The Class Struggles of 18th and 19th Centuries in Europe
Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto in order to give a voice to the struggling classes in Europe. In the document he expressed the frustrations of the lower class. As Marx began his document with "the history of all hitherto societies has been the history of class struggles" he gave power to the lower classes and sparked a destruction of their opressors.1 He argued that during the nineteenth century Europe was divided into two main classes: the wealthy upper class, the bourgeoisie, and the lower working class, the proletariat. After years of suffering oppression the proletariats decided to use their autonomy and make a choice to gain power. During the eighteenth and nineteenth century the proletariats were controlled and oppressed by the bourgeoisie until they took on the responsibility of acquiring equality through the Communist Manifesto.
First it is important to understand the French economy during the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The working class people were struggling with their need to get by in life and feed their family and the internal call to make a choice and gain equality. The problem was that the proletariats did not have much of a choice at the time because if they did not work then they did not survive. The struggling class had to agree to what all the owners said and “whatever their status, the peasants continued to pay to their lord feudal dues on such land as they held on his estates." 2 It was clear that a social change was needed since the workers were being so abused and getting no reward for their efforts.
The European society during the eighteenth and nineteenth century consisted of ...
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...equality.
WEB LINKS
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850-csf/csf.htm
http://eh.net/Clio/Conferences/ASSA/Jan_99/hadeishi.shtml
http://mars.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc2/lectures/towns.html
http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~yamashir/History.htm
End Notes
1. Karl Marx, Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848 (France), 1.
2. John Lough, An Introduction to Eighteenth Century France (New York: David McKay
Company Inc., 1960), 18.
3. Craig Calhoun, Habermas and the Public Sphere (London: The MIT Press, 1992), 187.
4. Lough, 53.
5. Gerhard Grempel, "The Eighteenth Century Town" The Eighteenth Century Town,
<http://mars.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc2/lectures/towns.html> (October 1
2001).
6. Herbert Wilson, The Old Regime in France. (New York: Howard Fertig, 1970), 278.
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