point solely to the disappearance of class
antagonisms which were, at that time, only just cropping up, and
which, in these publications, are recognised in their earliest,
indistinct and undefined forms only. These proposals, therefore,
are of a purely Utopian character.

The significance of Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism
bears an inverse relation to historical development. In
proportion as the modern class struggle develops and takes
definite shape, this fantastic standing apart from the contest,
these fantastic attacks on it, lose all practical value and all
theoretical justification. Therefore, although the originators
of these systems were, in many respects, revolutionary, their
disciples have, in every case, formed mere reactionary sects.
They hold fast by the original views of their masters, in
opposition to the progressive historical development of the
proletariat. They, therefore, endeavour, and that consistently,
to deaden the class struggle and to reconcile the class antagonisms.
They still dream of experimental realisation of their social
Utopias, of founding isolated "phalansteres," of establishing
"Home Colonies," of setting up a "Little Icaria"--duodecimo
editions of the New Jerusalem--and to realise all these castles
in the air, they are compelled to appeal to the feelings and
purses of the bourgeois. By degrees they sink into the category
of the reactionary conservative Socialists depicted above,
differing from these only by more systematic pedantry, and
by their fanatical and superstitious belief in the miraculous
effects of their social science.

They, therefore, violently oppose all political action on the
part of the working class; such action, according to them, can
only result from blind unbelief in the new Gospel.

The Owenites in England, and the Fourierists in France,
respectively, oppose the Chartists and the Reformistes.

IV. POSITION OF THE COMMUNISTS IN RELATION TO THE
VARIOUS EXISTING OPPOSITION PARTIES

Section II has made clear the relations of the Communists to the
existing working-class parties, such as the Chartists in England
and the Agrarian Reformers in America.

The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims,
for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working
class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent
and take care of the future of that movement. In France the
Communists ally themselves with the Social-De