A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.
Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?
Two things result from this fact:
I. Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself a power.
II.It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the spectre of communism with a manifesto of the party itself.
To this end, Communists of various nationalities have assembled in London and sketched the following manifesto, to be published in the English,French, German, Italian, Flemish and Danish languages.
I. Bourgeois and Proletarians
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders,
a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.
The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.
Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other—bourgeoisie and proletariat.
From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed.
The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonization of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development.
The feudal system of industry, in which industrial production was monopolized by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The guild-masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle class; division of labour between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labour in each single workshop.
Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even manufacturers no longer sufficed. Thereupon,steam and machinery revolutionized industrial production. The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, Modern Industry; the place of the industrial middle class by industrial millionaires, the leaders of the whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.
(Marx&Engels,1969:14-15; Tr./Moore)
有一个怪物，在欧洲徘徊着，这怪物就是共产主义。旧欧洲有权力的人都因为要驱除这怪物，加入了神圣同盟。罗马法王，俄国皇帝，梅特涅，基佐（Guizot），法国急进党，德国侦探，都在这里面。
那些在野的政党，有不被在朝的政敌，诬作共产主义的吗？那些在野的政党，对于其他更急进的在野党，对于保守的政党，不都是用共产主义这名词作回骂的套语吗？
由这种事 实可以看出两件事：
共产主义，已经被全欧洲有权力的人认作一种有权力的东西。
共产党员，已经有了时机可以公然在全世界底面前，用自己党底宣言发表自己的意见，目的，趋向，并对抗关于共产主义这怪物底无稽之谈。
为了这缘故，各国共产党员便在伦敦开了个会，草了下列的宣言，用英、法、德、意、弗兰德、丹麦各国底语言，公布于世界。
有产者及无产者
一切过去社会底历史，都是阶级争斗底历史。
自由民（Freeman）和奴隶（Slave），贵族（Patrician）和平民（Plebeian），领主（Lord）和农奴（Serf），行东（Guild-master）和佣工（Journey-man），总而言之，就是压迫阶级和被压迫阶级，从古到今，没有不站在反对的地位，继续着明争暗斗。每次争斗底结局，不是社会全体革命的新建设告成，便是交战的两阶级并倒。
我们略看前代的历史，便会晓得无论何处都是组织复杂的社会里分出各种阶级，社会的地位分出各种等级。在古代罗马有贵族，骑士（Knight），平民，奴隶；在中世纪，有封建领主，家臣（Vassal），行东，佣工，徒弟（Apprentice）和农奴；这些阶级里，又隶属许多等级
从封建社会底废墟上发生的近代有产社会，也免不了有阶级对抗；不过造出新的阶级，新的压迫手段，新的争斗形式，来代替那旧的罢了。
我们的时代，就是这有产阶级（Bourgeoisie）时代，他的特色就是把阶级对抗弄简单了。社会全体现已渐次分裂成为对垒的两大营寨，互相敌视的两大阶级：这就是有产阶级和无产阶级。
由中世纪底农奴里面，曾发生一种最初都市底特许市民；这些市民，便是有产阶级最初的种子。
嗣后，美洲底发现，好望角底周航，新添给有产阶级一些发展地：东印度和中华底市场，美洲底殖民，殖民地底贸易，交换机关和物品底增多，又都使当时的商业航海业，和制造工业，受一种空前的刺激；因此，那革命种子便在颓废的封建社会里急激的发展了。
在封建时代的工业组织底下，生产实业是由同行组合一手把持的，到了这时，便不能应付新市场上需要底增加了；于是手工工场 组织（Manufacturing system）便占了他的地位。各业行东被工场制造家这种中等阶级挤倒;联合的各行组合间底分工，也就让各个工场底分工替代了。
接着市场一天比一天扩大，需要又一天比一天增加；这时手工工场组织，也不能应付了。于是又有蒸汽及大机器出来演了一场生产事业底革命。从此，大规模的“近代产业”，便取了手工工业底地位;豪富的实业家，产业军底总首领，近代的有产阶级，便把产业界的中等阶级降服了。
（陈望道译，2009：005-007）