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.
Manifesto of the Sixteen was for reasons unknown not an initial signatory. The manifesto was countersigned by approximately one hundred other anarchists, half of whom were Italian anarchists. The publication of the "Manifesto" was met with great disapproval by the international anarchist movement, and in considering its impact, George Woodcock stated that it "merely confirmed the split which existed in the anarchist movement." The signatories of the "Manifesto" saw the First World War as a battle between German imperialism and the international working class. In contrast, most anarchists of the time, including Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, saw the war as being that of