Knowra The Communist Manifesto The Communist Manifesto A political pamphlet written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and published in 1848. It presents their account of class struggle and calls on workers to overthrow capitalist society.
Class struggle : Conflict between social classes over power, resources, and economic arrangements. The pamphlet makes conflict between owners and workers the engine of historical change.
Dialectical materialism : A Marxist philosophical approach that interprets change through material contradictions and their development. It is often associated with Marxist accounts of change, though the pamphlet does not use this later label.
Karl Marx : A German philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary socialist whose writings shaped Marxism. Marx co-wrote the pamphlet and supplied much of its theoretical argument.
Marxism : A political and social theory derived from the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The pamphlet became one of the best-known introductions to ideas later gathered under this name.
Bourgeoisie : The social class that owns or controls capital and the means of production in capitalist society. Marx and Engels portray this class as both capitalism’s ruling force and a driver of social transformation.
Surplus value : The value created by workers beyond the value represented by their wages, appropriated by capitalists in Marx’s theory. It helps explain the exploitation that the pamphlet attributes to wage labor, though its full analysis appears elsewhere.
Friedrich Engels : A German philosopher and socialist who collaborated with Karl Marx and supported his work. Engels collaborated on the text and later described his contribution to its drafting.
Socialist International : An international organization of socialist and labor parties founded in 1951. Its predecessor movements carried Marxist texts, including the Manifesto, into organized socialist politics.
Proletariat : The wage-earning class, whose members sell their labor because they do not own the means of production. The pamphlet identifies workers as the class capable of overthrowing bourgeois rule.
Proletarian revolution : A political revolution in which workers overthrow capitalist class rule and establish their own political power. The pamphlet’s closing appeal turns its account of class conflict into a call for revolutionary action.
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