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THE BIRTH OF MODERN SOCIALISM 139
acquainted with those sectarian movements. It deals
with Reactionary Socialism, Feudal Socialism, Clerical
Socialism, Petty Bourgeois Socialism, German Socialism,
Conservative or Bourgeois Socialism, Critical-Uto-
The mere enumeration
pian Socialism, and Communism.
of these types of socialist doctrine indicates what a chaos
was in order
of doctrine and theory then existed, and it
to distinguish
themselves from these various schools
that Marx and Engels took the name of communists.
Beginning with the statement, "The history of all hitherto
existing society is the history of class struggles," (7)
the Manifesto treats at length the modern struggle between
the working class and the capitalist class.
After tracing the rise of capitalism, the development
of a new working class, and the consequences
to the people of the new economic order, Marx and Engels
outline the program of the communists and their relation
to the then existing working-class organizations
and political parties. They deny any intention of forming
a new sect, declaring that they throw themselves
whole-heartedly into the working-class movement of all
countries, with the one aim of encouraging and developing
within those groups a political organization for the
conquest of political power. They outline certain measures
which, in their opinion, should stand foremost in
the program of labor, all of them having to do with some
modification of the institution of property.
In order to achieve these reforms, and eventually "To
wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to
centralize all instruments of production
in the hands of
the State," (8) they urge the formation of labor parties
as soon as proper preparations have been made and
the time is ripe for effective class action. All through
the Manifesto runs the motif that every class struggle is