Tells you everythin you will and might need to know about the 19th century.
In the first half of the 19th century the processes known as Industrialization and Urbanization started to transform Europe. It affected and changed every aspect of life of every citizen of every European nation. The notorious results of these changes were the horrible living and working conditions of the working class, who made up the majority of the society. Great Britain was involved most profoundly in this Industrial Revolution as it led the way in the development of railroads and factories. We find a lot of documents from that time period describing working conditions in Britain during that era. As a response to those changes created by Industrial Revolution many sought reforms to confront those social problems. Karl Marx was one of those reformers proposing and arguing for the reforms in his Communist Manifesto. There are a number of direct correlations between the descriptions of working conditions in 19th century Britain and Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto.
While reading one of the many articles describing working conditions in Britain during the Industrial Revolution I noticed that it has a very close links to the work of Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto. The things that Marx talked about in general in his work are reflected as a specific case in that article. The article I am talking about is Leeds Woolen Workers Petition, 1786. There are a lot more articles such as this one that are associated with the Communist Manifesto just as strong. But for now I want to stop my attention on this one in particular and analyze it at first to show what exact correlations it has with the work of Karl Marx. The Leeds Woolen Workers Petition was an article written as a complaint about the effects of the Industrialization on the previously well-paid skilled workers. In particular it talks about the employment of the machines and the effects it had on those workers. They complain how this new instruments of production will replace workers and leave "eight thousand hands deprived of the opportunity of getting a livelihood" . According to Marx: "The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society." As we can see revolutionazing the production was distinguishing trait of the bourgeois and of the Industrial Revolution, that had a devastating effect on the working class as they were replaced and pushed into powerty by the machines and new methods of production. The workers are asking for the self interest to be laid aside and appealing to the "sensible part of mankind, who are not biased by interest" to pay attention to their petition. But as we read in Communist Manifesto: "The bourgeoisie left no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment." It has drowned out the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation." Just like in Leeds Woolen Workers Petition we saw that Merchants were not really concerned about the workers when they threw thousands out of employ, but were rather concerned with their own self-interest when they replaced those workers with the new machines. Another interesting thing I noticed in this article is how the workers are concerned about the injury to the Cloth that the machines cause. Marx elaborates on this: "Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labor, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman." In Leeds Woolen Workers Petition petitioners "direct their attacks not against the bourgeois condition of production, but against the instruments of production themselves;", in other words machines. This last thought is taken directly from the Communist Manifesto and serve as a bright example of the correlation between the two articles.
Another article serves as an example of a struggle between two classes described by Marx as a struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat. The Peterloo Massacre describes the events on August 16th, 1819 when trouble arose between a crowd gathered for a mass meeting by the Manchester radicals and the Lancashire militia. As a result three to four hundred people were injured, several killed and few imprisoned including the main speaker Henry Hunt. In his Communist Manifesto Marx talks about the "veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat." What he means is that these types of riots massacres should result in the revolution, which in its turn will result in the victory of the working class over the bourgeoisie.
Friederich Engels: Industrial Manchester, 1844 describes the living conditions of the working class in Manchester. In his Communist Manifesto Karl Marx writes: "It [bourgeoisie] has agglomerated population, centralized the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands." No wonder that as a result we have description of Industrial Manchester by Engels such as: "Everywhere heaps of debris, refuse, and offal; standing pools for gutters, and a stench which alone would make it impossible for a human being in any degree civilized to live in such a district." These unsanitary conditions resulted in a widespread of epidemic diseases such as scrofula, diphtheria, and cholera. Living in these unhealthy conditions receiving low wages and working long hours a working people were nothing more than the "instruments of labor, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex." A problem of the Child Labor is inderectly described in Dickens: Hard Times (Chapter 2) but does not have a specific reference in Marx's Communist Manifesto.
After analyzing readings I have talked about it becomes evident that there are some close correlations between the descriptions of the working conditions of the 19th century Britain in those readings and Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto
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