The Communist Manifesto
1848 publication written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
1848 publication written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
The Communist Manifesto, originally titled the Manifesto of the Communist Party and known in German as Das Kommunistische Manifest, is a political pamphlet written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels [3][6]. Commissioned by the Communist League, it was published in London in 1848 and runs to 23 pages [3][8][11]. The work belongs to the genre of the political manifesto and is associated with the broader intellectual movement of Marxism [2][4].
The text represents the first and most systematic attempt by the two founders of scientific socialism to articulate the principles of historical materialism, advancing the central argument that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles," in which social classes are defined by their relationship to the means of production [3]. Its subjects encompass the communist party, communist revolution, socialism, and communism [7]. The work is structured across four parts and later gave rise to the derivative Communist International Manifesto [5][10].
Given the work's reach, it has been translated by numerous individuals into multiple languages, among them Mikhail Bakunin, Georgi Plekhanov, Wenceslao Roces, and others [12].
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