Manifesto of the Communist Party

II. Proletarians and Communists

In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?

The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties.

They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.

They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the

proletarian movement.

The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 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.

The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute

section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all

others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the

advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general

results of the proletarian movement.

The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties:

formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of

political power by the proletariat.

The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on ideas or principles that

have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer.

They merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle,

from a historical movement going on under our very eyes. The abolition of existing property

relations is not at all a distinctive feature of communism.

All property relations in the past have continually been subject to historical change consequent

upon the change in historical conditions.

The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in favour of bourgeois property.

The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the

abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most

complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class

antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few.

In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition

of private property.

We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally

acquiring property as the fruit of a man's own labour, which property is alleged to be the