On this day, 28 August 1844, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels met in the Café de la Régence in Paris and, although having met a couple years before, began their lifelong friendship and revolutionary work together.
As Engels noted in 1885: “When I visited Marx in Paris in the summer of 1844, our complete agreement in all theoretical fields became evident and our joint work dates from that time.”
One of the most influential texts they worked on together was the Communist Manifesto, one of the four best-selling books of all time, selling an estimated 500 million copies.
In it, Marx and Engels note that “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
We have an edition of the Manifesto available here, including an introduction by historian Eric Hobsbawm: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/the-communist-manifesto-a-modern-edition-karl-marx-and-frederick-engels
Pic: the moment depicted in the film The Young Marx by Raoul Peck https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.1819457841572691/2068005743384565/?type=3