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Further, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling

classes are, by the advance of industry, precipitated into the

proletariat, or are at least threatened in their conditions of

existence. These also supply the proletariat with fresh elements

of enlightenment and progress.

Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive

hour, the process of dissolution going on within the ruling

class, in fact within the whole range of society, assumes such a

violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling

class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the

class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at

an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the

bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the

proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois

ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of

comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole.