Founding document of the modern revolutionary workers movement, published in 1848. Explains why communism is not a set of preconceived principles but the line of march of the working class toward power, "springing from an existing class struggle, a historical movement going on under our very eyes."From the Communist Manifesto"Communists have no interest separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. Their theoretical conclusions are in no way based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer. They merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very eyes."