Karl Marx and Frederick Engels 伦敦，1850 年 3 月
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm
转录：由 gearhart@ccsn.edu 编辑；校对：由 Alek Blain 于 2006 年更正
兄弟们！
在 1848-49 年的两年革命中，同盟以两种方式证明了自己。首先，其成员在各地积极参与运动，在报刊、街垒和战场上站在唯一具有决定性革命性的阶级——无产阶级的前列。同盟还证明了，它对运动的理解，正如 1847 年代表大会和中央委员会的通告以及共产党宣言中所表达的那样，是唯一正确的，这些文件中所表达的期望已经完全实现。以前同盟只是在秘密中宣传这一点，现在却人人都说，并在市场上公开宣扬。但与此同时，同盟以前强大的组织也大大削弱了。许多直接参与运动的成员认为秘密组织的时代已经结束，只要公开行动就足够了。各个地区和公社与中央委员会的联系逐渐减弱，并逐渐沉寂下来。因此，当民主党、小资产阶级政党在德国越来越有组织的时候，工人政党却失去了它唯一的坚实立足点，最多只是在个别地方为地方目的而组织起来；因此，在整个运动中，它完全处于小资产阶级民主派的统治和领导之下。这种情况不能再继续下去了，必须恢复工人的独立性。中央委员会认识到了这种必要性，因此在1848-1849年的冬天，派遣了约瑟夫·莫尔这个使者到德国去改组同盟。但是，莫尔的使命没有产生任何持久的效果，部分是因为当时德国工人经验不足，部分是因为去年5月的起义打断了这一使命。莫尔本人拿起武器，加入了巴登-普法尔茨军队，并于6月29日在穆尔格河战役中阵亡。同盟失去了他这位最年长、最活跃、最可靠的成员，他曾参加过所有的代表大会和中央委员会，并曾执行过一系列任务，并取得了巨大的成功。自从1849年7月德国和法国革命党失败以来，中央委员会的几乎所有委员都重新聚集在伦敦：他们用新的革命力量补充了自己的队伍，并重新热心地着手改组同盟。
这种改组只有通过特使才能实现，中央委员会认为，在新的革命即将来临的时刻派遣特使是极其重要的，也就是说，在工人政党必须以最高程度的组织性、统一性和独立性投入战斗的时候，这样它才不会像1848年那样被资产阶级利用和拖累。
兄弟们，我们在1848年就告诉过你们，德国自由资产阶级很快就会掌权，并立即用它新获得的权力来对付工人。你们已经看到这个预言是如何实现的。正是资产阶级在1848年三月运动之后掌握了国家政权，并利用这一政权把工人——资产阶级的斗争盟友——逼回到从前受压迫的地位。虽然资产阶级只有与三月运动中失败的封建政党结盟，甚至最终不得不再次把政权交给这个封建专制政党，才能做到这一点，但它还是为自己争取到了有利条件。鉴于政府的财政困难，这些条件将确保政权最终重新落入资产阶级手中，如果革命运动从现在起能够走上所谓的和平发展道路，它的一切利益都将得到保障。为了保证自己的权力，资产阶级甚至不需要对人民采取暴力手段来激起仇恨，因为所有这些暴力手段都已经被封建反革命所实施。但事态不会走这条和平的道路。相反，加速事态发展的革命迫在眉睫，无论它是由法国无产阶级的独立起义发起，还是由神圣同盟对革命巴别塔的入侵发起。
1848年德国自由资产阶级对人民所扮演的叛徒角色，将在即将到来的革命中由民主小资产阶级承担，而民主小资产阶级现在在反对派中占据着同样的地位。
就像 1848 年以前的自由资产阶级一样。这个民主党派对工人的危险性远大于早期的自由主义者，它由三部分组成：1）大资产阶级中最进步的分子，他们追求的目标是立即彻底推翻封建主义和专制主义。这一派别的代表是前柏林工会联合会，即税收抵抗者；2）立宪民主小资产阶级，他们在前一次运动中的主要目标是建立一个或多或少民主的联邦国家；这就是他们的代表，法兰克福议会和后来的斯图加特议会的左派，他们为之奋斗，就像他们自己在帝国宪法运动中所做的那样； 3）共和派小资产阶级，他们的理想是建立与瑞士类似的德国联邦共和国，现在他们自称为“红色”和“社会民主派”，因为他们怀着消除大资本对小资本、大资产阶级对小资产阶级的压力的虔诚愿望。这个派别的代表是民主代表大会和委员会的成员、民主协会的领袖和民主报纸的编辑。
