Chapter 1 of The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels sets forth
the theoretical paradigm of dialectical materialism, the thought the history progresses through class struggle over the means of production (see also Marx's materialist theory of history or our definition of dialectical materialism). The Manifesto proclaims and demonstrates that
societies were always divided into ruling and ruled classes. After an
historical account of the feudalist system of production the text moves on to
discuss capitalism and the relationship between the Bourgeois and proletariat. The chapter analyses the way the bourgeois
came to rule over the means of production and exploit the proletarian and how capitalism
came to be the dominant mode of production. Marx and Engels argue that capitalism relies
on the accumulation of capital in private hands through the concept of
hired labor that allows for the exploitation of workers. Marx and Engels
confess in their Communist Manifesto that this mode of class division brought
about the greatest period of growth in human history but it is not everlasting
and will come to its historic end.
The important function of chapter 1 of the Communist Manifesto is
that the stage is set for the next historical revolution, the next stage of the
dialectics. Marx and Engels hold that the Proletariat will eventually overthrow
the bourgeois and lead European society into the next phase of history which
will also be the last one since it would be a classless society in which there
is not conflict. Despite being a Manifesto, a call for action of sorts, Marx
and Engels do not intend that their analysis be understood a something which
should happen but rather as something that will inevitably happen since that is
the direction in which the mechanisms of history are directed at: communism.
This is why the famous opening of the Communist
Manifesto reads: "A
spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism", and
although all the old powers join hands in fending it off, they will not
succeed.
An Extended Summary of The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels (chapter 2, chapters 3 and 4)
An Extended Summary of The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels (chapter 2, chapters 3 and 4)
