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PARALLEL TEXTS
MANIFESTO DEL PARTITO COMUNISTA (PRIMA PARTE)
Testi singoli tratti da: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch04.htm  e
http://www.marxists.org/italiano/marx-engels/1848/manifesto/mpc-4c.htm

MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY

MANIFESTO DEL PARTITO COMUNISTA

A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism.

Uno spettro s'aggira per l'Europa - lo spettro del comunismo.

All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.

Tutte le potenze della vecchia Europa si sono alleate in una santa battuta di caccia contro questo spettro: papa e zar, Metternich e Guizot, radicali francesi e poliziotti tedeschi.

Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by its opponents in power?

Quale partito d'opposizione non è stato tacciato di comunismo dai suoi avversari di governo?

Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?

qual partito d'opposizione non ha rilanciato l'infamante accusa di comunismo tanto sugli uomini più progrediti dell'opposizione stessa, quanto sui propri avversari reazionari?

Two things result from this fact:

Da questo fatto scaturiscono due specie di conclusioni.

I. Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself a power.

I. Il comunismo è di già riconosciuto come potenza da tutte le potenze europee.

II. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of Communism with a manifesto of the party itself.

II. E` ormai tempo che i comunisti espongano apertamente in faccia a tutto il mondo il loro modo di vedere, i loro fini, le loro tendenze, e che contrappongano alla favola dello spettro del comunismo un manifesto del partito stesso.

To this end, Communists of various nationalities have assembled in London and sketched the following manifesto, to be published in the English, French, German, Italian, Flemish and Danish languages.

A questo scopo si sono riuniti a Londra comunisti delle nazionalità più diverse e hanno redatto il seguente manifesto che viene pubblicato in inglese, francese, tedesco, italiano, fiammingo e danese.

1. BOURGEOIS AND PROLETARIANS

1. BORGHESI E PROLETARI

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

La storia di ogni società esistita fino a questo momento, è storia di lotte di classi.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

Liberi e schiavi, patrizi e plebei, baroni e servi della gleba, membri delle corporazioni e garzoni, in breve, oppressori e oppressi, furono continuamente in reciproco contrasto, e condussero una lotta ininterrotta, ora latente ora aperta; lotta che ogni volta è finita o con una trasformazione rivoluzionaria di tutta la società o con la comune rovina delle classi in lotta.

In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank.

Nelle epoche passate della storia troviamo quasi dappertutto una completa articolazione della società in differenti ordini, una molteplice graduazione delle posizioni sociali.

In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.

In Roma antica abbiamo patrizi, cavalieri, plebei, schiavi; nel medioevo signori feudali, vassalli, membri delle corporazioni, garzoni, servi della gleba, e, per di più, anche particolari graduazioni in quasi ognuna di queste classi.

The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms.

La società civile moderna, sorta dal tramonto della società feudale, non ha eliminato gli antagonismi fra le classi.

It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.

Essa ha soltanto sostituito alle antiche, nuove classi, nuove condizioni di oppressione, nuove forme di lotta.

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms.

La nostra epoca, l'epoca della borghesia, si distingue però dalle altre per aver semplificato gli antagonismi di classe.

Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.

L'intera società si va scindendo sempre più in due grandi campi nemici, in due grandi classi direttamente contrapposte l'una all'altra: borghesia e proletariato.

From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns.

Dai servi della gleba del medioevo sorse il popolo minuto delle prime città;

From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed.

da questo popolo minuto si svilupparono i primi elementi della borghesia.

The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie.

La scoperta dell'America, la circumnavigazione dell'Africa crearono alla sorgente borghesia un nuovo terreno.

The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development.

Il mercato delle Indie orientali e della Cina, la colonizzazione dell'America, gli scambi con le colonie, l'aumento dei mezzi di scambio e delle merci in genere diedero al commercio, alla navigazione, all'industria uno slancio fino allora mai conosciuto, e con ciò impressero un rapido sviluppo all'elemento rivoluzionario entro la società feudale in disgregazione.

The feudal system of industry, in which industrial production was monopolised by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets.

L'esercizio dell'industria, feudale o corporativo, in uso fino allora non bastava più al fabbisogno che aumentava con i nuovi mercati.

The manufacturing system took its place.

Al suo posto subentrò la manifattura.

The guild-masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle class; division of labour between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labour in each single workshop.

Il medio ceto industriale soppiantò i maestri artigiani; la divisione del lavoro fra le diverse corporazioni scomparve davanti alla divisione del lavoro nella singola officina stessa.

Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising.

Ma i mercati crescevano sempre, il fabbisogno saliva sempre.

Even manufacturer no longer sufficed.

Neppure la manifattura era più sufficiente.

Thereupon, steam and machinery revolutionised industrial production.

Allora il vapore e le macchine rivoluzionarono la produzione industriale.

The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, Modern Industry; the place of the industrial middle class by industrial millionaires, the leaders of the whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.

