The Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto

The manifesto begins by examining the history of divisions within society drawing parallels between the classes of Rome etc and those of today in which the lower classes are oppressed by those above them.

It then goes on to discuss the rise of the bourgeois, linking their rise to the discovery of new land and the rapid development of commerce and industry. Industrial production increased substantially and was ruled over by the bourgeois who profited greatly from each expansion both economically and politically and secured their place in the world.

The Bourgeois due to their continued advancement of industrial production and the need of expanding markets have been driven to spread around the world. With such practices the self sufficiency of nations becomes obsolete as all nations are linked in inter-dependency through trade and subsequent manufacture. Through such means the manifesto argues the bourgeois bring ‘even the most barbarian nations into civilisation.’  

On a national scale the country has become subservient to the towns which have expanded into great cities and interdependency is not only established between nations but between towns, cities and the country.

According to the manifesto the bourgeois having created a society with huge means of production and trade, loses control of it resulting in over-production, a collapse of trade and famine. The bourgeois eventually solve these problems but in doing so lay the foundations for an even bigger crisis to follow.

In this society the proletariat is treated as a commodity, only valuable if they can work and there is profit to be made from their hiring. 

Due to the extensive use of machinery in production as well as the division of labour the manifesto argues that the proletarians have lost all individuality and are now no longer a man but simply part of the machine doing a single monotonous job repeatedly. The manifesto states that the labourer will suffer decreased wages and more work if production becomes more efficient never rewarded for the part they play.

The labourer is treated like a slave turned soldier. The workers are effectively enslaved to the machines they work with and the officials they work under. The workplace is organised into a hierarchy of rank, the labourers overseen by a supervisor who are in turn watched by someone else going on until the very top of hierarchy at the top of the corporate structure.

The manifesto portrays the proletariat as having no divisions between age and gender as the workplace cares for neither and as being set upon on all sides by the bourgeois.

Because of such oppression the proletariat seeks to rise above it through various destructive acts which can be seen to have taken place during the industrial revolution in Britain where time honoured skills honed by years of practice are rendered obsolete by more efficient and cheaper machines.

However such limited revolution is incoherent and would only prove to be truly effective if the workers unite. Having done so they eliminate the monarchy and upper class not realising their victories play perfectly into the hands of the bourgeois.

However with industrialisation and the growth of cities comes a more concentrated mass of labourers who through concerted effort form unions to protect their wages. With advances in communication technologies unions are able to stay in contact with one another.

The proletarian movement is an independent movement of a large majority and in the interests of it. 

War breaks out and a revolution which overthrows the bourgeoisie occurs laying the foundations for the rule of proletariat.

Proletariats and Communists

According to the manifesto the Communists have no separate interests of the proletariat, they do not wish to control the development of the proletarian movement and are only distinguished from other working class parties by the fact they are the only party to call attention to all the interests of the proletariat and through the revolution the Communists were always there to represent the interests of the movement.

The Communists seek the formation of a proletariat class and the demise of the bourgeois.

The Communists show how history is progressing towards communism already.

The theory of the Communists can be simply stated as the ‘Abolition of private property.’

The manifesto explains how the communists wish to abolish all private property, that capital is a social power which does not free man to strive towards independence but shackles him to his work.

The manifesto assumes, probably quite rightly that the reader is horrified by this notion that the Communists wish to take away their private property including inheritance and land. To this end the manifesto explains how private property does not free a man but allows him to remain subject to the whim of the bourgeois.

The manifesto argues for the abolition of family, that the bourgeois family is based on private gain and thus will vanish with the abolition of capital.

The manifesto argues for the abolition of countries and thus nationality on the grounds that workers have no country and what is not owned cannot be lost.

Communism abolishes religion and morality and instead bases such notions on historical experience.

And thus the manifesto argues for the abolition of private property and the centralisation of all business and commerce, communication etc including banks, agriculture and trade.

‘If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class; if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.’

The manifesto asserts then that if the proletariat were to take this manifesto to heart, to act upon it and unite as a force against the bourgeoisie then they shall establish themselves as the dominant class in a classless society which in theory means all will be equal in status, wealth and life.