This is the first time I’ve actually read through this whole piece instead of reading just a few of the points. I was less educated in Marxism when I first read (some) of it, but now the text feels much richer and more informative to me than before. Like what @cucumovirus said in their post, the Manifesto really overshadowed this work in my earlier study of Marxism, but now I see that Principles of Communism is a very clear and informative work and I see why it is so often recommended.

1. What was bad about the text?

I agree with the issues being pointed out already in this thread and don’t have much to add on that point.

2. What was good about the text?

I think it was good that he covered the questions “In what way do proletarians differ from slaves … from serfs? … from handicraftsmen? … from manufacturing workers?” by explaining the trajectories of their motion as a class toward either the proletariat or the bourgeoisie. As he words it in section 5 “two new classes [bourgeoisie and proletariat] have been created which are gradually swallowing up all the others”. In each of these sections he explains the individual ground-level moves available to people in these classes on an individual scale, which over time, on the societal scale, causes their classes to gradually drain into being proletarians (for the most part) or bourgeoisie (in some cases).

I’m glad he covers this so clearly because I remember when first being introduced to Marxism, me and others I was studying with were full of questions about people whose relation to the means of production places them outside of being either proletarian or bourgeoisie. I think this explanation by Engels really captures the idea that the relations and processes in motion and development on a society-wide scale are what Marxists are focusing on in most cases rather than what some single individual’s literal current position is in society.

3. Overall, how can we apply this reading to our current conditions?

In section 13, Engels writes “the very qualities of big industry which, in our present-day society, produce misery and crises are those which, in a different form of society, will abolish this misery and these catastrophic depressions” and says that we see “with the greatest clarity” that all these evils are to be ascribed “solely to a social order which no longer corresponds to the requirements of the real situation”. This is obviously a point that still stands today, like most/many of the things in this text. I would just say that in our current conditions there are a multitude of present day examples we can point to which highlight the absurdity of how far the capitalist management of society has now strayed from “the requirements of the real situation”. I think on this forum we can all easily think of present day examples right away, so I won’t get into specifics. Additionally, we now also have past and ongoing examples of proletarian-led production/society, experiments and attempts at such on a scale which Engels never got to see, which helps us refine our understanding of how capitalist-led production vs. proletarian-led production “corresponds to the requirements of the real situation” in practice and in the present day conditions.