The Communist Manifesto

1-Page Summary

Manifesto of the Communist Party, better known as The Communist Manifesto, was originally published in German in 1848. It was commissioned by the “Communist League,” a worker’s party, and written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Its goal was to explain the beliefs of the Communists and the program of the Communist League. It was translated into many languages and printed in many editions over the years. This summary is of the 1888 English translation.

Class Struggles

In early human history, there were many different hierarchical classes. The class that controlled the economy—which, in the earliest times, was mainly the food supply—was the most powerful class. For example, in the Middle Ages, in order of least to most powerful, there were serfs, apprentices, journeymen, guild-masters, vassals, and lords. The lords owned the agricultural land that produced food. Anyone who wanted to grow or buy food had to serve the lords.

According to Marx, all of human history is based in class struggles between oppressors and the oppressed. For example, serfs struggled against lords. Each conflict ended in either change to the social system or ruin for both classes involved in the struggle. By the time the manifesto was written, however, the multi-class system had narrowed into two main classes—the Proletariat and the Bourgeoisie.

The Bourgeoisie employ laborers and own private property and businesses such as factories. This class can only maintain its existence by constantly improving production and growing the market, which they do by taking advantage of laborers, finding new markets, and more thoroughly exploiting old markets. None of this is sustainable, and the social conditions the Bourgeoisie have created will lead to their downfall.

The Proletariat is made up of people who sell their labor for wages. These wages are minimal and aren’t equal to the value of the work laborers produce. For example, if laborers build tables for a bourgeois company, the company will sell the tables for far more than what it paid for the materials and labor. The majority of people are members of the Proletariat.

The Proletariat will eventually revolt and overthrow the Bourgeoisie through a series of events: First, as the Bourgeoisie strives to improve production, they’ll decrease wages, push the lower middle class into the Proletariat, increasing its numbers, and concentrate laborers in central locations where they can organize. The Bourgeoisie will even give the Proletariat political power so that the Proletariat can support the Bourgeoisie’s political agenda against other classes. Then, the Proletariat will later use this power to oppose the Bourgeoisie. Finally, certain members of the Bourgeoisie will realize the Proletariat is the future and join them. There will be a revolution and the Proletariat will win.

Communists and the Proletariat

The Communists support the Proletariat and want to forcibly overthrow the Bourgeoisie. The defining feature of Communism is the desire to abolish bourgeois private property. Bourgeois private property wasn’t made or earned by a bourgeois individual—it was made by many laborers working together. Therefore, property should be common.

The Path Forward

Once the Proletariat has acquired political power, they’ll take the following ten measures:

Abolish the ownership of land and put all land to public use. This will eliminate oppression and class conflict.
Create a progressive or graduated income tax. This will spread wealth more equally among all members of the population and eliminate classes.
Abolish inheritance. This will eliminate wealth being held by a few instead of distributed among everyone.
Take away the property of emigrants and rebels. Emigrants who are living abroad and left possessions behind obviously aren’t currently using them, so they can be better used by the general population. Rebels who oppose the Proletariat also shouldn’t be allowed to have property.
Create a national bank using state capital. Private banks simply hold money. A national bank could use money to improve social conditions.
Put the state in charge of communication and transportation. If the state controls these things, rather than an oppressor, everyone will have access to them.
Expand and improve the state’s control of infrastructure and land. Currently, people aren’t making good use of resources. The state can allocate resources in a way that most benefits everyone.
Require everyone to work and require working conditions to be decent. This will result in everyone contributing to society.
Decentralize jobs from cities by combining agriculture and manufacturing. This will reduce geographic inequity and make better use of resources.
Abolish child labor, create public schools, and give all children free education. This will improve the lives of children.

(Shortform note: We’ve added explanations of each measure, based on widely-held interpretations.)

