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Doc of the Day: The Communist Manifesto
02/21/10
The Communist Manifesto, one of the world’s most influential political documents, was published by German social scientists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels on February 21, 1848. Marx and Engels believed that the people of Europe only feared the “spectre of communism” because the political and economic system was poorly understood. The manifesto was their attempt to explain the major principles of communism and promote communist revolution as a path to equality for all people.
The Communist Manifesto argues that class struggle is a defining characteristic of capitalism and most other economic systems. Marx and Engels claim that conflict is inevitable between the ruling class that controls the means of production (known as the bourgeoisie) and the working class that provides the labor (known as the proletariat). They present a ten-point program to create an ideal, classless society by eliminating private property, placing the means of production under communal ownership, and centralizing economic planning and control for the benefit of all citizens. These ideas proved influential in the development of totalitarian Communist states in Russia, China, and a number of other countries.