1848 Summary and Analysis

The Manifesto of the Communist Party, informally the Communist Manifesto, was authored in 1847 by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels at the request of the Communist League. As established by latter writings of Engels, Marx provided the dominant philosophy and performed the bulk of the writing. The document so produced summarized the philosophical platform of the Communist party and was originally published in German in 1848.

This brief section was intended as the preface to the remainder of the document; it has historically been treated as part of the document, proper, and is nearly always presented as the initial segment of the text itself. The Communist movement had, by 1848, gained traction in Europe, but as usual, all pre-existing centers of power were focused on retaining their entrenched paradigm. The very word 'Communist' was being used indiscriminately and inaccurately as a pejorative by all political entities...