Today in Labor History February 21, 1848: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the “Communist Manifesto,” in Brussels, just as the Revolutions of 1848 began to erupt across Europe. After the French overthrew their monarchy, revolutions broke out in Germany, Italy and Austria. When the Prussian democratic parliament collapsed, and the king imposed new counter-revolutionary measures, Marx moved to Paris, then London, where he and his family lived in poverty while he continued to publish. He wrote his most important work there, “Das Kapital.”