All'industria manifatturiera subentrò la grande industria moderna; al ceto medio industriale subentrarono i milionari dell'industria, i capi di interi eserciti industriali, i borghesi moderni.

Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way.

La grande industria ha creato quel mercato mondiale, ch'era stato preparato dalla scoperta dell'America.

This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land.

Il mercato mondiale ha dato uno sviluppo immenso al commercio, alla navigazione, alle comunicazioni per via di terra.

This development has, in its turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages.

Questo sviluppo ha reagito a sua volta sull'espansione dell'industria, e nella stessa misura in cui si estendevano industria, commercio, navigazione, ferrovie, si è sviluppata la borghesia, ha accresciuto i suoi capitali e ha respinto nel retroscena tutte le classi tramandate dal medioevo.

We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange.

Vediamo dunque come la borghesia moderna è essa stessa il prodotto d'un lungo processo di sviluppo, d'una serie di rivolgimenti nei modi di produzione e di traffico.

Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class.

Ognuno di questi stadi di sviluppo della borghesia era accompagnato da un corrispondente progresso politico.

An oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility, an armed and self-governing association in the medieval commune(4): here independent urban republic (as in Italy and Germany); there taxable “third estate” of the monarchy (as in France); afterwards, in the period of manufacturing proper, serving either the semi-feudal or the absolute monarchy as a counterpoise against the nobility, and, in fact, cornerstone of the great monarchies in general, the bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of Modern Industry and of the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway.

Ceto oppresso sotto il dominio dei signori feudali, insieme di associazioni armate ed autonome nel Comune, talvolta sotto la forma di repubblica municipale indipendente, talvolta di terzo stato tributario della monarchia, poi all'epoca dell'industria manifatturiera, nella monarchia controllata dagli stati come in quella assoluta, contrappeso alla nobiltà, e fondamento principale delle grandi monarchie in genere, la borghesia, infine, dopo la creazione della grande industria e del mercato mondiale, si è conquistata il dominio politico esclusivo dello Stato rappresentativo moderno.

The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.

Il potere statale moderno non è che un comitato che amministra gli affari comuni di tutta la classe borghese.

The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part.

La borghesia ha avuto nella storia una parte sommamente rivoluzionaria.

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations.

Dove ha raggiunto il dominio, la borghesia ha distrutto tutte le condizioni di vita feudali, patriarcali, idilliche.

It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”.

Ha lacerato spietatamente tutti i variopinti vincoli feudali che legavano l'uomo al suo superiore naturale, e non ha lasciato fra uomo e uomo altro vincolo che il nudo interesse, il freddo "pagamento in contanti".

It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation.

Ha affogato nell'acqua gelida del calcolo egoistico i sacri brividi dell'esaltazione devota, dell'entusiasmo cavalleresco, della malinconia filistea.

It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade.

Ha disciolto la dignità personale nel valore di scambio e al posto delle innumerevoli libertà patentate e onestamente conquistate, ha messo, unica, la libertà di commercio priva di scrupoli.

In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

In una parola: ha messo lo sfruttamento aperto, spudorato, diretto e arido al posto dello sfruttamento mascherato d'illusioni religiose e politiche.

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe.

La borghesia ha spogliato della loro aureola tutte le attività che fino allora erano venerate e considerate con pio timore.

It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

Ha tramutato il medico, il giurista, il prete, il poeta, l'uomo della scienza, in salariati ai suoi stipendi.

The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.

La borghesia ha strappato il commovente velo sentimentale al rapporto familiare e lo ha ricondotto a un puro rapporto di denaro.

The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigour in the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence.

La borghesia ha svelato come la brutale manifestazione di forza che la reazione ammira tanto nel medioevo, avesse la sua appropriata integrazione nella più pigra infingardaggine.

It has been the first to show what man’s activity can bring about.

Solo la borghesia ha dimostrato che cosa possa compiere l'attività dell'uomo.

It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades.

Essa ha compiuto ben altre meraviglie che le piramidi egiziane, acquedotti romani e cattedrali gotiche, ha portato a termine ben altre spedizioni che le migrazioni dei popoli e le crociate.

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.

La borghesia non può esistere senza rivoluzionare continuamente gli strumenti di produzione, i rapporti di produzione, dunque tutti i rapporti sociali.

Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes.

Prima condizione di esistenza di tutte le classi industriali precedenti era invece l'immutato mantenimento del vecchio sistema di produzione.

Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones.

Il continuo rivoluzionamento della produzione, l'ininterrotto scuotimento di tutte le situazioni sociali, l'incertezza e il movimento eterni contraddistinguono l'epoca dei borghesi fra tutte le epoche precedenti.

All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify.

Si dissolvono tutti i rapporti stabili e irrigiditi, con il loro seguito di idee e di concetti antichi e venerandi, e tutte le idee e i concetti nuovi invecchiano prima di potersi fissare.

All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his, real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

Si volatilizza tutto ciò che vi era di corporativo e di stabile, è profanata ogni cosa sacra, e gli uomini sono finalmente costretti a guardare con occhio disincantato la propria posizione e i propri reciproci rapporti.

