Perspective

The manifesto was a commissioned piece; members of the Communist League sponsored Marx and Engels to develop the party's political platform into a cohesive and cogent statement of purpose. The end result was a scholarly but conversational brief manifesto that was to become one of history's most-important political statements. Marx and Engels were uniquely suited to perform the task of writing. They were long involved with Communist and other left-wing popular political movements. They were educated, intelligent, and introspective and—significantly—they had a well-developed and intelligible political philosophy aimed at righting the societal ills of the time. Their analysis of history in terms of the class struggle was distinctively Germanic and their interpretation of the social paradigm common throughout Europe was essentially correct.

The document was commissioned at a time of political foment and social unrest in many European countries. The Communist League, the sponsoring...