The words communism and socialism in today’s world (and especially during the Cold War), had an extremely negative connotation, but for the working class living a century earlier, it seemed ideal. Karl Marx and his close friend Frederick Engels were both men beyond their years with radical ideas composed into their book The Communist Manifesto, which influenced revolutions across Europe throughout the Nineteenth century. Analyzing the key points Marx lays out and how they relate to the revolutions specifically taking place in France, Austria, and Prussia, provide a deeper understanding of The Communist Manifesto, that can provide a richer understanding of past events.
Throughout the entire piece, Marx stresses the tremendous gaps between the bourgeois …show more content…
The revolutions in 1848 inspired by the 1789-1799 French Revolution had issues that have direct relations to the gaps Marx is writing about. Granted, he and Engels published in 1848 in Prussia, where ironically a revolution to unify Germany and draft a new constitution to benefit the people was taking place. Marx believes the only solution is the abolition of private property, he writes, “Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage-labour...Capital is, therefore, not a personal, it is social power” (TCM, 78). Removing private property would allow those who are not wealthy to actively participate in political affairs. Workers are unable to move up in the social ladder because those with money own all the machinery and the property to build factories thus suffocating the bourgeois. Everything he proposes is to benefit the working class, the backbone of society; they are dependent
Throughout the entire piece, Marx stresses the tremendous gaps between the bourgeois …show more content…
The revolutions in 1848 inspired by the 1789-1799 French Revolution had issues that have direct relations to the gaps Marx is writing about. Granted, he and Engels published in 1848 in Prussia, where ironically a revolution to unify Germany and draft a new constitution to benefit the people was taking place. Marx believes the only solution is the abolition of private property, he writes, “Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage-labour...Capital is, therefore, not a personal, it is social power” (TCM, 78). Removing private property would allow those who are not wealthy to actively participate in political affairs. Workers are unable to move up in the social ladder because those with money own all the machinery and the property to build factories thus suffocating the bourgeois. Everything he proposes is to benefit the working class, the backbone of society; they are dependent