ts one of the phases of its embryonic development; and as
the human embryo, in its early stages, still reproduces the gill-arches
of our fish-ancestors, so this book exhibits everywhere the traces of the
descent of modern Socialism from one of its ancestors,--German
philosophy. Thus great stress is laid on the dictum that Communism is
not a mere party doctrine of the working-class, but a theory compassing
the emancipation of society at large, including the capitalist class,
from its present narrow conditions. This is true enough in the abstract,
but absolutely useless, and sometimes worse, in practice. So long as the
wealthy classes not only do not feel the want of any emancipation, but
strenuously oppose the self-emancipation of the working-class, so long
the social revolution will have to be prepared and fought out by the
working-class alone. The French bourgeois of 1789, too, declared the
emancipation of the bourgeoisie to be the emancipation of the whole human
race; but the nobility and clergy would not see it; the
proposition--though for the time being, with respect to feudalism, an
abstract historical truth--soon became a mere sentimentalism, and
disappeared from view altogether in the fire of the revolutionary
struggle. And to-day, the very people who, from the "impartiality" of
their superior standpoint, preach to the workers a Socialism soaring high
above their class interests and class struggles, and tending to reconcile
in a higher humanity the interests of both the contending classes--these
people are either neophytes, who have still to learn a great deal, or
they are the worst enemies of the workers,--wolves in sheeps' clothing.

The recurring period of the great industrial crisis is stated in the text
as five years. This was the period apparently indicated by the course of
events from 1825 to 1842. But the industrial history from 1842 to 1868
has shown that the real period is one of ten years; that the intermediate
revulsions were secondary, and tended more and more to disappear. Since
1868 the state of things has changed again, of which more anon.

I have taken care not to strike out of the text the many prophecies,
amongst others that of an imminent social revolution in England, which my
youthful ardour induced me to venture upon. The wonder is, not that a
good many of them proved wrong, but that so many of them have proved
right, and that the critical state of English trade, to be brought on by