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HISTORY
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The Communist Manifesto
A political theory that was worldwide in its scope, envisaged the fall of the bourgeoisie and the rise of the proletariat.
By Will Street
Jul. 25, 2019, 11:30 AM
Introduction
Spreading across Russia and China during the 20th Century, communism was and still is a fundamental political theory. Rather than even assessing the entity of communism itself, we need look no further than its dramatic presence across the Soviet Union, China, Cuba and Eastern Europe to attest its importance to the world. Yet the political conceptualisation of "communism", that was initiated in Russia by Lenin in 1918 and then spread into China in the mid 20th Century, had its foundations in the theorising German work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the form of the “Communist Manifesto”.
The Communist Manifesto was the defining conceptualisation of what was at the time a novel political theory. It was founded amongst a prevailing sense of the plight of workers at the hands of industrial leaders. In this light, it envisaged a reversal of the status quo, putting rights of workers at the forefront of political power. The text provided, equally, an unsurpassed depiction of modern capitalism, setting forth the first incorporation of the global economy and its limitless reach. The work was written amongst the emergence of a world market and rapidly developing industry in the 19th Century, which enabled Marx to theorise on a global and world economy spectrum.
And what he imagined was an end to the fierce world capitalism. He complained of its instability, convolution and eroding of society, and disregard of establishments like it were an overarching colossus. Marx’s perception of the world capitalism, that he was arguing against, understood the the enormity and reaches of the global economy. Writing in the mid 19th Century, his work underpinned and drive for a worldwide labour movement that would earn greater subscription by the early 20th Century.
But what of the importance of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel’s “Communist Manifesto” to the later communist movement of the 20th Century? Did the text get diluted or ignored as time went on and new governments emerged? During the age of the Soviet Union during the 1930s, in the form of Stalin’s five-year-plans, communism was heralded as a means to avoid mass unemployment. Evidently however, the Soviet government had become a separate entity rather than a whole-hearted obedience to Marxist theory. So too for other countries across the world. Across great swathes of the developing world during the 1970s, Marxist theory was entwined with national sentiments, where national liberation and anti-colonial movements were hot on the agenda.
Indeed, it is necessary to untangle national communist movements from strict Marxist theory. In fact, what became Marxist socialism in Germany at its origins had little to do with industrialisation or the rights of workers. Rather it rose out of German Christian movements and took as its leader the philosopher Hegel. Yet, Marx was nonetheless an iconically fervent writer, producing vociferous cries to arouse his readers. Notable memorable phrases which were commonly remembered by 19th and 20th Century citizens, included “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”, “Proletarians have nothing to lose except their chains” and “working men of all countries unite!” Although written quickly, for instance the last section which appears to be jotted down quickly, the undeviating sway of logic, single mindedness and rhetorical devices wholesomely entrance the reader.
At its outset therefore, the “Communist Manifesto” attacks the epitome of the landed class and egoism - the “bourgeoisie”. Marx details that the bourgeoisie had “accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals.” In a mere hundred years, it had “created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.” He went on to state that the “modern bourgeoisie society” was about to collapse in on its self, because of the extent of its growth. He claimed that the bourgeoisie had “forged the weapons that bring death to itself” and that, alternatively, the society of the bourgeoisie “had called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons - the modern working class - the proletarians.” Marx goes as far to say that the fall of the bourgeoisie and rise of the proletariat is “inevitable”.
Setting forth an inherent class war therefore, and one that would go on to be successful for the proletariats of Russia in 1916, the “Communist Manifesto” was much referred to by later communist movements. It was the iconic call to arms of something that would garner such appeal across the world. In the analysis below, I investigate the writers of the manifesto and its themes in more detail.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
Karl Marx was born in 1818. He was the son of a Jewish lawyer who had recently converted to Christianity. Having been born in the Trier in the Rhineland, eventually he became a student in Bonn and Berlin, where he studied Law and then Philosophy. Immersed in university intellectual life, he joined with the Young Hegelians, who were the most radical of Hegel’s followers. Notably, they refuted the idea that Hegel’s philosophy could be reconciled with Christianity or the existing State.
