The Communist Manifesto

300 Pages·2004·2.01 MB·English

by  Karl Marx

THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO
Born in Trier in the Rhineland in 1818, KARL MARX was the son of a Jewish
lawyer, recently converted to Christianity. As a student in Bonn and Berlin,
Marx studied law and then philosophy. He joined with the Young Hegelians, the
most radical of Hegel’s followers, in denying that Hegel’s philosophy could be
reconciled with Christianity or the existing State. Forced out of university by his
radicalism, he became a journalist and, soon after, a socialist. He left Prussia for
Paris and then Brussels, where he stayed until 1848. In 1844 he began his
collaboration with Friedrich Engels and developed a new theory of communism
to be brought into being by a proletarian revolution. This theory was brilliantly
outlined in The Communist Manifesto. Marx participated in the 1848 revolutions
as a newspaper editor in Cologne. Exiled together with his family to London, he
tried to make a living writing for the New York Herald Tribune and other
journals, but remained financially dependent on Engels. His researches in the
British Museum were aimed at underpinning his conception of communism with
a theory of history that demonstrated that capitalism was a transient economic
form destined to break down and be superseded by a society without classes,
private property or state authority. This study was never completed, but its first
part, which was published as Capital in 1867, established him as the principal
theorist of revolutionary socialism. He died in London in 1883.
Born in Westphalia in 1820, FRIEDRICH ENGELS was the son of a textile
manufacturer. After military training in Berlin and already a convert to
communism, Engels went to Manchester in 1842 to represent the family firm. A
relationship with a millhand, Mary Burns, and friendship with local Owenites
and Chartists helped to inspire his famous early work, The Condition of the
Working Class in England in 1844. Collaboration with Marx began in 1844 and
in 1847 he composed the first drafts of the Manifesto. After playing an active
part in the German revolutions, Engels returned to work in Manchester until
1870, when he moved to London. He not only helped Marx financially, but
reinforced their shared position through his own expositions of the new theory.
After Marx’s death, he prepared the unfinished volumes of Capital for
publication. He died in London in 1895.
GARETH STEDMAN JONES is Professor of Political Science in the History Faculty of
Cambridge University and a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. He is also a
Director of the Centre of History and Economics at Cambridge. His publications
include Outcast London (1971), Languages of Class (1983) and an edition of
Charles Fourier, Theory of the Four Movements (1995). He is especially
interested in the history of political thought after the French Revolution.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
THE COMMUNIST
MANIFESTO
With an Introduction and Notes by
GARETH STEDMEN JONES
PENGUIN BOOKS
To the memory of Raphael Samuel
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London , England
WC2R 0RL
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M4V 3B2
Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11, Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London , England
WC2R 0RL
This translation, by Samuel Moore, first published 1888
Published in Penguin Books 1967
This edition, with Introduction and Notes, published in Penguin Classics 2002
1
Introduction and Notes copyright © Gareth Stedman Jones, 2002
All rights reserved
The moral right of the editor has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of
trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent
in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition
including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
EISBN: 978–0–141–91308–7
Contents
Acknowledgements
PART I
INTRODUCTION
1. Preface
2. The Reception of the Manifesto
3. The ‘Spectre of Communism’
4. The Communist League
5. Engels’ Contribution
6. Marx’s Contribution: Prologue
7. The Young Hegelians
(i) Hegel and Hegelianism
(ii) The Battle over Christianity and the Emergence of the Young
Hegelians
(iii) The Young Hegelians against the ‘Christian State’
8. From Republicanism to Communism
9. Political Economy and ‘The True Natural History of Man’
10. The Impact of Stirner
11. Communism
(i) The Contribution of Adam Smith
(ii) The History of Law and Property
(iii) The Contemporary Discussion of Communism
12. Conclusion
13. A Guide to Further Reading
PART II
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels:
THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO
A Note on the Text
Preface to the German Edition of 1872
Preface to the Russian Edition of 1882
Preface to the German Edition of 1883
Preface to the English Edition of 1888
Preface to the German Edition of 1890
Preface to the Polish Edition of 1892
Preface to the Italian Edition of 1893
The Manifesto of the Communist Party
1. Bourgeois and Proletarians
2. Proletarians and Communists
3. Socialist and Communist Literature
I. Reactionary Socialism
a. Feudal Socialism
b. Petty-Bourgeois Socialism
c. German, or ‘True’, Socialism
II. Conservative, or Bourgeois, Socialism
III. Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism
4. Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition
Parties
Notes
Index
Acknowledgements
In preparing this book, I have drawn upon the insight and inspiration of many
whom I cannot mention here. But I must record my special thanks to those who
knowingly or unknowingly have contributed so much to the interpretation I have
developed in the introduction: to Raymond Geuss and Istvan Hont, with whom I
have taught Hegel; to Emma Rothschild with whom I have explored the history
of economic thought. I would also like to thank those who read my essay in
manuscript: Chimen Abramsky, Sally Alexander, Edward Castleton, Tristram
Hunt, Daniel Pick, Miri Rubin and Bee Wilson. Their criticisms and suggestions
and their scholarly knowledge have been invaluable. In preparing the manuscript
for publication, I would particularly like to thank Susanne Lohmann, Inga Huld
Markan and others at the Centre of History and Economics, and my copy editor,
Caroline Knight. I also owe much to Margaret Hanbury and, at Penguin, to
Simon Winder, for making possible the present shape of this volume. Lastly, my
greatest debt is to my family whose constant stimulation and encouragement
spurred me on to complete this project.