Political power, properly so
called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing
another. If the proletariat during its contest with the
bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to
organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it
makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force
the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these
conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of
class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have
abolished its own supremacy as a class.
In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and
class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the
free development of each is the condition for the free
development of all.
III SOCIALIST AND COMMUNIST LITERATURE
1. REACTIONARY SOCIALISM
A. Feudal Socialism
Owing to their historical position, it became the vocation of
the aristocracies of France and England to write pamphlets
against modern bourgeois society. In the French revolution of
July 1830, and in the English reform agitation, these
aristocracies again succumbed to the hateful upstart.
Thenceforth, a serious political contest was altogether out of
the question. A literary battle alone remained possible. But
even in the domain of literature the old cries of the restoration
period had become impossible.
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