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Η γέννηση του «Μανιφέστου του Κομμουνιστικού Κόμματος» (Κυριακή 28 Δεκέμβρη 2003)
      
       Richard WilsonRichard Wilson: This is my analysis of the Communist Manifesto

      
       Is The Communist Manifesto Still Relevant Today?

      
      + CARTOON BY RED FLAGS

      
       LABICA
      
       ΡΙΖΟΣ Η συγγραφή του «Μανιφέστου του Κομμουνιστικού Κόμματος»
      
       ΡΙΖΟΣ 150, Γ. ΧΟΥΡΜΟΥΖΙΑΔΗΣ
      
       ΡΙΖΟΣ ΕΝΩΣΗ ΚΟΜΜΟΥΝΙΣΤΩΝ
      
       ΜΦ ΑΛΛΑΝ ΓΟΥΝΤ
      
       State and Revolution (Greek) Mia, SE
       Manifesto Eksgersi
       State and Revolution Eksegersi
       SPARTAKOS V. 51, JUNE 1998, aBOUT mANIFESTO
       WIKIPEDIA1882
       1872gREEK
       1883
       Π. ΝΟΥΤΣΟΣ 1998
       Τα Χριστούγεννα του Μαρξ στις Βρυξέλλες Ελευθεροτυπία
       Σαν σήμερα
       Π. ΝΟΥΤΣΟΣ 1998
       Τα Χριστούγεννα του Μαρξ στις Βρυξέλλες Ελευθεροτυπία
       Σαν σήμερα
       Τις εμμονές μας περισυλλέγουν τα σκουπιδιάρικα.... Portnet.gr 12-03-2007
       Τις εμμονές μας περισυλλέγουν τα σκουπιδιάρικα.... Ειδικού Συνεργάτη Η είδηση πέρασε στα ψιλά των εφημερίδων παρά την προσπάθεια της Προεδρίας της Δημοκρατίας να «αξιοποιηθεί» επικοινωνιακά. Οι ρακοσυλλέκτες επισκέφθηκαν τον Πρόεδρο της Δημοκρατίας και ανάμεσα στα αναμνηστικά δώρα που του έφεραν ήταν ένα αντίτυπο σπάνιας έκδοσης του «Κομμουνιστικού Μανιφέστου» του 1948. που φυσικά την είχαν αλιεύσει-που αλλού;- στα σκουπίδια. Πολύ καλά το έγραψε ο ασύγκριτα εύγλωττος, μέσα στη σιωπή του, Κώστας Τριπολίτης. «Τις εμμονές μας περισυλλέγουν τα σκουπιδιάρικα....». Σημεία των καιρών μιας άνυδρης εποχής... 1882workersdemocracy
       Μανιφέστοworkersdemocracy
       Κούριερ
       κινούμενα σκίτσα
       κομέντσ
      
       Manifeste du Parti communiste University of Quebec
       KM 978-0717803200 224, Birth of the Communist Manifesto (Paperback) by Dirk Jan Struik (Editor)
       KM 978-0312218126 202, Palgrave Macmillan (March 15, 1999) ,by John E. Toews
      
       KM 978-1551113333 256, Broadview Press (August 30, 2004) L.M. Findlay (Editor, Translator)
      
       KM P. SWEEZY, 1964, Communist Manifesto ; Principles of Communism ; The Communist Manifesto After 100 Years (Hardcover) by Karl ; Engels, Friedrich ; Sweezy, Paul M. ; Huberman, Leo Marx (Author)
      
       KM 978-0764128387 128, The Communist Manifesto (The Manifesto Series) (Paperback) by David Boyle (Author), James Peto (Editor)
      
       KM 978-0814715772 192, New York University Press (March 1, 1998), The Communist Manifesto: New Interpretations (Paperback) by Mark Cowling (Author),
      
       KM 978-0717802883 224, International Publishers; [1st ed.] edition (1971) Birth of the Communist manifesto,: With full text of the Manifesto, all prefaces by Marx and Engels, early drafts by Engels and other supplementary material (Unknown Binding)
      
       KM 978-0853459354 288, The Communist Manifesto Now: The Socialist Register 1998 (Annual Register) (Paperback) by Leo Panitch (Editor), Colin Leys (Editor) Monthly Review Press (January 1, 1998)
      
      
       FRANS MASEREEL Ξυλογραφίες
       ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΘΕΜΑΤΑ
       RIZOS
Αντιπροσωπεία του ΚΜΕ στο Παρίσι, Παρασκευή 15 Μάη 1998
      
       RIZOS
«Διεθνής Ενημέρωση Κομμουνιστικών και Εργατικών Κομμάτων», Κυριακή 13 Ιούνη 2004
      
       RIZOS
Βιβλιοπαρουσίαση, ΚΜ εκδόσεις "Ερατώ", Πέμπτη 13 Αυγούστου 1998
      
       RIZOS ποντίκι 150 χρόνια
Παρασκευή 27 Φλεβάρη 1998
       ΔΙΕΘΝΗ ΘΕΜΑΤΑ
       RIZOS
Ο κομμουνισμός είναι πάντα επίκαιρος Κοινή Σύνοδος της Γραμματείας του Συμβουλίου της Ενωσης Κομμουνιστικών Κομμάτων ΚΚΣΕ και του Προεδρείου του ΚΣ του Συλλόγου ΕΣΠΡ, με αφορμή τα 150 χρόνια του "Κομμουνιστικού Μανιφέστου" και τα 100 χρόνια από την ίδρυση του ΣΔΕΚΡ Κυριακή 22 Μάρτη 1998
      
       RIZOS
Θεωρητικό συμπόσιο στην Πράγα, Κυριακή 20 Οχτώβρη 2002
       technomanifest
       sheehanh/cm-narr.htm
      
       ΡΙΖΟΣ 150
      
       ΡΙΖΟΣ 156
      
       ΡΙΖΟΣ 2001
      
       ΡΙΖΟΣ 1998
      
       ΡΙΖΟΣ 1864
      
       ΡΙΖΟΣ 1844-48
      
       ΡΙΖΟΣ 2004
      
       ΚΜmarxists.anu.edu.au/ellinika/archive/marx/works/1848/com-man/prolcomm.htm
      
       ΡΙΖΟΣ ΛΕΥΚΩΜΑ - ΕΝΓΚΕΛΣ
      
       ΡΙΖΟΣ ΕΝΓΚΕΛΣ 111 ΧΡΟΝΙΑ
      
       ΡΙΖΟΣ ΕΝΓΚΕΛΣ, 108 ΧΡΟΝΙΑ
      
       ΡΙΖΟΣ ΕΝΓΚΕΛΣ, 109 ΧΡΟΝΙΑ, ΡΟΖΕΝΤΑΛ
      
       ΡΙΖΟΣ 150, ΒΟΥΛΓΑΡΙΑ
      
       ΜΟΝΤΗΛΥ ΡΕΩΙΕς
      
       ΠΟΛΙΤΙΚΟ ΚΑΦΕΝΕΙΟ
      
       ΚΑΤΣΙΚΑΣ ΚΑΡΛ ΜΑΡΞ (ΕΝΓΚΕΛΣ)
       1864 RIZOS
       Μαζόβερ βιβλιοκριτική (Τα ΝΕΑ)
       Κώστας Χατζόπουλος
       19ος αιώνας
       Αστρολογία
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       Αριστερό Παράθυρο
       KARL MARX: COMMUNIST AS RELIGIOUS ESCHATOLOGIST
      
       NEW POLITICS
      
       Barbara Foley, "Art or Propaganda?" Chapter 4 of Radical Representations: Politics and Form in U.S. Proletarian Fiction, 1929-1941 (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1993), pp. 129-169.
      
       Marxist Rhetoric
      
       KM diafora Library Thing
      
       JOHN LENON
      

Χάουαρντ Ζιν “Ο Μάρξ στο Σόχο”
Η επιστροφή του Μάρξ
Aνοίγει το κομμουνιστικό μανιφέστο για να θυμηθεί: “Στη θέση της παλιάς κοινωνίας με τις τάξεις και την πάλη των τάξεων, θα έχουμε μια ένωση στην οποία η ελευθερία του ατόμου θα είναι προϋπόθεση για την ελευθερία του συνόλου”. “Tο ακούτε αυτό; Mια ένωση! Aντιλαμβάνονται ποιος είναι ο στόχος του κομμουνισμού; H ελευθερία”.

Μοσκώφ για τους τυπογράφους και τους διορθωτές

Castro

Αναμνήσεις Αύρας Παρτσαλίδου από την ΟΚΝΕ (1926-1933) Λαϊκό Βιβλιοπωλείο

13η Αντιιμπεριαλιστική Νεανική Επίθεση Ειρήνης Εξω το ΝΑΤΟ κι οι πολυεθνικές απ' την Ολυμπιάδα ΑΓ.ΘΕΟΔΩΡΟΙ - ΑΘΗΝΑ, 10-11 ΙΟΥΛΗ 2004 Για τα νέα μας μέλη... Μια καινοτομία για το διήμερο ήταν η εκδήλωση υποδοχής νέων μελών της ΚΝΕ, στην οποία ο Θ. Γκιώνης σημείωσε ότι βασικό χαρακτηριστικό του μέλους της ΚΝΕ είναι η προσπάθεια για γνώση ώστε να πείθουμε για τις θέσεις του Κόμματος μας, χωρίς να την αποσπούμε από τη δράση μας. Στη συνέχεια ακολούθησε video προβολή της ταινίας "Ο κόσμος που ζούμε και η επιλογή μας". Τέλος δόθηκε σε όλα τα νέα μέλη ως συμβολικό δώρο το "Κομμουνιστικό Μανιφέστο" και αντίγραφο του χειρόγραφου του Γ. Ρίτσου με το ποίημα "Τα παιδιά της ΚΝΕ".

: Πρόκειται για το δεύτερο Συνέδριο της «Ένωσης των Κομμουνιστών» που γίνηκε στο Λονδίνο το 1847 (από τις 29 του Νοέμβρη, έως τις 8 του Δεκέμβρη). Σε αυτό συμμετείχε οΜάρξ και ο Ένγκελς.

»Die Philosophen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretiert, es kommt aber darauf an, sie zu verandern.« 11. These Marx' uber Feuerbach



Σελίδα 118-121 μια θαυμάσια εικόνα για την επιρροή του "Μανιφέστου" πάνω της.

W. J. Rees translated the Communist Manifesto into Welsh in 1948, and certain communist policies were drafted specifically for Wales and put in pamphlets such as The Fight for Socialism in Wales (1948).

Σεπτέμβριος 1918. Ο Μάο, με άδειες τσέπες, φθάνει στην κινεζική πρωτεύουσα. Εκείνη την εποχή το Πεκίνο «φλέγεται». Στο Πανεπιστήμιο μαρξιστές καθηγητές αναλύουν το «Κομμουνιστικό Μανιφέστο» που είχαν συντάξει πριν από περίπου εξήντα χρόνια οι Μαρξ και Ενγκελς και την Οκτωβριανή Επανάσταση. Ο νεαρός Μάο καταφέρνει να βρει μια θέση στην πανεπιστημιακή βιβλιοθήκη.

1) London had a great love of books and spent most of his spare time in the Oakland Library. His reading included the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, and Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy. These books converted London to socialism and by February 1896 the local paper was reporting how he was drawing large crowds to hear him in the City Hall Park. 2)The library of Jack London was moved into Charmian's house. She built the house after Jack died, at the end of the World War I. The house was constructed from large, roughly hewn stones, old-fashioned but comfortable. A dark room on the first floor was full of books. This was interesting; a whole room full of especially rare books with autographs and a number of curious things. Among those items were the tusks of a prehistoric animal that London found. According to Mr. Shepard, there were about five thousand books in this library. Here, I found Marx's Capital, The Development of Socialism from Utopia to Science by Engels, as well as a slim copy of The Communist Manifesto. On the shelves I saw works by Darwin, Spencer, Nietzsche, Russo. While walking around the library and touching the backs of the Balzac collection, books by Dickens, Tolstoy, Mark Twain, and Moliere, I found Mother by Gorky, translated into English. Then, I found more of his stories, along with the novel, Three. In Gorky's Foma Gordyeeff, Jack London saw "a goad, to prick sleeping consciences and to drive them into the battle for humanity."

1. The Communist Manifesto. Authors: Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels Publication dat : 1848 Summary: Marx and Engels, born in Germany in 1818 and 1820, respectively, were the intellectual godfathers of communism. Engels was the original limousine leftist: A wealthy textile heir, he financed Marx for much of his life. In 1848, the two co-authored The Communist Manifesto as a platform for a group they belonged to called the Communist League. The Manifesto envisions history as a class struggle between oppressed workers and oppressive owners, calling for a workers’ revolution so property, family and nation-states can be abolished and a proletarian Utopia established. The Evil Empire of the Soviet Union put the Manifesto into practice.

The best way to understand Castro's politics – what he's up studying for so late – is to watch Woody Allen's "Bananas" while thumbing through the "Communist Manifesto" and listening to a few "Rage Against the Machine" albums. Put all that together and anyone would be hopeful that the old man's boat would drag bottom sooner rather than later.

PERMANENT REVOLUTION by Tony Cliff Nor did it bother to seek Workers' support, as witnessed in its declaration that it did not intend to maintain any party organisation in the Kuomintang-controlled areas during the crucial years l937-45. (15) 15. See Communist Manifesto published in Chungking on 23 November 1938. New York Times, 24 November 1938.





Αλλά η Ελληνική πραγματικότητα τονε κούρασε κι αποφάσισε να ξαναφύγει στη Γερμανία. Ενθουσιάστηκε με τη πρόοδο των σοσιαλιστικών ιδεών, στις οποίες στράφηκε με πάθος, προπαγανδίζοντας τη διάδοσή τους και στην Ελλάδα κι είν' αυτός που μετάφρασε στη γλώσσα μας το "Κομμουνιστικό Μανιφέστο" του Μαρξ, δημοσιευμένο στο περιοδικό "ΝΟΥΜΑΣ". Από το Μόναχο και το Βερολίνο έστειλεν αρκετές ανταποκρίσεις στην εφημερίδα "ΣΚΡΙΠ" και με συχνά γράμματα στους λογίους φίλους του, προσπάθησε να τους μυήσει στο σοσιαλισμό.

4-16 The “Reformists” were a party of radical opponents of the July monarchy. The party consisted of democratic republicans and petty-bourgeois Socialists grouped round the Paris newspaper La Reforme. The leaders of the Reforme party included Ledru-Rollin and Louis Blanc.

διεθνές Συνέδριο Social Emancipation 150 years after the «Communist Manifesto», που διοργάνωσαν στην Αβάνα, στο διάστημα 1720 Φεβρουαρίου 1998, το Ινστιτούτο Φιλοσοφίας της Ακαδημίας Επιστημών της Κούβας σε συνεργασία με την Κουβανική Εταιρεία Φιλοσοφικής Έρευνας, το Πανεπιστήμιο Las Villas και τις επιθεωρήσεις Marx Ahora και Ciencas Sociales.

. Κατά τις αρχές του 1934 εξέδωσα υπό τον τίτλο το 'Ξεκίνημα' κομμουνιστικό περιοδικό εις το οποίο ανέπτυσσα το κομμουνιστικό Μανιφέστο. Εξέδωσα δυο φύλλα του περιοδικού τούτου των τε πολιτείαις και των Σχολείων επιβάντων. Το Κολέγιο κάτεσχε τα εναπομείναντα φύλλα και το Κράτος με απάλλαξε λόγω επιπολαιότητας.

So Karl Marx dies and shows up at the gates of heaven to be met bySaint Peter. "Name?" asks Peter. "Marx, Karl Marx." replies the famous author. "Hmm," says Peter to himself, "why do I know that name?" "I am Marx," Marx said, beaming with pride, "founder of socialism and the driving force behind the communist ideal called Marxism." "I see," Peter said. "I'll have to check with God." So Peter rushes off to confer with God. God hears the name Marx and immediately a look of disgust infects His face. "Marx?" God says, "He's nothing but a trouble maker. Send him down to hell." So Peter happily signs the appropriate forms and deports Karl Marx to Satan's firy hell. Some time later, a free trade agreement is forged between Heaven and Hell. The deal is hailed by all to be a great economic leap forward that would revitalize both struggling economies. But soon after the treaty, God realizes that Heaven is no longer receiving any products from Hell. So he sends Saint Peter down to investigate. "Well?" asks Peter of Satan, "What's the hold up? We have an agreement!" Satan shrugs his shoulders, exasperated. "It's that Marx fellow," Satan replied. "Ever since he got down here, all we've had are strikes and labour demands. Productivity has dropped to zero!" "So?" Peter asks, "What would you have us do?" "Take him back. Take Marx back to Heaven, and I guarantee productivity will sky rocket!" So Peter agreed, on God's behalf, to accept Karl Marx back to Heaven. Some time later Satan realizes that Hell has not received any orders for product from Heaven. In fact, very little communication at all has leaked from Up Above. So, concerned for the economic welfare of Hell, he makes a trip to Heaven. "Peter! Peter, are you there?" Satan demands. "Yes, what is it?" Peter answers. "What's the hold up? What about the flow of trade?" "Oh I'm sorry," Peter said, "We have decided to adopt a Marxist isolationist stance. We are an intrinsic self-governed body that is now based on the needs of the proletariate. It is our opinion that this free trade agreement only benefits the bourgeois." "What?!" Satan was furious. "I demand to speak to God!" Peter's eyebrows is raised in confusion. "Who?"

