, that ‘the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made State machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.’ (See The Civil War in France; Address of the General Council of the International Workingmen’s Association , London, Truelove, 1871, p. 15, where this point is further developed.) Further, it is self-evident that the criticism of Socialist literature is deficient in relation to the present time, because it comes down only to 1847; also, that the remarks on the relation of the Communists to the various opposition parties ( Section IV ), although in principle still correct, yet in practice are antiquated, because the political situation has been entirely changed, and the progress of history has swept from off the earth the greater portion of the political parties there enumerated.

“But, then, the Manifesto has become a historical document which we have no longer any right to alter.”