The Communist Manifesto is one of the most important texts even written. More than 170 years after it was first published, it remains a central text for those wanting to change the world. Written in the lead up to the 1848 revolutions, the Manifesto lays out Marx and Engels vision of working class self-emancipation. Marx recognised that the working class, through its own activity, could overthrow bourgeois society, abolish class relations and liberate all humanity. The Manifesto also lays out the core of ideas of Marx’s theory of history – that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
This session will explore the central ideas of the Communist Manifesto and how the debates that Marx and Engels were engaged in inform the politics we need today to challenge the system.