The Communist Manifesto
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Author | |
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Translator | Samuel Moore |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | German |
Genre | Philosophy |
Publication date | 21 February 1848 |
Text | The Communist Manifesto at Wikisource |
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Marxism |
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The Communist Manifesto (German: Das Kommunistische Manifest), originally the Manifesto of the Communist Party (Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), is a political pamphlet written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, commissioned by the Communist League and originally published in London in 1848. The text is the first and most systematic attempt by Marx and Engels to codify for wide consumption the historical materialist idea that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles", in which social classes are defined by the relationship of people to the means of production. Published amid the Revolutions of 1848 in Europe, the Manifesto remains one of the world's most influential political documents.
Marx and Engels combine
The Manifesto concludes that capitalism does not offer humanity the possibility of self-realization, instead ensuring that humans are perpetually stunted and alienated. It theorizes that capitalism will bring about its own destruction by polarizing and unifying the proletariat, and predicts that a revolution will lead to the emergence of communism, a classless society in which "the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all". Marx and Engels propose the following transitional policies: the abolition of private property in land and inheritance; introduction of a progressive income tax; confiscation of rebels' property; nationalisation of credit, communication and transport; expansion and integration of industry and agriculture; enforcement of universal obligation of labour; and provision of universal education and abolition of child labour. The text ends with a decisive and famous call for solidarity, popularized as the slogan "Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains".
Synopsis
The Communist Manifesto is divided into a preamble and four sections. The introduction begins: "A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism."[1] Pointing out that it was widespread for politicians—both those in government and those in the opposition—to label their opponents as communists, the authors infer that those in power acknowledge communism to be a power in itself. Subsequently, the introduction exhorts communists to openly publish their views and aims, which is the very function of the manifesto.[2]
The first section of the Manifesto, "Bourgeois and Proletarians",
"Proletarians and Communists", the second section, starts by stating the relationship of 'conscious communists' (i.e., those who identify as communists) to the rest of the working class. The communists' party will not oppose other working-class parties, but unlike them, it will express the
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. While the degree of reproach toward rival perspectives varies, all are dismissed for advocating reformism and failing to recognise the pre-eminent revolutionary role of the working class.
"Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Opposition Parties", the concluding section of the Manifesto, briefly discusses the communist position on struggles in specific countries in the mid-nineteenth century such as in France, Switzerland, Poland, and lastly Germany, which is said to be "on the eve of a bourgeois revolution" and predicts that a world revolution will soon follow. It ends by declaring an alliance with the democratic socialists, boldly supporting other communist revolutions and calling for united international proletarian action—"Working Men of All Countries, Unite!".
Writing
In spring 1847, Marx and Engels joined the
On 23 November, just before the Communist League's Second Congress (29 November – 8 December 1847), Engels wrote to Marx, expressing his desire to eschew the catechism format in favour of the manifesto, because he felt it "must contain some history." On the 28th, Marx and Engels met at Ostend in Belgium, and a few days later, gathered at the Soho, London headquarters of the German Workers' Education Association to attend the Congress. Over the next ten days, intense debate raged between League functionaries; Marx eventually dominated the others and, overcoming "stiff and prolonged opposition",[7] in Harold Laski's words, secured a majority for his programme. The League thus unanimously adopted a far more combative resolution than that at the First Congress in June. Marx (especially) and Engels were subsequently commissioned to draw up a manifesto for the League.
Upon returning to Brussels, Marx engaged in "ceaseless procrastination", according to his biographer Francis Wheen. Working only intermittently on the Manifesto, he spent much of his time delivering lectures on political economy at the German Workers' Education Association, writing articles for the Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung , and giving a long speech on free trade. Following this, he even spent a week (17–26 January 1848) in Ghent to establish a branch of the Democratic Association there. Subsequently, having not heard from Marx for nearly two months, the Central Committee of the Communist League sent him an ultimatum on 24 or 26 January, demanding he submit the completed manuscript by 1 February. This imposition spurred Marx on, who struggled to work without a deadline, and he seems to have rushed to finish the job in time. For evidence of this, historian Eric Hobsbawm points to the absence of rough drafts, only one page of which survives.