The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe.

Il bisogno di uno smercio sempre più esteso per i suoi prodotti sospinge la borghesia a percorrere tutto il globo terrestre.

It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.

Dappertutto deve annidarsi, dappertutto deve costruire le sue basi, dappertutto deve creare relazioni.

The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country.

Con lo sfruttamento del mercato mondiale la borghesia ha dato un'impronta cosmopolitica alla produzione e al consumo di tutti i paesi.

To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood.

Ha tolto di sotto i piedi dell'industria il suo terreno nazionale, con gran rammarico dei reazionari.

All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed.

Le antichissime industrie nazionali sono state distrutte, e ancora adesso vengono distrutte ogni giorno.

They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe.

Vengono soppiantate da industrie nuove, la cui introduzione diventa questione di vita o di morte per tutte le nazioni civili, da industrie che non lavorano più soltanto le materie prime del luogo, ma delle zone più remote, e i cui prodotti non vengono consumati solo dal paese stesso, ma anche in tutte le parti del mondo.

In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes.

Ai vecchi bisogni, soddisfatti con i prodotti del paese, subentrano bisogni nuovi, che per essere soddisfatti esigono i prodotti dei paesi e dei climi più lontani.

In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations.

All'antica autosufficienza e all'antico isolamento locali e nazionali subentra uno scambio universale, una interdipendenza universale fra le nazioni.

And as in material, so also in intellectual production.

E come per la produzione materiale, così per quella intellettuale.

The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property.

I prodotti intellettuali delle singole nazioni divengono bene comune.

National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.

L'unilateralità e la ristrettezza nazionali divengono sempre più impossibili, e dalle molte letterature nazionali e locali si forma una letteratura mondiale.

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation.

Con il rapido miglioramento di tutti gli strumenti di produzione, con le comunicazioni infinitamente agevolate, la borghesia trascina nella civiltà tutte le nazioni, anche le più barbare.

The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate.

I bassi prezzi delle sue merci sono l'artiglieria pesante con la quale spiana tutte le muraglie cinesi, con la quale costringe alla capitolazione la più tenace xenofobia dei barbari.

It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves.

Costringe tutte le nazioni ad adottare il sistema di produzione della borghesia, se non vogliono andare in rovina, le costringe ad introdurre in casa loro la cosiddetta civiltà, cioè a diventare borghesi.

In one word, it creates a world after its own image.

In una parola: essa si crea un mondo a propria immagine e somiglianza.

The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns.

La borghesia ha assoggettato la campagna al dominio della città.

It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life.

Ha creato città enormi, ha accresciuto su grande scala la cifra della popolazione urbana in confronto di quella rurale, strappando in tal modo una parte notevole della popolazione all'idiotismo della vita rurale.

Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.

Come ha reso la campagna dipendente dalla città, la borghesia ha reso i paesi barbari e semibarbari dipendenti da quelli inciviliti, i popoli di contadini da quelli di borghesi, l'Oriente dall'Occidente.

The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property.

La borghesia elimina sempre più la dispersione dei mezzi di produzione, della proprietà e della popolazione.

It has agglomerated population, centralised the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands.

Ha agglomerato la popolazione, ha centralizzato i mezzi di produzione, e ha concentrato in poche mani la proprietà.

The necessary consequence of this was political centralisation.

Ne è stata conseguenza necessaria la centralizzazione politica.

Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier, and one customs-tariff.

Province indipendenti, legate quasi solo da vincoli federali, con interessi, leggi, governi e dazi differenti, vennero strette in una sola nazione, sotto un solo governo, una sola legge, un solo interesse nazionale di classe, entro una sola barriera doganale.

The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.

Durante il suo dominio di classe appena secolare la borghesia ha creato forze produttive in massa molto maggiore e più colossali che non avessero mai fatto tutte insieme le altre generazioni del passato.

Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation or rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground — what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?

Il soggiogamento delle forze naturali, le macchine, l'applicazione della chimica all'industria e all'agricoltura, la navigazione a vapore, le ferrovie, i telegrafi elettrici, il dissodamento d'interi continenti, la navigabilità dei fiumi, popolazioni intere sorte quasi per incanto dal suolo -quale dei secoli antecedenti immaginava che nel grembo del lavoro sociale stessero sopite tali forze produttive?

We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society.

Ma abbiamo visto che i mezzi di produzione e di scambio sulla cui base si era venuta costituendo la borghesia erano stati prodotti entro la società feudale.

At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organisation of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces;

A un certo grado dello sviluppo di quei mezzi di produzione e di scambio, le condizioni nelle quali la società feudale produceva e scambiava, l'organizzazione feudale dell'agricoltura e della manifattura, in una parola i rapporti feudali della proprietà, non corrisposero più alle forze produttive ormai sviluppate.

they became so many fetters.

Essi inceppavano la produzione invece di promuoverla (lett. si trasformarono in altrettante catene).

They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder.

Dovevano essere spezzate e furono spezzate.

Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class.

