A Critical Analysis of Communist Manifesto of February 1848 · Communist Manifesto has a very big rhetorical power due to its structure, language and stylistic means used by the authors

International Journal of Social, Politics & Humanities ISSN: 2797-3735, Volume 7, Issue 1, page 76 - 89

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Liranso, B. E. 2020. A Critical Analysis of Communist Manifesto of February ............ 76

A Critical Analysis of

Communist Manifesto of

February 1848

Betalo Endrias Liranso

Betalo Endrias Liranso (MA, PhD Candidate)

School of Sociology and Political Science, Shanghai University

Shanghai, China

1. INTRODUCTION

The topic of this paper is a critical analysis of The Communist Manifesto of February 1848,

which is first drafted by Friedrich Engels in October 1847. Communists of various nationalities

assembled in London and sketched The Communist Manifesto to be published in English, French,

German, Italian, Flemish and Danish languages. Then Manifesto of Communist Party was written by

Abstract: The topic of this paper is critically analyzing The Communist Manifesto

officially published in February 1848. This is why because it presents a digested

analysis of capitalism and its inherent faults, briefly outlining the ways in which

capitalism will be superseded by a new stage in human history. Specifically, this

term paper analyzes The Communist Manifesto’s historical background, reflect its

core points critically and investigate its strengths and weaknesses today by

employing a qualitative content analysis design and used secondary data sources

including Manifesto itself. The Communist Manifesto describes two opposing

economic systems, communism and capitalism, and then discusses the political

implications of the tension between them. In 21st century America, the wealthiest

of the wealthy continue to earn more and more capital and property, while those

below, particularly at the lower ends of the income spectrum, find their wages and

earnings stagnating, prices of goods and valuables continue to rise, which leads

to a loss of net worth and a dramatic rise of a cost of living for those persons. The

document has a great emotional power as it addresses the issues that worried

people at that time. The tone contains notes that evoke the desire for struggle. The

Communist Manifesto has a very big rhetorical power due to its structure,

language and stylistic means used by the authors. It remains the best example of

the art of rhetoric.

Keywords: Capitalism, Communist Manifesto, Communism, Frederic Engels,

Karl Marx, Socialism.

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Karl Marx and Frederic Engels as Communist League’s programme on instruction of its Second

Congress in London on November 29 to December 8, 1847.

Historically, The Communist Manifesto is the product of the joint development of ideas between

Karl Marx and Frederic Engels, and rooted in debates held by Communist League leaders in London.

However, the final draft was written solely by Karl Marx. The text became a significant political

influence in Germany and led to Marx being expelled from the country, and his permanent move to

London. Karl Marx and Frederic Engels revised and republished the text after it became more widely

known, which resulted in the text that we know today. It has been popular around the world since the

late 19th century, and continues to serve as a basis for critiques of capitalism, and as a call for social,

economic, and political systems that are organized by equality and democracy, rather than exploitation.

In this paper, Manifesto is a written document that indicates mainly the history of all hitherto

existing society is history of class struggles and society as a whole is more and more splitting up into

two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other. It states that the fall of the

bourgeoisie and the victory of the proletariat are both equally inevitable. Hence, capitalism is still with

us 170 years later and working class has not permanently and successfully conquered power.

Most of data used in this paper used adopted the name The Manifesto of Communist Party and

The Communist Manifesto interchangeably. In this term paper, I also used these names

interchangeably. As a matter of fact, nowadays, The Communist Manifesto lauded by some for its

prophetic power and blamed by others for deaths of millions.

1.1 Justification

Interpretations of this short document have affected the lives of millions globally, particularly in

the second half of the twentieth century. The text is somehow able to outline the complex

theoretical foundations for the world’s most enduring critique of capitalism in a comprehensible and

persuasive language, and as such readers of all classes, professions, nations and ethnicities have

drawn on and in many cases warped and manipulated its valuable insights.

Manifesto of Communist Party conquered the world, observes millions of people all around

the world over the years. It influenced the course of history more directly and lastingly than almost

any other text. There was nothing preordained about revolution happening and the wheels of history

did not move automatically. Changes in history depended on the objective clash between the different

social forces but also on the subjective actions of men and women.

A study by Boyer, George R. (1998) shows that after the global financial crisis capitalism now

appears to be on the brink of collapse that The Communist Manifesto predicted so long ago, and new

kinds of information networks and collaborative production increasingly resemble the vision of

communism first espoused by Marx and Engels. A new generation is beginning to look to Marxist

ideas again and The Communist Manifesto. The Communist Manifesto provides a broad brush picture

of capitalist development. It extrapolated from trends in the mid 19th century to present a clear and

definite view of the future. It is still able to help us comprehend a global system where capitalism

tentacles stretch into every corner of the world, and where the traditional ways of doing things are

destroyed by the impact of commodity production. The spread of global capital and the revolution in

technology have made this analysis even more relevant.

1.2 Objectives

The general objective of this term paper is to analyze critically The Communist Manifesto

officially published in February 1848. In line with this main objective, specifically, this paper tried:

a. To analyze historical background of The Communist Manifesto

b. To critically reflect the main points mentioned under The Communist Manifesto

c. To analyze critically the strength and weakness of The Communist Manifesto

1.3 Research Methodology

1.3.1 Study design

Qualitative content analysis is chosen for this study because it helps in locating and addressing

research objectives. According to Hocking, quantitative approach of content analysis is only concerned

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about words in text, easy to fail in noticing meanings found from the context. However, Huckin (2003)

explains a qualitative approach of content analysis concentrates on both implicit and explicit concepts,

so that the researcher has more freedom to see not only the words but also the concepts in the bigger

context.

