Introduction
Karl Marx came up with the Communist Manifesto for the Communist Party in the year 1848 together with Friedrich Engels. This manifesto was written for the Communist league that had been founded a year earlier and it was this Communist League that authorized its publication in the year 1848. Before the formation of the Communist League, Karl Marx together with Engels among others had founded the Communist Correspondence Committee (CCC). The main aims of CCC were to foster a relationship between European Communist States keeping them in touch with each other’s activities. Their other functions also involved contacting prominent socialist leaders such as George Julian Harney in England, Proudhon and Cabet in France. Cabet decided to join the Communists while George Julian and Proudhan declined the invitation. They formed the League of the Just which worked with the German Workers’ Educational Society and it convened its first international congress that was held in London in the year 1847 where they agreed to change its name to the Communist League. Marx and Engels were given the task of writing this Manifesto which was done by February of 1848 (Marx, Engels, 1998).
The Manifesto
It was Friedrich Engels who suggested the title Communist manifesto in his letter to Karl Marx where he urged him to use that title. The original article which was written in German was then rewritten in different languages of Europe such as French, English, Italian and many more languages. This work by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels has gone one to become one of the World’s most recognized political articles. This article laid down the plans and programs of the Communist League presenting an analytical approach to its problems that were being experienced. This article also talked about historical and present struggles as well as prediction of the future of Communism (Jeremy, Garvey, 2005).
This Manifesto talked about theories about the society and politics as written by both Karl Marx and Engels and briefly tries to explain how capitalism will be wiped out from the society by socialism which would then be replaced by communism at the end. In the draft there were several questions expressing both the ideas of Engels and Marx during that period. The article talked about how the bourgeoisie exploited the proletariat for the manual labor and cheap wages they were offering and thus making the bourgeoisie to make profit. The proletariat would then rise against the bourgeoisie in forms of riots and formation of unions to fight for their rights. The article talked about several issues such as “abolition of property in land and the application of all rents of land to public, abolition of the rights of inheritance, confiscation of property of all emigrants and rebels etc” (Marx, Engels, 1998).
Conclusion
Works Cited
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto. New York, NY: Signet Classic, 1998. Print.
Stangroom, Jeremy, and James Garvey. The Great Philosophers. London: Arcturus, 2005. Print.