所有这些派别在失败后都自称为“共和党人”或“红色派”，就像现在法国共和派小资产阶级的成员自称为“社会主义者”一样。在符腾堡、巴伐利亚等地，他们仍然有机会通过宪法手段实现自己的目的，他们抓住机会保留他们的旧词句，并用他们的行动证明他们丝毫没有改变。此外，不言而喻，这个党改名丝毫不会改变它与工人的关系，而只是证明它现在不得不组成一个反对与专制主义联合起来的资产阶级的阵线，并寻求无产阶级的支持。
德国的小资产阶级民主党非常强大。它不仅包括绝大多数城市中产阶级、小工业商人和工匠，还包括农民和农村无产阶级，因为后者还没有在城市独立无产阶级中找到支持。
革命工人党与小资产阶级民主派的关系是这样的：它与他们合作，反对他们试图推翻的政党；它反对他们，只要他们想在任何地方巩固自己的地位。
民主派小资产阶级根本不想把整个社会改造得符合革命无产阶级的利益，他们只希望改变社会条件，使他们尽可能过得舒适和安逸。因此，他们首先要求通过限制官僚机构和把主要的税收负担转嫁给大地主和资产阶级来减少政府开支。他们还要求通过建立公共信贷机构和颁布反高利贷法来消除大资本对小资本的压力，使他们和农民能够从国家而不是从资本家那里得到优惠的贷款；他们还要求通过彻底废除封建制度来建立资产阶级的土地所有制关系。为了实现这一切，他们需要一种民主的政府形式，无论是立宪的还是共和的，使他们和他们的农民盟友获得多数；他们还需要一种民主的地方政府制度，使他们能够直接控制市政财产和目前由官僚掌握的一系列政治职位。
资本的统治及其迅速积累将得到进一步的抵消，部分是通过限制继承权，部分是通过向国家转移尽可能多的就业机会。就工人而言，首先有一件事是肯定的：他们仍将像以前一样成为雇佣劳动者。然而，民主小资产阶级希望为工人提供更好的工资和保障，并希望通过扩大国家就业和采取福利措施来实现这一点；简而言之，他们希望用一种或多或少变相的施舍形式收买工人，并通过暂时使他们的处境变得可以忍受来摧毁他们的革命力量。这里总结的小资产阶级民主的要求并不是它的所有部分同时表达出来的，总的来说，它们只是极少数追随者的明确目标。小资产阶级的个人或派别越是前进，他们就越会明确地提出这些要求，而那些在上面提到的要求中承认自己的纲领的少数人，很可能会认为，他们已经提出了革命所能要求的最高限度的要求。
等等。但是这些要求根本不能使无产阶级政党感到满意。民主派小资产阶级想尽快结束革命，最多达到上述目的，而我们的利益和任务是使革命持续下去，直到所有有产阶级或多或少被赶下统治地位，直到无产阶级夺取国家政权，直到无产阶级的联合发展到不仅在一个国家，而且在世界所有主要国家都发展到足以使这些国家的无产阶级之间的竞争停止，至少决定性的生产力集中在工人手中。我们的任务不能仅仅在于改变私有制，而在于废除私有制，不是掩盖阶级对立而是消灭阶级，不是改善现有社会而是建立新社会。毫无疑问，在德国革命的进一步发展中，小资产阶级民主派暂时将取得主导地位。因此，问题在于无产阶级，特别是同盟对他们应采取什么态度：
1）在目前小资产阶级民主派也受压迫的条件下；
2）在即将来临的革命斗争中，小资产阶级将占据统治地位；
3）在这场斗争之后，在小资产阶级对被推翻的阶级和无产阶级占统治地位的时期。
锚点
1. 目前，民主派小资产阶级到处受压迫，他们向无产阶级宣扬普遍团结与和解；他们伸出友谊之手，寻求建立一个包容各种民主观点的伟大反对党；也就是说，他们试图把工人诱入一个党组织，在这个组织里，社会民主主义的一般空话占了上风，而工人的特殊利益却被隐藏起来，为了维护和平，无产阶级的特殊要求不能在这个组织里提出来。这样的联合对他们来说只有好处，对无产阶级来说则完全不利。无产阶级将失去来之不易的独立地位，再次沦为官方资产阶级民主的附属品。因此，必须以最坚决的方式抵制这种联合。