馬克思和恩格斯 致共產主義同盟

中央委員會致共產主義同盟的講話

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels  倫敦，1850 年 3 月

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm

轉錄：由 [e-mail] 編輯；校對：由 Alek Blain 於 2006 年更正

兄弟們！

在 1848-49 年的兩年革命中，同盟以兩種方式證明了自己。首先，其成員在各地積極參與運動，在報刊、街壘和戰場上站在唯一具有決定性革命性的階級——無產階級的前列。同盟還證明了，它對運動的理解，正如 1847 年代表大會和中央委員會的通告以及共產黨宣言中所表達的那樣，是唯一正確的，這些文件中所表達的期望已經完全實現。以前同盟隻是在秘密中宣傳這一點，現在卻人人都說，並在市場上公開宣揚。但與此同時，同盟以前強大的組織也大大削弱了。許多直接參與運動的成員認為秘密組織的時代已經結束，隻要公開行動就足夠了。各個地區和公社與中央委員會的聯係逐漸減弱，並逐漸沉寂下來。因此，當民主黨、小資產階級政黨在德國越來越有組織的時候，工人政黨卻失去了它唯一的堅實立足點，最多隻是在個別地方為地方目的而組織起來；因此，在整個運動中，它完全處於小資產階級民主派的統治和領導之下。這種情況不能再繼續下去了，必須恢複工人的獨立性。中央委員會認識到了這種必要性，因此在1848-1849年的冬天，派遣了約瑟夫·莫爾這個使者到德國去改組同盟。但是，莫爾的使命沒有產生任何持久的效果，部分是因為當時德國工人經驗不足，部分是因為去年5月的起義打斷了這一使命。莫爾本人拿起武器，加入了巴登-普法爾茨軍隊，並於6月29日在穆爾格河戰役中陣亡。同盟失去了他這位最年長、最活躍、最可靠的成員，他曾參加過所有的代表大會和中央委員會，並曾執行過一係列任務，並取得了巨大的成功。自從1849年7月德國和法國革命黨失敗以來，中央委員會的幾乎所有委員都重新聚集在倫敦：他們用新的革命力量補充了自己的隊伍，並重新熱心地著手改組同盟。

這種改組隻有通過特使才能實現，中央委員會認為，在新的革命即將來臨的時刻派遣特使是極其重要的，也就是說，在工人政黨必須以最高程度的組織性、統一性和獨立性投入戰鬥的時候，這樣它才不會像1848年那樣被資產階級利用和拖累。

兄弟們，我們在1848年就告訴過你們，德國自由資產階級很快就會掌權，並立即用它新獲得的權力來對付工人。你們已經看到這個預言是如何實現的。正是資產階級在1848年三月運動之後掌握了國家政權，並利用這一政權把工人——資產階級的鬥爭盟友——逼回到從前受壓迫的地位。雖然資產階級隻有與三月運動中失敗的封建政黨結盟，甚至最終不得不再次把政權交給這個封建專製政黨，才能做到這一點，但它還是為自己爭取到了有利條件。鑒於政府的財政困難，這些條件將確保政權最終重新落入資產階級手中，如果革命運動從現在起能夠走上所謂的和平發展道路，它的一切利益都將得到保障。為了保證自己的權力，資產階級甚至不需要對人民采取暴力手段來激起仇恨，因為所有這些暴力手段都已經被封建反革命所實施。但事態不會走這條和平的道路。相反，加速事態發展的革命迫在眉睫，無論它是由法國無產階級的獨立起義發起，還是由神聖同盟對革命巴別塔的入侵發起。

1848年德國自由資產階級對人民所扮演的叛徒角色，將在即將到來的革命中由民主小資產階級承擔，而民主小資產階級現在在反對派中占據著同樣的地位。

就像 1848 年以前的自由資產階級一樣。這個民主黨派對工人的危險性遠大於早期的自由主義者，它由三部分組成：1）大資產階級中最進步的分子，他們追求的目標是立即徹底推翻封建主義和專製主義。這一派別的代表是前柏林工會聯合會，即稅收抵抗者；2）立憲民主小資產階級，他們在前一次運動中的主要目標是建立一個或多或少民主的聯邦國家；這就是他們的代表，法蘭克福議會和後來的斯圖加特議會的左派，他們為之奮鬥，就像他們自己在帝國憲法運動中所做的那樣； 3）共和派小資產階級，他們的理想是建立與瑞士類似的德國聯邦共和國，現在他們自稱為“紅色”和“社會民主派”，因為他們懷著消除大資本對小資本、大資產階級對小資產階級的壓力的虔誠願望。這個派別的代表是民主代表大會和委員會的成員、民主協會的領袖和民主報紙的編輯。

