Footnotes provided by Marx

Bourgeois and Proletarians

By bourgeoisie is meant the clbum of modern Capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage-labour. By proletariat, the clbum of modern wage-labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour-power in order to live. [Note by Engels to the English edition of 1888.] [return]

The history of all hitherto existing society

That is, all written history. In I847, the pre-history of society, the social organisation existing previous to recorded history, was all but unknown. Since then, Haxthausen discovered common ownership of land in Russia, Maurer proved it to be the social foundation from which all Teutonic races started in history, and by and by village communities were found to be, or to have been the primitive form of society everywhere from India to Ireland. The inner organisation of this primitive Communistic society was laid bare, in its typical form, by Morgan’s crowning discovery of the true nature of the gens and its relation to the tribe. With the dissolution of these primeval communifies society begins to be differentiated into separate and finally antagonistic clbumes. I have attempted to retrace this process of dissolution in Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigenthums und des Staats, 2nd edition, Stuttgart, 1886. [Note by Engels to the English edition of 1888, and – less the last sentence – to the German edition of 1890.] [return]

guild master

Guild-master, that is, a full member of a guild, a master within, not a head of a guild. [Note by Engels to the English edition of 1888.] [return]

commune

“Commune” was the name taken, in France, by the nascent towns even before they had conquered from their feudal lords and masters local self-government and political rights as the “Third Estate.” Generally speaking, for the economical development of the bourgeoisie, England is here taken as the typical country; for its political development, France. [Note by Engels to the English edition of I888.]

This was the name given their urban communities by the townsmen of Italy and France, after they had purchased or wrested their initial rights of self-government from their feudal lords. [Note by Engels to the German edition of 1890.] [return]

Notes by the editor of the 1976 edition

1. The German editions of 1848. 1872. 1883 and 1890 have “journeymen” (“Gesellen”Log in to see images! instead of “journeymen, apprentices.” [return]

2. In the German editions the beginning of the phrase is: “The former feudal, or guild, organisation of industry.” [return]

3. The German editions have here and below “middle estate” (“Mittelstand” instead of “middle clbum.” [return]

4. The German editions have here and below “large-scale” instead of “modern.” [return]

5. The words “of that clbum” were added in the English edition of l888. [return]

6. The German editions have estate instead of “clbum” [return]

7. The words “medieval,” “(as in Italy and Germany),” “(as in France)” were added in the English edition of l888. [return]

8. The German editions have “estate” instead of “semi-feudal” [return]

9. The German editions add: “they hindered production instead of developing it.” [return]

10. The German editions have: “a social epidemic.” [return]

11. The German editions of 1848 have: “bourgeois civilisation and the conditions of bourgeois property.” [return]

12. The German editions have: “the modern workers. the proletarians.” [return]

13. In their works of the 1840s and 1850s, prior to Marx having worked out the theory of surplus value, Marx and Engels used the terms “value of labour,” “price of labour,” “sale of labour” which, as Engels noted in 1891 in the introduction to Marx’s pamphlet Wage Labour and Capital, “from the point of view of the later works were inadequate and even wrong.” After he had proved that the worker sells to the capitalist not his labour but his labour power Marx used more precise terms. In later works Marx and Engels used to the terms “value of labour power,” “price of labour power,” “sale of labour power” [return]

14. The German editions have: “the quantity of labour.” [return]

15. The German 23-page edition of 1848 has: “of women and children.” [return]

16. The German editions have: “The former lower strata of the middle estate.” [return]

17. The German editions have: “and rentiers” instead of “and retired tradesmen generally.” [return]

18. The German editions have: “They direct their attacks not only against the bourgeois conditions of production, they direct them against the instruments of production themselves.” [return]

19. This word was inserted in the English edition of 1888. [return]

20. The words in parentheses were inserted in the English edition of I888. [return]

21. The Ten-Hours’ Bill, the struggle for which was carried on a number of years, was pbumed in 1847 (see Note 76) in the atmosphere of acute contradictions between the landed aristocracy and the industrial bourgeoisie caused by the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 (see notes 28 and 47). To avenge themselves on the industrial bourgeoisie some of the Tories supported this Bill. A detailed description of the stand taken by various clbumes on the problem of limiting the working day was given by Engels in his articles “The Ten Hours Question” and “The English Ten-Hours’ Bill” (present edition, Vol. 10). [return]

22. The words “political and general” were added in the English edition of 1888. [return]

23. The German editions have here “elements of education” instead of “elements of enlightenment and progress.” [return]

24. The German editions have here and below “middle estates” instead of “the lower middle clbum” and “the middle clbum.” [return]

25. The German editions have “lumpen proletariat” instead of “the dangerious clbum, the social sgreat times.” [return]

26. This word was added in the English edition of 1888. [return]

27. [Editor of the present 1995 on-line edition: In the 1976 edition, note 26 does not point to anything.] [return]

28. The German editions have here: “The acgreat timesulation of wealth in the hands of individuals.” [return]