Manifesto of the Communist Party

11 

Preface to the 1890 German Edition 

of the ideas set forth in the Manifesto, Marx relied solely upon the intellectual development of the 

working class, as it necessarily has to ensue from united action and discussion. The events and 

vicissitudes in the struggle against capital, the defeats even more than the successes, could not but 

demonstrate to the fighters the inadequacy of their former universal panaceas, and make their 

minds more receptive to a thorough understanding of the true conditions for working-class 

emancipation. And Marx was right. The working class of 1874, at the dissolution of the 

International, was altogether different from that of 1864, at its foundation. Proudhonism in the 

Latin countries, and the specific Lassalleanism in Germany, were dying out; and even the ten 

arch-conservative English trade unions were gradually approaching the point where, in 1887, the 

chairman of their Swansea Congress could say in their name: “Continental socialism has lost its 

terror for us.” Yet by 1887 continental socialism was almost exclusively the theory heralded in 

the Manifesto. Thus, to a certain extent, the history of the Manifesto reflects the history of the 

modern working-class movement since 1848. At present, it is doubtless the most widely 

circulated, the most international product of all socialist literature, the common programme of 

many millions of workers of all countries from Siberia to California.  

Nevertheless, when it appeared, we could not have called it a socialist manifesto. In 1847, two 

kinds of people were considered socialists. On the one hand were the adherents of the various 

utopian systems, notably the Owenites in England and the Fourierists in France, both of whom, at 

that date, had already dwindled to mere sects gradually dying out. On the other, the manifold 

types of social quacks who wanted to eliminate social abuses through their various universal 

panaceas and all kinds of patch-work, without hurting capital and profit in the least. In both cases, 

people who stood outside the labor movement and who looked for support rather to the 

“educated” classes. The section of the working class, however, which demanded a radical 

reconstruction of society, convinced that mere political revolutions were not enough, then called 

itself  Communist. It was still a rough-hewn, only instinctive and frequently somewhat crude 

communism. Yet, it was powerful enough to bring into being two systems of utopian communism 

– in France, the “Icarian” communists of Cabet, and in Germany that of Weitling. Socialism in 

1847 signified a bourgeois movement, communism a working-class movement. Socialism was, 

on the Continent at least, quite respectable, whereas communism was the very opposite. And 

since we were very decidedly of the opinion as early as then that “the emancipation of the 

workers must be the task of the working class itself,” [from the General Rules of the 

International] we could have no hesitation as to which of the two names we should choose. Nor 

has it ever occurred to us to repudiate it.  

“Working men of all countries, unite!” But few voices responded when we proclaimed these 

words to the world 42 years ago, on the eve of the first Paris Revolution in which the proletariat 

came out with the demands of its own. On September 28, 1864, however, the proletarians of most 

of the Western European countries joined hands in the International Working Men’ s Association 

of glorious memory. True, the International itself lived only nine years. But that the eternal union 

of the proletarians of all countries created by it is still alive and lives stronger than ever, there is 

no better witness than this day. Because today

3

, as I write these lines, the European and American 

proletariat is reviewing its fighting forces, mobilized for the first time, mobilized as one army, 

under one flag, for one immediate aim: the standard eight-hour working day to be established by 

legal enactment, as proclaimed by the Geneva Congress of the International in 1866, and again by 

the Paris Workers’ Congress of 1889. And today’ s spectacle will open the eyes of the capitalists 

and landlords of all countries to the fact that today the proletarians of all countries are united 

indeed.  

If only Marx were still by my side to see this with his own eyes!  

Frederick Engels  

May 1, 1890, London 

  

---

Preface to The 1892 Polish Edition  

The fact that a new Polish edition of the Communist Manifesto has become necessary gives rise 

to various thoughts.  

First of all, it is noteworthy that of late the Manifesto has become an index, as it were, of the 

development of large-scale industry on the European continent. In proportion as large-scale 

industry expands in a given country, the demand grows among the workers of that country for 

enlightenment regarding their position as the working class in relation to the possessing classes, 

the socialist movement spreads among them and the demand for the Manifesto increases. Thus, 

not only the state of the labour movement but also the degree of development of large-scale 

industry can be measured with fair accuracy in every country by the number of copies of the 

Manifesto circulated in the language of that country.  

Accordingly, the new Polish edition indicates a decided progress of Polish industry. And there 

can be no doubt whatever that this progress since the previous edition published ten years ago has 

actually taken place. Russian Poland, Congress Poland, has become the big industrial region of 

the Russian Empire. Whereas Russian large-scale industry is scattered sporadically – a part round 

the Gulf of Finland, another in the centre (Moscow and Vladimir), a third along the coasts of the 

Black and Azov seas, and still others elsewhere – Polish industry has been packed into a 

relatively small area and enjoys both the advantages and disadvantages arising from such 

concentration. The competing Russian manufacturers acknowledged the advantages when they 

demanded protective tariffs against Poland, in spit of their ardent desire to transform the Poles 

into Russians. The disadvantages – for the Polish manufacturers and the Russian government – 

are manifest in the rapid spread of socialist ideas among the Polish workers and in the growing 

demand for the Manifesto.  

But the rapid development of Polish industry, outstripping that of Russia, is in its turn a new 

proof of the inexhaustible vitality of the Polish people and a new guarantee of its impending 

national restoration. And the restoration of an independent and strong Poland is a matter which 

concerns not only the Poles but all of us. A sincere international collaboration of the European 

nations is possible only if each of these nations is fully autonomous in its own house. The 

Revolution of 1848, which under the banner of the proletariat, after all, merely let the proletarian 

fighters do the work of the bourgeoisie, also secured the independence of Italy, Germany and 

Hungary through its testamentary executors, Louis Bonaparte and Bismarck; but Poland, which 

since 1792 had done more for the Revolution than all these three together, was left to its own 

resources when it succumbed in 1863 to a tenfold greater Russian force. The nobility could 

neither maintain nor regain Polish independence; today, to the bourgeoisie, this independence is, 

to say the last, immaterial. Nevertheless, it is a necessity for the harmonious collaboration of the 

European nations. It can be gained only by the young Polish proletariat, and in its hands it is 

secure. For the workers of all the rest of Europe need the independence of Poland just as much as 

the Polish workers themselves.  

F. Engels 

London, February 10, 1892  

---