The Communist Manifesto

A short pamphlet written for the Communist League and published in German in London in February 1848, just before revolutions broke out across Europe. It opens by announcing that a spectre is haunting Europe, the spectre of communism. Section I, 'Bourgeois and Proletarians', claims that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles, praises the bourgeoisie for revolutionising production and sweeping away feudal ties, and predicts that capitalism creates its own gravediggers in the industrial working class. Section II defends communism against objections about property, family and nation, and lists ten immediate measures, including a progressive income tax and free education for all children in public schools. Section III criticises rival socialisms, and Section IV sets out communist tactics, ending with the call for workers of all countries to unite. Critics point to the record of regimes that claimed its inspiration and to its failed predictions about the collapse of capitalism.

It is one of the most influential political texts ever written, short enough to read in an hour, and its picture of a restless, globalising capitalism still reads as strikingly current.