IV
Naturally, in view of its historic rôle, the joint authorship of the Manifesto has been much discussed. What was the respective share of each of its creators? What did Marx contribute, and what Engels? It may be, as Liebknecht says, an idle question, but it is a perfectly natural one. The pamphlet itself does not assist us. There are no internal signs pointing now to the hand of the one, now to the hand of the other. We may hazard a guess that most of the programme of ameliorative measures was the work of Engels, and perhaps the final section. It was the work of Engels throughout his life to deal with present social and political problems in the light of the fundamental theories to the systematization and elucidation of which Marx was devoted.
Beyond this mere conjecture, we have the word of Engels with regard to the basal principle which he has summarized in the passage already quoted. "The Manifesto being our joint production," he says, "I consider myself bound to state that the fundamental proposition which forms its nucleus belongs to Marx.... This proposition, which, in my opinion, is destined to do for history what Darwin's theory has done for biology, we, both of us, had been gradually approaching for some years before 1845. How far I had progressed toward it is best shown by my 'Condition of the Working Class in England.'[57] But when I again met Marx at Brussels, in spring, 1845, he had it ready worked out, and put it before me in terms almost as clear as those in which I have stated it here."[58]
Engels has lifted the veil thus far, but the rest is hidden. Perhaps it is well that it should be; well that no man should be able to say which passages came from the mind of Marx and which from the mind of Engels. In life they were inseparable, and so they must be in the Valhalla of history. The greatest political pamphlet of all time must forever bear, with equal honor, the names of both. Their noble friendship unites them even beyond the tomb.
"Twin Titans! Whom defeat ne'er bowed,
Scarce breathing from the fray,
Again they sound the war cry loud,
Again is riven Labor's shroud,
And life breathed in the clay.
Their work? Look round—see Freedom proud