As Aijaz Ahmad has written, "The first resource of hope is memory itself." ["Resources of Hope: A Reflection on Our Times,"in Frontline (India) Vol. 18 #10, May 15-25 2001.] Marxism is founded on the historical memory of how existing, apparently immutable, human relationships came to be as they are. In the essays that follow we hear voices from three different generations of people who believed, as recent enormous anti-war and anti-imperialist gatherings on every continent have been asserting, that "another world is possible." If for some today this still only means trying to regulate and refurbish the runaway engine of capitalism, for an ever-growing number of others it means changing the direction of the journey, toward an utterly different, still-forming reality. Here are urgent conversations from the past that are still being carried on, among new voices, throughout the world. Adrienne Rich March 2004

ΤΙ ΜΠΟΡΟΥΜΕ ΝΑ ΜΑΘΟΥΜΕ ΑΠΟ ΤΟ ΚΟΜΜΟΥΝΙΣΤΙΚΟ ΜΑΝΙΦΕΣΤΟ Ο ΧΟΡΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΔΙΑΛΕΚΤΙΚΗΣ Ή ΠΩΣ ΝΑ ΜΕΛΕΤΗΣΟΥΜΕ ΤΟ ΚΟΜΜΟΥΝΙΣΤΙΚΟ ΜΕΛΛΟΝ ΜΕΣΑ ΣΤΟ KΑΠΙΤΑΛΙΣΤΙΚΟ ΠΑΡΟΝ Η σοσιαλιστική επανάσταση, έλεγε ο Λένιν, δεν είναι μια μεμονωμένη πράξη, αλλά μια ολόκληρη εποχή. Ζούμε σ΄ αυτήν ακριβώς την εποχή, μάς διαπερνούν οι αντιφάσεις της. Γινόμαστε κάθε στιγμή μάρτυρες των σπασμών που συγκλονίζουν το καπιταλιστικό σύστημα στην επιθανάτια αγωνία του. Το Κομμουνιστικό Μανιφέστο μας προϊδεάζει για το τί μπορούμε να περιμένουμε από μια εργατική επανάσταση. Ο Μάρξ και ο Ενγκελς έβλεπαν το σοσιαλισμό ως τη μη-πραγματωμένη δυναμική μέσα στον ίδιο τον καπιταλισμό, ως τρόπο ζωής, όπως θαυμάσια αναλύει ο φιλόσοφος Bertell Ollman στο εθαίρετο άρθρο του, που δημοσιεύει σήμερα το ΠΟΛΙΤΙΚΟ ΚΑΦΕΝΕΙΟ, "Ο χορός της διαλεκτικής ή πώς να μελετήσουμε το κομμουνιστικό μέλλον μέσα στο καπιταλιστικό παρόν". Το Κομμουνιστικό μέλλον θα έρθει μέσα απο το καπιταλιστικό παρόν με την ταξική πάλη των εργαζομένων και την μαρξιστική Λενινιστική κοσμοθεωρία Το Κομμουνιστικό Μανιφέστο παρουσιάζει τον κόσμο με ένα εξαιρετικά αισιόδοξο όραμα για το πιθανό μέλλον του, αλλά επίσης, με στοιχεία μιας ανάλυσης που επιχειρεί να ρίξει μια ματιά σ΄ αυτό το μέλλον, στα ολοένα μεγαλύτερα επιτεύγματά του, καθώς και στην επιδείνωση των προβλημάτων του καπιταλισμού. Αυτή η ανάλυση έδωσε ελπίδα και πολιτική κατεύθυνση σε εκατομμύρια ανθρώπους που υπέφεραν και συνεχίζουν να υποφέρουν. Ακόμα περισσότερο από την επαναστατική του πολιτική, είναι επίσης αυτή η ανάλυση που κάνει τα 150 χρόνια του Κομμουνιστικού Μανιφέστου ένα γεγονός εξαιρετικής σημασίας. Παρ΄ όλ΄ αυτά, την επαύριο της κατάρρευσης της Σοβιετικής Ενωσης, ένα είδος "σεμνότητας για το μέλλον" φαίνεται να διαπερνά τα κείμενα πολλών σοσιαλιστών. Ο Μαρξ δεν θα ήταν καθόλου ευχαριστημένος, βλέποντας να απουσιάζει οποιαδήποτε δουλειά πάνω στο σοσιαλισμό / κομμουνισμό, δεν υπάρχουν κείμενα, μικρά έστω, που να προσφέρουν κάποια πληροφορία για τον μετακαπιταλιστικό κόσμο. Εάν η κουκουβάγια της Αθηνάς του Χέγκελ βγαίνει κι επίσης γυρίζει πίσω το σούρουπο, του Μαρξ παραμένει για να χαιρετίσει τη νέα αυγή. Το να δίνουμε στους αναγνώστες μιαν ιδέα του τι μπορούν να περιμένουν από μια νέα εργατική επανάσταση είναι κάτι το απολύτως απαραίτητο, πολιτικά και αναλυτικά, για οποιαδήποτε μελέτη της υπάρχουσας κατάστασης πραγμάτων, και πουθενά αυτό δεν είναι φανερό περισσότερο απ΄ ότι στο Κομμουνιστικό Μανιφέστο. Στο Κομμουνιστικό Μανιφέστο τα περισσότερα που λέγονται για το μέλλον παίρνουν τη μορφή διορθώσεων της έννοιας του κομμουνισμού όπως σε καρικατούρα την παρουσιάζουν οι καπιταλιστές, μια λίστα πολιτικών μέτρων που πιθανότατα θα παρθούν αμέσως μετά από μια επιτυχημένη επανάσταση, και ένας αριθμός συγκρίσεων ανάμεσα στον κομμουνισμό και άλλες μορφές σοσιαλισμού. Ομως όλα αυτά έχουν να κάνουν με την οποία κανείς αναλύει αυτά τα στοιχεία για να βγάλει ένα όραμα του μέλλοντος, εν τούτοις, δεν καθορίζεται ποτέ επαρκώς, ούτε εδώ ούτε σε επόμενες μελέτες. Ωστόσο, είναι ακριβώς αυτό που πρέπει να ξέρουμε. Στην έντονα σκεπτικιστική εποχή μας δεν είναι απλά αρκετό να δώσουμε μια έννοια του πώς είναι ο σοσιαλισμός. Πρέπει επίσης να προτείνουμε ένα τρόπο έρευνάς του που να μπορεί να συνεισφέρει στην αξιοπιστία αυτών που έχουν ανακαλυφθεί. Στη σοσιαλιστική παράδοση υπάρχουν 4 κύριες προσεγγίσεις που οι διανοούμενοι έχουν χρησιμοποιήσει για να ερευνήσουν το μέλλον. Μερικοί πιστεύουν πως ο σοσιαλισμός, τουλάχιστον στοιχειωδώς, ήδη υπάρχει κάπου, είτε πρόκειται για μια χώρα είτε για μια κομμούνα είτε για μια κοοπερατίβα κ.ο.κ. Αυτό που χρειάζεται να γίνει είναι να πάμε εκεί, να το μελετήσουμε και να προσπαθήσουμε να εφαρμόσουμε τα μαθήματά του εδώ, ανεξάρτητα από τις διαφορές όσον αφορά τις συνθήκες. Μία δεύτερη προσέγγιση συμπεριφέρεται απέναντι στο σοσιαλισμό με ένα κατάλογο επιθυμιών, μια διανοητική κατασκευή που αποτελείται απ΄ ότι ο καθένας θέλει να έχει ή όλα αυτά που θεωρεί καλά και υγιή ή ανθρώπινα. Ο τρόπος για να δούμε εδώ το μέλλον είναι να κοιτάξουμε προς τα μέσα. Μια τρίτη προσέγγιση μας καλεί να συνάγουμε το σοσιαλισμό από κάποια απόλυτη αρχή, θρησκευτική είτε λαϊκή. Αν οι άνθρωποι, λένε, ζούσαν μ΄ αυτή την ιδέα η κοινωνία θα έπαιρνε το ακόλουθο σχήμα κλπ. Η τέταρτη προσέγγιση είναι του Μαρξ και του Ενγκελς, οι οποίοι έβλεπαν το σοσιαλισμό ως την μη-πραγματοποιημένη δυναμική μέσα στον ίδιο τον καπιταλισμό, ως τρόπο ζωής, και όντως αυτός θα μπορούσε να εξελιχθεί από τις μεταμορφώσεις που ήδη συμβαίνουν στον καπιταλισμό. Πολύ περισσότερο από μια ηθική καταδίκη, η ανάλυση του Μαρξ και του Ενγκελς προσπαθεί να δείξει πως ο καπιταλισμός έχει ολοένα και μεγαλύτερη δυσκολία να αναπαράγει τις αναγκαίες για την ίδια του την ύπαρξη συνθήκες (ιδιαίτερα όσον αφορά τη συσσώρευση του κεφαλαίου και την πραγμάτωση του προϊόντος του), πως γίνεται αδύνατος, ενώ την ίδια στιγμή - και μέσω των ίδιων εξελίξεων - δημιουργούνται οι όροι για τη νέα κοινωνία που θα ακολουθήσει. Ο τόπος όπου πρέπει να αναζητήσουμε το σοσιαλισμό, λοιπόν, βρίσκεται μέσα στον καπιταλισμό, στις αντιφατικές του σχέσεις, όπως αναπτύσσονται - και θα συνεχίσουν να αναπτύσσονται με την αλλαγή της κυρίαρχης τάξης και των νέων ενδιαφερόντων, σκοπών και προτεραιοτήτων που θα εμφανιστούν μετά την επανάσταση. Σε κάποιες περιπτώσεις ο Μαρξ μιλάει για το μέλλον σα να είναι "κρυμμένο" στο παρόν και θεωρεί καθήκον του να κριτικάρει τον καπιταλισμό μ΄ ένα τρόπο που φανερώνει το μέλλον. Αλλά τι μορφές αυτή η δυναμική για το σοσιαλισμό παίρνει μέσα στον καπιταλισμό; Και πώς ο Μαρξ τις μελετά; Εν συντομία: οι περισσότερες από τις αποδείξεις για τη δυνατότητα του σοσιαλισμού / κομμουνισμού βρίσκονται μπροστά μας και μπορούν να ιδωθούν από τον καθένα. Βρίσκονται σε συνθήκες που εκ πρώτης όψεως δεν φαίνεται να έχουν τίποτε το ιδιαίτερα σοσιαλιστικό πάνω τους, όπως οι ανεπτυγμένες βιομηχανίες μας, ο τεράστιος υλικός πλούτος, τα υψηλά επίπεδα της επιστήμης, οι επαγγελματικές ικανότητες, οι οργανωτικές δομές, η εκπαίδευση και η κουλτούρα, καθώς επίσης και σε συνθήκες που ήδη έχουν μια σοσιαλιστική άκρη, όπως η πολιτική δημοκρατία, οι εργατικές κοοπερατίβες, οι εθνικοποιημένες επιχειρήσεις, η δημόσια εκπαίδευση, η κοινωνικοποιημένη ιατρική κλπ. Αποδείξεις για το σοσιαλισμό μπορούν επίσης να βρεθούν σε μερικά από τα μεγαλύτερα προβλήματα του καπιταλισμού, όπως η ανεργία και η αυξανόμενη ανισότητα. Για τους μαρξιστές είναι ξεκάθαρο πως είναι το γενικό καπιταλιστικό πλαίσιο, μέσα στο οποίο ενσωματώνονται όλες αυτές οι συνθήκες, που τις εμποδίζει να συνεισφέρουν σε μια πραγματικά ανθρώπινη ύπαρξη. Φαντασιώνοντας ένα σοσιαλιστικό πλαίσιο, οι μαρξιστές δεν έχουν καμμιά δυσκολία στο να δουν στον τεράστιο πλούτο μας και στην ικανότητά μας να παράγουμε περισσότερα, ένα τέλος στη φτώχεια και τον υλικό καταναγκασμό, ή κοιτάζοντας την αυξανόμενη ανεργία να δουν τη δυνατότητα να δουλεύουν όλοι λιγότερες ώρες και ν΄ απολαμβάνουν περισσότερο ελεύθερο χρόνο, ή ακόμα κοιτώντας την περιορισμένη και κακώς λειτουργούσα δημοκρατία να δουν τον καθένα να μπορεί να διευθύνει δημοκρατικά ολόκληρη την κοινωνία κ.ο.κ. Δυστυχώς οι περισσότεροι άλλοι που έρχονται αντιμέτωποι με χιλιάδες αποδείξεις δεν βλέπουν αυτή τη δυναμική ούτε καν στα μέρη που έχουν μια σοσιαλιστική άκρη. Κι είναι σημαντικό να δούμε γιατί δεν μπορούν. Το κεντρικό σημείο του προβλήματος που έχουν οι περισσότεροι άνθρωποι στο να δουν αποδείξεις του σοσιαλιστικού μέλλοντος στο παρόν είναι πως δεν μπορούν να αφαιρέσουν, να ξεχωρίσουν τις σχετικές συνθήκες από το καπιταλιστικό τους γενικό πλαίσιο, κι έτσι δεν μπορούν να φανταστούν πώς μπορεί να λειτουργήσουν σ΄ ένα αλλιώτικο κοινωνικό πλαίσιο. Γι΄ αυτούς, οι μορφές του καπιταλισμού και το περιεχόμενό τους έχουν συγχωνευτεί σε μια τελειωμένη και σ΄ ότι αφορά τα ουσιώδη της στοιχεία στατική ενότητα. Αυτή η άποψη επικεντρώνει ελάχιστα την προσοχή στις αλληλεπιδράσεις και στην αλλαγή. Το πώς κάτι εμφανίζεται και λειτουργεί σήμερα εκλαμβάνεται ότι έτσι πραγματικά είναι, ότι μόνον έτσι είναι, ότι μόνον έτσι θα μπορούσε να είναι. Μια εναλλακτική άποψη, που έχει αποκτήσει αρκετή απήχηση τελευταία, αντιμετωπίζει κάθε μέλλον ως εξίσου δυνατόν, κι αυτός είναι άλλος ένας τρόπος άρνησης πως το παρόν έχει κάτι να μας πει για το μέλλον. Ο Μαρξ, αντίθετα, εξετάζει τις σημεινές συνθήκες μ΄ ένα τρόπο που αποκαλύπτει τις αλληλοσυνδέσεις τους και τις θέτει σε κίνηση. Ιστορικοποιεί τον καπιταλισμό. Οι σημερινές του ποιότητες γίνονται στιγμές στην εξέλιξη ενός συστήματος, αλλά τα πιο προσιτά μέρη μιας ιστορίας που ξεκινά με την καταγωγή τους και τελειώνει με το πού φαίνονται να πηγαίνουν. Η διαλεκτική μέθοδος με την οποία ο Μαρξ μελετά το σοσιαλιστικό / κομμουνιστικό μέλλον μέσα στο καπιταλιστικό παρόν αποτελείται από 4 κυρίως βήματα: 1) Αναζητά τις αμοιβαία εξαρτημένες σχέσεις ανάμεσα στα πιο ξεχωριστά χαρακτηριστικά του καπιταλιστικού παρόντος, του οποίου ο πυρήνας περιστρέφεται γύρω από την παραγωγή εμπορευμάτων, τη συσσώρευση κεφαλαίου, την πραγματοποίηση της αξίας και την ταξική πάλη ανάμεσα στους εργάτες και τους καπιταλιστές. 2) Προσπαθεί να βρει τις αναγκαίες προϋποθέσεις αυτών ακριβώς των σχέσεων στο παρελθόν, αντιμετωπίζοντάς τες ως την αρχή μιας διαδικασιας που οδήγησε στο παρόν. 3) Επειτα, προβάλλει τις αλληλοσυνδεόμενες τούτες διαδικασίες και αντιφάσεις από το παρελθόν διαμέσου του παρόντος στο μέλλον. Αυτές οι προβολές, κινούνται από το άμεσο μέλλον προς την πιθανή λύση των αντιφάσεων σ΄ ένα ενδιάμεσο μέλλον και στον τύπο της κοινωνίας που πιθανότατα θα ακολουθήσει στο απώτερο μέλλον. 4) Επειτα ο Μαρξ ανατρέπει τον εαυτό του και χρησιμοποιεί τα σοσιαλιστικά και κομμουνιστικά στάδια του μέλλοντος στα οποία έχει φθάσει ως πλεονεκτήματα για την επανεξέταση του παρόντος, που τώρα θεωρείται ως η αναγκαία προϋπόθεση για ένα τέτοιο μέλλον. Αυτό το τελευταίο, αν και είναι πολύ λίγο κατανοητό, είναι το απαραίτητο μέσο με το οποίο ο Μαρξ παρέχει τα τελευταία σημεία με τα οποία καταπιάνεται στην ανάλυσή του για τον καπιταλισμό. Χτίζοντας πάνω σ΄ αυτά που έχει μάθει μέσα από μια σειρά βημάτων, ο Μαρξ αρχίζει το χορό - τ ο χ ο ρ ό τ η ς δ ι α λ ε κ τ ι κ ή ς - πάλι από την αρχή, καθώς η δουλειά της αναδόμησης του πραγματικού παρελθόντος μα και της πρόβλεψης του πιθανού μέλλοντος δεν τελειώνει ποτέ. Το κλειδί σ΄ ολόκληρη αυτή τη διαδικασία βρίσκεται στην ικανότητα να συλλάβει τον καπιταλισμό με όρους τεμνόμενων και επικαλυπτόμενων αντιφάσεων που αναδύονται από το παρελθόν και διαγράφουν μια καμπύλη προς το μέλλον. Οταν πραγματοποιηθεί αυτό, τα υπόλοιπα είναι ζήτημα λόγιας (θεωρητικής) επιμονής και ανάπτυξης των ικανοτήτων που προέρχονται από την επαναλαμβανόμενη πρακτική. Πριν φτάσουμε στο συμπέρασμα, θα πρέπει να τονιστεί πως οι προβολές του μέλλοντος, οι οποίες επιτυγχάνονται διαμέσου της χρήσης αυτής της μεθόδου, είναι μόνο εξαιρετικά δυνατές, και ακόμα και τότε ο ρυθμός και οι ακριβείς μορφές με τις οποίες οι αλλαγές λαμβάνουν χώρα, οφείλουν πολύ περισσότερα στις ιδιοτροπίες της ταξικής πάλης και επίσης στο τυχαίο, και δεν μπορούν να είναι γνωστές από τα πριν. Ο ίδιος ο Μαρξ αναγνωρίζει τη "βαρβαρότητα" και την κατάρρευση του πολιτισμού σαν άλλο πιθανό επακόλουθο της καπιταλιστικής εξέλιξης - αν και πίστευε πως είναι μάλλον απίθανο, γι΄ αυτό και έδωσε πολύ λιγότερη προσοχή σε αυτή την πιθανότητα απ΄ ότι χρειάζεται εμείς να δώσουμε μετά από τα γεγονότα αυτού του αιώνα. Για ν΄ αποφύγουμε πιθανές παρεξηγήσεις, θα ήθελα επίσης να προσθέσω πως η χρήση της αντίφασης να προβάλει την υπάρχουσα δυναμική δεν είναι το μόνο που ο Μαρξ κι ο Ενγκελς χρησιμοποιούν για να αποκαλύψουν το σοσιαλιστικό / κομμουνιστικό μέλλον μέσα στο καπιταλιστικό παρόν, αλλά απλά το κύριο. Εξάλλου, μια τέτοια προσέγγιση στην ανακάλυψη του μέλλοντος δεν θα πρέπει να συγχέεται με τις τακτικές που ακολουθεί ο Μαρξ στην παρουσίαση αυτών που έχει βρε - είναι γεγονός πως πάντα παίρνει υπόψη του τις δυνατότητες των αναγνωστών του. Ούτε, ακόμα, υποστηρίζω πως έτσι ο Μαρξ έγινε κομμουνιστής. Αυτή είναι μια περίπλοκη ιστορία στην οποία η διαλεκτική του Χέγκελ και η μοναδική ιδιοποίησή της από τον Μαρξ παίζουν σπουδαιότατο ρόλο. Παρ΄ όλα αυτά, η προβολή των κύριων αντιφάσεων του καπιταλισμού προς τα μπροστά, έγινε η προτιμότερη προσέγγιση του Μαρξ για τη μελέτη του μέλλοντος, δεδομένου πως το μέλλον είχε το βαθμό καθαρότητας και αναγκαιότητας που του χρειαζόταν για να δουλέψει μ΄ αυτό. Είναι επίσης ο καλύτερος τρόπος που σήμερα μπορούμε να μάθουμε για να κατανοήσουμε τη δυνατότητα του σοσιαλισμού στο μέλλον μας και να συνεισφέρουμε στην πάλη που ξεκίνησε το Κομμουνιστικό Μανιφέστο. Μετάφραση: Αρης Μαραβάς Δημοσιεύεται στην Επαναστατική Μαρξιστική Επιθεώρηση στο αφιέρωμα για τα 150 χρόνια από το Κομμουνιστικό Μανιφέστο. 01/10/2002

Originally published on the eve of the 1848 European revolutions, The Communist Manifesto is a condensed and incisive account of the worldview Marx and Engels developed during their hectic intellectual and political collaboration. Formulating the principles of dialectical materialism, they believed that labor creates wealth, hence capitalism is exploitive and antithetical to freedom. This new edition includes an extensive introduction by Gareth Stedman Jones, Britain's leading expert on Marx and Marxism, providing a complete course for students of The Communist Manifesto, and demonstrating not only the historical importance of the text, but also its place in the world today.

