SOURCE: Davidson, Rondel V. “Reform versus Revolution: Victor Considérant and the Communist Manifesto.” In Karl Marx: “The Communist Manifesto,” edited by Frederic L. Bender, pp. 93-104. New York: Peter Lang, 1988.

In the following essay, originally published in 1977, Davidson examines the influence Victor-Prosper Considérant's Manifest de la démocratie pacifique (1843) had on Marx and Engels' philosophy and their subsequent writing of the Communist Manifesto. The critic considers arguments that the Communist Manifesto is a mere translation of Considérant's work, and demonstrates where the two works are similar and where they are fundamentally different.

Despite voluminous publications relating to the development of Marxism, the specific origins of the Communist Manifesto remain subject to scholarly debate. One of the most important and unresolved controversies deals with the relationship between Marx and Engels' publication of 1848 and the French Fourierist, Victor-Prosper Considérant's Manifeste de la démocratie pacifique, originally...