The Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto contains four chapters. The first chapter is an analysis of modern class struggle, the second chapter is on the history of communism and its importance for the working class, the third chapter is about the differences between their ideas and other contemporary ideas of socialism and communism, and the fourth chapter makes a call for action for workers to unite and overthrow the capitalist system.

source: Wikipedia

The first chapter of the Manifesto analyses the history of class struggle. It claims that throughout history, human societies have been divided between the oppressor and the oppressed. In the modern capitalist society, the citizens have been divided into the bourgeoisie (the wealthy capitalist) who are few in number and the proletariats (the working class) who are the majority of the population. 

It gives a history of the bourgeoisie society. It began with a revolution of the modes of production and exchange of goods. As demands of the people kept increasing, formal modes of production were not able to keep up with it. This led to the industrial revolution, where manufacturing was replaced with the modern industry and the manufacturers were replaced by the industrial owners or the capitalists. These capitalists played a very revolutionary role by overthrowing the European feudal lords. As a result, people were now free from being bound to their obligations to their superiors and an individual’s worth was now measured by exchange value and it created a free market economy. 

However it also gave rise to several other issues. Now, the rich capitalists would exploit the working class to earn profit for themselves and the working class only earned meagre wages from it. It also resulted in all creative occupations into wage labour professions, even previously honoured ones like artists and doctors. Also, now the capitalists had a lot of political influence and the politics of the state would be governed to serve their interests.

After discussing the rise of capitalism, he then turns his attention towards the working class. As per Marx, the proletarians have now become more of a commodity. Their work has lost all charm, and they are now just like machines in the capitalist system, working hard just to maximise production. He claims that the working class are now being exploited as slaves for the benefit of the capitalists. The workers would have to accept low wage jobs to earn a living and always had terrible working conditions.

In the second chapter, it is said that it would be the proletarians who would bring an end to capitalism through a revolution. As they grew in number, they began to understand the capitalist system better and would eventually fight back against it. The proletariat was the class in this system that would bring an end to capitalism by overthrowing the bourgeoisie and taking over the means of production, thus creating a classless society and collective share of property under the state. 

source: Wikipedia

The relationship between communism and the proletariat class is also discussed. He claimed that about 90% of the capitals are owned by the bourgeoisie minority. So any labour that the workers do is just to add to the wealth of the capitalists and not for their own benefit. Thus, in a communist society, ownership of private property would be done away with and hence, it would not be possible for the rich to exploit the workers to add to their wealth. This would lead to a relative equal distribution of wealth and the bourgeoisie would no longer have the social and political power that came along with enormous amounts of wealth. The manifesto also claims that nationalism is harmful to the greater purpose of communism. Nationalism divides people based on their nationality, whereas what communism needed was for the workers to be united together despite their differences. After this, the third chapter differentiates Marxist communism from other forms of communist and socialist movements that were emerging at that time.

The final chapter is a call to arms for the proletariat class to overthrow the bourgeoisie and to become the ruling class. They would turn production as a means of enriching the society instead of benefiting only a few individuals. They would also abolish the ownership of private capital and thus class antagonism.