The Communist Manifesto: A clarion call full of ideas

At a time when an ultraright-wing regime 100% based on billionaires and representing their capitalist interests is challenging all movements for human rights in the United States, it is essential to examine the role of the class struggle in human history. Now, at the end of February 2026, it has been 178 years since the first printing of the “Manifesto of the Communist Party,” written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels on the eve of the 1848 anti-feudal revolutions in Europe.

Sam Marcy, one of the founders of Workers World Party and its chairperson for the party’s first 39 years of existence, drafted an introduction to “The Communist Manifesto” in 1983, which is still a suitable guide to this book that inspired hundreds of millions of readers since its first printing. Below is Marcy’s article.  

Today, the slogan of revolutionaries would be: “Workers and oppressed people of the world unite!” 

Of all the great classics in the treasury of Marxism, “The Communist Manifesto” unquestionably stands out as the most popular and widely read throughout the world. Bourgeois ideologists, even the most virulent opponents of Marxism, never fail to be astonished by the persistent attraction the Manifesto has for each new generation of revolutionary militants.

The Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in 1848, is a creative revolutionary synthesis of propaganda and agitation, as these terms were originally defined by George Plekhanov (1856-1918), when he was still a revolutionary Marxist.

“Propaganda” was then understood as the presentation of many complex ideas to a small group of people, while “agitation” was conceived as the presentation of a few ideas or a single idea to a large audience. Of course, there’s no wall between the two.

The Manifesto illuminates a great number of complex ideas.

It presents the materialist conception of history in clear, brilliant language. It traces the history of the class struggle from its earliest days to 1848. It analyzes the rise of the bourgeoisie, explains its revolutionary role — and not only analyzes the intermediate classes in bourgeois society, but also mercilessly exposes the nature of capitalist exploitation and oppression as it had never been done before.

The Manifesto’s diagnosis of capitalist society is at the same time a prognosis of the destruction of capitalism at the hands of what the Manifesto calls the “gravediggers” of capitalism — the revolutionary proletariat.

Not just a critique but a guide to action

Far from being merely a criticism of feudal and bourgeois society, the Manifesto thus unequivocally points the way to the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie.

Furthermore, the Manifesto subjects to critical analysis the nature of the capitalist state, as well as the role of the family, religion and culture.

Above all, in tracing the development of the proletariat from its earliest days in mere handicraft production to its role in large-scale industry by 1848, the Manifesto points to the “proletariat alone as the really revolutionary class” and the historic agent for constituting a new social order, free of exploitation or oppression.

All of this is propaganda — irreplaceable working-class propaganda. Yet at the same time it is also revolutionary agitation of the highest order. It fans the flames of revolution.

On the one hand, the Manifesto directs itself toward presenting a succinct, coherent and lucid exposition of the basic principles of Marxism. To that extent, it directs itself to “the few” — not necessarily the middle class, but the advanced sections of the working class.

On the other hand, with its ringing call to overthrow the oppressors and exploiters, the Manifesto addresses itself directly to the broadest and widest sections of the working class.

It is this dialectical unity of opposites — propaganda and agitation — so skillfully blended together that makes the Manifesto such a monumental achievement.

Nothing could be a more crystal clear call to the proletariat than the final paragraph of the Manifesto. 

It ends with this ringing call to action: “Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

“Workingmen of all countries, unite!”