The Communist Manifesto rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy [sic!] of rural life". As Eric Hobsbawm noted, however: Marx and Engels’ political influences were wide-ranging, reacting to and taking inspiration from German idealist philosophy, French socialism, and English and Scottish political economy. "The Communist Manifesto" also takes influence from literature. In Jacques Derrida’s work, "Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International", he uses Shakespeare’s "Hamlet" to frame a discussion of the history of the International, showing, in the process, the influence that Shakespeare’s work had on Marx and Engel’s writing.
The Manifesto Group of 1952, the Manifesto Group did not seek to reconcile opposing wings of the Labour Party, and instead rigorously opposed the left. Mabon ensured the electoral success of Manifesto members to senior positions in the Labour Party, such as the Cabinet and NEC. George Robertson, who later became Secretary of State for Defence under Prime Minister Tony Blair, said that Manifesto under Dickson Mabon organised elections better than the Tribune Group had ever managed to. Two of the Manifesto Group's greatest achievements were the election of moderate Labour MP Cledwyn Hughes as Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, and the