The Communist Manifesto
Published 1848
By Karl Marx and Frederick Engels
The Communist Manifesto represents the essential thinking of Communism’s ‘founding fathers’. It sees a world divided between two classes: the proletariat, or workers, who are exploited by the bourgeoisie, or capitalists. Class differences and the injustices related to them, can only be eliminated through violent revolution: “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution.” It ends with a call to revolution: “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!”