church property—why should not he now do the same with bourgeois property? The sansculotte had at that time to pass through many hard, albeit many merry days. Often he had to endure hunger in the most literal sense of the term, and hunger, as is well known, is a bad counselor. Thereupon our has-nothing begins to exhibit a great nonchalance toward bourgeois property. The bourgeoisie resists that as well as it knows how. How this social struggle was bound to affect the political life is obvious. The "mob" gathers in a party of its own and raises the Montagnards upon the shield. The "mob" of that day knew how to fight and soon obtained control. And then there was obviously nothing left for it to do but to use the political power just attained to call into being social institutions under which the right to property would no longer sound like bitter mockery, But for the proletariat of that day, as well as for the modern proletariat, this was possible only under one condition—the total abolition of private property in the means of production and the social organization of production.
24
