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The Communist Manifesto

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels · political pamphlet, 1848·1 hr in the original·original at gutenberg.org
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  • History is the history of class struggle. The Manifesto opens by framing all prior history as conflicts between oppressor and oppressed, culminating in the modern split between bourgeoisie and proletariat.
  • The bourgeoisie is revolutionary but self-destructive. It swept away feudalism and built a world market, but in doing so created the industrial working class that will overthrow it in turn.
  • The proletariat is the one truly revolutionary class. Unlike the shopkeepers and peasants being crushed by industry, factory workers have nothing to lose and everything to gain from organizing.
  • The program lists concrete measures. A graduated income tax, abolition of inheritance, a national bank, and free public education for a proletarian state.
  • The closing call is direct. Communist aims, it says, can only be reached by revolution, ending with "Working men of all countries, unite!"
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Why it earns a slot

Reread in full, it argues its case with more precision and less slogan than its reputation suggests, before landing on the line everyone actually knows.

Marx and Engels's 1848 pamphlet argues that all history is the history of class struggle, that industrial capitalism has simplified that struggle into bourgeoisie versus proletariat, and that the proletariat's revolutionary victory is inevitable. It lays out concrete transitional measures and closes with an open call to revolution.

This distillation is written from the freely available original, which is always the better read when you have the time: gutenberg.org.

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