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DOCUMENT 23-2

KARL MARX AND FRIEDRICH ENGELS

From The Communist Manifesto 1848

Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) are credited asthe founders o f communism. In formulating their theories, Marx and Engels,dre~~ on the work of earlier economists, particularly Adam Smith and DavidRicardo, and on Thomas Malthies's demograf~hic theories, as well as theirfamiliarity with living and tivorking conditions in England's industrial cen-ters. Their Communist Manifesto, first ~ublislzed in London as a foam f~hlet(w1•itten in German), o fens with the ~roelamation that "the history of allIzitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." The atGthors f~redictthe eve~ztual triunz~h o f the working class (proletariat) over the middle class(bourgeoisie) a~zd the est~cblishment o f a classless society in which wealth isequally distrihuted.

A specter is haunting Europe —the specter of communism. All the powersof old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter:

Karl Marx and r'riedrich Engels, TIZe Communist Manzi festo, in Arthur P? Meizdel,'The Essential Works of Marxism (New York: Bantam, 1961), 13-17, 19, 23, 40-44.

Pope and Czar, Mel-ternich and Guizot,`~ Trench R~.dicals and uerman

police-spies.... _ Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be

itself a power.

It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole

world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nurs-

er~~ tale of the specter of communism with a Manifesto of the party itself... .

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class

struggles... .

Modern industry has established the world market, for which the dis-

covery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense

development to commerce; to navigation, to communication by land.

This development lias, ii1 its turn, reacted on the extension of industry;

and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended,

in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its- capital,

and pushed into the background every class h~~nded down from the

Middle Ages... .

The bourgeoisie, historically, has Played a most revolutionary part.

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end

to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the

motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors," and has left

remaining no other nexus l~~tween mGn and man than naked self-interest,

than callous "cash payment." It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of

religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of p~iil~istine sentiinentalisin, in

the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into

exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered

freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom —Tree Trade.

In a word, for exploitation; veiled.by religious and political illusions, it has

substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto

honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physi-

cian, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, and the man of science into its paid

wage-laborers.

The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil and

has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation... .

`~Metternich and Guizot: Prince Klemens von Metternich (1773-1859) was foreign

minister and chancellor of the Austrian Empire (1809-1848), and Francois Guizot

(1787-1874) was a French politician who served at a variety of government posts,

including prime minister from 1847 to 1848.