Ad esse subentrò la libera concorrenza con la confacente costituzione sociale e politica, con il dominio economico e politico della classe dei borghesi.

A similar movement is going on before our own eyes.

Sotto i nostri occhi si svolge un moto analogo.

Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.

I rapporti borghesi di produzione e di scambio, i rapporti borghesi di proprietà, la società borghese moderna che ha creato per incanto mezzi di produzione e di scambio così potenti, rassomiglia al mago che non riesce più a dominare le potenze degli inferi da lui evocate.

For many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois and of its rule.

Sono decenni ormai che la storia dell'industria e del commercio è soltanto storia della rivolta delle forze produttive moderne contro i rapporti moderni della produzione, cioè contro i rapporti di proprietà che costituiscono le condizioni di esistenza della borghesia e del suo dominio.

It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly.

Basti ricordare le crisi commerciali che col loro periodico ritorno mettono in forse sempre più minacciosamente l'esistenza di tutta la società borghese.

In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed.

Nelle crisi commerciali viene regolarmente distrutta non solo una parte dei prodotti ottenuti, ma addirittura gran parte delle forze produttive già create.

In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production.

Nelle crisi scoppia una epidemia sociale che in tutte le epoche precedenti sarebbe apparsa un assurdo: l'epidemia della sovraproduzione.

Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed;

La società si trova all'improvviso ricondotta a uno stato di momentanea barbarie; sembra che una carestia, una guerra generale di sterminio le abbiano tagliato tutti i mezzi di sussistenza; l'industria, il commercio sembrano distrutti.

and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce.

E perché? Perché la società possiede troppa civiltà, troppi mezzi di sussistenza, troppa industria, troppo commercio.

The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property.

Le forze produttive che sono a sua disposizione non servono più a promuovere la civiltà borghese e i rapporti borghesi di proprietà; anzi, sono divenute troppo potenti per quei rapporti e ne vengono ostacolate, e appena superano questo ostacolo mettono in disordine tutta la società borghese, mettono in pericolo l'esistenza della proprietà borghese.

The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them.

I rapporti borghesi sono divenuti troppo angusti per poter contenere la ricchezza da essi stessi prodotta.

And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones.

Con quale mezzo la borghesia supera le crisi? Da un lato, con la distruzione coatta di una massa di forze produttive; dall'altro, con la conquista di nuovi mercati e con lo sfruttamento più intenso dei vecchi.

That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented.

Dunque, con quali mezzi? Mediante la preparazione di crisi più generali e più violente e la diminuzione dei mezzi per prevenire le crisi stesse.

The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself.

A questo momento le armi che son servite alla borghesia per atterrare il feudalesimo si rivolgono contro la borghesia stessa.

But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons — the modern working class — the proletarians.

Ma la borghesia non ha soltanto fabbricato le armi che la porteranno alla morte; ha anche generato gli uomini che impugneranno quelle armi: gli operai moderni, i proletari.

In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed — a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital.

Nella stessa proporzione in cui si sviluppa la borghesia, cioè il capitale, si sviluppa il proletariato, la classe degli operai moderni, che vivono solo fintantoché trovano lavoro, e che trovano lavoro solo fintantoché il loro lavoro aumenta il capitale.

These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.

Questi operai, che sono costretti a vendersi al minuto, sono una merce come ogni altro articolo commerciale, e sono quindi esposti, come le altre merci, a tutte le alterne vicende della concorrenza, a tutte le oscillazioni del mercato.

Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman.

Con l'estendersi dell'uso delle macchine e con la divisione del lavoro, il lavoro dei proletari ha perduto ogni carattere indipendente e con ciò ogni attrattiva per l'operaio.

He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him.

Egli diviene un semplice accessorio della macchina, al quale si richiede soltanto un'operazione manuale semplicissima, estremamente monotona e facilissima da imparare.

Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for maintenance, and for the propagation of his race.

Quindi le spese che causa l'operaio si limitano quasi esclusivamente ai mezzi di sussistenza dei quali egli ha bisogno per il proprio mantenimento e per la riproduzione della specie.

But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labour, is equal to its cost of production.

Ma il prezzo di una merce, quindi anche quello del lavoro, è uguale ai suoi costi di produzione.

In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases.

Quindi il salario decresce nella stessa proporzione in cui aumenta il tedio del lavoro.

Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by the increase of the work exacted in a given time or by increased speed of machinery, etc.

Anzi, nella stessa proporzione dell'aumento dell'uso delle macchine e della divisione del lavoro, aumenta anche la massa del lavoro, sia attraverso l'aumento delle ore di lavoro, sia attraverso l'aumento del lavoro che si esige in una data unità di tempo, attraverso l'accresciuta celerità delle macchine, e così via.

Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist.

L'industria moderna ha trasformato la piccola officina del maestro artigiano patriarcale nella grande fabbrica del capitalista industriale.

Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organised like soldiers.

Masse di operai addensate nelle fabbriche vengono organizzate militarmente.

As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants.

