The Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto is arguably the most revolutionary political mission statement ever. The proposal was the brainchild of Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Frederick Engels (1818-1895), both of Prussian origin. These two young radicals envisioned a society without class divisions, arguing that the only way this could be achieved was to have a complete overhaul of the social order. They began by identifying the various classes in European societies and pointed out the long-standing exploitation of the working classes by the ruling classes. Their solution was for the working class, the proletariat, to collectively own and control all means of production for the benefit of everyone. In the authors’ view, private ownership in the hands of the powerful bourgeois industrialists, (who arose in the Industrial Revolution), had held sway economically and politically for too long and, as capitalists, they were guilty of promulgating the misery of factory wage-slavery. The Communist Manifesto is ever an influential work and continues to impact political opinion and policy across the world.This edition is the authorised translation by Samuel Moore of the original German text of 1848. Included are seven prefaces to editions published in German, Russian, English, Polish and Italian between 1872 and 1893. An Appendix - Engels’ 'Principles of Communism' - helps to clarify, in a series of questions and answers, what Marx-Engel Communism was all about.