ABSTRACT
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself.
