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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32644-8.txt b/32644-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8c4e02f --- /dev/null +++ b/32644-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6351 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays on the Materialistic Conception of +History, by Antonio Labriola + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History + +Author: Antonio Labriola + +Translator: Charles H. Kerr + +Release Date: June 1, 2010 [EBook #32644] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONCEPTION OF HISTORY *** + + + + +Produced by Brian Foley, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +ESSAYS on the Materialistic Conception of History + + +by + +ANTONIO LABRIOLA +_Professor in the University of Rome_ + + +translated by CHARLES H. KERR + + +Chicago +CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY +CO-OPERATIVE + + + + +COPYRIGHT 1908 +BY CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY +CHICAGO + + +JOHN F. HIGGINS +PRINTER AND BINDER + +[Illustration: Logo] + +376-382 MONROE STREET +CHICAGO, ILLINOIS + + + + +TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. + + +On the tenth of March, 1896, the same year that the last despairing +revolt of the small producer against capitalism in America was to end in +the overwhelming defeat of Bryan, an Italian scholar published in the +city of Rome the remarkable work which is now for the first time offered +to American readers. + +To publish this book in America at that time would have been an +impossibility. The American socialist movement was then hardly more than +an association of immigrants who had brought their socialism with them +from Europe. Today it numbers at least half a million adherents, and its +platform is an embodiment of the ideas first adequately stated in the +Communist Manifesto of 1848, and now first adequately explained and +elaborated in this remarkable work of Labriola. + +The central and fundamental proposition of socialism is not any scheme +for reconstructing society, on a cut-and-dried programme, nor again is +it any particular mathematical formula showing to what extent the +laborer is robbed by the present system of the fruits of his labor; it +is precisely this Historical Materialism, which Labriola has so +admirably explained in the present work. + +Some idea of the place accorded to this book by European socialists may +be gathered from the preface to the French edition by G. Sorel, one of +the most prominent socialists of France. + +He says: "The publication of this book marks a date in the history of +socialism. The work of Labriola has its place reserved in our libraries +by the side of the classic works of Marx and Engels. It constitutes an +illumination and a methodical development of a theory which the masters +of the new socialist thought have never yet treated in a didactic form. +It is therefore an indispensable book for whoever wishes to understand +something of _proletarian ideas_. More than the works of Marx and Engels +it is addressed to that public which is unacquainted with socialist +preconceptions. In these pages the historian will find substantial and +valuable suggestion for the study of the origin and transformation of +institutions." + +The economic development of the United States has reached a point where +the growth of the Socialist Party must henceforth go forward with +startling rapidity. That the publication of this volume may have some +effect in clarifying the ideas of those who discuss the principles of +that party, whether with voice or pen, is the hope of the + +TRANSLATOR. + + + + +ESSAYS ON THE MATERIALISTIC CONCEPTION OF HISTORY + + +I. + +In Memory of the Communist Manifesto 7 + +II. + +Historical Materialism 93 + + + + +ESSAYS on the Materialistic Conception of History + + + + +PART I + +IN MEMORY OF THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO. + + +I. + +In three years we can celebrate our jubilee. The memorable date of the +publication of the Communist Manifesto (February, 1848) marks our first +unquestioned entrance into history. To that date are referred all our +judgments and all our congratulations on the progress made by the +proletariat in these last fifty years. That date marks the beginning of +the new era. This is arising, or, rather, is separating itself from the +present era, and is developing by a process peculiar to itself and thus +in a way that is necessary and inevitable, whatever may be the +vicissitudes and the successive phases which cannot yet be foreseen. + +All those in our ranks who have a desire or an occasion to possess a +better understanding of their own work should bring to mind the causes +and the moving forces which determined the genesis of the Manifesto, the +circumstances under which it appeared on the eve of the Revolution which +burst forth from Paris to Vienna, from Palermo to Berlin. Only in this +way will it be possible for us to find in the present social form the +explanation of the tendency toward socialism, thus showing by its +present necessity the inevitability of its triumph. + + +Is not that in fact the vital part of the Manifesto, its essence and its +distinctive character? + +We surely should be taking a false road if we regarded as the essential +part the measures advised and proposed at the end of the second chapter +for the contingency of a revolutionary success on the part of the +proletariat,--or again the indications of political relationship to the +other revolutionary parties of that epoch which are found in the fourth +chapter. These indications and these measures, although they deserved to +be taken into consideration at the moment and under the circumstances +where they were formulated and suggested, and although they may be very +important for forming a precise estimate of the political action of the +German communists in the revolutionary period from 1848 to 1850, +henceforth no longer form for us a mass of practical judgments for or +against which we should take sides in each contingency. The political +parties which since the International have established themselves in +different countries, in the name of the proletariat, and taking it +clearly for their base, have felt, and feel, in proportion as they are +born and develop, the imperious necessity of adopting and conforming +their programme and their action to circumstances always different and +multiform. But not one of these parties feels the dictatorship of the +proletariat so near that it experiences the need or desire or even the +temptation to examine anew and pass judgment upon the measures proposed +in the Manifesto. There are really no historic experiences but those +that history makes itself. It is as impossible to foresee them as to +plan them beforehand or make them to order. That is what happened at the +moment of the Commune, which was and which still remains up to this day +the only experience (although partial and confused because it was sudden +and of short duration) of the action of the proletariat in gaining +control of political power. This experience, too, was neither desired +nor sought for, but imposed by circumstances. It was heroically carried +through and it has become a salutary lesson for us to-day. It might +easily happen that where the socialist movement is still in its +beginnings, appeal may be made, for lack of personal direct +experience--as often happens in Italy--to the authority of a text from +the Manifesto as if it were a precept, but these passages are in reality +of no importance. + + +Again, we must not, as I believe, seek for this vital part, this +essence, this distinctive character, in what the Manifesto says of the +other forms of socialism of which it speaks under the name of +_literature_. The entire third chapter may doubtless serve for defining +clearly by way of exclusion and antithesis, by brief but vigorous +characterizations, the differences which really exist between the +communism commonly characterized to-day as scientific,--an expression +sometimes used in a mistaken and contradictory way,--that is to say, +between the communism which has the proletariat for its subject and the +proletarian revolution for its theme, and the other forms of socialism; +reactionary, bourgeois, semi-bourgeois, petit-bourgeois, utopian, etc. +All these forms except one[1] have re-appeared and renewed themselves +more than once. They are reappearing under a new form even to-day in the +countries where the modern proletarian movement is of recent birth. For +these countries and under these circumstances the Manifesto has +exercised and still exercises the function of contemporary criticism and +of a literary whip. And in the countries where these forms have already +been theoretically and practically outgrown, as in Germany and Austria, +or survive only as an individual opinion among a few, as in France and +England, without speaking of other nations, the Manifesto from this +point of view has played its part. It thus merely records as a matter +of history something no longer necessary to think of, since we have to +deal with the political action of the proletariat which already is +before us in its gradual and normal course. + +That was, to anticipate, the attitude of mind of those who wrote it. By +the force of their thought and with some scanty data of experience they +had anticipated the events which have occurred and they contented +themselves with declaring the elimination and the condemnation of what +they had outgrown. Critical communism--that is its true name, and there +is none more exact for this doctrine--did not take its stand with the +feudalists in regretting the old society for the sake of criticising by +contrast the contemporary society:--it had an eye only to the future. +Neither did it associate itself with the petty bourgeois in the desire +of saving what cannot be saved:--as, for example, small proprietorship, +or the tranquil life of the small proprietor whom the bewildering action +of the modern state, the necessary and natural organ of present society, +destroys and overturns, because by its constant revolutions it carries +in itself the necessity for other revolutions new and more fundamental. + +Neither did it translate into metaphysical whimsicalities, into a sickly +sentimentalism, or into a religious contemplation, the real contrasts of +the material interests of every day life: on the contrary, it exposed +those contrasts in all their prosaic reality. It did not construct the +society of the future upon a plan harmoniously conceived in each of its +parts. It has no word of eulogy and exaltation, of invocation and of +regret, for the two goddesses of philosophic mythology, justice and +equality, those two goddesses who cut so sad a figure in the practical +affairs of everyday life, when we observe that the history of so many +centuries maliciously amuses itself by nearly always contradicting their +infallible suggestions. Once more these communists, while declaring on +the strength of facts which carry conviction that the mission of the +proletarians is to be the grave diggers of the bourgeoisie, still +recognize the latter as the author of a social form which represents +extensively and intensively an important stage of progress, and which +alone can furnish the field for the new struggles which already give +promise of a happy issue for the proletariat. Never was funeral oration +so magnificent. There is in these praises addressed to the bourgeoisie a +certain tragical humor,--they have been compared to dithyrambics. + +The negative and antithetical definitions of other forms of socialism +then current, which have often re-appeared since, even up to the present +time, although they are fundamentally beyond criticism both in their +form and their aim, nevertheless, do not pretend to be and are not the +real history of socialism; they furnish neither its outlines nor its +plan for him who would write it. History in reality does not rest upon +the distinction between the true and the false, the just and the unjust +and still less upon the more abstract antithesis between the possible +and the real as if the things were on one side and on another side were +their shadows and their reflections in ideas. History is all of a piece, +and it rests upon the process of formation and transformation of +society; and that evidently in a fashion altogether objective and +independent of our approval or disapproval. It is a dynamic of a special +class to speak like the positivists who are so dainty with expressions +of this sort but are often dominated by the new phrases which they have +put out. The different socialist forms of thought and action which have +appeared and disappeared in the course of the centuries, so different in +their causes, their aspects, and their effects, are all to be studied +and explained by the specific and complex conditions of the social life +in which they were produced. Upon a close examination it is seen that +they do not form one single whole of continuous process because the +series is frequently interrupted by changes in the social fabric and by +the disappearance and breaking off of the tradition. It is only since +the French Revolution that socialism presents a certain unity of +process, which appears more evident since 1830 with the definite +political supremacy of the capitalist class in France and England and +which finally becomes obvious, we might say even palpable, since the +rise of the International. Upon this road the Manifesto stands like a +colossal guide post bearing a double inscription: on one side the first +sketch of the new doctrine which has now made the circle of the world; +on the other, the definition of its relations to the forms which it +excludes, without giving, however, any historic account of them. + +The vital part, the essence, the distinctive character of this work are +all contained in the new conception of history which permeates it and +which in it is partially explained and developed. By the aid of this +conception communism, ceasing to be a hope, an aspiration, a +remembrance, a conjecture, an expedient, found for the first time its +adequate expression in the realization of its very necessity, that is to +say, in the realization that it is the outcome and the solution of the +struggles of existing classes. These struggles have varied according to +times and places and out of them history has developed; but, they are +all reduced in our days to the single struggle between the capitalist +bourgeoisie and the workingmen inevitably forced into the ranks of the +proletariat. The Manifesto gives the genesis of this struggle; it +details its evolutionary rhythm, and predicts its final result. + +In that conception of history is embodied the whole doctrine of +scientific communism. From that moment the theoretical adversaries of +socialism have no longer had to discuss the abstract possibility of the +democratic socialization of the means of production;[2] as if it were +possible in this question to rest their judgment upon inductions based +upon the general and common aptitudes of what they characterize as human +nature. Thenceforth, the question was to recognize, or not to recognize, +in the course of human events the necessity which stands over and above +our sympathy and our subjective assent. Is or is not society in the +countries most advanced in civilization organized in such a way that it +will pass into communism by the laws inherent in its own future, once +conceding its present economic structure and the friction which it +necessarily produces within itself, and which will end by breaking and +dissolving it? That is the subject of all discussion since the +appearance of this theory and thence follows also the rule of conduct +which imposes itself upon the action of the socialist parties whether +they be composed of proletarians alone or whether they have in their +ranks men who have come out from the other classes and who join as +volunteers the army of the proletariat. + +That is why we voluntarily accept the epithet of scientific, provided we +do not thus confuse ourselves with the positivists, sometimes +embarrassing guests, who assume to themselves a monopoly of science; we +do not seek to maintain an abstract and generic thesis like lawyers or +sophists, and we do not plume ourselves on demonstrating the +reasonableness of our aims. Our intentions are nothing less than the +theoretical expression and the practical explanation of the data offered +us by the interpretation of the process which is being accomplished +among us and about us and which has its whole existence in the objective +relations of social life of which we are the subject and the object, the +cause and the effect. Our aims are rational, not because they are +founded on arguments drawn from the reasoning of reason, but because +they are derived from the objective study of things, that is to say, +from the explanation of their process, which is not, and which cannot +be, a result of our will but which on the contrary triumphs over our +will and subdues it. + +Not one of the previous or subsequent works of the authors of the +Manifesto themselves, although they have a much more considerable +scientific leaning, can replace the Manifesto or have the same specific +efficacy. It gives us in its classic simplicity the true expression of +this situation; the modern proletariat exists, takes its stand, grows +and develops in contemporary history as the concrete subject, the +positive force whose necessarily revolutionary action must find in +communism its necessary outcome. And that is why this work while giving +a theoretical base to its prediction and expressing it in brief, rapid +and concise formulae, forms a storehouse, or rather an inexhaustible +mine of embryonic thoughts which the reader may fertilize and multiply +indefinitely; it preserves all the original and originating force of the +thing which is but lately born and which has not yet left the field of +its production. This observation is intended especially for those who +applying a learned ignorance, when they are not humbugs, charlatans, or +amiable dilettanti, give to the doctrine of critical communism +precursors, patrons, allies and masters of every class without any +respect for common sense and the most vulgar chronology. Or again, they +try to bring back our materialistic conception of history into the +theory of universal evolution which to the minds of many is but a new +metaphor of a new metaphysics. Or again they seek in this doctrine a +derivative of Darwinism which is an analogous theory only in a certain +point of view and in a very broad sense; or again they have the +condescension to favor us with the alliance or the patronage of that +positive philosophy which extends from Comte, that degenerate and +reactionary disciple of the genial Saint-Simon, to Spencer, that +quintessence of anarchical capitalism, which is to say that they wish to +give us for allies our most open adversaries. + + +It is to its origin that this work owes its fertilizing power, its +classic strength, and the fact that it has given in so few pages the +synthesis of so many series and groups of ideas.[3] + +It is the work of two Germans, but it is not either in its form or its +basis the expression of personal opinion. It contains no trace of the +imprecations, or the anxieties, or the bitterness familiar to all +political refuges and to all those who have voluntarily abandoned their +country to breathe elsewhere freer air. Neither do we find in it the +direct reproduction of the conditions of their own country, then in a +deplorable political state and which could not be compared to those of +France and England socially and economically, except as regards certain +portions of their territory. They brought to their work, on the +contrary, the philosophic thought which alone had placed and maintained +their country upon the level of contemporary history:--this philosophic +thought which in their hands was undergoing that important +transformation which permitted materialism, already renewed by Feuerbach +combined with dialectics, to embrace and understand the movement of +history in its most secret and until then unexplored causes,--unexplored +because hidden and difficult to observe. Both were communists and +revolutionists, but they were so neither by instinct, by impulse nor by +passion. They had elaborated an entirely new criticism of economic +science and they had understood the connection and the historic meaning +of the proletarian movement on both sides of the Channel, in France and +in England, before they were called to give in the Manifesto the +programme and the doctrine of the Communist League. This had its center +in London and numerous branches on the continent; it had behind it a +life and development of its own. + +Engels had already published a critical essay in which passing over all +subjective and one-sided corrections he brought out for the first time +in an objective fashion the criticism of political economy and of the +antitheses inherent in the data and the concepts of that economy itself, +and he had become celebrated by the publication of a book on the +condition of the English working class which was the first attempt to +represent the movements of the working class as the result of the +workings of the forces and means of production.[4] Marx, in the few +years preceding, had become known as a radical publicist in Germany, +Paris and Brussels. He had conceived the first rudiments of the +materialistic conception of history. He had made a theoretically +victorious criticism of the hypotheses of Proudhon and the deductions +from his doctrine, and had given the first precise explanation of the +origin of surplus value as a consequence of the purchase and the use of +labor power, that is to say the first germ of the conceptions which were +later demonstrated and explained in their connection and their details +in Capital. Both men were in touch with the revolutionists of the +different countries of Europe, notably France, Belgium and England; +their Manifesto was not the expression of their personal theory, but the +doctrine of a party whose spirit, aim and activity already formed the +International Workingmen's Association. + + +These are the beginnings of modern socialism. We find there the line +which separates it from all the rest. + +_The Communist League_ grew out of the _League of the Just_; the latter +in its turn had been formed with a clear consciousness of its +proletarian aims through a gradual specialization of the generic group +of the refugees, the exiles. As a type, bearing within itself in an +embryonic design the form of all the later socialist and proletarian +movements, it had traversed the different phases of conspiracy and of +equalitarian socialism. It was metaphysical with Gruen and utopian with +Weitling. Having its principal seat at London it was interested in the +Chartist movement and had had some influence over it. This movement +showed by its disordered character, because it was neither the fruit of +a premeditated experience, nor the embodiment of a conspiracy or of a +sect, how painful and difficult was the formation of a proletarian +political party. The socialist tendency was not manifested in Chartism +until the movement was near its end and was nearly finished (though +Jones and Horner can never be forgotten). The _League_ everywhere +carried an odor of revolution, both because the thing was in the air and +because its instinct and method of procedure tended that way: and as +long as the revolution was bursting forth effectively, it provided +itself, thanks to the new doctrine of the Manifesto, with an instrument +of orientation which was at the same time a weapon for combat. In fact, +already international, both by the quality and differences of origin of +its members, and still more by the result of the instinct and devotion +of all, it took its place in the general movement of political life as +the clear and definite precursor of all that can to-day be called modern +socialism, if by modern we mean not the simple fact of extrinsic +chronology but an index of the internal or organic process of society. + +A long interruption from 1852 to 1864 which was the period of political +reaction and at the same time that of the disappearance, the dispersion +and the absorption of the old socialist schools, separates the +International of the _Arbeiterbildungsverein_ of London, from the +International properly so called, which, from 1864 to 1873, strove to +put unity into the struggle of the proletariat of Europe and America. +The action of the proletariat had other interruptions especially in +France, and with the exception of Germany, from the dissolution of the +International of glorious memory up to the new International which +lives to-day through other means and which is developing in other ways, +both of them adapted to the political situation in which we live, and +based upon riper experience. But just as the survivors of those who in +December, 1847, discussed and accepted the new doctrine, have +re-appeared on the public scene in the great International, and later +again in the new International, the Manifesto itself has also +re-appeared little by little and has made the tour of the world in all +the languages of the civilized countries, something which it promised to +do but could not do at the time of its first appearance. + +There was our real point of departure; there were our real precursors. +They marched before all the others, early in the day, with a step rapid +but sure, over this exact road which we were to traverse and which we +are traversing in reality. It is not proper to give the name of our +precursors to those who followed ways which they later had to abandon, +or to those who, to speak without metaphor, formulated doctrines and +started movements, doubtless explicable by the times and circumstances +of their birth, but which were later outgrown by the doctrine of +critical communism, which is the theory of the proletarian revolution. +This does not mean that these doctrines and these attempts were +accidental, useless and superfluous phenomena. There is nothing +irrational in the historic course of things because nothing comes into +existence without reason, and thus there is nothing superfluous. We +cannot even to-day arrive at a perfect understanding of critical +communism without mentally retracing these doctrines and following the +processes of their appearance and disappearance. In fact these doctrines +have not only passed, they have been intrinsically outgrown both by +reason of the change in the conditions of society and by reason of the +more exact understanding of the laws upon which rest its formation and +its process. + +The moment at which they enter into the past, that is to say, that at +which they are intrinsically outgrown, is precisely that of the +appearance of the Manifesto. As the first index of the genesis of modern +socialism, this writing, which gives only the most general and the most +easily accessible features of its teaching, bears within itself traces +of the historic field within which it is born, which was that of France, +England and Germany. Its field for propaganda and diffusion has since +become wider and wider, and it is henceforth as vast as the civilized +world. In all countries in which the tendency to communism has developed +through antagonisms under aspects different but every day more evident +between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the process of its first +formation is wholly or partly repeated over and over. The proletarian +parties which are formed little by little have traversed anew the stages +of formation which their precursors traversed at first; but this process +has become from country to country and from year to year always more +rapid by reason of the greater evidence, the pressing necessity and +energy of the antagonisms, and because it is easier to assimilate a +doctrine and a tendency than to create both for the first time. Our +co-workers of 50 years ago were also from this point of view +international, since by their example they started the proletariat of +the different nations upon the general march which labor must +accomplish. + + +But the perfect theoretical knowledge of socialism to-day, as before, +and as it always will be, lies in the understanding of its historic +necessity, that is to say, in the consciousness of the manner of its +genesis; and this is precisely reflected, as in a limited field of +observation and in a hasty example, in the formation of the Manifesto. +It was intended for a weapon of war and thus it bears upon its own +exterior the traces of its origin. It contains more substantial +declarations than demonstrations. The demonstration rests entirely in +the imperative force of its necessity. But we may retrace the process of +this formation and to retrace it is to understand truly the doctrine of +the Manifesto. There is an analysis which while separating in theory the +factors of an organism destroys them in so far as they are elements +contributing to the unity of the whole. But there is another analysis, +and this alone permits us to understand history, which only +distinguishes and separates the elements to find again in them the +objective necessity of their co-operation toward the total result. + +It is now a current opinion that modern socialism is a normal and thus +an inevitable product of history. Its political action, which may in +future involve delays and set-backs but never henceforth a total +absorption, began with the _International_. Nevertheless the Manifesto +precedes it. Its teaching is of prime importance in the light which it +throws on the proletarian movement, which movement indeed had its birth +and development independently of any doctrine. It is also more than this +light. Critical communism dates from the moment when the proletarian +movement is not merely a result of social conditions, but when it has +already strength enough to understand that these conditions can be +changed and to discern what means can modify them and in what direction. +It was not enough to say that socialism was a result of history. It was +also necessary to understand the intrinsic causes of this outcome and to +what all its activity tended. This affirmation, that the proletariat is +a necessary result of modern society, has for its mission to succeed the +bourgeoisie, and to succeed it as the producing force of a new social +order in which class antagonisms shall disappear, makes of the Manifesto +a characteristic epoch in the general course of history. It is a +revolution--but not in the sense of an apocalypse or a promised +millennium. It is the scientific and reflected revelation of the way +which our _civil society_ is traversing (if the shade of Fourier will +pardon me!). + +The Manifesto thus gives us the inside history of its origin and +thereby justifies its doctrine and at the same time explains its +singular effect and its wonderful efficacy. Without losing ourselves in +details, here are the series and groups of elements which, reunited and +combined in this rapid and exact synthesis, give us the clue to all the +later development of scientific socialism. + + +The immediate, direct and appreciable material is given by France and +England which had already had since 1830 a working-class movement which +sometimes resembles and sometimes differentiates itself from the other +revolutionary movements and which extended from instinctive revolt to +the practical aims of the political parties (Chartism and Social +Democracy for example) and gave birth to different temporary and +perishable forms of communism and semi-communism like that to which the +name of socialism was then given. + +To recognize in these movements no longer the fugitive phenomenon of +meteoric disturbances but a new social fact, there was need of a theory +which should explain them,--and a theory which should not be a simple +complement of the democratic tradition nor the subjective correction of +the disadvantages, thenceforth recognized, of the economy of +competition: although many were then concerned with this. This new +theory was the personal work of Marx and Engels. They carried over the +conception of historical progress through the process of antitheses from +the abstract form, which the Hegelian dialectic had already described +in its most general features, to the concrete explanation of the class +struggle; and in this historic movement where it had been supposed that +we observed the passage from one form of ideas to another form they saw +for the first time the transition from one form of social anatomy to +another, that is from one form of economic production to another form. + +This historic conception, which gave a theoretic form to this necessity +of the _new social revolution_ more or less explicit in the instinctive +consciousness of the proletariat and in its passionate and spontaneous +movements, recognizing the intrinsic and imminent necessity of the +revolution, changed the concept of it. That which the sects of +conspirators had regarded as belonging to the domain of the will and +capable of being constructed at pleasure, became a simple process which +might be favored, sustained and assisted. The revolution became the +object of a policy the conditions of which are given by the complex +situation of society; it therefore became a result which the proletariat +must attain through struggles and various means of organization which +the old tactics of revolts had not yet imagined. And this because the +proletariat is not an accessory and auxiliary means, an excrescence, an +evil, which can be eliminated from the society in which we are living +but because it is its substratum, its essential condition, its +inevitable effect and in turn the cause which preserves and maintains +society itself; and thus it cannot emancipate itself without at the +same time emancipating every one, that is to say, revolutionizing +completely the form of production. + +Just as the _League of the Just_ had become _The Communist League_ by +stripping itself of the forms of symbolism and conspiracy and adopting +little by little the means of propaganda and of political action from +and after the check attending the insurrection of Barbès and Blanqui +(1839), so likewise the new doctrine, which the _League_ accepted and +made its own, definitely abandoned the ideas which inspired the action +of conspiracies, and conceived as the outcome and objective result of a +process, that which the conspirators believed to be the result of a +pre-determined plan or the emanation from their heroism. + + +At that point begins a new ascending line in the order of facts and +another connection of concepts and of doctrines. + +The communism of conspiracy, the Blanquism of that time, carries us up +through Buonarotti and also through Bazard and the "Carbonari" to the +conspiracy of Baboeuf, a true hero of ancient tragedy who hurled himself +against fate because there was no connection between his aim and the +economic condition of the moment, and he was as yet incapable of +bringing upon the political scene a proletariat having a broad class +consciousness. From Baboeuf and certain less known elements of the +Jacobin period, past Boissel and Fauchet we ascend to the intuitive +Morelly and to the original and versatile Mably and if you please to +the chaotic _Testament_ of the _curé_ Meslier, an instinctive and +violent rebellion of "good sense" against the savage oppression endured +by the unhappy peasant. + +These precursors of the socialism of violence, protest and conspiracy +were all equalitarians; as were also most of the conspirators. Thus by a +singular but inevitable error they took for a weapon of combat, +interpreting it and generalizing it, that same doctrine of equality +which developing as a _natural right_ parallel to the formation of the +economic theory, had become an instrument in the hands of the +bourgeoisie which was winning step by step its present position to +transform the society of privilege into that of liberalism, free +exchange and the civil code.[5] + +Following this immediate deduction which at bottom was a simple +illusion, that all men being equal in nature should also be equal in +their enjoyments, it was thought that the appeal to reason carried with +it all the elements of propaganda and persuasion, and that the rapid, +immediate and violent taking possession of the exterior instruments of +political power was the only means to set to right those who resisted. + +But whence come and how persist all these inequalities which appear so +irrational in the light of a concept of justice so simple and so +elementary? The Manifesto was the clear negation of the principle of +equality understood so naively and so clumsily. While proclaiming as +inevitable the abolition of classes in the future form of collective +production, it explains to us the necessity, the birth and the +development of these very classes as a fact which is not an exception, +or a derogation of an abstract principle, but the very process of +history. + +Even as the modern proletariat involves the bourgeoisie, so the latter +cannot exist without the former. And both are the result of a process of +formation which rests altogether upon the new mode of production of the +objects necessary to life, that is to say, which rests altogether upon +the manner of economic production. The bourgeois society grew out of the +corporative and feudal society and it grew out of it through struggle +and revolution in order to take possession of the instruments and means +of production which all culminate in the formation, the development and +the multiplication of capital. To describe the origin and the progress +of the bourgeoisie in its different phases, to explain its successes in +the colossal development of technique and in the conquest of the world +market, and to point out the political transformations which followed +it, which are the expression, the defense and the result of these +conquests is, at the same time, to write the history of the proletariat. +The latter in its present condition is inherent in the epoch of +bourgeois society and it has had, it has, and will have as many phases +as that society itself up to the time of its extinction. The antithesis +of rich and poor, of happy and unhappy, of oppressors and oppressed is +not something accidental which can easily be put on one side as was +believed by the enthusiasts of justice. Still further it is a fact of +necessary correlation, once granted the directing principle of the +present form of production which makes the wageworker a necessity. This +necessity is double. Capital can only take possession of production by +converting laborers into proletarians and it cannot continue to live, to +be fruitful, to accumulate, to multiply itself and to transform itself +except on the condition of paying wages to those whom it has made +proletarians. The latter, on their side, can only live and reproduce +their kind on the condition of selling themselves as labor power, the +use of which is left to the discretion, that is to say, to the good +pleasure of the possessors of capital. The harmony between capital and +labor is wholly contained in this fact that labor is the living force by +which the proletarians continually put in motion and reproduce by adding +to it the labor accumulated in the capital. This connection resulting +from a development which is the whole inner essence of modern history, +if it gives the key to comprehend the true reason of the new class +struggle of which the communist conception has become the expression, +is of such a nature that no sentimental protest, no argument based on +justice can resolve it and disentangle it. + +It is for these reasons which I have explained here as simply as +possible that equalitarian communism remained vanquished. Its practical +powerlessness blended with its theoretical inability to account for the +causes of the wrongs or of the inequalities which it desired, bravely or +stupidly, to destroy or eliminate at a blow. + + +To understand history became thenceforth the principal task of the +theorists of communism. How could a cherished ideal be still opposed to +the hard reality of history? Communism is not the natural and necessary +state of human life in all times and in all places and the whole course +of historic formations cannot be considered as a series of deviations +and wanderings. One does not reach communism nor return to it by Spartan +abnegation or Christian resignation. It can be, still more it must be +and it will be the consequence of the dissolution of our capitalist +society. But the dissolution cannot be inoculated into it artificially +nor imported from without. It will dissolve by its own weight as +Machiavelli would say. It will disappear as a form of production which +engenders of itself and in itself the constant and increasing rebellion +of its productive forces against the conditions (juridical and +political) of production and it continues to live only by augmenting +(through competition which engenders crises, and by a bewildering +extension of its sphere of action) the intrinsic conditions of its +inevitable death. The death of a social form like that which comes from +natural death in any other branch of science becomes a _physiological +case_. + +The Manifesto did not make, and it was not its part to make the picture +of a future society. It told how our present society will dissolve by +the progressive dynamics of its forces. To make this understood it was +necessary above all to explain the development of the bourgeoisie and +this was done in rapid sketches, a model philosophy of history, which +can be retouched, completed and developed, but which cannot be +corrected.[6] + +Saint-Simon and Fourier, although neither their ideas nor the general +trend of their development were accepted, found their justification. +Idealists both, they had by their heroic vision transcended the +"liberal" epoch which in their horizon had its culminating point at the +epoch of the French revolution. The former in his interpretation of +history substituted social physics for economic law and politics, and in +spite of many idealistic and positivistic uncertainties, he almost +discovered the genesis of the third estate. The other, ignorant of +details which were still unknown or neglected, in the exuberance of his +undisciplined spirit imagined a great chain of historic epochs vaguely +distinguished by certain indications of the directing principle of the +forms of production and distribution. He thereupon proposed to himself +to construct a society in which the existing antitheses should +disappear. From all these antitheses he discovered by a flash of genius +and he, more than any other, developed "the vicious circle of +production"; he there unconsciously reached the position of Sismondi, +who at the same epoch, but with other intentions and along different +roads, studying crises and denouncing the disadvantages of the large +scale industry and of unbridled competition, announced the collapse of +the newly established economic science. From the summit of his serene +meditation on the future world of the harmonians he looked down with a +serene contempt upon the misery of civilization and unmoved wrote the +satire of history. Ignorant both, because idealists, of the bitter +struggle which the proletariat is called upon to maintain before putting +an end to the epoch of exploitation and of antitheses, they arrived +through a subjective necessity at their conclusions, in the one case +scheme-making, in the other utopianism. But as by divination they +foresaw some of the direct principles of a society without antitheses. +The former reached a clear conception of the technical government of +society in which should disappear the domination of man over man, and +the other divined, foresaw and prophesied along with the extravagances +of his luxuriant imagination a great number of the important traits of +the psychology and pedagogy of that future society in which according +to the expression of the Manifesto, "the free development of each is the +condition of the free development of all." + +Saint-Simonism had already disappeared when the Manifesto appeared. +Fourierism, on the contrary, was flourishing in France and in +consequence of its nature not as a party but as a school. + +When the school attempted to realize its utopia by means of the law, the +Parisian proletarians had already been beaten in those days of June by +that bourgeoisie which through this victory was preparing a master for +itself: it was a military adventurer whose power lasted twenty years. + + +It is not in the name of a school, but as the promise, the threat, and +the desire of a party that the new doctrine of critical communism +presented itself. Its authors and its adherents did not feed upon the +utopian manufacture of the future but their minds were full of the +experience and the necessity of the present. They united with the +proletarians whom instinct, not as yet fortified by experience, impelled +to overthrow, at Paris and in England, the rule of the bourgeois class +with a rapidity of movement not guided by well-considered tactics. These +communists disseminated their revolutionary ideas in Germany: they were +the defenders of the June martyrs, and they had in the Neue Rheinische +Zeitung a political organ, extracts from which, reproduced occasionally +after so many years, still carry authority.[7] After the disappearance +of the historic situations which in 1848 had pushed the proletarians to +the front of the political stage, the doctrines of the Manifesto no +longer found either a foundation or a field for diffusion. Many years +were required before it circulated again and that because many years +were required before the proletariat could re-appear by other roads and +under other methods as a political force upon the scene, making of this +doctrine its intellectual organ and directing its course by it. + +But from the day when the doctrine appeared it made its anticipated +criticism of that _socialismus vulgaris_ which was flourishing in Europe +and especially in France from the coup d'État to the International; the +latter moreover in its short period of life had not time to vanquish and +eliminate it. This vulgar socialism found its intellectual food (when +nothing even more incoherent and chaotic was at hand) in the doctrine +and especially in the paradoxes of Proudhon who had already been +vanquished theoretically by Marx[8] but who was not vanquished +practically until the time of the Commune when his disciples, and it was +a salutary lesson in affairs, were forced to act in opposition to their +own doctrines and those of their master. + +From the time of its appearance this new communist doctrine carried an +implied criticism of all forms of State socialism from Louis Blanc to +Lassalle. This State socialism, although mingled with revolutionary +doctrines, was then summed up in the empty dream, in the abracadabra, of +the _Right to Work_. This is an insidious formula if it implies a demand +addressed to a government even of revolutionary bourgeois. It is an +economic absurdity if by it is meant to suppress the unemployment which +ensues upon the variations of wages, that is to say upon the conditions +of competition. It may be a tool for politicians, if it serves as an +expedient to calm a shapeless mass of unorganized proletarians. This is +very evident for any one who conceives clearly the course of a +victorious proletarian revolution which cannot proceed to the +socialization of the means of production by taking possession of them, +that is to say, which cannot arrive at the economic form in which there +is neither merchandise nor wage labor and in which the right to work and +the duty of working are one and the same, mingled in the common +necessity of labor for all. + +The mirage of the right to work ended in the tragedy of June. The +parliamentary discussion of which it was the object in the sequel was +nothing but a parody. Lamartine, that tearful rhetorician, that great +man for all proper occasions, had pronounced the last, or the next to +the last of his celebrated phrases, "Catastrophes are the experiences of +nations," and that sufficed for the irony of history. + + +The brevity and simplicity of the Manifesto were wholly foreign to the +insinuating rhetoric of faith or creed. It was of the utmost +inclusiveness by virtue of the many ideas which it for the first time +reduced to a system and it was a series of germs capable of an immense +development. But it was not, and it did not pretend to be a code of +socialism, a catechism of critical communism, or the handbook of the +proletarian revolution. We may leave its "quintessence" to the +illustrious Dr. Schaeffle, to whom also we willingly leave the famous +phrase, "The social question is a question of the stomach." + +The "ventre" of Dr. Schaeffle has for long years cut a fine enough +figure in the world to the great advantage of the dilettanti in +socialism and to the delight of the politicians. Critical communism, in +reality, scarcely begun with the Manifesto it needed to develop and it +has developed effectively. + +The sum total of the teachings customarily designated by the name of +"Marxism" did not arrive at maturity before the years 1860-1870. It is +certainly a long step from the little work Wage Labor and Capital[9] in +which is seen for the first time in precise terms how from the purchase +and the use of the labor-commodity is obtained a product superior to the +cost of production, this being the clue to the question of surplus +value--it is a long step from this to the complex and multiple +developments of "Capital." This book goes exhaustively into the genesis +of the bourgeois epoch in all its inner economic structure, and +intellectually it transcends that epoch because it explains its course, +its particular laws and the antitheses which it organically produces and +which organically dissolve it. + +It is a long step also from the proletarian movement which succumbed in +1848 to the present proletarian movement which through great +difficulties after having re-appeared on the political scene has +developed with continuity and deliberation. Until a few years ago this +regularity of the forward march of the proletariat was observed and +admired only in Germany. The social democracy there had normally +increased as upon its own field (from the Workingmen's Conference of +Nuremburg, 1868, to our day). But since then the same phenomenon has +asserted itself in other countries, under various forms. + +In this broad development of Marxism and in this increase of the +proletarian movement in the limited forms of political action, has there +not been, as some assert, an alteration from the militant character of +the original form of critical communism? Has there not been a passing +from revolution to the self-styled evolution? Has there not been an +acquiescence of the revolutionary spirit in the exigencies of the reform +movement? + +These reflections and these objections have arisen and arise continually +both among the most enthusiastic and most passionate of the socialists +and among the adversaries of socialism whose interest it is to give an +appearance of uniformity to the special defeats, checks and delays, so +as to affirm that communism has no future. + + +Whoever compares the present proletarian movement and its varied and +complicated course with the impression left by the Manifesto when one +reads it without being provided with knowledge from other sources, may +easily believe that there was something juvenile and premature in the +confident boldness of those communists of fifty years ago. There is in +them the sound as of a battle cry and an echo of the vibrant eloquence +of some of the orators of Chartism; there is the declaration of a new +'93 with no room left for a new Thermidor. + +And Thermidor has re-appeared several times since in various forms, more +or less explicit or disguised, and their authors have been since 1848 +French ex-radicals, or Italian ex-patriots, or German bureaucrats, +adorers of the god State and practically slaves of the god Mammon, +English parliamentarians broken by the artifices of the art of +government, or even politicians under the guise of anarchists. Many +people believe that the constellation of Thermidor is destined never to +disappear from the heaven of history, or to speak in a more prosaic +fashion, that liberalism, that is to say a society where men are equal +only in law, marks the extreme limit of human evolution beyond which +nothing remains but a return backward. That is the opinion of all those +who see in the progressive extension of the bourgeois form over the +whole world the reason and the end of all progress. Whether they are +optimists or pessimists here are, for them, the columns of Hercules of +the human race. Often it happens that this sentiment in its pessimistic +form operates unconsciously upon some of those, who with others +unclassified, go to swell the ranks of anarchism. + +There are others who go further and who theorize upon the objective +improbabilities of the assertions of critical communism. That +affirmation of the Manifesto that the reduction of all class struggles +to a single one carries within itself the necessity of the proletarian +revolution, would seem to them intrinsically false. That doctrine would +be without foundation because it assumes to draw a theoretical deduction +and a practical rule of conduct from the prevision of a fact which, +according to these adversaries, would be a simple theoretical point +which might be displaced and set ahead indefinitely. The assumed +inevitable collision between the productive forces and the form of +production would never take place because it is reduced, as they claim, +to an infinite number of particular cases of friction, because it +multiplies itself into the partial collisions of economic competition, +and because it meets with checks and hindrances in the expedients and +attacks of the governmental art. In other words, our present society, +instead of breaking up and dissolving would in a continuous fashion +repair the evils which it produced. Every proletarian movement which is +not repressed by violence as was that of June, 1848, and that of May, +1871, would perish of slow exhaustion as happened with Chartism which +ended in trade unionism, the war horse of this fashion of arguing, the +honor and glory of the economists and of the vulgar sociologists. Every +modern proletarian movement would be regarded as meteoric and not +organic, it would be a disturbance and not a process, and according to +these critics, in spite of ourselves, we should be still utopians. + + +The historic forecast which is found in the doctrine of the Manifesto +and which critical communism has since developed by a broad and detailed +analysis of the actual world, has certainly taken on by reason of the +circumstances in which it was produced a warlike appearance and a very +aggressive form. But it did not imply, any more than it implies now, +either a chronological datum or a prophetic picture of the social +organization like those in the apocalypses and the ancient prophesies. + +The heroic Father Dolcino did not re-appear with the prophetic war cry +of Joachino del Fiore. We did not celebrate anew at Münster the +resurrection of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. There were no more Taborites +nor millenarians. Nor was there another Fourier waiting in his house at +a fixed hour year after year for the "candidate of humanity." Nor again, +was there an initiator of a new life, beginning with artificial means to +create the first nucleus of an association proposing to make man over, +as was the case with Beller, Owen, Cabet, and the enterprise of the +Fourierites in Texas, which was the tomb of utopianism, marked by a +singular epitaph: the dumbness which succeeded the fiery eloquence of +Considerant. Neither is there here a sect which retires modestly and +timidly from the world in order to celebrate in a closed circle the +perfect idea of communism as in the socialist colonies of America. + +Here, on the contrary, in the doctrine of critical communism, it is +society as a whole which at a moment of its general process discovers +the cause of its destined course and at a critical point asserts itself +to proclaim the laws of its movement. The foresight indicated by the +Manifesto was not chronological, it was not a prophecy nor a promise, +but a morphological prevision. + + +Beneath the noise of the passions over which our daily conversation +extends itself, beyond the visible movements of the persons who formed +the material at which the historians stop, beyond the juridical and +political apparel of our civil society, far enough from the meanings +which religion and art give to life, there remains, grows and develops +the elementary structure of society which supports all the rest. The +anatomical study of this underlying structure is economics. And as human +society has several times changed, partially or entirely, in its most +visible exterior form, or in its ideological, religious or artistic +manifestations, we must first find the cause and the reason of these +changes, the only ones which historians relate, in the transformations +more hidden, and at first less visible, of the economic _processus_ of +this structure. We must set ourselves to the study of the differences +which exist between the various forms of production when we have to deal +with historic epochs clearly distinct and properly designated; and when +we have to explain the succession of these forms, the replacing of one +by the other, we must study the causes of erosion, and of the +destruction of the form which disappears; and finally when we wish to +understand the historic fact determined and concrete, we must study the +frictions and the contrasts which take their rise from the different +currents, that is to say, the classes, their subdivisions and their +intersections which characterize a given society. + +When the Manifesto declared that all history up to the present time has +been nothing but the history of class struggles and that these are the +cause of all revolutions as also of all reactions, it did two things at +the same time, it gave to communism the elements of a new doctrine and +to the communists the guiding thread to discover in the confused events +of political life the conditions of the underlying economic movement. + +In these last fifty years the generic foresight of a new historic era +has become for socialists the delicate art of understanding in every +case what it is expedient to do, because this new era is in itself in +continual formation. Communism has become an art because the +proletarians have become, or are on the point of becoming, a political +party. The revolutionary spirit is embodied to-day in the proletarian +organization. The desired union of communists and proletarians is +henceforth an accomplished fact.[10] These last fifty years have been +the ever stronger proof of the ever growing revolt of the producing +forces against the forms of production. We "utopians" have no other +answer to offer than this lesson from events to those who still speak of +meteoric disturbances which, as they would have it, will disappear +little by little and will all resolve themselves into the calm of this +final epoch of civilization. And this lesson suffices. + + +Eleven years after the publication of the Manifesto, Marx formulated in +clear and precise fashion the directing principles of the materialistic +interpretation of history in the preface to a book which is the +forerunner of "Capital."[11] + + +"The first work which I undertook for the purpose of solving the doubts +which perplexed me was a critical re-examination of Hegel's Philosophy +of Law. The introduction to this work appeared in the German-French Year +Books, published in Paris in 1844. + +My investigation ended in the conviction that legal relations and forms +of government cannot be explained either by themselves or by the +so-called general development of the human mind, but on the contrary, +have their roots in the conditions of man's physical existence, whose +totality Hegel, following the English and French writers of the +eighteenth century, summed up under the name of civil society; and that +the anatomy of civil society must be sought in political economy. + +The study of the latter which I began at Paris was continued at Brussels +whither I had betaken myself in consequence of an order of Guizot +expelling me from France. + +The general result which I arrived at and which, once obtained, served +as a guide for my subsequent studies, can be briefly formulated as +follows: + +In making their livelihood together men enter into certain necessary +involuntary relations with each other, industrial relations which +correspond to whatever stage society has reached in the development of +its material productive forces. + +The totality of these industrial relations constitutes the economic +structure of society, the real basis upon which the legal and political +superstructure is built, and to which definite forms of social +consciousness correspond. + +The method of producing the material livelihood determines the social, +political and intellectual life process in general. + +It is not men's consciousness which determines their life; on the +contrary, it is their social life which determines their consciousness. + +At a certain stage of their development the material productive forces +of society come into conflict with the old conditions of production or, +to use a legal expression, with the old property relations under which +these forces have hitherto been exerted. From forms of development of +the productive forces these relations turn into fetters of production. +Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the +economic basis the whole vast superstructure undergoes sooner or later a +revolution. + +In considering such revolutions one must constantly distinguish between +the industrial revolution, to be carefully posited scientifically, which +takes place in the economic conditions of production, and the legal, +political, religious, artistic or philosophical, in short ideological, +forms wherein men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. As +little as we judge an individual by what he himself thinks he is, just +as little can we judge such a revolutionary epoch by its own +consciousness. We must rather explain this consciousness out of the +antagonisms of men's industrial life, out of the conflict existing +between the forces of social production and the relations of social +production. + +A form of society never breaks down until all the productive forces are +developed for which it affords room. New and higher relations of +production are never established, until the material conditions of life +to support them have been prepared in the lap of the old society itself. +Therefore mankind always sets for itself only such tasks as it is able +to perform; for upon close examination it will always be found that the +task itself only arises where the material conditions for its solution +are already at hand or are at least in process of growth. + +We may in broad outlines characterize the Asiatic, the antique, the +feudal and the modern capitalist methods of production as progressive +epochs in the economic evolution of society. + +The industrial relations arising out of the capitalistic method of +production constitute the last of the antagonistic forms of social +production; antagonistic not in the sense of an individual antagonism, +but of an antagonism growing out of the social conditions of +individuals. + +But the productive forces which are developed in the lap of capitalistic +society create at the same time the material conditions needed for the +abolition of this antagonism. The capitalist form of society therefore, +brings to a close this prelude to the history of human society." + + +Marx had some years before left the political arena and he did not +return to it until later with the International. The reaction had +triumphed in Italy, Austria, Hungary and Germany over the patriotic, +liberal or democratic revolution. The bourgeoisie on its side had +overcome the proletarians of France and England. The indispensable +conditions for the development of a democratic and proletarian movement +suddenly disappeared. The battalion small in numbers indeed of the +Manifesto communists who had taken part in the revolution and who had +participated in all the acts of resistance and popular rebellion against +reaction saw its activity crushed by the memorable process of Cologne. +The survivors of the movement tried to make a new start at London, but +soon Marx, Engels and others separated themselves from the +revolutionaries and retired from the movement. The crisis was passed. A +long period of repose followed. This was shown by the slow disappearance +of the Chartist movement, that is to say, the proletarian movement of +the country which was the spinal column of the capitalist system. +History had for the moment discredited the illusions of the +revolutionaries. + +Before giving himself almost entirely to the long incubation of the +already discovered elements of the critique of political economy, Marx +illustrated in several works the history of the revolutionary period +from 1848 to 1850 and especially the class struggles in France, showing +thus that if the revolution in the forms which it had taken on at that +moment had not succeeded, the revolutionary theory of history was not +contradicted for all that.[12] The suggestions given in the Manifesto +found here their complete development. + +Later the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte[13] was the first attempt to +apply the new conception of history to a series of facts contained +within precise limits of time. It is extremely difficult to rise from +the apparent movement to the real movement of history and to discover +their intimate connection. There are indeed great difficulties in rising +from the phenomena of passion, oratory, Parliaments, elections and the +like to the inner social gearing to discover in the latter the different +interests of the large and small bourgeois, of the peasants, the +artisans, the laborers, the priests, the soldiers, the bankers, the +usurers and the mob. All these interests act consciously or +unconsciously, jostling each other, eliminating each other, combining +and fusing, in the discordant life of civilized man. + +The crisis was passed and this was precisely true in the countries which +constituted the historic field from which critical communism proceeded. +All that the critical communists could do was to understand the +reaction in its hidden economic causes because, for the moment, to +understand the reaction was to continue the work of the revolution. The +same thing happened under other conditions and other forms 20 years +later when Marx, in the name of the International made in the "Civil War +in France" an apology for the Commune which was at the same time its +objective criticism. + +The heroic resignation with which Marx after 1850 abandoned political +life was shown again when he retired from the International after the +congress at the Hague in 1872. These two facts have their value for +biography because they give glimpses of his personal character. With +him, in fact, ideas, temperament, policy and thought were one and the +same. But, on the other hand, these facts have a much greater bearing +for us. Critical communism does not manufacture revolutions, it does not +prepare insurrections, it does not furnish arms for revolts. It mingles +itself with the proletarian movement, but it sees and supports that +movement in the full intelligence of the connection which it has, which +it can have, and which it must have, with all the relations of social +life as a whole. In a word it is not a seminary in which superior +officers of the proletarian revolution are trained, but it is neither +more nor less than the consciousness of this revolution and especially +the consciousness of its difficulties. + +The proletarian movement has grown in a colossal fashion during these +last thirty years. In the midst of numberless difficulties, through +gains and losses, it has little by little taken on a political form. Its +methods have been elaborated and gradually applied. All this is not the +work of the magic action of the doctrine scattered by the persuasive +virtue of written and spoken propaganda. From their first beginnings the +communists had this feeling that they were the extreme left of every +proletarian movement, but in proportion as the latter developed and +specialized it became their necessity and duty to assist, (through the +elaboration of programmes, and through their participation in the +political action of the parties) in the various contingencies of the +economic development and of the political situation growing out of it. + +In the fifty years which separate us from the publication of the +Manifesto the specialization and the complexity of the proletarian +movement have become such that there is henceforth no mind capable of +embracing it in its completeness, of understanding it in its details and +grasping its real causes and exact relations. The single International, +from 1864 to 1873, necessarily disappeared after it had fulfilled its +task. The preliminary equalization of the general tendencies and of the +ideas common and indispensable to all the proletariat, and no one can +assume or will assume to re-constitute anything like it. + +Two causes, notably, contributed in a high degree to this +specialization, this complexity of the proletarian movement. In many +countries the bourgeoisie felt the need of putting an end in the +interest of its own defense to some of the abuses which had arisen in +consequence of the introduction of the industrial system. Thence arose +labor legislation, or as it has been pompously called social +legislation. This same bourgeoisie in its own interest or, under the +pressure of circumstances has been obliged, in many countries to +increase the generic conditions of liberty, and notably to extend the +right of suffrage. These two circumstances have drawn the proletariat +into the circle of daily political life. They have considerably +increased its chance for action and the agility and suppleness thus +acquired permit it to struggle with the bourgeoisie in elective +assembles. And as the _processus_ of things determines the _processus_ +of ideas, this practical multiform development of the proletariat is +accompanied by a gradual development of the doctrines of critical +communism, as well in the manner of understanding history or +contemporary life as in the minute description of the most infinitesimal +parts of economics: in a word, it has become a science. + + +Have we not there, some ask, a deviation from the simple and imperative +doctrine of the Manifesto? Others again say, have we not lost in +intensity and precision what we have gained in extension and complexity? + +These questions, in my opinion, arise from an inexact conception of the +present proletarian movement and an optical illusion as to the degree of +energy and revolutionary valor of the former movements. + +Whatever be the concessions that the bourgeoisie can make in the present +economic order even if it be a very great reduction in the hours of +labor, it always remains true that the necessity for exploitation upon +which the whole present social order rests imposes limits beyond which +capital as a private instrument of production has no more reason for +existence. If a concession to-day can allay one form of discontent in +the proletariat, the concession itself can do nothing less than to give +rise to the need of new and ever increasing concessions. The need of +labor legislation arose in England before the Chartist movement and it +developed afterwards along with it. It had its first successes in the +period which immediately followed the fall of Chartism. The principles +and the reasons of this movement in their causes and their effects were +studied in a critical manner by Marx in Capital and they afterwards +passed, through the International, into the programmes of the different +socialist parties. Finally this whole process, concentrating itself into +the demand for eight hours, became with the 1st of May an international +marshalling of the proletariat, and a means for estimating its progress. +On the other hand, the political struggle in which the proletariat takes +part democratizes its habits; still more a real democracy takes birth +which, with time, will no longer be able to adapt itself to the present +political form. Being the organ of a society based on exploitation it is +constituted as a bureaucratic hierarchy, as a judicial bureaucracy and a +mutual aid society of the capitalists for the defense of their special +privileges, the perpetual income from the public debt, the rent of land +and the interest on capital in all its forms. Consequently the two +facts, which according to the discontented and the hypercritical seem to +make us deviate infinitely from the lines laid down by communism, +become, on the contrary, new means and new conditions which confirm +these lines. The apparent deviations from the revolution are, at bottom, +the very thing which is hastening it. + +Moreover, we must not exaggerate the significance of the revolutionary +faith of the communists of fifty years ago. Given the political +situation of Europe, if they had a faith, it was that they were +precursors, and this they have been; they hoped that the political +conditions of Italy, Austria, Hungary, Germany and Poland might +approximate to modern forms, and this has happened later, in part, and +through other means; if they had a hope, it was that the proletarian +movement of France and England might continue to develop. The reaction +which intervened upset many things and stopped more than one development +which had already begun. It upset also the old revolutionary tactic, and +in these last years a new tactic has arisen. Therein lies all the +change.[14] + + +The Manifesto was designed for nothing else than the first guiding +thread to a science and a practice which nothing but experience and time +could develop. It gives only the scheme and the rhythm of the general +march of the proletarian movement. + +It is perfectly evident that the communists were influenced by the +experience of the two movements which they had before their eyes, that +of France, and especially the Chartist movement which the manifestation +of April 10th was soon to strike with paralysis. But this scheme does +not fix in any invariable fashion a tactic of war, which indeed had +already been made frequently. The revolutionists had often indeed +explained in the form of catechism what ought to be a simple consequence +of the development of events. + +This scheme became more vast and complex with the development and +extension of the bourgeois system. The rhythm of the movement has become +more varied and slower because the laboring mass has entered on the +scene as a distinct, political party, which fact changes the manner and +the measure of their action and consequently their movement. + +Just as in view of the improvement of modern weapons the tactic of +street riots has become inopportune, and just as the complexity of the +modern state shows the insufficiency of a sudden capture of a municipal +government to impose upon a whole people the will and the ideas of a +minority, no matter how courageous and progressive, even so, on its +side, the mass of the proletarians no longer holds to the word of +command of a few leaders, nor does it regulate its movements by the +instructions of captains who might upon the ruins of one government +raise up another. The laboring mass where it has developed politically +has made and is making its own democratic education. It is choosing its +representatives and submitting their action to its criticism. It +examines and makes its own the ideas and the propositions which these +representatives submit to it. It already knows, or it begins to +understand according to the situation in the various countries, that the +conquest of the political power cannot and should not be made by others +in its name, and especially that it cannot be the consequence of a +single blow. In a word it knows, or it is beginning to understand that +the dictatorship of the proletariat which shall have for its task the +socialization of the means of production cannot be the work of a mass +led by a few and that it must be, and that it will be, the work of the +proletarians themselves when they have become in themselves and through +long practice a political organization. + +The development and the extension of the bourgeois system have been +rapid and colossal in these last fifty years. It already invades sacred +and ancient Russia and it is creating, not only in America, Australia +and in India, but even in Japan, new centers of modern production, thus +complicating the conditions of competition and the entanglements of the +world market. The consequences of political changes have been produced, +or will not be long to wait for. Equally rapid and colossal has been the +progress of the proletariat. Its political education takes each day a +new step toward the conquest of political power. The rebellion of the +productive forces against the form of production, the struggle of living +labor against accumulated labor, becomes every day more evident. The +bourgeois system is henceforth upon the defensive and it reveals its +decadence by this singular contradiction; the peaceful world of industry +has become a colossal camp in which militarism develops. The peaceful +period of industry has become by the irony of things the period of the +continuous invention of new engines of war. + +Socialism has forced itself into the situation. Those semi-socialists, +even those charlatans who encumber with their presence the press and the +meetings of our party and who often are a nuisance to us, are a tribute +which vanity and ambitions of every sort render in their fashion to the +new power which rises on the horizon. In spite of the foreseen antidote +which scientific socialism is, the truth of which many people have not +come to understand, there is a group of quacks on the social question, +all having some particular specific to eliminate such or such a social +evil: land nationalization, monopoly of grains in the hands of the +State, democratic taxes, statization of mortgages, general strike, etc. +But social democracy eliminates all these fantasies because the +consciousness of their situation leads the proletarians when once they +have become familiar with the political arena to understand socialism in +an integral fashion. They come to understand that they should look for +only one thing, the abolition of wage labor; that there is but one form +of society which renders possible and even necessary the elimination of +classes,--the association which does not produce commodities, and that +this form of society is no longer the State, but its opposite, that is +to say, the technical and pedagogical administration of human society, +the self-government of labor. Behind the Jacobins are the gigantic +heroes of 1793 and their caricatures of 1848. + + +_Social democracy!_ But is not that, say some, an evident attenuation of +the communist doctrine as it is formulated in the Manifesto in terms so +ringing and so decisive? + +This is not the moment to recall that the phrase _social democracy_ has +had in France many significations from 1837 to 1848, all of which were +based upon a vague sentimentalism. Neither is it necessary to explain +how the Germans have been able in this nomenclature to sum up all the +rich and vast development of their socialism from the episode of +Lassalle now passed over and transformed up to our own days. It is +certain that _social democracy_ can signify, has signified and signifies +many things which have not been, are not, and never will be, either +critical communism or the conscious march toward the proletarian +revolution. It is also certain that contemporary socialism even in the +countries where its development is most advanced, carries with it a +great deal of dross which it throws off little by little along the road. +It is certain also, in fine, that this broad designation of social +democracy serves as an escutcheon and a buckler to many intruders. But +here we need to fix our attention only upon certain points of capital +importance. + +We must insist upon the second term of the expression in order to avoid +any equivocation. Democratic was the constitution of the _Communist +League_; democratic was its fashion of welcoming and discussing each new +teaching; democratic was its intervention in the revolution of 1848 and +its participation in the rebellious resistance against the invasion of +reaction; democratic finally was the very way in which the League was +dissolved. In this first type of our present parties, in this first cell +so to speak, of our complex organism, elastic and highly developed, +there was not only the consciousness of the mission to be accomplished +as precursor, but there was already the form and the method of +association which alone are suitable for the first initiators of the +proletarian revolution. It was no longer a sect; that form was already, +in fact, outgrown. The immediate and fantastic domination of the +individual was eliminated, what predominated was a discipline which had +its source in the experience of necessity and in the precise doctrine +which must proceed from the reflex consciousness of this necessity. It +was the same with the International, which appeared authoritarian only +to those who could not make their own authority prevail in it. It must +be the same, and it is so, in the working class parties and where this +character is not or cannot yet be marked, the proletarian agitation +still elementary and confused simply engenders illusions and is only a +pretext for intrigues, and when it is not so, then we have a passover +where men of understanding touch elbows with the madman and the spy; as +for example the society of The International Brothers which attached +itself like a parasite to the International and discredited it; or again +the co-operative which degenerates into a business and sells itself to +capitalists; the labor party which remains outside politics and which +studies the variations of the market to introduce its tactic of strikes +into the sinuosities of competition; or again a group of malcontents, +for the most part social outcasts and little bourgeois, who give +themselves up to speculations on socialism considered as one of the +phases of political fashion. Social democracy has met all these +impedimenta upon its way and it has been obliged to relieve itself of +them as it will have to do again from one time to another. The art of +persuasion does not always suffice. Oftener it was necessary and it is +necessary to resign ourselves and wait until the hard school of +disillusion serves to instruct, which it does better than reasonings can +do. + + +All these intrinsic difficulties of the proletarian movement, which the +wily bourgeoisie oftener than not stirs up of itself and which it makes +the most of, form a considerable part of the internal history of +socialism during these last years. + +Socialism has not found impediments merely in the general conditions of +economic competition and in the resistance of the political power, but +also in the very conditions of the proletarian mass and in the mechanism +sometimes obscure although inevitable of its slow, varied, complex +movements, often antagonistic and contradictory. That prevents many +people from seeing the increasing reduction of all class struggles to +the single struggle between the capitalists and the proletarianized +workers. + +Even as the Manifesto did not write, as the utopians did, the ethics and +the psychology of the future society, just so it did not give the +mechanism of that formation and of the development in which we find +ourselves. It is surely enough that these few pioneers have opened the +road. We must walk upon it to arrive at understanding and experience. +Moreover man is distinctively the experimental animal; that is why he +has a history, or rather that is why he makes his own history. + +Upon this road of contemporary socialism which constitutes its +development because it is its experience, we have met the mass of the +peasants. + +Socialism which at first kept itself practically and theoretically to +the study and experience of the antagonisms between capitalists and +proletarians in the circle of industrial production properly so called, +has turned its activity toward that mass in which _peasant stupidity_ +blossoms. To capture the peasants is the question of the hour, although +the quintessential Schaeffle long ago mobilized the anti-collectivist +brains of the peasants for the defense of the existing order. The +elimination and the capture of domestic industry by capital, the passage +more and more rapid of agrarian industry into the capitalist form, the +disappearance of small proprietorship, or its lessening through +mortgages, the disappearance of the communal domaines, usury, taxes and +militarism, all this is beginning to work miracles even in those brains +assumed to be props of the existing order. + +The Germans have been the pioneers in this field. They were brought to +it by the very fact of their immense expansion; from the cities they +have gone to the smallest centers and they thus arrive inevitably at the +frontiers of the country. Their attempts will be long and difficult; +this fact explains, excuses, and will excuse, the errors which have been +and will be committed.[15] As long as the peasant shall not be gained +over we shall always have behind us this _peasant stupidity_ which +unconsciously repeats, and that because it is stupid, the errors of the +18th Brumaire and the 2d of December. The development of modern society +in Russia will probably proceed on parallel lines with this conquest of +the country districts. When that country shall have entered into the +liberal era with all its imperfections and all its disadvantages, with +all the purely modern forms of exploitation and of proletarization, but +also with the compensations and the advantages of the political +development of the proletariat, social democracy will no longer have to +fear the threat of unforeseen perils from without, and it will at the +same time have triumphed over the internal perils by the capture of the +peasants. + + +The example of Italy is instructive. This country after having opened +the capitalist era dropped out for several centuries from the current +history. It is a typical case of decadence which can be studied in a +precise fashion from original documents in all its phases. It partly +returned into history at the time of the Napoleonic domination. It +reconquered its unity and became a modern state after the period of the +reaction and conspiracies, and under circumstances known to all, and +Italy has ended by having all the vices of parliamentarism, of +militarism and of finance without having at the same time the forms of +modern production and the resulting capacity for competition on equal +terms. It cannot compete with countries where industry is more advanced +by reason of the absolute lack of coal and scarcity of iron, the lack of +technical ability,--and it is waiting, or hoping now, that the +application of electricity may permit it to regain the time lost. It is +this which gave the impulse to different attempts from Biella to Schio. +A modern state in a society almost exclusively agricultural and in a +country where agriculture is in great part backward, it is that which +gives birth to this general sentiment of universal discontent. + +Thence come the incoherence and the inconsistency of the parties, the +rapid oscillations from demagogy to dictatorship, the mob, the +multitude, the infinite army of the parasites of politics, the makers of +fantastic projects. This singular social spectacle of a development +prevented, retarded, embarrassed and thus uncertain, is brought out in +bold relief by a penetrating spirit which, if it is not always the fruit +and the expression of a modern, broad and real culture nevertheless +bears within itself as the relic of an excellent civilization the mark +of great cerebral refinement. Italy has not been for reasons easy to +guess a suitable field for the indigenous formation of socialist ideas +and tendencies. The Italian Philippe Buonaroti, at first the friend of +the younger Robespierre, become the companion of Babeuf and later +attempted to re-establish Babeufism in France, after 1830. Socialism +made its first appearance in Italy at the time of the International, in +the confused and incoherent form of Bakuninism; it was not, moreover, a +labor movement, but it was the work of the small bourgeois and +instinctive revolutionists.[16] In these last years socialism has fixed +itself in a form which _almost_ reproduces the general type of _social +democracy_.[17] Now in Italy the first sign of life which the +proletariat gave is in the shape of the rising of the Sicilian peasants +followed by other revolts of the same kind on the continent to which +others will perhaps succeed in the future. Is it not very significant? + +After this incursion into the history of contemporary socialism we +gladly return to our precursors of fifty years ago, who put on record in +the Manifesto how they took possession of an advance post on the road of +progress. And that is true not merely of the theorizers, that is to say, +Marx and Engels. Both of these men would have exercised, under other +circumstances and at all times either by tongue or pen, a considerable +influence over politics and science such was the force and originality +of their minds and the extent of their knowledge even if they had never +met on their way the _Communist League_. But I am referring to all the +"unknown" according to the exclusive and vain jargon of bourgeois +literature:--of the shoemaker, Bauer, the tailors, Lessner and Eccarius, +the miniature painter, Pfaender, the watchmaker, Moll,[18] of Lochner, +etc., and many others who were the first conscious initiators of our +movement. The motto, "Workingmen of all countries, unite," remains as +their monument. The passage of socialism from utopia to science marks +the result of their work. The survival of their instinct and of their +first impulse in the work of to-day is the ineffaceable title which +these precursors have acquired to the gratitude of all socialists. + +As an Italian, I return so much the more willingly to these beginnings +of modern socialism because for me, at least, this recent warning of +Engels' is not without importance. "Thus the discovery that everywhere +and always political conditions and events find their explanation in +economic conditions would not have been made by Marx in 1845, but rather +by Loria in 1886. He has at least succeeded in impressing this belief +upon his compatriots, and since his book has appeared in French even +upon some Frenchmen and he may now go on inflated with pride and vanity +as if he had discovered an epoch-making historic theory until the +Italian socialists have time to despoil the illustrious Mr. Loria of the +peacock feathers which he has stolen."[19] + + +I would willingly close here, but more remains to be said. + +On all sides and from all camps protests arise and objections are urged +against historical materialism. And some times these voices are swelled +here and there by newly converted socialists, socialists who are +philosophical, socialists who are sentimental and sometimes hysterical. +Then reappears, as a warning, the "question of the belly." Others devote +themselves to exercise of logical gymnastics with abstract categories of +egoism and altruism; for others again the inevitable struggle for +existence always turns up at the right moment. + + +Morality! But it is high time that we understand the lesson of this +morality of the bourgeois epoch in the fable of the bees by Mandeville, +who was contemporary with the first projection of classic economics. + +And has not the politics of this morality been explained in classic +phrases that can never be forgotten by the first great political writer +of the capitalist epoch Machiavelli, who did not invent Machiavellism, +but who was its secretary and faithful and diligent editor. And as for +the logical tourney between egoism and altruism, has it not been in full +view from the time of the Reverend Malthus up to that empty, prolix and +tiresome reasoner, the indispensable Spencer? Struggle for existence! +But could you wish to observe, study and understand a struggle more +important for us than the one which has its birth and is taking on +gigantic proportions in the proletarian agitation? Perhaps you would +reduce the explanation of this struggle which is developing and working +in the supernatural domain of society, which man himself has created in +the course of history, through his labor, through improved processes and +through social institutions, and which man himself can change through +other forms of labor, processes and institutions,--you would perhaps +reduce it to the simple explanation of the more general struggle in +which plant and animals, and men themselves in so far as they are +animals, are contending in the bosom of nature. + + +But let us return to our subject. + +Critical communism has never refused, and it does not refuse, to welcome +the multiple and valuable suggestions, ideological, ethical, psychologic +and pedagogic which may come from the knowledge and from the study of +all forms of communism from Phales of Chalcedon down to Cabet.[20] More +than this, it is by the study and the knowledge of these forms that the +consciousness of the separateness of scientific socialism from all the +rest becomes developed and fixed. And in making this study who is there +who will refuse to recognize that Thomas More was a heroic soul and a +great writer on socialism? Who will not find in his heart a large +tribute of admiration for Robert Owen who first gave to the ethics of +communism this indisputable principle, that the character and the morals +of men are the necessary result of the conditions in which they live and +of the circumstances which surround them? And the partisans of critical +communism believe it is their duty, traversing history in thought, to +claim fellowship with all the oppressed, whatever may have been their +destiny, which was that of remaining oppressed and of opening the way +after an ephemeral success for the rule of new oppressors. + +But the partisans of critical communism differentiate themselves clearly +on one point from all other forms or manners of communism, or of +socialism, ancient, modern or contemporaneous, and this point is of +capital importance. + +They cannot admit that the ideologies of the past have remained without +effect and that the past attempts of the proletariat have been always +overcome by pure chance, by pure accident, by the effect of a caprice +of circumstances. All these ideologies although they reflected in fact +the sentiment directly due to social antitheses, that is to say, the +real class struggles, with a lofty sense of justice and a profound +devotion to an ideal, nevertheless all reveal ignorance of the true +causes and of the effective nature of the antitheses against which they +hurled themselves by an act of revolt spontaneous and often heroic. +Thence their utopian character. We can moreover explain why the +oppressive conditions of other epochs although they were more barbarous +and cruel did not bring that accumulation of energy, that concentration +of force, or that continuity of resistance which is seen to be realizing +itself and developing in the proletariat of our time. It is the change +of society in its economic structure; it is the formation of the +proletariat in the bosom of the great industry and of the modern state. +It is the appearance of the proletariat upon the political scene,--it is +the new things, in fine, which have engendered the need of new ideas. +Thus critical communism is neither moralizer, nor preacher, nor herald, +nor utopian--it already holds the thing itself in its hands and into the +thing itself it has put its ethics and its idealism. + +This orientation which seems harsh to the sentimentalists because it is +too true, too realistic and too real, permits us to retrace the history +of the proletariat and of the other oppressed classes which preceded it. +We see their different phases; we take account of the failures of +Chartism, of the Conspiracy of Equals and we explore still further back +to attempts at relief, to acts of resistance, and to wars,--to the +famous peasants' war in Germany, to the Jacquerie and to Father Dolcino. +In all these facts and in all these events we discover forms and +phenomena relating to the future of the bourgeoisie in proportion as it +tears to pieces, overthrows, triumphs over and issues from the feudal +system. We can do the same with the class struggles of the ancient world +but with less clearness. This history of the proletariat and of the +other oppressed classes, of the vicissitudes of their struggles and +their revolts, is already a sufficient guide to assist us in +understanding why the ideologies of the communism of other epochs were +premature. + +If the bourgeoisie has not yet arrived everywhere at the final stage of +its evolution, it surely has arrived in certain countries at its +accomplishment. In fact, in the most advanced countries it is subjecting +the various older forms of production, either directly or indirectly, to +the action and to the law of capital. And thus it simplifies, or it +tends to simplify, the different class struggles of former times, which +then obscured each other by their multiplicity, into this single +struggle between capital which is converting into merchandise all the +products of human labor indispensable to life and the mass of +proletarians which sells its labor power,--now also become simple +merchandise. The secret of history is simplified. It is all prosaic. And +just as the present class struggle is the simplification of all other, +so likewise, the communism of the Manifesto simplifies into rigid and +general theoretical formulas the ideologic, ethic, psychologic and +pedagogic suggestion of the other forms of communism not by denying but +by exalting them. All is prosaic and communism itself partakes of this +character, it is now a science. + +Thus there are in the Manifesto neither rhetoric nor protestations. It +does not lament over pauperism to eliminate it. It sheds tears over +nothing. The tears are transformed of themselves into a spontaneous +revolutionary force. Ethics and idealism consist henceforth in this, to +put the thought of science at the service of the proletariat. If this +ethics does not appear moral enough for the sentimentalists, usually +hysterical and silly, let them go and borrow altruism from its high +priest Spencer who will give a vague and insipid definition of it, such +as will satisfy them. + + +But, again, should the economic factor serve alone to explain the whole +of history! + +Historic factors! But that is an expression of empiricists or +ideologists who repeat Herder. Society is a complex whole or an organism +according to the expression of some who waste their time in discussions +over the value and the analogical use of this expression. This +_complexus_ has formed itself and has changed several times. What is the +explanation of this change? + +Even long before Feuerbach gave a final blow to the theological +explanation of history (man makes religion and not religion man) the +old Balzac[21] had made a satire of it by making men the puppets of God. +And had not Vico already recognized that Providence does not act in +history from without? And this same Vico, a century before Morgan, had +he not reduced history to a process which man himself makes through +successive experimentation consisting in the invention of language, +religion, customs and laws? Had not Lessing affirmed that history is an +education of the human race? Had not Rousseau seen that ideas are born +from needs? Had not Saint Simon guessed when he did not lose himself in +the distinction between organic and inorganic epochs the real genesis of +the Third Estate, and did not his ideas translated into prose make of +Augustin Thierry a reconstructor of historical research? In the first +fifty years of this century and notably in the period from 1830 to 1850 +the class struggles which the ancient historians and those of Italy +during the Renaissance had described so clearly, instructed by the +experience of these struggles in the narrow domain of their own urban +republic had grown and had reached on both sides of the Channel greater +proportions and an evidence always more palpable. Born in the midst of +the great industry, illuminated by the recollection and by the study of +the French Revolution they have become intuitively instructive because +they found with more or less clearness and consciousness their actual +and suggested expression in the programmes of the political parties: +free exchange or tariffs on grain in England, and so on. The conception +of history changed to the observer in France, on the right wing as on +the left wing of the literary parties, from Guizot to Louis Blanc and to +the modest Cabet. Sociology was the need of the time and if it sought in +vain its theoretic expression in Auguste Comte, a belated scholastic, it +found its artist in Balzac who was the actual inventor of class +psychology. To put into the classes and into their frictions the real +subject of history and the movement of this in their movement,--this is +what was then on the point of being studied and discovered, and it was +necessary to fix a theory of this in precise terms. + +Man has made his history not by a metaphorical evolution nor with a view +of walking on a line of preconceived progress. He has made it by +creating his own conditions, that is to say, by creating through his +labor an artificial environment, by developing successively his +technical aptitudes and by accumulating and transforming the products of +his activity in this new environment. We have but one single history and +we cannot compare real history, which is actually made, with another +which is simply possible. Where shall we find the laws of this formation +and of this development? The very ancient formations are not evident at +first sight. But bourgeois society because it is born recently and has +not yet reached its full development, even in all parts of Europe, bears +within itself the embryonic traces of its origin and its _processus_, +and it puts them in full evidence in countries where it is in process +of birth before our eyes, as for example, in Japan. In so far as it is +society which transforms all the products of human labor into +commodities by means of capital, society which assumes the proletariat +or creates it and which bears within itself the anxiety, the trouble and +the uncertainty of continuous innovations, it is born in determined +times according to clear methods which can be indicated although they +may be varied. In fact in different countries it has different modes of +development. In Italy, for example, it begins before all the others and +then stops. In England it is the product of three centuries of economic +expropriation of the old forms of production, or of the old +proprietorship, to speak the language of the jurists. In one country it +elaborates itself little by little combining itself with pre-existing +forces, as was the case in Germany, and it undergoes their influences +through adaptation; in another country it breaks its envelope and +crushes out resistance violently, as happened in France, where the great +revolution gives us the most intense and the most bewildering example of +historic action that is known, and thus forms the greatest school of +sociology. + +As I have already indicated this formation of modern or bourgeois +history has been summed up in rapid and masterly strokes in the +Manifesto, which has given its general anatomical profile with its +successive aspects, the trade guild, commerce, manufacture and the great +industry and has also indicated some of the organs and appliances of a +derived and complex character, law, political forms, etc. The elements +of the theory which was to explain history by the principle of the class +struggle were already implicitly contained in it. + +This same bourgeois society which revolutionized the earlier forms of +production had thrown light upon itself and its _processus_ in creating +the doctrine of its structure, economics. In fact it has not developed +in the unconsciousness which characterized primitive societies but in +the full light of the modern world beginning with the Renaissance. + + +Economics, as is known, was born by fragments, and its origin was +associated with that of the first bourgeoisie, which was that of +commerce and the great geographical discoveries, that is to say, it was +contemporary with the first and second phases of mercantilism. And it +was born to answer special questions: for example, is interest +legitimate? Is it advantageous for states and for nations to accumulate +money? It continued to grow, it occupied itself with the most complex +sides of the problem of wealth; it developed in the passage from +mercantilism to manufacture and then more rapidly and more resolutely in +the passage from the latter to the great industry. It was the +intellectual soul of the bourgeoisie which was conquering society. It +had already as discipline almost defined its general lines on the eve of +the French Revolution; it was the sign of the rebellion against the old +forms of feudalism, the guild, privilege, limitations of labor, that is +to say it was the sign of liberty. The theory of "natural right" which +developed from the precursors of Grotius to Rousseau, Kant, and the +Constitution of 93, was nothing else than a duplicate and the +ideological complement of economics, to the extent that often the thing +and its complement are confounded in one in the mind and in the +postulates of writers; of this we have a typical example in the +Physiocrats. + +In so far as it was a doctrine it separated, distinguished and analyzed +the elements and the forms of the _processus_ of production, of +circulation and of distribution and reduced them all into categories: +money, money capital, interest, profit, land rent, wages, etc. It +marched, sure of itself, accumulating its analyses from Petty to +Ricardo. The sole mistress of the field, it met only rare objections. It +started from two hypotheses which it did not take the trouble to justify +since they appeared so evident; namely, that the social order which it +illustrated was the natural order, and that private property in the +means of production was one and the same thing with human liberty; all +of which made wage labor and the inferiority of the wage laborers into +necessary conditions. In other terms, it did not recognize the historic +character of the forms which it studied. The antitheses which it met on +its way in its attempt at systematization, after several vain attempts +it tried to eliminate logically as was the case with Ricardo in his +struggle against the income from land rents. + +The beginning of the nineteenth century is marked by violent crises and +by those first labor movements which have their immediate origin in the +distress attending lockouts. The ideal of the "natural order" is +overthrown. Wealth has engendered poverty. The great industry in +changing all social relations has increased vices, maladies and +subjection. It has, in a word, caused degeneration. Progress has +engendered retrogression. What must be done that progress may engender +nothing else but progress, that is to say, prosperity, health, security, +education and intellectual development equal for all? With this question +Owen is wholly concerned and he shares with Fourier and Saint Simon this +characteristic that he no longer appeals to self-sacrifice and to +religion, and that he wishes to resolve and surmount the social +antitheses without diminishing the technical and industrial energy of +man, but rather to increase this. It is by this road that Owen became a +communist and he is the first who became so in the environment created +by modern industry. The antithesis rests entirely on the contradiction +between the mode of production and the mode of distribution. This +antithesis must, then, be suppressed in a society which produces +collectively. Owen becomes utopian. This perfect society must needs be +realized experimentally and to this he devotes himself with a heroic +constancy and unequalled self-sacrifice bringing a mathematical +precision even into his thoughts of its details. + +The antithesis between production and distribution once discovered, +there arose in England from Thompson to Bray a series of writers of a +socialism which is not strictly utopian, but which should be qualified +as one-sided for its object is to correct the manifest vices of society +by as many appropriate remedies.[22] + +In fact the first stage of all those who are on the road toward +socialism is the discovery of the contradiction between production and +distribution. Then, these ingenuous questions immediately arise: Why not +abolish poverty? Why not eliminate lockouts? Why not suppress the middle +man? Why not favor the direct exchange of products in consideration of +the labor that they contain? Why not give the worker the entire product +of his labor, etc.? These demands reduce the _things_, tenacious and +resistant, of real life, into as many reasonings, and they have for +their object to combat the capitalist system as if it were a machine +from which one can take away or to which one can add pieces, wheels and +gearings. + +The partisans of critical communism have broken definitely with all +these tendencies. They have been the successors and the continuers of +classical economics.[23] What is the doctrine of the structure of +present society? No one can combat this structure in practice, in +politics or in revolution without first taking an exact account of its +elements and its relations and making a fundamental study of the +doctrine which explains it. These forms, these elements and these +relations arise in certain historic conditions but they constitute a +system and a necessity. How can it be hoped to destroy such a system by +an act of logical negation and how eliminate it by reasoning? Eliminate +pauperism? But it is a necessary condition of capitalism. Give the +worker the entire product of his labor? But what would become of the +profit of capital, and where and how could the money expended in the +purchase of commodities be increased if among all the commodities which +it meets and with which it makes exchanges there were not a particular +one which returns to the buyer more than it costs him; and is not this +commodity precisely the labor power of the wage worker? The economic +system is not a tissue of reasonings but it is a sum and a complexus of +facts which engenders a complex tissue of relations. It is a foolish +thing to assume that this system of facts which the ruling class has +established with great pains through the centuries by violence, by +sagacity, by talent and by science will confess itself vanquished, will +destroy itself to give way to the demands of the poor and to the +reasonings of their advocates. How demand the suppression of poverty +without demanding the overthrow of all the rest? To demand of this +society that it shall change its law which constitutes its defense is to +demand an absurd thing. To demand of this State that it shall cease to +be the buckler and the defense of this society and of this law is +plunging into absurdities.[24] The one-sided socialism which without +being clearly utopian starts from the hypothesis that society admits of +certain errata without revolution, that is to say without a fundamental +change in the general elementary structure of society itself, is a mere +piece of ingenuity. This contradiction with the rigid laws of the +process of things is shown in all its evidence in Proudhon, who, +reproducing without knowing it, or copying directly, some of the +one-sided English socialists, wished to arrest and change history, armed +with a definition and a syllogism. + +The partisans of critical communism recognized that history has the +right to follow its course. The bourgeois phase can be outgrown and it +will be. But as long as it exists it has its laws. The relativity of +these consists in the fact that they grow and develop in certain +determined conditions, but their relativity is not simply the opposite +of necessity, a mere appearance, a soap-bubble. These laws may disappear +and they will disappear by the very fact of the change of society, but +they do not yield to the arbitrary suggestion which demands a change, +proclaims a reform, or formulates a programme. Communism makes common +cause with the proletariat because in this resides the revolutionary +force which, bursts, breaks, shakes and dissolves the present social +form and creates in it, little by little, new conditions; or to be more +exact, the very fact of its movement shows to us that these new +conditions are already born. + +The theory of the class struggle was found. It was seen to appear both +in the origins of the bourgeoisie (whose intrinsic _processus_ was +already illustrated by the science of economics), and in this new +appearance of the proletariat. The relativity of economic laws was +discovered, but at the same time their relative necessity was +understood. Herein lies the whole method and justification of the new +materialistic conception of history. Those deceive themselves who, +calling it the economic interpretation of history, think they understand +it completely. That designation is better suited, and is only suited, to +certain analytic attempts,[25] which, taking separately and in a +distinct fashion on the one side the economic forms and categories, and +on the other, for example, law, legislation, politics, customs,--proceed +to study the reciprocal influences of the different sides of life +considered in an abstract fashion. Quite different is our position. Ours +is the organic conception of history. The totality of the unity of +social life is the subject matter present to our minds. It is economics +itself which dissolves in the course of one process, to reappear in as +many morphological stages, in each of which it serves as a substructure +for all the rest. Finally, it is not our method to extend the so-called +economic factor isolated in an abstract fashion over all the rest, as +our adversaries imagine, but it is, before everything else, to form an +historic conception of economics and to explain the other changes by +means of its changes. Therein lies our answer to all the criticisms +which come to us from all the domains of learned ignorance, not +excepting the socialists who are insufficiently grounded and who are +sentimental or hysterical. And we explain our position thus as Marx has +done in his Capital, not the first book of critical communism, but the +last great book of bourgeois economics. + + +At the moment when the Manifesto was written the historic horizon did +not go beyond the classic world, the scarcely studied German antiquities +and the Biblical tradition which had only lately been reduced to the +prosaic conditions of all profane history. Our historic horizon is now +quite another thing, since it extends to the Aryan antiquities and to +the ancient deposits of Egypt and Mesopotamia which precede all the +Semitic traditions. And it extends still further back into prehistory, +that is to say, into, unwritten history. Morgan has given us a knowledge +of ancient society, that is to say a pre-political society, and the key +to understand how from it came all the later forms marked by monogamy, +the development of the paternal family, the appearance of property, +first of the _gens_, then of the family, lastly individual, and by the +successive establishment of the alliances between _gentes_ which are the +origin of the State. All this is illustrated by the knowledge of the +process of technique in the discovery and in the use of the means and +instruments of labor and by the understanding of the effect of this +process upon the social complexus, urging it in certain directions and +making it traverse certain stages. These discoveries may still be +corrected at certain points, notably by the study of the different +specific fashions according to which in different parts of the world the +passage from barbarism to civilization has been effected. But, +henceforth, one fact is indisputable, namely, that we have before our +eyes the general embryogenic record of human development from primitive +communism to those complex formations as at Athens or at Rome with their +constitutions of citizens arranged in classes according to census which +not long ago constituted the columns of Hercules for research into +written tradition. The classes which the Manifesto assumed have been +later resolved into their process of formation and in this can already +be recognized the plexus of reasons and of different economic causes for +the categories of the economic science of our bourgeois epoch. The dream +of Fourier to find a place for an epoch of civilization in the series of +a long and vast process has been realized. A scientific solution has +been found for the problem of the origin of inequality among men which +Rousseau had tried to solve by arguments of an original dialectic, +relying however upon too few real data. + +At two points, the extreme points for us, the human process is palpable. +One of these is the origin of the bourgeoisie, so recent and in the full +light of the science of economics; the other is the ancient formation of +the society divided into classes, which marks the passage from higher +barbarism to civilization (the epoch of the State) to use expressions +employed by Morgan. All that is found between these two epochs is what +has, up to this time, formed the subject matter of the chroniclers, the +historians properly so-called, the jurists, the theologians and the +philosophers. To traverse and reanimate all this domain with the new +historic conception is not an easy thing. We must not be over-hasty in +tabulating it. At the very beginning we must understand the economics +relative to each epoch,[26] in order to explain specifically the classes +which develop in it, avoiding hypothetical and uncertain data and taking +care not to carry over our own conditions into each epoch. For that, +skilled fingers are needed. Thus, for example, what the Manifesto says +of the first origin of the bourgeoisie proceeding from the serfs of the +Middle Ages incorporated little by little into the cities is not a +general truth. This mode of origin is peculiar to Germany and to the +other countries which reproduce its process. It is not the case either +in Italy, nor in Southern France, nor in Spain, which were the fields +upon which began the first history of the bourgeoisie, that is to say, +of modern civilization. In this first phase are found all the premises +of the whole capitalist society as Marx informed us in a note to the +first volume of Capital.[27] This first phase which reaches its perfect +form in the Italian municipalities forms the pre-historic background for +that capitalist accumulation which Marx has explained with so many +characteristic details in the evolution of England. But I will stop +there. + +The proletarians can have in view nothing but the future. That with +which all scientific socialists are primarily concerned is the present +in which are spontaneously developed and in which are ripening the +conditions of the future. The knowledge of the past is practically of +use and of interest only in so far as it throws light upon and explains +the present. For the moment it is enough to say that the partisans of +critical communism fifty years ago conceived the elements of the new and +definite philosophy of history. Soon this fashion of seeing will impose +itself because it will be impossible to think the contrary; and this +discovery will have the fate of Columbus' egg. And perhaps before an +army of scientists has made an application of this conception to the +continuous narration of the whole history, the success of the +proletariat will have become such that the bourgeois epoch will appear +to all as something that must be left behind because it will nearly be +so in reality. _To understand is to leave behind_ (Hegel). + + +When, fifty years ago, the Manifesto made of the proletarians, of the +unfortunates who excited pity, the predestined grave-diggers of the +bourgeoisie, the circumference of this burial place must have appeared +very small to the imagination of the writers who scarcely concealed in +the gravity of their style the idealism of their intellectual passion. +The probable circumference in their imagination then embraced only +France and England, and it would scarcely have touched the frontiers of +other countries, for instance, Germany. To-day the circumference appears +to us immense by reason of the rapid and colossal extension of the +bourgeois form of production which by inevitable reaction enlarges, +makes universal and multiplies the movement of the proletariat and +immensely expands the scene upon which is projected the picture of the +coming communism. The burial place extends as far as the eye can reach. +The more productive forces this magician calls forth, the more he +excites and prepares forces that must rebel against himself. + +All those who were communists ideological, religious and utopian, or +even prophetic and apocalyptic in the past have always believed that the +reign of justice, equality and happiness was destined to have the world +for its theatre. To-day the world is invaded by civilization and +everywhere is developing that society which lives upon class antagonisms +and class domination, the form of bourgeois production. (Japan may serve +us for an example.) The coexistence of the two nations in one and the +same state, which the divine Plato had already described, is +perpetuated. The earth will not be won over to communism to-morrow. But +as the confines of the bourgeois world enlarge, more numerous are those +who enter into it, abandoning and leaving behind the lower forms of +production,--and thus the attempt of communism gains in firmness and +precision; especially because in the domain and struggle of competition, +the deviations due to conquest and colonization are diminishing. The +proletarian International, while embryonic in the Communist League of +fifty years ago, henceforth becomes Interoceanic and it affirms on the +first of every May that the proletarians of the whole world are really +and actively united. The future grave-diggers of the bourgeoisie and +their descendants to many generations will ever remember the date of the +Communist Manifesto. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] I refer to that form which the Manifesto designates ironically under +the name of "German or 'True' Socialism." This paragraph, which is +unintelligible for those who are not well versed in the German +philosophy of that epoch, notably in certain of its tendencies marked by +acute degeneracy, has, with good reason, been suppressed in the Spanish +translation. + +[2] It is better to use the expression "democratic socialization of the +means of production" than that of "collective property" because the +latter implies a certain theoretical error in that, to begin with, it +substitutes for the real economic fact a juridical expression and +moreover in the mind of more than one it is confused with the increase +of monopolies, with the increasing _statization_ of public utilities and +with all the other fantasmagoria of the ever recurring State socialism, +the whole effect of which is to increase the economic means of +oppression in the hands of the oppressing class. + +[3] Twenty-five octavo pages in the original edition (London, February, +1848) for a copy of which I am indebted to the special kindness of +Engels. I should say here in passing that I have resisted the temptation +to affix any bibliographical notes, references and citations, for I +should then have been making a work of scholarship, or a book, rather +than a simple essay. I hope the reader will take my word for it that +there are in this essay no allusions, or statements of fact or opinion, +which I could not substantiate with authorities. + +[4] The "Umrisse zu einer Kritik der National-oekonomie" appeared in the +German-French Year Book, Paris, 1844, pp. 85-114; and his book on "The +Condition of the Working Class in England" at Leipzig in 1845. + +[5] In these last years many jurists have thought they found in the +re-adjustment of the civil Code a practical means for ameliorating the +condition of the proletariat. But why have they not asked the pope to +become the head of the free thought league? The most delightful of these +is that Italian author who occupying himself with the class struggle +asks that by the side of the code which establishes the rights of +capital another be elaborated which should guarantee the rights of +labor. + +[6] This development has been given in Marx's Capital which can be +considered as a philosophy of history. + +[7] It was not until after the publication of the Italian edition of +this essay that I had at my disposal for some months a complete +collection of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung for which I owe hearty thanks +to the Partei-Archiv of Berlin. The impression derived from this reading +surpasses expectation. It is desirable either that this journal which +now has become very rare, be reprinted entire or that the most important +articles and letters in it be reproduced. + +[8] Misere de la Philosophie, by Karl Marx, Paris and Brussels, 1847; +new edition, Paris, Giard and Briere, 1896. + +[9] This is made up of articles which appeared in 1849 in the Neue +Rheinische Zeitung and which reproduced the lectures given by Marx to +the German Workingmen's Circle of Brussels in 1847. It has since been +published as a propaganda leaflet. + +[10] See Chapter II. of the Manifesto. + +[11] Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie, Berlin, 1859, pp. IV.