Is the Communist Manifesto still relevant? The Communist Manifesto By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels With a commentary by Leon Trotsky Resistance Books, 1998 80pp., $6.95 (pb) Review by Chris Slee Generations of socialists have read the Moscow editions of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' Communist Manifesto. For new activists, this source has dried up (ironically as Russia provides fresh evidence for Marx's views on the irrational and destructive nature of capitalism). Older activists find their Moscow editions getting a bit dog-eared. So it is pleasing to see that a new edition of the Communist Manifesto has been published as part of Resistance Books' Marxist Library series. The new edition includes an introduction by Doug Lorimer, a leader of the Democratic Socialist Party, Leon Trotsky's 1938 introduction and several prefaces written by Marx and Engels. The Manifesto first appeared in February 1848, on the eve of an explosion of revolutionary struggles in France and Germany. Marx and Engels started their political lives as radical democrats in Germany fighting for constitutional rights, freedom of the press, popular representation and the abolition of feudal privileges. They evolved into communists who advocated a classless society based on the common ownership of productive wealth, to be achieved through the revolutionary overthrow of the existing order. The Manifesto was a concise summary of their views. Marx and Engels wrote the book on behalf of the Communist League, a small revolutionary group of which they were leading members. Lorimer outlines both the development of Marx and Engels' ideas and their struggle to win the Communist League to support their views. The Manifesto is divided into four parts. The first, opening with the statement: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”, outlines the rise of capitalism out of the decay of feudalism. Modern society “is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: bourgeoisie and proletariat”. As Engels explains in a footnote: “By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage-labour. By proletariat, the class of modern wage-labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour-power in order to live.” The Manifesto points out that capitalism was not at first an impediment to social progress: “The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.” However, the powerful productive forces created by capitalism are no longer compatible with the private ownership of the productive resources: “Modern bourgeois society ... is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells ... It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put on its trial, each time more threateningly, the existence of the entire bourgeois society ... In these crises there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity -- the epidemic of overproduction.” The working class (proletariat) that capitalism creates is the new revolutionary class, destined to be capitalism's “grave digger”. But whereas the victory of the bourgeoisie over the feudal classes involved the replacement of one exploiting minority by another, the victory of the proletariat will bring to power the exploited majority which can only liberate itself by abolishing all class exploitation and oppression: “All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air.” The second section of the Manifesto explains the role of the communists in the struggle between the working class and the capitalist class. It speaks of the need for communists to be non-sectarian, but to play the leading role: “The communists are distinguished from 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 interests 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.” This section also outlines both the immediate and the longer goals of communists: “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 third section takes issue with other schools of political thought that presented themselves as socialist at the time. The fourth section discusses the immediate tasks of communists in the impending bourgeois democratic revolution in Germany. Is the Communist Manifesto still relevant? Lorimer says in the introduction: “In the 150 years since the Manifesto was written there have been tremendous changes in the world, but none refute the basic ideas contained in the Manifesto. Indeed, the `really existing' capitalist world today is much closer to the `abstract' model of capitalism that is portrayed in the first section of the Manifesto than the actually existing world of 1848.” Trotsky also discusses the relevance of the Manifesto, pointing to: the materialist conception of history; the centrality of class struggle; the analysis of the anatomy of capitalism; the tendency of capitalism to lower the living standards of workers and transform millions into paupers; the catastrophic economic crises; the role of the executive of the modern state as “a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie”; the need for a working-class political party; the need for a revolution in which the proletariat seizes political power; the international character of the revolution; the disappearance of the state once class distinctions have been abolished; and the idea that workers “have no fatherland”. Trotsky notes that whatever corrections are necessary to the Manifesto can be successfully made only by “proceeding in accord with the method lodged in the foundation of the Manifesto itself”. While the Manifesto said that capitalism had become an obstacle to further development, Trotsky points out that in Marx's time this was only relative. Further economic development was possible, and did occur in the second half of the 19th century. Prolonged prosperity enabled the capitalists to buy off a section of the working class (the labour aristocracy), leading to the degeneration of the social democratic parties. Trotsky also points out that the Communist Manifesto did not anticipate capitalism's imperialist stage. It contains no reference to the struggle of colonial and semi-colonial countries for independence. Only later did Lenin develop a revolutionary strategy for the colonial countries. The Manifesto does not specify what form of state will exist after the proletarian revolution. The experience of the 1871 Paris Commune and the Russian soviets (the workers' and peasants' councils that seized power during the 1917 revolution) gave a clearer picture of the new state that must replace the old. Writing during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Trotsky argued that capitalism was now “absolutely reactionary” and that socialism was an urgent necessity. The key problem was the crisis of revolutionary leadership.



ITEM OVERVIEW A beautiful, new anniversary edition of the classic/infamous Manifesto, which Charles H. Kerr have kept in print continuously since 1902. This is the authorized English translation by Samuel Moore, edited, introduced, and annotated by Engels, and with a brilliant new introduction by Robin D.G. Kelley.

150th Anniversary of the Communist Manifesto Dreaded by Capital's Rulers, Inspiration of the Oppressed by Radomil Silber [from Postmark Praha, Jan.1998, with thanks, translated from the Czech]

January, 1998 for the Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations Raϊl Marco Communist Manifesto Introduction This year is the hundred fiftieth anniversary of the first publication of the Communist Manifesto, or as it was originally titled, the Manifesto of the Communist Party, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, at the request of the Communist League, a secret organization in which was grouped a handful of revolutionaries, mainly German, but also English, French, Swiss, Italian, Polish... The Manifesto was not a work conceived by Marx and Engels to expound their theories, economic and philosophical findings and political conclusions. It arose out of the need to explain to the world who the communists were and what they wanted. The Congress of the League (London, December, 1847) entrusted them with the writing of that document. In the circular letter that the Central Committee of the League of the Just wrote to its members in February of that year, (the name of Communist League was adopted at the Congress), it stated: "Humanity progresses by leaps and bounds, consciousness develops in every soul and along with it the desire for freedom. We have to submit to that necessity and not force the people to be subjected to laws that contradict their spirit. [...] we must draw up a brief communist confession of faith that will be printed in all the European languages and circulated in all countries. [...] What is communism and what do the communists want? 2) What is socialism and what do the socialists want? 3) How can communism be established as quickly and easily as possible? By way of introduction, let us observe the following: [...] communism is a system in which the land should be common property of all, and everyone should work, 'produce,' according to their abilities and enjoy, 'consume,' according to their strengths; the communists intend, therefore, to overthrow all past social organizations and to raise a new one on their ruins."(1) Months later, in 1848, this fundamental work appeared, conceived mainly as a weapon for the formation of a genuine revolutionary party capable of confronting the situation that was emerging in Europe, a revolutionary upsurge that foretold the confrontations and revolutions of 1848 and that put forth the need to put into practice the unity of socialism with the working class movement. It is an axiom to remember, that the Manifesto constitutes the clearest and most correct conception of the world, "consistent materialism, which also embraces the realm of social life; dialectics, as the most comprehensive and profound doctrine of development; the theory of the class struggle and of the world-historic revolutionary role of the proletariat."(2) It was not, as we have seen, a coincidence that the Manifesto appeared in 1848, when the revolution was maturing all over Europe (in America, heroic struggles for liberation and independence were developing). In January, the people of Sicily rose up in Palermo and established a provisional Government; at the same time the people of Milan heroically stood up to the tyranny of the Hapsburgs; in Paris, the revolution broke out in February, and the first copies of the Manifesto arrived in Germany several weeks after the insurrection in Berlin had taken place. According to Engels, the first French edition of the Manifesto was published in Paris on the eve of the insurrection. It seems to us that this was not a mere coincidence. It is not a matter of affirming glibly that the Manifesto exercised a decisive influence on the revolutionary movements of 1848; that would be to falsify facts. It is a matter of understanding how the historical conditions of that time, and their dialectical understanding, which would lead to the days of 1848, were correctly grasped by the communists and shaped by Marx and Engels into the Manifesto of the Communist Party. And the conclusion is fully valid today, that the achievement or realization of the communist ideals, will only be possible to the degree to which the communists unite in a communist party. This statement deserves greater merit when we realize that, at that time, the communists were a small minority, or as Engels called them in 1890, the "not at all numerous vanguard of scientific Socialism." They knew perfectly well what they wanted and what they had to do. Three years before the appearance of the Manifesto, Marx in his Thesis on Feuerbach, expounded categorically his famous statement: "Until now the philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it." And Engels later would write in Revelations that neither he nor Marx tried to create a work for scholars: "We never thought of describing for the scholarly world, in thick volumes, the new scientific results of our investigations, so that others would not be informed. Nothing of the sort... We had the duty to lay a scientific basis for our doctrines; but for us, it was at least equally important to win the support of the European proletariat... And scarcely had we come to clear conclusions ourselves than we began to work." [Translated from the Spanish.] Thus the Manifesto of the Communist Party corresponds to certain clear and determined objectives, not only for the moment as some would try to have us believe, particularly the social-democrats and reformists of all types and hues, but its precious pages established a program of action and thought (always in development) for the whole historic process that can not be limited. It is the direct union between theory and practice, thought and action, that today, one hundred fifty years later, continues to be necessary, vital to achieve, perhaps more than ever before. The plans of Marx and Engels in this "little book" show that not only were they theoreticians of genius, but also leaders and organizers of the world proletariat, standard-bearers of their struggles and yearnings. Origins of the Manifesto The Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations decided at its last meeting on the publication of the Manifesto and the elaboration of this common introduction. This was done with the clear understanding of the need to develop a new campaign of study and discussion in our ranks and beyond, of this work which symbolizes what we fight for with our (scarce) forces, and (limited) means, in order to arrive at the point where it ceases to be a utopia. The wealth of this work is such that it needs an extensive and well-documented study of its origins, the historic conditions in which it arose, the people involved, etc.; however, an introduction is not adequate for this. Therefore, we will just try to briefly present some of the main data and facts. The French Revolution (1789), having overthrown feudalism and established the power of the bourgeoisie, laid the bases for socialism. It was in Paris, where the conspiracy of Babeuf, based on an egalitarian, primitive communism, failed in 1791, that the center of the proletarian movement was situated. It is true that English Chartism profoundly shook up bourgeois society, but it barely extended to the Continent. In Germany, feudal oppression savagely persecuted the artisans' associations, whose members were imprisoned, killed and forced into exile, mainly to Paris, which made this city the concentration point of the European revolutionaries. It was there that the embryonic communists first met up with socialist theories. But, as Engels himself pointed out, the English Owenists and the French Fourierists called themselves "socialists," as did: "the manifold types of social quacks who wanted to eliminate social abuses through their various universal panaceas and all kinds of patch-work, without hurting capital and profit in the least... The section of the working class, however, which demanded a radical reconstruction of society, convinced that mere political revolutions were not enough, then called itself Communist. It was still a rough-hewn, only instinctive and frequently somewhat crude communism. Yet, it was powerful enough to bring into being two systems of utopian communism -- in France, the 'Icarian' communists of Cabet, and in Germany that of Weitling. Socialism in 1847 signified a bourgeois movement, communism a working-class movement."(3) Engels evolved towards the philosophical ideas of communism, while he was still in the ranks of the radical neo-Hegelians of Berlin, through his comrade Moses Hess, who was the first to understand that communism was the logical development of neo-Hegelianism. At that time, in France, the revolutionary aspirations took form in the Society of the Friends of the People and in the Society for the Rights of Man; these were radical organizations of petty-bourgeois and proletarians. In 1834, the second revolt of the weavers of Lyon was crushed and their leaders, the ones who were able to escape the ferocious monarchical repression, fled abroad. The members of the "base" continued their secret activities, led mainly by Blanqui and Barbιs. They created the "Society of Families," which was quickly destroyed by the police, and then the "Society of the Seasons," which was predominantly proletarian. Its ideology was the utopian communism of Babeuf, based on the petty-bourgeois idea of "equality" and the belief that a handful of determined men sufficed to do away with Authority. Directly related to the latter, and sometimes allied with it, there arose the League of the Just. This League developed quickly under the leadership of the German artisans Bauer and Weitling. The failure of the uprising of May of 1839, in which the League of the Just and the Society of the Seasons acted together, led to the death penalty (later commuted to prison terms) of Blanqui, Barbιs and others who, after long years in prison, were expelled from France. Some took refuge in London, others in Switzerland. It was in London, in 1843, that Engels made contact with them, particularly with Bauer (a shoemaker), Moll (a watchmaker) and Shapper (printer). Of them Engels said: "They were the first revolutionaries who boasted to me, and although our ideas, at that time, did not totally coincide, far from it, in contrast to their petty egalitarian communism, I still nourished at that time a good dose of philosophical arrogance that was no less petty. I will never forget the imposing impression that those three men really made on me when I had barely ceased to be a child."(4) In 1840, the German exiles in London formed a legal mass organization which served as a transmission belt and for recruiting members for the League of the Just. From London they maintained direct contacts with Germany, and with the groups of refugees in Switzerland, France, Brussels, etc. This was the scene when Marx and Engels, then living in Brussels, were working on their revolutionary theory. They were attracted by the League of the Just, but they had not taken the step of joining it. They were greatly influenced, it seems, by the work of the tailor Weitling, "Guarantees of Harmony and Freedom" (1842), that Marx described as "a gigantic and brilliant debut of the German workers... the first original theoretical activity of the German proletariat."(5) In 1845, Marx and Engels, who were beginning to have an influence on the revolutionary movement, moved from Brussels to London, where they (mainly Engels) began a period of collaboration with the left wing of the Chartist movement and with the League of the Just (these organizations worked with each other). Upon returning to Brussels, Marx completed his work "The Poverty of Philosophy," in which he relentlessly lashed out at Proudhon. At the same time, he did not cease his revolutionary activity and together with Engels, his intimate Silesian friend Guillermo Wolf and others, he formed the "Association of Workers' Culture," through which they carried on an intense labor of criticism, statements and elaboration of concepts, and "we mercilessly criticized the hotchpotch of Franco-English socialism or communism and German philosophy, which formed the secret doctrine of the 'League' at that time."(6) In the spring of 1847, according to Engels (Marx in Herr Vogt gives the date as the end of 1846), they joined the League of the Just, after a period of discussions and when the organization had already overcome its conspiratorial conceptions and the pseudo-theoretical communism of the artisans. Engels described it as follows: "Moll [sent from London by the League] met with Marx in Brussels and me in Paris, inviting us repeatedly in the name of their comrades to join the League. He told us that they were convinced of the correctness of our ideas in general, as well as of the need to free the League from old traditions and conspiratorial forms." In the summer of 1847 the First Congress of the League was held in London. Guillermo Wolf attended as delegate of the Brussels Commune (Marx could not attend) and Engels as representative of all the communes in Paris. At the end of November the II Congress was held, which Marx and Engels attended with the draft of the Manifesto, whose writing they had previously been assigned. It was in the form of a "confession of faith," something that apparently was traditional among the French socialists. But Engels was not in agreement with that form and wrote to Marx, at the same time that he invited him to Ostende to attend the Congress together: "Think over the confession of faith a bit. I believe we had better drop the catechism form and call the thing: Communist Manifesto. As more or less history has got to be related in it the form it has been in hitherto is quite unsuitable."(7) The II Congress lasted until December and ended by assigning Marx and Engels the writing of the definitive edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party. Weeks later, the text was sent to be printed in German, English and French, at the same time that the revolution broke out in Paris. Since then, the world proletariat could rely on a treasure which has resisted the passage of time, the transformations and changes, and which continues to be young and fully valid in its general lines. In the Manifesto, the old humanist and quite confused slogan, used by the League, of "All men are brothers," was replaced by the class cry, "Workers of the world, unite!" Despite general opinion, it was not in the Manifesto that this slogan was used for the first time. Actually, according to Marxist researchers, the Austrian Grόnberg and the German Meyer (the biographer of Engels), it was in September of 1847, months before the publication of the Manifesto, that the League in London put out the first (and only) issue of its newspaper, under the name "Communist Review," which put the famous slogan on its masthead.(8) Present Validity of the Communist Manifesto The Manifesto certainly appeared in a specific historic context and between 1848 and our day many things have changed. The authors themselves recognized this (see the foreword to the German edition of 1872): "Here and there, some detail might be improved. The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II.... But then, the Manifesto has become a historical document which we have no longer any right to alter." This was an idea that Engels would subsequently repeat on many occasions. What would we say today, one hundred fifty years later! Changes in industry, in the development of capitalism that they could not have predicted; the era of cybernetics and the conquest of space... In this period there took place the first attempt at the seizure of power by the proletariat, the Paris Commune; two cruel world wars and the longest conquest of power until now by the proletariat led by the communists (the Great October Revolution of 1917). The independence of numerous countries and the almost total disappearance of colonialism of the old type; the world supremacy of U.S. imperialism; the ever greater and more shameful betrayal of social-democracy; the rise of what is known as revisionism in the country of Lenin and Stalin and the errors, lacks and deficiencies that have provoked the stagnation of the 1960s and the disappearance of the USSR and the so-called eastern countries... A theory often repeated by the social-democrats and reformists is that the "Manifesto" is an obsolete document, overtaken by events. These people sang praises both to the "Manifesto" and to Marx (always less often, and some, such as the Spanish socialists and others, have removed it from their literature), but now they claim that since 1848 the world has changed and that Marx's conclusions are no longer valid. Naturally, the "Manifesto" is not valid for them, the renegades and revisionists of all types and all over. If we analyze the world in 1998, as Marx and Engels did in 1848, is it not clear that everywhere social-democracy and the socialist leaders are following a policy of treason, of abandonment of the interests of the working class, the proletariat, and of vile subjection to their bourgeoisie and/or to imperialism? What and whom do Jospin in France, the "Olives" in Italy, Felipe Gonzαlez in Spain, etc., etc. represent but their own bourgeoisie with interests opposed to those of the proletariat? Clearly those people have an interest in shouting high and low that the "Manifesto" is obsolete...! It is people of that kind who are currently falsifying history, modifying it in accordance with their interests, and having launched a furious anti-communist campaign, they lie shamelessly. As a result of this, one must insist that the "Manifesto" is not just a product of the conditions of that time, nor is it the precursor of experiences to come. We agree with the Italian Marxist Antonio Labriola (1842-1903?), who said that: "In reality the only historic experiences are those which history itself creates, and those experiences can neither be anticipated nor brought into existence by premeditated design or decree." The Manifesto was the result of continuous progress in the history of thought which, with Marx and Engels made an extraordinary, qualitative leap in its theoretical development. The "Manifesto" made the leap from socialism as a somewhat confused and inexact idea, to socialism as a science. As a science in continuous development (which inevitably will make more qualitative leaps), it allowed its authors to conclude that capitalism digs its own grave: "The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable." This is perhaps the main conclusion of Marx and Engels, that the collapse of capitalism is inevitable. That statement continues to be valid. The passage of time confirms this and what happened in the USSR in no way invalidates it. Capitalism will not collapse in and of itself. But that is another question. What is important is to prove that despite the scientific and technical advances, the transformations that have taken place, the changes, etc., capitalism is incapable of solving the serious problems of humanity, such as hunger, misery, the exploitation of man by man, wars of plunder, oppression. The terrible conditions in which the people of Africa live are a consequence of capitalism, not of some backwardness or lack of culture of those peoples, but a direct result of brutal capitalist exploitation. The same can be said of America and Asia... Even in the main imperialist country in the world, the U.S.A., are there not terrible pockets of poverty, is there not social marginalization, is there not hunger? Does "prosperous and cultured" Europe not know misery, unemployment and the other ills of capitalism? The bourgeoisie can never solve those problems. Today, 150 years later, the statement of Marx and Engels that the Government is nothing more than a committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie is just as true as when it was formulated. The cynical statement of French Prime Minister Guizot in 1847 still holds for the big bourgeoisie: "Any man with a greater than average intelligence, who does not have property, nor industry, should be considered dangerous from the political point of view." The [leading] role that the working class is called upon to play is another of the conclusions of the Manifesto. It is of particular importance to keep in mind that this conclusion, which has been confirmed, was made at a period in history when the working class was not the majority of the population in Europe and when the artisans were the most active class and the most educated politically. The distinction between artisans and proletarians is essential to better understand the passage from "utopian communism" to "scientific communism." It is in the Manifesto in which for the first time the proletariat steps onto the stage as the protagonist, as the force which will give all its soul to the class struggle. Thus we see how Marx and Engels knew how to distinguish between the predominant force at a given moment, but without possibilities of development, such as the artisans, and the force in development, on the rise, as the proletariat was and continues to be. As for the class struggle, it is necessary to point out that it was not Marx and Engels who discovered it, but they were the ones who placed it as the determining factor in the progress of history. Marx explained it clearly: "... no credit is due to me for discovering the existence of classes in modern society nor yet the struggle between them. Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois economists the economic anatomy of the classes. What I did that was new was to prove: (1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular, historic phases in the development of production; (2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; (3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society." (Marx's emphases)(9) Thus he made clear the principal role of the proletariat in the class struggle; another essential point that the Manifesto made is that one of the principal features and characteristics of capitalism is the exploitation of the worker, an exploitation that will only disappear with capitalism itself. All this continues to be valid, it has not been superseded. What happened in the USSR, Albania, etc., does not invalidate any of the above. This is not the place to deal with that problem, but we maintain that despite the errors, misconceptions and deformations (as well as betrayals) that led to the collapse of those countries, the fact that wrong answers were given does not mean that the questions were erroneous. Or, as the philosopher L. Peρa stated: "As a result of the difficulties of giving a Marxist explanation of what has happened on our Planet in the last decades some have been led to conclude that communism is bankrupt [...] Communism has a long history. Communism is a proposal, the proposal of organizing human society without private property [...] The collapse affects only some of its forecasts. It does not affect the proposal." The "Manifesto", no matter how much the enemies of communism and its horde of pseudo-theoreticians and pseudo-philosophers insist, is not a museum piece. One hundred fifty years later, it continues to be a weapon that the proletariat must grasp, a weapon which serves the international revolutionary movement. Because they are aware of this, international reaction furiously attacks the ideas contained in the Manifesto; the international anti-communist campaign does not let up or cease. Why this fury, if communism has already been finally defeated as they claim? However, they join forces, they support each other and cheer each other on in this campaign, from the reactionaries to the modern revisionists, including the always treacherous social-democrats, not to mention all those that make up the industry of the repented (Benedetti). All the reactionary forces of the world are united in slandering the ideas of communism, fighting and trying to liquidate the communist parties. They have set loose a pack of "new historians," who distort and grotesquely, vilely falsify the history of the workers' movement. The anti-communist campaign particularly includes the efforts to bury the Manifesto by making it a kind of mouldy archive document. This "first mature work of Marxism" (Lenin) clearly stated what the present situation of the world confirms, that "the bourgeoisie... is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery." We are aware, as Marx and Engels were, that not all of the Manifesto, its propositions, are currently valid. The fundamental thing in it is the role of the proletariat in the class struggle; the sense of internationalism ("the workers have no country"), and the affirmation that the proletariat can only reach its objective by overthrowing by force the whole social order and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is well understood that the bourgeoisie trembles before the communist revolution, in which the workers have nothing to lose but their chains! The Manifesto is neither obsolete, nor outdated, nor will it be as long as it is still necessary to overthrow the bourgeoisie, to carry out the proletarian revolution, to abolish the exploitation of man by man, the oppression and looting of one country by another, the subjection of the people by force of arms... Those who claim that the Manifesto has been left behind are the ones who have been left behind by history. That all the above is possible has been proven clearly by the Great October Revolution of 1917, as earlier in 1871 by the glorious Paris Commune. That it could not be consolidated was due to subjective factors not attributable to the Manifesto. Today, one hundred fifty years after the appearance of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, with all the vicissitudes and problems that the world communist movement has gone through, to us the attitude taken towards it is a dividing line between revolutionaries and reformists, between communists and social-traitors. 1. Ernest Drahn, Neue Zeit, XXXVII, 2. p. 131ff, translated from the Spanish. 2. Lenin, Karl Marx 3. F. Engels, Prologue to the Manifesto of 1890. 4. F. Engels, Revelations, translated from the Spanish. 5. K. Marx, in "Vorwaerts," Paris, 1844, translated from the Spanish. 6. K. Marx, Herr Vogt, Marx/Engels Collected Works, vol. 17. 7. Marx and Engels, Correspondence, Engels to Marx, Paris, 23-24 November, 1847. 8. Karl Grόnberg and Gustav Meyer, Die Londoner Kommunistische Zeitschrift und andere Urkunden aus den jahren 1847-1848, Leipzig, 1921. 9. Letter to Joseph Weydemeyer, March 5, 1852

