The immediate aim of the Communists is the conquests
of political power by the proletariat. ``The
theory of the Communists may be summed up in the
single sentence: Abolition of private property.''

The materialistic interpretation of history is
used to answer such charges as that Communism is
anti-Christian. ``The charges against Communism
made from a religious, a philosophical, and, generally,
from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving
of serious examination. Does it require deep
intuition to comprehend that man's ideas, views and
conceptions, in one word, man's consciousness,
changes with every change in the conditions of his
material existence, in his social relations, and in his
social life?''

The attitude of the Manifesto to the State is not
altogether easy to grasp. ``The executive of the
modern State,'' we are told, ``is but a Committee for
managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.''
Nevertheless, the first step for the proletariat
must be to acquire control of the State. ``We have
seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the
working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position
of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to
wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie,
to centralize all instruments of production in the