1.3.2 Sources of data

In this paper, I mainly use secondary data sources from study centres such as library and online.

The materials generally provide extensive background information about The Communist Manifesto.

Majority of the materials are Manifesto itself, books written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, etc.

As the first step, I obtain a big amount of general background knowledge about The Communist

Manifesto by wide reading. While reading, I also collect citable references to support my study. Then, I

apply analysis method of content analysis design. This systematic work process is mainly applied in

throughout the paper based on objectives.

1.3.4 Ethical considerations

Throughout the paper, I try to keep the whole process as transparent and objective as it could be. I

have an ethical responsibility to acknowledge the work of others when used. The methodological

procedures detailed are one way in which I have attempted to clarify and examine the assumptions and

process which have underpinned this term paper from beginning to end.

2. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO OF FEBRUARY

1848

The most forceful and undeniably significant response to the economic horrors of the Industrial

Revolution is Karl Marx’s and Frederick Engels’ pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto officially

published in February 1848. Its radical ideas were obviously antagonistic to the ideology of capitalism.

It seemed to be brewed as passionate ideology fuelled by emotional rhetoric that was based upon the

injustices perpetrated by the middle class bourgeoisie during the Industrial Revolution. The harsh

economic conditions of early industrial capitalism produced a new era in social relations and political

struggle which grew into a critique and call for complete change of the current system personified best

in The Communist Manifesto of February 1848.

The Communist Manifesto anticipates the speed and direction of actual capitalist development in

countries and explains a lot about 20th century capitalism. The description of the growth of the

proletariat, capital accumulation and the onset of crisis could all apply to the recent history that a

growing number of people are looking once again at the ideas of Marx and communism in trying to

explain what is wrong with the world.

2.1 Criticisms to Capitalism

Engels (2002, p.472) described as the son of a German textile manufacturer and affluent enough

to write intellectual arguments that opposed the perceived immoral qualities of capitalism. His

observations would become one of the most honest criticisms of the state of capitalist industrialization

to date and would help shape ideas expressed in The Communist Manifesto.

The development of capitalism led to the creation of great manufacturing towns, to which huge

numbers of agricultural labourers in search of employment. Engels (1845 [1987], pp. 100-2) shows as

the living conditions in cities were horrible. The working class was crowded into slums, in which the

housing was poorly constructed, badly ventilated, and in a bad state of repair. Most of slums did not

have an adequate water supply and completely lacking in drainage facilities.

Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels (1848 [1992]) present a description of the development of

industrial capitalism, and predictions for its future. They begin by declaring that the history of all

hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. All history is a tale of economic struggles

between classes. While condemning the bourgeoisie for its brutal exploitation of labor, Marx and

Engels (1848 [1992], pp. 5-8) praise it for showing activity. The bourgeoisie has created more massive

and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.



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Marx & Engels (1848, pp. 4-8), modern industry has established the world market for which the

discovery of America paved the way. The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market

given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. Marx welcomed this

globalization, the new phenomenon in the history of humanity.

Engels (1845 [1987], p. 275) declared the bourgeoisie as a class to be incurably debased by

selfishness. The revolt of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie began early in the industrial revolution,

and by 1844 had passed through several stages, from crime, to machine breaking and arson, to trade

unionism. Unions represented the first attempt of the workers to abolish competition.

According to Engels (1845 [1987], p. 116, 159), the introduction of machinery and the division of

labour that occurred as a result of the industrial revolution greatly increased productivity, but every

improvement in machinery throws workers out of employment, and the greater the advance, the more

numerous unemployed. The increased use of machinery also enabled the bourgeoisie to replace adult

male workers with women and children, who were employed at far lower wages. Furthermore, Marx

and Engels (1848 [1992], p. 9) shows that under modern capitalism, the workers were forced to sell

themselves piecemeal to bourgeoisie. They are consequently exposed to all vicissitudes of competition

to all fluctuations of the market.

Adam Smith (2002, p.422) believed the working class was incompetent and unable to see that

their lives where ironically worse than the colonial slaves of Africa. He strongly agreed with benefits

for the whole of society in constructing social structures but seemed to ignore the problems of the

workers. The infamous invisible hand he believed would somehow benefit the workers through the

overall social benefits created by constructing such social structures as paved streets, city transport,

street lighting, fire brigades, water works, gas works, hospitals, parks and police.

Marcus Steven (1974, p.247) wrote that Engels believed and saw a great division between the

two classes that became the common understanding of Marx as well. Engels complains about the

concentration of the working class and focuses on this to argue and indict the capitalists as immoral.

Also Marx and Engels (1848 [1992], pp. 11-12) describes that from its conception, the proletariat

had struggled with the bourgeoisie. At first, their resistance took the form of isolated acts of machine

breaking and arson. However, the advance of industry and in particular the concentration of the

proletariat in large factories, led workers to form trade unions and friendly societies. Eventually

proletarians formed their own political party, which compels legislative recognition of particular

interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself.

The capitalists can see clearly what was wrong with ancient or feudal society but not what is

wrong with their own. They can see no other way of living and working. Any society based on the

exploitation of one group by another, as class societies, will develop ideas which justify the rule of its

exploiters. It is not surprising that the ideas of the capitalists sanctify and protect property. The struggle

for a new form of society which overcomes those class antagonisms means not just a material struggle

against exploitation but an alternative ideological explanation of the world. Despite talk of property

owning democracies in modern capitalism, the concentration of property among a tiny minority is still

staggering, especially when housing or debt in the form of mortgages is excluded.

Therefore, the radical social changes which Marx and Engels set out and the establishment of

communism itself could only be achieved by sweeping away the old system of production, based on

private property, which allowed a minority to accumulate wealth while the majority suffered. Only by

ridding itself of these conditions, working class begin to end the class antagonisms which the

conditions produce. Eventually production for need based on workers themselves running society

would lead to a classless society or communism where the free development of each is the condition for

the free development of all.

