ABSTRACT
Early in February 1848, a few weeks before the overthrow of the monarchy in France, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels sent to the printer in London the German text of their just completed Manifesto of the Communist Party. Written as a platform for the Communist League, a largely German revolutionary organization, the Manifesto has become a classic statement of the scientific socialism of Marx and Engels. In it Marx and Engels sketched a theory of capitalism (which would later be more fully developed in Marx’s Capital); outlined their theory of historical materialism, which attempts to chart and explain the course of historical development; differentiated their own conception of socialism from the various alternative conceptions of socialism current in the mid-nineteenth century; and offered suggestions to guide the struggle for the emancipation of the working class.
