Skip to main content
Red Books Day 2023: Marx, Engels and Byron
A new annual appreciation of Marx and leftist literature has spread across the globe from India in only three short years – for Britain’s Manifesto Press, NICK WRIGHT joins this year’s celebration
A view of the grave of Marxist philosopher Karl Marx (1818-1883) in Highgate Cemetery East in Highgate, north London

TWO books take us back to the middle of the 19th century — the poetry of Byron and the Manifesto of the Communist Party.

It was perfect timing. Just as a chain of democratic revolutions against the tyrannies and despotic royal regimes of Europe began, two young Germans, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, penned The Manifesto of the Communist Party. It appeared in print on February 21 1848.

Marx and Engels later recounted: “The Communist League, an international association of workers, which could, of course, be only a secret one, under conditions obtaining at the time, commissioned us, the undersigned, at the Congress held in London in November 1847, to write for publication a detailed theoretical and practical programme for the party.

Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. Photo: Danny Lawson/PA Wire
Immigration / 24 April 2025
24 April 2025

The left must avoid shouting ‘racist’ and explain that the socialist alternative would benefit all 

ANGER GROWS: Protesters demonstrate in Dover against migrant
Features / 10 April 2025
10 April 2025
The left must confront both far-right bigotry and the undeniable problems the exploitation of migrant workers by the ruling class creates — but there are few lessons from the global left on how to strike this balance, laments NICK WRIGHT
FACING THE RIGHT:
Anti-racist protesters
in Walthamstow, 202
Features / 27 March 2025
27 March 2025
Xenophobic hysteria over the statistically insignificant number of small-boat crossings deliberately conceals how capitalism manipulates population flows for profit — if we can explain that, we’ll beat the right, argues NICK WRIGHT
PREMONITION OF DISASTER: Anonymous photographer, Fallen Stat
Book Review / 18 March 2025
18 March 2025
NICK WRIGHT delicately unpicks the eloquent writings on art of an intellectual pessimist who wears his Marxism lightly
Similar stories
DISTINGUISHED: Portrait of Hans Hess c1962 (photographer unk
Features / 23 November 2024
23 November 2024
PAUL MACGEE highlights a new series of books that brings together a treasure trove of writings by a Jewish Marxist art historian who offers readers a refreshingly grounded theory of art
PATHBREAKING: Marcus Garvey (left) George Padmore (right)
Features / 15 June 2024
15 June 2024
In the final part of a series taken from his new book, African Uhuru, ROGER McKENZIE discusses the work of black rights titans George Padmore and Marcus Garvey, plus the significance of the Non-Aligned Movement’s creation in 1955
LOWER RANKS: Black workers were often recruited to work on t
Features / 12 June 2024
12 June 2024
In the second in a four-part serialisation of his new book, African Uhuru, ROGER McKENZIE outlines the organised resistance to a surge of racism against black workers in law and in the unions as they returned from the war
DRAMATIC MOMENT: Protesters throw the statue of merchant and
Features / 11 June 2024
11 June 2024
ROGER McKENZIE discusses the different Marxist traditions of thought about race and racism in the first in a four-part serialisation of his new book, African Uhuru