Central to Marx and Engels’ view of communism is the need to abolish private property, since

this is based on the exploitation of the vast majority. Yet they met an objection still commonly raised

today. The capital or property is not a personal but a social power and to be a capitalist is to have not

only a purely personal but a social status in production. Abolition of private property would not result

in every small item owned by a worker being taken away.


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2.2 Criticisms to Socialism

The analysis of socialism was the first simple attempt by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels to

define their form of socialism and communism in relation to the various other sorts of socialism during

the 1840s. The various forms of socialism offer at this time tended to be backwards looking towards

better society before the excesses of capitalism. Proponents lacked any strategy for changing society

except for appeals to representatives of the old classes themselves under attack from capitalism. They

engage in a polemic against those competing to win workers to different ideas. They consider various

sorts of socialism popularised in the years before the Manifesto was written, and start with a material

analysis of why these sorts of socialism have found an audience.

John Stuart Mill (1848 [1909], p. 751) writing at the same time as Marx and Engels, concluded

that hitherto is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of

any human being. They have enabled a greater population to live the same life of drudgery and

imprisonment, and an increased number of manufacturers and others to make fortunes.

Marx and Engels (1848 [1992], pp. 5, 27) argued that the adoption of the Reform Act of 1832,

which enfranchised middle class property holders and redistributed the seats in Parliament, caused the

aristocracy to succumb to the hateful upstart bourgeoisie, who thereby achieved exclusive political

sway. As evidence of the bourgeoisie’s control of Parliament, Engels (1845 [1987] cited the adoption

of the New Poor Law in 1834 and, more importantly, the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. This

depiction of British politics in the second quarter of the 19th century is largely incorrect.

Marx and Engels (1953, pp. 509, 537) despite prediction in their letters, were very critical of the

British working class. Marx wrote in 1878 that the working class had at last got to the point when it

was nothing more than the tail of the Great Liberal Party, i.e., of the oppressors, the capitalists. In 1894,

a year before his death, Engels wrote; one is indeed driven to despair by these English workers with

their essentially bourgeois ideas and viewpoints with their practical narrow-mindedness. McLellan

(1973, pp. 438-42) as their hopes for a proletarian revolution in Britain, or elsewhere in Western

Europe declined, Marx and Engels in the late 1870s began to turn their attention to Russia. It was there

22 years after the death of Engels that a communist revolution finally occurred.

Engels (1845 [1987], pp. 82-3) the increasing prosperity of the working class and the decline in

worker militancy both went against the predictions in the Communist Manifesto. Marx and Engels

reached overly pessimistic conclusions about the economic plight of the working class and

overestimated the potential for a proletarian revolution largely because they were writing during the

hungry 40s and because they focused their attention.

Many of the early forms of socialism were inspired, led and articulated by the representatives of

those classes who had lost out the most in the transition from feudalism to capitalism and whose

critique of the new system was based on the desire to preserve its old place in the social order. Even the

aristocracy was prepared to attack the emerging bourgeoisie in words, although it was compromising

with it in deeds and in sharing the spoils of wealth.

The petty bourgeois socialists also based their ideas on a class whose time had passed and which

found its existence threatened by the creation of modern industry and the growth of the proletariat. True

socialism tried to straddle the basic conflict between the classes, and therefore identified with the status

quo. It was popular in Germany in so far as it represented a rejection of the horrors of industrial

capitalism, but true socialism also stood for the preservation of petty bourgeois values and ideas against

the rise of a new revolutionary working class. It placed store in eternal values such as 'truth' which

supposedly transcended the limits of class society but in reality tried to ignore the fundamental class

divisions.

The utopian socialists were the other group. Their ideas had heavily influenced Marx and Engels

and they retained a degree of respect for the individuals and their ideas. The utopians developed their

theories of socialism when the working class was in its infancy. This affected their view both of how

capitalism could be changed and which forces could be the agency of change. Rather than seeing the

working class in this role, they looked instead to great plans and schemes for building the new society.

Their theories crystallised into some speculative and some actual social experiments. However, there

was a huge gulf between their visions of society and the means of achieving it.


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3. BRIEF REFLECTION ON THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO OF FEBRUARY 1848

The Communist Manifesto is a historically well known document, originally written in German,

by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, both theorists. To provide some background, Engels was a social

and political scientist, theorist and an economist as well as a veteran of the Prussian Army. Relatively

wealthy and financially well off; he worked closely with Karl Marx, including funding his research, to

found the political theory and school known as Marxism. Marx was university educated, holding a

doctorate in philosophy, and has been described as one of the fathers of modern social sciences.

The Communist Manifesto officially published in 1848 sets in a popular manner main ideas and

goals of the communist party and ideology. The Communist Manifesto is divided into four chapters

outlining the basic philosophical premise of dialectical materialism and class conflict and the forces

driving history. Thus the materialist conception of history sees a close interplay between the forms of

society that are inevitable and the material basis of society. It is high time communists declared their

views to the world.

3.1 Bourgeois and Proletarians

The Communist Manifesto opens first chapter with the proclamation that the history of all

hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. This dialectical materialism holds that history

is driven through the division of society into competing parts and their fight over the means of

production moves from describing feudalism to discussing capitalism as a mode in which the bourgeois

exploit the proletariat. Therefore, the modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of

feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has established new classes, new

conditions of oppression and new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.

