The little pamphlet at the heart of this volume has been, ever since its initial publication, the object of extraordinarily intense controversy--and remains so in our own day.

A refugee German typesetter named Friedrich Lessner, who had helped with the printing of the Manifesto's first edition, recaptured in a memoir the enthusiasm the onset of revolution and the publication of the Manifesto elicited from its first audience, the revolutionary activists of a small clandestine organization called the Communist League. ...

The Norton Critical Edition offers a complete historical and philosophical introduction to Marx's Manifesto of the Communist Party. It will help both students making their first approach to Marx's thought and those ready to study the Manifesto in more depth.

For beginning students, this edition provides a carefully anno-tated text of the Manifesto, a useful historical and philosophical introduction by Frederic Bender, and a chronology of events sur-rounding publication of the Manifesto. More experienced students will benefit from sections on the sources of Marx's thought, the sig-nificance of the Manifesto in the history of Marxism, and recent interpretations of the work.

Preface

Chronology of Events Leading to the Communist Manifesto

Historical and Theoretical Backgrounds of the Communist Manifesto

Prefaces by Marx and Engels and Annotated Text of the Communist Manifesto

 PREFACES

Preface to the German Edition of 187z

Preface to the Russian Edition of 1882

Preface to the German Edition of 1883

Preface to the English Edition of 1888

Preface to the German Edition of 189o

Preface to the Polish Edition of 1892

Preface to the Italian Edition of 1893

 KARL MARX, MANIFESTO OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY

I. Bourgeois and Proletarians

II. Proletarians and Communists

III. Socialist and Communist Literature

IV. Position of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties

Sources and Backgrounds

 Bert Andrdas-[A Note on Sources]

 Rondel V. Davidson. Reform versus Revolution: Victor Considdrant and the Communist Manifesto

 S. S. Prawer" [Literary Traces in the Communist Manifesto]

 Michael Harrington" The Democratic Essence of Socialism

 Bertram D. Wolfe" Democracy and Dictatorship in 1848

 The Communist Manifesto in the History of Marxism

 Eduard Bernstein- [Revising the Communist Manifesto]

 Karl Kautsky-The Communist Manifesto after Six Decades

 V. I. Lenin, [The Communist Manifesto and the State]

 Max Adler, Socialism and Communism

 Leon Trotsky, On the Ninetieth Anniversary of the Communist Manifesto

 Lueien Laurat- If One Were to Rewrite the Communist Manifesto Today

Interpretation

 Y. Wagner and M. Strauss" [The Theoretical Foundations of the Communist Manifesto's Economic Program]

 Mihailo Markovid. [The State and Revolution in the Communist Manifesto]

 Hal Draper, [The Communist Manifesto and the Myth of the Disappearing Middle Glasses]

 Ernest Mandel, [Marx's Theory of Wages in the Communist

 Manifesto and Subsequently]

 Howard Selsam, The Ethics of the Communist Manifesto

 Karl L6with, [Marx's Prophetic Messianism]

 Joseph A. Schumpeter, The Communist Manifesto in Sociology and Economics

 Haig A. Bosmajian, A Rhetorical Approach to the Communist Manifesto

Selected Bibliography

Index