Quiz: Principles of Communism

All 36 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. Where does Engels note that workers were still slaves in 1847?

   In the West Indian colonies of England In France In the southern part of the United States In Prussia
2. 2. What will the revolution establish first of all?

   The immediate abolition of all government and a free federation of communes A dictatorship of the Communist party, ruling in the name of the workers A democratic constitution, and through it the political rule of the proletariat A constitutional monarchy, with the suffrage extended to the workers
3. 3. What did Engels suggest to Marx on 24 November 1847 about the form of the programme?

   Publish it as a newspaper series Write it as a novel Keep the question-and-answer form, with shorter answers Drop the catechism form and call it “Communist Manifesto”
4. 4. Into how many classes does Engels divide the socialists?

   Four: French, English, German and American socialists Two: utopian and scientific Three: feudal-patriarchal, bourgeois, and democratic socialists One: all socialists form a single party
5. 5. What does Engels answer to “Will the abolition of private property be possible by peaceful means?”

   It would be desirable, but the proletariat’s development is everywhere violently suppressed No: it can be achieved only by conspiracy, since the ruling class will never yield peacefully The question is meaningless, since the abolition of property follows automatically from crises Yes, certainly and soon, since universal suffrage will hand power to the workers everywhere
6. 6. What contrast does Engels say will disappear with the abolition of private property?

   The contrast between city and country The contrast between nations and between races The contrast between young and old The contrast between men and women at work
7. 7. What does Engels say about labour (labour-power) in answer to question 5?

   Its price is fixed by law and custom, not by competition It is not a commodity, since the worker himself cannot be sold It is beyond all price, since labour alone creates all value It is a commodity like any other, its price set by the same laws
8. 8. Where and when did the proletariat originate?

   In the medieval towns of Italy and Flanders in the fourteenth century In the English industrial revolution of the late eighteenth century In the American colonies, with the plantation economy of the seventeenth century In the French Revolution of 1789, when the guilds were abolished by law
9. 9. How does the proletarian differ from the slave, according to Engels?

   The slave is sold once and for all; the proletarian sells himself daily and hourly The slave works the land; the proletarian works only in factories and towns The slave is paid wages; the proletarian is paid only in food and shelter by his master The slave’s existence is insecure; the proletarian’s is guaranteed by his own employer
10. 10. What influence will communist society have on the relation of the sexes, according to Engels?

    It will make marriage compulsory and regulate it by law for the good of society It will abolish marriage by law and place all children in the care of the state It will make it a purely private affair in which society need not interfere It will introduce the community of women along with the community of goods and land
11. 11. Where was Engels’s manuscript of the Principles found?

    In the archives of the Prussian police In a Paris bookshop In Marx’s house in Maitland Park, London Among Engels’s posthumous papers
12. 12. How does the serf differ from the proletarian?

    The serf is paid in money wages; the proletarian receives part of the produce in kind The serf owns no land at all; the proletarian rents a small plot from the landlord The serf lives in the towns under guild rule; the proletarian works on the lord’s estates The serf uses a plot of land; the proletarian works with others’ instruments
13. 13. Has there always been a proletariat, according to Engels?

    No: poor and working classes have always existed, but not proletarians Yes: every society has had a class living solely by selling its labour No: it arose only after the Reformation broke up the monasteries and the guilds Yes: the slaves of antiquity and the serfs were proletarians in this sense
14. 14. In America, with which party does Engels say the Communists should side?

    The Democratic Party, as the party of the small farmers and artisans against the Eastern bankers The national agrarian reformers, who would use the constitution against the bourgeoisie The Whig Party, as the party of industry and protection against the slaveholders None: they should stand apart from all parties and organise a separate party of their own
15. 15. Which questions are left unanswered in the manuscript?

    Question 9 and questions 22–23 Questions 24 and 25 Questions 1 and 2, on the definitions None; the manuscript is complete
16. 16. What did the worker in the period of manufacture (16th–18th centuries) usually possess?

    A share in a trading company and a vote in the town corporation His instruments of production: loom, family spinning wheels, a little land A small workshop with journeymen and a share in guild’s property Nothing but his labour, since merchants owned all the looms
17. 17. Will the revolution be accomplished in one country alone?

    Yes: it will be accomplished in Germany alone, where the bourgeoisie is weakest Yes: it will begin and be completed in England alone, the most industrially advanced country It does not matter, since each nation must find its own road to communism in its own time No: it will take place at once in England, America, France and Germany at least
18. 18. What kind of housing does Engels propose on the national estates?