E vengono poste, come soldati semplici dell'industria, sotto la sorveglianza di una completa gerarchia di sottufficiali e ufficiali.

Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself.

Gli operai non sono soltanto servi della classe dei borghesi, ma vengono asserviti giorno per giorno, ora per ora dalla macchina, dal sorvegliante, e soprattutto dal singolo borghese fabbricante in persona.

The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is.

Questo dispotismo è tanto più meschino, odioso ed esasperante, quanto più apertamente esso proclama come fine ultimo il guadagno.

The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labour, in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labour of men superseded by that of women.

Quanto meno il lavoro manuale esige abilità ed esplicazione di forza, cioè quanto più si sviluppa l'industria moderna, tanto più il lavoro degli uomini viene soppiantato da quello delle donne [e dei fanciulli].

Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class.

Per la classe operaia non han più valore sociale le differenze di sesso e di età.

All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex.

Ormai ci sono soltanto strumenti di lavoro che costano più o meno a seconda dell'età e del sesso.

No sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, so far, at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc.

Quando lo sfruttamento dell'operaio da parte del padrone di fabbrica è terminato in quanto all'operaio viene pagato il suo salario in contanti, si gettano su di lui le altre parti della borghesia, il padron di casa, il bottegaio, il prestatore su pegno e così via.

The lower strata of the middle class — the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants — all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialised skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production.

Quelli che fino a questo momento erano i piccoli ordini medi, cioè i piccoli industriali, i piccoli commercianti e coloro che vivevano di piccole rendite, gli artigiani e i contadini, tutte queste classi precipitano nel proletariato, in parte per il fatto che il loro piccolo capitale non è sufficiente per l'esercizio della grande industria e soccombe nella concorrenza con i capitalisti più forti, in parte per il fatto che la loro abilità viene svalutata da nuovi sistemi di produzione.

Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population.

Così il proletariato si recluta in tutte le classi della popolazione.

The proletariat goes through various stages of development.

Il proletariato passa attraverso vari gradi di sviluppo.

With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie.

La sua lotta contro la borghesia comincia con la sua esistenza.

At first the contest is carried on by individual labourers, then by the workpeople of a factory, then by the operative of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them.

Da principio singoli operai, poi gli operai di una fabbrica, poi gli operai di una branca di lavoro in un dato luogo lottano contro il singolo borghese che li sfrutta direttamente.

They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labour, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status of the workman of the Middle Ages.

Essi non dirigono i loro attacchi soltanto contro i rapporti borghesi di produzione, ma contro gli stessi strumenti di produzione; distruggono le merci straniere che fan loro concorrenza, fracassano le macchine, danno fuoco alle fabbriche, cercano di riconquistarsi la tramontata posizione del lavoratore medievale.

At this stage, the labourers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition.

In questo stadio gli operai costituiscono una massa disseminata per tutto il paese e dispersa a causa della concorrenza.

If anywhere they unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet the consequence of their own active union, but of the union of the bourgeoisie, which class, in order to attain its own political ends, is compelled to set the whole proletariat in motion, and is moreover yet, for a time, able to do so.

La solidarietà di maggiori masse operaie non è ancora il risultato della loro propria unione, ma della unione della borghesia, la quale, per il raggiungimento dei propri fini politici, deve mettere in movimento tutto il proletariato, e per il momento può ancora farlo.

At this stage, therefore, the proletarians do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial bourgeois, the petty bourgeois.

Dunque, in questo stadio i proletari combattono non i propri nemici, ma i nemici dei propri nemici, gli avanzi della monarchia assoluta, i proprietari fondiari, i borghesi non industriali, i piccoli borghesi.

Thus, the whole historical movement is concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory so obtained is a victory for the bourgeoisie.

Così tutto il movimento della storia è concentrato nelle mani della borghesia; ogni vittoria raggiunta in questo modo è una vittoria della borghesia.

But with the development of industry, the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that strength more.

Ma il proletariato, con lo sviluppo dell'industria, non solo si moltiplica; viene addensato in masse più grandi, la sua forza cresce, ed esso la sente di più.

The various interests and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalised, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labour, and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level.

Gli interessi, le condizioni di esistenza all'interno del proletariato si vanno sempre più agguagliando man mano che le macchine cancellano le differenze del lavoro e fanno discendere quasi dappertutto il salario a un livello ugualmente basso.

The growing competition among the bourgeois, and the resulting commercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more fluctuating.

La crescente concorrenza dei borghesi fra di loro e le crisi commerciali che ne derivano rendono sempre più oscillante il salario degli operai

The increasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious; the collisions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes.

; l'incessante e sempre più rapido sviluppo del perfezionamento delle macchine rende sempre più incerto il complesso della loro esistenza; le collisioni fra il singolo operaio e il singolo borghese assumono sempre più il carattere di collisioni di due classi.

Thereupon, the workers begin to form combinations (Trades’ Unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts.

