The Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto, written by Marx and Engels and first published in 1848, brought together their ground-breaking conclusions in a concise way – analysing and summing up what capitalism is, with its inbuilt contradictions, and making clear that the working class would have to move to get rid of it. They cut through the confusion of socialists and reformists who didn’t clearly recognise the classes and class forces in society and what that means for the system as a whole and the struggle for socialism.

Marxist analysis from the nineteenth century can’t simply be repeated word for word today without taking into account the different conditions, language, and so on, of the present period. Also, as Marx and Engels were well aware, some of their ideas were exploratory and they rightly didn’t see any of their positions as a ‘finished’ analysis – to have done so would not have been a Marxist approach.

But in its substance and message Marxism has not been surpassed during the subsequent 170-plus years. It has only been added to, to take into account the many subsequent developments in human societies – economic, political, social and environmental – that have taken place. Their fundamental ideas remain as true today as when they were formulated and they remain a crucial tool for understanding the present period and what can lie ahead.

Recent decades have seen worsening economic crises, increased inequality, massive levels of displacement and the growing impact of climate change. None of the systemic fault lines that existed at the time of Marx and Engels have been solved. On the contrary, they have further developed and taken a sharper form in many respects. Today we live in a time of immense turmoil, rapidly moving events and great tensions between the world’s ruling classes.

The impact of capitalist crisis on the lives and livelihoods of the overwhelming majority of people across the globe – the working classes and middle classes – has not gone without fightbacks in the form of mass movements and uprisings, including in recent years. The political arming of those struggles with Marxist ideas has never been more urgent – to provide the tools for a clear understanding of the economic, social and political landscape, and the tasks that are necessary to change society.

That is what using Marxist ideas can provide: gaining clarity on events and processes; and using the lessons of past workers’ struggles to understand the need for the building of workers’ organisations that are independent of capitalist interests and capable of leading the working class to power.

The three component parts of Marxism

People unfamiliar with Marxism might think of it as being essentially about economic theory. Certainly, Marx’s writings on the ways in which workers are exploited by employers and the contradictions within the whole system are vitally important. But the entire body of Marxist ideas is much more than that; it includes scientific ideas for understanding human society and natural phenomena in the past, present and future.

The lessons in this introductory course are based on what Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin referred to as the ‘three component parts of Marxism’. These are: ‘Historical materialism’ – an analysis of human history based on material conditions; ‘Dialectical materialism’ – Marxist philosophy; and ‘Marxist economics’ – the workings of capitalism.

To develop their scientific socialist ideas, Marx and Engels studied the writings of past socialists, economists and philosophers, and those they were contemporary with, in order to build on the best aspects of the conclusions of those authors and discard what they judged to be incorrect. However, Marx stressed that economics, history and philosophy can’t be entirely separated from each other. Each has to be set in the context of the other two and more. For example, economics has to be set in a historical, political and social setting and a ‘dialectical’ approach taken to it.

His central purpose, along with Engels, was to understand why things are as they are, and how they can be changed. What lies behind the changes that take place? How can different types of society be assessed and recognised? What forces can lead to change in societies – and what type of change?

Workers’ organisation today

Marx and Engels did not foresee that in the twenty-first century, capitalism would still exist across the globe, not yet having been swept away by mass mobilisations of the working class. It would be wrong to interpret that as an overestimation of the ability of workers to organise and transform society. Rather. it was initially due to the young stage of the workers’ movements. Then, as those movements grew, the struggle to overthrow capitalism was held back repeatedly by the inadequacies and betrayals of the leaders of workers’ movements and parties who stood in opposition to the revolutionary ideas of Marxism.

In addition, over decades the Stalinist bureaucracy that came to power in the Soviet Union worked to prevent a successful transformation to democratic socialism in any country where it had influence over the workers’ movement, as that outcome would have come to threaten its own repressive, authoritarian regime (see the separate course on ‘The Rise of Stalinism’).

Today, mass working-class based political parties need to be rebuilt, but this time with leaders up to the task of representing workers’ interests, which means maintaining complete independence from capitalist interests. Those parties will be built in a world in which capitalism is showing its rottenness everywhere, and with a high degree of linkage between economies, an unprecedented amount of electronic communication between ordinary people, and with workers virtually everywhere facing attacks on their standard of living.

Not surprisingly, capitalist elites the world over have tried to deter workers and young people from turning to Marxist ideas, by perniciously associating Marxism with Stalin’s monstrous regime and others that had a similar model. It is in the capitalists’ interests to try to portray their system as the highest possible form of human society. They were boosted in that gross deception when the Stalinist regimes collapsed and capitalist, market economies were restored in those countries.

So, although school and college students can find Marxism included in their courses on politics and economics, it is often taught using ‘educational’ material that misrepresents it and tries to invalidate it. The education institutions in capitalist society are of course products of the system in which they exist and under the influence of its interests.

For everyone interested in socialist ideas, this course can be the start of the necessary antidote, and a starting point on the ‘science’ of the socialism behind those ideas – ‘scientific socialism’. They are the ideas on which the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) is based, and we are meeting a growing number of people – young people especially – who are interested in knowing more about them.

Lastly, notwithstanding the importance of learning about Marxist ideas, the purpose of that learning must be to translate the ideas into action, as Marx and Engels always advocated. So, this course isn’t just aimed at readers gaining knowledge, discussing the ideas within it, and reading further socialist material. We hope it will also encourage readers to join with us in the CWI, to educate themselves within it, and to get involved in our activities, so that these ideas can be used to concretely build the workers’ movement and the forces of Marxism within it.