Lynch- Communist Manifesto

     When deciding a party to analyze integrated with the communist manifesto, Karl Marx, and the 18th Brumaire, the proletariat party felt fitting considering Marx viewed the proletariats as a possible pawn in the chess game of the Marxist revolution and his dreams of a communist society. The proletariats were a working social class, who Marx believed had no ownership of any means of production and their only source of income was to sell their bodies and labor.
    Marx explains further that they have been exploited for their labor with meager wages and poor working conditions by the Bourgeoisie, another social class that controlled production, and the combination of these two classes created the means to fuel Capitalism. He claims “The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones”(communist manifesto ch. 1). Capitalism was based on the premise of manipulation by the Bourgeoisie who profit off the proletariat’s hard work after the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution was brought on by the discovery of the steam engine and various mechanical devices. These machines were very expensive and could only really be bought by big capitalists and corporations. They modernized the entirety of production and displaced the workers because the machines cranked out mass amounts for cheap. The machine delivered industry was run by big capitalists and rendered the working class useless. Marx goes to say that proletarians have been working hard for the wealth of the bourgeois and the growth and expansion of capitalism, but they should only be working the amount necessary to keep themselves fed with a roof on their head(communist manifesto ch. 1).
Marx was very invested in proletariat affairs, because he believed this oppression of the proletariats gave them common political interests which would spark unification to abolish capitalism. By abolishing capitalism, it could lead the way for a Marxist principle called communism, which would indicate a society based on the transition to all property being publicly accessible and work being based on abilities and needs that are case specific, with no more class distinctions or exploitations, thus creating peace and justice, as stated, “This class sees the struggle for democracy as a means for blunting the antagonisms in class society, of reconciling the bourgeoisie and the proletariat and allowing them to live together in peace”(18th brumaire). In order to abolish capitalism and in turn switch to communism, a revolution would need to occur to advance their political interests. Karl Marx claims that the Bourgeoisie created what ultimately destroyed them in the revolution when he says “But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons — the modern working class — the proletarians” (communist manifesto ch.1).

It was hard to find a specific figure or group of people that spoke entirely for the party, but Lenin is someone who spoke towards proletariats and his findings and writings and structured Russian society around the proletariat revolution. He believed that the only alternative to the way life had been was reverse power in the State from the bourgeois to the proletariat, which he shared with Marx. Him and Marx shared common belief that the proletariats were being under-represented and exploited by the higher class. I order to overcome the exploitation they faced they would need to destroy the apparatus of oppressive relations between bourgeois and proletariat by uprising against them and overthrowing capitalism. Lenin was hoping to spark the fight for socialism in proletariats, while Marx believed socialism is the first step, but the fight doesn’t just stop there. I don’t think Lenin necessarily hit the nail on the head in regards to what the proletariats wanted, but he really thought
The 18th Brumaire and Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx both greatly inform of the industrial revolution and the effects it has had on the class system, and the Proletariats specifically. Proletariats had a major part of the revolution and capitalism, and Karl Marx is very informative about what makes the proletariat class, their common interests and his beliefs of how they could have advanced the entirety of society, and what role they played in capitalism.

 

 

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