from the bourgeoisie itself, which has still to complete its own revolution. The bourgeoisie will strike at absolutism, or what there is left of it, at feudalism or its remnants; and when it has given the preliminary impetus, by setting free the forces that bring about crises, the proletariat, more powerful to-day than the Levellers of Lilburne in the English Revolution of 1648, or the proletarians of Chaumette in 1793, will take possession in a revolutionary manner of the bourgeois revolution. It will begin by fighting side by side with the bourgeoisie, but as soon as the latter becomes victorious, it will expropriate it of the fruits of victory.
"In Germany," Marx and Engels wrote in 1847, "the Communist party will fight with the bourgeoisie whenever it takes up its revolutionary rôle again; it will join with it in combating absolute monarchy, feudal squirearchy, and the petty bourgeoisie. But it will never cease for a single instant to rouse among the workers the clearest possible consciousness of the antagonism that exists between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and makes them enemies. The social and political conditions that will accompany the triumph of the bourgeoisie are so many weapons which the German workman will know how to turn against the bourgeoisie itself. After the downfall of the reactionary classes in Germany, the fight against the bourgeoisie must be begun without delay.
