Librarian+of+Marx's+Communist+Manifesto

Donnell Jay Donnell Ideal Worlds Mrs. McWilliams 11/9/08

Librarian for “The Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx

“The Communist Manifesto” has been read for over a hundred years and continues to be read today. There are an infinite number of articles about the Communist Manifesto and most of the criticize Karl Marx. Kim Allen and Prof. Georg Lohmann’s articles are no different from most of the articles about the Manifesto, they both critique the manuscript throughout the article. Kim Allens article critiques many small aspects of the manuscript where as in Prof. Georg Lohmann’s article “A missed Opportunity” critiques mostly big picture ideas. In Georg Lohmanns article “A Missed Opportunity” he mainly focuses on the idea of how human rights are not mentioned in “The Communist Manifesto”. Lohmann talks about how Marx doesn’t differentiate the rights of a human, and the rights of a citizen. The article goes on to talk about how Marks assesses civil rights completely positively, but isn’t effective in doing so. Lohmann suggests that Marx’s ideas would create a barrier between citizen and state, which could lead to a lot of problems. Lohmann criticizes Marx for his assessment of civil rights, because Marx believes that civil rights are the rights of a collective group. Lohmann believes civil rights are subjective rights of a multitude of individual citizens. Throughout the article, Lohmann criticizes Marx for his lack of understanding of human rights. The article is entitle “A Missed Opportunity”, because the author feels that Marx might have had a good idea, but he wasn’t able to differentiate human rights from civil and political rights. Kim Allen’s review of “The Communist Manifest” is much different than Lohmanns article. Allen’s review mainly focuses on many small aspects that effect the legitimacy of the manuscript. The article talks about how Marx was writing about what he wanted to create and not about something that actually existed in 1848. Allen claims that the manuscript was mainly just written by Marx, not an elite group of communists. Allen talks about how Lenin tried to market the document in 1917, and how the Russian proletariat did not rise up because most of them were illiterate and unable to read it. The article goes on to criticize how Marx never says whether Communism will be all over Europe, or will there be different Communist States for each nationality? Allen also talks about how Marx never says how he plan on installing people into their positions of state. Allen criticizes Marx for thinking that government is just a “detail” and for only thinking that class matters. By the end of the article, Allen basically says that the only reason that the article matters today is because of its historical significance because the document shows peoples reactions to Industrialization. Georg Lohmanns article is the more thought out article. It digs deep into the core of a major issue with all people in the world, human rights. The article is complicated, but meaningful. Allen’s review is more picky and less thought out. Allen’s is also more opinion oriented, with less factual evidence. Lohmann presented many more facts than Allen, and was less aggressive in his attack of “The Communist Manifesto”.