To Destroy Christianity, We Must First Destroy

All That We Want To Do Away With Is The Miserable Character Of This Appropriation, Under Which The Labourer Lives Merely To Increase Capital , And Allowed To Live Only So Far As The Interest To The Ruling Class Requires It.

When Commercial Capital Occupies A Position Of Unquestioned Ascendancy, It Everywhere Constitutes A System Of Plunder.

Communism Is The Riddle Of History Solved, And It Knows Itself To Be This Solution.

It Has Drowned The Most Heavenly Ecstasies Of Religious Fervour, Of Chivalrous Enthusiasm, Of Philistine Sentimentalism, In The Icy Water Of Egotistical Calculation. It Has Resolved Personal Worth Into Exchange Value, And In Place Of Numberless Indefeasible Chartered Freedoms, It Has Set Up That Single, Unconscionable Freedom -- Free Trade. In One Word, For Exploitation, Veiled By Religious And Political Illusions, It Has Substituted Naked, Shameless, Direct, Brutal Exploitation.

In Proportion As The Bourgeoisie, I.e., Capital, Is Developed, In The Same Proportion Is The Proletariat, The Modern Working Class, Developed - A Class Of Labourers, Who Live Only So Long As They Find Work, And Who Find Work Only So Long As Their Labour Increases Capital. These Labourers, Who Must Sell Themselves Piecemeal, Are A Commodity, Like Every Other Article Of Commerce, And Are Consequently Exposed To All The Vicissitudes Of Competition, To All The Fluctuations Of The Market.