What is the Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto was published for the first time 160 years ago, in London, in February-March 1848. It was commissioned to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels by the 2nd Congress of the Communist League in order to be used as its program.

The first English translation was produced in 1850. The Manifesto went through a number of editions from 1872 to 1890; notable new prefaces were written by Marx and Engels for the 1872 German edition, the 1882 Russian edition, the 1883 German edition, and the 1888 English edition.

In the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels established for the first time in history the place of the capitalist formation in human history, as well as its inevitable overthrow. In the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels revealed the irreconcilable inner contradictions of bourgeois society, the fact that the two main antagonistic classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, constantly conduct an uncompromising struggle. The contradiction of capital and labour is the main contradiction of capitalism. Social development is directed towards its resolution.

The epochal role of the proletariat as gravedigger of the capitalist society and builder of communism, as the only class that is consistent to the end and struggles for the interests of all the oppressed, is revealed and theoretically substantiated. By the abolition of capitalist property on the means of production and its replacement with social, communist property, the proletariat will relieve society from capitalist oppression.

Marx and Engels stressed that one of the main principles of communists is the recognition of the international character of the struggle against capital. The basis of this principle is proletarian internationalism, which runs though the entire content of the Communist Manifesto.