Most Important Parts of the Communist Manifesto

Selected by Minister of Political Education Chen Xianhong (UCF-ML)

"The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now
turned against the bourgeoisie itself.
But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself;
it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons—the
modern working-class—the proletarians.
In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same
proportion is the proletariat, the modern working-class, developed, a class of
labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as
their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves
piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are
consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of
the market"

"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 class, to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy, to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State,6 i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total 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.
These measures will of course be different in different countries.7

Nevertheless in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally
applicable.
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public
purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national
bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of
the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State: the
bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally
in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal obligation of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies,
especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries: gradual abolition
of all the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of
the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s
factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial
production, &c., &c"