The Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels

1998

Weight: 12 oz

Method of Disposal: Giving Away

Let me just warn you now,  I am not going to have some valuable or life-changing insight on The Communist Manifesto.  So much has been written and said about it over the last 172 years, and Communism itself existed before it was written.  One thing that does seem to be true to me is that many people speak about it that have absolutely never read it, and they have also never read anything else about Communism since.  Communism is a dirty word to this day.  Communists cannot be trusted, and they are stupid.  On the other side of that, there are people who embrace Communism as the anti-however they were raised.  They embrace it without attempting to understand it or the other options, and there are many of these people who have not tried to learn further than the sound bitess they get on tv either.

This manifesto is important because it is still relevant almost 200 years later.  That says something.  Whatever the solution, there is a problem with a small minority benefiting from the blood and labor of a working class majority, and the dream of the working class coming together as a whole is inspiring even if it is consistently undermined by our other differences. 

"The Communists are distinguished from all the other working-class parties by this only:

1.  In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interest of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.

2.  In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole."

"They have no interest separate and apart from the proletariat as a whole."

Abolish the family, women are not just a means of production, workers unite.  This is a manifesto.  In true form and in the style of a rallying call, ideas are made simplistic and passionate so as to inspire large groups of people quickly.  To bring people together for change but, as with anything like this, the world is more complicated than what is in these pages.  These pages are a tool, but they are not THE answer.