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Political Ideas: Marx and Engels, the Communist Manifesto

The Manifesto, its authors and its occasion

  • 3 things to know
  • A2 Unit 2

Overview

Opening sentence of the Manifesto, four sections of the Manifesto and happening in Europe in the year the Manifesto appeared.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Numbers

What was happening in Europe in the year the Manifesto appeared?

Key term

State the closing appeal of the Manifesto.

Numbers

Why is the Manifesto still read as a political text rather than as a historical document?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    When and for whom was The Communist Manifesto written?

    Model answer

    The Communist Manifesto was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and published in London in February 1848. Marx and Engels wrote it as the programme of the Communist League, which had commissioned a statement of its aims.

  2. 2

    State the opening sentence of the Manifesto.

    Model answer

    Marx and Engels open by declaring that a spectre is haunting Europe, the spectre of communism. The image is used to show that the powers of old Europe already treat communism as a force to be reckoned with.

  3. 3

    Why do the authors say they are publishing their views openly?

    Model answer

    Marx and Engels argue that communism is denounced everywhere as a menace while nobody has stated what communists actually want. The Manifesto is offered as an open declaration to replace the nursery tale of the spectre with a published programme.

  4. 4

    Name the four sections of the Manifesto.

    Model answer

    The four sections are Bourgeois and Proletarians, Proletarians and Communists, Socialist and Communist Literature, and Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties.

  5. 5

    What was happening in Europe in the year the Manifesto appeared?

    Model answer

    The Manifesto was published just as revolutions broke out across much of Europe in 1848, including in France, the German states, Italy and the Habsburg lands. The uprisings were suppressed within about a year, which shaped the later course of Marx's thinking.

  6. 6

    Who was Friedrich Engels and what did he contribute?

    Model answer

    Engels was the son of a German textile manufacturer with mills in Manchester, and he collaborated with Marx from 1844 onwards. Engels drafted an earlier catechism-style version of the programme and supplied first-hand knowledge of industrial conditions from his study of the working class in England.

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