The more rapidly huge factories extend, the more rapidly does capitalism develop, and the more speedy is the ruin of independent artisans, home workers, and peasants. The faster, likewise is the growth of gigantic cities with millions of inhabitants. Finally, in large towns, there is gathered together upon a comparatively restricted area an immense mass of persons, and the great majority of them belong to the factory proletariat. These masses are housed in foul and smoky quarters of the town, whilst the small group of the master class, the owners of all things, lives in luxurious mansions. The numbers of those constituting this small group are continually diminishing. The workers incessantly increase in numbers and their solidarity grows ever greater.
Under such conditions, the inevitable increase in the intensity of the struggle cannot fail in the long run to lead to the victory of the working class. Sooner or later, notwithstanding all the wiles of the bourgeoisie, the workers will come into violent collision with the master class, will dethrone it, will destroy its robber government, and will create for themselves a new order, a communist order based on labour. In this manner, capitalism, by its own development, inevitably leads to the communist revolution of the proletariat.
The class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie has assumed various forms. Three leading types of working-class organisation have arisen in the course of this struggle. First of all we have the trade unions, grouping the workers according to occupation. Next come the cooperatives,