d more elevated purpose, which knew that the upsetting of an
existing Government was but a passing stage in the great impending
struggle, and which intended to keep together and to prepare the
party, whose nucleus they formed, for the last decisive combat which
must, one day or another, crush forever in Europe the domination, not
of mere "tyrants," "despots" and "usurpers," but of a power far
superior, and far more formidable than theirs; that of capital over
labor.

The organization of the advanced Communist party in Germany was of
this kind. In accordance with the principles of the "Manifesto"[11]
(published in 1848), and with those explained in the series of
articles on "Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany," published
in the _New York Daily Tribune_, this party never imagined itself
capable of producing, at any time and at its pleasure, that revolution
which was to carry its ideas into practice. It studied the causes that
had produced the revolutionary movement in 1848, and the causes that
made them fail. Recognizing the social antagonism of classes at the
bottom of all political struggles, it applied itself to the study of
the conditions under which one class of society can and must be called
on to represent the whole of the interests of a nation, and thus
politically to rule over it. History showed to the Communist party
how, after the landed aristocracy of the Middle Ages, the monied power
of the first capitalists arose and seized the reins of Government;
how the social influence and political rule of this financial section
of capitalists was superseded by the rising strength since the
introduction of steam, of the manufacturing capitalists, and how at
the present moment two more classes claim their turn of domination,
the petty trading class and the industrial working class. The
practical revolutionary experience of 1848-1849 confirmed the
reasonings of theory, which led to the conclusion that the Democracy
of the petty traders must first have its turn, before the Communist
working class could hope to permanently establish itself in power and
destroy that system of wage-slavery which keeps it under the yoke of
the bourgeoisie. Thus the secret organization of the Communists could
not have the direct purpose of upsetting the present Governments of
Germany. Being formed to upset not these, but the insurrectionary
Government, which is sooner or later to follow them, its members
might, and certainly would, i