The Communist Manifesto Today by Paul M. Sweezy Home Subscribe Why Socialism? by Albert Einstein A Note on the Communist Manifesto by Harry Magdoff The Communist Manifesto After 150 Years by Ellen Meiksins Wood I've probably read the Communist Manifesto a dozen times, more or less. But it never struck me as old hat. It was always worth reading again. So I thought that in preparation for this panel, I should read it once more, this time with special attention to insights and formulations that seem particularly relevant to the problems we face in the world as the twenty-first century approaches. Here is what I came up with, summarized under three headings: (1) The crises of capitalism; (2) Where are we going? and (3) What should we be trying to accomplish? The Crises of Capitalism Eighteen forty-eight, when the Manifesto was written, was a crisis year in Europe. Nineteen ninety-eight is a crisis year for a now fully globalized capitalist economy. What Marx and Engels said about "the commercial crises [that] by their periodic return, put on its trial, each time more threateningly, the existence of the entire bourgeois society" (the Communist Manifesto, Monthly Review Press, 1998) is just as applicable to our own time. And so is the diagnosis of the basic cause: "In these crises," they wrote, "there breaks out an epidemic that in all earlier epochs would have seemed an absurdity, the epidemic of overproduction." Today the formulation might be better formulated to read "an epic of overproduction of the means of production." Bourgeois economics still doesn't get it, and probably never will. Where Are We Going? Marx and Engels were dedicated revolutionaries and firmly believed that the inherent and ineradicable contradictions of capitalism would generate a growing and ultimately successful revolutionary struggle to overturn the system and put in its place a more humane and rational one. But did their analysis allow for, or perhaps even imply a different historical outcome? The answer, I think, is unequivocally yes. Early on in the Manifesto, indeed on the first page of the first section entitled "Bourgeois and Proletarians," an oft-quoted passage reads: The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. Nothing more is said about "the common ruin of the contending classes" in the Manifesto, most likely because Marx and Engels did not consider it a likely outcome of the class struggle under capitalism. But if we look around us in the world today--and take into account the extent to which capitalism is destroying or undermining the natural foundations of a sustainable economy--we must surely reinstate "the common ruin of the contending classes" as a very realistic prospect in the historically near future. What Should we be Trying to Accomplish? We should be trying to impress on the peoples of the world the truth about capitalism, that it is not, as bourgeois ideologists want us to believe, the "end of history," but that its continued existence can really bring the end of history. Does the Manifesto offer any help in this respect? Perhaps--if we read it carefully and interpret it imaginatively. In a too-often neglected passage, Marx and Engels introduce a new theme into their analysis. Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the process of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a section of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole.

1998: The Communist Manifesto Now Leo Panitch & Colin Leys, eds. Order this issue The 150th anniversary of the Cornrnunist Manifesto provides the occasion for a powerful set of essays that draw on the Manifesto's legacy to analyse working class responses today to the growing exhaustion of neo­liberalism and that contribute to setting a left agenda for the new millenium. The volume also features brilliant essays on the making of the Manifesto, plus a reprint of the Manifesto and a reproachful letter to Marx from a socialist­feminist. Preface Dear Dr.Marx: A Letter from a Socialist Feminist Sheila Rowbotham The Political Legacy of the Manifesto Colin Leys & Leo Panitch The Geography of Class Power David Harvey Socialism with Sober Senses: Developing Worker's Capacities Sam Gindin Unions, Strikes and Class Consciousness Today Sheila Cohen & Kim Moody Passages of the Russian and Eastern Europe Left Peter Gowan Marx and the Permanent Revolution in France: Backgound to the Communist Manifesto Bernard Moss The Communist Manifesto and the Environment John Bellamy Foster Remember the Future? The Communist Manifesto as Historical and Cultural Form Peter Osborne Seeing is Believing: Marx's Manifesto, Derrida's Apparition Paul Thomas The Making of the Manifesto Rob Beamish The Communist Manifesto Marx & Engels

This Friday, the British publisher Verso is bringing out a new edition of "The Communist Manifesto" in honor of the 150th anniversary of its publication. The Manifesto originally appeared in 1848 as the platform of the Communist League, which commissioned Karl Marx and Frederick Engels to write it. It went on to become one of the most influential books in history, being the founding document of every communist movement and nation on earth. Rereading the Manifesto, one finds it surprisingly contemporary. Although communism has collapsed in virtually every nation in which it held power, the analysis and the issues raised by the Manifesto continue to resonate in policy debates everywhere. For example, Marx and Engels' discussion of the impact of free trade is exactly correct: "The bourgeoisie [middle class] has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country....All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations....In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible.... "The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all nations, even the most barbarian, into civilization. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls." Of course, Marx and Engels decried this trend, believing that it led to alienation. Workers, they thought, were being reduced from skilled artisans, who produced to order for people they knew personally, to mere cogs in a giant world machine, mass producing standardized products for strangers. Marx and Engels saw this as dehumanizing, even as the rise in productivity reduced prices and raised living standards for workers themselves at the same time. As they wrote in the Manifesto: "Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to division of labor, the work of the proletarians [working class] has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him." Over time, Marx and Engels believed that this would lead to misery for the working class, as the owners of capital increasing exploited them. The solution was communism, which Marx and Engels summarized simply as the abolition of private property. To bring this about, they proposed 10 policies, many of which are still being debated today. Among them are a heavy progressive or graduated income tax, abolition of the right of inheritance [estate taxes?], centralization of credit in the hands of the state [the Federal Reserve?], and free education for all children in public schools. Marx and Engels concluded by calling for revolution. "The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains," they said. But it turned out that they had a lot to lose. Ultimately, millions would die at the hands of Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot and other communists, and millions more would live in poverty. They too should be remembered on the 150th anniversary of the book that caused it all. Source: Bruce Bartlett (senior fellow, National Center for Policy Analysis), April 29, 1998.

The Spark That Fired a Revolution In 1848, revolutions in Europe toppled governments, tore apart families, and sent mobs into the streets of every major city on the continent. The Communist Manifesto was published that year, and it fanned the flames of revolution, shouting for a fair deal for the working man against the forces of globalism, against the merging of huge industrial conglomerates, and against governments sold out to special interests. Still relevant today both as a historical document and as a stirring call for social democracy, this New Albion edition includes Engel's extensive footnotes from the various editions, plus the changing Prefaces written first by Marx and Engels, and later by Engels alone; this includes the prefaces of 1872 German edition, the 1882 Russian edition, the 1883 German edition, the 1888 English edition, and the 1890 German edition, plus notes on the Manifesto and the various translations of it. Also included are photographs of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels from the period. The book can be annotated, searched, and highlighted by the reader. This New Albion Press edition can be annotated, searched, and highlighted by the reader.

THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Foreword by Paul M. Sweezy The Communist Manifesto After 150 Years by Ellen Meiksins Wood -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First published in London in 1848, the Communist Manifesto is one of the most important books of all time: a document which helped to define the emerging socialist movement, altered the course of world history, and is universally acknowledged to be a cornerstone of modern social thought. This definitive edition of the Communist Manifesto includes: A Foreword by marxist scholar Paul M. Sweezy, editor of Monthly Review; The full text of the Communist Manifesto in a distinctive and pleasing hand-set typeface; The important catechism Principles of Communism, drafted by Engels in 1847 as a basis for the Manifesto; The Communist Manifesto After 150 Years, a far-reaching interpretive essay by Ellen Meiksins Wood, editor of Monthly Review. The result is to illuminate both the historical setting of the Communist Manifesto and the contemporary relevance of its ideas.

The sesquicentennial edition with an introduction by Martin Malia. by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Penguin Putnam, New York, 1998 ISBN 0-451-52710-0 Review Copyright © 1999 Garret Wilson January 16, 1999, 11:30am Home Up -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The ideas of Karl Marx are forever present on the contemporary landscape. It’s not just that Lenin, Stalin, and Mao used (or misused) his ideas when they created what has become to the West the personifications of communism. His influence has reached farther, invading theories of international relations and being essential to (depending on the decade) ideas of social theory. The Communist Manifesto is not the definitive rendition of Marx’s ideals meant for academic study; rather, it is more of a piece of propaganda meant to carry the essence of the Marxist message to the masses. Hence, its relevance to the modern reader (indeed, everyone should read it at one time) is not so much that for its content as for its role in history. This particular "sesquicentenial edition" (150 years, apparently) of the Manifesto includes an introduction by Martin Malia, an introduction which shows Malia as being anything but a Marxist. Although its wording surely reflects bias, it provides some interesting viewpoints. First of all, Malia asserts that the main thrust of Marxism is not "a critique of capitalism, as is usually supposed, but... a theory of revolution to overcome German backwardness" (xii). I’m sure there is an important point being made here, but it seems to me that a critique of capitalism is still an essential part of the Manifesto, something which becomes important in the Russian situation. It seems that, in the Marxist version of the Hegalian scheme of things, a communist revolution would take place after a post-feudal industrialization stage of history. Therefore, the fact that Marxism was applied to Russia (which wasn’t a capitalist, but still largely feudal, society) seems to Malia to go against the message of Marxism (xix). The extent to which Marxism was molded to fit Russia is illustrated by the fact that one Russian, Plekhanov, believed that there would therefore have to be two revolutions, one bourgeois to bring in industrialization and to form a proletarian body, and a subsequent one that was proletarian (xxi). Malia portrays the "party" referenced in the Manifesto as an "ideological commitment" to which, in 1848, only Marx and Engels could truly be said to belong (xv). Lenin’s later formation of the Communist Party is seen as an exploitative twisting of the more idealistic "party" of the Manifesto (xxi). Malia sees Lenin further using Marxism to his advantage when he originally hailed the soviets (councils) as essential democratic organs, but when the soviets later showed support for the Mensheviks they were reduced to an "administrative apparatus" and the government began to look very much like a "plain party dictatorship" (xxii). The Manifesto itself has been read and commented upon time and time again. I believe that I have read it, or at least a part of it, at some time or another. Now that I’m more acquainted with the background of Marxism, including history, Hegel, and economics, some things make a bit more sense. Here, then, are a few things I gathered this time around. Marx proclaims that, "In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases" (58). Is this always, or even often, true? Wouldn't a garbage collector make more than a pizza delivery boy? Wouldn't a truck driver hauling fuel get paid more than a truck driver hauling grain? Marx sees that several developments, including new methods of communication and travel (such as railways), will make it easier for the proletarians to communicate and travel (61). This in turn will make a proletariat uprising more feasible and therefore more likely. Although the likelihood of such an event has diminished, his observation of the changes brought about by advances in communication and travel were timely. "National differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto" (73). Marx in 1848 already saw what we would today call globalization. Between the bourgeois and the proletariat Marx saw a lower middle class (sort of a small-time bourgeois) that fought against the bourgeois. The difference is that, unlike the communist who look to a new scheme of things in the future brought about by revolution, this lower middle class instead tries to roll back time to the age of feudalism (63). Several conditions that made, in Marx’s mind, a communist revolution inevitable are no longer present today. Marx mentions that the average price of wage labor is the minimum wage needed to keep the worker alive (68). This isn't the case anymore. Marx says that "private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population..." (69). That's not true anymore, either, if it ever was. Marx’s advocation of the abolition of the family (71) at first seems extreme, but the role of the family at the time must be considered. Women were certainly forced to do mundane labor for much less (if any) compensation. Child labor, which has since been banned in many industrialized countries, was widespread (76). Marx seems to be saying that, in many cases, the family only existed to provide laborers. It would be interesting to learn more about Marx’s feelings towards women as to their status in society. In the Manifesto, it’s clear that Marx saw the labor of the bourgeoisie as reducing values of age and sex (59). Maybe this means he doesn't want women to be able to work. Or at least not as much. He also portrays communism as advocating a "community of women," the women of society being shared by the men. Apparently, this was part of the abolition of the family, since wives were exploited for labor at the time. After Marx’s contention that the bourgeoisie "take the greatest pleasure in seducing each others wives," making bourgeois marriage "in reality a system of wives in common," he claims that a community of women would be no different than the situation with the bourgeoisie, just less hypocritical (72). A "community of men," however, is not considered. [April 1, 1999: After rereading this passage, it seems that Marx is responding to burgeoisie charges of a "community of women" with the abolishment of the family, to which Marx responds that the bourgeoisie have "a reality a system of wives in common" but that communists "desire to introduce, in substitution for a hypocritically concealed, an openly legalized community of women," which does not really seem to dispute the charges. He goes further and claims that communism would abolish "the community of women springing from that system, i.e., of prostitution both public and private" (72). How can a community of women abolish prostitution unless this community of women, like capital, is treated as a commodity to be distributed equally against their will? If the women were to have a choice in the matter, this would reintroduce inequalities (i.e. likes/dislikes) that would be exploited by the payment of capital: prostitution. His solution therefore seems to be incompatible with free choice of the women involved.] Even in the Manifesto, Hegel’s influence can clearly be seen. Marx asks, "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" (73)? This seems to be pure Hegel, and in such a propagandistic work it is strange to think that the average proletariat of the time could in anyway appreciate the background of this idea. Perhaps this is why Marx tries to psychologically force the reader to accept the concept without having to explain volumes of Hegel by implying that the concept itself does not "require deep intuition." Following Hegel’s idea of an inevitable path of history, Marx apparently saw a bourgeois revolution in German that would take place (at a more advanced level than that of England and France) before a proletarian revolution (90), from which Plekhanov possibly formed his opinion about the same situation in Russia. The Communist Manifesto is meant for those who have no knowledge of Hegel or economics. For this reason, it is accessible to most readers, and indeed is something that most should read, if for nothing else but the place it holds in the history of society. A knowledge of Hegel and economics will make some things clearer, although I suspect that Marx’s other writings will be of more value in finding out exactly what Marxism is.

