AMONG the many sources of the Manifesto’s strong and enduring appeal, probably the first to strike the reader is the lyrical yet bold direct speech with profound power of penetration matching the immensely rich content. The free-flowing text sings here like a nimble mountain spring, thunders there as a mighty waterfall and, in the end, swells and beckons like an endless ocean, the ocean of world revolution. The beauty of brevity is simply enthralling; right from the famous opening sentence to the passionate concluding call, the gem sparkles with the lofty Promethean spirit of the modern proletariat.

No less instructive is the construction or presentation: simple and straightforward, often in a dialogic form, always without pretensions. The Manifesto begins with a clear and concise statement of purpose: to “meet this nursery tale of the spectre of communism with a manifesto of the party itself” (emphasis added to draw attention to what the authors actually meant by “spectre”). The pithy yet profound prelude is followed by the four sections with short simple titles indicating the logical structure or building blocks of the first international Marxist programme. Section I examines, in the context of the doctrine of class struggle, the principal class antagonists in capitalist society: “Bourgeois and Proletariat”. Section II, on “Proletarians and Communists”, clarifies the organic relation of the class to the organised vanguards and lays down certain core propositions of communism juxtaposed against the highly pretentious bourgeois common sense. But these propositions needed to be clarified also in contradistinction with various vulgar socialist and utopian communist ‘systems’ then in vogue; this is done in section III – a critical review of “Socialist and Communist Literature”. Section IV, on “Positions of Communists in Relation to Other Existing Opposition Parties”, explains the basic principles of communist strategy, tactics and united front policy.

Through these four sections, the basic propositions emerge effortlessly yet systematically one after the other and bind together in a neat theoretical coherence, even as the centrality of class struggle comes alive from pages of history to present times, finally leading to the crescendo – an open call to arms to those who have nothing to lose but their chains, and a world to win! Also embedded in this lofty futuristic vision is a broad outline of practical measures which the proletariat should begin to implement immediately after coming to power.

Although issued as a manifesto, i.e., a lean pamphlet for mass circulation, the document was intended to be – as we gather from the “Preface to the German Edition of 1872” – “a detailed theoretical and practical programme”. The authors managed to meet such contradictory demands in a marvellous manner. They did not write separate chapters on the dialectical worldview, the materialist interpretation of history, the doctrine of class struggle, detailed charters of practical demands in different countries, and so on. They rolled all these into one multi-dimensional but composite, seamless narrative.(See Lenin’s observation quoted at the beginning of this book) What the world proletariat got as a result was a practical-political programme of action woven around a robust theoretical core. It was – and remains – a cogent summing up of the past, an insightful portrayal of the present and a scientific-imaginative foray into the future.

Without a doubt the Manifesto will forever be admired as a great historical watershed. But has not the march of time robbed the document of its practical-political relevance?

Well, it has and it has not. The authors themselves pointed out in 1872 that already by that time part of the text (the criticism of contemporary socialist literature, the assessment of opposition parties and the 10-point revolutionary programme) had become “deficient” or “antiquated”. But even here, as we shall see in our discussion of communist strategy and tactics, the scientific approach and the basic principles remain as valuable as ever.

Before we proceed, we must take note of another feature of the method adopted in the Manifesto. One should not expect here a photocopy or photographic details of reality. What is to be savoured are the broad, swift, powerful strokes of a creative artist who has a keen eye for observation that is better than the lens of the best camera, but who takes the liberty to highlight what she or he believes to be the most vital contours or features of the subject, leaving out certain others, so as to drive home the intended message.

As for our method of study, in the pages that follow we should, while focusing on this text of Marxism, check up with the subsequent developments in Marxist thought on some of the more important issues raised here. For thus alone can we begin to grasp Marxism as a live philosophy of praxis, continually trying to update and enrich itself in course of active engagement with the ever-changing world.