``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!''
In all the great countries of the Continent,
except Russia, a revolution followed quickly on the
publication of the Communist Manifesto, but the
revolution was not economic or international, except
at first in France. Everywhere else it was inspired
by the ideas of nationalism. Accordingly, the rulers
of the world, momentarily terrified, were able to
recover power by fomenting the enmities inherent
in the nationalist idea, and everywhere, after a very
brief triumph, the revolution ended in war and
reaction. The ideas of the Communist Manifesto
appeared before the world was ready for them, but
its authors lived to see the beginnings of the growth
of that Socialist movement in every country, which
has pressed on with increasing force, influencing
Governments more and more, dominating the Russian
Revolution, and perhaps capable of achieving
at no very distant date that international triumph to
which the last sentences of the Manifesto summon
the wage-earners of the world.
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