Karl Marx And Frederick Engels And The French Revolution

In the late 1700s, the French revolution occurred because the French aristocracy and monarchy had oppressed the Third Estate: the peasants and commoners that were not part of the nobility or clergy. These French commoners declared their natural and political rights and overthrew the oppressive system of nobility in order to promote equality and create a government that would be more representative of the people. About fifty years after the French Revolution, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels were commissioned to write the Communist Manifesto, which similarly detailed a way that an oppressed working class would overthrow the exploitative bourgeoisie in order to promote equality and create a better government. The ideal Communist government Marx …show more content…
In the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen” it states, “Education is needed by all. Society ought to favor with all its power the advancement of the public reason and to put education at the door of every citizen.” Education is not only for the upper ruling class, but by educating all citizens the whole society will improve. Each citizen will be better able to diagnose and solve the problems society has when they are educated, and education will promote social mobility. Marx and Engels similarly note that education can promote political change by describing that the “bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie.” The education of all people in a society is essential to progressing and the bourgeoisie must educate the proletariat in order to compete with other members of the bourgeoisie. In doing so, the proletariat is able to become more aware of the poor conditions the bourgeoisie has forced them into and that increases the restless spirit among them. Marx and Engels do not only view education as a way to achieve the revolution of the proletariat, but it is also necessary after the revolution. In listing the measures that will apply after communism has been established Marx and …show more content…
In the “What is the Third Estate?” Sieyes explains that a nation is “a body of associates, living under a common law, and represented by the same legislature.” Again, in the “Declaration of the Rights of Man”, the National Assembly, speaking as representatives for the French people, states “every citizen has a right to participate… through his representative.” After overthrowing the aristocracy, the French desire a type of representative government, like a republic, to be the new system of government. The system of government that Marx and Engels posit will form after the revolution of the proletariat is a strong central “state” that will control credit, communication, transport, and the instruments of production. Marx and Engels make no indication that the state will be representative of the people, but instead will attempt to establish equality by redistribution. The people will not participate in the central government as well, it will only be whoever makes up the state that will decide how the nation is