Yet, having been unfortunately forcibly ejected from his university on account of his radicalism, he would begin to offer his own voice. Becoming a journalist at first, he would soon become a socialist. He left Prussia for Paris and then Brussels, where he stayed until 1848. And it was in 1844 that he began his collaboration with Friedrich Engels, concocting a political vision of a communist society emerging out of the embers of a proletariat revolution. From there onwards, he had various stints working for newspapers either in Cologne or London, however ultimately remained financially dependent on Engels.
Today and as he was in the late 19th Century, Marx was considered the principal theorist of revolutionary socialism. This was largely as a result of his research in London into underpinning his conception of communism with a theory of history that illustrated that capitalism was transient and destined to implode and be overtaken by a classless society without private property or state authority. As such, Marx was a notable and highly important philosopher to the later legacy of communism. Although his study was never completed, its first part, “Capital” was released in 1867. The man himself, Karl Marx, died in London in 1883.
Engels, alternatively, was the son of a textile manufacturer. He experienced military training in Berlin and was a convert to communism at an early age. In 1842, he travelled to Manchester to represent his family’s firm - whereupon having read abundant literature condemning the life of the poor and working conditions, he produced his famous work, “The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844”. After collaborating with Marx to produce the “Communist Manifesto”, Engels was involved in the German revolutions, before returning to Manchester until 1870, when he departed for London. There, in London, he died in 1895.
A Summary of The Communist Manifesto
The “Communist Manifesto” is divided into a preamble and four independent sections. With an enthralling introduction the duo begin the preamble emphatically. It begins: “A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of communism.” They then exhort Communists to voice their views, facing, they claim an attempt to exorcize the movement.
What follows is the first of the sections. Here, they state “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of the class struggle.” They go on to chart the oppression of the majority at the hands of a minority, that has existed throughout history in various historical societies that they go through citing. They continue into an account of the rise of the “bourgeoisie”, their nature and their impact on the world, yet crucially claim that is inevitable that the proletariat will grow and grow until they subvert the status quo and subvent the bourgeoisie. The section concludes with the words: “What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
In the second section, the duo immediately encourage communists not to fracture into different strands, but, rather join collectively as a group. Marx and Engel lay two typifying rules: “1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.”
They then go on to claim a capitalist has a social “status” since they require a work force beneath them for their position to survive. Communism, they argue, is a means to subjugate the bourgeoisie, and save the working class. The scope of their message is truly global as they argue each proletariat’s class struggle is the same. They discard any relevance to religion, arguing one’s living conditions has the biggest impact on their conciouseness.
Concluding the second section, they argue for rescinding enterprises into State control and set forth principles, they believe, that will transport societies for the better.
These were:
"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. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State; by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation 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 wastelands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labour. 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. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production."
Marx and Engel make clear that once the proletariat revolution has taken place, public power will lose its reminisces of the current State. Current political power, they argue, is “merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another." Even if, they argue, the proletariat take the guise of the political class during the revolution, by the time of their conquest, they would have swept away the conditions for a class struggle, and thus abolished the "political class' nonetheless. Marx and Engels’ words were: “If the proletariat during its conquest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of its circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of class generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.”
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Moving onto the third section, labelled “Socialist and Communist Literature”, Marx and Engel differentiate between the different movements of socialism, setting apart their own brand of communism. The movements they chart and refer to are “Reactionary Socialism”, (which includes “Feudal Socialism”, “Petty-Bourgeois Socialism”, “German, or “True” Socialism”) - “Bourgeois Socialism” and finally “Critical Utopian Socialism and Communism.” Although the extent to which they condemn each rival perspective varies, every one of them is dismissed by the duo, principally because they only promote reformism while failing, they claim, to recognise the pre-eminent revolutionary role of the working class.
