"An oppressed class is a vital condition of any society founded upon class antagonism. The liberation of the oppressed class necessarily includes, therefore, the creation of a new society. In order that the oppressed class may be able to free itself, a stage must be reached in which the already acquired powers of production and the prevailing social institutions can no longer exist side by side. Of all the instruments of production, the greatest productive force is the revolutionary class itself. The organisation of the revolutionary elements as a class presupposes the existence in perfected form of all the productive forces that could in any way be developed in the bosom of the old society. Does this mean that after the collapse of the old order of society there will be a new class domination culminating in a new political power? The condition of the emancipation of the working class is the abolition of all classes, as the condition of the emancipation of the third estate, of the middle class, was the abolition of all the three estates. The working class will, in the course of its evolution, replace the old middle-class society by an association excluding classes and their antagonism, and there will no longer be any real political power,[5] because it is just this political power which is the official expression of class antagonism within the community. "Meanwhile the antagonism between proletariat and bourgeoisie is a struggle of class against class, a struggle which, when brought to its highest expression, means a complete revolution. And can one indeed be surprised that a society founded upon class antagonism should, at its final dissolution, issue in brutal conflict and collision of man against man? Let it not be said that the social movement excludes the political. There never was a political movement which was not at the same time a social movement. "Only in an order of things where there are no classes and no class antagonism will social evolution cease to be political revolution. Until then the last word of social science on the eve of every general reconstruction of society must ever be: 'Fight or die; bloody war or annihilation. Thus are we confronted with the inexorable question.'--(George Sand)." With this battle-cry "The Poverty of Philosophy" comes to a close. It is the prologue to the "Communist Manifesto," which in itself is but a popular version of the positive doctrines developed in the controversy against Proudhon. FOOTNOTES: [4] The Socialists of those times were the Owenites and the Fourierists, who condemned all class struggles, Trade Unionist strikes, and Labour politics. [5] Marx means the State. III. YEARS OF AGITATION AND VARYING FORTUNES. I. THE REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT OF THE FORTIES.