Gli operai cominciano col formare coalizioni contro i borghesi (sindacati), e si riuniscono per difendere il loro salario. Fondano perfino associazioni permanenti per approvvigionarsi in vista di quegli eventuali sollevamenti.

Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots.

Qua e là la lotta prorompe in sommosse.

Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time.

Ogni tanto vincono gli operai; ma solo transitoriamente.

The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers.

Il vero e proprio risultato delle lotte non è il successo immediato, ma il fatto che l'unione degli operai si estende sempre più.

This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by modern industry, and that place the workers of different localities in contact with one another.

Essa è favorita dall'aumento dei mezzi di comunicazione, prodotti dalla grande industria, che mettono in collegamento gli operai delle diverse località.

It was just this contact that was needed to centralise the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle between classes.

E basta questo collegamento per centralizzare in una lotta nazionale, in una lotta di classe, le molte lotte locali che hanno dappertutto uguale carattere.

But every class struggle is a political struggle.

Ma ogni lotta di classi è lotta politica.

And that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the modern proletarian, thanks to railways, achieve in a few years.

E quella unione per la quale i cittadini del medioevo con le loro strade vicinali ebbero bisogno di secoli, i proletari moderni con le ferrovie la attuano in pochi anni.

This organisation of the proletarians into a class, and, consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves.

Questa organizzazione dei proletari in classe e quindi in partito politico torna ad essere spezzata ogni momento dalla concorrenza fra gli operai stessi.

But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier.

Ma risorge sempre di nuovo, più forte, più salda, più potente.

It compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself.

Essa impone il riconoscimento in forma di legge di singoli interessi degli operai, approfittando delle scissioni all'interno della borghesia.

Thus, the ten-hours’ bill in England was carried.

Così fu per la legge delle dieci ore di lavoro in Inghilterra.

Altogether collisions between the classes of the old society further, in many ways, the course of development of the proletariat.

In genere, i conflitti insiti nella vecchia società promuovono in molte maniere il processo evolutivo del proletariato.

The bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle. At first with the aristocracy; later on, with those portions of the bourgeoisie itself, whose interests have become antagonistic to the progress of industry; at all time with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries.

La borghesia è sempre in lotta; da principio contro l'aristocrazia, più tardi contro le parti della stessa borghesia i cui interessi vengono a contrasto con il progresso dell'industria, e sempre contro la borghesia di tutti i paesi stranieri.

In all these battles, it sees itself compelled to appeal to the proletariat, to ask for help, and thus, to drag it into the political arena.

In tutte queste lotte essa si vede costretta a fare appello al proletariato, a valersi del suo aiuto, e a trascinarlo così entro il movimento politico.

The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie.

Essa stessa dunque reca al proletariato i propri elementi di educazione politica e generale, in altre parole, fornisce al proletariato delle armi per combattere la borghesia.

Further, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling class are, by the advance of industry, precipitated into the proletariat, or are at least threatened in their conditions of existence.

Inoltre, come abbiamo veduto, il progresso dell'industria precipita nel proletariato intere sezioni della classe dominante, o per lo meno ne minaccia le condizioni di esistenza.

These also supply the proletariat with fresh elements of enlightenment and progress.

Anch'esse arrecano al proletariato una massa di elementi di educazione.

Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the progress of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands.

Infine, in tempi nei quali la lotta delle classi si avvicina al momento decisivo, il processo di disgregazione all'interno della classe dominante, di tutta la vecchia società, assume un carattere così violento, così aspro, che una piccola parte della classe dominante si distacca da essa e si unisce alla classe rivoluzionaria, alla classe che tiene in mano l'avvenire.

Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole.

Quindi, come prima una parte della nobiltà era passata alla borghesia, così ora una parte della borghesia passa al proletariato; e specialmente una parte degli ideologi borghesi, che sono riusciti a giungere alla intelligenza teorica del movimento storico nel suo insieme.

Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class.

Fra tutte le classi che oggi stanno di contro alla borghesia, il proletariato soltanto è una classe realmente rivoluzionaria.

The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product.

Le altre classi decadono e tramontano con la grande industria; il proletariato è il suo prodotto più specifico.

The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class.

Gli ordini medi, il piccolo industriale, il piccolo commerciante, l'artigiano, il contadino, combattono tutti la borghesia, per premunire dalla scomparsa la propria esistenza come ordini medi.

They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative.

Quindi non sono rivoluzionari, ma conservatori.

Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history.

Anzi, sono reazionari, poiché cercano di far girare all'indietro la ruota della storia.

If by chance, they are revolutionary, they are only so in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.

Quando sono rivoluzionari, sono tali in vista del loro imminente passaggio al proletariato, non difendono i loro interessi presenti, ma i loro interessi futuri, e abbandonano il proprio punto di vista, per mettersi da quello del proletariato.

The “dangerous class”, the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.

Il sottoproletariato, questa putrefazione passiva degli infimi strati della società, che in seguito a una rivoluzione proletaria viene scagliato qua e là nel movimento, sarà più disposto, date tutte le sue condizioni di vita, a lasciarsi comprare per mene reazionarie.

