Yanis Varoufakis’s eloquent reminder to us of the continued relevance of The Communist Manifesto (A manifesto for right now, 20 April) is not only a fitting snub to those who had predicted the “end of history” but also an implicit call for us to re-examine the ideas of Marx and Engels in the light of the present crisis of capitalism as a model for global development.

The Guardian itself will be exhibiting cartoons and caricatures of Marx (selected from an international competition organised by the Ken Sprague Fund) in the foyer of its headquarters from 23 April until 13 May. Your cartoonist Martin Rowson has just published his own inimitable version of the Communist Manifesto. And there is a major conference examining Marx’s ideas with international speakers at Soas on 5 May – the 200th anniversary of Marx’s birth.

John Green

Secretary, Ken Sprague Fund

• “Liberty, happiness, autonomy, individuality, spirituality, self-guided development are ideals that Marx and Engels valued above everything else,” writes Yanis Varoufakis. He is profoundly mistaken. The ideals he lists are those indispensable to the workings of capitalism, and there are many capitalist ideologues who would be prepared to stand alongside him and chant their virtues.

Yes to the defence of human rights – but to talk to the dispossessed in terms of “authentic human happiness and freedom” is to disorient and disarm them in the face of the forces that are really in command.

The Communist Manifesto is unremittingly focused not on the unity of “the people” but on the divisions within a social formation that pits one class against another in a struggle to the death.

Dr Malcolm Read

Belper, Derbyshire

• Yanis Varoufakis is right to underline the continuing relevance of The Communist Manifesto’s analysis of capitalism.

It was read by very few people in 1848 when it was first published, but Marx and Engels were then engaged in the other side of the equation from the theory of the Manifesto – practice. In 1848, revolutions rocked Europe and beyond, challenging the rule of capital in a way that has rarely been seen since. Both Marx and Engels played an active role in events, which ended with Marx appearing in Britain as a political refugee. Home secretaries in those days were a little more relaxed about such things than they have been in recent times.

Keith Flett

London

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