Review: The Communist Manifesto and Other Writings

The Communist Manifesto and Other Writings by Karl Marx
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book consists of the "The Communist Manifesto" itself, plus a few other essays. The manifesto is short, making a quick read of historical significance, and its first section is immensely interesting! It is written in a very grandiose style, it makes it sound epic - which I guess it really is!

The first section is impressive in how it describes capitalism, and how disruption and globalization are essential features of capitalism. It's remarkable that these are buzzwords of 21st century capitalism, but they were already old news for Marx! In fact, he sounds very anti-globalization in the manifesto. He predicts the cycle of progress and crises (bubbles and bursts), and predicts the gradual “sinking” of the "lower middle class" into the proletariat - both essential features of capitalism. I was surprised to see that, contrary to criticism I hear, the manifesto explicitly states that middle-class professionals are paid-laborers, not bourgeoisie; it lists them by name: doctors, lawyers, even scientists; we are all eventually proletariat! The bourgeoisie are really the rich - and by that he means the very, very rich (he even explicitly calls them "millionaires").

The second part, however, was kinda weird. The part in which he explains about the abolition of private property was very puzzling, because the authors didn’t explain at all what they meant - that is, they tried to explain, with examples and arguments, but in the end I was left completely confused. Do they want to abolish all private property? Including small personal property? Or just “bourgeoisie” property (like industries, stores, etc…)? It seemed that they were trying to draw a distinction between some property that was to be abolished and some that wouldn’t, but it was not clear at all where the line was drawn.

He then launches into answering criticisms of communism, and quick superficial rebuttals of competing ideologies. Here, he seems more focused on mentioning that this and that movement simply petered out, and didn't get anywhere. Sometimes he tried to explain why other movements got it wrong. One particular criticism stood out to me, about the "bourgeoisie socialism", which is the socialism of improving workers lives so that revolution was not needed. Although I get his point that this still leaves room to abuse, or that the bourgeoisie might do just enough to prevent revolution and no more, his criticism felt very superficial - it never rally explains what is wrong with it in principle. That is, sure, it could be badly implemented, but if it is well implemented, what is the problem?

Overall, I think that this work started really well, but then it does have two big flaws in it. First, when it calls for the change in the status quo, it's very explicit that it should be by any means necessary; and that if it creates an intermediate state of strife and suffering, it's fine, because it will all work out in the end. Unfortunately, that's exactly what gave cover for many dictators to steal the movement from the workers and institute horrible regimes, based on personality-worship and oppression of its citizens, completely anathema to Marx's ideal of communism - for how can a society call itself communist when its workers are living in miserable conditions? There never was in history any real communist country, only dictatorships that looked more like feudalism, with leaders pretending to be communist while enriching themselves, brutalizing their people, taking advantage of the believers, and never actually giving power to the people.

Second, the manifesto doesn't explain what the new society (that would replace the current one) would look like - in their eyes, it would be paradise; but how? Well, this is a manifesto, so it can't be too long, so maybe this kind of explanation doesn't have a place here. But we do know that Marx never did manage to describe his worker's paradise in any other work either, only that it would be the final outcome of his revolution. It's a pity, because it is a promising idea.

The other writings in the book were less interesting. They felt more historical in nature, harder to generalize to our time and society. They consisted of a lot of analysis of specific ideas and conditions of the time, with criticism of the contemporary society, politics, and philosophers. Some good points were made, like the harsh treatment of the poor and how simply changing who is in charge does not fundamentally change society. I think the only weakness was that these are overshadowed by a lot of play on words, on superficial arguments, trying to convince you that all roads lead inevitably to communism, but without any really compelling logic to it. However, they still offer a great historical perspective an excellent political and economic analysis of the 18th and 19th century.


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