The bourgeoisie controls land and production, while oppressing and prospering. The

proletariat labors, while being oppressed and suffering. With industrialization and new trade

routes, markets grew and the medieval status quo crumbled. The industrial bourgeoisie

emerged in the long course of these changes. The bourgeoisie controls the state executive,

which serves monied interests. The bourgeoisie dismantled feudalism in favor of raw profit

exchanges. Each time the bourgeoisie modernizes its factories, all of society is up ended. All

tends to make planet a single marketplace, and so makes all nations interdependent. So, the

entire globe in order to survive becomes bourgeois.

Marx and Engels state that while modern society has evolved significantly from the days of

feudal lords and Roman knights, the modern bourgeois society sprouted from the ruins of feudal society

not done away with class antagonisms. Over time, the powerful and the wealthy have gained access and

control to the means and modes of the production in industry, and thus, have control of the world which

they control for a means to an end; their own wealth being the bourgeoisie.

The Communist Manifesto proclaims and demonstrates that societies were always divided into

ruling and ruled classes. After an historical account of the feudalist system of production, the text

moves on to discuss capitalism and the relationship between the bourgeois and proletariat. It analyses

the way the bourgeois came to rule over the means of production and exploit the proletarian and how

capitalism came to be the dominant mode of production. Marx and Engels argue that capitalism relies

on the accumulation of capital in private hands through the concept of hired labor that allows for the

exploitation of workers. They confess that this mode of class division brought about the greatest period

of growth in human history but it is not everlasting and will come to its historic end.

The important function of this chapter is that the stage is set for the next historical revolution, the

next stage of the dialectics. Marx and Engels hold that the proletariat will eventually overthrow the

bourgeois and lead European society into the next phase of history which will also be the last one since

it would be a classless society in which there is not conflict. .

Moreover, Marx and Engels say that the bourgeoisie have effectively made and tied the figurative

rope that it will eventually hang itself with. Indeed, but no only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons

that will bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons,

the modern working class, the proletariat. They could very well find themselves looking for new work.

This is also evidenced by Marx and Engels stating as privates of the industrial army are placed under

the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only they are slaves of the bourgeois

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class, and of the bourgeois state; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, the machine being

the socio-political system that makes up the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

This specifically states that because the rich and wealthy control the means to run the machine;

everything that the proletariat are powerless to change it unless this system was to change. History is

everywhere the tale of oppressors oppressing and the oppressed resisting. The bourgeoisie has

lost its claim to legitimacy because it crushes the workers, leaving them paupers and in need

of assistance just to survive. Capitalists need capital, which they get from the sweat of laborers.

Laborers compete, and eventually form unions. And these labor unions undermine the

bourgeoisie control of production and capital. Proletarian victory is inevitable. This is why the

famous opening of The Communist Manifesto reads as a spectre is haunting Europe. The Communist

Manifesto then continues to analyze capitalist mode of production and its final destiny of being turned

over and replaced by communism.

3.2 Proletarians and Communists

The second chapter of the Communist Manifesto discusses the relationship of communists to the

proletariat, arguing that it is the true representation of their interests. The initial argument presented in

the beginning of the chapter is the communists are the purest representation of the proletariat. The

communists argue Marx and Engels differ from other parties in that they tap into the material course of

history and represent in their ideas not some made up ideology; Marx’s highly suspicions of ideology

but rather the manifestation of the working of historical direction and its inevitable, rather than just

desires of direction.

The Communist Manifesto is aimed at clarifying the intention of communism to abolish private

property and hired works which are the basic principles of the capitalist system. This part also includes

some practical demands such as free public education, progressive tax, abolishing of inheritance and

more. One important point here to note is the relation to the nation state which for Marx is closely tied

to capitalism and therefore need to go away with it. An important distinction made by Marx and Engels

in The Communist Manifesto is that communism is an international movement rather than national. For

Marx and others, capitalism is closely associated with the nation state and the abolition of the former

will also include the abolition of the latter.

The chapter analyzes capitalism as dependent on private property. The core goal of communism

is therefore set at cancelling private property, thus bringing about a classless society. Marx and Engels

also discuss hired labor and show it exploitative nature, connecting it as well to capitalism and its

eventual demise. They even go as far as calling for the abolition of the family since it is also a

mechanism of exploitation and a means to capitalism's ends. The purpose of communism as presented

to create a society without any divisions, not social, not national and not even between parents and

children.

Communists focus attention of workers on international aspects of all workers everywhere.

Communists want what all workers want as to unite workers and seize power from capitalists.

Private property is the root cause, and so must be forbidden, because it underpins all capitalists do.

What is at issue here is not worker’s tools and hovels, but industrial capital. Capital emerges

only by social action, and therefore belongs to the collective. As to wages, capitalists set those

so workers support themselves, but never have excess by which to improve their lot. Capitalists

steal all the excess. In a communist society, all excess would improve the life of workers. To

seize capital is to overthrow the capitalists.

Workers have no nations. Their families and children have been turned into tools of

capital. Global trade renders nations less and less relevant. The rule of workers will do so even

more quickly. When class antagonisms decline, so too will international tensions. Religious and

philosophical criticisms of communism lack merit. Rulers impose their ideas on subjects. Ideas

emerge from economic relations. Since communism strikes at the heart of private property, it

portends a huge change in thought patterns.

Marx and Engels further state that capitalists set the minimum wage as that the worker is able to

maintain a meager existence and keep that existence as a mere labourer and not advance any further;

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and state the contrast that communist society’s labour is a way to enrich and widen scope of one’s life,

as opposed to suffering and being held back by upper class bourgeoisie’s rate of the minimum wage.