-VI. of +the preface. (Instead of retranslating this extract from the French I +have availed myself of the assistance of Comrade Hitch, who has +translated direct from the German of Marx. C. H. K.) + +[12] These articles which appeared in the Neue Rheinische +Politischokonomische Review, Hamburg, 1850, have recently been brought +together into a pamphlet by Engels (Berlin, 1895) under the title of +"Die Klassenkampfe in Frankreich 1848 bis 1850." The little work has a +preface by Engels. + +[13] Appeared for the first time in New York in 1852 in a review. +Several editions have since been made in Germany. A French translation +appeared in 1891 published by Delory, Lille. + +[14] In the preface to the "Class Struggle in France in 1848-50" and +elsewhere Engels treated fundamentally the objective development of the +new revolutionary tactic. (It is well to remember that the first Italian +edition of this essay appeared June 18th, and the second, October 15, +1895.) + +[15] In my opinion this is the case in France. The recent discussions of +the agrarian programme submitted to the deliberations of the social +democracy in Germany confirm the reasons which I have indicated. + +[16] It was otherwise in Germany. After 1830 socialism was imported +there and became a current literature; it underwent philosophical +alterations of which Gruen was the typical representative. But already +before the _new doctrine_ socialism had received a characteristic +imprint which was proletarian, thanks to the propaganda and the writings +of Weitling. As Marx said in 1844 in the Paris Vorwaerts, "it was the +giant in the cradle." + +[17] It is what many people call Marxism. Marxism is and remains a +doctrine. Parties can draw neither their name nor their justification +from a doctrine. "I am no Marxist" said--guess who? Marx himself. + +[18] It is he who established the first relations between Marx and the +League and who served as intermediary in the publication of the +Manifesto. He fell in the insurrection of 1849 at Murg. + +[19] Marx's Capital, Vol. III., Hamburg, 1894, pp. xix-xx. The date of +1845 refers principally to the book "Die heilige Familie, Frankfort, +1845," which was produced in collaboration by Marx and Engels. This book +is indispensable to an understanding of the theoretical origin of +historical materialism. + +[20] I stop with Cabet who lived at the epoch of the Manifesto. I do not +think I ought to go as far as the sporadic forms of Bellamy and Hertzka. + +[21] The Balzac of the 17th century. + +[22] It is these writers whom Menger thought he had discovered as the +authors of scientific socialism. + +[23] It is for this reason that certain critics, Wieser for example, +propose to abandon Ricardo's theory of value because it leads to +socialism. + +[24] Thus there arises notably in France the illusion of a social +monarchy which, succeeding the liberal epoch, should solve harmoniously +what is called the social question. This absurdity reproduces itself in +infinite varieties of socialism of the pulpit and State socialism. To +the different forms of ideological and religious utopianism is joined a +new form of bureaucratic and fiscal utopianism, the Utopia of the +idiots. + +[25] For example in the essays of Th. Rogers. + +[26] Who would have thought a few years ago of the discovery and the +authentic interpretation of an ancient Babylonian law? + +[27] Note 189, p. 740, of the 3rd German edition. + + + + +PART II + +HISTORICAL MATERIALISM. + + +I. + +This class of studies, like many others, but this more than any other, +is confronted with a great difficulty, indeed an irksome hindrance, in +that vice of minds educated by literary methods alone which is +ordinarily called _verbalism_. This bad habit creeps into and spreads +itself through all domains of knowledge; but in studies which relate to +the so-called moral world, that is to say, to the historico-social +_complexus_, it very often happens that the cult and the dominion of +words succeed in corrupting and blotting out the real and living sense +of things. + +In the field where a long observation, repeated experiences, the certain +use of improved instruments, the general or partial application of the +calculus have resulted in putting the mind into a constant and +methodical relation with things and their variations, as in the natural +sciences properly so-called,--there the myth and superstition of words +are left behind and vanquished; there the questions of terminology no +longer have more than the secondary value of pure convention. In the +study of human relations and actions, on the contrary, the passions, the +interests, the prejudices of school, sect, class and religion, the +literary abuse of the traditional means of representing thought, and +scholasticism, ever vanquished and always reborn, conceal the actual +things, or transform them involuntarily into terms, into words, into +abstract and conventional fashions of speech. + +We must, first of all, take account of this difficulty when we use the +expression or the formula "materialistic conception of history." Many +have imagined, do imagine, and will imagine that it is possible and +convenient to penetrate into the sense of the phrase by the simple +analysis of the words which compose it instead of arriving at it from +the context of an explanation, from the genetic study of the formation +of the doctrine,[28] or from the polemical writings in which its +partisans refute the objections of its opponents. Verbalism tends always +to shut itself up in purely formal definitions; it gives rise in the +minds to this erroneous belief, that it is an easy thing to reduce into +terms and into simple and palpable expressions the agitated and immense +_complexus_ of nature and history and that it is easy to picture the +multiform and complicated interlacings of causes and effects; in clearer +terms, it obliterates the meaning of the problems because it sees in +them nothing but questions of nomenclature. + + +If, moreover, it then happens that verbalism finds a support in certain +theoretical hypotheses, for example, that _matter_ indicates something +which is below or opposed to another higher or nobler thing which is +called spirit; or if it happens to be at one with that literary habit +which opposes the word materialism, understood in a disparaging sense, +to all that, in a word, is called idealism, that is to say, to the sum +total of the anti-egoistic inclinations and acts; then our embarrassment +is extreme! Then we are told that in this doctrine it is attempted to +explain the whole of man by the mere calculation of his material +interests and that no value whatever is allowed to any ideal interest. +The inexperience, the incapacity and the haste of certain partisans and +propagandists of this doctrine have also been a cause of these +confusions. In their eagerness to explain to others what they themselves +only half understand, at a time when the doctrine itself is only in its +beginnings and still has need of many developments, they have believed +they could apply it, such as it was, to whatever historic fact they were +considering, and they have almost reduced it to tatters, exposing it +thus to the easy criticism and the ridicule of people on the watch for +scientific novelties, and other idle persons of the same type. + + +Since it has been my privilege in these first pages simply to rebut +these prejudices (in a preliminary fashion) and unmask the intentions +and the tendencies underlying them, it must be remembered that the +meaning of this doctrine ought, before all else, to be drawn from the +position which it takes and occupies with regard to the doctrines +against which it is in reality opposed, and particularly with regard to +the ideologies of every sort;--that the proof of its value consists +exclusively in the more suitable and more appropriate explanation of the +succession of human events which is derived from it;--that this doctrine +does not imply a subjective preference for a certain quality or a +certain sum of human interests opposed by free choice to other +interests, but that it merely affirms the objective co-ordination and +subordination of all interests in the development of all society; and +this it affirms, thanks to that genetic _processus_ which consists in +going from the conditions to the conditioned, from the elements of +formation to the things formed. + + +Let the verbalists reason as they like over the value of the word +_matter_ in so far as it implies or recalls a metaphysical conception, +or in so far as it is the expression of the last hypothetical substratum +of experience. We are not here in the domain of physics, chemistry or +biology; we are only searching for the explicit conditions of human +association in so far as it is no longer simply animal. It is not for us +to support our inductions or our deductions upon the data of biology, +but, on the contrary, to recognize before all else the peculiarities of +human association, which form and develop through the succession and the +growing perfection of the activity of man himself in given and variable +conditions, and to find the relations of co-ordination and +subordination of the needs which are the substratum of will and action. +It is not proposed to discover an intention nor to formulate a +criticism; it is merely the necessity arising from the facts that must +be put in evidence. + +And as men, not by free choice, but because they could not act +otherwise, satisfy first certain elementary needs, which, in their turn, +give rise to others in their upward development, and as for the +satisfaction of their needs, whatever they may be, they invent and +employ certain means and certain tools and associate themselves in +certain definite fashions, the materialism of historical interpretation +is nothing else than an attempt to reconstruct by thought with method +the genesis and the complexity of the social life which develops through +the ages. The novelty of this doctrine does not differ from that of all +the other doctrines which after many excursions through the domains of +the imagination have finally arrived, very painfully, at reaching the +prose of reality and halting there. + + +II. + +There is a certain affinity, apparently at least, between that formal +vice of verbalism and another defect of the mind, whose origins may, +however, be varied. In consideration of some of its most common and +popular effects I will call it _phraseology_, although this word is not +an exact expression of the thing and does not set forth its origin. + +For long centuries men have written on history, have explained it, have +illustrated it. The most varied interests, from the interests more +immediately practical to the interests purely æsthetic, have moved +different writers to conceive and to execute this type of composition. +These different types have always taken birth in different countries +long after the origins of civilization, of the development of the state +and of the passage from the primitive communist society to the society +which rests upon class differences and class antagonisms. The +historians, even if they have been as artless as Herodotus, were always +born and formed in a society having nothing ingenuous in it, but very +complicated and complex, and at a time when the reasons for this +complication and complexity were unknown and their origins forgotten. +This complexity, with all the contrasts which it bears within itself and +which it reveals later and makes burst forth in its various +vicissitudes, stood forth before the narrators as something mysterious +and calling for an explanation, and if the historian wished to give some +sequence and a certain connection to the things narrated, he was obliged +to add certain general views to the simple narration. From the jealousy +of the gods of Father Herodotus to the environment of M. Tame, an +infinite number of concepts serving as means of explanation and as +complements to the things related have been imposed upon the narrators +by the natural voices of their immediate thought. Class tendencies, +religious ideas, popular prejudices, influences or imitations of a +current philosophy, excursions of imagination and a desire to give an +artistic appearance to facts known only in a fragmentary fashion, all +these causes and other analogous causes have contributed to form the +substratum of the more or less artless theory of events which is +implicitly at the bottom of the narration, or which serves at least to +flavor and adorn it. Whether men speak of chance or of destiny, whether +they appeal to the providential direction of human events, or adhere to +the word and concept of chance, the only divinity left in the rigid and +often coarse conception of Machiavelli, or whether they speak, as is +frequent enough at the present time, of the logic of events, all these +conceptions were and are effects and results of ingenuous thought, of +immediate thought, of thought which cannot justify to itself its course, +and its products, either by the paths of criticism or by the methods of +experience. To fill up with conventional causes (e. g., _chance_) or +with a statement of theoretical plausibility (e. g., the _inevitable +course of events_ which sometimes is confused in the mind with the +notion of progress) the gaps of our knowledge as to the fashion in which +things have been actually produced by their own necessity without care +for our free will and our consent, that is the motive and the result of +this popular philosophy, latent or explicit, in the chroniclers, which +by reason of its superficial character dissolves as soon as scientific +criticism appears. + + +In all these concepts and all these imaginings which in the light of +criticism appear as simple provisional devices and effects of an unripe +thought, but which often seem to "cultured people" the _non plus ultra_ +of intelligence,--in all these a great part of the human _processus_ is +revealed and reflected; and, consequently, we should not consider them +as gratuitous inventions nor as products of a momentary illusion. They +are a part and a moment in the development of what we call the human +mind. If later it is observed that these concepts and these imaginings +are mingled and confounded in the accepted opinions of cultured people, +or of those who pass for such, they make up an immense mass of +prejudices and they constitute an impediment which ignorance opposes to +the clear and complete vision of the real things. These prejudices turn +up again as etymological derivations in the language of professional +politicians, of so-called publicists and journalists of every kind, and +offer the support of rhetoric to self-styled public opinion. + + +To oppose and then to replace this mirage of uncritical conceptions, +these idols of the imagination, these effects of literary artifice, this +conventionalism by the real subjects, or the forces which are positively +acting--that is to say, men in their various and diversified social +relations,--this is the revolutionary enterprise and the scientific aim +of the new doctrine which renders objective and I might say naturalizes +the explanation of the historical _processus_. + + +A certain definite nation, that is to say, not a certain mass of +individuals, but a _plexus_ of men organized in such and such a fashion +by natural relations of consanguinity, or following such or such an +artificial or customary order of relationship and affinity, or by reason +of permanent proximity;--this nation, on a certain circumscribed and +limited territory, having such and such fertility, productive in such +and such a manner acquired through certain definite forms by continuous +labor;--this nation, thus distributed over this territory and thus +divided and articulated by the effect of a definite division of labor +which is scarcely beginning to give birth to or which has already +developed and ripened such and such a division of classes, or which has +already disintegrated or transformed a whole series of classes;--this +nation which possesses such and such instruments from the flint stone to +the electric light and from the bow and arrow to the repeating rifle, +which produces according to a certain fashion and shares its products, +conformably to its way of producing;--this nation, which by all these +relations constitutes a society in which either by habits of mutual +accommodation or by explicit conventions, or by acts of violence +suffered and endured, has already given birth, or is on the point of +giving birth to legal-political relations which result in the formation +of the state;--this nation, which by the organization of the state, +which is only a means for fixing, defending and perpetuating +inequalities, by reason of the antagonisms which it bears within itself, +renders continuously unstable the organization itself, whence result the +political movements and revolutions, and therefore the reasons for +progress and retrogression:--there is the sum of what is at the bottom +of all history. And there is the victory of realistic prose over all the +fantastic and ideological combinations. + +Certainly it requires some resignation to see things as they are, +passing beyond the phantoms which for centuries have prevented right +vision. But this revelation of realistic doctrine was not and is not +designed to be the rebellion of the material man against the ideal man. +It has been and is, on the contrary, the discovery of the principles and +the motives which are real and which belong to all human development, +including all that we call the ideal in positive conditions, determined +by facts which carry in themselves the reasons and the law and the +rhythm of their own development. + + +III. + +But it would be a complete error to believe that the writers who +narrate, explain, or illustrate have themselves invented and given life +to this enormous mass of unripe concepts, imaginings, and explanations +which, thanks to the force of prejudice, concealed for centuries the +real truth. It may happen, and it certainly does happen, that some of +these concepts are the fruit and the product of personal views, or of +literary currents formed in the narrow professional circle of the +universities and academies. The people in this case are absolutely +ignorant of them. But the important fact is that history itself has put +on these veils; that is to say, that the very actors and workers of the +historic events--great masses of people, directing and ordering classes, +masters of state, sects or parties, in the narrowest sense of the word, +if we make exception for an occasional moment of lucid interval--never +had up to the end of the past century a consciousness of their own work, +unless it be through some ideological envelope which prevented any sight +of the real causes. Already at the distant epoch when barbarism was +passing over into civilization, that is to say, when the first +discoveries of agriculture, the stable establishment of a population +upon a definite territory, the first division of labor in society, the +first alliances of different gentes, gave the conditions in which +developed property and the state, or at least the city,--even then, at +the epoch of all the first social revolutions, men ideally transformed +their work, seeing in it the miraculous acts of gods and heroes. So much +so that, while acting as they could and as they must, granted the +necessity and the fact of their relative economic development, they +conceived an explanation of their own work as if it did not belong to +them. This ideological envelope of human works has changed since then +more than once in form, in appearance, in combinations and in relations +in the course of the centuries, from the immediate production of the +ingenuous myths up to the complicated theological systems and to _The +City of God_ of St. Augustine--from the superstitious credulity in +miracles down to the bewildering miracles of the metaphysicians, that is +to say, down to the _Idea_ which for the _decadents_ of Hegelianism +engenders of itself, in itself, by its own disaggregation the most +incongruous variations of social life in the course of history. + +Now, precisely because the visual angle of ideological interpretation +has not been finally outgrown until very lately, and because it is only +in our days that a sum total of the real and really acting relations has +been clearly distinguished from the ingenuous reflections of myth and +the more artificial reflections of religion and metaphysics, our +doctrine states a new problem and carries within itself grave +difficulties for whoever wishes to fit it for providing a specific +explanation of the history of the past. + + +The problem consists in this: that our doctrine necessitates a new +criticism of the sources of history. And I do not wish to be understood +as speaking exclusively of the criticism of documents in the proper and +ordinary sense of the word, because as for this we may content ourselves +with what is delivered to us ready made by the critics, the scholars, +and the professional philologists. But I would speak of that immediate +source which is behind the so called documents properly and which, +before expressing itself and fixing itself in these, resides in the +spirit and in the form of the consciousness in which the actors +accounted to themselves for the motives of their own work. This spirit, +that is to say, this consciousness, is often inadequate to the causes +which we are now in a position to discover, from which it follows that +the actors seem to us enveloped, as it were, in a circle of illusions. +To strip the historic facts from these envelopes which clothe the very +facts while they are developing--this is to make a new criticism of the +sources in the realistic sense of the word and not in the formal +documentary sense. It is, in short, to make react upon the knowledge of +past conditions the consciousness of which we are now capable, and +thereby to reconstruct them anew. + + +But this revision of the most direct sources, if it marks the extreme +limit of the historic self-consciousness which may be reached, may be an +occasion for falling into a serious error. As we place ourselves at a +point of view which is beyond the ideological views to which the actors +in history were indebted for a consciousness of their work and in which +they often found both the motives and the justification of their action, +we may falsely believe that these ideological views were a pure +appearance, a simple artifice, a pure illusion in the vulgar sense of +the word. Martin Luther, like the other great reformers, his +contemporaries, never knew, as we know to-day, that the Reformation was +but an episode in the development of the Third Estate, and an economic +revolt of the German nation against the exploitation of the Papal court. +He was what he was, as an agitator and a politician, because he was +wholly taken up with the belief which made him see in the class movement +which gave an impulse to the agitation a return to true Christianity and +a divine necessity in the vulgar course of events. The study of remote +effects, that is to say, the increasing strength of the bourgeoisie of +the cities against the feudal lords, the increase of the territorial +dominion of the princes at the expense of the inter-territorial and +super-territorial power of the emperor and the pope, the violent +repression of the movement of the peasants and the more properly +proletarian movement of the Anabaptists permit us now to reconstruct the +authentic history of the economic causes of the Reformation, +particularly in the final proportions which it took, which is the best +of proofs. But that does not mean that we are privileged to detach the +fact arrived at from the mode of its realization and to analyze the +circumstantial integrality by a posthumous analysis altogether +subjective and simplified. The inner causes, or, as would be said now, +the profane and prosaic motives of the Reformation, appear to us clearly +in France, where it was not victorious; clearly again in the Low +Countries, where, apart from the differences of nationality, the +contrasts of economic interests are shown strikingly in the struggle +against Spain; very clearly again in England, where the religious +renovation realized, thanks to political violence, placed in full light +the passage to those conditions which are for our modern bourgeoisie the +forerunners of capitalism. _Post factum_, and after the tardy +realization of unforeseen consequences, the history of the real +movements which were the inner causes of the Reformation, in great part +unknown to the actors themselves, will appear in full light. But that +the fact came about precisely as it did come about, that it took on +certain determined forms, that it clothed itself in certain vestments, +that it painted itself in certain colors, that it put in movement +certain passions, that it displayed a special degree of fanaticism,--in +these consist its specific character, which no analytic ability can make +otherwise than as it was. Only the love of paradox inseparable from the +zeal of the passionate popularizers of a new doctrine can have brought +some to believe that to write history it was sufficient to put on record +merely the _economic moment_ (often still unknown and often unknowable), +and thereupon to cast to the earth all the rest as a useless burden with +which men had capriciously loaded themselves, as a superfluity, a mere +trifle, or even, as it were, something not existent. + + +From the fact that history must be taken in its entirety and that in it +the kernel and the husk are but one, as Goethe said of all things, three +consequences follow:-- + +First, it is evident that in the domain of historico-social determinism, +the linking of causes to effects, of conditions to the things +conditioned, of antecedents to consequents, is never evident at first +sight in the subjective determinism of individual psychology. In this +last domain it was a relatively easy thing for abstract and formal +philosophy to discover, passing above all the baubles of fatalism and +free will, the evidence of the motive in every volition, because, in +fine, there is no wish without its determining motive. But beneath the +motives and the wish there is the genesis of both, and to reconstruct +this genesis we must leave the closed field of consciousness to arrive +at the analysis of the simple necessities, which, on the one side, are +derived from social conditions, and on the other side are lost in the +obscure background of organic dispositions, in ancestry and in atavism. +It is not otherwise with historical determinism, where, in the same way, +we begin with motives religious, political, æsthetic, passionate, etc., +but where we must subsequently discover the causes of these motives in +the material conditions underlying them. Now the study of these +conditions should be so specified that we may perceive indubitably not +only what are the causes, but again by what mediations they arrive at +that form which reveals them to the consciousness as motives whose +origin is often obliterated. + +And thence follows indubitably this second consequence that in our +doctrine we have not to re-translate into economic categories all the +complex manifestations of history, but only to explain in the _last +analysis_ (Engels) all the historic facts _by means of the underlying +economic structure_ (Marx), which necessitates analysis and reduction +and then interlinking and construction. + +It results from this, in the third place, that, passing from the +underlying economic structure to the picturesque whole of a given +history, we need the aid of that complexus of notions and knowledge +which may be called, for lack of a better term, social psychology. I do +not mean by that to allude to the fantastic existence of a social psyche +nor to the concept of an assumed collective spirit which by its own +laws, independent of the consciousness of individuals and of their +material and definable relations, realizes itself and shows itself in +social life. That is pure mysticism. Neither do I wish to allude to +those attempts at generalization which fill up treatises on social +psychology and the general idea of which is to transport and apply to a +subject which is called social consciousness the known categories and +forms of individual psychology. Nor again do I wish to allude to that +mass of semi-organic and semi-psychological denominations by the aid of +which some attribute to the social being, as Schäffle does, a brain, a +spinal column, sensibility, sentiment, conscience, will, etc. But I +wish to speak of more modest and more prosaic things, that is to say, of +those concrete and precise states of mind which make us know as they +really were the plebeians of Rome at a certain epoch, the artisans of +Florence at the moment when the movement of the Ciompi burst forth, or +those peasants of France within whom was engendered, to follow Taine's +expression, the "spontaneous anarchy" of 1789, those peasants who +finally became free laborers and small proprietors, or, aspiring to +property, transformed themselves rapidly from victors over the foreigner +into automatic instruments of reaction. This social psychology, which no +one can reduce to abstract canons because, in most cases, it is merely +descriptive, this is what the chroniclers, the orators, the artists, the +romancers and the ideologists of every sort have seen and up to now have +conceived as the exclusive object of their studies. In this, psychology, +which is the specific consciousness of men in given social conditions, +the agitators, orators and propagandists trust to-day, and to it they +appeal. We know that it is the fruit, the outcome, the effect of certain +social conditions actually determined;--this class, in this situation, +determined by the functions which it fulfills, by the subjection in +which it is held, by the dominion which it exercises;--and finally, +these classes, these functions, this subjection and this dominion +involve such and such a determined form of production and distribution +of the immediate means of life, that is to say, a determined economic +structure. This social psychology, by its nature always circumstantial, +is not the expression of the abstract and generic process of the +self-styled human intellect. It is always a specified formation from +specified conditions. We hold this principle to be indisputable, that it +is not the forms of consciousness which determine the human being, but +it is the manner of being which determines the consciousness (Marx). + +But these forms of consciousness, even as they are determined by the +conditions of life, constitute in themselves also a part of history. +This does not consist only in the economic anatomy, but in all that +combination which clothes and covers that anatomy even up to the +multicolored reflections of the imagination. In other words, there is no +fact in history which does not recall by its origin the conditions of +the underlying economic structure, but there is no fact in history which +is not preceded, accompanied and followed by determined forms of +consciousness, whether it be superstitious or experimental, ingenuous or +reflective, impulsive or self-controlled, fantastic or reasoning. + + +IV. + +I was saying a moment ago that our doctrine makes history objective and +in a certain sense naturalizes it, going from the explanation of the +data, evident at first sight, of the personalities acting with design, +and of the auxiliary conceptions of the action, to the causes and the +motives of the will and the action, in order to find thereupon the +co-ordination of these causes and of these motives in the pre-elementary +_processus_ of the production of the immediate means of existence. + +Now this term "naturalizing" has led more than one mind into confusing +this order of problems with another order of problems, that is to say, +into extending to history the laws and the manners of thinking which +have already appeared suitable to the study and explanation of the +material world in general and of the animal world in particular. And +because Darwinism succeeded in carrying, thanks to the principle of the +transformation of species, the last citadel of the metaphysical fixity +of things, and in discerning, in the organisms, phases, as it were, and +moments of a real and proper natural history, it has been imagined that +it was a commonplace and simple enterprise to borrow for an explanation +of the future and the history of human life the concepts, the principles +and the methods of examination to which that animal life is subjected +which in consequence of the immediate conditions of the struggle for +existence is unfolding to topographical environments not modified by the +action of labor. Darwinism, political and social, has, like an epidemic, +for many years invaded the mind of more than one thinker, and many more +of the advocates and declaimers of sociology, and it has been reflected +as a fashionable habit and a phraseological current even in the daily +language of the politicians. + +It seems at first sight that there is something immediately evident and +instinctively plausible in this fashion of reasoning, which it may be +said is principally distinguished by its abuse of analogy and by its +haste in drawing conclusions. Man is without doubt an animal, and he is +linked by connections of descent and affinity to other animals. He has +no privileges of origin or of elementary structure, and his organism is +merely one particular case of general physiology. His first immediate +field was that of simple nature not modified by work, and from thence +are derived the imperious and inevitable conditions of the struggle for +existence, with the consequent forms of adaptation. Thence are born +races in the true and authentic sense of the word; that is to say, in so +far as they are immediate determinations of black, white, yellow, +woolly-haired, straight-haired, etc., and not secondary historico-social +formations, that is to say, peoples and nations. Thence are born the +primitive instincts of sociability and in life in promiscuity arise the +first rudiments of sexual selection. + +But if we can reconstruct in imagination the primitive savage, by +combining our conjectures, it is not given us to have an empirical +intuition of him, just as it is not given us to determine the genesis of +that hiatus, that is to say, that break in continuity, thanks to which +human life is found detached from animal life to rise, in the sequel, to +an ever higher level. All men who live at this moment on the earth's +surface and all those who, having lived in the past, were the objects +of any trustworthy observation, are found, and were found, already +sufficiently removed from the moment when purely animal life had ceased. +A certain social life with customs and institutions, even if it be of +the most elementary form that we know, that is to say, of the Australian +tribes, divided into classes and practising the marriage of all the men +of one class with all the women of another class, separates human life +by a great interval from animal life. If we consider the _maternal +gens_, of which the classic type, the Iroquois type, has, thanks to +Morgan's work, revolutionized prehistoric science, while giving us at +the same time the key to the origins of history properly so called, we +have a form of society already much advanced by the complexity of its +relations. At that stage of social life which, according to our +knowledge, seems very elementary, that is to say, in the Australian +society, not only does a very complicated language differentiate men +from all other animals (and language is a condition and an instrument, a +cause and an effect of sociability), but the specialization of human +life, apart from the discovery of fire, is manifested by the use of many +other artificial means by which the needs of life are satisfied. A +certain territory acquired for the common use of a tribe, a certain art +of hunting--the use of certain instruments of defense and attack and the +possession of certain utensils for preserving the things acquired--and +then the ornamentation of the body, etc., all this means that at bottom +this life rests upon an artificial, although very elementary, basis, +upon which men endeavor to fix themselves and adapt themselves,--upon a +basis which is after all the condition of all further progress. +According as this artificial basis is more or less formed, the men who +have produced it and who live in it are considered more or less savage +or barbarous. This first formation constitutes what we may call +pre-history. + +History, according to the literary use of the word, namely, that part of +the human _processus_ whose traditions are fixed in the memory, begins +at a moment when the artificial basis has been formed for a considerable +length of time. For example, the canalization of Mesopotamia gives us +the ancient pre-Semitic Babylonian state, while the extremely ancient +Egyptian civilization rests upon the application of the Nile to +agriculture. Upon this artificial basis, which appears in the extreme +horizon of known history, lived, as now, not shapeless masses of +individuals, but organized groups whose organization was fixed by a +certain distribution of tasks, that is to say, of labor and by +consecutive methods of co-ordination and subordination. These relations, +these connections, these ways of living were not and are not the result +of the crystallization of customs under the immediate action of the +animal struggle for existence. What is more, they presuppose the +discovery of certain instruments, and, for example, the domestication of +certain animals, the working of minerals and even of iron, the +introduction of slavery, etc., instruments and methods of economy which +have first differentiated communities from each other and have +subsequently differentiated the component parts of these communities +themselves. In other words, the works of men in so far as they live +together react upon the men themselves. Their discoveries, and their +inventions, by creating artificial ways of living, have produced not +only habits and customs (clothing, cooking of food, etc.), but relations +and bonds of coexistence proportioned and adapted to the mode of +production and reproduction of the means of immediate life. + +At the dawn of traditional history economics is already operating. Men +are working to live, on a foundation which has been in great part +modified by their work and with tools which are completely their work. +And from that moment they have struggled among themselves to conquer +each from the other a superior position in the use of these artificial +means; that is to say, they have struggled among themselves whether as +serfs and masters, subjects and lords, conquered and conquerors, +exploited and exploiters, both where they have progressed and where they +have retrograded and where they have halted in a form which they have +not been capable of outgrowing, but never have they returned to the +animal life by the complete loss of their artificial foundation. + + +Historical science has, then, as its first and principal object the +determination and the investigation of this artificial foundation, its +origin, its composition, its changes and its transformations. To say +that all this is only a part and a prolongation of nature, is to say a +thing which by its too abstract and too generic character has no longer +any meaning. + +The human race, in fact, lives only in earthly conditions, and we cannot +suppose it to be transplanted elsewhere. Under these conditions it has +found from its very first beginnings down to the present day the +immediate means necessary for the development of labor, that is to say, +for its material progress as for its inner formation. These natural +conditions were and they are always indispensable to the sporadic +agriculture of the nomads, who sometimes cultivated the earth merely for +the pasturage of animals, as well as for the refined products of +intensive modern horticulture. These earthly conditions, precisely as +they have furnished the different sorts of stones suited for the +fabrication of the first weapons, furnish now also, with coal, the +elements of the great industry; precisely as they gave the first +laborers osiers and willows to plait, they give now all the materials +necessary to the complicated technique of electricity. + +It is not, however, the natural materials themselves which have +progressed. On the contrary, it is only men who progress, through +discovering little by little in nature the conditions which permit them +to produce in more and more complex forms, thanks to the labor +accumulated in experience. This progress does not consist merely in the +sort of progress with which subjective psychology is concerned that is +to say, the inner modifications which would be the proper and direct +development of the intellect, the reasoning and the thought. Moreover, +this inner progress is but a secondary and derived product, in +proportion as there is already a progress realized in the artificial +foundation which is the sum of the social relations resulting from the +forms and the distributions of labor. It is, then, a meaningless +affirmation to say that all this is but a simple prolongation of nature, +unless one wishes to employ this word in so generic a sense that it no +longer indicates anything precise and distinct; that which is not +realized by the work of man. + +History is the work of man in so far as man can create and improve his +instruments of labor, and with these instruments can create an +artificial environment whose complicated effects react later upon +himself, and which by its present state and its successive modifications +is the occasion and the condition of his development. There are, then, +no reasons for carrying back that work of man which is history to the +simple struggle for existence. If this struggle modifies and improves +the organs of animals, and if in given circumstances and methods it +produces and develops new organs, it still does not produce that +continuous, perfected and traditional movement which is the human +_processus_. Our doctrine must not be confounded with Darwinism, and it +need not invoke anew the conception of a mythical, mystical or +metaphorical form of fatalism. If it is true in effect that history +rests, before all else, upon the development of technique, that is to +say, if it is true that the successive discovery of tools gives rise to +the successive distributions of labor, and therewith to the inequalities +whose sum total, more or less stable, forms the social organism, it is +equally true that the discovery of these instruments is at once the +cause and the effect of these conditions and of those forms of the inner +life to which, isolating them by psychological abstraction, we give the +name of imagination, intellect, reason, thought, etc. By producing +successively the different social environment, that is to say, the +successive artificial foundations, man has produced himself, and in this +consists the serious kernel, the concrete reason, the positive +foundation of that which by various fantastic combinations and by a +varied logical architecture has suggested to the ideologists the notion +of the progress of the human mind. + + +Nevertheless, this expression of _naturalizing_ history, which, +understood in too broad and too generic a sense, may be the occasion of +the equivocations of which we have spoken, when it is, on the contrary, +employed with proper precaution and in a tentative fashion, sums up +briefly the criticism of all the ideological views which, in the +interpretation of history, start from this hypothesis, that human work +or activity are one and the same with free will, free choice and +voluntary designs. + +It was easy and convenient for the theologians to carry back the course +of human events to a preconceived plan or design, because they passed +directly from the facts of experience to an assumed mind which ruled the +universe. The jurists, who first had occasion to discover in the +institutions which formed the object of their studies a certain guiding +thread through the forms which manifestly succeeded each other, carried +over, as they still carry over as cheerfully, the reasoning faculty +which is their own quality, to serve as an explanation for the whole +vast social fabric, however complicated. The men of politics, who +naturally take their point of departure in this datum of experience, +that the officers of the state, whether by the acquiescence of the +subject masses or profiting by the antitheses of interests of the +different social groups, may set aims for themselves and realize them +voluntarily and in a deliberate fashion,--these men are brought to see +in the succession of human events only a variation of these designs, +these projects and these intentions. Now our conception, while +revolutionizing in their foundations the hypotheses of the theologians, +the jurists and the politicians, terminates in this affirmation, that +human labor and activity in general are not always one and the same +thing in the course of history with the will which acts with design, +with preconceived plans and with its free choice of means; that is to +say, that they are not one and the same thing with the reasoning +faculty. All that has happened in history is the work of man, but it +was not, and is not, with rare exceptions, the result of a critical +choice or of a reasoning desire. Moreover, it was and is through +necessity that, determined by external needs and occasions, this +activity engenders an experience and a development of internal and +external organs. Among these organs we must include intelligence and +reason which also are the result and consequence of repeated and +accumulated experience. The integral formation of man in his historical +development is henceforth no longer a hypothetical datum nor a simple +conjecture. It is an intuitive and palpable truth. The conditions of the +_processus_ which engenders a step of progress are henceforth reducible +into a series of explanations; and up to a certain point we have under +our eyes the schedule of all historical developments, morphologically +conceived. This doctrine is the clear and definite negation of all +ideology, because it is the explicit negation of every form of +rationalism, understanding by this word this concept, that things in +their existence and their development answer to a norm, an ideal, a +measure, an end, in an implicit or explicit fashion. The whole course of +human events is a sum, a succession of series of conditions which men +have made and laid down for themselves through the experience +accumulated in their changing social life, but it represents neither the +tendency to realize a predetermined end nor the deviation of a first +principle from perfection and felicity. Progress itself implies merely +that empirical and circumstantial notion of a thing which is at present +defined in our mind, because, thanks to the development thus far +realized, we are in a position to estimate the past and to foresee, at +least in a certain sense and in a certain measure, the future. + + +V. + +In this fashion a serious ambiguity is dissolved and the errors carried +with it are removed. Reasonable and well founded is the tendency of +those who aim to subordinate the sum total of human events in their +course to the rigorous conception of determinism. There is, on the +contrary, no reason for confusing this derived, reflex and complex +determinism with the determinism of the immediate struggle for existence +which is produced and developed on a field not modified by the continued +action of labor. Legitimate and well founded, in an absolute fashion, is +the historical explanation which proceeds in its course from the +volitions which have voluntarily regulated the different phases of life, +to the motives and objective causes of every choice, discovered in the +conditions of environment, territory, accessible means of existence and +conditions of experience. But there is, on the contrary, no foundation +for that opinion which tends to the negation of every volition by +consequence of a theoretical view which would substitute automatism for +voluntarism. There is nothing in it, as a matter of fact, but a pure and +simple conceit. + +Wherever the means of production have developed, to a certain point, +wherever the artificial foundation has acquired a certain consistency, +and wherever the social differentiations and their resulting antitheses +have created the need, the possibility and the conditions of an +organization more or less stable or unstable, there, always and +necessarily, appear premeditated designs, political views, plans of +conduct, systems of law and finally maxims and general and abstract +principles. In the circle of these products, and of these derived and +complex developments of the second degree, spring up also the sciences +and arts, philosophy and learning, and history as a literary fashion of +production. This circle is what the rationalists and the ideologists, +ignorant of its real foundations, have called, and call, in an exclusive +fashion, civilization. And, in fact, it has happened, and it happens, +that some men, and especially professional scientists, lay or clerical, +have found, and find, the means of intellectual livelihood in the closed +circle of the reflex and secondary products of civilization, and that +they have been able and are able consequently to submit all the rest to +the subjective view which they have elaborated under these conditions; +that is, the origin and explanation of all the ideologies. Our doctrine +has definitely outgrown the visual angle of ideology. The premeditated +designs, the political views, sciences, systems of law, etc., instead of +being the means and the instrument of the explanation of history, are +precisely what require to be explained, because they are derived from +determined conditions and situations. But that does not mean that they +are pure appearances, soap bubbles. If they are things which have been +developed and derived, that does not imply that they are not real +things; and that is so true that they have been, for centuries, to the +unscientific consciousness, and to the scientific consciousness still on +the way towards its formation, the only ones which really existed. + + +But that is not all. + +Our doctrine, like others, may lead to reverie and offer an occasion and +a theme for a new inverted ideology. It was born on the battlefield of +communism. It assumes the appearance of the modern proletariat on the +political stage, and it assumes that alignment upon the origins of our +present society which has permitted us to reconstruct in a critical +manner the whole genesis of the bourgeoisie. It is a doctrine +revolutionary from two points of view; because it has found the reasons +and the methods of development of the proletarian revolution which is in +the making, and because it proposes to find the causes and the +conditions of development of all other social revolutions which have +taken place in the past, in the class antagonisms which arrived at a +certain critical point, by reason of the contradiction between the forms +of production and the development of the producing forces. And this is +not all. In the light of this doctrine what is essential in history is +summed up in these critical moments, and it abandons, momentarily at +least, what unites these different moments to the learned ministrations +of the professional narrators. As a revolutionary doctrine it is, before +all else, the intellectual consciousness of the actual proletarian +movement in which, according to our assertion, the future of communism +is preparing long beforehand; so much so that the open adversaries of +socialism reject it as an opinion, which, under a scientific mask, is +only working out another utopia. + +Thus it may happen, and that has already resulted, that the imagination +of people unfamiliar with the difficulties of historic research, and the +zeal of fanatics, find a stimulus and an opportunity even in historic +materialism for forming a new ideology and drawing from it a new +philosophy of systematic history, that is to say, history conceived as +schemes or tendencies and designs. And no precaution can suffice. Our +intellect is rarely contented with purely critical research; it is +always attempting to convert into an element of pedantry and into a new +scholasticism every discovery of thought. In a word, even the +materialistic conception of history may be converted into a form of +argumentation for a thesis and serve to make new fashions with the +ancient prejudices like that of a history based on syllogisms, +demonstrations and deductions. + +To guard against this, and especially to avoid the reappearance in an +indirect and disguised fashion of any form whatever of finality, it is +necessary to resolve positively upon two things: First, that all known +historic conditions are circumstanced, and, second, that progress has +thus far been circumscribed by various obstacles and that for this +reason it has always been partial and limited. + + +Only a part, and, until recent times, only a small part of the human +race, has traversed completely all the stages of the _processus_ by the +effect of which the most advanced nations have arrived at modern civil +society, with the advanced technical forms founded upon the discoveries +of science and with all the consequences, political, intellectual, +moral, etc., which correspond to this development. By the side of the +English,--to take the most striking example--who, transporting European +manners with them to New Holland, have created there a center of +production which already holds a notable place in the competition of the +world's market, there still live, like fossils of prehistoric times, the +Australian aborigines, capable only of disappearing, but incapable of +adapting themselves to a civilization which was not imported among them, +but next to them. In America, and especially in North America, the +series of events which have brought on the development of modern society +began with the importation from Europe of domestic animals and +agricultural tools, the use of which in ancient times gave birth to the +slow moving civilization of the Mediterranean; but this movement +remained entirely inside the circle of those descended from the +conquerors and colonists, while the aborigines are lost in the mass +through the intermingling of races or perish and disappear completely. +Western Asia and Egypt, which already in very ancient times, as the +first cradle of all our civilization, gave birth to the great +semi-political formations which marked the first phases of certain and +positive history, have appeared to us for centuries as crystallizations +of social forms incapable of moving on of themselves to new phases of +development. Upon them is the age-long weight of the barbaric camp--the +dominion of the Turk. Into this stiffened mass is introduced by secret +ways a modern administration, and in the name of business interests the +railroads and the telegraphs push in,--bold outposts of the conquering +European bank. All this stiffened mass has no hope of resuming life, +heat and motion except by the ruin of the Turkish dominion, for which +are being substituted in the different methods of direct and indirect +conquest the dominion and the protectorate of the European bourgeoisie. +That a process of transformation of backward nations or of nations +arrested in their march, can be realized and hastened under external +influences, India stands as a proof. This country, with its own life +still surviving, re-enters vigorously under the action of England into +the circulation of international activity even with its intellectual +products. These are not the only contrasts in the historic physiognomy +of our contemporaries. And while in Japan, by an acute and spontaneous +phenomenon of imitation, there has developed, in less than thirty years, +a certain assimilation of western civilization which is already moving +normally the country's own energies, the forcible law of Russian +conquest is dragging into the circle of modern industry, and even into +great industry, certain notable portions of the country beyond the +Caspian, as an outpost of the approaching acquisition to the sphere of +capitalism of Central Asia and Upper Asia. The gigantic mass of China +appeared to us but a few years ago as motionless in the hereditary +organization of its institutions, so slow is every movement there, while +for ethnic and geographical reasons almost all Africa remained +impenetrable, and, it seemed, even up to the last attempts at conquest +and colonization, that it was destined to offer only its borders to the +process of civilization, as if we were still in the times not even of +the Portuguese, but of the Greeks and Carthaginians. + +These differentiations of men on the track of written and unwritten +history seem to us easily explicable when they can be referred to the +natural and immediate conditions which impose limits upon the +development of labor. This is the case with America, which up to the +arrival of the Europeans had but one cereal, maize, and but one domestic +animal for labor, the llama, and we can rejoice that the Europeans +imported with themselves and their tools the ox, the ass and the horse, +corn, cotton, sugarcane, coffee and finally the vine and the orange +tree, creating there a new world of that glorious society which produces +merchandise and which with an extraordinary swiftness of movement has +already traversed the two phases of the blackest slavery and the most +democratic wage system. But where there is a real halt and even an +attested retrogression, as in Western Asia, in Egypt, in the Balkan +Peninsula and in Northern Africa,--and this arrest cannot be attributed +to the change of natural conditions,--we find the problem before us +which is awaiting its solution from the direct and explicit study of the +social structure studied in the internal modes of its development, as in +the interlacings and complications of the different nations upon that +field which is ordinarily called the scene of historic struggles. + + +This same civilized Europe, which by the continuity of its tradition, +presents the most complete diagram of its _processus_, so much so that +upon this model have been conceived and constructed, thus far, all the +systems of historical philosophy, this Western and Central Europe, which +produced the epoch of the bourgeoisie and has sought and is seeking to +impose that form of society upon the whole world by different modes of +conquest, direct or indirect,--this Europe is not completely uniform in +the degree of its development, and its various agglomerations, national, +local and political, appear disturbed, as it were, over a decidedly +sloping ladder. Upon these differences depend the conditions of relative +superiority and inferiority of one country to another and the reasons, +more or less advantageous or disadvantageous, for economic exchange; +and thereon have depended, and still depend, not only the frictions and +the struggles, the treaties and the wars, but also everything that with +more or less precision the political writers have been able to relate to +us since the Renaissance, and certainly with increasing evidence, from +Louis XIV. and Colbert to our own time. + +This Europe in itself is highly variegated. Here is the consummate +flower of industrial and capitalist production, namely, England, while +at other points survives the artisan, vigorous or rickety, at Paris and +at Naples, to grasp the fact in its extreme points. Here the land is +almost industrialized, as in England; and elsewhere vegetates, in +various traditional forms, the stupid peasant, as in Italy and in +Austria, and in the latter country more than in the former. In one +country the political life of the state--suited to the prosaic +consciousness of a bourgeoisie which knows its business because it has +conquered the space that it occupies--is exerted in the surest and most +open fashion of an explicit class domination (it will be understood that +I am speaking of France). Elsewhere, and particularly in Germany, the +old feudal customs, the hypocrisy of Protestantism and the cowardice of +a bourgeoisie which exploits favorable economic circumstances without +bringing to them either intelligence or revolutionary courage, +strengthen the existing state by preserving the lying appearances of an +ethical mission to be accomplished. (With how many unpalatable sauces +this state ethics, Prussian into the bargain, has been served up by the +heavy and pedantic German professors!) Here and there modern capitalist +production is edging its way into countries which from other points of +view do not enter into our movement and especially into its political +side, as is the case with unhappy Poland; or again this form only +penetrates indirectly, as in the Slavonic countries. But now comes the +sharpest contrast, which seems destined to put under our eyes, as in an +epitome, all the phrases, even the most extreme, of our history. + +Russia could not have advanced, as it is now advancing, toward the great +industry, without drawing from Western Europe, and especially from our +charming French _Chauvinism_, that money which she would in vain have +sought within her own borders, that is to say, from the conditions of +her obese territorial mass, where vegetate in ancient economic forms +fifty million peasants. Russia, in order to become an economic modern +society ripening the conditions of a corresponding political revolution, +and preparing the means which will facilitate the addition of a large +part of Asia to the capitalist movement, has been led to destroy the +last relics of agrarian communism (whether its origins be primitive or +secondary) which had been preserved within herself up to this point in +such characteristic forms and on so large a scale. Russia must +capitalize herself, and to this end she must, to start with, convert +land into merchandise capable of producing merchandise, and at the same +time transform into miserable proletarians the excommunists of the +land. And, on the contrary, in Western and Central Europe we find +ourselves at the opposite point of the series of development which has +scarcely begun in Russia. Here, with us, where the bourgeoisie, with +varied fortunes and triumphing over such a variety of difficulties, has +already traversed so many stages of its development, it is not the +recollection of primitive or secondary communism, which scarcely +survives through learned combinations in the heads of scholars, but the +very form of bourgeois production, which engenders in the proletarians +the tendency to socialism, which presents itself in its general outlines +as an indication of a new phase of history and not as the repetition of +what is inevitably perishing in the Slavonic countries under our eyes. + + +Who could fail to see in these illustrations, which I have not sought +out, but which have come almost by chance, and which can be indefinitely +prolonged in a volume of economic-political geography of the present +world, the evident proof of the manner in which historic conditions are +all circumstanced in the forms of their development? Not only races and +peoples, nations and states, but parts of nations and various regions of +states, even orders and classes, are found, as it were, upon so many +rounds of a very long ladder, or, rather, upon the various points of a +complicated and slowly developing curve. Historic time has not marched +uniformly for all men. The simple succession of generations has never +been the index of the constancy and intensity of the _processus_. Time +as an abstract measure of chronology and the generations which succeed +one another in approximate periods give no criterion and furnish no +indication of law or of process. The developments thus far have been +varied because the things accomplished in one and the same unit of time +were varied. Between these varied forms of development there is an +affinity or rather a similarity of movements, that is, an analogy of +type, or again an identity of form; thus the advance forms may by simple +contact or by violence accelerate the development of backward forms. But +the important thing is to comprehend that progress, our notion of which +is not merely empirical, but always circumstanced and thus limited, is +not suspended over the course of human events like a destiny or a fate, +nor like a commandment. And for this reason our doctrine cannot serve to +represent the whole history of the human race in a unified perspective +which repeats, _mutatis mutandis_, the historic philosophy from thesis +to conclusion, from St. Augustine to Hegel, or, better, from the prophet +Daniel to M. De Rougemont. + +Our doctrine does not pretend to be the intellectual vision of a great +plan or of a design, but it is merely a method of research and of +conception. It is not by accident that Marx spoke of his discovery as a +guiding thread, and it is precisely for this reason that it is analogous +to Darwinism, which also is a method, and is not and cannot be a modern +repetition of the constructed or constructive natural philosophy as +used by Shelling and his school. + + +The first to discover in the notion of progress an indication of +something circumstantial and relative was the genial Saint Simon, who +opposed his way of seeing to the doctrine of the eighteenth century +represented by the party of Condorcet. To that doctrine, which may be +called unitary, equalitarian, formal, because it regards the human race +as developing upon one line of process, Saint Simon opposes the +conception of the faculties and of the aptitudes which substitute +themselves and compensate for each other, and thus he remains an +ideologist. + +To penetrate the true reasons for the relativity of progress another +thing was necessary. It was necessary, first of all, to renounce those +prejudices which are involved in the belief that the obstacles to the +uniformity of human development rest exclusively upon natural and +immediate causes. These natural obstacles are either sufficiently +problematical, as is the case with races, no one of which shows the +privilege of birth in its history, or they are, as is the case in +geographical differences, insufficient to explain the development of the +completely different historico-social conditions on one and the same +geographical field. And as the historic movement dates precisely from +the time when the natural obstacles have already been in great part +either vanquished or notably circumscribed, thanks to the creation of +an artificial field upon which it has been given to men to develop +themselves further, it is evident that the successive obstacles to the +uniformity of progress must be sought in the proper and intrinsic +conditions of the social structure itself. + +This structure has thus far started in forms of political organization, +the object of which is to try to hold in equilibrium the economic +inequalities; consequently this organization, as I have said more than +once, is constantly unstable. From the point where there is a known +history; it is the history of society tending to form the state, or +having already constructed it completely. And the state is this +struggle, within and without, because it is, above all, the organ and +the instrument of a larger or smaller part of society against all the +rest of society itself, in so far as the latter rests upon the economic +domination of man over man in a more or less direct and explicit +fashion, according as the different degree of the development of +production, of its natural means and its artificial instruments, +requires either chattel slavery, or the serfdom of the soil, or the +"free" wage system. This society of antitheses, which forms a state, is +always, although in different forms and various modes, the opposition of +the city to the country, of the artisan to the peasant, of the +proletarian to the employer, of the capitalist to the laborer, and so on +_ad infinitum_, and it always ends, with various complications and +various methods, in an hierarchy, whether it be in a fixed scaffolding +of privilege, as in the Middle Ages, or whether, under the disguised +forms of supposed equal rights for all, it be produced by the automatic +action of economic competition, as in our time. + +To this economic hierarchy corresponds, according to various modes, in +different countries, in different times, in different places, what I may +call almost a hierarchy of souls, of intellects, of minds. That is to +say, that culture, which, for the idealists, constitutes the sum of +progress, has been and is by the necessities of the case very unequally +distributed. The greater portion of mankind, by the quality of their +occupations, are composed of individuals who are disintegrated, broken +into fragments and rendered incapable of a complete and normal +development. To the economics of classes and to the hierarchy of social +positions corresponds the psychology of classes. The relativity of +progress is then for us the inevitable consequence of class +distinctions. These distinctions constitute the obstacles which explain +the possibility of relative retrogression, up to the point of degeneracy +and of the dissolution of an entire society. The machines, which mark +the triumph of science, become, by reason of the antithetic conditions +of the social plexus, instruments which impoverish millions and millions +of artisans and free peasants. The progress of technique, which fills +the towns with merchandise, makes more miserable and abject the +condition of the peasants, and in the cities themselves it further +humbles the condition of the humble. All the progress of science has +served thus far to differentiate a class of scientists and to keep ever +further from culture the masses who, attached to their ceaseless daily +toil, are thus feeding the whole of society. + +Progress has been and is, up to the present time, partial and one-sided. +The minorities which share in it call this human progress; and the proud +evolutionists call this human nature which is developing. All this +partial progress, which has thus far developed upon the oppression of +man by man, has its foundation in the conditions of opposition, by which +economic distinctions have engendered all the social distinctions; from +the relative liberty of the few is born the servitude of the greater +number, and law has been the protector of injustice. Progress, thus seen +and clearly appreciated, appears to us as the moral and intellectual +epitome of all human miseries and of all material inequalities. + +To discover this inevitable relativity it was necessary that communism, +born at first as an instinctive movement in the soul of the oppressed, +should become a science and a political party. It was then necessary +that our doctrine should give the measure of value for all past history, +by discovering in every form of social organization, antithetical in its +origin and organization, as they have all been up to this time, the +innate incapacity for producing the conditions of a universal and +uniform human progress, that is to say, by discovering the fetters which +turn each benefit into an injury. + + +VI. + +There is one question which we cannot evade: What has given birth to the +belief in _historic factors_? + +That is an expression familiar to many and often found in the writings +of many scholars, scientists and philosophers, and of those commentators +who, by their reasonings or by their combinations, add a little to +simple historic narration and utilize this opinion as an hypothesis to +find a starting point in the immense mass of human facts, which, at +first sight and after first examination, appear so confused and +irreducible. This belief, this current opinion, has become for reasoning +historians, or even for rationalists, a semi-doctrine, which has +recently been urged several times, as a decisive argument, against the +unitary theory of the materialistic conception. And indeed, this belief +is so deeply rooted and this opinion so widespread, of history being +only intelligible as the juncture and the meeting of various factors, +that, in consequence, many of those who speak of social materialism, +whether they be its partisans or adversaries, believe that they save +themselves from embarrassment by affirming that this whole doctrine +consists in the fact that it attributes the preponderance or the +decisive action to the _economic factor_. + +It is very important to take account of the fashion in which this +belief, this opinion, or this semi-doctrine takes its rise, because +real and fruitful criticism consists principally in knowing and +understanding the motive of what we declare an error. It does not +suffice to reject an opinion by characterizing it as false doctrine. +Error always arises from some ill-understood side of an incomplete +experience, or from some subjective imperfection. It does not suffice to +reject the error; we must overcome it, explain it and outgrow it. + +Every historian, at the beginning of his work, performs, so to speak, an +act of elimination. First, he makes erasures, as it were, in a +continuous series of events; then he dispenses with numerous and varied +suppositions and precedents; more than this, he tears up and decomposes +a complicated tissue. Thus, to begin with, he must fix a point, a line, +a boundary, as he chooses; he must say, for example: I wish to relate +the beginning of the war between the Greeks and the Persians, or to +inquire how Louis XVI. was brought to convene the States General. The +narrator finds himself, in a word, confronted with a _complexus_ of +accomplished facts and of facts on the point of being produced, which in +their totality present a certain aspect. Upon the attitude which he +takes depends the form and the style of every narration, because to +compose it he must take his point of departure from things already +accomplished, in order to see henceforth how they have continued to +develop. + +Yet into this _complexus_ he must introduce a certain degree of +analysis, resolving it into groups and into aspects of facts, or into +concurrent elements, which afterwards appear at a certain moment as +independent categories. It is the state in a certain form and with +certain powers; it is the laws, which determine, by what they command or +what they prohibit, certain relations; it is the manners and customs +which reveal to us tendencies, needs, ways of thinking, of believing, of +imagining; altogether it is a multitude of men living and working +together, with a certain distribution of tasks and occupations; he +observes then the thoughts, the ideas, the inclinations, the passions, +the desires, the aspirations which arise and develop from this varied +mode of coexistence and from its frictions. Let a change be produced, +and it will show itself in one of the sides or one of the aspects of the +empirical _complexus_, or in all of these within a longer or a shorter +time; for example, the state extends its boundaries, or changes its +internal limits as regards society by increasing or diminishing its +powers and its attributes, or by changing the mode of action of one or +the other; or, again, the law modifies its dispositions, or it expresses +and affirms itself through new organs; or, again, finally, behind the +change of exterior and daily habits, we discover a change in the +sentiments, the thoughts and the inclinations of the men variously +distributed in the different social classes, who mingle, change, replace +each other, disappear or reappear. All this may be sufficiently +understood, in its exterior forms and outlines, through the usual +endowments of normal intelligence which is not yet aided, corrected or +completed by science strictly so-called. Assembling within precise +limits a conception of such facts is the true and proper object of +narration, which is so much the clearer, more vivid and more exact, as +it takes the form of a monograph; witness Thucydides in the +Peloponnesian war. + +Society already evolved in a certain fashion, society already arrived at +a certain degree of development, society already so complicated that it +conceals the economic substructure which supports all the rest, has not +revealed itself to the simple narrators, except in these visible facts, +in these most apparent results, and in these most significant symptoms +which are the political forms, the legal dispositions and the partisan +passions. The narrator, both because he lacks any theoretical doctrine +regarding the true sources of the historic movement, and by the very +attitude which he takes on the subject of the things which he unites +according to the appearances which they have come to assume, cannot +reduce them to unity, unless it be as a result of a single, immediate +intuition, and if he is an artist, this intuition takes on a color in +his mind and transforms itself there into dramatic action. His task is +finished if he succeeds in massing a certain number of facts and events +in certain limits and confines over which the observer may look as on a +clear perspective; in the same way, purely descriptive geography has +accomplished its task, if it sums up in a vivid and clear design a +concourse of physical causes which determine the immediate aspect of +the Gulf of Naples, for example, without going back to its genesis. + +It is in this need of graphic narration that arises the first intuitive, +palpable, and, I might almost say, æsthetic and artistic occasion for +all those abstractions and those generalizations, which are finally +summed up in the semi-doctrine of the so-called factors. + +Here are two notable men, the Gracchi, who wished to put an end to the +process of appropriation of the public land and to prevent the +agglomeration of the _latifundium_, which was diminishing or causing to +completely disappear the class of small proprietors, that is to say, of +the free men, who are the foundation and the condition of the democratic +life of the ancient city. What were the causes of their failure? Their +aim is clear, their spirit, their origin, their character, their heroism +are manifest. They have against them other men with other interests and +with other designs. The struggle appears to the mind at first merely as +a struggle of intentions and passions, which unfolds and comes to an end +by the aid of means which are permitted by the political form of the +state and by the use or abuse or the public powers. Here is the +situation: the city ruling in different manners over other cities or +over territories which have lost all character of autonomy; within this +city a very decided differentiation between rich and poor; and facing +the comparatively small group of the oppressors and the all-powerful, +stands the immense mass of the proletarians, who are on the point of +losing or who have already lost the consciousness and the political +strength of a body of citizens, the mass which therefore suffers itself +to be deceived and corrupted, and which will soon decay till it is but a +servile accessory to its aristocratic exploiters. There is the material +of the narrator, and he cannot take account of the fact otherwise than +in the immediate conditions of the fact itself. The complete whole is +directly seen and forms the stage on which the events unfold, but if the +narration is to have solidity, vividness and perspective there must be +points of departure and ways of interpretation. + +In this consists the first origin of those abstractions, which little by +little take away from the different parts of a given social _complexus_ +their quality of simple sides or aspects of a whole, and it is their +ensuing generalization which little by little leads to the doctrine of +factors. + + +These factors, to express it in another way, arise in the mind as a +sequence of the abstraction and generalization of the immediate aspects +of the apparent movement, and they have an equal value with that of all +other empirical concepts. Whatever be the domain of knowledge in which +they arise, they persist until they are reduced and eliminated by a new +experience, or until they are absorbed by a conception more general, +genetic, evolutionary or dialectic. Was it not necessary that in the +empirical analysis and in the immediate study of the causes and the +effects of certain definite phenomena, for example the phenomena of +heat, the mind should first stop at this presumption and this +persuasion, that it could and should attribute them to a subject, which +if it was never for any physicist a true and substantial entity, was +certainly considered as a definite and specific force, namely, heat. Now +we see that at a given moment, as a result of new experiences, this heat +is resolved in given conditions into a certain quantity of motion. Still +further, our thought is now on the way toward resolving all these +physical factors into the flux of one universal energy, in which the +hypotheses of the atoms, in the extent to which it is necessary, loses +all residue of metaphysical survival. + +Was it not inevitable, as a first step of knowledge in what concerns the +problem of life, to spend a considerable time in the separate study of +the organs and to reduce them to systems? Without this anatomy, which +seems too material and too gross, no progress in these studies would +have been possible; and nevertheless, above the unknown genesis and +co-ordination of such an analytic multiplicity, there were evolving, +uncertain and vague, the generic conceptions of life, soul, etc. In +these mental creations have long been seen that biological unity which +has finally found its object in the certain beginning of the cell and in +its _processus_ of immanent multiplication. + +More difficult certainly was the way which the thought had to traverse +to reconstruct the genesis of all the facts of psychic life, from the +most elementary successions up to the most complex derived products. Not +only for reasons of theoretical difficulties, but in consequence of +popular prejudices, the unity and continuity of psychic phenomena +appeared, up to the time of Herbart, as separated and divided into so +many factors, faculties of the soul. + +The interpretation of the historico-social _processus_ met the same +difficulties; it also was obliged to stop at first in the provisional +view of factors. And that being so, it is easy for us now to find again +the first origin of that opinion in the necessity that the historians +have of finding in the facts that they relate with more or less artistic +talent and in different professional views, certain points of immediate +orientation, such as may be offered by the study of the apparent +movement of human events. + + +But in this apparent movement, there are the elements of a more exact +view. These concurrent factors, which abstract thought conceives and +then isolates, have never been seen acting each for itself. On the +contrary, they act in such a manner that it gives birth to the concept +of reciprocal action. Moreover, these factors themselves arise at a +given moment, and it is not until later that they acquired that +physiognomy which they have in the particular narration. This State, it +is well known, arose at a given moment. As for every rule of law, it may +either be remembered or conjectured that it went into effect under such +or such circumstances. As for many customs, it may be remembered that +they were introduced at a given moment; and the simplest comparisons of +the facts in different times or different places would show how society, +as a whole, and in its character of being an aggregation of different +classes, had taken and took continuously various forms. + +The reciprocal action of the different factors, without which not even +the simplest narration would be possible, like the more or less exact +information upon the origins and the variations of the factors +themselves, called for research and thought more than did the +constructive narration of those great historians who are real artists. +And, in effect, the problems which arise spontaneously from the data of +history, combined with other theoretical elements, gave birth to the +different so-called practical disciplines, which in a more or less rapid +fashion and with varying success, have developed from the ancients up to +our days, from ethics to the philosophy of law, from politics to +sociology, from law to economics. + +Now with the rise and formation of so many disciplines, through the +inevitable division of labor, _points of view_ have been multiplied out +of all proportion. It is certain that for the first and immediate +analysis of the multiple aspects of the social _complexus_, a long labor +of partial abstraction was necessary: which has always inevitably +resulted in one-sided views. This can be shown, in a clearer and more +evident manner than for any other domain, in that of law and its +various generalizations, including the philosophy of law. By reason of +these abstractions, which are inevitable in particular and empirical +analysis, and by the effect of the division of labor, the different +sides and different manifestations of the social _complexus_ were, from +time to time, fixed and stratified in general conceptions and +categories. The works, the effects, the emanations, the effusions of +human activity,--law, economic forms, principles of conduct, +etc.,--were, so to speak, translated and transformed into laws, into +imperatives and into principles which remained placed above man himself. +And from time to time it has been necessary to discover anew this simple +truth: that the only permanent and sure fact, that is to say, the only +datum from which departs and to which returns every practical detail of +discipline, is men grouped in a determined social form by means of +determined connections. The different analytical disciplines, which +illustrate the facts that develop in history, have finally given rise to +the need of a common and general social science, which renders possible +the unification of the historic _processus_, and the materialistic +doctrine marks precisely the final term, the apex of this unification. + +But that has not been, nor ever will be, lost time which is expended in +the preliminary and lateral analysis of complex facts. To the methodical +division of labor we owe precise learning, that is to say, the mass of +knowledge passed into the sieve, systematized, without which social +history would always be wandering in a purely abstract domain, in +questions of form and terminology. The separate study of the +historico-social factors has served, like any other empirical study +which does not transcend the apparent movement of things, to improve the +instrument of observation and to permit us to find again in the facts +themselves, which have been artificially abstracted, the keystones which +bind them into the social _complexus_. The different disciplines which +are considered as isolated and independent in the hypotheses of the +concurrent factors in the formation of history, both by reason of the +degree of development which they have reached, the materials which they +have gathered, and the methods which they have elaborated, have to-day +become quite indispensable for us, if one desires to reconstruct any +portion out of past times. Where would our historic science be without +the one-sidedness of philology, which is the fundamental instrument of +all research, and where should we have found the guiding thread of a +history of juridical institutions, which returns again from itself to so +many other facts and to so many other combinations, without the +obstinate faith of the Romanists in the universal excellence of the +Roman law, which engendered with generalized law and with the philosophy +of law so many problems which serve as points of departure for +sociology? + + +It is thus, after all, that the historic factors, of which so many +speak, and which are mentioned in so many works, indicate something +which is much less than the truth, but much more than simple error, in +the ordinary sense of a blunder, of an illusion. They are the necessary +product of a knowledge which is in the course of development and +formation. They arise from the necessity of finding a point of departure +in the confused spectacle which human events present to him who wishes +to narrate them; and they serve thenceforth, so to speak, as a title, +category or index to that inevitable division of labor, by the extension +of which the historico-social material has, up to this time, been +theoretically elaborated. In this domain of knowledge, as well as in +that of the natural sciences, the unity of real principle and the unity +of formal treatment are never found at the first start, but only after a +long and troublous road. So that again from this point of view the +analogy affirmed by Engels between the discovery of historical +materialism and that of the conservation of energy appears to us +excellent. + +The provisional orientation, according to the convenient system of what +are called factors, may, under given circumstances, be useful also to us +who profess an altogether unitary principle of historic interpretation, +if we do not wish simply to rest in the domain of theory, but wish to +illustrate, through personal research, a definite period of history. As +in that case we must proceed to direct and detailed research, we must +first of all follow the groups of facts that seem pre-eminent, +independent, or detached in the aspects of immediate experience. We +should not imagine, in fact, that the unitary principle so well +established, at which we have arrived in the general conception of +history, may, like a talisman, act always and at first sight, as an +infallible method of resolving into simple elements the immense area and +the complicated gearing of society. The underlying economic structure, +which determines all the rest, is not a simple mechanism whence emerge, +as immediate, automatic and mechanical effects, institutions, laws, +customs, thoughts, sentiments, ideologies. From this substructure to all +the rest, the process of derivation and of mediation is very +complicated, often subtile, tortuous and not always legible. + +The social organization is, as we already know, constantly unstable, +although that does not seem evident to every one, except at the time +when the instability enters upon that acute period which is called a +revolution. This instability, with the constant struggles in the bosom +of that same organized society, excludes the possibility for men coming +to an agreement which might involve a new start at living an animal +life. It is the antagonisms which are the principal cause of progress +(Marx). But it is equally true, notwithstanding, that in this unstable +organization, in which is given to us the inevitable form of domination +and subjection, intelligence is always developed not only unequally, but +quite imperfectly, incongruously and partially. There has been and there +is still in society what we may call a hierarchy of intelligence, +sentiments and conceptions. To suppose that men, always and in all +cases, have had an approximately clear consciousness of their own +situation, and of what was the most rational thing to do, is to suppose +the improbable and, indeed, the unreal. + +Forms of law, political acts and attempts at social organization were, +and they still are, sometimes fortunate, sometimes mistaken, that is to +say, disproportionate and unsuitable. History is full of errors; and +this means that if all was necessary, granted the relative intelligence +of those who have to solve a difficulty or to find a solution for a +given problem, etc., if everything in it has a sufficient reason, yet +everything in it was not reasonable, in the sense which the optimists +give to this word. To state it more fully, the determined causes of all +changes, that is to say the modified economic conditions, have ended and +end by causing to be found, sometimes through tortuous ways, the +suitable forms of law, the appropriate political orders and the more or +less perfect means of social adjustment. But it must not be thought that +the instinctive wisdom of the reasoning animal has been manifested, or +is manifested, definitely and simply, in the complete and clear +understanding of all situations, and that we have left only the very +simple task of following the deductive road from the economic situation +to all the rest. Ignorance--which, in its turn, may be explained--is an +important reason for the manner in which history is made; and, to +ignorance we must add the brutishness which is never completely subdued +and all the passions, and all the injustices, and the various forms of +corruption, which were and are the necessary product of a society +organized in such a way, that the domination of man over man in it is +inevitable, and that from this domination falsehood, hypocrisy, +presumption and baseness were and are inseparable. We may, without being +utopians, but simply because we are critical communists, foresee, as we +do in fact foresee, the coming of a society which, developing from the +present society and from its very contrasts by the laws inherent in its +historic development, will end in an association without class +antagonisms; which will have for its consequence that regulated +production will eliminate from life the element of chance which, thus +far, has been revealed in history as a multiform cause of accidents and +incidents. But that is the future, and it is neither the present nor the +past. If we propose to ourselves, on the contrary, to penetrate into the +historic events which have developed up to our own times, by taking, as +we do, for a guiding thread the variations of the forms of the +underlying economic structure up to the simplest datum in the variations +of the tool of production, we must become fully conscious of the +difficulty of the problem which we are setting ourselves: because here +we have not merely to open our eyes and behold, but to make a supreme +effort of thought, with the aim of triumphing over the multiform +spectacle of immediate experience to reduce its elements into a genetic +series. That is why I said that, in particular investigations, we must +ourselves start from those groups of apparently isolated facts, and +from this heterogeneous mass, in a word, from that empirical study, +whence arose the belief in factors, which afterwards became a +semi-doctrine. + +It is useless to attempt at counterbalancing these essential +difficulties by the metaphorical hypothesis, often equivocal, and after +all of a purely analogical value, of the so-called social organism. It +was necessary too that the mind should pass through even this +hypothesis, which so shortly became phraseology pure and simple. It +indeed prepares the way for the comprehension of the historic movement +as springing from the laws immanent in society itself, and thereby +excludes the arbitrary, the transcendental and the irrational. But the +metaphor has no further application; and the particular, critical and +circumstantial research into historic facts is the sole source of that +concrete and positive knowledge which is necessary to the complete +development of economic materialism. + + +VII. + +Ideas do not fall from heaven, and nothing comes to us in a dream. The +change in the ways of thinking, lately produced by the historic doctrine +which we are here examining and commenting upon, takes place at first +slowly and afterwards with an increasing rapidity, precisely in that +period of human development, in which were realized the great +politico-economic revolutions, that is to say, in that epoch which, +considered in its political forms, is called liberal, but which, +considered in its basis, by reason of the domination of capital over the +proletarian mass, is the epoch of anarchical production. The change in +ideas, even to the creation of new methods of conception, has reflected +little by little the experience of a new life. This, in the revolutions +of the last two centuries, was little by little despoiled of the +mythical, religious and mystical envelopes in proportion as it acquired +the practical and precise consciousness of its immediate and direct +conditions. Human thought, also, which sums up this life and theorizes +upon it, has little by little been plundered of its theological and +metaphysical hypotheses to take refuge finally in this prosaic +assertion: in the interpretation of history we must limit ourselves to +the objective co-ordination of the determining conditions and of the +determined effects. The materialistic conception marks the culminating +point of this new tendency in the investigation of the historic-social +laws, in so far as it is not a particular case of a generic sociology, +or of a generic philosophy of the State, of law, and of history, but the +solution of all doubts and all uncertainties which accompany the other +forms of philosophizing upon human affairs, and the beginning of their +integral interpretation. + +It is thus an easy thing, especially in the way it has been done by +certain shallow critics, to find precursors for Marx and Engels, who +first defined this doctrine in its fundamental points. And when did it +ever occur to any of their disciples, even of the strictest school, to +represent these two thinkers as miracle-workers? What is more, if we +wish to go on a search after the premises of the logical creation of +Marx and Engels, it will not suffice to stop at those who are called the +precursors of socialism, Saint-Simon for example, and his predecessors, +or the philosophers, particularly Hegel, or the economists who had laid +bare the anatomy of the society which produces commodities; we must go +back to the very formation of modern society, and then at last declare +triumphantly that the theory is a plagiarism from the things that it +explains. + +The truth is that the real precursors of the new doctrine were the facts +of modern history, which has become so transparent and so explanatory of +itself since the accomplishment in England of the great industrial +revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, and since the great +social upheaval took place in France. These things, _mutatis mutandis_, +have subsequently been reproduced, in various combinations and in milder +forms, throughout the whole civilized world. And what else is our +thought at bottom if not the conscious and systematic complement of +experience, and what is this last if not the reflection and the mental +elaboration of the things and the processes which arise and unfold +either outside our volition, or through the work of our activity; and +what is genius but the individualized, derived and acute form of +thought, which arises through the suggestion of experience, in many men +of the same epoch, but which remains in most of them fragmentary, +incomplete, uncertain, wavering and partial? + + +Ideas do not fall from heaven; and what is more, like the other products +of human activity, they are formed in given circumstances, in the +precise fullness of time, through the action of definite needs, thanks +to the repeated attempts at their satisfaction, and by the discovery of +such and such other means of proof which are, as it were, the +instruments of their production and their elaboration. Even ideas +involve a basis of social conditions; they have their technique; thought +also is a form of work. To rob the one and the other, ideas and thought, +of the conditions and environment of their birth and their development, +is to disfigure their nature and their meaning. + +To show how the materialistic conception of history arises precisely in +given conditions, not as a personal and tentative opinion of two +writers, but as the new conquest of thought by the inevitable suggestion +of a new world which is in process of birth, that is to say the +proletarian revolution, that was the object of my first essay, "In +Memory of the Communist Manifesto." That is, to repeat, a new historic +situation found its complement in its appropriate mental instrument. + +To imagine now that this intellectual production might have been +realized at any time and at any place, would be to take absurdity for +the ruling principle in research. To transport ideas arbitrarily from +the basis and the historic conditions in which they arise to any other +basis whatever, is like taking the irrational for the basis of +reasoning. Why should one not fancy equally that the ancient city, in +which arose Greek art and science and Roman law, remaining all the while +an ancient democratic city, with slavery, might at the same time acquire +and develop all the conditions of modern technique? Why not believe that +the trade guild of the Middle Ages, remaining all the while on its +inflexible mould, should take its way to the conquest of the world +market without the conditions of unlimited competition, which actually +began by its destruction and negation? Why not imagine a fief which, +remaining a fief all the while, should become a factory producing +commodities exclusively? Why could not Michel de Lando have written the +Communist Manifesto? Why could we not also believe that the discoveries +of modern science could have proceeded from the brains of men of no +matter what other time and place, that is to say, before determined +conditions had given rise to determined needs, and before repeated and +accumulated experiences should have provided for the satisfaction of +these needs? + +Our doctrine assumes the broad, conscious and continuous development of +modern technique, and with it that society which produces commodities in +the antagonisms of competition, that society which as a first condition +and an indispensable means for its own perpetuation presupposes +capitalist accumulation in the form of private property; that society +which continually produces and reproduces proletarians, and which if it +is to perpetuate itself, must incessantly revolutionize its tools, and +with them the State and its legal gearings. This society, which, by the +very laws of its movement, has laid bare its own anatomy, produces by +its reaction the materialistic conception. Even as it has produced in +socialism its positive negation, so it has engendered in the new +historic doctrine its ideal negation. If history is the product, not +arbitrary, but necessary and normal, of men in so far as they are +developing, and if they are developing in so far as they are making +social experiments, and if they are experimenting in so far as they are +making improvements in their labor, which accumulate and preserve +products and results, the phase of development in which we live cannot +be the last and final phase, and the contrasts which are intimately +bound to it and inherent in it are the productive forces of new +conditions. And this is how the period of the great economic and +political revolutions of these last two centuries has ripened in the +mind these two concepts: the immanence and constancy of the _processus_ +in historic facts, and the materialist doctrine, which is at bottom the +objective theory of social revolutions. + +It is beyond doubt that to reascend through the centuries and +reconstruct in our thought the development of social ideas to the extent +that we find their documents in writers, is something always very +instructive, and serving especially to add to our critical knowledge of +our concepts as of our ways of thinking. Such a return of the mind over +its historic premises, when it does not lead us astray into the +empiricism of a boundless erudition, and does not lead us to set up +hastily vain analogies, serves without any doubt to give suppleness and +a persuasive force to the forms of our scientific activity. In the sum +of our science we find again, in fact and through the approximative +continuity of tradition, the excellence of all that has been found, +conceived and proved, not only in modern times but even in ancient +Greece, where first begins precisely and in a definite fashion for the +human race the orderly development of conscious, reflective and +methodical thought. It would be impossible to take a single step in +scientific research without employing means long ago found and tried, +such for example as logic and mathematics. To think otherwise would be +to assume that each generation must begin over again all the work done +since the childhood of humanity. + +But it was not given either to the ancient authors in the limited circle +of their urban republics, nor to the writers of the Renaissance, always +drifting between an imaginary return to antiquity and the need of +grasping intellectually the new world in process of birth, to arrive at +the precise analysis of the last elements from which society results, +and which the incomparable genius of Aristotle did not see, and did not +understand beyond the limits within which passes the life of the typical +citizen. + +The investigation of the social structure, considered in its manners of +origin and _processus_, became active and penetrating and took on +multiform aspects in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when +economics took shape and when under the different names of "Natural +Rights," "The Spirit of the Laws," or "The Social Contract," it was +attempted to resolve into causes, into factors and into logical and +psychological data, the multiform and often obscure spectacle of a life +in which was preparing the greatest revolution ever known. These +doctrines, whatever may have been the subjective intention and spirit of +the authors--as in the contrasting cases of the conservative Hobbes and +the proletarian Rousseau--were all revolutionary in their substance and +their effects. Under all of them is always found, as a stimulus and +motive, the material and moral needs of a new age, which, by reason of +historic conditions, were those of the bourgeoisie. Thus it was +necessary to wage war in the name of liberty upon tradition, the Church, +privileges, fixed classes, that is to say, the orders and conditions, +and consequently upon the State which was or appeared to be their +author, and then upon the special privileges of commerce, the arts, +labor and science. And man was studied in an abstract fashion, that is +to say, individuals taken separately, emancipated and delivered by a +logical abstraction from their historic connection and from every social +necessity: in the mind of many the concept of society was reduced to +atoms, and it even seemed natural to the greatest number to believe that +society is only the sum of the individuals composing it. The abstract +categories of individual psychology sufficed for the explanation of all +human facts; and this is how in all these systems, nothing is spoken of +but fear, self-love, egoism, voluntary obedience, tendency toward +happiness, the original goodness of man, the freedom of contract and of +the moral consciousness, and of the moral instinct or sense, and also +many other similar abstract and generic things, as if they were +sufficient to explain history, and to create a new history out of its +fragments. + +By the fact that all society was entering upon an acute crisis, its +horror at the antique, at what was superannuated, at what was +traditional and had been organized for centuries, and the presentiment +of a renovation of all human life, finally produced a total eclipse of +the ideas of historic necessity and social necessity, that is to say, of +those ideas which, barely indicated by the ancient philosophers, and so +developed in our century, had at this period of revolutionary +rationalism only rare representatives, like Vico, Montesquieu, and, in +part, Quesnay. In this historic situation, which gave birth to a +literature that was nimble, destructive and very popular, is found the +reason for what Louis Blanc with a certain emphasis has called +individualism. Later some have thought they saw in this word the +expression of a permanent fact in human nature, which especially might +serve as a decisive argument against socialism. + +A singular spectacle, and a singular contrast! Capital, however +produced, tended to overcome all previous forms of production, and, +breaking every bond and boundary, to become the direct or indirect +master of society, as, in fact, it has become in the greater part of the +world; hence it resulted, that apart from all forms of modern misery and +the new hierarchy in which we live, there was realized the most acute +antithesis of all history, that is to say, the existing anarchy of +production in the whole of society, and an iron despotism in the mode of +production in each workshop and each factory! And the thinkers, the +philosophers, the economists and the popularizers of the eighteenth +century saw nothing but liberty and equality! All reasoned in the same +way; all started from the same premises, which brought them to conclude +that liberty must be obtained from a government of pure administration, +or that they were democrats or even communists. The approaching reign of +liberty was before the eyes of all as a certain event, provided they +could suppress the bonds and fetters which forced ignorance and the +despotism of church and state had imposed upon men, good by nature. +These fetters did not appear to be conditions and boundaries within +which men were found by the laws of their development, and by the effect +of the antagonistic and thus uncertain and tortuous movement of history, +but simply obstacles from which the methodical use of reason was to +deliver us. In this idealism, which reached its culminating point in +certain heroes of the French Revolution, is the seed of a limitless +faith in the certain progress of the whole human race. For the first +time, the concept of humanity appeared in all its branches, unmingled +with religious ideas or hypotheses. The boldest of these idealists were +the extreme materialists, because, denying every religious fiction, they +assigned this earth as a certain domain to the necessity of happiness +provided that reason might open the way. + + +Never were ideas abused in so inhuman a fashion as between the close of +the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. The lesson +of things was very hard, the saddest disillusions arose and a radical +upheaval followed in the minds of men. Facts, in a word, proved to be +contrary to all expectations; and this at first produced a profound +discouragement among the disillusioned, which, notwithstanding, gave +rise to the desire and the need of new investigations. We know that +Saint Simon and Fourier, in whom operated precisely at the beginning of +the century, in the exclusive forms of the ideas of premature genius, +the reaction against the immediate results of the politico-economic +revolution, arose resolutely, the first against the jurists, and the +second against the economists. + +In fact, when once the obstacles to liberty, which had been +characteristic of other times, had been suppressed, new obstacles, +graver and more painful, had replaced them, and, as equal happiness for +all was not realized, society remained in its political form as it had +been before, an organization of inequalities. It must be, then, that +society is something autonomous, innate, a complex automaton of +relations and conditions, which defies the subjective good intentions of +each of the members who compose it, and which escapes from the illusions +and the designs of the idealists. It thus follows a course of its own +from which we may infer certain laws of process and development, but +does not suffer us to impose laws upon it. By this transformation in the +minds of men, the nineteenth century heralded itself as the century of +historic science and of sociology. + +The principle of development has, indeed, since then, invaded all +domains of thought. In this century, the grammar of history has been +discovered, and thus the key has been found to explore the genesis of +myths. The embryonic traces of pre-history have been sought out, and, +for the first time, the processes of political and legal forms have been +arranged into a series. The nineteenth century heralded itself as the +century of sociology in the person of Saint Simon, in whom, as happens +with the self-taught precursors of genius, we find confused together the +germs of so many contradictory tendencies. In this aspect the +materialistic conception is a result; but it is a result which is the +complement of the whole process of formation; and as a result and a +complement it is also the simplification of all historic science and of +all sociology, because it takes us back from things derived and from +complex conditions to elemental functions. And that is brought about by +the direct suggestion of new dynamic experience. + +The laws of economics, such as they are of themselves and their own +inherent force, have triumphed over all illusions and have shown +themselves to be the directing power of social life. The great +industrial revolution which was produced made it clear that social +classes, if they are not a fact of nature, are still less a consequence +of chance and of free will; they arise historically and socially in a +determined form of production. And who, in truth, has not seen the birth +under his eyes of new proletarians upon the economic ruin of so many +classes of small proprietors, small peasants and artisans; and who has +not been in a position to discover the method of this new creation of a +new social status, to which so many men were reduced and in which they +were necessarily obliged to live. Who has not been in a position to +discover that money, transformed into capital, had succeeded, in a few +years, in becoming master by the attraction which it exercises over the +labor of free men, in whom the necessity of selling themselves freely as +wage workers had been prepared long before by so many ingenious legal +processes and by violent or indirect expropriation? And who has not seen +the new cities rise around factories and create around their +circumference this desolating poverty, which is no longer the effect of +individual misfortune, but the condition and the source of wealth? And +in this new poverty were numerous women and children, arising for the +first time from an unknown existence to take their place on the page of +history as a sinister illustration of a society of equals. And who did +not feel--even if that had not been announced in the so-called doctrine +of the Rev. Malthus--that the number of guests which this mode of +economic organization can entertain, if it is sometimes insufficient for +him who, by reason of the favorable state of production, has need of +hands, is often also superabundant, and therefore finds no occupation +and becomes a source of danger? It becomes evident, also, that the rapid +and violent economic transformation which was accomplished openly in +England had succeeded there, because that country had been able to build +up for itself, as compared with the rest of Europe, a monopoly till then +unknown, and because to maintain this monopoly an unscrupulous policy +had been rendered necessary, and that permitted all, for one happy +moment, to translate into prose the ideological myth of the state, which +was to be the guardian and the preceptor of the people. + +This immediate perception of these consequences of the new life was the +origin of the pessimism, more or less romantic, of the _laudatores +temporis acti_ from De Maistre to Carlyle. The satire of liberalism +invaded minds and literature at the beginning of the nineteenth century. +Then begins that criticism of society, which is the first step in all +sociology. It was necessary before all else to overthrow the ideology, +which had accumulated and expressed itself in so many doctrines of the +Natural Right or the Social Contract. It was necessary to get into +contact with the facts which the rapid events of so intensive a +_processus_ imposed upon the attention in forms so new and startling. + +Here appears Owen, incomparable at all points of view, but especially +for the clearness which he displayed in the determination of the causes +of the new poverty, even though he was but a child in his quest of the +means for overcoming it. It was necessary to arrive at the objective +criticism of economics, which appeared for the first time, in one-sided +and reactionary forms, in Sismondi. In this period where the conditions +of a new historic science were ripening, arose so many different forms +of socialism, utopian, one-sided or completely extravagant, which never +reached the proletarians, either because these had no political +consciousness, or if they had any, it manifested itself in sudden +starts, as in the French conspiracies and riots from 1830 to 1848, or +they kept on the political ground of immediate reforms, as is the case +with the Chartists. And nevertheless all this socialism, however +Utopian, fantastic and ideological it may have been, was an immediate +and often salutary criticism of economics--a one-sided criticism, +indeed, which lacked the scientific complement of a general historical +conception. + +All these forms of criticism, partial, one-sided and incomplete had +their culmination in scientific socialism. This is no longer subjective +criticism applied to things but the discovery of the self-criticism +which is in the things themselves. The real criticism of society is +society, itself, which, by the antithetic conditions of the contrasts +upon which it rests, engenders from itself, within itself, the +contradiction, and finally triumphs over this by its passage into a new +form. The solution of the existing antitheses is the proletariat, which +the proletarians themselves know or do not know. Even as their misery +has become the condition of present society, so in their misery is the +justification of the new proletarian revolution. It is in this passage +from the criticism of subjective thought, which examines things outside +and imagines it can correct them at once, to the understanding of the +self-criticism exercised by society over itself in the immanence of its +own _processus_--it is in this only that the dialectic of history +consists, which Marx and Engels, in so far as they were materialists, +drew from the idealism of Hegel. But on the final reckoning it matters +little whether the literary men, who knew no other meaning for +dialectics than that of an artificial sophistry nor whether the doctors +and scholars who are never apt to go beyond the knowledge of particular +facts can ever account themselves for these hidden and complicated forms +of thought. + + +But the great economic transformation, which has furnished the materials +composing modern society, in which the empire of capitalism has arrived +at the limit of its complete development, would not have been so +immediately and so suggestively instructive, if it had not been +luminously illustrated by the bewildering and catastrophic movement of +the French Revolution. This put in evidence, like a tragedy on the +stage, all the antagonistic forces of modern society, because this +society has developed on the ruins of previous forms, and because, in so +short a time and with so hasty a march, it has traversed the phases of +its birth and its establishment. + +The revolution ensued from the obstacles which the bourgeoisie had to +overcome by violence, since it appeared from evidence that the passage +from the old forms to the new forms of production--or of property, if we +borrow the language of jurists--could not be realized by the quieter +ways of successive and gradual reforms. It brought in its train the +upheaval, the friction and the intermingling of all the old classes of +the Ancient Regime, and the rapid and bewildering formation at the same +time of new classes, in the very rapid but very intensive period of ten +years, which, compared with the ordinary history of other times and +other countries, seems to us like centuries. This rapid succession of +monumental events brought to light the most characteristic moments and +aspects of the new or modern society, and that so much the more clearly +since the militant bourgeoisie had already created for itself +intellectual means and organs which had given it with the theory of its +own work the reflex consciousness of its movement. + +The violent expropriation of the great part of the old property, that is +to say, of the property crystallized in fiefs, in royal and princely +domains and in mortmain, with the real and personal rights derived +therefrom, put at the disposal of the state, which by the necessity of +things had become an exceptional, terrible and all-powerful government, +an extraordinary mass of economic resources; thus, there were, on the +one side, the singular policy of the assignats which finally annulled +themselves, and on the other side, the formation of the new proprietors +who owed their fortune to the chances of gambling, to intrigue and to +speculation. And who again would have dared thereafter to swear upon the +ancient, sacred altar of property, when his recent and authentic title +rested in so evident a manner upon the knowledge of fortunate +circumstances? If it had ever passed through the head of so many +troublesome philosophers, beginning with the Sophists, that law is a +creation of man, useful and convenient, this heretical proposition might +seem thenceforth a simple and intuitive truth to the meanest of the +beggars in Paris. Had not the proletarians with all the common people +given the impulse to the revolution in general by the expected movements +of April, 1789, and did they not afterwards find themselves, as it were, +driven anew from the stage of history after the failure of the revolt of +Prairial in 1795? Had they not carried on their shoulders all the ardent +defenders of liberty and equality? Had they not held in their hands the +Paris Commune, which was, for a time, the impulsive organ of the +Assembly and of all France; had they not finally the bitter disillusion +of having created new masters for themselves with their own hands? The +bewildering consciousness of this disillusion constitutes the +psychological motive, rapid and immediate, of the conspiracy of Babeuf, +which, for that very reason, is a great fact in history, and bears in +itself all the elements of objective tragedy. + +The land which fief and mortmain had, as it were, bound to a body, to a +family, to a title, now, delivered from its bonds, had become a +commodity, to serve as a basis and instrument for the production of +merchandise; so docile a commodity, that it was put into circulation in +the form of morsels of paper. And around these symbols, multiplied to +such a degree over the things that they were to represent that they +finished by no longer having any value, Business came forth, a giant, +arising, from all sides, on the shoulders of those most wretched in +their poverty, and through all the devious ways of politics; it was +especially shameless in its way of taking part in war and its glorious +successes. Even the rapid progress of technique, hastened by the urgency +of circumstances, gave material and occasion to the prosperity of +business. + +The laws of bourgeois economics, which are those of individual +production in the antagonistic field of competition, revolted furiously, +through violence and ruse, against the idealistic efforts of a +revolutionary government which, strong in its certainty of saving its +country, and stronger still in its illusion of founding for eternity the +liberty of equals, believed it was possible to suppress gambling by the +guillotine, to eliminate Business by closing the Stock Exchange and to +assure existence to the common people by fixing the maximum of prices +for objects of prime necessity. Commodities, prices and Business +reasserted with violence their own liberty against those who wished to +preach to them and impose ethics upon them. + +Thermidor, whatever may have been the original intentions of the +Thermidorians, whether vile, cowardly, or misguided, was, in its hidden +causes as in its apparent effects, the triumph of Business over +democratic idealism. The constitution of 1793, which marks the extreme +limit that can be reached by the democratic ideal, was never put into +practice. The grave pressure of circumstances, the menace of the +foreigner, the different forms of internal rebellion, from the +Girondists to the Vendée, rendered necessary an exceptional government, +which was the Terror, born of fear. In proportion as dangers ceased, the +need of the terror ceased. But the democracy shattered itself against +the Business which was bringing into existence the property of new +proprietors. The constitution of the year III. consecrated the principle +of moderate liberalism, whence proceeds all the constitutionalism of the +European continent; but it was, before all else, the road leading to the +guaranty of property. To change the proprietors while preserving +property--that is the banner, the watchword, the ensign which defied +through the years from Aug. 10, 1792, the violent tumults as well as the +bold designs of those who attempted to found society upon virtue, +equality and Spartan abnegation. But the Directory was the footpath by +which the revolution arrived at the downfall of itself as an idealistic +effort; and with the Directory, which was open and professed corruption, +this banner became a reality; the proprietors are changed, but property +is saved. And, indeed, to raise upon so many ruins a stable edifice, +there was need of real force; and this was found in that strange +adventurer of incomparable genius, upon whom fortune had imperially +smiled, and he was the only one who possessed the virtue of putting an +end to this gigantic fable, because there was in him neither shadow nor +trace of moral scruples. + +In this furor of events strange things happened. The citizens armed for +the defense of their country, victorious beyond its frontiers over +surrounding Europe, into which with their conquest they carried the +revolution, transformed themselves into a soldiery to oppress the +liberty of their country. The peasants who, at a moment of imperious +suggestion, produced over the feudal estates the anarchy of 1789, now +having become soldiers, or small proprietors, or small farmers, and +having remained for a moment the advance sentinels of the revolution, +fell back into the silent and stolid calm of their traditional life, +which, without risks and without movements, served as a sure basis for +the so-called social order. The petty bourgeois of the cities, and the +former members of the guilds rapidly developed, in the camp of economic +struggle, into free traffickers in manual labor. The freedom of trade +required that every product become easily merchantable, and thus it +triumphed over the last obstacle, by enforcing the demand that labor +also become for it a free commodity. + +All changed at this moment. The state, which for centuries so many +million deluded ones had regarded as a sacred institution or a divine +mandate, allowed its sovereign to be beheaded by the prosaic means of a +technical machine, and thereby lost its sacred character. The state, +also, was becoming a technical appliance, which substituted bureaucracy +for hierarchy. And as the ancient titles no longer assured their +possessors the privilege of exercising diverse functions, this new state +could become the prey of all those who wished to seize upon it; it found +itself, in a word, put up at auction, with the provision that the +successful aspirants must be the solid guarantors of the property of the +new and the old proprietors. The new state, which had need of its +Eighteenth Brumaire to become an orderly bureaucracy, supported upon +victorious militarism, this state which completed the revolution in the +act which denied it, could not dispense with its scripture, and it found +it in the Civil Code, which is the golden book for a society which +produces and sells commodities. It is not in vain that generalized +jurisprudence had preserved and annotated for centuries, in the form of +a scientific discipline, this Roman law, which was, which is and ever +shall be, the typical and classical form of the law of every shopkeeping +society, until communism puts an end to the possibility of buying and +selling. + +The bourgeoisie, which, by the concurrence of so many singular +circumstances effected the revolution with the concurrence of so many +other classes and semi-classes which after a short lapse of time almost +all disappeared from the political stage, seemed, in the moments of the +most violent shocks, as if moved by motives inspired by an ideology, +which would have absolutely no relation with the effects which actually +supervene and perpetuated themselves. The meaning of that is that in the +heat of struggle the bewildering change of the economic substructure +appeared, as if it were, disguised by ideals and obscure by the +interlacings of so many intentions and designs, whence sprung so many +acts of cruelty and of unparalleled heroism, so many currents of +illusion and hard facts of disenchantment. Never had so powerful a faith +in the ideal of progress sprung from human breasts. To deliver the human +race from superstition, and even from religion, to make of each +individual a citizen, or of every private man a public man; those are +its beginnings:--and then on the line of this programme to sum up, in +the short activity of a few years, an evolution which appears to the +most idealistic of to-day as the work of several centuries to come--that +is the idealism of that time! And why should it revolt at the pedagogy +of the guillotine? + +That poetry, grand certainly, if not joyous, left behind it a prose that +was severe enough. And it was the prose of the proprietors who owned +their property to chance, it was that of the high finance and the newly +rich purveyors, marshals, prefects, journalists and mercenary men of +letters; it was the prose of the court of that strange man to whom the +qualities of military genius grafted upon the soul of a brigand, had, +without any doubt, conferred the right of treating as an ideologist +whoever did not admire the bare fact which, in life, as it was with him, +can be nothing else than the simple brutality of success. + +The French Revolution hastened the course of history in a large part of +Europe. To it attaches, on the Continent, all that we call liberalism +and modern democracy, except in the case of the false imitation of +England, and up to the establishment of Italian unity, which was and +will remain perhaps the last act of the revolutionary bourgeoisie. This +revolution was the most vivid and most instructive example of the +fashion in which a society transforms itself and how new economic +conditions develop, and in developing co-ordinate the members of society +into groups and classes. It was the palpable proof of the fashion in +which law is found, when it is necessary for the expression and the +defense of definite relations, and how the state is created, and how +disposal is made of its means, its forces and its organs. Here is seen +how ideas arise from the fields of social institutions, and how +characters, tendencies, sentiments, volitions, that is to say, in a +word, moral forces, are produced and develop into conditions governed by +circumstances. In a word, the data of social science were, so to speak, +prepared by society itself, and it is no wonder if the revolution, +which was preceded ideologically by the most acute form of rationalistic +doctrinairism ever known, ended finally by leaving behind it the +intellectual need of an anti-doctrinaire historical and sociological +science, like that which our own century has attempted to construct. + + +And here, both by what we have seen and by what is known generally, it +is useless to recall anew, how Owen forms one of the same group with +Saint Simon and Fourier, and to repeat through what ways scientific +socialism took its birth. The important thing is in these two points; +that historical materialism could not arise but from the theoretical +consciousness of socialism; and that it can henceforth explain its own +origin with its own principles, which is the greatest proof of its +maturity. + +Thus I have justified the phrase at the beginning of this chapter: ideas +do not descend from heaven. + + +VIII. + +The road traversed thus far has enabled us to take exact account of the +precise and relative value of the so-called doctrine of factors; we know +also how its adherents come to eliminate objectively those provisional +concepts, which were and are a simple expression of a thought not fully +arrived at maturity. + +And, nevertheless, it is necessary that we speak further of this +doctrine, in order to explain better and more in detail for what +reasons two of the so-called factors, the state and the law, have been +and are still considered as the principal and exclusive subject of +history. + +Historians have indeed for centuries placed in these forms of social +life the essence of development. Moreover, they have perceived this +development only in the modification of these forms. History has for +centuries been treated as a discipline relative to the +juridico-political movement and even to the political movement +principally. The substitution of society for politics is a recent thing, +and much more recent still is the reduction of society to the elements +of historical materialism. In other words, sociology is of quite recent +invention, and the reader, I hope, will have understood for himself that +I employ this term for the sake of brevity, to indicate in a general +manner the science of social functions and variations, and that I do not +hold to the specific sense given it by the Positivists. + +It is more satisfactory to say that, up to the beginning of this +century, the data bearing upon usages, customs, beliefs, etc., or even +upon the _natural conditions_, which serve as the foundation and +connection for social forms, were not mentioned in political histories +unless as objects of simple curiosity, or as accessories and complements +of the narration. + +All this cannot be a simple accident, and indeed is not. There is, then, +a double interest in taking account of the tardy appearance of social +history, both because our doctrine justifies yet again by this means +its reason for existence, and because we thus eliminate, in a definite +manner, the so-called factors. + + +If we make an exception of certain critical moments in which social +classes, by an extreme incapacity for adapting themselves to a condition +of relative equilibrium, enter into a crisis of more or less prolonged +anarchy, and if we make an exception of those catastrophes in which an +entire world disappears, as at the fall of the Roman Empire of the West, +or at the dissolution of the Califate, then it may be said that, ever +since there has been a written history, the state appears not only as +the creation of society but also as its support. The first step that +child-like thought had made in this order of considerations is in this +statement: That which governs is also that which creates. + +If, moreover, we make an exception of certain short periods of democracy +exercised with the vivid consciousness of popular sovereignty, as was +the case in a few Greek cities, especially at Athens, and in a few +Italian cities, and especially Florence (the former nevertheless were +composed of free men who were proprietors of slaves, and the latter of +privileged citizens who exploited foreigners and peasants) the society +organized into a state was always composed of a majority at the mercy of +the minority. And thus the majority of men has appeared in history as a +mass sustained, governed, guided, exploited and ill treated, or at least +as a variegated conglomeration of interests, which a few had to govern, +maintaining in equilibrium the divergences, either by pressure or by +compensation. + +Thence the necessity of an art of government, and as it is this before +all else which strikes those who are studying collective life, it was +natural that politics should appear as the author of the social order +and as the sign of the continuity in the succession of historic forms. +To say politics is to say activity, which, up to a certain point, is +exercised in a desired direction, until the moment at least when +calculations dash themselves against unknown or unexpected obstacles. By +taking the state as an imperfect experience would suggest for the author +of society, and politics for the author of the social order, it resulted +that the narrators or philosophical historians were driven to place the +essence of history in a succession of forms, institutions and political +ideas. + +Whence the state drew its origin, where the basis of its performance was +found, that mattered not, as that matters not in current reasoning. The +problems of the genetic order arose, as is known, rather late. The state +is and it finds its reason for existence in its present necessity; that +is so true that the imagination has not been able to adapt itself to the +idea that it has not always existed, and so it has prolonged its +conjectural existence back to the first origins of the human race. The +gods or demigods and heroes were its founders, in mythology at least, +just as in mediæval theology the Pope is the first and therefore the +divine and perpetual source of all authority. Even in our time, +inexperienced travelers and imbecile missionaries find the state where +there is, as among savages and barbarians, nothing but the gens, or the +tribe of gentes, or the alliance of gentes. + +Two things were necessary that these prejudices of the judgment should +be overcome. In the first place, it was necessary to recognize that the +functions of the state arise, increase, diminish, alter and follow each +other with the variations of certain social conditions. In the second +place, it was necessary to arrive at a comprehension of the fact that +the state exists and maintains itself in that it is organized for the +defense of certain definite interests, of one part of society against +all the rest of society itself, which must be made in such a way, in its +entirety, that the resistance of the subjects, of the ill treated and +the exploited, either is lost in multiple frictions, or is tempered by +the partial advantages, wretched though they be, to the oppressed +themselves. Politics, that art so miraculous and so admired, thus brings +us back to a very simple formula; to apply a force or a system of forces +to the total of resistances. + +The first step, and the most difficult, is taken when the state has been +reduced to the social conditions whence it draws its origin. But these +social conditions themselves have been subsequently defined by the +theory of classes, the genesis of which is in the manner of the +different occupations, granted the distribution of labor, that is to +say, granted the relations which co-ordinate and bind men together in a +definite form of production. + +Thenceforth the concept of the state has ceased to represent the direct +cause of the historic movement as the presumed author of society, +because it has been seen that in each of its forms and its variations +there is nothing else than the positive and forced organization of a +definite class rule, or of a definite compact between different classes. +And then by an ulterior consequence from these premises, it is finally +to be recognized that politics, as the art of acting in a desired +direction, is a comparatively small part of the general movement of +history, and that it is but a feeble part of the formation and the +development of the state itself, in which many things, that is to say, +many relations, arise and develop by a necessary compact, by a tacit +consent, or by violence endured and tolerated. The reign of the +unconscious, if by that we mean what is not decreed by free choice and +forethought, but what is determined and accomplished by a succession of +habits, customs, compacts, etc., has become very considerable in the +domain of the data which form the object of the historic sciences; and +politics, which has been taken as an explanation, has itself become +something to explain. + + +We know now in a positive way the reasons in consequence of which +history had necessarily to appear under a purely political form. + +But this does not mean that we ought to believe that the state is a +simple excrescence, a mere accessory of the social body, or of free +association, as so many Utopians and so many ultra-liberal thinkers of +anarchist tendencies have imagined. If society has thus far culminated +in the state, it is because it has had need of this complement of force +and authority, because it is at first composed of units which are +unequal by reason of economic differentiations. The state is something +very real, a system of forces which maintain equilibrium and impose it +through violence and repression. And to exist as a system of forces it +has been compelled to develop and to establish an economic power, +whether this latter rests upon robbery, the result of war, or whether it +consists in direct property in the domain, or whether it is constituted +little by little, thanks to the modern method of public taxes, which +takes on the constitutional appearance of a self-imposed system of +taxation. It is in this economic power, so considerable in modern times, +that its capacity for acting is founded. It results, that by reason of a +new division of labor, the functions of state give rise to special +orders and conditions, that is to say, to very particular classes, +without including the class of parasites. + +The state, which is and which must be an economic power that in its +defense of the ruling classes it may be furnished with means to repress, +to govern, to administer and to make war, creates in a direct or an +indirect manner an aggregation of new and particular interests, which +necessarily react upon society. Thus the state, by the fact that it has +arisen and that it maintains itself as a guaranty of the social +antitheses, which are a consequence of economic differentiations, +creates around itself a circle of persons interested directly in its +existence. + +Two consequences follow therefrom. As society is not a homogeneous +whole, but a body of specialized articulations, or, rather, a multiform +complexus of objects and interests, it happens that sometimes the +directors of the state seek to isolate themselves, and by this isolation +they oppose themselves to the whole of society, and then, in the second +place, it happens that organs and functions, created first for the +advantage of all, end by no longer serving any interest but those of +groups, and permit abuses of power on the part of coteries and camorras. +Thence arise aristocracies and hierarchies born from the use of the +public power, thence arise dynasties; in the light of simple logic these +formations appear wholly irrational. + +From the first beginnings of written history the state has increased or +diminished its powers, but it has never disappeared, because ever since +there have been, in the society of men unequal in consequence of +economic differentiation, reasons for maintaining and for defending, +through force or conquest, slavery, monopolies, or the predominance of +one form of production, with the domination of man over man. The state +has become, as it were, the field of an endless civil war, which is +developing always, even if it does not always show itself under the +startling form of Marius and Sylla, days of June and wars of Secession. +Within the state, the corruption of man by man has always flourished, +because, if there is no form of domination which does not meet +resistance, there are no forms of resistance which, in consequence of +the pressing needs of life, may not degenerate into a passive compact. + +For these reasons, historic events, seen on the surface of the ordinary +monotonous narrative, appear like the repetition of the same type, with +few variations, like a series of kaleidoscopic pictures. We need not be +astonished if the idealistic Herbart and the caustic or pessimistic +Schopenhauer arrived at this conclusion, that there is no history, in +the sense of any actual _processus_, which is to say in common language; +history is a tiresome song. + +When political history is once reduced to its quintessence, the state +remains illuminated in all its prose. Thenceforth there is no more trace +either of theological divination, nor of metaphysical +transubstantiation, so much in vogue among certain German +philosophers,--for whom the state is the Idea, the State Idea which is +realized in history, the state is the full realization of the +personality, and other stupidities of the same sort. The state is a real +organization of defense to guarantee and perpetuate a mode of +association, the foundation of which is a form of economic production, +or a compact and a transaction between forms. To sum up, the state +assumes, either a system of property, or a compact between several +systems of property. There is the foundation of all its art, the +exercise of which demands that the state itself became an economic +power, and that it also dispose of means and processes to make property +pass from the hands of some into the hands of others. When, by the +effect of an acute and violent change of the forms of production, it is +necessary to resort to an unusual and extraordinary readjustment of the +relations of property (for example, the abolition of mortmain and fiefs, +the abolition of commercial monopolies), then the old political form is +insufficient and revolution is necessary to create a new organ which may +operate the new economic transformation. + + +If we make an exception of the very ancient times which are unknown to +us, all history is developed in the contacts and the antagonisms of the +different tribes and communities, and thereafter of the different +nations and different states; that is to say, that the reasons for the +internal antitheses in the circle of each society are always more and +more complicated with frictions with the outside world. These two +reasons for antagonism condition each other reciprocally, but in ways +which are always varying. Often it is internal disturbance which urges a +community or a city to enter into external collisions; at other times it +is these collisions which alter the internal relations. + +The principal motive for the different relations between the different +communities has been from the beginnings, even as it is to-day, +_commerce_ in the broad sense of the word, that is to say, exchange, +whether it is a matter of giving up, as in the poor tribes, merely the +surplus in exchange for other things, or whether it is a matter, as +to-day, of production on a large scale, which is carried on with the +exclusive intention of selling so as to draw from a sum of money a +larger sum of money. This enormous mass of events exterior and +interior, which accumulate and pile upon each other in history, is such +a trouble to the historians who content themselves with exploring it and +summarizing it, that they become lost in the infinite attempts at +chronological groups and bird's-eye views. Whoever, on the contrary, +knows the internal development of the different social types in their +economic structure, and who considers political events as the particular +results of the forces acting in society, ends by triumphing over the +confusion born out of the multiplicity and the uncertainty of first +impressions, and instead of a chronological or synchronous series, or a +view of the whole, he can arrive at the concrete series of a real +_processus_. + + +In the presence of these realistic conditions all the ideologies founded +on the ethical mission of the state or on any such conception, fall to +the ground. The state is, so to speak, fitted into its place, and it +remains encased, as it were, in the surroundings of the social +development, in its capacity of a form resulting from other conditions, +and in its turn, by reason of its existence, reacting naturally upon the +rest. + +Here arises another question. + +Will this form ever be outgrown?--or can there be a society without a +state?--or can there be a society without classes?