Responses to Criticism

Here are some criticisms of Communists and how they respond:

Communism encourages universal laziness. If abolishing private property led to universal laziness, everyone would already be lazy, because laborers make up most of the population and don’t have any private property.
Communism abolishes culture, freedom, family structures, and countries. The Proletariat already lacks these things. The Bourgeoisie has abolished them all in the course of viewing laborers as commodities rather than people.
Communism upheaves the educational system. The Communists simply want school to be available to everyone, not just the Bourgeoisie.
Communism makes women collective property. This criticism is rooted in misdefinition. Because the Bourgeoisie consider their wives to be property or tools, when they hear the Communists say they want to abolish private property and use tools for the common good, the Bourgeoisie think that their wives are included. However, the Communists don’t consider women to be property or tools.
Communism destroys religion. Religion’s ideas and values always change and evolve over time. Communism isn’t changing anything that isn’t already editable.

The Communist League and Other Groups

At the time of publication, the Manifesto of the Communist Party wouldn’t have been described as socialist. In 1848, Marx defines “socialists” as non-working class members who look for help from classes other than the ones they belong to. Socialists are interested in improving social conditions, and they think it’s possible to do so by improving the existing political system, rather than through the total social change the Communists call for. The manifesto discusses several kinds of socialism:

Feudal and petty bourgeois (lower middle class) socialism. These socialists support the Proletariat, but only because the Proletariat have the best chance of taking down the Bourgeoisie, and because the Bourgeoisie were responsible for the fall of both the aristocrats and lower middle class. These socialists are interested in their own ends.
German/“true” socialism. In 1848, the German Bourgeoisie class isn’t fully developed yet. As a result, German socialism is theoretical and based on French socialist literature. This socialism is more about human interests in general since Germany hadn’t experienced class struggle yet.
Conservation/bourgeois socialism. These socialists realize that the social conditions the Bourgeoisie have created are unstable. They don’t want revolt, so they aim to appease some of the Proletariat’s social grievances and/or convince the Proletariat that all they need are better working conditions, not reform.
Critical-utopian socialism. Critical-utopian socialists want to improve the lives of everyone, regardless of class. Currently, they support the Proletariat because it’s the most suffering class, but their allegiance is to whichever class is in the worst place, not the Proletariat specifically.

While Communist values don’t align perfectly with those of socialists, they do align with those of working class parties—the Communists support any movement that rebels against the social and political conditions of the day. The only differences between the Communists and working class parties are that the Communists are interested in the Proletariat on a larger scale—most parties are focused on specific countries or incidents, while the Communists are interested in the movement of class struggles as a whole.

Chapter 1

Manifesto of the Communist Party, better known as The Communist Manifesto, was originally published in German in 1848. It was commissioned by the “Communist League,” a worker’s party, and written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels with the goal of explaining the beliefs of the Communists and the program of the Communist League. It was translated into many languages and many editions were printed over the years. This summary is of the 1888 English translation.

At the time of writing, Europeans are terrified of Communism and many want to stamp it out—the Pope, French radicals, and German police spies, to name a few. However, people use the descriptor “Communist” for anything they want to discredit. According to the authors, this means two things:

All European powers acknowledge that Communism is powerful.
People don’t understand the definition of “Communism” because it’s so misused.

The manifesto aims to deal with this second point—it explains what Communism really is and what Communists believe. Chapter 1 will address one of the major themes of the work, the struggle between oppressors and the oppressed.

(Shortform note: Manifesto of the Communist Party was organized into a preface, preamble, and four parts. For concision and clarity, we have combined the preface, preamble, and part 1 into Chapter 1, and combined parts 3 and 4 into Chapter 3.)

Class Struggles

Bourgeoisie

We’ll start by discussing the Bourgeoisie class since their development led to the development of the Proletariat. The Bourgeoisie employ laborers and own private property and businesses such as factories.

The Bourgeoisie class developed during feudal times. Two things contributed to their development:

Changes to production. In earlier times, guilds controlled industry. As markets expanded (partly due to the discovery of America and the rounding of the Horn), however, the guilds couldn’t keep up and were replaced by the manufacturing system. The owners of the manufacturing system became wealthy and eventually became the Bourgeoisie.
Increased political power. Changes to economic structures drive changes in social structures. The Bourgeoisie used their money to win political power. Though the government still existed, its role became catering to the Bourgeoisie.

