Thoughts:
A lot of people attack communists and communism with as much fervor as you see towards someone like Hitler and his Nazis. After reading Mein Kampf and seeing there was nothing to be upset about in Hitler's book, and after seeing in that very same book much vitriol towards the communists, I thought this would be worthwhile to read.
It turns out that, unlike the ill conceived hatred spewed towards Hitler, the invectives pointed toward this manifesto are, at least in my opinion, delivered not nearly frequently enough nor with as much ire as it is deserving.
Ridiculous doesn't even begin; it boggles my mind that these ideas would ever survive a day, let alone over a century. In fact, these very ideals are still in practice today, taught, or should I say instilled, by our university educated university professors, propagating the idea of class struggle and property abolishment, however often couched in words like "reform", despite a litany of failures history has to offer.
The main points are explicit, presented unapologetically. First, the obvious, abolishment of all private property. Everyone is familiar with that, but it is actually the tamest of the ideals espoused.
Next we have the abolishment of all religion. I know a lot of people today, at least those western-minded ones, those vanguards of science, extolling that religion is useless, a fantasy, a delusion, but what is religion if not faith? Do those same science zealots have faith, utter, non flinching, total faith in the beloved scientific method? The new religion IS science. But I digress.
Abolishing nations, building a supranational, one-world party, the world united in peace after the overthrow of capitalism. This is, almost, the end game of communism. I say almost because, once your national identity is removed, there is still one institution that remains, one final "social construct" to demolish. The family.
Yep, that is right, it calls explicitly for the abolishment of the family. How can it possibly be that the most anti-communistic people out there rail about the absurdity of abolishing private property, which I can at least understand both sides of that debate, while leaving untouched the tenderest point on which to upend any semblance of ground the would-be communist is arguing from. Who in their right mind things family is an oppressive structure? It is even more insane than the whole LGBT, I want to be a penguin on Tuesday, nonsense. At least, even if you "identify" as a whatchamacallit, you don't deny the existence of mothers, fathers, and families, even fucked up ones full of trans loonies. That said, I see the LGBT as the next stage in the wedge that is being driven between families. Children being raised on smart phones, moving across the country to get what passes for an education, and then moving somewhere different, but not back home, in search of the ever more elusive job. But, again, I digress.
Coming back for a moment to the abolishing of all nations, you can see that this is being enacted today. The United Nations may not be the most prestigious of organizations, but it has, along with the League of Nations before it, cleared the path for the so-called refugees flooding into Europe right now. Whatever side you take, it is undeniable that left unabated these migrants will forever change the makeup of Europe. Similar, although less extreme, occurrences are slowly reshaping the ethnic makeup of the United States.
Another strategy, again seen today, is that the communist proposes to support all revolutions under the guise of solidarity. We see Black Lives Matter, one of many social justice warrior fueled movements, presented sympathetically by most of the media, a media that seems to be quite progressive, nearing on communistic at times. In reality all these revolutions, all these movements are supported for one reason and one reason only, destabilization. This is the reason Soros' foundations, most noteworthy being The Open Society, as well as plenty of others, support these snowflakes. To destabilize the world, make it harder to make heads or tails out of anything, and make it easier to usher in their communistic dreams.
Even the tactics we see today are the tactics described in these pages. Everything is an us versus them, black versus white, bourgeoisie versus proletariat, always a clash, always a confrontation, always militaristic. Even once you get past the violent revolution, if you drink the Kool-Aid and say "Yeah, I buy it, sounds good", there is a striking absence of what comes next. It only ever talks vaguely about proletarian state and community factories but never gives any detail how this would actually function. Bureaucracy? Even if you say it is all one class, there will still need to be administrators of such a state.
Lastly it seem written in excessively flower language for a document meant to be accessed by the common man. It is older and the people it targeted may have had better reading skills and more extensive vocabularies, but as it stands now I would not wager on it being successful in the modern world of common men. That isn't to say it is unapproachable, far from it, but in a Twitter and Facebook dominated world, it would be beyond the common layman. This is not a criticism of the doctrine of course, simply an observation.
Finally, when juxtaposing this manifesto this against Mein Kampf, the latter appears as a breath of fresh air in its no nonsense critique of Marxism. The stories in Hitler's work and what can be seen around us today both stand as testament to the fact communistic elements are not only alive and well, but proceeding swimmingly to bring about their world state, however different the path to reach it might be than that envisioned by Marx and Engels. Our universities still, in the most transparently veiled manner, fill our children's heads with the same abolishments that are presented herein. These students fill the ranks of the Anti-fa and similar groups that employ the same tactics described by Hitler some 90+ years ago, employed then to inhibit the National Socialist German Labor Party meetings, shouting down any timid opposition and outright violence when their shrill cries fail. Look no farther than Berkley University or even Evergreen College to see a litany of modern examples.
Books
- Der Ursprung der Familie des Privateigentbums und des Staats [The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State] 2nd edition, Stuttgart, 1886 [Note by Engels to the English edition of 1888.]
