The Communist Manifesto Explained

“A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism!” These immortal words from the Communist Manifesto (and the title of this podcast!) herald the most important piece of political literature ever written. In our final episode of the season, we go through the Manifesto chapter-by-chapter, and explain the ongoing relevance of this amazing document.

In just a few dozen pages, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels describe the development and dynamics of capitalist society, explain the revolutionary role of communists, and issue a battlecry to the workers of the world. They draw the incredibly profound conclusion that the (written) history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles, a discovery that Engels later said had the same impact on political economy as Darwin’s theory of natural selection did on biology.

While the Manifesto was written in 1847, in reality it more accurately describes the world of today!

As Josh Holroyd, leading member of the Revolutionary Communist International, explains in our detailed chapter breakdown, the Manifesto predicts a world in which the entire population is made part of the capitalist machine, and periodically plunged into chaos by crises of overproduction. Marx and Engels fend off bourgeois slanders that communism crushes ‘freedom’ and would ‘make people lazy’. They point to the treacherous role of reformism, and teach communists how they should relate to the wider workers’ movement. And much more besides.

These theoretical insights have only gained in relevance in the 150 years since the Manifesto was published. And in practice, the ideas contained in this text have transformed the course of world history, inspiring victorious revolutions and continuing to haunt the nightmares of the capitalists and their agents.

We are delighted to end this season of the podcast with a deep dive into the foundational document of our movement. Workers of the world, unite!

📖 WORKS CITED 📖

Manifesto of the Communist Party, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (with prefaces):

🔗https://marxist.com/communist-manifesto-chapter-1.htm

Purchase a physical copy here as part of Classics of Marxism Volume One:

🔗https://wellred-books.com/classics-volume-one/

Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels:

🔗https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm

[Podcast] How Marx became a Marxist:

🔗https://marxist.com/podcast-how-marx-became-a-marxist.htm