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At this stage the labourers still form an incoherent mass

scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual

competition. If anywhere they unite to form more compact bodies,

this is not yet the consequence of their own active union, but of

the union of the bourgeoisie, which class, in order to attain its

own political ends, is compelled to set the whole proletariat in

motion, and is moreover yet, for a time, able to do so. At this

stage, therefore, the proletarians do not fight their enemies,

but the enemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute

monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial bourgeois, the petty

bourgeoisie. Thus the whole historical movement is concentrated

in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory so obtained is a

victory for the bourgeoisie.