--and if we must be +more explicit, will there ever be a form of communist production with a +distribution of labor and of tasks such that there will be no room in it +for the development of inequalities, that source of domination of man +over man? + +It is in the affirmative answer to this question that _scientific +socialism_ consists, in so far as it affirms the coming of communistic +production, not as a postulate, nor as the aim of a free volition, but +as the result of the _processus_ immanent in history. + +As is well known, the premise of this prevision is in the actual +conditions of present capitalist production. This, socializing +continually the mode of production, has subjected living labor more and +more with its regulations to the objective conditions of the technical +process, it has day after day concentrated the property in the means of +production more and ever more into the hands of a few, who as +stockholders, or speculators, are always found to be more and more +removed from immediate labor, the direction of which passes over to +intelligence and science. With the increased consciousness of this +situation among the proletarians, whose instruction in solidarity comes +from the actual conditions of their employment, and with the decrease of +the capacity of the holders of capital to preserve the private direction +of productive labor, a moment will come, when in one fashion or another, +with the elimination in every form of private rent, interest, profit, +the production will pass over to the collectivist association, that is +to say, will become communistic. Thus will disappear all inequalities, +except those of sex, age, temperament and capacity, that is to say, all +those inequalities will cease which engender economic classes, or which +are engendered by them, and the disappearance of classes will put an end +to the possibility of the state, as domination of man over man. The +technical and pedagogical government of intelligence will form the only +organization of society. + +In this fashion, scientific socialism, in an ideal fashion at least, has +triumphed over the state; and its triumph has given it a complete +knowledge both of its mode of origin and the reasons for its natural +disappearance. It has understood it precisely because it does not rise +up against it in a one-sided and subjective fashion, as did more than +once, at different epochs, the cynics, the stoics, the epicureans of all +sorts, the religious sectaries, the visionary monks, the utopians and +finally, in our days, the anarchists of every stripe. Still more, +instead of rising up against it, scientific socialism is proposing to +show how the state continually rises up of itself against itself, by +creating in the means with which it cannot dispense, as, for example, a +colossal system of taxation, militarism, universal suffrage, the +development of education, etc., the conditions of its own ruin. The +society which has produced it will reabsorb it; that is to say, that +just as society in organizing a new form of production will eliminate +the antagonisms between capital and labor, so, with the disappearance of +proletarians and the conditions which render proletarians possible, will +disappear all dependence of men upon his fellow man in any form of +hierarchy, whatever it may be. + +The terms in which the genesis and the development of the state evolve, +from its initial point of appearance in a particular community, where +economic differentiation is beginning, up to the moment where this +disappearance begins to foreshadow itself, make it henceforth +intelligible to us. + +The State has been reduced till it is but a necessary complement of +certain definite economic forms, and thus the theory which would have +seen in it an independent factor in history is thenceforth forever +eliminated. + + +It is henceforth relatively easy to take account of the fashion in which +_law_ has been raised up to the rank of a decisive factor of society, +and thus of history, directly or indirectly. + +Before all else, we must remember in what fashion arose this philosophic +conception of justice generalized, which is the principal foundation of +the theory which maintains that history is dominated by the progress of +independent legislation. + + +With the precocious dissolution of the feudal society in certain parts +of Central and Northern Italy, and with the birth of the Communes, which +were republics of production grouped in trade guilds and merchant +guilds, the Roman law was forced into a place of honor. This law +flowered anew in the Universities. It entered into a struggle with the +barbaric laws and also in part with the canon law; it was then evidently +a form of thought which answered better to the needs of the +bourgeoisie, which was beginning to develop. + +In fact, considering the peculiarities of rival laws, which were either +customs of barbarous nations, or corporation privileges, or papal or +imperial concessions, this law appeared as the universality of _written +reason_. Had it not arrived at the point of regarding human personality +in its most abstract and human relations, since a certain Titius is +capable of becoming debtor and creditor, of selling and buying, of +making a cession, a donation, etc.? Roman law, although elaborated in +its last editing at the command of emperors by servile parasites, +appeared then, amid the decline of mediæval institutions, as a +revolutionary force, and as such it constituted a great step of +progress. This law, so universal that it gave the means of overthrowing +barbaric laws, was certainly a law which corresponded to human nature +considered under its generic relations; and by its opposition to private +laws and privileges it appeared as a natural law. + +We know, moreover, how this ideology of natural law arose. It acquired +its greatest distinction in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; +but it had long been prepared for by the jurisprudence which took for +its base the Roman law, whether it adopted it, revised it, or corrected +it. + +To the formation of the ideology of natural law another element +contributed, the Greek philosophy of later epochs. The Greeks, who were +the inventors of those definite arts of the mind which are sciences, +never, as is known, drew from their multiple local laws a discipline +corresponding to that which we call the science of law. On the contrary, +by the rapid progress of abstract research in the circle of their +democracies, they arrived very soon at a logical, rhetorical and +pedagogical discussion on the nature of justice, the state, the law, +penalty; and in their philosophy we may trace the rudimentary forms of +all later discussions. But it is not until later, that is to say, in the +Hellenistic epoch, when the limits of Greek life were sufficiently +enlarged to be mingled with those of the civilized world, that, in the +cosmopolitan environment which carried with it the need of searching in +each man for the generic man, the rationalism of justice arose--of +justice or of natural right in the form given it by the stoic +philosophy. The Greek rationalism which had already furnished a certain +formal element to the logical codification of Roman law reappeared in +the eighteenth century in the doctrine of natural right. + +That ideology, whose criticism has served as an arm and an instrument +for giving a juridical form to the economic organization of modern +society, has had, consequently, various sources. Yet, in fact, this +juridical ideology reflects, in the struggle for law and against law, +the revolutionary period of the bourgeois spirit. And, although it takes +its doctrinal point of departure in a return to the traditions of the +ancient philosophy, in the generalization of Roman jurisprudence, in +everything else, and in all its development, it is completely new and +modern. Roman law, although it was generalized by scholasticism and by +modern elaboration, still remains within itself a collection of special +cases which have not been deduced according to a preconceived system, +nor preordained by the systematic mind of the legislator. On the other +hand, the rationalism of the stoics, their contemporaries and their +disciples, was a work of pure contemplation, and it produced no +revolutionary movement around it. The ideology of natural law, which +finally took the name of philosophy of law, was, on the contrary, +systematic, it started always from general formulae, it was aggressive +and polemic, and still more, it was at war with orthodoxy, with +intolerance, with privilege, with constituted bodies; in fine, it fought +for the liberties which to-day constitute the formal conditions of +modern society. It is with this ideology, which was a method of +struggle, that arose for the first time, in a typical and decisive form, +that idea that there is a law which is one and the same with reason. The +laws against which the struggle was carried on appear as deviations, +backward steps, errors. + +From this faith in rational law arose the blind belief in the power of +the legislator, which grew into fanaticism at the critical moments of +the French Revolution. + +Thence the belief that society as a whole is to be submitted to one +single law, equal for all, systematic, logical, consistent. Thence the +conviction that a law guaranteeing to all a legal equality, that is to +say, the privilege of contracting, guaranteed also liberty to all. + +The triumph of true law assures the triumph of reason, and the society +which is regulated by a law equal for all is a perfect society! + +It is useless to say that there were illusions at the bottom of these +tendencies. We all know to what this universal liberation of men was to +lead. But what is most important here is the fact that these persuasions +arose from a conception of law, which considered it as detached from the +social causes which produced it. Likewise that reason, to which these +ideologies appealed, reduced itself to relieving labor, association, +traffic, commerce, political forms and conscience from all limits and +all obstacles which prevented free competition. I have already shown in +another chapter how the great Revolution of the eighteenth century may +serve us for experience. And if there is still some one to-day who +insists on speaking of a rational law which dominates history, of a law, +in short, which would be a _factor_, instead of being a simple _fact_ in +historic revolution, that means that he is living out of our time and +that he has not understood that our liberal and equalitarian +codification has already, in fact, marked the end and the term of that +whole school of natural law. + +By different ways we have arrived in this century at reducing law, +considered previously as a rational thing, into a material thing, and +thus into a thing corresponding to definite social conditions. + +In the first place, the interest in history gained in extent and in +depth, and it led students to recognize that to understand the origins +of law, it was not sufficient to stop at the data of pure reason, nor at +the study of Roman law alone. Barbaric laws, the usages and customs of +nations and societies, so despised by the rationalists, have been +theoretically restored to honor. That was the only way to arrive, +through the study of the most ancient forms, at an understanding of how +the most recent forms could have been successively produced. + +Codified Roman law is a very modern form; that personality, which it +assumes as a universal subject, is an elaboration of a very advanced +epoch, in which the cosmopolitanism of social relations was dominated by +a military-bureaucratic constitution. In this environment, in which a +written code of reason had been built up, there was no longer any trace +of spontaneity or popular life, there was no more democracy. This same +law, before arriving at this crystallization, had arisen and had +developed: and if we study it in its origins and in its developments, +and especially if, in this study, we employ the comparative method, we +recognize that, upon many points, it is analogous to the institutions of +inferior societies and nations. It therefore becomes evident that the +true science of law can be nothing less than the genetic history of the +law itself. + +But, while the European continent had created in the codification of +civil law the type and the textbook of practical bourgeois judgment, was +there not in England another self-originating form of law, which arose +and developed in a purely practical manner, from the very conditions of +the society which produced it without system, and without the action of +methodical rationalism having any part in it? The law, which actually +exists and is applied, is therefore a much simpler and much more modest +thing than was imagined by the enthusiasts who sing the praises of +written judgment, of the empire of reason. For their defense, it must +not be forgotten that they were the ideal precursors of the great +Revolution. For ideology it was necessary to substitute the history of +legal institutions. The philosophy of law ended with Hegel; and if +objectors mention the books published since, I reply that the works +published by professors are not always the index of the progress of +thought. The philosophy of law thus became the philosophical study of +the history of law. And it is not necessary to repeat here again how +historic philosophy ended in economic materialism and in what sense +critical communism is the reversal of Hegel. + + +This revolution, apparently a revolution in ideas alone, is merely an +intellectual reflection of the revolutions which have been produced in +practical life. + +In our century, legislating has become an epidemic; and reason enthroned +in legal ideology has been dethroned by parliaments. In these the +antitheses of class interests have taken on the form of parties; and the +parties struggle for or against definite laws; and all law appears as a +simple fact, or as a thing which it is useful or not useful to do. + +The proletariat has arisen; and wherever the struggle of the laborers +has taken definite form, the bourgeois codes have been convicted of +falsehood. Written judgment has shown itself powerless to save the +wage-workers from the oscillations of the market, to guarantee women and +children against the oppressive hours of the factories, or to find an +expedient to solve the problem of forced idleness. The partial +limitation of the hours of labor has, itself alone, been the subject and +the occasion of a gigantic struggle. The small and the large +bourgeoisie, agrarians and manufacturers, advocates of the poor and +defenders of accumulated wealth, monarchists and democrats, socialists +and reactionaries, have bitterly contended over extracting profit from +the action of the public authorities and over exploiting the +contingencies of politics and parliamentary intrigue, to find the +guaranty and the defense of certain definite interests in the +interpretation of existing law, or in the creation of a new law. This +new legislation has more than once been revised, and the strangest +oscillations may be observed in it; extending from the humanitarianism +which defends the poor and even animals, to the promulgation of martial +law. Justice has been stripped of its mask and has become merely a +profane thing. + +The consciousness of experience has come to us and has given us a +formula as precise as it is modest; every rule of law has been and is +the customary, authoritative, or judicial defense of a definite +interest; the reduction of law to economics is then almost immediately +accomplished. + +If the materialistic conception finally came to furnish to these +tendencies an explicit and systematic view, it is because its +orientation has been determined by the visual angle of the proletariat. +This last is the necessary product and the indispensable condition of a +society in which all the persons are, from an abstract point of view, +equal before the law, but where the material conditions of development +and the liberties of each are unequal. The proletarians are the forces +through which the accumulated means of production reproduce themselves +and reconstitute themselves into new wealth; but they themselves live +only by enrolling themselves under the authority of capital; and from +one day to the next they find themselves out of work, impoverished and +exiles. They are the army of social labor, but their chiefs are their +masters. They are the negation of justice in the empire of law, that is +to say, that they are the irrational element in the pretended domain of +reason. + +History then has not been a _processus_ for arriving at the empire of +reason in law; it has thus far been nothing else than a series of +changes in the form of subjection and servitude. History then consists +entirely in the struggle of interests, and law is but the authoritative +expression of the interests which have triumphed. + +These formulæ indeed do not permit us to explain, by the immediate +examination of the various interests which are at its base, every +particular law which has appeared in history. The facts of history are +very complicated; but these general formulæ suffice to indicate the +style and the method of research which has been substituted for legal +ideology. + + +IX. + +Here I must give certain formulæ. + +Granted the conditions of the development of labor and the instruments +appropriated to it, the economic structure of society, that is to say, +the form of production of the immediate means of life, determines, on an +artificial field, _in the first place and directly_, all the rest of the +practical activity of those associated, and the variation of this +activity in the _processus_ which we call history, that is to say:--the +formation, the frictions, the struggles and the erosions of the +classes;--the corresponding regulations relative to law and +morality;--and the reasons and modes of subordination and subjection of +men toward men and the corresponding exercise of dominion and authority, +in fine, that which gives birth to the State and that which constitutes +it. It determines, _in the second place_, the tendency and in great +part, _in an indirect fashion_, the objects of imagination and of +thought in the production of art, religion and science. + +The products of the _first_ and of the _second stage_, in consequence of +the interests which they create, the habits which they engender, the +persons whom they group and whose spirit and inclinations they specify, +tend to fix themselves and isolate themselves as independent entities; +and thence comes that empirical view, according to which different +independent factors, having an efficacy and a rhythmic movement of their +own, contribute to form the historic _processus_ and the social +configurations which successively result from it. It is the social +classes, in so far as they consist in differentiations of interests, +which unfold in definite ways and in forms of opposition (--whence come +the friction, the movement, the process and the progress--), which have +been the factors--if it was ever necessary to employ this +expression:--the real, proper and positive factors of history, from the +disappearance of primitive communism until to-day. + +The variations of the underlying (economic) structure of society which, +at first sight, show themselves intuitively in the agitation of the +passions, develop consciously in the struggles against law and for law, +and become realized in the shaking and in the ruin of a definite +political organization, have in reality their adequate expression only +in the change in the relations which exist between the different social +classes. And these relations change with the change of the relations +which previously existed between the productivity of labor and the +(legal-political) conditions of co-ordination of those who co-operate in +production. + +And finally, these connections between the productivity of labor and +the co-ordination of those who co-operate in it are changed with the +changing of the instruments--in the broad sense of the word--necessary +to production. The _processes_ and the progress of technique, as they +are the index, are also the condition of all the other _processus_ and +of all progress. + +Society is for us a fact, which we cannot solve, unless it be by that +analysis which reduces the complex forms to the simpler forms, the +modern forms to the older forms: but that is to remain always, +nevertheless, in a society which exists. History is but the history of +society--that is to say, the history of the variations of human +co-operation, from the primitive horde down to the modern State, from +the immediate struggle against nature, by the means of a few very simple +tools, down to the present economic structure, which reduces itself to +these two poles; accumulated labor (capital) and living labor +(proletarians). To resolve the social _complexus_ into simple +individuals, and to reconstruct it afterwards by the acts of free and +voluntary thought; to construct, in fine, society with its reasons, is +to misunderstand the objective nature and the immanence of the historic +_processus_. + +Revolutions, in the broadest sense of the word, and in the specific +sense of the destruction of a political organization, mark the real and +proper dates of historic epochs. Seen from afar, in their elements, in +their preparation and their effects, at long range, they may appear to +us as moments of a constant evolution, with minute variations; but +considered in themselves, they are definite and precise catastrophes, +and it is only as catastrophes that they are historic events. + + +X. + +Ethics, art, religion, science, are they then but products of economic +conditions?--expositions of the categories of these very +conditions?--effluvia, ornaments, emanations and mirages of material +interests? + +Affirmations of this sort, announced with this nudity and crudity, have +already for some time passed from mouth to mouth, and they are a +convenient assistance to the adversaries of materialism, who use them as +a bugbear. The slothful, whose number is great even among the +intellectuals, willingly fit themselves to this clumsy acceptance of +such declarations. What a delight for all careless persons to possess, +once for all, summed up in a few propositions, the whole of knowledge, +and to be able with one single key to penetrate all the secrets of life! +All the problems of ethics, æsthetics, philology, critical history and +philosophy reduced to one single problem and freed thus from all +difficulties! + +In this way the simpletons might reduce the whole of history to +commercial arithmetic; and finally a new and authentic interpretation of +Dante might give us the Divine Comedy illustrated with the process of +manufacturing pieces of cloth which the wily Florentine merchants sold +for their greater profit! + +The truth is that the declarations which involve problems are converted +very easily into vulgar paradoxes in the heads of those who are not +accustomed to triumph over the difficulties of thought by the methodical +use of appropriate means. I shall speak here, in general terms, of these +problems, but, as it were, by aphorisms; and certainly I do not propose +to write an encyclopedia in this short essay. + + +And first of all, ethics. + +I do not mean systems and catechisms, religious or philosophic. Both of +these have been and are above the ordinary and profane course of human +events in most cases, as Utopias are above things. Neither do I speak of +those formal analyses of ethical relations, which have been elaborated +from the Sophists down to Herbart. This is science and not life. And it +is formal science, like logic, geometry and grammar. The one who latest +and with so much profundity defined these ethical relations (Herbart), +knew well that ideas, that is to say, the formal points of view of the +moral judgment, are in themselves powerless. Therefore he put into the +circumstances of life and into the pedagogic formation of character the +reality of ethics. He might have been taken for Owen if he had not been +a retrograde. + +I am speaking of that ethics which exists prosaically and in an +empirical and current fashion, in the inclinations, the habits, the +customs, the counsels, the judgments and the appreciations of ordinary +mortals. I am speaking of that ethics which as suggestion, as impulse +and as bridle, appears in different degrees of development, and more or +less unmistakably, although in a fragmentary fashion, among all men; by +the very fact of association because each occupies a definite position +in the association, they naturally and necessarily reflect upon their +own works and the works of others, and they conceive obligations and +appreciations and all the first elements of general precepts. + +There is the _factum_; and what is most important is that this _factum_ +appears to us varied and multiple in the different conditions of life, +and variable through history. This _factum_ is the _datum_ of research. +Facts are neither true nor false, as Aristotle already knew. Systems, on +the contrary, theologic or rational, may be true or false because they +aim to comprehend, explain and complete the fact, by bringing that fact +to another fact, or integrating it with another. + +Some points of preliminary theory are henceforth settled, in all that +concerns the interpretation of this _factum_. + +The will does not choose of itself, as was supposed by the inventors of +_free will_, that product of the impotency of the psychological analysis +not yet arrived at maturity. Volitions, in so far as they are facts of +consciousness, are particular expressions of the psychic mechanism. +They are a result, first of necessities, and then, of all that precedes +them up to the very elementary organic impulse. + +Ethics does not place itself nor does it engender itself. There is no +such universal foundation of the ethical relations varied and variable, +as that spiritual entity which has been called the _moral conscience_, +one and unique for all men. This abstract entity has been eliminated by +criticism like all other such entities, that is to say, like all the +faculties of the soul. What a beautiful explanation of the fact, in +truth, to assume the generalization of the fact itself as a means of +explanation. People reasoned thus: the sensations, the perceptions, the +intuitions at a certain moment are found imagined, that is to say, +changed in their form, therefore the imagination has transformed them. +To this class of inventions belongs the _moral conscience_, which was +accepted as a postulate of the ethical estimates, which are always +conditioned. The moral conscience which really exists is an empirical +fact; it is an index or a summary of the relative ethical formation of +each individual. If there can be in it material for science, this cannot +explain the ethical relations by means of the conscience, but the very +thing it needs is to understand how that conscience is formed. + +If volitions are derived, and if morality results from the conditions of +life, ethics, in its completeness, is but a formation; its problem is +altogether pedagogic. + +There is a pedagogy which I will call individualistic and subjective, +which, granted the generic conditions of human perfectibility, +constructs abstract rules by which men, who are still in a period of +formation, may be led to be strong, courageous, truthful, just, +benevolent, and so on through the entire extent of the cardinal or +secondary virtues. But again, can subjective pedagogy construct of +itself a social background upon which all these beautiful things ought +to be realized? If it constructs it, it simply elaborates a Utopia. + +And, in truth, the human race, in the rigid course of its development, +never had time nor occasion to go to the school of Plato or of Owen, of +Pestalozzi or Herbart. It has done as it has been forced to do. +Considered in an abstract manner, all men can be educated and all are +perfectible; as a matter of fact, they have always been perfected and +instructed as much as and in the measure that they could, granted the +conditions of life in which they were obliged to develop. It is here +precisely that the word environment is not a metaphor, and that the use +of the word compact is not metaphorical. Real morality always presents +itself as something conditioned and limited, which the imagination has +sought to outgrow, by constructing Utopias, and by creating a +supernatural pedagogue, or a miraculous redemption. + +Why should the slave have had the ways of seeing and the passions and +the sentiments of the master whom he feared? How could the peasant +relieve himself of his invincible superstitions, to which he was +condemned by his immediate dependence upon nature and his mediate +dependence upon a social mechanism unknown to him, and by his blind +faith in the priest, who stands to him as a magician and sorcerer. In +what fashion could the modern proletarian of the great industrial +cities, exposed continuously to the alternatives of misery or +subjection, how could he realize that way of living, regulated and +monotonous, which was the one suited to the members of the trade guilds, +whose existence seemed imbedded in a providential plan? From what +intuitive elements of experience could the hog merchant of Chicago, who +furnishes Europe with so many products at a cheap rate, extract the +conditions of serenity and intellectual elevation which gave to the +Athenian the qualities of the noble and good man, and to the Roman +citizen, the dignity of heroism? What power of docile Christian +persuasion will extract from the souls of the modern proletarians their +natural reasons of hate against their determined or undetermined +oppressors? If they wish that justice be done, they must appeal to +violence; and before the love of one's neighbor as a universal law can +appear possible to them, they must imagine a life very different from +the present life, which makes a necessity of hatred. In this society of +differentiations, hatred, pride, hypocrisy, falsehood, baseness, +injustice and all the catechism of the cardinal vices and their +accessories make a sad appendage to the morality, equal for all, upon +which they constitute the satire. + +Ethics then reduces itself for us to the historical study of the +subjective and objective conditions of how morality develops or meets +obstacles to its development. In this only, that is to say, within these +limits, we can recognize some value in the affirmation that morality +corresponds to the social situations, and, _in the last analysis_, to +the economic conditions. Only an idiot could believe that the individual +morality of each one is proportionate to his individual economic +situation. That is not only empirically false, but intrinsically +irrational. Granted the natural elasticity of the psychic mechanism, and +also the fact that no one lives so shut up in his own class that he does +not undergo the influence of other classes, of the common environment +and of the interlacing traditions, it is never possible to reduce the +development of each individual to the abstract and generic type of his +class and his social status. We are dealing there with the phenomena of +the mass, of those phenomena which form, or should form, the objects of +_moral statistics_: the discipline which has thus far remained +incomplete, because it has taken for the objects of its combinations +groups which it creates of itself by the addition of numbers of cases +(for example, adulteries, thefts, homicides) and not the groups which, +as classes, conditions, or situations exist really, that is to say, +socially. + +To recommend morality to men while assuming or ignoring their +conditions, this was hitherto the object and the class of argument of +all the catechists. To recognize that these are given by the social +environment, that is what the communists oppose to the utopia and the +hypocrisy of the preachers of morality. And as they see in morality not +a privilege of the elect, nor a gift of nature, but a result of +experience and education, they admit human perfectibility through +reasons and arguments which are, in my opinion, more moral and more +ideal than those which have been given by the ideologists. + + +In other words, man develops, or produces himself, not as an entity +generically provided with certain attributes, which repeat themselves, +or develop themselves, according to a rational rhythm, but he produces +and develops himself as at once cause and effect, as author and +consequence, of certain definite conditions, in which are engendered +also definite currents of ideas, of opinions, of beliefs, of +imaginations, of expectations, of maxims. Thence arise ideologies of +every sort, as also the generalization of morality in catechisms, in +canons and in systems. We must not be surprised if these ideologies, +once arisen, are afterwards cultivated alone by themselves, if they +finally appear, as it were, detached from the living field whence they +took their birth, nor if they hold themselves above man as imperative +rules and models. + +The priests and the doctrinaires of every sort have given themselves +for centuries to this labor of abstraction, and have forced themselves +to maintain the resulting illusions. Now that the positive sources of +all ideologies have been found in the mechanism of life itself, we must +explain realistically their mode of generation. And as that is true of +all ideologies, it is true also and, in particular of those which +consist in projecting ethical estimates beyond their natural and direct +limits, making of them anticipations of divine announcements or +presuppositions of universal suggestions of conscience. + +Therein lies the object of the special historic problems. We cannot +always find the tie which unites certain ethical ideas to practical +definite conditions. The concrete social psychology of past times often +remains impenetrable to us. Often the commonest things remain for us +unintelligible, for example, the animals considered as unclean, or the +origin for the repugnance at marriage between persons of remote degrees +of relationship. A prudent course of study leads us to conclude that the +motives of many details will remain always concealed. Ignorance, +superstition, singular illusions, symbolisms, these with many others are +causes of that unconscious element, often found in customs, which now +constitutes for us the unknown and the unknowable. + +The principal cause of all difficulty is precisely in the tardy +appearance of what we call reason, so that the traces of the proximate +motives of ideas have been lost or have remained enveloped in the ideas +themselves. + + +On the subject of science we can be much more brief. + +For a long time history has been made in an artless fashion. Granted and +admitted that the different sciences have their statements in manuals +and encyclopedias, it seemed sufficient to work out chronologically the +appearance of the different formulas, resolving the total of the +systematic summary into the elements which have successively served to +compose it. The general presupposition was simple enough; underneath +this chronology is the rational conception which develops and +progresses. + +This method, if so it could be called, had within itself a certain +disadvantage; it permitted us at best to understand how, one stage of +science being granted, another stage of science may be derived from it +by reason, but it did not permit us to discern by what condition of +facts men were driven to discover science for the first time, that is to +say, to reduce considered experience into a new and definite form. The +question was, then, to find why there is an actual history of science, +to find the origin of the scientific necessity, and what unites in a +genetic fashion that necessity to our necessities in the continuity of +the social _processus_. + +The great progress of modern technique, which really constitutes the +intellectual substance of the bourgeois epoch, has worked, among other +miracles, this one also, of revealing to us for the first time the +practical origin of the _scientific attitude_. (We can never forget the +Florentine Academy, which produced this phrase, when Italy was in the +twilight of its past grandeur and when modern society was in the dawn of +the great industry.) Henceforth we are in a position to take up the +guiding thread of what, by abstraction, is called the scientific spirit; +and no one is any longer astonished at finding that everything in +scientific discoveries has come about, as was the case in other +primitive times, when the clumsy elementary geometry of the Egyptians +arose from the necessity of measuring the fields exposed to the annual +inundations of the Nile, and when the periodicity of these inundations +suggested, in Egypt and in Babylon, the discovery of the rudiments of +the astronomical movements. + +It is certainly true that when science is once created and partially +ripened, as had already happened in the Hellenic period, the work of +abstraction, of deduction and of combination continues among scientists +in such a way that it possibly obliterates the consciousness of the +social causes of the first production of science itself. But if we +examine in their main features the epochs of the development of science, +and if we confront the periods which the ideologists would characterize +as periods of progress and of retrogression of intelligence, we perceive +clearly the social reason for the impulses, sometimes increasing, +sometimes decreasing, toward scientific activity. What need had the +feudal society of Western Europe for this ancient science, which the +Byzantines preserved, at least materially, while the Arabs, free +agriculturists, industrious artisans, or skillful merchants, had +succeeded in increasing it a little. What is the Renaissance, if not the +joining of the initiatory movement of the bourgeoisie to the traditions +of ancient learning, which had become usable? What is all the +accelerated movement of scientific knowledge, since the seventeenth +century, but the series of acts accomplished by intelligence, refined by +experience, to assure human labor, in the forms of an improved +technique, the dominion over natural forces and conditions? Thence +arises the war against darkness, superstition, the Church, religion; +thence arise naturalism, atheism, materialism; thence the installation +of the domain of reason. The bourgeois epoch is the epoch of minds in +full play. (Vico.) It is worth remembering that this government of the +Directory, which was the prototype and the compendium of all liberal +corruption, was the first to introduce in the University and at the +Academy in a formal and solemn fashion the science of free inquiry with +Lamark! This science, which the bourgeois epoch has, through its +inherent conditions, stimulated and made to grow like a giant, is the +only heritage of past centuries which communism accepts and adopts +without reserve. + +It would not be useful to stop here for the discussion of the so-called +antithesis between science and philosophy. If we accept those fashions +of philosophizing which are confounded with mysticism and theology, +philosophy never means a science or doctrine separate from its +appropriate and particular things, but it is simply a degree, a form, a +stage of thought with relation to the things which enter into the domain +of experience. Philosophy is, then, either a generic anticipation of the +problems which science has still to elaborate specifically, or a summary +and a conceptual elaboration of the results at which the sciences have +already arrived. As for those who, that they may not appear behind the +times, talk now of scientific philosophy, if we do not wish to stop over +the humorous element that there is in that expression, it will suffice +to say that they are simply fools. + + +I said some pages back, in my statement of formulas, that the economic +structure determines in the second place the direction, and in great +part and indirectly, the objects of imagination and of thought in the +production of art, of religion and of science. To express this +otherwise, or to go further, would be to put one's self voluntarily on +the road toward the absurd. + +Before all else, in this formula, we are opposing the fantastic opinion, +that art, religion and science are subjective developments and +historical developments of a pretended artistic, religious or scientific +spirit, which would go on manifesting itself successively through its +own rhythm of evolution, favored or retarded on this side or that by +material conditions. By this formula, it is desired to assert, moreover, +the necessary connection, through which every fact of art and of +religion is the exponent, sentimental, fantastic and thus derived, of +definite social conditions. If I say _in the second place_, it is to +distinguish these products from the facts of legal-political order which +are a true and proper projection of economic conditions. And if I say +_in great part and indirectly the objects_ of these activities, it is to +indicate two things: that in artistic or religious production the +mediation from the conditions to the products is very complicated, and +again that men, while living in society, do not thereby cease to live +alone by themselves in nature, and to receive from it occasion and +material for curiosity and for imagination. + +After all, this is all reduced to a more general formula; man does not +make several histories at the same time, but all these alleged different +histories (art, religion, etc.) make up one alone. And it is not +possible to take account of that clearly except at the characteristic +and significant moment of the production of new things, that is to say +in the periods which I will call revolutionary. Later, the acceptance of +the things that have been produced, and the traditional repetition of a +definite type, obliterated the sense of the origins of things. + +Try, if you will, to detach the ideology of the _fables_ which are at +the foundation of the Homeric poems, from that moment of historic +evolution where we find the dawn of Aryan civilization in the basin of +the Mediterranean, that is to say, from that phase of the higher +barbarism in which arises, in Greece and elsewhere, the epic. Or try to +imagine the birth and the development of Christianity elsewhere than in +Roman cosmopolitanism, and otherwise than by the work of those +proletarians, those slaves, those unfortunates, those desperate ones, +who had need of the redemption of the Apocalypse and of the promise of +the Kingdom of God. Find, if you will, the ground for supposing that in +the beautiful environment of the Renaissance the romanticism should +begin to appear, which scarcely appeared in the decadent Torquato Tasso; +or that one might attribute to Richardson or to Diderot the novels of +Balzac, in whom appears, as a contemporary of the first generation of +socialism and sociology, the _psychology of classes_. Far back, farther, +farther, at the first origins of the mythical conceptions, it is evident +that Zeus did not assume the characters of father of gods and men until +the power of the _patria potestas_ was already established, and that +series of _processus_ began which culminated in the State. Zeus thus +ceases to be what was at first the simple _divus_ (brilliant) or the +Thunderer. And it is to be observed that at an opposite point of +historic evolution, a great number of thinkers of the past century +reduced to a single abstract God, who is a simple regent of the world, +all that variegated image of the unknown and transcendental type, +developed in so great a wealth of mythological, Christian or pagan +creations. Man felt himself more at home in nature, thanks to +experience, but felt himself better able to penetrate the gearing of +society, the knowledge of which he possessed in part. The miraculous +dissolved in his mind, to the point where materialism and criticism +could afterwards eliminate that poor remnant of transcendentalism, +without taking up war against the gods. + +There is certainly a history of ideas; but this does not consist in the +vicious circle of ideas that explain themselves. It lies in rising from +things to the idea. There is a problem; still more, there is a multitude +of problems, so varied, multiple, multiform and mingled are the +projections which men have made of themselves and of their +economic-social conditions, and thus of their hopes and their fears, of +their desires and their deceptions, in their artistic and religious +concepts. The method is found, but the particular execution is not easy. +We must above all guard against the scholastic temptation of arriving by +deduction at the products of historic activity which are displayed in +art and in religion. We must hope that philosophers like Krug, who +explained the pen with which he wrote by a process of dialectic +deduction, have remained forever buried in the notes of Hegel's logic. + + +Here I must state certain difficulties. + +Before attempting to reduce secondary products (for example, art and +religion) to the social conditions which they idealize, one must first +acquire a long experience of specified social psychology, in which the +transformation is realized. Therein consists the justification of that +sum of relations, which is designated in another form of language, under +the name of Egyptian _world_, Greek _consciousness_, _spirit_ of the +Renaissance, _dominant ideas_, _psychology of nations_, of society or of +classes. When these relations are established, and men have become +accustomed to certain conceptions and certain modes of belief or of +imagination, the ideas transmitted by tradition tend to become +crystallized. Thus they appear as a force which resists new formations; +and as this resistance shows itself through the spoken word, through +writing, through intolerance, through polemics, through persecution, so +the struggle between the new and the old social conditions takes on the +form of a struggle between ideas. + +In the second place, through the centuries of history properly +so-called, and as a consequence of the heredity of the pre-history of +savagery and of the conditions of subjection and those of inferiority in +which the majority of men were and are placed, resulted acquiescence in +what is traditional, and the ancient tendencies are perpetuated as +obstinate survivals. + +In the third place, as I have said, men living socially, do not cease to +live also in nature. They are not, of course, bound to nature as animals +are, because they live on an artificial groundwork. Every one +understands, moreover, that a house is not a cave, that agriculture is +not natural pasturage, and that pharmacy is not exorcism. But nature is +always the immediate subsoil of the artificial groundwork, and it is the +environment which contains us. The industrial arts have put between us +social animals, and nature, certain intermediaries which modify, set +aside or remove the natural influences; but it has not for all that +destroyed the efficacy of these, and we continually feel their effects. +And even as we are born men or women, as we die almost always in spite +of ourselves, and as we are dominated by the instinct of generation, so +we also bear in our temperament certain special conditions which +education in the broad sense of the word, or social compact, can modify, +it is true, within certain limits, but which they can never suppress. +These conditions of temperament, repeated in infinite cases throughout +the centuries, constitute what is called the race. For all these +reasons, our dependence upon nature, although it has diminished since +prehistoric times, continues in our social life, just as the food which +the sight of nature affords to the curiosity and the imagination +continues also in our social life. Now these effects of nature, and the +sentiments immediate or mediate which result from it, although they have +been perceived, since history began, only on the visual angle which is +given us by the conditions of society, never fail to reflect themselves +in the products of art and of religion, and that adds to the +difficulties of a realistic and complete interpretation of both. + + +XI. + +In employing this doctrine as a new principle of research, as a precise +means of defining our position, and as a visual angle, will it really be +possible finally to arrive at a new narrative history? It is not +possible to make an affirmative answer in general to this generic +demand. Because, in fact, if we assume that the critical communist, the +sociologist of economic materialism, or as he is commonly called, the +Marxist, has the necessary critical preparation, the habit of historical +study, and also the gift required for an orderly and vivacious +narration, there is no reason for affirming that he cannot write +history, as heretofore the partisans of all other political schools have +written it. + +We have the example of Marx, and there is an argument from fact which +admits of no reply. But he was the first and the principal author of the +decisive concepts of this doctrine, reducing it at once into an +instrument of political orientation, in his character of an incomparable +publicist, during the revolutionary period of 1848 to 1850. And then he +applied it with the greatest precision in that essay entitled Eighteenth +Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, of which it may be said today, at a great +distance, and after so many publications, if we except certain +infinitesimal details and certain false forecasts, that it would be +possible to make neither corrections nor important complements. I will +not repeat, since I am not writing a bibliography, the list of the +different writings of Marx or Engels--of which we have so many attempts +from the Peasants' War (1850) down to his posthumous writings on The +Present Unity of Germany--which are an application of the doctrine, nor +those of their successors and of the popularizers of scientific +socialism. Even in the socialist press we may read, from time to time, +valuable attempts at explanation of certain political events, in which +is found, precisely by reason of historic materialism, a clearness of +vision which would be sought in vain among the writers and the +disputants who have not yet torn away the fantastic veils and +ideological envelopes of history. + +Here is not the place to take up the defense of an abstract thesis, as +an advocate would do. It is evident, nevertheless, in all the histories +which have been written up to the present time, that there is always at +bottom, if not in the explicit intentions of the writers, certainly in +their spirit, a tendency, a principle, a general view of life; and so +this doctrine, which has enabled us to study the social structure in an +objective manner, must finally direct with precision the researches of +history, and must end in a narrative complete, transparent and integral. + + +Helps are not lacking. + +_Economics_, which, as everyone sees it today, had its birth and +development as the science of bourgeois production, after being puffed +up with the illusion of representing the absolute laws of all forms of +production, has through the dear school of experience entered since, as +everyone knows, upon a period of self-criticism. Just as this +self-criticism gave birth, on one side, to critical communism, so on the +other side it has given birth, through the labor of the calmest, the +wisest and the most prudent of the academic tradition, to the +_historical school of economic phenomena_. Thanks to this school, and +through the effect of the application of the descriptive and comparative +methods, we are henceforth in possession of a vast sum of knowledge on +the different historical forms of _economics_, from the most complex +facts and those best specified through essential differences of types, +down to the special domain of a cloister or a trade guild of the Middle +Ages. The same thing has taken place with _statistics_, which, by the +indefinite combination of its sources, succeeds now in throwing light, +with a sufficient approximation, upon the movement of population in past +centuries. + +These studies, certainly, are not made in the interest of our doctrine, +and oftener than not they are made in a spirit hostile to socialism; +something not observed, we may say in passing, by those foolish readers +of printed papers who so often confuse _economic history_, _historical +economics_, and _historical materialism_. But these studies, apart from +the materials which they gather, are remarkable in that they witness the +progress which is in course of making the _internal history_ which, +little by little, is taking the place of the _external history_ with +which, for centuries, the men of letters and artists were occupied. + +A good part of these materials that have been gathered must always be +submitted to new corrections, as for that matter happens in every domain +of empirical knowledge, which oscillates continually between what is +held for certain and what is simply probable, and what must, later, be +integrated or eliminated. + +The deductions and the combinations of the historians of economics, or +of those who relate history in general, availing themselves of the +guiding thread of economic phenomena, are not always so plausible or so +conclusive, that one does not feel the need of saying to them: All this +must be taken back and worked over. But that which is undoubted is the +fact that in this present time all writing of history tends to become a +science, or, better, a social discipline; and when that movement, now +uncertain and multiform, shall be accomplished, the efforts of the +scholars and inquirers will lead inevitably to the acceptance of +economic materialism. By this incidence of efforts and of scientific +labors, which start from points so opposite, the materialistic +conception of all history will end by penetrating men's minds as a +definite conquest of thought; and this will finally take away from +partisans and adversaries the attempt to speak _pro_ and _con_ as for +partisan theses. + +Apart from the direct helps just enumerated, our doctrine has many +indirect helps, so that it can profitably employ the results of many +disciplines, in which by reason of the greater simplicity of the +relations, it has been possible more easily to make the application of +the genetic method. The typical case is furnished by glottology, and in +a more special fashion by the study which has for its object the ancient +languages. + +The application of historical materialism is certainly, hitherto, very +far from that evidence and that clearness of _processus_ of analysis and +of reconstruction. It would be consequently a vain attempt to try, at +this moment, to write a summary of universal history, which should +propose to develop all the varied forms of production in order to deduce +from them afterwards all the rest of human activity, in a particular and +circumstantial fashion. In the present state of knowledge, he who should +try to give this _compendium_ of a new _Kulturgeschichte_ would do +nothing but translate into economic phraseology the points of general +orientation which, in other books, for example, in Hellwald, give it in +Darwinian phraseology. + +It is a long step from the acceptance of the principle to its complete +and particular application to the whole of a vast province of facts, or +to a great succession of phenomena. + +So the application of our doctrine must be kept for a moment to the +exposition and the study of definite parts of history. The modern forms +are clear to all. The economic developments of the bourgeoisie, the +manifest knowledge of the different obstacles which it has had to +overcome in the different countries, and, consequently, the development +of the different revolutions, taking this word in its broadest sense, +contribute to make our understanding of it easy. To our eyes the +pre-history of the bourgeoisie, at the moment of the decline of the +Middle Ages, is equally clear, and it would not be difficult to find, +for example, in the development of the city of Florence, an attested +series of developments, in which the economic and statistical movement +finds a perfect correspondence in the political relations and a +sufficient illustration in the contemporary development of intelligence +already reduced into prose and stripped, in great part, of ideological +illusions. Nor would it be impossible to reduce, now, under the definite +visual angle of materialism, the whole of ancient Roman history. But for +that, and particularly, for the primitive period, there are no direct +sources; they are, on the contrary, abundant in Greece, from popular +tradition, the epic, and the authentic juridical inscriptions, down to +the pragmatic studies of the historical social relations. At Rome, on +the other hand, the struggles for political rights carry with them +almost always the economic reasons upon which they rest. Thus, the +decline of definite classes, the formation of new classes, the movement +of conquest, the change of the laws and of the forms of political array, +appear to us with perfect clearness. This Roman history is hard and +prosaic; it was never clad with these ideological complements which +were suited to Greek life. The rigid prose of conquest, of planned +colonization, of institutions and of the forms of law, conquered and +devised for solving the problems arising from definite frictions and +contrasts, makes all Roman history a chain of events which follow each +other in a sequence which is grossly evident. + + +The true problem consists, indeed, not in substituting sociology for +history, as if the latter had been an appearance which conceals behind +it a secret reality, but in understanding history as a whole, in all its +intuitive manifestations, and in understanding it through the aid of +economic sociology. It is not a question of separating the accident from +the substance, the appearance from the reality, the phenomenon from the +intrinsic kernel, or applying any other formula used by the partisans of +any species of scholasticism, but of explaining the connection and the +_complexus_ precisely in so far as it is a connection and a _complexus_. +It is not merely a question of discovering and determining the social +groundwork, and then of making men appear upon it like so many +marionettes, whose threads are held and moved, no longer by Providence +but by economic categories. These categories have themselves developed +and are developing, like all the rest--because men change as to the +capacity and the art of vanquishing, subduing, transforming and +utilizing natural conditions; because men change in spirit and attitude +through the reaction of their tools upon themselves; because men change +in their respective and co-associated relations; and therefore as +individuals depending in various degrees upon one another. We have, in +fine, to do with history, and not with its skeleton. We are dealing with +narration and not with abstraction, with the explaining and treating of +the whole, and not merely with resolving and analyzing it; we have to +do, in a word, now, as always, with an art. + +It may be that the sociologist who follows the principles of economic +materialism proposes to keep himself simply to the analysis, for +example, of what the classes were at the moment when the French +Revolution broke out, and to pass then to the classes that result from +the Revolution and survive it. In that case the titles, the indications +and the classifications of the materials to analyze are definite; they +are, for example, the city and the country, the artisan and the laborer, +the nobles and the serfs, the land which is freed from feudal charges, +and the small proprietors who came into being, commerce which frees +itself from so many restrictions, money which accumulates, industry +which prospers, etc. There is nothing to object to in the choice of this +method, which, because it follows the track of embryonic origins, was +indispensable to the preparation of historical research according to the +direction of the new doctrine.[29] + +But we know that the study of embryonic origins does not suffice to +make us understand animal life, which is not a scheme, but is composed +of living beings which struggle, and in their struggle employ forces, +instincts and passions. And it is the same, _mutatis mutandis_, with men +also, in so far as they live historically. These particular men, moved +by certain passions, urged by certain circumstances, with such and such +designs, such intentions, acting in such an attempt with such an +illusion of their own, or with such a deception, of another, who, +martyrs of themselves or of others, enter on harsh contests and +reciprocal suppressions of each other--there is the real history of the +French Revolution. If, however, it is true that all history is but the +unfolding of definite economic conditions, it is equally true that it +develops only in definite forms of human activity,--whether the latter +be passionate or reflective, fortunate or unsuccessful, blindly +instinctive or deliberately heroic. + +To understand the interlacings and the _complexus_ in its inner +connection and its outer manifestations; to descend from the surface to +the foundation, and then to return from the foundation to the surface; +to analyze the passions and the intentions, in their motives, from the +closest to the most remote, and then to bring back the data of the +passions and of the intentions and of their causes to the most remote +elements of a definite economic situation; there is the difficult art +which the materialistic conception must realize. + +And as we must not imitate that teacher who on the bank taught his +pupils to swim by the definition of swimming, I beg the reader to await +the examples which I shall give in other essays in a real historical +narration, working over into a book which for some time I have already +been doing in my teaching. + +In this way certain secondary and derivative questions are once for all +cleared up. + +What, for example, is the meaning of the lives of the great men? + +In these later times, answers have been given, which, in one sense or +another, have an extreme character. On the one side, there are the +extreme sociologists, on the other side the individualists who, after +the fashion of Carlyle, put the heroes into the first rank of their +history. According to some it is sufficient to show what were the +reasons, for example, of Cæsarism, and Cæsar matters little. According +to others, there are no objective reasons of classes and social +interests which suffice to explain anything; it is the great minds which +give the impulse to the whole historic movement; and history has, so to +speak, its lords and its monarchs. The empiricists of narration extract +themselves from embarrassment in a very simple fashion, putting together +at hazard men and things, objective necessities of fact and subjective +influences. + +Historical materialism goes beyond the antithetical views of the +sociologists and the individualists, and at the same time it eliminates +the eclecticism of the empirical narrators. + +First of all the _factum_. + +Let this particular Cæsar, as Napoleon was, be born in such a year, let +him follow such a career, and find himself ready for the Eighteenth +Brumaire. All this is completely accidental with relation to the general +course of things which was pushing the new class, mistress of the field, +to save from the Revolution that which appeared to it necessary to save, +and that necessitated the creation of a bureaucratico-military +government. It was, however, necessary to find the man, or the men. But +what actually happened came about in the fashion that we know. It +depended on this fact, that it was Napoleon who directed the enterprise +and not a pitiable Monk, or a ridiculous Boulanger. And from that moment +the accident ceases to be accident, precisely because it is this +definite person who gives his imprint and physiognomy to the events, +determining the fashion or the manner in which they have unfolded. + +The very fact that all history rests upon antitheses, contrasts, +struggles and wars, explains the decisive influence of certain men in +definite occasions. These men are neither a negligible accident of the +social mechanism, nor miraculous creators of what society, without them, +could have made in no other fashion. It is the very interlacings of the +antithetic conditions, which causes the fact that definite individuals, +generous, heroic, fortunate, mischievous, are called at critical moments +to say the decisive word. As long as the particular interests of the +different social groups are in such a state of tension, that all the +parties in the struggle reciprocally paralyze each other, then to make +the political gearing move, there is need of the individual +consciousness of a definite individual. + +The social antitheses, which make of every human community an unstable +organization, give to history, especially when it is seen and examined +rapidly and in its main features, the character of a drama. This drama +in all its relations is repeated from community to community, from +nation to nation, from state to state, because the inner inequalities +concurring with the external differentiations, have produced and produce +the whole movement of wars, conquests, treaties, colonizations, etc. In +this drama have always appeared, in the role of leaders of society, the +men who are characterized as eminent, as great, and empiricism has +concluded from their presence that they were the principal authors of +history. To carry back the explanation of their appearance to the +general causes and the common conditions of the social structure, is a +thing which harmonizes perfectly with the data of our doctrine; but to +try to eliminate them, as certain affected objectivists of sociology +would willingly do, is pure capriciousness. + + +And to conclude, the partisan of historical materialism who sets himself +the task of explaining, or relating, cannot do it through schemes. + +History has always received a definite form, with an infinite number of +accidents and variations. It has a certain grouping, it has a certain +perspective. + +It is not enough to have eliminated preventively the hypothesis of +factors, because the narrator constantly finds himself in the presence +of things which seem incongruous, independent, and self-directing. To +present the whole as a whole, and to discover in it the continuous +relations of the events which border on each other, there is the +difficulty. + +The sum of events narrowly consecutive and precise gives the whole of +history; and this is equivalent to saying that it is all that we know of +our being, in so far as we are social beings and not simply natural +beings. + + +XII. + +In the successive whole, and in the continuous necessity of all +historical events, is there, then, some ask, any meaning, any +significance? This question, whether it comes from the camp of the +idealists, or whether it comes to us from the mouth of the most +circumspect critics, certainly, and in all cases, demands our attention, +and requires an adequate answer. + +In fact, if we stop at the premises, intuitive or intellectual, from +which is derived the conception of _progress_ as an idea which incloses +and embraces the total of the human _processus_, it is seen that these +presumptions all rest upon the mental need, which is in us, of +attributing to one or more series of events a certain sense and a +certain signification. The conception of progress, for whoever examines +it carefully in its specific nature, always implies judgments of +estimation, and therefore, there is no one who can confuse it with the +crude and bare notion of simple development, which does not contain that +increment of clue which makes us say of a thing that it is progressing. + + +I have already said, and, it seems to me, at sufficient length, how it +is that progress does not exist as something imperative or regulative +over the natural and immediate succession of the generations of men. +That is as intuitive as is the actual coexistence of peoples, of nations +and of states, which find themselves, at the same time, in a different +stage of development; so undeniable is the actual condition of relative +superiority and inferiority of nation as compared with nation; and again +so certain is the partial and relative retrogression which has been +produced several times in history, as Italy has exemplified for +centuries. Still more, if there is a convincing proof of how progress +must be understood in the sense of immediate law, and, to use a strong +expression, of a physical and inevitable law, it is precisely this +fact,--that social development by the very reasons of the _processus_ +which are inherent in it, often leads to retrogression. It is evident, +on the other hand, that the faculty of progressing, like the possibility +of retrogressing, does not constitute, to begin with, an immediate +privilege, or an innate defect of a race, nor is either one the direct +consequence of geographical conditions. And, in fact, the primitive +centers of civilization were multiple, those centers have been removed +in the course of centuries, and finally the means, the discoveries, the +results and the impulses of a definite civilization, already developed, +are, within certain limits, communicable to all men indefinitely. In a +word, progress and retrogression are inherent in the conditions and the +rhythm of social development. + + +Now then, the faith in the universality of progress, which appeared with +so much violence in the eighteenth century, rests upon this first +positive fact, that men, when they do not find obstacles in external +conditions, or do not find them in those which result from their own +work in their social environment, are all capable of progress. + +Moreover, at the bottom of this supposed or imagined unity of history, +in consequence of which the _processus_ of the different societies would +form one single series of progress, there is another fact, which has +offered motive and occasion for so many fantastic ideologies. If all +nations have not progressed equally, still more, if some have stopped +and have followed a backward route, if the _processus_ of social +development has not always, in every place and in all times, the same +rhythm and the same intensity, it is nevertheless certain that, with the +passage of the decisive activity from one people to another people in +the course of history, the useful products, already acquired by those +who were in decadence, have been transmitted to those who were growing +and rising. That is not so true of the products of sentiment and +imagination, which nevertheless are themselves preserved and perpetuated +in literary tradition, as of the results of thought, and especially of +the discovery and of the production of technical means, which, once +found, are communicated and transmitted directly. + +Need we remind the reader that writing was never lost, although the +peoples who invented it have disappeared from historic continuity? Need +we recall again that we all have in our pockets, engraved on our +watches, the Babylonian dial, and that we make use of algebra, which was +introduced by those Arabs, whose historical activity has since been +dispersed like the sands of the desert? It is useless to multiply these +examples, because it is sufficient to think of technology and the +history of discoveries in the broad sense of the word, for which the +almost continuous transmission of the instruments of labor and +production is evident. + +And after all, the provisional summaries which are called universal +histories, although they always reveal, in their aim and in their +execution, something forced and artificial, would never have been +attempted if human events had not offered to the empiricism of the +narrators a certain thread, even though subtle, of continuity. + +Take for example the Italy of the sixteenth century, which is evidently +in decadence; but while it is declining, it transmits to the rest of +Europe its intellectual weapons. These are not all that pass to the +civilization which continues, but even the world market establishes +itself upon the foundation of those geographical discoveries, and those +discoveries in the naval art, which were the work of Italian merchants, +travelers and sailors. It is not only the methods of the art of war and +the refinements of political diplomacy which passed outside of Italy +(though it is only with these that men of letters ordinarily concerned +themselves), but even the art of making money, which had acquired all +the evidence of an elaborate commercial discipline, and one after the +other the rudiments of the science, upon which is founded modern +technique, and to begin with all the methodical irrigation of fields and +the general laws of hydraulics. All that is so precisely true, that an +amateur in conjectural theses might come to the point of asking himself +this question: what would have become of Italy, in this modern bourgeois +epoch, if, executing the project of the Venetian Senate (1504) of making +something which would have resembled in its effects a piercing of the +Isthmus of Suez, the Italian navy had found itself in a direct struggle +with the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean, at the very moment when the +shifting of historical activity from the Mediterranean to the ocean +prepared the decadence of Italy? But enough of fantasy! + + +A certain historical continuity, in the empirical and circumstantial +sense of the transmission and the successive increase of the means of +civilization, is then an incontestable fact. And, although this fact +excludes all idea of preconceived design, of intentional or hidden +finality, or pre-established harmony, and all the other whimsicalities +in regard to which there has been such a deal of speculation, it does +not exclude, for all that, the _idea of progress_, which we can utilize +as an _estimation_ of the course of human development. It is undeniable +that progress does not embrace _materially_ the succession of +generations, and that its conception implies nothing categorical, +considering that societies have also been in retrogression, but that +does not prevent this idea from serving as a guiding thread and a +_measure_ to give a meaning to the historical _processus_. There is no +common ground for critics who are prudent, in the use of specific +concepts as in the method of their application, and those poor extreme +evolutionists, who are scientists without the grammar and the principle +of science, that is to say, without logic. + +As I have said several times, ideas do not fall from heaven, and even +those which, at a given moment arise from definite situations with the +impetuosity of faith and with a metaphysical garb, carry always within +themselves the index of their correspondence with the order of the +facts, of which the explanation is sought or attempted. The idea of +progress, as the unifier of history, appears with violence and becomes a +giant in the eighteenth century, that is to say, in the heroic period of +the intellectual and political life of the revolutionary bourgeoisie. +Just as this engendered, in the order of its works, the most intensive +period of history that is known, it also produced its own ideology in +the notion of progress. This ideology in its substance means that +capitalism is the only form of production which is capable of extending +all over the earth and of reducing the whole human race to conditions +which resemble each other everywhere. If modern technique can be +transported everywhere, if all the human race appear on a single field +of competition and all the world as a single market, what is there +astonishing in the ideology which, reflecting intellectually these +conditions of fact, reaches the affirmation that the present historical +unity has been prepared by everything which precedes it? Translating +this concept of pretended _preparation_ into the altogether natural +concept of _successive condition_, and there is opened before us the +road by which the passage is made from the ideology of progress to +historical materialism; and now we arrive at the affirmation of Marx, +that this form of bourgeois production is the last antagonistic form of +the _processus_ of society. + +The miracles of the bourgeois epoch, in the unification of the social +_processus_, find no parallel in the past. Here are the whole New World, +Australia, Northern Africa, and New Zealand! And they all resemble us! +And the rebound in the extreme East is made through imitation, and in +Africa through conquest! In the presence of this universality and this +cosmopolitanism, the acquisition of the Celts and the Iberians to Roman +civilization, and of the Germans and that the Slavs to the cycle of +Roman Byzantine Christian civilization shrink into insignificance. This +ever-growing unification is reflected more every day in the political +mechanism of Europe; this mechanism, because founded on the economic +conquest of the other parts of the world, oscillates henceforth with the +flux and reflux which come from the most distant regions. In this most +complicated mingling of action and reactions the war between Japan and +China, made with methods imitated, or directly borrowed, from European +technique, leaves its traces, deep and far-reaching, in the diplomatic +relations of Europe, and still clearer traces in the stock exchange, +which is the faithful interpreter of the consciousness of our time. This +Europe, mistress of all the rest of the world, has recently seen the +relations of the politics of the states of which it is composed +oscillate in consequence of a revolt in the Transvaal, and in +consequence of the ill success of the Italian armies in Abyssinia in +these last days.[30] + +The centuries which have prepared and carried to its present form the +economic domination of bourgeois production have also developed the +tendency to a unification of history under a general view; and in this +fashion we find explained and justified the ideology of progress, which +fills so many books of the philosophy of history and of +_Kulturgeschichte_. The unity of social form, that is to say, the unity +of the capitalistic form of production, to which the bourgeoisie has +tended for centuries, is reflected in the conception of the unity of +history in more suggestive forms than the mind could ever have received +from the narrow cosmopolitanism of the Roman empire or the one-sided +cosmopolitanism of the Catholic Church. + + +But this unification of the social life, by the working of the +capitalist form of production, developed itself from the beginning, and +continues to develop itself, not according to preconceived rules, plans +and designs, but, on the contrary, by reason of frictions and struggles, +which in their sum form a colossal complication of antitheses. War +without and war within. Struggle incessant among the nations, and +struggles incessant between the members of each nation. And the +interlacings of the deeds and the action of so many emulators, +competitors and adversaries is so complicated, that the co-ordination of +events very often escapes the attention, and it is a very difficult +thing to discover their intimate connection. The struggle which actually +exists among men, the struggles which now, with various methods, are +unfolding among nations and within nations, have come to make us +understand better in the midst of what difficulties the history of the +past has unfolded. If the bourgeois ideology, reflecting the tendency to +capitalist unification, has proclaimed the progress of the human race, +historical materialism, on the contrary, and without proclamation, has +discovered that these are the antitheses which have thus far been the +cause and the motive of all historical events. + +Thus the movement of history, taken in general, appears to us as it were +oscillating;--or rather, to use a more appropriate image, it seems that +it is unfolding on a line often interrupted, and at certain moments it +seems to return upon itself, sometimes it stretches out, removing itself +far from the point of departure:--in an actual zigzag. + +Granted the internal complication of every society, and granted the +meeting of several societies on the field of competition (from the +ingenuous forms of robbery, rapine and piracy to the refined methods of +the elegant sport of the stock exchange) it is natural that every +historical result, when it is measured in the one measure of individual +expectation, appears very often like chance, and afterwards, considered +theoretically, becomes for the mind more inextricable than the track of +meteors. + +Speaking of the irony which sits as a sovereign above history is not a +simple phrase; because, in truth, if there is no god of Epicurus +laughing above over human affairs, here below human affairs are of +themselves playing a divine comedy. + +Will this irony of human destinies ever cease? Will that form of +association ever be possible which gives room for the possible complete +development of all aptitudes, in such a way that the ulterior +_processus_ of history may become a real and true evolution? And, to +speak like the amateurs of high-sounding phrases, will there ever be a +humanization of all men? When once in the communism of production the +antitheses which are now the cause and the effect of economic +differentiations are eliminated, will not all human energies acquire a +very high degree of efficacy and intensity in co-operative effects, and +at the same time will they not develop with a greater liberty of +self-expression among all individuals? + +It is in the affirmative answers to these questions that consists what +_critical communism_ says, that is to say foresees, of the future. But +it does not say it and it does not foretell it as if it were discussing +an abstract possibility, or like him who wishes, by his will, to give +life to a state of things which he desires and which he dreams. But it +says and predicts because what it announces must inevitably happen by +the immanent necessity of history, seen and studied henceforth in the +foundation of its economic substructure. + +"It is only in an order of things where there will no longer be classes +and class antagonisms that social revolutions will cease to be political +revolutions.[31] + +"To the old bourgeois society with its classes and class antagonisms +will succeed an association in which the free development of each is the +condition of the free development of all.[32] + +"The relations of bourgeois production are the last antagonistic form of +the social _processus_ of production--a form antagonistic not in the +sense of individual antagonism, but of the antagonism which proceeds +from the conditions of the social life of individuals; but the +productive forces which are developing in the lap of bourgeois society +are creating at the same time the material conditions to terminate that +antagonism. With this social organization ends the prehistory of the +human race.[33] + +"With the taking possession of the means of production on the part of +society, is excluded the production of commodities, and with it the +dominance of the product over the producer. The anarchy which dominates +in social production will be succeeded by conscious organization. The +struggle for individual existence will cease. Only in this way man will +detach himself, in a certain sense, from the animal world in a definite +fashion, and will pass from a condition of animal existence to +conditions of human existence. The entire sum of the conditions of life +which has thus far dominated men will pass under the rule and the +examination of men themselves, who will thus for the first time become +the real masters of nature, because they will be the masters of their +own association. The laws of their own social activity, which had been +outside of them like foreign laws imposed upon them, will be applied and +mastered by the men themselves, with full knowledge of their cause. +Their very association, which appeared to men as if imposed by nature +and history, will become their own and their free work. The foreign and +objective forces, which till then dominated history, will pass under the +care of men. Only from that moment will men make their own history with +full understanding; only from that moment will the social causes which +they put in motion, be able to arrive, in great part and in a proportion +ever increasing, at the desired effects. It is the leap of the human +race from the reign of necessity into that of liberty. To accomplish +this action emancipating the world, such is the historic mission of the +modern proletariat." + +If Marx and Engels had been phrasemakers, if their spirit had not been +made prudent, even scrupulous, by the daily and minute use and +application of scientific methods, if the permanent contact with so many +conspirators and visionaries had not given them a horror of every +Utopia, opposing it indeed up to the point of pedantry, these formulas +might pass for good-natured paradoxes, which criticism need not examine. +But these formulas are, as it were, the close, the effective conclusion +of the doctrine of historic materialism. They are the direct result of +the criticism of economies and of historical dialectics. + +In these formulas, which may be developed, as I have had occasion to +show elsewhere, is, summed up every forecast of the future, which is not +and is not intended for a romance or a Utopia. And in these very +formulas there is an adequate and conclusive response to the question +with which this chapter began: Is there in the series of historic events +a meaning and a significance? + + +THE END. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[28] This genetic study forms the subject of my first essay, _In Memory +of the Communist Manifesto_, which is the indispensable preamble to an +understanding of all the rest. + +[29] (I allude to the excellent work of Karl Kautsky, _Die +Klassengensaetze von 1789_.) + +[30] The Italian edition of this Essay bears the date of March 10, 1896. + +[31] Marx, Misere de la Philosophie, Paris, 1817, p. 178. + +[32] Communist Manifesto, p. 16. + +[33] Marx, Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie, Berlin, 1859, p. 6 +Pref. Compare my first Essay, pp. 48-50. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays on the Materialistic Conception +of History, by Antonio Labriola + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONCEPTION OF HISTORY *** + +***** This file should be named 32644-8.txt or 32644-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/6/4/32644/ + +Produced by Brian Foley, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History + +Author: Antonio Labriola + +Translator: Charles H. Kerr + +Release Date: June 1, 2010 [EBook #32644] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONCEPTION OF HISTORY *** + + + + +Produced by Brian Foley, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<h1>ESSAYS</h1> + +<h3>on the</h3> + +<h2>Materialistic Conception<br />of History</h2> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3>by</h3> + +<h2>ANTONIO LABRIOLA</h2> + +<p class="center"><i>Professor in the University of Rome</i></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3>translated by</h3> + +<h2>CHARLES H. KERR</h2> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h3>Chicago</h3> + +<h2>CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY<br />CO-OPERATIVE</h2> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<h2><span class="smcap">Copyright 1908<br />By Charles H. Kerr & Company<br />Chicago</span></h2> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<div class="center"><img src="images/i002.jpg" width='200' height='127' alt="JOHN F. HIGGINS PRINTER AND BINDER 376-382 MONROE STREET CHICAGO, ILLINOIS" /></div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> + +<h2>TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.</h2> + +<p>On the tenth of March, 1896, the same year that the last despairing +revolt of the small producer against capitalism in America was to end in +the overwhelming defeat of Bryan, an Italian scholar published in the +city of Rome the remarkable work which is now for the first time offered +to American readers.</p> + +<p>To publish this book in America at that time would have been an +impossibility. The American socialist movement was then hardly more than +an association of immigrants who had brought their socialism with them +from Europe. Today it numbers at least half a million adherents, and its +platform is an embodiment of the ideas first adequately stated in the +Communist Manifesto of 1848, and now first adequately explained and +elaborated in this remarkable work of Labriola.</p> + +<p>The central and fundamental proposition of socialism is not any scheme +for reconstructing society, on a cut-and-dried programme, nor again is +it any particular mathematical formula showing to what extent the +laborer is robbed by the present system of the fruits of his labor; it +is precisely this Historical Materialism, which Labriola has so +admirably explained in the present work.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p><p>Some idea of the place accorded to this book by European socialists may +be gathered from the preface to the French edition by G. Sorel, one of +the most prominent socialists of France.</p> + +<p>He says: “The publication of this book marks a date in the history of +socialism. The work of Labriola has its place reserved in our libraries +by the side of the classic works of Marx and Engels. It constitutes an +illumination and a methodical development of a theory which the masters +of the new socialist thought have never yet treated in a didactic form. +It is therefore an indispensable book for whoever wishes to understand +something of <i>proletarian ideas</i>. More than the works of Marx and Engels +it is addressed to that public which is unacquainted with socialist +preconceptions. In these pages the historian will find substantial and +valuable suggestion for the study of the origin and transformation of institutions.”</p> + +<p>The economic development of the United States has reached a point where +the growth of the Socialist Party must henceforth go forward with +startling rapidity. That the publication of this volume may have some +effect in clarifying the ideas of those who discuss the principles of +that party, whether with voice or pen, is the hope of the</p> + +<p class="right">TRANSLATOR.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> + +<h1>ESSAYS ON THE MATERIALISTIC<br />CONCEPTION OF HISTORY</h1> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<table summary="CONTENTS"> + <tr> + <td colspan="2" class="center">I.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">In Memory of the Communist Manifesto </td> + <td><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2" class="center">II.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="left">Historical Materialism</td> + <td><a href="#Page_93">93</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> + +<h2>PART I</h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<h1>IN MEMORY OF THE COMMUNIST<br />MANIFESTO</h1> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> + +<h1>ESSAYS</h1> + +<h3>on the</h3> + +<h1>Materialistic Conception of History</h1> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<h2>PART I</h2> + +<h3>IN MEMORY OF THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO.</h3> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>In three years we can celebrate our jubilee. The memorable date of the +publication of the Communist Manifesto (February, 1848) marks our first +unquestioned entrance into history. To that date are referred all our +judgments and all our congratulations on the progress made by the +proletariat in these last fifty years. That date marks the beginning of +the new era. This is arising, or, rather, is separating itself from the +present era, and is developing by a process peculiar to itself and thus +in a way that is necessary and inevitable, whatever may be the +vicissitudes and the successive phases which cannot yet be foreseen.</p> + +<p>All those in our ranks who have a desire or an occasion to possess a +better understanding of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> own work should bring to mind the causes +and the moving forces which determined the genesis of the Manifesto, the +circumstances under which it appeared on the eve of the Revolution which +burst forth from Paris to Vienna, from Palermo to Berlin. Only in this +way will it be possible for us to find in the present social form the +explanation of the tendency toward socialism, thus showing by its +present necessity the inevitability of its triumph.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Is not that in fact the vital part of the Manifesto, its essence and its +distinctive character?</p> + +<p>We surely should be taking a false road if we regarded as the essential +part the measures advised and proposed at the end of the second chapter +for the contingency of a revolutionary success on the part of the +proletariat,—or again the indications of political relationship to the +other revolutionary parties of that epoch which are found in the fourth +chapter. These indications and these measures, although they deserved to +be taken into consideration at the moment and under the circumstances +where they were formulated and suggested, and although they may be very +important for forming a precise estimate of the political action of the +German communists in the revolutionary period from 1848 to 1850, +henceforth no longer form for us a mass of practical judgments for or +against which we should take sides in each contingency. The political +parties which since the International have established themselves in +different countries, in the name of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> proletariat, and taking it +clearly for their base, have felt, and feel, in proportion as they are +born and develop, the imperious necessity of adopting and conforming +their programme and their action to circumstances always different and +multiform. But not one of these parties feels the dictatorship of the +proletariat so near that it experiences the need or desire or even the +temptation to examine anew and pass judgment upon the measures proposed +in the Manifesto. There are really no historic experiences but those +that history makes itself. It is as impossible to foresee them as to +plan them beforehand or make them to order. That is what happened at the +moment of the Commune, which was and which still remains up to this day +the only experience (although partial and confused because it was sudden +and of short duration) of the action of the proletariat in gaining +control of political power. This experience, too, was neither desired +nor sought for, but imposed by circumstances. It was heroically carried +through and it has become a salutary lesson for us to-day. It might +easily happen that where the socialist movement is still in its +beginnings, appeal may be made, for lack of personal direct +experience—as often happens in Italy—to the authority of a text from +the Manifesto as if it were a precept, but these passages are in reality of no importance.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Again, we must not, as I believe, seek for this vital part, this +essence, this distinctive character, in what the Manifesto says of the +other forms of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>socialism of which it speaks under the name of +<i>literature</i>. The entire third chapter may doubtless serve for defining +clearly by way of exclusion and antithesis, by brief but vigorous +characterizations, the differences which really exist between the +communism commonly characterized to-day as scientific,—an expression +sometimes used in a mistaken and contradictory way,—that is to say, +between the communism which has the proletariat for its subject and the +proletarian revolution for its theme, and the other forms of socialism; +reactionary, bourgeois, semi-bourgeois, petit-bourgeois, utopian, etc. +All these forms except one<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> have re-appeared and renewed themselves +more than once. They are reappearing under a new form even to-day in the +countries where the modern proletarian movement is of recent birth. For +these countries and under these circumstances the Manifesto has +exercised and still exercises the function of contemporary criticism and +of a literary whip. And in the countries where these forms have already +been theoretically and practically outgrown, as in Germany and Austria, +or survive only as an individual opinion among a few, as in France and +England, without speaking of other nations, the Manifesto from this +point of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> view has played its part. It thus merely records as a matter +of history something no longer necessary to think of, since we have to +deal with the political action of the proletariat which already is +before us in its gradual and normal course.</p> + +<p>That was, to anticipate, the attitude of mind of those who wrote it. By +the force of their thought and with some scanty data of experience they +had anticipated the events which have occurred and they contented +themselves with declaring the elimination and the condemnation of what +they had outgrown. Critical communism—that is its true name, and there +is none more exact for this doctrine—did not take its stand with the +feudalists in regretting the old society for the sake of criticising by +contrast the contemporary society:—it had an eye only to the future. +Neither did it associate itself with the petty bourgeois in the desire +of saving what cannot be saved:—as, for example, small proprietorship, +or the tranquil life of the small proprietor whom the bewildering action +of the modern state, the necessary and natural organ of present society, +destroys and overturns, because by its constant revolutions it carries +in itself the necessity for other revolutions new and more fundamental.</p> + +<p>Neither did it translate into metaphysical whimsicalities, into a sickly +sentimentalism, or into a religious contemplation, the real contrasts of +the material interests of every day life: on the contrary, it exposed +those contrasts in all their prosaic reality. It did not construct the +society of the future upon a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> plan harmoniously conceived in each of its +parts. It has no word of eulogy and exaltation, of invocation and of +regret, for the two goddesses of philosophic mythology, justice and +equality, those two goddesses who cut so sad a figure in the practical +affairs of everyday life, when we observe that the history of so many +centuries maliciously amuses itself by nearly always contradicting their +infallible suggestions. Once more these communists, while declaring on +the strength of facts which carry conviction that the mission of the +proletarians is to be the grave diggers of the bourgeoisie, still +recognize the latter as the author of a social form which represents +extensively and intensively an important stage of progress, and which +alone can furnish the field for the new struggles which already give +promise of a happy issue for the proletariat. Never was funeral oration +so magnificent. There is in these praises addressed to the bourgeoisie a +certain tragical humor,—they have been compared to dithyrambics.</p> + +<p>The negative and antithetical definitions of other forms of socialism +then current, which have often re-appeared since, even up to the present +time, although they are fundamentally beyond criticism both in their +form and their aim, nevertheless, do not pretend to be and are not the +real history of socialism; they furnish neither its outlines nor its +plan for him who would write it. History in reality does not rest upon +the distinction between the true and the false, the just and the unjust +and still less<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> upon the more abstract antithesis between the possible +and the real as if the things were on one side and on another side were +their shadows and their reflections in ideas. History is all of a piece, +and it rests upon the process of formation and transformation of +society; and that evidently in a fashion altogether objective and +independent of our approval or disapproval. It is a dynamic of a special +class to speak like the positivists who are so dainty with expressions +of this sort but are often dominated by the new phrases which they have +put out. The different socialist forms of thought and action which have +appeared and disappeared in the course of the centuries, so different in +their causes, their aspects, and their effects, are all to be studied +and explained by the specific and complex conditions of the social life +in which they were produced. Upon a close examination it is seen that +they do not form one single whole of continuous process because the +series is frequently interrupted by changes in the social fabric and by +the disappearance and breaking off of the tradition. It is only since +the French Revolution that socialism presents a certain unity of +process, which appears more evident since 1830 with the definite +political supremacy of the capitalist class in France and England and +which finally becomes obvious, we might say even palpable, since the +rise of the International. Upon this road the Manifesto stands like a +colossal guide post bearing a double inscription: on one side the first +sketch of the new doctrine which has now made the circle of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> the world; +on the other, the definition of its relations to the forms which it +excludes, without giving, however, any historic account of them.</p> + +<p>The vital part, the essence, the distinctive character of this work are +all contained in the new conception of history which permeates it and +which in it is partially explained and developed. By the aid of this +conception communism, ceasing to be a hope, an aspiration, a +remembrance, a conjecture, an expedient, found for the first time its +adequate expression in the realization of its very necessity, that is to +say, in the realization that it is the outcome and the solution of the +struggles of existing classes. These struggles have varied according to +times and places and out of them history has developed; but, they are +all reduced in our days to the single struggle between the capitalist +bourgeoisie and the workingmen inevitably forced into the ranks of the +proletariat. The Manifesto gives the genesis of this struggle; it +details its evolutionary rhythm, and predicts its final result.</p> + +<p>In that conception of history is embodied the whole doctrine of +scientific communism. From that moment the theoretical adversaries of +socialism have no longer had to discuss the abstract possibility of the +democratic socialization of the means of production;<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> as if it were +possible in this question to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> rest their judgment upon inductions based +upon the general and common aptitudes of what they characterize as human +nature. Thenceforth, the question was to recognize, or not to recognize, +in the course of human events the necessity which stands over and above +our sympathy and our subjective assent. Is or is not society in the +countries most advanced in civilization organized in such a way that it +will pass into communism by the laws inherent in its own future, once +conceding its present economic structure and the friction which it +necessarily produces within itself, and which will end by breaking and +dissolving it? That is the subject of all discussion since the +appearance of this theory and thence follows also the rule of conduct +which imposes itself upon the action of the socialist parties whether +they be composed of proletarians alone or whether they have in their +ranks men who have come out from the other classes and who join as +volunteers the army of the proletariat.</p> + +<p>That is why we voluntarily accept the epithet of scientific, provided we +do not thus confuse ourselves with the positivists, sometimes +embarrassing guests, who assume to themselves a monopoly of science; we +do not seek to maintain an abstract and generic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> thesis like lawyers or +sophists, and we do not plume ourselves on demonstrating the +reasonableness of our aims. Our intentions are nothing less than the +theoretical expression and the practical explanation of the data offered +us by the interpretation of the process which is being accomplished +among us and about us and which has its whole existence in the objective +relations of social life of which we are the subject and the object, the +cause and the effect. Our aims are rational, not because they are +founded on arguments drawn from the reasoning of reason, but because +they are derived from the objective study of things, that is to say, +from the explanation of their process, which is not, and which cannot +be, a result of our will but which on the contrary triumphs over our +will and subdues it.</p> + +<p>Not one of the previous or subsequent works of the authors of the +Manifesto themselves, although they have a much more considerable +scientific leaning, can replace the Manifesto or have the same specific +efficacy. It gives us in its classic simplicity the true expression of +this situation; the modern proletariat exists, takes its stand, grows +and develops in contemporary history as the concrete subject, the +positive force whose necessarily revolutionary action must find in +communism its necessary outcome. And that is why this work while giving +a theoretical base to its prediction and expressing it in brief, rapid +and concise formulae, forms a storehouse, or rather an inexhaustible +mine of embryonic thoughts which the reader may fertilize and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>multiply +indefinitely; it preserves all the original and originating force of the +thing which is but lately born and which has not yet left the field of +its production. This observation is intended especially for those who +applying a learned ignorance, when they are not humbugs, charlatans, or +amiable dilettanti, give to the doctrine of critical communism +precursors, patrons, allies and masters of every class without any +respect for common sense and the most vulgar chronology. Or again, they +try to bring back our materialistic conception of history into the +theory of universal evolution which to the minds of many is but a new +metaphor of a new metaphysics. Or again they seek in this doctrine a +derivative of Darwinism which is an analogous theory only in a certain +point of view and in a very broad sense; or again they have the +condescension to favor us with the alliance or the patronage of that +positive philosophy which extends from Comte, that degenerate and +reactionary disciple of the genial Saint-Simon, to Spencer, that +quintessence of anarchical capitalism, which is to say that they wish to +give us for allies our most open adversaries.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>It is to its origin that this work owes its fertilizing power, its +classic strength, and the fact that it has given in so few pages the +synthesis of so many series and groups of ideas.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p><p>It is the work of two Germans, but it is not either in its form or its +basis the expression of personal opinion. It contains no trace of the +imprecations, or the anxieties, or the bitterness familiar to all +political refuges and to all those who have voluntarily abandoned their +country to breathe elsewhere freer air. Neither do we find in it the +direct reproduction of the conditions of their own country, then in a +deplorable political state and which could not be compared to those of +France and England socially and economically, except as regards certain +portions of their territory. They brought to their work, on the +contrary, the philosophic thought which alone had placed and maintained +their country upon the level of contemporary history:—this philosophic +thought which in their hands was undergoing that important +transformation which permitted materialism, already renewed by Feuerbach +combined with dialectics, to embrace and understand the movement of +history in its most secret and until then unexplored causes,—unexplored +because hidden and difficult to observe. Both were communists and +revolutionists, but they were so neither by instinct, by impulse nor by +passion. They had elaborated an entirely new criticism of economic +science<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> and they had understood the connection and the historic meaning +of the proletarian movement on both sides of the Channel, in France and +in England, before they were called to give in the Manifesto the +programme and the doctrine of the Communist League. This had its center +in London and numerous branches on the continent; it had behind it a +life and development of its own.</p> + +<p>Engels had already published a critical essay in which passing over all +subjective and one-sided corrections he brought out for the first time +in an objective fashion the criticism of political economy and of the +antitheses inherent in the data and the concepts of that economy itself, +and he had become celebrated by the publication of a book on the +condition of the English working class which was the first attempt to +represent the movements of the working class as the result of the +workings of the forces and means of production.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> Marx, in the few +years preceding, had become known as a radical publicist in Germany, +Paris and Brussels. He had conceived the first rudiments of the +materialistic conception of history. He had made a theoretically +victorious criticism of the hypotheses of Proudhon and the deductions +from his doctrine, and had given the first precise explanation of the +origin of surplus value as a consequence of the purchase and the use<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> of +labor power, that is to say the first germ of the conceptions which were +later demonstrated and explained in their connection and their details +in Capital. Both men were in touch with the revolutionists of the +different countries of Europe, notably France, Belgium and England; +their Manifesto was not the expression of their personal theory, but the +doctrine of a party whose spirit, aim and activity already formed the +International Workingmen’s Association.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>These are the beginnings of modern socialism. We find there the line +which separates it from all the rest.</p> + +<p><i>The Communist League</i> grew out of the <i>League of the Just</i>; the latter +in its turn had been formed with a clear consciousness of its +proletarian aims through a gradual specialization of the generic group +of the refugees, the exiles. As a type, bearing within itself in an +embryonic design the form of all the later socialist and proletarian +movements, it had traversed the different phases of conspiracy and of +equalitarian socialism. It was metaphysical with Gruen and utopian with +Weitling. Having its principal seat at London it was interested in the +Chartist movement and had had some influence over it. This movement +showed by its disordered character, because it was neither the fruit of +a premeditated experience, nor the embodiment of a conspiracy or of a +sect, how painful and difficult was the formation of a proletarian +political party. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> socialist tendency was not manifested in Chartism +until the movement was near its end and was nearly finished (though +Jones and Horner can never be forgotten). The <i>League</i> everywhere +carried an odor of revolution, both because the thing was in the air and +because its instinct and method of procedure tended that way: and as +long as the revolution was bursting forth effectively, it provided +itself, thanks to the new doctrine of the Manifesto, with an instrument +of orientation which was at the same time a weapon for combat. In fact, +already international, both by the quality and differences of origin of +its members, and still more by the result of the instinct and devotion +of all, it took its place in the general movement of political life as +the clear and definite precursor of all that can to-day be called modern +socialism, if by modern we mean not the simple fact of extrinsic +chronology but an index of the internal or organic process of society.</p> + +<p>A long interruption from 1852 to 1864 which was the period of political +reaction and at the same time that of the disappearance, the dispersion +and the absorption of the old socialist schools, separates the +International of the <i>Arbeiterbildungsverein</i> of London, from the +International properly so called, which, from 1864 to 1873, strove to +put unity into the struggle of the proletariat of Europe and America. +The action of the proletariat had other interruptions especially in +France, and with the exception of Germany, from the dissolution of the +International of glorious memory up to the new <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>International which +lives to-day through other means and which is developing in other ways, +both of them adapted to the political situation in which we live, and +based upon riper experience. But just as the survivors of those who in +December, 1847, discussed and accepted the new doctrine, have +re-appeared on the public scene in the great International, and later +again in the new International, the Manifesto itself has also +re-appeared little by little and has made the tour of the world in all +the languages of the civilized countries, something which it promised to +do but could not do at the time of its first appearance.</p> + +<p>There was our real point of departure; there were our real precursors. +They marched before all the others, early in the day, with a step rapid +but sure, over this exact road which we were to traverse and which we +are traversing in reality. It is not proper to give the name of our +precursors to those who followed ways which they later had to abandon, +or to those who, to speak without metaphor, formulated doctrines and +started movements, doubtless explicable by the times and circumstances +of their birth, but which were later outgrown by the doctrine of +critical communism, which is the theory of the proletarian revolution. +This does not mean that these doctrines and these attempts were +accidental, useless and superfluous phenomena. There is nothing +irrational in the historic course of things because nothing comes into +existence without reason, and thus there is nothing superfluous. We +cannot even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> to-day arrive at a perfect understanding of critical +communism without mentally retracing these doctrines and following the +processes of their appearance and disappearance. In fact these doctrines +have not only passed, they have been intrinsically outgrown both by +reason of the change in the conditions of society and by reason of the +more exact understanding of the laws upon which rest its formation and its process.</p> + +<p>The moment at which they enter into the past, that is to say, that at +which they are intrinsically outgrown, is precisely that of the +appearance of the Manifesto. As the first index of the genesis of modern +socialism, this writing, which gives only the most general and the most +easily accessible features of its teaching, bears within itself traces +of the historic field within which it is born, which was that of France, +England and Germany. Its field for propaganda and diffusion has since +become wider and wider, and it is henceforth as vast as the civilized +world. In all countries in which the tendency to communism has developed +through antagonisms under aspects different but every day more evident +between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the process of its first +formation is wholly or partly repeated over and over. The proletarian +parties which are formed little by little have traversed anew the stages +of formation which their precursors traversed at first; but this process +has become from country to country and from year to year always more +rapid by reason of the greater evidence, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> pressing necessity and +energy of the antagonisms, and because it is easier to assimilate a +doctrine and a tendency than to create both for the first time. Our +co-workers of 50 years ago were also from this point of view +international, since by their example they started the proletariat of +the different nations upon the general march which labor must accomplish.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>But the perfect theoretical knowledge of socialism to-day, as before, +and as it always will be, lies in the understanding of its historic +necessity, that is to say, in the consciousness of the manner of its +genesis; and this is precisely reflected, as in a limited field of +observation and in a hasty example, in the formation of the Manifesto. +It was intended for a weapon of war and thus it bears upon its own +exterior the traces of its origin. It contains more substantial +declarations than demonstrations. The demonstration rests entirely in +the imperative force of its necessity. But we may retrace the process of +this formation and to retrace it is to understand truly the doctrine of +the Manifesto. There is an analysis which while separating in theory the +factors of an organism destroys them in so far as they are elements +contributing to the unity of the whole. But there is another analysis, +and this alone permits us to understand history, which only +distinguishes and separates the elements to find again in them the +objective necessity of their co-operation toward the total result.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p><p>It is now a current opinion that modern socialism is a normal and thus +an inevitable product of history. Its political action, which may in +future involve delays and set-backs but never henceforth a total +absorption, began with the <i>International</i>. Nevertheless the Manifesto +precedes it. Its teaching is of prime importance in the light which it +throws on the proletarian movement, which movement indeed had its birth +and development independently of any doctrine. It is also more than this +light. Critical communism dates from the moment when the proletarian +movement is not merely a result of social conditions, but when it has +already strength enough to understand that these conditions can be +changed and to discern what means can modify them and in what direction. +It was not enough to say that socialism was a result of history. It was +also necessary to understand the intrinsic causes of this outcome and to +what all its activity tended. This affirmation, that the proletariat is +a necessary result of modern society, has for its mission to succeed the +bourgeoisie, and to succeed it as the producing force of a new social +order in which class antagonisms shall disappear, makes of the Manifesto +a characteristic epoch in the general course of history. It is a +revolution—but not in the sense of an apocalypse or a promised +millennium. It is the scientific and reflected revelation of the way +which our <i>civil society</i> is traversing (if the shade of Fourier will pardon me!).</p> + +<p>The Manifesto thus gives us the inside history of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> its origin and +thereby justifies its doctrine and at the same time explains its +singular effect and its wonderful efficacy. Without losing ourselves in +details, here are the series and groups of elements which, reunited and +combined in this rapid and exact synthesis, give us the clue to all the +later development of scientific socialism.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>The immediate, direct and appreciable material is given by France and +England which had already had since 1830 a working-class movement which +sometimes resembles and sometimes differentiates itself from the other +revolutionary movements and which extended from instinctive revolt to +the practical aims of the political parties (Chartism and Social +Democracy for example) and gave birth to different temporary and +perishable forms of communism and semi-communism like that to which the +name of socialism was then given.</p> + +<p>To recognize in these movements no longer the fugitive phenomenon of +meteoric disturbances but a new social fact, there was need of a theory +which should explain them,—and a theory which should not be a simple +complement of the democratic tradition nor the subjective correction of +the disadvantages, thenceforth recognized, of the economy of +competition: although many were then concerned with this. This new +theory was the personal work of Marx and Engels. They carried over the +conception of historical progress through the process of antitheses from +the abstract form, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> the Hegelian dialectic had already described +in its most general features, to the concrete explanation of the class +struggle; and in this historic movement where it had been supposed that +we observed the passage from one form of ideas to another form they saw +for the first time the transition from one form of social anatomy to +another, that is from one form of economic production to another form.</p> + +<p>This historic conception, which gave a theoretic form to this necessity +of the <i>new social revolution</i> more or less explicit in the instinctive +consciousness of the proletariat and in its passionate and spontaneous +movements, recognizing the intrinsic and imminent necessity of the +revolution, changed the concept of it. That which the sects of +conspirators had regarded as belonging to the domain of the will and +capable of being constructed at pleasure, became a simple process which +might be favored, sustained and assisted. The revolution became the +object of a policy the conditions of which are given by the complex +situation of society; it therefore became a result which the proletariat +must attain through struggles and various means of organization which +the old tactics of revolts had not yet imagined. And this because the +proletariat is not an accessory and auxiliary means, an excrescence, an +evil, which can be eliminated from the society in which we are living +but because it is its substratum, its essential condition, its +inevitable effect and in turn the cause which preserves and maintains +society itself; and thus it cannot emancipate itself without at the +same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> time emancipating every one, that is to say, revolutionizing +completely the form of production.</p> + +<p>Just as the <i>League of the Just</i> had become <i>The Communist League</i> by +stripping itself of the forms of symbolism and conspiracy and adopting +little by little the means of propaganda and of political action from +and after the check attending the insurrection of Barbès and Blanqui +(1839), so likewise the new doctrine, which the <i>League</i> accepted and +made its own, definitely abandoned the ideas which inspired the action +of conspiracies, and conceived as the outcome and objective result of a +process, that which the conspirators believed to be the result of a +pre-determined plan or the emanation from their heroism.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>At that point begins a new ascending line in the order of facts and +another connection of concepts and of doctrines.</p> + +<p>The communism of conspiracy, the Blanquism of that time, carries us up +through Buonarotti and also through Bazard and the “Carbonari” to the +conspiracy of Baboeuf, a true hero of ancient tragedy who hurled himself +against fate because there was no connection between his aim and the +economic condition of the moment, and he was as yet incapable of +bringing upon the political scene a proletariat having a broad class +consciousness. From Baboeuf and certain less known elements of the +Jacobin period, past Boissel and Fauchet we ascend to the intuitive +Morelly and to the original and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> versatile Mably and if you please to +the chaotic <i>Testament</i> of the <i>curé</i> Meslier, an instinctive and +violent rebellion of “good sense” against the savage oppression endured +by the unhappy peasant.</p> + +<p>These precursors of the socialism of violence, protest and conspiracy +were all equalitarians; as were also most of the conspirators. Thus by a +singular but inevitable error they took for a weapon of combat, +interpreting it and generalizing it, that same doctrine of equality +which developing as a <i>natural right</i> parallel to the formation of the +economic theory, had become an instrument in the hands of the +bourgeoisie which was winning step by step its present position to +transform the society of privilege into that of liberalism, free +exchange and the civil code.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> + +<p>Following this immediate deduction which at bottom was a simple +illusion, that all men being equal in nature should also be equal in +their enjoyments, it was thought that the appeal to reason carried with +it all the elements of propaganda and persuasion, and that the rapid, +immediate and violent taking possession of the exterior instruments of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +political power was the only means to set to right those who resisted.</p> + +<p>But whence come and how persist all these inequalities which appear so +irrational in the light of a concept of justice so simple and so +elementary? The Manifesto was the clear negation of the principle of +equality understood so naively and so clumsily. While proclaiming as +inevitable the abolition of classes in the future form of collective +production, it explains to us the necessity, the birth and the +development of these very classes as a fact which is not an exception, +or a derogation of an abstract principle, but the very process of history.</p> + +<p>Even as the modern proletariat involves the bourgeoisie, so the latter +cannot exist without the former. And both are the result of a process of +formation which rests altogether upon the new mode of production of the +objects necessary to life, that is to say, which rests altogether upon +the manner of economic production. The bourgeois society grew out of the +corporative and feudal society and it grew out of it through struggle +and revolution in order to take possession of the instruments and means +of production which all culminate in the formation, the development and +the multiplication of capital. To describe the origin and the progress +of the bourgeoisie in its different phases, to explain its successes in +the colossal development of technique and in the conquest of the world +market, and to point out the political transformations which followed +it, which are the expression, the defense and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> the result of these +conquests is, at the same time, to write the history of the proletariat. +The latter in its present condition is inherent in the epoch of +bourgeois society and it has had, it has, and will have as many phases +as that society itself up to the time of its extinction. The antithesis +of rich and poor, of happy and unhappy, of oppressors and oppressed is +not something accidental which can easily be put on one side as was +believed by the enthusiasts of justice. Still further it is a fact of +necessary correlation, once granted the directing principle of the +present form of production which makes the wageworker a necessity. This +necessity is double. Capital can only take possession of production by +converting laborers into proletarians and it cannot continue to live, to +be fruitful, to accumulate, to multiply itself and to transform itself +except on the condition of paying wages to those whom it has made +proletarians. The latter, on their side, can only live and reproduce +their kind on the condition of selling themselves as labor power, the +use of which is left to the discretion, that is to say, to the good +pleasure of the possessors of capital. The harmony between capital and +labor is wholly contained in this fact that labor is the living force by +which the proletarians continually put in motion and reproduce by adding +to it the labor accumulated in the capital. This connection resulting +from a development which is the whole inner essence of modern history, +if it gives the key to comprehend the true reason of the new class +struggle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> of which the communist conception has become the expression, +is of such a nature that no sentimental protest, no argument based on +justice can resolve it and disentangle it.</p> + +<p>It is for these reasons which I have explained here as simply as +possible that equalitarian communism remained vanquished. Its practical +powerlessness blended with its theoretical inability to account for the +causes of the wrongs or of the inequalities which it desired, bravely or +stupidly, to destroy or eliminate at a blow.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>To understand history became thenceforth the principal task of the +theorists of communism. How could a cherished ideal be still opposed to +the hard reality of history? Communism is not the natural and necessary +state of human life in all times and in all places and the whole course +of historic formations cannot be considered as a series of deviations +and wanderings. One does not reach communism nor return to it by Spartan +abnegation or Christian resignation. It can be, still more it must be +and it will be the consequence of the dissolution of our capitalist +society. But the dissolution cannot be inoculated into it artificially +nor imported from without. It will dissolve by its own weight as +Machiavelli would say. It will disappear as a form of production which +engenders of itself and in itself the constant and increasing rebellion +of its productive forces against the conditions (juridical and +political) of production and it continues to live only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> by augmenting +(through competition which engenders crises, and by a bewildering +extension of its sphere of action) the intrinsic conditions of its +inevitable death. The death of a social form like that which comes from +natural death in any other branch of science becomes a <i>physiological case</i>.</p> + +<p>The Manifesto did not make, and it was not its part to make the picture +of a future society. It told how our present society will dissolve by +the progressive dynamics of its forces. To make this understood it was +necessary above all to explain the development of the bourgeoisie and +this was done in rapid sketches, a model philosophy of history, which +can be retouched, completed and developed, but which cannot be +corrected.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p> + +<p>Saint-Simon and Fourier, although neither their ideas nor the general +trend of their development were accepted, found their justification. +Idealists both, they had by their heroic vision transcended the +“liberal” epoch which in their horizon had its culminating point at the +epoch of the French revolution. The former in his interpretation of +history substituted social physics for economic law and politics, and in +spite of many idealistic and positivistic uncertainties, he almost +discovered the genesis of the third estate. The other, ignorant of +details which were still unknown or neglected, in the exuberance of his +undisciplined spirit imagined a great chain of historic epochs vaguely +distinguished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> by certain indications of the directing principle of the +forms of production and distribution. He thereupon proposed to himself +to construct a society in which the existing antitheses should +disappear. From all these antitheses he discovered by a flash of genius +and he, more than any other, developed “the vicious circle of +production”; he there unconsciously reached the position of Sismondi, +who at the same epoch, but with other intentions and along different +roads, studying crises and denouncing the disadvantages of the large +scale industry and of unbridled competition, announced the collapse of +the newly established economic science. From the summit of his serene +meditation on the future world of the harmonians he looked down with a +serene contempt upon the misery of civilization and unmoved wrote the +satire of history. Ignorant both, because idealists, of the bitter +struggle which the proletariat is called upon to maintain before putting +an end to the epoch of exploitation and of antitheses, they arrived +through a subjective necessity at their conclusions, in the one case +scheme-making, in the other utopianism. But as by divination they +foresaw some of the direct principles of a society without antitheses. +The former reached a clear conception of the technical government of +society in which should disappear the domination of man over man, and +the other divined, foresaw and prophesied along with the extravagances +of his luxuriant imagination a great number of the important traits of +the psychology and pedagogy of that future society in which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>according +to the expression of the Manifesto, “the free development of each is the +condition of the free development of all.”</p> + +<p>Saint-Simonism had already disappeared when the Manifesto appeared. +Fourierism, on the contrary, was flourishing in France and in +consequence of its nature not as a party but as a school.</p> + +<p>When the school attempted to realize its utopia by means of the law, the +Parisian proletarians had already been beaten in those days of June by +that bourgeoisie which through this victory was preparing a master for +itself: it was a military adventurer whose power lasted twenty years.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>It is not in the name of a school, but as the promise, the threat, and +the desire of a party that the new doctrine of critical communism +presented itself. Its authors and its adherents did not feed upon the +utopian manufacture of the future but their minds were full of the +experience and the necessity of the present. They united with the +proletarians whom instinct, not as yet fortified by experience, impelled +to overthrow, at Paris and in England, the rule of the bourgeois class +with a rapidity of movement not guided by well-considered tactics. These +communists disseminated their revolutionary ideas in Germany: they were +the defenders of the June martyrs, and they had in the Neue Rheinische +Zeitung a political organ, extracts from which, reproduced occasionally +after so many years,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> still carry authority.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> After the disappearance +of the historic situations which in 1848 had pushed the proletarians to +the front of the political stage, the doctrines of the Manifesto no +longer found either a foundation or a field for diffusion. Many years +were required before it circulated again and that because many years +were required before the proletariat could re-appear by other roads and +under other methods as a political force upon the scene, making of this +doctrine its intellectual organ and directing its course by it.</p> + +<p>But from the day when the doctrine appeared it made its anticipated +criticism of that <i>socialismus vulgaris</i> which was flourishing in Europe +and especially in France from the coup d’État to the International; the +latter moreover in its short period of life had not time to vanquish and +eliminate it. This vulgar socialism found its intellectual food (when +nothing even more incoherent and chaotic was at hand) in the doctrine +and especially in the paradoxes of Proudhon who had already been +vanquished theoretically by Marx<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> but who was not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> vanquished +practically until the time of the Commune when his disciples, and it was +a salutary lesson in affairs, were forced to act in opposition to their +own doctrines and those of their master.</p> + +<p>From the time of its appearance this new communist doctrine carried an +implied criticism of all forms of State socialism from Louis Blanc to +Lassalle. This State socialism, although mingled with revolutionary +doctrines, was then summed up in the empty dream, in the abracadabra, of +the <i>Right to Work</i>. This is an insidious formula if it implies a demand +addressed to a government even of revolutionary bourgeois. It is an +economic absurdity if by it is meant to suppress the unemployment which +ensues upon the variations of wages, that is to say upon the conditions +of competition. It may be a tool for politicians, if it serves as an +expedient to calm a shapeless mass of unorganized proletarians. This is +very evident for any one who conceives clearly the course of a +victorious proletarian revolution which cannot proceed to the +socialization of the means of production by taking possession of them, +that is to say, which cannot arrive at the economic form in which there +is neither merchandise nor wage labor and in which the right to work and +the duty of working are one and the same, mingled in the common +necessity of labor for all.</p> + +<p>The mirage of the right to work ended in the tragedy of June. The +parliamentary discussion of which it was the object in the sequel was +nothing but a parody. Lamartine, that tearful rhetorician,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> that great +man for all proper occasions, had pronounced the last, or the next to +the last of his celebrated phrases, “Catastrophes are the experiences of +nations,” and that sufficed for the irony of history.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>The brevity and simplicity of the Manifesto were wholly foreign to the +insinuating rhetoric of faith or creed. It was of the utmost +inclusiveness by virtue of the many ideas which it for the first time +reduced to a system and it was a series of germs capable of an immense +development. But it was not, and it did not pretend to be a code of +socialism, a catechism of critical communism, or the handbook of the +proletarian revolution. We may leave its “quintessence” to the +illustrious Dr. Schaeffle, to whom also we willingly leave the famous +phrase, “The social question is a question of the stomach.”</p> + +<p>The “ventre” of Dr. Schaeffle has for long years cut a fine enough +figure in the world to the great advantage of the dilettanti in +socialism and to the delight of the politicians. Critical communism, in +reality, scarcely begun with the Manifesto it needed to develop and it +has developed effectively.</p> + +<p>The sum total of the teachings customarily designated by the name of +“Marxism” did not arrive at maturity before the years 1860-1870. It is +certainly a long step from the little work Wage Labor and Capital<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> in +which is seen for the first time in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> precise terms how from the purchase +and the use of the labor-commodity is obtained a product superior to the +cost of production, this being the clue to the question of surplus +value—it is a long step from this to the complex and multiple +developments of “Capital.” This book goes exhaustively into the genesis +of the bourgeois epoch in all its inner economic structure, and +intellectually it transcends that epoch because it explains its course, +its particular laws and the antitheses which it organically produces and +which organically dissolve it.