Marx and Engels conclude chapter two of The Communist Manifesto with a list of short term

means and actions that can serve to move history in right direction. The proletariat will take over

state mechanisms at the polls, then seize private property for the state, and, bit by bit, eliminate

the social order of the past. This process include: public ownership of all land, high income

taxes, confiscatory inheritance taxation, seizure of all property of state enemies, centralized

banking and credit, nationalizing transportation and communications, rapid industrial expansion,

forcing all people to work, redistribution of population out of cities and into the countryside, and

free universal education and abolition of child labour. When all power lies with proletariat, state

will cease functioning politically.

3.3 Socialists and Communist Literature

The third chapter of The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels tries to define communism

not thorough it capitalist opposition rather as distinguished from the closer socialist movement. The

basic point is that socialism, unlike communism, is essentially counter revolutionary since they just

want progressive change that will only serve to perpetuate capitalism and its exploitative practices.

What Marx and Engels are after in their The Communist Manifesto and not a bandage but rather a deep

and total change of the very structure of society with the modes of production. The point and goal for

communism is the root, the core, and that means to turn the table completely as bring down the whole

system instead of just trying to improve on it. This sets communism apart from other socialist

movements that might be preaching a seemingly similar gospel and demanding similar demands.

English and French aristocrats railed against the upstart middle class by facetiously

complaining of the bourgeoisie’s abuse of their workers. The feudal socialism of endangered

gentry complained that shopkeepers radicalized workers. The church joined these feudal

socialists, since Christian piety weds neatly with aristocratic rhetoric. The petty-bourgeoisie is

between workers and capitalists, aspiring to wealth, but often suffering defeat and becoming

proletarian. Such socialism offers helpful critique of capitalism, but in the end seeks restoration of

the old, now passing, values. German socialists created an arid idealism from the French

Revolution’s ideas. In so doing, they rendered the French ideas impotent. German socialism

became the silly mouthpiece of the petty bourgeoisie. It wrongly condemned the heedless

destructiveness of communism.

Conservative socialism seeks administrative improvements, not revolutionary upheaval

of the economic mode of production. Early communist theorists could not adequately formulate a

theory because the proletariat was in its infancy. The workers exist in their minds only as a

beleaguered group. These utopians think themselves above class struggles. Their schemes

propose to benefit all, even the wealthy. They imagine that little experiments and peaceful

persuasion will win the day. Still, though dreamers, they are communists. Because they miss

the role of the workers in revolution, they end up dampening class struggle, and waste their

time with little experimental communities. In the end, they serve the capitalists with their

mystical view of the power of their social thinking and their pacifistic opposition to meaningful

conflict.

Marx and Engels specifically state that the goal of the communists to overthrow the rich and

wealthy bourgeoisie, and end domination of the means and ability to control and to bring this control

under a unified proletariat; and that this was by no means a revolutionary idea. Citing the French

Revolution, Marx and Engels reference how feudal lands and property rights in favor of a bourgeois

property and ownership system. Making the point that communism wasn’t calling for the abolition of

property ownership completely, it iterated that bourgeois property, as such, be abolished seemingly to

come under control of the now unified proletariat. The Communist Manifesto also claims that while

socialism in fact serves the interests of the bourgeois, it is communism that is really tuned in to the

needs of the actual working class and that it is the instrument to bring about the end of the conflict

between bourgeois and proletariat.

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3.4 Position of the Communists in Relation to Existing Opposition Parties

The fourth chapter of The Communist Manifesto is its last short chapter of closing. It discusses

the relationship between the communist party and other parties and movements and Europe of the time.

It supports anyone who wants to overthrow the existing ruling order, preferably by force.

The Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the

existing social and political order of things. In all these movements, they bring to the front, as

the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at

the time. Finally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of

all countries. The 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. The proletarians

have nothing to lose but their chains.

Communists support Chartists and Agrarian Reformers, social-democrats and radicals

everywhere. Wherever action overthrows existing institutions, communists provide support,

redirecting enthusiasm to the question of property. Communists unite all parties seeking change.

Communists coerce others to create a society they approve. The capitalists should quake.

Workers have nothing, and so stand to lose nothing, but their miseries. If they will unite

internationally, workers shall control the world. They have a world to win. The Communist

Manifesto ends with the famous call: Workers of the world unite!

4. STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF COMMUNIST MANIFESTO OF FEBRUARY 1848

4.1 Strengths

The Communist Manifesto which was first published in February 1848 remains an essential

guidebook for any socialist serious about overthrowing capitalism. This is because Karl Marx, with the

help of Frederick Engels, was able to show for the first time the essential features and laws of

capitalism as a class based social system of production and exchange. The Communist Manifesto is a

declaration of the intentions of a communist organization. It served as a brief and concise explanation

of the ideas that form foundation of communist and socialist ideology. Marx thought that a kind of

dialectical or two opposites producing a unified whole process would create a merchant class and a

working class from the struggle between the peasant and the nobility.

The Communist Manifesto still finds favour among many political groups and its tenets and ideas

are worthy of study because there are economic and historical truths embedded within it. It has also

proved to be the foundation of one of the most prominent economic and political movements of the

20th Century. Throughout the twentieth century, it became the most zealous advocate of the

world’s anti colonialist movements. It influenced numerous anti colonial leaders and organizations,

from Fidel Castro in Cuba to Frantz Fanon in Algeria, from Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana to Julius

Nyerere in Tanzania, and from the Indian National Congress in India to the African National

Congress in South Africa.

The Communist Manifesto shows how the capitalist class played a revolutionary part in history

by ending feudalism and absolute monarchy, establishing a world market and conquering exclusive

political control. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common

affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. The new labour government forcibly springs and globalised capitalism

with its constant movement of production, financial instability, job insecurity and rapid technological

change.

