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The Communist Manifesto
1848· Book or text· Politics, society & justice
Well documentedSolid records, texts or physical evidence.
Marx and Engels's short 1848 pamphlet arguing that class struggle drives history and calling on workers to overthrow capitalism.
See it on the Philosophy map →The idea
The idea: 'The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.' It opens 'A spectre is haunting Europe, the spectre of communism' and ends 'Working men of all countries, unite!' Strikingly, it praises capitalism's power to transform the world, 'all that is solid melts into air,' before predicting its fall. Its ten demands included a progressive income tax, free public schools and abolishing inheritance. Main objection: society did not split into two hostile classes as predicted; the middle class grew.
Why it matters
It became one of the most widely read political texts ever, translated into scores of languages, and the founding statement of the communist movement.
Where it comes from
Copies of the 23-page first German edition (London, February 1848) survive, with Engels's earlier drafts. In 2013 UNESCO added it to its Memory of the World register.
Still debated
How much it mattered at first: it appeared days before the 1848 revolutions but barely affected them, and was little known until reprints from 1872.
Connections (2)
▸Karl Marx co-wrote The Communist ManifestoWell documented
The connection
The Communist League, a small society of German workers abroad, commissioned a program at its London congress in late 1847. Marx wrote the final text in Brussels in January 1848, under deadline pressure, reworking Engels's drafts, including his question-and-answer 'Principles of Communism.'
When and how
London congress, November–December 1847; written in Brussels; printed anonymously in German in London in February 1848.
How we know
The first edition, Engels's surviving drafts and League correspondence; Engels's later prefaces say its core idea belonged to Marx.
Debates and open questions
Exactly how much each man contributed; the style is Marx's, but much of the structure follows Engels's earlier drafts.
▸The Communist Manifesto popularized Historical materialism and class struggleWell documented
The connection
Its first section compresses the theory into a few pages: 'freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman' locked in class struggle, now simplified into bourgeois versus proletarian. Because The German Ideology stayed unpublished until 1932, the Manifesto was for decades how most readers met the theory.
When and how
First published in London, 1848; revived by German reprints from 1872 and translations into Russian, English and dozens of other languages.
How we know
Its publication history, as one of the most printed political texts ever, and Engels's prefaces presenting it as the theory's popular statement.
Debates and open questions
Whether its tidy two-class story oversimplifies; Engels added an 1888 note limiting 'all history' to written history, since he thought early societies lacked classes.