The Communist Manifesto: reading level, length and free edition

Name: The Communist Manifesto
Author: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels is a non-fiction in English, in English translation. Our team rates it B2. It runs to 13,680 words with 2,555 different word forms, about 1–2.5 h of reading at 200 to 100 words per minute, and it is free from Standard Ebooks.

By the Readlang Mobile team (an independent app, not affiliated with readlang.com). Updated 31 October 2026.

Author: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
Language: English
Level: B2
Form: non-fiction
Words: 13,680
Different word forms: 2,555
Forms for 95% / 98%: 1,871 / 2,282
Reading time: 1–2.5 h
Free edition: Standard Ebooks

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ classic analysis of modern industrial society and call for Working Class revolution.

Is The Communist Manifesto right for your level?

To recognise 95% of the running words in The Communist Manifesto, you need its 1,871 most frequent word forms; for 98%, the share at which most readers manage a novel without a dictionary, 2,282. The median English B2 book in our table needs 3,747 forms for 95%, so by this measure the book is easier than most for its level: number 2 of 19, easiest first.

A word form is any spelling that appears in the text, so “walk” and “walked” count twice, and names count too. These numbers are a guide to how much vocabulary the book asks for, not a test. The level itself was set by hand by our team. Before you commit, read one page of the free edition and count the words you do not know: the one-page test takes two minutes.

Which words should you know before you start?

These are the words that The Communist Manifesto uses most often but that are not among the 2,000 most common word forms across all 309 English books in our library; the number is how many times each appears. Names of people and places are left out. Learning a handful of them first makes the opening chapters easier.

bourgeois 100
bourgeoisie 94
proletariat 68
production 56
labor 40
industry 30
development 29
classes 26
feudal 26
historical 20
revolutionary 20
abolition 20
revolution 19
ruling 17
existing 17

How does it begin?

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster 5 and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, that each time ended, either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

From the Standard Ebooks edition, which is in the public domain. If this paragraph already feels slow, try a book one level lower.

How long does it take to read?

Hours to read *The Communist Manifesto* (13,680 words) at four reading speeds.
Words	100 wpm	150 wpm	200 wpm	250 wpm
13,680	2.5 h	1.5 h	1 h	1 h

Learners reading a book at their level often manage 100 to 150 words per minute, and readers in their first language 200 to 250. Where these speeds come from, and a calculator for your own: How long does it take to read a book?

Where can you read it for free?

The free edition is from Standard Ebooks, a volunteer project that proofreads and typesets public-domain books. Standard Ebooks releases its editions into the public domain in the United States under CC0 1.0; you can download it as EPUB, Kindle (AZW3) or KEPUB without signing up.

To read it with a translation over every word you tap, open it in Readlang Mobile on iPhone or iPad.