工人，尤其是联盟，不应该把自己降低到鼓掌合唱团的水平，而应该努力建立一个独立的工人党组织，既秘密又公开，与官方民主派并肩工作，联盟应该努力使它的每一个公社都成为工人协会的中心和核心，在那里可以不受资产阶级影响地讨论无产阶级的地位和利益。资产阶级民主派多么重视无产阶级拥有平等权力和平等权利的联盟，这一点可以从布雷斯劳民主派的立场上看出来。他们正在自己的机关报《新奥得河报》上对独立组织的工人，即他们所谓的“社会主义者”进行猛烈的攻击。在同共同敌人作斗争时，特殊的联盟是不必要的。一旦必须直接打击这样的敌人，双方的利益就会暂时一致，将来也会像过去一样，自发地产生一时权宜之计。不言而喻，在将来的流血冲突中，也像在所有其他冲突中一样，工人凭借他们的勇敢、果断和自我牺牲精神，将主要为取得胜利负责。和过去一样，在未来的斗争中，小资产阶级总体上也会尽可能长时间地犹豫不决，保持恐惧、优柔寡断和消极被动；但是，当胜利已成定局时，它就会将胜利??据为己有，并号召工人有秩序地行动，恢复工作，防止所谓的过激行为，并剥夺无产阶级的胜利果实。工人没有能力阻止小资产阶级民主派这样做，但他们有能力使小资产阶级尽可能难以利用其权力来对付武装的无产阶级，并向他们提出这样的条件，使资产阶级民主派的统治从一开始就带有自我毁灭的种子，而无产阶级随后取代资产阶级的统治将变得相当容易。最重要的是，在斗争期间和斗争刚结束时，工人必须尽可能地反对资产阶级的绥靖企图，迫使民主派实施他们的恐怖言论。他们必须努力确保胜利后立即出现的革命热情不会突然被压制。相反，它必须尽可能长久地持续下去。它不仅反对所谓的
过度行为——针对仇恨个人或与仇恨记忆相关的公共建筑的民众报复行为——工人党不仅必须容忍这些行动，甚至必须指导它们。在斗争期间和斗争之后，工人必须抓住一切机会提出自己的要求，反对资产阶级民主派的要求。一旦民主资产阶级开始接管政府，他们就必须要求为工人提供保障。他们必须在必要时使用武力来实现这些保证，并且通常确保新统治者承诺所有可能的让步和承诺——这是妥协的最可靠手段。他们必须用一切方法尽可能地遏制每次成功的街头战斗后对新形势的胜利狂喜和热情，冷静地分析形势，毫不掩饰地不信任新政府。他们必须与新的官方政府同时建立自己的革命工人政府，要么以地方执行委员会和议会的形式，要么通过工人俱乐部或委员会的形式，这样，资产阶级民主政府不仅会立即失去工人的支持，而且从一开始就受到全体工人群众背后的当局的监督和威胁。总之，从胜利的那一刻起，工人的怀疑就不应该再针对失败的反动政党，而应该针对他们以前的盟友，针对打算利用共同胜利为自己牟利的政党。
锚点
2. 为了能够有力地、威胁性地反对这个从胜利的第一小时就开始背叛工人的政党，工人必须武装起来并组织起来。整个无产阶级必须立即用火枪、步枪、大炮和弹药武装起来，并反对针对工人的旧式民兵的复活。如果无法阻止这种民兵的形成，工人就必须设法独立地组织起来，成为一支无产阶级卫队，有选举出来的领导人和他们自己选举出来的总参谋部；他们必须设法不服从国家当局的命令，而是服从工人建立的革命地方委员会的命令。如果工人受雇于国家，他们必须武装起来，组织成有选举出来的领导人的特别部队，或者成为无产阶级卫队的一部分。不得以任何借口交出武器和弹药；任何解除工人武装的企图都必须予以挫败，必要时可以使用武力。摧毁资产阶级民主派对工人的影响，实施将损害目前不可避免的资产阶级民主统治的条件，并使之尽可能困难——这些是无产阶级和联盟在即将到来的起义期间和之后必须牢记的要点。
锚点
而不是由于代表机构中存在少数反动派而产生的不利因素。如果民主力量从一开始就对反动派采取果断的、恐怖的行动，选举中的反动影响就已经被摧毁了。
资产阶级民主派与工人发生冲突的第一点将是废除封建制度，就像在第一次法国革命中一样，小资产阶级将希望将封建土地作为自由财产交给农民；也就是说，他们将试图使农村无产阶级的存在成为现实，并形成一个小资产阶级农民阶级，这个阶级将遭受与法国农民一样的贫困和债务循环。工人必须为了农村无产阶级的利益和自己的利益反对这个计划。他们必须要求没收的封建财产仍为国家财产，并用于工人殖民地，由农村无产阶级集体耕种，享受大规模农业的一切优势，而公有财产原则将在摇摇欲坠的资产阶级财产关系体系中立即获得牢固的基础。正如民主派与农民结盟一样，工人也必须与农村无产阶级结盟。
