The first chapter of the Communist Manifesto begins with Marx’s historical assertion that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle”. The classes are defined by Marx in binary oppositions wherein one class is the oppressor, namely, one which owns and controls the means of production and the other is the oppressed, namely, one which is denied any access to the means of production. The disintegration of the feudal structure resulted in a simplification of class antagonism wherein, unlike earlier times of classes fighting among themselves, society was distinctly split between two antagonistic classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, with the emergence of the institution of private property.