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All the preceding classes that got the upper hand, sought to

fortify their already acquired status by subjecting society at

large to their conditions of appropriation. The proletarians

cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except

by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and

thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. They

have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission

is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of,

individual property.

All previous historical movements were movements of minorities,

or in the interests of minorities. The proletarian movement is

the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority,

in the interests of the immense majority. The proletariat, the

lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise

itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official

society being sprung into the air.