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 Christian Manifesto work of a faction within the Chinese Church. China Inland Mission, naively, brushed off charges of imperialism on the grounds that churches they had founded were relatively independent. When it was discovered that even "devout believers" had signed the manifesto, it was attributed to political pressure. When missionaries finally realized the implications of the manifesto, they had no choice but to condemn it, regarding it as a unilateral termination of their relationship with Chinese Christians. Although Chinese Protestants took no immediate action against missions, the manifesto marked the beginning of the end. The manifesto did not specify a time frame