Marx and Engels Publish The Communist Manifesto (1848)
On February 21, 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto (in original language of German: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei) – one of the most influential political documents in the world! The Communist Manifesto promoted the idea of communism as a political system and discussed the class struggle between the proletariat (i.e. working class) and bourgeois (i.e. upper class).
The Communist League commissioned Marx and Engels to write The Communist Manifesto in order to lay out their main communist beliefs. Karl Marx, a German philosopher, economist, and political theorist is credited with drafting most of the manuscript and is considered by many to be the father of modern communism.
In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels argue that capitalism will eventually give way to communism because the "have-nots," i.e. proletariat, which make up the vast majority of people, will revolt against the "haves," i.e. bourgeois, for a more just and fair society. Marx and Engels set forth a number of different ideas in the manuscript including the development of a new social order to create a "classless and stateless society" and the removal of the concept of private property. Marx and Engels promoted these beliefs through the idea of creating a utopian society where all individuals are treated equally – where the bourgeois would refrain from exploiting the proletariat for their cheap wages and manual labor.
The Manifesto is divided into an introduction, three substantive sections including Section 1- Bourgeoisie and Proletariat, Section 2 – Proletarians and Communists, and Section 3 – Socialist and Communist Literature, and a conclusion. The first line of Section 1 begins by saying, "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."
In Section 2, Marx and Engels call for ten things which are needed, including:
- Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
- A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
- Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
- Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
- Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
- Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.
- Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
- Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
- Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
- Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.
These ideas were eventually used by leaders of many countries such as Germany, the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, North Korea, Italy, Yugoslavia, Nepal, Vietnam, and other countries which have shaped our political world.
In many ways, the ideas of Marx and Engels were manipulated and used as a catalyst for insurrections and wars such as World War II, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Cold War, and the current political hostilities between capitalistic and communist countries today such as between the United States and China and Russia.