Chapter 23, Part 2 : Socialism Triumphant [Part 2]
It remains to say something on the religious and ethical basis of which the life of Communal Society may be called an expression, although from another aspect the religion may be said to be an expression of that life; the two together forming an harmonious whole. The word religion has been, and is still in most minds, connected with supernatural beliefs, and consequently the use of the word has been attacked as unjustifiable where this element is absent. But, as we shall proceed to show in a few words, this is rather accessory to it than essential. In the first instance religion had for its object the continuance and glory of the kinship -- Society; whether as clan, tribe, or people, ancestor worship forming the leading feature in its early phases. That in such an epoch religion should have been connected with what we now call superstition was inevitable, sinc... (From : Marxists.org.)

Chapter 23, Part 1 : Socialism Triumphant [Part 1]
It is possible to succeed in a manner in picturing to ourselves the life of past times: that is, our imaginations will show us a picture of them which may include such accurate information as we may have of them. But though the picture may be vivid and the information just, yet it will not be a picture of what really took place; it will be made up of the present which we experience, and the past which our imagination, drawing from our experience, conceives of, -- in short, it will be our picture of the past(1). If this be the case with the past, of which we have some concrete data, still more strongly may it be said of the future, of which we have none -- nothing but mere abstract deductions from historic evolution, the logical sequence of which may be interfered with at any point by elements whose force we have not duly appreciated; and these are abstractions also... (From : Marxists.org.)

Chapter 22, Part 2 : Socialism Militant [Part 2]
The movement was begun in Germany by Lassalle (1) about 1863 as a national movement; it grew in that form after his death for some years. Meantime 'the International' had been founded, and had gradually come under the guidance of Karl Marx and Frederic Engels, who won for themselves two energetic and able coadjutors in Liebnecht and Bebel, men untiring in gaining converts to the ideas of the International from the followers of Lassalle and of Schulze- Delitsch, the bourgeois co-operationist, to which latter party indeed Bebel himself once belonged. The scope of this article prevents us from going into details as to the fortunes of the German party; it must be enough to say that the Marx party grew rapidly, and at the congress of Gotha in 1875 the Lassalle party amalgamated with them, formally renouncing the special tenets of Lassalle, notably the... (From : Marxists.org.)

Chapter 22, Part 1 : Socialism Militant [Part 1]
We have now arrived at the most exciting part of our subject, since it has to do with what we may fairly call the practical politics of Socialism, with matters which all who call themselves Socialists must of necessity consider, unless they chose to relegate themselves to the position of theorists pure and simple. What lies in the scope of these chapters is the giving some idea of the relative position of the attack and defense in the passing time, when armies are definitely gathering for the battle, and it is beginning to be perceived that Socialism is the one serious question of the epoch, since it covers every interest of modern life. Let us turn our attention first of all to the defense; and we use the word advisedly, since the present proprietary and dominant class has absorbed into itself its old enemy the feudal proprietary class, and, since it has now no longer an... (From : Marxists.org.)

Chapter 21 : Scientific Socialism: Conclusion
Marx now goes on to trace the development of the capitalist in the present epoch, indicating the latest phase of the class-struggle; he points out the strife of the workman with the machine, the intensification of labor due to the constant improvement of machinery, etc. He then gives what may be called a history and analysis of the Factory Acts, the legislation to which the employing class found themselves compelled, in order to make it possible for the 'free' workman to live under his new conditions of competition; in order, in short, to keep the industrial society founded by the machine revolution from falling to pieces almost as soon as it was established. The point of the intensification of labor is so important that it demands a word or two in passing; the gist of the matter as put forward by Marx resolves itself into this: As the organization of production progresses towar... (From : Marxists.org.)

Mediæval Society
We have now to deal with that Mediæval Society which was based on the fusion of ideas of tribal communism and Roman individualism and bureaucracy. The fullest, and one may say the most pedantic type of this society is to be found in the Mediæval German Empire; it was modified somewhat in other countries; in France by the fact that several of the other potentates, as, eg., the Duke of Burgundy, were theoretically independent of the King, and practically were often at least as powerful. In England, on the contrary, the monarchy soon gained complete predominance over the great barons, and a kind of bureaucracy soon sprang up which interfered with the full working of the feudal system. The theory of this feudal system is the existen... (From : Marxists.org.)

Scientific Socialism - Constant and Variable Capital
Marx goes on to develope (sic) further the process by which the capitalist exploits the laborer under the present system of wages and capital. We now come to the two instruments which the capitalist uses in his exploitation of labor, and which are named constant and variable capital; constant capital being the raw material and instruments of production, and variable the labor power to be employed in producing on and by means of the former. The laborer, as we have seen, adds a value to the raw material upon which he works; but by the very act of adding a new value he preserves the old; in one character he adds new value, in another he merely preserves what already existed. He affects this by working in a particular way, eg., by spinning, wea... (From : Marxists.org.)

Modern Society: Early Stages
By the beginning of the seventeenth century the centralizing, bureaucratic monarchies were fairly established: nay, in France at least, they were even showing the birth of modern party-government, which since - carried on, indeed, under the veil of constitutionalism -- has been the type of modern government. Richelieu -- the Bismarck of his time and country -- begins the series of prime ministers or real temporary kings, who govern in the interest of class society, not much encumbered and a good deal protected by their cloaks, the hereditary formal sham kings. In England this prime-ministership was more incomplete, though men like Burleigh approached the type. Elizabeth reduced the Tudor monarchy to an absurdity, a very burlesque of monarch... (From : Marxists.org.)

The Paris Commune of 1871, and the Continental Movement Following It
In dealing with the great event of the Paris Commune, we must take for granted a knowledge of the facts, which are in a brief form accessible to all since the publication by the Socialist League of its pamphlet on the subject. As we have stated before, the International was founded in 1864, under the leadership of Beesley, Marx, and Odger. In 1869, at the Congress of Basle, Marx drew it into the compass of Socialism; and though in England it still remained an indefinite labor-body, on the Continent it became at once decidedly Socialistic and revolutionary, and its influence was very considerable. The progress of Socialism and the spreading feeling of the solidarity of labor was very clearly shown by the noble protest made by the German Soci... (From : Marxists.org.)

Reaction and Revolution on the Continent
When the great war which Napoleon waged against Europe came to an end by his defeat and ruin, France was once more handed over to the Bourbons, and Europe fell into the arms of reaction and sheer absolutism. The Holy Alliance, or union of reactionary monarchs, undertook the enterprise of crushing out all popular feeling, or even anything that could be supposed to represent it in the persons of the bourgeois. But the French Revolution had shaken absolutism too sorely for this enterprise to have more than a very partial success even on the surface. The power of absolutism was undermined by various revolutionary societies, mostly (so-called) secret, which attracted to them a great body of sympathy, and in consequence seemed far more numerous a... (From : Marxists.org.)