</p> + +<p>It is a long step also from the proletarian movement which succumbed in +1848 to the present proletarian movement which through great +difficulties after having re-appeared on the political scene has +developed with continuity and deliberation. Until a few years ago this +regularity of the forward march of the proletariat was observed and +admired only in Germany. The social democracy there had normally +increased as upon its own field (from the Workingmen’s Conference of +Nuremburg, 1868, to our day). But since then the same phenomenon has +asserted itself in other countries, under various forms.</p> + +<p>In this broad development of Marxism and in this increase of the +proletarian movement in the limited forms of political action, has there +not been, as some assert, an alteration from the militant <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>character of +the original form of critical communism? Has there not been a passing +from revolution to the self-styled evolution? Has there not been an +acquiescence of the revolutionary spirit in the exigencies of the reform movement?</p> + +<p>These reflections and these objections have arisen and arise continually +both among the most enthusiastic and most passionate of the socialists +and among the adversaries of socialism whose interest it is to give an +appearance of uniformity to the special defeats, checks and delays, so +as to affirm that communism has no future.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Whoever compares the present proletarian movement and its varied and +complicated course with the impression left by the Manifesto when one +reads it without being provided with knowledge from other sources, may +easily believe that there was something juvenile and premature in the +confident boldness of those communists of fifty years ago. There is in +them the sound as of a battle cry and an echo of the vibrant eloquence +of some of the orators of Chartism; there is the declaration of a new +’93 with no room left for a new Thermidor.</p> + +<p>And Thermidor has re-appeared several times since in various forms, more +or less explicit or disguised, and their authors have been since 1848 +French ex-radicals, or Italian ex-patriots, or German bureaucrats, +adorers of the god State and practically slaves of the god Mammon, +English parliamentarians broken by the artifices of the art of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>government, or even politicians under the guise of anarchists. Many +people believe that the constellation of Thermidor is destined never to +disappear from the heaven of history, or to speak in a more prosaic +fashion, that liberalism, that is to say a society where men are equal +only in law, marks the extreme limit of human evolution beyond which +nothing remains but a return backward. That is the opinion of all those +who see in the progressive extension of the bourgeois form over the +whole world the reason and the end of all progress. Whether they are +optimists or pessimists here are, for them, the columns of Hercules of +the human race. Often it happens that this sentiment in its pessimistic +form operates unconsciously upon some of those, who with others +unclassified, go to swell the ranks of anarchism.</p> + +<p>There are others who go further and who theorize upon the objective +improbabilities of the assertions of critical communism. That +affirmation of the Manifesto that the reduction of all class struggles +to a single one carries within itself the necessity of the proletarian +revolution, would seem to them intrinsically false. That doctrine would +be without foundation because it assumes to draw a theoretical deduction +and a practical rule of conduct from the prevision of a fact which, +according to these adversaries, would be a simple theoretical point +which might be displaced and set ahead indefinitely. The assumed +inevitable collision between the productive forces and the form of +production would never take place because it is reduced, as they claim, +to an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>infinite number of particular cases of friction, because it +multiplies itself into the partial collisions of economic competition, +and because it meets with checks and hindrances in the expedients and +attacks of the governmental art. In other words, our present society, +instead of breaking up and dissolving would in a continuous fashion +repair the evils which it produced. Every proletarian movement which is +not repressed by violence as was that of June, 1848, and that of May, +1871, would perish of slow exhaustion as happened with Chartism which +ended in trade unionism, the war horse of this fashion of arguing, the +honor and glory of the economists and of the vulgar sociologists. Every +modern proletarian movement would be regarded as meteoric and not +organic, it would be a disturbance and not a process, and according to +these critics, in spite of ourselves, we should be still utopians.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>The historic forecast which is found in the doctrine of the Manifesto +and which critical communism has since developed by a broad and detailed +analysis of the actual world, has certainly taken on by reason of the +circumstances in which it was produced a warlike appearance and a very +aggressive form. But it did not imply, any more than it implies now, +either a chronological datum or a prophetic picture of the social +organization like those in the apocalypses and the ancient prophesies.</p> + +<p>The heroic Father Dolcino did not re-appear with the prophetic war cry +of Joachino del Fiore. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> did not celebrate anew at Münster the +resurrection of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. There were no more Taborites +nor millenarians. Nor was there another Fourier waiting in his house at +a fixed hour year after year for the “candidate of humanity.” Nor again, +was there an initiator of a new life, beginning with artificial means to +create the first nucleus of an association proposing to make man over, +as was the case with Beller, Owen, Cabet, and the enterprise of the +Fourierites in Texas, which was the tomb of utopianism, marked by a +singular epitaph: the dumbness which succeeded the fiery eloquence of +Considerant. Neither is there here a sect which retires modestly and +timidly from the world in order to celebrate in a closed circle the +perfect idea of communism as in the socialist colonies of America.</p> + +<p>Here, on the contrary, in the doctrine of critical communism, it is +society as a whole which at a moment of its general process discovers +the cause of its destined course and at a critical point asserts itself +to proclaim the laws of its movement. The foresight indicated by the +Manifesto was not chronological, it was not a prophecy nor a promise, +but a morphological prevision.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Beneath the noise of the passions over which our daily conversation +extends itself, beyond the visible movements of the persons who formed +the material at which the historians stop, beyond the juridical and +political apparel of our civil society, far enough from the meanings +which religion and art give to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> life, there remains, grows and develops +the elementary structure of society which supports all the rest. The +anatomical study of this underlying structure is economics. And as human +society has several times changed, partially or entirely, in its most +visible exterior form, or in its ideological, religious or artistic +manifestations, we must first find the cause and the reason of these +changes, the only ones which historians relate, in the transformations +more hidden, and at first less visible, of the economic <i>processus</i> of +this structure. We must set ourselves to the study of the differences +which exist between the various forms of production when we have to deal +with historic epochs clearly distinct and properly designated; and when +we have to explain the succession of these forms, the replacing of one +by the other, we must study the causes of erosion, and of the +destruction of the form which disappears; and finally when we wish to +understand the historic fact determined and concrete, we must study the +frictions and the contrasts which take their rise from the different +currents, that is to say, the classes, their subdivisions and their +intersections which characterize a given society.</p> + +<p>When the Manifesto declared that all history up to the present time has +been nothing but the history of class struggles and that these are the +cause of all revolutions as also of all reactions, it did two things at +the same time, it gave to communism the elements of a new doctrine and +to the communists the guiding thread to discover in the confused events +of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>political life the conditions of the underlying economic movement.</p> + +<p>In these last fifty years the generic foresight of a new historic era +has become for socialists the delicate art of understanding in every +case what it is expedient to do, because this new era is in itself in +continual formation. Communism has become an art because the +proletarians have become, or are on the point of becoming, a political +party. The revolutionary spirit is embodied to-day in the proletarian +organization. The desired union of communists and proletarians is +henceforth an accomplished fact.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> These last fifty years have been +the ever stronger proof of the ever growing revolt of the producing +forces against the forms of production. We “utopians” have no other +answer to offer than this lesson from events to those who still speak of +meteoric disturbances which, as they would have it, will disappear +little by little and will all resolve themselves into the calm of this +final epoch of civilization. And this lesson suffices.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Eleven years after the publication of the Manifesto, Marx formulated in +clear and precise fashion the directing principles of the materialistic +interpretation of history in the preface to a book which is the +forerunner of “Capital.”<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p><p>“The first work which I undertook for the purpose of solving the doubts +which perplexed me was a critical re-examination of Hegel’s Philosophy +of Law. The introduction to this work appeared in the German-French Year +Books, published in Paris in 1844.</p> + +<p>My investigation ended in the conviction that legal relations and forms +of government cannot be explained either by themselves or by the +so-called general development of the human mind, but on the contrary, +have their roots in the conditions of man’s physical existence, whose +totality Hegel, following the English and French writers of the +eighteenth century, summed up under the name of civil society; and that +the anatomy of civil society must be sought in political economy.</p> + +<p>The study of the latter which I began at Paris was continued at Brussels +whither I had betaken myself in consequence of an order of Guizot +expelling me from France.</p> + +<p>The general result which I arrived at and which, once obtained, served +as a guide for my subsequent studies, can be briefly formulated as follows:</p> + +<p>In making their livelihood together men enter into certain necessary +involuntary relations with each other, industrial relations which +correspond to whatever stage society has reached in the development of +its material productive forces.</p> + +<p>The totality of these industrial relations <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>constitutes the economic +structure of society, the real basis upon which the legal and political +superstructure is built, and to which definite forms of social +consciousness correspond.</p> + +<p>The method of producing the material livelihood determines the social, +political and intellectual life process in general.</p> + +<p>It is not men’s consciousness which determines their life; on the +contrary, it is their social life which determines their consciousness.</p> + +<p>At a certain stage of their development the material productive forces +of society come into conflict with the old conditions of production or, +to use a legal expression, with the old property relations under which +these forces have hitherto been exerted. From forms of development of +the productive forces these relations turn into fetters of production. +Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the +economic basis the whole vast superstructure undergoes sooner or later a revolution.</p> + +<p>In considering such revolutions one must constantly distinguish between +the industrial revolution, to be carefully posited scientifically, which +takes place in the economic conditions of production, and the legal, +political, religious, artistic or philosophical, in short ideological, +forms wherein men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. As +little as we judge an individual by what he himself thinks he is, just +as little can we judge such a revolutionary epoch by its own +consciousness. We must rather explain this consciousness out of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +antagonisms of men’s industrial life, out of the conflict existing +between the forces of social production and the relations of social production.</p> + +<p>A form of society never breaks down until all the productive forces are +developed for which it affords room. New and higher relations of +production are never established, until the material conditions of life +to support them have been prepared in the lap of the old society itself. +Therefore mankind always sets for itself only such tasks as it is able +to perform; for upon close examination it will always be found that the +task itself only arises where the material conditions for its solution +are already at hand or are at least in process of growth.</p> + +<p>We may in broad outlines characterize the Asiatic, the antique, the +feudal and the modern capitalist methods of production as progressive +epochs in the economic evolution of society.</p> + +<p>The industrial relations arising out of the capitalistic method of +production constitute the last of the antagonistic forms of social +production; antagonistic not in the sense of an individual antagonism, +but of an antagonism growing out of the social conditions of individuals.</p> + +<p>But the productive forces which are developed in the lap of capitalistic +society create at the same time the material conditions needed for the +abolition of this antagonism. The capitalist form of society therefore, +brings to a close this prelude to the history of human society.”</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p><p>Marx had some years before left the political arena and he did not +return to it until later with the International. The reaction had +triumphed in Italy, Austria, Hungary and Germany over the patriotic, +liberal or democratic revolution. The bourgeoisie on its side had +overcome the proletarians of France and England. The indispensable +conditions for the development of a democratic and proletarian movement +suddenly disappeared. The battalion small in numbers indeed of the +Manifesto communists who had taken part in the revolution and who had +participated in all the acts of resistance and popular rebellion against +reaction saw its activity crushed by the memorable process of Cologne. +The survivors of the movement tried to make a new start at London, but +soon Marx, Engels and others separated themselves from the +revolutionaries and retired from the movement. The crisis was passed. A +long period of repose followed. This was shown by the slow disappearance +of the Chartist movement, that is to say, the proletarian movement of +the country which was the spinal column of the capitalist system. +History had for the moment discredited the illusions of the revolutionaries.</p> + +<p>Before giving himself almost entirely to the long incubation of the +already discovered elements of the critique of political economy, Marx +illustrated in several works the history of the revolutionary period +from 1848 to 1850 and especially the class struggles in France, showing +thus that if the revolution in the forms which it had taken on at that +moment had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> not succeeded, the revolutionary theory of history was not +contradicted for all that.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> The suggestions given in the Manifesto +found here their complete development.</p> + +<p>Later the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> was the first attempt to +apply the new conception of history to a series of facts contained +within precise limits of time. It is extremely difficult to rise from +the apparent movement to the real movement of history and to discover +their intimate connection. There are indeed great difficulties in rising +from the phenomena of passion, oratory, Parliaments, elections and the +like to the inner social gearing to discover in the latter the different +interests of the large and small bourgeois, of the peasants, the +artisans, the laborers, the priests, the soldiers, the bankers, the +usurers and the mob. All these interests act consciously or +unconsciously, jostling each other, eliminating each other, combining +and fusing, in the discordant life of civilized man.</p> + +<p>The crisis was passed and this was precisely true in the countries which +constituted the historic field from which critical communism proceeded. +All<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> that the critical communists could do was to understand the +reaction in its hidden economic causes because, for the moment, to +understand the reaction was to continue the work of the revolution. The +same thing happened under other conditions and other forms 20 years +later when Marx, in the name of the International made in the “Civil War +in France” an apology for the Commune which was at the same time its +objective criticism.</p> + +<p>The heroic resignation with which Marx after 1850 abandoned political +life was shown again when he retired from the International after the +congress at the Hague in 1872. These two facts have their value for +biography because they give glimpses of his personal character. With +him, in fact, ideas, temperament, policy and thought were one and the +same. But, on the other hand, these facts have a much greater bearing +for us. Critical communism does not manufacture revolutions, it does not +prepare insurrections, it does not furnish arms for revolts. It mingles +itself with the proletarian movement, but it sees and supports that +movement in the full intelligence of the connection which it has, which +it can have, and which it must have, with all the relations of social +life as a whole. In a word it is not a seminary in which superior +officers of the proletarian revolution are trained, but it is neither +more nor less than the consciousness of this revolution and especially +the consciousness of its difficulties.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p><p>The proletarian movement has grown in a colossal fashion during these +last thirty years. In the midst of numberless difficulties, through +gains and losses, it has little by little taken on a political form. Its +methods have been elaborated and gradually applied. All this is not the +work of the magic action of the doctrine scattered by the persuasive +virtue of written and spoken propaganda. From their first beginnings the +communists had this feeling that they were the extreme left of every +proletarian movement, but in proportion as the latter developed and +specialized it became their necessity and duty to assist, (through the +elaboration of programmes, and through their participation in the +political action of the parties) in the various contingencies of the +economic development and of the political situation growing out of it.</p> + +<p>In the fifty years which separate us from the publication of the +Manifesto the specialization and the complexity of the proletarian +movement have become such that there is henceforth no mind capable of +embracing it in its completeness, of understanding it in its details and +grasping its real causes and exact relations. The single International, +from 1864 to 1873, necessarily disappeared after it had fulfilled its +task. The preliminary equalization of the general tendencies and of the +ideas common and indispensable to all the proletariat, and no one can +assume or will assume to re-constitute anything like it.</p> + +<p>Two causes, notably, contributed in a high <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>degree to this +specialization, this complexity of the proletarian movement. In many +countries the bourgeoisie felt the need of putting an end in the +interest of its own defense to some of the abuses which had arisen in +consequence of the introduction of the industrial system. Thence arose +labor legislation, or as it has been pompously called social +legislation. This same bourgeoisie in its own interest or, under the +pressure of circumstances has been obliged, in many countries to +increase the generic conditions of liberty, and notably to extend the +right of suffrage. These two circumstances have drawn the proletariat +into the circle of daily political life. They have considerably +increased its chance for action and the agility and suppleness thus +acquired permit it to struggle with the bourgeoisie in elective +assembles. And as the <i>processus</i> of things determines the <i>processus</i> +of ideas, this practical multiform development of the proletariat is +accompanied by a gradual development of the doctrines of critical +communism, as well in the manner of understanding history or +contemporary life as in the minute description of the most infinitesimal +parts of economics: in a word, it has become a science.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Have we not there, some ask, a deviation from the simple and imperative +doctrine of the Manifesto? Others again say, have we not lost in +intensity and precision what we have gained in extension and complexity?</p> + +<p>These questions, in my opinion, arise from an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>inexact conception of the +present proletarian movement and an optical illusion as to the degree of +energy and revolutionary valor of the former movements.</p> + +<p>Whatever be the concessions that the bourgeoisie can make in the present +economic order even if it be a very great reduction in the hours of +labor, it always remains true that the necessity for exploitation upon +which the whole present social order rests imposes limits beyond which +capital as a private instrument of production has no more reason for +existence. If a concession to-day can allay one form of discontent in +the proletariat, the concession itself can do nothing less than to give +rise to the need of new and ever increasing concessions. The need of +labor legislation arose in England before the Chartist movement and it +developed afterwards along with it. It had its first successes in the +period which immediately followed the fall of Chartism. The principles +and the reasons of this movement in their causes and their effects were +studied in a critical manner by Marx in Capital and they afterwards +passed, through the International, into the programmes of the different +socialist parties. Finally this whole process, concentrating itself into +the demand for eight hours, became with the 1st of May an international +marshalling of the proletariat, and a means for estimating its progress. +On the other hand, the political struggle in which the proletariat takes +part democratizes its habits; still more a real<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> democracy takes birth +which, with time, will no longer be able to adapt itself to the present +political form. Being the organ of a society based on exploitation it is +constituted as a bureaucratic hierarchy, as a judicial bureaucracy and a +mutual aid society of the capitalists for the defense of their special +privileges, the perpetual income from the public debt, the rent of land +and the interest on capital in all its forms. Consequently the two +facts, which according to the discontented and the hypercritical seem to +make us deviate infinitely from the lines laid down by communism, +become, on the contrary, new means and new conditions which confirm +these lines. The apparent deviations from the revolution are, at bottom, +the very thing which is hastening it.</p> + +<p>Moreover, we must not exaggerate the significance of the revolutionary +faith of the communists of fifty years ago. Given the political +situation of Europe, if they had a faith, it was that they were +precursors, and this they have been; they hoped that the political +conditions of Italy, Austria, Hungary, Germany and Poland might +approximate to modern forms, and this has happened later, in part, and +through other means; if they had a hope, it was that the proletarian +movement of France and England might continue to develop. The reaction +which intervened upset many things and stopped more than one development +which had already begun. It upset also the old revolutionary tactic, and +in these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> last years a new tactic has arisen. Therein lies all the +change.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>The Manifesto was designed for nothing else than the first guiding +thread to a science and a practice which nothing but experience and time +could develop. It gives only the scheme and the rhythm of the general +march of the proletarian movement.</p> + +<p>It is perfectly evident that the communists were influenced by the +experience of the two movements which they had before their eyes, that +of France, and especially the Chartist movement which the manifestation +of April 10th was soon to strike with paralysis. But this scheme does +not fix in any invariable fashion a tactic of war, which indeed had +already been made frequently. The revolutionists had often indeed +explained in the form of catechism what ought to be a simple consequence +of the development of events.</p> + +<p>This scheme became more vast and complex with the development and +extension of the bourgeois system. The rhythm of the movement has become +more varied and slower because the laboring mass has entered on the +scene as a distinct, political party, which fact changes the manner and +the measure of their action and consequently their movement.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p><p>Just as in view of the improvement of modern weapons the tactic of +street riots has become inopportune, and just as the complexity of the +modern state shows the insufficiency of a sudden capture of a municipal +government to impose upon a whole people the will and the ideas of a +minority, no matter how courageous and progressive, even so, on its +side, the mass of the proletarians no longer holds to the word of +command of a few leaders, nor does it regulate its movements by the +instructions of captains who might upon the ruins of one government +raise up another. The laboring mass where it has developed politically +has made and is making its own democratic education. It is choosing its +representatives and submitting their action to its criticism. It +examines and makes its own the ideas and the propositions which these +representatives submit to it. It already knows, or it begins to +understand according to the situation in the various countries, that the +conquest of the political power cannot and should not be made by others +in its name, and especially that it cannot be the consequence of a +single blow. In a word it knows, or it is beginning to understand that +the dictatorship of the proletariat which shall have for its task the +socialization of the means of production cannot be the work of a mass +led by a few and that it must be, and that it will be, the work of the +proletarians themselves when they have become in themselves and through +long practice a political organization.</p> + +<p>The development and the extension of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>bourgeois system have been +rapid and colossal in these last fifty years. It already invades sacred +and ancient Russia and it is creating, not only in America, Australia +and in India, but even in Japan, new centers of modern production, thus +complicating the conditions of competition and the entanglements of the +world market. The consequences of political changes have been produced, +or will not be long to wait for. Equally rapid and colossal has been the +progress of the proletariat. Its political education takes each day a +new step toward the conquest of political power. The rebellion of the +productive forces against the form of production, the struggle of living +labor against accumulated labor, becomes every day more evident. The +bourgeois system is henceforth upon the defensive and it reveals its +decadence by this singular contradiction; the peaceful world of industry +has become a colossal camp in which militarism develops. The peaceful +period of industry has become by the irony of things the period of the +continuous invention of new engines of war.</p> + +<p>Socialism has forced itself into the situation. Those semi-socialists, +even those charlatans who encumber with their presence the press and the +meetings of our party and who often are a nuisance to us, are a tribute +which vanity and ambitions of every sort render in their fashion to the +new power which rises on the horizon. In spite of the foreseen antidote +which scientific socialism is, the truth of which many people have not +come to understand,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> there is a group of quacks on the social question, +all having some particular specific to eliminate such or such a social +evil: land nationalization, monopoly of grains in the hands of the +State, democratic taxes, statization of mortgages, general strike, etc. +But social democracy eliminates all these fantasies because the +consciousness of their situation leads the proletarians when once they +have become familiar with the political arena to understand socialism in +an integral fashion. They come to understand that they should look for +only one thing, the abolition of wage labor; that there is but one form +of society which renders possible and even necessary the elimination of +classes,—the association which does not produce commodities, and that +this form of society is no longer the State, but its opposite, that is +to say, the technical and pedagogical administration of human society, +the self-government of labor. Behind the Jacobins are the gigantic +heroes of 1793 and their caricatures of 1848.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p><i>Social democracy!</i> But is not that, say some, an evident attenuation of +the communist doctrine as it is formulated in the Manifesto in terms so +ringing and so decisive?</p> + +<p>This is not the moment to recall that the phrase <i>social democracy</i> has +had in France many significations from 1837 to 1848, all of which were +based upon a vague sentimentalism. Neither is it necessary to explain +how the Germans have been able in this nomenclature to sum up all the +rich and vast <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>development of their socialism from the episode of +Lassalle now passed over and transformed up to our own days. It is +certain that <i>social democracy</i> can signify, has signified and signifies +many things which have not been, are not, and never will be, either +critical communism or the conscious march toward the proletarian +revolution. It is also certain that contemporary socialism even in the +countries where its development is most advanced, carries with it a +great deal of dross which it throws off little by little along the road. +It is certain also, in fine, that this broad designation of social +democracy serves as an escutcheon and a buckler to many intruders. But +here we need to fix our attention only upon certain points of capital importance.</p> + +<p>We must insist upon the second term of the expression in order to avoid +any equivocation. Democratic was the constitution of the <i>Communist +League</i>; democratic was its fashion of welcoming and discussing each new +teaching; democratic was its intervention in the revolution of 1848 and +its participation in the rebellious resistance against the invasion of +reaction; democratic finally was the very way in which the League was +dissolved. In this first type of our present parties, in this first cell +so to speak, of our complex organism, elastic and highly developed, +there was not only the consciousness of the mission to be accomplished +as precursor, but there was already the form and the method of +association which alone are suitable for the first initiators of the +proletarian revolution. It was no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> longer a sect; that form was already, +in fact, outgrown. The immediate and fantastic domination of the +individual was eliminated, what predominated was a discipline which had +its source in the experience of necessity and in the precise doctrine +which must proceed from the reflex consciousness of this necessity. It +was the same with the International, which appeared authoritarian only +to those who could not make their own authority prevail in it. It must +be the same, and it is so, in the working class parties and where this +character is not or cannot yet be marked, the proletarian agitation +still elementary and confused simply engenders illusions and is only a +pretext for intrigues, and when it is not so, then we have a passover +where men of understanding touch elbows with the madman and the spy; as +for example the society of The International Brothers which attached +itself like a parasite to the International and discredited it; or again +the co-operative which degenerates into a business and sells itself to +capitalists; the labor party which remains outside politics and which +studies the variations of the market to introduce its tactic of strikes +into the sinuosities of competition; or again a group of malcontents, +for the most part social outcasts and little bourgeois, who give +themselves up to speculations on socialism considered as one of the +phases of political fashion. Social democracy has met all these +impedimenta upon its way and it has been obliged to relieve itself of +them as it will have to do again from one time to another. The art of +persuasion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> does not always suffice. Oftener it was necessary and it is +necessary to resign ourselves and wait until the hard school of +disillusion serves to instruct, which it does better than reasonings can do.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>All these intrinsic difficulties of the proletarian movement, which the +wily bourgeoisie oftener than not stirs up of itself and which it makes +the most of, form a considerable part of the internal history of +socialism during these last years.</p> + +<p>Socialism has not found impediments merely in the general conditions of +economic competition and in the resistance of the political power, but +also in the very conditions of the proletarian mass and in the mechanism +sometimes obscure although inevitable of its slow, varied, complex +movements, often antagonistic and contradictory. That prevents many +people from seeing the increasing reduction of all class struggles to +the single struggle between the capitalists and the proletarianized workers.</p> + +<p>Even as the Manifesto did not write, as the utopians did, the ethics and +the psychology of the future society, just so it did not give the +mechanism of that formation and of the development in which we find +ourselves. It is surely enough that these few pioneers have opened the +road. We must walk upon it to arrive at understanding and experience. +Moreover man is distinctively the experimental animal; that is why he +has a history, or rather that is why he makes his own history.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p><p>Upon this road of contemporary socialism which constitutes its +development because it is its experience, we have met the mass of the peasants.</p> + +<p>Socialism which at first kept itself practically and theoretically to +the study and experience of the antagonisms between capitalists and +proletarians in the circle of industrial production properly so called, +has turned its activity toward that mass in which <i>peasant stupidity</i> +blossoms. To capture the peasants is the question of the hour, although +the quintessential Schaeffle long ago mobilized the anti-collectivist +brains of the peasants for the defense of the existing order. The +elimination and the capture of domestic industry by capital, the passage +more and more rapid of agrarian industry into the capitalist form, the +disappearance of small proprietorship, or its lessening through +mortgages, the disappearance of the communal domaines, usury, taxes and +militarism, all this is beginning to work miracles even in those brains +assumed to be props of the existing order.</p> + +<p>The Germans have been the pioneers in this field. They were brought to +it by the very fact of their immense expansion; from the cities they +have gone to the smallest centers and they thus arrive inevitably at the +frontiers of the country. Their attempts will be long and difficult; +this fact explains, excuses, and will excuse, the errors which have been +and will be committed.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> As long as the peasant shall not be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> gained +over we shall always have behind us this <i>peasant stupidity</i> which +unconsciously repeats, and that because it is stupid, the errors of the +18th Brumaire and the 2d of December. The development of modern society +in Russia will probably proceed on parallel lines with this conquest of +the country districts. When that country shall have entered into the +liberal era with all its imperfections and all its disadvantages, with +all the purely modern forms of exploitation and of proletarization, but +also with the compensations and the advantages of the political +development of the proletariat, social democracy will no longer have to +fear the threat of unforeseen perils from without, and it will at the +same time have triumphed over the internal perils by the capture of the peasants.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>The example of Italy is instructive. This country after having opened +the capitalist era dropped out for several centuries from the current +history. It is a typical case of decadence which can be studied in a +precise fashion from original documents in all its phases. It partly +returned into history at the time of the Napoleonic domination. It +reconquered its unity and became a modern state after the period of the +reaction and conspiracies, and under circumstances known to all, and +Italy has ended by having all the vices of parliamentarism, of +militarism and of finance without having at the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> time the forms of +modern production and the resulting capacity for competition on equal +terms. It cannot compete with countries where industry is more advanced +by reason of the absolute lack of coal and scarcity of iron, the lack of +technical ability,—and it is waiting, or hoping now, that the +application of electricity may permit it to regain the time lost. It is +this which gave the impulse to different attempts from Biella to Schio. +A modern state in a society almost exclusively agricultural and in a +country where agriculture is in great part backward, it is that which +gives birth to this general sentiment of universal discontent.</p> + +<p>Thence come the incoherence and the inconsistency of the parties, the +rapid oscillations from demagogy to dictatorship, the mob, the +multitude, the infinite army of the parasites of politics, the makers of +fantastic projects. This singular social spectacle of a development +prevented, retarded, embarrassed and thus uncertain, is brought out in +bold relief by a penetrating spirit which, if it is not always the fruit +and the expression of a modern, broad and real culture nevertheless +bears within itself as the relic of an excellent civilization the mark +of great cerebral refinement. Italy has not been for reasons easy to +guess a suitable field for the indigenous formation of socialist ideas +and tendencies. The Italian Philippe Buonaroti, at first the friend of +the younger Robespierre, become the companion of Babeuf and later +attempted to re-establish Babeufism in France, after 1830. Socialism +made its first <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>appearance in Italy at the time of the International, in +the confused and incoherent form of Bakuninism; it was not, moreover, a +labor movement, but it was the work of the small bourgeois and +instinctive revolutionists.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> In these last years socialism has fixed +itself in a form which <i>almost</i> reproduces the general type of <i>social +democracy</i>.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> Now in Italy the first sign of life which the +proletariat gave is in the shape of the rising of the Sicilian peasants +followed by other revolts of the same kind on the continent to which +others will perhaps succeed in the future. Is it not very significant?</p> + +<p>After this incursion into the history of contemporary socialism we +gladly return to our precursors of fifty years ago, who put on record in +the Manifesto how they took possession of an advance post on the road of +progress. And that is true not merely of the theorizers, that is to say, +Marx and Engels. Both of these men would have exercised, under other +circumstances and at all times either by tongue or pen, a considerable +influence over politics and science<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> such was the force and originality +of their minds and the extent of their knowledge even if they had never +met on their way the <i>Communist League</i>. But I am referring to all the +“unknown” according to the exclusive and vain jargon of bourgeois +literature:—of the shoemaker, Bauer, the tailors, Lessner and Eccarius, +the miniature painter, Pfaender, the watchmaker, Moll,<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> of Lochner, +etc., and many others who were the first conscious initiators of our +movement. The motto, “Workingmen of all countries, unite,” remains as +their monument. The passage of socialism from utopia to science marks +the result of their work. The survival of their instinct and of their +first impulse in the work of to-day is the ineffaceable title which +these precursors have acquired to the gratitude of all socialists.</p> + +<p>As an Italian, I return so much the more willingly to these beginnings +of modern socialism because for me, at least, this recent warning of +Engels’ is not without importance. “Thus the discovery that everywhere +and always political conditions and events find their explanation in +economic conditions would not have been made by Marx in 1845, but rather +by Loria in 1886. He has at least succeeded in impressing this belief +upon his compatriots, and since his book has appeared in French even +upon some Frenchmen and he may now go on inflated with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> pride and vanity +as if he had discovered an epoch-making historic theory until the +Italian socialists have time to despoil the illustrious Mr. Loria of the +peacock feathers which he has stolen.”<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>I would willingly close here, but more remains to be said.</p> + +<p>On all sides and from all camps protests arise and objections are urged +against historical materialism. And some times these voices are swelled +here and there by newly converted socialists, socialists who are +philosophical, socialists who are sentimental and sometimes hysterical. +Then reappears, as a warning, the “question of the belly.” Others devote +themselves to exercise of logical gymnastics with abstract categories of +egoism and altruism; for others again the inevitable struggle for +existence always turns up at the right moment.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Morality! But it is high time that we understand the lesson of this +morality of the bourgeois epoch in the fable of the bees by Mandeville, +who was contemporary with the first projection of classic economics.</p> + +<p>And has not the politics of this morality been <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>explained in classic +phrases that can never be forgotten by the first great political writer +of the capitalist epoch Machiavelli, who did not invent Machiavellism, +but who was its secretary and faithful and diligent editor. And as for +the logical tourney between egoism and altruism, has it not been in full +view from the time of the Reverend Malthus up to that empty, prolix and +tiresome reasoner, the indispensable Spencer? Struggle for existence! +But could you wish to observe, study and understand a struggle more +important for us than the one which has its birth and is taking on +gigantic proportions in the proletarian agitation? Perhaps you would +reduce the explanation of this struggle which is developing and working +in the supernatural domain of society, which man himself has created in +the course of history, through his labor, through improved processes and +through social institutions, and which man himself can change through +other forms of labor, processes and institutions,—you would perhaps +reduce it to the simple explanation of the more general struggle in +which plant and animals, and men themselves in so far as they are +animals, are contending in the bosom of nature.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>But let us return to our subject.</p> + +<p>Critical communism has never refused, and it does not refuse, to welcome +the multiple and valuable suggestions, ideological, ethical, psychologic +and pedagogic which may come from the knowledge and from the study of +all forms of communism from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> Phales of Chalcedon down to Cabet.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> More +than this, it is by the study and the knowledge of these forms that the +consciousness of the separateness of scientific socialism from all the +rest becomes developed and fixed. And in making this study who is there +who will refuse to recognize that Thomas More was a heroic soul and a +great writer on socialism? Who will not find in his heart a large +tribute of admiration for Robert Owen who first gave to the ethics of +communism this indisputable principle, that the character and the morals +of men are the necessary result of the conditions in which they live and +of the circumstances which surround them? And the partisans of critical +communism believe it is their duty, traversing history in thought, to +claim fellowship with all the oppressed, whatever may have been their +destiny, which was that of remaining oppressed and of opening the way +after an ephemeral success for the rule of new oppressors.</p> + +<p>But the partisans of critical communism differentiate themselves clearly +on one point from all other forms or manners of communism, or of +socialism, ancient, modern or contemporaneous, and this point is of +capital importance.</p> + +<p>They cannot admit that the ideologies of the past have remained without +effect and that the past attempts of the proletariat have been always +overcome by pure chance, by pure accident, by the effect<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> of a caprice +of circumstances. All these ideologies although they reflected in fact +the sentiment directly due to social antitheses, that is to say, the +real class struggles, with a lofty sense of justice and a profound +devotion to an ideal, nevertheless all reveal ignorance of the true +causes and of the effective nature of the antitheses against which they +hurled themselves by an act of revolt spontaneous and often heroic. +Thence their utopian character. We can moreover explain why the +oppressive conditions of other epochs although they were more barbarous +and cruel did not bring that accumulation of energy, that concentration +of force, or that continuity of resistance which is seen to be realizing +itself and developing in the proletariat of our time. It is the change +of society in its economic structure; it is the formation of the +proletariat in the bosom of the great industry and of the modern state. +It is the appearance of the proletariat upon the political scene,—it is +the new things, in fine, which have engendered the need of new ideas. +Thus critical communism is neither moralizer, nor preacher, nor herald, +nor utopian—it already holds the thing itself in its hands and into the +thing itself it has put its ethics and its idealism.</p> + +<p>This orientation which seems harsh to the sentimentalists because it is +too true, too realistic and too real, permits us to retrace the history +of the proletariat and of the other oppressed classes which preceded it. +We see their different phases; we take account of the failures of +Chartism, of the Conspiracy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> of Equals and we explore still further back +to attempts at relief, to acts of resistance, and to wars,—to the +famous peasants’ war in Germany, to the Jacquerie and to Father Dolcino. +In all these facts and in all these events we discover forms and +phenomena relating to the future of the bourgeoisie in proportion as it +tears to pieces, overthrows, triumphs over and issues from the feudal +system. We can do the same with the class struggles of the ancient world +but with less clearness. This history of the proletariat and of the +other oppressed classes, of the vicissitudes of their struggles and +their revolts, is already a sufficient guide to assist us in +understanding why the ideologies of the communism of other epochs were premature.</p> + +<p>If the bourgeoisie has not yet arrived everywhere at the final stage of +its evolution, it surely has arrived in certain countries at its +accomplishment. In fact, in the most advanced countries it is subjecting +the various older forms of production, either directly or indirectly, to +the action and to the law of capital. And thus it simplifies, or it +tends to simplify, the different class struggles of former times, which +then obscured each other by their multiplicity, into this single +struggle between capital which is converting into merchandise all the +products of human labor indispensable to life and the mass of +proletarians which sells its labor power,—now also become simple +merchandise. The secret of history is simplified. It is all prosaic. And +just as the present class struggle is the simplification of all other, +so likewise, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> communism of the Manifesto simplifies into rigid and +general theoretical formulas the ideologic, ethic, psychologic and +pedagogic suggestion of the other forms of communism not by denying but +by exalting them. All is prosaic and communism itself partakes of this +character, it is now a science.</p> + +<p>Thus there are in the Manifesto neither rhetoric nor protestations. It +does not lament over pauperism to eliminate it. It sheds tears over +nothing. The tears are transformed of themselves into a spontaneous +revolutionary force. Ethics and idealism consist henceforth in this, to +put the thought of science at the service of the proletariat. If this +ethics does not appear moral enough for the sentimentalists, usually +hysterical and silly, let them go and borrow altruism from its high +priest Spencer who will give a vague and insipid definition of it, such +as will satisfy them.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>But, again, should the economic factor serve alone to explain the whole of history!</p> + +<p>Historic factors! But that is an expression of empiricists or +ideologists who repeat Herder. Society is a complex whole or an organism +according to the expression of some who waste their time in discussions +over the value and the analogical use of this expression. This +<i>complexus</i> has formed itself and has changed several times. What is the +explanation of this change?</p> + +<p>Even long before Feuerbach gave a final blow to the theological +explanation of history (man makes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> religion and not religion man) the +old Balzac<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> had made a satire of it by making men the puppets of God. +And had not Vico already recognized that Providence does not act in +history from without? And this same Vico, a century before Morgan, had +he not reduced history to a process which man himself makes through +successive experimentation consisting in the invention of language, +religion, customs and laws? Had not Lessing affirmed that history is an +education of the human race? Had not Rousseau seen that ideas are born +from needs? Had not Saint Simon guessed when he did not lose himself in +the distinction between organic and inorganic epochs the real genesis of +the Third Estate, and did not his ideas translated into prose make of +Augustin Thierry a reconstructor of historical research? In the first +fifty years of this century and notably in the period from 1830 to 1850 +the class struggles which the ancient historians and those of Italy +during the Renaissance had described so clearly, instructed by the +experience of these struggles in the narrow domain of their own urban +republic had grown and had reached on both sides of the Channel greater +proportions and an evidence always more palpable. Born in the midst of +the great industry, illuminated by the recollection and by the study of +the French Revolution they have become intuitively instructive because +they found with more or less clearness and consciousness their actual +and suggested expression in the programmes of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>political parties: +free exchange or tariffs on grain in England, and so on. The conception +of history changed to the observer in France, on the right wing as on +the left wing of the literary parties, from Guizot to Louis Blanc and to +the modest Cabet. Sociology was the need of the time and if it sought in +vain its theoretic expression in Auguste Comte, a belated scholastic, it +found its artist in Balzac who was the actual inventor of class +psychology. To put into the classes and into their frictions the real +subject of history and the movement of this in their movement,—this is +what was then on the point of being studied and discovered, and it was +necessary to fix a theory of this in precise terms.</p> + +<p>Man has made his history not by a metaphorical evolution nor with a view +of walking on a line of preconceived progress. He has made it by +creating his own conditions, that is to say, by creating through his +labor an artificial environment, by developing successively his +technical aptitudes and by accumulating and transforming the products of +his activity in this new environment. We have but one single history and +we cannot compare real history, which is actually made, with another +which is simply possible. Where shall we find the laws of this formation +and of this development? The very ancient formations are not evident at +first sight. But bourgeois society because it is born recently and has +not yet reached its full development, even in all parts of Europe, bears +within itself the embryonic traces of its origin and its <i>processus</i>, +and it puts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> them in full evidence in countries where it is in process +of birth before our eyes, as for example, in Japan. In so far as it is +society which transforms all the products of human labor into +commodities by means of capital, society which assumes the proletariat +or creates it and which bears within itself the anxiety, the trouble and +the uncertainty of continuous innovations, it is born in determined +times according to clear methods which can be indicated although they +may be varied. In fact in different countries it has different modes of +development. In Italy, for example, it begins before all the others and +then stops. In England it is the product of three centuries of economic +expropriation of the old forms of production, or of the old +proprietorship, to speak the language of the jurists. In one country it +elaborates itself little by little combining itself with pre-existing +forces, as was the case in Germany, and it undergoes their influences +through adaptation; in another country it breaks its envelope and +crushes out resistance violently, as happened in France, where the great +revolution gives us the most intense and the most bewildering example of +historic action that is known, and thus forms the greatest school of sociology.</p> + +<p>As I have already indicated this formation of modern or bourgeois +history has been summed up in rapid and masterly strokes in the +Manifesto, which has given its general anatomical profile with its +successive aspects, the trade guild, commerce, manufacture and the great +industry and has also indicated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> some of the organs and appliances of a +derived and complex character, law, political forms, etc. The elements +of the theory which was to explain history by the principle of the class +struggle were already implicitly contained in it.</p> + +<p>This same bourgeois society which revolutionized the earlier forms of +production had thrown light upon itself and its <i>processus</i> in creating +the doctrine of its structure, economics. In fact it has not developed +in the unconsciousness which characterized primitive societies but in +the full light of the modern world beginning with the Renaissance.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Economics, as is known, was born by fragments, and its origin was +associated with that of the first bourgeoisie, which was that of +commerce and the great geographical discoveries, that is to say, it was +contemporary with the first and second phases of mercantilism. And it +was born to answer special questions: for example, is interest +legitimate? Is it advantageous for states and for nations to accumulate +money? It continued to grow, it occupied itself with the most complex +sides of the problem of wealth; it developed in the passage from +mercantilism to manufacture and then more rapidly and more resolutely in +the passage from the latter to the great industry. It was the +intellectual soul of the bourgeoisie which was conquering society. It +had already as discipline almost defined its general lines on the eve of +the French Revolution; it was the sign of the rebellion against the old +forms of feudalism, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> guild, privilege, limitations of labor, that is +to say it was the sign of liberty. The theory of “natural right” which +developed from the precursors of Grotius to Rousseau, Kant, and the +Constitution of 93, was nothing else than a duplicate and the +ideological complement of economics, to the extent that often the thing +and its complement are confounded in one in the mind and in the +postulates of writers; of this we have a typical example in the Physiocrats.</p> + +<p>In so far as it was a doctrine it separated, distinguished and analyzed +the elements and the forms of the <i>processus</i> of production, of +circulation and of distribution and reduced them all into categories: +money, money capital, interest, profit, land rent, wages, etc. It +marched, sure of itself, accumulating its analyses from Petty to +Ricardo. The sole mistress of the field, it met only rare objections. It +started from two hypotheses which it did not take the trouble to justify +since they appeared so evident; namely, that the social order which it +illustrated was the natural order, and that private property in the +means of production was one and the same thing with human liberty; all +of which made wage labor and the inferiority of the wage laborers into +necessary conditions. In other terms, it did not recognize the historic +character of the forms which it studied. The antitheses which it met on +its way in its attempt at systematization, after several vain attempts +it tried to eliminate logically as was the case with Ricardo in his +struggle against the income from land rents.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p><p>The beginning of the nineteenth century is marked by violent crises and +by those first labor movements which have their immediate origin in the +distress attending lockouts. The ideal of the “natural order” is +overthrown. Wealth has engendered poverty. The great industry in +changing all social relations has increased vices, maladies and +subjection. It has, in a word, caused degeneration. Progress has +engendered retrogression. What must be done that progress may engender +nothing else but progress, that is to say, prosperity, health, security, +education and intellectual development equal for all? With this question +Owen is wholly concerned and he shares with Fourier and Saint Simon this +characteristic that he no longer appeals to self-sacrifice and to +religion, and that he wishes to resolve and surmount the social +antitheses without diminishing the technical and industrial energy of +man, but rather to increase this. It is by this road that Owen became a +communist and he is the first who became so in the environment created +by modern industry. The antithesis rests entirely on the contradiction +between the mode of production and the mode of distribution. This +antithesis must, then, be suppressed in a society which produces +collectively. Owen becomes utopian. This perfect society must needs be +realized experimentally and to this he devotes himself with a heroic +constancy and unequalled self-sacrifice bringing a mathematical +precision even into his thoughts of its details.</p> + +<p>The antithesis between production and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>distribution once discovered, +there arose in England from Thompson to Bray a series of writers of a +socialism which is not strictly utopian, but which should be qualified +as one-sided for its object is to correct the manifest vices of society +by as many appropriate remedies.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> + +<p>In fact the first stage of all those who are on the road toward +socialism is the discovery of the contradiction between production and +distribution. Then, these ingenuous questions immediately arise: Why not +abolish poverty? Why not eliminate lockouts? Why not suppress the middle +man? Why not favor the direct exchange of products in consideration of +the labor that they contain? Why not give the worker the entire product +of his labor, etc.? These demands reduce the <i>things</i>, tenacious and +resistant, of real life, into as many reasonings, and they have for +their object to combat the capitalist system as if it were a machine +from which one can take away or to which one can add pieces, wheels and gearings.</p> + +<p>The partisans of critical communism have broken definitely with all +these tendencies. They have been the successors and the continuers of +classical economics.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> What is the doctrine of the structure of +present society? No one can combat this structure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> in practice, in +politics or in revolution without first taking an exact account of its +elements and its relations and making a fundamental study of the +doctrine which explains it. These forms, these elements and these +relations arise in certain historic conditions but they constitute a +system and a necessity. How can it be hoped to destroy such a system by +an act of logical negation and how eliminate it by reasoning? Eliminate +pauperism? But it is a necessary condition of capitalism. Give the +worker the entire product of his labor? But what would become of the +profit of capital, and where and how could the money expended in the +purchase of commodities be increased if among all the commodities which +it meets and with which it makes exchanges there were not a particular +one which returns to the buyer more than it costs him; and is not this +commodity precisely the labor power of the wage worker? The economic +system is not a tissue of reasonings but it is a sum and a complexus of +facts which engenders a complex tissue of relations. It is a foolish +thing to assume that this system of facts which the ruling class has +established with great pains through the centuries by violence, by +sagacity, by talent and by science will confess itself vanquished, will +destroy itself to give way to the demands of the poor and to the +reasonings of their advocates. How demand the suppression of poverty +without demanding the overthrow of all the rest? To demand of this +society that it shall change its law which constitutes its defense is to +demand an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> absurd thing. To demand of this State that it shall cease to +be the buckler and the defense of this society and of this law is +plunging into absurdities.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> The one-sided socialism which without +being clearly utopian starts from the hypothesis that society admits of +certain errata without revolution, that is to say without a fundamental +change in the general elementary structure of society itself, is a mere +piece of ingenuity. This contradiction with the rigid laws of the +process of things is shown in all its evidence in Proudhon, who, +reproducing without knowing it, or copying directly, some of the +one-sided English socialists, wished to arrest and change history, armed +with a definition and a syllogism.</p> + +<p>The partisans of critical communism recognized that history has the +right to follow its course. The bourgeois phase can be outgrown and it +will be. But as long as it exists it has its laws. The relativity of +these consists in the fact that they grow and develop in certain +determined conditions, but their relativity is not simply the opposite +of necessity, a mere appearance, a soap-bubble. These laws may disappear +and they will disappear by the very fact of the change of society, but +they do not yield<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> to the arbitrary suggestion which demands a change, +proclaims a reform, or formulates a programme. Communism makes common +cause with the proletariat because in this resides the revolutionary +force which, bursts, breaks, shakes and dissolves the present social +form and creates in it, little by little, new conditions; or to be more +exact, the very fact of its movement shows to us that these new +conditions are already born.</p> + +<p>The theory of the class struggle was found. It was seen to appear both +in the origins of the bourgeoisie (whose intrinsic <i>processus</i> was +already illustrated by the science of economics), and in this new +appearance of the proletariat. The relativity of economic laws was +discovered, but at the same time their relative necessity was +understood. Herein lies the whole method and justification of the new +materialistic conception of history. Those deceive themselves who, +calling it the economic interpretation of history, think they understand +it completely. That designation is better suited, and is only suited, to +certain analytic attempts,<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> which, taking separately and in a +distinct fashion on the one side the economic forms and categories, and +on the other, for example, law, legislation, politics, customs,—proceed +to study the reciprocal influences of the different sides of life +considered in an abstract fashion. Quite different is our position. Ours +is the organic conception of history. The totality of the unity of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> +social life is the subject matter present to our minds. It is economics +itself which dissolves in the course of one process, to reappear in as +many morphological stages, in each of which it serves as a substructure +for all the rest. Finally, it is not our method to extend the so-called +economic factor isolated in an abstract fashion over all the rest, as +our adversaries imagine, but it is, before everything else, to form an +historic conception of economics and to explain the other changes by +means of its changes. Therein lies our answer to all the criticisms +which come to us from all the domains of learned ignorance, not +excepting the socialists who are insufficiently grounded and who are +sentimental or hysterical. And we explain our position thus as Marx has +done in his Capital, not the first book of critical communism, but the +last great book of bourgeois economics.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>At the moment when the Manifesto was written the historic horizon did +not go beyond the classic world, the scarcely studied German antiquities +and the Biblical tradition which had only lately been reduced to the +prosaic conditions of all profane history. Our historic horizon is now +quite another thing, since it extends to the Aryan antiquities and to +the ancient deposits of Egypt and Mesopotamia which precede all the +Semitic traditions. And it extends still further back into prehistory, +that is to say, into, unwritten history. Morgan has given us a knowledge +of ancient society, that is to say a pre-political society, and the key +to understand<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> how from it came all the later forms marked by monogamy, +the development of the paternal family, the appearance of property, +first of the <i>gens</i>, then of the family, lastly individual, and by the +successive establishment of the alliances between <i>gentes</i> which are the +origin of the State. All this is illustrated by the knowledge of the +process of technique in the discovery and in the use of the means and +instruments of labor and by the understanding of the effect of this +process upon the social complexus, urging it in certain directions and +making it traverse certain stages. These discoveries may still be +corrected at certain points, notably by the study of the different +specific fashions according to which in different parts of the world the +passage from barbarism to civilization has been effected. But, +henceforth, one fact is indisputable, namely, that we have before our +eyes the general embryogenic record of human development from primitive +communism to those complex formations as at Athens or at Rome with their +constitutions of citizens arranged in classes according to census which +not long ago constituted the columns of Hercules for research into +written tradition. The classes which the Manifesto assumed have been +later resolved into their process of formation and in this can already +be recognized the plexus of reasons and of different economic causes for +the categories of the economic science of our bourgeois epoch. The dream +of Fourier to find a place for an epoch of civilization in the series of +a long and vast process has been realized. A <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>scientific solution has +been found for the problem of the origin of inequality among men which +Rousseau had tried to solve by arguments of an original dialectic, +relying however upon too few real data.</p> + +<p>At two points, the extreme points for us, the human process is palpable. +One of these is the origin of the bourgeoisie, so recent and in the full +light of the science of economics; the other is the ancient formation of +the society divided into classes, which marks the passage from higher +barbarism to civilization (the epoch of the State) to use expressions +employed by Morgan. All that is found between these two epochs is what +has, up to this time, formed the subject matter of the chroniclers, the +historians properly so-called, the jurists, the theologians and the +philosophers. To traverse and reanimate all this domain with the new +historic conception is not an easy thing. We must not be over-hasty in +tabulating it. At the very beginning we must understand the economics +relative to each epoch,<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> in order to explain specifically the classes +which develop in it, avoiding hypothetical and uncertain data and taking +care not to carry over our own conditions into each epoch. For that, +skilled fingers are needed. Thus, for example, what the Manifesto says +of the first origin of the bourgeoisie proceeding from the serfs of the +Middle Ages incorporated little by little into the cities is not a +general truth. This mode of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> origin is peculiar to Germany and to the +other countries which reproduce its process. It is not the case either +in Italy, nor in Southern France, nor in Spain, which were the fields +upon which began the first history of the bourgeoisie, that is to say, +of modern civilization. In this first phase are found all the premises +of the whole capitalist society as Marx informed us in a note to the +first volume of Capital.<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> This first phase which reaches its perfect +form in the Italian municipalities forms the pre-historic background for +that capitalist accumulation which Marx has explained with so many +characteristic details in the evolution of England. But I will stop there.</p> + +<p>The proletarians can have in view nothing but the future. That with +which all scientific socialists are primarily concerned is the present +in which are spontaneously developed and in which are ripening the +conditions of the future. The knowledge of the past is practically of +use and of interest only in so far as it throws light upon and explains +the present. For the moment it is enough to say that the partisans of +critical communism fifty years ago conceived the elements of the new and +definite philosophy of history. Soon this fashion of seeing will impose +itself because it will be impossible to think the contrary; and this +discovery will have the fate of Columbus’ egg. And perhaps before an +army of scientists has made an application of this conception to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> the +continuous narration of the whole history, the success of the +proletariat will have become such that the bourgeois epoch will appear +to all as something that must be left behind because it will nearly be +so in reality. <i>To understand is to leave behind</i> (Hegel).</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>When, fifty years ago, the Manifesto made of the proletarians, of the +unfortunates who excited pity, the predestined grave-diggers of the +bourgeoisie, the circumference of this burial place must have appeared +very small to the imagination of the writers who scarcely concealed in +the gravity of their style the idealism of their intellectual passion. +The probable circumference in their imagination then embraced only +France and England, and it would scarcely have touched the frontiers of +other countries, for instance, Germany. To-day the circumference appears +to us immense by reason of the rapid and colossal extension of the +bourgeois form of production which by inevitable reaction enlarges, +makes universal and multiplies the movement of the proletariat and +immensely expands the scene upon which is projected the picture of the +coming communism. The burial place extends as far as the eye can reach. +The more productive forces this magician calls forth, the more he +excites and prepares forces that must rebel against himself.</p> + +<p>All those who were communists ideological, religious and utopian, or +even prophetic and apocalyptic in the past have always believed that the +reign<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> of justice, equality and happiness was destined to have the world +for its theatre. To-day the world is invaded by civilization and +everywhere is developing that society which lives upon class antagonisms +and class domination, the form of bourgeois production. (Japan may serve +us for an example.) The coexistence of the two nations in one and the +same state, which the divine Plato had already described, is +perpetuated. The earth will not be won over to communism to-morrow. But +as the confines of the bourgeois world enlarge, more numerous are those +who enter into it, abandoning and leaving behind the lower forms of +production,—and thus the attempt of communism gains in firmness and +precision; especially because in the domain and struggle of competition, +the deviations due to conquest and colonization are diminishing. The +proletarian International, while embryonic in the Communist League of +fifty years ago, henceforth becomes Interoceanic and it affirms on the +first of every May that the proletarians of the whole world are really +and actively united. The future grave-diggers of the bourgeoisie and +their descendants to many generations will ever remember the date of the +Communist Manifesto.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> I refer to that form which the Manifesto designates +ironically under the name of “German or ‘True’ Socialism.” This +paragraph, which is unintelligible for those who are not well versed in +the German philosophy of that epoch, notably in certain of its +tendencies marked by acute degeneracy, has, with good reason, been +suppressed in the Spanish translation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> It is better to use the expression “democratic +socialization of the means of production” than that of “collective +property” because the latter implies a certain theoretical error in +that, to begin with, it substitutes for the real economic fact a +juridical expression and moreover in the mind of more than one it is +confused with the increase of monopolies, with the increasing +<i>statization</i> of public utilities and with all the other fantasmagoria +of the ever recurring State socialism, the whole effect of which is to +increase the economic means of oppression in the hands of the oppressing +class.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Twenty-five octavo pages in the original edition (London, +February, 1848) for a copy of which I am indebted to the special +kindness of Engels. I should say here in passing that I have resisted +the temptation to affix any bibliographical notes, references and +citations, for I should then have been making a work of scholarship, or +a book, rather than a simple essay. I hope the reader will take my word +for it that there are in this essay no allusions, or statements of fact +or opinion, which I could not substantiate with authorities.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The “Umrisse zu einer Kritik der National-oekonomie” +appeared in the German-French Year Book, Paris, 1844, pp. 85-114; and +his book on “The Condition of the Working Class in England” at Leipzig +in 1845.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> In these last years many jurists have thought they found in +the re-adjustment of the civil Code a practical means for ameliorating +the condition of the proletariat. But why have they not asked the pope +to become the head of the free thought league? The most delightful of +these is that Italian author who occupying himself with the class +struggle asks that by the side of the code which establishes the rights +of capital another be elaborated which should guarantee the rights of +labor.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> This development has been given in Marx’s Capital which can +be considered as a philosophy of history.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> It was not until after the publication of the Italian +edition of this essay that I had at my disposal for some months a +complete collection of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung for which I owe +hearty thanks to the Partei-Archiv of Berlin. The impression derived +from this reading surpasses expectation. It is desirable either that +this journal which now has become very rare, be reprinted entire or that +the most important articles and letters in it be reproduced.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Misere de la Philosophie, by Karl Marx, Paris and Brussels, +1847; new edition, Paris, Giard and Briere, 1896.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> This is made up of articles which appeared in 1849 in the +Neue Rheinische Zeitung and which reproduced the lectures given by Marx +to the German Workingmen’s Circle of Brussels in 1847. It has since been +published as a propaganda leaflet.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> See Chapter II. of the Manifesto.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie, Berlin, 1859, pp. +IV.-VI. of the preface. (Instead of retranslating this extract from the +French I have availed myself of the assistance of Comrade Hitch, who has +translated direct from the German of Marx. C. H. K.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> These articles which appeared in the Neue Rheinische +Politischokonomische Review, Hamburg, 1850, have recently been brought +together into a pamphlet by Engels (Berlin, 1895) under the title of +“Die Klassenkampfe in Frankreich 1848 bis 1850.” The little work has a +preface by Engels.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Appeared for the first time in New York in 1852 in a +review. Several editions have since been made in Germany. A French +translation appeared in 1891 published by Delory, Lille.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> In the preface to the “Class Struggle in France in +1848-50” and elsewhere Engels treated fundamentally the objective +development of the new revolutionary tactic. (It is well to remember +that the first Italian edition of this essay appeared June 18th, and the +second, October 15, 1895.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> In my opinion this is the case in France. The recent +discussions of the agrarian programme submitted to the deliberations of +the social democracy in Germany confirm the reasons which I have +indicated.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> It was otherwise in Germany. After 1830 socialism was +imported there and became a current literature; it underwent +philosophical alterations of which Gruen was the typical representative. +But already before the <i>new doctrine</i> socialism had received a +characteristic imprint which was proletarian, thanks to the propaganda +and the writings of Weitling. As Marx said in 1844 in the Paris +Vorwaerts, “it was the giant in the cradle.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> It is what many people call Marxism. Marxism is and +remains a doctrine. Parties can draw neither their name nor their +justification from a doctrine. “I am no Marxist” said—guess who? Marx +himself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> It is he who established the first relations between Marx +and the League and who served as intermediary in the publication of the +Manifesto. He fell in the insurrection of 1849 at Murg.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Marx’s Capital, Vol. III., Hamburg, 1894, pp. xix-xx. The +date of 1845 refers principally to the book “Die heilige Familie, +Frankfort, 1845,” which was produced in collaboration by Marx and +Engels. This book is indispensable to an understanding of the +theoretical origin of historical materialism.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> I stop with Cabet who lived at the epoch of the Manifesto. +I do not think I ought to go as far as the sporadic forms of Bellamy and +Hertzka.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> The Balzac of the 17th century.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> It is these writers whom Menger thought he had discovered +as the authors of scientific socialism.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> It is for this reason that certain critics, Wieser for +example, propose to abandon Ricardo’s theory of value because it leads +to socialism.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Thus there arises notably in France the illusion of a +social monarchy which, succeeding the liberal epoch, should solve +harmoniously what is called the social question. This absurdity +reproduces itself in infinite varieties of socialism of the pulpit and +State socialism. To the different forms of ideological and religious +utopianism is joined a new form of bureaucratic and fiscal utopianism, +the Utopia of the idiots.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> For example in the essays of Th. Rogers.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Who would have thought a few years ago of the discovery +and the authentic interpretation of an ancient Babylonian law?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Note 189, p. 740, of the 3rd German edition.</p></div> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p> + +<h2>PART II</h2> + +<hr class="smler" /> + +<h1>HISTORICAL MATERIALISM</h1> + +<hr /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> + +<h2>PART II</h2> + +<h3>HISTORICAL MATERIALISM.</h3> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p>This class of studies, like many others, but this more than any other, +is confronted with a great difficulty, indeed an irksome hindrance, in +that vice of minds educated by literary methods alone which is +ordinarily called <i>verbalism</i>. This bad habit creeps into and spreads +itself through all domains of knowledge; but in studies which relate to +the so-called moral world, that is to say, to the historico-social +<i>complexus</i>, it very often happens that the cult and the dominion of +words succeed in corrupting and blotting out the real and living sense of things.</p> + +<p>In the field where a long observation, repeated experiences, the certain +use of improved instruments, the general or partial application of the +calculus have resulted in putting the mind into a constant and +methodical relation with things and their variations, as in the natural +sciences properly so-called,—there the myth and superstition of words +are left behind and vanquished; there the questions of terminology no +longer have more than the secondary value of pure convention. In the +study of human relations and actions, on the contrary, the passions, the +interests, the prejudices of school, sect, class and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> religion, the +literary abuse of the traditional means of representing thought, and +scholasticism, ever vanquished and always reborn, conceal the actual +things, or transform them involuntarily into terms, into words, into +abstract and conventional fashions of speech.</p> + +<p>We must, first of all, take account of this difficulty when we use the +expression or the formula “materialistic conception of history.” Many +have imagined, do imagine, and will imagine that it is possible and +convenient to penetrate into the sense of the phrase by the simple +analysis of the words which compose it instead of arriving at it from +the context of an explanation, from the genetic study of the formation +of the doctrine,<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> or from the polemical writings in which its +partisans refute the objections of its opponents. Verbalism tends always +to shut itself up in purely formal definitions; it gives rise in the +minds to this erroneous belief, that it is an easy thing to reduce into +terms and into simple and palpable expressions the agitated and immense +<i>complexus</i> of nature and history and that it is easy to picture the +multiform and complicated interlacings of causes and effects; in clearer +terms, it obliterates the meaning of the problems because it sees in +them nothing but questions of nomenclature.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>If, moreover, it then happens that verbalism finds<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> a support in certain +theoretical hypotheses, for example, that <i>matter</i> indicates something +which is below or opposed to another higher or nobler thing which is +called spirit; or if it happens to be at one with that literary habit +which opposes the word materialism, understood in a disparaging sense, +to all that, in a word, is called idealism, that is to say, to the sum +total of the anti-egoistic inclinations and acts; then our embarrassment +is extreme! Then we are told that in this doctrine it is attempted to +explain the whole of man by the mere calculation of his material +interests and that no value whatever is allowed to any ideal interest. +The inexperience, the incapacity and the haste of certain partisans and +propagandists of this doctrine have also been a cause of these +confusions. In their eagerness to explain to others what they themselves +only half understand, at a time when the doctrine itself is only in its +beginnings and still has need of many developments, they have believed +they could apply it, such as it was, to whatever historic fact they were +considering, and they have almost reduced it to tatters, exposing it +thus to the easy criticism and the ridicule of people on the watch for +scientific novelties, and other idle persons of the same type.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Since it has been my privilege in these first pages simply to rebut +these prejudices (in a preliminary fashion) and unmask the intentions +and the tendencies underlying them, it must be remembered that the +meaning of this doctrine ought, before all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> else, to be drawn from the +position which it takes and occupies with regard to the doctrines +against which it is in reality opposed, and particularly with regard to +the ideologies of every sort;—that the proof of its value consists +exclusively in the more suitable and more appropriate explanation of the +succession of human events which is derived from it;—that this doctrine +does not imply a subjective preference for a certain quality or a +certain sum of human interests opposed by free choice to other +interests, but that it merely affirms the objective co-ordination and +subordination of all interests in the development of all society; and +this it affirms, thanks to that genetic <i>processus</i> which consists in +going from the conditions to the conditioned, from the elements of +formation to the things formed.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Let the verbalists reason as they like over the value of the word +<i>matter</i> in so far as it implies or recalls a metaphysical conception, +or in so far as it is the expression of the last hypothetical substratum +of experience. We are not here in the domain of physics, chemistry or +biology; we are only searching for the explicit conditions of human +association in so far as it is no longer simply animal. It is not for us +to support our inductions or our deductions upon the data of biology, +but, on the contrary, to recognize before all else the peculiarities of +human association, which form and develop through the succession and the +growing perfection of the activity of man himself in given and variable +conditions, and to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> find the relations of co-ordination and +subordination of the needs which are the substratum of will and action. +It is not proposed to discover an intention nor to formulate a +criticism; it is merely the necessity arising from the facts that must +be put in evidence.</p> + +<p>And as men, not by free choice, but because they could not act +otherwise, satisfy first certain elementary needs, which, in their turn, +give rise to others in their upward development, and as for the +satisfaction of their needs, whatever they may be, they invent and +employ certain means and certain tools and associate themselves in +certain definite fashions, the materialism of historical interpretation +is nothing else than an attempt to reconstruct by thought with method +the genesis and the complexity of the social life which develops through +the ages. The novelty of this doctrine does not differ from that of all +the other doctrines which after many excursions through the domains of +the imagination have finally arrived, very painfully, at reaching the +prose of reality and halting there.</p> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<p>There is a certain affinity, apparently at least, between that formal +vice of verbalism and another defect of the mind, whose origins may, +however, be varied. In consideration of some of its most common and +popular effects I will call it <i>phraseology</i>, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>although this word is not +an exact expression of the thing and does not set forth its origin.</p> + +<p>For long centuries men have written on history, have explained it, have +illustrated it. The most varied interests, from the interests more +immediately practical to the interests purely æsthetic, have moved +different writers to conceive and to execute this type of composition. +These different types have always taken birth in different countries +long after the origins of civilization, of the development of the state +and of the passage from the primitive communist society to the society +which rests upon class differences and class antagonisms. The +historians, even if they have been as artless as Herodotus, were always +born and formed in a society having nothing ingenuous in it, but very +complicated and complex, and at a time when the reasons for this +complication and complexity were unknown and their origins forgotten. +This complexity, with all the contrasts which it bears within itself and +which it reveals later and makes burst forth in its various +vicissitudes, stood forth before the narrators as something mysterious +and calling for an explanation, and if the historian wished to give some +sequence and a certain connection to the things narrated, he was obliged +to add certain general views to the simple narration. From the jealousy +of the gods of Father Herodotus to the environment of M. Tame, an +infinite number of concepts serving as means of explanation and as +complements to the things related have been imposed upon the narrators +by the natural voices of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> their immediate thought. Class tendencies, +religious ideas, popular prejudices, influences or imitations of a +current philosophy, excursions of imagination and a desire to give an +artistic appearance to facts known only in a fragmentary fashion, all +these causes and other analogous causes have contributed to form the +substratum of the more or less artless theory of events which is +implicitly at the bottom of the narration, or which serves at least to +flavor and adorn it. Whether men speak of chance or of destiny, whether +they appeal to the providential direction of human events, or adhere to +the word and concept of chance, the only divinity left in the rigid and +often coarse conception of Machiavelli, or whether they speak, as is +frequent enough at the present time, of the logic of events, all these +conceptions were and are effects and results of ingenuous thought, of +immediate thought, of thought which cannot justify to itself its course, +and its products, either by the paths of criticism or by the methods of +experience. To fill up with conventional causes (e. g., <i>chance</i>) or +with a statement of theoretical plausibility (e. g., the <i>inevitable +course of events</i> which sometimes is confused in the mind with the +notion of progress) the gaps of our knowledge as to the fashion in which +things have been actually produced by their own necessity without care +for our free will and our consent, that is the motive and the result of +this popular philosophy, latent or explicit, in the chroniclers, which +by reason of its <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>superficial character dissolves as soon as scientific +criticism appears.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>In all these concepts and all these imaginings which in the light of +criticism appear as simple provisional devices and effects of an unripe +thought, but which often seem to “cultured people” the <i>non plus ultra</i> +of intelligence,—in all these a great part of the human <i>processus</i> is +revealed and reflected; and, consequently, we should not consider them +as gratuitous inventions nor as products of a momentary illusion. They +are a part and a moment in the development of what we call the human +mind. If later it is observed that these concepts and these imaginings +are mingled and confounded in the accepted opinions of cultured people, +or of those who pass for such, they make up an immense mass of +prejudices and they constitute an impediment which ignorance opposes to +the clear and complete vision of the real things. These prejudices turn +up again as etymological derivations in the language of professional +politicians, of so-called publicists and journalists of every kind, and +offer the support of rhetoric to self-styled public opinion.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>To oppose and then to replace this mirage of uncritical conceptions, +these idols of the imagination, these effects of literary artifice, this +conventionalism by the real subjects, or the forces which are positively +acting—that is to say, men in their various and diversified social +relations,—this is the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>revolutionary enterprise and the scientific aim +of the new doctrine which renders objective and I might say naturalizes +the explanation of the historical <i>processus</i>.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>A certain definite nation, that is to say, not a certain mass of +individuals, but a <i>plexus</i> of men organized in such and such a fashion +by natural relations of consanguinity, or following such or such an +artificial or customary order of relationship and affinity, or by reason +of permanent proximity;—this nation, on a certain circumscribed and +limited territory, having such and such fertility, productive in such +and such a manner acquired through certain definite forms by continuous +labor;—this nation, thus distributed over this territory and thus +divided and articulated by the effect of a definite division of labor +which is scarcely beginning to give birth to or which has already +developed and ripened such and such a division of classes, or which has +already disintegrated or transformed a whole series of classes;—this +nation which possesses such and such instruments from the flint stone to +the electric light and from the bow and arrow to the repeating rifle, +which produces according to a certain fashion and shares its products, +conformably to its way of producing;—this nation, which by all these +relations constitutes a society in which either by habits of mutual +accommodation or by explicit conventions, or by acts of violence +suffered and endured, has already given birth, or is on the point of +giving birth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> to legal-political relations which result in the formation +of the state;—this nation, which by the organization of the state, +which is only a means for fixing, defending and perpetuating +inequalities, by reason of the antagonisms which it bears within itself, +renders continuously unstable the organization itself, whence result the +political movements and revolutions, and therefore the reasons for +progress and retrogression:—there is the sum of what is at the bottom +of all history. And there is the victory of realistic prose over all the +fantastic and ideological combinations.</p> + +<p>Certainly it requires some resignation to see things as they are, +passing beyond the phantoms which for centuries have prevented right +vision. But this revelation of realistic doctrine was not and is not +designed to be the rebellion of the material man against the ideal man. +It has been and is, on the contrary, the discovery of the principles and +the motives which are real and which belong to all human development, +including all that we call the ideal in positive conditions, determined +by facts which carry in themselves the reasons and the law and the +rhythm of their own development.</p> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<p>But it would be a complete error to believe that the writers who +narrate, explain, or illustrate have themselves invented and given life +to this enormous mass of unripe concepts, imaginings, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>explanations +which, thanks to the force of prejudice, concealed for centuries the +real truth. It may happen, and it certainly does happen, that some of +these concepts are the fruit and the product of personal views, or of +literary currents formed in the narrow professional circle of the +universities and academies. The people in this case are absolutely +ignorant of them. But the important fact is that history itself has put +on these veils; that is to say, that the very actors and workers of the +historic events—great masses of people, directing and ordering classes, +masters of state, sects or parties, in the narrowest sense of the word, +if we make exception for an occasional moment of lucid interval—never +had up to the end of the past century a consciousness of their own work, +unless it be through some ideological envelope which prevented any sight +of the real causes. Already at the distant epoch when barbarism was +passing over into civilization, that is to say, when the first +discoveries of agriculture, the stable establishment of a population +upon a definite territory, the first division of labor in society, the +first alliances of different gentes, gave the conditions in which +developed property and the state, or at least the city,—even then, at +the epoch of all the first social revolutions, men ideally transformed +their work, seeing in it the miraculous acts of gods and heroes. So much +so that, while acting as they could and as they must, granted the +necessity and the fact of their relative economic development, they +conceived an explanation of their own work as if it did not belong<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> to +them. This ideological envelope of human works has changed since then +more than once in form, in appearance, in combinations and in relations +in the course of the centuries, from the immediate production of the +ingenuous myths up to the complicated theological systems and to <i>The +City of God</i> of St. Augustine—from the superstitious credulity in +miracles down to the bewildering miracles of the metaphysicians, that is +to say, down to the <i>Idea</i> which for the <i>decadents</i> of Hegelianism +engenders of itself, in itself, by its own disaggregation the most +incongruous variations of social life in the course of history.</p> + +<p>Now, precisely because the visual angle of ideological interpretation +has not been finally outgrown until very lately, and because it is only +in our days that a sum total of the real and really acting relations has +been clearly distinguished from the ingenuous reflections of myth and +the more artificial reflections of religion and metaphysics, our +doctrine states a new problem and carries within itself grave +difficulties for whoever wishes to fit it for providing a specific +explanation of the history of the past.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>The problem consists in this: that our doctrine necessitates a new +criticism of the sources of history. And I do not wish to be understood +as speaking exclusively of the criticism of documents in the proper and +ordinary sense of the word, because as for this we may content ourselves +with what is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>delivered to us ready made by the critics, the scholars, +and the professional philologists. But I would speak of that immediate +source which is behind the so called documents properly and which, +before expressing itself and fixing itself in these, resides in the +spirit and in the form of the consciousness in which the actors +accounted to themselves for the motives of their own work. This spirit, +that is to say, this consciousness, is often inadequate to the causes +which we are now in a position to discover, from which it follows that +the actors seem to us enveloped, as it were, in a circle of illusions. +To strip the historic facts from these envelopes which clothe the very +facts while they are developing—this is to make a new criticism of the +sources in the realistic sense of the word and not in the formal +documentary sense. It is, in short, to make react upon the knowledge of +past conditions the consciousness of which we are now capable, and +thereby to reconstruct them anew.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>But this revision of the most direct sources, if it marks the extreme +limit of the historic self-consciousness which may be reached, may be an +occasion for falling into a serious error. As we place ourselves at a +point of view which is beyond the ideological views to which the actors +in history were indebted for a consciousness of their work and in which +they often found both the motives and the justification of their action, +we may falsely believe that these ideological views were a pure +appearance,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> a simple artifice, a pure illusion in the vulgar sense of +the word. Martin Luther, like the other great reformers, his +contemporaries, never knew, as we know to-day, that the Reformation was +but an episode in the development of the Third Estate, and an economic +revolt of the German nation against the exploitation of the Papal court. +He was what he was, as an agitator and a politician, because he was +wholly taken up with the belief which made him see in the class movement +which gave an impulse to the agitation a return to true Christianity and +a divine necessity in the vulgar course of events. The study of remote +effects, that is to say, the increasing strength of the bourgeoisie of +the cities against the feudal lords, the increase of the territorial +dominion of the princes at the expense of the inter-territorial and +super-territorial power of the emperor and the pope, the violent +repression of the movement of the peasants and the more properly +proletarian movement of the Anabaptists permit us now to reconstruct the +authentic history of the economic causes of the Reformation, +particularly in the final proportions which it took, which is the best +of proofs. But that does not mean that we are privileged to detach the +fact arrived at from the mode of its realization and to analyze the +circumstantial integrality by a posthumous analysis altogether +subjective and simplified. The inner causes, or, as would be said now, +the profane and prosaic motives of the Reformation, appear to us clearly +in France, where it was not victorious; clearly again in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> Low +Countries, where, apart from the differences of nationality, the +contrasts of economic interests are shown strikingly in the struggle +against Spain; very clearly again in England, where the religious +renovation realized, thanks to political violence, placed in full light +the passage to those conditions which are for our modern bourgeoisie the +forerunners of capitalism. <i>Post factum</i>, and after the tardy +realization of unforeseen consequences, the history of the real +movements which were the inner causes of the Reformation, in great part +unknown to the actors themselves, will appear in full light. But that +the fact came about precisely as it did come about, that it took on +certain determined forms, that it clothed itself in certain vestments, +that it painted itself in certain colors, that it put in movement +certain passions, that it displayed a special degree of fanaticism,—in +these consist its specific character, which no analytic ability can make +otherwise than as it was. Only the love of paradox inseparable from the +zeal of the passionate popularizers of a new doctrine can have brought +some to believe that to write history it was sufficient to put on record +merely the <i>economic moment</i> (often still unknown and often unknowable), +and thereupon to cast to the earth all the rest as a useless burden with +which men had capriciously loaded themselves, as a superfluity, a mere +trifle, or even, as it were, something not existent.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>From the fact that history must be taken in its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> entirety and that in it +the kernel and the husk are but one, as Goethe said of all things, three +consequences follow:—</p> + +<p>First, it is evident that in the domain of historico-social determinism, +the linking of causes to effects, of conditions to the things +conditioned, of antecedents to consequents, is never evident at first +sight in the subjective determinism of individual psychology. In this +last domain it was a relatively easy thing for abstract and formal +philosophy to discover, passing above all the baubles of fatalism and +free will, the evidence of the motive in every volition, because, in +fine, there is no wish without its determining motive. But beneath the +motives and the wish there is the genesis of both, and to reconstruct +this genesis we must leave the closed field of consciousness to arrive +at the analysis of the simple necessities, which, on the one side, are +derived from social conditions, and on the other side are lost in the +obscure background of organic dispositions, in ancestry and in atavism. +It is not otherwise with historical determinism, where, in the same way, +we begin with motives religious, political, æsthetic, passionate, etc., +but where we must subsequently discover the causes of these motives in +the material conditions underlying them. Now the study of these +conditions should be so specified that we may perceive indubitably not +only what are the causes, but again by what mediations they arrive at +that form which reveals them to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>consciousness as motives whose +origin is often obliterated.</p> + +<p>And thence follows indubitably this second consequence that in our +doctrine we have not to re-translate into economic categories all the +complex manifestations of history, but only to explain in the <i>last +analysis</i> (Engels) all the historic facts <i>by means of the underlying +economic structure</i> (Marx), which necessitates analysis and reduction +and then interlinking and construction.</p> + +<p>It results from this, in the third place, that, passing from the +underlying economic structure to the picturesque whole of a given +history, we need the aid of that complexus of notions and knowledge +which may be called, for lack of a better term, social psychology. I do +not mean by that to allude to the fantastic existence of a social psyche +nor to the concept of an assumed collective spirit which by its own +laws, independent of the consciousness of individuals and of their +material and definable relations, realizes itself and shows itself in +social life. That is pure mysticism. Neither do I wish to allude to +those attempts at generalization which fill up treatises on social +psychology and the general idea of which is to transport and apply to a +subject which is called social consciousness the known categories and +forms of individual psychology. Nor again do I wish to allude to that +mass of semi-organic and semi-psychological denominations by the aid of +which some attribute to the social being, as Schäffle does, a brain, a +spinal column, sensibility, sentiment,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> conscience, will, etc. But I +wish to speak of more modest and more prosaic things, that is to say, of +those concrete and precise states of mind which make us know as they +really were the plebeians of Rome at a certain epoch, the artisans of +Florence at the moment when the movement of the Ciompi burst forth, or +those peasants of France within whom was engendered, to follow Taine’s +expression, the “spontaneous anarchy” of 1789, those peasants who +finally became free laborers and small proprietors, or, aspiring to +property, transformed themselves rapidly from victors over the foreigner +into automatic instruments of reaction. This social psychology, which no +one can reduce to abstract canons because, in most cases, it is merely +descriptive, this is what the chroniclers, the orators, the artists, the +romancers and the ideologists of every sort have seen and up to now have +conceived as the exclusive object of their studies. In this, psychology, +which is the specific consciousness of men in given social conditions, +the agitators, orators and propagandists trust to-day, and to it they +appeal. We know that it is the fruit, the outcome, the effect of certain +social conditions actually determined;—this class, in this situation, +determined by the functions which it fulfills, by the subjection in +which it is held, by the dominion which it exercises;—and finally, +these classes, these functions, this subjection and this dominion +involve such and such a determined form of production and distribution +of the immediate means of life, that is to say, a determined economic +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>structure. This social psychology, by its nature always circumstantial, +is not the expression of the abstract and generic process of the +self-styled human intellect. It is always a specified formation from +specified conditions. We hold this principle to be indisputable, that it +is not the forms of consciousness which determine the human being, but +it is the manner of being which determines the consciousness (Marx).</p> + +<p>But these forms of consciousness, even as they are determined by the +conditions of life, constitute in themselves also a part of history. +This does not consist only in the economic anatomy, but in all that +combination which clothes and covers that anatomy even up to the +multicolored reflections of the imagination. In other words, there is no +fact in history which does not recall by its origin the conditions of +the underlying economic structure, but there is no fact in history which +is not preceded, accompanied and followed by determined forms of +consciousness, whether it be superstitious or experimental, ingenuous or +reflective, impulsive or self-controlled, fantastic or reasoning.</p> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<p>I was saying a moment ago that our doctrine makes history objective and +in a certain sense naturalizes it, going from the explanation of the +data, evident at first sight, of the personalities acting with design, +and of the auxiliary conceptions of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>action, to the causes and the +motives of the will and the action, in order to find thereupon the +co-ordination of these causes and of these motives in the pre-elementary +<i>processus</i> of the production of the immediate means of existence.</p> + +<p>Now this term “naturalizing” has led more than one mind into confusing +this order of problems with another order of problems, that is to say, +into extending to history the laws and the manners of thinking which +have already appeared suitable to the study and explanation of the +material world in general and of the animal world in particular. And +because Darwinism succeeded in carrying, thanks to the principle of the +transformation of species, the last citadel of the metaphysical fixity +of things, and in discerning, in the organisms, phases, as it were, and +moments of a real and proper natural history, it has been imagined that +it was a commonplace and simple enterprise to borrow for an explanation +of the future and the history of human life the concepts, the principles +and the methods of examination to which that animal life is subjected +which in consequence of the immediate conditions of the struggle for +existence is unfolding to topographical environments not modified by the +action of labor. Darwinism, political and social, has, like an epidemic, +for many years invaded the mind of more than one thinker, and many more +of the advocates and declaimers of sociology, and it has been reflected +as a fashionable habit and a phraseological current even in the daily +language of the politicians.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p><p>It seems at first sight that there is something immediately evident and +instinctively plausible in this fashion of reasoning, which it may be +said is principally distinguished by its abuse of analogy and by its +haste in drawing conclusions. Man is without doubt an animal, and he is +linked by connections of descent and affinity to other animals. He has +no privileges of origin or of elementary structure, and his organism is +merely one particular case of general physiology. His first immediate +field was that of simple nature not modified by work, and from thence +are derived the imperious and inevitable conditions of the struggle for +existence, with the consequent forms of adaptation. Thence are born +races in the true and authentic sense of the word; that is to say, in so +far as they are immediate determinations of black, white, yellow, +woolly-haired, straight-haired, etc., and not secondary historico-social +formations, that is to say, peoples and nations. Thence are born the +primitive instincts of sociability and in life in promiscuity arise the +first rudiments of sexual selection.</p> + +<p>But if we can reconstruct in imagination the primitive savage, by +combining our conjectures, it is not given us to have an empirical +intuition of him, just as it is not given us to determine the genesis of +that hiatus, that is to say, that break in continuity, thanks to which +human life is found detached from animal life to rise, in the sequel, to +an ever higher level. All men who live at this moment on the earth’s +surface and all those who, having lived in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> the past, were the objects +of any trustworthy observation, are found, and were found, already +sufficiently removed from the moment when purely animal life had ceased. +A certain social life with customs and institutions, even if it be of +the most elementary form that we know, that is to say, of the Australian +tribes, divided into classes and practising the marriage of all the men +of one class with all the women of another class, separates human life +by a great interval from animal life. If we consider the <i>maternal +gens</i>, of which the classic type, the Iroquois type, has, thanks to +Morgan’s work, revolutionized prehistoric science, while giving us at +the same time the key to the origins of history properly so called, we +have a form of society already much advanced by the complexity of its +relations. At that stage of social life which, according to our +knowledge, seems very elementary, that is to say, in the Australian +society, not only does a very complicated language differentiate men +from all other animals (and language is a condition and an instrument, a +cause and an effect of sociability), but the specialization of human +life, apart from the discovery of fire, is manifested by the use of many +other artificial means by which the needs of life are satisfied. A +certain territory acquired for the common use of a tribe, a certain art +of hunting—the use of certain instruments of defense and attack and the +possession of certain utensils for preserving the things acquired—and +then the ornamentation of the body, etc., all this means that at bottom +this life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> rests upon an artificial, although very elementary, basis, +upon which men endeavor to fix themselves and adapt themselves,—upon a +basis which is after all the condition of all further progress. +According as this artificial basis is more or less formed, the men who +have produced it and who live in it are considered more or less savage +or barbarous. This first formation constitutes what we may call pre-history.</p> + +<p>History, according to the literary use of the word, namely, that part of +the human <i>processus</i> whose traditions are fixed in the memory, begins +at a moment when the artificial basis has been formed for a considerable +length of time. For example, the canalization of Mesopotamia gives us +the ancient pre-Semitic Babylonian state, while the extremely ancient +Egyptian civilization rests upon the application of the Nile to +agriculture. Upon this artificial basis, which appears in the extreme +horizon of known history, lived, as now, not shapeless masses of +individuals, but organized groups whose organization was fixed by a +certain distribution of tasks, that is to say, of labor and by +consecutive methods of co-ordination and subordination. These relations, +these connections, these ways of living were not and are not the result +of the crystallization of customs under the immediate action of the +animal struggle for existence. What is more, they presuppose the +discovery of certain instruments, and, for example, the domestication of +certain animals, the working of minerals and even of iron,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> the +introduction of slavery, etc., instruments and methods of economy which +have first differentiated communities from each other and have +subsequently differentiated the component parts of these communities +themselves. In other words, the works of men in so far as they live +together react upon the men themselves. Their discoveries, and their +inventions, by creating artificial ways of living, have produced not +only habits and customs (clothing, cooking of food, etc.), but relations +and bonds of coexistence proportioned and adapted to the mode of +production and reproduction of the means of immediate life.</p> + +<p>At the dawn of traditional history economics is already operating. Men +are working to live, on a foundation which has been in great part +modified by their work and with tools which are completely their work. +And from that moment they have struggled among themselves to conquer +each from the other a superior position in the use of these artificial +means; that is to say, they have struggled among themselves whether as +serfs and masters, subjects and lords, conquered and conquerors, +exploited and exploiters, both where they have progressed and where they +have retrograded and where they have halted in a form which they have +not been capable of outgrowing, but never have they returned to the +animal life by the complete loss of their artificial foundation.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Historical science has, then, as its first and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>principal object the +determination and the investigation of this artificial foundation, its +origin, its composition, its changes and its transformations. To say +that all this is only a part and a prolongation of nature, is to say a +thing which by its too abstract and too generic character has no longer any meaning.</p> + +<p>The human race, in fact, lives only in earthly conditions, and we cannot +suppose it to be transplanted elsewhere. Under these conditions it has +found from its very first beginnings down to the present day the +immediate means necessary for the development of labor, that is to say, +for its material progress as for its inner formation. These natural +conditions were and they are always indispensable to the sporadic +agriculture of the nomads, who sometimes cultivated the earth merely for +the pasturage of animals, as well as for the refined products of +intensive modern horticulture. These earthly conditions, precisely as +they have furnished the different sorts of stones suited for the +fabrication of the first weapons, furnish now also, with coal, the +elements of the great industry; precisely as they gave the first +laborers osiers and willows to plait, they give now all the materials +necessary to the complicated technique of electricity.</p> + +<p>It is not, however, the natural materials themselves which have +progressed. On the contrary, it is only men who progress, through +discovering little by little in nature the conditions which permit them +to produce in more and more complex forms, thanks to the labor +accumulated in experience. This<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> progress does not consist merely in the +sort of progress with which subjective psychology is concerned that is +to say, the inner modifications which would be the proper and direct +development of the intellect, the reasoning and the thought. Moreover, +this inner progress is but a secondary and derived product, in +proportion as there is already a progress realized in the artificial +foundation which is the sum of the social relations resulting from the +forms and the distributions of labor. It is, then, a meaningless +affirmation to say that all this is but a simple prolongation of nature, +unless one wishes to employ this word in so generic a sense that it no +longer indicates anything precise and distinct; that which is not +realized by the work of man.</p> + +<p>History is the work of man in so far as man can create and improve his +instruments of labor, and with these instruments can create an +artificial environment whose complicated effects react later upon +himself, and which by its present state and its successive modifications +is the occasion and the condition of his development. There are, then, +no reasons for carrying back that work of man which is history to the +simple struggle for existence. If this struggle modifies and improves +the organs of animals, and if in given circumstances and methods it +produces and develops new organs, it still does not produce that +continuous, perfected and traditional movement which is the human +<i>processus</i>. Our doctrine must not be confounded with Darwinism, and it +need not invoke anew the conception of a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>mythical, mystical or +metaphorical form of fatalism. If it is true in effect that history +rests, before all else, upon the development of technique, that is to +say, if it is true that the successive discovery of tools gives rise to +the successive distributions of labor, and therewith to the inequalities +whose sum total, more or less stable, forms the social organism, it is +equally true that the discovery of these instruments is at once the +cause and the effect of these conditions and of those forms of the inner +life to which, isolating them by psychological abstraction, we give the +name of imagination, intellect, reason, thought, etc. By producing +successively the different social environment, that is to say, the +successive artificial foundations, man has produced himself, and in this +consists the serious kernel, the concrete reason, the positive +foundation of that which by various fantastic combinations and by a +varied logical architecture has suggested to the ideologists the notion +of the progress of the human mind.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Nevertheless, this expression of <i>naturalizing</i> history, which, +understood in too broad and too generic a sense, may be the occasion of +the equivocations of which we have spoken, when it is, on the contrary, +employed with proper precaution and in a tentative fashion, sums up +briefly the criticism of all the ideological views which, in the +interpretation of history, start from this hypothesis, that human work +or activity are one and the same with free will, free choice and voluntary designs.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p><p>It was easy and convenient for the theologians to carry back the course +of human events to a preconceived plan or design, because they passed +directly from the facts of experience to an assumed mind which ruled the +universe. The jurists, who first had occasion to discover in the +institutions which formed the object of their studies a certain guiding +thread through the forms which manifestly succeeded each other, carried +over, as they still carry over as cheerfully, the reasoning faculty +which is their own quality, to serve as an explanation for the whole +vast social fabric, however complicated. The men of politics, who +naturally take their point of departure in this datum of experience, +that the officers of the state, whether by the acquiescence of the +subject masses or profiting by the antitheses of interests of the +different social groups, may set aims for themselves and realize them +voluntarily and in a deliberate fashion,—these men are brought to see +in the succession of human events only a variation of these designs, +these projects and these intentions. Now our conception, while +revolutionizing in their foundations the hypotheses of the theologians, +the jurists and the politicians, terminates in this affirmation, that +human labor and activity in general are not always one and the same +thing in the course of history with the will which acts with design, +with preconceived plans and with its free choice of means; that is to +say, that they are not one and the same thing with the reasoning +faculty. All that has happened in history is the work of man,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> but it +was not, and is not, with rare exceptions, the result of a critical +choice or of a reasoning desire. Moreover, it was and is through +necessity that, determined by external needs and occasions, this +activity engenders an experience and a development of internal and +external organs. Among these organs we must include intelligence and +reason which also are the result and consequence of repeated and +accumulated experience. The integral formation of man in his historical +development is henceforth no longer a hypothetical datum nor a simple +conjecture. It is an intuitive and palpable truth. The conditions of the +<i>processus</i> which engenders a step of progress are henceforth reducible +into a series of explanations; and up to a certain point we have under +our eyes the schedule of all historical developments, morphologically +conceived. This doctrine is the clear and definite negation of all +ideology, because it is the explicit negation of every form of +rationalism, understanding by this word this concept, that things in +their existence and their development answer to a norm, an ideal, a +measure, an end, in an implicit or explicit fashion. The whole course of +human events is a sum, a succession of series of conditions which men +have made and laid down for themselves through the experience +accumulated in their changing social life, but it represents neither the +tendency to realize a predetermined end nor the deviation of a first +principle from perfection and felicity. Progress itself implies merely +that empirical and circumstantial notion of a thing which is at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> present +defined in our mind, because, thanks to the development thus far +realized, we are in a position to estimate the past and to foresee, at +least in a certain sense and in a certain measure, the future.</p> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<p>In this fashion a serious ambiguity is dissolved and the errors carried +with it are removed. Reasonable and well founded is the tendency of +those who aim to subordinate the sum total of human events in their +course to the rigorous conception of determinism. There is, on the +contrary, no reason for confusing this derived, reflex and complex +determinism with the determinism of the immediate struggle for existence +which is produced and developed on a field not modified by the continued +action of labor. Legitimate and well founded, in an absolute fashion, is +the historical explanation which proceeds in its course from the +volitions which have voluntarily regulated the different phases of life, +to the motives and objective causes of every choice, discovered in the +conditions of environment, territory, accessible means of existence and +conditions of experience. But there is, on the contrary, no foundation +for that opinion which tends to the negation of every volition by +consequence of a theoretical view which would substitute automatism for +voluntarism. There is nothing in it, as a matter of fact, but a pure and simple conceit.</p> + +<p>Wherever the means of production have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>developed, to a certain point, +wherever the artificial foundation has acquired a certain consistency, +and wherever the social differentiations and their resulting antitheses +have created the need, the possibility and the conditions of an +organization more or less stable or unstable, there, always and +necessarily, appear premeditated designs, political views, plans of +conduct, systems of law and finally maxims and general and abstract +principles. In the circle of these products, and of these derived and +complex developments of the second degree, spring up also the sciences +and arts, philosophy and learning, and history as a literary fashion of +production. This circle is what the rationalists and the ideologists, +ignorant of its real foundations, have called, and call, in an exclusive +fashion, civilization. And, in fact, it has happened, and it happens, +that some men, and especially professional scientists, lay or clerical, +have found, and find, the means of intellectual livelihood in the closed +circle of the reflex and secondary products of civilization, and that +they have been able and are able consequently to submit all the rest to +the subjective view which they have elaborated under these conditions; +that is, the origin and explanation of all the ideologies. Our doctrine +has definitely outgrown the visual angle of ideology. The premeditated +designs, the political views, sciences, systems of law, etc., instead of +being the means and the instrument of the explanation of history, are +precisely what require to be explained, because they are derived from +determined conditions and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>situations. But that does not mean that they +are pure appearances, soap bubbles. If they are things which have been +developed and derived, that does not imply that they are not real +things; and that is so true that they have been, for centuries, to the +unscientific consciousness, and to the scientific consciousness still on +the way towards its formation, the only ones which really existed.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>But that is not all.</p> + +<p>Our doctrine, like others, may lead to reverie and offer an occasion and +a theme for a new inverted ideology. It was born on the battlefield of +communism. It assumes the appearance of the modern proletariat on the +political stage, and it assumes that alignment upon the origins of our +present society which has permitted us to reconstruct in a critical +manner the whole genesis of the bourgeoisie. It is a doctrine +revolutionary from two points of view; because it has found the reasons +and the methods of development of the proletarian revolution which is in +the making, and because it proposes to find the causes and the +conditions of development of all other social revolutions which have +taken place in the past, in the class antagonisms which arrived at a +certain critical point, by reason of the contradiction between the forms +of production and the development of the producing forces. And this is +not all. In the light of this doctrine what is essential in history is +summed up in these critical moments, and it abandons, momentarily at +least, what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> unites these different moments to the learned ministrations +of the professional narrators. As a revolutionary doctrine it is, before +all else, the intellectual consciousness of the actual proletarian +movement in which, according to our assertion, the future of communism +is preparing long beforehand; so much so that the open adversaries of +socialism reject it as an opinion, which, under a scientific mask, is +only working out another utopia.</p> + +<p>Thus it may happen, and that has already resulted, that the imagination +of people unfamiliar with the difficulties of historic research, and the +zeal of fanatics, find a stimulus and an opportunity even in historic +materialism for forming a new ideology and drawing from it a new +philosophy of systematic history, that is to say, history conceived as +schemes or tendencies and designs. And no precaution can suffice. Our +intellect is rarely contented with purely critical research; it is +always attempting to convert into an element of pedantry and into a new +scholasticism every discovery of thought. In a word, even the +materialistic conception of history may be converted into a form of +argumentation for a thesis and serve to make new fashions with the +ancient prejudices like that of a history based on syllogisms, +demonstrations and deductions.