    Large palaces as common dwellings, uniting the advantages of town and country Tenement blocks in the cities, owned by the state and let at low rent Barracks next to the national factories, with separate quarters for families Small family cottages, each with its own garden plot
19. 19. What was the first result of machine production on old handicraft industry, according to Engels?

    Its protection, as guilds won tariffs against machine-made goods Little effect at first, since machines were confined to cotton spinning Its expansion, as cheap machine yarn supplied more hand-weavers Its complete destruction, as prices of industrial products kept falling
20. 20. How does the Principles define communism in its first answer?

    The theory of a society without a state, without classes or money The science of the conditions for emancipating the proletariat The programme for the political rule of the working class The doctrine of the common ownership of all goods and of all land
21. 21. How does Engels define the proletariat?

    The class of all the poor and oppressed, found in every age of history The class of landless peasants who work the estates of the nobility The class of factory workers who own their own tools and sell their products The class living solely by the sale of its labour, not from profit on capital
22. 22. In England, which party does Engels say is “indefinitely nearer to the Communists” than the radicals?

    The Whigs The Anti-Corn Law League The Tories The Chartists, mostly workers
23. 23. Why was the abolition of private property not possible before now, according to Engels?

    The church had always forbidden it, and only the Enlightenment broke its hold The workers lacked education, which only universal schooling has now supplied No one had yet thought of it before the socialist writers of the eighteenth century Property forms change only when new productive forces outgrow the old ones
24. 24. What does Engels propose for children in his list of measures?

    Sending them as apprentices to the national workshops from the age of ten Religious schooling under the clergy, paid for out of the confiscated church lands Raising them in national institutions at national expense, after early infancy Leaving education entirely to the family, with the state only inspecting the schools
25. 25. According to Engels’s letter quoted in the introduction, on whom did he play “an infernal trick” in Paris?

    Karl Grün Wilhelm Weitling Moses Hess Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
26. 26. What does Engels say happens when many capitalists take up the same industry?

    Wages rise permanently, as capitalists compete for workers Prices rise steadily, and all the capitalists grow richer together Overproduction, then a commercial crisis The state steps in and takes over the overcrowded industry
27. 27. What two conclusions does Engels draw from the regular crises?

    The workers should emigrate, and the surplus population must be reduced by law The evils come from an outdated social order, which a new one can remove Crises are natural and permanent, and the workers must simply endure them Machines should be destroyed, and handicraft industry restored in their place
28. 28. Which measure concerns inheritance between children?

    Inheritance by sons only, with daughters receiving a fixed dowry Abolition of all inheritance, with every estate passing to the state Equal rights of inheritance for legitimate and illegitimate children Inheritance by the eldest son only, to keep the estates undivided
29. 29. Can private property be abolished at one stroke, according to Engels?

    Yes: a single decree of the revolutionary government can abolish it entirely and at once Only in agriculture, where the land can be seized and divided at once Yes: a general strike of all workers will abolish it in a single day No: only gradually, as productive forces grow
30. 30. Which Swiss radicals does Engels single out as the most advanced?

    Those in the cantons of Vaud and Geneva Those in Berne Those in Zurich and the north Those in Basel and Berne
31. 31. What will the new social order do first of all?

    Restore the guilds and place every branch of industry under their regulation Take industry from competing individuals and run it by a common plan Divide all property equally among the citizens and let each work his own share of it Abolish machinery and return production to small handicraft workshops
32. 32. What does Engels say competition and individual control of production have become for big industry?

    A support that the state must protect by tariffs The source of all its progress and wealth A fetter which it must and shall break Its greatest strength and the source of its growth
33. 33. Who translated and introduced this edition of the Principles of Communism?

    Ernest Untermann Samuel Moore Max Bedacht Daniel De Leon
34. 34. Which inventions does Engels name as causes of the industrial revolution?

    The steam engine, spinning machines and the mechanical loom The printing press, the compass and the blast furnace Gunpowder and the clock The telegraph and the railway
35. 35. What does Bedacht’s afterword call the lasting value of the document?

    Its detailed legal proposals for the transition to a communist society Its literary beauty, which surpasses even that of the Manifesto Its statistics on the condition of the English working class The keenness with which it sketches future social development
36. 36. How does Engels propose to expropriate landowners and factory owners gradually?

    By leaving their property untouched and setting up workers’ cooperatives beside it Partly by competition from state industry, partly by compensation in assignats By buying them out in gold, financed by a heavy loan from a nationalised bank By immediate confiscation of all property without compensation, in a single decree