Variants of the Communist Manifesto from Hobgoblin to ASLEF
Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto in German and an authorised (by Engels) English version translated by Samuel Moore did not appear until 1888.
However there had been an earlier partial translation by Helen Macfarlane which appeared in the Red Republican in 1850. The Red Republican was a Chartist paper edited by George Julian Harney and a friend of Marx and Engels.
In Macfarlane’s translation it was not the now well known ‘spectre’ that was haunting Europe but a ‘fearful hobgoblin’.
A much more recent variant to the Manifesto appeared this week when a contestant on the Christmas series of University Challenge was asked what the last word of the Manifesto was, also the name of Britain’s largest union. He replied ASLEF. Those struggling with the debacle of a Tory privatised rail network might well feel that it would a good idea if there were many more thousands of train drivers employed and trained.
However the actual answer which Paxman read out was ‘Unite’. Whether Unite or Unison is actually the largest UK trade union I’ll leave for others to debate
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