The Communist Manifesto shows how the contradiction between the forces of production and its

system of ownership and control is the historical law that leads to revolutionary change. This is how the

capitalist class came to power in countries like England and France, as the rising bourgeoisie were

drawn into conflict with the existing organisation of agriculture and manufacturing. The anarchy of

capitalist economy is characterised by the massive application of science and technology, a tremendous

growth in the productive forces, the socialisation and internationalisation of production, and the

reduction of all labour to property like less wage labour. Today we live under unique political

conditions. Reformism cannot offer even the smallest concessions to workers and has turned into its

opposite.


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The Communist Manifesto proposes not simply a theory of history, but also a thesis about the

historicization of theory. Formally, it connects the written word to historical and material revolution,

developing an intimate relationship between theory and action. The Communist Manifesto is a book

that not only shaped the postcolonial world, but actually theorized the processes of its own

revolutionary shaping. It celebrates the social and economic conditions brought about by bourgeois

capitalism because they lay the material foundations for the next stage in history called communism.

Bourgeois capitalism or today’s neo liberalism is a necessary prerequisite to communism as

Marx and Engels envisage it. The Communist Manifesto is courageous enough to conclude that the

socialization of man would produce automatically a harmony of all interests.

The Communist Manifesto emphasizes that the global economy and culture created by

bourgeois capitalism is a necessary predicate for the international communism that it advocates;

the working men of all countries, not of one region or nation that must unite! It then creates that global

audience by overcoming the problem of its own translatability. The Communist Manifesto

anticipates the world wide dissemination and mingling of national and local literatures that defines

contemporary global culture. The Manifesto’s prediction of a global culture is exemplified by its

own history of publication, translation and dissemination.

Marx’s role has been to provide clarity and guidance, to serve as a symbol of certain tendencies

of thought and action. His uniquely forceful and acute analyses of history and capitalism have been a

font of inspiration for thinkers and activists, a stimulus to keep their eyes on the prize, so to speak. His

prediction of the collapse of capitalism from its internal contradictions has given hope and confidence

to millions, perhaps too much confidence, in light of the traditional over optimism of Marxists. But

having such a brilliant authority on their side, such a teacher, has surely been of inestimable benefit to

the oppressed.

Marx was right that capitalism isn’t sustainable, because of its contradictions, its dysfunctional

social consequences, and also its effects on the natural environment. No compromises between capital

and wage labour. The market is just too anarchic, and capital too voracious. Stability is not possible.

Genuine socialism of workers’ democratic control on an international scale never could have happened

in the twentieth century, which was still the age of oligopolistic, imperialistic capitalism, even state

capitalism. In fact, it wasn’t until the twenty first century that the capitalist mode of production was

consolidated across the entire globe, a development Marx assumed was necessary as a prerequisite for

socialism or communism.

Socialist or post capitalist interests can surely not take over national states until they have vast

material resources on their side, such as can only be acquired through large scale participation in

productive activities. As the capitalist economy descends into global crisis/stagnation, one can predict

that an alternative economy, a solidarity economy of cooperative and socialized relations of production

will emerge both in society’s interstices and, sooner or later, in the mainstream. In many cases it will be

sponsored and promoted by the state on local, regional, and national levels, in an attempt to assuage

social discontent; but its growth will only have the effect of hollowing out the hegemony of capitalism

and ultimately facilitating its downfall.

The new society has to be erected on the foundation of emerging production relations, which

cannot but take a very long time to broadly colonize society. And class struggle, that key Marxian

concept, will of course be essential to the transformation as decades of continuous conflict between the

masters and the oppressed, including every variety of disruptive political activity, will attend the

construction from the grassroots up to the national government of anti capitalist modes of production.

The conquest of political power will occur piecemeal, gradually; it will suffer setbacks and then

proceed to new victories, then suffer more defeats, etc., in a century long or longer process that happens

at different rates in different countries. It will be a time of world agony, especially as climate change

will be devastating civilization; but the sheer numbers of people whose interests will lie in a

transcendence of corporate capitalism will constitute a formidable weapon on the side of progress.

One reasonable, though rather optimistic, blueprint for the early stages of this process is the

British Labour Party’s Manifesto, which lays out principles that can be adapted to other countries. Such

a plan will necessarily encounter so much resistance that, early on, even if the Labour Party comes to

power, only certain parts of it will be able to be implemented. But plans such as this will provide ideals


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that can be approximated ever more closely as the international left grows in strength; and eventually

more radical goals may become feasible.

The egalitarianism of modern America represents the essential achievement of the classless

society envisioned by Marx. The new technologies such as the internet are making communist

production practices realizable today. Though these microcosms of communist production are still

antagonistically entangled into capitalist class relations, they might yet be developed, extended, and

intensified into other spheres of society. Utopian potentials inherent in twenty first century

technology cannot remain bound to a parochial capitalist imagination. They must be liberated by an

ambitious left alternative. The world literary and social commons, that The Communist Manifesto

drew on and created in both content and form, and which informed many of the twentieth century’s

anti imperial movements.

4.2 Weaknesses

Yet the real problem with the Marxian ideas imbued in The Communist Manifesto might be that

Marx misunderstood which class would ultimately subsume all the others. He was under the impression

that labourers must ultimately take over the means of production and so destroy the capitalist system.

What he could not understand was that the means of production would become less and less expensive

all the time due to efficiencies in production. Workers would themselves become entrepreneurs in free

and republican societies. The advent of computers, and inexpensive access to the tools of a service

industry would make small business a dominant and driving force. The internet has opened publishing

up to any person who has a few dollars to rent a server.

