How many words is The Communist Manifesto?

11,505 words, counted from the complete public-domain text rather than estimated from a page count.

Is The Communist Manifesto free to read?

The text is public domain in the United States, so it is free at Project Gutenberg and always will be. Reading it in Liminanotio — paced, with your own speed carried across books — is $2.99 on its own, or included with a membership. You can read a chapter of three books here first, with no account at all.

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The Communist Manifesto

Q: How long does it take to read The Communist Manifesto?

The Communist Manifesto is 11,505 words, which is about 46 min at an average reading speed of 250 words per minute. At 400 words per minute it is about 29 min, and at 600 about 19 min.

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels

The Communist Manifesto is 11,505 words — about 46 min at 250 words per minute, across 5 chapters. Measure your own speed and read it here.

How long does it take to read The Communist Manifesto?

46 min at 250 words per minute

11,505 words · 5 chapters · counted from the full text, not estimated from a page count. Measure your own speed and this becomes your number.

Public domain 5 chapters Tap-to-define

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How it opens

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: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.…

Details

AuthorKarl Marx, Friedrich Engels
SourceProject Gutenberg #61
Length11,505 words · 46 min of reading
Chapters5
DictionaryIncluded
CopyrightPublic domain in the United States
Source checked2026-08-03

Contents

5 chapters

Recovered from the original source text, so you can open the book at any of them.

01I. BOURGEOIS AND PROLETARIANS
02II. PROLETARIANS AND COMMUNISTS
031. REACTIONARY SOCIALISM
042. CONSERVATIVE, OR BOURGEOIS, SOCIALISM
053. CRITICAL-UTOPIAN SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM

A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

Karl Marx

5h 41m

The Communist Manifesto is public domain, and free at Project Gutenberg. Liminanotio is a word-at-a-time speed reader that runs in your browser, alongside the rest of the public-domain library.