the proletarians.'' The cause of the destitution of the proletariat are then set forth. ``The cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for his maintenance and for the propagation of his race. But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labor, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and diversion of labor increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases.'' ``Modern industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of laborers, crowded into the factory, are organized like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State, they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the over-looker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful, and the more embittering it is.''