“Everywhere the proletariat develops in step with the bourgeoisie. In proportion, as the bourgeoisie grows in wealth, the proletariat grows in numbers.”

— Friedrich Engels , book Principles of Communism

Principles of Communism (1847)
Context: Everywhere the proletariat develops in step with the bourgeoisie. In proportion, as the bourgeoisie grows in wealth, the proletariat grows in numbers. For, since the proletarians can be employed only by capital, and since capital extends only through employing labor, it follows that the growth of the proletariat proceeds at precisely the same pace as the growth of capital. Simultaneously, this process draws members of the bourgeoisie and proletarians together into the great cities where industry can be carried on most profitably, and by thus throwing great masses in one spot it gives to the proletarians a consciousness of their own strength. Moreover, the further this process advances, the more new labor-saving machines are invented, the greater is the pressure exercised by big industry on wages, which, as we have seen, sink to their minimum and therewith render the condition of the proletariat increasingly unbearable. The growing dissatisfaction of the proletariat thus joins with its rising power to prepare a proletarian social revolution.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Aug. 6, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Everywhere the proletariat develops in step with the bourgeoisie. In proportion, as the bourgeoisie grows in wealth, th…" by Friedrich Engels?

Friedrich Engels 87

German social scientist, author, political theorist, and ph… 1820–1895

Related quotes

“The correctness of the so-called materialistic conception of history, which considers the political development as dependent on the economic, cannot be brought more strikingly and convincingly to the mind than by the change which in the course of the Nineteenth century has been wrought in the bourgeoisie. It can be demonstrated with the greatest precision how with the change in the productive relations a change of political view and attitude has taken place in the bourgeoisie. Every step forward in economic development has been a step forward in the development of class antagonisms and a step in the approach of the bourgeoisie towards its old enemies, the landlords and priests, and a step in drawing away from the rising proletariat, which in order to effect its emancipation, must advocate equal rights for all men and the democratic principles formerly supported by the bourgeoisie. The moment the proletariat steps forth as a class separate from the bourgeoisie and having interests opposed to it, from that moment the bourgeoisie ceased to be democratic.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

“Until the bourgeoisie is completely vanquished, until its wealth has been confiscated, the proletariat must without fail possess a military force, it must without fail have its "proletarian guard," with the aid of which it will repel the counter-revolutionary attacks of the dying bourgeoisie, exactly as the Paris proletariat did during the Commune.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Anarchism or Socialism (1906)

“The struggle against war, properly understood and executed, presupposes the uncompromising hostility of the proletariat and its organizations, always and everywhere, toward its own and every other imperialist bourgeoisie…”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

"Resolution on the Antiwar Congress of the London Bureau" (July 1936)

“Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Section 1, paragraph 44, lines 1-2.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)

“The economically powerful big bourgeoisie, in itself, represents an infintesimal minority of the nation. To enforce its domination, it must ensure a definite mutual relationship with the petty bourgeoisie and, through its mediation, with the proletariat.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Source: Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It (1944), Ch. 5

“Dictatorship is rule based directly upon force and unrestricted by any laws. The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is rule won and maintained by the use of violence by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, rule that is unrestricted by any laws.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

As quoted in The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky (1972), p. 11.
Attributions

“Being a bourgeoisie in a colonial and semi-colonial country and oppressed by imperialism, the Chinese national bourgeoisie retains a certain revolutionary quality at certain periods and to a certain degree--even in the era of imperialism--in its opposition to the foreign imperialists and the domestic governments of bureaucrats and warlords (instances of opposition to the latter can be found in the periods of the Revolution of 1911 and the Northern Expedition), and it may ally itself with the proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie against such enemies as it is ready to oppose. In this respect the Chinese bourgeoisie differs from the bourgeoisie of old tsarist Russia. Since tsarist Russia was a military-feudal imperialism which carried on aggression against other countries, the Russian bourgeoisie was entirely lacking in revolutionary quality. There, the task of the proletariat was to oppose the bourgeoisie, not to unite with it. But China's national bourgeoisie has a revolutionary quality at certain periods and to a certain degree, because China is a colonial and semi-colonial country which is a victim of aggression. Here, the task of the proletariat is to form a united front with the national bourgeoisie against imperialism and the bureaucrat and warlord governments without overlooking its revolutionary quality.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

On New Democracy (1940)

“What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Section 1, paragraph 53, lines 11-13.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)

“The class of the wholly propertyless, who are obliged to sell their labor to the bourgeoisie in order to get, in exchange, the means of subsistence for their support. This is called the class of proletarians, or the proletariat.”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

(1847)

“No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over finance capital. Fascism is the power of finance capital itself.”

Georgi Dimitrov (1882–1949) Bulgarian politician

Ch. 1, The Class Character of Fascism https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm#s2.
The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism

“Everywhere the proletariat develops in step with the bourgeoisie. In proportion, as the bourgeoisie grows in wealth, the proletariat grows in numbers.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Friedrich Engels 87

Related quotes

Related topics