The Proletarians Have Nothing To Lose

The closing sentences of The Communist Manifesto, co-authored by Karl Marx and Engels and published in London on February 21, 1848, weeks before revolutions broke out across Europe. The phrase appeared in the final chapter, which listed the immediate political demands of the Communist League. The popular English rendering "Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!" slightly paraphrases the original, which the 1888 authorized translation renders as "The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!" The Manifesto had little immediate impact but became the most influential political pamphlet in history.