When the Bourgeoisie became the ruling class, several social structures changed. The Bourgeoisie:

Eliminated traditional relationships between classes (such as the awe worshippers felt for religious leaders) and made all dealings money-related.
Implemented Free Trade, a system in which the government doesn’t interfere in the selling or buying of goods from any territory.
Openly exploited other classes, as opposed to the less obvious political or religious exploitation between classes in the past.
Destroyed old national industries and replaced them with new, global industries, creating demand for exotic products. (For example, people previously working as farmers now had the new option to make goods in factories.) Nations became dependent on each other and shared goods and ideas.
Forced all nations to start improving production, or else fall behind and cease to exist.
Concentrated the population in cities (where industries are located) and made rural areas dependent on towns. Similarly, developing countries became dependent on more advanced ones.
Changed production further. New modes of production made better use of machines and broke work down into smaller and more repetitive tasks. As a result, jobs no longer required skill and anyone could do them, including women and children. The Bourgeoisie changed production more in 100 years than the combined efforts of all the classes before them.

All of the changes the Bourgeoisie ushered in created an unsustainable social system. The Bourgeoisie can only continue to exist by constantly improving production and growing the market. To do this, they take advantage of laborers, find new markets, and more thoroughly exploit old markets. All of this will only make future crises worse. Additionally, they have created a class that will ultimately bring about their downfall—the Proletariat.

The Proletariat

The Proletariat is made up of people who sell their labor for wages. These wages aren’t equal to the value of the work they produce. For example, if laborers build tables for a bourgeois company, the company will sell the tables for far more than what it paid for the materials and labor.

In the eyes of the Bourgeoisie, Proletariat laborers are simply a commodity—they exist only to work and increase capital. They only need to be paid the minimum amount of money necessary for survival. The majority of people are members of the Proletariat.

The Proletariat class came into being as the Bourgeoisie class developed industry and required laborers. Eventually, the Proletariat will revolt and overthrow the Bourgeoisie and there will be only one class. That progression will look something like this:

Initially, the Proletariat is scattered, disorganized, and competitive. Individual members of the Proletariat or small groups might rebel against the individual Bourgeoisie (such as an exploitative factory owner) and destroy machinery, factories, and products. However, this revolution is small-scale. Members of the Proletariat are still competing against each other for jobs and wages.
As industry develops further, more members of the Proletariat are created. Members of the lower middle class, such as tradespeople, eventually fall into the working class. They don’t make enough money to compete with the bourgeoisie, and their specialized skills are no longer needed because new production methods can replace them. As these classes are dropped into the Proletariat, they bring new ideas and progress.
The Proletariat is concentrated in locations where there are factories and jobs.
Wages go down and everyone becomes poor. At this point, workers start creating unions and fighting the Bourgeoisie as a class.
The workers might win some of these conflicts here and there, but the real victory is that they learn how to communicate with other Proletariat in different locations. To overthrow the Bourgeoisie, the entire Proletariat needs to band together and acquire political power by organizing into a party.
The workers are constantly threatening this organization by competing among themselves. However, each time there’s a step backward, the movement recovers.
Old society class collisions help develop the Proletariat further. The Bourgeoisie are competing with the aristocracy and other Bourgeoisie. To compete with these powers and further their own agenda, the Bourgeoisie seeks help from the Proletariat by giving them political power. The Proletariat can then use this power to fight the Bourgeoisie itself.
Certain members of the Bourgeoisie decide to join the Proletariat as the final struggle nears and they realize the Proletariat will be the future.
The Proletariat overthrows the Bourgeoisie.

Chapter 2: Communists and the Proletariat

Now that we’ve learned about the class struggle between the Proletariat and Bourgeoisie, what is the role of the Communists? The Communists support the Proletariat and want to forcibly overthrow the Bourgeoisie. The defining feature of Communism is the desire to abolish bourgeois private property. Bourgeois private property wasn’t made or earned by a bourgeois individual—it was made by many laborers working together. Therefore, property should be common.

