onception" of human nature, nor upon any
abstract principle, but upon a scientifically demonstrable economic
necessity. And herein lies the real strength of this party, making it as
invincible as the economic necessity itself.

"The means of production and 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
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 become no longer
compatible with the already developed productive forces, they become 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 to it, and by the economical 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 the property relations that are the conditions
for the existence of the bourgeoisie and its rule. It is enough to
mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put on
its trial, each time more threateningly, the existence of the entire
bourgeois society.... The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled
feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie
itself."[4]

The bourgeoisie destroyed the feudal conditions of property; the
proletariat will put an end to the bourgeois conditions of property.
Between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie a struggle, an implacable
war, a war to the knife, is as inevitable as, was in its way, the
struggle between the bourgeoisie and the privileged estates. _But every
class war is a political war._ In order to do away with feudal society
the bourgeoisie had to seize upon political power. In order to do away
with capitalist society the proletariat must do the same. Its political
task is therefore traced out for it beforehand by the force of events
themselves, and no