The Communist Manifesto Sucks

[The Machine]

I tried to read the communist manifesto again for like the first time since 16 and holy shit is it bad. I mean it fucking blew wet chunks. Marx may have been a pretty smart guy, but boy does he suck at writing. I can see how the style of writing and ideology appealed to me then, but holy bad.

[Geiseric]

You aren't old enough to appreciate it (I read it when I was 17) read principles of communism by Engels, its much easier.

[hetz]

I don't see what's so bad about it? Elaborate your point.

[l'Enfermé]

Which translation are you reading?

[The Machine]

I don't see what's so bad about it? Elaborate your point.

It's fairly well organized and well put together, but the writing is just so bland and boring. His shit just doesn't resonate compared to modern writing.

[The Machine]

Which translation are you reading?

I'm reading it off of libcom, idk what translation that is.

[Geiseric]

I got goosebumps when I read it the first time. Give it a chance! Its the 2nd best selling book of all time.

[Comrade Dracula]

Well it is mid-19th Century writing, so yeah, of course it's not gonna resonate in 21st Century as well as it did two centuries ago.

[Manic Impressive]

Perhaps someone should write a modern language version like they did with the bible.

"yo check it aight dem rich mofo's got dem freedom but like ain't freedom fo no poor man ya get me?"

[Manic Impressive]

I got goosebumps when I read it the first time. Give it a chance! Its the 2nd best selling book of all time.
Is that true? I'd never heard that before.

[The Machine]

I got goosebumps when I read it the first time. Give it a chance! Its the 2nd best selling book of all time.

I really liked it when I was younger, but I think thats because I went in with I guess high expectations or looked at it a little less critically.

[The Machine]

Well it is mid-19th Century writing, so yeah, of course it's not gonna resonate in 21st Century as well as it did two centuries ago.

Theres some shit that's timeless though. The Jungle or Huck Finn, for example. The Manifesto not so much.

[Let's Get Free]

First rule on rev left- no one dare to criticize the Great Marx.

[Comrade Dracula]

Theres some shit that's timeless though. The Jungle or Huck Finn, for example. The Manifesto not so much.

True enough. Hell, if I remember correctly (read: most likely don't), it was actually a commissioned work for the Communist League or somesuch.

Hell, before they kicked the bucket, Marx and Engels did say that a lot of the Manifesto was outdated. So yeah, still somewhat theoretically useful, but definitely not timeless.

For better or for worse, though, it is still viewed as the iconic Communist/Marxist theoretical work.

[Comrade #138672]

If you think it is that bad, then I believe you don't really understand what it says.

[Blake's Baby]

Maybe it's time for a movie version.

[Grams: Haunting music - a single weak voice singing 'The International' fades in]

A blighted wasteland; smoke drifts by.

[Caption: "Europe, 1848"]

A figure enters from behind the camera and begins walking into the distance. They are shambling, and draped in a large piece of red cloth.

[Voiceover: Cate Blanchett: "The world is changing... I feel it in the water... "...



Oh, no wait, that's something different isn't it?

[Q]

Perhaps someone should write a modern language version like they did with the bible.

"yo check it aight dem rich mofo's got dem freedom but like ain't freedom fo no poor man ya get me?"

http://images.sodahead.com/polls/003323723/4857204042_Disgusted_oh_god_why_text_xlarge.png

[The Machine]

Perhaps someone should write a modern language version like they did with the bible.

"yo check it aight dem rich mofo's got dem freedom but like ain't freedom fo no poor man ya get me?"

you sound like a middle aged white person trying to imitate hip hop.

[Blake's Baby]

I think that's the point.

I remember a terrible exercise I had to do at school where we looked at Mark Anthony's speech as written in a faux-1956 Jive dialect...

'Friends, Romans, Hipsters, let me clue you in... they say Caesar had big eyes...'

It was awful. Truly dreadful. I'm sure that's what Ratty was going for.

[Comrade Samuel]

I got goosebumps when I read it the first time. Give it a chance! Its the 2nd best selling book of all time.

Is that really true? I remember hearing once that honor belonged to Marco Polo's book but it's record has probably been broken since it's time.

[Geiseric]

I'm positive that the only book read more than the CM is the Bible.

[Blake's Baby]

You originally said 'best selling' though.

