#16 in Politics & society
The Communist Manifesto
- 88
- Pages
- about 1.5 h
- Reading time
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Editor’s note Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote this pamphlet for the Communist League, and it was printed in London in February 1848, weeks before revolutions broke out across Europe. It opens with the line about a spectre haunting Europe, presents history as a history of class struggles, describes how the bourgeoisie has transformed the world through industry and trade, and closes with the call for the workers of all countries to unite. It went on to become one of the most widely translated political texts ever written; in 2013 it was added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World register together with the first volume of Capital.
About the book
The Communist Manifesto, originally the Manifesto of the Communist Party, is a political pamphlet written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It was commissioned by the Communist League and published in London in 1848. The text represents the first and most systematic attempt by the two founders of scientific socialism to codify for wide consumption the historical materialist idea; namely, that "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles", in which social classes are defined by the relationship of people to the means of production. Published amid the Revolutions of 1848 in Europe, the manifesto has become one of the world's most influential political documents. "A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism." and "Workers of the world, unite!" stand as two iconic lines that frame the text, marking its opening and its close, respectively, with the latter being reworked and popularized into a famous slogan of working-class solidarity.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.1 across 77 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 34% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Politics & society average of 8.0. That is how 7.7 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.1 | 77 | 100% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Communist Manifesto?
It has 88 pages — shorter than 94% of the ranked books in Politics & society.
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Same shelf — Politics & society — with scores between 7.1 and 7.8, closest to this book.
