The Class Struggle In The Communist Manifesto By Karl Marx

Karl Marx was born in Prussia in 1818. Later in his life he became a newspaper editor and his writings ended up getting him expelled by the Prussian authorities for its radicalism and atheism (Perry 195). He then met Fredrich Engels and together they produced The Communist Manifesto in 1848, for the Communist League. This piece of writing basically laid out Marx’s theory of history in short form (Coffin 623). The Communist Manifesto is mainly revolved around how society was split up into two sides, the Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. I do believe that the ideas of the Communist Manifesto did indeed look educated on paper but due to the lessons of history communism is doomed to fail in the past, present, and future. Communism did not prevail in many different countries, two of them being Berlin and the Soviet Union.

With his co-author Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx produced one of his most famous works, The Communist Manifesto. The authors begin with the famous line, “history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle” (Marx and Engels 1848: 2). It emphasizes that the bourgeoisie is a powerful class, which will stop at nothing and force the adoption of a capitalist means of production upon anyone it meets. Marx describes how this will force society to split into two classes. The Manifesto of the Communist Party also emphasizes the theory of historical materialism. Historical materialism happens when

"We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange." (Marx, 424). In this sense, the bourgeoisie have the ability to change since they themselves are products of revolutions. In other terms, the bourgeoisie are an always changing class that has found ways to stay in power through political hegemony over the proletariat class. Marx conjures the proper preconditions for a successful rebellion but again contradicts himself through his own ideologies. Although Marx believes that capitalism will be responsible for the proletariat rebellion it is the same system that will estrange man from each other and thus prevent a successful revolt.

The Manifesto begins with Marx quoting, "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles". Marx describes these classes as two entities; The bourgeoisie as the rich capitalists, and the proletariats, who were the working class.

Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto was most appealing to and revolutionary for the industrial workers of 1848 (and those to come after that time). The call for unification of the proletariat and abolishment of the Bourgeoisie was an urgent one during a time of rapid progress in all aspects of industrial life. This urgency of The Communist Manifesto and the desire for change of political ideologies (to match the exponential rate of progress of wealth and industry) created not only a spate of revolutions, but a long lasting change in political ideas for industrialized European nations. The Communist Manifesto created a sense of unity and class awareness throughout the

The end of 19th century, Western Society was changing physically, philosophically, economically, and politically. It was an influential and critical time in that the Industrial Revolution created a new class. Many contemporary observers realized the dramatic changes in society. Among these were Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels who observed the conditions of the working man, or the proletariat, and saw a change in how goods and wealth were distributed. In their Communist Manifesto, they described their observations of the inequalities between the emerging wealthy middle class and the proletariat as well as the condition of the proletariat. They argued that the proletariat was

Marxism tries to explain things by look at the world differently, the purpose is to look at the existence of a world or of forces beyond the natural world around us, and the society we live in. It looks for concrete, scientific, logical explanations of the world. The Marxist theory developed when Karl Marx and his friend Frederich Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto in 1848, focuses on class in societies, Marxism attempts to change the world while other philosophies look to merely understand it. Marx wanted to better understand how so many people could be in poverty in a world where there is so much wealth. His answer was simple: capitalism.

     The Communist Manifesto was written by two world renowned philosophers, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. This book was produced in an era of great suffering and anguish of all workers in a socially distressed system. In a time when revolutions were spreading through Europe like wildfire, Marx organized his thoughts and views to produce the critical pamphlet “The Communist Manifesto”. Marx’s scrutiny illustrates his belief that unless change is to occur the constant outcome will repeatedly remain uniform. This is a novel that displays the differentiation between the Bourgeois and the Proletariat. Class relationships are defined by an era's means of production. Marx’s

" They both believed the proletariat would change this revolution. A revolution is an open measurement of strength between social forces in a struggle for power. Marx strongly believed this could happen if only all proletarians would unite. Engels believed that any small businessman who could not compete with the rich people will join the

In their materialist reading of history, Marx and Engels proclaim that with the necessity for survival driving history/ and man to the development of social interaction and thus the establishment of the economy, staged progressions will come forth as a result. To Marx the economy will ultimately be responsible for all aspects of society. It will be from the development, and circumstance stemming forth from such development of the economy, that the stages of history will progress. And as such to Marx and Engels Capitalism will be a stopping point upon this staged progression route of history. In this way it is concluded that Capitalism is a mode of production stemming from the economy [means and relations of production], which in itself is a result of the history of materialism [the innate struggle for survival and the social relations built upon this struggle].