The Communist Manifesto’s epoch making claim that the history of all complex societies has

been the history of class struggle is oversimplifying, contrary to what has been claimed a thousand

times, if class struggle is understood to mean not only explicit conflict between classes and class

subgroups, but also the implicit antagonism of interests between classes, which constitutes the structure

of economic institutions. Particular class dynamics together with the level of development of

productive forces they determine and are expressed through provide the basic institutional context

around which a given politics and culture are fleshed out.

Class struggle is central to history in still more ways; for instance, virtually by analytical

necessity it has been directly or indirectly, the main cause of popular resistance and rebellions.

Likewise, the ideologies and cultures of the lower classes have been in large measure sublimations

of class interest and conflict. Most wars, too, have been undertaken so that rulers effectively the

ruling class could gain control over resources, which is sort of the class struggle by other means.

Wars grow out of class dynamics, and are intended to benefit the rich and powerful. In any case,

the very tasks of survival in complex societies are structured by class antagonisms, which

determine who gets what resources when and in what ways.

Most intellectuals including many academically trained leftists, also see The Communist

Manifesto’s economistic arguments as overly simplifying and reductivist. Mainstream intellectuals in

particular consider it a sign of unsophistication that The Communist Manifesto tends to abstract from

complicating factors and isolate the class variable. Reality is complicated and they shout in unison.

Class isn’t everything and somehow, it is considered an intellectual vice, and not a virtue, to simplify

for the sake of understanding. It’s true, after all, that the world is complex; and so in order to

understand it one has to simplify it a bit, explain it in terms of general principles.

In essence, while Marx was right to locate a capitalist tendency toward relative immiseration of

the working class, he was wrong that this tendency could not be effectively counteracted, at least for a

long time by opposing pressures. That is, he underestimated the power of tendencies toward integration

of the working class into the dominant order, toward pure and simple trade unionism, toward the state’s

stabilizing management of the economy, and toward workers’ identification not only with the abstract

notion of a social class that spans continents but also with the more concrete facts of ethnicity, race,

trade, immediate community, and nation. These forces have historically militated against the

revolutionary tendencies of class polarization and international working class solidarity. They have

both fragmented the working class and made possible the successes of reformism; the welfare state,


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social democracy, and the legitimization of mass collective bargaining in the wake of the Great

Depression and World War II.

Marx expected that the proletariat would have to seize control of the national state and then carry

out the social revolution from the commanding heights of government. This is clear from the ten point

program laid out in The Communist Manifesto, the specifics of which he repudiated in later years, but

apparently not the general conception of statist reconstruction of the economy. It’s doubtful, appears,

that both he and Engels were extreme statists, even though, like anarchists, they hoped and expected

that the state would somehow, inexplicably disappear eventually.

The social revolution can’t occur after a total seizure of state power by the proletariat, which isn’t

a unitary entity but contains divisions for several reasons. First, this conception of revolution

contradicts the understanding of social dynamics. It exalts a centralized conscious will as being able to

plan social evolution in advance, a notion that is utterly undialectical. According to dialectics, history

happens behind the backs of historical actors, whose intentions never work out exactly as they’re

supposed to. Marx was wise in his admonition that we should never trust the self interpretations of

political actors. And yet he suspends this injunction when it comes to the dictatorship of the proletariat:

these people’s designs are supposed to work out perfectly and straightforwardly, despite the massive

complexity and dialectical contradictions of society.

The statist idea of revolution is also wrong to privilege the political over the economic. In

supposing that through sheer political will one can transform an authoritarian, exploitative economy

into a liberatory, democratic one. Marx is, in effect, reversing the order of dominant causality such that

politics determines the economy whereas in fact the economy determines loosely and broadly speaking

politics. The Communist Manifesto itself suggests that the state can’t be socially creative in this radical

way. And when it tries to be, what results, ironically, is overwhelming bureaucracy and even greater

authoritarianism than before. While the twentieth century’s experiences with communism or state

socialism happened in relatively non-industrialized societies, not advanced capitalist ones as Marx

anticipated, the dismal record is at least suggestive.

Corresponding to all these errors are the flaws in Marx’s abstract conceptualization of revolution,

according to which revolution happens when the production relations turn into fetters on the use and

development of productive forces. It would seem that capitalism has fettered productive forces for a

very long time, for example in its proneness to recessions and stagnation, in artificial obstacles to the

diffusion of knowledge such as intellectual copyright laws, in under investment in public goods such as

education and transportation, and so forth. On the other hand, science and technology continue to

develop, as shown by recent momentous advances in information technology.

There is a conflict between two types of production relations, two modes of production; one of

which uses productive forces in a more socially rational and unfettering way than the other. The more

progressive mode slowly develops in the womb of the old society as it decays, i.e., as the old dominant

mode of production succumbs to crisis and stagnation. In being relatively dynamic and ‘socially

effective,’ the emergent mode of production attracts adherents and resources, until it becomes ever

more visible and powerful. The old regime can’t eradicate it; it spreads internationally and gradually

transforms the economy, to such a point that the forms and content of politics change with it. Political

entities become its partisans, and finally decisive seizures of power by representatives of the emergent

mode of production become possible, because reactionary defenders of the old regime have lost their

dominant command over resources.

The most obvious concrete instance of this conception of revolution is the long transition from

feudalism to capitalism, during which the feudal mode became so hopelessly outgunned by the

capitalist that, in retrospect, the long-term outcome of the bourgeois revolutions from the seventeenth

to the nineteenth centuries was never in doubt. Capitalism was bound to triumph after it had reached a

certain level of development. But the important point is that capitalist interests could never have

decisively seized the state until the capitalist economy had already made tremendous inroads against

feudalism.