It may be the next most printed book after the Bible (though I heard that was actually 'Quotations from Chairman Mao'); Progress Press and those other Eastern Bloc printers churned out bazillions of copies for distribution all over the world. So it might well be the second-most-printed book (how anyone would determine what was 'most read' is any body's guess - I'd say I've probably read the Manifesto 20 times cover to cover, and many hundreds of times in sections, but I only own 2 copies, so does that count as 1, 2, or 20?)

[Geiseric]

Wow you know what I mean.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Perhaps someone should write a modern language version like they did with the bible.

"yo check it aight dem rich mofo's got dem freedom but like ain't freedom fo no poor man ya get me?"


you sound like a middle aged white person trying to imitate hip hop.
Despite The Machine's valid criticism, ghettomanifesto.com is available for registration if you'd like to buy it and take on the project.


(so is realtalkmanifesto.com)

[o well this is ok I guess]

Perhaps someone should write a modern language version like they did with the bible.

"yo check it aight dem rich mofo's got dem freedom but like ain't freedom fo no poor man ya get me?" I'm actually pretty surprised that there does not exist a publishing house that simply translates classical literature into ebonics.

[Comrade Samuel]

Despite The Machine's valid criticism, ghettomanifesto.com is available for registration if you'd like to buy it and take on the project.


(so is realtalkmanifesto.com)

I'll be perfectly honest- if somebody were to translate the entire communist manifesto word for word into gangster slang I would probably pay money for it.

[The Machine]

I'm actually pretty surprised that there does not exist a publishing house that simply translates classical literature into ebonics.

haha that reminds me of jack chick tracts "adapted for black audiences"

http://badwebcomics.wdfiles.com/local--files/jack-chick-tracts/1108_05.gif

[soso17]

You can get it in audio form on librivox. I love audiobooks. I listen to them during my work commute. BTW, "Ten Days that Shook the World" is WAY more accessible on audio.

[Althusser]

Is this a troll or something? Marx wasn't writing a novel, so why compare it to Huck Finn? Does no one else see this obvious troll?

[RedAtheist]

You originally said 'best selling' though.

It may be the next most printed book after the Bible (though I heard that was actually 'Quotations from Chairman Mao'); Progress Press and those other Eastern Bloc printers churned out bazillions of copies for distribution all over the world. So it might well be the second-most-printed book (how anyone would determine what was 'most read' is any body's guess - I'd say I've probably read the Manifesto 20 times cover to cover, and many hundreds of times in sections, but I only own 2 copies, so does that count as 1, 2, or 20?)

Few people read the Bible though. At least few read it cover to cover. People cite quotes from it on occassion, but otherwise it gets left on people's shelves and more or less ignored. In the case of the Communist Manifesto, most people who own it have read it and many who don't own it have read it. Who knows, perhaps the number of people in the world who have read the Communist Manifesto cover to cover than there are people who have read the Bible to cover.

[ВАЛТЕР]

It did a good job of what it was supposed to do. The Manifesto can and should be improved upon to make it more applicable to today's world, however I'm not sure which individual or group would be best qualified for such a task.

If it can't keep your attention, then maybe you aren't interested enough in what it has to say.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Really? I think many of the sections are exciting and pretty moving for a pamphlet of this kind from that era. I first read it back in 1999 and was amazed by how it seemed to describe what I then thought of as a distinctly "new" phenomena of capitalist globalization. I think that it is so old at this point, but still so accurately describes some of the tendencies of capitalist rule is part of the strength of these ideas and theories.

The main drawback that I see for new readers or new people interested in radical ideas is some of the historical spcificity of (I think it's) section 3 - someone who wants an understanding of Marx probably doesn't need to know about the pro-Feudalism socialists he was arguing against in the 1840s or whatnot. Even then it's kind of interesting hisorically and for contemporary parallels in thought between some long-dead tendency described in the pamphlet and modern analogues (but not really necissary reading).

[Sir Comradical]

I orgasmed when I read it as a kid. If you don't like the CM, I suggest you see a doctor.


First rule on rev left- no one dare to criticize the Great Marx.

Agreed! lol.

[Jimmie Higgins]

LOL, if that's what happened when you read it, maybe you should have seen a doctor as a kid .

Yeah, orgasmed figurativly - I know.:lol:

[Blake's Baby]

Wow you know what I mean.

Not really. You said 'best selling' (which could theoretically be counted, and therefore verified)); then you said 'most read' (which would be incredibly difficult to count); now you might be saying you mean 'most printed' (which again is susceptible to measurement and verification). They're not the same thing, and you're not clear about which you mean, so really the rest of us have little clue.