</p> + +<p>To guard against this, and especially to avoid the reappearance in an +indirect and disguised fashion of any form whatever of finality, it is +necessary to resolve positively upon two things: First, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> all known +historic conditions are circumstanced, and, second, that progress has +thus far been circumscribed by various obstacles and that for this +reason it has always been partial and limited.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Only a part, and, until recent times, only a small part of the human +race, has traversed completely all the stages of the <i>processus</i> by the +effect of which the most advanced nations have arrived at modern civil +society, with the advanced technical forms founded upon the discoveries +of science and with all the consequences, political, intellectual, +moral, etc., which correspond to this development. By the side of the +English,—to take the most striking example—who, transporting European +manners with them to New Holland, have created there a center of +production which already holds a notable place in the competition of the +world’s market, there still live, like fossils of prehistoric times, the +Australian aborigines, capable only of disappearing, but incapable of +adapting themselves to a civilization which was not imported among them, +but next to them. In America, and especially in North America, the +series of events which have brought on the development of modern society +began with the importation from Europe of domestic animals and +agricultural tools, the use of which in ancient times gave birth to the +slow moving civilization of the Mediterranean; but this movement +remained entirely inside the circle of those descended from the +conquerors and colonists, while the aborigines are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> lost in the mass +through the intermingling of races or perish and disappear completely. +Western Asia and Egypt, which already in very ancient times, as the +first cradle of all our civilization, gave birth to the great +semi-political formations which marked the first phases of certain and +positive history, have appeared to us for centuries as crystallizations +of social forms incapable of moving on of themselves to new phases of +development. Upon them is the age-long weight of the barbaric camp—the +dominion of the Turk. Into this stiffened mass is introduced by secret +ways a modern administration, and in the name of business interests the +railroads and the telegraphs push in,—bold outposts of the conquering +European bank. All this stiffened mass has no hope of resuming life, +heat and motion except by the ruin of the Turkish dominion, for which +are being substituted in the different methods of direct and indirect +conquest the dominion and the protectorate of the European bourgeoisie. +That a process of transformation of backward nations or of nations +arrested in their march, can be realized and hastened under external +influences, India stands as a proof. This country, with its own life +still surviving, re-enters vigorously under the action of England into +the circulation of international activity even with its intellectual +products. These are not the only contrasts in the historic physiognomy +of our contemporaries. And while in Japan, by an acute and spontaneous +phenomenon of imitation, there has developed, in less than thirty years, +a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>certain assimilation of western civilization which is already moving +normally the country’s own energies, the forcible law of Russian +conquest is dragging into the circle of modern industry, and even into +great industry, certain notable portions of the country beyond the +Caspian, as an outpost of the approaching acquisition to the sphere of +capitalism of Central Asia and Upper Asia. The gigantic mass of China +appeared to us but a few years ago as motionless in the hereditary +organization of its institutions, so slow is every movement there, while +for ethnic and geographical reasons almost all Africa remained +impenetrable, and, it seemed, even up to the last attempts at conquest +and colonization, that it was destined to offer only its borders to the +process of civilization, as if we were still in the times not even of +the Portuguese, but of the Greeks and Carthaginians.</p> + +<p>These differentiations of men on the track of written and unwritten +history seem to us easily explicable when they can be referred to the +natural and immediate conditions which impose limits upon the +development of labor. This is the case with America, which up to the +arrival of the Europeans had but one cereal, maize, and but one domestic +animal for labor, the llama, and we can rejoice that the Europeans +imported with themselves and their tools the ox, the ass and the horse, +corn, cotton, sugarcane, coffee and finally the vine and the orange +tree, creating there a new world of that glorious society which produces +merchandise and which with an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>extraordinary swiftness of movement has +already traversed the two phases of the blackest slavery and the most +democratic wage system. But where there is a real halt and even an +attested retrogression, as in Western Asia, in Egypt, in the Balkan +Peninsula and in Northern Africa,—and this arrest cannot be attributed +to the change of natural conditions,—we find the problem before us +which is awaiting its solution from the direct and explicit study of the +social structure studied in the internal modes of its development, as in +the interlacings and complications of the different nations upon that +field which is ordinarily called the scene of historic struggles.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>This same civilized Europe, which by the continuity of its tradition, +presents the most complete diagram of its <i>processus</i>, so much so that +upon this model have been conceived and constructed, thus far, all the +systems of historical philosophy, this Western and Central Europe, which +produced the epoch of the bourgeoisie and has sought and is seeking to +impose that form of society upon the whole world by different modes of +conquest, direct or indirect,—this Europe is not completely uniform in +the degree of its development, and its various agglomerations, national, +local and political, appear disturbed, as it were, over a decidedly +sloping ladder. Upon these differences depend the conditions of relative +superiority and inferiority of one country to another and the reasons, +more or less advantageous or disadvantageous, for economic <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>exchange; +and thereon have depended, and still depend, not only the frictions and +the struggles, the treaties and the wars, but also everything that with +more or less precision the political writers have been able to relate to +us since the Renaissance, and certainly with increasing evidence, from +Louis XIV. and Colbert to our own time.</p> + +<p>This Europe in itself is highly variegated. Here is the consummate +flower of industrial and capitalist production, namely, England, while +at other points survives the artisan, vigorous or rickety, at Paris and +at Naples, to grasp the fact in its extreme points. Here the land is +almost industrialized, as in England; and elsewhere vegetates, in +various traditional forms, the stupid peasant, as in Italy and in +Austria, and in the latter country more than in the former. In one +country the political life of the state—suited to the prosaic +consciousness of a bourgeoisie which knows its business because it has +conquered the space that it occupies—is exerted in the surest and most +open fashion of an explicit class domination (it will be understood that +I am speaking of France). Elsewhere, and particularly in Germany, the +old feudal customs, the hypocrisy of Protestantism and the cowardice of +a bourgeoisie which exploits favorable economic circumstances without +bringing to them either intelligence or revolutionary courage, +strengthen the existing state by preserving the lying appearances of an +ethical mission to be accomplished. (With how many unpalatable sauces +this state ethics, Prussian into the bargain, has been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> served up by the +heavy and pedantic German professors!) Here and there modern capitalist +production is edging its way into countries which from other points of +view do not enter into our movement and especially into its political +side, as is the case with unhappy Poland; or again this form only +penetrates indirectly, as in the Slavonic countries. But now comes the +sharpest contrast, which seems destined to put under our eyes, as in an +epitome, all the phrases, even the most extreme, of our history.</p> + +<p>Russia could not have advanced, as it is now advancing, toward the great +industry, without drawing from Western Europe, and especially from our +charming French <i>Chauvinism</i>, that money which she would in vain have +sought within her own borders, that is to say, from the conditions of +her obese territorial mass, where vegetate in ancient economic forms +fifty million peasants. Russia, in order to become an economic modern +society ripening the conditions of a corresponding political revolution, +and preparing the means which will facilitate the addition of a large +part of Asia to the capitalist movement, has been led to destroy the +last relics of agrarian communism (whether its origins be primitive or +secondary) which had been preserved within herself up to this point in +such characteristic forms and on so large a scale. Russia must +capitalize herself, and to this end she must, to start with, convert +land into merchandise capable of producing merchandise, and at the same +time transform into miserable proletarians the excommunists of the +land.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> And, on the contrary, in Western and Central Europe we find +ourselves at the opposite point of the series of development which has +scarcely begun in Russia. Here, with us, where the bourgeoisie, with +varied fortunes and triumphing over such a variety of difficulties, has +already traversed so many stages of its development, it is not the +recollection of primitive or secondary communism, which scarcely +survives through learned combinations in the heads of scholars, but the +very form of bourgeois production, which engenders in the proletarians +the tendency to socialism, which presents itself in its general outlines +as an indication of a new phase of history and not as the repetition of +what is inevitably perishing in the Slavonic countries under our eyes.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Who could fail to see in these illustrations, which I have not sought +out, but which have come almost by chance, and which can be indefinitely +prolonged in a volume of economic-political geography of the present +world, the evident proof of the manner in which historic conditions are +all circumstanced in the forms of their development? Not only races and +peoples, nations and states, but parts of nations and various regions of +states, even orders and classes, are found, as it were, upon so many +rounds of a very long ladder, or, rather, upon the various points of a +complicated and slowly developing curve. Historic time has not marched +uniformly for all men. The simple succession of generations has never +been the index of the constancy and intensity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> of the <i>processus</i>. Time +as an abstract measure of chronology and the generations which succeed +one another in approximate periods give no criterion and furnish no +indication of law or of process. The developments thus far have been +varied because the things accomplished in one and the same unit of time +were varied. Between these varied forms of development there is an +affinity or rather a similarity of movements, that is, an analogy of +type, or again an identity of form; thus the advance forms may by simple +contact or by violence accelerate the development of backward forms. But +the important thing is to comprehend that progress, our notion of which +is not merely empirical, but always circumstanced and thus limited, is +not suspended over the course of human events like a destiny or a fate, +nor like a commandment. And for this reason our doctrine cannot serve to +represent the whole history of the human race in a unified perspective +which repeats, <i>mutatis mutandis</i>, the historic philosophy from thesis +to conclusion, from St. Augustine to Hegel, or, better, from the prophet +Daniel to M. De Rougemont.</p> + +<p>Our doctrine does not pretend to be the intellectual vision of a great +plan or of a design, but it is merely a method of research and of +conception. It is not by accident that Marx spoke of his discovery as a +guiding thread, and it is precisely for this reason that it is analogous +to Darwinism, which also is a method, and is not and cannot be a modern +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>repetition of the constructed or constructive natural philosophy as +used by Shelling and his school.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>The first to discover in the notion of progress an indication of +something circumstantial and relative was the genial Saint Simon, who +opposed his way of seeing to the doctrine of the eighteenth century +represented by the party of Condorcet. To that doctrine, which may be +called unitary, equalitarian, formal, because it regards the human race +as developing upon one line of process, Saint Simon opposes the +conception of the faculties and of the aptitudes which substitute +themselves and compensate for each other, and thus he remains an ideologist.</p> + +<p>To penetrate the true reasons for the relativity of progress another +thing was necessary. It was necessary, first of all, to renounce those +prejudices which are involved in the belief that the obstacles to the +uniformity of human development rest exclusively upon natural and +immediate causes. These natural obstacles are either sufficiently +problematical, as is the case with races, no one of which shows the +privilege of birth in its history, or they are, as is the case in +geographical differences, insufficient to explain the development of the +completely different historico-social conditions on one and the same +geographical field. And as the historic movement dates precisely from +the time when the natural obstacles have already been in great part +either vanquished or notably circumscribed, thanks to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>creation of +an artificial field upon which it has been given to men to develop +themselves further, it is evident that the successive obstacles to the +uniformity of progress must be sought in the proper and intrinsic +conditions of the social structure itself.</p> + +<p>This structure has thus far started in forms of political organization, +the object of which is to try to hold in equilibrium the economic +inequalities; consequently this organization, as I have said more than +once, is constantly unstable. From the point where there is a known +history; it is the history of society tending to form the state, or +having already constructed it completely. And the state is this +struggle, within and without, because it is, above all, the organ and +the instrument of a larger or smaller part of society against all the +rest of society itself, in so far as the latter rests upon the economic +domination of man over man in a more or less direct and explicit +fashion, according as the different degree of the development of +production, of its natural means and its artificial instruments, +requires either chattel slavery, or the serfdom of the soil, or the +“free” wage system. This society of antitheses, which forms a state, is +always, although in different forms and various modes, the opposition of +the city to the country, of the artisan to the peasant, of the +proletarian to the employer, of the capitalist to the laborer, and so on +<i>ad infinitum</i>, and it always ends, with various complications and +various methods, in an hierarchy, whether it be in a fixed scaffolding +of privilege, as in the Middle Ages,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> or whether, under the disguised +forms of supposed equal rights for all, it be produced by the automatic +action of economic competition, as in our time.</p> + +<p>To this economic hierarchy corresponds, according to various modes, in +different countries, in different times, in different places, what I may +call almost a hierarchy of souls, of intellects, of minds. That is to +say, that culture, which, for the idealists, constitutes the sum of +progress, has been and is by the necessities of the case very unequally +distributed. The greater portion of mankind, by the quality of their +occupations, are composed of individuals who are disintegrated, broken +into fragments and rendered incapable of a complete and normal +development. To the economics of classes and to the hierarchy of social +positions corresponds the psychology of classes. The relativity of +progress is then for us the inevitable consequence of class +distinctions. These distinctions constitute the obstacles which explain +the possibility of relative retrogression, up to the point of degeneracy +and of the dissolution of an entire society. The machines, which mark +the triumph of science, become, by reason of the antithetic conditions +of the social plexus, instruments which impoverish millions and millions +of artisans and free peasants. The progress of technique, which fills +the towns with merchandise, makes more miserable and abject the +condition of the peasants, and in the cities themselves it further +humbles the condition of the humble. All the progress of science has +served thus far to differentiate a class of scientists<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> and to keep ever +further from culture the masses who, attached to their ceaseless daily +toil, are thus feeding the whole of society.</p> + +<p>Progress has been and is, up to the present time, partial and one-sided. +The minorities which share in it call this human progress; and the proud +evolutionists call this human nature which is developing. All this +partial progress, which has thus far developed upon the oppression of +man by man, has its foundation in the conditions of opposition, by which +economic distinctions have engendered all the social distinctions; from +the relative liberty of the few is born the servitude of the greater +number, and law has been the protector of injustice. Progress, thus seen +and clearly appreciated, appears to us as the moral and intellectual +epitome of all human miseries and of all material inequalities.</p> + +<p>To discover this inevitable relativity it was necessary that communism, +born at first as an instinctive movement in the soul of the oppressed, +should become a science and a political party. It was then necessary +that our doctrine should give the measure of value for all past history, +by discovering in every form of social organization, antithetical in its +origin and organization, as they have all been up to this time, the +innate incapacity for producing the conditions of a universal and +uniform human progress, that is to say, by discovering the fetters which +turn each benefit into an injury.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<p>There is one question which we cannot evade: What has given birth to the +belief in <i>historic factors</i>?</p> + +<p>That is an expression familiar to many and often found in the writings +of many scholars, scientists and philosophers, and of those commentators +who, by their reasonings or by their combinations, add a little to +simple historic narration and utilize this opinion as an hypothesis to +find a starting point in the immense mass of human facts, which, at +first sight and after first examination, appear so confused and +irreducible. This belief, this current opinion, has become for reasoning +historians, or even for rationalists, a semi-doctrine, which has +recently been urged several times, as a decisive argument, against the +unitary theory of the materialistic conception. And indeed, this belief +is so deeply rooted and this opinion so widespread, of history being +only intelligible as the juncture and the meeting of various factors, +that, in consequence, many of those who speak of social materialism, +whether they be its partisans or adversaries, believe that they save +themselves from embarrassment by affirming that this whole doctrine +consists in the fact that it attributes the preponderance or the +decisive action to the <i>economic factor</i>.</p> + +<p>It is very important to take account of the fashion in which this +belief, this opinion, or this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>semi-doctrine takes its rise, because +real and fruitful criticism consists principally in knowing and +understanding the motive of what we declare an error. It does not +suffice to reject an opinion by characterizing it as false doctrine. +Error always arises from some ill-understood side of an incomplete +experience, or from some subjective imperfection. It does not suffice to +reject the error; we must overcome it, explain it and outgrow it.</p> + +<p>Every historian, at the beginning of his work, performs, so to speak, an +act of elimination. First, he makes erasures, as it were, in a +continuous series of events; then he dispenses with numerous and varied +suppositions and precedents; more than this, he tears up and decomposes +a complicated tissue. Thus, to begin with, he must fix a point, a line, +a boundary, as he chooses; he must say, for example: I wish to relate +the beginning of the war between the Greeks and the Persians, or to +inquire how Louis XVI. was brought to convene the States General. The +narrator finds himself, in a word, confronted with a <i>complexus</i> of +accomplished facts and of facts on the point of being produced, which in +their totality present a certain aspect. Upon the attitude which he +takes depends the form and the style of every narration, because to +compose it he must take his point of departure from things already +accomplished, in order to see henceforth how they have continued to develop.</p> + +<p>Yet into this <i>complexus</i> he must introduce a certain degree of +analysis, resolving it into groups and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> into aspects of facts, or into +concurrent elements, which afterwards appear at a certain moment as +independent categories. It is the state in a certain form and with +certain powers; it is the laws, which determine, by what they command or +what they prohibit, certain relations; it is the manners and customs +which reveal to us tendencies, needs, ways of thinking, of believing, of +imagining; altogether it is a multitude of men living and working +together, with a certain distribution of tasks and occupations; he +observes then the thoughts, the ideas, the inclinations, the passions, +the desires, the aspirations which arise and develop from this varied +mode of coexistence and from its frictions. Let a change be produced, +and it will show itself in one of the sides or one of the aspects of the +empirical <i>complexus</i>, or in all of these within a longer or a shorter +time; for example, the state extends its boundaries, or changes its +internal limits as regards society by increasing or diminishing its +powers and its attributes, or by changing the mode of action of one or +the other; or, again, the law modifies its dispositions, or it expresses +and affirms itself through new organs; or, again, finally, behind the +change of exterior and daily habits, we discover a change in the +sentiments, the thoughts and the inclinations of the men variously +distributed in the different social classes, who mingle, change, replace +each other, disappear or reappear. All this may be sufficiently +understood, in its exterior forms and outlines, through the usual +endowments of normal intelligence which is not yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> aided, corrected or +completed by science strictly so-called. Assembling within precise +limits a conception of such facts is the true and proper object of +narration, which is so much the clearer, more vivid and more exact, as +it takes the form of a monograph; witness Thucydides in the Peloponnesian war.</p> + +<p>Society already evolved in a certain fashion, society already arrived at +a certain degree of development, society already so complicated that it +conceals the economic substructure which supports all the rest, has not +revealed itself to the simple narrators, except in these visible facts, +in these most apparent results, and in these most significant symptoms +which are the political forms, the legal dispositions and the partisan +passions. The narrator, both because he lacks any theoretical doctrine +regarding the true sources of the historic movement, and by the very +attitude which he takes on the subject of the things which he unites +according to the appearances which they have come to assume, cannot +reduce them to unity, unless it be as a result of a single, immediate +intuition, and if he is an artist, this intuition takes on a color in +his mind and transforms itself there into dramatic action. His task is +finished if he succeeds in massing a certain number of facts and events +in certain limits and confines over which the observer may look as on a +clear perspective; in the same way, purely descriptive geography has +accomplished its task, if it sums up in a vivid and clear design a +concourse of physical causes which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>determine the immediate aspect of +the Gulf of Naples, for example, without going back to its genesis.</p> + +<p>It is in this need of graphic narration that arises the first intuitive, +palpable, and, I might almost say, æsthetic and artistic occasion for +all those abstractions and those generalizations, which are finally +summed up in the semi-doctrine of the so-called factors.</p> + +<p>Here are two notable men, the Gracchi, who wished to put an end to the +process of appropriation of the public land and to prevent the +agglomeration of the <i>latifundium</i>, which was diminishing or causing to +completely disappear the class of small proprietors, that is to say, of +the free men, who are the foundation and the condition of the democratic +life of the ancient city. What were the causes of their failure? Their +aim is clear, their spirit, their origin, their character, their heroism +are manifest. They have against them other men with other interests and +with other designs. The struggle appears to the mind at first merely as +a struggle of intentions and passions, which unfolds and comes to an end +by the aid of means which are permitted by the political form of the +state and by the use or abuse or the public powers. Here is the +situation: the city ruling in different manners over other cities or +over territories which have lost all character of autonomy; within this +city a very decided differentiation between rich and poor; and facing +the comparatively small group of the oppressors and the all-powerful, +stands the immense mass of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>proletarians, who are on the point of +losing or who have already lost the consciousness and the political +strength of a body of citizens, the mass which therefore suffers itself +to be deceived and corrupted, and which will soon decay till it is but a +servile accessory to its aristocratic exploiters. There is the material +of the narrator, and he cannot take account of the fact otherwise than +in the immediate conditions of the fact itself. The complete whole is +directly seen and forms the stage on which the events unfold, but if the +narration is to have solidity, vividness and perspective there must be +points of departure and ways of interpretation.</p> + +<p>In this consists the first origin of those abstractions, which little by +little take away from the different parts of a given social <i>complexus</i> +their quality of simple sides or aspects of a whole, and it is their +ensuing generalization which little by little leads to the doctrine of factors.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>These factors, to express it in another way, arise in the mind as a +sequence of the abstraction and generalization of the immediate aspects +of the apparent movement, and they have an equal value with that of all +other empirical concepts. Whatever be the domain of knowledge in which +they arise, they persist until they are reduced and eliminated by a new +experience, or until they are absorbed by a conception more general, +genetic, evolutionary or dialectic. Was it not necessary that in the +empirical analysis and in the immediate study of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> causes and the +effects of certain definite phenomena, for example the phenomena of +heat, the mind should first stop at this presumption and this +persuasion, that it could and should attribute them to a subject, which +if it was never for any physicist a true and substantial entity, was +certainly considered as a definite and specific force, namely, heat. Now +we see that at a given moment, as a result of new experiences, this heat +is resolved in given conditions into a certain quantity of motion. Still +further, our thought is now on the way toward resolving all these +physical factors into the flux of one universal energy, in which the +hypotheses of the atoms, in the extent to which it is necessary, loses +all residue of metaphysical survival.</p> + +<p>Was it not inevitable, as a first step of knowledge in what concerns the +problem of life, to spend a considerable time in the separate study of +the organs and to reduce them to systems? Without this anatomy, which +seems too material and too gross, no progress in these studies would +have been possible; and nevertheless, above the unknown genesis and +co-ordination of such an analytic multiplicity, there were evolving, +uncertain and vague, the generic conceptions of life, soul, etc. In +these mental creations have long been seen that biological unity which +has finally found its object in the certain beginning of the cell and in +its <i>processus</i> of immanent multiplication.</p> + +<p>More difficult certainly was the way which the thought had to traverse +to reconstruct the genesis of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> all the facts of psychic life, from the +most elementary successions up to the most complex derived products. Not +only for reasons of theoretical difficulties, but in consequence of +popular prejudices, the unity and continuity of psychic phenomena +appeared, up to the time of Herbart, as separated and divided into so +many factors, faculties of the soul.</p> + +<p>The interpretation of the historico-social <i>processus</i> met the same +difficulties; it also was obliged to stop at first in the provisional +view of factors. And that being so, it is easy for us now to find again +the first origin of that opinion in the necessity that the historians +have of finding in the facts that they relate with more or less artistic +talent and in different professional views, certain points of immediate +orientation, such as may be offered by the study of the apparent +movement of human events.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>But in this apparent movement, there are the elements of a more exact +view. These concurrent factors, which abstract thought conceives and +then isolates, have never been seen acting each for itself. On the +contrary, they act in such a manner that it gives birth to the concept +of reciprocal action. Moreover, these factors themselves arise at a +given moment, and it is not until later that they acquired that +physiognomy which they have in the particular narration. This State, it +is well known, arose at a given moment. As for every rule of law, it may +either be remembered or conjectured that it went into effect under such +or such circumstances. As<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> for many customs, it may be remembered that +they were introduced at a given moment; and the simplest comparisons of +the facts in different times or different places would show how society, +as a whole, and in its character of being an aggregation of different +classes, had taken and took continuously various forms.</p> + +<p>The reciprocal action of the different factors, without which not even +the simplest narration would be possible, like the more or less exact +information upon the origins and the variations of the factors +themselves, called for research and thought more than did the +constructive narration of those great historians who are real artists. +And, in effect, the problems which arise spontaneously from the data of +history, combined with other theoretical elements, gave birth to the +different so-called practical disciplines, which in a more or less rapid +fashion and with varying success, have developed from the ancients up to +our days, from ethics to the philosophy of law, from politics to +sociology, from law to economics.</p> + +<p>Now with the rise and formation of so many disciplines, through the +inevitable division of labor, <i>points of view</i> have been multiplied out +of all proportion. It is certain that for the first and immediate +analysis of the multiple aspects of the social <i>complexus</i>, a long labor +of partial abstraction was necessary: which has always inevitably +resulted in one-sided views. This can be shown, in a clearer and more +evident manner than for any other <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>domain, in that of law and its +various generalizations, including the philosophy of law. By reason of +these abstractions, which are inevitable in particular and empirical +analysis, and by the effect of the division of labor, the different +sides and different manifestations of the social <i>complexus</i> were, from +time to time, fixed and stratified in general conceptions and +categories. The works, the effects, the emanations, the effusions of +human activity,—law, economic forms, principles of conduct, +etc.,—were, so to speak, translated and transformed into laws, into +imperatives and into principles which remained placed above man himself. +And from time to time it has been necessary to discover anew this simple +truth: that the only permanent and sure fact, that is to say, the only +datum from which departs and to which returns every practical detail of +discipline, is men grouped in a determined social form by means of +determined connections. The different analytical disciplines, which +illustrate the facts that develop in history, have finally given rise to +the need of a common and general social science, which renders possible +the unification of the historic <i>processus</i>, and the materialistic +doctrine marks precisely the final term, the apex of this unification.</p> + +<p>But that has not been, nor ever will be, lost time which is expended in +the preliminary and lateral analysis of complex facts. To the methodical +division of labor we owe precise learning, that is to say, the mass of +knowledge passed into the sieve, systematized, without which social +history would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>always be wandering in a purely abstract domain, in +questions of form and terminology. The separate study of the +historico-social factors has served, like any other empirical study +which does not transcend the apparent movement of things, to improve the +instrument of observation and to permit us to find again in the facts +themselves, which have been artificially abstracted, the keystones which +bind them into the social <i>complexus</i>. The different disciplines which +are considered as isolated and independent in the hypotheses of the +concurrent factors in the formation of history, both by reason of the +degree of development which they have reached, the materials which they +have gathered, and the methods which they have elaborated, have to-day +become quite indispensable for us, if one desires to reconstruct any +portion out of past times. Where would our historic science be without +the one-sidedness of philology, which is the fundamental instrument of +all research, and where should we have found the guiding thread of a +history of juridical institutions, which returns again from itself to so +many other facts and to so many other combinations, without the +obstinate faith of the Romanists in the universal excellence of the +Roman law, which engendered with generalized law and with the philosophy +of law so many problems which serve as points of departure for sociology?</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>It is thus, after all, that the historic factors, of which so many +speak, and which are mentioned in so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> many works, indicate something +which is much less than the truth, but much more than simple error, in +the ordinary sense of a blunder, of an illusion. They are the necessary +product of a knowledge which is in the course of development and +formation. They arise from the necessity of finding a point of departure +in the confused spectacle which human events present to him who wishes +to narrate them; and they serve thenceforth, so to speak, as a title, +category or index to that inevitable division of labor, by the extension +of which the historico-social material has, up to this time, been +theoretically elaborated. In this domain of knowledge, as well as in +that of the natural sciences, the unity of real principle and the unity +of formal treatment are never found at the first start, but only after a +long and troublous road. So that again from this point of view the +analogy affirmed by Engels between the discovery of historical +materialism and that of the conservation of energy appears to us excellent.</p> + +<p>The provisional orientation, according to the convenient system of what +are called factors, may, under given circumstances, be useful also to us +who profess an altogether unitary principle of historic interpretation, +if we do not wish simply to rest in the domain of theory, but wish to +illustrate, through personal research, a definite period of history. As +in that case we must proceed to direct and detailed research, we must +first of all follow the groups of facts that seem pre-eminent, +independent, or detached in the aspects of immediate experience. We +should not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> imagine, in fact, that the unitary principle so well +established, at which we have arrived in the general conception of +history, may, like a talisman, act always and at first sight, as an +infallible method of resolving into simple elements the immense area and +the complicated gearing of society. The underlying economic structure, +which determines all the rest, is not a simple mechanism whence emerge, +as immediate, automatic and mechanical effects, institutions, laws, +customs, thoughts, sentiments, ideologies. From this substructure to all +the rest, the process of derivation and of mediation is very +complicated, often subtile, tortuous and not always legible.</p> + +<p>The social organization is, as we already know, constantly unstable, +although that does not seem evident to every one, except at the time +when the instability enters upon that acute period which is called a +revolution. This instability, with the constant struggles in the bosom +of that same organized society, excludes the possibility for men coming +to an agreement which might involve a new start at living an animal +life. It is the antagonisms which are the principal cause of progress +(Marx). But it is equally true, notwithstanding, that in this unstable +organization, in which is given to us the inevitable form of domination +and subjection, intelligence is always developed not only unequally, but +quite imperfectly, incongruously and partially. There has been and there +is still in society what we may call a hierarchy of intelligence, +sentiments and conceptions. To suppose that men, always and in all +cases, have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> had an approximately clear consciousness of their own +situation, and of what was the most rational thing to do, is to suppose +the improbable and, indeed, the unreal.</p> + +<p>Forms of law, political acts and attempts at social organization were, +and they still are, sometimes fortunate, sometimes mistaken, that is to +say, disproportionate and unsuitable. History is full of errors; and +this means that if all was necessary, granted the relative intelligence +of those who have to solve a difficulty or to find a solution for a +given problem, etc., if everything in it has a sufficient reason, yet +everything in it was not reasonable, in the sense which the optimists +give to this word. To state it more fully, the determined causes of all +changes, that is to say the modified economic conditions, have ended and +end by causing to be found, sometimes through tortuous ways, the +suitable forms of law, the appropriate political orders and the more or +less perfect means of social adjustment. But it must not be thought that +the instinctive wisdom of the reasoning animal has been manifested, or +is manifested, definitely and simply, in the complete and clear +understanding of all situations, and that we have left only the very +simple task of following the deductive road from the economic situation +to all the rest. Ignorance—which, in its turn, may be explained—is an +important reason for the manner in which history is made; and, to +ignorance we must add the brutishness which is never completely subdued +and all the passions, and all the injustices, and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>various forms of +corruption, which were and are the necessary product of a society +organized in such a way, that the domination of man over man in it is +inevitable, and that from this domination falsehood, hypocrisy, +presumption and baseness were and are inseparable. We may, without being +utopians, but simply because we are critical communists, foresee, as we +do in fact foresee, the coming of a society which, developing from the +present society and from its very contrasts by the laws inherent in its +historic development, will end in an association without class +antagonisms; which will have for its consequence that regulated +production will eliminate from life the element of chance which, thus +far, has been revealed in history as a multiform cause of accidents and +incidents. But that is the future, and it is neither the present nor the +past. If we propose to ourselves, on the contrary, to penetrate into the +historic events which have developed up to our own times, by taking, as +we do, for a guiding thread the variations of the forms of the +underlying economic structure up to the simplest datum in the variations +of the tool of production, we must become fully conscious of the +difficulty of the problem which we are setting ourselves: because here +we have not merely to open our eyes and behold, but to make a supreme +effort of thought, with the aim of triumphing over the multiform +spectacle of immediate experience to reduce its elements into a genetic +series. That is why I said that, in particular investigations, we must +ourselves start from those groups of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>apparently isolated facts, and +from this heterogeneous mass, in a word, from that empirical study, +whence arose the belief in factors, which afterwards became a semi-doctrine.</p> + +<p>It is useless to attempt at counterbalancing these essential +difficulties by the metaphorical hypothesis, often equivocal, and after +all of a purely analogical value, of the so-called social organism. It +was necessary too that the mind should pass through even this +hypothesis, which so shortly became phraseology pure and simple. It +indeed prepares the way for the comprehension of the historic movement +as springing from the laws immanent in society itself, and thereby +excludes the arbitrary, the transcendental and the irrational. But the +metaphor has no further application; and the particular, critical and +circumstantial research into historic facts is the sole source of that +concrete and positive knowledge which is necessary to the complete +development of economic materialism.</p> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<p>Ideas do not fall from heaven, and nothing comes to us in a dream. The +change in the ways of thinking, lately produced by the historic doctrine +which we are here examining and commenting upon, takes place at first +slowly and afterwards with an increasing rapidity, precisely in that +period of human development, in which were realized the great +politico-economic revolutions, that is to say, in that epoch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> which, +considered in its political forms, is called liberal, but which, +considered in its basis, by reason of the domination of capital over the +proletarian mass, is the epoch of anarchical production. The change in +ideas, even to the creation of new methods of conception, has reflected +little by little the experience of a new life. This, in the revolutions +of the last two centuries, was little by little despoiled of the +mythical, religious and mystical envelopes in proportion as it acquired +the practical and precise consciousness of its immediate and direct +conditions. Human thought, also, which sums up this life and theorizes +upon it, has little by little been plundered of its theological and +metaphysical hypotheses to take refuge finally in this prosaic +assertion: in the interpretation of history we must limit ourselves to +the objective co-ordination of the determining conditions and of the +determined effects. The materialistic conception marks the culminating +point of this new tendency in the investigation of the historic-social +laws, in so far as it is not a particular case of a generic sociology, +or of a generic philosophy of the State, of law, and of history, but the +solution of all doubts and all uncertainties which accompany the other +forms of philosophizing upon human affairs, and the beginning of their +integral interpretation.</p> + +<p>It is thus an easy thing, especially in the way it has been done by +certain shallow critics, to find precursors for Marx and Engels, who +first defined this doctrine in its fundamental points. And when did it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> +ever occur to any of their disciples, even of the strictest school, to +represent these two thinkers as miracle-workers? What is more, if we +wish to go on a search after the premises of the logical creation of +Marx and Engels, it will not suffice to stop at those who are called the +precursors of socialism, Saint-Simon for example, and his predecessors, +or the philosophers, particularly Hegel, or the economists who had laid +bare the anatomy of the society which produces commodities; we must go +back to the very formation of modern society, and then at last declare +triumphantly that the theory is a plagiarism from the things that it explains.</p> + +<p>The truth is that the real precursors of the new doctrine were the facts +of modern history, which has become so transparent and so explanatory of +itself since the accomplishment in England of the great industrial +revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, and since the great +social upheaval took place in France. These things, <i>mutatis mutandis</i>, +have subsequently been reproduced, in various combinations and in milder +forms, throughout the whole civilized world. And what else is our +thought at bottom if not the conscious and systematic complement of +experience, and what is this last if not the reflection and the mental +elaboration of the things and the processes which arise and unfold +either outside our volition, or through the work of our activity; and +what is genius but the individualized, derived and acute form of +thought, which arises through the suggestion of experience, in many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> men +of the same epoch, but which remains in most of them fragmentary, +incomplete, uncertain, wavering and partial?</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Ideas do not fall from heaven; and what is more, like the other products +of human activity, they are formed in given circumstances, in the +precise fullness of time, through the action of definite needs, thanks +to the repeated attempts at their satisfaction, and by the discovery of +such and such other means of proof which are, as it were, the +instruments of their production and their elaboration. Even ideas +involve a basis of social conditions; they have their technique; thought +also is a form of work. To rob the one and the other, ideas and thought, +of the conditions and environment of their birth and their development, +is to disfigure their nature and their meaning.</p> + +<p>To show how the materialistic conception of history arises precisely in +given conditions, not as a personal and tentative opinion of two +writers, but as the new conquest of thought by the inevitable suggestion +of a new world which is in process of birth, that is to say the +proletarian revolution, that was the object of my first essay, “In +Memory of the Communist Manifesto.” That is, to repeat, a new historic +situation found its complement in its appropriate mental instrument.</p> + +<p>To imagine now that this intellectual production might have been +realized at any time and at any place, would be to take absurdity for +the ruling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> principle in research. To transport ideas arbitrarily from +the basis and the historic conditions in which they arise to any other +basis whatever, is like taking the irrational for the basis of +reasoning. Why should one not fancy equally that the ancient city, in +which arose Greek art and science and Roman law, remaining all the while +an ancient democratic city, with slavery, might at the same time acquire +and develop all the conditions of modern technique? Why not believe that +the trade guild of the Middle Ages, remaining all the while on its +inflexible mould, should take its way to the conquest of the world +market without the conditions of unlimited competition, which actually +began by its destruction and negation? Why not imagine a fief which, +remaining a fief all the while, should become a factory producing +commodities exclusively? Why could not Michel de Lando have written the +Communist Manifesto? Why could we not also believe that the discoveries +of modern science could have proceeded from the brains of men of no +matter what other time and place, that is to say, before determined +conditions had given rise to determined needs, and before repeated and +accumulated experiences should have provided for the satisfaction of these needs?</p> + +<p>Our doctrine assumes the broad, conscious and continuous development of +modern technique, and with it that society which produces commodities in +the antagonisms of competition, that society which as a first condition +and an indispensable means for its own perpetuation presupposes +capitalist <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>accumulation in the form of private property; that society +which continually produces and reproduces proletarians, and which if it +is to perpetuate itself, must incessantly revolutionize its tools, and +with them the State and its legal gearings. This society, which, by the +very laws of its movement, has laid bare its own anatomy, produces by +its reaction the materialistic conception. Even as it has produced in +socialism its positive negation, so it has engendered in the new +historic doctrine its ideal negation. If history is the product, not +arbitrary, but necessary and normal, of men in so far as they are +developing, and if they are developing in so far as they are making +social experiments, and if they are experimenting in so far as they are +making improvements in their labor, which accumulate and preserve +products and results, the phase of development in which we live cannot +be the last and final phase, and the contrasts which are intimately +bound to it and inherent in it are the productive forces of new +conditions. And this is how the period of the great economic and +political revolutions of these last two centuries has ripened in the +mind these two concepts: the immanence and constancy of the <i>processus</i> +in historic facts, and the materialist doctrine, which is at bottom the +objective theory of social revolutions.</p> + +<p>It is beyond doubt that to reascend through the centuries and +reconstruct in our thought the development of social ideas to the extent +that we find their documents in writers, is something always very +instructive, and serving especially to add to our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> critical knowledge of +our concepts as of our ways of thinking. Such a return of the mind over +its historic premises, when it does not lead us astray into the +empiricism of a boundless erudition, and does not lead us to set up +hastily vain analogies, serves without any doubt to give suppleness and +a persuasive force to the forms of our scientific activity. In the sum +of our science we find again, in fact and through the approximative +continuity of tradition, the excellence of all that has been found, +conceived and proved, not only in modern times but even in ancient +Greece, where first begins precisely and in a definite fashion for the +human race the orderly development of conscious, reflective and +methodical thought. It would be impossible to take a single step in +scientific research without employing means long ago found and tried, +such for example as logic and mathematics. To think otherwise would be +to assume that each generation must begin over again all the work done +since the childhood of humanity.</p> + +<p>But it was not given either to the ancient authors in the limited circle +of their urban republics, nor to the writers of the Renaissance, always +drifting between an imaginary return to antiquity and the need of +grasping intellectually the new world in process of birth, to arrive at +the precise analysis of the last elements from which society results, +and which the incomparable genius of Aristotle did not see, and did not +understand beyond the limits within which passes the life of the typical citizen.</p> + +<p>The investigation of the social structure, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>considered in its manners of +origin and <i>processus</i>, became active and penetrating and took on +multiform aspects in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when +economics took shape and when under the different names of “Natural +Rights,” “The Spirit of the Laws,” or “The Social Contract,” it was +attempted to resolve into causes, into factors and into logical and +psychological data, the multiform and often obscure spectacle of a life +in which was preparing the greatest revolution ever known. These +doctrines, whatever may have been the subjective intention and spirit of +the authors—as in the contrasting cases of the conservative Hobbes and +the proletarian Rousseau—were all revolutionary in their substance and +their effects. Under all of them is always found, as a stimulus and +motive, the material and moral needs of a new age, which, by reason of +historic conditions, were those of the bourgeoisie. Thus it was +necessary to wage war in the name of liberty upon tradition, the Church, +privileges, fixed classes, that is to say, the orders and conditions, +and consequently upon the State which was or appeared to be their +author, and then upon the special privileges of commerce, the arts, +labor and science. And man was studied in an abstract fashion, that is +to say, individuals taken separately, emancipated and delivered by a +logical abstraction from their historic connection and from every social +necessity: in the mind of many the concept of society was reduced to +atoms, and it even seemed natural to the greatest number to believe that +society is only the sum of the individuals<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> composing it. The abstract +categories of individual psychology sufficed for the explanation of all +human facts; and this is how in all these systems, nothing is spoken of +but fear, self-love, egoism, voluntary obedience, tendency toward +happiness, the original goodness of man, the freedom of contract and of +the moral consciousness, and of the moral instinct or sense, and also +many other similar abstract and generic things, as if they were +sufficient to explain history, and to create a new history out of its fragments.</p> + +<p>By the fact that all society was entering upon an acute crisis, its +horror at the antique, at what was superannuated, at what was +traditional and had been organized for centuries, and the presentiment +of a renovation of all human life, finally produced a total eclipse of +the ideas of historic necessity and social necessity, that is to say, of +those ideas which, barely indicated by the ancient philosophers, and so +developed in our century, had at this period of revolutionary +rationalism only rare representatives, like Vico, Montesquieu, and, in +part, Quesnay. In this historic situation, which gave birth to a +literature that was nimble, destructive and very popular, is found the +reason for what Louis Blanc with a certain emphasis has called +individualism. Later some have thought they saw in this word the +expression of a permanent fact in human nature, which especially might +serve as a decisive argument against socialism.</p> + +<p>A singular spectacle, and a singular contrast! <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>Capital, however +produced, tended to overcome all previous forms of production, and, +breaking every bond and boundary, to become the direct or indirect +master of society, as, in fact, it has become in the greater part of the +world; hence it resulted, that apart from all forms of modern misery and +the new hierarchy in which we live, there was realized the most acute +antithesis of all history, that is to say, the existing anarchy of +production in the whole of society, and an iron despotism in the mode of +production in each workshop and each factory! And the thinkers, the +philosophers, the economists and the popularizers of the eighteenth +century saw nothing but liberty and equality! All reasoned in the same +way; all started from the same premises, which brought them to conclude +that liberty must be obtained from a government of pure administration, +or that they were democrats or even communists. The approaching reign of +liberty was before the eyes of all as a certain event, provided they +could suppress the bonds and fetters which forced ignorance and the +despotism of church and state had imposed upon men, good by nature. +These fetters did not appear to be conditions and boundaries within +which men were found by the laws of their development, and by the effect +of the antagonistic and thus uncertain and tortuous movement of history, +but simply obstacles from which the methodical use of reason was to +deliver us. In this idealism, which reached its culminating point in +certain heroes of the French Revolution, is the seed of a limitless +faith in the certain progress of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> whole human race. For the first +time, the concept of humanity appeared in all its branches, unmingled +with religious ideas or hypotheses. The boldest of these idealists were +the extreme materialists, because, denying every religious fiction, they +assigned this earth as a certain domain to the necessity of happiness +provided that reason might open the way.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Never were ideas abused in so inhuman a fashion as between the close of +the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. The lesson +of things was very hard, the saddest disillusions arose and a radical +upheaval followed in the minds of men. Facts, in a word, proved to be +contrary to all expectations; and this at first produced a profound +discouragement among the disillusioned, which, notwithstanding, gave +rise to the desire and the need of new investigations. We know that +Saint Simon and Fourier, in whom operated precisely at the beginning of +the century, in the exclusive forms of the ideas of premature genius, +the reaction against the immediate results of the politico-economic +revolution, arose resolutely, the first against the jurists, and the +second against the economists.</p> + +<p>In fact, when once the obstacles to liberty, which had been +characteristic of other times, had been suppressed, new obstacles, +graver and more painful, had replaced them, and, as equal happiness for +all was not realized, society remained in its political form as it had +been before, an organization of inequalities. It must be, then, that +society is something <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>autonomous, innate, a complex automaton of +relations and conditions, which defies the subjective good intentions of +each of the members who compose it, and which escapes from the illusions +and the designs of the idealists. It thus follows a course of its own +from which we may infer certain laws of process and development, but +does not suffer us to impose laws upon it. By this transformation in the +minds of men, the nineteenth century heralded itself as the century of +historic science and of sociology.</p> + +<p>The principle of development has, indeed, since then, invaded all +domains of thought. In this century, the grammar of history has been +discovered, and thus the key has been found to explore the genesis of +myths. The embryonic traces of pre-history have been sought out, and, +for the first time, the processes of political and legal forms have been +arranged into a series. The nineteenth century heralded itself as the +century of sociology in the person of Saint Simon, in whom, as happens +with the self-taught precursors of genius, we find confused together the +germs of so many contradictory tendencies. In this aspect the +materialistic conception is a result; but it is a result which is the +complement of the whole process of formation; and as a result and a +complement it is also the simplification of all historic science and of +all sociology, because it takes us back from things derived and from +complex conditions to elemental functions. And that is brought about by +the direct suggestion of new dynamic experience.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p><p>The laws of economics, such as they are of themselves and their own +inherent force, have triumphed over all illusions and have shown +themselves to be the directing power of social life. The great +industrial revolution which was produced made it clear that social +classes, if they are not a fact of nature, are still less a consequence +of chance and of free will; they arise historically and socially in a +determined form of production. And who, in truth, has not seen the birth +under his eyes of new proletarians upon the economic ruin of so many +classes of small proprietors, small peasants and artisans; and who has +not been in a position to discover the method of this new creation of a +new social status, to which so many men were reduced and in which they +were necessarily obliged to live. Who has not been in a position to +discover that money, transformed into capital, had succeeded, in a few +years, in becoming master by the attraction which it exercises over the +labor of free men, in whom the necessity of selling themselves freely as +wage workers had been prepared long before by so many ingenious legal +processes and by violent or indirect expropriation? And who has not seen +the new cities rise around factories and create around their +circumference this desolating poverty, which is no longer the effect of +individual misfortune, but the condition and the source of wealth? And +in this new poverty were numerous women and children, arising for the +first time from an unknown existence to take their place on the page of +history as a sinister illustration of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> society of equals. And who did +not feel—even if that had not been announced in the so-called doctrine +of the Rev. Malthus—that the number of guests which this mode of +economic organization can entertain, if it is sometimes insufficient for +him who, by reason of the favorable state of production, has need of +hands, is often also superabundant, and therefore finds no occupation +and becomes a source of danger? It becomes evident, also, that the rapid +and violent economic transformation which was accomplished openly in +England had succeeded there, because that country had been able to build +up for itself, as compared with the rest of Europe, a monopoly till then +unknown, and because to maintain this monopoly an unscrupulous policy +had been rendered necessary, and that permitted all, for one happy +moment, to translate into prose the ideological myth of the state, which +was to be the guardian and the preceptor of the people.</p> + +<p>This immediate perception of these consequences of the new life was the +origin of the pessimism, more or less romantic, of the <i>laudatores +temporis acti</i> from De Maistre to Carlyle. The satire of liberalism +invaded minds and literature at the beginning of the nineteenth century. +Then begins that criticism of society, which is the first step in all +sociology. It was necessary before all else to overthrow the ideology, +which had accumulated and expressed itself in so many doctrines of the +Natural Right or the Social Contract. It was necessary to get into +contact with the facts which the rapid events of so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> intensive a +<i>processus</i> imposed upon the attention in forms so new and startling.</p> + +<p>Here appears Owen, incomparable at all points of view, but especially +for the clearness which he displayed in the determination of the causes +of the new poverty, even though he was but a child in his quest of the +means for overcoming it. It was necessary to arrive at the objective +criticism of economics, which appeared for the first time, in one-sided +and reactionary forms, in Sismondi. In this period where the conditions +of a new historic science were ripening, arose so many different forms +of socialism, utopian, one-sided or completely extravagant, which never +reached the proletarians, either because these had no political +consciousness, or if they had any, it manifested itself in sudden +starts, as in the French conspiracies and riots from 1830 to 1848, or +they kept on the political ground of immediate reforms, as is the case +with the Chartists. And nevertheless all this socialism, however +Utopian, fantastic and ideological it may have been, was an immediate +and often salutary criticism of economics—a one-sided criticism, +indeed, which lacked the scientific complement of a general historical conception.</p> + +<p>All these forms of criticism, partial, one-sided and incomplete had +their culmination in scientific socialism. This is no longer subjective +criticism applied to things but the discovery of the self-criticism +which is in the things themselves. The real criticism of society is +society, itself, which, by the antithetic conditions of the contrasts +upon which it rests,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> engenders from itself, within itself, the +contradiction, and finally triumphs over this by its passage into a new +form. The solution of the existing antitheses is the proletariat, which +the proletarians themselves know or do not know. Even as their misery +has become the condition of present society, so in their misery is the +justification of the new proletarian revolution. It is in this passage +from the criticism of subjective thought, which examines things outside +and imagines it can correct them at once, to the understanding of the +self-criticism exercised by society over itself in the immanence of its +own <i>processus</i>—it is in this only that the dialectic of history +consists, which Marx and Engels, in so far as they were materialists, +drew from the idealism of Hegel. But on the final reckoning it matters +little whether the literary men, who knew no other meaning for +dialectics than that of an artificial sophistry nor whether the doctors +and scholars who are never apt to go beyond the knowledge of particular +facts can ever account themselves for these hidden and complicated forms of thought.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>But the great economic transformation, which has furnished the materials +composing modern society, in which the empire of capitalism has arrived +at the limit of its complete development, would not have been so +immediately and so suggestively instructive, if it had not been +luminously illustrated by the bewildering and catastrophic movement of +the French Revolution. This put in evidence, like a tragedy on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> the +stage, all the antagonistic forces of modern society, because this +society has developed on the ruins of previous forms, and because, in so +short a time and with so hasty a march, it has traversed the phases of +its birth and its establishment.</p> + +<p>The revolution ensued from the obstacles which the bourgeoisie had to +overcome by violence, since it appeared from evidence that the passage +from the old forms to the new forms of production—or of property, if we +borrow the language of jurists—could not be realized by the quieter +ways of successive and gradual reforms. It brought in its train the +upheaval, the friction and the intermingling of all the old classes of +the Ancient Regime, and the rapid and bewildering formation at the same +time of new classes, in the very rapid but very intensive period of ten +years, which, compared with the ordinary history of other times and +other countries, seems to us like centuries. This rapid succession of +monumental events brought to light the most characteristic moments and +aspects of the new or modern society, and that so much the more clearly +since the militant bourgeoisie had already created for itself +intellectual means and organs which had given it with the theory of its +own work the reflex consciousness of its movement.</p> + +<p>The violent expropriation of the great part of the old property, that is +to say, of the property crystallized in fiefs, in royal and princely +domains and in mortmain, with the real and personal rights derived +therefrom, put at the disposal of the state, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> by the necessity of +things had become an exceptional, terrible and all-powerful government, +an extraordinary mass of economic resources; thus, there were, on the +one side, the singular policy of the assignats which finally annulled +themselves, and on the other side, the formation of the new proprietors +who owed their fortune to the chances of gambling, to intrigue and to +speculation. And who again would have dared thereafter to swear upon the +ancient, sacred altar of property, when his recent and authentic title +rested in so evident a manner upon the knowledge of fortunate +circumstances? If it had ever passed through the head of so many +troublesome philosophers, beginning with the Sophists, that law is a +creation of man, useful and convenient, this heretical proposition might +seem thenceforth a simple and intuitive truth to the meanest of the +beggars in Paris. Had not the proletarians with all the common people +given the impulse to the revolution in general by the expected movements +of April, 1789, and did they not afterwards find themselves, as it were, +driven anew from the stage of history after the failure of the revolt of +Prairial in 1795? Had they not carried on their shoulders all the ardent +defenders of liberty and equality? Had they not held in their hands the +Paris Commune, which was, for a time, the impulsive organ of the +Assembly and of all France; had they not finally the bitter disillusion +of having created new masters for themselves with their own hands? The +bewildering consciousness of this disillusion constitutes the +psychological motive,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> rapid and immediate, of the conspiracy of Babeuf, +which, for that very reason, is a great fact in history, and bears in +itself all the elements of objective tragedy.</p> + +<p>The land which fief and mortmain had, as it were, bound to a body, to a +family, to a title, now, delivered from its bonds, had become a +commodity, to serve as a basis and instrument for the production of +merchandise; so docile a commodity, that it was put into circulation in +the form of morsels of paper. And around these symbols, multiplied to +such a degree over the things that they were to represent that they +finished by no longer having any value, Business came forth, a giant, +arising, from all sides, on the shoulders of those most wretched in +their poverty, and through all the devious ways of politics; it was +especially shameless in its way of taking part in war and its glorious +successes. Even the rapid progress of technique, hastened by the urgency +of circumstances, gave material and occasion to the prosperity of business.</p> + +<p>The laws of bourgeois economics, which are those of individual +production in the antagonistic field of competition, revolted furiously, +through violence and ruse, against the idealistic efforts of a +revolutionary government which, strong in its certainty of saving its +country, and stronger still in its illusion of founding for eternity the +liberty of equals, believed it was possible to suppress gambling by the +guillotine, to eliminate Business by closing the Stock Exchange and to +assure existence to the common <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>people by fixing the maximum of prices +for objects of prime necessity. Commodities, prices and Business +reasserted with violence their own liberty against those who wished to +preach to them and impose ethics upon them.</p> + +<p>Thermidor, whatever may have been the original intentions of the +Thermidorians, whether vile, cowardly, or misguided, was, in its hidden +causes as in its apparent effects, the triumph of Business over +democratic idealism. The constitution of 1793, which marks the extreme +limit that can be reached by the democratic ideal, was never put into +practice. The grave pressure of circumstances, the menace of the +foreigner, the different forms of internal rebellion, from the +Girondists to the Vendée, rendered necessary an exceptional government, +which was the Terror, born of fear. In proportion as dangers ceased, the +need of the terror ceased. But the democracy shattered itself against +the Business which was bringing into existence the property of new +proprietors. The constitution of the year III. consecrated the principle +of moderate liberalism, whence proceeds all the constitutionalism of the +European continent; but it was, before all else, the road leading to the +guaranty of property. To change the proprietors while preserving +property—that is the banner, the watchword, the ensign which defied +through the years from Aug. 10, 1792, the violent tumults as well as the +bold designs of those who attempted to found society upon virtue, +equality and Spartan abnegation. But the Directory was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> footpath by +which the revolution arrived at the downfall of itself as an idealistic +effort; and with the Directory, which was open and professed corruption, +this banner became a reality; the proprietors are changed, but property +is saved. And, indeed, to raise upon so many ruins a stable edifice, +there was need of real force; and this was found in that strange +adventurer of incomparable genius, upon whom fortune had imperially +smiled, and he was the only one who possessed the virtue of putting an +end to this gigantic fable, because there was in him neither shadow nor +trace of moral scruples.</p> + +<p>In this furor of events strange things happened. The citizens armed for +the defense of their country, victorious beyond its frontiers over +surrounding Europe, into which with their conquest they carried the +revolution, transformed themselves into a soldiery to oppress the +liberty of their country. The peasants who, at a moment of imperious +suggestion, produced over the feudal estates the anarchy of 1789, now +having become soldiers, or small proprietors, or small farmers, and +having remained for a moment the advance sentinels of the revolution, +fell back into the silent and stolid calm of their traditional life, +which, without risks and without movements, served as a sure basis for +the so-called social order. The petty bourgeois of the cities, and the +former members of the guilds rapidly developed, in the camp of economic +struggle, into free traffickers in manual labor. The freedom of trade +required that every product become easily merchantable, and thus it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> +triumphed over the last obstacle, by enforcing the demand that labor +also become for it a free commodity.</p> + +<p>All changed at this moment. The state, which for centuries so many +million deluded ones had regarded as a sacred institution or a divine +mandate, allowed its sovereign to be beheaded by the prosaic means of a +technical machine, and thereby lost its sacred character. The state, +also, was becoming a technical appliance, which substituted bureaucracy +for hierarchy. And as the ancient titles no longer assured their +possessors the privilege of exercising diverse functions, this new state +could become the prey of all those who wished to seize upon it; it found +itself, in a word, put up at auction, with the provision that the +successful aspirants must be the solid guarantors of the property of the +new and the old proprietors. The new state, which had need of its +Eighteenth Brumaire to become an orderly bureaucracy, supported upon +victorious militarism, this state which completed the revolution in the +act which denied it, could not dispense with its scripture, and it found +it in the Civil Code, which is the golden book for a society which +produces and sells commodities. It is not in vain that generalized +jurisprudence had preserved and annotated for centuries, in the form of +a scientific discipline, this Roman law, which was, which is and ever +shall be, the typical and classical form of the law of every shopkeeping +society, until communism puts an end to the possibility of buying and selling.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p><p>The bourgeoisie, which, by the concurrence of so many singular +circumstances effected the revolution with the concurrence of so many +other classes and semi-classes which after a short lapse of time almost +all disappeared from the political stage, seemed, in the moments of the +most violent shocks, as if moved by motives inspired by an ideology, +which would have absolutely no relation with the effects which actually +supervene and perpetuated themselves. The meaning of that is that in the +heat of struggle the bewildering change of the economic substructure +appeared, as if it were, disguised by ideals and obscure by the +interlacings of so many intentions and designs, whence sprung so many +acts of cruelty and of unparalleled heroism, so many currents of +illusion and hard facts of disenchantment. Never had so powerful a faith +in the ideal of progress sprung from human breasts. To deliver the human +race from superstition, and even from religion, to make of each +individual a citizen, or of every private man a public man; those are +its beginnings:—and then on the line of this programme to sum up, in +the short activity of a few years, an evolution which appears to the +most idealistic of to-day as the work of several centuries to come—that +is the idealism of that time! And why should it revolt at the pedagogy +of the guillotine?</p> + +<p>That poetry, grand certainly, if not joyous, left behind it a prose that +was severe enough. And it was the prose of the proprietors who owned +their property to chance, it was that of the high<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> finance and the newly +rich purveyors, marshals, prefects, journalists and mercenary men of +letters; it was the prose of the court of that strange man to whom the +qualities of military genius grafted upon the soul of a brigand, had, +without any doubt, conferred the right of treating as an ideologist +whoever did not admire the bare fact which, in life, as it was with him, +can be nothing else than the simple brutality of success.</p> + +<p>The French Revolution hastened the course of history in a large part of +Europe. To it attaches, on the Continent, all that we call liberalism +and modern democracy, except in the case of the false imitation of +England, and up to the establishment of Italian unity, which was and +will remain perhaps the last act of the revolutionary bourgeoisie. This +revolution was the most vivid and most instructive example of the +fashion in which a society transforms itself and how new economic +conditions develop, and in developing co-ordinate the members of society +into groups and classes. It was the palpable proof of the fashion in +which law is found, when it is necessary for the expression and the +defense of definite relations, and how the state is created, and how +disposal is made of its means, its forces and its organs. Here is seen +how ideas arise from the fields of social institutions, and how +characters, tendencies, sentiments, volitions, that is to say, in a +word, moral forces, are produced and develop into conditions governed by +circumstances. In a word, the data of social science were, so to speak, +prepared by society<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> itself, and it is no wonder if the revolution, +which was preceded ideologically by the most acute form of rationalistic +doctrinairism ever known, ended finally by leaving behind it the +intellectual need of an anti-doctrinaire historical and sociological +science, like that which our own century has attempted to construct.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>And here, both by what we have seen and by what is known generally, it +is useless to recall anew, how Owen forms one of the same group with +Saint Simon and Fourier, and to repeat through what ways scientific +socialism took its birth. The important thing is in these two points; +that historical materialism could not arise but from the theoretical +consciousness of socialism; and that it can henceforth explain its own +origin with its own principles, which is the greatest proof of its maturity.</p> + +<p>Thus I have justified the phrase at the beginning of this chapter: ideas +do not descend from heaven.</p> + + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<p>The road traversed thus far has enabled us to take exact account of the +precise and relative value of the so-called doctrine of factors; we know +also how its adherents come to eliminate objectively those provisional +concepts, which were and are a simple expression of a thought not fully +arrived at maturity.</p> + +<p>And, nevertheless, it is necessary that we speak further of this +doctrine, in order to explain better<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> and more in detail for what +reasons two of the so-called factors, the state and the law, have been +and are still considered as the principal and exclusive subject of history.</p> + +<p>Historians have indeed for centuries placed in these forms of social +life the essence of development. Moreover, they have perceived this +development only in the modification of these forms. History has for +centuries been treated as a discipline relative to the +juridico-political movement and even to the political movement +principally. The substitution of society for politics is a recent thing, +and much more recent still is the reduction of society to the elements +of historical materialism. In other words, sociology is of quite recent +invention, and the reader, I hope, will have understood for himself that +I employ this term for the sake of brevity, to indicate in a general +manner the science of social functions and variations, and that I do not +hold to the specific sense given it by the Positivists.</p> + +<p>It is more satisfactory to say that, up to the beginning of this +century, the data bearing upon usages, customs, beliefs, etc., or even +upon the <i>natural conditions</i>, which serve as the foundation and +connection for social forms, were not mentioned in political histories +unless as objects of simple curiosity, or as accessories and complements +of the narration.</p> + +<p>All this cannot be a simple accident, and indeed is not. There is, then, +a double interest in taking account of the tardy appearance of social +history, both<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> because our doctrine justifies yet again by this means +its reason for existence, and because we thus eliminate, in a definite +manner, the so-called factors.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>If we make an exception of certain critical moments in which social +classes, by an extreme incapacity for adapting themselves to a condition +of relative equilibrium, enter into a crisis of more or less prolonged +anarchy, and if we make an exception of those catastrophes in which an +entire world disappears, as at the fall of the Roman Empire of the West, +or at the dissolution of the Califate, then it may be said that, ever +since there has been a written history, the state appears not only as +the creation of society but also as its support. The first step that +child-like thought had made in this order of considerations is in this +statement: That which governs is also that which creates.</p> + +<p>If, moreover, we make an exception of certain short periods of democracy +exercised with the vivid consciousness of popular sovereignty, as was +the case in a few Greek cities, especially at Athens, and in a few +Italian cities, and especially Florence (the former nevertheless were +composed of free men who were proprietors of slaves, and the latter of +privileged citizens who exploited foreigners and peasants) the society +organized into a state was always composed of a majority at the mercy of +the minority. And thus the majority of men has appeared in history as a +mass sustained, governed, guided, exploited and ill treated, or at least +as a variegated conglomeration of interests, which a few had to govern, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>maintaining in equilibrium the divergences, either by pressure or by +compensation.</p> + +<p>Thence the necessity of an art of government, and as it is this before +all else which strikes those who are studying collective life, it was +natural that politics should appear as the author of the social order +and as the sign of the continuity in the succession of historic forms. +To say politics is to say activity, which, up to a certain point, is +exercised in a desired direction, until the moment at least when +calculations dash themselves against unknown or unexpected obstacles. By +taking the state as an imperfect experience would suggest for the author +of society, and politics for the author of the social order, it resulted +that the narrators or philosophical historians were driven to place the +essence of history in a succession of forms, institutions and political ideas.</p> + +<p>Whence the state drew its origin, where the basis of its performance was +found, that mattered not, as that matters not in current reasoning. The +problems of the genetic order arose, as is known, rather late. The state +is and it finds its reason for existence in its present necessity; that +is so true that the imagination has not been able to adapt itself to the +idea that it has not always existed, and so it has prolonged its +conjectural existence back to the first origins of the human race. The +gods or demigods and heroes were its founders, in mythology at least, +just as in mediæval theology the Pope is the first and therefore the +divine and perpetual source of all authority. Even in our time, +inexperienced travelers and imbecile missionaries find the state where +there is, as among<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> savages and barbarians, nothing but the gens, or the +tribe of gentes, or the alliance of gentes.</p> + +<p>Two things were necessary that these prejudices of the judgment should +be overcome. In the first place, it was necessary to recognize that the +functions of the state arise, increase, diminish, alter and follow each +other with the variations of certain social conditions. In the second +place, it was necessary to arrive at a comprehension of the fact that +the state exists and maintains itself in that it is organized for the +defense of certain definite interests, of one part of society against +all the rest of society itself, which must be made in such a way, in its +entirety, that the resistance of the subjects, of the ill treated and +the exploited, either is lost in multiple frictions, or is tempered by +the partial advantages, wretched though they be, to the oppressed +themselves. Politics, that art so miraculous and so admired, thus brings +us back to a very simple formula; to apply a force or a system of forces +to the total of resistances.</p> + +<p>The first step, and the most difficult, is taken when the state has been +reduced to the social conditions whence it draws its origin. But these +social conditions themselves have been subsequently defined by the +theory of classes, the genesis of which is in the manner of the +different occupations, granted the distribution of labor, that is to +say, granted the relations which co-ordinate and bind men together in a +definite form of production.</p> + +<p>Thenceforth the concept of the state has ceased to represent the direct +cause of the historic movement as the presumed author of society, +because it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> has been seen that in each of its forms and its variations +there is nothing else than the positive and forced organization of a +definite class rule, or of a definite compact between different classes. +And then by an ulterior consequence from these premises, it is finally +to be recognized that politics, as the art of acting in a desired +direction, is a comparatively small part of the general movement of +history, and that it is but a feeble part of the formation and the +development of the state itself, in which many things, that is to say, +many relations, arise and develop by a necessary compact, by a tacit +consent, or by violence endured and tolerated. The reign of the +unconscious, if by that we mean what is not decreed by free choice and +forethought, but what is determined and accomplished by a succession of +habits, customs, compacts, etc., has become very considerable in the +domain of the data which form the object of the historic sciences; and +politics, which has been taken as an explanation, has itself become +something to explain.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>We know now in a positive way the reasons in consequence of which +history had necessarily to appear under a purely political form.</p> + +<p>But this does not mean that we ought to believe that the state is a +simple excrescence, a mere accessory of the social body, or of free +association, as so many Utopians and so many ultra-liberal thinkers of +anarchist tendencies have imagined. If society has thus far culminated +in the state, it is because it has had need of this complement of force +and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>authority, because it is at first composed of units which are +unequal by reason of economic differentiations. The state is something +very real, a system of forces which maintain equilibrium and impose it +through violence and repression. And to exist as a system of forces it +has been compelled to develop and to establish an economic power, +whether this latter rests upon robbery, the result of war, or whether it +consists in direct property in the domain, or whether it is constituted +little by little, thanks to the modern method of public taxes, which +takes on the constitutional appearance of a self-imposed system of +taxation. It is in this economic power, so considerable in modern times, +that its capacity for acting is founded. It results, that by reason of a +new division of labor, the functions of state give rise to special +orders and conditions, that is to say, to very particular classes, +without including the class of parasites.</p> + +<p>The state, which is and which must be an economic power that in its +defense of the ruling classes it may be furnished with means to repress, +to govern, to administer and to make war, creates in a direct or an +indirect manner an aggregation of new and particular interests, which +necessarily react upon society. Thus the state, by the fact that it has +arisen and that it maintains itself as a guaranty of the social +antitheses, which are a consequence of economic differentiations, +creates around itself a circle of persons interested directly in its existence.</p> + +<p>Two consequences follow therefrom. As society is not a homogeneous +whole, but a body of specialized<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> articulations, or, rather, a multiform +complexus of objects and interests, it happens that sometimes the +directors of the state seek to isolate themselves, and by this isolation +they oppose themselves to the whole of society, and then, in the second +place, it happens that organs and functions, created first for the +advantage of all, end by no longer serving any interest but those of +groups, and permit abuses of power on the part of coteries and camorras. +Thence arise aristocracies and hierarchies born from the use of the +public power, thence arise dynasties; in the light of simple logic these +formations appear wholly irrational.</p> + +<p>From the first beginnings of written history the state has increased or +diminished its powers, but it has never disappeared, because ever since +there have been, in the society of men unequal in consequence of +economic differentiation, reasons for maintaining and for defending, +through force or conquest, slavery, monopolies, or the predominance of +one form of production, with the domination of man over man. The state +has become, as it were, the field of an endless civil war, which is +developing always, even if it does not always show itself under the +startling form of Marius and Sylla, days of June and wars of Secession. +Within the state, the corruption of man by man has always flourished, +because, if there is no form of domination which does not meet +resistance, there are no forms of resistance which, in consequence of +the pressing needs of life, may not degenerate into a passive compact.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p><p>For these reasons, historic events, seen on the surface of the ordinary +monotonous narrative, appear like the repetition of the same type, with +few variations, like a series of kaleidoscopic pictures. We need not be +astonished if the idealistic Herbart and the caustic or pessimistic +Schopenhauer arrived at this conclusion, that there is no history, in +the sense of any actual <i>processus</i>, which is to say in common language; +history is a tiresome song.</p> + +<p>When political history is once reduced to its quintessence, the state +remains illuminated in all its prose. Thenceforth there is no more trace +either of theological divination, nor of metaphysical +transubstantiation, so much in vogue among certain German +philosophers,—for whom the state is the Idea, the State Idea which is +realized in history, the state is the full realization of the +personality, and other stupidities of the same sort. The state is a real +organization of defense to guarantee and perpetuate a mode of +association, the foundation of which is a form of economic production, +or a compact and a transaction between forms. To sum up, the state +assumes, either a system of property, or a compact between several +systems of property. There is the foundation of all its art, the +exercise of which demands that the state itself became an economic +power, and that it also dispose of means and processes to make property +pass from the hands of some into the hands of others. When, by the +effect of an acute and violent change of the forms of production, it is +necessary to resort to an unusual and extraordinary <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>readjustment of the +relations of property (for example, the abolition of mortmain and fiefs, +the abolition of commercial monopolies), then the old political form is +insufficient and revolution is necessary to create a new organ which may +operate the new economic transformation.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>If we make an exception of the very ancient times which are unknown to +us, all history is developed in the contacts and the antagonisms of the +different tribes and communities, and thereafter of the different +nations and different states; that is to say, that the reasons for the +internal antitheses in the circle of each society are always more and +more complicated with frictions with the outside world. These two +reasons for antagonism condition each other reciprocally, but in ways +which are always varying. Often it is internal disturbance which urges a +community or a city to enter into external collisions; at other times it +is these collisions which alter the internal relations.</p> + +<p>The principal motive for the different relations between the different +communities has been from the beginnings, even as it is to-day, +<i>commerce</i> in the broad sense of the word, that is to say, exchange, +whether it is a matter of giving up, as in the poor tribes, merely the +surplus in exchange for other things, or whether it is a matter, as +to-day, of production on a large scale, which is carried on with the +exclusive intention of selling so as to draw from a sum of money a +larger sum of money. This <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>enormous mass of events exterior and +interior, which accumulate and pile upon each other in history, is such +a trouble to the historians who content themselves with exploring it and +summarizing it, that they become lost in the infinite attempts at +chronological groups and bird’s-eye views. Whoever, on the contrary, +knows the internal development of the different social types in their +economic structure, and who considers political events as the particular +results of the forces acting in society, ends by triumphing over the +confusion born out of the multiplicity and the uncertainty of first +impressions, and instead of a chronological or synchronous series, or a +view of the whole, he can arrive at the concrete series of a real <i>processus</i>.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>In the presence of these realistic conditions all the ideologies founded +on the ethical mission of the state or on any such conception, fall to +the ground. The state is, so to speak, fitted into its place, and it +remains encased, as it were, in the surroundings of the social +development, in its capacity of a form resulting from other conditions, +and in its turn, by reason of its existence, reacting naturally upon the rest.</p> + +<p>Here arises another question.</p> + +<p>Will this form ever be outgrown?—or can there be a society without a +state?—or can there be a society without classes?—and if we must be +more explicit, will there ever be a form of communist production with a +distribution of labor and of tasks such that there will be no room in it +for the development of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> inequalities, that source of domination of man +over man?</p> + +<p>It is in the affirmative answer to this question that <i>scientific +socialism</i> consists, in so far as it affirms the coming of communistic +production, not as a postulate, nor as the aim of a free volition, but +as the result of the <i>processus</i> immanent in history.</p> + +<p>As is well known, the premise of this prevision is in the actual +conditions of present capitalist production. This, socializing +continually the mode of production, has subjected living labor more and +more with its regulations to the objective conditions of the technical +process, it has day after day concentrated the property in the means of +production more and ever more into the hands of a few, who as +stockholders, or speculators, are always found to be more and more +removed from immediate labor, the direction of which passes over to +intelligence and science. With the increased consciousness of this +situation among the proletarians, whose instruction in solidarity comes +from the actual conditions of their employment, and with the decrease of +the capacity of the holders of capital to preserve the private direction +of productive labor, a moment will come, when in one fashion or another, +with the elimination in every form of private rent, interest, profit, +the production will pass over to the collectivist association, that is +to say, will become communistic. Thus will disappear all inequalities, +except those of sex, age, temperament and capacity, that is to say, all +those inequalities will cease which engender economic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> classes, or which +are engendered by them, and the disappearance of classes will put an end +to the possibility of the state, as domination of man over man. The +technical and pedagogical government of intelligence will form the only +organization of society.</p> + +<p>In this fashion, scientific socialism, in an ideal fashion at least, has +triumphed over the state; and its triumph has given it a complete +knowledge both of its mode of origin and the reasons for its natural +disappearance. It has understood it precisely because it does not rise +up against it in a one-sided and subjective fashion, as did more than +once, at different epochs, the cynics, the stoics, the epicureans of all +sorts, the religious sectaries, the visionary monks, the utopians and +finally, in our days, the anarchists of every stripe. Still more, +instead of rising up against it, scientific socialism is proposing to +show how the state continually rises up of itself against itself, by +creating in the means with which it cannot dispense, as, for example, a +colossal system of taxation, militarism, universal suffrage, the +development of education, etc., the conditions of its own ruin. The +society which has produced it will reabsorb it; that is to say, that +just as society in organizing a new form of production will eliminate +the antagonisms between capital and labor, so, with the disappearance of +proletarians and the conditions which render proletarians possible, will +disappear all dependence of men upon his fellow man in any form of +hierarchy, whatever it may be.</p> + +<p>The terms in which the genesis and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>development of the state evolve, +from its initial point of appearance in a particular community, where +economic differentiation is beginning, up to the moment where this +disappearance begins to foreshadow itself, make it henceforth +intelligible to us.</p> + +<p>The State has been reduced till it is but a necessary complement of +certain definite economic forms, and thus the theory which would have +seen in it an independent factor in history is thenceforth forever eliminated.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>It is henceforth relatively easy to take account of the fashion in which +<i>law</i> has been raised up to the rank of a decisive factor of society, +and thus of history, directly or indirectly.</p> + +<p>Before all else, we must remember in what fashion arose this philosophic +conception of justice generalized, which is the principal foundation of +the theory which maintains that history is dominated by the progress of +independent legislation.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>With the precocious dissolution of the feudal society in certain parts +of Central and Northern Italy, and with the birth of the Communes, which +were republics of production grouped in trade guilds and merchant +guilds, the Roman law was forced into a place of honor. This law +flowered anew in the Universities. It entered into a struggle with the +barbaric laws and also in part with the canon law; it was then evidently +a form of thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> which answered better to the needs of the +bourgeoisie, which was beginning to develop.</p> + +<p>In fact, considering the peculiarities of rival laws, which were either +customs of barbarous nations, or corporation privileges, or papal or +imperial concessions, this law appeared as the universality of <i>written +reason</i>. Had it not arrived at the point of regarding human personality +in its most abstract and human relations, since a certain Titius is +capable of becoming debtor and creditor, of selling and buying, of +making a cession, a donation, etc.? Roman law, although elaborated in +its last editing at the command of emperors by servile parasites, +appeared then, amid the decline of mediæval institutions, as a +revolutionary force, and as such it constituted a great step of +progress. This law, so universal that it gave the means of overthrowing +barbaric laws, was certainly a law which corresponded to human nature +considered under its generic relations; and by its opposition to private +laws and privileges it appeared as a natural law.</p> + +<p>We know, moreover, how this ideology of natural law arose. It acquired +its greatest distinction in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; +but it had long been prepared for by the jurisprudence which took for +its base the Roman law, whether it adopted it, revised it, or corrected it.</p> + +<p>To the formation of the ideology of natural law another element +contributed, the Greek philosophy of later epochs. The Greeks, who were +the inventors of those definite arts of the mind which are sciences,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> +never, as is known, drew from their multiple local laws a discipline +corresponding to that which we call the science of law. On the contrary, +by the rapid progress of abstract research in the circle of their +democracies, they arrived very soon at a logical, rhetorical and +pedagogical discussion on the nature of justice, the state, the law, +penalty; and in their philosophy we may trace the rudimentary forms of +all later discussions. But it is not until later, that is to say, in the +Hellenistic epoch, when the limits of Greek life were sufficiently +enlarged to be mingled with those of the civilized world, that, in the +cosmopolitan environment which carried with it the need of searching in +each man for the generic man, the rationalism of justice arose—of +justice or of natural right in the form given it by the stoic +philosophy. The Greek rationalism which had already furnished a certain +formal element to the logical codification of Roman law reappeared in +the eighteenth century in the doctrine of natural right.</p> + +<p>That ideology, whose criticism has served as an arm and an instrument +for giving a juridical form to the economic organization of modern +society, has had, consequently, various sources. Yet, in fact, this +juridical ideology reflects, in the struggle for law and against law, +the revolutionary period of the bourgeois spirit. And, although it takes +its doctrinal point of departure in a return to the traditions of the +ancient philosophy, in the generalization of Roman jurisprudence, in +everything else, and in all its development, it is completely new and +modern.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> Roman law, although it was generalized by scholasticism and by +modern elaboration, still remains within itself a collection of special +cases which have not been deduced according to a preconceived system, +nor preordained by the systematic mind of the legislator. On the other +hand, the rationalism of the stoics, their contemporaries and their +disciples, was a work of pure contemplation, and it produced no +revolutionary movement around it. The ideology of natural law, which +finally took the name of philosophy of law, was, on the contrary, +systematic, it started always from general formulae, it was aggressive +and polemic, and still more, it was at war with orthodoxy, with +intolerance, with privilege, with constituted bodies; in fine, it fought +for the liberties which to-day constitute the formal conditions of +modern society. It is with this ideology, which was a method of +struggle, that arose for the first time, in a typical and decisive form, +that idea that there is a law which is one and the same with reason. The +laws against which the struggle was carried on appear as deviations, +backward steps, errors.</p> + +<p>From this faith in rational law arose the blind belief in the power of +the legislator, which grew into fanaticism at the critical moments of +the French Revolution.</p> + +<p>Thence the belief that society as a whole is to be submitted to one +single law, equal for all, systematic, logical, consistent. Thence the +conviction that a law guaranteeing to all a legal equality, that is to +say,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> the privilege of contracting, guaranteed also liberty to all.</p> + +<p>The triumph of true law assures the triumph of reason, and the society +which is regulated by a law equal for all is a perfect society!</p> + +<p>It is useless to say that there were illusions at the bottom of these +tendencies. We all know to what this universal liberation of men was to +lead. But what is most important here is the fact that these persuasions +arose from a conception of law, which considered it as detached from the +social causes which produced it. Likewise that reason, to which these +ideologies appealed, reduced itself to relieving labor, association, +traffic, commerce, political forms and conscience from all limits and +all obstacles which prevented free competition. I have already shown in +another chapter how the great Revolution of the eighteenth century may +serve us for experience. And if there is still some one to-day who +insists on speaking of a rational law which dominates history, of a law, +in short, which would be a <i>factor</i>, instead of being a simple <i>fact</i> in +historic revolution, that means that he is living out of our time and +that he has not understood that our liberal and equalitarian +codification has already, in fact, marked the end and the term of that +whole school of natural law.</p> + +<p>By different ways we have arrived in this century at reducing law, +considered previously as a rational thing, into a material thing, and +thus into a thing corresponding to definite social conditions.</p> + +<p>In the first place, the interest in history gained in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> extent and in +depth, and it led students to recognize that to understand the origins +of law, it was not sufficient to stop at the data of pure reason, nor at +the study of Roman law alone. Barbaric laws, the usages and customs of +nations and societies, so despised by the rationalists, have been +theoretically restored to honor. That was the only way to arrive, +through the study of the most ancient forms, at an understanding of how +the most recent forms could have been successively produced.</p> + +<p>Codified Roman law is a very modern form; that personality, which it +assumes as a universal subject, is an elaboration of a very advanced +epoch, in which the cosmopolitanism of social relations was dominated by +a military-bureaucratic constitution. In this environment, in which a +written code of reason had been built up, there was no longer any trace +of spontaneity or popular life, there was no more democracy. This same +law, before arriving at this crystallization, had arisen and had +developed: and if we study it in its origins and in its developments, +and especially if, in this study, we employ the comparative method, we +recognize that, upon many points, it is analogous to the institutions of +inferior societies and nations. It therefore becomes evident that the +true science of law can be nothing less than the genetic history of the law itself.</p> + +<p>But, while the European continent had created in the codification of +civil law the type and the textbook of practical bourgeois judgment, was +there not in England another self-originating form of law,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> which arose +and developed in a purely practical manner, from the very conditions of +the society which produced it without system, and without the action of +methodical rationalism having any part in it? The law, which actually +exists and is applied, is therefore a much simpler and much more modest +thing than was imagined by the enthusiasts who sing the praises of +written judgment, of the empire of reason. For their defense, it must +not be forgotten that they were the ideal precursors of the great +Revolution. For ideology it was necessary to substitute the history of +legal institutions. The philosophy of law ended with Hegel; and if +objectors mention the books published since, I reply that the works +published by professors are not always the index of the progress of +thought. The philosophy of law thus became the philosophical study of +the history of law. And it is not necessary to repeat here again how +historic philosophy ended in economic materialism and in what sense +critical communism is the reversal of Hegel.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>This revolution, apparently a revolution in ideas alone, is merely an +intellectual reflection of the revolutions which have been produced in practical life.</p> + +<p>In our century, legislating has become an epidemic; and reason enthroned +in legal ideology has been dethroned by parliaments. In these the +antitheses of class interests have taken on the form of parties; and the +parties struggle for or against <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>definite laws; and all law appears as a +simple fact, or as a thing which it is useful or not useful to do.</p> + +<p>The proletariat has arisen; and wherever the struggle of the laborers +has taken definite form, the bourgeois codes have been convicted of +falsehood. Written judgment has shown itself powerless to save the +wage-workers from the oscillations of the market, to guarantee women and +children against the oppressive hours of the factories, or to find an +expedient to solve the problem of forced idleness. The partial +limitation of the hours of labor has, itself alone, been the subject and +the occasion of a gigantic struggle. The small and the large +bourgeoisie, agrarians and manufacturers, advocates of the poor and +defenders of accumulated wealth, monarchists and democrats, socialists +and reactionaries, have bitterly contended over extracting profit from +the action of the public authorities and over exploiting the +contingencies of politics and parliamentary intrigue, to find the +guaranty and the defense of certain definite interests in the +interpretation of existing law, or in the creation of a new law. This +new legislation has more than once been revised, and the strangest +oscillations may be observed in it; extending from the humanitarianism +which defends the poor and even animals, to the promulgation of martial +law. Justice has been stripped of its mask and has become merely a profane thing.</p> + +<p>The consciousness of experience has come to us and has given us a +formula as precise as it is modest; every rule of law has been and is +the customary,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> authoritative, or judicial defense of a definite +interest; the reduction of law to economics is then almost immediately accomplished.</p> + +<p>If the materialistic conception finally came to furnish to these +tendencies an explicit and systematic view, it is because its +orientation has been determined by the visual angle of the proletariat. +This last is the necessary product and the indispensable condition of a +society in which all the persons are, from an abstract point of view, +equal before the law, but where the material conditions of development +and the liberties of each are unequal. The proletarians are the forces +through which the accumulated means of production reproduce themselves +and reconstitute themselves into new wealth; but they themselves live +only by enrolling themselves under the authority of capital; and from +one day to the next they find themselves out of work, impoverished and +exiles. They are the army of social labor, but their chiefs are their +masters. They are the negation of justice in the empire of law, that is +to say, that they are the irrational element in the pretended domain of reason.</p> + +<p>History then has not been a <i>processus</i> for arriving at the empire of +reason in law; it has thus far been nothing else than a series of +changes in the form of subjection and servitude. History then consists +entirely in the struggle of interests, and law is but the authoritative +expression of the interests which have triumphed.</p> + +<p>These formulæ indeed do not permit us to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>explain, by the immediate +examination of the various interests which are at its base, every +particular law which has appeared in history. The facts of history are +very complicated; but these general formulæ suffice to indicate the +style and the method of research which has been substituted for legal ideology.</p> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<p>Here I must give certain formulæ.</p> + +<p>Granted the conditions of the development of labor and the instruments +appropriated to it, the economic structure of society, that is to say, +the form of production of the immediate means of life, determines, on an +artificial field, <i>in the first place and directly</i>, all the rest of the +practical activity of those associated, and the variation of this +activity in the <i>processus</i> which we call history, that is to say:—the +formation, the frictions, the struggles and the erosions of the +classes;—the corresponding regulations relative to law and +morality;—and the reasons and modes of subordination and subjection of +men toward men and the corresponding exercise of dominion and authority, +in fine, that which gives birth to the State and that which constitutes +it. It determines, <i>in the second place</i>, the tendency and in great +part, <i>in an indirect fashion</i>, the objects of imagination and of +thought in the production of art, religion and science.</p> + +<p>The products of the <i>first</i> and of the <i>second stage</i>, in consequence of +the interests which they create,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> the habits which they engender, the +persons whom they group and whose spirit and inclinations they specify, +tend to fix themselves and isolate themselves as independent entities; +and thence comes that empirical view, according to which different +independent factors, having an efficacy and a rhythmic movement of their +own, contribute to form the historic <i>processus</i> and the social +configurations which successively result from it. It is the social +classes, in so far as they consist in differentiations of interests, +which unfold in definite ways and in forms of opposition (—whence come +the friction, the movement, the process and the progress—), which have +been the factors—if it was ever necessary to employ this +expression:—the real, proper and positive factors of history, from the +disappearance of primitive communism until to-day.</p> + +<p>The variations of the underlying (economic) structure of society which, +at first sight, show themselves intuitively in the agitation of the +passions, develop consciously in the struggles against law and for law, +and become realized in the shaking and in the ruin of a definite +political organization, have in reality their adequate expression only +in the change in the relations which exist between the different social +classes. And these relations change with the change of the relations +which previously existed between the productivity of labor and the +(legal-political) conditions of co-ordination of those who co-operate in production.</p> + +<p>And finally, these connections between the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>productivity of labor and +the co-ordination of those who co-operate in it are changed with the +changing of the instruments—in the broad sense of the word—necessary +to production. The <i>processes</i> and the progress of technique, as they +are the index, are also the condition of all the other <i>processus</i> and of all progress.</p> + +<p>Society is for us a fact, which we cannot solve, unless it be by that +analysis which reduces the complex forms to the simpler forms, the +modern forms to the older forms: but that is to remain always, +nevertheless, in a society which exists. History is but the history of +society—that is to say, the history of the variations of human +co-operation, from the primitive horde down to the modern State, from +the immediate struggle against nature, by the means of a few very simple +tools, down to the present economic structure, which reduces itself to +these two poles; accumulated labor (capital) and living labor +(proletarians). To resolve the social <i>complexus</i> into simple +individuals, and to reconstruct it afterwards by the acts of free and +voluntary thought; to construct, in fine, society with its reasons, is +to misunderstand the objective nature and the immanence of the historic <i>processus</i>.</p> + +<p>Revolutions, in the broadest sense of the word, and in the specific +sense of the destruction of a political organization, mark the real and +proper dates of historic epochs. Seen from afar, in their elements, in +their preparation and their effects, at long range, they may appear to +us as moments of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> a constant evolution, with minute variations; but +considered in themselves, they are definite and precise catastrophes, +and it is only as catastrophes that they are historic events.</p> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<p>Ethics, art, religion, science, are they then but products of economic +conditions?—expositions of the categories of these very +conditions?—effluvia, ornaments, emanations and mirages of material interests?</p> + +<p>Affirmations of this sort, announced with this nudity and crudity, have +already for some time passed from mouth to mouth, and they are a +convenient assistance to the adversaries of materialism, who use them as +a bugbear. The slothful, whose number is great even among the +intellectuals, willingly fit themselves to this clumsy acceptance of +such declarations. What a delight for all careless persons to possess, +once for all, summed up in a few propositions, the whole of knowledge, +and to be able with one single key to penetrate all the secrets of life! +All the problems of ethics, æsthetics, philology, critical history and +philosophy reduced to one single problem and freed thus from all difficulties!</p> + +<p>In this way the simpletons might reduce the whole of history to +commercial arithmetic; and finally a new and authentic interpretation of +Dante might give us the Divine Comedy illustrated with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> process of +manufacturing pieces of cloth which the wily Florentine merchants sold +for their greater profit!</p> + +<p>The truth is that the declarations which involve problems are converted +very easily into vulgar paradoxes in the heads of those who are not +accustomed to triumph over the difficulties of thought by the methodical +use of appropriate means. I shall speak here, in general terms, of these +problems, but, as it were, by aphorisms; and certainly I do not propose +to write an encyclopedia in this short essay.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>And first of all, ethics.</p> + +<p>I do not mean systems and catechisms, religious or philosophic. Both of +these have been and are above the ordinary and profane course of human +events in most cases, as Utopias are above things. Neither do I speak of +those formal analyses of ethical relations, which have been elaborated +from the Sophists down to Herbart. This is science and not life. And it +is formal science, like logic, geometry and grammar. The one who latest +and with so much profundity defined these ethical relations (Herbart), +knew well that ideas, that is to say, the formal points of view of the +moral judgment, are in themselves powerless. Therefore he put into the +circumstances of life and into the pedagogic formation of character the +reality of ethics. He might have been taken for Owen if he had not been a retrograde.</p> + +<p>I am speaking of that ethics which exists <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>prosaically and in an +empirical and current fashion, in the inclinations, the habits, the +customs, the counsels, the judgments and the appreciations of ordinary +mortals. I am speaking of that ethics which as suggestion, as impulse +and as bridle, appears in different degrees of development, and more or +less unmistakably, although in a fragmentary fashion, among all men; by +the very fact of association because each occupies a definite position +in the association, they naturally and necessarily reflect upon their +own works and the works of others, and they conceive obligations and +appreciations and all the first elements of general precepts.</p> + +<p>There is the <i>factum</i>; and what is most important is that this <i>factum</i> +appears to us varied and multiple in the different conditions of life, +and variable through history. This <i>factum</i> is the <i>datum</i> of research. +Facts are neither true nor false, as Aristotle already knew. Systems, on +the contrary, theologic or rational, may be true or false because they +aim to comprehend, explain and complete the fact, by bringing that fact +to another fact, or integrating it with another.</p> + +<p>Some points of preliminary theory are henceforth settled, in all that +concerns the interpretation of this <i>factum</i>.</p> + +<p>The will does not choose of itself, as was supposed by the inventors of +<i>free will</i>, that product of the impotency of the psychological analysis +not yet arrived at maturity. Volitions, in so far as they are facts of +consciousness, are particular <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>expressions of the psychic mechanism. +They are a result, first of necessities, and then, of all that precedes +them up to the very elementary organic impulse.</p> + +<p>Ethics does not place itself nor does it engender itself. There is no +such universal foundation of the ethical relations varied and variable, +as that spiritual entity which has been called the <i>moral conscience</i>, +one and unique for all men. This abstract entity has been eliminated by +criticism like all other such entities, that is to say, like all the +faculties of the soul. What a beautiful explanation of the fact, in +truth, to assume the generalization of the fact itself as a means of +explanation. People reasoned thus: the sensations, the perceptions, the +intuitions at a certain moment are found imagined, that is to say, +changed in their form, therefore the imagination has transformed them. +To this class of inventions belongs the <i>moral conscience</i>, which was +accepted as a postulate of the ethical estimates, which are always +conditioned. The moral conscience which really exists is an empirical +fact; it is an index or a summary of the relative ethical formation of +each individual. If there can be in it material for science, this cannot +explain the ethical relations by means of the conscience, but the very +thing it needs is to understand how that conscience is formed.</p> + +<p>If volitions are derived, and if morality results from the conditions of +life, ethics, in its completeness, is but a formation; its problem is +altogether pedagogic.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p><p>There is a pedagogy which I will call individualistic and subjective, +which, granted the generic conditions of human perfectibility, +constructs abstract rules by which men, who are still in a period of +formation, may be led to be strong, courageous, truthful, just, +benevolent, and so on through the entire extent of the cardinal or +secondary virtues. But again, can subjective pedagogy construct of +itself a social background upon which all these beautiful things ought +to be realized? If it constructs it, it simply elaborates a Utopia.</p> + +<p>And, in truth, the human race, in the rigid course of its development, +never had time nor occasion to go to the school of Plato or of Owen, of +Pestalozzi or Herbart. It has done as it has been forced to do. +Considered in an abstract manner, all men can be educated and all are +perfectible; as a matter of fact, they have always been perfected and +instructed as much as and in the measure that they could, granted the +conditions of life in which they were obliged to develop. It is here +precisely that the word environment is not a metaphor, and that the use +of the word compact is not metaphorical. Real morality always presents +itself as something conditioned and limited, which the imagination has +sought to outgrow, by constructing Utopias, and by creating a +supernatural pedagogue, or a miraculous redemption.</p> + +<p>Why should the slave have had the ways of seeing and the passions and +the sentiments of the master whom he feared? How could the peasant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> +relieve himself of his invincible superstitions, to which he was +condemned by his immediate dependence upon nature and his mediate +dependence upon a social mechanism unknown to him, and by his blind +faith in the priest, who stands to him as a magician and sorcerer. In +what fashion could the modern proletarian of the great industrial +cities, exposed continuously to the alternatives of misery or +subjection, how could he realize that way of living, regulated and +monotonous, which was the one suited to the members of the trade guilds, +whose existence seemed imbedded in a providential plan? From what +intuitive elements of experience could the hog merchant of Chicago, who +furnishes Europe with so many products at a cheap rate, extract the +conditions of serenity and intellectual elevation which gave to the +Athenian the qualities of the noble and good man, and to the Roman +citizen, the dignity of heroism? What power of docile Christian +persuasion will extract from the souls of the modern proletarians their +natural reasons of hate against their determined or undetermined +oppressors? If they wish that justice be done, they must appeal to +violence; and before the love of one’s neighbor as a universal law can +appear possible to them, they must imagine a life very different from +the present life, which makes a necessity of hatred. In this society of +differentiations, hatred, pride, hypocrisy, falsehood, baseness, +injustice and all the catechism of the cardinal vices and their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> +accessories make a sad appendage to the morality, equal for all, upon +which they constitute the satire.</p> + +<p>Ethics then reduces itself for us to the historical study of the +subjective and objective conditions of how morality develops or meets +obstacles to its development. In this only, that is to say, within these +limits, we can recognize some value in the affirmation that morality +corresponds to the social situations, and, <i>in the last analysis</i>, to +the economic conditions. Only an idiot could believe that the individual +morality of each one is proportionate to his individual economic +situation. That is not only empirically false, but intrinsically +irrational. Granted the natural elasticity of the psychic mechanism, and +also the fact that no one lives so shut up in his own class that he does +not undergo the influence of other classes, of the common environment +and of the interlacing traditions, it is never possible to reduce the +development of each individual to the abstract and generic type of his +class and his social status. We are dealing there with the phenomena of +the mass, of those phenomena which form, or should form, the objects of +<i>moral statistics</i>: the discipline which has thus far remained +incomplete, because it has taken for the objects of its combinations +groups which it creates of itself by the addition of numbers of cases +(for example, adulteries, thefts, homicides) and not the groups which, +as classes, conditions, or situations exist really, that is to say, socially.</p> + +<p>To recommend morality to men while assuming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> or ignoring their +conditions, this was hitherto the object and the class of argument of +all the catechists. To recognize that these are given by the social +environment, that is what the communists oppose to the utopia and the +hypocrisy of the preachers of morality. And as they see in morality not +a privilege of the elect, nor a gift of nature, but a result of +experience and education, they admit human perfectibility through +reasons and arguments which are, in my opinion, more moral and more +ideal than those which have been given by the ideologists.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>In other words, man develops, or produces himself, not as an entity +generically provided with certain attributes, which repeat themselves, +or develop themselves, according to a rational rhythm, but he produces +and develops himself as at once cause and effect, as author and +consequence, of certain definite conditions, in which are engendered +also definite currents of ideas, of opinions, of beliefs, of +imaginations, of expectations, of maxims. Thence arise ideologies of +every sort, as also the generalization of morality in catechisms, in +canons and in systems. We must not be surprised if these ideologies, +once arisen, are afterwards cultivated alone by themselves, if they +finally appear, as it were, detached from the living field whence they +took their birth, nor if they hold themselves above man as imperative +rules and models.</p> + +<p>The priests and the doctrinaires of every sort<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> have given themselves +for centuries to this labor of abstraction, and have forced themselves +to maintain the resulting illusions. Now that the positive sources of +all ideologies have been found in the mechanism of life itself, we must +explain realistically their mode of generation. And as that is true of +all ideologies, it is true also and, in particular of those which +consist in projecting ethical estimates beyond their natural and direct +limits, making of them anticipations of divine announcements or +presuppositions of universal suggestions of conscience.</p> + +<p>Therein lies the object of the special historic problems. We cannot +always find the tie which unites certain ethical ideas to practical +definite conditions. The concrete social psychology of past times often +remains impenetrable to us. Often the commonest things remain for us +unintelligible, for example, the animals considered as unclean, or the +origin for the repugnance at marriage between persons of remote degrees +of relationship. A prudent course of study leads us to conclude that the +motives of many details will remain always concealed. Ignorance, +superstition, singular illusions, symbolisms, these with many others are +causes of that unconscious element, often found in customs, which now +constitutes for us the unknown and the unknowable.</p> + +<p>The principal cause of all difficulty is precisely in the tardy +appearance of what we call reason, so that the traces of the proximate +motives of ideas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> have been lost or have remained enveloped in the ideas +themselves.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>On the subject of science we can be much more brief.</p> + +<p>For a long time history has been made in an artless fashion. Granted and +admitted that the different sciences have their statements in manuals +and encyclopedias, it seemed sufficient to work out chronologically the +appearance of the different formulas, resolving the total of the +systematic summary into the elements which have successively served to +compose it. The general presupposition was simple enough; underneath +this chronology is the rational conception which develops and progresses.</p> + +<p>This method, if so it could be called, had within itself a certain +disadvantage; it permitted us at best to understand how, one stage of +science being granted, another stage of science may be derived from it +by reason, but it did not permit us to discern by what condition of +facts men were driven to discover science for the first time, that is to +say, to reduce considered experience into a new and definite form. The +question was, then, to find why there is an actual history of science, +to find the origin of the scientific necessity, and what unites in a +genetic fashion that necessity to our necessities in the continuity of +the social <i>processus</i>.