Typing practice book cover: The Communist Manifesto

13 CHAPTERS

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The Communist Manifesto

Perhaps the most influential and widely read political work of the 19th century,Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’The Manifesto of the Communist Partysuccinctly lays out the political theory and history of class struggle. Following a short introduction, theManifestodevelops over four short chapters, discussing the historical background of class struggle, the relationship of Communists with other socialist and working class movements, a critical review of other contemporary socialist literature and thinking, and finally...

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Word Count18,686

Est. Practice534 min

CHAPTERS

Preface

The Manifesto was published as the platform of the “Communist League,” a workingmen’s association, first exclusively German, later on international, and, under the political conditions of the Continen...

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Introduction

A specter is haunting Europe⁠—the specter of Communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter; Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French radicals a...

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I - Bourgeois and Proletarians3

The history of all hitherto existing society4 is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster5 and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppress...

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II - Proletarians and Communists

In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole? The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working class parties. They have no interests separate and apart f...

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III - Socialist and Communist Literature

Owing to their historical position, it became the vocation of the aristocracies of France and England to write pamphlets against modern bourgeois society. In the French revolution of July, 1830, and i...

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1 - Reactionary Socialism

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(A) - Feudal Socialism

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(B) - Petty-Bourgeois Socialism

The feudal aristocracy was not the only class that was ruined by the bourgeoisie, not the only class whose conditions of existence pined and perished in the atmosphere of modern bourgeois society. The...

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(C) - German, or “True,” Socialism

The Socialist and Communist literature of France, a literature that originated under the pressure of a bourgeoisie in power, and that was the expression of the struggle against this power, was introdu...

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2 - Conservative or Bourgeois Socialism

A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances, in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society. To this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarian...

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3 - Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism

We do not here refer to that literature which, in every great modern revolution, has always given voice to the demands of the proletariat, such as the writings of Babeuf and others. The first direct a...

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IV - Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties

Section II has made clear the relations of the Communists to the existing working class parties, such as the Chartists in England and the Agrarian Reformers in America. The Communists fight for the at...

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Endnotes

Lassalle personally, to us, always acknowledged himself to be a disciple of Marx, and, as such, stood on the ground of the Manifesto. But in his public agitation, 1862⁠–⁠64, he did not go beyond deman...

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