very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and
appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces,
above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of
the proletariat are equally inevitable.

II. PROLETARIANS AND COMMUNISTS

In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a
whole?

The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other
working-class parties.

They have no interests separate and apart from those of the
proletariat as a whole.

They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own,
by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.

The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties
by this only: (1) In the national struggles of the proletarians
of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front
the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of
all nationality. (2) In the various stages of development which the
struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass
through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the
movement as a whole.

The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically,
the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class
parties of every country, that section which pushes forward
all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over
the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly
understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate
general results of the proletarian movement.

The immediate aim of the Communist is the same as that of all
the other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into
a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of
political power by the proletariat.

The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way
based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or
discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer. They
merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from
an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on
under our very eyes. The abolition of existing property
relations is not at all a distinctive feature of Communism.

All property relations in the past have continually been subject
to historical change consequent upon the change in historical
conditions.

The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal property in
favour of bourgeois property.

The distinguishing feature of Co