Communist Manifesto The Communist Manifesto was written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. When it was published in 1848 it had little influence, but later became one of the most read documents in the world. It is within the Manifesto that we can see the ideas that shaped history. These ideas were new and different. The three main ideas from it that i will discuss are: The struggles of class, The abolishment of private property and Alienation. -Struggle with Class "The history of all hitherto societies has been the history of class struggles", this is the famous opening to Marx's Communist Manifesto. He goes on to describe the past and existing classes of society and the system of hierarchy. A system of higher and lower classes has always existed. “In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations” (Manifesto, 1848). In the Communist manifesto, Marx discusses the class type of his time, bourgeois and proletariat. The bourgeois were the higher class who exploited the proletariats. They constantly strived to expand their power and wealth in society. The proletariat had no …show more content…
He felt previous revolutions, e.g. The revolution that swept Europe in 1848 had only substituted one tyrant for another.And as stated in the Communist Manifesto, “The modern bourgeois society has not done away with the struggle of classes, it has formed new classes and new struggles in place of old ones”. (Manifesto, 1848). Marx however felt a complete change was in order. He was in favour of having elections and votes for power, whereas the bourgeois only took power for themselves. (Manifesto, Study guide, 2006). Marx's idea of a revolution can be seen as extreme and demanding but something this extreme and demanding was needed in order to change