Manifesto of the Communist Party

The Manifesto of the Communist Party was first published in 1848 in London upon solicitation by the Communist League, an association of German workers and immigrants exiled in Great Britain, in Belgium or in France.  The Manifesto presents the aspirations of Communism, its position towards Socialism, and other XIXth century parties. The main idea of the Manifesto is that the whole story of humanity is the one of a perpetual class struggle. In the XIXth century, the evolution of the opposition between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat leads to the eventual awareness among the proletariat of its status as a class and of its undeniable revolutionary potential.  In the Communists’ opinion, the enslaved proletariat can not achieve its emancipation from the power of the dominant class without emancipating the society as a whole, from all exploitations, oppressions, class distinctions, and class struggles. According to Marx and Engels a total revolution is a historical necessity, in order to free the world from the capitalist bourgeois regime and develop a communist society.  For Marx, history begins from the first mediation between man and nature, and between men themselves: labour. This historical materialism is opposed to the Hegelian dialectic, even if it is a dialectical movement. In Marx’s mind, the world is put into motion by men’s action to transform this world. History is shaped by class struggles whose frequency makes them almost routine keep society in motion. The existence of classes depends on the given phase of historical development which is determined by the dominant mode of economic production and the social organization which results from it. These constitute the base on which is built, and from which can only be explained the political and intellectual history of this time. For Marx and Engels, there have always been oppressors and oppressed. In Antiquity, slaves were opposed to free men. In the Middle Ages, the serfs were oppressed by land owning aristocracy. In the late Middle Ages the journeymen in the “new” cities worked for petty-bourgeoisie, and eventually they became specialized workers serving the interests of Capitalism.  The bourgeoisie was the first to be aware of its status as a class. At the first stage, the only true dominant class, as the only owner of the capital was the bourgeoisie which produced new ideas, inspired new social practices, and thus contributed to change mind-sets. This period was also characterized by a constant upheaval in the instruments of production and in social relations, which was significantly different from the previous periods characterized by stability. Parallel to the development of the bourgeoisie the number of proletarians who exclusively drew their subsistence from the sale of their labour and not from the interest of an unspecified capital increased. Their conditions of existence and thus their existences itself were in jeopardy. Labour was soon considered as nothing but a good of fixed price like other goods. Only profit is important. The price of labour is thus equal to the cost of production of labour. In the process of developing themselves, the bourgeois empowered the condition of those which whom they exploited.  For Marx and Engels, the only way to understand history is to consider the economic alienation as the reason for class struggles. This means that the end of history can be nothing but the end of class struggles.  The proletariat fight would start to defend work and its economic interests. But if the proletariat is able to get united, it is because it has nothing left. It lacks property, nor individuality, law, religion, and morale as everything is monopolized by the bourgeoisie. It is the vastness of its destitution which gives the proletariat a universal revolutionary mission. Concurrently, the revolution accomplished by the proletariat could only be a “total revolution”, which aims to suppress all classes. Being without any property, the proletariat has nothing to save. As the ultimate goal is the abolition of the bourgeois private property this revolution will not only be one new stage of history, it will totally renew it. The Communists want to carry out the fight so that the labourers no longer live to only increase the capital of others. The goal of the fight of Communism is to prevent capitalists from controlling the labour of others by the appropriation of the means of production. But to this purpose the proletariat must necessarily establish its political supremacy, and to do so it has to be constituted in dominant class and conquer democracy. Thus, the radical and international definition of Communism given by Marx and Engels inevitably carries out to a prospect for a transition between capitalism and Communism: the dictatorship of the proletariat.  It has to be undermined that there are some prerequisites to this process: the countries engaged in this way already benefit from a level of relatively high development (industrialization; modernization; material wealth...), created by capitalism itself. Thus, the communist society has its roots in the capitalist society. The class struggle leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is itself only a transition towards a classless society: thus the bourgeois regime is supposed to be the last antagonistic structure. Once the proletariat is empowered, “in place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”.  In 1848, in a world which had to face deep crises, numerous men always being increasingly exploited, were waiting for a message. The Manifesto was considered as an answer, a guideline they should try to put into practice.