Analysis Of The Communist Manifesto By Karl Marx

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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 and proletarians.
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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 on the middle class. Worker reforms were also taking place in Prussia. Marx, also has a solution to the harsh conditions the proletarians have to endure to support the bourgeoisie 's lavish lifestyles. They are seen as means of production and nothing more. The problem is free trade, Marx states, “In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation” (68). The Prussians and those in other countries similarly participating in revolutions understand and relate to what Marx is discussing, however, reaching the point of complete communism and not staying at socialism is a major challenge. Another country that faced a revolution is the one that took place in Austria that demanded an increase in civil liberties and universal suffrage. Not surprisingly, according to Marx, communism can solve (or at least lessen) the issues regarding these two core beliefs. Engels describes the gradual changes, he writes, “ By limiting private property in such a way that it gradually prepares the way for its transformation into social property, e.g., by progressive taxation, limitation of the rights of inheritance in favour of state...By employing workers in nationals workshops and factories and on national estates. By education all children at the expense of the state (TCM, 103). If countries like Austria desires political rights, Engles and Marx believe that these fundamental changes in society would create the society people crave. Unfortunately Austria’s revolt was unsuccessful because the aristocracy. The middle class knows that if they allow their working class counterparts civil rights or complete and universal suffrage, they will lose power and their lives would be transformed. According to Marx, they yearn for the exploitation because they see themselves as supreme beings. Securing education for children will also allow them to make the choices that would benefit society, not just oneself that capitalism teaches. Communism takes into account everyone’s perspective and interests, Marx writes, “In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end” (TCM, 82). Essentially, barriers between classes and genders will be erased allowing a more equal and just society. Removing the oppressive rulers would have improved the situations, but the revolutionaries could not make much happen. Finally, the country that inspired all of these revolutions and others, France. A country frustrated with the lack of changes being done for decades, were successful initially in the 1789 French Revolution, but failed in 1848; Marx believes that communism and socialism can solve the issues plaguing

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