When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient
religions were overcome by Christianity.  When Christian ideas
succumbed in the 18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal
society fought its death battle with the then revolutionary
bourgeoisie.  The ideas of religious liberty and freedom of
conscience merely gave expression to the sway of free competition
within the domain of knowledge.

"Undoubtedly," it will be said, "religious, moral, philosophical
and juridical ideas have been modified in the course of
historical development.  But religion, morality philosophy,
political science, and law, constantly survived this change."

"There are, besides, eternal truths, such as Freedom, Justice,
etc. that are common to all states of society.  But Communism
abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all
morality, instead of constituting them on a new basis; it
therefore
acts in contradiction to all past historical experience."

What does this accusation reduce itself to?  The history of all
past society has consisted in the development of class
antagonisms,
antagonisms that assumed different forms at different epochs.

But whatever form they may have taken, one fact is common to all
past ages, viz., the exploitation of one part of society by the
other.
No wonder, then, that the social consciousness of past ages,
despite
all the multiplicity and variety it displays, moves within
certain
common forms, or general ideas, which cannot completely vanish
except
with the total disappearance of class antagonisms.

The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with
traditional property relations; no wonder that its development
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 as to win the battle of democracy.

The proletariat will use its political supremacy top wrest, by
degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all
instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the
proletariat organised 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 revolutionising 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.  Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means
    of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive
monopoly.

6.  Centralisation 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 liability of all to labour.  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 children's factory labour in its present form.
Combination of education with industrial production, &c., &c.