The Making of the Manifesto

Abstract

By turning to Marx's and Engels' correspondence, their writing projects from 1841 through to February 1848, and some later scholarly work, we can construct an illuminating account that not only shows the theoretical, political, and strategic debates, conflicts and, eventually, animosities out of which the Manifesto emerged, but also permits one to appreciate the full extent to which the form and content of the Manifesto are the result of intense intellectual and political battles fought by Marx, Engels, and their supporters as they tried to direct and lead the fledgling communist movement of the 1840s. The Manifesto was ultimately a collective effort of people who were trying to understand the prevailing social conditions so they could change them; to see this more precisely allows us to demystify and 'de-reify' it as a source of eternal truths, and return it to its proper place in the annals of the struggle for socialism as one of many documents - a key one to be sure -constructed within, and thus influenced by, a particular set of historical circumstances.