BRUSSELS 127means and small-scale experiments, rejecting political - and in particular
revolutionary - action. Their Utopias, envisaged at a time when the
proletariat was still underdeveloped, 'correspond with the first instinctive
yearnings of that class for a general reconstruction of society'.^162 But at
the same time these Utopian writings also contained critical elements:
since they attacked every principle of existing society, they were full of
insights valuable to the enlightenment of the working class. But as the
modern class-struggle gathered strength, these Utopian solutions lost all
practical value or theoretical justification. Thus 'although the originators
of these systems were, in many respects, revolutionary, their disciples
have, in every case, formed mere reactionary sects'.^165
The fourth and concluding section of the Manifesto dealt with the
attitude of communists to various opposition parties: in France they
supported the social democrats, in Switzerland the radicals, in Poland
the peasant revolutionaries, in Germany the bourgeoisie. Nevertheless in
Germany they never ceased to instil into the working class the clearest
possible recognition of the inherent antagonism between bourgeoisie and
proletariat. The communists directed their attention chiefly to Germany,
which they believed to be on the eve of a bourgeois revolution. The
Manifesto ended:
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly
declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow
of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a
communistic revolution. The Proletarians have nothing to lose but
their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries,
unite!^164In a sense, of course, virtually all the ideas contained in the Communist
Manifesto had been enunciated before - particularly among French social-
ists in whose tradition the Manifesto is firmly situated.^165 Babeufs ideas
on revolution, Saint-Simon's periodisation of history and emphasis on
industry, Considerant's Manifeste, all inspired aspects of Marx's work. And
lie himself was the first to admit that the concept he began with - that
of class - was used long before by French bourgeois historians.^166 But the
powerful, all-embracing synthesis and the consistently materialist
approach were quite new.
The Manifesto was a propaganda document hurriedly issued on the eve
of a revolution. Marx and Engels considered in 1872 that 'the general
principles expounded in the document are on the whole as correct today
as ever' though they would doubtless have modified radically some of its
ideas - particularly (in the light of the Paris Commune) those relating to
the proletariat's taking over of the state apparatus and the rather simplistic