But whatever form they may have taken, one fact is common to all
past ages, viz., the exploitation of one part of society by the
other.
No wonder, then, that the social consciousness of past ages,
despite
all the multiplicity and variety it displays, moves within
certain
common forms, or general ideas, which cannot completely vanish
except
with the total disappearance of class antagonisms.
The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with
traditional property relations; no wonder that its development
involves the most radical rupture with traditional ideas.
But let us have done with the bourgeois objections to Communism.
We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the
working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of
ruling as to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy top wrest, by
degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all
instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the
proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the
total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by
means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the
conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures,
therefore,
which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which,
in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate
further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable
as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.
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