But a spectral wave is coming, a spectre that is haunting Europe, the Spectre of Communism. Eventually, the downtrodden are flung lower into a hellish abyss, their only hope the dirty, inhumane factories of early capitalism. Over the rest of the forward, Rowson draws ‘All History Hitherto.’ What starts as simple farming quickly becomes a hierarchy as piles of people are crushed below a few grand bishops, knights, and lords. Rowson opens his forward with an image of Marx as a centaur in ancient Greece, didactically pointing a pencil and holding a Hegel book. The interesting thing about this introduction is what’s going on at the bottom of the pages. This is all fairly easily found information Rowson wrote a piece for the Guardian that is very similar to the text of his forward. Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Marx’s birth, The Communist Manifesto is both a timely reminder of the politics of hope and a thought-provoking guide to the most influential work of political theory ever published.īefore Marx’s classic words, when opening the comic “Communist Manifesto,” Rowson first gives us his forward, where he contextualises the original “Communist Manifesto” as well as his relationship to it. The Guardian’s editorial cartoonist Martin Rowson employs his trademark draughtsmanship and wit in this lively graphic novel adaptation. It is no surprise, perhaps, that The Communist Manifesto (as it was later renamed) is the second bestselling book of all time, surpassed only by The Bible. Much of what Marx and Engels proposed continues to be at the heart of political debate in the 21st century. It remains the most incisive introduction to the ideas of Communism and the most lucid explanation of its aims.

Published in 1848, at a time of political upheaval in Europe, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ Manifesto for the Communist Party was at once a powerful critique of capitalism and a radical call to arms.

Oaths and Omissions by Sav R. Miller