Vincent Jackson’s Reviews > The German Ideology/Theses on Feuerbach > Status Update

What are the differences between this and the communist manifesto?

CM is a more brief, introductory look at the class struggle which mainly focuses in right on the transition from feudalism to industry; it mainly just craps on the bourgeoisie, says their days are numbered since their existence as a class/their ascendancy rests on contradictions, etc. It gives a brief dose of Marx’s polemics against German contemporaries (he loves doing this). The German Ideology goes far deeper. It’s almost entirely polemical, he’s waging a war against historical idealists from Hegel’s tradition (Bruno Bauer, Max Stirner, Ludwig Feuerbach, etc. who I don’t know much about yet in their own right), criticizing them for their reading of history that reifies man’s consciousness as over and above his material struggles and developments. He gives a more detailed genealogy of class, starting with man’s first rise above nature via labor and communication, and traces tribal —> feudal —> industrial stages and what sets them apart from one another. It’s essentially just an outline of historical materialism, him trying to settle the question of a general driving force in history - “it’s literally the ground beneath our feet” vs. scholastic abstractions like “Spirit,” etc.

Not gonna lie I thought this was like an eighth of the length it actually is, which is why I started reading it in the first place jajaja (the Marxists.org edition is missing most of the text due to copyright). It’s a trudgefest at times