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Marx's call to liberation 160 years and still going strong
By
Barry Healy
Not
many young authors can publish a work before they reach thirty years of
age and
have it remain in publication continuously for the following 160 years.
Yet
that is precisely the case with the Communist Manifesto, which
was born
in the middle of a Europe-wide revolutionary upsurge in February 1848.
Moreover,
the Manifesto still rings through the years to today’s world
with its
promise of human liberty and fulfilment.
The
democratic wave that swept Europe in 1848 was
a consequence of the
unfinished business of the French Revolution of 1789. In that heroic
revolution
the French capitalist class took control of society by calling the
workers,
peasants and other lower orders to their side through promising
liberty,
fraternity and equality. The reactionary European powers quelled the
revolution
without dampening down its promise.
Full: http://www.links.org.au/node/323