The Communist Manifesto

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” 

The core innovation of Marx’s sociopolitical theory is revealed in this statement: people are divided by their economic class. To Marx, all of human history is characterized by the tension that exists between the more powerful classes and the weaker ones.

“Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class. […] The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.” 

To Marx, political power is tied to class power. The most powerful economic class—in the epoch of capitalism, the bourgeoisie—has the power of the state at its disposal to protect its interests. This phenomenon is one of the reasons behind Marx’s insistence on violent reform; change cannot be affected within a system that is stacked against the working class. 

“The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand […] has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ‘cash payment.’ […] In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, [the bourgeoisie] has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.” 

While exploitation has been a mainstay of human society throughout history, the greedy behaviors that characterize a capitalistic society has disabled institutions like religion to hide this reality. Thus, the true face of class struggle is revealed.  

“[The bourgeoisie] has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life.” 

Industrialization has created jobs in cities, where the factories and sweatshops are primarily located. In Part 2, as part of a ten-point program, Marx suggests that rural agricultural practices should be better integrated with urban manufacturing; this way, the population of people in any given country will be more equitably distributed.

“All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify, all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.” 

This passage contains an example of Marx’s materialist stance on history. The reality of conditions for workers under capitalism contradict the “illusions” of religious and political truths that are the mainstay of capitalist society; in the bourgeois epoch, nothing is sacred though religious and political trappings claim otherwise. 

“The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which [the bourgeoisie] batters […] It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them […] to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.” 

Critics of the socialist system complain that socialism removes all sense of individuality. Ironically, Marx argues that it is capitalism which forces conformity, even across borders, as the bourgeois approach to production creates communities that look the same and operate in the same way as each other.

“What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.” 

This passage contains a crucial point regarding Marx’s theory of the progression of history. Each of the earlier stages contains an inherent flaw which will bring about its downfall—in capitalism’s case, bourgeois oppression inevitably creates an angry working class, the proletariat, who will inevitably overthrow their oppressors.

“Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does it deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriation.” 

This passage argues a key point in Marx’s defense of communism: all workers will earn exactly what they deserve in exchange for the work they perform. No one will be able to exploit of the labor of another as each individual will hold the same amount of power.

“The Communists are further reproached with desiring to abolish countries and nationality. The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got.” 

Capitalism and globalization connect the citizens of the world to each other via new and improved transportation and communication networks. Thus, the working classes of various areas are also able to connect with each other, enabling a workers’ movement to flourish. Because class solidarity and the interests of the proletariat transcend national boundaries, Marx believes, more and more workers will soon understand how capitalism denies working class citizens the political power to affect change.

“Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man’s ideas, views and conceptions, in one word, man’s consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life?”

This passage summarizes the theory of materialism, a refutation of Hegelian idealism, that underpins Marx’s arguments. Peoples’ thoughts and inclinations are molded by their lot in life, which the authors argue is dictated by the class were born into. The phenomenon of class predicts the conditions of an individual’s existence and relationships.

“The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie […] Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production […].” 

Marx saw a brief period of despotic, authoritarian control of property as an unavoidable step in the revolution; he did not foresee that some socialist states, like the Soviet Union, would never be able to exit this moment.

“In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.” 

The “association” described in this passage is Marx’s ideal communist society, which is defined by its lack of a class system and therefore, a lack of exploitation. In a communist society, Marx believes that each individual will be able to develop; this widespread potential of all individuals to live well contrasts with the capitalist system that only protects the freedom of the powerful elite.

“The Socialist bourgeois want all the advantages of modern social conditions without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting therefrom. […] They wish for a bourgeoisie without a proletariat.” 

The Bourgeois Socialists are solidly middle-class people who genuinely desire better conditions for the working class; though their philosophies seem honorable, they are unwilling to go as far as Marx believes is necessary to overhaul society. For example, they refuse to support violent revolution, and they will not compromise their own privilege.