The Communist Manifesto

By Friedrich Engels

Manifesto of the Communist Party (German: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), often referred to as The Communist Manifesto, was first published on February 21, 1848, and is one of the world's most influential political manuscripts. Commissioned by the Communist League and written by communist theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, it laid out the League's purposes and program. The Manifesto suggested a course of action for a proletarian (working class) revolution to overthrow the bourgeois social order and to eventually bring about a classless and stateless society, and the abolition of private property.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WS
• Release date: Apr 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9782291014461

Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) was, like Karl Marx, a German philosopher, historian, political theorist, journalist and revolutionary socialist. Unlike Marx, Engels was born to a wealthy family, but he used his family's money to spread his philosophy of empowering workers, exposing what he saw as the bourgeoisie's sinister motives and encouraging the working class to rise up and demand their rights. He wrote several works in collaboration with Marx - most famously "The Communist Manifesto" - and supported Marx financially after he was forced to relocate to London. Following Marx's death, Engels compiled the second and third volumes of Das Kapital, ensuring that this seminal document would live on. He continued writing for the rest of his life and died in London in 1894.

Book preview

Colonies

Introduction

A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.

Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?

Two things result from this fact:

Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself a power.

It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the spectre of communism with a manifesto of the party itself.

To this end, Communists of various nationalities have assembled in London and sketched the following manifesto, to be published in the English, French, German, Italian, Flemish and Danish languages.

Chapter 1

Bourgeois and Proletarians

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.

The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — bourgeoisie and proletariat.

From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed.

The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonization of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development.

The feudal system of industry, in which industrial production was monopolized by closed guilds, now no longer suffices for the growing wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The guild-masters were pushed aside by the manufacturing middle class; division of labor between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labor in each single workshop.

Meantime, the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even manufacturers no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery revolutionized industrial production. The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, Modern Industry; the place of the industrial middle class by industrial millionaires, the leaders of the whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.

Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages.

We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange.

Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance in that class. An oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility, an armed and self-governing association of medieval commune: here independent urban republic (as in Italy and Germany); there taxable third estate of the monarchy (as in France); afterward, in the period of manufacturing proper, serving either the semi-feudal or the absolute monarchy as a counterpoise against the nobility, and, in fact, cornerstone of the great monarchies in general — the bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of Modern Industry and of the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative state, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.

The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part.

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his natural superiors, and has left no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash

Reviews for The Communist Manifesto

[kburne1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

interesting as a historical document.

Excessively flawed philosophy and outlook.

[sasham-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Reading this with the benefit of hindsight it is easy to see the many flaws in the communist theory. On the other hand I can see how so many could have been persuaded that it was a good idea in the 19th & early 20th centuries - if you were working all your life and getting nowhere, with no hope of an improvement of life for yourself or your children the communist ideals would have sounded attractive.

[angelic55blonde · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a classic and should be read. It is really small but powerful.

[chellinsky · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Do not go looking here for a lengthy explanation about why Marx believes what he does. Rather, read the Manifesto to learn how he sold his ideas. For what it was designed to do, this book is excellent. For actually understanding Marx, the Manifesto is lacking. A closer look at some of his other works is required.

[ramirez_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For many people through the years this book has been something similar to the Qur'an.It's a compelling and fascinating though short text, a look backward in time.

[jane3phillips-2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Marx's criticism of capitalism is still relevant today and so his work is a must-read for those interested in economics, philosophy, politics and society in general. Makes you think... This was very easy to listen to as an audiobook and short and concise.

[robert.zimmermann · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was an interesting read. It's not something I would normally pick up but I felt like it's something everyone should read because of it's historical significance. It didn't make me want to become communist, but there are some points that I felt that I could logically support. I would definitely need to reread this a few more times to get an educated opinion on what is being said.

[brakketh-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Compelling propaganda pamphlet, much shorter than I thought.

[heidilove_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an amazing work. You don't have to agree with it or follow it to glean the beauty and precision of it.

[kawgirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

No matter what one's political point of view is, this is a must read for those who wish to be informed.

[mccarthys_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

The rantings of a man who's ideology would work only in the smallest of settings, or perhaps in a utopia. Attempts at implementing the policies laid out in this work have killed millions outright and millions more from starvation and poverty. Reading this is a matter of knowing your enemy.

[clancy.coonradt · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One reason why this book has stood the test of time and become a major talking point for a host of instructional formats is that it is written in an easily understood and comprehensive manner. I does not deviate from its intent in an attempt to justify its claims, but rather keeps to the point and finishes concisely.

[jmkemp-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this when studying political economy at the University of Glasgow. It's a very interesting read and ought to be read by everyone. Communism is one of the world's common ideologies, so whether you agree with it or not you ought ot understand what it is all about.

[beequiet · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Marx, it's nice, like victoria sponge, but I prefer gateau, such as Foucault and Adorno and Horkheimer. They further advance the ideas started by marx (like gateau advances the idea of cake). Marx is naive (here ends cake metaphor), but then he was relying on historical context...ah the benefit of hindsight...Really, if you like Marx, read The Culture Industry, in Dialectic of Enlightenment, by Horkheimer and Adorno (of the Frankfurt School).

[stige_3 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It will never catch on :)

Revolutionary ideas wrapped in tortured prose

[glennbell_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is a short essay by Karl Marx. His ideas seem to be in response to dislike for Western capitalism. His ideas are radical and do not appear to be practical as evidenced by history. Reality and theory do not match. Interesting from a historical standpoint.

[redthing · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Being a book with tremendous political impact, how could I not read it? What I found was a collection of very interesting ideas. It would be nice if these ideas would work, but it would also be nice if I had my own space shuttle. They just wouldn't work. Anyways, the thirty page introduction is boring and drawn out. It detracts from my rating of the manifeso.