The Communist Manifesto

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels

When the ancient world was in its last throes, the ancient religions were overcome by Christianity. When Christian ideas succumbed in the 18th century to rationalist ideas, feudal society fought its death-battle with the then revolutionary bourgeoisie. The ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience, merely gave expression to the sway of free competition within the domain of knowledge.

I had never before read a manifesto, so not only was this my first foray into the realms of communist literature, but also manifestos. However all this is mere background. I am surprised, though I shouldn't be; for some odd reason I expected the communist version of Thomas Paine--this expectation was without logic, but none the less present. I figured that this as a "manifesto" would be a fiery work with all sorts of pulls at the heartstrings and what not. The only really propaganda-like line of the whole work is its last, "Workers of the world, unite!" Perhaps I found to it be lacking in passion because I did not agree with it, but I have read other things which I disagreed with yet still felt them working their emotional magic on me.
Really, aside from Marx's desire to abolish the family, the current societal system, religion, and others, I found it to be less unreasonable than I imagined. I don't know that I want to venture into anything near political commentary, so there is not much more to say. But if you happen to be interested in Communism, I thought this was a pretty good introduction to what it looked like in its earlier forms--although you can hear the echoes of the Communist Manifesto in Soviet and Chinese communism, but only the echoes.