Manifesto of the Communist Party - a mediation between man and nature

Résumé du document

Among the numerous works presented in The Marx and Engels reader, edited by Robert C. Tucker, I've decided to focus my study on that which seems to me to be the most influential text in Marx's work, the Manifesto of the Communist Party. The Manifesto was first published in 1848 in London upon solicitation by the Communist League, an association of German workers and immigrants exiled in Great Britain, in Belgium or in France. The Manifesto presents the aspirations of Communism, its position towards Socialism, and other XIXth century parties. The main idea of the Manifesto is that the whole story of humanity is the one of a perpetual class struggle. In the XIXth century, the evolution of the opposition between these the bourgeoisie and the proletariat lead to the eventual awareness among the proletariat of its status as a class and of its undeniable revolutionary potential.

Extraits

[...] Last but not least, the authors have used utopian socialism and communism, being very influenced by French socialists as Saint Simon, Proudhon, or Blanqui. However, theses authors have been considered as too idealistic, and not reformist enough (as can be seen in the third part of the Manifesto about “Socialist and Communist Literature”). In the subpart about “Critical- Utopian Socialism and Communism”, Marx and Engels mention Owen, Fourier and Cabet but reject their theories, because they believe that when the class struggle will take shape these utopian projects would have no more reason to exist. [...]

[...] In 1848, in a world which had to face deep crises, numerous men always being increasingly exploited, were waiting for a message. The Manifesto was considered as an answer, a guideline they should try to put into practice. [...]

[...] The existence of classes depends on the given phase of historical development which is determined by the dominant mode of economic production and the social organization which results from it. These constitute the base on which is built, and from which can only be explained the political and intellectual history of this time. For Marx and Engels, there have always been oppressors and oppressed. In Antiquity, slaves were opposed to free men. In the Middle Ages, the serfs were oppressed by land owning aristocracy. [...]

[...] Manifesto of the Communist Party Among the numerous works presented in The Marx and Engels reader, edited by Robert C. Tucker, I've decided to focus my study on that seems to me to be the most influent text in Marx's work, the Manifesto of the Communist Party. The Manifesto was first published in 1848 in London upon solicitation by the Communist League, an association of German workers and immigrants exiled in Great Britain, in Belgium or in France. The Manifesto presents the aspirations of Communism, its position towards Socialism, and other XIXth century parties. [...]

[...] The labourers have been converted in “privates of the industrial army” (p. 479). Thus, if the bourgeoisie has gradually shaped its own social and economic order, by doing this it has also “forged the weapons that bring death to itself", and above all men who are to wield those weapons” (p.478). In the process of developing themselves, the bourgeois empowered the condition of those which whom they exploited. For Marx and Engels, the only way to understand history is to consider the economic alienation as the reason for class struggles. [...]