# Manifesto of the Communist Party  ## Metadata - Author: [[Karl Marx]] - Full Title: Manifesto of the Communist Party - Category: #books ## Highlights - At a Congress of the League, held in London in November, 1847, Marx and Engels were commissioned to prepare for publication a complete theoretical and practical party programme. ([Location 7](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=7)) - the struggle against Capital, ([Location 25](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=25)) - Socialism was, in 1847, a middle class movement, Communism a working class movement. ([Location 49](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=49)) - history of class struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; ([Location 56](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=56)) - One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that 'the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made State machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.' ([Location 71](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=71)) - specter is haunting Europe—the specter of Communism. ([Location 85](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=85)) - The history of all hitherto existing society(b) is the history of class struggles. ([Location 94](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=94)) - oppressor and oppressed, ([Location 96](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=96)) - 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. ([Location 103](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=103)) - the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange. ([Location 117](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=117)) - unconscionable freedom—Free Trade. ([Location 129](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=129)) - bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation. ([Location 132](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=132)) - need of a constantly expanding market ([Location 143](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=143)) - In one word, it creates a world after its own image. ([Location 157](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=157)) - The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. ([Location 157](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=157)) - concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralization. ([Location 162](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=162)) - the means of production and of exchange on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. ([Location 168](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=168)) - In these crises there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity—the epidemic of overproduction. ([Location 180](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=180)) - The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. ([Location 185](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=185)) - The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself. ([Location 189](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=189)) - it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons—the ([Location 190](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=190)) - modern working class—the proletarians. ([Location 191](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=191)) - These laborers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market. ([Location 193](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=193)) - He becomes an appendage of the machine, ([Location 196](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=196)) - the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labor, is equal, in the long run, to its cost of production. ([Location 198](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=198)) - Note: One premise that does not stand logical test. “Cost” of commodity equals the “cost” of production. - labor of men superseded by that of women. ([Location 207](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=207)) - Note: Marx an anti-feminist? Or, a feminist? - Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population. ([Location 213](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=213)) - the union of the bourgeoisie, ([Location 220](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=220)) - the petty bourgeoisie. ([Location 222](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=222)) - every class struggle is a political struggle. ([Location 234](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=234)) - thanks to railways, ([Location 235](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=235)) - Note: A product of capitalism. - The bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle. ([Location 240](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=240)) - The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie. ([Location 242](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=242)) - Note: Should we call that democracy? I.e democratic socialism. - Of all the classes that stand face to face with the ([Location 250](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=250)) - bourgeoisie to-day, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. ([Location 250](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=250)) - The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie. ([Location 269](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=269)) - Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie; in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society. ([Location 280](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=280)) - the condition for capital is wage-labor. ([Location 281](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=281)) - Wage-labor rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. ([Location 282](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=282)) - By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern Capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage-labor. ([Location 286](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=286)) - By proletariat, the class of modern wage-laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor-power in order to live. ([Location 287](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=287)) - In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole? ([Location 300](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=300)) - 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole. ([Location 304](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=304)) - overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, ([Location 310](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=310)) - The abolition of existing property relations is not at all a distinctive feature of Communism. ([Location 313](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=313)) - The French revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in favor of bourgeois property. ([Location 315](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=315)) - The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. ([Location 316](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=316)) - the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. ([Location 319](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=319)) - But does wage labor create any property for the laborer? Not a bit. It creates capital, ([Location 324](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=324)) - Capital is a collective product, ([Location 327](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=327)) - Capital is therefore not a personal, it is a social power. ([Location 329](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=329)) - Note: These are interesting concepts regarding capital. - When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. ([Location 329](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=329)) - You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. ([Location 346](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=346)) - Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society: all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labor of others by means of such appropriation. ([Location 354](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=354)) - there can no longer be any wage-labor when there is no longer any capital. ([Location 358](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=358)) - On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. ([Location 370](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=370)) - The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; ([Location 376](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=376)) - the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments of production. ([Location 383](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=383)) - Bourgeois marriage is in reality a system of wives in common, ([Location 387](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=387)) - The workingmen have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got. ([Location 392](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=392)) - first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class; to win the battle of democracy. ([Location 419](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=419)) - centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; ([Location 421](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=421)) - Nevertheless in the most advanced countries the following will be pretty generally applicable: ([Location 426](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=426)) - Free education for all children in public schools. ([Location 434](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=434)) - abolished its own supremacy as a class. ([Location 440](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=440)) - 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. ([Location 441](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=441)) - Feudal Socialism. ([Location 444](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=444)) - French revolution of July, 1830, ([Location 445](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=445)) - The aristocracy, in order to rally the people to them, waved the proletarian alms-bag in front for a banner. ([Location 453](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=453)) - Note: Is this what Democrats do? - a new class of petty bourgeois has been formed, fluctuating between proletariat and bourgeoisie, ([Location 471](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=471)) - petty bourgeois Socialism. Sismondi was the head of this school, ([Location 478](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=478)) - this form of Socialism ended in a miserable fit of the blues. ([Location 488](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=488)) - German Socialism recognized more and more its own calling as the bombastic representative of the petty bourgeois philistine. ([Location 526](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=526)) - The socialistic bourgeois want all the advantages of modern social conditions without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting therefrom. ([Location 536](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=536)) - Bourgeois Socialism attains adequate expression, when, and only when, it becomes a mere figure of speech. ([Location 547](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=547)) - the bourgeois is a bourgeois—for the benefit of the working class. ([Location 550](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=550)) - The significance of Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism bears an inverse relation to historical development. ([Location 581](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=581)) - Communists turn their attention chiefly to Germany, ([Location 613](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=613)) - the bourgeois revolution in Germany will be but the prelude to an immediately following proletarian revolution. ([Location 616](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=616)) - the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. ([Location 616](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=616)) - In all these movements they bring, to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time. ([Location 617](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=617)) - They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. ([Location 620](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=620)) - The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries unite! ([Location 621](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=621)) - scientifically expanded in "Capital." ([Location 648](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0039GL21I&location=648))