Reserve army of labour army of labour in Marx's writing occurs in a manuscript he wrote in 1847, but did not publish: The idea of the labour force as an "army" occurs also in Part 1 of "The Communist Manifesto", written by Marx and Engels in 1848: Marx introduces the concept of the reserve army of labour in chapter 25 of the first volume of "", twenty years later in 1867, stating the following: His argument is that as capitalism develops, the organic composition of capital will increase, which means that the mass of constant capital grows faster than the mass of variable capital.
The Communist Manifesto but such a document was later deemed inappropriate for an open, non-confrontational organisation. Engels nevertheless wrote the "Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith", detailing the League's programme. A few months later, in October, Engels arrived at the League's Paris branch to find that Moses Hess had written an inadequate manifesto for the group, now called the League of Communists. In Hess's absence, Engels severely criticised this manifesto, and convinced the rest of the League to entrust him with drafting a new one. This became the draft "Principles of Communism", described as "less of a credo and more of an