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The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of

feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has

but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new

forms of struggle in place of the old ones. Our epoch, the epoch

of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature:

it has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is

more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two

great classes, directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and

Proletariat.

From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers

of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of

the bourgeoisie were developed.