Workers Party of Ireland celebrates the 175^th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto

Today, 21 February, is the 175^th anniversary of a landmark moment for humanity. On that day in 1848, the Manifesto of the Communist Party appeared. The Communist Manifesto was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich on behalf of the Communist League, a transnational party formed to build a better future for all workers. 

It set out in simple but forceful terms the materialist conception of history, or dialectical materialism, i.e. that human history was driven by a class struggle between the haves and the have-nots, between master and servant, between exploiter and exploited. 

In that struggle, it pointed out, the state acts as the tool of the ruling class, and that the only way to establish freedom was for the wage-earning workers, the proletariat, to take control of it and use its power to abolish economic and other forms of oppression. 

Marx and Engels noted that whereas previous revolutions and changes in the dominant class had only changed the ruling class, the workers ridding themselves of the oppression of the bourgeoisie would usher in a bright new era for humanity, where the freedom of the majority meant freedom for all. 

The means of achieving this end were clear, the Manifesto argued. Workers needed their own, independent political organisation – their own party. They also needed to shed their illusions about the brutal nature of capitalism, and about those who thought that reform could make it into something else. 

Much of the Manifesto was dedicated to exposing the illusions of those who called themselves socialists but refused to confront the vicious reality of capitalism and of class power, and who served only to mislead workers and divert their struggles into dead-ends. 

It was the job of Communists, it said, to raise awareness of these facts among the workers, to convince them of the need for a revolution in social, political, and economic power, and to organise them into a political party capable of achieving these goals. 

The nature of capitalism was such that it was an international phenomenon requiring an internationalist response. Hence its famous rallying cry – ‘Workers of the world, unite!’ 

Despite all the changes in society, technology, politics, and the economy since then, the Workers Party of Ireland remains clear that the materialist analysis of Marx and Engels remains the key to understanding, and to changing for the better, human history.

While others have abandoned the analysis laid out in the Communist Manifesto, or pay lip service to it in an attempt to conceal their retreat from class politics, we remained convinced that the only way to build a better future for workers in Ireland and across the world, lies in the fundamental politics and approach of Marx, Engels, and the Communist Manifesto, as developed by Lenin and others. 

On the anniversary of this historic day, we send solidarity to our comrades and supporters, at home and abroad.

Workers of the world, unite!