所有這些派別在失敗後都自稱為“共和黨人”或“紅色派”，就像現在法國共和派小資產階級的成員自稱為“社會主義者”一樣。在符騰堡、巴伐利亞等地，他們仍然有機會通過憲法手段實現自己的目的，他們抓住機會保留他們的舊詞句，並用他們的行動證明他們絲毫沒有改變。此外，不言而喻，這個黨改名絲毫不會改變它與工人的關係，而隻是證明它現在不得不組成一個反對與專製主義聯合起來的資產階級的陣線，並尋求無產階級的支持。

德國的小資產階級民主黨非常強大。它不僅包括絕大多數城市中產階級、小工業商人和工匠，還包括農民和農村無產階級，因為後者還沒有在城市獨立無產階級中找到支持。

革命工人黨與小資產階級民主派的關係是這樣的：它與他們合作，反對他們試圖推翻的政黨；它反對他們，隻要他們想在任何地方鞏固自己的地位。

民主派小資產階級根本不想把整個社會改造得符合革命無產階級的利益，他們隻希望改變社會條件，使他們盡可能過得舒適和安逸。因此，他們首先要求通過限製官僚機構和把主要的稅收負擔轉嫁給大地主和資產階級來減少政府開支。他們還要求通過建立公共信貸機構和頒布反高利貸法來消除大資本對小資本的壓力，使他們和農民能夠從國家而不是從資本家那裏得到優惠的貸款；他們還要求通過徹底廢除封建製度來建立資產階級的土地所有製關係。為了實現這一切，他們需要一種民主的政府形式，無論是立憲的還是共和的，使他們和他們的農民盟友獲得多數；他們還需要一種民主的地方政府製度，使他們能夠直接控製市政財產和目前由官僚掌握的一係列政治職位。

資本的統治及其迅速積累將得到進一步的抵消，部分是通過限製繼承權，部分是通過向國家轉移盡可能多的就業機會。就工人而言，首先有一件事是肯定的：他們仍將像以前一樣成為雇傭勞動者。然而，民主小資產階級希望為工人提供更好的工資和保障，並希望通過擴大國家就業和采取福利措施來實現這一點；簡而言之，他們希望用一種或多或少變相的施舍形式收買工人，並通過暫時使他們的處境變得可以忍受來摧毀他們的革命力量。這裏總結的小資產階級民主的要求並不是它的所有部分同時表達出來的，總的來說，它們隻是極少數追隨者的明確目標。小資產階級的個人或派別越是前進，他們就越會明確地提出這些要求，而那些在上麵提到的要求中承認自己的綱領的少數人，很可能會認為，他們已經提出了革命所能要求的最高限度的要求。

等等。但是這些要求根本不能使無產階級政黨感到滿意。民主派小資產階級想盡快結束革命，最多達到上述目的，而我們的利益和任務是使革命持續下去，直到所有有產階級或多或少被趕下統治地位，直到無產階級奪取國家政權，直到無產階級的聯合發展到不僅在一個國家，而且在世界所有主要國家都發展到足以使這些國家的無產階級之間的競爭停止，至少決定性的生產力集中在工人手中。我們的任務不能僅僅在於改變私有製，而在於廢除私有製，不是掩蓋階級對立而是消滅階級，不是改善現有社會而是建立新社會。毫無疑問，在德國革命的進一步發展中，小資產階級民主派暫時將取得主導地位。因此，問題在於無產階級，特別是同盟對他們應采取什麽態度：

