How Did Industrial Revolution Influence The Reaction Between Marx And Engels?

The Communist Manifesto was originally published in 1848 as a reaction to the changing times of the Industrial Revolution. Written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, both of whom were German theorist, the Manifesto sought to clearly lay out the positions and goals of the Communist League. The short tract was translated into many languages to unite the many socialist movements of Europe. The composition has since become the defining work of Marx and Engels. Drastic changes in innovation and urbanization during the Industrial Revolution led Karl Marx and Frederick Engels to call for a radical reaction by the proletariat. They also made many predictions, including the continued pauperism of the proletariat, the vanishing of the middle class,

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the economy was dominated by skilled artisans who took great pride and identity in their work. After the rapid shift in production, those artisans were replaced by machines. Marx and Engels described the condition of the average worker, saying, “the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman” (16). In the Manifesto, workers are also described as slaves to several different entities. They are tied to their machines and work. The economic conditions did not leave much job mobility or choice. The options were either work in horrible condition in a job that required practically no skill or go without necessities. There was no option outside of the factory. Because of this, workers were not only the “slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State” but they were “daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the onlooker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself” (16). According to the communist position, the worker was worse off because of the innovation and use of