We have to begin with the Communist Manifesto. This has to be one of the most influential political publications of the modern age.
Written by Karl Marx, published in London on 21 February 1848, the Communist Manifesto proclaimed that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” and that the inevitable victory of the proletariat, or working class, would put an end to class society forever.
The Manifesto opens with the dramatic words, “A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of communism …” Ideas of socialism and the potential achievement of communism reverberated with increasing force during the 20th century, and by the 1950s almost half the world’s population lived under Marxist governments.
The Communist Manifesto ends by declaring: “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win” …
”Workers of the world, unite!”
