The Communist Manifesto

Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818 - 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist and socialist revolutionary. Born in Trier, Germany, Marx studied law and philosophy at university. He married Jenny von Westphalen in 1843. Due to his political publications, Marx became stateless and lived in exile with his wife and children in London for decades, where he continued to develop his thought in collaboration with German thinker Friedrich Engels and publish his writings, researching in the reading room of the British Museum. His best-known titles are the 1848 pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto, and the three-volume Das Kapital. His political and philosophical thought had enormous influence on subsequent intellectual, economic and political history, and his name has been used as an adjective, a noun and a school of social theory. Marx's critical theories about society, economics and politics - collectively understood as Marxism - hold that human societies develop through class struggle. In capitalism, this manifests itself in the conflict between the ruling classes (known as the bourgeoisie) that control the means of production and the working classes (known as the proletariat) that enable these means by selling their labour power in return for wages.[13] Employing a critical approach known as historical materialism, Marx predicted that, like previous socio-economic systems, capitalism produced internal tensions which would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system known as socialism. For Marx, class antagonisms under capitalism, owing in part to its instability and crisis-prone nature, would eventuate the working class' development of class consciousness, leading to their conquest of political power and eventually the establishment of a classless, communist society constituted by a free association of producers. Marx actively pressed for its implementation, arguing that the working class should carry out organised revolutionary action to topple capitalism and bring about socio-economic emancipation.

Descriere de la o altă ediție sau format:
The Communist Manifesto is one of the most influential pieces of political propaganda ever written. It is a summary of the whole Marxist vision of history and is the foundation document of the Marxist movement.Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were aged 29 and 27 respectively when The Communist Manifesto was published on the eve of the 1848 revolutions. The authors had been close collaborators since 1844, and the Manifesto is a condensed and incisive account of the world-view they had evolved during their hectic intellectual and political involvement of the previous few years.This new edition is critically and textually up to date, and includes the Prefaces written by Marx and Engels subsequent to the 1848 edition. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

An excellent and scholarly edition with a very useful introduction and notes - very accessible and informative for students with little to no background knowledge. / Rebecca Braun, Lancaster University

Introduction by Gareth Stedman Jones

Acknowledgments

Part I: Introduction 1. Preface 2. The Reception of the Manifesto 3. The "Spectre of Communism" 4. The Communist League 5. Engels' Contribution 6. Marx's Contribution: Prologue 7. The Young Hegelians (i) Hegel and Hegelianism (ii) The Battle over Christianity and the Emergence of the Young Hegelians 8. From Republicanism to Communism 9. Political Economy and "The True Natural History of Man" 10. The Impact of Stirner 11. Communism (i) The Contribution of Adam Smith (ii) The History of Law and Property (iii) The Contemporary Discussion of Communism 12. Conclusion 13. A Guide to Further Reading Part II: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: The Communist Manifesto A Note on the Text Preface to the German Edition of 1872 Preface to the Russian Edition of 1882 Preface to the German Edition of 1883 Preface to the English Edition of 1888 Preface to the German Edition of 1890 Preface to the Polish Edition of 1892 Preface to the Italian Edition of 1893 The Manifesto of the Communist Party 1. Bourgois and Proletarians 2. Proletarians and Communists 3. Socialist and Communist Literature I. Reactionary Socialism a. Feudal Socialism b. Petty-Bourgeois Socialism c. German, or "True," Socialism II. Conservative, or Bourgeois, Socialism III. Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism 4. Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties

Notes Index