"A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of Communism." So begins one of history's most important documents, a work of such magnitude that it has forever changed not only the scope of world politics, but indeed the course of human civilization. The Communist Manifesto was written in Friedrich Engels's clear, striking prose and declared the earth-shaking ideas of Karl Marx. Upon publication in 1848, it quickly became the credo of the poor and oppressed who longed for a society "in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all." The Communist Manifesto contains the seeds of Marx's more comprehensive philosophy, which continues to inspire influential economic, political, social, and literary theories. But the Manifesto is most valuable as an historical document, one that led to the greatest political upheaveals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and to the establishment of the Communist governments that until recently ruled half the globe. This Bantam Classic edition of The Communist Manifesto includes Marx and Engels's historic 1872 and 1882 prefaces, and Engels's notes and prefaces to the 1883 and 1888 editions.

Ernest Mandel, La place du marxisme dans l’histoire, Cahiers d’etudes et de recherche, IIRF, Amsterdam 1986. Published in English by the International Institute for Research and Education. Downloaded with thanks from the Mandel Archive at International Socialist Group. Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At a time when many repentant leftists are proclaiming Marxism incapable of explaining the new phenomena of this last quarter of the twentieth century, Ernest Mandel reminds us in The Place of Marxism in History that Marxism drew from its very inception on the advances of all the social sciences and emancipation movements of its time. In a survey of the multiple sources of Marx and Engels’ theory, he identifies the specific contribution of the two friends in the various disciplines to which they applied themselves: philosophy, political economy, social history, revolutionary organisation, self-organisation of the working class, emancipation movements, internationalism. Concluding that Marxism “constantly learns from perpetually changing reality” and that it is the conscious expression of the real movement of workers towards self-emancipation, Mandel propose a formula which provides for a dialectical interaction between innovation and the verification of established tenets. This text is based on a series of lectures given at the International Institute for Research and Education.

Draper, Hal. The Marx-Engels Cyclopedia (3 vols.; Schocken, 1985). Out of print, but indispensable for serious research on Marx. The volumes include: a day-to-day chronology of Marx's and Engels's lives; a complete list of their works; and a glossary identifying persons, places, and things that they came into contact with.

Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels: GONGCHANDANG XUANYAN. (The Communist Manifesto). Shanghai, 1973. [3], 92 folded leaves, Chinese style. Single sheet publisher's explanation inserted. 29x19 cm. Stitched. GBP 500.00 Beautifully carved woodblock printed edition of the Chinese translation of the 'Communist Manifesto' produced at the height of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in its centre of power. There is a great deal that could be said about this remarkable but unassuming item. It can, in a sense, be seen as the bibliographic equivalent of a high leader's perfectly tailored Mao suit in the sartorial domain of actually existing socialism. It's most striking aspect is perhaps the fact that it was produced at all. What is this book, if not a refined and representative manifestation of the 'old culture', otherwise and elsewhere being 'swept away' during those same years? This is the official Chinese Communist Party translation of Marx and Engels' most famous tract, carefully designed in the manner of the very finest rare and early Chinese books. The colophon tells us (with notable pedantry) that the text is based on the 14th printing of the 6th letterpress edition of the Manifesto as it was issued by the People's Publishing House in 1964. This text has been carved onto woodblocks and printed in the traditional manner for this special edition. The design of the book is carefully calculated. Both the number of columns and characters-per-column, and the choice of typeface itself refer to Song period models - the earliest and most prized form of Chinese printed book. Each page has 10 vertical columns of 20 characters and the font style is fangsongti - Song regular calligraphic style. In fact, the design of the book immediately recalls Song period printed Buddhist sutras, the pre-eminent religious publishing of that period. Other aspects of the design - of the block centre or 'banxin' with running title and leaf numbers on the folded outer edge of the leaf and single upper 'fish tail' - are consistent. Notes are also reproduced in traditional-style doubled columns of smaller characters with the only odd note struck by the carved 'characters' of occasional western references set at 90 degrees. The binding is a further aspect of the overall quality production with brocade covered corners and the whole finished with a book label printed on gold flecked paper. Perhaps, the only unambiguously 'communist' characteristic of the publication (other than its content) is the complete absence of any reference to named individuals associated with its production. On the face of it, this is a 'collective' effort. The inserted sheet with publisher's explanation attempts a resolution of the item's inherent ideological contradictions. Apparently, the development of woodblock printing technology was stunted or 'halted in mid course' by the 'devastations of reactionary elements'. Apart from the canonical propaganda function of the text itself, the book's production has allowed the survival of a technology and craft carried out by (often, as here, anonymous) workers. Nine young middle school graduates studying woodblock printing were also involved in making the book and this too is cited as a Good Thing (which it is, after all). The finishing (or starting) touch is the good solid Marxist/Cultural Revolution slogan printed in red at the beginning of the work: 'Quan shijie wuchanzhe, lianheqilai!' - Workers of the World Unite! There is no indication of the extent of the edition for this wonderful item, but we have not seen another like it. This is not a work for the masses. Given its quality and rarity, it most likely was presented to high level party officials. This example is in excellent condition, especially considering its relative delicacy, the time of its production and its cultural and ideological ambiguity. Subjects: Rare Books Communism Available as of: 26/8/2005 Record produced by Hanshan Tang Books, www.hanshan.com.

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. Karl Marx Friedrich Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA2) (eventually 114 vols.; Dietz, 1972- ). Known as the "New" MEGA or as MEGA2 . This is the great scholarly edition of Marx's and Engels's writings, renowned for its rigor and honesty. It is being worked on by an international team of scholars. Begun in East Germany in the late 1960s, it is now being published under the auspices of the International Marx-Engels Foundation, based in Amsterdam.

1945 "Manifest" (Versification of the Communist Manifesto)

PERMANENT REVOLUTION by Tony Cliff Nor did it bother to seek Workers' support, as witnessed in its declaration that it did not intend to maintain any party organisation in the Kuomintang-controlled areas during the crucial years l937-45. (15) 15. See Communist Manifesto published in Chungking on 23 November 1938. New York Times, 24 November 1938.

Krupskaya's “Reminiscences of Lenin” In Exile 1898-1901 The next day I sat down with him to study The Communist Manifesto (I had to translate it from the German), and when that was mastered, we passed on to Capital.

page 437 NOTES [1] The obituary, "Frederick Engels," written by Lenin In the autumn of 1895, was published in Rabotnik (The Worker), No. 1-2, that appeared not earlier than March 1896. The miscellany Rabotnik was published at irregular intervals outside of Russia by the League of Russian Social-Democrats in the years 1896-99 and it was edited by the Emancipation of Labour group. Its actual initiator was Lenin, who in 1895, while abroad, reached an agreement with G. V. Plekhanov and P. B Axelrod on the editing and publication of the miscellany by the group. On his return to Russia Lenin did much to secure fnancial support for the publication, and to ensure the receipt of articles and correspondence from Russia. Before his arrest in December 1895, Lenin prepared the "Frederick Engels" obituary and several items of correspondence, which he sent to the editors of Rabotnik. Some of these appeared in Nos. 1-2 and 5-6 of the miscellany. Altogether there were six issues of Rabotnik in three volumes, and ten numbers of Listok "Rabotnika." [p.19] [2] Lenin's epigraph to the article "Frederick Engels" is taken from N. A. Nekrasov's poem "In Memory of Dobrolyubov." [p.19] [3] Frederick Engels, Prefatory Note to "The Peasant War in Germany." Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. 1, Moscow, 1958, p. 652. [p.21] [4] The Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbrucher (German-French Yearbooks ) appeared in Paris in the German language, edited by K. Marx and A. Ruge. Only the first issue, a double number, appeared in February 1844. The magazine ceased publication chiefly because of differences of principle between Marx and Ruge, who was a bourgeois radical. [p.24] page 538 [5] Frederick Engels, "Umrisse zu einer Kritik der Nationalokonomie." Marx, Engels, Werke, Band 1, Dietz Verlag Berlin, 1956, S. 499-524. [p.24] [6] The Communist League -- the first international organisation of the revolutionary proletariat. Preparatory to the foundation of the League Marx and Engels did much to weld together the socialists and the workers of all lands both ideologically and organisationally. In the early part of 1847, Marx and Engels joined the secret German society The League of the Just. At the beginning of June 1847, a League of the Just congress took place in London, at which it was renamed The Communist League while its former hazy slogan "All Men Are Brothers" was replaced by the militant internationalist slogan of "Working Men of All Countries, Unite!" The aims of The Communist League were the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the abolition of the old bourgeois society based on class antagonisms, and the establishment of a new society in which there would be neither classes nor private proporty. Marx and Engols took part in the work of the Second Congress of the League, which was held in London in November and December 1847, and on its instructions wrote the League's programme -- Manifesto of the Communist Party -- which was published in February 1848. The Communist League played a great historical role as a school of proletarian revolutionaries, as the embryo of the proletarian party and the predecessor of the International Working Men's Association (First International); it existed until November 1852. The history of the League is contained in the article by F. Engels "On the History of the Communist League" (Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, pp. 338-57). [p.24] [7] Neue Rheinische Zeitung appeared in Cologne from June 1, 1848, until May 19, 1849. The managers of this newspaper were K. Marx and F. Engels, and the chief editor was Marx. As Lenin put it, the newspaper was "the best, the unsurpassed organ of the revolutionary proletariat"; it educated the masses, roused them to fight the counter-revolution and its influence was felt throughout Germany. From the first months of its existence, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, because of its resolute and irreconcilable position, and of its militant internationalism, was persecuted by the feudal-monarchist and liberal-bourgeois press, and also by the government. The deportation of Marx by the Prussian Government, and the repressive measures against its other editors were the cause of the paper ceasing publication. About the Neue Rheinische Zeitung see the article by Engels "Marx and the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (1848-1849)." Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, pp. 328-37. [p.24] page 539 [8] Frederick Engels, Herr Eugen Duhring's Revolution in Science (Anti-Duhring ). [p.25] [9] The Russian edition of F. Engels' Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, a pamphlet consisting of three chapters from his Anti-Duhring, appeared under this title in 1892. Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, pp. 116-55. [p.25] [10] Frederick Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, pp. 170-327. [p.25] [11] Frederick Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, pp. 358 -- 402. [p.25] [12] Frederick Engels' article "The Foreign Policy of Russian Tsarism" appeared in two issues of the Sotsial-Demokrat (The Social-Democrat). Sotsial-Demokrat -- a literary and political review, published by tbe Emancipation of Labour group in London and Geneva in the years 1890-92. Four issues appeared. It played a big part in spreading Marxist ideas in Russia. G. V. Plekhanov, P. B. Axelrod and V. I. Zasulich were the chief figures associated with its publication. [p.25] [13] Frederick Engels, The Housing Question. Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 546-635. [p.25] [14] Lenin refers to Frederick Engels' article "On Social Relations in Russia," and the postscript to it, contained in the book Frederick Engels on Russia, Geneva, 1894. [p.25] [15] Volume IV of "Capital" is the designation given by Lenin, in accordance with the view expressed by Engels, to Marx's Theories of Surplus-Value written in the years 1862-63. In the preface to Volume II of Capital Engels wrote: "After eliminating the numerous passages covered by Books II and III, I intend to publish the critical part of this manuscript as Book IV of Capital" (Theories of Surplus-Value) (Karl Marx, Capital,Vol. II, p. 2). Engels, however, did not succeed in preparing Volume IV for the press and it was first published in German, after being edited by Kautsky, in 1905 and 1910. In this edition the basic principles of the scientific publication of a text were violated and there were distortions of a number of the tenets of Marxism. The Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the C.C. of the C.P.S.U. is page 540 issuing a new (Russian) edition of Theories of Surplus-Value (Volume IV of Capital ) in three parts, according to the manuscript of 1862-63 (Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus-Value [Volume IV of Capital ]). Part I appeared in 1955 and Part II in 1957. [p.25] [16] The letter from F. Engels to I. F. Becker dated October 15, 1884. [p.26] [17] International Working Men's Association (First International) -- the first international organisation of the proletariat, founded by K. Marx in 1864 at an international workers' meeting convened in London by English and French workers. The foundation of the First International was the result of many years of persistent struggle waged by K. Marx and F. Engels to establish a revolutionary party of the working class. Lenin said that the First International "laid the foundation of an international organisation of the workers for the preparation of their revolutionary onslaught on capital," "laid the foundation for the proletarian, international struggle for socialism" (V. I. Lenin, The Third International and Its Place in History. See present edition, Vol. 29). The central, leading body of the First International was the General Council, of which Marx was a permanent member. In tbe course of the struggle against the petty-bourgeois influences and sectarian tendencies then prevalent in the working-class movement (narrow trade unionism in England, Proudhonism and anarchism in the Romance countries), Marx rallied around himself the most class-conscious of the General Council members (F. Lessner, E. Dupont, G. Jung, and others). The First International directed the economic and political struggle of the workers of different countries, and strengthened their international solidarity. A tremendous part was played by the First International in disseminating Marxism, in linking-up socialism with the working-class movement. When the Paris Commune was defeated, the working class was faced with the problem of creating, in the different countries, mass parties based on the principles advanced by the First International. "As I view European conditions," wrote Marx in 1873, "it is quite useful to let the formal organisation of the International recede into the background for the time being" (Marx to F. A. Sorge. September 27, 1873). In 1876 the First International was officially disbanded at a conference in Philadelphia. [p.26] [18] Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, and Karl Marx, General Rules of the International Working Men's Association. Marx and Engels, SelectedTheories of Surplus-ValueWorks, Vol. I, Moscow, 1958, pp. 32 and 386. [p.27]

From 1845 to 1847 Engels lived in Brussels and Paris, combining scientific work with practical activities among the German workers in Brussels and Paris. Here Marx and Engels established contact with the secret German Communist League,[7] which commissioned them to expound the main principles of the socialism they had worked out. Thus arose the famous Manifesto of the Communist Party of Marx and Engels, published in 1848. This little booklet is worth whole volumes: to this day its spirit inspires and guides the entire organised and fighting proletariat of the civilised world.

Karl Marx – Friedrich Engels Il Manifesto del Partito Comunista 1847 Luogo di edizione : Milano, Flaminio Fantuzzi, Editore-Tipografo. Anno : 1891 Il libro La traduzione del Manifesto che presentiamo, curato da Pietro Gori (1865-1911) nel 1891 costituisce la prima edizione italiana dell’opera di Marx e Engels. Realizzata senza l’autorizzazione di Engels e a sua totale insaputa, rimane un’occasione in parte mancata. Solo due anni dopo, nel 1893, con l’edizione promossa da Filippo Turati (Edizioni della Critica sociale, Milano 1893) il Manifesto iniziera a essere effettivamente conosciuto e letto. L’edizione di Gori si trova solo in quattro biblioteche. Una copia e presente nelle collezioni librarie della Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.

Κ. Μαρξ και Φ. ¨Ενγκελς. «Μανιφέστο του Κομμουνιστικού κόμματος» (μετάφραση από τα γερμανικά). Η μετάφραση δεν διασώθηκε. Η Ι.Μ. Ουλιάνοβα στις αναμνήσεις της για την περίοδο που ο Λένιν έμενε στο χωριό Αλακάγιεβα της Σαμάρας παραθέτει τα παρακάτω λόγια του Α. Ι. Γεραμάσοφ: «Τότε ο Βλαντιμίρ Ίλιτς έκανε μια υπέροχη μετάφραση του «Κομμουνιστικού Μανιφέστου» του Κ. Μαρξ και του Φ. Ένγκελς. Η μετάφραση αυτή κυκλοφορούσε χειρόγραφη από χέρι, σε χέρι, την πήγαμε και στο Σιζράν. Εκεί έδοσα το τετράδιο σ’ ένα γνωστό μου δάσκαλο, που θεωρούνταν από τις εκπαιδευτικές αρχές όχι νομιμόφρονας. Έτυχε, κάποτε να καλέσουν τον δάσκαλο για μια δουλειά στο Σιμπίρσκ στον επιθεωρητή των δημοτικών σχολείων. Η μητέρα του δασκάλου φοβήθηκε μήπως πάνε και κάνουν έρευνα στο σπίτι και κατάστρεψε το τετράδιο. Αυτή τη τύχη είχε η μετάφραση αυτή του Ίλιτς. Όταν το θυμάμαι, με τύπτει η συνείδηση γιατί εν μέρει ήμουν υπεύθυνος για το χαμό της υπέροχης αυτής μετάφρασης» (βλ. Αναμνήσεις για τον Βλαντιμίρ Ίλιτς Λένιν, Ρως. Έκδ. Μέρος 1, Μόσχα, 1956 σελ. 57). Για την πληροφορία αυτή του Α.Ι. Γεραμάσοφ γράφει στις αναμνήσεις του και ο Μ. Ι. Σεμενόφ. (Μ. Μπλαν) (βλ. «Η επαναστατική Σαμάρα στα χρόνια 1890-1900». Εκδοτικό του Κούιμπισεφ, 1940, σελ. 55).

Eleanor Marx 1883 Karl Marx. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: “Karl Marx I” Progress, May 1883, pp.288-294, and “Karl Marx II” Progress, June 1883, pp.362-366

Marx and Engels write a preface to the Russian edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, stating that “Russia forms the vanguard of revolutionary action in Europe”

Works of Frederick Engels 1877 Karl Marx ------------------------------------------------------------- Written: mid-June 1877; First published: in Volks-Kalender, Brunswick, 1878; Source: On Marx; Publisher: Foreign Languages Press, Peking (1975).

With regard to the Manifesto, being a historical document, he wishes it to be printed exactly as it originally appeared; the misprints are so obvious that anyone can correct them.



