# Quote — Karl Marx, The German Ideology

> Communism differs from all previous movements in that it overturns the basis of all earlier relations of production and intercourse, and for the first time consciously treats all natural premises as the creatures of hitherto existing men, strips them of their natural character and subjugates them to the power of the united individuals. Its organisation is, therefore, essentially economic, the material production of the conditions of this unity; it turns existing conditions into conditions of unity. The reality, which communism is creating, is precisely the true basis for rendering it impossible that anything should exist independently of individuals, insofar as reality is only a product of the preceding intercourse of individuals themselves.

- Author: [Karl Marx](https://www.leafyquotes.com/karl-marx.md)
- Book: [The German Ideology](https://www.leafyquotes.com/karl-marx/the-german-ideology.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Marx#The_German_Ideology_(1845-1846)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md), [society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society.md)
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/karl-marx/the-german-ideology/communism-differs-from

## More from this book

> It is in fact not the consciousness dominating life but the very life dominating consciousness.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/karl-marx/the-german-ideology/it-is-in-fact.md)

> Language comes into being, like consciousness, from the basic need, from the scantiest intercourse with other human.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/karl-marx/the-german-ideology/language-comes-into.md)

> Thus, while the refugee serfs only wished to be free to develop and assert those conditions of existence which were already there, and hence, in the end, only arrived at free labour, the proletarians, if they are to assert themselves as individuals, will have to abolish the very condition of their existence hitherto (which has, moreover, been that of all society up to the present), namely, labour. Thus they find themselves directly opposed to the form in which, hitherto, the individuals, of which society consists, have given themselves collective expression, that is, the State. In order, therefore, to assert themselves as individuals, they must overthrow the State.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/karl-marx/the-german-ideology/thus-while-the.md)

Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md), [work](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/work.md)