On the 150th Anniversary of the Communist Manifesto
Statement by the Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement
Revolutionary Worker #956, May 3, 1998
February 1998 marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of the Communist Manifesto. Written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, the Manifesto marks the beginning of the class-conscious proletarian movement. The Manifesto, in a broad and sweeping way, revealed the workings of capitalism and the need for the proletariat to overthrow this system and construct a new social system of socialism and communism.
150 years later, the Manifesto still strikes us with the power of its denunciation of the capitalist system, the scientific clarity of the causes and solutions of exploitation and oppression, its soaring revolutionary vision of a new society without class divisions, and its resounding optimism and confidence in the revolutionary class and the ultimate triumph of its historic mission.
The course of the proletarian revolution has proven to be protracted and complex, full of twists and turns, of partial victories and temporary defeats in the course of its ultimately triumphant march. The revolutionary science first developed by Marx and Engels has developed through stages and in connection with the struggles of millions of people over the many decades to what we understand as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Yet the Manifesto has lost none of its relevance for today.
The Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement calls upon the participating parties and organizations of RIM, together with other Marxist-Leninist-Maoist forces, to use this 150th anniversary to take up the study and promotion of the Communist Manifesto, to use this anniversary as an opportunity to boldly promote our communist vision among the masses, and to discuss and deepen our own understanding of our scientific ideology and the historic mission of the proletariat.
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