</p> + +<p>The great progress of modern technique, which really constitutes the +intellectual substance of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> bourgeois epoch, has worked, among other +miracles, this one also, of revealing to us for the first time the +practical origin of the <i>scientific attitude</i>. (We can never forget the +Florentine Academy, which produced this phrase, when Italy was in the +twilight of its past grandeur and when modern society was in the dawn of +the great industry.) Henceforth we are in a position to take up the +guiding thread of what, by abstraction, is called the scientific spirit; +and no one is any longer astonished at finding that everything in +scientific discoveries has come about, as was the case in other +primitive times, when the clumsy elementary geometry of the Egyptians +arose from the necessity of measuring the fields exposed to the annual +inundations of the Nile, and when the periodicity of these inundations +suggested, in Egypt and in Babylon, the discovery of the rudiments of +the astronomical movements.</p> + +<p>It is certainly true that when science is once created and partially +ripened, as had already happened in the Hellenic period, the work of +abstraction, of deduction and of combination continues among scientists +in such a way that it possibly obliterates the consciousness of the +social causes of the first production of science itself. But if we +examine in their main features the epochs of the development of science, +and if we confront the periods which the ideologists would characterize +as periods of progress and of retrogression of intelligence, we perceive +clearly the social reason for the impulses, sometimes increasing, +sometimes decreasing, toward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> scientific activity. What need had the +feudal society of Western Europe for this ancient science, which the +Byzantines preserved, at least materially, while the Arabs, free +agriculturists, industrious artisans, or skillful merchants, had +succeeded in increasing it a little. What is the Renaissance, if not the +joining of the initiatory movement of the bourgeoisie to the traditions +of ancient learning, which had become usable? What is all the +accelerated movement of scientific knowledge, since the seventeenth +century, but the series of acts accomplished by intelligence, refined by +experience, to assure human labor, in the forms of an improved +technique, the dominion over natural forces and conditions? Thence +arises the war against darkness, superstition, the Church, religion; +thence arise naturalism, atheism, materialism; thence the installation +of the domain of reason. The bourgeois epoch is the epoch of minds in +full play. (Vico.) It is worth remembering that this government of the +Directory, which was the prototype and the compendium of all liberal +corruption, was the first to introduce in the University and at the +Academy in a formal and solemn fashion the science of free inquiry with +Lamark! This science, which the bourgeois epoch has, through its +inherent conditions, stimulated and made to grow like a giant, is the +only heritage of past centuries which communism accepts and adopts without reserve.</p> + +<p>It would not be useful to stop here for the discussion of the so-called +antithesis between science<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> and philosophy. If we accept those fashions +of philosophizing which are confounded with mysticism and theology, +philosophy never means a science or doctrine separate from its +appropriate and particular things, but it is simply a degree, a form, a +stage of thought with relation to the things which enter into the domain +of experience. Philosophy is, then, either a generic anticipation of the +problems which science has still to elaborate specifically, or a summary +and a conceptual elaboration of the results at which the sciences have +already arrived. As for those who, that they may not appear behind the +times, talk now of scientific philosophy, if we do not wish to stop over +the humorous element that there is in that expression, it will suffice +to say that they are simply fools.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>I said some pages back, in my statement of formulas, that the economic +structure determines in the second place the direction, and in great +part and indirectly, the objects of imagination and of thought in the +production of art, of religion and of science. To express this +otherwise, or to go further, would be to put one’s self voluntarily on +the road toward the absurd.</p> + +<p>Before all else, in this formula, we are opposing the fantastic opinion, +that art, religion and science are subjective developments and +historical developments of a pretended artistic, religious or scientific +spirit, which would go on manifesting itself successively through its +own rhythm of evolution, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>favored or retarded on this side or that by +material conditions. By this formula, it is desired to assert, moreover, +the necessary connection, through which every fact of art and of +religion is the exponent, sentimental, fantastic and thus derived, of +definite social conditions. If I say <i>in the second place</i>, it is to +distinguish these products from the facts of legal-political order which +are a true and proper projection of economic conditions. And if I say +<i>in great part and indirectly the objects</i> of these activities, it is to +indicate two things: that in artistic or religious production the +mediation from the conditions to the products is very complicated, and +again that men, while living in society, do not thereby cease to live +alone by themselves in nature, and to receive from it occasion and +material for curiosity and for imagination.</p> + +<p>After all, this is all reduced to a more general formula; man does not +make several histories at the same time, but all these alleged different +histories (art, religion, etc.) make up one alone. And it is not +possible to take account of that clearly except at the characteristic +and significant moment of the production of new things, that is to say +in the periods which I will call revolutionary. Later, the acceptance of +the things that have been produced, and the traditional repetition of a +definite type, obliterated the sense of the origins of things.</p> + +<p>Try, if you will, to detach the ideology of the <i>fables</i> which are at +the foundation of the Homeric poems, from that moment of historic +evolution<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> where we find the dawn of Aryan civilization in the basin of +the Mediterranean, that is to say, from that phase of the higher +barbarism in which arises, in Greece and elsewhere, the epic. Or try to +imagine the birth and the development of Christianity elsewhere than in +Roman cosmopolitanism, and otherwise than by the work of those +proletarians, those slaves, those unfortunates, those desperate ones, +who had need of the redemption of the Apocalypse and of the promise of +the Kingdom of God. Find, if you will, the ground for supposing that in +the beautiful environment of the Renaissance the romanticism should +begin to appear, which scarcely appeared in the decadent Torquato Tasso; +or that one might attribute to Richardson or to Diderot the novels of +Balzac, in whom appears, as a contemporary of the first generation of +socialism and sociology, the <i>psychology of classes</i>. Far back, farther, +farther, at the first origins of the mythical conceptions, it is evident +that Zeus did not assume the characters of father of gods and men until +the power of the <i>patria potestas</i> was already established, and that +series of <i>processus</i> began which culminated in the State. Zeus thus +ceases to be what was at first the simple <i>divus</i> (brilliant) or the +Thunderer. And it is to be observed that at an opposite point of +historic evolution, a great number of thinkers of the past century +reduced to a single abstract God, who is a simple regent of the world, +all that variegated image of the unknown and transcendental type, +developed in so great a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> wealth of mythological, Christian or pagan +creations. Man felt himself more at home in nature, thanks to +experience, but felt himself better able to penetrate the gearing of +society, the knowledge of which he possessed in part. The miraculous +dissolved in his mind, to the point where materialism and criticism +could afterwards eliminate that poor remnant of transcendentalism, +without taking up war against the gods.</p> + +<p>There is certainly a history of ideas; but this does not consist in the +vicious circle of ideas that explain themselves. It lies in rising from +things to the idea. There is a problem; still more, there is a multitude +of problems, so varied, multiple, multiform and mingled are the +projections which men have made of themselves and of their +economic-social conditions, and thus of their hopes and their fears, of +their desires and their deceptions, in their artistic and religious +concepts. The method is found, but the particular execution is not easy. +We must above all guard against the scholastic temptation of arriving by +deduction at the products of historic activity which are displayed in +art and in religion. We must hope that philosophers like Krug, who +explained the pen with which he wrote by a process of dialectic +deduction, have remained forever buried in the notes of Hegel’s logic.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Here I must state certain difficulties.</p> + +<p>Before attempting to reduce secondary products (for example, art and +religion) to the social <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>conditions which they idealize, one must first +acquire a long experience of specified social psychology, in which the +transformation is realized. Therein consists the justification of that +sum of relations, which is designated in another form of language, under +the name of Egyptian <i>world</i>, Greek <i>consciousness</i>, <i>spirit</i> of the +Renaissance, <i>dominant ideas</i>, <i>psychology of nations</i>, of society or of +classes. When these relations are established, and men have become +accustomed to certain conceptions and certain modes of belief or of +imagination, the ideas transmitted by tradition tend to become +crystallized. Thus they appear as a force which resists new formations; +and as this resistance shows itself through the spoken word, through +writing, through intolerance, through polemics, through persecution, so +the struggle between the new and the old social conditions takes on the +form of a struggle between ideas.</p> + +<p>In the second place, through the centuries of history properly +so-called, and as a consequence of the heredity of the pre-history of +savagery and of the conditions of subjection and those of inferiority in +which the majority of men were and are placed, resulted acquiescence in +what is traditional, and the ancient tendencies are perpetuated as obstinate survivals.</p> + +<p>In the third place, as I have said, men living socially, do not cease to +live also in nature. They are not, of course, bound to nature as animals +are, because they live on an artificial groundwork. Every one +understands, moreover, that a house is not a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> cave, that agriculture is +not natural pasturage, and that pharmacy is not exorcism. But nature is +always the immediate subsoil of the artificial groundwork, and it is the +environment which contains us. The industrial arts have put between us +social animals, and nature, certain intermediaries which modify, set +aside or remove the natural influences; but it has not for all that +destroyed the efficacy of these, and we continually feel their effects. +And even as we are born men or women, as we die almost always in spite +of ourselves, and as we are dominated by the instinct of generation, so +we also bear in our temperament certain special conditions which +education in the broad sense of the word, or social compact, can modify, +it is true, within certain limits, but which they can never suppress. +These conditions of temperament, repeated in infinite cases throughout +the centuries, constitute what is called the race. For all these +reasons, our dependence upon nature, although it has diminished since +prehistoric times, continues in our social life, just as the food which +the sight of nature affords to the curiosity and the imagination +continues also in our social life. Now these effects of nature, and the +sentiments immediate or mediate which result from it, although they have +been perceived, since history began, only on the visual angle which is +given us by the conditions of society, never fail to reflect themselves +in the products of art and of religion, and that adds to the +difficulties of a realistic and complete interpretation of both.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<p>In employing this doctrine as a new principle of research, as a precise +means of defining our position, and as a visual angle, will it really be +possible finally to arrive at a new narrative history? It is not +possible to make an affirmative answer in general to this generic +demand. Because, in fact, if we assume that the critical communist, the +sociologist of economic materialism, or as he is commonly called, the +Marxist, has the necessary critical preparation, the habit of historical +study, and also the gift required for an orderly and vivacious +narration, there is no reason for affirming that he cannot write +history, as heretofore the partisans of all other political schools have written it.</p> + +<p>We have the example of Marx, and there is an argument from fact which +admits of no reply. But he was the first and the principal author of the +decisive concepts of this doctrine, reducing it at once into an +instrument of political orientation, in his character of an incomparable +publicist, during the revolutionary period of 1848 to 1850. And then he +applied it with the greatest precision in that essay entitled Eighteenth +Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, of which it may be said today, at a great +distance, and after so many publications, if we except certain +infinitesimal details and certain false forecasts, that it would be +possible to make neither corrections nor important complements. I will +not repeat, since<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> I am not writing a bibliography, the list of the +different writings of Marx or Engels—of which we have so many attempts +from the Peasants’ War (1850) down to his posthumous writings on The +Present Unity of Germany—which are an application of the doctrine, nor +those of their successors and of the popularizers of scientific +socialism. Even in the socialist press we may read, from time to time, +valuable attempts at explanation of certain political events, in which +is found, precisely by reason of historic materialism, a clearness of +vision which would be sought in vain among the writers and the +disputants who have not yet torn away the fantastic veils and +ideological envelopes of history.</p> + +<p>Here is not the place to take up the defense of an abstract thesis, as +an advocate would do. It is evident, nevertheless, in all the histories +which have been written up to the present time, that there is always at +bottom, if not in the explicit intentions of the writers, certainly in +their spirit, a tendency, a principle, a general view of life; and so +this doctrine, which has enabled us to study the social structure in an +objective manner, must finally direct with precision the researches of +history, and must end in a narrative complete, transparent and integral.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Helps are not lacking.</p> + +<p><i>Economics</i>, which, as everyone sees it today, had its birth and +development as the science of bourgeois production, after being puffed +up with the illusion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> of representing the absolute laws of all forms of +production, has through the dear school of experience entered since, as +everyone knows, upon a period of self-criticism. Just as this +self-criticism gave birth, on one side, to critical communism, so on the +other side it has given birth, through the labor of the calmest, the +wisest and the most prudent of the academic tradition, to the +<i>historical school of economic phenomena</i>. Thanks to this school, and +through the effect of the application of the descriptive and comparative +methods, we are henceforth in possession of a vast sum of knowledge on +the different historical forms of <i>economics</i>, from the most complex +facts and those best specified through essential differences of types, +down to the special domain of a cloister or a trade guild of the Middle +Ages. The same thing has taken place with <i>statistics</i>, which, by the +indefinite combination of its sources, succeeds now in throwing light, +with a sufficient approximation, upon the movement of population in past centuries.</p> + +<p>These studies, certainly, are not made in the interest of our doctrine, +and oftener than not they are made in a spirit hostile to socialism; +something not observed, we may say in passing, by those foolish readers +of printed papers who so often confuse <i>economic history</i>, <i>historical +economics</i>, and <i>historical materialism</i>. But these studies, apart from +the materials which they gather, are remarkable in that they witness the +progress which is in course of making the <i>internal history</i> which, +little by little, is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> taking the place of the <i>external history</i> with +which, for centuries, the men of letters and artists were occupied.</p> + +<p>A good part of these materials that have been gathered must always be +submitted to new corrections, as for that matter happens in every domain +of empirical knowledge, which oscillates continually between what is +held for certain and what is simply probable, and what must, later, be +integrated or eliminated.</p> + +<p>The deductions and the combinations of the historians of economics, or +of those who relate history in general, availing themselves of the +guiding thread of economic phenomena, are not always so plausible or so +conclusive, that one does not feel the need of saying to them: All this +must be taken back and worked over. But that which is undoubted is the +fact that in this present time all writing of history tends to become a +science, or, better, a social discipline; and when that movement, now +uncertain and multiform, shall be accomplished, the efforts of the +scholars and inquirers will lead inevitably to the acceptance of +economic materialism. By this incidence of efforts and of scientific +labors, which start from points so opposite, the materialistic +conception of all history will end by penetrating men’s minds as a +definite conquest of thought; and this will finally take away from +partisans and adversaries the attempt to speak <i>pro</i> and <i>con</i> as for +partisan theses.</p> + +<p>Apart from the direct helps just enumerated, our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> doctrine has many +indirect helps, so that it can profitably employ the results of many +disciplines, in which by reason of the greater simplicity of the +relations, it has been possible more easily to make the application of +the genetic method. The typical case is furnished by glottology, and in +a more special fashion by the study which has for its object the ancient +languages.</p> + +<p>The application of historical materialism is certainly, hitherto, very +far from that evidence and that clearness of <i>processus</i> of analysis and +of reconstruction. It would be consequently a vain attempt to try, at +this moment, to write a summary of universal history, which should +propose to develop all the varied forms of production in order to deduce +from them afterwards all the rest of human activity, in a particular and +circumstantial fashion. In the present state of knowledge, he who should +try to give this <i>compendium</i> of a new <i>Kulturgeschichte</i> would do +nothing but translate into economic phraseology the points of general +orientation which, in other books, for example, in Hellwald, give it in +Darwinian phraseology.</p> + +<p>It is a long step from the acceptance of the principle to its complete +and particular application to the whole of a vast province of facts, or +to a great succession of phenomena.</p> + +<p>So the application of our doctrine must be kept for a moment to the +exposition and the study of definite parts of history. The modern forms +are clear to all. The economic developments of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> bourgeoisie, the +manifest knowledge of the different obstacles which it has had to +overcome in the different countries, and, consequently, the development +of the different revolutions, taking this word in its broadest sense, +contribute to make our understanding of it easy. To our eyes the +pre-history of the bourgeoisie, at the moment of the decline of the +Middle Ages, is equally clear, and it would not be difficult to find, +for example, in the development of the city of Florence, an attested +series of developments, in which the economic and statistical movement +finds a perfect correspondence in the political relations and a +sufficient illustration in the contemporary development of intelligence +already reduced into prose and stripped, in great part, of ideological +illusions. Nor would it be impossible to reduce, now, under the definite +visual angle of materialism, the whole of ancient Roman history. But for +that, and particularly, for the primitive period, there are no direct +sources; they are, on the contrary, abundant in Greece, from popular +tradition, the epic, and the authentic juridical inscriptions, down to +the pragmatic studies of the historical social relations. At Rome, on +the other hand, the struggles for political rights carry with them +almost always the economic reasons upon which they rest. Thus, the +decline of definite classes, the formation of new classes, the movement +of conquest, the change of the laws and of the forms of political array, +appear to us with perfect clearness. This Roman history is hard and +prosaic; it was never clad with these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> ideological complements which +were suited to Greek life. The rigid prose of conquest, of planned +colonization, of institutions and of the forms of law, conquered and +devised for solving the problems arising from definite frictions and +contrasts, makes all Roman history a chain of events which follow each +other in a sequence which is grossly evident.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>The true problem consists, indeed, not in substituting sociology for +history, as if the latter had been an appearance which conceals behind +it a secret reality, but in understanding history as a whole, in all its +intuitive manifestations, and in understanding it through the aid of +economic sociology. It is not a question of separating the accident from +the substance, the appearance from the reality, the phenomenon from the +intrinsic kernel, or applying any other formula used by the partisans of +any species of scholasticism, but of explaining the connection and the +<i>complexus</i> precisely in so far as it is a connection and a <i>complexus</i>. +It is not merely a question of discovering and determining the social +groundwork, and then of making men appear upon it like so many +marionettes, whose threads are held and moved, no longer by Providence +but by economic categories. These categories have themselves developed +and are developing, like all the rest—because men change as to the +capacity and the art of vanquishing, subduing, transforming and +utilizing natural conditions; because men change in spirit and attitude +through the reaction of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> tools upon themselves; because men change +in their respective and co-associated relations; and therefore as +individuals depending in various degrees upon one another. We have, in +fine, to do with history, and not with its skeleton. We are dealing with +narration and not with abstraction, with the explaining and treating of +the whole, and not merely with resolving and analyzing it; we have to +do, in a word, now, as always, with an art.</p> + +<p>It may be that the sociologist who follows the principles of economic +materialism proposes to keep himself simply to the analysis, for +example, of what the classes were at the moment when the French +Revolution broke out, and to pass then to the classes that result from +the Revolution and survive it. In that case the titles, the indications +and the classifications of the materials to analyze are definite; they +are, for example, the city and the country, the artisan and the laborer, +the nobles and the serfs, the land which is freed from feudal charges, +and the small proprietors who came into being, commerce which frees +itself from so many restrictions, money which accumulates, industry +which prospers, etc. There is nothing to object to in the choice of this +method, which, because it follows the track of embryonic origins, was +indispensable to the preparation of historical research according to the +direction of the new doctrine.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p><p>But we know that the study of embryonic origins does not suffice to +make us understand animal life, which is not a scheme, but is composed +of living beings which struggle, and in their struggle employ forces, +instincts and passions. And it is the same, <i>mutatis mutandis</i>, with men +also, in so far as they live historically. These particular men, moved +by certain passions, urged by certain circumstances, with such and such +designs, such intentions, acting in such an attempt with such an +illusion of their own, or with such a deception, of another, who, +martyrs of themselves or of others, enter on harsh contests and +reciprocal suppressions of each other—there is the real history of the +French Revolution. If, however, it is true that all history is but the +unfolding of definite economic conditions, it is equally true that it +develops only in definite forms of human activity,—whether the latter +be passionate or reflective, fortunate or unsuccessful, blindly +instinctive or deliberately heroic.</p> + +<p>To understand the interlacings and the <i>complexus</i> in its inner +connection and its outer manifestations; to descend from the surface to +the foundation, and then to return from the foundation to the surface; +to analyze the passions and the intentions, in their motives, from the +closest to the most remote, and then to bring back the data of the +passions and of the intentions and of their causes to the most remote +elements of a definite economic situation; there is the difficult art +which the materialistic conception must realize.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p><p>And as we must not imitate that teacher who on the bank taught his +pupils to swim by the definition of swimming, I beg the reader to await +the examples which I shall give in other essays in a real historical +narration, working over into a book which for some time I have already +been doing in my teaching.</p> + +<p>In this way certain secondary and derivative questions are once for all cleared up.</p> + +<p>What, for example, is the meaning of the lives of the great men?</p> + +<p>In these later times, answers have been given, which, in one sense or +another, have an extreme character. On the one side, there are the +extreme sociologists, on the other side the individualists who, after +the fashion of Carlyle, put the heroes into the first rank of their +history. According to some it is sufficient to show what were the +reasons, for example, of Cæsarism, and Cæsar matters little. According +to others, there are no objective reasons of classes and social +interests which suffice to explain anything; it is the great minds which +give the impulse to the whole historic movement; and history has, so to +speak, its lords and its monarchs. The empiricists of narration extract +themselves from embarrassment in a very simple fashion, putting together +at hazard men and things, objective necessities of fact and subjective influences.</p> + +<p>Historical materialism goes beyond the antithetical views of the +sociologists and the individualists, and at the same time it eliminates +the eclecticism of the empirical narrators.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p><p>First of all the <i>factum</i>.</p> + +<p>Let this particular Cæsar, as Napoleon was, be born in such a year, let +him follow such a career, and find himself ready for the Eighteenth +Brumaire. All this is completely accidental with relation to the general +course of things which was pushing the new class, mistress of the field, +to save from the Revolution that which appeared to it necessary to save, +and that necessitated the creation of a bureaucratico-military +government. It was, however, necessary to find the man, or the men. But +what actually happened came about in the fashion that we know. It +depended on this fact, that it was Napoleon who directed the enterprise +and not a pitiable Monk, or a ridiculous Boulanger. And from that moment +the accident ceases to be accident, precisely because it is this +definite person who gives his imprint and physiognomy to the events, +determining the fashion or the manner in which they have unfolded.</p> + +<p>The very fact that all history rests upon antitheses, contrasts, +struggles and wars, explains the decisive influence of certain men in +definite occasions. These men are neither a negligible accident of the +social mechanism, nor miraculous creators of what society, without them, +could have made in no other fashion. It is the very interlacings of the +antithetic conditions, which causes the fact that definite individuals, +generous, heroic, fortunate, mischievous, are called at critical moments +to say the decisive word. As long as the particular interests of the +different social groups are in such a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> state of tension, that all the +parties in the struggle reciprocally paralyze each other, then to make +the political gearing move, there is need of the individual +consciousness of a definite individual.</p> + +<p>The social antitheses, which make of every human community an unstable +organization, give to history, especially when it is seen and examined +rapidly and in its main features, the character of a drama. This drama +in all its relations is repeated from community to community, from +nation to nation, from state to state, because the inner inequalities +concurring with the external differentiations, have produced and produce +the whole movement of wars, conquests, treaties, colonizations, etc. In +this drama have always appeared, in the role of leaders of society, the +men who are characterized as eminent, as great, and empiricism has +concluded from their presence that they were the principal authors of +history. To carry back the explanation of their appearance to the +general causes and the common conditions of the social structure, is a +thing which harmonizes perfectly with the data of our doctrine; but to +try to eliminate them, as certain affected objectivists of sociology +would willingly do, is pure capriciousness.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>And to conclude, the partisan of historical materialism who sets himself +the task of explaining, or relating, cannot do it through schemes.</p> + +<p>History has always received a definite form, with an infinite number of +accidents and variations. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> has a certain grouping, it has a certain +perspective.</p> + +<p>It is not enough to have eliminated preventively the hypothesis of +factors, because the narrator constantly finds himself in the presence +of things which seem incongruous, independent, and self-directing. To +present the whole as a whole, and to discover in it the continuous +relations of the events which border on each other, there is the difficulty.</p> + +<p>The sum of events narrowly consecutive and precise gives the whole of +history; and this is equivalent to saying that it is all that we know of +our being, in so far as we are social beings and not simply natural beings.</p> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<p>In the successive whole, and in the continuous necessity of all +historical events, is there, then, some ask, any meaning, any +significance? This question, whether it comes from the camp of the +idealists, or whether it comes to us from the mouth of the most +circumspect critics, certainly, and in all cases, demands our attention, +and requires an adequate answer.</p> + +<p>In fact, if we stop at the premises, intuitive or intellectual, from +which is derived the conception of <i>progress</i> as an idea which incloses +and embraces the total of the human <i>processus</i>, it is seen that these +presumptions all rest upon the mental need, which is in us, of +attributing to one or more series of events a certain sense and a +certain signification. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> conception of progress, for whoever examines +it carefully in its specific nature, always implies judgments of +estimation, and therefore, there is no one who can confuse it with the +crude and bare notion of simple development, which does not contain that +increment of clue which makes us say of a thing that it is progressing.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>I have already said, and, it seems to me, at sufficient length, how it +is that progress does not exist as something imperative or regulative +over the natural and immediate succession of the generations of men. +That is as intuitive as is the actual coexistence of peoples, of nations +and of states, which find themselves, at the same time, in a different +stage of development; so undeniable is the actual condition of relative +superiority and inferiority of nation as compared with nation; and again +so certain is the partial and relative retrogression which has been +produced several times in history, as Italy has exemplified for +centuries. Still more, if there is a convincing proof of how progress +must be understood in the sense of immediate law, and, to use a strong +expression, of a physical and inevitable law, it is precisely this +fact,—that social development by the very reasons of the <i>processus</i> +which are inherent in it, often leads to retrogression. It is evident, +on the other hand, that the faculty of progressing, like the possibility +of retrogressing, does not constitute, to begin with, an immediate +privilege, or an innate defect of a race, nor is either<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> one the direct +consequence of geographical conditions. And, in fact, the primitive +centers of civilization were multiple, those centers have been removed +in the course of centuries, and finally the means, the discoveries, the +results and the impulses of a definite civilization, already developed, +are, within certain limits, communicable to all men indefinitely. In a +word, progress and retrogression are inherent in the conditions and the +rhythm of social development.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>Now then, the faith in the universality of progress, which appeared with +so much violence in the eighteenth century, rests upon this first +positive fact, that men, when they do not find obstacles in external +conditions, or do not find them in those which result from their own +work in their social environment, are all capable of progress.</p> + +<p>Moreover, at the bottom of this supposed or imagined unity of history, +in consequence of which the <i>processus</i> of the different societies would +form one single series of progress, there is another fact, which has +offered motive and occasion for so many fantastic ideologies. If all +nations have not progressed equally, still more, if some have stopped +and have followed a backward route, if the <i>processus</i> of social +development has not always, in every place and in all times, the same +rhythm and the same intensity, it is nevertheless certain that, with the +passage of the decisive activity from one people to another people in +the course of history, the useful products, already acquired by those +who were in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> decadence, have been transmitted to those who were growing +and rising. That is not so true of the products of sentiment and +imagination, which nevertheless are themselves preserved and perpetuated +in literary tradition, as of the results of thought, and especially of +the discovery and of the production of technical means, which, once +found, are communicated and transmitted directly.</p> + +<p>Need we remind the reader that writing was never lost, although the +peoples who invented it have disappeared from historic continuity? Need +we recall again that we all have in our pockets, engraved on our +watches, the Babylonian dial, and that we make use of algebra, which was +introduced by those Arabs, whose historical activity has since been +dispersed like the sands of the desert? It is useless to multiply these +examples, because it is sufficient to think of technology and the +history of discoveries in the broad sense of the word, for which the +almost continuous transmission of the instruments of labor and +production is evident.</p> + +<p>And after all, the provisional summaries which are called universal +histories, although they always reveal, in their aim and in their +execution, something forced and artificial, would never have been +attempted if human events had not offered to the empiricism of the +narrators a certain thread, even though subtle, of continuity.</p> + +<p>Take for example the Italy of the sixteenth century, which is evidently +in decadence; but while it is declining, it transmits to the rest of +Europe its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> intellectual weapons. These are not all that pass to the +civilization which continues, but even the world market establishes +itself upon the foundation of those geographical discoveries, and those +discoveries in the naval art, which were the work of Italian merchants, +travelers and sailors. It is not only the methods of the art of war and +the refinements of political diplomacy which passed outside of Italy +(though it is only with these that men of letters ordinarily concerned +themselves), but even the art of making money, which had acquired all +the evidence of an elaborate commercial discipline, and one after the +other the rudiments of the science, upon which is founded modern +technique, and to begin with all the methodical irrigation of fields and +the general laws of hydraulics. All that is so precisely true, that an +amateur in conjectural theses might come to the point of asking himself +this question: what would have become of Italy, in this modern bourgeois +epoch, if, executing the project of the Venetian Senate (1504) of making +something which would have resembled in its effects a piercing of the +Isthmus of Suez, the Italian navy had found itself in a direct struggle +with the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean, at the very moment when the +shifting of historical activity from the Mediterranean to the ocean +prepared the decadence of Italy? But enough of fantasy!</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>A certain historical continuity, in the empirical and circumstantial +sense of the transmission and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> successive increase of the means of +civilization, is then an incontestable fact. And, although this fact +excludes all idea of preconceived design, of intentional or hidden +finality, or pre-established harmony, and all the other whimsicalities +in regard to which there has been such a deal of speculation, it does +not exclude, for all that, the <i>idea of progress</i>, which we can utilize +as an <i>estimation</i> of the course of human development. It is undeniable +that progress does not embrace <i>materially</i> the succession of +generations, and that its conception implies nothing categorical, +considering that societies have also been in retrogression, but that +does not prevent this idea from serving as a guiding thread and a +<i>measure</i> to give a meaning to the historical <i>processus</i>. There is no +common ground for critics who are prudent, in the use of specific +concepts as in the method of their application, and those poor extreme +evolutionists, who are scientists without the grammar and the principle +of science, that is to say, without logic.</p> + +<p>As I have said several times, ideas do not fall from heaven, and even +those which, at a given moment arise from definite situations with the +impetuosity of faith and with a metaphysical garb, carry always within +themselves the index of their correspondence with the order of the +facts, of which the explanation is sought or attempted. The idea of +progress, as the unifier of history, appears with violence and becomes a +giant in the eighteenth century, that is to say, in the heroic period of +the intellectual and political life of the revolutionary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> bourgeoisie. +Just as this engendered, in the order of its works, the most intensive +period of history that is known, it also produced its own ideology in +the notion of progress. This ideology in its substance means that +capitalism is the only form of production which is capable of extending +all over the earth and of reducing the whole human race to conditions +which resemble each other everywhere. If modern technique can be +transported everywhere, if all the human race appear on a single field +of competition and all the world as a single market, what is there +astonishing in the ideology which, reflecting intellectually these +conditions of fact, reaches the affirmation that the present historical +unity has been prepared by everything which precedes it? Translating +this concept of pretended <i>preparation</i> into the altogether natural +concept of <i>successive condition</i>, and there is opened before us the +road by which the passage is made from the ideology of progress to +historical materialism; and now we arrive at the affirmation of Marx, +that this form of bourgeois production is the last antagonistic form of +the <i>processus</i> of society.</p> + +<p>The miracles of the bourgeois epoch, in the unification of the social +<i>processus</i>, find no parallel in the past. Here are the whole New World, +Australia, Northern Africa, and New Zealand! And they all resemble us! +And the rebound in the extreme East is made through imitation, and in +Africa through conquest! In the presence of this universality and this +cosmopolitanism, the acquisition of the Celts<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> and the Iberians to Roman +civilization, and of the Germans and that the Slavs to the cycle of +Roman Byzantine Christian civilization shrink into insignificance. This +ever-growing unification is reflected more every day in the political +mechanism of Europe; this mechanism, because founded on the economic +conquest of the other parts of the world, oscillates henceforth with the +flux and reflux which come from the most distant regions. In this most +complicated mingling of action and reactions the war between Japan and +China, made with methods imitated, or directly borrowed, from European +technique, leaves its traces, deep and far-reaching, in the diplomatic +relations of Europe, and still clearer traces in the stock exchange, +which is the faithful interpreter of the consciousness of our time. This +Europe, mistress of all the rest of the world, has recently seen the +relations of the politics of the states of which it is composed +oscillate in consequence of a revolt in the Transvaal, and in +consequence of the ill success of the Italian armies in Abyssinia in +these last days.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p> + +<p>The centuries which have prepared and carried to its present form the +economic domination of bourgeois production have also developed the +tendency to a unification of history under a general view; and in this +fashion we find explained and justified the ideology of progress, which +fills so many books of the philosophy of history and of +<i>Kulturgeschichte</i>. The unity of social form, that is to say,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> the unity +of the capitalistic form of production, to which the bourgeoisie has +tended for centuries, is reflected in the conception of the unity of +history in more suggestive forms than the mind could ever have received +from the narrow cosmopolitanism of the Roman empire or the one-sided +cosmopolitanism of the Catholic Church.</p> + +<p class="tbrk"> </p> + +<p>But this unification of the social life, by the working of the +capitalist form of production, developed itself from the beginning, and +continues to develop itself, not according to preconceived rules, plans +and designs, but, on the contrary, by reason of frictions and struggles, +which in their sum form a colossal complication of antitheses. War +without and war within. Struggle incessant among the nations, and +struggles incessant between the members of each nation. And the +interlacings of the deeds and the action of so many emulators, +competitors and adversaries is so complicated, that the co-ordination of +events very often escapes the attention, and it is a very difficult +thing to discover their intimate connection. The struggle which actually +exists among men, the struggles which now, with various methods, are +unfolding among nations and within nations, have come to make us +understand better in the midst of what difficulties the history of the +past has unfolded. If the bourgeois ideology, reflecting the tendency to +capitalist unification, has proclaimed the progress of the human race, +historical materialism, on the contrary, and without proclamation, has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> +discovered that these are the antitheses which have thus far been the +cause and the motive of all historical events.</p> + +<p>Thus the movement of history, taken in general, appears to us as it were +oscillating;—or rather, to use a more appropriate image, it seems that +it is unfolding on a line often interrupted, and at certain moments it +seems to return upon itself, sometimes it stretches out, removing itself +far from the point of departure:—in an actual zigzag.</p> + +<p>Granted the internal complication of every society, and granted the +meeting of several societies on the field of competition (from the +ingenuous forms of robbery, rapine and piracy to the refined methods of +the elegant sport of the stock exchange) it is natural that every +historical result, when it is measured in the one measure of individual +expectation, appears very often like chance, and afterwards, considered +theoretically, becomes for the mind more inextricable than the track of meteors.</p> + +<p>Speaking of the irony which sits as a sovereign above history is not a +simple phrase; because, in truth, if there is no god of Epicurus +laughing above over human affairs, here below human affairs are of +themselves playing a divine comedy.</p> + +<p>Will this irony of human destinies ever cease? Will that form of +association ever be possible which gives room for the possible complete +development of all aptitudes, in such a way that the ulterior +<i>processus</i> of history may become a real and true evolution? And, to +speak like the amateurs of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>high-sounding phrases, will there ever be a +humanization of all men? When once in the communism of production the +antitheses which are now the cause and the effect of economic +differentiations are eliminated, will not all human energies acquire a +very high degree of efficacy and intensity in co-operative effects, and +at the same time will they not develop with a greater liberty of +self-expression among all individuals?</p> + +<p>It is in the affirmative answers to these questions that consists what +<i>critical communism</i> says, that is to say foresees, of the future. But +it does not say it and it does not foretell it as if it were discussing +an abstract possibility, or like him who wishes, by his will, to give +life to a state of things which he desires and which he dreams. But it +says and predicts because what it announces must inevitably happen by +the immanent necessity of history, seen and studied henceforth in the +foundation of its economic substructure.</p> + +<p>“It is only in an order of things where there will no longer be classes +and class antagonisms that social revolutions will cease to be political +revolutions.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p> + +<p>“To the old bourgeois society with its classes and class antagonisms +will succeed an association in which the free development of each is the +condition of the free development of all.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p> + +<p>“The relations of bourgeois production are the last antagonistic form of +the social <i>processus</i> of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> production—a form antagonistic not in the +sense of individual antagonism, but of the antagonism which proceeds +from the conditions of the social life of individuals; but the +productive forces which are developing in the lap of bourgeois society +are creating at the same time the material conditions to terminate that +antagonism. With this social organization ends the prehistory of the +human race.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> + +<p>“With the taking possession of the means of production on the part of +society, is excluded the production of commodities, and with it the +dominance of the product over the producer. The anarchy which dominates +in social production will be succeeded by conscious organization. The +struggle for individual existence will cease. Only in this way man will +detach himself, in a certain sense, from the animal world in a definite +fashion, and will pass from a condition of animal existence to +conditions of human existence. The entire sum of the conditions of life +which has thus far dominated men will pass under the rule and the +examination of men themselves, who will thus for the first time become +the real masters of nature, because they will be the masters of their +own association. The laws of their own social activity, which had been +outside of them like foreign laws imposed upon them, will be applied and +mastered by the men themselves, with full knowledge of their cause. +Their very association, which appeared to men as if imposed by nature +and history, will become their own and their free work.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> The foreign and +objective forces, which till then dominated history, will pass under the +care of men. Only from that moment will men make their own history with +full understanding; only from that moment will the social causes which +they put in motion, be able to arrive, in great part and in a proportion +ever increasing, at the desired effects. It is the leap of the human +race from the reign of necessity into that of liberty. To accomplish +this action emancipating the world, such is the historic mission of the modern proletariat.”</p> + +<p>If Marx and Engels had been phrasemakers, if their spirit had not been +made prudent, even scrupulous, by the daily and minute use and +application of scientific methods, if the permanent contact with so many +conspirators and visionaries had not given them a horror of every +Utopia, opposing it indeed up to the point of pedantry, these formulas +might pass for good-natured paradoxes, which criticism need not examine. +But these formulas are, as it were, the close, the effective conclusion +of the doctrine of historic materialism. They are the direct result of +the criticism of economies and of historical dialectics.</p> + +<p>In these formulas, which may be developed, as I have had occasion to +show elsewhere, is, summed up every forecast of the future, which is not +and is not intended for a romance or a Utopia. And in these very +formulas there is an adequate and conclusive response to the question +with which this chapter began: Is there in the series of historic events +a meaning and a significance?</p> + +<h3>THE END.</h3> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> This genetic study forms the subject of my first essay, +<i>In Memory of the Communist Manifesto</i>, which is the indispensable +preamble to an understanding of all the rest.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> (I allude to the excellent work of Karl Kautsky, <i>Die +Klassengensaetze von 1789</i>.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> The Italian edition of this Essay bears the date of March +10, 1896.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Marx, Misere de la Philosophie, Paris, 1817, p. 178.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Communist Manifesto, p. 16.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Marx, Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie, Berlin, 1859, +p. 6 Pref. Compare my first Essay, pp. 48-50.</p></div></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays on the Materialistic Conception +of History, by Antonio Labriola + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONCEPTION OF HISTORY *** + +***** This file should be named 32644-h.htm or 32644-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/6/4/32644/ + +Produced by Brian Foley, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History + +Author: Antonio Labriola + +Translator: Charles H. Kerr + +Release Date: June 1, 2010 [EBook #32644] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONCEPTION OF HISTORY *** + + + + +Produced by Brian Foley, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +ESSAYS on the Materialistic Conception of History + + +by + +ANTONIO LABRIOLA +_Professor in the University of Rome_ + + +translated by CHARLES H. KERR + + +Chicago +CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY +CO-OPERATIVE + + + + +COPYRIGHT 1908 +BY CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY +CHICAGO + + +JOHN F. HIGGINS +PRINTER AND BINDER + +[Illustration: Logo] + +376-382 MONROE STREET +CHICAGO, ILLINOIS + + + + +TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. + + +On the tenth of March, 1896, the same year that the last despairing +revolt of the small producer against capitalism in America was to end in +the overwhelming defeat of Bryan, an Italian scholar published in the +city of Rome the remarkable work which is now for the first time offered +to American readers. + +To publish this book in America at that time would have been an +impossibility. The American socialist movement was then hardly more than +an association of immigrants who had brought their socialism with them +from Europe. Today it numbers at least half a million adherents, and its +platform is an embodiment of the ideas first adequately stated in the +Communist Manifesto of 1848, and now first adequately explained and +elaborated in this remarkable work of Labriola. + +The central and fundamental proposition of socialism is not any scheme +for reconstructing society, on a cut-and-dried programme, nor again is +it any particular mathematical formula showing to what extent the +laborer is robbed by the present system of the fruits of his labor; it +is precisely this Historical Materialism, which Labriola has so +admirably explained in the present work. + +Some idea of the place accorded to this book by European socialists may +be gathered from the preface to the French edition by G. Sorel, one of +the most prominent socialists of France. + +He says: "The publication of this book marks a date in the history of +socialism. The work of Labriola has its place reserved in our libraries +by the side of the classic works of Marx and Engels. It constitutes an +illumination and a methodical development of a theory which the masters +of the new socialist thought have never yet treated in a didactic form. +It is therefore an indispensable book for whoever wishes to understand +something of _proletarian ideas_. More than the works of Marx and Engels +it is addressed to that public which is unacquainted with socialist +preconceptions. In these pages the historian will find substantial and +valuable suggestion for the study of the origin and transformation of +institutions." + +The economic development of the United States has reached a point where +the growth of the Socialist Party must henceforth go forward with +startling rapidity. That the publication of this volume may have some +effect in clarifying the ideas of those who discuss the principles of +that party, whether with voice or pen, is the hope of the + +TRANSLATOR. + + + + +ESSAYS ON THE MATERIALISTIC CONCEPTION OF HISTORY + + +I. + +In Memory of the Communist Manifesto 7 + +II. + +Historical Materialism 93 + + + + +ESSAYS on the Materialistic Conception of History + + + + +PART I + +IN MEMORY OF THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO. + + +I. + +In three years we can celebrate our jubilee. The memorable date of the +publication of the Communist Manifesto (February, 1848) marks our first +unquestioned entrance into history. To that date are referred all our +judgments and all our congratulations on the progress made by the +proletariat in these last fifty years. That date marks the beginning of +the new era. This is arising, or, rather, is separating itself from the +present era, and is developing by a process peculiar to itself and thus +in a way that is necessary and inevitable, whatever may be the +vicissitudes and the successive phases which cannot yet be foreseen. + +All those in our ranks who have a desire or an occasion to possess a +better understanding of their own work should bring to mind the causes +and the moving forces which determined the genesis of the Manifesto, the +circumstances under which it appeared on the eve of the Revolution which +burst forth from Paris to Vienna, from Palermo to Berlin. Only in this +way will it be possible for us to find in the present social form the +explanation of the tendency toward socialism, thus showing by its +present necessity the inevitability of its triumph. + + +Is not that in fact the vital part of the Manifesto, its essence and its +distinctive character? + +We surely should be taking a false road if we regarded as the essential +part the measures advised and proposed at the end of the second chapter +for the contingency of a revolutionary success on the part of the +proletariat,--or again the indications of political relationship to the +other revolutionary parties of that epoch which are found in the fourth +chapter. These indications and these measures, although they deserved to +be taken into consideration at the moment and under the circumstances +where they were formulated and suggested, and although they may be very +important for forming a precise estimate of the political action of the +German communists in the revolutionary period from 1848 to 1850, +henceforth no longer form for us a mass of practical judgments for or +against which we should take sides in each contingency. The political +parties which since the International have established themselves in +different countries, in the name of the proletariat, and taking it +clearly for their base, have felt, and feel, in proportion as they are +born and develop, the imperious necessity of adopting and conforming +their programme and their action to circumstances always different and +multiform. But not one of these parties feels the dictatorship of the +proletariat so near that it experiences the need or desire or even the +temptation to examine anew and pass judgment upon the measures proposed +in the Manifesto. There are really no historic experiences but those +that history makes itself. It is as impossible to foresee them as to +plan them beforehand or make them to order. That is what happened at the +moment of the Commune, which was and which still remains up to this day +the only experience (although partial and confused because it was sudden +and of short duration) of the action of the proletariat in gaining +control of political power. This experience, too, was neither desired +nor sought for, but imposed by circumstances. It was heroically carried +through and it has become a salutary lesson for us to-day. It might +easily happen that where the socialist movement is still in its +beginnings, appeal may be made, for lack of personal direct +experience--as often happens in Italy--to the authority of a text from +the Manifesto as if it were a precept, but these passages are in reality +of no importance. + + +Again, we must not, as I believe, seek for this vital part, this +essence, this distinctive character, in what the Manifesto says of the +other forms of socialism of which it speaks under the name of +_literature_. The entire third chapter may doubtless serve for defining +clearly by way of exclusion and antithesis, by brief but vigorous +characterizations, the differences which really exist between the +communism commonly characterized to-day as scientific,--an expression +sometimes used in a mistaken and contradictory way,--that is to say, +between the communism which has the proletariat for its subject and the +proletarian revolution for its theme, and the other forms of socialism; +reactionary, bourgeois, semi-bourgeois, petit-bourgeois, utopian, etc. +All these forms except one[1] have re-appeared and renewed themselves +more than once. They are reappearing under a new form even to-day in the +countries where the modern proletarian movement is of recent birth. For +these countries and under these circumstances the Manifesto has +exercised and still exercises the function of contemporary criticism and +of a literary whip. And in the countries where these forms have already +been theoretically and practically outgrown, as in Germany and Austria, +or survive only as an individual opinion among a few, as in France and +England, without speaking of other nations, the Manifesto from this +point of view has played its part. It thus merely records as a matter +of history something no longer necessary to think of, since we have to +deal with the political action of the proletariat which already is +before us in its gradual and normal course. + +That was, to anticipate, the attitude of mind of those who wrote it. By +the force of their thought and with some scanty data of experience they +had anticipated the events which have occurred and they contented +themselves with declaring the elimination and the condemnation of what +they had outgrown. Critical communism--that is its true name, and there +is none more exact for this doctrine--did not take its stand with the +feudalists in regretting the old society for the sake of criticising by +contrast the contemporary society:--it had an eye only to the future. +Neither did it associate itself with the petty bourgeois in the desire +of saving what cannot be saved:--as, for example, small proprietorship, +or the tranquil life of the small proprietor whom the bewildering action +of the modern state, the necessary and natural organ of present society, +destroys and overturns, because by its constant revolutions it carries +in itself the necessity for other revolutions new and more fundamental. + +Neither did it translate into metaphysical whimsicalities, into a sickly +sentimentalism, or into a religious contemplation, the real contrasts of +the material interests of every day life: on the contrary, it exposed +those contrasts in all their prosaic reality. It did not construct the +society of the future upon a plan harmoniously conceived in each of its +parts. It has no word of eulogy and exaltation, of invocation and of +regret, for the two goddesses of philosophic mythology, justice and +equality, those two goddesses who cut so sad a figure in the practical +affairs of everyday life, when we observe that the history of so many +centuries maliciously amuses itself by nearly always contradicting their +infallible suggestions. Once more these communists, while declaring on +the strength of facts which carry conviction that the mission of the +proletarians is to be the grave diggers of the bourgeoisie, still +recognize the latter as the author of a social form which represents +extensively and intensively an important stage of progress, and which +alone can furnish the field for the new struggles which already give +promise of a happy issue for the proletariat. Never was funeral oration +so magnificent. There is in these praises addressed to the bourgeoisie a +certain tragical humor,--they have been compared to dithyrambics. + +The negative and antithetical definitions of other forms of socialism +then current, which have often re-appeared since, even up to the present +time, although they are fundamentally beyond criticism both in their +form and their aim, nevertheless, do not pretend to be and are not the +real history of socialism; they furnish neither its outlines nor its +plan for him who would write it. History in reality does not rest upon +the distinction between the true and the false, the just and the unjust +and still less upon the more abstract antithesis between the possible +and the real as if the things were on one side and on another side were +their shadows and their reflections in ideas. History is all of a piece, +and it rests upon the process of formation and transformation of +society; and that evidently in a fashion altogether objective and +independent of our approval or disapproval. It is a dynamic of a special +class to speak like the positivists who are so dainty with expressions +of this sort but are often dominated by the new phrases which they have +put out. The different socialist forms of thought and action which have +appeared and disappeared in the course of the centuries, so different in +their causes, their aspects, and their effects, are all to be studied +and explained by the specific and complex conditions of the social life +in which they were produced. Upon a close examination it is seen that +they do not form one single whole of continuous process because the +series is frequently interrupted by changes in the social fabric and by +the disappearance and breaking off of the tradition. It is only since +the French Revolution that socialism presents a certain unity of +process, which appears more evident since 1830 with the definite +political supremacy of the capitalist class in France and England and +which finally becomes obvious, we might say even palpable, since the +rise of the International. Upon this road the Manifesto stands like a +colossal guide post bearing a double inscription: on one side the first +sketch of the new doctrine which has now made the circle of the world; +on the other, the definition of its relations to the forms which it +excludes, without giving, however, any historic account of them. + +The vital part, the essence, the distinctive character of this work are +all contained in the new conception of history which permeates it and +which in it is partially explained and developed. By the aid of this +conception communism, ceasing to be a hope, an aspiration, a +remembrance, a conjecture, an expedient, found for the first time its +adequate expression in the realization of its very necessity, that is to +say, in the realization that it is the outcome and the solution of the +struggles of existing classes. These struggles have varied according to +times and places and out of them history has developed; but, they are +all reduced in our days to the single struggle between the capitalist +bourgeoisie and the workingmen inevitably forced into the ranks of the +proletariat. The Manifesto gives the genesis of this struggle; it +details its evolutionary rhythm, and predicts its final result. + +In that conception of history is embodied the whole doctrine of +scientific communism. From that moment the theoretical adversaries of +socialism have no longer had to discuss the abstract possibility of the +democratic socialization of the means of production;[2] as if it were +possible in this question to rest their judgment upon inductions based +upon the general and common aptitudes of what they characterize as human +nature. Thenceforth, the question was to recognize, or not to recognize, +in the course of human events the necessity which stands over and above +our sympathy and our subjective assent. Is or is not society in the +countries most advanced in civilization organized in such a way that it +will pass into communism by the laws inherent in its own future, once +conceding its present economic structure and the friction which it +necessarily produces within itself, and which will end by breaking and +dissolving it? That is the subject of all discussion since the +appearance of this theory and thence follows also the rule of conduct +which imposes itself upon the action of the socialist parties whether +they be composed of proletarians alone or whether they have in their +ranks men who have come out from the other classes and who join as +volunteers the army of the proletariat. + +That is why we voluntarily accept the epithet of scientific, provided we +do not thus confuse ourselves with the positivists, sometimes +embarrassing guests, who assume to themselves a monopoly of science; we +do not seek to maintain an abstract and generic thesis like lawyers or +sophists, and we do not plume ourselves on demonstrating the +reasonableness of our aims. Our intentions are nothing less than the +theoretical expression and the practical explanation of the data offered +us by the interpretation of the process which is being accomplished +among us and about us and which has its whole existence in the objective +relations of social life of which we are the subject and the object, the +cause and the effect. Our aims are rational, not because they are +founded on arguments drawn from the reasoning of reason, but because +they are derived from the objective study of things, that is to say, +from the explanation of their process, which is not, and which cannot +be, a result of our will but which on the contrary triumphs over our +will and subdues it. + +Not one of the previous or subsequent works of the authors of the +Manifesto themselves, although they have a much more considerable +scientific leaning, can replace the Manifesto or have the same specific +efficacy. It gives us in its classic simplicity the true expression of +this situation; the modern proletariat exists, takes its stand, grows +and develops in contemporary history as the concrete subject, the +positive force whose necessarily revolutionary action must find in +communism its necessary outcome. And that is why this work while giving +a theoretical base to its prediction and expressing it in brief, rapid +and concise formulae, forms a storehouse, or rather an inexhaustible +mine of embryonic thoughts which the reader may fertilize and multiply +indefinitely; it preserves all the original and originating force of the +thing which is but lately born and which has not yet left the field of +its production. This observation is intended especially for those who +applying a learned ignorance, when they are not humbugs, charlatans, or +amiable dilettanti, give to the doctrine of critical communism +precursors, patrons, allies and masters of every class without any +respect for common sense and the most vulgar chronology. Or again, they +try to bring back our materialistic conception of history into the +theory of universal evolution which to the minds of many is but a new +metaphor of a new metaphysics. Or again they seek in this doctrine a +derivative of Darwinism which is an analogous theory only in a certain +point of view and in a very broad sense; or again they have the +condescension to favor us with the alliance or the patronage of that +positive philosophy which extends from Comte, that degenerate and +reactionary disciple of the genial Saint-Simon, to Spencer, that +quintessence of anarchical capitalism, which is to say that they wish to +give us for allies our most open adversaries. + + +It is to its origin that this work owes its fertilizing power, its +classic strength, and the fact that it has given in so few pages the +synthesis of so many series and groups of ideas.[3] + +It is the work of two Germans, but it is not either in its form or its +basis the expression of personal opinion. It contains no trace of the +imprecations, or the anxieties, or the bitterness familiar to all +political refuges and to all those who have voluntarily abandoned their +country to breathe elsewhere freer air. Neither do we find in it the +direct reproduction of the conditions of their own country, then in a +deplorable political state and which could not be compared to those of +France and England socially and economically, except as regards certain +portions of their territory. They brought to their work, on the +contrary, the philosophic thought which alone had placed and maintained +their country upon the level of contemporary history:--this philosophic +thought which in their hands was undergoing that important +transformation which permitted materialism, already renewed by Feuerbach +combined with dialectics, to embrace and understand the movement of +history in its most secret and until then unexplored causes,--unexplored +because hidden and difficult to observe. Both were communists and +revolutionists, but they were so neither by instinct, by impulse nor by +passion. They had elaborated an entirely new criticism of economic +science and they had understood the connection and the historic meaning +of the proletarian movement on both sides of the Channel, in France and +in England, before they were called to give in the Manifesto the +programme and the doctrine of the Communist League. This had its center +in London and numerous branches on the continent; it had behind it a +life and development of its own. + +Engels had already published a critical essay in which passing over all +subjective and one-sided corrections he brought out for the first time +in an objective fashion the criticism of political economy and of the +antitheses inherent in the data and the concepts of that economy itself, +and he had become celebrated by the publication of a book on the +condition of the English working class which was the first attempt to +represent the movements of the working class as the result of the +workings of the forces and means of production.[4] Marx, in the few +years preceding, had become known as a radical publicist in Germany, +Paris and Brussels. He had conceived the first rudiments of the +materialistic conception of history. He had made a theoretically +victorious criticism of the hypotheses of Proudhon and the deductions +from his doctrine, and had given the first precise explanation of the +origin of surplus value as a consequence of the purchase and the use of +labor power, that is to say the first germ of the conceptions which were +later demonstrated and explained in their connection and their details +in Capital. Both men were in touch with the revolutionists of the +different countries of Europe, notably France, Belgium and England; +their Manifesto was not the expression of their personal theory, but the +doctrine of a party whose spirit, aim and activity already formed the +International Workingmen's Association. + + +These are the beginnings of modern socialism. We find there the line +which separates it from all the rest. + +_The Communist League_ grew out of the _League of the Just_; the latter +in its turn had been formed with a clear consciousness of its +proletarian aims through a gradual specialization of the generic group +of the refugees, the exiles. As a type, bearing within itself in an +embryonic design the form of all the later socialist and proletarian +movements, it had traversed the different phases of conspiracy and of +equalitarian socialism. It was metaphysical with Gruen and utopian with +Weitling. Having its principal seat at London it was interested in the +Chartist movement and had had some influence over it. This movement +showed by its disordered character, because it was neither the fruit of +a premeditated experience, nor the embodiment of a conspiracy or of a +sect, how painful and difficult was the formation of a proletarian +political party. The socialist tendency was not manifested in Chartism +until the movement was near its end and was nearly finished (though +Jones and Horner can never be forgotten). The _League_ everywhere +carried an odor of revolution, both because the thing was in the air and +because its instinct and method of procedure tended that way: and as +long as the revolution was bursting forth effectively, it provided +itself, thanks to the new doctrine of the Manifesto, with an instrument +of orientation which was at the same time a weapon for combat. In fact, +already international, both by the quality and differences of origin of +its members, and still more by the result of the instinct and devotion +of all, it took its place in the general movement of political life as +the clear and definite precursor of all that can to-day be called modern +socialism, if by modern we mean not the simple fact of extrinsic +chronology but an index of the internal or organic process of society. + +A long interruption from 1852 to 1864 which was the period of political +reaction and at the same time that of the disappearance, the dispersion +and the absorption of the old socialist schools, separates the +International of the _Arbeiterbildungsverein_ of London, from the +International properly so called, which, from 1864 to 1873, strove to +put unity into the struggle of the proletariat of Europe and America. +The action of the proletariat had other interruptions especially in +France, and with the exception of Germany, from the dissolution of the +International of glorious memory up to the new International which +lives to-day through other means and which is developing in other ways, +both of them adapted to the political situation in which we live, and +based upon riper experience. But just as the survivors of those who in +December, 1847, discussed and accepted the new doctrine, have +re-appeared on the public scene in the great International, and later +again in the new International, the Manifesto itself has also +re-appeared little by little and has made the tour of the world in all +the languages of the civilized countries, something which it promised to +do but could not do at the time of its first appearance. + +There was our real point of departure; there were our real precursors. +They marched before all the others, early in the day, with a step rapid +but sure, over this exact road which we were to traverse and which we +are traversing in reality. It is not proper to give the name of our +precursors to those who followed ways which they later had to abandon, +or to those who, to speak without metaphor, formulated doctrines and +started movements, doubtless explicable by the times and circumstances +of their birth, but which were later outgrown by the doctrine of +critical communism, which is the theory of the proletarian revolution. +This does not mean that these doctrines and these attempts were +accidental, useless and superfluous phenomena. There is nothing +irrational in the historic course of things because nothing comes into +existence without reason, and thus there is nothing superfluous. We +cannot even to-day arrive at a perfect understanding of critical +communism without mentally retracing these doctrines and following the +processes of their appearance and disappearance. In fact these doctrines +have not only passed, they have been intrinsically outgrown both by +reason of the change in the conditions of society and by reason of the +more exact understanding of the laws upon which rest its formation and +its process. + +The moment at which they enter into the past, that is to say, that at +which they are intrinsically outgrown, is precisely that of the +appearance of the Manifesto. As the first index of the genesis of modern +socialism, this writing, which gives only the most general and the most +easily accessible features of its teaching, bears within itself traces +of the historic field within which it is born, which was that of France, +England and Germany. Its field for propaganda and diffusion has since +become wider and wider, and it is henceforth as vast as the civilized +world. In all countries in which the tendency to communism has developed +through antagonisms under aspects different but every day more evident +between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the process of its first +formation is wholly or partly repeated over and over. The proletarian +parties which are formed little by little have traversed anew the stages +of formation which their precursors traversed at first; but this process +has become from country to country and from year to year always more +rapid by reason of the greater evidence, the pressing necessity and +energy of the antagonisms, and because it is easier to assimilate a +doctrine and a tendency than to create both for the first time. Our +co-workers of 50 years ago were also from this point of view +international, since by their example they started the proletariat of +the different nations upon the general march which labor must +accomplish. + + +But the perfect theoretical knowledge of socialism to-day, as before, +and as it always will be, lies in the understanding of its historic +necessity, that is to say, in the consciousness of the manner of its +genesis; and this is precisely reflected, as in a limited field of +observation and in a hasty example, in the formation of the Manifesto. +It was intended for a weapon of war and thus it bears upon its own +exterior the traces of its origin. It contains more substantial +declarations than demonstrations. The demonstration rests entirely in +the imperative force of its necessity. But we may retrace the process of +this formation and to retrace it is to understand truly the doctrine of +the Manifesto. There is an analysis which while separating in theory the +factors of an organism destroys them in so far as they are elements +contributing to the unity of the whole. But there is another analysis, +and this alone permits us to understand history, which only +distinguishes and separates the elements to find again in them the +objective necessity of their co-operation toward the total result. + +It is now a current opinion that modern socialism is a normal and thus +an inevitable product of history. Its political action, which may in +future involve delays and set-backs but never henceforth a total +absorption, began with the _International_. Nevertheless the Manifesto +precedes it. Its teaching is of prime importance in the light which it +throws on the proletarian movement, which movement indeed had its birth +and development independently of any doctrine. It is also more than this +light. Critical communism dates from the moment when the proletarian +movement is not merely a result of social conditions, but when it has +already strength enough to understand that these conditions can be +changed and to discern what means can modify them and in what direction. +It was not enough to say that socialism was a result of history. It was +also necessary to understand the intrinsic causes of this outcome and to +what all its activity tended. This affirmation, that the proletariat is +a necessary result of modern society, has for its mission to succeed the +bourgeoisie, and to succeed it as the producing force of a new social +order in which class antagonisms shall disappear, makes of the Manifesto +a characteristic epoch in the general course of history. It is a +revolution--but not in the sense of an apocalypse or a promised +millennium. It is the scientific and reflected revelation of the way +which our _civil society_ is traversing (if the shade of Fourier will +pardon me!). + +The Manifesto thus gives us the inside history of its origin and +thereby justifies its doctrine and at the same time explains its +singular effect and its wonderful efficacy. Without losing ourselves in +details, here are the series and groups of elements which, reunited and +combined in this rapid and exact synthesis, give us the clue to all the +later development of scientific socialism. + + +The immediate, direct and appreciable material is given by France and +England which had already had since 1830 a working-class movement which +sometimes resembles and sometimes differentiates itself from the other +revolutionary movements and which extended from instinctive revolt to +the practical aims of the political parties (Chartism and Social +Democracy for example) and gave birth to different temporary and +perishable forms of communism and semi-communism like that to which the +name of socialism was then given. + +To recognize in these movements no longer the fugitive phenomenon of +meteoric disturbances but a new social fact, there was need of a theory +which should explain them,--and a theory which should not be a simple +complement of the democratic tradition nor the subjective correction of +the disadvantages, thenceforth recognized, of the economy of +competition: although many were then concerned with this. This new +theory was the personal work of Marx and Engels. They carried over the +conception of historical progress through the process of antitheses from +the abstract form, which the Hegelian dialectic had already described +in its most general features, to the concrete explanation of the class +struggle; and in this historic movement where it had been supposed that +we observed the passage from one form of ideas to another form they saw +for the first time the transition from one form of social anatomy to +another, that is from one form of economic production to another form. + +This historic conception, which gave a theoretic form to this necessity +of the _new social revolution_ more or less explicit in the instinctive +consciousness of the proletariat and in its passionate and spontaneous +movements, recognizing the intrinsic and imminent necessity of the +revolution, changed the concept of it. That which the sects of +conspirators had regarded as belonging to the domain of the will and +capable of being constructed at pleasure, became a simple process which +might be favored, sustained and assisted. The revolution became the +object of a policy the conditions of which are given by the complex +situation of society; it therefore became a result which the proletariat +must attain through struggles and various means of organization which +the old tactics of revolts had not yet imagined. And this because the +proletariat is not an accessory and auxiliary means, an excrescence, an +evil, which can be eliminated from the society in which we are living +but because it is its substratum, its essential condition, its +inevitable effect and in turn the cause which preserves and maintains +society itself; and thus it cannot emancipate itself without at the +same time emancipating every one, that is to say, revolutionizing +completely the form of production. + +Just as the _League of the Just_ had become _The Communist League_ by +stripping itself of the forms of symbolism and conspiracy and adopting +little by little the means of propaganda and of political action from +and after the check attending the insurrection of Barbes and Blanqui +(1839), so likewise the new doctrine, which the _League_ accepted and +made its own, definitely abandoned the ideas which inspired the action +of conspiracies, and conceived as the outcome and objective result of a +process, that which the conspirators believed to be the result of a +pre-determined plan or the emanation from their heroism. + + +At that point begins a new ascending line in the order of facts and +another connection of concepts and of doctrines. + +The communism of conspiracy, the Blanquism of that time, carries us up +through Buonarotti and also through Bazard and the "Carbonari" to the +conspiracy of Baboeuf, a true hero of ancient tragedy who hurled himself +against fate because there was no connection between his aim and the +economic condition of the moment, and he was as yet incapable of +bringing upon the political scene a proletariat having a broad class +consciousness. From Baboeuf and certain less known elements of the +Jacobin period, past Boissel and Fauchet we ascend to the intuitive +Morelly and to the original and versatile Mably and if you please to +the chaotic _Testament_ of the _cure_ Meslier, an instinctive and +violent rebellion of "good sense" against the savage oppression endured +by the unhappy peasant. + +These precursors of the socialism of violence, protest and conspiracy +were all equalitarians; as were also most of the conspirators. Thus by a +singular but inevitable error they took for a weapon of combat, +interpreting it and generalizing it, that same doctrine of equality +which developing as a _natural right_ parallel to the formation of the +economic theory, had become an instrument in the hands of the +bourgeoisie which was winning step by step its present position to +transform the society of privilege into that of liberalism, free +exchange and the civil code.[5] + +Following this immediate deduction which at bottom was a simple +illusion, that all men being equal in nature should also be equal in +their enjoyments, it was thought that the appeal to reason carried with +it all the elements of propaganda and persuasion, and that the rapid, +immediate and violent taking possession of the exterior instruments of +political power was the only means to set to right those who resisted. + +But whence come and how persist all these inequalities which appear so +irrational in the light of a concept of justice so simple and so +elementary? The Manifesto was the clear negation of the principle of +equality understood so naively and so clumsily. While proclaiming as +inevitable the abolition of classes in the future form of collective +production, it explains to us the necessity, the birth and the +development of these very classes as a fact which is not an exception, +or a derogation of an abstract principle, but the very process of +history. + +Even as the modern proletariat involves the bourgeoisie, so the latter +cannot exist without the former. And both are the result of a process of +formation which rests altogether upon the new mode of production of the +objects necessary to life, that is to say, which rests altogether upon +the manner of economic production. The bourgeois society grew out of the +corporative and feudal society and it grew out of it through struggle +and revolution in order to take possession of the instruments and means +of production which all culminate in the formation, the development and +the multiplication of capital. To describe the origin and the progress +of the bourgeoisie in its different phases, to explain its successes in +the colossal development of technique and in the conquest of the world +market, and to point out the political transformations which followed +it, which are the expression, the defense and the result of these +conquests is, at the same time, to write the history of the proletariat. +The latter in its present condition is inherent in the epoch of +bourgeois society and it has had, it has, and will have as many phases +as that society itself up to the time of its extinction. The antithesis +of rich and poor, of happy and unhappy, of oppressors and oppressed is +not something accidental which can easily be put on one side as was +believed by the enthusiasts of justice. Still further it is a fact of +necessary correlation, once granted the directing principle of the +present form of production which makes the wageworker a necessity. This +necessity is double. Capital can only take possession of production by +converting laborers into proletarians and it cannot continue to live, to +be fruitful, to accumulate, to multiply itself and to transform itself +except on the condition of paying wages to those whom it has made +proletarians. The latter, on their side, can only live and reproduce +their kind on the condition of selling themselves as labor power, the +use of which is left to the discretion, that is to say, to the good +pleasure of the possessors of capital. The harmony between capital and +labor is wholly contained in this fact that labor is the living force by +which the proletarians continually put in motion and reproduce by adding +to it the labor accumulated in the capital. This connection resulting +from a development which is the whole inner essence of modern history, +if it gives the key to comprehend the true reason of the new class +struggle of which the communist conception has become the expression, +is of such a nature that no sentimental protest, no argument based on +justice can resolve it and disentangle it. + +It is for these reasons which I have explained here as simply as +possible that equalitarian communism remained vanquished. Its practical +powerlessness blended with its theoretical inability to account for the +causes of the wrongs or of the inequalities which it desired, bravely or +stupidly, to destroy or eliminate at a blow. + + +To understand history became thenceforth the principal task of the +theorists of communism. How could a cherished ideal be still opposed to +the hard reality of history? Communism is not the natural and necessary +state of human life in all times and in all places and the whole course +of historic formations cannot be considered as a series of deviations +and wanderings. One does not reach communism nor return to it by Spartan +abnegation or Christian resignation. It can be, still more it must be +and it will be the consequence of the dissolution of our capitalist +society. But the dissolution cannot be inoculated into it artificially +nor imported from without. It will dissolve by its own weight as +Machiavelli would say. It will disappear as a form of production which +engenders of itself and in itself the constant and increasing rebellion +of its productive forces against the conditions (juridical and +political) of production and it continues to live only by augmenting +(through competition which engenders crises, and by a bewildering +extension of its sphere of action) the intrinsic conditions of its +inevitable death. The death of a social form like that which comes from +natural death in any other branch of science becomes a _physiological +case_. + +The Manifesto did not make, and it was not its part to make the picture +of a future society. It told how our present society will dissolve by +the progressive dynamics of its forces. To make this understood it was +necessary above all to explain the development of the bourgeoisie and +this was done in rapid sketches, a model philosophy of history, which +can be retouched, completed and developed, but which cannot be +corrected.[6] + +Saint-Simon and Fourier, although neither their ideas nor the general +trend of their development were accepted, found their justification. +Idealists both, they had by their heroic vision transcended the +"liberal" epoch which in their horizon had its culminating point at the +epoch of the French revolution. The former in his interpretation of +history substituted social physics for economic law and politics, and in +spite of many idealistic and positivistic uncertainties, he almost +discovered the genesis of the third estate. The other, ignorant of +details which were still unknown or neglected, in the exuberance of his +undisciplined spirit imagined a great chain of historic epochs vaguely +distinguished by certain indications of the directing principle of the +forms of production and distribution. He thereupon proposed to himself +to construct a society in which the existing antitheses should +disappear. From all these antitheses he discovered by a flash of genius +and he, more than any other, developed "the vicious circle of +production"; he there unconsciously reached the position of Sismondi, +who at the same epoch, but with other intentions and along different +roads, studying crises and denouncing the disadvantages of the large +scale industry and of unbridled competition, announced the collapse of +the newly established economic science. From the summit of his serene +meditation on the future world of the harmonians he looked down with a +serene contempt upon the misery of civilization and unmoved wrote the +satire of history. Ignorant both, because idealists, of the bitter +struggle which the proletariat is called upon to maintain before putting +an end to the epoch of exploitation and of antitheses, they arrived +through a subjective necessity at their conclusions, in the one case +scheme-making, in the other utopianism. But as by divination they +foresaw some of the direct principles of a society without antitheses. +The former reached a clear conception of the technical government of +society in which should disappear the domination of man over man, and +the other divined, foresaw and prophesied along with the extravagances +of his luxuriant imagination a great number of the important traits of +the psychology and pedagogy of that future society in which according +to the expression of the Manifesto, "the free development of each is the +condition of the free development of all." + +Saint-Simonism had already disappeared when the Manifesto appeared. +Fourierism, on the contrary, was flourishing in France and in +consequence of its nature not as a party but as a school. + +When the school attempted to realize its utopia by means of the law, the +Parisian proletarians had already been beaten in those days of June by +that bourgeoisie which through this victory was preparing a master for +itself: it was a military adventurer whose power lasted twenty years. + + +It is not in the name of a school, but as the promise, the threat, and +the desire of a party that the new doctrine of critical communism +presented itself. Its authors and its adherents did not feed upon the +utopian manufacture of the future but their minds were full of the +experience and the necessity of the present. They united with the +proletarians whom instinct, not as yet fortified by experience, impelled +to overthrow, at Paris and in England, the rule of the bourgeois class +with a rapidity of movement not guided by well-considered tactics. These +communists disseminated their revolutionary ideas in Germany: they were +the defenders of the June martyrs, and they had in the Neue Rheinische +Zeitung a political organ, extracts from which, reproduced occasionally +after so many years, still carry authority.[7] After the disappearance +of the historic situations which in 1848 had pushed the proletarians to +the front of the political stage, the doctrines of the Manifesto no +longer found either a foundation or a field for diffusion. Many years +were required before it circulated again and that because many years +were required before the proletariat could re-appear by other roads and +under other methods as a political force upon the scene, making of this +doctrine its intellectual organ and directing its course by it. + +But from the day when the doctrine appeared it made its anticipated +criticism of that _socialismus vulgaris_ which was flourishing in Europe +and especially in France from the coup d'Etat to the International; the +latter moreover in its short period of life had not time to vanquish and +eliminate it. This vulgar socialism found its intellectual food (when +nothing even more incoherent and chaotic was at hand) in the doctrine +and especially in the paradoxes of Proudhon who had already been +vanquished theoretically by Marx[8] but who was not vanquished +practically until the time of the Commune when his disciples, and it was +a salutary lesson in affairs, were forced to act in opposition to their +own doctrines and those of their master. + +From the time of its appearance this new communist doctrine carried an +implied criticism of all forms of State socialism from Louis Blanc to +Lassalle. This State socialism, although mingled with revolutionary +doctrines, was then summed up in the empty dream, in the abracadabra, of +the _Right to Work_. This is an insidious formula if it implies a demand +addressed to a government even of revolutionary bourgeois. It is an +economic absurdity if by it is meant to suppress the unemployment which +ensues upon the variations of wages, that is to say upon the conditions +of competition. It may be a tool for politicians, if it serves as an +expedient to calm a shapeless mass of unorganized proletarians. This is +very evident for any one who conceives clearly the course of a +victorious proletarian revolution which cannot proceed to the +socialization of the means of production by taking possession of them, +that is to say, which cannot arrive at the economic form in which there +is neither merchandise nor wage labor and in which the right to work and +the duty of working are one and the same, mingled in the common +necessity of labor for all. + +The mirage of the right to work ended in the tragedy of June. The +parliamentary discussion of which it was the object in the sequel was +nothing but a parody. Lamartine, that tearful rhetorician, that great +man for all proper occasions, had pronounced the last, or the next to +the last of his celebrated phrases, "Catastrophes are the experiences of +nations," and that sufficed for the irony of history. + + +The brevity and simplicity of the Manifesto were wholly foreign to the +insinuating rhetoric of faith or creed. It was of the utmost +inclusiveness by virtue of the many ideas which it for the first time +reduced to a system and it was a series of germs capable of an immense +development. But it was not, and it did not pretend to be a code of +socialism, a catechism of critical communism, or the handbook of the +proletarian revolution. We may leave its "quintessence" to the +illustrious Dr. Schaeffle, to whom also we willingly leave the famous +phrase, "The social question is a question of the stomach." + +The "ventre" of Dr. Schaeffle has for long years cut a fine enough +figure in the world to the great advantage of the dilettanti in +socialism and to the delight of the politicians. Critical communism, in +reality, scarcely begun with the Manifesto it needed to develop and it +has developed effectively. + +The sum total of the teachings customarily designated by the name of +"Marxism" did not arrive at maturity before the years 1860-1870. It is +certainly a long step from the little work Wage Labor and Capital[9] in +which is seen for the first time in precise terms how from the purchase +and the use of the labor-commodity is obtained a product superior to the +cost of production, this being the clue to the question of surplus +value--it is a long step from this to the complex and multiple +developments of "Capital." This book goes exhaustively into the genesis +of the bourgeois epoch in all its inner economic structure, and +intellectually it transcends that epoch because it explains its course, +its particular laws and the antitheses which it organically produces and +which organically dissolve it. + +It is a long step also from the proletarian movement which succumbed in +1848 to the present proletarian movement which through great +difficulties after having re-appeared on the political scene has +developed with continuity and deliberation. Until a few years ago this +regularity of the forward march of the proletariat was observed and +admired only in Germany. The social democracy there had normally +increased as upon its own field (from the Workingmen's Conference of +Nuremburg, 1868, to our day). But since then the same phenomenon has +asserted itself in other countries, under various forms. + +In this broad development of Marxism and in this increase of the +proletarian movement in the limited forms of political action, has there +not been, as some assert, an alteration from the militant character of +the original form of critical communism? Has there not been a passing +from revolution to the self-styled evolution? Has there not been an +acquiescence of the revolutionary spirit in the exigencies of the reform +movement? + +These reflections and these objections have arisen and arise continually +both among the most enthusiastic and most passionate of the socialists +and among the adversaries of socialism whose interest it is to give an +appearance of uniformity to the special defeats, checks and delays, so +as to affirm that communism has no future. + + +Whoever compares the present proletarian movement and its varied and +complicated course with the impression left by the Manifesto when one +reads it without being provided with knowledge from other sources, may +easily believe that there was something juvenile and premature in the +confident boldness of those communists of fifty years ago. There is in +them the sound as of a battle cry and an echo of the vibrant eloquence +of some of the orators of Chartism; there is the declaration of a new +'93 with no room left for a new Thermidor. + +And Thermidor has re-appeared several times since in various forms, more +or less explicit or disguised, and their authors have been since 1848 +French ex-radicals, or Italian ex-patriots, or German bureaucrats, +adorers of the god State and practically slaves of the god Mammon, +English parliamentarians broken by the artifices of the art of +government, or even politicians under the guise of anarchists. Many +people believe that the constellation of Thermidor is destined never to +disappear from the heaven of history, or to speak in a more prosaic +fashion, that liberalism, that is to say a society where men are equal +only in law, marks the extreme limit of human evolution beyond which +nothing remains but a return backward. That is the opinion of all those +who see in the progressive extension of the bourgeois form over the +whole world the reason and the end of all progress. Whether they are +optimists or pessimists here are, for them, the columns of Hercules of +the human race. Often it happens that this sentiment in its pessimistic +form operates unconsciously upon some of those, who with others +unclassified, go to swell the ranks of anarchism. + +There are others who go further and who theorize upon the objective +improbabilities of the assertions of critical communism. That +affirmation of the Manifesto that the reduction of all class struggles +to a single one carries within itself the necessity of the proletarian +revolution, would seem to them intrinsically false. That doctrine would +be without foundation because it assumes to draw a theoretical deduction +and a practical rule of conduct from the prevision of a fact which, +according to these adversaries, would be a simple theoretical point +which might be displaced and set ahead indefinitely. The assumed +inevitable collision between the productive forces and the form of +production would never take place because it is reduced, as they claim, +to an infinite number of particular cases of friction, because it +multiplies itself into the partial collisions of economic competition, +and because it meets with checks and hindrances in the expedients and +attacks of the governmental art. In other words, our present society, +instead of breaking up and dissolving would in a continuous fashion +repair the evils which it produced. Every proletarian movement which is +not repressed by violence as was that of June, 1848, and that of May, +1871, would perish of slow exhaustion as happened with Chartism which +ended in trade unionism, the war horse of this fashion of arguing, the +honor and glory of the economists and of the vulgar sociologists. Every +modern proletarian movement would be regarded as meteoric and not +organic, it would be a disturbance and not a process, and according to +these critics, in spite of ourselves, we should be still utopians. + + +The historic forecast which is found in the doctrine of the Manifesto +and which critical communism has since developed by a broad and detailed +analysis of the actual world, has certainly taken on by reason of the +circumstances in which it was produced a warlike appearance and a very +aggressive form. But it did not imply, any more than it implies now, +either a chronological datum or a prophetic picture of the social +organization like those in the apocalypses and the ancient prophesies. + +The heroic Father Dolcino did not re-appear with the prophetic war cry +of Joachino del Fiore. We did not celebrate anew at Muenster the +resurrection of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. There were no more Taborites +nor millenarians. Nor was there another Fourier waiting in his house at +a fixed hour year after year for the "candidate of humanity." Nor again, +was there an initiator of a new life, beginning with artificial means to +create the first nucleus of an association proposing to make man over, +as was the case with Beller, Owen, Cabet, and the enterprise of the +Fourierites in Texas, which was the tomb of utopianism, marked by a +singular epitaph: the dumbness which succeeded the fiery eloquence of +Considerant. Neither is there here a sect which retires modestly and +timidly from the world in order to celebrate in a closed circle the +perfect idea of communism as in the socialist colonies of America. + +Here, on the contrary, in the doctrine of critical communism, it is +society as a whole which at a moment of its general process discovers +the cause of its destined course and at a critical point asserts itself +to proclaim the laws of its movement. The foresight indicated by the +Manifesto was not chronological, it was not a prophecy nor a promise, +but a morphological prevision. + + +Beneath the noise of the passions over which our daily conversation +extends itself, beyond the visible movements of the persons who formed +the material at which the historians stop, beyond the juridical and +political apparel of our civil society, far enough from the meanings +which religion and art give to life, there remains, grows and develops +the elementary structure of society which supports all the rest. The +anatomical study of this underlying structure is economics. And as human +society has several times changed, partially or entirely, in its most +visible exterior form, or in its ideological, religious or artistic +manifestations, we must first find the cause and the reason of these +changes, the only ones which historians relate, in the transformations +more hidden, and at first less visible, of the economic _processus_ of +this structure. We must set ourselves to the study of the differences +which exist between the various forms of production when we have to deal +with historic epochs clearly distinct and properly designated; and when +we have to explain the succession of these forms, the replacing of one +by the other, we must study the causes of erosion, and of the +destruction of the form which disappears; and finally when we wish to +understand the historic fact determined and concrete, we must study the +frictions and the contrasts which take their rise from the different +currents, that is to say, the classes, their subdivisions and their +intersections which characterize a given society. + +When the Manifesto declared that all history up to the present time has +been nothing but the history of class struggles and that these are the +cause of all revolutions as also of all reactions, it did two things at +the same time, it gave to communism the elements of a new doctrine and +to the communists the guiding thread to discover in the confused events +of political life the conditions of the underlying economic movement. + +In these last fifty years the generic foresight of a new historic era +has become for socialists the delicate art of understanding in every +case what it is expedient to do, because this new era is in itself in +continual formation. Communism has become an art because the +proletarians have become, or are on the point of becoming, a political +party. The revolutionary spirit is embodied to-day in the proletarian +organization. The desired union of communists and proletarians is +henceforth an accomplished fact.[10] These last fifty years have been +the ever stronger proof of the ever growing revolt of the producing +forces against the forms of production. We "utopians" have no other +answer to offer than this lesson from events to those who still speak of +meteoric disturbances which, as they would have it, will disappear +little by little and will all resolve themselves into the calm of this +final epoch of civilization. And this lesson suffices. + + +Eleven years after the publication of the Manifesto, Marx formulated in +clear and precise fashion the directing principles of the materialistic +interpretation of history in the preface to a book which is the +forerunner of "Capital."[11] + + +"The first work which I undertook for the purpose of solving the doubts +which perplexed me was a critical re-examination of Hegel's Philosophy +of Law. The introduction to this work appeared in the German-French Year +Books, published in Paris in 1844. + +My investigation ended in the conviction that legal relations and forms +of government cannot be explained either by themselves or by the +so-called general development of the human mind, but on the contrary, +have their roots in the conditions of man's physical existence, whose +totality Hegel, following the English and French writers of the +eighteenth century, summed up under the name of civil society; and that +the anatomy of civil society must be sought in political economy. + +The study of the latter which I began at Paris was continued at Brussels +whither I had betaken myself in consequence of an order of Guizot +expelling me from France. + +The general result which I arrived at and which, once obtained, served +as a guide for my subsequent studies, can be briefly formulated as +follows: + +In making their livelihood together men enter into certain necessary +involuntary relations with each other, industrial relations which +correspond to whatever stage society has reached in the development of +its material productive forces. + +The totality of these industrial relations constitutes the economic +structure of society, the real basis upon which the legal and political +superstructure is built, and to which definite forms of social +consciousness correspond. + +The method of producing the material livelihood determines the social, +political and intellectual life process in general. + +It is not men's consciousness which determines their life; on the +contrary, it is their social life which determines their consciousness. + +At a certain stage of their development the material productive forces +of society come into conflict with the old conditions of production or, +to use a legal expression, with the old property relations under which +these forces have hitherto been exerted. From forms of development of +the productive forces these relations turn into fetters of production. +Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the +economic basis the whole vast superstructure undergoes sooner or later a +revolution. + +In considering such revolutions one must constantly distinguish between +the industrial revolution, to be carefully posited scientifically, which +takes place in the economic conditions of production, and the legal, +political, religious, artistic or philosophical, in short ideological, +forms wherein men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. As +little as we judge an individual by what he himself thinks he is, just +as little can we judge such a revolutionary epoch by its own +consciousness. We must rather explain this consciousness out of the +antagonisms of men's industrial life, out of the conflict existing +between the forces of social production and the relations of social +production. + +A form of society never breaks down until all the productive forces are +developed for which it affords room. New and higher relations of +production are never established, until the material conditions of life +to support them have been prepared in the lap of the old society itself. +Therefore mankind always sets for itself only such tasks as it is able +to perform; for upon close examination it will always be found that the +task itself only arises where the material conditions for its solution +are already at hand or are at least in process of growth. + +We may in broad outlines characterize the Asiatic, the antique, the +feudal and the modern capitalist methods of production as progressive +epochs in the economic evolution of society. + +The industrial relations arising out of the capitalistic method of +production constitute the last of the antagonistic forms of social +production; antagonistic not in the sense of an individual antagonism, +but of an antagonism growing out of the social conditions of +individuals. + +But the productive forces which are developed in the lap of capitalistic +society create at the same time the material conditions needed for the +abolition of this antagonism. The capitalist form of society therefore, +brings to a close this prelude to the history of human society." + + +Marx had some years before left the political arena and he did not +return to it until later with the International. The reaction had +triumphed in Italy, Austria, Hungary and Germany over the patriotic, +liberal or democratic revolution. The bourgeoisie on its side had +overcome the proletarians of France and England. The indispensable +conditions for the development of a democratic and proletarian movement +suddenly disappeared. The battalion small in numbers indeed of the +Manifesto communists who had taken part in the revolution and who had +participated in all the acts of resistance and popular rebellion against +reaction saw its activity crushed by the memorable process of Cologne. +The survivors of the movement tried to make a new start at London, but +soon Marx, Engels and others separated themselves from the +revolutionaries and retired from the movement. The crisis was passed. A +long period of repose followed. This was shown by the slow disappearance +of the Chartist movement, that is to say, the proletarian movement of +the country which was the spinal column of the capitalist system. +History had for the moment discredited the illusions of the +revolutionaries. + +Before giving himself almost entirely to the long incubation of the +already discovered elements of the critique of political economy, Marx +illustrated in several works the history of the revolutionary period +from 1848 to 1850 and especially the class struggles in France, showing +thus that if the revolution in the forms which it had taken on at that +moment had not succeeded, the revolutionary theory of history was not +contradicted for all that.[12] The suggestions given in the Manifesto +found here their complete development. + +Later the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte[13] was the first attempt to +apply the new conception of history to a series of facts contained +within precise limits of time. It is extremely difficult to rise from +the apparent movement to the real movement of history and to discover +their intimate connection. There are indeed great difficulties in rising +from the phenomena of passion, oratory, Parliaments, elections and the +like to the inner social gearing to discover in the latter the different +interests of the large and small bourgeois, of the peasants, the +artisans, the laborers, the priests, the soldiers, the bankers, the +usurers and the mob. All these interests act consciously or +unconsciously, jostling each other, eliminating each other, combining +and fusing, in the discordant life of civilized man. + +The crisis was passed and this was precisely true in the countries which +constituted the historic field from which critical communism proceeded. +All that the critical communists could do was to understand the +reaction in its hidden economic causes because, for the moment, to +understand the reaction was to continue the work of the revolution. The +same thing happened under other conditions and other forms 20 years +later when Marx, in the name of the International made in the "Civil War +in France" an apology for the Commune which was at the same time its +objective criticism. + +The heroic resignation with which Marx after 1850 abandoned political +life was shown again when he retired from the International after the +congress at the Hague in 1872. These two facts have their value for +biography because they give glimpses of his personal character. With +him, in fact, ideas, temperament, policy and thought were one and the +same. But, on the other hand, these facts have a much greater bearing +for us. Critical communism does not manufacture revolutions, it does not +prepare insurrections, it does not furnish arms for revolts. It mingles +itself with the proletarian movement, but it sees and supports that +movement in the full intelligence of the connection which it has, which +it can have, and which it must have, with all the relations of social +life as a whole. In a word it is not a seminary in which superior +officers of the proletarian revolution are trained, but it is neither +more nor less than the consciousness of this revolution and especially +the consciousness of its difficulties. + +The proletarian movement has grown in a colossal fashion during these +last thirty years. In the midst of numberless difficulties, through +gains and losses, it has little by little taken on a political form. Its +methods have been elaborated and gradually applied. All this is not the +work of the magic action of the doctrine scattered by the persuasive +virtue of written and spoken propaganda. From their first beginnings the +communists had this feeling that they were the extreme left of every +proletarian movement, but in proportion as the latter developed and +specialized it became their necessity and duty to assist, (through the +elaboration of programmes, and through their participation in the +political action of the parties) in the various contingencies of the +economic development and of the political situation growing out of it. + +In the fifty years which separate us from the publication of the +Manifesto the specialization and the complexity of the proletarian +movement have become such that there is henceforth no mind capable of +embracing it in its completeness, of understanding it in its details and +grasping its real causes and exact relations. The single International, +from 1864 to 1873, necessarily disappeared after it had fulfilled its +task. The preliminary equalization of the general tendencies and of the +ideas common and indispensable to all the proletariat, and no one can +assume or will assume to re-constitute anything like it. + +Two causes, notably, contributed in a high degree to this +specialization, this complexity of the proletarian movement. In many +countries the bourgeoisie felt the need of putting an end in the +interest of its own defense to some of the abuses which had arisen in +consequence of the introduction of the industrial system. Thence arose +labor legislation, or as it has been pompously called social +legislation. This same bourgeoisie in its own interest or, under the +pressure of circumstances has been obliged, in many countries to +increase the generic conditions of liberty, and notably to extend the +right of suffrage. These two circumstances have drawn the proletariat +into the circle of daily political life. They have considerably +increased its chance for action and the agility and suppleness thus +acquired permit it to struggle with the bourgeoisie in elective +assembles. And as the _processus_ of things determines the _processus_ +of ideas, this practical multiform development of the proletariat is +accompanied by a gradual development of the doctrines of critical +communism, as well in the manner of understanding history or +contemporary life as in the minute description of the most infinitesimal +parts of economics: in a word, it has become a science. + + +Have we not there, some ask, a deviation from the simple and imperative +doctrine of the Manifesto? Others again say, have we not lost in +intensity and precision what we have gained in extension and complexity? + +These questions, in my opinion, arise from an inexact conception of the +present proletarian movement and an optical illusion as to the degree of +energy and revolutionary valor of the former movements. + +Whatever be the concessions that the bourgeoisie can make in the present +economic order even if it be a very great reduction in the hours of +labor, it always remains true that the necessity for exploitation upon +which the whole present social order rests imposes limits beyond which +capital as a private instrument of production has no more reason for +existence. If a concession to-day can allay one form of discontent in +the proletariat, the concession itself can do nothing less than to give +rise to the need of new and ever increasing concessions. The need of +labor legislation arose in England before the Chartist movement and it +developed afterwards along with it. It had its first successes in the +period which immediately followed the fall of Chartism. The principles +and the reasons of this movement in their causes and their effects were +studied in a critical manner by Marx in Capital and they afterwards +passed, through the International, into the programmes of the different +socialist parties. Finally this whole process, concentrating itself into +the demand for eight hours, became with the 1st of May an international +marshalling of the proletariat, and a means for estimating its progress. +On the other hand, the political struggle in which the proletariat takes +part democratizes its habits; still more a real democracy takes birth +which, with time, will no longer be able to adapt itself to the present +political form. Being the organ of a society based on exploitation it is +constituted as a bureaucratic hierarchy, as a judicial bureaucracy and a +mutual aid society of the capitalists for the defense of their special +privileges, the perpetual income from the public debt, the rent of land +and the interest on capital in all its forms. Consequently the two +facts, which according to the discontented and the hypercritical seem to +make us deviate infinitely from the lines laid down by communism, +become, on the contrary, new means and new conditions which confirm +these lines. The apparent deviations from the revolution are, at bottom, +the very thing which is hastening it. + +Moreover, we must not exaggerate the significance of the revolutionary +faith of the communists of fifty years ago. Given the political +situation of Europe, if they had a faith, it was that they were +precursors, and this they have been; they hoped that the political +conditions of Italy, Austria, Hungary, Germany and Poland might +approximate to modern forms, and this has happened later, in part, and +through other means; if they had a hope, it was that the proletarian +movement of France and England might continue to develop. The reaction +which intervened upset many things and stopped more than one development +which had already begun. It upset also the old revolutionary tactic, and +in these last years a new tactic has arisen. Therein lies all the +change.[14] + + +The Manifesto was designed for nothing else than the first guiding +thread to a science and a practice which nothing but experience and time +could develop. It gives only the scheme and the rhythm of the general +march of the proletarian movement. + +It is perfectly evident that the communists were influenced by the +experience of the two movements which they had before their eyes, that +of France, and especially the Chartist movement which the manifestation +of April 10th was soon to strike with paralysis. But this scheme does +not fix in any invariable fashion a tactic of war, which indeed had +already been made frequently. The revolutionists had often indeed +explained in the form of catechism what ought to be a simple consequence +of the development of events. + +This scheme became more vast and complex with the development and +extension of the bourgeois system. The rhythm of the movement has become +more varied and slower because the laboring mass has entered on the +scene as a distinct, political party, which fact changes the manner and +the measure of their action and consequently their movement. + +Just as in view of the improvement of modern weapons the tactic of +street riots has become inopportune, and just as the complexity of the +modern state shows the insufficiency of a sudden capture of a municipal +government to impose upon a whole people the will and the ideas of a +minority, no matter how courageous and progressive, even so, on its +side, the mass of the proletarians no longer holds to the word of +command of a few leaders, nor does it regulate its movements by the +instructions of captains who might upon the ruins of one government +raise up another. The laboring mass where it has developed politically +has made and is making its own democratic education. It is choosing its +representatives and submitting their action to its criticism. It +examines and makes its own the ideas and the propositions which these +representatives submit to it. It already knows, or it begins to +understand according to the situation in the various countries, that the +conquest of the political power cannot and should not be made by others +in its name, and especially that it cannot be the consequence of a +single blow. In a word it knows, or it is beginning to understand that +the dictatorship of the proletariat which shall have for its task the +socialization of the means of production cannot be the work of a mass +led by a few and that it must be, and that it will be, the work of the +proletarians themselves when they have become in themselves and through +long practice a political organization. + +The development and the extension of the bourgeois system have been +rapid and colossal in these last fifty years. It already invades sacred +and ancient Russia and it is creating, not only in America, Australia +and in India, but even in Japan, new centers of modern production, thus +complicating the conditions of competition and the entanglements of the +world market. The consequences of political changes have been produced, +or will not be long to wait for. Equally rapid and colossal has been the +progress of the proletariat. Its political education takes each day a +new step toward the conquest of political power. The rebellion of the +productive forces against the form of production, the struggle of living +labor against accumulated labor, becomes every day more evident. The +bourgeois system is henceforth upon the defensive and it reveals its +decadence by this singular contradiction; the peaceful world of industry +has become a colossal camp in which militarism develops. The peaceful +period of industry has become by the irony of things the period of the +continuous invention of new engines of war. + +Socialism has forced itself into the situation. Those semi-socialists, +even those charlatans who encumber with their presence the press and the +meetings of our party and who often are a nuisance to us, are a tribute +which vanity and ambitions of every sort render in their fashion to the +new power which rises on the horizon. In spite of the foreseen antidote +which scientific socialism is, the truth of which many people have not +come to understand, there is a group of quacks on the social question, +all having some particular specific to eliminate such or such a social +evil: land nationalization, monopoly of grains in the hands of the +State, democratic taxes, statization of mortgages, general strike, etc. +But social democracy eliminates all these fantasies because the +consciousness of their situation leads the proletarians when once they +have become familiar with the political arena to understand socialism in +an integral fashion. They come to understand that they should look for +only one thing, the abolition of wage labor; that there is but one form +of society which renders possible and even necessary the elimination of +classes,--the association which does not produce commodities, and that +this form of society is no longer the State, but its opposite, that is +to say, the technical and pedagogical administration of human society, +the self-government of labor. Behind the Jacobins are the gigantic +heroes of 1793 and their caricatures of 1848. + + +_Social democracy!_ But is not that, say some, an evident attenuation of +the communist doctrine as it is formulated in the Manifesto in terms so +ringing and so decisive? + +This is not the moment to recall that the phrase _social democracy_ has +had in France many significations from 1837 to 1848, all of which were +based upon a vague sentimentalism. Neither is it necessary to explain +how the Germans have been able in this nomenclature to sum up all the +rich and vast development of their socialism from the episode of +Lassalle now passed over and transformed up to our own days. It is +certain that _social democracy_ can signify, has signified and signifies +many things which have not been, are not, and never will be, either +critical communism or the conscious march toward the proletarian +revolution. It is also certain that contemporary socialism even in the +countries where its development is most advanced, carries with it a +great deal of dross which it throws off little by little along the road. +It is certain also, in fine, that this broad designation of social +democracy serves as an escutcheon and a buckler to many intruders. But +here we need to fix our attention only upon certain points of capital +importance. + +We must insist upon the second term of the expression in order to avoid +any equivocation. Democratic was the constitution of the _Communist +League_; democratic was its fashion of welcoming and discussing each new +teaching; democratic was its intervention in the revolution of 1848 and +its participation in the rebellious resistance against the invasion of +reaction; democratic finally was the very way in which the League was +dissolved. In this first type of our present parties, in this first cell +so to speak, of our complex organism, elastic and highly developed, +there was not only the consciousness of the mission to be accomplished +as precursor, but there was already the form and the method of +association which alone are suitable for the first initiators of the +proletarian revolution. It was no longer a sect; that form was already, +in fact, outgrown. The immediate and fantastic domination of the +individual was eliminated, what predominated was a discipline which had +its source in the experience of necessity and in the precise doctrine +which must proceed from the reflex consciousness of this necessity. It +was the same with the International, which appeared authoritarian only +to those who could not make their own authority prevail in it. It must +be the same, and it is so, in the working class parties and where this +character is not or cannot yet be marked, the proletarian agitation +still elementary and confused simply engenders illusions and is only a +pretext for intrigues, and when it is not so, then we have a passover +where men of understanding touch elbows with the madman and the spy; as +for example the society of The International Brothers which attached +itself like a parasite to the International and discredited it; or again +the co-operative which degenerates into a business and sells itself to +capitalists; the labor party which remains outside politics and which +studies the variations of the market to introduce its tactic of strikes +into the sinuosities of competition; or again a group of malcontents, +for the most part social outcasts and little bourgeois, who give +themselves up to speculations on socialism considered as one of the +phases of political fashion. Social democracy has met all these +impedimenta upon its way and it has been obliged to relieve itself of +them as it will have to do again from one time to another. The art of +persuasion does not always suffice. Oftener it was necessary and it is +necessary to resign ourselves and wait until the hard school of +disillusion serves to instruct, which it does better than reasonings can +do. + + +All these intrinsic difficulties of the proletarian movement, which the +wily bourgeoisie oftener than not stirs up of itself and which it makes +the most of, form a considerable part of the internal history of +socialism during these last years. + +Socialism has not found impediments merely in the general conditions of +economic competition and in the resistance of the political power, but +also in the very conditions of the proletarian mass and in the mechanism +sometimes obscure although inevitable of its slow, varied, complex +movements, often antagonistic and contradictory. That prevents many +people from seeing the increasing reduction of all class struggles to +the single struggle between the capitalists and the proletarianized +workers. + +Even as the Manifesto did not write, as the utopians did, the ethics and +the psychology of the future society, just so it did not give the +mechanism of that formation and of the development in which we find +ourselves. It is surely enough that these few pioneers have opened the +road. We must walk upon it to arrive at understanding and experience. +Moreover man is distinctively the experimental animal; that is why he +has a history, or rather that is why he makes his own history. + +Upon this road of contemporary socialism which constitutes its +development because it is its experience, we have met the mass of the +peasants. + +Socialism which at first kept itself practically and theoretically to +the study and experience of the antagonisms between capitalists and +proletarians in the circle of industrial production properly so called, +has turned its activity toward that mass in which _peasant stupidity_ +blossoms. To capture the peasants is the question of the hour, although +the quintessential Schaeffle long ago mobilized the anti-collectivist +brains of the peasants for the defense of the existing order. The +elimination and the capture of domestic industry by capital, the passage +more and more rapid of agrarian industry into the capitalist form, the +disappearance of small proprietorship, or its lessening through +mortgages, the disappearance of the communal domaines, usury, taxes and +militarism, all this is beginning to work miracles even in those brains +assumed to be props of the existing order. + +The Germans have been the pioneers in this field. They were brought to +it by the very fact of their immense expansion; from the cities they +have gone to the smallest centers and they thus arrive inevitably at the +frontiers of the country. Their attempts will be long and difficult; +this fact explains, excuses, and will excuse, the errors which have been +and will be committed.