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Article: The 'Communist Manifesto' after 150 years. (treatise on communism written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels)
- Article from:
- Monthly Review
- Article date:
- May 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Monthly Review Foundation, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Communist Manifesto is just that: a manifesto. It is not a long and comprehensive scholarly study but a public declaration of a political program, a short and dramatic statement of purpose and a call to arms, written at a time of political ferment, on the eve of what turned out to be the nearest thing the world had ever seen to international revolution.
Yet posterity has judged this political manifesto not just as a manifesto but as many other things. In the century and a half since its publication, it has been judged not only as a uniquely influential document in the theory and practice of revolutionary movements throughout the world, but also as a work of ...