In the condition of the proletariat, those of old society at large are already virtually swamped.

Le condizioni di esistenza della vecchia società sono già annullate nelle condizioni di esistenza del proletariato.

The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations; modern industry labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character.

Il proletario è senza proprietà; il suo rapporto con moglie e figli non ha più nulla in comune con il rapporto familiare borghese; il lavoro industriale moderno, il soggiogamento moderno del capitale, identico in Inghilterra e in Francia, in America e in Germania, lo ha spogliato di ogni carattere nazionale.

Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.

Leggi, morale, religione sono per lui altrettanti pregiudizi borghesi, dietro i quali si nascondono altrettanti interessi borghesi.

All the preceding classes that got the upper hand sought to fortify their already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their conditions of appropriation.

Tutte le classi che si sono finora conquistato il potere hanno cercato di garantire la posizione di vita già acquisita, assoggettando l'intera società alle condizioni della loro acquisizione.

The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation.

I proletari possono conquistarsi le forze produttive della società soltanto abolendo il loro proprio sistema di appropriazione avuto sino a questo momento, e per ciò stesso l'intero sistema di appropriazione che c'è stato finora.

They have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property.

I proletari non hanno da salvaguardare nulla di proprio, hanno da distruggere tutta la sicurezza privata e tutte le assicurazioni private che ci sono state fin qui.

All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities.

Tutti i movimenti precedenti sono stati movimenti di minoranze, o avvenuti nell'interesse di minoranze.

The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.

Il movimento proletario è il movimento indipendente della immensa maggioranza.

The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air.

Il proletariato, lo strato più basso della società odierna, non può sollevarsi, non può drizzarsi, senza che salti per aria l'intera soprastruttura degli strati che formano la società ufficiale.

Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle.

La lotta del proletariato contro la borghesia è in un primo tempo lotta nazionale, anche se non sostanzialmente, certo formalmente.

The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.

E` naturale che il proletariato di ciascun paese debba anzitutto sbrigarsela con la propria borghesia.

In depicting the 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.

Delineando le fasi più generali dello sviluppo del proletariato, abbiamo seguito la guerra civile più o meno latente all'interno della società attuale, fino al momento nel quale quella guerra erompe in aperta rivoluzione e nel quale il proletariato fonda il suo dominio attraverso il violento abbattimento della borghesia.

Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes.

Ogni società si è basata finora, come abbiam visto, sul contrasto fra classi di oppressori e classi di oppressi.

But in order to oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at least, continue its slavish existence.

Ma, per poter opprimere una classe, le debbono essere assicurate condizioni entro le quali essa possa per lo meno stentare la sua vita di schiava.

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.

Il servo della gleba, lavorando nel suo stato di servo della gleba, ha potuto elevarsi a membro del comune, come il cittadino minuto, lavorando sotto il giogo dell'assolutismo feudale, ha potuto elevarsi a borghese.

The modern labourer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the process of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class.

Ma l'operaio moderno, invece di elevarsi man mano che l'industria progredisce, scende sempre più al disotto delle condizioni della sua propria classe.

He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth.

L'operaio diventa un povero, e il pauperismo si sviluppa anche più rapidamente che la popolazione e la ricchezza.

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 over-riding law.

Da tutto ciò appare manifesto che la borghesia non è in grado di rimanere ancora più a lungo la classe dominante della società e di imporre alla società le condizioni di vita della propria classe come legge regolatrice.

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.

Non è capace di dominare, perché non è capace di garantire l'esistenza al proprio schiavo neppure entro la sua schiavitù, perché è costretta a lasciarlo sprofondare in una situazione nella quale, invece di esser da lui nutrita, essa è costretta a nutrirlo.

Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.

La società non può più vivere sotto la classe borghese, vale a dire la esistenza della classe borghese non è più compatibile con la società.

The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour.

La condizione più importante per l'esistenza e per il dominio della classe borghese è l'accumularsi della ricchezza nelle mani di privati, la formazione e la moltiplicazione del capitale; condizione del capitale è il lavoro salariato.

Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers.

Il lavoro salariato poggia esclusivamente sulla concorrenza degli operai tra di loro.

The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association.

Il progresso dell'industria, del quale la borghesia è veicolo involontario e passivo, fa subentrare all'isolamento degli operai risultante dalla concorrenza, la loro unione rivoluzionaria, risultante dall'associazione.

The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products.

Con lo sviluppo della grande industria, dunque, vien tolto di sotto ai piedi della borghesia il terreno stesso sul quale essa produce e si appropria i prodotti.

What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers.

Essa produce anzitutto i suoi seppellitori.

Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

Il suo tramonto e la vittoria del proletariato sono del pari inevitabili.

 



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MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY

A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism.

All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.

Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by its opponents in power?

Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?

Two things result from this fact:

I. Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself a power.

II. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of Communism with a manifesto of the party itself.

To this end, Communists of various nationalities have assembled in London and sketched the following manifesto, to be published in the English, French, German, Italian, Flemish and Danish languages.

