the
political power. Listen further:

"You wish to give a contemporary meaning to social questions; and yet
you fail to see that there is no more important question than that of
monarchy versus republic." A little while ago Mr Heinzen only saw the
_distinction_ between the money power and the political power, now he
only sees _unity_ between political questions and social questions.

The political relations of men are, of course, also social relations,
as are all relations which bind men to men. All questions pertaining
to the relations of men to each other are social questions at the same
time.

The "social questions" which have been "discussed in our time"
increase in importance in the degree that we emerge from the realm of
absolute monarchy. Socialism and communism did not originate in
Germany, but in England, France and North America. The first
appearance of a really active communist party may be placed within the
period of the middle-class revolution, the moment when constitutional
monarchy was abolished. The most consistent republicans, in England
the Levellers, in France Babeuf, Buonarotti, etc., were the first to
proclaim these "social questions." The "Conspiracy of Babeuf," written
by his friend and comrade Buonarotti, shows how these republicans
derived their social insight from the "historical movement." It also
demonstrates that when the social question of princedom versus
republic is removed, not a single social question of the kind that
interests the proletariat has been solved.

The property question as it presents itself in "our time" cannot be
recognized under the form in which Mr Heinzen clothes it, _i.e._
"whether it is right that one man should possess everything and
another nothing, whether man as an individual need possess anything at
all," and suchlike simple questions of conscience and pious phrases.

The question of property assumes different forms according to the
successive stages of development of industry in general and according
to its particular stages of development in various countries.

For the Galician peasant, for example, the property question reduces
itself to the transformation of feudal landed property into small
middle-class holdings. It has for him the same meaning as it had for
the French peasants of 1789. On the other hand, the English
agricultural labourer does not stand in any relation to the landed
proprietor. He comes into contact merely with the farmer, that is,