involves the most radical rupture with traditional ideas.

  But let us have done with the bourgeois objections to Communism.

  We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the
working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling
class, to establish democracy.

  The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest by degrees
all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of
production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat
organized as the ruling class, and to increase the total of productive
forces as rapidly as possible.

  Of course, in the beginning this cannot be effected except by
means of despotic inroads on the rights of property and on the
conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore,
which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in
the course of the movement outstrip themselves, necessitate further
inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of
entirely revolutionizing the mode of production.

  These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

  Nevertheless, in the most advanced countries the following will be
pretty generally applicable:

  1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of
land to public purposes.

  2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

  3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.

  4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

  5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state by means of
a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

  6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the
hands of the state.

  7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the
state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the
improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

  8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial
armies, especially for agriculture.

  9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual
abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more
equable distribution of the population over the country.

  10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition
of child factory labour in its present form. Combination of
education with industrial production, etc.

  When in the course of development class distinctions have
disappeared and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a
vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its
political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely
the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the
proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled by
the force of circumstances to organize itself as a class; if by
means of a revolution it makes itself the ruling class and, as such,
sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will,
along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the
existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will
thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

  In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class
antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free
development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

  CHAPTER III. SOCIALIST AND COMMUNIST LITERATURE.

  1. Reactionary Socialism

     a. Feudal Socialism

  Owing to their historical position it became the vocation of the
aristocracies of France and England to write pamphlets against
modern bourgeois society. In the French revolution of July, 1830,
and in the English reform agitation these aristocracies again
succumbed to the hateful upstart. Thenceforth, a serious political
struggle was altogether out of the question. A literary battle alone
remained possible. But even in the domain of literature the old
cries of the Restoration period* had become impossible.

  *Not the English Restoration, 1660 to 1689, but the French
Restoration, 1814 to 1830.

    In order to arouse sympathy the aristocracy was obliged to lose
sight, apparently, of its own interests and to formulate its
indictment against the bourgeoisie in the interest of the exploited
working class alone. Thus the aristocracy took its revenge by
singing lampoons against its new master, and whispering in his ears
sinister prophecies of coming catastrophe.

  In this way arose Feudal Socialism: half lamentation, half