In all, the Manifesto was written over 6–7 weeks. Although Engels is credited as co-writer, the final draft was penned exclusively by Marx. From the 26 January letter, Laski infers that even the Communist League considered Marx to be the sole draftsman and that he was merely their agent, imminently replaceable. Further, Engels himself wrote in 1883: "The basic thought running through the Manifesto [...] belongs solely and exclusively to Marx". Although Laski does not disagree, he suggests that Engels underplays his own contribution with characteristic modesty and points out the "close resemblance between its substance and that of the [Principles of Communism]". Laski argues that while writing the Manifesto, Marx drew from the "joint stock of ideas" he developed with Engels "a kind of intellectual bank account upon which either could draw freely".[8]
Publication
Initial publication and obscurity, 1848–1872
In late February 1848, the Manifesto was anonymously published by the Workers' Educational Association (Kommunistischer Arbeiterbildungsverein), based at 46 Liverpool Street, in the Bishopsgate Without area of the City of London.[9] Written in German, the 23-page pamphlet was titled Manifest der kommunistischen Partei and had a dark-green cover. It was reprinted three times and serialised in the Deutsche Londoner Zeitung, a newspaper for German émigrés. On 4 March, one day after the serialisation in the Zeitung began, Marx was expelled by Belgian police. Two weeks later, around 20 March, a thousand copies of the Manifesto reached Paris, and from there to Germany in early April. In April–May the text was corrected for printing and punctuation mistakes; Marx and Engels would use this 30-page version as the basis for future editions of the Manifesto.
Although the Manifesto's prelude announced that it was "to be published in the English, French, German, Italian, Flemish and Danish languages", the initial printings were only in German. Polish and Danish translations soon followed the German original in London, and by the end of 1848, a Swedish translation was published with a new title—The Voice of Communism: Declaration of the Communist Party. In November 1850 the Manifesto of the Communist Party was published in English for the first time when George Julian Harney serialised Helen Macfarlane's translation in his Chartist newspaper The Red Republican. Her version begins: "A frightful hobgoblin stalks throughout Europe. We are haunted by a ghost, the ghost of Communism".[10][11] For her translation, the Lancashire-based Macfarlane probably consulted Engels, who had abandoned his own English translation half way. Harney's introduction revealed the Manifesto's hitherto-anonymous authors' identities for the first time.
A French translation of the Manifesto was published just before the working-class
After the defeat of the 1848 revolutions the Manifesto fell into obscurity, where it remained throughout the 1850s and 1860s. Hobsbawm says that by November 1850 the Manifesto "had become sufficiently scarce for Marx to think it worth reprinting section III [...] in the last issue of his [short-lived] London magazine". Over the next two decades only a few new editions were published; these include an (unauthorised and occasionally inaccurate) 1869 Russian translation by
Rise, 1872–1917
In the early 1870s, the Manifesto and its authors experienced a revival in fortunes. Hobsbawm identifies three reasons for this. The first is the leadership role Marx played in the International Workingmen's Association (aka the First International). Secondly, Marx also came into much prominence among socialists—and equal notoriety among the authorities—for his support of the Paris Commune of 1871, elucidated in The Civil War in France. Lastly, and perhaps most significantly in the popularisation of the Manifesto, was the treason trial of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP) leaders. During the trial prosecutors read the Manifesto out loud as evidence; this meant that the pamphlet could legally be published in Germany. Thus in 1872 Marx and Engels rushed out a new German-language edition, writing a preface that identified that several portions that became outdated in the quarter century since its original publication. This edition was also the first time the title was shortened to The Communist Manifesto (Das Kommunistische Manifest), and it became the version the authors based future editions upon. Between 1871 and 1873, the Manifesto was published in over nine editions in six languages; on 30 December 1871 it was published in the United States for the first time in Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly of New York City.[13] However, by the mid 1870s the Communist Manifesto remained Marx and Engels' only work to be even moderately well-known.
Over the next forty years, as
The principal region of its influence, in terms of editions published, was in the "central belt of Europe", from Russia in the east to France in the west. In comparison, the pamphlet had little impact on politics in
Ubiquity, 1917–present
Following the
Therefore the widespread dissemination of Marx and Engels' works became an important policy objective; backed by a sovereign state, the CPSU had relatively inexhaustible resources for this purpose. Works by Marx, Engels, and Lenin were published on a very large scale, and cheap editions of their works were available in several languages across the world. These publications were either shorter writings or they were compendia such as the various editions of Marx and Engels' Selected Works, or their Collected Works. This affected the destiny of the Manifesto in several ways. Firstly, in terms of circulation; in 1932 the American and British Communist Parties printed several hundred thousand copies of a cheap edition for "probably the largest mass edition ever issued in English". Secondly the work entered political-science syllabuses in universities, which would only expand after the Second World War. For its centenary in 1948, its publication was no longer the exclusive domain of Marxists and academicians; general publishers too printed the Manifesto in large numbers. "In short, it was no longer only a classic Marxist document", Hobsbawm noted, "it had become a political classic tout court".
