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Study Guide for
Engels’s
The Principles of Communism |
Preparatory Reading:
Communist League
Rules of the Communist League (First Draft)
Communist
Confession of Faith (Second Draft)
Letter from Engels to Marx on the form of the document.
Introduction
1: What is Communism?
Terms:
Communism.
Engels’ Answer
2: What is the proletariat?
Terms:
Proletariat,
Capital.
Engels’ Answer
3: Proletarians, then, have not
always existed?
Terms:
Tribal
Society.
Engels’ Answer
4: How did the proletariat
originate?
Terms:
Feudal
Society,
Bourgeois Society.
Engels’ Answer
5: Under what conditions does
this sale of the labor take place?
Terms:
Necessary Labour,
Working Day.
Engels’ Answer
6: What working classes were
there before the industrial revolution?
Terms:
Wage Labour,
Private
Labour.
Engels’ Answer
7: In what way do proletarians
differ from slaves?
Terms:
Slave
Society.
Commodity,
Labour
Power.
Engels’ Answer
8: In what way do proletarians
differ from serfs?
Terms:
Poverty,
Surplus
Value.
Engels’ Answer
9: In what way do proletarians
differ from handicraftsmen?
Terms:
Division of Labour,
Question
12 in Communist Confession of Faith
Engels’ Answer
10: In what way do proletarians
differ from manufacturing workers?
Terms:
Mechanisation and Automation,
Engels’ Answer
11: What were the immediate
consequences of the industrial revolution?
Terms:
Commodification,
Modernity.
Engels’ Answer
12: What were the further
consequences of the industrial revolution?
Terms:
Credit,
Business
Cycle,
Organic Composition of Capital.
Engels’ Answer
13: What follows from these
periodic commercial crises?
Terms:
Crisis of Capitalism,
Concentration of Capital.
Engels’ Answer
14: What will this new social
order have to be like?
Terms:
Equality,
Democracy,
Engels’ Answer
15: Was not the abolition of
private property possible at an earlier time?
Terms:
Private Property,
Productive Forces,
Utopia.
Engels’ Answer
16: Will the peaceful abolition
of private property be possible?
Terms:
State,
Peaceful
Road to Socialism.
Engels’ Answer
17: Will it be possible for
private property to be abolished at one stroke?
Terms:
Planned
Economy,
Public
Property,
Privatisation and Nationalisation,
Proletarian Democracy.
Engels’ Answer
18: What will be the course of
this revolution?
Terms:
Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
Socialism.
Engels’ Answer
19: Will it be possible for
this revolution to take place in one country alone?
Terms:
Socialism in One Country,
Globalisation,
Peaceful Coexistence,
Permanent Revolution.
Engels’ Answer
20: What will be the
consequences of the disappearance of private property?
Terms:
Freedom.
Engels’ Answer
21: What will be the influence
of communist society on the family?
Terms:
Women's Liberation.
Engels’ Answer
22: What will be the attitude
of communism to existing nationalities?
Terms:
Women's Liberation.
Engels’ Answer
23: What will be its attitude
to existing religions?
Terms:
Religion,
Atheism.
Engels’ Answer
24: How do communists differ
from Reactionary / Bourgeois / Democratic socialists?
Terms:
Reformism,
Social
Democracy,
Stalinism.
Engels’ Answer
25: What is the attitude of the
communists to the other political parties?
Terms:
Political Party,
Social
Movements,
Trade Union.
Engels’ Answer
Further Reading:
Communist Manifesto (Fourth and Final Draft)
Andy Blunden, 2002