THE MANIFESTO OF COMMUNIST PARTY (PRÉCIS OF PART 1)

Author: Jamal Nasir Baloch

The Communist Manifesto wrote by Karl Marx and Frederick Engle’s in 1848. In the first part of The Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels highlighted the historical development of the Bourgeois and the ensuing industrialised revolution.

Marx proclaimed that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle” . In The Communist Manifesto, Marx argued that the growth of the industrialised revolution give rise to ‘two’ competing classes, the Bourgeois (ruling class) and the Proletarians (working class) directly opposing each other.

Marx highlighted that throughout history societies are divided into various orders. The French revolution caused the fall of the feudal system which give rise to the modern Bourgeois. The rise of Bourgeois led to the establishment of two new classes and a new social order in which new forms of oppression and struggle were created.

Marx noted that the discovery of America and free trade between colonies allowed the Bourgeois to become the dominant class with its most important development being the industrialised revolution. The new economic system helped the Bourgeois to take control of politics with the modern states viewed as just committee with which to manage the affairs of a given territory. Marx further tried to explain the effect of new economic system on human morality and the relationship between oppressor and oppressed which “left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous cash payment”. The value of social norms has been replaced by the value of profit in this new class system, the rise of capitalism. The middle class has not escaped the societal changes that the Bourgeois had instrumented, as Marx argues they are but reduced to ‘paid labourers’.

Marx outlined free trade and open markets enabled the Bourgeois  to control the economy of the nation states where the states won’t were no longer be self-sufficient but dependent on the investments of the Bourgeois capital.

Marx argued that the industrialized revolution reduced the Proletarians to an instrument of human labour. Even though the industrialized revolution helped the advancement of the Bourgeois and reduced society to the pursuit of profit, the Proletarians are still essential to the new economic system, however, only as long as they are able to generate capital. Marx stated that the development of the industries increased the number of the wage labours and they represented a large majority of population belong from previous classes under the feudal system. The use of machines vanish the dissimilarities of labourers. The new system that the Bourgeois had instrumented forced every ‘class’ to become ‘paid labourers’, regardless their skills and knowledge.

He further outlined that the Proletarians are further exploited through market fluctuation. Marx highlighted that as the wealth of the Bourgeois increased, hostilities between the two classes are pushed to the surface. The Proletarians will realize their power and start organising them self in the Trade Unions, labour societies and political parties to fight against their oppression by the Bourgeois.

In conclusion, Marx outlined that throughout history, opposition of classes has always ended in a revolutionary change in other words,victory for the Proletarians or in the common destruction of the both classes.