1）在目前小資產階級民主派也受壓迫的條件下；

2）在即將來臨的革命鬥爭中，小資產階級將占據統治地位；

3）在這場鬥爭之後，在小資產階級對被推翻的階級和無產階級占統治地位的時期。

錨點

1. 目前，民主派小資產階級到處受壓迫，他們向無產階級宣揚普遍團結與和解；他們伸出友誼之手，尋求建立一個包容各種民主觀點的偉大反對黨；也就是說，他們試圖把工人誘入一個黨組織，在這個組織裏，社會民主主義的一般空話占了上風，而工人的特殊利益卻被隱藏起來，為了維護和平，無產階級的特殊要求不能在這個組織裏提出來。這樣的聯合對他們來說隻有好處，對無產階級來說則完全不利。無產階級將失去來之不易的獨立地位，再次淪為官方資產階級民主的附屬品。因此，必須以最堅決的方式抵製這種聯合。工人，尤其是聯盟，不應該把自己降低到鼓掌合唱團的水平，而應該努力建立一個獨立的工人黨組織，既秘密又公開，與官方民主派並肩工作，聯盟應該努力使它的每一個公社都成為工人協會的中心和核心，在那裏可以不受資產階級影響地討論無產階級的地位和利益。資產階級民主派多麽重視無產階級擁有平等權力和平等權利的聯盟，這一點可以從布雷斯勞民主派的立場上看出來。他們正在自己的機關報《新奧得河報》上對獨立組織的工人，即他們所謂的“社會主義者”進行猛烈的攻擊。在同共同敵人作鬥爭時，特殊的聯盟是不必要的。一旦必須直接打擊這樣的敵人，雙方的利益就會暫時一致，將來也會像過去一樣，自發地產生一時權宜之計。不言而喻，在將來的流血衝突中，也像在所有其他衝突中一樣，工人憑借他們的勇敢、果斷和自我犧牲精神，將主要為取得勝利負責。和過去一樣，在未來的鬥爭中，小資產階級總體上也會盡可能長時間地猶豫不決，保持恐懼、優柔寡斷和消極被動；但是，當勝利已成定局時，它就會將勝利??據為己有，並號召工人有秩序地行動，恢複工作，防止所謂的過激行為，並剝奪無產階級的勝利果實。工人沒有能力阻止小資產階級民主派這樣做，但他們有能力使小資產階級盡可能難以利用其權力來對付武裝的無產階級，並向他們提出這樣的條件，使資產階級民主派的統治從一開始就帶有自我毀滅的種子，而無產階級隨後取代資產階級的統治將變得相當容易。最重要的是，在鬥爭期間和鬥爭剛結束時，工人必須盡可能地反對資產階級的綏靖企圖，迫使民主派實施他們的恐怖言論。他們必須努力確保勝利後立即出現的革命熱情不會突然被壓製。相反，它必須盡可能長久地持續下去。它不僅反對所謂的

過度行為——針對仇恨個人或與仇恨記憶相關的公共建築的民眾報複行為——工人黨不僅必須容忍這些行動，甚至必須指導它們。在鬥爭期間和鬥爭之後，工人必須抓住一切機會提出自己的要求，反對資產階級民主派的要求。一旦民主資產階級開始接管政府，他們就必須要求為工人提供保障。他們必須在必要時使用武力來實現這些保證，並且通常確保新統治者承諾所有可能的讓步和承諾——這是妥協的最可靠手段。他們必須用一切方法盡可能地遏製每次成功的街頭戰鬥後對新形勢的勝利狂喜和熱情，冷靜地分析形勢，毫不掩飾地不信任新政府。他們必須與新的官方政府同時建立自己的革命工人政府，要麽以地方執行委員會和議會的形式，要麽通過工人俱樂部或委員會的形式，這樣，資產階級民主政府不僅會立即失去工人的支持，而且從一開始就受到全體工人群眾背後的當局的監督和威脅。總之，從勝利的那一刻起，工人的懷疑就不應該再針對失敗的反動政黨，而應該針對他們以前的盟友，針對打算利用共同勝利為自己牟利的政黨。

錨點

2. 為了能夠有力地、威脅性地反對這個從勝利的第一小時就開始背叛工人的政黨，工人必須武裝起來並組織起來。整個無產階級必須立即用火槍、步槍、大炮和彈藥武裝起來，並反對針對工人的舊式民兵的複活。如果無法阻止這種民兵的形成，工人就必須設法獨立地組織起來，成為一支無產階級衛隊，有選舉出來的領導人和他們自己選舉出來的總參謀部；他們必須設法不服從國家當局的命令，而是服從工人建立的革命地方委員會的命令。如果工人受雇於國家，他們必須武裝起來，組織成有選舉出來的領導人的特別部隊，或者成為無產階級衛隊的一部分。不得以任何借口交出武器和彈藥；任何解除工人武裝的企圖都必須予以挫敗，必要時可以使用武力。摧毀資產階級民主派對工人的影響，實施將損害目前不可避免的資產階級民主統治的條件，並使之盡可能困難——這些是無產階級和聯盟在即將到來的起義期間和之後必須牢記的要點。

錨點

而不是由於代表機構中存在少數反動派而產生的不利因素。如果民主力量從一開始就對反動派采取果斷的、恐怖的行動，選舉中的反動影響就已經被摧毀了。

資產階級民主派與工人發生衝突的第一點將是廢除封建製度，就像在第一次法國革命中一樣，小資產階級將希望將封建土地作為自由財產交給農民；也就是說，他們將試圖使農村無產階級的存在成為現實，並形成一個小資產階級農民階級，這個階級將遭受與法國農民一樣的貧困和債務循環。工人必須為了農村無產階級的利益和自己的利益反對這個計劃。他們必須要求沒收的封建財產仍為國家財產，並用於工人殖民地，由農村無產階級集體耕種，享受大規模農業的一切優勢，而公有財產原則將在搖搖欲墜的資產階級財產關係體係中立即獲得牢固的基礎。正如民主派與農民結盟一樣，工人也必須與農村無產階級結盟。

