In 1848, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels opened The Communist Manifesto by declaring “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”.
Join **Carol D’Cruz **as she re-reads The Communist Manifesto through French philosopher Jacques Derrida’s reckoning with the spectres of Marx. As a materialist, Marx was invested in chasing away the realm of spirits and spectres and was intent on making the spectre of communism manifest.
To focus on the gure of the spectre of Marx, Derrida gives us work to do in reckoning with the heritage of what has happened in both Marx’s and communism’s name. Whether Marxist or not, Derrida argues that we are all heirs of Marx.
The task before all of us in reading The Communist Manifesto again is to situate the spectre of communism as a regulating ideal that liberation struggles may still want
to see manifest; to account for what has happened in its name; and to choose what spectres of Marx and communism we want to take forward in struggles for freedom and cultivating a more just world.
