jussi reviewed The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
Historically fascinating
4 stars
Interesting read
Paperback, 84 pages
German language
Published July 16, 1975 by Verlag für fremdsprachige Literatur.
Das Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, auch Das Kommunistische Manifest genannt, ist ein programmatischer Text aus dem Jahr 1848, in dem Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels große Teile der später als „Marxismus“ bezeichneten Weltanschauung entwickelten.
Interesting read
I think it's pretty good. It's pretty polemical and lays out the political goals of communists, it doesn't really get into Marxist philosophy and the methods in which Marx comes to his conclusions though. I'd probably recommend "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific" as a better introduction to Marxism.
The manifesto is mostly just interesting as a historical piece for me, especially in terms of leftist history. Ideologically it's still pretty interesting to read, however some parts of it have naturally become a bit outdated which has even been acknowledged by Marx and Engels some 25 years later.
The edition of the manifesto I read even includes multiple prefaces by Engels throughout the years which further gave an amazing insight into history and what they felt and thought at the time. Additionally the book also included Engel's The Principles of Communism which practically functioned as an FAQ to fully illustrate what exactly Communism is and it stands for.