Proletarians of the world, unite!
Communist Party of China
The bourgeois and the proletarian The history of all societies to this day is the history of class struggle.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, Lord and serf, guild master and his helper, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to each other, constantly, sometimes hidden sometimes open fight, a fight that each time the result is a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the struggle of each classAlmost everywhere in past historical eras, we see a complete division of society into different classes, and a variety of levels of social status. In ancient Rome there were nobles, knights, plebeians, slaves, and in the Middle Ages there were feudal lords, servants, guild masters, laborers, serfs, and within almost every class there were special classes.
The modern bourgeois society that emerged from the demise of feudal society did not eliminate class antagonism. It simply replaces the old one with a new class, a new condition of oppression, a new form of struggle.
But our age, the bourgeois age, has one characteristic: it simplifies class antagonisms. The whole society is increasingly divided into two hostile camps, into two classes which are in direct opposition to each other: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
From the serfs of the Middle Ages came the citizens of the early cities; From this class of citizens emerged the first elements of the bourgeoisie.
The discovery of America and the voyage round Africa opened up new horizons for the new bourgeoisie. The markets of the East Indies and China, the colonization of America, the increase in trade with the colonies, the means of exchange, and general goods, led to an unprecedented upsurge in commerce, navigation, and industry, and thus to the rapid development of revolutionary elements within the collapsing feudal society.
The feudal or guild mode of industrial operation was no longer sufficient to meet the increasing demands of the new market. Handicraft industry took the place of this mode of operation.
Guild masters were marginalized by the middle classes of industry; The division of labor among the various trade organizations disappeared with the emergence of division of labor within the individual workshops.
But the market is always expanding and the demand is always increasing. Even the workshop and handicraft industry can no longer meet the demand. Steam and the machine thus revolutionized industrial production.
Modern industry has taken the place of workshop and handicraft; The industrial middle class was replaced by industrial millionaires, by the leaders of industrial armies, by the modern bourgeoisie..
Great industry established a world market prepared by the discovery of America. The world market has enabled commerce, navigation, and land transportation to grow enormously. This development, in turn, encouraged the expansion of industry, and with the expansion of industry, commerce, navigation, and railroads, the bourgeoisie grew up to the same extent, increased its capital, and pushed back all the classes left over from the Middle Ages.
It follows that the modern bourgeoisie itself is the product of a long process of development, of a series of changes in the modes of production and exchange.
Each stage of this development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance. It was an oppressed caste under feudal rule, an armed and autonomous body in communes 2, an independent urban republic in some places, and a tax-paying third caste in monarchies in others; Later, in the workmanship era, it was a counterweight to the nobility in hierarchical or absolute monarchies, and the principal basis of great monarchies; Finally, from the time of the establishment of great industry and the world market, it has gained exclusive political domination in the modern representative state. The modern state and government are only committees that manage the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.
Marx and Engels Drafted The Communist Manifesto
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