The Manifesto tells next the manner of growth
of the class struggle. ``The proletariat goes
through various stages of development. With its
birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At
first the contest is carried on by individual laborers,
then by the workpeople of a factory, then by the
operatives of one trade, in one locality, against the
individual bourgeois who directly exploits them.
They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois
conditions of production, but against the instruments
of production themselves.''
``At this stage the laborers still form an incoherent
mass scattered over the whole country, and broken
up by their mutual competition. If anywhere they
unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet
the consequence of their own active union, but of
the union of the bourgeoisie, which class, in order to
attain its own political ends, is compelled to set the
whole proletariat in motion, and is moreover yet, for
a time, able to do so.''
``The collisions between individual workmen and
individual bourgeois take more and more the character
of collisions between two classes. Thereupon
the workers begin to form combinations (Trades
Unions) against the bourgeois; they club together
in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found
permanent associations in order to make provision
beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and
there the contest breaks out into riots. Now and
then the workers are victorious, but only for a time.
The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate
result, but in the ever-expanding union of
the workers. This union is helped on by the im-
proved means of communication that are created
by modern industry, and that place the workers
of different localities in contact with one another.
It was just this contact that was needed to centralize
the numerous local struggles, all of the same character,
into one national struggle between classes.
But every class struggle is a political struggle. And
that union, to attain which the burghers of the
Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required
centuries, the modern proletarians, thanks to railways,
achieve in a few years. This organization of
the proletarians into a class, and consequently into
a political party, is continually being upset again by
the competition between the workers themselves. But
it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier. It
compels legislative recognition of particular interests
of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions
among the bourgeoisie itself.''
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account