EDIT: from wiki of 'best selling books': The Bible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible), the Qur'an (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qur%27an) and Quotations from Chairman Mao (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotations_from_Chairman_Mao), are widely reported as the most-printed and most-distributed books in the world, with many hundreds of millions of copies believed to be in existence in some cases. Exact print figures for some such books may also be missing or unreliable since these kinds of books may be produced by many different and unrelated publishers, in some cases over many centuries. All such books have been excluded from this List of best-selling books for these reasons.


Few people read the Bible though. At least few read it cover to cover. People cite quotes from it on occassion, but otherwise it gets left on people's shelves and more or less ignored. In the case of the Communist Manifesto, most people who own it have read it and many who don't own it have read it. Who knows, perhaps the number of people in the world who have read the Communist Manifesto cover to cover than there are people who have read the Bible to cover.

That could be because the Manifesto (even the Progress edition with all the introductions) is only about 60 pages, and the Bible is about 2,000. Closer, I'd think, to compare the Bible to Capital (which people also don't read cover-to-cover).

[Vanguard1917]

The Communist Manifesto is a masterclass in writing political propaganda. Obviously we wouldn't want to replicate its writing style in the 21st century, but its logical clarity and force still inspires.

[Luís Henrique]

I'm actually pretty surprised that there does not exist a publishing house that simply translates classical literature into ebonics.

... or at least a Java applet.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Who knows, perhaps the number of people in the world who have read the Communist Manifesto cover to cover than there are people who have read the Bible to cover.

Considering the respective sizes of both books, that wouldn't be a wonder at all.

Luís Henrique

[Zealot]

I actually really liked it. However, words such as bourgeoisie and proletariat aren't exactly common in modern discourse outside of academia but once I figured that out I quite liked the writing of the Communist Manifesto.

[Bronco]

Never really found it that inspiring, for it's time I guess it's a worthy piece of rhetoric but I wouldn't ascribe it the significance today that a lot of the left do

[nativeabuse]

Never really found it that inspiring, for it's time I guess it's a worthy piece of rhetoric but I wouldn't ascribe it the significance today that a lot of the left do

This really, I feel like it wasn't very influential at all in making me a Communist. It was one of the first Communist books I read but it really didn't have enough actual theory in it, it's been forever since I read it but I remember it being mostly rhetoric "the workers will unite" reworded various ways. I feel like Wikipedia was much more helpful than it ever was in my learning process.

[Grigori]

The first reading of the manifesto is always best due to the taboo connected to it. After immersing yourself in leftist politics it's just meh.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Marx's most beautiful writing is totally the first chapter of 18th Brumaire . . . There are probably more brilliantly quotable lines in that couple of pages than the rest of the Marxist cannon combined.

[Leftsolidarity]

I love the Manifesto and don't find it dry or boring at all. I did when I tried to read it when I was 15-16 cuz I couldn't comprehend it but once I got used to that kind of style I found it able to hold my attention and even entertain me.

[blake 3:17]

" All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind."

This is perhaps the most beautiful and honest couple of sentences in all of modern literature.

I'd say don't read it online -- if you can get a decent copy of the Manifesto by itself, or one of the Marx-Engels readers. I tried looking at it online and it hurt my eyes.

[Grigori]

Read it online so that could have been the problem although the majority of the book seemed bland in my opinion.

[ed miliband]

yea i mean, even bourgeois commentators love to say that the manifesto is 'beautifully written', a 'classic of world literature', and all that. not that i think their opinion should necessarily be listened to, but i don't think 'badly written' is a criticism one can level at the manifesto.

[Ostrinski]

You have to look at it within its historical context. It was meant as a political program for an organization that Engels and he were involved in, the Communist League. There are of course much better introductory texts to communist political theory - The Communist Manifesto was never meant as one in the first place. But it is still a good text that lays out a lot of fundamental communist perspectives. I wouldn't say it sucks at all.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

First rule on rev left- no one dare to criticize the Great Marx.
What bollocks!

[black magick hustla]

marx was a quite talented writer. he had a thing for very crisp imagery and wordplay and was quite funny in his polemics. it's funny because marx' successors where in general, boring as fuck writers. his prose was haunting and gave you goosebumps.

"The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. " is one of my favorite phrases

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Hmm, thanks to this thread, I've decided to start reading the Manifesto properly. I think I started reading it once before but got distracted.

