Preamble — the spectre named

A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. The opening sentence names the antagonist and frames the whole pamphlet as a reply to a campaign of misrepresentation. Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French radicals and German police-spies have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre. Every opposition party has been branded communist by its rivals in power; every opposition party has flung the same charge back at its own more advanced rivals. Communism, whatever it actually is, has become the universal accusation.

From this Marx and Engels draw two propositions. First: communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be a power — the very violence of the denunciation confirms it. Second: it is high time that communists openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and answer this nursery tale of the Spectre of Communism with a manifesto of the party itself. The argument is tactical as much as theoretical: silence lets the enemy write the definition.

To this end, communists of various nationalities have assembled in London and drafted the following manifesto, to be published in six languages: English, French, German, Italian, Flemish, and Danish. Six paragraphs total. The Preamble does not yet argue — it sets the scene, names the adversaries, and states the reason for speaking. What follows is the argument.