MIA:Marxists:Marx & Engels:Library:1848:Manifesto of the Communist Party: Chapter 4: [German Original]
Chapter IV. Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties
Section II has made clear the relations of theCommunists to the existing working-class parties, such as theChartistsin England and the Agrarian Reformers in America.
The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the workingclass; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and takecare of the future of that movement. In France, the Communists ally withthe Social-Democrats(1) against the conservative and radical bourgeoisie, reserving, however, the right to take up a criticalposition in regard to phases and illusions traditionally handed down fromthe great Revolution.
In Switzerland, they support the Radicals, without losing sight of thefact that this party consists of antagonistic elements, partly of DemocraticSocialists, in the French sense, partly of radical bourgeois.
In Poland, they support the party that insists on an agrarian revolutionas the prime condition for national emancipation, that party which fomentedthe insurrection of Cracow in 1846.
In Germany, they fight with the bourgeoisie whenever it acts in a revolutionaryway, against the absolute monarchy, the feudal squirearchy, and the petty bourgeoisie.
But they never cease, for a single instant, to instill into the workingclass the clearest possible recognition of the hostile antagonism betweenbourgeoisie and proletariat, in order that the German workers may straightwayuse, as so many weapons against the bourgeoisie, the social and politicalconditions that the bourgeoisie must necessarily introduce along with itssupremacy, and in order that, after the fall of the reactionary classesin Germany, the fight against the bourgeoisie itself may immediately begin.
The Communists turn their attention chiefly to Germany, because thatcountry is on the eve of a bourgeois revolution that is bound to be carriedout under more advanced conditions of European civilisation and with amuch more developed proletariat than that of England was in the seventeenth,and France in the eighteenth century, and because the bourgeois revolutionin Germany will be but the prelude to an immediately following proletarianrevolution.
In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movementagainst the existing social and political order of things.
In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading questionin each, the property question, no matter what its degree of developmentat the time.
Finally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democraticparties of all countries.
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openlydeclare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrowof all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at aCommunistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.They have a world to win.
Working Men of All Countries, Unite!
(1)The party then represented in Parliament by Ledru-Rollin,in literature by Louis Blanc, in the daily press by theRéforme.The name of Social-Democracy signifies, with these its inventors, a sectionof the Democratic or Republican Party more or less tinged with socialism.[Engels, English Edition 1888]
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The famous final phrase of the Manifesto, “Working Men of All Countries, Unite!”, in the original German is: “Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch!” Thus, a more correct translation would be “Proletarians of all countries, Unite!”
“Workers of the World, Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!” is a popularisation of the last three sentences, and is not found in any official translation. Since this English translation was approved by Engels, we have kept the original intact.
Photograph of a page of the Manifesto in Marx’s handwriting
Table of Contents:Manifesto of the Communist Party |Marx/Engels Library