Total sales have been estimated at 500 million, and one of the four best-selling books of all time.[16]
Even after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in the 1990s, the Communist Manifesto remains ubiquitous; Hobsbawm says that "In states without censorship, almost certainly anyone within reach of a good bookshop, and certainly anyone within reach of a good library, not to mention the internet, can have access to it". The 150th anniversary once again brought a deluge of attention in the press and the academia, as well as new editions of the book fronted by introductions to the text by academics. One of these, The Communist Manifesto: A Modern Edition by Verso, was touted by a critic in the
Legacy
"With the clarity and brilliance of genius, this work outlines a new world-conception, consistent materialism, which also embraces the realm of social life; dialectics, as the most comprehensive and profound doctrine of development; the theory of the class struggle and of the world-historic revolutionary role of the proletariat—the creator of a new, communist society."
—Vladimir Lenin on the Manifesto, 1914[17]
A number of late-20th- and 21st-century writers have commented on the Communist Manifesto's continuing relevance. In a special issue of the
In contrast, critics such as
Hal Draper rejected Bernstein's arguments about the middle class, stating that the Manifesto actually notes that, although individual members of this class are being constantly proletarianized, the class 'limps on, in a more and more ruined state'.[27]
Many have drawn attention to the passage in the Manifesto that seems to sneer at the stupidity of the rustic: "The bourgeoisie [...] draws all nations [...] into civilisation[.] [...] It has created enormous cities [...] and thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy [sic] of rural life".[28] However, as Eric Hobsbawm noted:
[W]hile there is no doubt that Marx at this time shared the usual townsman's contempt for, as well as ignorance of, the peasant milieu, the actual and analytically more interesting German phrase ("dem Idiotismus des Landlebens entrissen") referred not to "stupidity" but to "the narrow horizons", or "the isolation from the wider society" in which people in the countryside lived. It echoed the original meaning of the Greek term idiotes from which the current meaning of "idiot" or "idiocy" is derived, namely "a person concerned only with his own private affairs and not with those of the wider community". In the course of the decades since the 1840s, and in movements whose members, unlike Marx, were not classically educated, the original sense was lost and was misread.[29]
In 2013, The Communist Manifesto was registered to UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme along with Marx's Capital, Volume I.[30]
Influences
Marx and Engels'
Editions
- Marx, Karl; Engels, Friedrich (1977) [1848]. Manifesto of the Communist Party (2nd revised ed.). Moscow: Progress.
- Marx, Karl; Engels, Friedrich (2004) [1848]. Manifesto of the Communist Party (PDF). Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved 14 March 2015.
Footnotes
- ^ Marx & Engels 1977, p. 34.
- ^ Marx & Engels 1977, p. 34.
- ^ Marx & Engels 1977, pp. 35–48.
- ^ Marx & Engels 1977, p. 35.
- ^ Marx & Engels 1977, p. 36.
- ^ Marx & Engels 1977, pp. 36–7.
- George Allen and Unwin. p. 22.
- George Allen and Unwin. p. 26.
- ^ Bosmajian, Haig A. "A RHETORICAL APPROACH TO THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO" (PDF). dalspace.library.dal.ca. Retrieved 12 June 2022.
- ^ Yeoman, Louise. "Helen McFarlane – the radical feminist admired by Karl Marx Archived 2 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine". BBC Scotland. 25 November 2012.
- JSTOR 24306239.
- ^ Leopold, David (2015). "Marx Engels and Other Socialisms". In Carver, Terrell; Farr, James (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to The Communist Manifesto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ Marx, Karl; Engels, Frederick (30 December 1871). "German Communism – Manifesto of the German Communist Party". Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly. 04 (7): 3–7, 12–13.
- ^ Ford, Thomas H. (July 2021). "Atmospheric Late Romanticism: Babbage, Marx, Ruskin". Romanticism. 27 (2): 187–200 – via Edinburgh University Press.
...and which Samuel Moore, the translator of the now standard anglophone edition of The Communist Manifesto...
- ISBN 978-1-107-09284-6.
- ^ Seven facts about Karl Marx
- ^ Marx/Engels Collected Works, Volume 6, p. xxvi.
