Review: The Communist Manifesto
I got this cute little book from Bargain Basement Bookstore under Central Station about a month ago when I chanced upon this book for a ridiculous bargain price of $2.95. I knew then it was a sign from above that I should get it 
Since I’ve read this book about a month ago, I don’t remember everything that well anymore. So bear with me.
Anyway, the Communist Manifesto (German title: Das Kapital) itself is actually just a very short booklet, consisting only of 38 pages for my copy. As everyone should already know (if not, please go back under your rock) it was written by the Germans Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848. It is the underlying philosophy which guided all communist governments in the past till the present.
Basically, the Manifesto is less a comprehensive theoretical guide than a fiery, rabble-rousing short treatise rallying the masses to go against capitalism. Marx (who’s the principle theorist of Communism, as stated by Engels himself) despaired of the fact that right after the dismantling of feudalism, certain large segments of most European societies still continued to live in hardship. This time the new oppressors were a new class of capitalists. He called this class the ‘bourgeois’ and contrasted them with the ‘proletariats’ or the poor working-class.
Its famous introduction:
“A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.”
Marx believed that the capitalists have taken over the role as the new oppressors of the working class in place of the landed gentry and nobility class of the old. This was understandable in the context of Marx’s time, as workers then really lead wretched lives akin to semi-slavery. They were widely exploited and put to work on very dangerous tasks and workplaces as well as being paid pittens.
Marx believed that private property is the root cause of the suffering of the working-class:
“But does wage labor create any property for the laborer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage labor, and which cannot increase except upon conditions of begetting a new supply of wage labor for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labor.”
Therefore, he believed that both classes cannot co-exist together and that the only way for the proletariat to free themselves from their slavery is through revolution. He felt that since the working-class vastly outnumbered the capitalists and middle-class bourgeois, the working-class should be the ruling class who would then rule to the benefit of the majority workers. He believe that the bourgeois and other privileged classes were reactionaries and would constantly seek to defend the status quo that was beneficial to them.
Quoted from the book:
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
Many people might have been told or heard that communism is supposed to be anti-religion. In actual fact, Marx hardly concerned himself with this at all in the Manifesto. There were only passing critiques of it, and even then, only on the authorities and formal organisational structures of religion which he thought also took part in subjugating and exploiting the working-class masses.
The biggest problem of the Manifesto is that it does not tell us how Marx intended his revolutions to happen and what organisational structure should be put in place of the (then) present ruling structures. Hence this is why we hear the term Marxist-Leninist. This is because Vladimir Lenin was the first leader who formulated the practical applications of communism (known as Leninism) as a complement to its theoretical elder brother of Marxism. His Bolshevik Party was the first successful communist party to seize government in the world during the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia.
Many people have argued that this omission has caused untold misery to many citizens of countries which have tried to implement communism. Other defenders of Marxism have said that all the past communist states deviated from what Marxist intended and true Marxism have not been discredited yet. They believe that communism is the ultimate system for countries since it won’t be based on the greed of the few but on collectives and sharing for the benefit of all. They just contend that the people haven’t reached a stage where this idea can work as yet.
An example of this is the common authoritarian characteristic of most communist government. Or the fact that most communist parties also had an infusion of nationalism into them. Marx never advocated the former, and was in fact very opposed to the latter. He actually envisioned workers from every nationality uniting to form an irresistible political movement that would launch proletariat revolutions around the world as a single movement.
All in all, an interesting read. Everyone should have at least read this once in order to understand what all the fuss about Marxism was about. And also to find out which criticisms of it were valid and which were not.
My book included great extra ‘before’ and ‘after’ sections in addition to the main Manifesto itself. The ‘before’ section explains what lead to Marx coming up with communism, how his society was like during his time, and the ‘’after’ section examines examples of communist states and what went wrong with them. It also debates about the continued validity of Marx’s criticism of capitalism in today’s world.
“Workers of the world, unite!”
