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state of the labour movement at that time, particularly that of the English movement.
Those Chartists who agreed to enter the League did it on condition that they be
allowed to maintain their connections with their old party. They only took upon
themselves the obligation of organising within Chartism something in the nature of a
communist nucleus for the purpose of disseminating there the programme and the
ideas of communism.
The Manifesto analyses minutely the numerous tendencies that were striving
for ascendancy among the socialists and the communists; It subjects them to a most
incisive criticism and definitely rejects them, all except the great utopians -- Saint
Simon, Fourier, and Owen -- whose teachings Marx and Engels had to a certain
degree adopted and remodelled. Accepting their criticism of the bourgeois order, the
Manifesto pits against the pacific, utopian, nonpolitical socialism, the revolutionary
programme of the new proletarian -- critical communism.
In conclusion the Manifesto examines the communist tactics at the lime of a
revolution, particularly with respect to the bourgeois parties. The procedure varies
with each country, depending on its specific historical conditions. Where the
bourgeoisie is already dominant, the proletariat wages war exclusively against it. In
those countries where the bourgeoisie is still string for political power, as for instance
in Germany, the communist party works hand in hand with the bourgeoisie, as long
as the latter fights against the monarchy and the nobility.
Yet the communists never cease instilling into the minds of the workers an
ever-keener consciousness of the truth that the interests of the bourgeoisie are
diametrically opposed to those of the proletariat. The crucial question always
remains that of private property. These were the tactical rules worked out by Marx
and Engels on the eve of the February and the March Revolutions of 1848. We shall
subsequently see how these rules were applied in practice, and how they were
changed as a result of revolutionary experience.
We now have a general idea of the contents of the Manifesto. We must bear in
mind that it incorporated the results of all the scientific work which Engels and
particularly Marx had performed from 1845 to the end of 1847. During this period
Engels succeeded in getting into shape the material he had collected for his
Condition of the Working Class in England, and Marx laboured over the history of
political and economic thought. During these two years, in the struggle against all
kinds of idealist teachings, they pretty adequately developed the materialistic
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conception of history which enabled them to orient themselves so well in their study
of the material relations, the conditions of production and distribution which always
determine social relations.
The new teaching had been most completely and clearly expounded by Marx
even before the Manifesto, in his polemic against Proudhon. In the Holy Family,
Marx spoke very highly of Proudhon. What was it then that provoked the break
between the two old allies ?
Proudhon, like Weitling, was a worker and an autodidact. He subsequently
became one of the outstanding French publicists. He set out upon his literary career
in a very revolutionary spirit. In his book, What Is Property, which was published in
1841, he criticised most acutely the institution of private property, and he came to the
daring conclusion that in its essence private property is robbery. In reality, however,
Proudhon condemned only one form of property, the capitalistic, which was based
upon the exploitation of the small producer by the big capitalist. Having nothing
against the abolition of capitalistic private property, Proudhon was at the same time
opposed to communism. The only security for the welfare of the peasant and the
artisan was according to him the preservation and the enhancement of their private
property. The condition of the worker could he improved, in his opinion, not by
means of strikes and economic warfare, but by converting the worker into a property-
owner. He finally arrived at these views in 1845 and 1846 when he first formulated a
plan whereby he thought it possible to insure the artisan against ruin, and to
transform the proletarian into an independent producer.
We have already mentioned the role that Engels at that time played in Paris.
His chief opponent in the discussion of programmes was Karl Grun (1813-1884) who
represented "real socialism." Grun was very intimately allied with Proudhon, whose
views he expounded before the German workers living in Paris. Even before
Proudhon published his new hook in which he wanted to expose all the "economic
contradictions/index.htm" in existing society, and to explain the origin of poverty,
the "philosophy of poverty," he communicated his new plan to Grun. The latter
hastened to use it in his polemics against the communists. Engels hurried to
communicate this plan to the Brussels committee.
"But what was this plan which was to save the world? Nothing
more or less than the well-known and bankrupt English Labour
Exchanges run by associations of various craftsmen. All that is
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required is a large depot; all the products delivered by the
members of the association are to be evaluated according to the
prices of the raw materials plus the labour, and paid for in other
products evaluated in precisely the same way. The products in
excess of the needs of the association are to be sold in the world
market, and the receipts are to be turned over to the producers.
Thus, thinks the cunning Proudhon, the profits of the
commercial middleman might be eliminated to the advantage of
himself and his confederates."
In his letter Engels communicated new details of Proudhon's plan and was
indignant that such fantasies as the transformation of workers into property-owners
by the purchase of workshops on their savings still attracted the German workers.
Immediately upon the appearance of Proudhon's Philosophy of Poverty, Marx
sat down to work and wrote in 1847 his little book, Poverty of Philosophy, in which,
step by step, he overthrew the ideas of Proudhon. But he did not confine himself
merely to destructive criticism; he expounded his own fully developed ideas of
communism. By its brilliance and keenness of thought and by its correctness of
statement this book was a worthy introduction to the Communist Manifesto, and was
not inferior to the last comments Marx wrote on Proudhon in 1874 in an article on
"Political Indifference." This proves that Marx had developed his fundamental points
of view by 1847.
Marx vaguely formulated his ideas for the first time in 1845. Two more years
of assiduous work were required for Marx to be able to write his Poverty of
Philosophy. While studying the circumstances under which the proletariat was
formed and had developed in bourgeois society, he delved deeper and deeper into the
laws of production and distribution under the capitalist system. He re-examined the
teachings of bourgeois economists in the light of the dialectic method and he showed
that the fundamental categories, the phenomena of bourgeois society -- commodity,
value, money, capital -- represent something transitory. In his Poverty of Philosophy,
he made the first attempt to indicate the important phases in the development of the
process of capitalist production. This was only the first draft, but from this it was
already obvious that Marx was on the right track, that he had a true method, a
splendid compass, by the aid of which he confidently made his way through the
thickets of bourgeois economy. But this book also proved that it was not sufficient to
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