England 1848

Synopsis

In February 1848 one of the world's most influential documents was published. The Communist Manifesto, coauthored by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, was a statement of the key principles of the Communist League. The league had been established in 1847 by scattered groups of German socialist exiles. In the atmosphere of revolutionary expectation in the late 1840s, the manifesto was intended as a call to arms. However, as copies were coming off the printing press in London, revolution erupted in Paris and soon spread to other major European cities. As a result, the manifesto appeared too late to influence the actions of those involved in the 1848 revolutions. With the eventual victory of reactionary forces and the dissolution of the Communist League, the manifesto seemed to be consigned to oblivion. However, the formation of the International Workingmen's Association in the 1860s and the Paris Commune...