The Communist Manifesto

Manifesto of the Communist Party (German: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), often referred to as The Communist Manifesto, was first published on February 21, 1848, and is one of the world's most influential political manuscripts. Commissioned by the Communist League and written by communist theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, it laid out the League's purposes and program. It presents an analytical approach to the class struggle (historical and present) and the problems of capitalism, rather than a prediction of communism's potential future forms.

Authorship
Although the names of both Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx appear on the title page alongside the "persistent assumption of joint-authorship", Engels, in the preface introduction to the 1883 German edition of the Manifesto, said that the Manifesto was "essentially Marx's work" and that "the basic thought... belongs solely and exclusively to Marx."

There is evidence to suggest that Engels composed an earlier draft statement for a manifesto, which was then used as the basis for this later published document, the direct authorship of which can be attributed primarily to Marx. It is claimed in the text itself to have been sketched by a group of Communists from various countries that gathered together in London.

The Communist Manifesto was first published (in German) in London by a group of German political refugees in 1848. It was also serialised at around the same time in a German-language London newspaper, the Deutsche Londoner Zeitung. The first English translation was produced by Helen Macfarlane in 1850. The Manifesto went through a number of editions from 1872 to 1890; notable new prefaces were written by Marx and Engels for the 1872 German edition, the 1882 Russian edition, the 1883 French edition, and the 1888 English edition. This edition, translated by Samuel Moore with the assistance of Engels, has been the most commonly used English text since.

More...

The Bloody History of Communism Part 1

Communist Party U.S.A. in Solidarity with Occupy Chicago

The Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto, originally titled Manifesto of the Communist Party (German: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), was first published on February 21, 1848. Commissioned by the Communist League and written by communist theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, it presented the League's objectives and plan of action. It presents an expository approach to the class struggle and the problems of capitalism, rather than a vaticination of Communism's potential future contrivances.

Although the names of both Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx appear on the title page alongside the "persistent assumption of joint-authorship", Engels, in the preface introduction to the 1883 German edition of the Manifesto, said that the Manifesto was "essentially Marx's work" and that "the basic thought... belongs solely and exclusively to Marx."

There is evidence to suggest that Engels composed an earlier draft statement for a manifesto, which was then used as the basis for this later published document, the direct authorship of which can be attributed primarily to Marx. It is claimed in the text itself to have been sketched by a group of Communists from various countries that gathered together in London.

More...
Plus:

The Bloody History of Communism (Part 1 of 14)
Monster: A portrait of Stalin in Blood
Barack Obama & Marxism

Socialism

Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods, and a society characterized by equal opportunities for all individuals with a fair or egalitarian method of compensation. Modern socialism originated in the late nineteenth-century working class political movement and the intellectual movement of that period which criticized the effects of industrialization and private ownership on society. Karl Marx posited that socialism would be achieved via class struggle and a proletarian revolution and would represent the transitional stage between capitalism and communism.

The first socialists predicted a world improved by harnessing technology and combining it with better social organization, and many modern socialists share this belief , although modern socialists have a bigger emphasis on egalitarianism whereas traditional socialists favored meritocracy. Socialists mainly share the belief that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth among a small segment of society that controls capital, creates an unequal society and does not provide equal opportunities for everyone in society to attain such status. Therefore socialists advocate the creation of a society in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly based on the amount of work expended,although there is considerable disagreement among socialists over how, and to what extent this could be achieved.

More...

Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a German atheistic philosopher, political economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, communist and revolutionary, whose ideas are credited as the foundation of modern communism. Marx summarized his approach in the first line of the first chapter of The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848:

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

Marx argued that capitalism, like previous socioeconomic systems, will inevitably produce internal tensions which will lead to its destruction. Just as capitalism replaced feudalism, he believed socialism will, in its turn, replace capitalism, and lead to a stateless, classless society called pure communism. This would emerge after a transitional period called the "dictatorship of the proletariat": a period sometimes referred to as the "workers state" or "workers' democracy."

See, for example, Marx's comments in section one of The Communist Manifesto on feudalism, capitalism, and the role internal social contradictions play in the historical process:

"We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged...the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder. Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class. A similar movement is going on before our own eyes.... The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property."

More...