Karl Marx

Manifesto of the Communist Party Karl Marx

The Manifesto breaks down into a preface, a cool little beginning, and four sections. In the helpful little preface, Marx's co-author Friedrich Engels lists all the translations and publications of the Manifesto that have come out in the forty years since its first publication. Conveniently enough, he says the book's spread matches the spread of the working class movement. Engels also gives us the fundamental idea underlying the Manifesto: political and intellectual ideas-and therefore all of history-are based on the economic system of the time, and thus on class struggles. Today, Engels says, the many exploited and oppressed proletariat (workers) can only free themselves by both overthrowing the few rich bourgeoisie (capitalists) and ending economic class altogether. Now on to the Manifesto itself. The beginning is made up of just a few short, fun paragraphs telling us that communism is haunting Europe and that leaders are accusing each other of being communists-but no one actually knows what communism is. Enter the Manifesto to set them all straight.