Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Communist Manifesto in January 1848. This controversial, revolutionary statement of ideology was written for the Communist League, which was a small organization, similar to the secret societies that were common in the era. The group caused agitation and worked in favor of a united Germany. The league was inspired to commission and support the Manifesto as an inflammatory step toward revolution, caused by issues of class and economic struggle.

The piece opens by looking at the history of Europe. Marx viewed history as a series of class struggles that existed as an endless cycle. The bourgeois society exploited the working class in everyway. The bourgeois was the business owners who held the assets of the country. The working class lacked access to resources and opportunity.

At the same time that Marx explained the horrors committed by the bourgeois, he served as a...