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Description
The Manifesto of the Communist Party is an epochal document that, unlike many others, only gains relevance as time goes on. If it was earth-shattering in 1848, today in 2023 it is universe-shattering. Why is this so? Because it is the first popular, mass document of its kind which expounds the materialist theory of development, the scientific analysis of the motion of modern society. Marx and Engels were not the first to discover class struggle, indeed Marx has said quite openly that this was recognized even by many bourgeois theoreticians as a weapon in their struggle against feudal-monarchical anachronisms in their revolutionary period. What they were the first in, however, was to put this on a scientific basis, form an outlook based on studying the material life of society, principally the production of means of production and who controls them, and elaborate why such a situation is inherent in exploitative stages of human development. What they were also the first to do was to state that class struggle in capitalist society leads to communism by virtue of the division of productive life into two ever more concentrated classes, bourgeoisie and proletariat, and by seeing the social productive forces created by this society to be the road to such a communist society. This is the science that dominates Chapter I: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat and is the guiding star through which the relations between the communists and working class, as well as various opportunist trends owing to then-prevailing social conditions, are seen. Also included are seven different prefaces by Marx and Engels to the Manifesto, and an introduction written on a previous anniversary of the Manifesto by the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), The Proletarian Front Appears in All Its Determination and Splendour!