The Communist Manifesto

by

Karl Marx

Communists Character Analysis

Communists are members of communist parties and, more generally, people who support communism. Communists strive for the empowerment of the proletariat and the destruction of the bourgeoisie. In order to bring about this change, communists take the fight to bourgeoisie on political and intellectual grounds—Marx and Engels even call on them to “forcefully” bring about revolution. Communists call for the abolition of private property, meaning an end to the accumulation of wealth and land that entrenches the bourgeoisie’s advantage over the proletariat.

Communists Quotes in The Communist Manifesto

The The Communist Manifesto quotes below are all either spoken by Communists or refer to Communists. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Capitalism and Progress Theme Icon
).
Introduction Quotes

A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism. All the Powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.

Related Characters: Communists
Page Number: 61
Explanation and Analysis:
I. Bourgeois and Proletarians Quotes

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, that each time ended, either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

Related Characters: Bourgeoisie, Proletariat, Communists, Aristocracy, Peasants
Page Number: 62-63
Explanation and Analysis:
II. Proletarians and Communists Quotes

The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all the other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.

Related Characters: Bourgeoisie, Proletariat, Communists
Page Number: 82
Explanation and Analysis:

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths.

Related Characters: Bourgeoisie, Communists
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis:

All objections urged against the Communistic mode of producing and appropriating material products, have, in the same way, been urged against the Communistic modes of producing and appropriating intellectual products. Just as, to the bourgeois, the disappearance of class property is the disappearance of production itself, so the disappearance of class culture is to him identical with the disappearance of all culture. That culture, the loss of which he laments, is, for, the enormous majority, a mere training act as a machine.

Related Characters: Bourgeoisie, Communists
Page Number: 86
Explanation and Analysis:

The charges against Communism made from a religious, a philosophical, and, generally, from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving of serious examination.

Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man’s ideas, views and conceptions, in one word, man’s consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life?

What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production changes its character in proportion as material production is change? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.

Related Characters: Communists
Page Number: 90
Explanation and Analysis:
IV. Position of the Communists... Quotes

Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!

Related Characters: Bourgeoisie, Proletariat, Communists
Related Symbols: Chains
Page Number: 111
Explanation and Analysis:
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Communists Quotes in The Communist Manifesto

The The Communist Manifesto quotes below are all either spoken by Communists or refer to Communists. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Capitalism and Progress Theme Icon
).
Introduction Quotes

A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism. All the Powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.

Related Characters: Communists
Page Number: 61
Explanation and Analysis:
I. Bourgeois and Proletarians Quotes

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, that each time ended, either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

Related Characters: Bourgeoisie, Proletariat, Communists, Aristocracy, Peasants
Page Number: 62-63
Explanation and Analysis:
II. Proletarians and Communists Quotes

The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all the other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.

Related Characters: Bourgeoisie, Proletariat, Communists
Page Number: 82
Explanation and Analysis:

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths.

Related Characters: Bourgeoisie, Communists
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis:

All objections urged against the Communistic mode of producing and appropriating material products, have, in the same way, been urged against the Communistic modes of producing and appropriating intellectual products. Just as, to the bourgeois, the disappearance of class property is the disappearance of production itself, so the disappearance of class culture is to him identical with the disappearance of all culture. That culture, the loss of which he laments, is, for, the enormous majority, a mere training act as a machine.

Related Characters: Bourgeoisie, Communists
Page Number: 86
Explanation and Analysis:

The charges against Communism made from a religious, a philosophical, and, generally, from an ideological standpoint, are not deserving of serious examination.

Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man’s ideas, views and conceptions, in one word, man’s consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life?

What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production changes its character in proportion as material production is change? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.

Related Characters: Communists
Page Number: 90
Explanation and Analysis:
IV. Position of the Communists... Quotes

Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!

Related Characters: Bourgeoisie, Proletariat, Communists
Related Symbols: Chains
Page Number: 111
Explanation and Analysis: