Manifesto of the Communist Party

The "Manifesto" was published as the platform of the "Communist League," a working men's association, first exclusively German, later an international, and under the political conditions of the Continent before 1848, unavoidably a secret society. At a Congress of the League, held in London in November, 1847, Marx and Engels were commissioned to prepare for publication a complete theoretical and practical party-program. Drawn up in German, in January, 1848, the manuscript was sent to the printer in London a few weeks before the French revolution of February 24th. A French translation was brought out in Paris, shortly before the insurrection of June, 1848. The first English translation, by Miss Helen Macfarlane, appeared in George Julian Harney's "Red Republication," London, 1850. A Danish and a Polish edition had also been published. The defeat of the Parisian insurrection of June, 1848 - the first great battle between Proletariat and Bourgeoisie - drove again into the background, for a time, the social and political aspirations of the European working class.