The Communist Manifesto: short and powerful
By David Perez
Every time I reread "The Manifesto of the Communist Party,"
better known as "The Communist Manifesto," I am amazed by both
its passion and its continuing relevance. Karl Marx and
Frederick Engels wrote the Manifesto in 1848. Yet some of it
reads like it was written yesterday.
It's a real tour de force of writing. Its very first words,
"A specter is haunting Europe- the specter of Communism,"
immediately grab the reader.
The authors proceed to illustrate the dynamics of the
capitalist system in a language rich in Gothic metaphors and
imagery-from the opening "specter" to the way capitalists are
likened to a "sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the
powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his
spells."
The latter description refers to the nature of capitalist
economic crisis, which results in "an epidemic that, in all
earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity-the epidemic of
over-production."
Marx and Engels' description was not only accurate in 1848;
it applies with equal power today, in 1998. The capitalist
world is currently in the throes of a severe economic crisis,
one marked by a glut of commodities-in everything from
automobiles to crude oil to soybeans, as the bosses readily
admit.
Despite this abundance of goods, the ranks of the unemployed
grow legion, as do hunger and exploitation.
Brief yet potent
What also makes the Manifesto a compelling read is its
structure. Marx and Engels manage to get in a lot of
information in each paragraph, many of which are one sentence
long. Like this passage:
"The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way
based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or
discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer.
"They merely express, in general terms, actual relations
springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical
movement going on under our very eyes. The abolition of
existing property relations is not at all a distinctive feature
of communism.
"All property relations in the past have continually been
subject to historical change consequent upon the change in
historical conditions.
"The French Revolution, for example, abolished feudal
property in favor of bourgeois property.
"The distinguishing feature of communism is not the
abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois
property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final
and most complete expression of the system of producing and
appropriating products that is based on class antagonisms, on
the exploitation of the many by the few.
"In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed
up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."
The book itself is quite short, about 12,000 words. It was
originally published in London as a 23-page pamphlet. Later the
authors added several prefaces to new editions.
The fact that it's small only adds to its impact.
It is a rare document indeed that, although brief, can
become one of the "world's most influential books of the past
200 years," as characterized in the 1998 World Almanac. This
potency comes not only from the Manifesto's analysis. More than
anything, the book is a call to action-and to liberation.
Marx and Engels urge the workers of the world to break free
of their chains and establish a new, just social order-a
communist order. They stress that capitalism will not go away
by itself. It takes organization and struggle.
It is perhaps fitting that Marx and Engels wrote this in
1848. That was the same year Harriet Tubman escaped slavery and
formed the Underground Railroad.
Change inevitable
Of course, much has changed since the Manifesto was written.
The fundamental workings of capitalism, however, have stayed
the same.
Nonetheless, it would be foolish to think a modern analysis
wouldn't do some revision and updating. In 1872, Marx and
Engels themselves said the Manifesto was a historical document,
"out of date in many respects."
Footnotes were added to later editions. In the preface to
the 1888 English edition, Engels wrote that their statement
"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of
class struggles" should be amended to read "all written
history."
Developments in anthropological studies had led Engels to
understand that much of pre-historic society was classless. He
expounded on this theme in his classic work, "The Origins of
the Family, Private Property and the State."
The current epoch, after the terrible setbacks in the
socialist camp, poses new questions, new circumstances and new
challenges. On this 150th anniversary of the Manifesto, no
better tribute can be paid to its authors than to read and
study their classic book-not for sentimentality, but to share
in its vision and continue the struggle by whatever means
necessary.
Workers World Party has called a conference to discuss "The
Communist Manifesto in the Age of Imperialism." The conference
is Dec. 4-6 in New York. For more information, call (212)
627-2994 or check the web page at www.workers.org/cm/
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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