民主派要麽直接為聯邦共和國而努力，要麽至少，如果他們無法避免一個不可分割的共和國，他們將試圖通過給予各市和省最大程度的自治權和獨立性來癱瘓中央政府。與這一計劃相反，工人不僅必須爭取一個不可分割的德意誌共和國，而且必須在這個共和國內爭取最決定性的權力集中在國家權力手中。他們不應該被關於市政自由、自治等等的空洞的民主言論所誤導。在德國這樣的國家，還有許多中世紀的殘餘需要消除，許多地方和省份的頑固性需要打破，因此，無論如何都不能容忍每個村莊、每個城市和每個省份都給革命活動設置新的障礙，因為革命活動隻有從一個中心點才能最有效地開展。同樣，也不能容忍德國人必須在每個城市和每個省份進行單獨的鬥爭才能取得同樣的進步。最不能容忍的，是所謂的自由地方政府製度，使一種比現代私有財產更落後的、到處都不可避免地轉化為私有財產的財產形式，即公有財產，以及由此引起的貧富社區之間的糾紛。也不能允許這種所謂的自由地方政府製度與國家民法並存，而使針對工人的殘酷手段與市鎮民法並存。正如1793年的法國一樣，德國真正革命黨的任務就是實行最嚴格的中央集權。[今天必須回顧，這段話是基於誤解的。當時——由於波拿巴主義和自由主義的曆史偽造者——人們認為，法國中央集權的行政機構是由大革命引進的，特別是被國民公會用作擊敗保皇黨和聯邦黨反動派以及外部敵人的不可或缺的決定性武器。然而，現在眾所周知的事實是，在整個革命過程中，直到霧月十八日，各省、區和市鎮的整個行政機構都是由各自選民自己選舉產生的當局組成，這些當局在一般國家法律的範圍內完全自由地行事；正是這種類似於美國的省級和地方自治，成為革命最有力的杠杆，甚至強大到拿破侖在霧月十八日政變後立即趕忙用現在的省長行政來代替它，因此，省長行政從一開始就是純粹的反動工具。但是，地方和省級自治並不與政治的、國家的集中相矛盾，它也不必然與那種狹隘的州或社區的自私自利相聯係，這種自私自利在瑞士是那麽令人厭惡，而南德意誌聯邦共和國的所有共和黨人都想在 1849 年在德國成為統治。——恩格斯 1885 年版注。]

我們已經看到，下一次高潮將如何使民主派掌權，他們將如何被迫提出或多或少社會主義的措施。人們將問工人將提出什麽措施來回應。在

首先，當然，工人不能提出任何直接的共產主義措施。但可以采取以下行動：

1. 他們可以迫使民主派侵入現有社會秩序的盡可能多的領域，以擾亂其正常運作，使小資產階級民主派妥協；此外，工人可以迫使盡可能多的生產力——交通工具、工廠、鐵路等——集中在國家手中。

2. 他們必須把民主派的建議推向邏輯的極端（民主派無論如何都會采取改良主義而不是革命主義的方式），並將這些建議轉變為對私有財產的直接攻擊。例如，如果小資產階級提議購買鐵路和工廠，工人就必須要求國家無償沒收這些鐵路和工廠，作為反動派的財產。如果民主派提出比例稅，那麽工人就必須要求累進稅；如果民主派自己提議征收溫和的累進稅，那麽工人就必須堅持征收稅率急劇上升的稅，以致大資本因此破產；如果民主派要求管製國家債務，那麽工人就必須要求國家破產。因此，工人的要求必須根據民主派的措施和讓步進行調整。

雖然德國工人不經過長期的革命發展就不能掌握政權並實現自己的階級利益，但這一次他們至少可以肯定，即將到來的革命大戲的第一幕將與他們本階級在法國的直接勝利同時發生，從而加速這一進程。但他們自己必須為自己的最後勝利做出最大的貢獻，他們必須了解自己的階級利益，盡快采取獨立的政治立場，不讓自己被民主派小資產階級的虛偽言辭誤導，懷疑無產階級獨立組織政黨的必要性。他們的戰鬥口號必須是：不斷革命。

Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels  London, March 1850

Transcribed: by [e-mail];  Proofed: and corrected by Alek Blain 2006

Brothers!

