whole doctrine of
scientific communism. From that moment the theoretical adversaries of
socialism have no longer had to discuss the abstract possibility of the
democratic socialization of the means of production;[2] as if it were
possible in this question to rest their judgment upon inductions based
upon the general and common aptitudes of what they characterize as human
nature. Thenceforth, the question was to recognize, or not to recognize,
in the course of human events the necessity which stands over and above
our sympathy and our subjective assent. Is or is not society in the
countries most advanced in civilization organized in such a way that it
will pass into communism by the laws inherent in its own future, once
conceding its present economic structure and the friction which it
necessarily produces within itself, and which will end by breaking and
dissolving it? That is the subject of all discussion since the
appearance of this theory and thence follows also the rule of conduct
which imposes itself upon the action of the socialist parties whether
they be composed of proletarians alone or whether they have in their
ranks men who have come out from the other classes and who join as
volunteers the army of the proletariat.

That is why we voluntarily accept the epithet of scientific, provided we
do not thus confuse ourselves with the positivists, sometimes
embarrassing guests, who assume to themselves a monopoly of science; we
do not seek to maintain an abstract and generic thesis like lawyers or
sophists, and we do not plume ourselves on demonstrating the
reasonableness of our aims. Our intentions are nothing less than the
theoretical expression and the practical explanation of the data offered
us by the interpretation of the process which is being accomplished
among us and about us and which has its whole existence in the objective
relations of social life of which we are the subject and the object, the
cause and the effect. Our aims are rational, not because they are
founded on arguments drawn from the reasoning of reason, but because
they are derived from the objective study of things, that is to say,
from the explanation of their process, which is not, and which cannot
be, a result of our will but which on the contrary triumphs over our
will and subdues it.

Not one of the previous or subsequent works of the authors of the
Manifesto themselves, although they have a much more considerable
scientific leaning, ca