he ruling class; and to increase the
total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by
means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on
the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures,
therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable,
but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves,
necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are
unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of
production.

These measures will of course be different in different
countries.

Nevertheless in the most advanced countries, the following will
be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents
of land to public purposes.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means
of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive
monopoly.

6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport
in the hands of the State.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by
the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and
the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a
common plan.

8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of
industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries;
gradual abolition of the distinction between town and
country, by a more equable distribution of the population
over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools.
Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form.
Combination of education with industrial production, &c., &c.

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have
disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the
hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power
will lose its political character. Political power, properly so
called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing
another. If the proletariat during its contest with the
bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to
organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it
makes itself the ruling class, and, as su