Manifesto of the Communist Party

9 

Preface to the 1888 English Edition 

already worked out and put it before me in terms almost as clear as those in which I have stated it 

here.  

From our joint preface to the German edition of 1872, I quote the following:  

“However much that state of things may have altered during the last twenty-five 

years, the general principles laid down in the Manifesto are, on the whole, as 

correct today as ever. Here and there, some detail might be improved. The 

practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, 

everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being 

existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary 

measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, 

be very differently worded today. In view of the gigantic strides of Modern 

Industry since 1848, and of the accompanying improved and extended 

organization of the working class, in view of the practical experience gained, first 

in the February Revolution, and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the 

proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this 

programme has in some details been antiquated. One thing especially was proved 

by the Commune, viz., that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of ready-

made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.” (See The Civil War in 

France: Address of the General Council of the International Working Men’ s 

Association 1871, where this point is further developed.) Further, it is self-evident 

that the criticism of socialist literature is deficient in relation to the present time, 

because it comes down only to 1847; also that the remarks on the relation of the 

Communists to the various opposition parties (Section IV), although, in principle 

still correct, yet in practice are antiquated, because the political situation has been 

entirely changed, and the progress of history has swept from off the Earth the 

greater portion of the political parties there enumerated.  

“But then, the Manifesto has become a historical document which we have no 

longer any right to alter.”  

The present translation is by Mr Samuel Moore, the translator of the greater portion of Marx’ s 

“Capital.” We have revised it in common, and I have added a few notes explanatory of historical 

allusions.  

Frederick Engels  

January 30, 1888, London 

  

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Preface to The 1890 German Edition  

Since [the first German preface of 1883] was written, a new German edition of the Manifesto has 

again become necessary, and much has also happened to the Manifesto which should be recorded 

here.  

A second Russian translation – by Vera Zasulich – appeared in Geneva in 1882; the preface to 

that edition was written by Marx and myself. Unfortunately, the original German manuscript has 

gone astray; I must therefore retranslate from the Russian which will in no way improve the text. 

It reads:  

[Reprint of the 1882 Russian Edition ] 

At about the same date, a new Polish version appeared in Geneva: Manifest Kommunistyczny.  

Furthermore, a new Danish translation has appeared in the Socialdemokratisk Bibliothek, 

Copenhagen, 1885. Unfortunately, it is not quite complete; certain essential passages, which seem 

to have presented difficulties to the translator, have been omitted, and, in addition, there are signs 

of carelessness here and there, which are all the more unpleasantly conspicuous since the 

translation indicates that had the translator taken a little more pains, he would have done an 

excellent piece of work.  

A new French version appeared in 1886, in Le Socialiste of Paris; it is the best published to date.  

From this latter, a Spanish version was published the same year in El Socialista of Madrid, and 

then reissued in pamphlet form: Manifesto del Partido Communista por Carlos Marx y F. Engels, 

Madrid, Administracion de El Socialista, Hernan Cortes 8.  

As a matter of curiosity, I may mention that in 1887 the manuscript of an Armenian translation 

was offered to a publisher in Constantinople. But the good man did not have the courage to 

publish something bearing the name of Marx and suggested that the translator set down his own 

name as author, which the latter however declined.  

After one, and then another, of the more or less inaccurate American translations had been 

repeatedly reprinted in England, an authentic version at last appeared in 1888. This was my friend 

Samuel Moore, and we went through it together once more before it went to press. It is entitled: 

Manifesto of the Communist Party, by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Authorized English 

translation, edited and annotated by Frederick Engels, 1888, London, William Reeves, 185 Fleet 

Street, E.C. I have added some of the notes of that edition to the present one.  

The Manifesto has had a history of its own. Greeted with enthusiasm, at the time of its 

appearance, by the not at all numerous vanguard of scientific socialism (as is proved by the 

translations mentioned in the first place), it was soon forced into the background by the reaction 

that began with the defeat of the Paris workers in June 1848, and was finally excommunicated 

“by law” in the conviction of the Cologne Communists in November 1852. With the 

disappearance from the public scene of the workers’ movement that had begun with the February 

Revolution, the Manifesto too passed into the background.  

When the European workers had again gathered sufficient strength for a new onslaught upon the 

power of the ruling classes, the International Working Men’ s Association came into being. Its 

aim was to weld together into one huge army the whole militant working class of Europe and 

America. Therefore it could not set out from the principles laid down in the Manifesto. It was 

bound to have a programme which would not shut the door on the English trade unions, the 

French, Belgian, Italian, and Spanish Proudhonists, and the German Lassalleans. This programme 

– the considerations underlying the Statutes of the International – was drawn up by Marx with a 

master hand acknowledged even by the Bakunin and the anarchists. For the ultimate final triumph 

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