Laika C.

Discaya
The Manifesto of the
Communist
·written by Karl Marx and
Frederick Engels in 1847
·was first published in
February 1848
·commissioned by The
Communist League
"A spectre is haunting
Europe-the spectre of
Communism."

Karl Marx and

Frederick Engels
Introduction
I. Communism is already acknowledged by all European
Powers to be itself a Power.
II. It is high that Communists should openly, in the face of
the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their
tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of
Communism with a Manifesto of the party itself.
Chapter I. Bourgeois & Proletarians
"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history
of class struggles."
·Class struggles – oppressor and oppressed
·Bourgeois – class of modern capitalists
– owners of the means of social production
– employers of wage-labor
VS
·Proletariat – the class of modern wage-
laborer
– having no means of production of their
own
–selling their labor-power in order to live
·Bourgeois + Proletariat = Profit
·Economic relations to politics
·The system always ended in revolution, or
common ruin of the contending class –
Solution: Communism
Chapter II. Proletarians & Communists
·Relationship between Communist party and
working-class parties
·Focus on the interest of the proletariat
·10 Key Points of Communist Platform

1. Abolition of property in land and application

of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants
and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of State,
by means of central bank with State capital and
an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the
hands of the state.
7. 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.
8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies,
especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual
abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable
distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools.
Chapter III. Socialist and Communist Literature
1.Reactionary Socialism
a. Feudal Socialism – oppose the bourgeoisie
– support and oppose the proletariat at the same time
– supported by Clerical Socialist
b. Petit-Bourgeois Socialism – fluctuating between proletariat
and bourgeoisie
– are being constantly hurled down into the proletariat by
the action of competition
– criticizes the bourgeois regime but suggests alternative
solutions
– aspires either restoring the old means of production and of
exchange
c. German, or “True,” Socialism - requirements of truth, not the
interests of the proletariat, but the interests of Human Nature,
of Man in general
2. Conservative, or Bourgeois, Socialism - desirous of
redressing social grievances to secure the continued existence
of bourgeois society
- Socialist bourgeois want all the advantages of modern social
conditions without the struggles and dangers
- desire the existing state WITHOUT revolutionary and
proletariat
-change in the material conditions of existence, in economic
relations (free trade, protective duties, and prison reform)
-desire to make reforms to lessen the cost and administrative
work of bourgeois government
3. Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism - first direct
attempts of the proletariat to attain its own ends
-they search after new social science and new social laws for
proletariat
-reject political and all revolutionary action
-all proposals point solely to the disappearance of class
antagonisms---are of a purely Utopian character
Chapter IV. Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various
Existing Opposition Parties
·the Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate
aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the
working class, they also represent and take care of the future of
that movement
·they never cease to instill the working class a recognition of
hostile antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat
·the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary
movement
·they openly declare that their ends can be attained only by
the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions
"Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution.
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They
have a world to win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES,
UNITE!"
Thank You for
listening!