The Manifesto was published as the platform of the Communist League, a working men’ s association, first exclusively German, later on international, and under the political conditions of the Continent before 1848, unavoidably a secret society. At a Congress of the League, held in November 1847, Marx and Engels were commissioned to prepare a complete theoretical and practical party programme. Drawn up in German, in January 1848, the manuscript was sent to the printer in London a few weeks before the French Revolution of February 24. (..) The present translation is by Mr Samuel Moore, the translator of the greater portion of Marx’ s Capital. We have revised it in common, and I have added a few notes explanatory of historical allusions.