Ewerbeck is having the Manifesto translated into Italian and Spanish in Paris and to that end wants us to send him 60 fr. which he has undertaken to pay. Yet another of those schemes of his. They will be splendid translations. [223] 223 There is no other information about the Italian and Spanish translations mentioned here of the Manifesto of the Communist Party. The first Spanish and Italian translations of the Manifesto appeared in 1872 and 1889 respectively. 224 Engels did not finish this translation. In the autumn of 1850 he helped Helen Macfarlane translate the Manifesto into English and it appeared in The Red Republican, Nos. 21-24, in November 1850. I am working on the English translation, which presents more difficulties than I thought. However, I'm over half way through, and before long the whole thing will be finished. [224]

1 “Demands of the Communist Party in Germany” were written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in Paris between March 21 (when Engels arrived in Paris from Brussels) and March 24, 1848. This document was discussed by members of the Central Authority, who approved and signed it as the. political programme of the Communist League in the revolution that broke out in Germany. In March it was printed as a leaflet, for distribution among revolutionary German emigrant workers who were about to return home. Austrian and German diplomats in Paris informed their respective governments about this as early as March 27, 28 and 29. (The Austrian Ambassador enclosed in his letter a copy of the leaflet which he dated “March 25”.) The leaflet soon reached members of the Communist League in other countries, in particular, German emigrant workers in London. Early in April, the “Demands of the Communist Party in Germany” were published in such German democratic papers as Berliner Zeitungs-Halle (special supplement to No. 82, April 5, 1848), Dusseldorfer Zeitung (No. 96, April 5, 1848), Mannheimer Abendzeitung (No. 96, April 6, 1848), Trier’sche Zeitung (No. 97, April 6, 1848, supplement), Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (No. 100, April 9, 1848, supplement), and Zeitung fur das deutsche Volk (No. 2 1, April 9, 1848). Marx and Engels, who left for Germany round about April 6 and some time later settled in Cologne, did their best along with their followers to popularise this programme document during the revolution. In 1848 and 1849 it was repeatedly published in the periodical press and in leaflet form. Not later than September 10, 1848, the “Demands” were printed in Cologne as a leaflet for circulation by the Cologne Workers’ Association both in the town itself and in a number of districts of Rhenish Prussia. In addition to minor stylistic changes, point 10 in the text of the leaflet was worded differently from that published in March-April 1848. At the Second Democratic Congress held in Berlin in October 1848, Friedrich Beust, delegate from the Cologne Workers’ Association, spoke, on behalf of the social question commission, in favour of adopting a programme of action closely following the “Demands”. In November and December 1848, various points of the “Demands” were discussed at meetings of the Cologne Workers’ Association. Many editions of the “Demands” published during the revolution and after its defeat have survived to this day in their original form, some of them as copies kept in the police archives. At the end of 1848 or the beginning of 1849 an abridged version of the “Demands” was published in pamphlet form by Weller Publishers in Leipzig. The slogan at the beginning of the document, the second paragraph of point 9 and the last sentence of point 10 were omitted, and the words “The Committee” were not included among the signatories. In 1853, an abridged version of the “Demands” was printed, together with other documents of the Communist League, in the first part of the book Die Communisten-Verschworungen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts published in Berlin for purposes of information by Wermuth and Stieber, two police officials, who staged a trial against the Communists in Cologne in 1852. Later Engels reproduced the main points of the “Demands” in his essay On the History of the Communist League, published in November 1885 in the newspaper Sozialdemokrat, and as an introduction to the pamphlet: K. Marx, Enthullungen uber den Kommunisten Prozess zu Koln, Hottingen-Zurich, 1885. English translations of the “Demands of the Communist Party in Germany” appeared in the collections: The Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels with an introduction and explanatory notes by D. Ryazanoff, Martin Lawrence, London (1930); K. Marx, Selected Works, Vol. II, ed. V. Adoratsky, Moscow-Leningrad, Co-operative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the USSR (1936); ibid., New York (1 936); Birth of the Communist Manifesto, edited and annotated, with an Introduction by D. J. Struik, International Publishers, New York, 197 1, and in other publications.

Engels To Marx [186] In Brussels, Paris, 23-24 November 1847 Dear Marx, ........................................................... Tuesday evening Verte [PTO] Give a little thought to the Confession of Faith. I think we would do best to abandon the catechetical form and call the thing Communist Manifesto. Since a certain amount of history has to be narrated in it, the form hitherto adopted is quite unsuitable. I shall be bringing with me the one from here, which I did [Principles of Communism]; it is in simple narrative form, but wretchedly worded, in a tearing hurry. I start off by asking: What is communism? and then straight on to the proletariat – the history of its origins, how it differs from earlier workers, development of the antithesis between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, crises, conclusions. In between, all kinds of secondary matter and, finally, the communists’ party policy, in so far as it should be made public. The one here has not yet been submitted in its entirety for endorsement but, save for a few quite minor points, I think I can get it through in such a form that at least there is nothing in it which conflicts with our views. ................................................................... 186 Engels sent this letter to Marx on the eve of the Second Congress of the Communist League for which they both made thorough preparations and expected to reach a final agreement concerning their stand during their meeting on the way to London. What Engels writes here on certain points, e.g. a Communist League programme not in the form of a catechism or confession of faith (see notes 154 and 176) but of a manifesto, found expression in the congress decisions. The Second Congress of the Communist League was held in London from 29 November to 8 December 1847. It was attended by delegates from Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Poland and Denmark. Marx represented the League’s Brussels communities, Engels the Paris communities and Victor Tedesco the Liege communities. During many days of discussion Marx and Engels defended the principles of scientific communism on which the congress based its decisions. It was resolved that in all its external relations the League would come out openly as a communist party. The congress adopted the previously drawn up Rules in an improved form, a clause clearly defining the League’s communist aim being included. On the instruction of the Second Congress Marx and Engels wrote as the League’s programme the Manifesto of the Communist Party, which was published in February 1848 (see present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 477-519). An excerpt from this letter was published in English for the first time in: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Correspondence, 1846-1895. A Selection with Commentary and Notes, Martin Lawrence Ltd., London, 1934, and International Publishers, New York, 1935.

So Karl Marx dies and shows up at the gates of heaven to be met bySaint Peter. "Name?" asks Peter. "Marx, Karl Marx." replies the famous author. "Hmm," says Peter to himself, "why do I know that name?" "I am Marx," Marx said, beaming with pride, "founder of socialism and the driving force behind the communist ideal called Marxism." "I see," Peter said. "I'll have to check with God." So Peter rushes off to confer with God. God hears the name Marx and immediately a look of disgust infects His face. "Marx?" God says, "He's nothing but a trouble maker. Send him down to hell." So Peter happily signs the appropriate forms and deports Karl Marx to Satan's firy hell. Some time later, a free trade agreement is forged between Heaven and Hell. The deal is hailed by all to be a great economic leap forward that would revitalize both struggling economies. But soon after the treaty, God realizes that Heaven is no longer receiving any products from Hell. So he sends Saint Peter down to investigate. "Well?" asks Peter of Satan, "What's the hold up? We have an agreement!" Satan shrugs his shoulders, exasperated. "It's that Marx fellow," Satan replied. "Ever since he got down here, all we've had are strikes and labour demands. Productivity has dropped to zero!" "So?" Peter asks, "What would you have us do?" "Take him back. Take Marx back to Heaven, and I guarantee productivity will sky rocket!" So Peter agreed, on God's behalf, to accept Karl Marx back to Heaven. Some time later Satan realizes that Hell has not received any orders for product from Heaven. In fact, very little communication at all has leaked from Up Above. So, concerned for the economic welfare of Hell, he makes a trip to Heaven. "Peter! Peter, are you there?" Satan demands. "Yes, what is it?" Peter answers. "What's the hold up? What about the flow of trade?" "Oh I'm sorry," Peter said, "We have decided to adopt a Marxist isolationist stance. We are an intrinsic self-governed body that is now based on the needs of the proletariate. It is our opinion that this free trade agreement only benefits the bourgeois." "What?!" Satan was furious. "I demand to speak to God!" Peter's eyebrows is raised in confusion. "Who?"

13-16/3/98 S. Chalvatzis and Elisseos Vagenas represented the CPG in the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Communist Manifesto and on the occasion of the 100 years since the 1st Congress of the Social Democratic Labor Party of Russia, in Minsk, hosted by the Communist Party of Belarus.

13-16/5/98 Ilias Michalareas and Theodora Moschou, members of the edition committee of the Party’s magazine “COMEP”, participated in the international conference on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Communist Manifesto, in Paris, organized by “Espace Marx”.

22-24/5/98 The Communist Party of Greece celebrated the 80th anniversary of its foundation and the 150 years of the Communist Manifesto. On this occasion it organized at the Party’s Headquarters in Athens an International Meeting on “The Communist Parties under the Current Conditions”. Fifty-four Communist and Workers’ Parties from all over the world participated in the International Meeting.

1906: Communist Manifesto published in Chinese published by Min Bao in Tokyo -For details [including translator's name] [NB first full translation into Chinese appears in 1920 -see Z13:581] see Z13:442 1908: Commuist Manifesto [NB for earlier translation see 1906; first full translation 1920] published in Chinese by Tian Yi Bao -For details [including translator's name] see Z13:442

• The Communist Manifesto in the History of Marxism • o Eduard Bernstein • [Revising the Communist Manifesto] o Karl Kautsky • The Communist Manifesto after Six Decades o V.I. Lenin • [The Communist Manifesto and the State] o Leon Trotsky • On the Ninetieth Anniversary of the Communist Manifesto o Lucien Laurat • If One Were to Rewrite the Communist Manifesto Today • Interpretation • o Y. Wagner and M. Strauss • [The Theoretical Foundations of the Communist Manifesto’s Economic Program] o Mihailo Markovic • [The State and Revolution in the Communist Manifesto] o Hal Draper • [The Communist Manifesto and the Myth of the Disappearing Middle Classes] o Ernest Mandel • [Marx's Theory of Wages in the Communist Manifesto and Subsequently] o Howard Selsam • The Ethics of the Communist Manifesto o Karl Lowith • [Marx's Prophetic Messianism] o Joseph A. Schumpeter • The Communist Manifesto in Sociology and Economics o Ernest Mandel • [Marx's Theory of Wages in the Communist Manifesto and Subsequently] o Haig A. Bosmajian • A Rhetorical Approach to the Communist Manifesto

http://web.nwe.ufl.edu/~jgoodwin/s99/c.html • "Fidel Castro in 1968 explained to me that he had become a Marxist from the very time that he read the Communist Manifesto in his student days, and a Leninist from the period when he read Lenin while in prison on the Isle of Pines in 1954." -- Sa ul Landau, "Cuba and Its Critics," Monthly Review, May 1987. Carlos Franqui (Family Portrait with Fidel) and Tad Szulc (Castro) have also exposed the duplicity of Castro's pretensions at the time of being a democrat and a nationalist whose politics were "beyond the cold war conflict.

Αν ήθελε κάποιος να διεισδύσει στα «άδυτα» του Μανιφέστου θα έπρεπε να πάει πολύ πίσω, γιατί η ιστορία ξεκινά από πολύ παλιά . Ουσιαστικά το Μανιφέστο είναι μια συνοπτική, όσο και δραματικά ρεαλιστική ιστορία της μακραίωνης επαναστατικής ανάπτυξης του Καπιταλισμού.

Το Κομμουνιστικό κίνημα στα μέσα της δεκαετίας του 1840 είχε μεγάλη ανάγκη από ένα νέο Μανιφέστο που θα δρούσε ως συγκολλητική ουσία τόσο ανάμεσα στα δεκάδες «συνειδητά κομματάκια» του, όσο και ανάμεσα στα εκατομμύρια των προλεταρίων του κόσμου που ο αριθμός τους μεγάλωνε εντυπωσιακά σε ένα κόσμο που άλλαζε ραγδαία, «επαναστατικά.». Τα παλιά επαναστατικά κηρύγματα της μεγάλης Γαλλικής Επανάστασης του 1789, απλώς δεν επαρκούσαν πια.

Χωρίς την αγγλική εμπειρία της ζωής και των δυνατοτήτων για μελέτη στους θησαυρούς της Βιβλιοθήκης του Βρεττανικού Μουσείου, ίσως ο Μαρξ δεν θα γινότανε Μαρξ.

Ο Μαρξ και ο Ένγκελς υπήρξαν γνήσια τέκνα της Ρηνανίας, ένας ιδανικός συνδυασμός των επιρροών της σχετικής εκβιομηχάνισης της περιοχής, της υπερεικοσαετούς γαλλικής διακυβέρνησης και τέλος της μακροχρόνιας δράσης των «κοντινών» γαλλικών επαναστατικών ιδεών. Εμφανής είναι η τριπλή επιρροή των πιο «πολιτισμένων χωρών» της εποχής στη διαμόρφωση του χαρακτήρα και της προσωπικότητας του Μαρξ. Η επιρροή των ιδεών της Γερμανίας, της Γαλλίας και της Αγγλίας ιστορικά, χρονολογικά με αυτή τη σειρά, πρόσφερε στον νεαρό γερμανό διανοούμενο την φυσική πορεία προς …

Η βιβλιογραφική άνοδος των Μαρξ και Ένγκελς προς το ΚΜ αποδεικνύει ότι το φυλλάδιο αυτό των 23 σελίδων αποτελεί την κορωνίδα και των προηγουμένων πνευματικών έργων τους, αλλά και των μετέπειτα. Σε αυτό βρίσκονται συμπυκνωμένες όλες σχεδόν οι ιδέες και οι θέσεις των δυο διανοητών που σε προηγούμενα, αλλά κυρίως σε μετέπειτα έργα τους, αναπτύσσονται διεξοδικότερα και αναλυτικότερα. Λίγα σημεία απαιτούσαν κατά τους συγγραφείς του διόρθωση ή συμπλήρωση (εργασία-εργατική δύναμη, σχέσεις κράτους και προλεταριακής επανάστασης).

THE EXPERIENCE OF reading the Communist Manifesto is to Marxists what the experience of watching "Casablanca" is for movie buffs. Let us call it the surprise of the familiar.

Tα κείμενα του Μαρξ δεν εστιάζουν σε κάποιες συγκεκριμένες καπιταλιστικές κοινωνίες της εποχής που διατυπώθηκαν, αλλά αναλύουν κυρίως τα δομικά χαρακτηριστικά γενικά του καπιταλιστικού συστήματος, όπως αυτό προέκυψε και εδραιώθηκε ιστορικά ως ένας ιδιαίτερος κοινωνικο-οικονομικός ταξικός και εκμεταλλευτικός σχηματισμός, του οποίου τα χαρακτηριστικά παραμένουν αναλλοίωτα , παρά την ραγδαία εξέλιξη και ανάπτυξη εξωτερικά.

Προβολή στο μέλλον των ήδη γνωστών τάσεων και όχι προφητεία

Προβληματική μετάφραση στα ελληνικά ιντιοτ, επικοινωνία-ανταλλαγή

Στην αρχή προχώρησε περισσότερο από την τάξη του και στην συνέχεια αντίθετα από αυτήν

Η αριστερά του Κομμουνιστικού Μανιφέστου είναι η μόνη αντιπολίτευση του καπιταλισμού Η σημερινή αριστερά, εν πολλοίς, ότι όνομα και αν έχει διαλέξει, σε οποιοδήποτε σημείο του πλανήτη Γη, ακόμα και αν διατηρεί το «Κομμουνιστικό» στον τίτλο της, μπορεί είναι η «ακραία» αντιπολίτευση ΣΤΟΝ καπιταλισμό, είναι όμως η αντιπολίτευση ΕΝΤΟΣ του καπιταλισμού. Σήμερα όποιος θέλει να λέγεται παιδί του Κομμουνιστικού Μανιφέστου, ή ακόμα και εγγόνι και όχι μικρανήψι, ή συμπέθερος οφείλει , έχει την ηθική υποχρέωση, να αποδέχεται τις βασικές και ουσιαστικές του θεωρητικές αρχές, ό,τι πρακτική μορφή και αν παίρνουν.

Όποιος κρίνει το Κομμουνιστικό Μανιφέστο με τα μέτρα του Στάλιν, ή της Πολιτιστικής Επανάστασης, ή του τείχους του Βερολίνου, ή με ότι άλλο ήθελε, μπορεί να έχει σε όλα δίκιο, εκτός από ένα μικρό σημείο, μια μικρούτσικη λεπτομέρεια. Μπορεί να είναι πραγματιστής, μπορεί να είναι ρεαλιστής, ορθολογιστής, να βλέπει την πραγματικότητα με όχι ουτοπικό βλέμμα, να έχει όλα τα δίκια του κόσμου. Όλα είναι, όλα μπορεί να είναι, εκτός από ένα. Δεν είναι κατευθείαν απόγονος του Κομμουνιστικού Μανιφέστου. Είναι, ή συγγενής εξ αγχιστείας, ή εξ υιοθεσίας, αν δεν είναι μόνο κουμπάρος.

Η αριστερά του Κομμουνιστικού Μανιφέστου είναι η μόνη αντιπολίτευση του ίδιου του καπιταλισμού. Και ποια είναι αυτή; Ποια είναι αυτή σήμερα; Υπάρχουν. Σίγουρα υπάρχουν, πολλοί μεμονωμένοι αγωνιστές που νοιώθουν και είναι Κομμουνιστές, αρκετές ομάδες με «σίγουρη» κοσμοθεωρία και πρακτική, μικρά κόμματα που ενδεχομένως περνούν στις «μανιφεστικές» εξετάσεις της ιστορίας, πιθανόν να υπάρχουν και κάποια μεγαλύτερα Κομμουνιστικα Κόμματα που είναι καλά συγκροτημένα και που δίνουν τον «άνισο», αλλά ωραίο αγώνα ακόμα και που δεν είναι απλώς «Κομμουνιστικά». Αυτό δεν σημαίνει ότι εκατομμύρια γενναίοι αγωνιστές σε όλο τον κόσμο, κυρίως τον Τρίτο Κόσμο, δεν είναι τίμιοι αγωνιστές, δεν είναι σπουδαίοι άνθρωποι, δεν είναι παραδείγματα προς μίμησιν. Σίγουρα είναι και είναι ο αγώνας τους σημαντικός και χρήσιμος για την επί τα πρόσω πορεία της ανθρωπότητας. Όσο σπουδαίος, σημαντικός και προπάντων χρήσιμος, ήταν ο αγώνας του Σπάρτακου, η αξιοπρέπεια του Τόμας Μουρ, η επιστημονική αγωνία των Διαφωτιστών, η αυτοθυσία των «ξεβράκωτων», οι απέλπιδες προσπάθειες των ουτοπιστών σοσιαλιστών του 19ου αιώνα, η αντίσταση των πρωτοπόρων συνδικαλιστών της εποχής των τιτανικών αγώνων για το 8ωρο, η με αναρίθμητες εκατόμβες πάλη των εξεγερμένων αγροτών και αστών κατά της αποικιοκρατίας και της νέο-αποικιοκρατίας, ο όμορφος αγώνας των αγωνιστών κάθε απόχρωσης μελών του Λαϊκού Μετώπου, το απελευθερωτικό όνειρο του Τσε, οι προσπάθειες των αγωνιστών του ειρηνιστικού κινήματος της δεκαετίας του 1980. Γιατί όλοι αυτοί δεν ήταν, οπωσδήποτε οι περισσότεροι δεν ήταν, κομμουνιστές, ή παιδιά του Κομμουνιστικού Μανιφέστου.