- ^ Osborne, Peter. 1998. "Remember the Future? The Communist Manifesto as Historical and Cultural Form" in Panitch, Leo and Colin Leys, Eds., The Communist Manifesto Now: Socialist Register, 1998 London: Merlin Press, p. 170. Available online from the Socialist Register Archived 20 November 2015 at the Wayback Machine archives. Retrieved November 2015.
- ^ Raines, John (2002). "Introduction". Marx on Religion (Marx, Karl). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. p. 5.
- ^ Harman, Chris (2010). "The Manifesto and the World of 1848". The Communist Manifesto (Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich). Bloomsbury, London: Bookmarks. p. 3.
- ^ Callinicos, Alex (2010). "The Manifesto and the Crisis Today". The Communist Manifesto (Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich). Bloomsbury, London: Bookmarks. p. 8.
- The London Evening Standard. 23 April 2012. Archived from the originalon 14 January 2013. Retrieved 8 May 2012.
- ^ Steger, Manfred B. The Quest for Evolutionary Socialism: Eduard Bernstein And Social Democracy. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. pp. 236–37.
- ^ Micheline R. Ishay. The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2008. p. 148. [ISBN missing]
- ^ Michael Harrington. Socialism: Past and Future. Reprint edition of original published in 1989. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2011. pp. 249–250. [ISBN missing]
- ^ Boyer 1998, p. 151.
- ^ Draper, Hal (2010). "Special Note F. The Alleged Theory of the Disappearance of the Middle Classes". Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution (Volume 2): The Politics of Social Classes New York: Monthly Review Press. p. 618. [ISBN missing]
- ^ The [sic!] is that of Joseph Schumpeter; see Schumpeter 1997, p. 8 n2.
- ^ Hobsbawm 2011, p. 108.
- ^ "Schriften von Karl Marx: "Das Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei" (1948) und "Das Kapital", ernster Band (1867)" Archived 22 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine. UNESCO.
- ^ Derrida, Jacques. "What is Ideology? Archived 10 July 2017 at the Wayback Machine" in Specters of Marx, the state of the debt, the Work of Mourning, & the New International, translated by Peggy Kamuf, Routledge 1994.
- ^ Warren, Christopher N (2016). "Big Leagues: Specters of Milton and Republican International Justice between Shakespeare and Marx. Archived 24 September 2020 at the Wayback Machine" Humanity, Vol. 7.
- ^ Rose, Jonathan (2001). The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes Archived 28 August 2019 at the Wayback Machine. pp. 26, 36–37, 122–125, 187.
- ^ Taylor, Antony (2002). "Shakespeare and Radicalism: The Uses and Abuses of Shakespeare in Nineteenth-Century Popular Politics." Historical Journal 45, no. 2. pp. 357–379.
- ^ Marx, Karl (1844). "On the Jewish Question."
- doi:10.17613/M6VW8W.
- ^ Demetz, Peter (1967). "Economics and Intellect: Thomas Carlyle". Marx, Engels, and the Poets: Origins of Marxist Literary Criticism. Translated by Sammons, Jeffrey L. (Revised ed.). Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press. p. 37.
- ISBN 9780838637920.
- ISBN 9780838637920.
References
- Adoratsky, V. (1938). The History of the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels. New York: International Publishers.
- JSTOR 2646899.
- ISBN 978-1-408-70287-1.
- Hunt, Tristram (2009). Marx's General: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels. Metropolitan Books.
- ISBN 978-0-415-11079-2.
- S2CID 144457532.
Further reading
- David Black, Helen Macfarlane: A Feminist, Revolutionary Journalist, and Philosopher in Mid-nineteenth-century England, 2004. Chapter 11: The Translation of The Communist Manifesto
- Hal Draper, The Adventures of the Communist Manifesto. [1994] Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2020.
- Dirk J. Struik (ed.), Birth of the Communist Manifesto. New York: International Publishers, 1971.
External links
- The Communist Manifesto at Standard Ebooks
- The Communist Manifesto at the Marxists Internet Archive
- Manifesto of the Communist Party, an English-language translation by Progress Publishers, in PDF format
- The Communist Manifesto in 80 world languages
- Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei : veröffentlicht im Februar 1848 Original 1848 edition in full colour scan
- The Communist Manifesto public domain audiobook at LibriVox
- Democracy and the Communist Manifesto
- On the Communist Manifesto Archived 4 November 2016 at the Wayback Machine at modkraft.dk (a collection of links to bibliographical and historical materials, and contemporary analyses)
- The Communist Manifesto at Project Gutenberg