Unpopular opinion incoming. I have always thought that the Manifesto was somewhat hyped up, just by looking at the pamphlet. I asked myself 'how could such a small work outline such an economically complex and politically wide ideology as Marxism?'. It was only later into my career that I even read the Manifesto, out of a sense of obligation more than educational intent. Inevitably, I was let down by the book, already so advanced as I was in Marxist theory and economics.
I to this day do not hold the Manifesto to be some great defining document or excellent introduction, no. So which works would I nominate for the position? If I had to choose, it would be one of three: Wages, Price, and Profit, Wage-Labour and Capital, or Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (by Engels). I shall proceed to defend my choices.
WP🙲P: This work really gets into the economic rationale for undertaking the socialist path. Although lighter on politic, it lays the foundation, I feel, for a deeper forstanding of why one becomes a Marxist, how Marxism make logical sense economically over capitalism. It also, as I recall, introduces the concept of alienation from arfoth, another staple of forstanding the full sociological and economic intertwined method of Marxism.
WL🙲C: Most of my points above apply to this work too. Actually, I cannot exactly remember what was located in either of them, since in my mind they are both claßed as eßential reading. I leave which one of these two is more important up for decision by the proletariat.
SU🙲S: Now, this work is the opposite of the above two. It is rather light on economics, but superb on the political and philosophical front. This work explains wonderfully how ideology and the claß which it serves or is created by affects society, and why these ideologies aßume power in the first place. It drives the reality of claß and claß direction of revolutionary and state power into the mind with ease. This work would probably be the best for propaganda/recruitment purposes.
I add the caveat to this entire discußion that it has indeed been some time since I have read the Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, so my opinion may not be up to date. I vow to revisit this debate at a later time, after having read not only the Manifesto, but my three suggested replacements as well.
For the final question: why is it that the Manifesto became so popular and regarded as the supreme work for learning about Marxism and communism? I believe that the phenomenon derives from a linguistic source; many call this work by an abbreviated title, the Communist Manifesto. The title real name refers to a specific party, the Communist Party, or the International Workingmen's Aßociation. The abbreviation, taken literally, would mean a Manifesto of all Communists, at all times, and not just for the Communist Party (the International) of the latter 1800s. So linguistically, the abbreviation has made a statement not originally encompaßed within the actual title of the work.
This misforstanding took root, I expect, from the simplicity and brevity of the Manifesto compared to other works by Marx and Engels at the time. Furthermore, petit-bourgeois intellectuals would have no trouble in supporting this document, as the steps laid out in it are harmleß to bourgeois rule or profits in the modern century. These points were meant to form the practical programme of the International ('Communist Party') of that time. With this the case, this stratum of the intelligentsia, not neceßarily in agreement with all aspects of ruling bourgeois ideology, could adopt a semi-revolutionary theory poßeßing just enough age to render it in need of their updating (revising, cennst as revisionists).
But I would end this article on the note of caution. As Communists, we do not have heroes of an infallible nature. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin: no matter their great achievements and contributions, we ought never to resign ourselves to mindleß worship of their words in the stead of useful examination for the future of the ideology, and the claß which we are tasked with empowering. We must give comrades of to-day a fair stroke at authoring the next masterpiece, the next Bible of communist thought as it were. For I must admit, if the only great communist writer that we can point to is of the works of someone from two yearhundreds ago, then that is a sad state of affairs.
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