The Manifesto of the Communist Party or Cummunist Manifesto can be seen as a summary of “Marxist” thought. By qualifying itself as communist, the Cummunist Manifesto seeks to differentiate itself from the rest of the socialism of the time, considered as utopian .
The text begins by expressing the importance of the class struggle, which opposes “oppressors and oppressed” . According to Marx, “Modern bourgeois society, raised on the ruins of feudal society, has not abolished class antagonisms. It only substituted new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle for those of the past”. But the modern class struggle is specific in the sense that it boils down to a simplified antagonism : bourgeois against proletarians .
The Cummunist Manifesto then notes the formation of a world market : “Driven by the need for ever new outlets, the bourgeoisie is invading the entire globe. It needs to establish itself everywhere, to exploit everywhere, to establish relationships everywhere. By exploiting the world market, the bourgeoisie gives a cosmopolitan character to the production and consumption of all countries. Much to the despair of the reactionaries, it has deprived industry of its national base ” . The existence of capitalism is an improvement over the previous period, but it must end when the proletariat ends the rule of the bourgeoisie.“All historical movements have so far been carried out by minorities or for the benefit of minorities. The proletarian movement is the spontaneous movement of the immense majority for the benefit of the immense majority ” .
Marx writes that “The essential condition for the existence and domination of the bourgeois class is the accumulation of wealth in the hands of individuals, the formation and growth of capital ; the condition for the existence of capital is wage labor . " Believing that " The workers have no country " , it is to end the reign of capital around the world.
The Cummunist Manifesto states that "The Communists do not form a distinct party opposed to the other workers' parties" . This can be explained as follows: “The theoretical conceptions of the Communists are not at all based on ideas, principles invented or discovered by this or that reformer of the world. They are only the general expression of the real conditions of an existing class struggle, of a historical movement which is taking place before our eyes ” .
In the text, Marx addresses the bourgeois directly, refuting each of their possible objections against communism: on the abolition of private property , of inheritance and of child labor , on liberty, on the family, on the progressive tax and free public education for all children, etc. Regime change requires a break with bourgeois ideology and an international union of proletarians.
Communist society is characterized in the Cummunist Manifesto as follows: "In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, an association arises where the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all" .
The third chapter of the Cummunist Manifesto examines and critiques the various “socialist” currents of the time. Marx strives to criticize them with vigor and accumulates sarcasm towards them. For example, he qualifies Proudhon as a “bourgeois socialist” who “only attains his adequate expression when he becomes a mere figure of rhetoric: Free trade, in the interest of the working class! Protective rights, in the interest of the working class! Cellular prisons, in the interests of the working class! "
Finally, the last chapter of the Cummunist Manifesto attempts to identify immediate prospects for the Communists in Europe before the revolutions of 1848 . Communists “fight for the immediate interests and goals of the working class ; but in the present movement, they defend and represent at the same time the future of the movement”, and “work for the union and the understanding of the democratic parties of all the countries”. The text ends with the famous slogan: “ Workers of all countries, unite! "
