ABSTRACT
The key message of the Manifesto is communist revolution, urging the workers of all countries to unite and overthrow the capitalist class. It was this focus on the necessity of social change that made Marx different from other left-wing political groups. Marx’s communism was more radical: it proposed class struggle, revolution, and the abolition of private property. This chapter discusses Marx’s text and shows how the Manifesto contains some of his most important concepts. Marx charts the horrors and adventures of modernity in a ‘lyrical celebration of bourgeoise works’. The bourgeoisie have swept everything before them, have ‘drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy waters of egotistical calculation. Capitalism may have conquered the world, but it is also a self-destructive force. For Marx, impermanence is the very condition of its existence.