[15] As long as the peasant shall not be gained +over we shall always have behind us this _peasant stupidity_ which +unconsciously repeats, and that because it is stupid, the errors of the +18th Brumaire and the 2d of December. The development of modern society +in Russia will probably proceed on parallel lines with this conquest of +the country districts. When that country shall have entered into the +liberal era with all its imperfections and all its disadvantages, with +all the purely modern forms of exploitation and of proletarization, but +also with the compensations and the advantages of the political +development of the proletariat, social democracy will no longer have to +fear the threat of unforeseen perils from without, and it will at the +same time have triumphed over the internal perils by the capture of the +peasants. + + +The example of Italy is instructive. This country after having opened +the capitalist era dropped out for several centuries from the current +history. It is a typical case of decadence which can be studied in a +precise fashion from original documents in all its phases. It partly +returned into history at the time of the Napoleonic domination. It +reconquered its unity and became a modern state after the period of the +reaction and conspiracies, and under circumstances known to all, and +Italy has ended by having all the vices of parliamentarism, of +militarism and of finance without having at the same time the forms of +modern production and the resulting capacity for competition on equal +terms. It cannot compete with countries where industry is more advanced +by reason of the absolute lack of coal and scarcity of iron, the lack of +technical ability,--and it is waiting, or hoping now, that the +application of electricity may permit it to regain the time lost. It is +this which gave the impulse to different attempts from Biella to Schio. +A modern state in a society almost exclusively agricultural and in a +country where agriculture is in great part backward, it is that which +gives birth to this general sentiment of universal discontent. + +Thence come the incoherence and the inconsistency of the parties, the +rapid oscillations from demagogy to dictatorship, the mob, the +multitude, the infinite army of the parasites of politics, the makers of +fantastic projects. This singular social spectacle of a development +prevented, retarded, embarrassed and thus uncertain, is brought out in +bold relief by a penetrating spirit which, if it is not always the fruit +and the expression of a modern, broad and real culture nevertheless +bears within itself as the relic of an excellent civilization the mark +of great cerebral refinement. Italy has not been for reasons easy to +guess a suitable field for the indigenous formation of socialist ideas +and tendencies. The Italian Philippe Buonaroti, at first the friend of +the younger Robespierre, become the companion of Babeuf and later +attempted to re-establish Babeufism in France, after 1830. Socialism +made its first appearance in Italy at the time of the International, in +the confused and incoherent form of Bakuninism; it was not, moreover, a +labor movement, but it was the work of the small bourgeois and +instinctive revolutionists.[16] In these last years socialism has fixed +itself in a form which _almost_ reproduces the general type of _social +democracy_.[17] Now in Italy the first sign of life which the +proletariat gave is in the shape of the rising of the Sicilian peasants +followed by other revolts of the same kind on the continent to which +others will perhaps succeed in the future. Is it not very significant? + +After this incursion into the history of contemporary socialism we +gladly return to our precursors of fifty years ago, who put on record in +the Manifesto how they took possession of an advance post on the road of +progress. And that is true not merely of the theorizers, that is to say, +Marx and Engels. Both of these men would have exercised, under other +circumstances and at all times either by tongue or pen, a considerable +influence over politics and science such was the force and originality +of their minds and the extent of their knowledge even if they had never +met on their way the _Communist League_. But I am referring to all the +"unknown" according to the exclusive and vain jargon of bourgeois +literature:--of the shoemaker, Bauer, the tailors, Lessner and Eccarius, +the miniature painter, Pfaender, the watchmaker, Moll,[18] of Lochner, +etc., and many others who were the first conscious initiators of our +movement. The motto, "Workingmen of all countries, unite," remains as +their monument. The passage of socialism from utopia to science marks +the result of their work. The survival of their instinct and of their +first impulse in the work of to-day is the ineffaceable title which +these precursors have acquired to the gratitude of all socialists. + +As an Italian, I return so much the more willingly to these beginnings +of modern socialism because for me, at least, this recent warning of +Engels' is not without importance. "Thus the discovery that everywhere +and always political conditions and events find their explanation in +economic conditions would not have been made by Marx in 1845, but rather +by Loria in 1886. He has at least succeeded in impressing this belief +upon his compatriots, and since his book has appeared in French even +upon some Frenchmen and he may now go on inflated with pride and vanity +as if he had discovered an epoch-making historic theory until the +Italian socialists have time to despoil the illustrious Mr. Loria of the +peacock feathers which he has stolen."[19] + + +I would willingly close here, but more remains to be said. + +On all sides and from all camps protests arise and objections are urged +against historical materialism. And some times these voices are swelled +here and there by newly converted socialists, socialists who are +philosophical, socialists who are sentimental and sometimes hysterical. +Then reappears, as a warning, the "question of the belly." Others devote +themselves to exercise of logical gymnastics with abstract categories of +egoism and altruism; for others again the inevitable struggle for +existence always turns up at the right moment. + + +Morality! But it is high time that we understand the lesson of this +morality of the bourgeois epoch in the fable of the bees by Mandeville, +who was contemporary with the first projection of classic economics. + +And has not the politics of this morality been explained in classic +phrases that can never be forgotten by the first great political writer +of the capitalist epoch Machiavelli, who did not invent Machiavellism, +but who was its secretary and faithful and diligent editor. And as for +the logical tourney between egoism and altruism, has it not been in full +view from the time of the Reverend Malthus up to that empty, prolix and +tiresome reasoner, the indispensable Spencer? Struggle for existence! +But could you wish to observe, study and understand a struggle more +important for us than the one which has its birth and is taking on +gigantic proportions in the proletarian agitation? Perhaps you would +reduce the explanation of this struggle which is developing and working +in the supernatural domain of society, which man himself has created in +the course of history, through his labor, through improved processes and +through social institutions, and which man himself can change through +other forms of labor, processes and institutions,--you would perhaps +reduce it to the simple explanation of the more general struggle in +which plant and animals, and men themselves in so far as they are +animals, are contending in the bosom of nature. + + +But let us return to our subject. + +Critical communism has never refused, and it does not refuse, to welcome +the multiple and valuable suggestions, ideological, ethical, psychologic +and pedagogic which may come from the knowledge and from the study of +all forms of communism from Phales of Chalcedon down to Cabet.[20] More +than this, it is by the study and the knowledge of these forms that the +consciousness of the separateness of scientific socialism from all the +rest becomes developed and fixed. And in making this study who is there +who will refuse to recognize that Thomas More was a heroic soul and a +great writer on socialism? Who will not find in his heart a large +tribute of admiration for Robert Owen who first gave to the ethics of +communism this indisputable principle, that the character and the morals +of men are the necessary result of the conditions in which they live and +of the circumstances which surround them? And the partisans of critical +communism believe it is their duty, traversing history in thought, to +claim fellowship with all the oppressed, whatever may have been their +destiny, which was that of remaining oppressed and of opening the way +after an ephemeral success for the rule of new oppressors. + +But the partisans of critical communism differentiate themselves clearly +on one point from all other forms or manners of communism, or of +socialism, ancient, modern or contemporaneous, and this point is of +capital importance. + +They cannot admit that the ideologies of the past have remained without +effect and that the past attempts of the proletariat have been always +overcome by pure chance, by pure accident, by the effect of a caprice +of circumstances. All these ideologies although they reflected in fact +the sentiment directly due to social antitheses, that is to say, the +real class struggles, with a lofty sense of justice and a profound +devotion to an ideal, nevertheless all reveal ignorance of the true +causes and of the effective nature of the antitheses against which they +hurled themselves by an act of revolt spontaneous and often heroic. +Thence their utopian character. We can moreover explain why the +oppressive conditions of other epochs although they were more barbarous +and cruel did not bring that accumulation of energy, that concentration +of force, or that continuity of resistance which is seen to be realizing +itself and developing in the proletariat of our time. It is the change +of society in its economic structure; it is the formation of the +proletariat in the bosom of the great industry and of the modern state. +It is the appearance of the proletariat upon the political scene,--it is +the new things, in fine, which have engendered the need of new ideas. +Thus critical communism is neither moralizer, nor preacher, nor herald, +nor utopian--it already holds the thing itself in its hands and into the +thing itself it has put its ethics and its idealism. + +This orientation which seems harsh to the sentimentalists because it is +too true, too realistic and too real, permits us to retrace the history +of the proletariat and of the other oppressed classes which preceded it. +We see their different phases; we take account of the failures of +Chartism, of the Conspiracy of Equals and we explore still further back +to attempts at relief, to acts of resistance, and to wars,--to the +famous peasants' war in Germany, to the Jacquerie and to Father Dolcino. +In all these facts and in all these events we discover forms and +phenomena relating to the future of the bourgeoisie in proportion as it +tears to pieces, overthrows, triumphs over and issues from the feudal +system. We can do the same with the class struggles of the ancient world +but with less clearness. This history of the proletariat and of the +other oppressed classes, of the vicissitudes of their struggles and +their revolts, is already a sufficient guide to assist us in +understanding why the ideologies of the communism of other epochs were +premature. + +If the bourgeoisie has not yet arrived everywhere at the final stage of +its evolution, it surely has arrived in certain countries at its +accomplishment. In fact, in the most advanced countries it is subjecting +the various older forms of production, either directly or indirectly, to +the action and to the law of capital. And thus it simplifies, or it +tends to simplify, the different class struggles of former times, which +then obscured each other by their multiplicity, into this single +struggle between capital which is converting into merchandise all the +products of human labor indispensable to life and the mass of +proletarians which sells its labor power,--now also become simple +merchandise. The secret of history is simplified. It is all prosaic. And +just as the present class struggle is the simplification of all other, +so likewise, the communism of the Manifesto simplifies into rigid and +general theoretical formulas the ideologic, ethic, psychologic and +pedagogic suggestion of the other forms of communism not by denying but +by exalting them. All is prosaic and communism itself partakes of this +character, it is now a science. + +Thus there are in the Manifesto neither rhetoric nor protestations. It +does not lament over pauperism to eliminate it. It sheds tears over +nothing. The tears are transformed of themselves into a spontaneous +revolutionary force. Ethics and idealism consist henceforth in this, to +put the thought of science at the service of the proletariat. If this +ethics does not appear moral enough for the sentimentalists, usually +hysterical and silly, let them go and borrow altruism from its high +priest Spencer who will give a vague and insipid definition of it, such +as will satisfy them. + + +But, again, should the economic factor serve alone to explain the whole +of history! + +Historic factors! But that is an expression of empiricists or +ideologists who repeat Herder. Society is a complex whole or an organism +according to the expression of some who waste their time in discussions +over the value and the analogical use of this expression. This +_complexus_ has formed itself and has changed several times. What is the +explanation of this change? + +Even long before Feuerbach gave a final blow to the theological +explanation of history (man makes religion and not religion man) the +old Balzac[21] had made a satire of it by making men the puppets of God. +And had not Vico already recognized that Providence does not act in +history from without? And this same Vico, a century before Morgan, had +he not reduced history to a process which man himself makes through +successive experimentation consisting in the invention of language, +religion, customs and laws? Had not Lessing affirmed that history is an +education of the human race? Had not Rousseau seen that ideas are born +from needs? Had not Saint Simon guessed when he did not lose himself in +the distinction between organic and inorganic epochs the real genesis of +the Third Estate, and did not his ideas translated into prose make of +Augustin Thierry a reconstructor of historical research? In the first +fifty years of this century and notably in the period from 1830 to 1850 +the class struggles which the ancient historians and those of Italy +during the Renaissance had described so clearly, instructed by the +experience of these struggles in the narrow domain of their own urban +republic had grown and had reached on both sides of the Channel greater +proportions and an evidence always more palpable. Born in the midst of +the great industry, illuminated by the recollection and by the study of +the French Revolution they have become intuitively instructive because +they found with more or less clearness and consciousness their actual +and suggested expression in the programmes of the political parties: +free exchange or tariffs on grain in England, and so on. The conception +of history changed to the observer in France, on the right wing as on +the left wing of the literary parties, from Guizot to Louis Blanc and to +the modest Cabet. Sociology was the need of the time and if it sought in +vain its theoretic expression in Auguste Comte, a belated scholastic, it +found its artist in Balzac who was the actual inventor of class +psychology. To put into the classes and into their frictions the real +subject of history and the movement of this in their movement,--this is +what was then on the point of being studied and discovered, and it was +necessary to fix a theory of this in precise terms. + +Man has made his history not by a metaphorical evolution nor with a view +of walking on a line of preconceived progress. He has made it by +creating his own conditions, that is to say, by creating through his +labor an artificial environment, by developing successively his +technical aptitudes and by accumulating and transforming the products of +his activity in this new environment. We have but one single history and +we cannot compare real history, which is actually made, with another +which is simply possible. Where shall we find the laws of this formation +and of this development? The very ancient formations are not evident at +first sight. But bourgeois society because it is born recently and has +not yet reached its full development, even in all parts of Europe, bears +within itself the embryonic traces of its origin and its _processus_, +and it puts them in full evidence in countries where it is in process +of birth before our eyes, as for example, in Japan. In so far as it is +society which transforms all the products of human labor into +commodities by means of capital, society which assumes the proletariat +or creates it and which bears within itself the anxiety, the trouble and +the uncertainty of continuous innovations, it is born in determined +times according to clear methods which can be indicated although they +may be varied. In fact in different countries it has different modes of +development. In Italy, for example, it begins before all the others and +then stops. In England it is the product of three centuries of economic +expropriation of the old forms of production, or of the old +proprietorship, to speak the language of the jurists. In one country it +elaborates itself little by little combining itself with pre-existing +forces, as was the case in Germany, and it undergoes their influences +through adaptation; in another country it breaks its envelope and +crushes out resistance violently, as happened in France, where the great +revolution gives us the most intense and the most bewildering example of +historic action that is known, and thus forms the greatest school of +sociology. + +As I have already indicated this formation of modern or bourgeois +history has been summed up in rapid and masterly strokes in the +Manifesto, which has given its general anatomical profile with its +successive aspects, the trade guild, commerce, manufacture and the great +industry and has also indicated some of the organs and appliances of a +derived and complex character, law, political forms, etc. The elements +of the theory which was to explain history by the principle of the class +struggle were already implicitly contained in it. + +This same bourgeois society which revolutionized the earlier forms of +production had thrown light upon itself and its _processus_ in creating +the doctrine of its structure, economics. In fact it has not developed +in the unconsciousness which characterized primitive societies but in +the full light of the modern world beginning with the Renaissance. + + +Economics, as is known, was born by fragments, and its origin was +associated with that of the first bourgeoisie, which was that of +commerce and the great geographical discoveries, that is to say, it was +contemporary with the first and second phases of mercantilism. And it +was born to answer special questions: for example, is interest +legitimate? Is it advantageous for states and for nations to accumulate +money? It continued to grow, it occupied itself with the most complex +sides of the problem of wealth; it developed in the passage from +mercantilism to manufacture and then more rapidly and more resolutely in +the passage from the latter to the great industry. It was the +intellectual soul of the bourgeoisie which was conquering society. It +had already as discipline almost defined its general lines on the eve of +the French Revolution; it was the sign of the rebellion against the old +forms of feudalism, the guild, privilege, limitations of labor, that is +to say it was the sign of liberty. The theory of "natural right" which +developed from the precursors of Grotius to Rousseau, Kant, and the +Constitution of 93, was nothing else than a duplicate and the +ideological complement of economics, to the extent that often the thing +and its complement are confounded in one in the mind and in the +postulates of writers; of this we have a typical example in the +Physiocrats. + +In so far as it was a doctrine it separated, distinguished and analyzed +the elements and the forms of the _processus_ of production, of +circulation and of distribution and reduced them all into categories: +money, money capital, interest, profit, land rent, wages, etc. It +marched, sure of itself, accumulating its analyses from Petty to +Ricardo. The sole mistress of the field, it met only rare objections. It +started from two hypotheses which it did not take the trouble to justify +since they appeared so evident; namely, that the social order which it +illustrated was the natural order, and that private property in the +means of production was one and the same thing with human liberty; all +of which made wage labor and the inferiority of the wage laborers into +necessary conditions. In other terms, it did not recognize the historic +character of the forms which it studied. The antitheses which it met on +its way in its attempt at systematization, after several vain attempts +it tried to eliminate logically as was the case with Ricardo in his +struggle against the income from land rents. + +The beginning of the nineteenth century is marked by violent crises and +by those first labor movements which have their immediate origin in the +distress attending lockouts. The ideal of the "natural order" is +overthrown. Wealth has engendered poverty. The great industry in +changing all social relations has increased vices, maladies and +subjection. It has, in a word, caused degeneration. Progress has +engendered retrogression. What must be done that progress may engender +nothing else but progress, that is to say, prosperity, health, security, +education and intellectual development equal for all? With this question +Owen is wholly concerned and he shares with Fourier and Saint Simon this +characteristic that he no longer appeals to self-sacrifice and to +religion, and that he wishes to resolve and surmount the social +antitheses without diminishing the technical and industrial energy of +man, but rather to increase this. It is by this road that Owen became a +communist and he is the first who became so in the environment created +by modern industry. The antithesis rests entirely on the contradiction +between the mode of production and the mode of distribution. This +antithesis must, then, be suppressed in a society which produces +collectively. Owen becomes utopian. This perfect society must needs be +realized experimentally and to this he devotes himself with a heroic +constancy and unequalled self-sacrifice bringing a mathematical +precision even into his thoughts of its details. + +The antithesis between production and distribution once discovered, +there arose in England from Thompson to Bray a series of writers of a +socialism which is not strictly utopian, but which should be qualified +as one-sided for its object is to correct the manifest vices of society +by as many appropriate remedies.[22] + +In fact the first stage of all those who are on the road toward +socialism is the discovery of the contradiction between production and +distribution. Then, these ingenuous questions immediately arise: Why not +abolish poverty? Why not eliminate lockouts? Why not suppress the middle +man? Why not favor the direct exchange of products in consideration of +the labor that they contain? Why not give the worker the entire product +of his labor, etc.? These demands reduce the _things_, tenacious and +resistant, of real life, into as many reasonings, and they have for +their object to combat the capitalist system as if it were a machine +from which one can take away or to which one can add pieces, wheels and +gearings. + +The partisans of critical communism have broken definitely with all +these tendencies. They have been the successors and the continuers of +classical economics.[23] What is the doctrine of the structure of +present society? No one can combat this structure in practice, in +politics or in revolution without first taking an exact account of its +elements and its relations and making a fundamental study of the +doctrine which explains it. These forms, these elements and these +relations arise in certain historic conditions but they constitute a +system and a necessity. How can it be hoped to destroy such a system by +an act of logical negation and how eliminate it by reasoning? Eliminate +pauperism? But it is a necessary condition of capitalism. Give the +worker the entire product of his labor? But what would become of the +profit of capital, and where and how could the money expended in the +purchase of commodities be increased if among all the commodities which +it meets and with which it makes exchanges there were not a particular +one which returns to the buyer more than it costs him; and is not this +commodity precisely the labor power of the wage worker? The economic +system is not a tissue of reasonings but it is a sum and a complexus of +facts which engenders a complex tissue of relations. It is a foolish +thing to assume that this system of facts which the ruling class has +established with great pains through the centuries by violence, by +sagacity, by talent and by science will confess itself vanquished, will +destroy itself to give way to the demands of the poor and to the +reasonings of their advocates. How demand the suppression of poverty +without demanding the overthrow of all the rest? To demand of this +society that it shall change its law which constitutes its defense is to +demand an absurd thing. To demand of this State that it shall cease to +be the buckler and the defense of this society and of this law is +plunging into absurdities.[24] The one-sided socialism which without +being clearly utopian starts from the hypothesis that society admits of +certain errata without revolution, that is to say without a fundamental +change in the general elementary structure of society itself, is a mere +piece of ingenuity. This contradiction with the rigid laws of the +process of things is shown in all its evidence in Proudhon, who, +reproducing without knowing it, or copying directly, some of the +one-sided English socialists, wished to arrest and change history, armed +with a definition and a syllogism. + +The partisans of critical communism recognized that history has the +right to follow its course. The bourgeois phase can be outgrown and it +will be. But as long as it exists it has its laws. The relativity of +these consists in the fact that they grow and develop in certain +determined conditions, but their relativity is not simply the opposite +of necessity, a mere appearance, a soap-bubble. These laws may disappear +and they will disappear by the very fact of the change of society, but +they do not yield to the arbitrary suggestion which demands a change, +proclaims a reform, or formulates a programme. Communism makes common +cause with the proletariat because in this resides the revolutionary +force which, bursts, breaks, shakes and dissolves the present social +form and creates in it, little by little, new conditions; or to be more +exact, the very fact of its movement shows to us that these new +conditions are already born. + +The theory of the class struggle was found. It was seen to appear both +in the origins of the bourgeoisie (whose intrinsic _processus_ was +already illustrated by the science of economics), and in this new +appearance of the proletariat. The relativity of economic laws was +discovered, but at the same time their relative necessity was +understood. Herein lies the whole method and justification of the new +materialistic conception of history. Those deceive themselves who, +calling it the economic interpretation of history, think they understand +it completely. That designation is better suited, and is only suited, to +certain analytic attempts,[25] which, taking separately and in a +distinct fashion on the one side the economic forms and categories, and +on the other, for example, law, legislation, politics, customs,--proceed +to study the reciprocal influences of the different sides of life +considered in an abstract fashion. Quite different is our position. Ours +is the organic conception of history. The totality of the unity of +social life is the subject matter present to our minds. It is economics +itself which dissolves in the course of one process, to reappear in as +many morphological stages, in each of which it serves as a substructure +for all the rest. Finally, it is not our method to extend the so-called +economic factor isolated in an abstract fashion over all the rest, as +our adversaries imagine, but it is, before everything else, to form an +historic conception of economics and to explain the other changes by +means of its changes. Therein lies our answer to all the criticisms +which come to us from all the domains of learned ignorance, not +excepting the socialists who are insufficiently grounded and who are +sentimental or hysterical. And we explain our position thus as Marx has +done in his Capital, not the first book of critical communism, but the +last great book of bourgeois economics. + + +At the moment when the Manifesto was written the historic horizon did +not go beyond the classic world, the scarcely studied German antiquities +and the Biblical tradition which had only lately been reduced to the +prosaic conditions of all profane history. Our historic horizon is now +quite another thing, since it extends to the Aryan antiquities and to +the ancient deposits of Egypt and Mesopotamia which precede all the +Semitic traditions. And it extends still further back into prehistory, +that is to say, into, unwritten history. Morgan has given us a knowledge +of ancient society, that is to say a pre-political society, and the key +to understand how from it came all the later forms marked by monogamy, +the development of the paternal family, the appearance of property, +first of the _gens_, then of the family, lastly individual, and by the +successive establishment of the alliances between _gentes_ which are the +origin of the State. All this is illustrated by the knowledge of the +process of technique in the discovery and in the use of the means and +instruments of labor and by the understanding of the effect of this +process upon the social complexus, urging it in certain directions and +making it traverse certain stages. These discoveries may still be +corrected at certain points, notably by the study of the different +specific fashions according to which in different parts of the world the +passage from barbarism to civilization has been effected. But, +henceforth, one fact is indisputable, namely, that we have before our +eyes the general embryogenic record of human development from primitive +communism to those complex formations as at Athens or at Rome with their +constitutions of citizens arranged in classes according to census which +not long ago constituted the columns of Hercules for research into +written tradition. The classes which the Manifesto assumed have been +later resolved into their process of formation and in this can already +be recognized the plexus of reasons and of different economic causes for +the categories of the economic science of our bourgeois epoch. The dream +of Fourier to find a place for an epoch of civilization in the series of +a long and vast process has been realized. A scientific solution has +been found for the problem of the origin of inequality among men which +Rousseau had tried to solve by arguments of an original dialectic, +relying however upon too few real data. + +At two points, the extreme points for us, the human process is palpable. +One of these is the origin of the bourgeoisie, so recent and in the full +light of the science of economics; the other is the ancient formation of +the society divided into classes, which marks the passage from higher +barbarism to civilization (the epoch of the State) to use expressions +employed by Morgan. All that is found between these two epochs is what +has, up to this time, formed the subject matter of the chroniclers, the +historians properly so-called, the jurists, the theologians and the +philosophers. To traverse and reanimate all this domain with the new +historic conception is not an easy thing. We must not be over-hasty in +tabulating it. At the very beginning we must understand the economics +relative to each epoch,[26] in order to explain specifically the classes +which develop in it, avoiding hypothetical and uncertain data and taking +care not to carry over our own conditions into each epoch. For that, +skilled fingers are needed. Thus, for example, what the Manifesto says +of the first origin of the bourgeoisie proceeding from the serfs of the +Middle Ages incorporated little by little into the cities is not a +general truth. This mode of origin is peculiar to Germany and to the +other countries which reproduce its process. It is not the case either +in Italy, nor in Southern France, nor in Spain, which were the fields +upon which began the first history of the bourgeoisie, that is to say, +of modern civilization. In this first phase are found all the premises +of the whole capitalist society as Marx informed us in a note to the +first volume of Capital.[27] This first phase which reaches its perfect +form in the Italian municipalities forms the pre-historic background for +that capitalist accumulation which Marx has explained with so many +characteristic details in the evolution of England. But I will stop +there. + +The proletarians can have in view nothing but the future. That with +which all scientific socialists are primarily concerned is the present +in which are spontaneously developed and in which are ripening the +conditions of the future. The knowledge of the past is practically of +use and of interest only in so far as it throws light upon and explains +the present. For the moment it is enough to say that the partisans of +critical communism fifty years ago conceived the elements of the new and +definite philosophy of history. Soon this fashion of seeing will impose +itself because it will be impossible to think the contrary; and this +discovery will have the fate of Columbus' egg. And perhaps before an +army of scientists has made an application of this conception to the +continuous narration of the whole history, the success of the +proletariat will have become such that the bourgeois epoch will appear +to all as something that must be left behind because it will nearly be +so in reality. _To understand is to leave behind_ (Hegel). + + +When, fifty years ago, the Manifesto made of the proletarians, of the +unfortunates who excited pity, the predestined grave-diggers of the +bourgeoisie, the circumference of this burial place must have appeared +very small to the imagination of the writers who scarcely concealed in +the gravity of their style the idealism of their intellectual passion. +The probable circumference in their imagination then embraced only +France and England, and it would scarcely have touched the frontiers of +other countries, for instance, Germany. To-day the circumference appears +to us immense by reason of the rapid and colossal extension of the +bourgeois form of production which by inevitable reaction enlarges, +makes universal and multiplies the movement of the proletariat and +immensely expands the scene upon which is projected the picture of the +coming communism. The burial place extends as far as the eye can reach. +The more productive forces this magician calls forth, the more he +excites and prepares forces that must rebel against himself. + +All those who were communists ideological, religious and utopian, or +even prophetic and apocalyptic in the past have always believed that the +reign of justice, equality and happiness was destined to have the world +for its theatre. To-day the world is invaded by civilization and +everywhere is developing that society which lives upon class antagonisms +and class domination, the form of bourgeois production. (Japan may serve +us for an example.) The coexistence of the two nations in one and the +same state, which the divine Plato had already described, is +perpetuated. The earth will not be won over to communism to-morrow. But +as the confines of the bourgeois world enlarge, more numerous are those +who enter into it, abandoning and leaving behind the lower forms of +production,--and thus the attempt of communism gains in firmness and +precision; especially because in the domain and struggle of competition, +the deviations due to conquest and colonization are diminishing. The +proletarian International, while embryonic in the Communist League of +fifty years ago, henceforth becomes Interoceanic and it affirms on the +first of every May that the proletarians of the whole world are really +and actively united. The future grave-diggers of the bourgeoisie and +their descendants to many generations will ever remember the date of the +Communist Manifesto. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] I refer to that form which the Manifesto designates ironically under +the name of "German or 'True' Socialism." This paragraph, which is +unintelligible for those who are not well versed in the German +philosophy of that epoch, notably in certain of its tendencies marked by +acute degeneracy, has, with good reason, been suppressed in the Spanish +translation. + +[2] It is better to use the expression "democratic socialization of the +means of production" than that of "collective property" because the +latter implies a certain theoretical error in that, to begin with, it +substitutes for the real economic fact a juridical expression and +moreover in the mind of more than one it is confused with the increase +of monopolies, with the increasing _statization_ of public utilities and +with all the other fantasmagoria of the ever recurring State socialism, +the whole effect of which is to increase the economic means of +oppression in the hands of the oppressing class. + +[3] Twenty-five octavo pages in the original edition (London, February, +1848) for a copy of which I am indebted to the special kindness of +Engels. I should say here in passing that I have resisted the temptation +to affix any bibliographical notes, references and citations, for I +should then have been making a work of scholarship, or a book, rather +than a simple essay. I hope the reader will take my word for it that +there are in this essay no allusions, or statements of fact or opinion, +which I could not substantiate with authorities. + +[4] The "Umrisse zu einer Kritik der National-oekonomie" appeared in the +German-French Year Book, Paris, 1844, pp. 85-114; and his book on "The +Condition of the Working Class in England" at Leipzig in 1845. + +[5] In these last years many jurists have thought they found in the +re-adjustment of the civil Code a practical means for ameliorating the +condition of the proletariat. But why have they not asked the pope to +become the head of the free thought league? The most delightful of these +is that Italian author who occupying himself with the class struggle +asks that by the side of the code which establishes the rights of +capital another be elaborated which should guarantee the rights of +labor. + +[6] This development has been given in Marx's Capital which can be +considered as a philosophy of history. + +[7] It was not until after the publication of the Italian edition of +this essay that I had at my disposal for some months a complete +collection of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung for which I owe hearty thanks +to the Partei-Archiv of Berlin. The impression derived from this reading +surpasses expectation. It is desirable either that this journal which +now has become very rare, be reprinted entire or that the most important +articles and letters in it be reproduced. + +[8] Misere de la Philosophie, by Karl Marx, Paris and Brussels, 1847; +new edition, Paris, Giard and Briere, 1896. + +[9] This is made up of articles which appeared in 1849 in the Neue +Rheinische Zeitung and which reproduced the lectures given by Marx to +the German Workingmen's Circle of Brussels in 1847. It has since been +published as a propaganda leaflet. + +[10] See Chapter II. of the Manifesto. + +[11] Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie, Berlin, 1859, pp. IV.-VI. of +the preface. (Instead of retranslating this extract from the French I +have availed myself of the assistance of Comrade Hitch, who has +translated direct from the German of Marx. C. H. K.) + +[12] These articles which appeared in the Neue Rheinische +Politischokonomische Review, Hamburg, 1850, have recently been brought +together into a pamphlet by Engels (Berlin, 1895) under the title of +"Die Klassenkampfe in Frankreich 1848 bis 1850." The little work has a +preface by Engels. + +[13] Appeared for the first time in New York in 1852 in a review. +Several editions have since been made in Germany. A French translation +appeared in 1891 published by Delory, Lille. + +[14] In the preface to the "Class Struggle in France in 1848-50" and +elsewhere Engels treated fundamentally the objective development of the +new revolutionary tactic. (It is well to remember that the first Italian +edition of this essay appeared June 18th, and the second, October 15, +1895.) + +[15] In my opinion this is the case in France. The recent discussions of +the agrarian programme submitted to the deliberations of the social +democracy in Germany confirm the reasons which I have indicated. + +[16] It was otherwise in Germany. After 1830 socialism was imported +there and became a current literature; it underwent philosophical +alterations of which Gruen was the typical representative. But already +before the _new doctrine_ socialism had received a characteristic +imprint which was proletarian, thanks to the propaganda and the writings +of Weitling. As Marx said in 1844 in the Paris Vorwaerts, "it was the +giant in the cradle." + +[17] It is what many people call Marxism. Marxism is and remains a +doctrine. Parties can draw neither their name nor their justification +from a doctrine. "I am no Marxist" said--guess who? Marx himself. + +[18] It is he who established the first relations between Marx and the +League and who served as intermediary in the publication of the +Manifesto. He fell in the insurrection of 1849 at Murg. + +[19] Marx's Capital, Vol. III., Hamburg, 1894, pp. xix-xx. The date of +1845 refers principally to the book "Die heilige Familie, Frankfort, +1845," which was produced in collaboration by Marx and Engels. This book +is indispensable to an understanding of the theoretical origin of +historical materialism. + +[20] I stop with Cabet who lived at the epoch of the Manifesto. I do not +think I ought to go as far as the sporadic forms of Bellamy and Hertzka. + +[21] The Balzac of the 17th century. + +[22] It is these writers whom Menger thought he had discovered as the +authors of scientific socialism. + +[23] It is for this reason that certain critics, Wieser for example, +propose to abandon Ricardo's theory of value because it leads to +socialism. + +[24] Thus there arises notably in France the illusion of a social +monarchy which, succeeding the liberal epoch, should solve harmoniously +what is called the social question. This absurdity reproduces itself in +infinite varieties of socialism of the pulpit and State socialism. To +the different forms of ideological and religious utopianism is joined a +new form of bureaucratic and fiscal utopianism, the Utopia of the +idiots. + +[25] For example in the essays of Th. Rogers. + +[26] Who would have thought a few years ago of the discovery and the +authentic interpretation of an ancient Babylonian law? + +[27] Note 189, p. 740, of the 3rd German edition. + + + + +PART II + +HISTORICAL MATERIALISM. + + +I. + +This class of studies, like many others, but this more than any other, +is confronted with a great difficulty, indeed an irksome hindrance, in +that vice of minds educated by literary methods alone which is +ordinarily called _verbalism_. This bad habit creeps into and spreads +itself through all domains of knowledge; but in studies which relate to +the so-called moral world, that is to say, to the historico-social +_complexus_, it very often happens that the cult and the dominion of +words succeed in corrupting and blotting out the real and living sense +of things. + +In the field where a long observation, repeated experiences, the certain +use of improved instruments, the general or partial application of the +calculus have resulted in putting the mind into a constant and +methodical relation with things and their variations, as in the natural +sciences properly so-called,--there the myth and superstition of words +are left behind and vanquished; there the questions of terminology no +longer have more than the secondary value of pure convention. In the +study of human relations and actions, on the contrary, the passions, the +interests, the prejudices of school, sect, class and religion, the +literary abuse of the traditional means of representing thought, and +scholasticism, ever vanquished and always reborn, conceal the actual +things, or transform them involuntarily into terms, into words, into +abstract and conventional fashions of speech. + +We must, first of all, take account of this difficulty when we use the +expression or the formula "materialistic conception of history." Many +have imagined, do imagine, and will imagine that it is possible and +convenient to penetrate into the sense of the phrase by the simple +analysis of the words which compose it instead of arriving at it from +the context of an explanation, from the genetic study of the formation +of the doctrine,[28] or from the polemical writings in which its +partisans refute the objections of its opponents. Verbalism tends always +to shut itself up in purely formal definitions; it gives rise in the +minds to this erroneous belief, that it is an easy thing to reduce into +terms and into simple and palpable expressions the agitated and immense +_complexus_ of nature and history and that it is easy to picture the +multiform and complicated interlacings of causes and effects; in clearer +terms, it obliterates the meaning of the problems because it sees in +them nothing but questions of nomenclature. + + +If, moreover, it then happens that verbalism finds a support in certain +theoretical hypotheses, for example, that _matter_ indicates something +which is below or opposed to another higher or nobler thing which is +called spirit; or if it happens to be at one with that literary habit +which opposes the word materialism, understood in a disparaging sense, +to all that, in a word, is called idealism, that is to say, to the sum +total of the anti-egoistic inclinations and acts; then our embarrassment +is extreme! Then we are told that in this doctrine it is attempted to +explain the whole of man by the mere calculation of his material +interests and that no value whatever is allowed to any ideal interest. +The inexperience, the incapacity and the haste of certain partisans and +propagandists of this doctrine have also been a cause of these +confusions. In their eagerness to explain to others what they themselves +only half understand, at a time when the doctrine itself is only in its +beginnings and still has need of many developments, they have believed +they could apply it, such as it was, to whatever historic fact they were +considering, and they have almost reduced it to tatters, exposing it +thus to the easy criticism and the ridicule of people on the watch for +scientific novelties, and other idle persons of the same type. + + +Since it has been my privilege in these first pages simply to rebut +these prejudices (in a preliminary fashion) and unmask the intentions +and the tendencies underlying them, it must be remembered that the +meaning of this doctrine ought, before all else, to be drawn from the +position which it takes and occupies with regard to the doctrines +against which it is in reality opposed, and particularly with regard to +the ideologies of every sort;--that the proof of its value consists +exclusively in the more suitable and more appropriate explanation of the +succession of human events which is derived from it;--that this doctrine +does not imply a subjective preference for a certain quality or a +certain sum of human interests opposed by free choice to other +interests, but that it merely affirms the objective co-ordination and +subordination of all interests in the development of all society; and +this it affirms, thanks to that genetic _processus_ which consists in +going from the conditions to the conditioned, from the elements of +formation to the things formed. + + +Let the verbalists reason as they like over the value of the word +_matter_ in so far as it implies or recalls a metaphysical conception, +or in so far as it is the expression of the last hypothetical substratum +of experience. We are not here in the domain of physics, chemistry or +biology; we are only searching for the explicit conditions of human +association in so far as it is no longer simply animal. It is not for us +to support our inductions or our deductions upon the data of biology, +but, on the contrary, to recognize before all else the peculiarities of +human association, which form and develop through the succession and the +growing perfection of the activity of man himself in given and variable +conditions, and to find the relations of co-ordination and +subordination of the needs which are the substratum of will and action. +It is not proposed to discover an intention nor to formulate a +criticism; it is merely the necessity arising from the facts that must +be put in evidence. + +And as men, not by free choice, but because they could not act +otherwise, satisfy first certain elementary needs, which, in their turn, +give rise to others in their upward development, and as for the +satisfaction of their needs, whatever they may be, they invent and +employ certain means and certain tools and associate themselves in +certain definite fashions, the materialism of historical interpretation +is nothing else than an attempt to reconstruct by thought with method +the genesis and the complexity of the social life which develops through +the ages. The novelty of this doctrine does not differ from that of all +the other doctrines which after many excursions through the domains of +the imagination have finally arrived, very painfully, at reaching the +prose of reality and halting there. + + +II. + +There is a certain affinity, apparently at least, between that formal +vice of verbalism and another defect of the mind, whose origins may, +however, be varied. In consideration of some of its most common and +popular effects I will call it _phraseology_, although this word is not +an exact expression of the thing and does not set forth its origin. + +For long centuries men have written on history, have explained it, have +illustrated it. The most varied interests, from the interests more +immediately practical to the interests purely aesthetic, have moved +different writers to conceive and to execute this type of composition. +These different types have always taken birth in different countries +long after the origins of civilization, of the development of the state +and of the passage from the primitive communist society to the society +which rests upon class differences and class antagonisms. The +historians, even if they have been as artless as Herodotus, were always +born and formed in a society having nothing ingenuous in it, but very +complicated and complex, and at a time when the reasons for this +complication and complexity were unknown and their origins forgotten. +This complexity, with all the contrasts which it bears within itself and +which it reveals later and makes burst forth in its various +vicissitudes, stood forth before the narrators as something mysterious +and calling for an explanation, and if the historian wished to give some +sequence and a certain connection to the things narrated, he was obliged +to add certain general views to the simple narration. From the jealousy +of the gods of Father Herodotus to the environment of M. Tame, an +infinite number of concepts serving as means of explanation and as +complements to the things related have been imposed upon the narrators +by the natural voices of their immediate thought. Class tendencies, +religious ideas, popular prejudices, influences or imitations of a +current philosophy, excursions of imagination and a desire to give an +artistic appearance to facts known only in a fragmentary fashion, all +these causes and other analogous causes have contributed to form the +substratum of the more or less artless theory of events which is +implicitly at the bottom of the narration, or which serves at least to +flavor and adorn it. Whether men speak of chance or of destiny, whether +they appeal to the providential direction of human events, or adhere to +the word and concept of chance, the only divinity left in the rigid and +often coarse conception of Machiavelli, or whether they speak, as is +frequent enough at the present time, of the logic of events, all these +conceptions were and are effects and results of ingenuous thought, of +immediate thought, of thought which cannot justify to itself its course, +and its products, either by the paths of criticism or by the methods of +experience. To fill up with conventional causes (e. g., _chance_) or +with a statement of theoretical plausibility (e. g., the _inevitable +course of events_ which sometimes is confused in the mind with the +notion of progress) the gaps of our knowledge as to the fashion in which +things have been actually produced by their own necessity without care +for our free will and our consent, that is the motive and the result of +this popular philosophy, latent or explicit, in the chroniclers, which +by reason of its superficial character dissolves as soon as scientific +criticism appears. + + +In all these concepts and all these imaginings which in the light of +criticism appear as simple provisional devices and effects of an unripe +thought, but which often seem to "cultured people" the _non plus ultra_ +of intelligence,--in all these a great part of the human _processus_ is +revealed and reflected; and, consequently, we should not consider them +as gratuitous inventions nor as products of a momentary illusion. They +are a part and a moment in the development of what we call the human +mind. If later it is observed that these concepts and these imaginings +are mingled and confounded in the accepted opinions of cultured people, +or of those who pass for such, they make up an immense mass of +prejudices and they constitute an impediment which ignorance opposes to +the clear and complete vision of the real things. These prejudices turn +up again as etymological derivations in the language of professional +politicians, of so-called publicists and journalists of every kind, and +offer the support of rhetoric to self-styled public opinion. + + +To oppose and then to replace this mirage of uncritical conceptions, +these idols of the imagination, these effects of literary artifice, this +conventionalism by the real subjects, or the forces which are positively +acting--that is to say, men in their various and diversified social +relations,--this is the revolutionary enterprise and the scientific aim +of the new doctrine which renders objective and I might say naturalizes +the explanation of the historical _processus_. + + +A certain definite nation, that is to say, not a certain mass of +individuals, but a _plexus_ of men organized in such and such a fashion +by natural relations of consanguinity, or following such or such an +artificial or customary order of relationship and affinity, or by reason +of permanent proximity;--this nation, on a certain circumscribed and +limited territory, having such and such fertility, productive in such +and such a manner acquired through certain definite forms by continuous +labor;--this nation, thus distributed over this territory and thus +divided and articulated by the effect of a definite division of labor +which is scarcely beginning to give birth to or which has already +developed and ripened such and such a division of classes, or which has +already disintegrated or transformed a whole series of classes;--this +nation which possesses such and such instruments from the flint stone to +the electric light and from the bow and arrow to the repeating rifle, +which produces according to a certain fashion and shares its products, +conformably to its way of producing;--this nation, which by all these +relations constitutes a society in which either by habits of mutual +accommodation or by explicit conventions, or by acts of violence +suffered and endured, has already given birth, or is on the point of +giving birth to legal-political relations which result in the formation +of the state;--this nation, which by the organization of the state, +which is only a means for fixing, defending and perpetuating +inequalities, by reason of the antagonisms which it bears within itself, +renders continuously unstable the organization itself, whence result the +political movements and revolutions, and therefore the reasons for +progress and retrogression:--there is the sum of what is at the bottom +of all history. And there is the victory of realistic prose over all the +fantastic and ideological combinations. + +Certainly it requires some resignation to see things as they are, +passing beyond the phantoms which for centuries have prevented right +vision. But this revelation of realistic doctrine was not and is not +designed to be the rebellion of the material man against the ideal man. +It has been and is, on the contrary, the discovery of the principles and +the motives which are real and which belong to all human development, +including all that we call the ideal in positive conditions, determined +by facts which carry in themselves the reasons and the law and the +rhythm of their own development. + + +III. + +But it would be a complete error to believe that the writers who +narrate, explain, or illustrate have themselves invented and given life +to this enormous mass of unripe concepts, imaginings, and explanations +which, thanks to the force of prejudice, concealed for centuries the +real truth. It may happen, and it certainly does happen, that some of +these concepts are the fruit and the product of personal views, or of +literary currents formed in the narrow professional circle of the +universities and academies. The people in this case are absolutely +ignorant of them. But the important fact is that history itself has put +on these veils; that is to say, that the very actors and workers of the +historic events--great masses of people, directing and ordering classes, +masters of state, sects or parties, in the narrowest sense of the word, +if we make exception for an occasional moment of lucid interval--never +had up to the end of the past century a consciousness of their own work, +unless it be through some ideological envelope which prevented any sight +of the real causes. Already at the distant epoch when barbarism was +passing over into civilization, that is to say, when the first +discoveries of agriculture, the stable establishment of a population +upon a definite territory, the first division of labor in society, the +first alliances of different gentes, gave the conditions in which +developed property and the state, or at least the city,--even then, at +the epoch of all the first social revolutions, men ideally transformed +their work, seeing in it the miraculous acts of gods and heroes. So much +so that, while acting as they could and as they must, granted the +necessity and the fact of their relative economic development, they +conceived an explanation of their own work as if it did not belong to +them. This ideological envelope of human works has changed since then +more than once in form, in appearance, in combinations and in relations +in the course of the centuries, from the immediate production of the +ingenuous myths up to the complicated theological systems and to _The +City of God_ of St. Augustine--from the superstitious credulity in +miracles down to the bewildering miracles of the metaphysicians, that is +to say, down to the _Idea_ which for the _decadents_ of Hegelianism +engenders of itself, in itself, by its own disaggregation the most +incongruous variations of social life in the course of history. + +Now, precisely because the visual angle of ideological interpretation +has not been finally outgrown until very lately, and because it is only +in our days that a sum total of the real and really acting relations has +been clearly distinguished from the ingenuous reflections of myth and +the more artificial reflections of religion and metaphysics, our +doctrine states a new problem and carries within itself grave +difficulties for whoever wishes to fit it for providing a specific +explanation of the history of the past. + + +The problem consists in this: that our doctrine necessitates a new +criticism of the sources of history. And I do not wish to be understood +as speaking exclusively of the criticism of documents in the proper and +ordinary sense of the word, because as for this we may content ourselves +with what is delivered to us ready made by the critics, the scholars, +and the professional philologists. But I would speak of that immediate +source which is behind the so called documents properly and which, +before expressing itself and fixing itself in these, resides in the +spirit and in the form of the consciousness in which the actors +accounted to themselves for the motives of their own work. This spirit, +that is to say, this consciousness, is often inadequate to the causes +which we are now in a position to discover, from which it follows that +the actors seem to us enveloped, as it were, in a circle of illusions. +To strip the historic facts from these envelopes which clothe the very +facts while they are developing--this is to make a new criticism of the +sources in the realistic sense of the word and not in the formal +documentary sense. It is, in short, to make react upon the knowledge of +past conditions the consciousness of which we are now capable, and +thereby to reconstruct them anew. + + +But this revision of the most direct sources, if it marks the extreme +limit of the historic self-consciousness which may be reached, may be an +occasion for falling into a serious error. As we place ourselves at a +point of view which is beyond the ideological views to which the actors +in history were indebted for a consciousness of their work and in which +they often found both the motives and the justification of their action, +we may falsely believe that these ideological views were a pure +appearance, a simple artifice, a pure illusion in the vulgar sense of +the word. Martin Luther, like the other great reformers, his +contemporaries, never knew, as we know to-day, that the Reformation was +but an episode in the development of the Third Estate, and an economic +revolt of the German nation against the exploitation of the Papal court. +He was what he was, as an agitator and a politician, because he was +wholly taken up with the belief which made him see in the class movement +which gave an impulse to the agitation a return to true Christianity and +a divine necessity in the vulgar course of events. The study of remote +effects, that is to say, the increasing strength of the bourgeoisie of +the cities against the feudal lords, the increase of the territorial +dominion of the princes at the expense of the inter-territorial and +super-territorial power of the emperor and the pope, the violent +repression of the movement of the peasants and the more properly +proletarian movement of the Anabaptists permit us now to reconstruct the +authentic history of the economic causes of the Reformation, +particularly in the final proportions which it took, which is the best +of proofs. But that does not mean that we are privileged to detach the +fact arrived at from the mode of its realization and to analyze the +circumstantial integrality by a posthumous analysis altogether +subjective and simplified. The inner causes, or, as would be said now, +the profane and prosaic motives of the Reformation, appear to us clearly +in France, where it was not victorious; clearly again in the Low +Countries, where, apart from the differences of nationality, the +contrasts of economic interests are shown strikingly in the struggle +against Spain; very clearly again in England, where the religious +renovation realized, thanks to political violence, placed in full light +the passage to those conditions which are for our modern bourgeoisie the +forerunners of capitalism. _Post factum_, and after the tardy +realization of unforeseen consequences, the history of the real +movements which were the inner causes of the Reformation, in great part +unknown to the actors themselves, will appear in full light. But that +the fact came about precisely as it did come about, that it took on +certain determined forms, that it clothed itself in certain vestments, +that it painted itself in certain colors, that it put in movement +certain passions, that it displayed a special degree of fanaticism,--in +these consist its specific character, which no analytic ability can make +otherwise than as it was. Only the love of paradox inseparable from the +zeal of the passionate popularizers of a new doctrine can have brought +some to believe that to write history it was sufficient to put on record +merely the _economic moment_ (often still unknown and often unknowable), +and thereupon to cast to the earth all the rest as a useless burden with +which men had capriciously loaded themselves, as a superfluity, a mere +trifle, or even, as it were, something not existent. + + +From the fact that history must be taken in its entirety and that in it +the kernel and the husk are but one, as Goethe said of all things, three +consequences follow:-- + +First, it is evident that in the domain of historico-social determinism, +the linking of causes to effects, of conditions to the things +conditioned, of antecedents to consequents, is never evident at first +sight in the subjective determinism of individual psychology. In this +last domain it was a relatively easy thing for abstract and formal +philosophy to discover, passing above all the baubles of fatalism and +free will, the evidence of the motive in every volition, because, in +fine, there is no wish without its determining motive. But beneath the +motives and the wish there is the genesis of both, and to reconstruct +this genesis we must leave the closed field of consciousness to arrive +at the analysis of the simple necessities, which, on the one side, are +derived from social conditions, and on the other side are lost in the +obscure background of organic dispositions, in ancestry and in atavism. +It is not otherwise with historical determinism, where, in the same way, +we begin with motives religious, political, aesthetic, passionate, etc., +but where we must subsequently discover the causes of these motives in +the material conditions underlying them. Now the study of these +conditions should be so specified that we may perceive indubitably not +only what are the causes, but again by what mediations they arrive at +that form which reveals them to the consciousness as motives whose +origin is often obliterated. + +And thence follows indubitably this second consequence that in our +doctrine we have not to re-translate into economic categories all the +complex manifestations of history, but only to explain in the _last +analysis_ (Engels) all the historic facts _by means of the underlying +economic structure_ (Marx), which necessitates analysis and reduction +and then interlinking and construction. + +It results from this, in the third place, that, passing from the +underlying economic structure to the picturesque whole of a given +history, we need the aid of that complexus of notions and knowledge +which may be called, for lack of a better term, social psychology. I do +not mean by that to allude to the fantastic existence of a social psyche +nor to the concept of an assumed collective spirit which by its own +laws, independent of the consciousness of individuals and of their +material and definable relations, realizes itself and shows itself in +social life. That is pure mysticism. Neither do I wish to allude to +those attempts at generalization which fill up treatises on social +psychology and the general idea of which is to transport and apply to a +subject which is called social consciousness the known categories and +forms of individual psychology. Nor again do I wish to allude to that +mass of semi-organic and semi-psychological denominations by the aid of +which some attribute to the social being, as Schaeffle does, a brain, a +spinal column, sensibility, sentiment, conscience, will, etc. But I +wish to speak of more modest and more prosaic things, that is to say, of +those concrete and precise states of mind which make us know as they +really were the plebeians of Rome at a certain epoch, the artisans of +Florence at the moment when the movement of the Ciompi burst forth, or +those peasants of France within whom was engendered, to follow Taine's +expression, the "spontaneous anarchy" of 1789, those peasants who +finally became free laborers and small proprietors, or, aspiring to +property, transformed themselves rapidly from victors over the foreigner +into automatic instruments of reaction. This social psychology, which no +one can reduce to abstract canons because, in most cases, it is merely +descriptive, this is what the chroniclers, the orators, the artists, the +romancers and the ideologists of every sort have seen and up to now have +conceived as the exclusive object of their studies. In this, psychology, +which is the specific consciousness of men in given social conditions, +the agitators, orators and propagandists trust to-day, and to it they +appeal. We know that it is the fruit, the outcome, the effect of certain +social conditions actually determined;--this class, in this situation, +determined by the functions which it fulfills, by the subjection in +which it is held, by the dominion which it exercises;--and finally, +these classes, these functions, this subjection and this dominion +involve such and such a determined form of production and distribution +of the immediate means of life, that is to say, a determined economic +structure. This social psychology, by its nature always circumstantial, +is not the expression of the abstract and generic process of the +self-styled human intellect. It is always a specified formation from +specified conditions. We hold this principle to be indisputable, that it +is not the forms of consciousness which determine the human being, but +it is the manner of being which determines the consciousness (Marx). + +But these forms of consciousness, even as they are determined by the +conditions of life, constitute in themselves also a part of history. +This does not consist only in the economic anatomy, but in all that +combination which clothes and covers that anatomy even up to the +multicolored reflections of the imagination. In other words, there is no +fact in history which does not recall by its origin the conditions of +the underlying economic structure, but there is no fact in history which +is not preceded, accompanied and followed by determined forms of +consciousness, whether it be superstitious or experimental, ingenuous or +reflective, impulsive or self-controlled, fantastic or reasoning. + + +IV. + +I was saying a moment ago that our doctrine makes history objective and +in a certain sense naturalizes it, going from the explanation of the +data, evident at first sight, of the personalities acting with design, +and of the auxiliary conceptions of the action, to the causes and the +motives of the will and the action, in order to find thereupon the +co-ordination of these causes and of these motives in the pre-elementary +_processus_ of the production of the immediate means of existence. + +Now this term "naturalizing" has led more than one mind into confusing +this order of problems with another order of problems, that is to say, +into extending to history the laws and the manners of thinking which +have already appeared suitable to the study and explanation of the +material world in general and of the animal world in particular. And +because Darwinism succeeded in carrying, thanks to the principle of the +transformation of species, the last citadel of the metaphysical fixity +of things, and in discerning, in the organisms, phases, as it were, and +moments of a real and proper natural history, it has been imagined that +it was a commonplace and simple enterprise to borrow for an explanation +of the future and the history of human life the concepts, the principles +and the methods of examination to which that animal life is subjected +which in consequence of the immediate conditions of the struggle for +existence is unfolding to topographical environments not modified by the +action of labor. Darwinism, political and social, has, like an epidemic, +for many years invaded the mind of more than one thinker, and many more +of the advocates and declaimers of sociology, and it has been reflected +as a fashionable habit and a phraseological current even in the daily +language of the politicians. + +It seems at first sight that there is something immediately evident and +instinctively plausible in this fashion of reasoning, which it may be +said is principally distinguished by its abuse of analogy and by its +haste in drawing conclusions. Man is without doubt an animal, and he is +linked by connections of descent and affinity to other animals. He has +no privileges of origin or of elementary structure, and his organism is +merely one particular case of general physiology. His first immediate +field was that of simple nature not modified by work, and from thence +are derived the imperious and inevitable conditions of the struggle for +existence, with the consequent forms of adaptation. Thence are born +races in the true and authentic sense of the word; that is to say, in so +far as they are immediate determinations of black, white, yellow, +woolly-haired, straight-haired, etc., and not secondary historico-social +formations, that is to say, peoples and nations. Thence are born the +primitive instincts of sociability and in life in promiscuity arise the +first rudiments of sexual selection. + +But if we can reconstruct in imagination the primitive savage, by +combining our conjectures, it is not given us to have an empirical +intuition of him, just as it is not given us to determine the genesis of +that hiatus, that is to say, that break in continuity, thanks to which +human life is found detached from animal life to rise, in the sequel, to +an ever higher level. All men who live at this moment on the earth's +surface and all those who, having lived in the past, were the objects +of any trustworthy observation, are found, and were found, already +sufficiently removed from the moment when purely animal life had ceased. +A certain social life with customs and institutions, even if it be of +the most elementary form that we know, that is to say, of the Australian +tribes, divided into classes and practising the marriage of all the men +of one class with all the women of another class, separates human life +by a great interval from animal life. If we consider the _maternal +gens_, of which the classic type, the Iroquois type, has, thanks to +Morgan's work, revolutionized prehistoric science, while giving us at +the same time the key to the origins of history properly so called, we +have a form of society already much advanced by the complexity of its +relations. At that stage of social life which, according to our +knowledge, seems very elementary, that is to say, in the Australian +society, not only does a very complicated language differentiate men +from all other animals (and language is a condition and an instrument, a +cause and an effect of sociability), but the specialization of human +life, apart from the discovery of fire, is manifested by the use of many +other artificial means by which the needs of life are satisfied. A +certain territory acquired for the common use of a tribe, a certain art +of hunting--the use of certain instruments of defense and attack and the +possession of certain utensils for preserving the things acquired--and +then the ornamentation of the body, etc., all this means that at bottom +this life rests upon an artificial, although very elementary, basis, +upon which men endeavor to fix themselves and adapt themselves,--upon a +basis which is after all the condition of all further progress. +According as this artificial basis is more or less formed, the men who +have produced it and who live in it are considered more or less savage +or barbarous. This first formation constitutes what we may call +pre-history. + +History, according to the literary use of the word, namely, that part of +the human _processus_ whose traditions are fixed in the memory, begins +at a moment when the artificial basis has been formed for a considerable +length of time. For example, the canalization of Mesopotamia gives us +the ancient pre-Semitic Babylonian state, while the extremely ancient +Egyptian civilization rests upon the application of the Nile to +agriculture. Upon this artificial basis, which appears in the extreme +horizon of known history, lived, as now, not shapeless masses of +individuals, but organized groups whose organization was fixed by a +certain distribution of tasks, that is to say, of labor and by +consecutive methods of co-ordination and subordination. These relations, +these connections, these ways of living were not and are not the result +of the crystallization of customs under the immediate action of the +animal struggle for existence. What is more, they presuppose the +discovery of certain instruments, and, for example, the domestication of +certain animals, the working of minerals and even of iron, the +introduction of slavery, etc., instruments and methods of economy which +have first differentiated communities from each other and have +subsequently differentiated the component parts of these communities +themselves. In other words, the works of men in so far as they live +together react upon the men themselves. Their discoveries, and their +inventions, by creating artificial ways of living, have produced not +only habits and customs (clothing, cooking of food, etc.), but relations +and bonds of coexistence proportioned and adapted to the mode of +production and reproduction of the means of immediate life. + +At the dawn of traditional history economics is already operating. Men +are working to live, on a foundation which has been in great part +modified by their work and with tools which are completely their work. +And from that moment they have struggled among themselves to conquer +each from the other a superior position in the use of these artificial +means; that is to say, they have struggled among themselves whether as +serfs and masters, subjects and lords, conquered and conquerors, +exploited and exploiters, both where they have progressed and where they +have retrograded and where they have halted in a form which they have +not been capable of outgrowing, but never have they returned to the +animal life by the complete loss of their artificial foundation. + + +Historical science has, then, as its first and principal object the +determination and the investigation of this artificial foundation, its +origin, its composition, its changes and its transformations. To say +that all this is only a part and a prolongation of nature, is to say a +thing which by its too abstract and too generic character has no longer +any meaning. + +The human race, in fact, lives only in earthly conditions, and we cannot +suppose it to be transplanted elsewhere. Under these conditions it has +found from its very first beginnings down to the present day the +immediate means necessary for the development of labor, that is to say, +for its material progress as for its inner formation. These natural +conditions were and they are always indispensable to the sporadic +agriculture of the nomads, who sometimes cultivated the earth merely for +the pasturage of animals, as well as for the refined products of +intensive modern horticulture. These earthly conditions, precisely as +they have furnished the different sorts of stones suited for the +fabrication of the first weapons, furnish now also, with coal, the +elements of the great industry; precisely as they gave the first +laborers osiers and willows to plait, they give now all the materials +necessary to the complicated technique of electricity. + +It is not, however, the natural materials themselves which have +progressed. On the contrary, it is only men who progress, through +discovering little by little in nature the conditions which permit them +to produce in more and more complex forms, thanks to the labor +accumulated in experience. This progress does not consist merely in the +sort of progress with which subjective psychology is concerned that is +to say, the inner modifications which would be the proper and direct +development of the intellect, the reasoning and the thought. Moreover, +this inner progress is but a secondary and derived product, in +proportion as there is already a progress realized in the artificial +foundation which is the sum of the social relations resulting from the +forms and the distributions of labor. It is, then, a meaningless +affirmation to say that all this is but a simple prolongation of nature, +unless one wishes to employ this word in so generic a sense that it no +longer indicates anything precise and distinct; that which is not +realized by the work of man. + +History is the work of man in so far as man can create and improve his +instruments of labor, and with these instruments can create an +artificial environment whose complicated effects react later upon +himself, and which by its present state and its successive modifications +is the occasion and the condition of his development. There are, then, +no reasons for carrying back that work of man which is history to the +simple struggle for existence. If this struggle modifies and improves +the organs of animals, and if in given circumstances and methods it +produces and develops new organs, it still does not produce that +continuous, perfected and traditional movement which is the human +_processus_. Our doctrine must not be confounded with Darwinism, and it +need not invoke anew the conception of a mythical, mystical or +metaphorical form of fatalism. If it is true in effect that history +rests, before all else, upon the development of technique, that is to +say, if it is true that the successive discovery of tools gives rise to +the successive distributions of labor, and therewith to the inequalities +whose sum total, more or less stable, forms the social organism, it is +equally true that the discovery of these instruments is at once the +cause and the effect of these conditions and of those forms of the inner +life to which, isolating them by psychological abstraction, we give the +name of imagination, intellect, reason, thought, etc. By producing +successively the different social environment, that is to say, the +successive artificial foundations, man has produced himself, and in this +consists the serious kernel, the concrete reason, the positive +foundation of that which by various fantastic combinations and by a +varied logical architecture has suggested to the ideologists the notion +of the progress of the human mind. + + +Nevertheless, this expression of _naturalizing_ history, which, +understood in too broad and too generic a sense, may be the occasion of +the equivocations of which we have spoken, when it is, on the contrary, +employed with proper precaution and in a tentative fashion, sums up +briefly the criticism of all the ideological views which, in the +interpretation of history, start from this hypothesis, that human work +or activity are one and the same with free will, free choice and +voluntary designs. + +It was easy and convenient for the theologians to carry back the course +of human events to a preconceived plan or design, because they passed +directly from the facts of experience to an assumed mind which ruled the +universe. The jurists, who first had occasion to discover in the +institutions which formed the object of their studies a certain guiding +thread through the forms which manifestly succeeded each other, carried +over, as they still carry over as cheerfully, the reasoning faculty +which is their own quality, to serve as an explanation for the whole +vast social fabric, however complicated. The men of politics, who +naturally take their point of departure in this datum of experience, +that the officers of the state, whether by the acquiescence of the +subject masses or profiting by the antitheses of interests of the +different social groups, may set aims for themselves and realize them +voluntarily and in a deliberate fashion,--these men are brought to see +in the succession of human events only a variation of these designs, +these projects and these intentions. Now our conception, while +revolutionizing in their foundations the hypotheses of the theologians, +the jurists and the politicians, terminates in this affirmation, that +human labor and activity in general are not always one and the same +thing in the course of history with the will which acts with design, +with preconceived plans and with its free choice of means; that is to +say, that they are not one and the same thing with the reasoning +faculty. All that has happened in history is the work of man, but it +was not, and is not, with rare exceptions, the result of a critical +choice or of a reasoning desire. Moreover, it was and is through +necessity that, determined by external needs and occasions, this +activity engenders an experience and a development of internal and +external organs. Among these organs we must include intelligence and +reason which also are the result and consequence of repeated and +accumulated experience. The integral formation of man in his historical +development is henceforth no longer a hypothetical datum nor a simple +conjecture. It is an intuitive and palpable truth. The conditions of the +_processus_ which engenders a step of progress are henceforth reducible +into a series of explanations; and up to a certain point we have under +our eyes the schedule of all historical developments, morphologically +conceived. This doctrine is the clear and definite negation of all +ideology, because it is the explicit negation of every form of +rationalism, understanding by this word this concept, that things in +their existence and their development answer to a norm, an ideal, a +measure, an end, in an implicit or explicit fashion. The whole course of +human events is a sum, a succession of series of conditions which men +have made and laid down for themselves through the experience +accumulated in their changing social life, but it represents neither the +tendency to realize a predetermined end nor the deviation of a first +principle from perfection and felicity. Progress itself implies merely +that empirical and circumstantial notion of a thing which is at present +defined in our mind, because, thanks to the development thus far +realized, we are in a position to estimate the past and to foresee, at +least in a certain sense and in a certain measure, the future. + + +V. + +In this fashion a serious ambiguity is dissolved and the errors carried +with it are removed. Reasonable and well founded is the tendency of +those who aim to subordinate the sum total of human events in their +course to the rigorous conception of determinism. There is, on the +contrary, no reason for confusing this derived, reflex and complex +determinism with the determinism of the immediate struggle for existence +which is produced and developed on a field not modified by the continued +action of labor. Legitimate and well founded, in an absolute fashion, is +the historical explanation which proceeds in its course from the +volitions which have voluntarily regulated the different phases of life, +to the motives and objective causes of every choice, discovered in the +conditions of environment, territory, accessible means of existence and +conditions of experience. But there is, on the contrary, no foundation +for that opinion which tends to the negation of every volition by +consequence of a theoretical view which would substitute automatism for +voluntarism. There is nothing in it, as a matter of fact, but a pure and +simple conceit. + +Wherever the means of production have developed, to a certain point, +wherever the artificial foundation has acquired a certain consistency, +and wherever the social differentiations and their resulting antitheses +have created the need, the possibility and the conditions of an +organization more or less stable or unstable, there, always and +necessarily, appear premeditated designs, political views, plans of +conduct, systems of law and finally maxims and general and abstract +principles. In the circle of these products, and of these derived and +complex developments of the second degree, spring up also the sciences +and arts, philosophy and learning, and history as a literary fashion of +production. This circle is what the rationalists and the ideologists, +ignorant of its real foundations, have called, and call, in an exclusive +fashion, civilization. And, in fact, it has happened, and it happens, +that some men, and especially professional scientists, lay or clerical, +have found, and find, the means of intellectual livelihood in the closed +circle of the reflex and secondary products of civilization, and that +they have been able and are able consequently to submit all the rest to +the subjective view which they have elaborated under these conditions; +that is, the origin and explanation of all the ideologies. Our doctrine +has definitely outgrown the visual angle of ideology. The premeditated +designs, the political views, sciences, systems of law, etc., instead of +being the means and the instrument of the explanation of history, are +precisely what require to be explained, because they are derived from +determined conditions and situations. But that does not mean that they +are pure appearances, soap bubbles. If they are things which have been +developed and derived, that does not imply that they are not real +things; and that is so true that they have been, for centuries, to the +unscientific consciousness, and to the scientific consciousness still on +the way towards its formation, the only ones which really existed. + + +But that is not all. + +Our doctrine, like others, may lead to reverie and offer an occasion and +a theme for a new inverted ideology. It was born on the battlefield of +communism. It assumes the appearance of the modern proletariat on the +political stage, and it assumes that alignment upon the origins of our +present society which has permitted us to reconstruct in a critical +manner the whole genesis of the bourgeoisie. It is a doctrine +revolutionary from two points of view; because it has found the reasons +and the methods of development of the proletarian revolution which is in +the making, and because it proposes to find the causes and the +conditions of development of all other social revolutions which have +taken place in the past, in the class antagonisms which arrived at a +certain critical point, by reason of the contradiction between the forms +of production and the development of the producing forces. And this is +not all. In the light of this doctrine what is essential in history is +summed up in these critical moments, and it abandons, momentarily at +least, what unites these different moments to the learned ministrations +of the professional narrators. As a revolutionary doctrine it is, before +all else, the intellectual consciousness of the actual proletarian +movement in which, according to our assertion, the future of communism +is preparing long beforehand; so much so that the open adversaries of +socialism reject it as an opinion, which, under a scientific mask, is +only working out another utopia. + +Thus it may happen, and that has already resulted, that the imagination +of people unfamiliar with the difficulties of historic research, and the +zeal of fanatics, find a stimulus and an opportunity even in historic +materialism for forming a new ideology and drawing from it a new +philosophy of systematic history, that is to say, history conceived as +schemes or tendencies and designs. And no precaution can suffice. Our +intellect is rarely contented with purely critical research; it is +always attempting to convert into an element of pedantry and into a new +scholasticism every discovery of thought. In a word, even the +materialistic conception of history may be converted into a form of +argumentation for a thesis and serve to make new fashions with the +ancient prejudices like that of a history based on syllogisms, +demonstrations and deductions. + +To guard against this, and especially to avoid the reappearance in an +indirect and disguised fashion of any form whatever of finality, it is +necessary to resolve positively upon two things: First, that all known +historic conditions are circumstanced, and, second, that progress has +thus far been circumscribed by various obstacles and that for this +reason it has always been partial and limited. + + +Only a part, and, until recent times, only a small part of the human +race, has traversed completely all the stages of the _processus_ by the +effect of which the most advanced nations have arrived at modern civil +society, with the advanced technical forms founded upon the discoveries +of science and with all the consequences, political, intellectual, +moral, etc., which correspond to this development. By the side of the +English,--to take the most striking example--who, transporting European +manners with them to New Holland, have created there a center of +production which already holds a notable place in the competition of the +world's market, there still live, like fossils of prehistoric times, the +Australian aborigines, capable only of disappearing, but incapable of +adapting themselves to a civilization which was not imported among them, +but next to them. In America, and especially in North America, the +series of events which have brought on the development of modern society +began with the importation from Europe of domestic animals and +agricultural tools, the use of which in ancient times gave birth to the +slow moving civilization of the Mediterranean; but this movement +remained entirely inside the circle of those descended from the +conquerors and colonists, while the aborigines are lost in the mass +through the intermingling of races or perish and disappear completely. +Western Asia and Egypt, which already in very ancient times, as the +first cradle of all our civilization, gave birth to the great +semi-political formations which marked the first phases of certain and +positive history, have appeared to us for centuries as crystallizations +of social forms incapable of moving on of themselves to new phases of +development. Upon them is the age-long weight of the barbaric camp--the +dominion of the Turk. Into this stiffened mass is introduced by secret +ways a modern administration, and in the name of business interests the +railroads and the telegraphs push in,--bold outposts of the conquering +European bank. All this stiffened mass has no hope of resuming life, +heat and motion except by the ruin of the Turkish dominion, for which +are being substituted in the different methods of direct and indirect +conquest the dominion and the protectorate of the European bourgeoisie. +That a process of transformation of backward nations or of nations +arrested in their march, can be realized and hastened under external +influences, India stands as a proof. This country, with its own life +still surviving, re-enters vigorously under the action of England into +the circulation of international activity even with its intellectual +products. These are not the only contrasts in the historic physiognomy +of our contemporaries. And while in Japan, by an acute and spontaneous +phenomenon of imitation, there has developed, in less than thirty years, +a certain assimilation of western civilization which is already moving +normally the country's own energies, the forcible law of Russian +conquest is dragging into the circle of modern industry, and even into +great industry, certain notable portions of the country beyond the +Caspian, as an outpost of the approaching acquisition to the sphere of +capitalism of Central Asia and Upper Asia. The gigantic mass of China +appeared to us but a few years ago as motionless in the hereditary +organization of its institutions, so slow is every movement there, while +for ethnic and geographical reasons almost all Africa remained +impenetrable, and, it seemed, even up to the last attempts at conquest +and colonization, that it was destined to offer only its borders to the +process of civilization, as if we were still in the times not even of +the Portuguese, but of the Greeks and Carthaginians. + +These differentiations of men on the track of written and unwritten +history seem to us easily explicable when they can be referred to the +natural and immediate conditions which impose limits upon the +development of labor. This is the case with America, which up to the +arrival of the Europeans had but one cereal, maize, and but one domestic +animal for labor, the llama, and we can rejoice that the Europeans +imported with themselves and their tools the ox, the ass and the horse, +corn, cotton, sugarcane, coffee and finally the vine and the orange +tree, creating there a new world of that glorious society which produces +merchandise and which with an extraordinary swiftness of movement has +already traversed the two phases of the blackest slavery and the most +democratic wage system. But where there is a real halt and even an +attested retrogression, as in Western Asia, in Egypt, in the Balkan +Peninsula and in Northern Africa,--and this arrest cannot be attributed +to the change of natural conditions,--we find the problem before us +which is awaiting its solution from the direct and explicit study of the +social structure studied in the internal modes of its development, as in +the interlacings and complications of the different nations upon that +field which is ordinarily called the scene of historic struggles. + + +This same civilized Europe, which by the continuity of its tradition, +presents the most complete diagram of its _processus_, so much so that +upon this model have been conceived and constructed, thus far, all the +systems of historical philosophy, this Western and Central Europe, which +produced the epoch of the bourgeoisie and has sought and is seeking to +impose that form of society upon the whole world by different modes of +conquest, direct or indirect,--this Europe is not completely uniform in +the degree of its development, and its various agglomerations, national, +local and political, appear disturbed, as it were, over a decidedly +sloping ladder. Upon these differences depend the conditions of relative +superiority and inferiority of one country to another and the reasons, +more or less advantageous or disadvantageous, for economic exchange; +and thereon have depended, and still depend, not only the frictions and +the struggles, the treaties and the wars, but also everything that with +more or less precision the political writers have been able to relate to +us since the Renaissance, and certainly with increasing evidence, from +Louis XIV. and Colbert to our own time. + +This Europe in itself is highly variegated. Here is the consummate +flower of industrial and capitalist production, namely, England, while +at other points survives the artisan, vigorous or rickety, at Paris and +at Naples, to grasp the fact in its extreme points. Here the land is +almost industrialized, as in England; and elsewhere vegetates, in +various traditional forms, the stupid peasant, as in Italy and in +Austria, and in the latter country more than in the former. In one +country the political life of the state--suited to the prosaic +consciousness of a bourgeoisie which knows its business because it has +conquered the space that it occupies--is exerted in the surest and most +open fashion of an explicit class domination (it will be understood that +I am speaking of France). Elsewhere, and particularly in Germany, the +old feudal customs, the hypocrisy of Protestantism and the cowardice of +a bourgeoisie which exploits favorable economic circumstances without +bringing to them either intelligence or revolutionary courage, +strengthen the existing state by preserving the lying appearances of an +ethical mission to be accomplished. (With how many unpalatable sauces +this state ethics, Prussian into the bargain, has been served up by the +heavy and pedantic German professors!) Here and there modern capitalist +production is edging its way into countries which from other points of +view do not enter into our movement and especially into its political +side, as is the case with unhappy Poland; or again this form only +penetrates indirectly, as in the Slavonic countries. But now comes the +sharpest contrast, which seems destined to put under our eyes, as in an +epitome, all the phrases, even the most extreme, of our history. + +Russia could not have advanced, as it is now advancing, toward the great +industry, without drawing from Western Europe, and especially from our +charming French _Chauvinism_, that money which she would in vain have +sought within her own borders, that is to say, from the conditions of +her obese territorial mass, where vegetate in ancient economic forms +fifty million peasants. Russia, in order to become an economic modern +society ripening the conditions of a corresponding political revolution, +and preparing the means which will facilitate the addition of a large +part of Asia to the capitalist movement, has been led to destroy the +last relics of agrarian communism (whether its origins be primitive or +secondary) which had been preserved within herself up to this point in +such characteristic forms and on so large a scale. Russia must +capitalize herself, and to this end she must, to start with, convert +land into merchandise capable of producing merchandise, and at the same +time transform into miserable proletarians the excommunists of the +land. And, on the contrary, in Western and Central Europe we find +ourselves at the opposite point of the series of development which has +scarcely begun in Russia. Here, with us, where the bourgeoisie, with +varied fortunes and triumphing over such a variety of difficulties, has +already traversed so many stages of its development, it is not the +recollection of primitive or secondary communism, which scarcely +survives through learned combinations in the heads of scholars, but the +very form of bourgeois production, which engenders in the proletarians +the tendency to socialism, which presents itself in its general outlines +as an indication of a new phase of history and not as the repetition of +what is inevitably perishing in the Slavonic countries under our eyes. + + +Who could fail to see in these illustrations, which I have not sought +out, but which have come almost by chance, and which can be indefinitely +prolonged in a volume of economic-political geography of the present +world, the evident proof of the manner in which historic conditions are +all circumstanced in the forms of their development? Not only races and +peoples, nations and states, but parts of nations and various regions of +states, even orders and classes, are found, as it were, upon so many +rounds of a very long ladder, or, rather, upon the various points of a +complicated and slowly developing curve. Historic time has not marched +uniformly for all men. The simple succession of generations has never +been the index of the constancy and intensity of the _processus_. Time +as an abstract measure of chronology and the generations which succeed +one another in approximate periods give no criterion and furnish no +indication of law or of process. The developments thus far have been +varied because the things accomplished in one and the same unit of time +were varied. Between these varied forms of development there is an +affinity or rather a similarity of movements, that is, an analogy of +type, or again an identity of form; thus the advance forms may by simple +contact or by violence accelerate the development of backward forms. But +the important thing is to comprehend that progress, our notion of which +is not merely empirical, but always circumstanced and thus limited, is +not suspended over the course of human events like a destiny or a fate, +nor like a commandment. And for this reason our doctrine cannot serve to +represent the whole history of the human race in a unified perspective +which repeats, _mutatis mutandis_, the historic philosophy from thesis +to conclusion, from St. Augustine to Hegel, or, better, from the prophet +Daniel to M. De Rougemont. + +Our doctrine does not pretend to be the intellectual vision of a great +plan or of a design, but it is merely a method of research and of +conception. It is not by accident that Marx spoke of his discovery as a +guiding thread, and it is precisely for this reason that it is analogous +to Darwinism, which also is a method, and is not and cannot be a modern +repetition of the constructed or constructive natural philosophy as +used by Shelling and his school. + + +The first to discover in the notion of progress an indication of +something circumstantial and relative was the genial Saint Simon, who +opposed his way of seeing to the doctrine of the eighteenth century +represented by the party of Condorcet. To that doctrine, which may be +called unitary, equalitarian, formal, because it regards the human race +as developing upon one line of process, Saint Simon opposes the +conception of the faculties and of the aptitudes which substitute +themselves and compensate for each other, and thus he remains an +ideologist. + +To penetrate the true reasons for the relativity of progress another +thing was necessary. It was necessary, first of all, to renounce those +prejudices which are involved in the belief that the obstacles to the +uniformity of human development rest exclusively upon natural and +immediate causes. These natural obstacles are either sufficiently +problematical, as is the case with races, no one of which shows the +privilege of birth in its history, or they are, as is the case in +geographical differences, insufficient to explain the development of the +completely different historico-social conditions on one and the same +geographical field. And as the historic movement dates precisely from +the time when the natural obstacles have already been in great part +either vanquished or notably circumscribed, thanks to the creation of +an artificial field upon which it has been given to men to develop +themselves further, it is evident that the successive obstacles to the +uniformity of progress must be sought in the proper and intrinsic +conditions of the social structure itself. + +This structure has thus far started in forms of political organization, +the object of which is to try to hold in equilibrium the economic +inequalities; consequently this organization, as I have said more than +once, is constantly unstable. From the point where there is a known +history; it is the history of society tending to form the state, or +having already constructed it completely. And the state is this +struggle, within and without, because it is, above all, the organ and +the instrument of a larger or smaller part of society against all the +rest of society itself, in so far as the latter rests upon the economic +domination of man over man in a more or less direct and explicit +fashion, according as the different degree of the development of +production, of its natural means and its artificial instruments, +requires either chattel slavery, or the serfdom of the soil, or the +"free" wage system. This society of antitheses, which forms a state, is +always, although in different forms and various modes, the opposition of +the city to the country, of the artisan to the peasant, of the +proletarian to the employer, of the capitalist to the laborer, and so on +_ad infinitum_, and it always ends, with various complications and +various methods, in an hierarchy, whether it be in a fixed scaffolding +of privilege, as in the Middle Ages, or whether, under the disguised +forms of supposed equal rights for all, it be produced by the automatic +action of economic competition, as in our time. + +To this economic hierarchy corresponds, according to various modes, in +different countries, in different times, in different places, what I may +call almost a hierarchy of souls, of intellects, of minds. That is to +say, that culture, which, for the idealists, constitutes the sum of +progress, has been and is by the necessities of the case very unequally +distributed. The greater portion of mankind, by the quality of their +occupations, are composed of individuals who are disintegrated, broken +into fragments and rendered incapable of a complete and normal +development. To the economics of classes and to the hierarchy of social +positions corresponds the psychology of classes. The relativity of +progress is then for us the inevitable consequence of class +distinctions. These distinctions constitute the obstacles which explain +the possibility of relative retrogression, up to the point of degeneracy +and of the dissolution of an entire society. The machines, which mark +the triumph of science, become, by reason of the antithetic conditions +of the social plexus, instruments which impoverish millions and millions +of artisans and free peasants. The progress of technique, which fills +the towns with merchandise, makes more miserable and abject the +condition of the peasants, and in the cities themselves it further +humbles the condition of the humble. All the progress of science has +served thus far to differentiate a class of scientists and to keep ever +further from culture the masses who, attached to their ceaseless daily +toil, are thus feeding the whole of society. + +Progress has been and is, up to the present time, partial and one-sided. +The minorities which share in it call this human progress; and the proud +evolutionists call this human nature which is developing. All this +partial progress, which has thus far developed upon the oppression of +man by man, has its foundation in the conditions of opposition, by which +economic distinctions have engendered all the social distinctions; from +the relative liberty of the few is born the servitude of the greater +number, and law has been the protector of injustice. Progress, thus seen +and clearly appreciated, appears to us as the moral and intellectual +epitome of all human miseries and of all material inequalities. + +To discover this inevitable relativity it was necessary that communism, +born at first as an instinctive movement in the soul of the oppressed, +should become a science and a political party. It was then necessary +that our doctrine should give the measure of value for all past history, +by discovering in every form of social organization, antithetical in its +origin and organization, as they have all been up to this time, the +innate incapacity for producing the conditions of a universal and +uniform human progress, that is to say, by discovering the fetters which +turn each benefit into an injury. + + +VI. + +There is one question which we cannot evade: What has given birth to the +belief in _historic factors_? + +That is an expression familiar to many and often found in the writings +of many scholars, scientists and philosophers, and of those commentators +who, by their reasonings or by their combinations, add a little to +simple historic narration and utilize this opinion as an hypothesis to +find a starting point in the immense mass of human facts, which, at +first sight and after first examination, appear so confused and +irreducible. This belief, this current opinion, has become for reasoning +historians, or even for rationalists, a semi-doctrine, which has +recently been urged several times, as a decisive argument, against the +unitary theory of the materialistic conception. And indeed, this belief +is so deeply rooted and this opinion so widespread, of history being +only intelligible as the juncture and the meeting of various factors, +that, in consequence, many of those who speak of social materialism, +whether they be its partisans or adversaries, believe that they save +themselves from embarrassment by affirming that this whole doctrine +consists in the fact that it attributes the preponderance or the +decisive action to the _economic factor_. + +It is very important to take account of the fashion in which this +belief, this opinion, or this semi-doctrine takes its rise, because +real and fruitful criticism consists principally in knowing and +understanding the motive of what we declare an error. It does not +suffice to reject an opinion by characterizing it as false doctrine. +Error always arises from some ill-understood side of an incomplete +experience, or from some subjective imperfection. It does not suffice to +reject the error; we must overcome it, explain it and outgrow it. + +Every historian, at the beginning of his work, performs, so to speak, an +act of elimination. First, he makes erasures, as it were, in a +continuous series of events; then he dispenses with numerous and varied +suppositions and precedents; more than this, he tears up and decomposes +a complicated tissue. Thus, to begin with, he must fix a point, a line, +a boundary, as he chooses; he must say, for example: I wish to relate +the beginning of the war between the Greeks and the Persians, or to +inquire how Louis XVI. was brought to convene the States General. The +narrator finds himself, in a word, confronted with a _complexus_ of +accomplished facts and of facts on the point of being produced, which in +their totality present a certain aspect. Upon the attitude which he +takes depends the form and the style of every narration, because to +compose it he must take his point of departure from things already +accomplished, in order to see henceforth how they have continued to +develop. + +Yet into this _complexus_ he must introduce a certain degree of +analysis, resolving it into groups and into aspects of facts, or into +concurrent elements, which afterwards appear at a certain moment as +independent categories. It is the state in a certain form and with +certain powers; it is the laws, which determine, by what they command or +what they prohibit, certain relations; it is the manners and customs +which reveal to us tendencies, needs, ways of thinking, of believing, of +imagining; altogether it is a multitude of men living and working +together, with a certain distribution of tasks and occupations; he +observes then the thoughts, the ideas, the inclinations, the passions, +the desires, the aspirations which arise and develop from this varied +mode of coexistence and from its frictions. Let a change be produced, +and it will show itself in one of the sides or one of the aspects of the +empirical _complexus_, or in all of these within a longer or a shorter +time; for example, the state extends its boundaries, or changes its +internal limits as regards society by increasing or diminishing its +powers and its attributes, or by changing the mode of action of one or +the other; or, again, the law modifies its dispositions, or it expresses +and affirms itself through new organs; or, again, finally, behind the +change of exterior and daily habits, we discover a change in the +sentiments, the thoughts and the inclinations of the men variously +distributed in the different social classes, who mingle, change, replace +each other, disappear or reappear. All this may be sufficiently +understood, in its exterior forms and outlines, through the usual +endowments of normal intelligence which is not yet aided, corrected or +completed by science strictly so-called. Assembling within precise +limits a conception of such facts is the true and proper object of +narration, which is so much the clearer, more vivid and more exact, as +it takes the form of a monograph; witness Thucydides in the +Peloponnesian war. + +Society already evolved in a certain fashion, society already arrived at +a certain degree of development, society already so complicated that it +conceals the economic substructure which supports all the rest, has not +revealed itself to the simple narrators, except in these visible facts, +in these most apparent results, and in these most significant symptoms +which are the political forms, the legal dispositions and the partisan +passions. The narrator, both because he lacks any theoretical doctrine +regarding the true sources of the historic movement, and by the very +attitude which he takes on the subject of the things which he unites +according to the appearances which they have come to assume, cannot +reduce them to unity, unless it be as a result of a single, immediate +intuition, and if he is an artist, this intuition takes on a color in +his mind and transforms itself there into dramatic action. His task is +finished if he succeeds in massing a certain number of facts and events +in certain limits and confines over which the observer may look as on a +clear perspective; in the same way, purely descriptive geography has +accomplished its task, if it sums up in a vivid and clear design a +concourse of physical causes which determine the immediate aspect of +the Gulf of Naples, for example, without going back to its genesis. + +It is in this need of graphic narration that arises the first intuitive, +palpable, and, I might almost say, aesthetic and artistic occasion for +all those abstractions and those generalizations, which are finally +summed up in the semi-doctrine of the so-called factors. + +Here are two notable men, the Gracchi, who wished to put an end to the +process of appropriation of the public land and to prevent the +agglomeration of the _latifundium_, which was diminishing or causing to +completely disappear the class of small proprietors, that is to say, of +the free men, who are the foundation and the condition of the democratic +life of the ancient city. What were the causes of their failure? Their +aim is clear, their spirit, their origin, their character, their heroism +are manifest. They have against them other men with other interests and +with other designs. The struggle appears to the mind at first merely as +a struggle of intentions and passions, which unfolds and comes to an end +by the aid of means which are permitted by the political form of the +state and by the use or abuse or the public powers. Here is the +situation: the city ruling in different manners over other cities or +over territories which have lost all character of autonomy; within this +city a very decided differentiation between rich and poor; and facing +the comparatively small group of the oppressors and the all-powerful, +stands the immense mass of the proletarians, who are on the point of +losing or who have already lost the consciousness and the political +strength of a body of citizens, the mass which therefore suffers itself +to be deceived and corrupted, and which will soon decay till it is but a +servile accessory to its aristocratic exploiters. There is the material +of the narrator, and he cannot take account of the fact otherwise than +in the immediate conditions of the fact itself. The complete whole is +directly seen and forms the stage on which the events unfold, but if the +narration is to have solidity, vividness and perspective there must be +points of departure and ways of interpretation. + +In this consists the first origin of those abstractions, which little by +little take away from the different parts of a given social _complexus_ +their quality of simple sides or aspects of a whole, and it is their +ensuing generalization which little by little leads to the doctrine of +factors. + + +These factors, to express it in another way, arise in the mind as a +sequence of the abstraction and generalization of the immediate aspects +of the apparent movement, and they have an equal value with that of all +other empirical concepts. Whatever be the domain of knowledge in which +they arise, they persist until they are reduced and eliminated by a new +experience, or until they are absorbed by a conception more general, +genetic, evolutionary or dialectic. Was it not necessary that in the +empirical analysis and in the immediate study of the causes and the +effects of certain definite phenomena, for example the phenomena of +heat, the mind should first stop at this presumption and this +persuasion, that it could and should attribute them to a subject, which +if it was never for any physicist a true and substantial entity, was +certainly considered as a definite and specific force, namely, heat. Now +we see that at a given moment, as a result of new experiences, this heat +is resolved in given conditions into a certain quantity of motion. Still +further, our thought is now on the way toward resolving all these +physical factors into the flux of one universal energy, in which the +hypotheses of the atoms, in the extent to which it is necessary, loses +all residue of metaphysical survival. + +Was it not inevitable, as a first step of knowledge in what concerns the +problem of life, to spend a considerable time in the separate study of +the organs and to reduce them to systems? Without this anatomy, which +seems too material and too gross, no progress in these studies would +have been possible; and nevertheless, above the unknown genesis and +co-ordination of such an analytic multiplicity, there were evolving, +uncertain and vague, the generic conceptions of life, soul, etc. In +these mental creations have long been seen that biological unity which +has finally found its object in the certain beginning of the cell and in +its _processus_ of immanent multiplication. + +More difficult certainly was the way which the thought had to traverse +to reconstruct the genesis of all the facts of psychic life, from the +most elementary successions up to the most complex derived products. Not +only for reasons of theoretical difficulties, but in consequence of +popular prejudices, the unity and continuity of psychic phenomena +appeared, up to the time of Herbart, as separated and divided into so +many factors, faculties of the soul. + +The interpretation of the historico-social _processus_ met the same +difficulties; it also was obliged to stop at first in the provisional +view of factors. And that being so, it is easy for us now to find again +the first origin of that opinion in the necessity that the historians +have of finding in the facts that they relate with more or less artistic +talent and in different professional views, certain points of immediate +orientation, such as may be offered by the study of the apparent +movement of human events. + + +But in this apparent movement, there are the elements of a more exact +view. These concurrent factors, which abstract thought conceives and +then isolates, have never been seen acting each for itself. On the +contrary, they act in such a manner that it gives birth to the concept +of reciprocal action. Moreover, these factors themselves arise at a +given moment, and it is not until later that they acquired that +physiognomy which they have in the particular narration. This State, it +is well known, arose at a given moment. As for every rule of law, it may +either be remembered or conjectured that it went into effect under such +or such circumstances. As for many customs, it may be remembered that +they were introduced at a given moment; and the simplest comparisons of +the facts in different times or different places would show how society, +as a whole, and in its character of being an aggregation of different +classes, had taken and took continuously various forms. + +The reciprocal action of the different factors, without which not even +the simplest narration would be possible, like the more or less exact +information upon the origins and the variations of the factors +themselves, called for research and thought more than did the +constructive narration of those great historians who are real artists. +And, in effect, the problems which arise spontaneously from the data of +history, combined with other theoretical elements, gave birth to the +different so-called practical disciplines, which in a more or less rapid +fashion and with varying success, have developed from the ancients up to +our days, from ethics to the philosophy of law, from politics to +sociology, from law to economics. + +Now with the rise and formation of so many disciplines, through the +inevitable division of labor, _points of view_ have been multiplied out +of all proportion. It is certain that for the first and immediate +analysis of the multiple aspects of the social _complexus_, a long labor +of partial abstraction was necessary: which has always inevitably +resulted in one-sided views. This can be shown, in a clearer and more +evident manner than for any other domain, in that of law and its +various generalizations, including the philosophy of law. By reason of +these abstractions, which are inevitable in particular and empirical +analysis, and by the effect of the division of labor, the different +sides and different manifestations of the social _complexus_ were, from +time to time, fixed and stratified in general conceptions and +categories. The works, the effects, the emanations, the effusions of +human activity,--law, economic forms, principles of conduct, +etc.,--were, so to speak, translated and transformed into laws, into +imperatives and into principles which remained placed above man himself. +And from time to time it has been necessary to discover anew this simple +truth: that the only permanent and sure fact, that is to say, the only +datum from which departs and to which returns every practical detail of +discipline, is men grouped in a determined social form by means of +determined connections. The different analytical disciplines, which +illustrate the facts that develop in history, have finally given rise to +the need of a common and general social science, which renders possible +the unification of the historic _processus_, and the materialistic +doctrine marks precisely the final term, the apex of this unification. + +But that has not been, nor ever will be, lost time which is expended in +the preliminary and lateral analysis of complex facts. To the methodical +division of labor we owe precise learning, that is to say, the mass of +knowledge passed into the sieve, systematized, without which social +history would always be wandering in a purely abstract domain, in +questions of form and terminology. The separate study of the +historico-social factors has served, like any other empirical study +which does not transcend the apparent movement of things, to improve the +instrument of observation and to permit us to find again in the facts +themselves, which have been artificially abstracted, the keystones which +bind them into the social _complexus_. The different disciplines which +are considered as isolated and independent in the hypotheses of the +concurrent factors in the formation of history, both by reason of the +degree of development which they have reached, the materials which they +have gathered, and the methods which they have elaborated, have to-day +become quite indispensable for us, if one desires to reconstruct any +portion out of past times. Where would our historic science be without +the one-sidedness of philology, which is the fundamental instrument of +all research, and where should we have found the guiding thread of a +history of juridical institutions, which returns again from itself to so +many other facts and to so many other combinations, without the +obstinate faith of the Romanists in the universal excellence of the +Roman law, which engendered with generalized law and with the philosophy +of law so many problems which serve as points of departure for +sociology? + + +It is thus, after all, that the historic factors, of which so many +speak, and which are mentioned in so many works, indicate something +which is much less than the truth, but much more than simple error, in +the ordinary sense of a blunder, of an illusion. They are the necessary +product of a knowledge which is in the course of development and +formation. They arise from the necessity of finding a point of departure +in the confused spectacle which human events present to him who wishes +to narrate them; and they serve thenceforth, so to speak, as a title, +category or index to that inevitable division of labor, by the extension +of which the historico-social material has, up to this time, been +theoretically elaborated. In this domain of knowledge, as well as in +that of the natural sciences, the unity of real principle and the unity +of formal treatment are never found at the first start, but only after a +long and troublous road. So that again from this point of view the +analogy affirmed by Engels between the discovery of historical +materialism and that of the conservation of energy appears to us +excellent. + +The provisional orientation, according to the convenient system of what +are called factors, may, under given circumstances, be useful also to us +who profess an altogether unitary principle of historic interpretation, +if we do not wish simply to rest in the domain of theory, but wish to +illustrate, through personal research, a definite period of history. As +in that case we must proceed to direct and detailed research, we must +first of all follow the groups of facts that seem pre-eminent, +independent, or detached in the aspects of immediate experience. We +should not imagine, in fact, that the unitary principle so well +established, at which we have arrived in the general conception of +history, may, like a talisman, act always and at first sight, as an +infallible method of resolving into simple elements the immense area and +the complicated gearing of society. The underlying economic structure, +which determines all the rest, is not a simple mechanism whence emerge, +as immediate, automatic and mechanical effects, institutions, laws, +customs, thoughts, sentiments, ideologies. From this substructure to all +the rest, the process of derivation and of mediation is very +complicated, often subtile, tortuous and not always legible. + +The social organization is, as we already know, constantly unstable, +although that does not seem evident to every one, except at the time +when the instability enters upon that acute period which is called a +revolution. This instability, with the constant struggles in the bosom +of that same organized society, excludes the possibility for men coming +to an agreement which might involve a new start at living an animal +life. It is the antagonisms which are the principal cause of progress +(Marx). But it is equally true, notwithstanding, that in this unstable +organization, in which is given to us the inevitable form of domination +and subjection, intelligence is always developed not only unequally, but +quite imperfectly, incongruously and partially. There has been and there +is still in society what we may call a hierarchy of intelligence, +sentiments and conceptions. To suppose that men, always and in all +cases, have had an approximately clear consciousness of their own +situation, and of what was the most rational thing to do, is to suppose +the improbable and, indeed, the unreal. + +Forms of law, political acts and attempts at social organization were, +and they still are, sometimes fortunate, sometimes mistaken, that is to +say, disproportionate and unsuitable. History is full of errors; and +this means that if all was necessary, granted the relative intelligence +of those who have to solve a difficulty or to find a solution for a +given problem, etc., if everything in it has a sufficient reason, yet +everything in it was not reasonable, in the sense which the optimists +give to this word. To state it more fully, the determined causes of all +changes, that is to say the modified economic conditions, have ended and +end by causing to be found, sometimes through tortuous ways, the +suitable forms of law, the appropriate political orders and the more or +less perfect means of social adjustment. But it must not be thought that +the instinctive wisdom of the reasoning animal has been manifested, or +is manifested, definitely and simply, in the complete and clear +understanding of all situations, and that we have left only the very +simple task of following the deductive road from the economic situation +to all the rest. Ignorance--which, in its turn, may be explained--is an +important reason for the manner in which history is made; and, to +ignorance we must add the brutishness which is never completely subdued +and all the passions, and all the injustices, and the various forms of +corruption, which were and are the necessary product of a society +organized in such a way, that the domination of man over man in it is +inevitable, and that from this domination falsehood, hypocrisy, +presumption and baseness were and are inseparable. We may, without being +utopians, but simply because we are critical communists, foresee, as we +do in fact foresee, the coming of a society which, developing from the +present society and from its very contrasts by the laws inherent in its +historic development, will end in an association without class +antagonisms; which will have for its consequence that regulated +production will eliminate from life the element of chance which, thus +far, has been revealed in history as a multiform cause of accidents and +incidents. But that is the future, and it is neither the present nor the +past. If we propose to ourselves, on the contrary, to penetrate into the +historic events which have developed up to our own times, by taking, as +we do, for a guiding thread the variations of the forms of the +underlying economic structure up to the simplest datum in the variations +of the tool of production, we must become fully conscious of the +difficulty of the problem which we are setting ourselves: because here +we have not merely to open our eyes and behold, but to make a supreme +effort of thought, with the aim of triumphing over the multiform +spectacle of immediate experience to reduce its elements into a genetic +series. That is why I said that, in particular investigations, we must +ourselves start from those groups of apparently isolated facts, and +from this heterogeneous mass, in a word, from that empirical study, +whence arose the belief in factors, which afterwards became a +semi-doctrine. + +It is useless to attempt at counterbalancing these essential +difficulties by the metaphorical hypothesis, often equivocal, and after +all of a purely analogical value, of the so-called social organism. It +was necessary too that the mind should pass through even this +hypothesis, which so shortly became phraseology pure and simple. It +indeed prepares the way for the comprehension of the historic movement +as springing from the laws immanent in society itself, and thereby +excludes the arbitrary, the transcendental and the irrational. But the +metaphor has no further application; and the particular, critical and +circumstantial research into historic facts is the sole source of that +concrete and positive knowledge which is necessary to the complete +development of economic materialism. + + +VII. + +Ideas do not fall from heaven, and nothing comes to us in a dream. The +change in the ways of thinking, lately produced by the historic doctrine +which we are here examining and commenting upon, takes place at first +slowly and afterwards with an increasing rapidity, precisely in that +period of human development, in which were realized the great +politico-economic revolutions, that is to say, in that epoch which, +considered in its political forms, is called liberal, but which, +considered in its basis, by reason of the domination of capital over the +proletarian mass, is the epoch of anarchical production. The change in +ideas, even to the creation of new methods of conception, has reflected +little by little the experience of a new life. This, in the revolutions +of the last two centuries, was little by little despoiled of the +mythical, religious and mystical envelopes in proportion as it acquired +the practical and precise consciousness of its immediate and direct +conditions. Human thought, also, which sums up this life and theorizes +upon it, has little by little been plundered of its theological and +metaphysical hypotheses to take refuge finally in this prosaic +assertion: in the interpretation of history we must limit ourselves to +the objective co-ordination of the determining conditions and of the +determined effects. The materialistic conception marks the culminating +point of this new tendency in the investigation of the historic-social +laws, in so far as it is not a particular