On the 150th
Anniversary of the Communist Manifesto
Statement by the Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist
Movement
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 parties and organisations 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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