The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and the Communist Manifesto (Great Books in Philosophy) - Tapa blanda

Communism as a political movement attained global importance after the Bolsheviks toppled the Russian Czar in 1917. After that time the works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, especially the influential Communist Manifesto (1848), enjoyed an international audience. The world was to learn a new political vocabulary peppered with "socialism," "capitalism," "the working class," "the bourgeoisie," "labor theory of value," "alienation," "economic determinism," "dialectical materialism," and "historical materialism." Marx's economic analysis of history has been a powerful legacy, the effects of which continue to be felt world-wide.

Serving as the foundation for Marx's indictment of capitalism is his extraordinary work titled Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, written in 1844 but published nearly a century later. Here Marx offers his theory of human nature and an analysis of emerging capitalism's degenerative impact on man's sense of self and his creative potential. What is man's true nature? How did capitalism gain such a foothold on Western society? What is alienation and how does it threaten to undermine the proletariat?

These and other vital questions are addressed as the youthful Marx sets forth his first detailed assessment of the human condition.

KARL MARX was born in Trier, Prussia, on May 5, 1818, to an intellectual Jewish family. At seventeen he enrolled at the University of Bonn and a year later transferred to the University of Berlin where he became interested in the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel. In 1841, Marx obtained his doctorate in philosophy, having presented a thesis on post-Aristotelian Greek philosophy.

As a young graduate deeply involved in the radical Hegelian movement, Marx found it difficult to secure a teaching post in the autocratic environment of Prussian society. In 1842 he became editor of the Cologne newspaper Rheinische Zeitung, but his probing eco­nomic critiques prompted the government to close the publication, whereupon Marx left for France.

While in Paris, Marx quickly became involved with emigre Ger­man workers and French socialists, and soon he was persuaded to the communist point of view. His first expression of these views oc­curred in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, which remained unpublished until 1930. It was during this brief initial stay in France that Marx became associated with Friedrich Engels.

For his radical political activities, Marx was expelled from Paris toward the end of 1844. He moved, with Engels, to Brussels, where he was to remain for the next three years, except for occasional short trips to England. Here Marx wrote the manuscript for The German Ideology and the polemic The Poverty of Philosophy against idealistic socialism. Marx later joined the Communist League, a German workers group, for which he and Engels were to become the primary spokespersons. In 1847 Marx and Engels were asked to write a mani­festo for the league conference in London. This resulted in the creation of the Communist Manifesto, one of the most influential popular political documents ever written. Its publication coincided with a wave of revolutions in Europe in 1848.

Marx returned to Paris in 1848 but soon after left for Germany, where in Cologne he founded the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, a radical newspaper that attacked Prussian rule. As revolutionary fervor waned, the government suppressed his paper and Marx fled to England in 1849. For the next thirty-four years Marx remained in England ab­sorbed in his work. During this period he composed The Class Struggles in France (1848), The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1948), Grundrisse (1858), Theories of Surplus Value (1860), Das Kapital (Vol. 1, 1867), and The Civil War in France (1871). Karl Marx died in London on March 13, 1883.

FRIEDRICH ENGELS was born in Barmen, Prussia, on November 28, 1820. His father was a very wealthy textile manufacturer who owned cotton mills in both Germany and England. Engels met Karl Marx in Paris in 1844 and soon discovered that they shared similar socialist views. During Marx's lifetime, the two collaborated on a great many projects. After Marx's death, Engels completed the last two volumes of Das Kapital and continued to defend Marxist views.
In addition to Engels's coauthorship of the Communist Manifesto, he produced a substantial amount of independent work: Conditions of the Working Class in England (1845), Anti-Duehring (1878), and The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884). Friedrich Engels died in London on August 5, 1895.