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  • Published: 22 October 2014
  • ISBN: 9780141395906
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 452
  • RRP: $26.99

The Communist Manifesto



The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels's revolutionary summons to the working classes, changed the face of the twentieth century beyond recognition.

A rousing call to arms whose influence is still felt today, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' The Communist Manifesto is edited with an introduction by Gareth Stedman-Jones in Penguin Classics.
Marx and Engels's revolutionary summons to the working classes, The Communist Manifesto is one of the most important political theories ever formulated. After four years of collaboration, they produced an incisive account of their idea of Communism, in which they envisage a society without classes, private property or a state, arguing that the exploitation of industrial workers will eventually lead to a revolution in which Capitalism is overthrown. This vision provided the theoretical basis of political systems in Russia, China, Cuba and Eastern Europe, affecting the lives of millions. The Communist Manifesto still remains a landmark text: a work that continues to influence and provoke debate on capitalism and class.
Gareth Stedman Jones's extensive and scholarly introduction provides an unique assessment of the place of The Communist Manifesto in history, and its continuing relevance as a depiction of global capitalism. This edition reproduces Samuel Moore's translation of 1888 and contains a guide to further reading, notes and an index.
Karl Marx (1818-1883) was born in Trier, Germany and studied law at Bonn and Berlin. He settled in London, where he studied economics and wrote the first volume of his major work, Das Kapital (1867, with two further volumes in 1884 and 1894). He is buried in Highgate Cemetery, London.
Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), as well as his collaboration with Marx, was the author of The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845), based on personal observations and research.
If you enjoyed The Communist Manifesto, you might like Marx's Capital, also available in Penguin Classics.
'The words of the Communist Manifesto flare like the fiery writing on the wall above the crumbling bastions of capitalist society: socialism or barbarism!'
Rosa Luxemburg

  • Published: 22 October 2014
  • ISBN: 9780141395906
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 452
  • RRP: $26.99

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About the authors

Friedrich Engels

Born in Westphalia in 1820, Friedrich Engels was the son of a textile manufacturer. After military training in Berlin and already a convert to communism, Engels went to Manchester in 1842 to represent the family firm. A relationship with a mill-hand, Mary Bums, and friendship with local Owenites and Chartists helped to inspire his famous early work, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. Collaboration with Marx began in 1844 and in 1847 he composed the first drafts of the Manifesto. After playing an active part in the German revolutions, Engels returned to work in Manchester until 1870, when he moved to London. He not only helped Marx financially, but reinforced their shared position through his own expositions of the new theory. After Marx’s death, he prepared the unfinished volumes of Capital for publication. He died in London in 1895.

Karl Marx

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a philosopher, social scientist, historian, and revolutionary. He is without a doubt the most influential socialist thinker to emerge in the nineteenth century. Although he was largely ignored by scholars in his own lifetime, his social, economic, and political ideas gained rapid acceptance in the socialist movement after his death. In Paris, Marx developed his lifelong partnership with Friedrich Engels (1820–1895).