In a climax of the manifesto, the final section, labelled “Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Opposition Parties”, discusses briefly the communist position regarding struggles in specific countries in specific cases in the mid-19th Century. Countries cited include France, Switzerland and lastly Germany. The text, itself, ends with the euphoric slogan: WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!”
Analysis
The “Communist Manifesto” was first published in German in one edition in 1848. The release of the edition was somewhat hurried through. The text was based on earlier drafts by Engels from the first few weeks of 1848 and left Marx to quickly produce a completed version. Yet the text did appear within days of a general revolution in Europe stretching from the Baltic to the Balkans.
However, initially muffled in its reception, translation into different languages was dropped, and many German readers discarded the revolutionary cause. Indeed, its relevance to the European revolutions of the mid 19th Century was discarded so much that, between 1850 and 1870, the “Manifesto” was remembered by as little as a hundred German-speaking veterans of the 1848 revolutions.
It was discarded further by the Bismark government and used as evidence in a trial of two Social-Democrat leaders in 1872, on account of its nationless sentiments. What the “Communist Manifesto” relied on for its later prevalence was the unforeseen extreme growth of socialist and social-democrat parties across the world like an inexorable virus. By 1914, there were roughly several hundred editions, ranging from translations into Japanese and Yiddish to all languages of the Russian Empire.
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Both Marx and Engels had been involved with the Young Hegelians in the years leading up to their concoction of the “Communist Manifesto”. Yet they had discarded their allegiance by 1842 and in fact wrote a brief work outlining their reasons for departing from the Young Hegelians. By 1847, when the duo were comprising the Manifesto, it was perceived that each had a different role in its production. In later communist literature, Engels was presented as the loyal accompaniment to the genius that was Karl Marx, and those in the Soviet Union portrayed him as a champion of noble and impassioned humanism, while the determinism and mechanistic side was attributed to Engels (which enabled the Soviets room to discard certain facets in their own State Communism). Whatever one surmises what role each author played, they were commonly considered as indistinguishable by contemporary critics and readers.
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But what of the political milieu surrounding Marx and Engels at their time of writing in 1847? The prevailing form of socialism at the time was Christian Socialism. The philosopher, Hegel, whom many of the more radical socialists followed, however, had a few abrupt disagreements with religion. For instance, his claim that religion and philosophy only differed in “form” was regarded with deep suspicion. Conversely, The Young Hegelians discarded religious consciousness and promoted republicanism.
Marx introduced himself to the Young Hegelian circle in Berlin in 1837. Marx had some similarities in beliefs, for instance, his opinions that the transition into a new epoch crucially involved the “will” in the form of “criticism” was shared with the Young Hegelians, and also that human philosophy is global. Similarly, Marx believed that rational freedom was the bedrock of society, rather than religion. However, the political strategy of the Young Hegelians was shattered when, in the first few months of 1843, the German government shut down the “Rheinische Zeitung” and other oppositional publications.
However, it was here, left to his own devices, that Marx’s stance moved from the republicanism of the Young Hegelians to full blown communism he would champion for the rest of his life. Notable inspirations along his journey came among his newfound questions about economic life and religious theories stemming from the theologian Bauer. He came to question money both in ancient times and contemporary times, ultimately that it enslaved. Finally, he came to sympathise with full-blooded political emancipation. And, as such, he judged it required a guiding philosophy for it to be achieved. Co-operating with Engel, they would both begin to write the “Communist Manifesto” a few years later.
Conclusion
The “Communist Manifesto” would leave a legacy unsurpassed among the political science of future governments. In the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia, Marxism combined with Leninism was perceived as the guiding light for political character of the USSR. Members of the communist party was expected to be familiar with the writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin. Today, fewer communist-run countries exist, yet Mark and Engels work can still be read and cherished for its emphatic political messages and well reasoned arguments. Underpinning one of the fundamental concepts of government, “The Communist Manifesto” is a political colossus of a text whose importance was monumental and still continues to be monumental.