In the two revolutionary years of 1848-49 the League proved itself in two ways. First, its members everywhere involved themselves energetically in the movement and stood in the front ranks of the only decisively revolutionary class, the proletariat, in the press, on the barricades and on the battlefields. The League further proved itself in that its understanding of the movement, as expressed in the circulars issued by the Congresses and the Central Committee of 1847 and in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, has been shown to be the only correct one, and the expectations expressed in these documents have been completely fulfilled. This previously only propagated by the League in secret, is now on everyone’s lips and is preached openly in the market place. At the same time, however, the formerly strong organization of the League has been considerably weakened. A large number of members who were directly involved in the movement thought that the time for secret societies was over and that public action alone was sufficient. The individual districts and communes allowed their connections with the Central Committee to weaken and gradually become dormant. So, while the democratic party, the party of the petty bourgeoisie, has become more and more organized in Germany, the workers’ party has lost its only firm foothold, remaining organized at best in individual localities for local purposes; within the general movement it has consequently come under the complete domination and leadership of the petty-bourgeois democrats. This situation cannot be allowed to continue; the independence of the workers must be restored. The Central Committee recognized this necessity and it therefore sent an emissary, Joseph Moll, to Germany in the winter of 1848-9 to reorganize the League. Moll’s mission, however, failed to produce any lasting effect, partly because the German workers at that time had not enough experience and partly because it was interrupted by the insurrection last May. Moll himself took up arms, joined the Baden-Palatinate army and fell on 29 June in the battle of the River Murg. The League lost in him one of the oldest, most active and most reliable members, who had been involved in all the Congresses and Central Committees and had earlier conducted a series of missions with great success. Since the defeat of the German and French revolutionary parties in July 1849, almost all the members of the Central Committee have reassembled in London: they have replenished their numbers with new revolutionary forces and set about reorganizing the League with renewed zeal.

This reorganization can only be achieved by an emissary, and the Central Committee considers it most important to dispatch the emissary at this very moment, when a new revolution is imminent, that is, when the workers’ party must go into battle with the maximum degree of organization, unity and independence, so that it is not exploited and taken in tow by the bourgeoisie as in 1848.

We told you already in 1848, brothers, that the German liberal bourgeoisie would soon come to power and would immediately turn its newly won power against the workers. You have seen how this forecast came true. It was indeed the bourgeoisie which took possession of the state authority in the wake of the March movement of 1848 and used this power to drive the workers, its allies in the struggle, back into their former oppressed position. Although the bourgeoisie could accomplish this only by entering into an alliance with the feudal party, which had been defeated in March, and eventually even had to surrender power once more to this feudal absolutist party, it has nevertheless secured favourable conditions for itself. In view of the government’s financial difficulties, these conditions would ensure that power would in the long run fall into its hands again and that all its interests would be secured, if it were possible for the revolutionary movement to assume from now on a so-called peaceful course of development. In order to guarantee its power the bourgeoisie would not even need to arouse hatred by taking violent measures against the people, as all of these violent measures have already been carried out by the feudal counter-revolution. But events will not take this peaceful course. On the contrary, the revolution which will accelerate the course of events, is imminent, whether it is initiated by an independent rising of the French proletariat or by an invasion of the revolutionary Babel by the Holy Alliance.

The treacherous role that the German liberal bourgeoisie played against the people in 1848 will be assumed in the coming revolution by the democratic petty bourgeoisie, which now occupies the same position in the opposition as the liberal bourgeoisie did before 1848. This democratic party, which is far more dangerous for the workers than were the liberals earlier, is composed of three elements: 1) The most progressive elements of the big bourgeoisie, who pursue the goal of the immediate and complete overthrow of feudalism and absolutism. This fraction is represented by the former Berlin Vereinbarer, the tax resisters; 2) The constitutional-democratic petty bourgeois, whose main aim during the previous movement was the formation of a more or less democratic federal state; this is what their representative, the Left in the Frankfurt Assembly and later the Stuttgart parliament, worked for, as they themselves did in the Reich Constitution Campaign; 3) The republican petty bourgeois, whose ideal is a German federal republic similar to that in Switzerland and who now call themselves ‘red’ and ’social-democratic’ because they cherish the pious wish to abolish the pressure exerted by big capital on small capital, by the big bourgeoisie on the petty bourgeoisie. The representatives of this fraction were the members of the democratic congresses and committees, the leaders of the democratic associations and the editors of the democratic newspapers.

After their defeat all these fractions claim to be ‘republicans’ or ’reds’, just as at the present time members of the republican petty bourgeoisie in France call themselves ‘socialists’. Where, as in Wurtemberg, Bavaria, etc., they still find a chance to pursue their ends by constitutional means, they seize the opportunity to retain their old phrases and prove by their actions that they have not changed in the least. Furthermore, it goes without saying that the changed name of this party does not alter in the least its relationship to the workers but merely proves that it is now obliged to form a front against the bourgeoisie, which has united with absolutism, and to seek the support of the proletariat.

