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“The revolutionary storm of 1848 swept away this whole shabby tendency”, these
followers of “Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen” and the rest, “and cured its protagonists of
the desire to dabble in socialism.” “Mere reactionary sects”, he calls them, with their
“dream of experimental realisation of their social utopias, of founding isolated
‘phalansteres’, of establishing ‘Home Colonies’, or setting up ‘Little Icaria’” – all
genuine names for their attempted but doomed socialist communities which Marx
ridicules as “castles in the air” and “duodecimo editions of the New Jerusalem” -
duodecimo meaning a really tiny book.

He concedes that these rival socialists do some good. They ”attack every principle of
existing society” and “hence are full of the most valuable materials for the
enlightenment of the working class.” For this reason, the Communists will lend them
support, in the short term:

“The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the

enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of
the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement. But
they never cease, for a single instant, to instil into the working class the clearest
possible recognition of the hostile antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat,
In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against
the existing social and political order of things.”

These tactics - cooperate with other parties when expedient, but never abandon
th
their long-term, implacably revolutionary objectives - were used ruthlessly by 20
century communist parties, often with devastating effect.

Marx ends The Communist Manifesto with a defiant clarion call:

“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that

their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social
conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The
proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working
Men of All Countries, Unite!”

And unite they did, to a degree, until 1914.

Socialism After Marx
Marx died in 1883. The German Social Democratic Party under Karl Kautsky modified

Marxism in two ways that were potentially mutually incompatible. They turned his