The Path Forward

Once the Proletariat have acquired political power, they’ll take the following ten measures. (Some of the measures along this path are unsustainable but unavoidable. Problems will iron themselves out naturally.)

Abolish the ownership of land and put all land to public use. This will eliminate oppression and class conflict.
Create a progressive or graduated income tax. This will spread wealth more equally among all members of the population and eliminate classes.
Abolish inheritance. This will eliminate wealth being held by a few instead of distributed among everyone.
Take away the property of emigrants and rebels. Emigrants who are living abroad and left possessions behind obviously aren’t currently using them, so they can be better used by the general population. Rebels who oppose the Proletariat also shouldn’t be allowed to have property.
Create a national bank using state capital. Private banks simply hold money. A national bank could use money to improve social conditions.
Put the state in charge of communication and transportation. If the state controls these things, rather than an oppressor, everyone will have access to them.
Expand and improve the state’s control of infrastructure and land. Currently, people aren’t making good use of resources. The state can allocate resources in a way that most benefits everyone.
Require everyone to work and require working conditions to be decent. This will result in everyone contributing to society.
Decentralize jobs from cities by combining agriculture and manufacturing. This will reduce geographic inequity and make better use of resources.
Abolish child labor, create public schools, and give all children free education. This will improve the lives of children.

(Shortform note: We’ve added explanations of each measure, based on widely-held interpretations.)

Political power only exists to allow one class to oppress another. The Proletariat will only briefly be the ruling class. After the above measures have been carried out and all class distinctions fade, political power will cease to exist.

Responses to Criticism

The critics of Communism, such as the Bourgeoisie, don’t have a lot of ground to stand on. Communists can address all of their criticisms, particularly the ones about abolishment. Many of the things communists want to “abolish” have already been abolished—by the Bourgeoisie—for the majority of the population. For example, the only people who have private property are the 10% of the population that makes up the Bourgeoisie.

Here are some criticisms of Communists and how Communists respond:

Communism encourages universal laziness. If abolishing private property led to universal laziness, everyone would already be lazy, because wage-earners make up most of the population and don’t have any private property.
Communism destroys culture. The Bourgeoisie have already destroyed the culture of the working class by viewing people as commodities.
Communism attacks freedom. The Communists oppose free trade because it leads to the exploitation of workers. They don’t oppose freedom in general.
Communism destroys family structures. Again, the Bourgeoisie has already destroyed the family structure. Proletariat children are exploited and forced to work.
Communism erases national borders. The Proletariat doesn’t have a country anymore—they’re not people, they’re commodities—so it's impossible to abolish something that doesn’t exist. The Proletariat is international and the main differences between people are class distinctions. Conflicts between countries will die out as conflicts between classes die out.
Communism upheaves the educational system. The Communists didn’t invent schools or the idea that society should have a hand in education. The Communists simply want school to be available to everyone, not just the Bourgeoisie.
Communism makes women collective property. This criticism is rooted in misdefinition. The Communists do want all property and tools to be common, but unlike Bourgeoisie men, Communists don’t consider women to be tools or property. In fact, the Bourgeoisie have done more to create a “community of women” than the Communists ever will—Bourgeoisie men regularly visit prostitutes and sleep with each other’s wives.
Communism destroys religion. Religion’s ideas and values normally change and evolve over time. Communism isn’t changing anything that isn’t already editable.

Chapter 3: The Communist League and Other Groups

Now that Marx has explained the values and aims of the Communist League, he turns his focus to how they compare to those of socialism and other working class parties.

Types of Socialism

At the time of publication, the Manifesto of the Communist Party wouldn’t have been described as socialist. In 1848, Marx defines “socialists” as non-working class members who look for help from classes other than the ones they belong to. Socialists are interested in improving social conditions and they think it’s possible to do so by improving the existing political system, rather than through the total social change the Communists call for. While socialism of the time has some things in common with Communism, such as opposing the Bourgeoisie and supporting the Proletariat, its goals are different. The manifesto discusses three kinds of socialism: reactionary, conservative/bourgeois, and critical-utopian.