The petty-bourgeois democratic party in Germany is very powerful. It not only embraces the great majority of the urban middle class, the small industrial merchants and master craftsmen; it also includes among its followers the peasants and rural proletariat in so far as the latter has not yet found support among the independent proletariat of the towns.

The relationship of the revolutionary workers’ party to the petty-bourgeois democrats is this: it cooperates with them against the party which they aim to overthrow; it opposes them wherever they wish to secure their own position.

The democratic petty bourgeois, far from wanting to transform the whole society in the interests of the revolutionary proletarians, only aspire to a change in social conditions which will make the existing society as tolerable and comfortable for themselves as possible. They therefore demand above all else a reduction in government spending through a restriction of the bureaucracy and the transference of the major tax burden into the large landowners and bourgeoisie. They further demand the removal of the pressure exerted by big capital on small capital through the establishment of public credit institutions and the passing of laws against usury, whereby it would be possible for themselves and the peasants to receive advances on favourable terms from the state instead of from capitalists; also, the introduction of bourgeois property relationships on land through the complete abolition of feudalism. In order to achieve all this they require a democratic form of government, either constitutional or republican, which would give them and their peasant allies the majority; they also require a democratic system of local government to give them direct control over municipal property and over a series of political offices at present in the hands of the bureaucrats.

The rule of capital and its rapid accumulation is to be further counteracted, partly by a curtailment of the right of inheritance, and partly by the transference of as much employment as possible to the state. As far as the workers are concerned one thing, above all, is definite: they are to remain wage labourers as before. However, the democratic petty bourgeois want better wages and security for the workers, and hope to achieve this by an extension of state employment and by welfare measures; in short, they hope to bribe the workers with a more or less disguised form of alms and to break their revolutionary strength by temporarily rendering their situation tolerable. The demands of petty-bourgeois democracy summarized here are not expressed by all sections of it at once, and in their totality they are the explicit goal of only a very few of its followers. The further particular individuals or fractions of the petty bourgeoisie advance, the more of these demands they will explicitly adopt, and the few who recognize their own programme in what has been mentioned above might well believe they have put forward the maximum that can be demanded from the revolution. But these demands can in no way satisfy the party of the proletariat. While the democratic petty bourgeois want to bring the revolution to an end as quickly as possible, achieving at most the aims already mentioned, it is our interest and our task to make the revolution permanent until all the more or less propertied classes have been driven from their ruling positions, until the proletariat has conquered state power and until the association of the proletarians has progressed sufficiently far – not only in one country but in all the leading countries of the world – that competition between the proletarians of these countries ceases and at least the decisive forces of production are concentrated in the hands of the workers. Our concern cannot simply be to modify private property, but to abolish it, not to hush up class antagonisms but to abolish classes, not to improve the existing society but to found a new one. There is no doubt that during the further course of the revolution in Germany, the petty-bourgeois democrats will for the moment acquire a predominant influence. The question is, therefore, what is to be the attitude of the proletariat, and in particular of the League towards them:

1) While present conditions continue, in which the petty-bourgeois democrats are also oppressed;
2) In the coming revolutionary struggle, which will put them in a dominant position;
3) After this struggle, during the period of petty-bourgeois predominance over the classes which have been overthrown and over the proletariat.