Να ζητή, εν μέσω βαρυτάτων δοκιμασιών και αγώνων, να φτάση εις το απολυτρωτικόν τέρμα της προς την Δαμασκόν αγούσης οδού.

Το Προλεταριάτο και την Αστική τάξη μπορούμε να τους παρομοιάσουμε με το "άπειρο" και το "μηδέν". Καμιά προσπάθεια πολλαπλασιασμού ή διαίρεσης δεν είναι επιτρεπτή μεταξύ τους. Καμία σχέση του Προλεταριάτου και της Αστικής τάξης δεν είναι επιτρεπτή.

Σαιν Σιμόν Πρέπει να αντικαταστήσουμε την εκμετάλλευση του ανθρώπου από τον άνθρωπο με την εκμετάλλευση της υδρογείου από τους ενωμένους ανθρώπους.

Η πάλη του ανθρώπου με τον άνθρωπο λέγεται πάλη των τάξεων και η πάλη του ανθρώπου με τη φύση λέγεται εργασία. Όσο λοιπόν θα μετατρέπει την πρώτη στη δεύτερη, θα δημιουργεί την νέα κοινωνία, τον νέο άνθρωπο που στην πραγματικότητα είναι εκείνο το "κομμάτι" της ύλης που έχει συνείδηση του εαυτού της.

Εργασία, γλώσσα, κοινωνία, λογικό Δεν δημιουργεί το ένα το άλλο, ή κάποια από αυτά κάποια άλλα. Πάνε μαζί και παίζουνε σπρώχνοντας το ένα το άλλο, τραβώντας το ένα όλα τα άλλα, πιέζοντας όλλα το ένα, σαν μια ομάδα παιδιών με ωρισμένο σχέδιο παιχνιδιού που το ακολουθούνε με θρησκευτική ευλάβεια.

Η δικτατορία του προλεταριάτου διαφέρει από την δημοκρατία της αστικής τάξης και ποσοτικά και ποιοτικά. Η δικτατορία του προλεταριάτου είναι δημοκρατική. Κυριαρχεί η πλειοψηφία και μάλιστα η συντριπτική. Η δημοκρατία της αστικης τάξης είναι δικτατορική. Κυριαρχεί η μειοψηφία και μάλιστα η ελαχίστη. Η διαφορά εξαφανίζεται, αίρεται, όταν εξαφανιστεί η μειοψηφία, όχι όμως γιατί τη σκοτώσανε, αλλά γιατί αφομοιώθηκε στην πλειοψηφία, έγινε ένα με αυτήν. Θα πείτε ποια δικτατορία της αστικής τάξης; Στην Αγγλία; Στην Γαλλία; Στις Σκανδιναβικές χώρες; Στις ΗΠΑ; Στην Ολλανδία; Στην Γερμανία; Στο Βέλγιο; Στην Ιρλανδία; Στην Ελλάδα; Στην Ιταλία; Στην Ισπανία; Στην Πορτογαλία; Στην Ελβετία; Ή μήπως στο Λουξεμβούργο; ΠΟΥ; ΠΑΝΤΟΥ! Παντού, αν είσαι ο μαύρος ή ο πορτορικανός στο γκέτο, αυτός που απαγάγουνε και κρατάνε χωρίς δίκη, ή απαγγελία κατηγορίας, ο κρατούμενος χωρίς δικαιώματα στο Γκουαντανάμο, ο βασανισμένος από τους κατοχικούς στρατιώτες στο Ιράκ, ο συνταξιούχος που σε δέρνουν και προπηλακίζουν στη διαδήλωση απόγνωσης, ο μουσουλμάνος απελπισμένος νεαρός γάλλος στο γκέτο των γαλλικών πόλεων, ο τούρκος που καίνε οι νεοναζί μαζί με την οικογένειά του στη Γερμανία, ο βάσκος που δεν του αναγνωρίζουνε την εθνική του υπόσταση, , ο Βορειοιρλανδός που δεν τον αφήνουν να ενσωματωθεί στην μητέρα Ιρλανδία, ο απελπισμένος νεαρός που του προμηθεύουν ναρκωτικά οι μπάτσοι, ο άνεργος χωρίς αξιοπρέπεια που ζητιανεύεις, ο μελαψός που σε στραβοκοιτάνε οι … άριοι, ο μετανάστης που αμοίβεσαι για την ίδια δουλειά τα μισά από τους ντόπιους, ο πολίτης κάποιας χώρας της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης που σου κουρελιάζουν το σύνταγμα κάποιοι … υπάλληλοι των Βρυξελλών, ο κομμουνιστής που σε πολλές χώρες της ΕΕ είσαι … παράνομος, …

London had a great love of books and spent most of his spare time in the Oakland Library. His reading included the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, and Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy. These books converted London to socialism and by February 1896 the local paper was reporting how he was drawing large crowds to hear him in the City Hall Park.

Were one to name history's smallest book with biggest impact, one would perhaps mention the Communist Manifesto



Fichte, πεύκο

Feuer-Bach, πύρινος ποταμός

Engels, Αγγέλου

Bauer, χωριάτης

Grun, πρασινάδα

Lieb knecht, αγαπητός δούλος

Related Titles Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol (1843) and Hard Times (1854) The popular Christmas story can be read in light of what is referred to in the Manifesto as “conservative, or bourgeois, socialism”—the attempt to ameliorate the misery of the working class through charitable works. Published soon after the Manifesto, Hard Times portrays the conditions in mid-nineteenth-century industrial England that provoked Marx and Engels’s critique of capitalism. V. I. Lenin, The State and Revolution (1917) The chief architect of the Russian Revolution draws on the work of Marx and Engels to substantiate the imminent seizing of power and establishing of a proletarian dictatorship. Karl Marx, Capital (1867) This work elucidates the revolutionary implications of the capitalist system of production and argues that its demise is an inevitable consequence of its own development. Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) This signal work of social philosophy includes a searching critique of Marx’s theory of historical inevitability, arguing that it contains principles antithetical to the values of modern, liberal democracies. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1755) This essay speculates that the establishment of private property underlies civil society and is the root cause of all social inequalities and class differences. Rousseau’s sentiments fed the fervor of revolutionaries and socialists, including Marx and Engels, for a century. Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906) In graphic detail, this novel of social realism depicts the brutalizing effects of industrial production on the lives of workers in the Chicago stockyards. Like the Manifesto, it conveys the impressive efficiency of capitalism while deploring its human cost.

Το «Μανιφέστο του Κομμουνιστικού Κόμματος» είναι το πρώτο προγραμματικό κείμενο του επιστημονικού κομμουνισμού και το πρώτο πρόγραμμα μιας διεθνούς κομμουνιστικής οργάνωσης, όπου για πρώτη φορά αναπτύχθηκαν συστηματικά και ολοκληρωμένα όλα τα συστατικά μέρη της θεωρίας του Μαρξ και του Ενγκελς. «Στο έργο αυτό -έγραψε ο Λένιν- διατυπώνεται με μεγαλοφυή καθαρότητα και λαμπρότητα η καινούρια κοσμοθεωρία, ο συνεπής υλισμός που αγκαλιάζει και τον τομέα της κοινωνικής ζωής, η διαλεκτική σαν η πιο ολόπλευρη και βαθιά θεωρία για την εξέλιξη, η θεωρία για την ταξική πάλη και για τον κοσμοϊστορικό επαναστατικό ρόλο του προλεταριάτου να δημιουργήσει την καινούρια κομμουνιστική κοινωνία».

Το Μανιφέστο τελειώνει με ένα φλογερό κάλεσμα των εργατών όλου του κόσμου στον αγώνα για το γκρέμισμα του καπιταλισμού και για τη νίκη του κομμουνισμού: «Οι κυρίαρχες τάξεις ας τρέμουν μπροστά στην κομμουνιστική επανάσταση! Οι προλετάριοι δεν έχουν να χάσουν τίποτα άλλο εκτός από τις αλυσίδες τους. Αλλά θα κερδίσουν όλο τον κόσμο. ΠΡΟΛΕΤΑΡΙΟΙ ΟΛΩΝ ΤΩΝ ΧΩΡΩΝ ΕΝΩΘΕΙΤΕ».

Η έκδοση του «Μανιφέστου του Κομμουνιστικού Κόμματος», όπου ο μαρξισμός για πρώτη φορά παρουσιάζεται σαν μια ενιαία συστηματική κοσμοθεωρία, ήταν ένα γεγονός τεράστιας ιστορικής σημασίας. Στο έργο αυτό συνοψίζεται η ανάπτυξη του μαρξισμού από τα 1840 ως τα 1850. Η γέννηση του μαρξισμού - της καινούργας επαναστατικής κοσμοθεωρίας - ήταν μια πραγματική επανάσταση στην εξέλιξη της επιστήμης και στην ιστορία της κοινωνικής σκέψης.

Ηταν Φλεβάρης του 1848, όταν τούτα τα περήφανα λόγια αντηχούσαν σαν ένα φλογερό κάλεσμα των εργατών όλων των χωρών, στον αγώνα για το γκρέμισμα του καπιταλισμού και για τη νίκη του κομμουνισμού, μέσα από το πρώτο, στην ιστορία του διεθνούς επαναστατικού εργατικού κινήματος, Πρόγραμμα Κομμουνιστικού Κόμματος, γραμμένο από τους Καρλ Μαρξ και Φρίντριχ Ενγκελς, το «Μανιφέστο του Κομμουνιστικού Κόμματος». Το κλασικό, ιστορικό έργο που γαλουχεί γενιές και γενιές κομμουνιστών, ιδιαίτερα νέων κομμουνιστών. Η επεξεργασία του, η συγγραφή του, αντανακλά το πέρασμα του εργατικού κινήματος στην ωριμότητά του, αφού για πρώτη φορά εκφράζονται σ' αυτό το έργο επεξεργασμένες η στρατηγική και η ταχτική, αλλά και οι σκοποί της ταξικής πάλης της εργατικής τάξης, δηλαδή ο δρόμος εκπλήρωσης της ιστορικής της αποστολής. Οι θεωρητικοί του Επιστημονικού Κομμουνισμού επεξεργάστηκαν αυτό το Πρόγραμμα στη συγκεκριμένη ιστορική εποχή. Και το «Μανιφέστο» συμπυκνώνει, ως αποτέλεσμα, στις τότε συνθήκες, την επιδίωξη του Καρλ Μαρξ και του Φρίντριχ Ενγκελς, ώστε το εργατικό κίνημα να συνενωθεί με την επιστημονική κοσμοθεωρία, την οποία οι ίδιοι επεξεργάζονταν. Η ενασχόλησή τους δεν ήταν απλά θεωρητική, όσο και αν αυτή η ενασχόληση αποτελούσε το κλειδί, προκειμένου όχι να ερμηνεύσουν τον κόσμο, αλλά να τον αλλάξουν. Ηταν και πραχτική μέσα στο τότε εργατικό κίνημα. Μόνο που επειδή ακριβώς ήταν αυτός ο σκοπός τους, δε ζύμωναν τις εργασίες τους στον επιστημονικό κόσμο, με τον οποίο βεβαίως όξυναν την ιδεολογική αντιπαράθεση. Αλλά τις πρόβαλλαν στην εργατική τάξη, εκεί που πρώτ' απ' όλα υπήρχαν ζωντανή δράση, διεκδικητικοί αγώνες. Στην τάξη για την οποία κατέληξαν και απέδειξαν ότι είναι ο φορέας και δημιουργός της νέας κοινωνίας, της απελευθερωμένης από την ταξική εκμετάλλευση, της κομμουνιστικής κοινωνίας. Ο Ενγκελς γράφει σχετικά μ' αυτό: «Δε σκοπεύαμε, λοιπόν, καθόλου να ψιθυρίσουμε αποκλειστικά στο αυτί του "επιστημονικού" κόσμου τα νέα επιστημονικά συμπεράσματα, εκθέτοντάς τα σε χοντρά βιβλία. Αντίθετα. Βρισκόμασταν κιόλας και οι δυο βαθιά μέσα στο πολιτικό κίνημα, είχαμε ορισμένους οπαδούς ανάμεσα στους διανοούμενους, ιδίως της δυτικής Γερμανίας, και σημαντική επαφή με το οργανωμένο προλεταριάτο. Ημασταν υποχρεωμένοι να θεμελιώσουμε επιστημονικά την άποψή μας. Αλλά ήταν εξίσου σπουδαίο για μας να κερδίσουμε με τις πεποιθήσεις μας το ευρωπαϊκό και πριν απ' όλα το γερμανικό προλεταριάτο». Η ιστορία του «Μανιφέστου» είναι συνυφασμένη με την έως τότε πορεία των επιστημονικών μελετών και ερευνών των Μαρξ-Ενγκελς, πάνω στα ζητήματα της ιστορικής εξέλιξης, τα συμπεράσματά τους για την εναλλαγή των κοινωνιών από τη μια βαθμίδα, την κατώτερη, στην επόμενη την ανώτερη, (έχουν ήδη θεμελιώσει τον ιστορικό υλισμό), με τις πρώτες μελέτες τους για την ανάπτυξη του καπιταλιστικού τρόπου παραγωγής, (απ' όπου και άρχισε η θεμελίωση της μαρξιστικής πολιτικής οικονομίας), αλλά και τη μελέτη της πάλης των τάξεων στην εποχή εκείνη, προσεγγίζοντας την υπόθεση από τη σκοπιά της εργατικής τάξης και την προοπτική χειραφέτησής της από την αστική τάξη. Ας μην ξεχνάμε ότι ήταν περίοδος ανόδου της αστικής τάξης, της τάξης που τότε έφερνε την πρόοδο στην κοινωνική εξέλιξη. Ολη η ως τότε πολυσύνθετη δράση τους είχε έντονο το στοιχείο της διαπάλης με τον ουτοπικό σοσιαλισμό, τα διάφορα μικροαστικά ρεύματα μέσα στο κίνημα που τότε έκανε τα πρώτα του βήματα. Και που έπρεπε από τον αυθόρμητο χαρακτήρα του να περάσει στο συνειδητό. Καταστάλαγμα αυτής της πορείας περάσματος από το αυθόρμητο στο συνειδητό του εργατικού κινήματος ήταν και αυτό το αθάνατο έργο τους το «Μανιφέστο του Κομμουνιστικού Κόμματος».

Ας τρέμουν οι κυρίαρχες τάξεις μπρος σε μια κομμουνιστική επανάσταση. Οι προλετάριοι δεν έχουν να χάσουν σ' αυτήν τίποτε άλλο, εκτός από τις αλυσίδες τους. Εχουν να κερδίσουν έναν κόσμο ολόκληρο. ΠΡΟΛΕΤΑΡΙΟΙ ΟΛΩΝ ΤΩΝ ΧΩΡΩΝ ΕΝΩΘΕΙΤΕ! Αυτές είναι οι τελευταίες λέξεις - σάλπισμα αγώνα του «Μανιφέστου του Κομμουνιστικού Κόμματος» των Καρλ Μαρξ και Φρίντριχ Ενγκελς, στο οποίο είναι αφιερωμένη η εκπομπή «Ποιητική Αδεία», που επιμελείται και παρουσιάζει ο Γιώργος Μηλιώνης, την Κυριακή 6 με 8 το απόγευμα στον «902 ΑΡΙΣΤΕΡΑ ΣΤΑ FM». «Ενα φάντασμα πλανιέται πάνω από την Ευρώπη: Το φάντασμα του κομμουνισμού. Ολες οι δυνάμεις της γερασμένης Ευρώπης ενώθηκαν σε μια ιερή συμμαχία, για να κυνηγήσουν αυτό το φάντασμα: Ο πάπας και ο τσάρος, ο Μέτερνιχ και ο Γκιζό, οι Γάλλοι ριζοσπάστες και οι Γερμανοί αστυνομικοί». Αυτά είναι τα πρώτα λόγια του Μανιφέστου του Κομμουνιστικού Κόμματος, τη συγγραφή του οποίου ανέθεσε η Ενωση των Κομμουνιστών στους Καρλ Μαρξ και Φρίντριχ Ενγκελς τον Νοέμβριο του 1847. Ο Καρλ Μαρξ τελείωνε το κείμενο όταν ο Φρίντριχ Ενγκελς, βίαια απελαθείς από το Παρίσι, τον συνάντησε στις Βρυξέλλες στις 31 Γενάρη 1848. Ο Μαρξ δούλεψε το κείμενο εμπνευσμένα και με μεγάλη αφοσίωση, «τροχίζοντας» τις λέξεις, λεπτύνοντας τις έννοιες. Το «Κομμουνιστικό Μανιφέστο» ολοκληρώθηκε στα τέλη Γενάρη 1848, στάλθηκε στο Λονδίνο, στην Κεντρική Επιτροπή της Ενωσης των Κομμουνιστών και ο ράφτης Φρειδερίκος Λέσνερ το προώθησε στο τυπογραφείο, όπου τυπώθηκε στα τέλη Φεβρουαρίου του 1848, ένα βιβλίο 23 σελίδων. Το Μανιφέστο είναι το πρώτο προγραμματικό ντοκουμέντο του μαρξισμού και σε αυτό ζωντανά και συμπυκνωμένα εκτέθηκαν οι βασικές ιδέες του επιστημονικού κομμουνισμού και διακηρύχτηκαν ανοιχτά οι τελικοί σκοποί της πάλης του προλεταριάτου. Στο «Κομμουνιστικό Μανιφέστο» θεμελιώθηκε ολόπλευρα ο ρόλος της εργατικής τάξης, ως νεκροθάφτη του καπιταλισμού και δημιουργού της κομμουνιστικής κοινωνίας, αποκαλύφθηκε ότι η εργατική τάξη είναι η μοναδική συνεπής, ως το τέλος, επαναστατική τάξη. Τα αθάνατα λόγια του Κομμουνιστικού Μανιφέστου, 156 χρόνια μετά την έκδοσή του, εξακολουθούν να παραμένουν σάλπισμα αγώνα, γόνιμος σπόρος της ταξικής συνείδησης, άσβεστη φλόγα που πυρπολεί τις καρδιές των προλετάριων όπου Γης... (Κυριακή «902 Αριστερά στα FM» στις 18.00).

