In 1848 a great revolutionary upsurge spread through Europe. These revolutions swept through Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, Ireland and other parts of Europe. By and large, these were democratic revolutions against feudalism, waged by the bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie and the working class. In the midst of this wave of revolution, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels joined the underground German Communist League. Marx and Engels were tasked with writing the program of the Communist League, The Manifesto of the Communist Party, a document that would explain the organization's analysis of the situation and its plan for how to move from that situation to revolution and socialism. 

Vladimir Lenin was the great leader of the Bolshevik Revolution that overthrew tsarism and capitalism in Russia and built a new socialist society, for the first time in history. His book The State and Revolution is one of his greatest contributions to Marxist theory and is a cornerstone of Leninism.

Karl Marx is best known in the realm of political economy for his great work, Capital. Marx is the original theorist, together with his associate Friedrich Engels, of scientific socialism. Marx wrote Capital in order to expose the inner workings of capitalism, so that workers could understand the system behind their exploitation, how this system arose historically, and the laws of motion inherent within it.

Today we are launching a new series on Marxist-Leninist theory, focusing on important texts from the principal theorists of Marxism-Leninism: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong. In these short reviews, we will look briefly at the historical context of the text, we will break down the main argument and points, and we will talk about how the text remains relevant and applicable to revolutionaries today. We will begin with Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, by Friedrich Engels.