# Canonical recap data for Communist Manifesto published (1848)
# Source: https://recap.at/1848/communist-manifesto
# Format: YAML 1.2 (UTF-8). Generated at request time.
slug: communist-manifesto
canonicalUrl: "https://recap.at/1848/communist-manifesto"
title: Communist Manifesto published
subtitle: ""
recapType: global_event
eventStatus: concluded
startDate: 1848-01-01
datePrecision: year
year: 1848
decade: 1840
country:
name: Germany
slug: germany
summaryShort: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto in London in February 1848, a 12,000-word political pamphlet that would become one of history's most influential texts.
summaryLong: |-
  On February 21, 1848, a small printing press in London produced a document that would reshape global politics for the next 170 years. The Communist Manifesto—written by Karl Marx, a 29-year-old Prussian philosopher, and Friedrich Engels, his 27-year-old collaborator—was originally commissioned by the Communist League, a clandestine organization of German exiles. The pamphlet was meant to articulate the League's principles as revolutions rippled across Europe that very spring.

  Marx and Engels didn't invent communism, but they gave it a theoretical framework that felt scientific rather than utopian. Their central claim was stark: history was a story of class conflict, and capitalism—like feudalism before it—contained the seeds of its own destruction. The working class, or proletariat, would inevitably rise up, overthrow the bourgeoisie, and establish a classless society. This wasn't wishful thinking, they argued; it was historical inevitability. The pamphlet's opening line—"A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism"—announced that this wasn't fringe philosophy but a force already reshaping the continent.

  The Manifesto's influence was not immediate. It circulated among radical circles but remained relatively obscure through the 1850s and 1860s. The Paris Commune of 1871 gave it new relevance, and by the time of Marx's death in 1883, it was being translated into multiple languages and read by socialist movements worldwide. By the early 20th century, it had become scripture for Bolshevik revolutionaries, Chinese communists, and liberation movements across the colonized world. Governments banned it; workers' movements adopted it as foundational text.

  What made the Manifesto endure wasn't its predictions—many failed to materialize as written—but its diagnostic power. It offered a vocabulary for understanding economic inequality, labor exploitation, and the ways capitalism reshaped society. Even readers who rejected Marx's conclusions often found his analysis useful. The document became simultaneously a revolutionary blueprint and an object of academic scrutiny, translated into dozens of languages and assigned in universities from Moscow to Manhattan.