1. At the moment, while the democratic petty bourgeois are everywhere oppressed, they preach to the proletariat general unity and reconciliation; they extend the hand of friendship, and seek to found a great opposition party which will embrace all shades of democratic opinion; that is, they seek to ensnare the workers in a party organization in which general social-democratic phrases prevail while their particular interests are kept hidden behind, and in which, for the sake of preserving the peace, the specific demands of the proletariat may not be presented. Such a unity would be to their advantage alone and to the complete disadvantage of the proletariat. The proletariat would lose all its hard-won independent position and be reduced once more to a mere appendage of official bourgeois democracy. This unity must therefore be resisted in the most decisive manner. Instead of lowering themselves to the level of an applauding chorus, the workers, and above all the League, must work for the creation of an independent organization of the workers’ party, both secret and open, and alongside the official democrats, and the League must aim to make every one of its communes a center and nucleus of workers’ associations in which the position and interests of the proletariat can be discussed free from bourgeois influence. How serious the bourgeois democrats are about an alliance in which the proletariat has equal power and equal rights is demonstrated by the Breslau democrats, who are conducting a furious campaign in their organ, the Neue Oder Zeitung, against independently organized workers, whom they call ‘socialists’. In the event of a struggle against a common enemy a special alliance is unnecessary. As soon as such an enemy has to be fought directly, the interests of both parties will coincide for the moment and an association of momentary expedience will arise spontaneously in the future, as it has in the past. It goes without saying that in the bloody conflicts to come, as in all others, it will be the workers, with their courage, resolution and self-sacrifice, who will be chiefly responsible for achieving victory. As in the past, so in the coming struggle also, the petty bourgeoisie, to a man, will hesitate as long as possible and remain fearful, irresolute and inactive; but when victory is certain it will claim it for itself and will call upon the workers to behave in an orderly fashion, to return to work and to prevent so-called excesses, and it will exclude the proletariat from the fruits of victory. It does not lie within the power of the workers to prevent the petty-bourgeois democrats from doing this; but it does lie within their power to make it as difficult as possible for the petty bourgeoisie to use its power against the armed proletariat, and to dictate such conditions to them that the rule of the bourgeois democrats, from the very first, will carry within it the seeds of its own destruction, and its subsequent displacement by the proletariat will be made considerably easier. Above all, during and immediately after the struggle the workers, as far as it is at all possible, must oppose bourgeois attempts at pacification and force the democrats to carry out their terroristic phrases. They must work to ensure that the immediate revolutionary excitement is not suddenly suppressed after the victory. On the contrary, it must be sustained as long as possible. Far from opposing the so-called excesses – instances of popular vengeance against hated individuals or against public buildings with which hateful memories are associated – the workers’ party must not only tolerate these actions but must even give them direction. During and after the struggle the workers must at every opportunity put forward their own demands against those of the bourgeois democrats. They must demand guarantees for the workers as soon as the democratic bourgeoisie sets about taking over the government. They must achieve these guarantees by force if necessary, and generally make sure that the new rulers commit themselves to all possible concessions and promises – the surest means of compromising them. They must check in every way and as far as is possible the victory euphoria and enthusiasm for the new situation which follow every successful street battle, with a cool and cold-blooded analysis of the situation and with undisguised mistrust of the new government. Alongside the new official governments they must simultaneously establish their own revolutionary workers’ governments, either in the form of local executive committees and councils or through workers’ clubs or committees, so that the bourgeois-democratic governments not only immediately lost the support of the workers but find themselves from the very beginning supervised and threatened by authorities behind which stand the whole mass of the workers. In a word, from the very moment of victory the workers’ suspicion must be directed no longer against the defeated reactionary party but against their former ally, against the party which intends to exploit the common victory for itself.

2. To be able forcefully and threateningly to oppose this party, whose betrayal of the workers will begin with the very first hour of victory, the workers must be armed and organized. The whole proletariat must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition, and the revival of the old-style citizens’ militia, directed against the workers, must be opposed. Where the formation of this militia cannot be prevented, the workers must try to organize themselves independently as a proletarian guard, with elected leaders and with their own elected general staff; they must try to place themselves not under the orders of the state authority but of the revolutionary local councils set up by the workers. Where the workers are employed by the state, they must arm and organize themselves into special corps with elected leaders, or as a part of the proletarian guard. Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary. The destruction of the bourgeois democrats’ influence over the workers, and the enforcement of conditions which will compromise the rule of bourgeois democracy, which is for the moment inevitable, and make it as difficult as possible – these are the main points which the proletariat and therefore the League must keep in mind during and after the approaching uprising.

3. As soon as the new governments have established themselves, their struggle against the workers will begin. If the workers are to be able to forcibly oppose the democratic petty bourgeois it is essential above all for them to be independently organized and centralized in clubs. At the soonest possible moment after the overthrow of the present governments, the Central Committee will come to Germany and will immediately convene a Congress, submitting to it the necessary proposals for the centralization of the workers’ clubs under a directorate established at the movement’s center of operations. The speedy organization of at least provincial connections between the workers’ clubs is one of the prime requirements for the strengthening and development of the workers’ party; the immediate result of the overthrow of the existing governments will be the election of a national representative body. Here the proletariat must take care: 1) that by sharp practices local authorities and government commissioners do not, under any pretext whatsoever, exclude any section of workers; 2) that workers’ candidates are nominated everywhere in opposition to bourgeois-democratic candidates. As far as possible they should be League members and their election should be pursued by all possible means. Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body. If the forces of democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from the very beginning, the reactionary influence in the election will already have been destroyed.

