The Communist Manifesto

Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx

Description

*Winner of the New York Times Book Covers of the Year, 2017*



'Workers of the world, Unite!'



The Communist Manifesto is arguably the world's most influential political manuscript. Surviving through countless decades of revolution and counter-revolution, Marx and Engels' incendiary treatise remains as essential today as it was in 1848: providing a framework for the people's liberation as they struggle against systems of extreme oppression across the globe.



Urgent and alarmingly well-written, The Communist Manifesto resonates beyond the confines of history and political theory - issuing a call-to-arms in the fight to end crisis-ridden capitalism.

1. Introduction by Jodi Dean

2. Manifesto of the Communist Party

I. Bourgeois and Proletarians

II. Proletarians and Communists

III. Socialist and Communist Literature

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

3. Appendix: Prefaces to Various Language Editions

4. Afterword: Introduction to the 2008 Edition by David Harvey

Sujets

• Political Freedom
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Employabilité, métiers et formations
• Movimiento sindical
• Reino Unido
• Proletariat
• Communism
• Means of Production
• General officer
• United Kingdom
• The Communist Manifesto
• Socialism
• Political philosophy
• Trade union
• Economics
• Capitalism
• Great Britain
• World
• Propaganda
• Business
• General
• Communisme
• Labor
• Labour
• Friedrich Engels
• Karl Marx
• Socialisme
• Royaume-Uni

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 janvier 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781786800251
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

With a new introduction by Jodi Dean

The Manifesto of the Communist Partywas first published in February 1848. English translation by Samuel Moore in cooperation with Frederick Engels, 1888.

This edition first published 2017 by Pluto Press

www.plutobooks.com

The full text of the manifesto, along with the endnotes and prefaces to various language editions has been taken from the Marx/Engels Internet Archive (marxists.org)

Transcription/Markup: Zodiac and Brian Basgen, 1991, 2000, 2002

Proofread: Checked and corrected against the English Edition of 1888, by Andy Blunden, 2004. The manifesto and the appendix as published here is public domain.

2008 introduction copyright © David Harvey; 2017 introduction copyright © Jodi Dean

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 7453 9937 9 ISBN 978 0 7453 9939 3 ISBN 978 1 7868 0025 1 ISBN 978 1 7868 0027 5 ISBN 978 1 7868 0026 8

Paperback Hardback PDF eBook Kindle eBook EPUB eBook

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.

Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England

Simultaneously printed in the United Kingdom and United States of America

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1. Introduction by Jodi Dean

2. Manifesto of the Communist Party  I Bourgeois and Proletarians  II Proletarians and Communists  III Socialist and Communist Literature  IV Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties

3. Appendix: Prefaces to Various Language Editions

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47 49 70 85

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4. Afterword: Introduction to the 2008 edition by David Harvey 129

1 INTRODUCTION: THE MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY FOR US

Jodi Dean

An idea whose time has come again

The importance ofThe Manifesto of the Communist Partynearly 200 years after it was written is surprising. It didn’t begin as a powerful statement by important people. Published in 1848, theManifestocame about after a conspiratorial London group called the League of the Just contacted Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who had formed a network of Communist Corre spondence Committees. The Central Committee of the League of the Just convinced Marx and Engels to join them in a new, more open, Communist League. The League would publish Marx’s and Engels’ critical communist ideas in a public statement of the League’s doctrine. Marx and Engels agreed, but Marx delayed finishing the text. The Central Committee had to harass him to get the manuscript, threatening to take ‘further measures’ against him if he didn’t deliver. Even then, the

2MANI FESTO THE COMMUNI ST

text didn’t carry out the assignment: Marx produced not a manifesto specific to the League but something more, a broader statement of how communists see the world. He even changed the name, delivering not The Communist ManifestobutThe Manifesto of the Communist Party, a party which didn’t actually exist. In the first published version, neither the name of the group commissioning the manifesto nor those of its authors appeared on its cover. A manuscript handed in late, with no author, sponsored by no one, in the name 1 of a nonexistent party, changed the world. The event that most profoundly registers this change is the 1917 Russian Revolution. The Bolsheviks, the more militant faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), led a movement of workers, soldiers and peasants in overthrowing tsarism and establishing the world’s first socialist workers’ republic. Just as theManifestopredicted, the oppressed overthrew the oppressors. The class struggle at the basis of history once again resulted in the revo lutionary reconstitution of society. The working class seized political power. After the revolution, the RSDLP changed its name to the Communist Party, occupying the space opened up by theManifesto. This reissue ofThe Communist Manifestoone hundred years after this revolutionary event pushes us to occupy this space again and take the perspective of revolution. Is this a perspective we can take now? The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. For some, this means the time

I NTRODUCTI ON3

of revolution has passed. They claim that capitalism and democracy won. Capitalism and democracy, blended together and practically the same,proved themselves to be better, preferable, more efficient. Communism doesn’t work, we are told, handed the end of the USSR as evidence, as if history is always and forever the endless repetition of the same. Instead of revolution, we should direct our energies toward incremental changes. We should work for capitalism with a human face. We can’t change the world, but we can focus on ourselves, on the selftransformation that comes from selfwork, selflove, selfcare. We can even resist, carving out little moments of freedom when we spit on the burger before serving it with a smile. But, the defenders of the status quo insist, there is no need here and now for socialists, much less critical communists who ‘everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social 2 and political order of things.’ Don’t believe it. The uprisings, demonstrations, occupations and revolts of the first decades of the twentyfirst century indicate that capitalist democracy claimed victory too soon. These days the failure of the system into which capitalism and democracy have converged is clear. Dramatic increases in economic inequality have convinced millions of people across the globe of the inability of capitalism to meet basic needs for food, housing, health, clean water and education. Planetary warming, mass extinctions, sea