民主派要么直接为联邦共和国而努力，要么至少，如果他们无法避免一个不可分割的共和国，他们将试图通过给予各市和省最大程度的自治权和独立性来瘫痪中央政府。与这一计划相反，工人不仅必须争取一个不可分割的德意志共和国，而且必须在这个共和国内争取最决定性的权力集中在国家权力手中。他们不应该被关于市政自由、自治等等的空洞的民主言论所误导。在德国这样的国家，还有许多中世纪的残余需要消除，许多地方和省份的顽固性需要打破，因此，无论如何都不能容忍每个村庄、每个城市和每个省份都给革命活动设置新的障碍，因为革命活动只有从一个中心点才能最有效地开展。同样，也不能容忍德国人必须在每个城市和每个省份进行单独的斗争才能取得同样的进步。最不能容忍的，是所谓的自由地方政府制度，使一种比现代私有财产更落后的、到处都不可避免地转化为私有财产的财产形式，即公有财产，以及由此引起的贫富社区之间的纠纷。也不能允许这种所谓的自由地方政府制度与国家民法并存，而使针对工人的残酷手段与市镇民法并存。正如1793年的法国一样，德国真正革命党的任务就是实行最严格的中央集权。[今天必须回顾，这段话是基于误解的。当时——由于波拿巴主义和自由主义的历史伪造者——人们认为，法国中央集权的行政机构是由大革命引进的，特别是被国民公会用作击败保皇党和联邦党反动派以及外部敌人的不可或缺的决定性武器。然而，现在众所周知的事实是，在整个革命过程中，直到雾月十八日，各省、区和市镇的整个行政机构都是由各自选民自己选举产生的当局组成，这些当局在一般国家法律的范围内完全自由地行事；正是这种类似于美国的省级和地方自治，成为革命最有力的杠杆，甚至强大到拿破仑在雾月十八日政变后立即赶忙用现在的省长行政来代替它，因此，省长行政从一开始就是纯粹的反动工具。但是，地方和省级自治并不与政治的、国家的集中相矛盾，它也不必然与那种狭隘的州或社区的自私自利相联系，这种自私自利在瑞士是那么令人厌恶，而南德意志联邦共和国的所有共和党人都想在 1849 年在德国成为统治。——恩格斯 1885 年版注。]
我们已经看到，下一次高潮将如何使民主派掌权，他们将如何被迫提出或多或少社会主义的措施。人们将问工人将提出什么措施来回应。在
首先，当然，工人不能提出任何直接的共产主义措施。但可以采取以下行动：
1. 他们可以迫使民主派侵入现有社会秩序的尽可能多的领域，以扰乱其正常运作，使小资产阶级民主派妥协；此外，工人可以迫使尽可能多的生产力——交通工具、工厂、铁路等——集中在国家手中。
2. 他们必须把民主派的建议推向逻辑的极端（民主派无论如何都会采取改良主义而不是革命主义的方式），并将这些建议转变为对私有财产的直接攻击。例如，如果小资产阶级提议购买铁路和工厂，工人就必须要求国家无偿没收这些铁路和工厂，作为反动派的财产。如果民主派提出比例税，那么工人就必须要求累进税；如果民主派自己提议征收温和的累进税，那么工人就必须坚持征收税率急剧上升的税，以致大资本因此破产；如果民主派要求管制国家债务，那么工人就必须要求国家破产。因此，工人的要求必须根据民主派的措施和让步进行调整。
虽然德国工人不经过长期的革命发展就不能掌握政权并实现自己的阶级利益，但这一次他们至少可以肯定，即将到来的革命大戏的第一幕将与他们本阶级在法国的直接胜利同时发生，从而加速这一进程。但他们自己必须为自己的最后胜利做出最大的贡献，他们必须了解自己的阶级利益，尽快采取独立的政治立场，不让自己被民主派小资产阶级的虚伪言辞误导，怀疑无产阶级独立组织政党的必要性。他们的战斗口号必须是：不断革命。
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 gearhart@ccsn.edu; 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.
