On This Day…

… in 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published a pamphlet called The Communist Manifesto. It advocated the abolition of private property and emphasised that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”

Arguably one of the most influential works ever, the Manifesto influenced everything from literary theory to politics – notably being adopted (and, quickly, distorted) during the Russian Revolution and under Stalin’s rule in the early twentieth century.