The Communist Manifesto
The Communist Manifesto is an 1848 political document by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Communist League and originally published in London just as the Revolutions of 1848 began to erupt. The Manifesto was later recognised as one of the world’s most influential political documents. In 2013, The Communist manifesto was registered to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme.
About The Communist Manifesto in brief
The Communist Manifesto is an 1848 political document by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Communist League and originally published in London just as the Revolutions of 1848 began to erupt. The Manifesto was later recognised as one of the world’s most influential political documents. It presents an analytical approach to the class struggle and the conflicts of capitalism and the capitalist mode of production, rather than a prediction of communism’s potential future forms. In 2013, The Communist manifesto was registered to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme along with Marx’s Capital, Volume I. It ends by declaring an alliance with other communist revolutions and calling for united international proletarian action—Working Men of All Countries, Unite the Working Men! In spring 1847, Marx and Engels joined the League of the Just, who were quickly convinced by the duo’s ideas of communism. In the last paragraph of the Manifesto, the authors call for a \”forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions\”, which served as a call for communist revolutions around the world. The last section ends by outlining a set of short-term demands, among them a progressive income tax; abolition of inheritances and private property; free public education; nationalisation of the means of transport and communication; centralisation of credit via a national bank; expansion of publicly owned land, etc. —the implementation of which would result in a stateless and classless society. While the degree of reproach toward rival perspectives varies, all are dismissed for failing to recognise the pre-eminent revolutionary role of the working class in all class struggles.
The concluding section discusses the communist position on struggles in specific countries in the mid-nineteenth century such as France, Switzerland, Poland and Germany, and predicts that a world revolution will soon follow. It also briefly features their ideas for how the capitalist society of the time would eventually be replaced by socialism. The communists’ party will not oppose other working-class parties, but unlike them, it will express the general will and defend the common interests of theWorld’s proletariat as a whole, independent of all nationalities. The introduction exhorts Communists to openly publish their views and aims, to ‘meet this nursery tale of the spectre of communism with a manifesto of the party itself’ The first section of the manifesto elucidates the materialist conception of history, that ‘the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles’. The third section, ‘Socialist and Communist Literature’ distinguishes communism from other socialist doctrines prevalent at the time—these being broadly categorised as Reactionary Socialism; Conservative or Bourgeois Socialism; and Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism. The fourth section, ‘Proletarians and Communists,’ states the relationship of conscious communists to the rest of theWorking class. The fifth and final section is ‘The Communist Party’s position on the position of the Communists in all countries.
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