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Karl Marx And The Communist Manifesto Essay example

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Karl Marx And The Communist Manifesto

Because the first printing of the Communist Manifesto was limited and the circulation restricted, the Manifesto did not have much impact on society after it was written in 1848. This meant that there were not many people who had access to the document. It wasn’t until 1871, when the Paris Commune occurred, that the Communist Manifesto began to have a huge impact on the working class all over the world.[i]

The Paris Commune, which was the insurrection of Paris against the French government, resurrected the idea of communism that had been banished for good just a few years after the Manifesto’s publishing. It created widespread interest of the Manifesto among the …show more content…

In disassociating themselves from dictatorial Russian Communism, many of the democratic socialist parties also moved slowly away from Marxist theory. Communists, however, regarded Marxism as their official doctrine, and it is chiefly under their protection that it spread through the world, although its concepts of class struggle and exploitation have helped to determine other policies of welfare and development in many nations besides those sticking to Communism.[iv]

The Soviet, Chinese, and other Communist states were partly structured along Marxist classless lines, and while Communist leaders such as Vladimir Ilyich Lenin , Joseph Stalin , and Mao Zedong claimed Marxist beliefs for their assertions, they in fact greatly stretched the doctrine in attempting to form it to their own uses.[v]

Marxism has had a profound influence on Russia, China, and many countries in Africa such as Ethiopia, Angola, Kenya and Senegal. In recent years, however, Marx’s influence has weakened and will continue to weaken as a result of the decline of the Communist bloc in Eastern Europe.

The Communist Manifesto recognized the unstoppable wealth-creating power of capitalism, predicted that it would conquer the world, and warned that this inevitable globalization of national economies and cultures would have painful consequences.[vi] Marx and Engels would probably not want to be remembered for

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