Friedrich Engels 1881, both Marx and Engels began to contemplate a course of development in Russia that would lead directly to the communist stage without the intervening bourgeois stage. This analysis was based on what Marx and Engels saw as the exceptional characteristics of the Russian village commune or obshchina. Although doubt was cast on this theory by Georgi Plekhanov, Plekhanov's reasoning was based on the first edition of "Das Kapital" (1867), which predated Marx's interest in Russian peasant communes by two years. Later editions of the text demonstrate Marx's sympathy for the argument of Nikolay Chernyshevsky, that it should be possible
The Christian Manifesto urges Christians to accept the new communist reality, rather than to denounce their faith. The manifesto adopts the propagandistic language of the Chinese revolution resulting in overly optimistic and naive terms. It however failed to give the Chinese church any guidance concerning its future in China under the CPC. The manifesto implied that compliance would be rewarded and Chinese Christianity would prosper. In truth, the government would soon engage in persecution of many Christians. The manifesto was intended for both domestic and foreign audiences. The covering letter accompanying it states that its target audience is people outside the church and