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The Communist Manifesto

Penguin Classics

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The Communist Manifesto

By: Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx
Narrated by: Arinze Kene
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

This Penguin Classic is performed by Arinzé Kene, writer and performer of Olivier Award nominated Misty, and also known for his roles in Youngers, Informer and Eastenders. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by Gareth Stedman Jones.

The Communist Manifesto (1848), Marx and Engels's revolutionary summons to the working classes, is one of the most important and influential political theories ever formulated. After four years of collaboration the authors produced this incisive account of their idea of Communism, in which they envisage a society without classes, private property or a state. They argue that increasing exploitation of industrial workers will eventually lead to a revolution in which Capitalism is overthrown. This vision provided the theoretical basis of political systems in Russia, China, Cuba and Eastern Europe, affecting the lives of millions. The Communist Manifesto still remains a landmark text: a work that continues to influence and provoke debate on capitalism and class.

Public Domain (P)2019 Penguin Audio Political Science Politics & Government Socialism Capitalism Soviet Union Russia Imperialism

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All stars
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My only criticism would be that the reader can at times be a bit monotone. To some this may be relaxing and have an appeal to it but personally it can make it hard to listen for extended periods (3hours and beyond) in one sitting.

very good.

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I am very uncomfortable buying this off Amazon. Still a fantastic work of art which proves two massive points:
- capitalism sucks
- we need a revolution, things are getting kinda rough nowadays

- This is for Jeff Bezos’s eyes only -
Dear Mr Bezos,
When the revolution comes you are first
Sincerely, pretty much everybody

Putting the rad into radicalised

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As other reviewers have mentioned, there is a very long introduction for what is essentially quite a short primary text. I found the audio levels much lower than some other Audible titles and therefore found it hard to hear over some background noise. The pronunciation is a bit squiffy at times. The introduction is quite dry and academic but does put the work in its intellectual context. It didn’t exactly make we want to storm the barricades, although I did advocate for better pay and conditions for Deliveroo drivers while reading it!

Long introduction, poor pronunciation

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This must be the only audiobook where the first three-quarters are taken up with people talking about the book rather than reading the book itself. The narrator is good however.

Good - if you like long intros.

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This is not the actual Communist Manifesto. Don’t make the same mistake I did. It’s just about okay for what it is but I don’t really see the value

This is not the actual Communist Manifesto. Don’t make the same mistake I did

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‘The Communist Manifesto’ itself, hastily published during the initial weeks of the 1848 revolution in France, is a short work which, on its own, requires under two hours to narrate. This Penguin edition contains a very useful introduction to the work, more than three times the length of the work itself, detailing the background to the Manifesto; the conditions which brought it about; its initial and later reception; the influences upon the thought of Engels and Marx; a consideration of the respective contributions of Engels and of Marx to the work; and a consideration of the question of why, in the work, Marx praised so highly the achievements of the bourgeoisie up to his time.

The text of the work is the Samuel Moore translation of the second German edition of 1872 for the first English edition of 1888. For a nineteenth-century translation this still sounds strikingly modern, and therefore perfectly serviceable. It also has the advantages of being the translation which has had the greatest influence on the English-speaking world, and of having received the imprimatur of Engels himself.

The Manifesto is awash with memorable phrases, from the opening line, “A spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of Communism,” to its closing demand, “Working men of all countries, unite!” It is also a document filled with bile against the bourgeoisie, a term which Marx and Engels employ as a generic object of hatred representing every form of modern oppression which must be forcibly overthrown by revolution. In this, the work comes across as rather simplistic, casually ironing out the multifarious tides and movements of history, and allowing no recognition to historical motivations to social change other than class struggle, such as, e.g., the Christian awakenings seen in the Reformation or in the anti-slavery movement. From such simplification of human history arose so much of what subsequently occurred in the twentieth century.

Narration

The choice of narrator for this audio edition is bizarre. Arinze Kene frequently mispronounces words (his “lassez-faire” [sic] and “hegemony” with a hard ‘g’ being two examples), and I was frequently annoyed by his inability to pronounce correctly the various French, German and Latin phrases which crop up particularly in the introduction.

Worse than this, however, is the pace of delivery, or rather lack of it. As a listener you want the narration to ebb and flow with the natural flow of the text; whereas Kene delivers this at a sort of flat pace which makes both introduction and Manifesto much harder to follow than they need be. It feels like he doesn’t understand what he’s reading: at one point in the Manifesto (25’ from the end of the audiobook) he reads, “a class is being developed which is destined to cut up root and branch the old order of society,” as if ‘root’ were the object of ‘cut up,’ and ‘branch’ were the succeeding verb.

He also, on three occasions (viz., in Chapter 4, 6º16’ from the end of the recording; in Chapter 9, 3º26’ from the end; and in the Manifesto itself, 1º04’ from the end), repeats an entire sentence or part of a sentence, without appearing aware of having done so.

It’s a great pity that the narration is so poor. It ruins what would otherwise be a very worthwhile audiobook.

The Marxist view of history

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Unfortunately, despite the authors being listed as Marx and Engels this is not true and the majority of this book is a written commentary of the Communist Manifesto. misleading!

80% not the Communist Manifesto!

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It's rather misleading that Engels and Marx are listed as the authors of this book, considering the communist manifesto takes up only 1 and a half hour of this 7 and a half hour long audio book.
Before you get to hear Marx and Engels text, you need to listen to 6 hours of biased arguments and postulates by Gareth Stedman Jones. He is not at all objective in his explanation, and so I would recommend you read the manifesto somewhere else.

Biased text by Gareth Stedman Jones

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