I'll post my thoughts when I've finished.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I love the Manifesto and don't find it dry or boring at all. I did when I tried to read it when I was 15-16 cuz I couldn't comprehend it but once I got used to that kind of style I found it able to hold my attention and even entertain me.
This.

I read the Manifesto/Marx and Engels and I like the writing style. Especially Engel's he's such a sarcastic asshole. Marx can be too but Engel is better at it imo. I read modern day stuff and it bores me to death because it feels like they could write a lot less and still make the point, they never get to the point and when they do I totally miss it or something. Marx does this a lot too, just try reading Capital and you'll know what I mean. But when he does it he's usually just reframing what he previously said just in case you didn't understand it the first time because he knows this is hard shit. Obviously I'm being pretty general when I say "modern" stuff, people like Chomsky are very easy to read. But for example I tried reading The Coming Insurrection and couldn't stand it, absolutely hate how that book was written. Not that it's hard but it just makes me want to choke myself.

[Geiseric]

Marx lenin engels and trotsky, with many other marxists, write their stuff like Capital so normal people can get it without being academics, its deliberate.

[Blake's Baby]

I've started discussing it with my 10-year-old.

So far, we've got through the 'a spectre is stalking Europe' bit, and on to Pt 1 - Bourgeois and Proletarians; and that great first line - 'The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle'; a difficult concept for a 10-year-old to get.

[Let's Get Free]

The Manifesto is pretty much an angry rant by two grump old men.

[Geiseric]

The Manifesto is pretty much an angry rant by two grump old men.

They were really young when they wrote it.

[Ismail]

The 1970's Great Soviet Encyclopedia article on it is pretty good as a summary of why it's notable (it's certainly not Marx and Engels "ranting"):

Communist Manifesto
the first programmatic document of scientific communism, expounding the basic ideas of Marxism. It was written by K. Marx and F. Engels at the request of the Second Congress (1847) of the Communist League, as the league’s program. “With the clarity and brilliance of genius, this work outlines a new world-conception, consistent materialism, which also embraces the realm of social life; dialectics, as the most comprehensive and profound doctrine of development; the theory of the class struggle and of the world-historic revolutionary role of the proletariat—the creator of a new, communist society” (V. I. Lenin, Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 26, p. 48).

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels defined for the first time in the social sciences the place of the capitalist formation in human history, showing its progressive character by comparison with preceding formations and the inevitability of its downfall. The founders of scientific communism demonstrated that the entire history of society had been the history of the struggle of classes, with the exception of the primitive communal system (as Engels noted in the foreword to the 1883 German edition of the manifesto). In bourgeois society two main and antagonistic classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, are engaged in an irreconcilable struggle. Having become the economically dominant class, the bourgeoisie seized state power and has used it to defend its selfish class interests and to suppress the toilers. In the manifesto Marx and Engels revealed the irreconcilable internal contradictions within bourgeois society. At a certain stage, capitalist relations of production, which contributed to the rapid growth of productive forces, become an obstacle to the further development of production. The contradiction between the social nature of production and the private form of appropriation—the basic contradiction of capitalism— engenders economic crises, during which a substantial portion of the finished goods and productive forces are continuously destroyed.

The Communist Manifesto reveals and substantiates the world-historic role of the proletariat as the gravedigger of capitalist society and as the builder of communism, as the only revolutionary class that is consistent to the end, and that acts in the interests of all toilers. It is the working class that will deliver society from the oppression of capitalism by abolishing the capitalist form of ownership and replacing it by public ownership. The authors of the manifesto declared that the working class could fulfill this task only through revolutionary violence against the bourgeoisie, through proletarian socialist revolution. Marx and Engels showed that it was necessary to create a proletarian political party. They revealed its historical role, defined its tasks, and explained the relationship between the party and the working class. Marx and Engels wrote that Communists “are, on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement” (Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 4, p. 437).

Although they did not yet use the term “dictatorship of the proletariat” in the manifesto, Marx and Engels nonetheless expressed and substantiated there the idea of proletarian dictatorship. “The first step in the revolution by the working class,” wrote Marx and Engels, “is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy. The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat, organized as the ruling class, and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible” (ibid., p. 446). The manifesto emphasizes that the destruction of capitalism and the abolition of exploitation of man by man will end national oppression and international enmity. One of the basic principles of the revolutionary activity of Communists in different countries, noted Marx and Engles, is their mutual aid and support in the struggle against social oppression and exploitation, arising from their common goals. This principle, the principle of proletarian internationalism, is demonstrated throughout the manifesto. Explaining the great and humane goals of Communists, Marx and Engels showed the unsoundness of bourgeois ideologists’ attacks on Communists and exposed the class limitations and self-interested nature of bourgeois ideas, including those of marriage, ethics, property, and homeland.

