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A review by teyn
The Principles of Communism by Friedrich Engels
4.0
This was much more along the lines of what I was expecting to read in the Communist Manifesto, and told me much more about the foundations of Communist beliefs rather than simply contrasting with capitalism the way the manifesto did.
My favourite quotes were:
"The slave is sold once and for all; the proletarian must sell himself daily and hourly."
"The slave frees himself when, of all the relations of private property, he abolishes only the relation of slavery and thereby becomes a proletarian; the proletarian can free himself only by abolishing private property in general."
"...as the bourgeoisie grows in wealth, the proletariat grows in numbers."
"Ever since the beginning of this (19th) century, the condition of industry has constantly fluctuated between periods of prosperity and periods of crisis; nearly every five to seven years, a fresh crisis has intervened, always with the greatest hardship for workers, and always accompanied by general revolutionary stirrings and the direct peril to the whole existing order of things."
"...so long as big industry remains on its present footing, it can be maintained only at the cost of general chaos every seven years, each time threatening the whole of civilization and not only plunging the proletarians into misery but also ruining large sections of the bourgeoisie."
"...democratic socialists are either proletarians who are not yet sufficiently clear about the conditions of the liberation of their class, or they are representatives of the petty bourgeoisie, a class which, prior to the achievement of democracy and the socialist measures to which it gives rise, has many interests in common with the proletariat."
"...co-operation in action does not exclude the discussion of differences."
My favourite quotes were:
"The slave is sold once and for all; the proletarian must sell himself daily and hourly."
"The slave frees himself when, of all the relations of private property, he abolishes only the relation of slavery and thereby becomes a proletarian; the proletarian can free himself only by abolishing private property in general."
"...as the bourgeoisie grows in wealth, the proletariat grows in numbers."
"Ever since the beginning of this (19th) century, the condition of industry has constantly fluctuated between periods of prosperity and periods of crisis; nearly every five to seven years, a fresh crisis has intervened, always with the greatest hardship for workers, and always accompanied by general revolutionary stirrings and the direct peril to the whole existing order of things."
"...so long as big industry remains on its present footing, it can be maintained only at the cost of general chaos every seven years, each time threatening the whole of civilization and not only plunging the proletarians into misery but also ruining large sections of the bourgeoisie."
"...democratic socialists are either proletarians who are not yet sufficiently clear about the conditions of the liberation of their class, or they are representatives of the petty bourgeoisie, a class which, prior to the achievement of democracy and the socialist measures to which it gives rise, has many interests in common with the proletariat."
"...co-operation in action does not exclude the discussion of differences."