case of a generic sociology, +or of a generic philosophy of the State, of law, and of history, but the +solution of all doubts and all uncertainties which accompany the other +forms of philosophizing upon human affairs, and the beginning of their +integral interpretation. + +It is thus an easy thing, especially in the way it has been done by +certain shallow critics, to find precursors for Marx and Engels, who +first defined this doctrine in its fundamental points. And when did it +ever occur to any of their disciples, even of the strictest school, to +represent these two thinkers as miracle-workers? What is more, if we +wish to go on a search after the premises of the logical creation of +Marx and Engels, it will not suffice to stop at those who are called the +precursors of socialism, Saint-Simon for example, and his predecessors, +or the philosophers, particularly Hegel, or the economists who had laid +bare the anatomy of the society which produces commodities; we must go +back to the very formation of modern society, and then at last declare +triumphantly that the theory is a plagiarism from the things that it +explains. + +The truth is that the real precursors of the new doctrine were the facts +of modern history, which has become so transparent and so explanatory of +itself since the accomplishment in England of the great industrial +revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, and since the great +social upheaval took place in France. These things, _mutatis mutandis_, +have subsequently been reproduced, in various combinations and in milder +forms, throughout the whole civilized world. And what else is our +thought at bottom if not the conscious and systematic complement of +experience, and what is this last if not the reflection and the mental +elaboration of the things and the processes which arise and unfold +either outside our volition, or through the work of our activity; and +what is genius but the individualized, derived and acute form of +thought, which arises through the suggestion of experience, in many men +of the same epoch, but which remains in most of them fragmentary, +incomplete, uncertain, wavering and partial? + + +Ideas do not fall from heaven; and what is more, like the other products +of human activity, they are formed in given circumstances, in the +precise fullness of time, through the action of definite needs, thanks +to the repeated attempts at their satisfaction, and by the discovery of +such and such other means of proof which are, as it were, the +instruments of their production and their elaboration. Even ideas +involve a basis of social conditions; they have their technique; thought +also is a form of work. To rob the one and the other, ideas and thought, +of the conditions and environment of their birth and their development, +is to disfigure their nature and their meaning. + +To show how the materialistic conception of history arises precisely in +given conditions, not as a personal and tentative opinion of two +writers, but as the new conquest of thought by the inevitable suggestion +of a new world which is in process of birth, that is to say the +proletarian revolution, that was the object of my first essay, "In +Memory of the Communist Manifesto." That is, to repeat, a new historic +situation found its complement in its appropriate mental instrument. + +To imagine now that this intellectual production might have been +realized at any time and at any place, would be to take absurdity for +the ruling principle in research. To transport ideas arbitrarily from +the basis and the historic conditions in which they arise to any other +basis whatever, is like taking the irrational for the basis of +reasoning. Why should one not fancy equally that the ancient city, in +which arose Greek art and science and Roman law, remaining all the while +an ancient democratic city, with slavery, might at the same time acquire +and develop all the conditions of modern technique? Why not believe that +the trade guild of the Middle Ages, remaining all the while on its +inflexible mould, should take its way to the conquest of the world +market without the conditions of unlimited competition, which actually +began by its destruction and negation? Why not imagine a fief which, +remaining a fief all the while, should become a factory producing +commodities exclusively? Why could not Michel de Lando have written the +Communist Manifesto? Why could we not also believe that the discoveries +of modern science could have proceeded from the brains of men of no +matter what other time and place, that is to say, before determined +conditions had given rise to determined needs, and before repeated and +accumulated experiences should have provided for the satisfaction of +these needs? + +Our doctrine assumes the broad, conscious and continuous development of +modern technique, and with it that society which produces commodities in +the antagonisms of competition, that society which as a first condition +and an indispensable means for its own perpetuation presupposes +capitalist accumulation in the form of private property; that society +which continually produces and reproduces proletarians, and which if it +is to perpetuate itself, must incessantly revolutionize its tools, and +with them the State and its legal gearings. This society, which, by the +very laws of its movement, has laid bare its own anatomy, produces by +its reaction the materialistic conception. Even as it has produced in +socialism its positive negation, so it has engendered in the new +historic doctrine its ideal negation. If history is the product, not +arbitrary, but necessary and normal, of men in so far as they are +developing, and if they are developing in so far as they are making +social experiments, and if they are experimenting in so far as they are +making improvements in their labor, which accumulate and preserve +products and results, the phase of development in which we live cannot +be the last and final phase, and the contrasts which are intimately +bound to it and inherent in it are the productive forces of new +conditions. And this is how the period of the great economic and +political revolutions of these last two centuries has ripened in the +mind these two concepts: the immanence and constancy of the _processus_ +in historic facts, and the materialist doctrine, which is at bottom the +objective theory of social revolutions. + +It is beyond doubt that to reascend through the centuries and +reconstruct in our thought the development of social ideas to the extent +that we find their documents in writers, is something always very +instructive, and serving especially to add to our critical knowledge of +our concepts as of our ways of thinking. Such a return of the mind over +its historic premises, when it does not lead us astray into the +empiricism of a boundless erudition, and does not lead us to set up +hastily vain analogies, serves without any doubt to give suppleness and +a persuasive force to the forms of our scientific activity. In the sum +of our science we find again, in fact and through the approximative +continuity of tradition, the excellence of all that has been found, +conceived and proved, not only in modern times but even in ancient +Greece, where first begins precisely and in a definite fashion for the +human race the orderly development of conscious, reflective and +methodical thought. It would be impossible to take a single step in +scientific research without employing means long ago found and tried, +such for example as logic and mathematics. To think otherwise would be +to assume that each generation must begin over again all the work done +since the childhood of humanity. + +But it was not given either to the ancient authors in the limited circle +of their urban republics, nor to the writers of the Renaissance, always +drifting between an imaginary return to antiquity and the need of +grasping intellectually the new world in process of birth, to arrive at +the precise analysis of the last elements from which society results, +and which the incomparable genius of Aristotle did not see, and did not +understand beyond the limits within which passes the life of the typical +citizen. + +The investigation of the social structure, considered in its manners of +origin and _processus_, became active and penetrating and took on +multiform aspects in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when +economics took shape and when under the different names of "Natural +Rights," "The Spirit of the Laws," or "The Social Contract," it was +attempted to resolve into causes, into factors and into logical and +psychological data, the multiform and often obscure spectacle of a life +in which was preparing the greatest revolution ever known. These +doctrines, whatever may have been the subjective intention and spirit of +the authors--as in the contrasting cases of the conservative Hobbes and +the proletarian Rousseau--were all revolutionary in their substance and +their effects. Under all of them is always found, as a stimulus and +motive, the material and moral needs of a new age, which, by reason of +historic conditions, were those of the bourgeoisie. Thus it was +necessary to wage war in the name of liberty upon tradition, the Church, +privileges, fixed classes, that is to say, the orders and conditions, +and consequently upon the State which was or appeared to be their +author, and then upon the special privileges of commerce, the arts, +labor and science. And man was studied in an abstract fashion, that is +to say, individuals taken separately, emancipated and delivered by a +logical abstraction from their historic connection and from every social +necessity: in the mind of many the concept of society was reduced to +atoms, and it even seemed natural to the greatest number to believe that +society is only the sum of the individuals composing it. The abstract +categories of individual psychology sufficed for the explanation of all +human facts; and this is how in all these systems, nothing is spoken of +but fear, self-love, egoism, voluntary obedience, tendency toward +happiness, the original goodness of man, the freedom of contract and of +the moral consciousness, and of the moral instinct or sense, and also +many other similar abstract and generic things, as if they were +sufficient to explain history, and to create a new history out of its +fragments. + +By the fact that all society was entering upon an acute crisis, its +horror at the antique, at what was superannuated, at what was +traditional and had been organized for centuries, and the presentiment +of a renovation of all human life, finally produced a total eclipse of +the ideas of historic necessity and social necessity, that is to say, of +those ideas which, barely indicated by the ancient philosophers, and so +developed in our century, had at this period of revolutionary +rationalism only rare representatives, like Vico, Montesquieu, and, in +part, Quesnay. In this historic situation, which gave birth to a +literature that was nimble, destructive and very popular, is found the +reason for what Louis Blanc with a certain emphasis has called +individualism. Later some have thought they saw in this word the +expression of a permanent fact in human nature, which especially might +serve as a decisive argument against socialism. + +A singular spectacle, and a singular contrast! Capital, however +produced, tended to overcome all previous forms of production, and, +breaking every bond and boundary, to become the direct or indirect +master of society, as, in fact, it has become in the greater part of the +world; hence it resulted, that apart from all forms of modern misery and +the new hierarchy in which we live, there was realized the most acute +antithesis of all history, that is to say, the existing anarchy of +production in the whole of society, and an iron despotism in the mode of +production in each workshop and each factory! And the thinkers, the +philosophers, the economists and the popularizers of the eighteenth +century saw nothing but liberty and equality! All reasoned in the same +way; all started from the same premises, which brought them to conclude +that liberty must be obtained from a government of pure administration, +or that they were democrats or even communists. The approaching reign of +liberty was before the eyes of all as a certain event, provided they +could suppress the bonds and fetters which forced ignorance and the +despotism of church and state had imposed upon men, good by nature. +These fetters did not appear to be conditions and boundaries within +which men were found by the laws of their development, and by the effect +of the antagonistic and thus uncertain and tortuous movement of history, +but simply obstacles from which the methodical use of reason was to +deliver us. In this idealism, which reached its culminating point in +certain heroes of the French Revolution, is the seed of a limitless +faith in the certain progress of the whole human race. For the first +time, the concept of humanity appeared in all its branches, unmingled +with religious ideas or hypotheses. The boldest of these idealists were +the extreme materialists, because, denying every religious fiction, they +assigned this earth as a certain domain to the necessity of happiness +provided that reason might open the way. + + +Never were ideas abused in so inhuman a fashion as between the close of +the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth. The lesson +of things was very hard, the saddest disillusions arose and a radical +upheaval followed in the minds of men. Facts, in a word, proved to be +contrary to all expectations; and this at first produced a profound +discouragement among the disillusioned, which, notwithstanding, gave +rise to the desire and the need of new investigations. We know that +Saint Simon and Fourier, in whom operated precisely at the beginning of +the century, in the exclusive forms of the ideas of premature genius, +the reaction against the immediate results of the politico-economic +revolution, arose resolutely, the first against the jurists, and the +second against the economists. + +In fact, when once the obstacles to liberty, which had been +characteristic of other times, had been suppressed, new obstacles, +graver and more painful, had replaced them, and, as equal happiness for +all was not realized, society remained in its political form as it had +been before, an organization of inequalities. It must be, then, that +society is something autonomous, innate, a complex automaton of +relations and conditions, which defies the subjective good intentions of +each of the members who compose it, and which escapes from the illusions +and the designs of the idealists. It thus follows a course of its own +from which we may infer certain laws of process and development, but +does not suffer us to impose laws upon it. By this transformation in the +minds of men, the nineteenth century heralded itself as the century of +historic science and of sociology. + +The principle of development has, indeed, since then, invaded all +domains of thought. In this century, the grammar of history has been +discovered, and thus the key has been found to explore the genesis of +myths. The embryonic traces of pre-history have been sought out, and, +for the first time, the processes of political and legal forms have been +arranged into a series. The nineteenth century heralded itself as the +century of sociology in the person of Saint Simon, in whom, as happens +with the self-taught precursors of genius, we find confused together the +germs of so many contradictory tendencies. In this aspect the +materialistic conception is a result; but it is a result which is the +complement of the whole process of formation; and as a result and a +complement it is also the simplification of all historic science and of +all sociology, because it takes us back from things derived and from +complex conditions to elemental functions. And that is brought about by +the direct suggestion of new dynamic experience. + +The laws of economics, such as they are of themselves and their own +inherent force, have triumphed over all illusions and have shown +themselves to be the directing power of social life. The great +industrial revolution which was produced made it clear that social +classes, if they are not a fact of nature, are still less a consequence +of chance and of free will; they arise historically and socially in a +determined form of production. And who, in truth, has not seen the birth +under his eyes of new proletarians upon the economic ruin of so many +classes of small proprietors, small peasants and artisans; and who has +not been in a position to discover the method of this new creation of a +new social status, to which so many men were reduced and in which they +were necessarily obliged to live. Who has not been in a position to +discover that money, transformed into capital, had succeeded, in a few +years, in becoming master by the attraction which it exercises over the +labor of free men, in whom the necessity of selling themselves freely as +wage workers had been prepared long before by so many ingenious legal +processes and by violent or indirect expropriation? And who has not seen +the new cities rise around factories and create around their +circumference this desolating poverty, which is no longer the effect of +individual misfortune, but the condition and the source of wealth? And +in this new poverty were numerous women and children, arising for the +first time from an unknown existence to take their place on the page of +history as a sinister illustration of a society of equals. And who did +not feel--even if that had not been announced in the so-called doctrine +of the Rev. Malthus--that the number of guests which this mode of +economic organization can entertain, if it is sometimes insufficient for +him who, by reason of the favorable state of production, has need of +hands, is often also superabundant, and therefore finds no occupation +and becomes a source of danger? It becomes evident, also, that the rapid +and violent economic transformation which was accomplished openly in +England had succeeded there, because that country had been able to build +up for itself, as compared with the rest of Europe, a monopoly till then +unknown, and because to maintain this monopoly an unscrupulous policy +had been rendered necessary, and that permitted all, for one happy +moment, to translate into prose the ideological myth of the state, which +was to be the guardian and the preceptor of the people. + +This immediate perception of these consequences of the new life was the +origin of the pessimism, more or less romantic, of the _laudatores +temporis acti_ from De Maistre to Carlyle. The satire of liberalism +invaded minds and literature at the beginning of the nineteenth century. +Then begins that criticism of society, which is the first step in all +sociology. It was necessary before all else to overthrow the ideology, +which had accumulated and expressed itself in so many doctrines of the +Natural Right or the Social Contract. It was necessary to get into +contact with the facts which the rapid events of so intensive a +_processus_ imposed upon the attention in forms so new and startling. + +Here appears Owen, incomparable at all points of view, but especially +for the clearness which he displayed in the determination of the causes +of the new poverty, even though he was but a child in his quest of the +means for overcoming it. It was necessary to arrive at the objective +criticism of economics, which appeared for the first time, in one-sided +and reactionary forms, in Sismondi. In this period where the conditions +of a new historic science were ripening, arose so many different forms +of socialism, utopian, one-sided or completely extravagant, which never +reached the proletarians, either because these had no political +consciousness, or if they had any, it manifested itself in sudden +starts, as in the French conspiracies and riots from 1830 to 1848, or +they kept on the political ground of immediate reforms, as is the case +with the Chartists. And nevertheless all this socialism, however +Utopian, fantastic and ideological it may have been, was an immediate +and often salutary criticism of economics--a one-sided criticism, +indeed, which lacked the scientific complement of a general historical +conception. + +All these forms of criticism, partial, one-sided and incomplete had +their culmination in scientific socialism. This is no longer subjective +criticism applied to things but the discovery of the self-criticism +which is in the things themselves. The real criticism of society is +society, itself, which, by the antithetic conditions of the contrasts +upon which it rests, engenders from itself, within itself, the +contradiction, and finally triumphs over this by its passage into a new +form. The solution of the existing antitheses is the proletariat, which +the proletarians themselves know or do not know. Even as their misery +has become the condition of present society, so in their misery is the +justification of the new proletarian revolution. It is in this passage +from the criticism of subjective thought, which examines things outside +and imagines it can correct them at once, to the understanding of the +self-criticism exercised by society over itself in the immanence of its +own _processus_--it is in this only that the dialectic of history +consists, which Marx and Engels, in so far as they were materialists, +drew from the idealism of Hegel. But on the final reckoning it matters +little whether the literary men, who knew no other meaning for +dialectics than that of an artificial sophistry nor whether the doctors +and scholars who are never apt to go beyond the knowledge of particular +facts can ever account themselves for these hidden and complicated forms +of thought. + + +But the great economic transformation, which has furnished the materials +composing modern society, in which the empire of capitalism has arrived +at the limit of its complete development, would not have been so +immediately and so suggestively instructive, if it had not been +luminously illustrated by the bewildering and catastrophic movement of +the French Revolution. This put in evidence, like a tragedy on the +stage, all the antagonistic forces of modern society, because this +society has developed on the ruins of previous forms, and because, in so +short a time and with so hasty a march, it has traversed the phases of +its birth and its establishment. + +The revolution ensued from the obstacles which the bourgeoisie had to +overcome by violence, since it appeared from evidence that the passage +from the old forms to the new forms of production--or of property, if we +borrow the language of jurists--could not be realized by the quieter +ways of successive and gradual reforms. It brought in its train the +upheaval, the friction and the intermingling of all the old classes of +the Ancient Regime, and the rapid and bewildering formation at the same +time of new classes, in the very rapid but very intensive period of ten +years, which, compared with the ordinary history of other times and +other countries, seems to us like centuries. This rapid succession of +monumental events brought to light the most characteristic moments and +aspects of the new or modern society, and that so much the more clearly +since the militant bourgeoisie had already created for itself +intellectual means and organs which had given it with the theory of its +own work the reflex consciousness of its movement. + +The violent expropriation of the great part of the old property, that is +to say, of the property crystallized in fiefs, in royal and princely +domains and in mortmain, with the real and personal rights derived +therefrom, put at the disposal of the state, which by the necessity of +things had become an exceptional, terrible and all-powerful government, +an extraordinary mass of economic resources; thus, there were, on the +one side, the singular policy of the assignats which finally annulled +themselves, and on the other side, the formation of the new proprietors +who owed their fortune to the chances of gambling, to intrigue and to +speculation. And who again would have dared thereafter to swear upon the +ancient, sacred altar of property, when his recent and authentic title +rested in so evident a manner upon the knowledge of fortunate +circumstances? If it had ever passed through the head of so many +troublesome philosophers, beginning with the Sophists, that law is a +creation of man, useful and convenient, this heretical proposition might +seem thenceforth a simple and intuitive truth to the meanest of the +beggars in Paris. Had not the proletarians with all the common people +given the impulse to the revolution in general by the expected movements +of April, 1789, and did they not afterwards find themselves, as it were, +driven anew from the stage of history after the failure of the revolt of +Prairial in 1795? Had they not carried on their shoulders all the ardent +defenders of liberty and equality? Had they not held in their hands the +Paris Commune, which was, for a time, the impulsive organ of the +Assembly and of all France; had they not finally the bitter disillusion +of having created new masters for themselves with their own hands? The +bewildering consciousness of this disillusion constitutes the +psychological motive, rapid and immediate, of the conspiracy of Babeuf, +which, for that very reason, is a great fact in history, and bears in +itself all the elements of objective tragedy. + +The land which fief and mortmain had, as it were, bound to a body, to a +family, to a title, now, delivered from its bonds, had become a +commodity, to serve as a basis and instrument for the production of +merchandise; so docile a commodity, that it was put into circulation in +the form of morsels of paper. And around these symbols, multiplied to +such a degree over the things that they were to represent that they +finished by no longer having any value, Business came forth, a giant, +arising, from all sides, on the shoulders of those most wretched in +their poverty, and through all the devious ways of politics; it was +especially shameless in its way of taking part in war and its glorious +successes. Even the rapid progress of technique, hastened by the urgency +of circumstances, gave material and occasion to the prosperity of +business. + +The laws of bourgeois economics, which are those of individual +production in the antagonistic field of competition, revolted furiously, +through violence and ruse, against the idealistic efforts of a +revolutionary government which, strong in its certainty of saving its +country, and stronger still in its illusion of founding for eternity the +liberty of equals, believed it was possible to suppress gambling by the +guillotine, to eliminate Business by closing the Stock Exchange and to +assure existence to the common people by fixing the maximum of prices +for objects of prime necessity. Commodities, prices and Business +reasserted with violence their own liberty against those who wished to +preach to them and impose ethics upon them. + +Thermidor, whatever may have been the original intentions of the +Thermidorians, whether vile, cowardly, or misguided, was, in its hidden +causes as in its apparent effects, the triumph of Business over +democratic idealism. The constitution of 1793, which marks the extreme +limit that can be reached by the democratic ideal, was never put into +practice. The grave pressure of circumstances, the menace of the +foreigner, the different forms of internal rebellion, from the +Girondists to the Vendee, rendered necessary an exceptional government, +which was the Terror, born of fear. In proportion as dangers ceased, the +need of the terror ceased. But the democracy shattered itself against +the Business which was bringing into existence the property of new +proprietors. The constitution of the year III. consecrated the principle +of moderate liberalism, whence proceeds all the constitutionalism of the +European continent; but it was, before all else, the road leading to the +guaranty of property. To change the proprietors while preserving +property--that is the banner, the watchword, the ensign which defied +through the years from Aug. 10, 1792, the violent tumults as well as the +bold designs of those who attempted to found society upon virtue, +equality and Spartan abnegation. But the Directory was the footpath by +which the revolution arrived at the downfall of itself as an idealistic +effort; and with the Directory, which was open and professed corruption, +this banner became a reality; the proprietors are changed, but property +is saved. And, indeed, to raise upon so many ruins a stable edifice, +there was need of real force; and this was found in that strange +adventurer of incomparable genius, upon whom fortune had imperially +smiled, and he was the only one who possessed the virtue of putting an +end to this gigantic fable, because there was in him neither shadow nor +trace of moral scruples. + +In this furor of events strange things happened. The citizens armed for +the defense of their country, victorious beyond its frontiers over +surrounding Europe, into which with their conquest they carried the +revolution, transformed themselves into a soldiery to oppress the +liberty of their country. The peasants who, at a moment of imperious +suggestion, produced over the feudal estates the anarchy of 1789, now +having become soldiers, or small proprietors, or small farmers, and +having remained for a moment the advance sentinels of the revolution, +fell back into the silent and stolid calm of their traditional life, +which, without risks and without movements, served as a sure basis for +the so-called social order. The petty bourgeois of the cities, and the +former members of the guilds rapidly developed, in the camp of economic +struggle, into free traffickers in manual labor. The freedom of trade +required that every product become easily merchantable, and thus it +triumphed over the last obstacle, by enforcing the demand that labor +also become for it a free commodity. + +All changed at this moment. The state, which for centuries so many +million deluded ones had regarded as a sacred institution or a divine +mandate, allowed its sovereign to be beheaded by the prosaic means of a +technical machine, and thereby lost its sacred character. The state, +also, was becoming a technical appliance, which substituted bureaucracy +for hierarchy. And as the ancient titles no longer assured their +possessors the privilege of exercising diverse functions, this new state +could become the prey of all those who wished to seize upon it; it found +itself, in a word, put up at auction, with the provision that the +successful aspirants must be the solid guarantors of the property of the +new and the old proprietors. The new state, which had need of its +Eighteenth Brumaire to become an orderly bureaucracy, supported upon +victorious militarism, this state which completed the revolution in the +act which denied it, could not dispense with its scripture, and it found +it in the Civil Code, which is the golden book for a society which +produces and sells commodities. It is not in vain that generalized +jurisprudence had preserved and annotated for centuries, in the form of +a scientific discipline, this Roman law, which was, which is and ever +shall be, the typical and classical form of the law of every shopkeeping +society, until communism puts an end to the possibility of buying and +selling. + +The bourgeoisie, which, by the concurrence of so many singular +circumstances effected the revolution with the concurrence of so many +other classes and semi-classes which after a short lapse of time almost +all disappeared from the political stage, seemed, in the moments of the +most violent shocks, as if moved by motives inspired by an ideology, +which would have absolutely no relation with the effects which actually +supervene and perpetuated themselves. The meaning of that is that in the +heat of struggle the bewildering change of the economic substructure +appeared, as if it were, disguised by ideals and obscure by the +interlacings of so many intentions and designs, whence sprung so many +acts of cruelty and of unparalleled heroism, so many currents of +illusion and hard facts of disenchantment. Never had so powerful a faith +in the ideal of progress sprung from human breasts. To deliver the human +race from superstition, and even from religion, to make of each +individual a citizen, or of every private man a public man; those are +its beginnings:--and then on the line of this programme to sum up, in +the short activity of a few years, an evolution which appears to the +most idealistic of to-day as the work of several centuries to come--that +is the idealism of that time! And why should it revolt at the pedagogy +of the guillotine? + +That poetry, grand certainly, if not joyous, left behind it a prose that +was severe enough. And it was the prose of the proprietors who owned +their property to chance, it was that of the high finance and the newly +rich purveyors, marshals, prefects, journalists and mercenary men of +letters; it was the prose of the court of that strange man to whom the +qualities of military genius grafted upon the soul of a brigand, had, +without any doubt, conferred the right of treating as an ideologist +whoever did not admire the bare fact which, in life, as it was with him, +can be nothing else than the simple brutality of success. + +The French Revolution hastened the course of history in a large part of +Europe. To it attaches, on the Continent, all that we call liberalism +and modern democracy, except in the case of the false imitation of +England, and up to the establishment of Italian unity, which was and +will remain perhaps the last act of the revolutionary bourgeoisie. This +revolution was the most vivid and most instructive example of the +fashion in which a society transforms itself and how new economic +conditions develop, and in developing co-ordinate the members of society +into groups and classes. It was the palpable proof of the fashion in +which law is found, when it is necessary for the expression and the +defense of definite relations, and how the state is created, and how +disposal is made of its means, its forces and its organs. Here is seen +how ideas arise from the fields of social institutions, and how +characters, tendencies, sentiments, volitions, that is to say, in a +word, moral forces, are produced and develop into conditions governed by +circumstances. In a word, the data of social science were, so to speak, +prepared by society itself, and it is no wonder if the revolution, +which was preceded ideologically by the most acute form of rationalistic +doctrinairism ever known, ended finally by leaving behind it the +intellectual need of an anti-doctrinaire historical and sociological +science, like that which our own century has attempted to construct. + + +And here, both by what we have seen and by what is known generally, it +is useless to recall anew, how Owen forms one of the same group with +Saint Simon and Fourier, and to repeat through what ways scientific +socialism took its birth. The important thing is in these two points; +that historical materialism could not arise but from the theoretical +consciousness of socialism; and that it can henceforth explain its own +origin with its own principles, which is the greatest proof of its +maturity. + +Thus I have justified the phrase at the beginning of this chapter: ideas +do not descend from heaven. + + +VIII. + +The road traversed thus far has enabled us to take exact account of the +precise and relative value of the so-called doctrine of factors; we know +also how its adherents come to eliminate objectively those provisional +concepts, which were and are a simple expression of a thought not fully +arrived at maturity. + +And, nevertheless, it is necessary that we speak further of this +doctrine, in order to explain better and more in detail for what +reasons two of the so-called factors, the state and the law, have been +and are still considered as the principal and exclusive subject of +history. + +Historians have indeed for centuries placed in these forms of social +life the essence of development. Moreover, they have perceived this +development only in the modification of these forms. History has for +centuries been treated as a discipline relative to the +juridico-political movement and even to the political movement +principally. The substitution of society for politics is a recent thing, +and much more recent still is the reduction of society to the elements +of historical materialism. In other words, sociology is of quite recent +invention, and the reader, I hope, will have understood for himself that +I employ this term for the sake of brevity, to indicate in a general +manner the science of social functions and variations, and that I do not +hold to the specific sense given it by the Positivists. + +It is more satisfactory to say that, up to the beginning of this +century, the data bearing upon usages, customs, beliefs, etc., or even +upon the _natural conditions_, which serve as the foundation and +connection for social forms, were not mentioned in political histories +unless as objects of simple curiosity, or as accessories and complements +of the narration. + +All this cannot be a simple accident, and indeed is not. There is, then, +a double interest in taking account of the tardy appearance of social +history, both because our doctrine justifies yet again by this means +its reason for existence, and because we thus eliminate, in a definite +manner, the so-called factors. + + +If we make an exception of certain critical moments in which social +classes, by an extreme incapacity for adapting themselves to a condition +of relative equilibrium, enter into a crisis of more or less prolonged +anarchy, and if we make an exception of those catastrophes in which an +entire world disappears, as at the fall of the Roman Empire of the West, +or at the dissolution of the Califate, then it may be said that, ever +since there has been a written history, the state appears not only as +the creation of society but also as its support. The first step that +child-like thought had made in this order of considerations is in this +statement: That which governs is also that which creates. + +If, moreover, we make an exception of certain short periods of democracy +exercised with the vivid consciousness of popular sovereignty, as was +the case in a few Greek cities, especially at Athens, and in a few +Italian cities, and especially Florence (the former nevertheless were +composed of free men who were proprietors of slaves, and the latter of +privileged citizens who exploited foreigners and peasants) the society +organized into a state was always composed of a majority at the mercy of +the minority. And thus the majority of men has appeared in history as a +mass sustained, governed, guided, exploited and ill treated, or at least +as a variegated conglomeration of interests, which a few had to govern, +maintaining in equilibrium the divergences, either by pressure or by +compensation. + +Thence the necessity of an art of government, and as it is this before +all else which strikes those who are studying collective life, it was +natural that politics should appear as the author of the social order +and as the sign of the continuity in the succession of historic forms. +To say politics is to say activity, which, up to a certain point, is +exercised in a desired direction, until the moment at least when +calculations dash themselves against unknown or unexpected obstacles. By +taking the state as an imperfect experience would suggest for the author +of society, and politics for the author of the social order, it resulted +that the narrators or philosophical historians were driven to place the +essence of history in a succession of forms, institutions and political +ideas. + +Whence the state drew its origin, where the basis of its performance was +found, that mattered not, as that matters not in current reasoning. The +problems of the genetic order arose, as is known, rather late. The state +is and it finds its reason for existence in its present necessity; that +is so true that the imagination has not been able to adapt itself to the +idea that it has not always existed, and so it has prolonged its +conjectural existence back to the first origins of the human race. The +gods or demigods and heroes were its founders, in mythology at least, +just as in mediaeval theology the Pope is the first and therefore the +divine and perpetual source of all authority. Even in our time, +inexperienced travelers and imbecile missionaries find the state where +there is, as among savages and barbarians, nothing but the gens, or the +tribe of gentes, or the alliance of gentes. + +Two things were necessary that these prejudices of the judgment should +be overcome. In the first place, it was necessary to recognize that the +functions of the state arise, increase, diminish, alter and follow each +other with the variations of certain social conditions. In the second +place, it was necessary to arrive at a comprehension of the fact that +the state exists and maintains itself in that it is organized for the +defense of certain definite interests, of one part of society against +all the rest of society itself, which must be made in such a way, in its +entirety, that the resistance of the subjects, of the ill treated and +the exploited, either is lost in multiple frictions, or is tempered by +the partial advantages, wretched though they be, to the oppressed +themselves. Politics, that art so miraculous and so admired, thus brings +us back to a very simple formula; to apply a force or a system of forces +to the total of resistances. + +The first step, and the most difficult, is taken when the state has been +reduced to the social conditions whence it draws its origin. But these +social conditions themselves have been subsequently defined by the +theory of classes, the genesis of which is in the manner of the +different occupations, granted the distribution of labor, that is to +say, granted the relations which co-ordinate and bind men together in a +definite form of production. + +Thenceforth the concept of the state has ceased to represent the direct +cause of the historic movement as the presumed author of society, +because it has been seen that in each of its forms and its variations +there is nothing else than the positive and forced organization of a +definite class rule, or of a definite compact between different classes. +And then by an ulterior consequence from these premises, it is finally +to be recognized that politics, as the art of acting in a desired +direction, is a comparatively small part of the general movement of +history, and that it is but a feeble part of the formation and the +development of the state itself, in which many things, that is to say, +many relations, arise and develop by a necessary compact, by a tacit +consent, or by violence endured and tolerated. The reign of the +unconscious, if by that we mean what is not decreed by free choice and +forethought, but what is determined and accomplished by a succession of +habits, customs, compacts, etc., has become very considerable in the +domain of the data which form the object of the historic sciences; and +politics, which has been taken as an explanation, has itself become +something to explain. + + +We know now in a positive way the reasons in consequence of which +history had necessarily to appear under a purely political form. + +But this does not mean that we ought to believe that the state is a +simple excrescence, a mere accessory of the social body, or of free +association, as so many Utopians and so many ultra-liberal thinkers of +anarchist tendencies have imagined. If society has thus far culminated +in the state, it is because it has had need of this complement of force +and authority, because it is at first composed of units which are +unequal by reason of economic differentiations. The state is something +very real, a system of forces which maintain equilibrium and impose it +through violence and repression. And to exist as a system of forces it +has been compelled to develop and to establish an economic power, +whether this latter rests upon robbery, the result of war, or whether it +consists in direct property in the domain, or whether it is constituted +little by little, thanks to the modern method of public taxes, which +takes on the constitutional appearance of a self-imposed system of +taxation. It is in this economic power, so considerable in modern times, +that its capacity for acting is founded. It results, that by reason of a +new division of labor, the functions of state give rise to special +orders and conditions, that is to say, to very particular classes, +without including the class of parasites. + +The state, which is and which must be an economic power that in its +defense of the ruling classes it may be furnished with means to repress, +to govern, to administer and to make war, creates in a direct or an +indirect manner an aggregation of new and particular interests, which +necessarily react upon society. Thus the state, by the fact that it has +arisen and that it maintains itself as a guaranty of the social +antitheses, which are a consequence of economic differentiations, +creates around itself a circle of persons interested directly in its +existence. + +Two consequences follow therefrom. As society is not a homogeneous +whole, but a body of specialized articulations, or, rather, a multiform +complexus of objects and interests, it happens that sometimes the +directors of the state seek to isolate themselves, and by this isolation +they oppose themselves to the whole of society, and then, in the second +place, it happens that organs and functions, created first for the +advantage of all, end by no longer serving any interest but those of +groups, and permit abuses of power on the part of coteries and camorras. +Thence arise aristocracies and hierarchies born from the use of the +public power, thence arise dynasties; in the light of simple logic these +formations appear wholly irrational. + +From the first beginnings of written history the state has increased or +diminished its powers, but it has never disappeared, because ever since +there have been, in the society of men unequal in consequence of +economic differentiation, reasons for maintaining and for defending, +through force or conquest, slavery, monopolies, or the predominance of +one form of production, with the domination of man over man. The state +has become, as it were, the field of an endless civil war, which is +developing always, even if it does not always show itself under the +startling form of Marius and Sylla, days of June and wars of Secession. +Within the state, the corruption of man by man has always flourished, +because, if there is no form of domination which does not meet +resistance, there are no forms of resistance which, in consequence of +the pressing needs of life, may not degenerate into a passive compact. + +For these reasons, historic events, seen on the surface of the ordinary +monotonous narrative, appear like the repetition of the same type, with +few variations, like a series of kaleidoscopic pictures. We need not be +astonished if the idealistic Herbart and the caustic or pessimistic +Schopenhauer arrived at this conclusion, that there is no history, in +the sense of any actual _processus_, which is to say in common language; +history is a tiresome song. + +When political history is once reduced to its quintessence, the state +remains illuminated in all its prose. Thenceforth there is no more trace +either of theological divination, nor of metaphysical +transubstantiation, so much in vogue among certain German +philosophers,--for whom the state is the Idea, the State Idea which is +realized in history, the state is the full realization of the +personality, and other stupidities of the same sort. The state is a real +organization of defense to guarantee and perpetuate a mode of +association, the foundation of which is a form of economic production, +or a compact and a transaction between forms. To sum up, the state +assumes, either a system of property, or a compact between several +systems of property. There is the foundation of all its art, the +exercise of which demands that the state itself became an economic +power, and that it also dispose of means and processes to make property +pass from the hands of some into the hands of others. When, by the +effect of an acute and violent change of the forms of production, it is +necessary to resort to an unusual and extraordinary readjustment of the +relations of property (for example, the abolition of mortmain and fiefs, +the abolition of commercial monopolies), then the old political form is +insufficient and revolution is necessary to create a new organ which may +operate the new economic transformation. + + +If we make an exception of the very ancient times which are unknown to +us, all history is developed in the contacts and the antagonisms of the +different tribes and communities, and thereafter of the different +nations and different states; that is to say, that the reasons for the +internal antitheses in the circle of each society are always more and +more complicated with frictions with the outside world. These two +reasons for antagonism condition each other reciprocally, but in ways +which are always varying. Often it is internal disturbance which urges a +community or a city to enter into external collisions; at other times it +is these collisions which alter the internal relations. + +The principal motive for the different relations between the different +communities has been from the beginnings, even as it is to-day, +_commerce_ in the broad sense of the word, that is to say, exchange, +whether it is a matter of giving up, as in the poor tribes, merely the +surplus in exchange for other things, or whether it is a matter, as +to-day, of production on a large scale, which is carried on with the +exclusive intention of selling so as to draw from a sum of money a +larger sum of money. This enormous mass of events exterior and +interior, which accumulate and pile upon each other in history, is such +a trouble to the historians who content themselves with exploring it and +summarizing it, that they become lost in the infinite attempts at +chronological groups and bird's-eye views. Whoever, on the contrary, +knows the internal development of the different social types in their +economic structure, and who considers political events as the particular +results of the forces acting in society, ends by triumphing over the +confusion born out of the multiplicity and the uncertainty of first +impressions, and instead of a chronological or synchronous series, or a +view of the whole, he can arrive at the concrete series of a real +_processus_. + + +In the presence of these realistic conditions all the ideologies founded +on the ethical mission of the state or on any such conception, fall to +the ground. The state is, so to speak, fitted into its place, and it +remains encased, as it were, in the surroundings of the social +development, in its capacity of a form resulting from other conditions, +and in its turn, by reason of its existence, reacting naturally upon the +rest. + +Here arises another question. + +Will this form ever be outgrown?--or can there be a society without a +state?--or can there be a society without classes?--and if we must be +more explicit, will there ever be a form of communist production with a +distribution of labor and of tasks such that there will be no room in it +for the development of inequalities, that source of domination of man +over man? + +It is in the affirmative answer to this question that _scientific +socialism_ consists, in so far as it affirms the coming of communistic +production, not as a postulate, nor as the aim of a free volition, but +as the result of the _processus_ immanent in history. + +As is well known, the premise of this prevision is in the actual +conditions of present capitalist production. This, socializing +continually the mode of production, has subjected living labor more and +more with its regulations to the objective conditions of the technical +process, it has day after day concentrated the property in the means of +production more and ever more into the hands of a few, who as +stockholders, or speculators, are always found to be more and more +removed from immediate labor, the direction of which passes over to +intelligence and science. With the increased consciousness of this +situation among the proletarians, whose instruction in solidarity comes +from the actual conditions of their employment, and with the decrease of +the capacity of the holders of capital to preserve the private direction +of productive labor, a moment will come, when in one fashion or another, +with the elimination in every form of private rent, interest, profit, +the production will pass over to the collectivist association, that is +to say, will become communistic. Thus will disappear all inequalities, +except those of sex, age, temperament and capacity, that is to say, all +those inequalities will cease which engender economic classes, or which +are engendered by them, and the disappearance of classes will put an end +to the possibility of the state, as domination of man over man. The +technical and pedagogical government of intelligence will form the only +organization of society. + +In this fashion, scientific socialism, in an ideal fashion at least, has +triumphed over the state; and its triumph has given it a complete +knowledge both of its mode of origin and the reasons for its natural +disappearance. It has understood it precisely because it does not rise +up against it in a one-sided and subjective fashion, as did more than +once, at different epochs, the cynics, the stoics, the epicureans of all +sorts, the religious sectaries, the visionary monks, the utopians and +finally, in our days, the anarchists of every stripe. Still more, +instead of rising up against it, scientific socialism is proposing to +show how the state continually rises up of itself against itself, by +creating in the means with which it cannot dispense, as, for example, a +colossal system of taxation, militarism, universal suffrage, the +development of education, etc., the conditions of its own ruin. The +society which has produced it will reabsorb it; that is to say, that +just as society in organizing a new form of production will eliminate +the antagonisms between capital and labor, so, with the disappearance of +proletarians and the conditions which render proletarians possible, will +disappear all dependence of men upon his fellow man in any form of +hierarchy, whatever it may be. + +The terms in which the genesis and the development of the state evolve, +from its initial point of appearance in a particular community, where +economic differentiation is beginning, up to the moment where this +disappearance begins to foreshadow itself, make it henceforth +intelligible to us. + +The State has been reduced till it is but a necessary complement of +certain definite economic forms, and thus the theory which would have +seen in it an independent factor in history is thenceforth forever +eliminated. + + +It is henceforth relatively easy to take account of the fashion in which +_law_ has been raised up to the rank of a decisive factor of society, +and thus of history, directly or indirectly. + +Before all else, we must remember in what fashion arose this philosophic +conception of justice generalized, which is the principal foundation of +the theory which maintains that history is dominated by the progress of +independent legislation. + + +With the precocious dissolution of the feudal society in certain parts +of Central and Northern Italy, and with the birth of the Communes, which +were republics of production grouped in trade guilds and merchant +guilds, the Roman law was forced into a place of honor. This law +flowered anew in the Universities. It entered into a struggle with the +barbaric laws and also in part with the canon law; it was then evidently +a form of thought which answered better to the needs of the +bourgeoisie, which was beginning to develop. + +In fact, considering the peculiarities of rival laws, which were either +customs of barbarous nations, or corporation privileges, or papal or +imperial concessions, this law appeared as the universality of _written +reason_. Had it not arrived at the point of regarding human personality +in its most abstract and human relations, since a certain Titius is +capable of becoming debtor and creditor, of selling and buying, of +making a cession, a donation, etc.? Roman law, although elaborated in +its last editing at the command of emperors by servile parasites, +appeared then, amid the decline of mediaeval institutions, as a +revolutionary force, and as such it constituted a great step of +progress. This law, so universal that it gave the means of overthrowing +barbaric laws, was certainly a law which corresponded to human nature +considered under its generic relations; and by its opposition to private +laws and privileges it appeared as a natural law. + +We know, moreover, how this ideology of natural law arose. It acquired +its greatest distinction in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; +but it had long been prepared for by the jurisprudence which took for +its base the Roman law, whether it adopted it, revised it, or corrected +it. + +To the formation of the ideology of natural law another element +contributed, the Greek philosophy of later epochs. The Greeks, who were +the inventors of those definite arts of the mind which are sciences, +never, as is known, drew from their multiple local laws a discipline +corresponding to that which we call the science of law. On the contrary, +by the rapid progress of abstract research in the circle of their +democracies, they arrived very soon at a logical, rhetorical and +pedagogical discussion on the nature of justice, the state, the law, +penalty; and in their philosophy we may trace the rudimentary forms of +all later discussions. But it is not until later, that is to say, in the +Hellenistic epoch, when the limits of Greek life were sufficiently +enlarged to be mingled with those of the civilized world, that, in the +cosmopolitan environment which carried with it the need of searching in +each man for the generic man, the rationalism of justice arose--of +justice or of natural right in the form given it by the stoic +philosophy. The Greek rationalism which had already furnished a certain +formal element to the logical codification of Roman law reappeared in +the eighteenth century in the doctrine of natural right. + +That ideology, whose criticism has served as an arm and an instrument +for giving a juridical form to the economic organization of modern +society, has had, consequently, various sources. Yet, in fact, this +juridical ideology reflects, in the struggle for law and against law, +the revolutionary period of the bourgeois spirit. And, although it takes +its doctrinal point of departure in a return to the traditions of the +ancient philosophy, in the generalization of Roman jurisprudence, in +everything else, and in all its development, it is completely new and +modern. Roman law, although it was generalized by scholasticism and by +modern elaboration, still remains within itself a collection of special +cases which have not been deduced according to a preconceived system, +nor preordained by the systematic mind of the legislator. On the other +hand, the rationalism of the stoics, their contemporaries and their +disciples, was a work of pure contemplation, and it produced no +revolutionary movement around it. The ideology of natural law, which +finally took the name of philosophy of law, was, on the contrary, +systematic, it started always from general formulae, it was aggressive +and polemic, and still more, it was at war with orthodoxy, with +intolerance, with privilege, with constituted bodies; in fine, it fought +for the liberties which to-day constitute the formal conditions of +modern society. It is with this ideology, which was a method of +struggle, that arose for the first time, in a typical and decisive form, +that idea that there is a law which is one and the same with reason. The +laws against which the struggle was carried on appear as deviations, +backward steps, errors. + +From this faith in rational law arose the blind belief in the power of +the legislator, which grew into fanaticism at the critical moments of +the French Revolution. + +Thence the belief that society as a whole is to be submitted to one +single law, equal for all, systematic, logical, consistent. Thence the +conviction that a law guaranteeing to all a legal equality, that is to +say, the privilege of contracting, guaranteed also liberty to all. + +The triumph of true law assures the triumph of reason, and the society +which is regulated by a law equal for all is a perfect society! + +It is useless to say that there were illusions at the bottom of these +tendencies. We all know to what this universal liberation of men was to +lead. But what is most important here is the fact that these persuasions +arose from a conception of law, which considered it as detached from the +social causes which produced it. Likewise that reason, to which these +ideologies appealed, reduced itself to relieving labor, association, +traffic, commerce, political forms and conscience from all limits and +all obstacles which prevented free competition. I have already shown in +another chapter how the great Revolution of the eighteenth century may +serve us for experience. And if there is still some one to-day who +insists on speaking of a rational law which dominates history, of a law, +in short, which would be a _factor_, instead of being a simple _fact_ in +historic revolution, that means that he is living out of our time and +that he has not understood that our liberal and equalitarian +codification has already, in fact, marked the end and the term of that +whole school of natural law. + +By different ways we have arrived in this century at reducing law, +considered previously as a rational thing, into a material thing, and +thus into a thing corresponding to definite social conditions. + +In the first place, the interest in history gained in extent and in +depth, and it led students to recognize that to understand the origins +of law, it was not sufficient to stop at the data of pure reason, nor at +the study of Roman law alone. Barbaric laws, the usages and customs of +nations and societies, so despised by the rationalists, have been +theoretically restored to honor. That was the only way to arrive, +through the study of the most ancient forms, at an understanding of how +the most recent forms could have been successively produced. + +Codified Roman law is a very modern form; that personality, which it +assumes as a universal subject, is an elaboration of a very advanced +epoch, in which the cosmopolitanism of social relations was dominated by +a military-bureaucratic constitution. In this environment, in which a +written code of reason had been built up, there was no longer any trace +of spontaneity or popular life, there was no more democracy. This same +law, before arriving at this crystallization, had arisen and had +developed: and if we study it in its origins and in its developments, +and especially if, in this study, we employ the comparative method, we +recognize that, upon many points, it is analogous to the institutions of +inferior societies and nations. It therefore becomes evident that the +true science of law can be nothing less than the genetic history of the +law itself. + +But, while the European continent had created in the codification of +civil law the type and the textbook of practical bourgeois judgment, was +there not in England another self-originating form of law, which arose +and developed in a purely practical manner, from the very conditions of +the society which produced it without system, and without the action of +methodical rationalism having any part in it? The law, which actually +exists and is applied, is therefore a much simpler and much more modest +thing than was imagined by the enthusiasts who sing the praises of +written judgment, of the empire of reason. For their defense, it must +not be forgotten that they were the ideal precursors of the great +Revolution. For ideology it was necessary to substitute the history of +legal institutions. The philosophy of law ended with Hegel; and if +objectors mention the books published since, I reply that the works +published by professors are not always the index of the progress of +thought. The philosophy of law thus became the philosophical study of +the history of law. And it is not necessary to repeat here again how +historic philosophy ended in economic materialism and in what sense +critical communism is the reversal of Hegel. + + +This revolution, apparently a revolution in ideas alone, is merely an +intellectual reflection of the revolutions which have been produced in +practical life. + +In our century, legislating has become an epidemic; and reason enthroned +in legal ideology has been dethroned by parliaments. In these the +antitheses of class interests have taken on the form of parties; and the +parties struggle for or against definite laws; and all law appears as a +simple fact, or as a thing which it is useful or not useful to do. + +The proletariat has arisen; and wherever the struggle of the laborers +has taken definite form, the bourgeois codes have been convicted of +falsehood. Written judgment has shown itself powerless to save the +wage-workers from the oscillations of the market, to guarantee women and +children against the oppressive hours of the factories, or to find an +expedient to solve the problem of forced idleness. The partial +limitation of the hours of labor has, itself alone, been the subject and +the occasion of a gigantic struggle. The small and the large +bourgeoisie, agrarians and manufacturers, advocates of the poor and +defenders of accumulated wealth, monarchists and democrats, socialists +and reactionaries, have bitterly contended over extracting profit from +the action of the public authorities and over exploiting the +contingencies of politics and parliamentary intrigue, to find the +guaranty and the defense of certain definite interests in the +interpretation of existing law, or in the creation of a new law. This +new legislation has more than once been revised, and the strangest +oscillations may be observed in it; extending from the humanitarianism +which defends the poor and even animals, to the promulgation of martial +law. Justice has been stripped of its mask and has become merely a +profane thing. + +The consciousness of experience has come to us and has given us a +formula as precise as it is modest; every rule of law has been and is +the customary, authoritative, or judicial defense of a definite +interest; the reduction of law to economics is then almost immediately +accomplished. + +If the materialistic conception finally came to furnish to these +tendencies an explicit and systematic view, it is because its +orientation has been determined by the visual angle of the proletariat. +This last is the necessary product and the indispensable condition of a +society in which all the persons are, from an abstract point of view, +equal before the law, but where the material conditions of development +and the liberties of each are unequal. The proletarians are the forces +through which the accumulated means of production reproduce themselves +and reconstitute themselves into new wealth; but they themselves live +only by enrolling themselves under the authority of capital; and from +one day to the next they find themselves out of work, impoverished and +exiles. They are the army of social labor, but their chiefs are their +masters. They are the negation of justice in the empire of law, that is +to say, that they are the irrational element in the pretended domain of +reason. + +History then has not been a _processus_ for arriving at the empire of +reason in law; it has thus far been nothing else than a series of +changes in the form of subjection and servitude. History then consists +entirely in the struggle of interests, and law is but the authoritative +expression of the interests which have triumphed. + +These formulae indeed do not permit us to explain, by the immediate +examination of the various interests which are at its base, every +particular law which has appeared in history. The facts of history are +very complicated; but these general formulae suffice to indicate the +style and the method of research which has been substituted for legal +ideology. + + +IX. + +Here I must give certain formulae. + +Granted the conditions of the development of labor and the instruments +appropriated to it, the economic structure of society, that is to say, +the form of production of the immediate means of life, determines, on an +artificial field, _in the first place and directly_, all the rest of the +practical activity of those associated, and the variation of this +activity in the _processus_ which we call history, that is to say:--the +formation, the frictions, the struggles and the erosions of the +classes;--the corresponding regulations relative to law and +morality;--and the reasons and modes of subordination and subjection of +men toward men and the corresponding exercise of dominion and authority, +in fine, that which gives birth to the State and that which constitutes +it. It determines, _in the second place_, the tendency and in great +part, _in an indirect fashion_, the objects of imagination and of +thought in the production of art, religion and science. + +The products of the _first_ and of the _second stage_, in consequence of +the interests which they create, the habits which they engender, the +persons whom they group and whose spirit and inclinations they specify, +tend to fix themselves and isolate themselves as independent entities; +and thence comes that empirical view, according to which different +independent factors, having an efficacy and a rhythmic movement of their +own, contribute to form the historic _processus_ and the social +configurations which successively result from it. It is the social +classes, in so far as they consist in differentiations of interests, +which unfold in definite ways and in forms of opposition (--whence come +the friction, the movement, the process and the progress--), which have +been the factors--if it was ever necessary to employ this +expression:--the real, proper and positive factors of history, from the +disappearance of primitive communism until to-day. + +The variations of the underlying (economic) structure of society which, +at first sight, show themselves intuitively in the agitation of the +passions, develop consciously in the struggles against law and for law, +and become realized in the shaking and in the ruin of a definite +political organization, have in reality their adequate expression only +in the change in the relations which exist between the different social +classes. And these relations change with the change of the relations +which previously existed between the productivity of labor and the +(legal-political) conditions of co-ordination of those who co-operate in +production. + +And finally, these connections between the productivity of labor and +the co-ordination of those who co-operate in it are changed with the +changing of the instruments--in the broad sense of the word--necessary +to production. The _processes_ and the progress of technique, as they +are the index, are also the condition of all the other _processus_ and +of all progress. + +Society is for us a fact, which we cannot solve, unless it be by that +analysis which reduces the complex forms to the simpler forms, the +modern forms to the older forms: but that is to remain always, +nevertheless, in a society which exists. History is but the history of +society--that is to say, the history of the variations of human +co-operation, from the primitive horde down to the modern State, from +the immediate struggle against nature, by the means of a few very simple +tools, down to the present economic structure, which reduces itself to +these two poles; accumulated labor (capital) and living labor +(proletarians). To resolve the social _complexus_ into simple +individuals, and to reconstruct it afterwards by the acts of free and +voluntary thought; to construct, in fine, society with its reasons, is +to misunderstand the objective nature and the immanence of the historic +_processus_. + +Revolutions, in the broadest sense of the word, and in the specific +sense of the destruction of a political organization, mark the real and +proper dates of historic epochs. Seen from afar, in their elements, in +their preparation and their effects, at long range, they may appear to +us as moments of a constant evolution, with minute variations; but +considered in themselves, they are definite and precise catastrophes, +and it is only as catastrophes that they are historic events. + + +X. + +Ethics, art, religion, science, are they then but products of economic +conditions?--expositions of the categories of these very +conditions?--effluvia, ornaments, emanations and mirages of material +interests? + +Affirmations of this sort, announced with this nudity and crudity, have +already for some time passed from mouth to mouth, and they are a +convenient assistance to the adversaries of materialism, who use them as +a bugbear. The slothful, whose number is great even among the +intellectuals, willingly fit themselves to this clumsy acceptance of +such declarations. What a delight for all careless persons to possess, +once for all, summed up in a few propositions, the whole of knowledge, +and to be able with one single key to penetrate all the secrets of life! +All the problems of ethics, aesthetics, philology, critical history and +philosophy reduced to one single problem and freed thus from all +difficulties! + +In this way the simpletons might reduce the whole of history to +commercial arithmetic; and finally a new and authentic interpretation of +Dante might give us the Divine Comedy illustrated with the process of +manufacturing pieces of cloth which the wily Florentine merchants sold +for their greater profit! + +The truth is that the declarations which involve problems are converted +very easily into vulgar paradoxes in the heads of those who are not +accustomed to triumph over the difficulties of thought by the methodical +use of appropriate means. I shall speak here, in general terms, of these +problems, but, as it were, by aphorisms; and certainly I do not propose +to write an encyclopedia in this short essay. + + +And first of all, ethics. + +I do not mean systems and catechisms, religious or philosophic. Both of +these have been and are above the ordinary and profane course of human +events in most cases, as Utopias are above things. Neither do I speak of +those formal analyses of ethical relations, which have been elaborated +from the Sophists down to Herbart. This is science and not life. And it +is formal science, like logic, geometry and grammar. The one who latest +and with so much profundity defined these ethical relations (Herbart), +knew well that ideas, that is to say, the formal points of view of the +moral judgment, are in themselves powerless. Therefore he put into the +circumstances of life and into the pedagogic formation of character the +reality of ethics. He might have been taken for Owen if he had not been +a retrograde. + +I am speaking of that ethics which exists prosaically and in an +empirical and current fashion, in the inclinations, the habits, the +customs, the counsels, the judgments and the appreciations of ordinary +mortals. I am speaking of that ethics which as suggestion, as impulse +and as bridle, appears in different degrees of development, and more or +less unmistakably, although in a fragmentary fashion, among all men; by +the very fact of association because each occupies a definite position +in the association, they naturally and necessarily reflect upon their +own works and the works of others, and they conceive obligations and +appreciations and all the first elements of general precepts. + +There is the _factum_; and what is most important is that this _factum_ +appears to us varied and multiple in the different conditions of life, +and variable through history. This _factum_ is the _datum_ of research. +Facts are neither true nor false, as Aristotle already knew. Systems, on +the contrary, theologic or rational, may be true or false because they +aim to comprehend, explain and complete the fact, by bringing that fact +to another fact, or integrating it with another. + +Some points of preliminary theory are henceforth settled, in all that +concerns the interpretation of this _factum_. + +The will does not choose of itself, as was supposed by the inventors of +_free will_, that product of the impotency of the psychological analysis +not yet arrived at maturity. Volitions, in so far as they are facts of +consciousness, are particular expressions of the psychic mechanism. +They are a result, first of necessities, and then, of all that precedes +them up to the very elementary organic impulse. + +Ethics does not place itself nor does it engender itself. There is no +such universal foundation of the ethical relations varied and variable, +as that spiritual entity which has been called the _moral conscience_, +one and unique for all men. This abstract entity has been eliminated by +criticism like all other such entities, that is to say, like all the +faculties of the soul. What a beautiful explanation of the fact, in +truth, to assume the generalization of the fact itself as a means of +explanation. People reasoned thus: the sensations, the perceptions, the +intuitions at a certain moment are found imagined, that is to say, +changed in their form, therefore the imagination has transformed them. +To this class of inventions belongs the _moral conscience_, which was +accepted as a postulate of the ethical estimates, which are always +conditioned. The moral conscience which really exists is an empirical +fact; it is an index or a summary of the relative ethical formation of +each individual. If there can be in it material for science, this cannot +explain the ethical relations by means of the conscience, but the very +thing it needs is to understand how that conscience is formed. + +If volitions are derived, and if morality results from the conditions of +life, ethics, in its completeness, is but a formation; its problem is +altogether pedagogic. + +There is a pedagogy which I will call individualistic and subjective, +which, granted the generic conditions of human perfectibility, +constructs abstract rules by which men, who are still in a period of +formation, may be led to be strong, courageous, truthful, just, +benevolent, and so on through the entire extent of the cardinal or +secondary virtues. But again, can subjective pedagogy construct of +itself a social background upon which all these beautiful things ought +to be realized? If it constructs it, it simply elaborates a Utopia. + +And, in truth, the human race, in the rigid course of its development, +never had time nor occasion to go to the school of Plato or of Owen, of +Pestalozzi or Herbart. It has done as it has been forced to do. +Considered in an abstract manner, all men can be educated and all are +perfectible; as a matter of fact, they have always been perfected and +instructed as much as and in the measure that they could, granted the +conditions of life in which they were obliged to develop. It is here +precisely that the word environment is not a metaphor, and that the use +of the word compact is not metaphorical. Real morality always presents +itself as something conditioned and limited, which the imagination has +sought to outgrow, by constructing Utopias, and by creating a +supernatural pedagogue, or a miraculous redemption. + +Why should the slave have had the ways of seeing and the passions and +the sentiments of the master whom he feared? How could the peasant +relieve himself of his invincible superstitions, to which he was +condemned by his immediate dependence upon nature and his mediate +dependence upon a social mechanism unknown to him, and by his blind +faith in the priest, who stands to him as a magician and sorcerer. In +what fashion could the modern proletarian of the great industrial +cities, exposed continuously to the alternatives of misery or +subjection, how could he realize that way of living, regulated and +monotonous, which was the one suited to the members of the trade guilds, +whose existence seemed imbedded in a providential plan? From what +intuitive elements of experience could the hog merchant of Chicago, who +furnishes Europe with so many products at a cheap rate, extract the +conditions of serenity and intellectual elevation which gave to the +Athenian the qualities of the noble and good man, and to the Roman +citizen, the dignity of heroism? What power of docile Christian +persuasion will extract from the souls of the modern proletarians their +natural reasons of hate against their determined or undetermined +oppressors? If they wish that justice be done, they must appeal to +violence; and before the love of one's neighbor as a universal law can +appear possible to them, they must imagine a life very different from +the present life, which makes a necessity of hatred. In this society of +differentiations, hatred, pride, hypocrisy, falsehood, baseness, +injustice and all the catechism of the cardinal vices and their +accessories make a sad appendage to the morality, equal for all, upon +which they constitute the satire. + +Ethics then reduces itself for us to the historical study of the +subjective and objective conditions of how morality develops or meets +obstacles to its development. In this only, that is to say, within these +limits, we can recognize some value in the affirmation that morality +corresponds to the social situations, and, _in the last analysis_, to +the economic conditions. Only an idiot could believe that the individual +morality of each one is proportionate to his individual economic +situation. That is not only empirically false, but intrinsically +irrational. Granted the natural elasticity of the psychic mechanism, and +also the fact that no one lives so shut up in his own class that he does +not undergo the influence of other classes, of the common environment +and of the interlacing traditions, it is never possible to reduce the +development of each individual to the abstract and generic type of his +class and his social status. We are dealing there with the phenomena of +the mass, of those phenomena which form, or should form, the objects of +_moral statistics_: the discipline which has thus far remained +incomplete, because it has taken for the objects of its combinations +groups which it creates of itself by the addition of numbers of cases +(for example, adulteries, thefts, homicides) and not the groups which, +as classes, conditions, or situations exist really, that is to say, +socially. + +To recommend morality to men while assuming or ignoring their +conditions, this was hitherto the object and the class of argument of +all the catechists. To recognize that these are given by the social +environment, that is what the communists oppose to the utopia and the +hypocrisy of the preachers of morality. And as they see in morality not +a privilege of the elect, nor a gift of nature, but a result of +experience and education, they admit human perfectibility through +reasons and arguments which are, in my opinion, more moral and more +ideal than those which have been given by the ideologists. + + +In other words, man develops, or produces himself, not as an entity +generically provided with certain attributes, which repeat themselves, +or develop themselves, according to a rational rhythm, but he produces +and develops himself as at once cause and effect, as author and +consequence, of certain definite conditions, in which are engendered +also definite currents of ideas, of opinions, of beliefs, of +imaginations, of expectations, of maxims. Thence arise ideologies of +every sort, as also the generalization of morality in catechisms, in +canons and in systems. We must not be surprised if these ideologies, +once arisen, are afterwards cultivated alone by themselves, if they +finally appear, as it were, detached from the living field whence they +took their birth, nor if they hold themselves above man as imperative +rules and models. + +The priests and the doctrinaires of every sort have given themselves +for centuries to this labor of abstraction, and have forced themselves +to maintain the resulting illusions. Now that the positive sources of +all ideologies have been found in the mechanism of life itself, we must +explain realistically their mode of generation. And as that is true of +all ideologies, it is true also and, in particular of those which +consist in projecting ethical estimates beyond their natural and direct +limits, making of them anticipations of divine announcements or +presuppositions of universal suggestions of conscience. + +Therein lies the object of the special historic problems. We cannot +always find the tie which unites certain ethical ideas to practical +definite conditions. The concrete social psychology of past times often +remains impenetrable to us. Often the commonest things remain for us +unintelligible, for example, the animals considered as unclean, or the +origin for the repugnance at marriage between persons of remote degrees +of relationship. A prudent course of study leads us to conclude that the +motives of many details will remain always concealed. Ignorance, +superstition, singular illusions, symbolisms, these with many others are +causes of that unconscious element, often found in customs, which now +constitutes for us the unknown and the unknowable. + +The principal cause of all difficulty is precisely in the tardy +appearance of what we call reason, so that the traces of the proximate +motives of ideas have been lost or have remained enveloped in the ideas +themselves. + + +On the subject of science we can be much more brief. + +For a long time history has been made in an artless fashion. Granted and +admitted that the different sciences have their statements in manuals +and encyclopedias, it seemed sufficient to work out chronologically the +appearance of the different formulas, resolving the total of the +systematic summary into the elements which have successively served to +compose it. The general presupposition was simple enough; underneath +this chronology is the rational conception which develops and +progresses. + +This method, if so it could be called, had within itself a certain +disadvantage; it permitted us at best to understand how, one stage of +science being granted, another stage of science may be derived from it +by reason, but it did not permit us to discern by what condition of +facts men were driven to discover science for the first time, that is to +say, to reduce considered experience into a new and definite form. The +question was, then, to find why there is an actual history of science, +to find the origin of the scientific necessity, and what unites in a +genetic fashion that necessity to our necessities in the continuity of +the social _processus_. + +The great progress of modern technique, which really constitutes the +intellectual substance of the bourgeois epoch, has worked, among other +miracles, this one also, of revealing to us for the first time the +practical origin of the _scientific attitude_. (We can never forget the +Florentine Academy, which produced this phrase, when Italy was in the +twilight of its past grandeur and when modern society was in the dawn of +the great industry.) Henceforth we are in a position to take up the +guiding thread of what, by abstraction, is called the scientific spirit; +and no one is any longer astonished at finding that everything in +scientific discoveries has come about, as was the case in other +primitive times, when the clumsy elementary geometry of the Egyptians +arose from the necessity of measuring the fields exposed to the annual +inundations of the Nile, and when the periodicity of these inundations +suggested, in Egypt and in Babylon, the discovery of the rudiments of +the astronomical movements. + +It is certainly true that when science is once created and partially +ripened, as had already happened in the Hellenic period, the work of +abstraction, of deduction and of combination continues among scientists +in such a way that it possibly obliterates the consciousness of the +social causes of the first production of science itself. But if we +examine in their main features the epochs of the development of science, +and if we confront the periods which the ideologists would characterize +as periods of progress and of retrogression of intelligence, we perceive +clearly the social reason for the impulses, sometimes increasing, +sometimes decreasing, toward scientific activity. What need had the +feudal society of Western Europe for this ancient science, which the +Byzantines preserved, at least materially, while the Arabs, free +agriculturists, industrious artisans, or skillful merchants, had +succeeded in increasing it a little. What is the Renaissance, if not the +joining of the initiatory movement of the bourgeoisie to the traditions +of ancient learning, which had become usable? What is all the +accelerated movement of scientific knowledge, since the seventeenth +century, but the series of acts accomplished by intelligence, refined by +experience, to assure human labor, in the forms of an improved +technique, the dominion over natural forces and conditions? Thence +arises the war against darkness, superstition, the Church, religion; +thence arise naturalism, atheism, materialism; thence the installation +of the domain of reason. The bourgeois epoch is the epoch of minds in +full play. (Vico.) It is worth remembering that this government of the +Directory, which was the prototype and the compendium of all liberal +corruption, was the first to introduce in the University and at the +Academy in a formal and solemn fashion the science of free inquiry with +Lamark! This science, which the bourgeois epoch has, through its +inherent conditions, stimulated and made to grow like a giant, is the +only heritage of past centuries which communism accepts and adopts +without reserve. + +It would not be useful to stop here for the discussion of the so-called +antithesis between science and philosophy. If we accept those fashions +of philosophizing which are confounded with mysticism and theology, +philosophy never means a science or doctrine separate from its +appropriate and particular things, but it is simply a degree, a form, a +stage of thought with relation to the things which enter into the domain +of experience. Philosophy is, then, either a generic anticipation of the +problems which science has still to elaborate specifically, or a summary +and a conceptual elaboration of the results at which the sciences have +already arrived. As for those who, that they may not appear behind the +times, talk now of scientific philosophy, if we do not wish to stop over +the humorous element that there is in that expression, it will suffice +to say that they are simply fools. + + +I said some pages back, in my statement of formulas, that the economic +structure determines in the second place the direction, and in great +part and indirectly, the objects of imagination and of thought in the +production of art, of religion and of science. To express this +otherwise, or to go further, would be to put one's self voluntarily on +the road toward the absurd. + +Before all else, in this formula, we are opposing the fantastic opinion, +that art, religion and science are subjective developments and +historical developments of a pretended artistic, religious or scientific +spirit, which would go on manifesting itself successively through its +own rhythm of evolution, favored or retarded on this side or that by +material conditions. By this formula, it is desired to assert, moreover, +the necessary connection, through which every fact of art and of +religion is the exponent, sentimental, fantastic and thus derived, of +definite social conditions. If I say _in the second place_, it is to +distinguish these products from the facts of legal-political order which +are a true and proper projection of economic conditions. And if I say +_in great part and indirectly the objects_ of these activities, it is to +indicate two things: that in artistic or religious production the +mediation from the conditions to the products is very complicated, and +again that men, while living in society, do not thereby cease to live +alone by themselves in nature, and to receive from it occasion and +material for curiosity and for imagination. + +After all, this is all reduced to a more general formula; man does not +make several histories at the same time, but all these alleged different +histories (art, religion, etc.) make up one alone. And it is not +possible to take account of that clearly except at the characteristic +and significant moment of the production of new things, that is to say +in the periods which I will call revolutionary. Later, the acceptance of +the things that have been produced, and the traditional repetition of a +definite type, obliterated the sense of the origins of things. + +Try, if you will, to detach the ideology of the _fables_ which are at +the foundation of the Homeric poems, from that moment of historic +evolution where we find the dawn of Aryan civilization in the basin of +the Mediterranean, that is to say, from that phase of the higher +barbarism in which arises, in Greece and elsewhere, the epic. Or try to +imagine the birth and the development of Christianity elsewhere than in +Roman cosmopolitanism, and otherwise than by the work of those +proletarians, those slaves, those unfortunates, those desperate ones, +who had need of the redemption of the Apocalypse and of the promise of +the Kingdom of God. Find, if you will, the ground for supposing that in +the beautiful environment of the Renaissance the romanticism should +begin to appear, which scarcely appeared in the decadent Torquato Tasso; +or that one might attribute to Richardson or to Diderot the novels of +Balzac, in whom appears, as a contemporary of the first generation of +socialism and sociology, the _psychology of classes_. Far back, farther, +farther, at the first origins of the mythical conceptions, it is evident +that Zeus did not assume the characters of father of gods and men until +the power of the _patria potestas_ was already established, and that +series of _processus_ began which culminated in the State. Zeus thus +ceases to be what was at first the simple _divus_ (brilliant) or the +Thunderer. And it is to be observed that at an opposite point of +historic evolution, a great number of thinkers of the past century +reduced to a single abstract God, who is a simple regent of the world, +all that variegated image of the unknown and transcendental type, +developed in so great a wealth of mythological, Christian or pagan +creations. Man felt himself more at home in nature, thanks to +experience, but felt himself better able to penetrate the gearing of +society, the knowledge of which he possessed in part. The miraculous +dissolved in his mind, to the point where materialism and criticism +could afterwards eliminate that poor remnant of transcendentalism, +without taking up war against the gods. + +There is certainly a history of ideas; but this does not consist in the +vicious circle of ideas that explain themselves. It lies in rising from +things to the idea. There is a problem; still more, there is a multitude +of problems, so varied, multiple, multiform and mingled are the +projections which men have made of themselves and of their +economic-social conditions, and thus of their hopes and their fears, of +their desires and their deceptions, in their artistic and religious +concepts. The method is found, but the particular execution is not easy. +We must above all guard against the scholastic temptation of arriving by +deduction at the products of historic activity which are displayed in +art and in religion. We must hope that philosophers like Krug, who +explained the pen with which he wrote by a process of dialectic +deduction, have remained forever buried in the notes of Hegel's logic. + + +Here I must state certain difficulties. + +Before attempting to reduce secondary products (for example, art and +religion) to the social conditions which they idealize, one must first +acquire a long experience of specified social psychology, in which the +transformation is realized. Therein consists the justification of that +sum of relations, which is designated in another form of language, under +the name of Egyptian _world_, Greek _consciousness_, _spirit_ of the +Renaissance, _dominant ideas_, _psychology of nations_, of society or of +classes. When these relations are established, and men have become +accustomed to certain conceptions and certain modes of belief or of +imagination, the ideas transmitted by tradition tend to become +crystallized. Thus they appear as a force which resists new formations; +and as this resistance shows itself through the spoken word, through +writing, through intolerance, through polemics, through persecution, so +the struggle between the new and the old social conditions takes on the +form of a struggle between ideas. + +In the second place, through the centuries of history properly +so-called, and as a consequence of the heredity of the pre-history of +savagery and of the conditions of subjection and those of inferiority in +which the majority of men were and are placed, resulted acquiescence in +what is traditional, and the ancient tendencies are perpetuated as +obstinate survivals. + +In the third place, as I have said, men living socially, do not cease to +live also in nature. They are not, of course, bound to nature as animals +are, because they live on an artificial groundwork. Every one +understands, moreover, that a house is not a cave, that agriculture is +not natural pasturage, and that pharmacy is not exorcism. But nature is +always the immediate subsoil of the artificial groundwork, and it is the +environment which contains us. The industrial arts have put between us +social animals, and nature, certain intermediaries which modify, set +aside or remove the natural influences; but it has not for all that +destroyed the efficacy of these, and we continually feel their effects. +And even as we are born men or women, as we die almost always in spite +of ourselves, and as we are dominated by the instinct of generation, so +we also bear in our temperament certain special conditions which +education in the broad sense of the word, or social compact, can modify, +it is true, within certain limits, but which they can never suppress. +These conditions of temperament, repeated in infinite cases throughout +the centuries, constitute what is called the race. For all these +reasons, our dependence upon nature, although it has diminished since +prehistoric times, continues in our social life, just as the food which +the sight of nature affords to the curiosity and the imagination +continues also in our social life. Now these effects of nature, and the +sentiments immediate or mediate which result from it, although they have +been perceived, since history began, only on the visual angle which is +given us by the conditions of society, never fail to reflect themselves +in the products of art and of religion, and that adds to the +difficulties of a realistic and complete interpretation of both. + + +XI. + +In employing this doctrine as a new principle of research, as a precise +means of defining our position, and as a visual angle, will it really be +possible finally to arrive at a new narrative history? It is not +possible to make an affirmative answer in general to this generic +demand. Because, in fact, if we assume that the critical communist, the +sociologist of economic materialism, or as he is commonly called, the +Marxist, has the necessary critical preparation, the habit of historical +study, and also the gift required for an orderly and vivacious +narration, there is no reason for affirming that he cannot write +history, as heretofore the partisans of all other political schools have +written it. + +We have the example of Marx, and there is an argument from fact which +admits of no reply. But he was the first and the principal author of the +decisive concepts of this doctrine, reducing it at once into an +instrument of political orientation, in his character of an incomparable +publicist, during the revolutionary period of 1848 to 1850. And then he +applied it with the greatest precision in that essay entitled Eighteenth +Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, of which it may be said today, at a great +distance, and after so many publications, if we except certain +infinitesimal details and certain false forecasts, that it would be +possible to make neither corrections nor important complements. I will +not repeat, since I am not writing a bibliography, the list of the +different writings of Marx or Engels--of which we have so many attempts +from the Peasants' War (1850) down to his posthumous writings on The +Present Unity of Germany--which are an application of the doctrine, nor +those of their successors and of the popularizers of scientific +socialism. Even in the socialist press we may read, from time to time, +valuable attempts at explanation of certain political events, in which +is found, precisely by reason of historic materialism, a clearness of +vision which would be sought in vain among the writers and the +disputants who have not yet torn away the fantastic veils and +ideological envelopes of history. + +Here is not the place to take up the defense of an abstract thesis, as +an advocate would do. It is evident, nevertheless, in all the histories +which have been written up to the present time, that there is always at +bottom, if not in the explicit intentions of the writers, certainly in +their spirit, a tendency, a principle, a general view of life; and so +this doctrine, which has enabled us to study the social structure in an +objective manner, must finally direct with precision the researches of +history, and must end in a narrative complete, transparent and integral. + + +Helps are not lacking. + +_Economics_, which, as everyone sees it today, had its birth and +development as the science of bourgeois production, after being puffed +up with the illusion of representing the absolute laws of all forms of +production, has through the dear school of experience entered since, as +everyone knows, upon a period of self-criticism. Just as this +self-criticism gave birth, on one side, to critical communism, so on the +other side it has given birth, through the labor of the calmest, the +wisest and the most prudent of the academic tradition, to the +_historical school of economic phenomena_. Thanks to this school, and +through the effect of the application of the descriptive and comparative +methods, we are henceforth in possession of a vast sum of knowledge on +the different historical forms of _economics_, from the most complex +facts and those best specified through essential differences of types, +down to the special domain of a cloister or a trade guild of the Middle +Ages. The same thing has taken place with _statistics_, which, by the +indefinite combination of its sources, succeeds now in throwing light, +with a sufficient approximation, upon the movement of population in past +centuries. + +These studies, certainly, are not made in the interest of our doctrine, +and oftener than not they are made in a spirit hostile to socialism; +something not observed, we may say in passing, by those foolish readers +of printed papers who so often confuse _economic history_, _historical +economics_, and _historical materialism_. But these studies, apart from +the materials which they gather, are remarkable in that they witness the +progress which is in course of making the _internal history_ which, +little by little, is taking the place of the _external history_ with +which, for centuries, the men of letters and artists were occupied. + +A good part of these materials that have been gathered must always be +submitted to new corrections, as for that matter happens in every domain +of empirical knowledge, which oscillates continually between what is +held for certain and what is simply probable, and what must, later, be +integrated or eliminated. + +The deductions and the combinations of the historians of economics, or +of those who relate history in general, availing themselves of the +guiding thread of economic phenomena, are not always so plausible or so +conclusive, that one does not feel the need of saying to them: All this +must be taken back and worked over. But that which is undoubted is the +fact that in this present time all writing of history tends to become a +science, or, better, a social discipline; and when that movement, now +uncertain and multiform, shall be accomplished, the efforts of the +scholars and inquirers will lead inevitably to the acceptance of +economic materialism. By this incidence of efforts and of scientific +labors, which start from points so opposite, the materialistic +conception of all history will end by penetrating men's minds as a +definite conquest of thought; and this will finally take away from +partisans and adversaries the attempt to speak _pro_ and _con_ as for +partisan theses. + +Apart from the direct helps just enumerated, our doctrine has many +indirect helps, so that it can profitably employ the results of many +disciplines, in which by reason of the greater simplicity of the +relations, it has been possible more easily to make the application of +the genetic method. The typical case is furnished by glottology, and in +a more special fashion by the study which has for its object the ancient +languages. + +The application of historical materialism is certainly, hitherto, very +far from that evidence and that clearness of _processus_ of analysis and +of reconstruction. It would be consequently a vain attempt to try, at +this moment, to write a summary of universal history, which should +propose to develop all the varied forms of production in order to deduce +from them afterwards all the rest of human activity, in a particular and +circumstantial fashion. In the present state of knowledge, he who should +try to give this _compendium_ of a new _Kulturgeschichte_ would do +nothing but translate into economic phraseology the points of general +orientation which, in other books, for example, in Hellwald, give it in +Darwinian phraseology. + +It is a long step from the acceptance of the principle to its complete +and particular application to the whole of a vast province of facts, or +to a great succession of phenomena. + +So the application of our doctrine must be kept for a moment to the +exposition and the study of definite parts of history. The modern forms +are clear to all. The economic developments of the bourgeoisie, the +manifest knowledge of the different obstacles which it has had to +overcome in the different countries, and, consequently, the development +of the different revolutions, taking this word in its broadest sense, +contribute to make our understanding of it easy. To our eyes the +pre-history of the bourgeoisie, at the moment of the decline of the +Middle Ages, is equally clear, and it would not be difficult to find, +for example, in the development of the city of Florence, an attested +series of developments, in which the economic and statistical movement +finds a perfect correspondence in the political relations and a +sufficient illustration in the contemporary development of intelligence +already reduced into prose and stripped, in great part, of ideological +illusions. Nor would it be impossible to reduce, now, under the definite +visual angle of materialism, the whole of ancient Roman history. But for +that, and particularly, for the primitive period, there are no direct +sources; they are, on the contrary, abundant in Greece, from popular +tradition, the epic, and the authentic juridical inscriptions, down to +the pragmatic studies of the historical social relations. At Rome, on +the other hand, the struggles for political rights carry with them +almost always the economic reasons upon which they rest. Thus, the +decline of definite classes, the formation of new classes, the movement +of conquest, the change of the laws and of the forms of political array, +appear to us with perfect clearness. This Roman history is hard and +prosaic; it was never clad with these ideological complements which +were suited to Greek life. The rigid prose of conquest, of planned +colonization, of institutions and of the forms of law, conquered and +devised for solving the problems arising from definite frictions and +contrasts, makes all Roman history a chain of events which follow each +other in a sequence which is grossly evident. + + +The true problem consists, indeed, not in substituting sociology for +history, as if the latter had been an appearance which conceals behind +it a secret reality, but in understanding history as a whole, in all its +intuitive manifestations, and in understanding it through the aid of +economic sociology. It is not a question of separating the accident from +the substance, the appearance from the reality, the phenomenon from the +intrinsic kernel, or applying any other formula used by the partisans of +any species of scholasticism, but of explaining the connection and the +_complexus_ precisely in so far as it is a connection and a _complexus_. +It is not merely a question of discovering and determining the social +groundwork, and then of making men appear upon it like so many +marionettes, whose threads are held and moved, no longer by Providence +but by economic categories. These categories have themselves developed +and are developing, like all the rest--because men change as to the +capacity and the art of vanquishing, subduing, transforming and +utilizing natural conditions; because men change in spirit and attitude +through the reaction of their tools upon themselves; because men change +in their respective and co-associated relations; and therefore as +individuals depending in various degrees upon one another. We have, in +fine, to do with history, and not with its skeleton. We are dealing with +narration and not with abstraction, with the explaining and treating of +the whole, and not merely with resolving and analyzing it; we have to +do, in a word, now, as always, with an art. + +It may be that the sociologist who follows the principles of economic +materialism proposes to keep himself simply to the analysis, for +example, of what the classes were at the moment when the French +Revolution broke out, and to pass then to the classes that result from +the Revolution and survive it. In that case the titles, the indications +and the classifications of the materials to analyze are definite; they +are, for example, the city and the country, the artisan and the laborer, +the nobles and the serfs, the land which is freed from feudal charges, +and the small proprietors who came into being, commerce which frees +itself from so many restrictions, money which accumulates, industry +which prospers, etc. There is nothing to object to in the choice of this +method, which, because it follows the track of embryonic origins, was +indispensable to the preparation of historical research according to the +direction of the new doctrine.[29] + +But we know that the study of embryonic origins does not suffice to +make us understand animal life, which is not a scheme, but is composed +of living beings which struggle, and in their struggle employ forces, +instincts and passions. And it is the same, _mutatis mutandis_, with men +also, in so far as they live historically. These particular men, moved +by certain passions, urged by certain circumstances, with such and such +designs, such intentions, acting in such an attempt with such an +illusion of their own, or with such a deception, of another, who, +martyrs of themselves or of others, enter on harsh contests and +reciprocal suppressions of each other--there is the real history of the +French Revolution. If, however, it is true that all history is but the +unfolding of definite economic conditions, it is equally true that it +develops only in definite forms of human activity,--whether the latter +be passionate or reflective, fortunate or unsuccessful, blindly +instinctive or deliberately heroic. + +To understand the interlacings and the _complexus_ in its inner +connection and its outer manifestations; to descend from the surface to +the foundation, and then to return from the foundation to the surface; +to analyze the passions and the intentions, in their motives, from the +closest to the most remote, and then to bring back the data of the +passions and of the intentions and of their causes to the most remote +elements of a definite economic situation; there is the difficult art +which the materialistic conception must realize. + +And as we must not imitate that teacher who on the bank taught his +pupils to swim by the definition of swimming, I beg the reader to await +the examples which I shall give in other essays in a real historical +narration, working over into a book which for some time I have already +been doing in my teaching. + +In this way certain secondary and derivative questions are once for all +cleared up. + +What, for example, is the meaning of the lives of the great men? + +In these later times, answers have been given, which, in one sense or +another, have an extreme character. On the one side, there are the +extreme sociologists, on the other side the individualists who, after +the fashion of Carlyle, put the heroes into the first rank of their +history. According to some it is sufficient to show what were the +reasons, for example, of Caesarism, and Caesar matters little. According +to others, there are no objective reasons of classes and social +interests which suffice to explain anything; it is the great minds which +give the impulse to the whole historic movement; and history has, so to +speak, its lords and its monarchs. The empiricists of narration extract +themselves from embarrassment in a very simple fashion, putting together +at hazard men and things, objective necessities of fact and subjective +influences. + +Historical materialism goes beyond the antithetical views of the +sociologists and the individualists, and at the same time it eliminates +the eclecticism of the empirical narrators. + +First of all the _factum_. + +Let this particular Caesar, as Napoleon was, be born in such a year, let +him follow such a career, and find himself ready for the Eighteenth +Brumaire. All this is completely accidental with relation to the general +course of things which was pushing the new class, mistress of the field, +to save from the Revolution that which appeared to it necessary to save, +and that necessitated the creation of a bureaucratico-military +government. It was, however, necessary to find the man, or the men. But +what actually happened came about in the fashion that we know. It +depended on this fact, that it was Napoleon who directed the enterprise +and not a pitiable Monk, or a ridiculous Boulanger. And from that moment +the accident ceases to be accident, precisely because it is this +definite person who gives his imprint and physiognomy to the events, +determining the fashion or the manner in which they have unfolded. + +The very fact that all history rests upon antitheses, contrasts, +struggles and wars, explains the decisive influence of certain men in +definite occasions. These men are neither a negligible accident of the +social mechanism, nor miraculous creators of what society, without them, +could have made in no other fashion. It is the very interlacings of the +antithetic conditions, which causes the fact that definite individuals, +generous, heroic, fortunate, mischievous, are called at critical moments +to say the decisive word. As long as the particular interests of the +different social groups are in such a state of tension, that all the +parties in the struggle reciprocally paralyze each other, then to make +the political gearing move, there is need of the individual +consciousness of a definite individual. + +The social antitheses, which make of every human community an unstable +organization, give to history, especially when it is seen and examined +rapidly and in its main features, the character of a drama. This drama +in all its relations is repeated from community to community, from +nation to nation, from state to state, because the inner inequalities +concurring with the external differentiations, have produced and produce +the whole movement of wars, conquests, treaties, colonizations, etc. In +this drama have always appeared, in the role of leaders of society, the +men who are characterized as eminent, as great, and empiricism has +concluded from their presence that they were the principal authors of +history. To carry back the explanation of their appearance to the +general causes and the common conditions of the social structure, is a +thing which harmonizes perfectly with the data of our doctrine; but to +try to eliminate them, as certain affected objectivists of sociology +would willingly do, is pure capriciousness. + + +And to conclude, the partisan of historical materialism who sets himself +the task of explaining, or relating, cannot do it through schemes. + +History has always received a definite form, with an infinite number of +accidents and variations. It has a certain grouping, it has a certain +perspective. + +It is not enough to have eliminated preventively the hypothesis of +factors, because the narrator constantly finds himself in the presence +of things which seem incongruous, independent, and self-directing. To +present the whole as a whole, and to discover in it the continuous +relations of the events which border on each other, there is the +difficulty. + +The sum of events narrowly consecutive and precise gives the whole of +history; and this is equivalent to saying that it is all that we know of +our being, in so far as we are social beings and not simply natural +beings. + + +XII. + +In the successive whole, and in the continuous necessity of all +historical events, is there, then, some ask, any meaning, any +significance? This question, whether it comes from the camp of the +idealists, or whether it comes to us from the mouth of the most +circumspect critics, certainly, and in all cases, demands our attention, +and requires an adequate answer. + +In fact, if we stop at the premises, intuitive or intellectual, from +which is derived the conception of _progress_ as an idea which incloses +and embraces the total of the human _processus_, it is seen that these +presumptions all rest upon the mental need, which is in us, of +attributing to one or more series of events a certain sense and a +certain signification. The conception of progress, for whoever examines +it carefully in its specific nature, always implies judgments of +estimation, and therefore, there is no one who can confuse it with the +crude and bare notion of simple development, which does not contain that +increment of clue which makes us say of a thing that it is progressing. + + +I have already said, and, it seems to me, at sufficient length, how it +is that progress does not exist as something imperative or regulative +over the natural and immediate succession of the generations of men. +That is as intuitive as is the actual coexistence of peoples, of nations +and of states, which find themselves, at the same time, in a different +stage of development; so undeniable is the actual condition of relative +superiority and inferiority of nation as compared with nation; and again +so certain is the partial and relative retrogression which has been +produced several times in history, as Italy has exemplified for +centuries. Still more, if there is a convincing proof of how progress +must be understood in the sense of immediate law, and, to use a strong +expression, of a physical and inevitable law, it is precisely this +fact,--that social development by the very reasons of the _processus_ +which are inherent in it, often leads to retrogression. It is evident, +on the other hand, that the faculty of progressing, like the possibility +of retrogressing, does not constitute, to begin with, an immediate +privilege, or an innate defect of a race, nor is either one the direct +consequence of geographical conditions. And, in fact, the primitive +centers of civilization were multiple, those centers have been removed +in the course of centuries, and finally the means, the discoveries, the +results and the impulses of a definite civilization, already developed, +are, within certain limits, communicable to all men indefinitely. In a +word, progress and retrogression are inherent in the conditions and the +rhythm of social development. + + +Now then, the faith in the universality of progress, which appeared with +so much violence in the eighteenth century, rests upon this first +positive fact, that men, when they do not find obstacles in external +conditions, or do not find them in those which result from their own +work in their social environment, are all capable of progress. + +Moreover, at the bottom of this supposed or imagined unity of history, +in consequence of which the _processus_ of the different societies would +form one single series of progress, there is another fact, which has +offered motive and occasion for so many fantastic ideologies. If all +nations have not progressed equally, still more, if some have stopped +and have followed a backward route, if the _processus_ of social +development has not always, in every place and in all times, the same +rhythm and the same intensity, it is nevertheless certain that, with the +passage of the decisive activity from one people to another people in +the course of history, the useful products, already acquired by those +who were in decadence, have been transmitted to those who were growing +and rising. That is not so true of the products of sentiment and +imagination, which nevertheless are themselves preserved and perpetuated +in literary tradition, as of the results of thought, and especially of +the discovery and of the production of technical means, which, once +found, are communicated and transmitted directly. + +Need we remind the reader that writing was never lost, although the +peoples who invented it have disappeared from historic continuity? Need +we recall again that we all have in our pockets, engraved on our +watches, the Babylonian dial, and that we make use of algebra, which was +introduced by those Arabs, whose historical activity has since been +dispersed like the sands of the desert? It is useless to multiply these +examples, because it is sufficient to think of technology and the +history of discoveries in the broad sense of the word, for which the +almost continuous transmission of the instruments of labor and +production is evident. + +And after all, the provisional summaries which are called universal +histories, although they always reveal, in their aim and in their +execution, something forced and artificial, would never have been +attempted if human events had not offered to the empiricism of the +narrators a certain thread, even though subtle, of continuity. + +Take for example the Italy of the sixteenth century, which is evidently +in decadence; but while it is declining, it transmits to the rest of +Europe its intellectual weapons. These are not all that pass to the +civilization which continues, but even the world market establishes +itself upon the foundation of those geographical discoveries, and those +discoveries in the naval art, which were the work of Italian merchants, +travelers and sailors. It is not only the methods of the art of war and +the refinements of political diplomacy which passed outside of Italy +(though it is only with these that men of letters ordinarily concerned +themselves), but even the art of making money, which had acquired all +the evidence of an elaborate commercial discipline, and one after the +other the rudiments of the science, upon which is founded modern +technique, and to begin with all the methodical irrigation of fields and +the general laws of hydraulics. All that is so precisely true, that an +amateur in conjectural theses might come to the point of asking himself +this question: what would have become of Italy, in this modern bourgeois +epoch, if, executing the project of the Venetian Senate (1504) of making +something which would have resembled in its effects a piercing of the +Isthmus of Suez, the Italian navy had found itself in a direct struggle +with the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean, at the very moment when the +shifting of historical activity from the Mediterranean to the ocean +prepared the decadence of Italy? But enough of fantasy! + + +A certain historical continuity, in the empirical and circumstantial +sense of the transmission and the successive increase of the means of +civilization, is then an incontestable fact. And, although this fact +excludes all idea of preconceived design, of intentional or hidden +finality, or pre-established harmony, and all the other whimsicalities +in regard to which there has been such a deal of speculation, it does +not exclude, for all that, the _idea of progress_, which we can utilize +as an _estimation_ of the course of human development. It is undeniable +that progress does not embrace _materially_ the succession of +generations, and that its conception implies nothing categorical, +considering that societies have also been in retrogression, but that +does not prevent this idea from serving as a guiding thread and a +_measure_ to give a meaning to the historical _processus_. There is no +common ground for critics who are prudent, in the use of specific +concepts as in the method of their application, and those poor extreme +evolutionists, who are scientists without the grammar and the principle +of science, that is to say, without logic. + +As I have said several times, ideas do not fall from heaven, and even +those which, at a given moment arise from definite situations with the +impetuosity of faith and with a metaphysical garb, carry always within +themselves the index of their correspondence with the order of the +facts, of which the explanation is sought or attempted. The idea of +progress, as the unifier of history, appears with violence and becomes a +giant in the eighteenth century, that is to say, in the heroic period of +the intellectual and political life of the revolutionary bourgeoisie. +Just as this engendered, in the order of its works, the most intensive +period of history that is known, it also produced its own ideology in +the notion of progress. This ideology in its substance means that +capitalism is the only form of production which is capable of extending +all over the earth and of reducing the whole human race to conditions +which resemble each other everywhere. If modern technique can be +transported everywhere, if all the human race appear on a single field +of competition and all the world as a single market, what is there +astonishing in the ideology which, reflecting intellectually these +conditions of fact, reaches the affirmation that the present historical +unity has been prepared by everything which precedes it? Translating +this concept of pretended _preparation_ into the altogether natural +concept of _successive condition_, and there is opened before us the +road by which the passage is made from the ideology of progress to +historical materialism; and now we arrive at the affirmation of Marx, +that this form of bourgeois production is the last antagonistic form of +the _processus_ of society. + +The miracles of the bourgeois epoch, in the unification of the social +_processus_, find no parallel in the past. Here are the whole New World, +Australia, Northern Africa, and New Zealand! And they all resemble us! +And the rebound in the extreme East is made through imitation, and in +Africa through conquest! In the presence of this universality and this +cosmopolitanism, the acquisition of the Celts and the Iberians to Roman +civilization, and of the Germans and that the Slavs to the cycle of +Roman Byzantine Christian civilization shrink into insignificance. This +ever-growing unification is reflected more every day in the political +mechanism of Europe; this mechanism, because founded on the economic +conquest of the other parts of the world, oscillates henceforth with the +flux and reflux which come from the most distant regions. In this most +complicated mingling of action and reactions the war between Japan and +China, made with methods imitated, or directly borrowed, from European +technique, leaves its traces, deep and far-reaching, in the diplomatic +relations of Europe, and still clearer traces in the stock exchange, +which is the faithful interpreter of the consciousness of our time. This +Europe, mistress of all the rest of the world, has recently seen the +relations of the politics of the states of which it is composed +oscillate in consequence of a revolt in the Transvaal, and in +consequence of the ill success of the Italian armies in Abyssinia in +these last days.[30] + +The centuries which have prepared and carried to its present form the +economic domination of bourgeois production have also developed the +tendency to a unification of history under a general view; and in this +fashion we find explained and justified the ideology of progress, which +fills so many books of the philosophy of history and of +_Kulturgeschichte_. The unity of social form, that is to say, the unity +of the capitalistic form of production, to which the bourgeoisie has +tended for centuries, is reflected in the conception of the unity of +history in more suggestive forms than the mind could ever have received +from the narrow cosmopolitanism of the Roman empire or the one-sided +cosmopolitanism of the Catholic Church. + + +But this unification of the social life, by the working of the +capitalist form of production, developed itself from the beginning, and +continues to develop itself, not according to preconceived rules, plans +and designs, but, on the contrary, by reason of frictions and struggles, +which in their sum form a colossal complication of antitheses. War +without and war within. Struggle incessant among the nations, and +struggles incessant between the members of each nation. And the +interlacings of the deeds and the action of so many emulators, +competitors and adversaries is so complicated, that the co-ordination of +events very often escapes the attention, and it is a very difficult +thing to discover their intimate connection. The struggle which actually +exists among men, the struggles which now, with various methods, are +unfolding among nations and within nations, have come to make us +understand better in the midst of what difficulties the history of the +past has unfolded. If the bourgeois ideology, reflecting the tendency to +capitalist unification, has proclaimed the progress of the human race, +historical materialism, on the contrary, and without proclamation, has +discovered that these are the antitheses which have thus far been the +cause and the motive of all historical events. + +Thus the movement of history, taken in general, appears to us as it were +oscillating;--or rather, to use a more appropriate image, it seems that +it is unfolding on a line often interrupted, and at certain moments it +seems to return upon itself, sometimes it stretches out, removing itself +far from the point of departure:--in an actual zigzag. + +Granted the internal complication of every society, and granted the +meeting of several societies on the field of competition (from the +ingenuous forms of robbery, rapine and piracy to the refined methods of +the elegant sport of the stock exchange) it is natural that every +historical result, when it is measured in the one measure of individual +expectation, appears very often like chance, and afterwards, considered +theoretically, becomes for the mind more inextricable than the track of +meteors. + +Speaking of the irony which sits as a sovereign above history is not a +simple phrase; because, in truth, if there is no god of Epicurus +laughing above over human affairs, here below human affairs are of +themselves playing a divine comedy. + +Will this irony of human destinies ever cease? Will that form of +association ever be possible which gives room for the possible complete +development of all aptitudes, in such a way that the ulterior +_processus_ of history may become a real and true evolution? And, to +speak like the amateurs of high-sounding phrases, will there ever be a +humanization of all men? When once in the communism of production the +antitheses which are now the cause and the effect of economic +differentiations are eliminated, will not all human energies acquire a +very high degree of efficacy and intensity in co-operative effects, and +at the same time will they not develop with a greater liberty of +self-expression among all individuals? + +It is in the affirmative answers to these questions that consists what +_critical communism_ says, that is to say foresees, of the future. But +it does not say it and it does not foretell it as if it were discussing +an abstract possibility, or like him who wishes, by his will, to give +life to a state of things which he desires and which he dreams. But it +says and predicts because what it announces must inevitably happen by +the immanent necessity of history, seen and studied henceforth in the +foundation of its economic substructure. + +"It is only in an order of things where there will no longer be classes +and class antagonisms that social revolutions will cease to be political +revolutions.[31] + +"To the old bourgeois society with its classes and class antagonisms +will succeed an association in which the free development of each is the +condition of the free development of all.[32] + +"The relations of bourgeois production are the last antagonistic form of +the social _processus_ of production--a form antagonistic not in the +sense of individual antagonism, but of the antagonism which proceeds +from the conditions of the social life of individuals; but the +productive forces which are developing in the lap of bourgeois society +are creating at the same time the material conditions to terminate that +antagonism. With this social organization ends the prehistory of the +human race.[33] + +"With the taking possession of the means of production on the part of +society, is excluded the production of commodities, and with it the +dominance of the product over the producer. The anarchy which dominates +in social production will be succeeded by conscious organization. The +struggle for individual existence will cease. Only in this way man will +detach himself, in a certain sense, from the animal world in a definite +fashion, and will pass from a condition of animal existence to +conditions of human existence. The entire sum of the conditions of life +which has thus far dominated men will pass under the rule and the +examination of men themselves, who will thus for the first time become +the real masters of nature, because they will be the masters of their +own association. The laws of their own social activity, which had been +outside of them like foreign laws imposed upon them, will be applied and +mastered by the men themselves, with full knowledge of their cause. +Their very association, which appeared to men as if imposed by nature +and history, will become their own and their free work. The foreign and +objective forces, which till then dominated history, will pass under the +care of men. Only from that moment will men make their own history with +full understanding; only from that moment will the social causes which +they put in motion, be able to arrive, in great part and in a proportion +ever increasing, at the desired effects. It is the leap of the human +race from the reign of necessity into that of liberty. To accomplish +this action emancipating the world, such is the historic mission of the +modern proletariat." + +If Marx and Engels had been phrasemakers, if their spirit had not been +made prudent, even scrupulous, by the daily and minute use and +application of scientific methods, if the permanent contact with so many +conspirators and visionaries had not given them a horror of every +Utopia, opposing it indeed up to the point of pedantry, these formulas +might pass for good-natured paradoxes, which criticism need not examine. +But these formulas are, as it were, the close, the effective conclusion +of the doctrine of historic materialism. They are the direct result of +the criticism of economies and of historical dialectics. + +In these formulas, which may be developed, as I have had occasion to +show elsewhere, is, summed up every forecast of the future, which is not +and is not intended for a romance or a Utopia. And in these very +formulas there is an adequate and conclusive response to the question +with which this chapter began: Is there in the series of historic events +a meaning and a significance? + + +THE END. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[28] This genetic study forms the subject of my first essay, _In Memory +of the Communist Manifesto_, which is the indispensable preamble to an +understanding of all the rest. + +[29] (I allude to the excellent work of Karl Kautsky, _Die +Klassengensaetze von 1789_.) + +[30] The Italian edition of this Essay bears the date of March 10, 1896. + +[31] Marx, Misere de la Philosophie, Paris, 1817, p. 178. + +[32] Communist Manifesto, p. 16. + +[33] Marx, Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie, Berlin, 1859, p. 6 +Pref. Compare my first Essay, pp. 48-50. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays on the Materialistic Conception +of History, by Antonio Labriola + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONCEPTION OF HISTORY *** + +***** This file should be named 32644.txt or 32644.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/6/4/32644/ + +Produced by Brian Foley, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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