"The communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be obtained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling class tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains, they have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite."
This was the language and the spirit of the times. The "Manifesto" was published only a few days before the February revolution of 1848. For a moment the ruling class did tremble; but the ill-timed uprisings were promptly suppressed and the days of reaction set in.
Soon the workingmen of different countries were busy with the stupendous development of industry which followed in the wake of the wars and revolutions that had harassed the Continent for over fifty years. The revival of industry brought a renewal of international trade. This was followed by a wider exchange of views and greater international intimacy. In 1862 the first International Exposition was held.
Before we proceed with the development of the "Old International," as it is now called, let us notice three points about the "Manifesto." First, it was not called the "Socialist Manifesto," although adopted by Socialists the world over. Engels, in his preface of 1888, tells us why. "When it was written we could not have called it a Socialist Manifesto. By Socialist, in 1847, were understood, on the one hand, the adherents of the various Utopian systems; Owenites in England, Fourierists in France, both of them already reduced to the position of mere sects, and gradually dying out; on the other hand, the most multifarious social quacks who, by all manner of tinkering, professed to redress, without any danger to capital and profit, all sorts of social grievances; in both cases men outside the working-class movement, and looking rather to the 'educated' classes for support. Whatever portion of the working class had become convinced of the insufficiency of mere political revolutions, and had proclaimed the necessity of a total social change, that portion then called itself communist. It was a crude, rough-hewn, purely instinctive sort of communism; still it touched the cardinal point and was powerful enough amongst the working class to produce the utopian communism in France of Cabet, and in Germany of Weitling. This Socialism was, in 1847, a middle-class movement; communism a working-class movement. Socialism was, on the Continent at least, 'respectable'; communism was the very opposite."
It would be interesting to know how Engels would define Socialism to-day.
Second, it is important for us to know that the "Manifesto" recognized the necessity of using the government as the instrument for achieving the new society. "The immediate aim of the communists," it recites, "is the conquest of political power by the proletariat"; to "labor everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries."
The governmental organization of the communists' state was to be democratic.
Thirdly, a provisional program of such a politico-socio-democratic party is suggested in the "Manifesto." Its principal points are:
"1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
"2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.