The Manifesto of the Communist Party discusses the topic about the proletarian revolution. The author Marx and Engels claim that the struggle in today’s world is between two great social classes, the “bourgeoisie”, the capitalists who own the means of production and the “proletariat”, the workers employed by the bourgeoisie (p.5). They believe that the proletariat will ultimately overthrow the bourgeoisie through revolution and reach a classless society (p.9, p.13). To achieve this goal, the communists who pursue the common interests of all proletarians need to make the proletariat the ruling class, then abolish the private property and centralize all production (p.13). Personally, I think that Marx and Engels are weak for the argument that

Manifesto deals with "Bourgeois and Proletarians", where he is asserting that bourgeois is constantly trying to maximize its profit by exploiting proletarians and their manual labour. Marx and Engels claim “The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle”. At this point it is almost certain, why IR influenced Marx as much as he came up with idea of socialism and yet, of communism. Secondarily, the (FR) in France from 1789 to 1799 was another radical and political event in the worldwide history. Marx and Engels based their analysis of the FR, as a series of class struggle. Both concluded, that in society of material inequality it is impossible to reach an actual freedom, considering the slogans of IR “Liberty, Equality and Fraternality”, if the society is divided into exploiters and exploited, meaning Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. This observation was vital to Marx´s concept.

In August of 1844, 26-year-old Karl Marx and 23-year-old Friedrich Engels met in Paris for an aperitif at the Café de la Regence – an old meeting place of Voltaire and Diderot. Their ensuing discourse lasted ten intense days and resulted in a lifelong friendship. This transformative relationship is evident in the publishing of The Communist Manifesto in 1848, during a period of widespread European revolution. Although Marx and Engels agreed that revolution was justified to create a communist society, their difference of opinion on how that revolution should occur is compelling. Marx believed that even if the revolution occurred in just one factory district, as with the 1844 weavers’ revolt in Silesia, it would start a chain reaction that would threaten the entire state. Conversely, while observing the nineteenth-century revolutions such as the Paris Commune, Engels’ promulgated revolution through more controversial guerilla warfare tactics. From 1917 to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989, the writings of Marx and Engels inspired several violent uprisings throughout Europe and Asia, seeking to create a “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Since Marx deferred to Engels on military matters in their literary works, the question becomes “Did Engels influence over Marx lead to the adulterated twentieth-century version of communism in countries such as North Korea, Vietnam and Soviet Union?”

The Communist Manifesto is profoundly marked by the history of class struggle and social inequality throughout history. In fact Marx suggests that history is in essence merely a timeline of class struggle, unchanging apart from the alteration in mode of production. The document is the story of the conflict between the Proletariat and the Bourgeois, the oppressed and the oppressor, the haves and the have nots, etc? However, this is not a new idea and Marx is really not all that radical. In his Politics, Aristotle wrote, ?Those who have too much of the goods of fortune, strength, wealth, friends and the like, are neither willing nor able to submit to authority?On the other hand,

Karl Marx believed that struggle or conflict among classes was an inevitable feature of capitalism based on the argument that various groups in a society or social classes perpetually fight and compete for resources and power, hence the groups remains polarized against each other. The Karl Marx’s conflict theory views behavior from the perspective of conflict or tension among two or more groups. The conflict does not necessarily translate to violence but rather takes the form of struggle within political negotiations, business, philosophical ideologies or personal attitudes. A critical analysis of Karl Marx conflict theory’s point of view reveals that the conflict of social classes is the major aspect of societal conflict, and is mostly propagated by the differences in economic statuses and inequalities in distribution.