Communist manifesto

THIS work-tract or pamphlet rather than book - is decep tively slight in character and appearance. It is very short: a mere twelve thousand words, often less than the various introductions with which its re-publication has usually been accompanied. Its argument is simple, seeming to follow inevitably from the early sentence: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.' Karl Marx wrote it in six weeks or so with little time for deliberation or revision. No work has been more spontaneous and, at the same time, more final. Though Marx wrote a great deal later and added much by way of refinement or development to the out line which he had drawn here, The Communist Manifesto contains the essential doctrines of the outlook known as Marxism. As such, it takes first place, along with the Origin of Species, among the intellectual documents of the nineteenth century. Thanks to The Communist Manifesto, everyone thinks differently about politics and society, when he thinks at all. More than this, Marxism has become the accepted creed or religion for countless millions of mankind, and The Communist Manifesto must be counted as a holy book, in the same class as the Bible or the Koran. Nearly every sentence is a sacred text, quoted or acted on by devotees, who often no doubt do not know the source of their belief.