In the manifesto Marx and Engels scientifically criticized the socialist and communist literature of the time. They revealed the class nature of the conceptions underlying feudal socialism, petit bourgeois socialism, German (or “true”) socialism, and conservative (or bourgeois) socialism. The founders of scientific communism also discussed the systems of critical-Utopian socialism, showing the unreality of these systems and at the same time pointing out rational elements in the views of the Utopian socialists C. Saint-Simon, C. Fourier, and R. Owen. Marx and Engels advanced important propositions on the tactics to be used by the proletarian party. Communists, they explained, are members of the consistently revolutionary party. They “fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class, but in the movement of the present they also represent and take care of the future of that movement” (ibid., p. 458).

The Communist Manifesto opened the way to a new era in the history of mankind and initiated the great revolutionary movement for the socialist transformation of the world. “This little booklet,” V. I. Lenin wrote of the manifesto, “is worth whole volumes: to this day its spirit inspires and guides the entire organized and fighting proletariat of the civilized world” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 2, p. 10).

The manifesto was first published in London in 1848 in German. In 1869 the first Russian edition was printed in Geneva; the translator, M. A. Bakunin, distorted the major theses. Another Russian edition appeared in Geneva in 1882, translated by G. V. Plekhanov and with a special foreword by Marx and Engels. According to incomplete data, beginning in 1848 about 760 editions of the manifesto in more than 50 languages were issued in various countries (excluding Russia). As of July 1, 1975, 466 editions in 75 languages, totaling 26,587,100 copies, had been published in the USSR.

[blake 3:17]

marx was a quite talented writer. he had a thing for very crisp imagery and wordplay and was quite funny in his polemics. it's funny because marx' successors where in general, boring as fuck writers. his prose was haunting and gave you goosebumps.

"The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. " is one of my favorite phrases

No, Marx was an amazing writer.

David McNally's book Monsters of the Market, which explores monster imagery and waged labour, mostly discusses the issue of vampires and zombies in relation to Marx's writings, partly the Manifesto, but mostly via Capital in the bulk of the book which is much more empirical than the parts most of us actually read...

[Il Medico]

I read it like five or so years ago, so I honestly don't remember whether I enjoyed the writing style or not. It pretty much completely changed my view of the world though, so I would like to imagine it's at least decently written. I'll have to give it another whirl.

[Manic Impressive]

The Manifesto is pretty much an angry rant by two grump old men.
I think Marx was about 26 or 27 when he wrote it and Engels was a few years younger IIRC.

[Astarte]

I also read the Manifest well over a decade ago for the first time, it was one of, if not the first writings from a marxist perspective or on marxism, socialism or communism I ever read and frankly it was a very influential piece. Like Jimmie Higgins mentioned, I too was pretty astounded by the overwhelming accuracy of how society in general is described by a thinker in the mid 19th century, and how precise and clear class analysis as a method of historical and social analysis is, the entire way I view history and today's society was first introduced to me via the Communist Manifesto.

I think Marx is rather verbose, but this verbosity is definitely not dry or boring because if you stick around and really hear him out he is making some incredible points that are easily missed, alluded or not fully absorbed if you are zoning out or not fully paying attention to the text while reading like so many of us do with the abundance of distractions all around us.

[Luís Henrique]

They were really young when they wrote it.

Marx and Engels were never young, they were already born old, grumpy and with huge beards.

Luís Henrique

[Lowtech]

I tried to read the communist manifesto again for like the first time since 16 and holy shit is it bad. I mean it fucking blew wet chunks. Marx may have been a pretty smart guy, but boy does he suck at writing. I can see how the style of writing and ideology appealed to me then, but holy bad.

Don't read the bible or stereo instructions. may cause suicidal thoughts.

forgive my jokes, but you do know the guy lived quite a long time ago and he wrote his work based on the circles of economics as it was in his day? Future leftists are going to read our posts and wonder if we're going on about unicorns.

How old are you? Do you dislike 8-bit video games?

[Tenka]

Marx is a little dry but he's not "bad"; and wasn't the Manifesto mostly Engels' work? I forget. Anyway, the English translations of Bordiga are more savorous.