The first point over which the bourgeois democrats will come into conflict with the workers will be the abolition of feudalism as in the first French revolution, the petty bourgeoisie will want to give the feudal lands to the peasants as free property; that is, they will try to perpetrate the existence of the rural proletariat, and to form a petty-bourgeois peasant class which will be subject to the same cycle of impoverishment and debt which still afflicts the French peasant. The workers must oppose this plan both in the interest of the rural proletariat and in their own interest. They must demand that the confiscated feudal property remain state property and be used for workers’ colonies, cultivated collectively by the rural proletariat with all the advantages of large-scale farming and where the principle of common property will immediately achieve a sound basis in the midst of the shaky system of bourgeois property relations. Just as the democrats ally themselves with the peasants, the workers must ally themselves with the rural proletariat.

The democrats will either work directly towards a federated republic, or at least, if they cannot avoid the one and indivisible republic they will attempt to paralyze the central government by granting the municipalities and provinces the greatest possible autonomy and independence. In opposition to this plan the workers must not only strive for one and indivisible German republic, but also, within this republic, for the most decisive centralization of power in the hands of the state authority. They should not let themselves be led astray by empty democratic talk about the freedom of the municipalities, self-government, etc. In a country like Germany, where so many remnants of the Middle Ages are still to be abolished, where so much local and provincial obstinacy has to be broken down, it cannot under any circumstances be tolerated that each village, each town and each province may put up new obstacles in the way of revolutionary activity, which can only be developed with full efficiency from a central point. A renewal of the present situation, in which the Germans have to wage a separate struggle in each town and province for the same degree of progress, can also not be tolerated. Least of all can a so-called free system of local government be allowed to perpetuate a form of property which is more backward than modern private property and which is everywhere and inevitably being transformed into private property; namely communal property, with its consequent disputes between poor and rich communities. Nor can this so-called free system of local government be allowed to perpetuate, side by side with the state civil law, the existence of communal civil law with its sharp practices directed against the workers. As in France in 1793, it is the task of the genuinely revolutionary party in Germany to carry through the strictest centralization. [It must be recalled today that this passage is based on a misunderstanding. At that time – thanks to the Bonapartist and liberal falsifiers of history – it was considered as established that the French centralised machine of administration had been introduced by the Great Revolution and in particular that it had been used by the Convention as an indispensable and decisive weapon for defeating the royalist and federalist reaction and the external enemy. It is now, however, a well-known fact that throughout the revolution up to the eighteenth Brumaire c the whole administration of the départements, arrondissements and communes consisted of authorities elected by, the respective constituents themselves, and that these authorities acted with complete freedom within the general state laws; that precisely this provincial and local self-government, similar to the American, became the most powerful lever of the revolution and indeed to such an extent that Napoleon, immediately after his coup d’état of the eighteenth Brumaire, hastened to replace it by the still existing administration by prefects, which, therefore, was a pure instrument of reaction from the beginning. But no more than local and provincial self-government is in contradiction to political, national centralisation, is it necessarily bound up with that narrow-minded cantonal or communal self-seeking which strikes us as so repulsive in Switzerland, and which all the South German federal republicans wanted to make the rule in Germany in 1849. – Note by Engels to the 1885 edition.]

We have seen how the next upsurge will bring the democrats to power and how they will be forced to propose more or less socialistic measures. it will be asked what measures the workers are to propose in reply. At the beginning, of course, the workers cannot propose any directly communist measures. But the following courses of action are possible:

1. They can force the democrats to make inroads into as many areas of the existing social order as possible, so as to disturb its regular functioning and so that the petty-bourgeois democrats compromise themselves; furthermore, the workers can force the concentration of as many productive forces as possible – means of transport, factories, railways, etc. – in the hands of the state.

2. They must drive the proposals of the democrats to their logical extreme (the democrats will in any case act in a reformist and not a revolutionary manner) and transform these proposals into direct attacks on private property. If, for instance, the petty bourgeoisie propose the purchase of the railways and factories, the workers must demand that these railways and factories simply be confiscated by the state without compensation as the property of reactionaries. If the democrats propose a proportional tax, then the workers must demand a progressive tax; if the democrats themselves propose a moderate progressive tax, then the workers must insist on a tax whose rates rise so steeply that big capital is ruined by it; if the democrats demand the regulation of the state debt, then the workers must demand national bankruptcy. The demands of the workers will thus have to be adjusted according to the measures and concessions of the democrats.

Although the German workers cannot come to power and achieve the realization of their class interests without passing through a protracted revolutionary development, this time they can at least be certain that the first act of the approaching revolutionary drama will coincide with the direct victory of their own class in France and will thereby be accelerated. But they themselves must contribute most to their final victory, by informing themselves of their own class interests, by taking up their independent political position as soon as possible, by not allowing themselves to be misled by the hypocritical phrases of the democratic petty bourgeoisie into doubting for one minute the necessity of an independently organized party of the proletariat. Their battle-cry must be: The Permanent Revolution.