ΒΙΒΛΙΟ Το «Μανιφέστο του Κομμουνιστικού Κόμματος» Πρόσφατα στις ΗΠΑ χαρακτηρίστηκε ως το πιο επικίνδυνο βιβλίο! Πρόκειται για το «Μανιφέστο του Κομμουνιστικού Κόμματος», το κλασικό, ιστορικό έργο που γαλουχεί γενιές και γενιές κομμουνιστών, ιδιαίτερα νέων κομμουνιστών. Η επεξεργασία του, η συγγραφή του, αντανακλά το πέρασμα του εργατικού κινήματος στην ωριμότητά του, αφού για πρώτη φορά εκφράζονται σ' αυτό το έργο επεξεργασμένες η στρατηγική και η ταχτική, αλλά και οι σκοποί της πάλης της εργατικής τάξης, δηλαδή το πέρασμα στην κομμουνιστική κοινωνία. Γράφοντας απλά, αλλά και συμπυκνώνοντας εύστοχα τις βάσεις της επαναστατικής θεωρίας, απευθυνόμενοι στον προλετάριο, ο Καρλ Μαρξ και ο Φρίντριχ Ενγκελς συνέταξαν στα τέλη του 1847 και στις αρχές του 1848 το πρώτο στην ιστορία πρόγραμμα Κομμουνιστικού Κόμματος, όπου για πρώτη φορά αναπτύχθηκαν συστηματικά και ολοκληρωμένα όλα τα συστατικά μέρη της θεωρίας του Μαρξ και του Ενγκελς. Που διακηρύττει με την έκδοσή του ότι η φιλοσοφία πρέπει να πάψει να περιορίζεται σε «στεγνά» θεωρητικές αναλύσεις, να γίνει δύναμη αλλαγής της κοινωνίας. Η ουσία δεν είναι να εξηγούμε τον κόσμο, αλλά να τον αλλάξουμε, σημείωνε ο Κ. Μαρξ. Ο καπιταλισμός στην αυγή του σηματοδότησε την πορεία της ανθρωπότητας προς τα μπρος αλλά μετατρέπεται πλέον, όπως εξηγούν οι συγγραφείς, σε τροχοπέδη της ανθρώπινης προόδου. Αναγορεύει την εκμετάλλευση ανθρώπου από άνθρωπο σε βασική αρχή επιβίωσής του. Το βιβλίο κάνει αναφορά στον αγώνα και την οργάνωση του προλεταριάτου, στη σταδιακή πορεία της αυτογνωσίας του, μέσα από την ταξική σύγκρουση με την τάξη που συγκεντρώνει στα χέρια της τα μέσα παραγωγής. Εξηγείται η σύνδεση ανάμεσα στην καπιταλιστική οικονομική βάση, δηλαδή τις σχέσεις παραγωγής και το εποικοδόμημα που υψώνεται πάνω απ' αυτές για να τις υπηρετεί και να συμβάλλει στην αναπαραγωγή τους. «Οι κομμουνιστές θεωρούν ανάξιό τους να κρύβουν τις απόψεις και τις προθέσεις τους», τονίζουν οι συγγραφείς, ενώ κλείνουν με ένα φλογερό κάλεσμα των εργατών όλου του κόσμου στον αγώνα για το γκρέμισμα του καπιταλισμού και για τη νίκη του κομμουνισμού: «Οι κυρίαρχες τάξεις ας τρέμουν μπροστά στην κομμουνιστική επανάσταση! Οι προλετάριοι δεν έχουν να χάσουν τίποτα άλλο εκτός από τις αλυσίδες τους. Αλλά θα κερδίσουν όλο τον κόσμο. ΠΡΟΛΕΤΑΡΙΟΙ ΟΛΩΝ ΤΩΝ ΧΩΡΩΝ ΕΝΩΘΕΙΤΕ».

Chapter 1: Early Years Home and School Jenny Von Westphalen Chapter 2: A Pupil of Hegel The First Year in Berlin The Young Hegelians The philosophy of Self-Consciousness The Doctoral Disseration The Anekdota and the Rheinische Zeitung The Rhenish Diet Five Months of Struggle Ludwig Feuerbach Marriage and Banishment Chapter 3: Exile in Paris The Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher A Philosophic Perspective On the Jewish Question French Civilization The Vorwarts and the Expulsion of Marx Chapter 4: Friedrich Engels Office and barracks English Civilization The Holy Family A Fundamental Socialist Work Chapter 5: Exile in Brussels The German Ideology “True Socialism” Weitling and Proudhon Historical Materialism The Deutsche Brusseler Zeitung The Communist League Propaganda in Brussels The Communist Manifesto Chapter 6: Revolution and Counter-Revolution February and March Days June Days The War against Russia September Days The Cologne Democracy Freiligrath and Lassalle October and November Days An Act of Perfidy And Another Cowardly Trick Chapter 7: Exile in London The Neue Rheinische Revue The Kinkel Affair The Split in the Communist League Life in Exile The Eighteenth Brumaire The Communist Trial in Cologne Chapter 8: Marx and Engels Genius and Society An Incomparable Alliance Chapter 9: The Crimean War and the Crisis European Politics David Urquhart, G. J. Harney and Ernest Jones Family and Friends The Crisis of 1857 The Critique of Political Economy Chapter 10: Dynastic Changes The Italian War The Dispute with Lassalle New Struggles in Exile Interludes Herr Vogt Domestic and Personal Affairs Lassalle’s Agitation Chapter 11: The Early Years of the International The Founding of the International The Inaugural Address The Breach with Schweitzer The First Conference in London The Austro-Prussian War The Geneva Congress Chapter 12: Das Kapital Birth Pangs The First Volume The Second and Third Volumes The Reception of Capital Chapter 13: The International at its Zenith England, France and Belgium Switzerland and Germany Bakunin’s Agitation The Alliance of Socialist Democracy The Basle Congress Confusion in Geneva “The Confidential Communication” The Irish Amnesty and the French Plebiscite Chapter 14: The Decline of the International Sedan After Sedan The Civil War in France The International and the Paris Commune The Bakuninist Opposition The Second Conference in London The Disintegration of the International The Hague Congress Valedictory Twinges Chapter 15: The Last Decade Marx at Home The German Social Democracy Anarchism and the War in the Near East The Dawn of a New Day Twilight The Last Year

Ο Κομμουνισμός έχει ταυτιστεί με τον Σταλινισμό (Δογματισμό) και ο Σοσιαλισμός με την Σοσιαλδημοκρατία (Ρεφορμισμό)

MARX RELOADED

The Communist Manifesto Today: Still True, Still Dangerous, Still the Hope of the Hopeless

The Communist Manifesto is no historical footnote, writes Jack Conrad

The Communist Manifesto remains a good introduction in their own words to the ideas of Marx and Engels.

Das Kommunistische Manifest (Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei) von Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels : von der Erstausgabe zur Leseausgabe / mit einem Editionsbericht von Thomas Kuczynski. - Trier, 1995. - IX, 262 S. - (Schriften aus dem Karl-Marx-Haus ; 49) ISBN 3-86077-207-4

Sweezy, Paul M. and Huberman, Leo. The Communist manifesto after 100 years — new translation by Paul M. Sweezy of Karl Marx's The Communist Manifesto and Friedrich Engels' Principles of Communism (Modern Reader, NY, 1964).

Το «Κομμουνιστικό Μανιφέστο» αποτελείται από 4 κεφάλαια - μέρη: Ι) Αστοί και Προλετάριοι, ΙΙ) Προλετάριοι και Κομμουνιστές, ΙΙΙ) Σοσιαλιστική και Κομμουνιστική φιλολογία: 1. Ο αντιδραστικός σοσιαλισμός, α) ο φεουδαρχικός σοσιαλισμός, β) ο μικροαστικός σοσιαλισμός, γ) ο γερμανικός ή ο «αληθινός» σοσιαλισμός. 2) Ο συντηρητικός ή αστικός σοσιαλισμός. 3) Ο κριτικός ουτοπιστικός σοσιαλισμός και κομμουνισμός και IV) Η στάση των κομμουνιστών απέναντι στα διάφορα κόμματα της αντιπολίτευσης.

http://www.raggedclaws.com/criticalrealism/archive/alabriola_emch1.html
Labriola

http://www.raggedclaws.com/criticalrealism/archive/hlaski_km.html
Karl Marx: An Essay (1922) By HAROLD LASKI

http://www.marxists.org/archive/labriola/works/al00.htm
LABRIOLA
http://www.liberliber.it/biblioteca/e/engels/il_manifesto_del_partito_comunista_edizione_berlusconi/html/index.htm

http://www.marxists.org/italiano/marx-engels/1848/manifesto/index.htm

Title:


NOTES 111 1 Robert N Kearney, Communalism and Language in the Politics of Ceylon, Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 1967, pp 41-52. 2 Sri D Valisinha(Ed.), "Diary Leaves of the Late Ven. Anagarika Dharmapala", Maha Bodhi, Calcutta, Vol 67, Nos 3-4, March-April 1959, p 83. 8 Marshall R Singer, The Emerging Elite: A Study of Political Leadership in Ceylon, Cambridge, Mass., 1964, p 47. 4 Ibid., p 75. 5 Howard V Wriggins, Ceylon: Dilemmas of a New Nation, Princeton, NJ, 1960, pp 326-7. 6 C A Woodward, The Growth of a Party System in Ceylon, Providence, RI,1969, p 123.

The rugged revolutionist - Jack London Ernest, meanwhile, spars verbally with representatives of different classes. Socialist readers will recognize The Communist Manifesto’s critique of other socialisms in his debates, but they’re restated marvelously. Ernest destroys the myth of ruling class nobility, showing how their refinement rests on bloody exploitation. He savages the church for preaching salvation to the rich, and feeble-minded utopians who believe socialism can arrive through piecemeal reforms. He shows farmers & petit-bourgeois to be representatives of a dying class, killed off by capitalist concentration. In fact Ernest gives a neat exposition of Capital Volume One, explaining surplus value and capitalism’s need to send excess money abroad to invest profitably. Ernest says, When every country stands with an unconsumed and unsalable surplus on its hands, the capitalist system will break down under the terrific structure of profits that it itself has reared…. The struggle then will be for the ownership of the machines. If labor wins, your way will be easy… [if not, then] labor, and all of us, will be crushed under the iron heel of a despotism.” London is writing in 1907, 25 years before the onset of German fascism, and 7 years before World War One which, as the Marxists foresaw, arose precisely because of those surpluses.

The Communist Manifesto, Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx | S. S. Prawer (essay date 1976) Printable Version Download PDFCite this Page S. S. Prawer (essay date 1976) SOURCE: Prawer, S. S. “World Literature and Class Conflict.” In Karl Marx and World Literature, pp. 138-149. London: Oxford University Press, 1976. [In the following excerpt, Prawer details the literary devices and references present in the Communist Manifesto, while also examining the origins and intentions of the work.] National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures there arises a world literature. (MEW [Werke] IV, 466) (I) ‘The combination of scientific analysis with moral judgment’, Bottomore and Rubel have said, ‘is by no means uncommon in the field of social studies. Marx is unusual, and his work is exceptionally interesting, because, unlike any other major social thinker, he was the recognized leader, and subsequently the prophet, of an...

Title:Βραχόκηπος, Ελευθεριακή Κολλεκτίβα Αντιεξουσιαστικής Επιθυμίας
Title: Αρχείο των Μαρξιστών στο Internet Ελληνικό τμήμα


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Title: AlfaVita ΕΚΠΑΙΔΕΥΤΙΚΗ ΗΛΕΚΤΡΟΝΙΚΗ ΠΥΛΗ www.alfavita.gr


Title: Πολιτικό καφενείο "Ο Μεγάλος Ανατολικός"


Title: Ο Δικτυότοπος Κιατίπη προορίζεται για όσους ενδιαφέρονται να διαμορφώσουν αληθινή κοσμοαντίληψη και για να σκέπτονται ορθολογικά.


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Title: De omnibus dubitandum


Title: Nihil humani a me alienum puto


Σημειώσεις από το βιβλίο "ο Μαύρος"
Σημείωση Νο 1: Πρόκειται για τον Εργατικό Μορφωτικό Σύνδεσμο του Λονδίνου ...

Σημειώσεις από το βιβλίο "ο Μαύρος"
Σημείωση Νο 4: Η Γερμανική Εργατική Ένωση των Βρυξελλών ιδρύθηκε ...

Title:Απόφαση του ΠΓ επ' ευκαιρία των 70 χρόνων του Στάλιν, Δεκέμβρης 1949
Διαλεχτά έργα Μαρξ-Ένγκελς (2 τόμοι), Λένιν (2 τόμοι) και Ζητήματα Λενινισμού του Στάλιν


Title:Απόφαση του ΠΓ μετά την υλοποίηση της μετάφρασης των Διαλεχτών έργων Δεκέμβρης 1951

Title:Μαζάουερ
Ή το διαβάζει επιπόλαια, κάτι που η θέση του δεν το επιτρέπει, ή το διαστρεβλώνει συνειδητά, επίσης κάτι που δεν μπορεί να γίνει, ή δεν το κατάλαβε ..., ή βιάζεται πολύ να το θάψει μαζί με τον λεγόμενο "υπαρκτό σοσιαλισμό", ή ...

Title:Εικόνες μεγάλης ισχύος
... και σκόρπιζε με δυνατά και ασεβή γέλια.

Title:Κάθε λέξη χρήζει ανάλυσης και ερμηνείας


Title:τα 2/3
Δηλαδή περίπου 15-16 σελίδες από τις αρχικές 23 κάνανε τόσο κακό;
Ας δεχτούμε, που έτσι είναι, ότο το πρωτότυπο γερμανικό κείμενο έχει μεγάλη λογοτεχνική αξία, έστω μεγαλύτερη από τις διάφορες μεταφράσεις του που όντως, κατά γενική ομολογία, είναι κείμενα ελλάσσονα.
Ας δεχτούμε επίσης ότι το 99% του κόσμου που γνώρισε το Μανιφέστο, το προσέγγισε μέσα από αμια μετάφραση, τις περισσότερες φορές, αν όχι κακή, οπωσδήποτε όμως με ελλείψεις, λάθη ή σκόπιμες παραλείψεις και βέβαια "θόρυβο", πολύ "θόρυβο" μετάδοσης της πληροφορίας, για να μη μιλήσουμε για τις άγνωστες λέξεις, όρους, πρόσωπα και καταστάσεις που συναντούσε ο αναγνώστης.

Title:Ο εξορκισμός έγινε
Οι δυνάμεις πραγματικά ενωμένες σε μια ιερή συμμαχία

Title:Φωτογραφίες των Μαρξ και Ένγκελς το 1847-49


Title:The Goethean Concept of World Literature and Comparative Literature


Title:Weltliteratur
Antonio A. Santucci.Economy and Weltliteratur in the Communist Manifesto. RM 13(2):19-29 "Explores how analyzing themes of world literature can help to lessen the distance between contemporary world conditions and the texts of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It is contended that the Communist Manifesto proclaimed the emergence of a world literature based on economic analyses, especially the notion of a ""world market."" The insights of Marx and Engels into the ""inevitable globalization of literature,"" the commodification of intellectual labor, and advances in communication, are said to suggest development of an international information industry with the potential to hold disparate ideas, theories, and cultures. The place of the circulation and effects of ""intellectual productions"" in the structure of the world market is discussed, and distinctions between the critical effects of world literature, and the tendency to construct an ""artificial and indistinct universality,"" are explored. It is concluded that the successful transformation of intellectual products from critical moments into objects of consumption by the world market would mean the end of the era of world literature. 24 References. J. Lindroth."

Title:
GradeSaver-Communist manifesto

Title:
Arizona

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123

Title:
Manifesto Technologies: Marx, Marinetti, Haraway

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A ghost concerns in Europe - the ghost of the communism. All powers of the old Europe allied themselves to a holy chase against this ghost, the pope and the czar, Metternich and Guizot, French radical and German policemen.

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Ένα φάσμα συχνάζει την Ευρώπη -- το φάσμα του κομμουνισμού. Όλες οι αρμοδιότητες της παλαιάς Ευρώπης έχουν εισαχθεί σε μια ιερή συμμαχία αυτό το φάσμα: Παπάς και τσάρος, Metternich και Guizot, γαλλικοί ριζοσπάστες και γερμανικοί αστυνομία-κατάσκοποι. Πού είναι το συμβαλλόμενο μέρος στην αντίθεση που δεν έχει επικριθεί όπως κομμουνιστικός από τους αντιπάλους του στη δύναμη; Πού είναι η αντίθεση που δεν έχει εκσφενδονίσει η πλάτη η κατηγορία μαρκαρίσματος του κομμουνισμού, ενάντια στα πιό προηγμένα κόμματα της αντιπολίτευσης, καθώς επίσης και ενάντια στους αντιδραστικούς αντιπάλους της; Δύο πράγματα προκύπτουν από αυτό το γεγονός: Ι. ο κομμουνισμός αναγνωρίζεται ήδη από όλες τις ευρωπαϊκές δυνάμεις να είναι ο ίδιος μια δύναμη. ΙΙ. Είναι υψηλός χρόνος ότι οι κομμουνιστές πρέπει ανοιχτά, παρά ολόκληρο τον κόσμο, να δημοσιεύσουν τις απόψεις τους, οι στόχοι τους, οι τάσεις τους, και να συναντήσουν αυτήν την ιστορία βρεφικών σταθμών του φάσματος του κομμουνισμού με ένα μανιφέστο το ίδιο του συμβαλλόμενου μέρους. Για αυτόν τον λόγο, οι κομμουνιστές των διάφορων υπηκοοτήτων έχουν συγκεντρώσει στο Λονδίνο και έχουν σκιαγραφήσει το ακόλουθο μανιφέστο, που δημοσιεύεται στις αγγλικές, γαλλικές, γερμανικές, ιταλικές, φλαμανδικές και δανικές γλώσσες.

http://www.uqac.ca/class/classiques/labriola_antonio/essais_materialisme_historique/Essai_3_Manifeste_PC/Le_manifeste_PC.html

http://www.ptb.be/doc/manifest/mc_prefa.htm
Γαλλική μετάφραση


http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/~Chastain/index.htm
1848

http://www.etymonline.com Allan Wood





The line which Baran, Sweezy and Mandel initiated is sometimes called "Neo-Marxist" school or simply "Radical Political Economy", which broke open a tidal wave of work in the 1960s and 1970s. The main channels was the New Left Review, the Monthly Review Press, and later on, the Review of Radical Political Economy.

Marx & Engels
Engels
Orthodox Marxists (Labriola 1895, Plechanof, Kautsky 1901/1904)
Leftist Marxists (Luxemburg, 1908)
Lenin & Leninists(State and Revolution, 1918/Ch. 2,3)
Stalin & Stalinists (World History, 1950)
3rd International(Ryazanof, 1930)
Reformism (SPD, Bernstein, 1899)
Reformism (Labour Party, Laski, 1948)
Reformism (Eurocommunism, Gramsi, Carillo, 1969)
Structural marxism (Louis Althusser, Nicos Poulantzas)
Trotsky, 1937
4rth International

Troskists
Anarchists
Western Marxism
Maoism
Mao
Hontza
Humanist Marxism (Roger Garaudy)
AustroMarxism
Cyrril Smith
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-cyril/works/articles/cyril_02.htm
Rethinking Marxism