Communist Manifesto Pamphlet Review
A spectre is haunting Ockham – the spectre of Communism. So, what’s it all about? What does the man himself, Karl Marx, have to say on the topic? For that, we turn to the Communist Manifesto.
Written in 1848 by Karl Marx and Frederic Engels, the Communist Manifesto is a short book, roughly 1 hour read, that outlines the purpose of Communism as a force during the time of the writing of the pamphlet, and provides us with an understanding of how society has been structured since the dawn of civilisation to now. Yes, right now, as you’re reading this, unless since the publishing of this review, we have reached socialism, or you are reading this in Cuba.
The pamphlet starts with an in-depth description of the history of class-based societies and the modes of production that accompany them. At the time of writing, Western Europe had recently entered Industrial Capitalism, and the class structure of feudal society had been replaced with the Bourgeoisie (Ruling Class, Owning Class, Capitalist Class, those who own capital) and Proletariat (Working Class, those who create the value). This class structure, Marx argues, is a form of oppression of one by the other. The worker is but a commodity to the bourgeois capitalist, as much as the material that is used by the worker to create the value for the capitalist is. In this description, many future arguments against communism are refuted in the first pages of its most rudimentary text.
The next section describes the relation between the working class and the communists. This section is an actual outline on where the communists stand and their our policies. This work has stood the test of time from its nearly 200 years of history, with Marxists of the modern day still looking to this work as an introductory piece on the theory of Marxism.
The third section is about the different socialist currents of the time, and contains a debunking of why they fail to make any progress for society. There are 3 other currents of socialism that Marx describes: Reactionary Socialism (reactionary meaning undoing social progress), Conservative Socialism (conservative meaning conserving the current social structure), and Critical-Utopian Socialism. This section, particularly the part on critical utopian socialism, is an interesting read, as it showcases why it is necessary that we follow Marxian socialism in particular in order to progress society towards communism (a stateless, classless, moneyless society). It also shows the history of socialism and the proletariat that brought us to the point where the proletariat is now able to overthrow the current system of bourgeois capitalism.
The final section is the shortest one, however, that is not to say that it is the worst. This is where Marx drops an absolute banger of a line: “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.”, and then immediately following it up with another absolute banger of a closing line, “WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!”
Overall, this pamphlet receives an 8/10 from me. This score comes from the easy readability of the text, but it also lacks certain theoretical and philosophical details that Marx, Engels, and other Communist writers are known for. This is an incredible read for anyone who is looking to get into socialism/communism, although some people recommend starting with another work by Engels titled “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific”. If you wish to read the pamphlet, it is easily available as a pdf and audiobook from marxists.org (be warned, for this site is run by trotskyites), and physical copies are easy to come by in any English bookstore. I recommend picking up the Collins Classics version, which also contains Wage-Labour and Capital, Value, Price and Profit, and¸Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, as well as an insight into the authors, their works, and the time of publication, and a glossary for classical literature, as some words will have different meanings, or be completely unheard of. The book was also originally published in French, German, Italian, Flemish, and Danish, and has since been translated into more languages.
~ Sam Limnatiti