History had given the emerging capitalist class the task of ending feudalism. In turn, the

overthrowing of capitalism, The Communist Manifesto shows falls to those who had nothing to lose;

the working class. As Marx and Engels explained; the theories of the communists are not in any way


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based upon ideas or principles discovered or established by this or that universal reformer. They serve

merely to express in general terms, the concrete circumstances of actually existing class struggle of any

historical movement that is going on under our very eyes. Marx’s great genius lay in revealing that the

existence of classes was bound up with particular, historic phases in the development of production. He

showed that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, the overthrow of

capitalism by the working class.

5. CONCLUSION

The Communist Manifesto is a brief publication that declares the arguments and platform of the

communist party. It was written in 1847 by theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and was

commissioned by the Communist League in England and officially published in 1848 consisting

preamble and four chapters. Marx famously states history of all hitherto existing society is the history

of class struggles. It lays out the position that the bourgeois, through competition and private ownership

of land, forever exploiting and oppressing proletariat or working class. Marx then states that the system

always results in class conflict and revolution and should be replaced by communism, a society without

class distinctions.

The Communist Manifesto also explains the relationship between the communist party and other

working parties, stating that the communist party would not organize against them. It declares the

intention of the party to focus on the interests of the proletariat as whole, and not any particular group.

The Communist Manifesto clarifies the main points of the communist platform, which includes ten

short term demands such as abolishing ownership of all private property, establishing system of heavy

taxation, abolishing the right to inherit, centralizing credit and establishment of a state bank,

centralizing communication and transport with the state, confiscating all emigrant and rebel property,

extending the means of production to the state, equalizing liability to all levels of labor, combining

agriculture and manufacturing industries and establishing a free public education system.

The Communist Manifesto further explains the differences between communism and other

socialist doctrines of the day including reactionary socialism, bourgeois socialism, and critical-utopian

socialism. While they have their points, they are all inadequately addressing the underlying issues of

perpetual class conflicts, according to Marx. Besides to this, it deals with position of the communists in

relation to various opposition parties. This explains how the communist party views the European

conflicts of the time.

The Communist Manifesto is considered us one of the most influential in the world history. I can

put it in the next rank to the Bible and Koran for its influence on the word society. It provoked many

positive and negative responses; it has a great influence on literature. A detailed critical analysis of the

document reveals its influence on the reader, as well as provides a corrective understanding of the text.

I read it that there is a fight each time ended either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large,

or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

The Communist Manifesto describes two opposing economic systems, communism and

capitalism, and then discusses the political implications of the tension between them. It is based on

opposition; the authors oppose two classes’ bourgeois and working class. They focus on the

exploitation of one class by another. The bourgeoisie controls the means of production, which implies

the virtual enslavement of the proletariat in order to sustain this system.

The Communist Manifesto document has a great emotional power as it addresses the issues that

worried people at that time. The tone contains notes that evoke the desire for struggle. The authors

address the reader that makes him/her feel involved and significant. Its purpose is to inform, explain,

persuade and motivate the reader. In addition, the authors’ use various stylistic means such as

comparisons, hyperboles and repetitions; it must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish

connexions everywhere, and emotionally colored words such as adjectives like brutal exploitation.

The Communist Manifest has a very big rhetorical power due to its structure, language and

stylistic means used by the authors. A detailed rhetorical analysis of the writing can help explain the

influence of it on the reader, as well as provides a corrective understanding of the text. This document

remains the best example of the art of rhetoric. It became a basis for many scientific works and had a


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great influence on works of modern and post modern writers, sociologists, economists, psychologists

and linguists.

In 21st century America, the wealthiest of the wealthy continue to earn more and more capital and

property, and it is arguably becoming easier for them to do so, while those below, particularly at the

lower ends of the income spectrum, find their wages and earnings stagnating, prices of goods and

valuables continue to rise, which leads to a loss of net worth and a dramatic rise of a cost of living for

those persons. The result is a system where the haves continue to get wealthier and wealthier, and the

poor get poorer and poorer; if they do not at least maintain a status-quo. The proletariat of America's

society today is beginning to realize that they outnumber the bourgeoisie of America and can indeed,

take measures to change what they perceive is an unfair system.

6. REFERENCES

Frederick Engels (1987). The Condition of the Working Class in England (Trans.). Harmondsworth,

UK Penguin Books, pp. 29-275. (Original work published 1845).

Frederick Engels (2002). The Condition of the Working Class in England: Perspectives from the Past.

In James M. Brophy, et al, (Eds), Primary Sources in Western Civilizations (pp. 473-474). W.

W. Norton & Company Inc, New York.

Huckin, T. (2003). Content Analysis: What Texts Talk About. In Charles Bazerman, Paul A. Prior,

(Eds), What Writing Does and How It Does It: An Introduction to Analyzing Texts and Textual

Practices. Mahwah, N J: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels (1953). On Britain. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House.

Pp.509 & 537.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels (Eds). (1970). The Manifesto of Communist Party. Peking: Foreign

Languages Press.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels (1988). The Manifesto of Communist Party (Trans). In Samuel Moore,

(Eds) by Frederick Engels). Zodiac.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels (1992). The Communist Manifesto (Trans). Oxford: Oxford University

Press. (Original work published 1848).

Marcus, S. (1974). Manchester and the Working Class. Random House: New York. Pp. 143 & 247.

McLellan, David, Marx, K. (1973). His Life and Thought. New York: Harper and Row. Pp.438-442.

Mill, J. S. (1909). Principles of Political Economy (Trans.). London: Longmans. Pp.751 (Original work

published 1848).

Schwarzschild, L. (1947). The Red Prussian: The Life and Legend of Karl Marx. Hamish Hamilton,

London. P.7.

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A Critical Analysis of Communist Manifesto of February 1848 · Communist Manifesto has a very big rhetorical power due to its structure, language and stylistic means used by the authors