  The 1848 publication was quieter than its legacy suggests. The pamphlet appeared in German, cost roughly a nickel, and was initially distributed to radical cells across Europe. Most readers in 1848 had no idea they were holding something that would outlast empires. That's partly what makes the Manifesto's history remarkable: a short political pamphlet, written in weeks by two young men in exile, became perhaps the most consequential political text of the modern age.
lede: On February 21, 1848, a radical political pamphlet called The Communist Manifesto was published in London. Written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, two German exiles in their late twenties, it laid out a theory of history based on class conflict and predicted the inevitable collapse of capitalism. Though it circulated quietly at first among radical circles, the Manifesto eventually became one of the most influential political texts ever written, shaping revolutionary movements, communist regimes, and political debate for generations.
heroImageUrl: "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9b/Il_Manifesto.png/1280px-Il_Manifesto.png"
heroImageCredit: "\"Il Manifesto\" by Sandro Pertini06 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/."
importance: 50
sourceConfidence: 50
keyFacts:
- label: Publication date
  value: February 21, 1848
- label: Publication location
  value: London, England
- label: Authors
  value: Karl Marx (age 29) and Friedrich Engels (age 27)
- label: Original language
  value: German
- label: Word count
  value: Approximately 12,000 words
- label: Commissioning organization
  value: Communist League (German exile group)
- label: Number of major sections
  value: 4 chapters plus preface
timeline:
- date: 1847-06-01
  title: Communist League commissions the work
  description: The Communist League, a radical organization of German exiles, asks Marx and Engels to write a statement of principles for the organization.
- date: 1847-12-01
  title: Marx and Engels complete the draft
  description: After months of collaboration, primarily between Engels and Marx, the manuscript is finalized in Brussels before being sent to London for printing.
- date: 1848-02-21
  title: The Communist Manifesto is published
  description: The pamphlet is printed in London and begins distribution to Communist League members across Europe, coinciding with the outbreak of revolutions across the continent.
- date: 1848-03-01
  title: European revolutions peak
  description: Uprisings occur across France, Germany, Austria, and Italy in the same months the Manifesto circulates, though its immediate impact is limited.
- date: 1872-01-01
  title: First English translation published
  description: Samuel Moore produces the first authorized English translation, making the text accessible to British and American readers.
- date: 1883-03-14
  title: Karl Marx dies
  description: Marx dies in London at age 64. By this point, the Manifesto is being recognized as a foundational text for socialist movements worldwide.
- date: 1917-11-07
  title: Russian Revolution begins
  description: The Bolsheviks seize power in Russia, citing Marxist theory and the Manifesto as intellectual foundations for their revolutionary state.
sources: []
related: []
relationships:
- targetSlug: revolutions-of-1848
  type: happened_during
  confidence: 95
  evidence: The Manifesto was published February 23, 1848, and distributed as nationalist and socialist revolutions erupted across Europe that spring; it was written explicitly to provide ideological coherence to the revolutionary ferment already underway across the continent.
  source: ai
- targetSlug: october-revolution-1917
  type: anticipated
  confidence: 92
  evidence: Marx and Engels predicted proletarian revolution would occur in advanced industrial economies; Lenin explicitly adopted the Manifesto as blueprint and prophecy for the October Revolution, treating Marx's framework as scientifically predictive of the Russian upheaval 69 years later.
  source: ai
- targetSlug: cuban-missile-crisis
  type: enabled
  confidence: 80
  evidence: The Manifesto's ideological framework inspired communist movements globally; the Soviet Union's communist ideology—rooted directly in Marxist theory—was the structural cause of the October Revolution that created the USSR, whose existence 64 years later made the Cuban crisis possible.
  source: ai
gallery: []
culturalContext:
topMusic: []
topFilms: []
topTVShows: []
zeitgeistNote: 1848 was the Year of Revolutions across Europe—France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Hungary all convulsed with uprisings demanding nationalism, constitutional reform, and workers' rights. The Manifesto arrived precisely at this moment of mass political ferment, giving intellectual shape to inchoate rage. It synthesized German philosophy (Hegel, Feuerbach), French socialism (Fournier, Saint-Simon), and English political economy into a unified theory that claimed to expose capitalism's internal contradictions. Its timing, not its originality, gave it world-historical force.
comparisonThenNow:
- metric: Global communist party membership
  thenValue: Under 100,000 (mostly in Russia and Germany)
  thenYear: 1920
  nowValue: Approximately 80–90 million (primarily China, Vietnam, Cuba, Laos)
  nowYear: 2024
  note: Peak Cold War membership exceeded 100 million; decline followed Soviet collapse but China's growth sustains large total.
- metric: Manifesto translations and editions in print
  thenValue: Fewer than 50 distinct editions globally
  thenYear: 1900
  nowValue: Over 500 editions in 100+ languages; available free online in dozens of formats
  nowYear: 2024
  note: Digital distribution has made it the world's most widely available political text after religious scriptures.
- metric: Academic citations per year in English-language scholarship
  thenValue: Negligible (pre-1950)
  thenYear: 1940
  nowValue: Approximately 2,000–3,000 per year across all disciplines
  nowYear: 2023
  note: Surge began mid-20th century; remains steady despite ideological shifts.
- metric: Governments explicitly implementing Manifesto principles
  thenValue: Zero (Soviet Union was first attempt, 1922)
  thenYear: 1920
  nowValue: 5–6 (China, Vietnam, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, possibly others)
  nowYear: 2024
  note: All surviving examples show significant departures from text; none matches Marx's vision of stateless communism.
impactStatement: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Communist Manifesto on February 23, 1848, in London—a 12,000-word pamphlet that would reshape political ideology for the next 170 years. Written as revolutions swept across Europe that same year, it synthesized socialist thought into a rallying document that influenced labor movements, revolutionary parties, and Cold War geopolitics. No other 19th-century political text has been translated into as many languages or quoted as selectively by both supporters and opponents.
consequences:
- title: Paris Commune established
  year: 1871
  description: The first attempt at a workers' government, partly inspired by Manifesto principles, held Paris for 72 days before brutal suppression; its collapse hardened Marxist theory about state power.
- title: Russian Social Democratic Labour Party founded
  year: 1898
  description: Lenin and other Russian radicals adopted the Manifesto as foundational text; their faction would eventually lead the 1917 revolution.
- title: Russian Revolution begins
  year: 1917
  description: The October Revolution explicitly claimed Marx and Engels as intellectual fathers; the Bolsheviks treated the Manifesto as prophetic scripture for their seizure of state power.
- title: Communist movements gain mass membership worldwide
  year: 1920
  description: Communist International (Comintern) adopted the Manifesto as canonical text; by mid-century, communist parties controlled governments across Eastern Europe, Asia, and parts of Africa.
- title: Manifesto enters academic canon
  year: 1960
  description: Universities globally began teaching it as essential political philosophy alongside classical liberalism; it became inseparable from 20th-century intellectual debate.
- title: Cold War ideological conflict crystallizes
  year: 1962
  description: The Cuban Missile Crisis and broader superpower confrontation pitted Manifesto-inspired Soviet communism directly against capitalist West, making Marx's framework the explicit theoretical backbone of geopolitical antagonism.
archiveSnapshots: []
categories:
- launch
metaDescription: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish The Communist Manifesto in London, February 1848. A 12,000-word pamphlet that would reshape global politics.
originSignals:
- "wikipedia:communist-manifesto"
aliases:
- The Communist Manifesto
- Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei
- Marx and Engels Manifesto
