Friedrich Engels & Friedrich Engels 
The communist manifesto 

The Communist Manifesto is divided into a preamble and four sections, the last of these a short conclusion. The introduction begins by proclaiming ‘A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre’. Pointing out that parties everywhere—including those in government and those in the opposition—have flung the ‘branding reproach of communism’ at each other, the authors infer from this that the powers-that-be acknowledge communism to be a power in itself. Subsequently, the introduction exhorts Communists to openly publish their views and aims, to ‘meet this nursery tale of the spectre of communism with a manifesto of the party itself’.