Articles

Marx, C. and Engels, F. (1848). The Communist Manifet. Review

0000-0001-6840-8967Aislen Osoria Labrada^{1  *} 

¹Universidad de Guantánamo. Cuba

The work contains an exposition in four chapters on the foundations of Marxism, the first programmatic document of scientific communism written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, published by Progress in Moscow in 1848.

In the analysis of the different chapters the authors ^{Marx and Engels (1848)}, make a critique of the bourgeois and petty bourgeois currents that were presented under the banner of socialism and the role of the proletariat in the development of that society. In addition to explaining the history of the workers' movement under the class struggle and the role played by communists with respect to the rest of the parties.

Its contents:

• Chapter I. Bourgeois and proletarians.

• Chapter II. Proletarians and Communists.

• Chapter III. Socialist and communist literature.

• Chapter IV. Attitude of the Communists to the different opposition parties.

Chapter I. Bourgeois and proletarians.

In Chapter I, the authors reveal the laws of social development such as: the law of unity and struggle of opposites, the law of negation of negation and the law of qualitative changes in quantitative and vice versa. They explain the history of class struggle from one regime to another from the emergence of the slave community, feudalism, capitalism, and the transition from these to socialism and utopian communism.

They expose in paragraph 12 the collapse of the capitalist regime where they state that the bourgeoisie has been the first to demonstrate that human activity can only exist on condition of incessantly revolutionizing the instruments of production and therefore the relations of production and with them the social relations, agglomerating the population, centralizing the means of production and concentrating property in the hands of a minority.

Chapter II. Proletarians and communists.

In the analysis of Chapter II, Marx and Engels addressed the historical role of the party of communists as part and vanguard detachment of the working class and its position regarding the family, property and homeland. They also explained the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat and put forward 10 economic measures to be taken after the conquest of power:

Expropriation of landed property and use of land rent for state expenditures.

1. Strong progressive taxation.

2. Abolition of the right of inheritance.

3. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and seditionists.

4. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State by means of a National Bank as the capital of the State and exclusive monopoly.

5. Centralization in the hands of the State of all means of transportation.

6. Multiplication of the manufacturing enterprises belonging to the State and of the instruments of production, clearing of uncultivable land and improvement of the land, according to a general plan.

7. Obligation to work for all; organization of industrial armies, particularly for agriculture.

8. Combination of agriculture and industry; measures aimed at the gradual disappearance of the difference between town and country.

9. Free public education of all children; abolition of their work in factories as it is practiced today; system of education combined with material production, and so on.

Chapter III. Socialist and communist literature.

On the other hand, in Chapter III the authors submit to deep criticism the bourgeois and petty bourgeois currents that presented themselves under the banner of socialism and try to remove the workers from any revolutionary movement, for this they explain that it would only be a transformation of the material conditions of life by administrative reforms, carried out on the basis of the same bourgeois production relations, which makes it a rhetoric, not a political change based on production relations where the proletarian acquires power.

In addition they expose the position of the proletariat before the systems of socialism and utopian communism, among them the suppression of the contrast between town and country, the abolition of private profit and wage labor, the proclamation of social harmony and the transformation of the state in a simple administration of production, in these theses only enunciate the elimination of class struggle antagonism and how socialism and communism was an inverse reason to historical development and referred to the utopia of these theses.

Chapter IV. Attitude of the communists to the different opposition parties.

In chapter IV the authors clearly address the tactics of the communists with respect to the rest of the opposition parties. Exposing the struggle to achieve the immediate objectives and interests of the working class, who express the defense of not only their interests but the interests of other movements paired with these, under the precepts of union in the struggle in order to achieve their goals, and enunciate how it is unworthy for a communist to hide his ideas and purposes.

They state that the objectives of the proletariat would be achieved only by violent methods to overthrow the existing social order, since the class in power can tremble before a Communist Revolution, only the proletarians lose their chains before it and instead gain a whole world.

Referencias Bibliográficas

Marx, C. y Engels, F. (1848). Manifiesto del Partido Comunista. Progreso. Moscú.

Received: January 25, 2022; Accepted: February 28, 2022

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