relay still open at 130.63.87.153

[Faris Al Kahtani]

most general phases of the development of the
proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within
existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open
revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the
foundation for the sway of the proletariat.

Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen,
on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But in order to
oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it under which it
can, at least, continue its slavish existence. The serf, in the period
of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the
petty bourgeois, under the yoke of the feudal absolutism, managed to
develop into a bourgeois. The modern laborer, on the contrary, instead
of rising with the process of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below
the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and
pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. And here it
becomes evident that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the
ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon
society as an overriding law. It is unfit to rule because it is
incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery,
because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has
to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live
under this bourgeoisi