1. BOURGEOIS AND PROLETARIANS

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank.

In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.

The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms.

It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms.

Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.

From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns.

From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed.

The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie.

The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development.

The feudal system of industry, in which industrial production was monopolised by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets.

The manufacturing system took its place.

The guild-masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle class; division of labour between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labour in each single workshop.

Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising.

Even manufacturer no longer sufficed.

Thereupon, steam and machinery revolutionised industrial production.

The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, Modern Industry; the place of the industrial middle class by industrial millionaires, the leaders of the whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.

Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way.

This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land.

This development has, in its turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages.

We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange.

Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class.

An oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility, an armed and self-governing association in the medieval commune(4): here independent urban republic (as in Italy and Germany); there taxable “third estate” of the monarchy (as in France); afterwards, in the period of manufacturing proper, serving either the semi-feudal or the absolute monarchy as a counterpoise against the nobility, and, in fact, cornerstone of the great monarchies in general, the bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of Modern Industry and of the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway.

The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.

The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part.

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations.

It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”.

It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation.

It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade.

In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe.

It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.

The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigour in the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence.

It has been the first to show what man’s activity can bring about.

It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades.

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.

Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes.

Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones.

All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify.

All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his, real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe.

It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere.

The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country.

To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood.

All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed.

They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe.

In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes.

In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations.

And as in material, so also in intellectual production.

The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property.

National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.

The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation.

The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate.

It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves.

In one word, it creates a world after its own image.

The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns.

It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life.

Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.

The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property.

It has agglomerated population, centralised the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands.

The necessary consequence of this was political centralisation.

Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier, and one customs-tariff.

The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.

Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation or rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground — what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?

We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society.

At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organisation of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces;

they became so many fetters.

They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder.

Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class.

A similar movement is going on before our own eyes.

Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.

For many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois and of its rule.

It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly.

In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed.

In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production.

Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed;

and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce.

The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property.

The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them.

And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones.

That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented.

The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself.

But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons — the modern working class — the proletarians.

In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed — a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital.

These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.

Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman.

He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him.

Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for maintenance, and for the propagation of his race.

But the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labour, is equal to its cost of production.

In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases.

Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by the increase of the work exacted in a given time or by increased speed of machinery, etc.

Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist.

Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organised like soldiers.

As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants.

Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself.

The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is.

The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labour, in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labour of men superseded by that of women.

Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class.

All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex.

No sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, so far, at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc.

The lower strata of the middle class — the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants — all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialised skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production.

Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population.

The proletariat goes through various stages of development.

With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie.

At first the contest is carried on by individual labourers, then by the workpeople of a factory, then by the operative of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them.

They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labour, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status of the workman of the Middle Ages.

At this stage, the labourers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition.

If anywhere they unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet the consequence of their own active union, but of the union of the bourgeoisie, which class, in order to attain its own political ends, is compelled to set the whole proletariat in motion, and is moreover yet, for a time, able to do so.

At this stage, therefore, the proletarians do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial bourgeois, the petty bourgeois.

Thus, the whole historical movement is concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory so obtained is a victory for the bourgeoisie.

But with the development of industry, the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that strength more.

The various interests and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalised, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labour, and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level.

The growing competition among the bourgeois, and the resulting commercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more fluctuating.

The increasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious; the collisions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes.

Thereupon, the workers begin to form combinations (Trades’ Unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts.

Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots.

Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time.

The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers.

This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by modern industry, and that place the workers of different localities in contact with one another.

It was just this contact that was needed to centralise the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle between classes.

But every class struggle is a political struggle.

And that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the modern proletarian, thanks to railways, achieve in a few years.

This organisation of the proletarians into a class, and, consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves.

But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier.

It compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself.

Thus, the ten-hours’ bill in England was carried.

Altogether collisions between the classes of the old society further, in many ways, the course of development of the proletariat.

The bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle. At first with the aristocracy; later on, with those portions of the bourgeoisie itself, whose interests have become antagonistic to the progress of industry; at all time with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries.

In all these battles, it sees itself compelled to appeal to the proletariat, to ask for help, and thus, to drag it into the political arena.

The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie.

Further, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling class are, by the advance of industry, precipitated into the proletariat, or are at least threatened in their conditions of existence.

These also supply the proletariat with fresh elements of enlightenment and progress.

Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the progress of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands.

Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole.

Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class.

The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product.

The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class.

They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative.

Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history.

If by chance, they are revolutionary, they are only so in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.

The “dangerous class”, the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.

In the condition of the proletariat, those of old society at large are already virtually swamped.

The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations; modern industry labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character.

Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.

All the preceding classes that got the upper hand sought to fortify their already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their conditions of appropriation.

The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation.

They have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property.

All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities.

The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.

The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air.

Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle.

The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.

In depicting the 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 labourer, 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 over-riding 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 bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.

The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour.

Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers.

The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association.

The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products.

What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers.

Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.