Reactionary Socialism

Reactionary socialism evolved as a response to the domination of the bourgeoisie class and its ruination of the other classes. There are three sub-types:

Feudal socialism. These socialists are French and English aristocrats. They oppose the Bourgeoisie because it took away their power and support the Proletariat because it’s the only class that can attack the Bourgeoisie. Politically, however, feudal socialists oppose the Proletariat because they don’t want revolution. They’re supported by clerical socialists, who spin Christianity to a socialist angle—helping the poor, providing charity, and so on.
Petty bourgeois socialism. The petty bourgeoisie are made up of tradespeople and small business owners who evolved from peasant proprietors and medieval burgesses. Members of the petty bourgeoisie are constantly being pushed down into the Proletariat class because they can’t compete with the Bourgeoisie. Petty bourgeois socialism criticizes the Bourgeoisie for similar reasons as the Communists but proposes different solutions. Petty bourgeois socialism strives to either completely restore old social systems or reframe the current system using the old rules.
German/“true” socialism. At the time of writing, the Bourgeoisie class isn’t yet fully developed in Germany. German socialism is composed of generalized ideas taken from French socialist literature. Since the “true” socialists haven’t actually experienced any conflict between the Proletariat and Bourgeoisie, unlike the French, the German philosophy is more about human interests in general than class struggle.

Conservative/Bourgeois Socialism

Conservative/bourgeois socialists are members of the Bourgeoisie who realize that the social system they’ve created is unstainable. However, they don’t want to do away with the two-class system, they simply want to do away with the revolutionary tendencies of the Proletariat. They do this by trying to appease some of the Proletariat’s social grievances or by trying to convince the Proletariat that they don’t need political reform, just better working and life conditions. These conditions would be achieved through administrative reform rather than revolution.

Critical-Utopian Socialism (and Communism)

This school of thought developed when the Bourgeoisie and Proletariat were just starting to come into existence and the Bourgeoisie hadn’t created unsustainable conditions yet. Critical-utopian socialists aren’t interested in improving the lives of the Proletariat specifically; they’re interested in improving the lives of the most-suffering class, which in 1848 happens to be the Proletariat.

Critical-utopian socialists want to improve the lives of everyone, regardless of class, and to do so, they appeal to the ruling class. They don’t support revolutions and want to make small, peaceful strides instead—which will never work.

Their literature has some good criticisms of pre-1848 society, but it was written so early in the class struggle that it doesn’t have a strong handle on how the situation would develop.

Working Class Parties

The Communists support any movement that rebels against the social and political conditions of the day. Therefore, they support working class parties. The only differences between the Communists and working class parties are:

Most working class parties focus on conditions in certain countries, but the Communists are interested in the entire international Proletariat.
The Communists are interested in the movement of class struggles as a whole, not simply specific incidents.

The Communists specifically support:

The English Chartists, an early working-class movement.
The American Agrarian Reformers, who want to put land in the hands of the state.
The French Social-Democrats, who oppose the Bourgeoisie. (However, the Communists don’t wholeheartedly agree with all the details of the Revolution.)
The Swiss Radicals, who are anti-clerical. (However, some of their members are Bourgeoisie.)
The Polish group that supports agrarian revolution as the main method for national emancipation and instigated the 1846 Cracow insurrection.
The German Bourgeoisie as it revolts against the monarchy, petty bourgeoisie, and feudal squirearchy. However, once the German Bourgeoisie is established, the Communists will support the emerging Proletariat.

Exercise: Reflect on Communism

Communism supports the working class and aims to abolish private property.

Do you think the world can still be organized into two classes, Proletariat or Bourgeoisie, or the oppressors and the oppressed? Why or why not?
What are the pros of the Communist viewpoint? What are the cons?
Are there situations in which the pros outweigh the cons? Why or why not?
Do you think any of the criticisms of Communism are valid? Why or why not?
How do Communist principles address the problems of modern-day capitalism, such as wealth inequality and extreme poverty? If you don't think Communism can address modern-day problems, what are some alternative ways to address them?