Manifesto of the Communist Party

47 

Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith 

that, for big industry, competition and generally the individualistic organization of 

production have become a fetter which it must and will shatter;  

that, so long as big industry remains on its present footing, it can be maintained 

only at the cost of general chaos every seven years, each time threatening the 

whole of civilization and not only plunging the proletarians into misery but also 

ruining large sections of the bourgeoisie;  

hence, either that big industry must itself be given up, which is an absolute 

impossibility, or that it makes unavoidably necessary an entirely new organization 

of society in which production is no longer directed by mutually competing 

individual industrialists but rather by the whole society operating according to a 

definite plan and taking account of the needs of all.  

Second: That big industry, and the limitless expansion of production which it makes possible, 

bring within the range of feasibility a social order in which so much is produced that every 

member of society will be in a position to exercise and develop all his powers and faculties in 

complete freedom.  

It thus appears that the very qualities of big industry which, in our present-day society, produce 

misery and crises are those which, in a different form of society, will abolish this misery and 

these catastrophic depressions.  

We see with the greatest clarity:  

(i) That all these evils are from now on to be ascribed solely to a social order 

which no longer corresponds to the requirements of the real situation; and  

(ii) That it is possible, through a new social order, to do away with these evils 

altogether.  

– 14 –  

What will this new social order have to be like? 

Above all, it will have to take the control of industry and of all branches of production out of the 

hands of mutually competing individuals, and instead institute a system in which all these 

branches of production are operated by society as a whole – that is, for the common account, 

according to a common plan, and with the participation of all members of society.  

It will, in other words, abolish competition and replace it with association.  

Moreover, since the management of industry by individuals necessarily implies private property, 

and since competition is in reality merely the manner and form in which the control of industry 

by private property owners expresses itself, it follows that private property cannot be separated 

from competition and the individual management of industry. Private property must, therefore, be 

abolished and in its place must come the common utilization of all instruments of production and 

the distribution of all products according to common agreement – in a word, what is called the 

communal ownership of goods.  

In fact, the abolition of private property is, doubtless, the shortest and most significant way to 

characterize the revolution in the whole social order which has been made necessary by the 

development of industry – and for this reason it is rightly advanced by communists as their main 

demand.  

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48 

Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith 

– 15 –  

Was not the abolition of private property possible at an 

earlier time? 

No. Every change in the social order, every revolution in property relations, is the necessary 

consequence of the creation of new forces of production which no longer fit into the old property 

relations.  

Private property has not always existed.  

When, towards the end of the Middle Ages, there arose a new mode of production which could 

not be carried on under the then existing feudal and guild forms of property, this manufacture, 

which had outgrown the old property relations, created a new property form, private property. 

And for manufacture and the earliest stage of development of big industry, private property was 

the only possible property form; the social order based on it was the only possible social order.  

So long as it is not possible to produce so much that there is enough for all, with more left over 

for expanding the social capital and extending the forces of production – so long as this is not 

possible, there must always be a ruling class directing the use of society’s productive forces, and 

a poor, oppressed class. How these classes are constituted depends on the stage of development.  

The agrarian Middle Ages give us the baron and the serf; the cities of the later Middle Ages show 

us the guildmaster and the journeyman and the day laborer; the 17th century has its 

manufacturing workers; the 19th has big factory owners and proletarians.  

It is clear that, up to now, the forces of production have never been developed to the point where 

enough could be developed for all, and that private property has become a fetter and a barrier in 

relation to the further development of the forces of production.  

Now, however, the development of big industry has ushered in a new period. Capital and the 

forces of production have been expanded to an unprecedented extent, and the means are at hand 

to multiply them without limit in the near future. Moreover, the forces of production have been 

concentrated in the hands of a few bourgeois, while the great mass of the people are more and 

more falling into the proletariat, their situation becoming more wretched and intolerable in 

proportion to the increase of wealth of the bourgeoisie. And finally, these mighty and easily 

extended forces of production have so far outgrown private property and the bourgeoisie, that 

they threaten at any moment to unleash the most violent disturbances of the social order. Now, 

under these conditions, the abolition of private property has become not only possible but 

absolutely necessary.  

– 16 –  

Will the peaceful abolition of private property be possible? 

It would be desirable if this could happen, and the communists would certainly be the last to 

oppose it. Communists know only too well that all conspiracies are not only useless, but even 

harmful. They know all too well that revolutions are not made intentionally and arbitrarily, but 

that, everywhere and always, they have been the necessary consequence of conditions which were 

wholly independent of the will and direction of individual parties and entire classes.  

But they also see that the development of the proletariat in nearly all civilized countries has been 

violently suppressed, and that in this way the opponents of communism have been working 

toward a revolution with all their strength. If the oppressed proletariat is finally driven to 

revolution, then we communists will defend the interests of the proletarians with deeds as we now 

defend them with words.  

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