Rhetorical Analysis Essay & Revised Speech Outline

Rhetorical Analysis Essay – Communism and Equality

Socioeconomic inequality has been a chronic problem throughout human history, and it raises the question: is equality even possible? In 1848, Karl Marx, a German philosopher and member of the Communist League, wrote a 23-page pamphlet titled the Communist Manifesto. Marx describes the inevitable downfall of capitalism and highlights the need for communism by implementing commonplaces and establishing trust with the lower and working class of Europe. Fast-forward to July 1, 2021, Xi Jinping, the current president of the People’s Republic of China, gave a speech at Tiananmen Square in Beijing commemorating the 100th anniversary of China’s Communist Party. Jinping highlighted the success of communism in China in its liberation of the Chinese people, especially the lower class, from poverty and oppression from capitalistic powers. He embellishes his message by establishing trust and mobilizing commonplaces. Although the medium of the messages is different, both Marx’s Communist Manifesto and Jinping’s 100th Anniversary Speech utilize similar rhetoric to promote communism. Juxtaposing these two artifacts through close textual analysis reveals that communism begets equality and therefore Marx and Jinping effectively frame the civic, which is everyone being equal and actively supporting one another. Their expression of establishing trust, including ethos, logos, and pathos and the utilization of commonplaces enables Marx and Jinping to symbolize equality as a product of communism to strengthen the argument for communism in society. 

The Communist Manifesto outlines the ideals of communism and is perhaps the most influential pamphlet in human history. The Communist League commissioned Marx to write a pamphlet summarizing their ideals that could be distributed to the common folk. In this pamphlet, Marx argues that the downfall of capitalism is inevitable and that communism would eliminate all class struggles and inequality. This directly appeals to the audience at the time as in the mid-19th century, when the Communist Manifesto, was written, the rapid rise of communism led to large-scale socioeconomic inequality and a lack of representation of the lower class in society. The audience of the Communist Manifesto was made up primarily of lower and working-class people of Europe, as well as union leaders. These people were the ones at the forefront of the harsh inequality at the time. For Marx to reach this audience he had to overcome some substantial obstacles. Marx had to overcome barriers of mistrust, due to being foreign. Additionally, he faced the challenge of his target audience being largely uneducated. As a result, for Marx to persuade his audience he had to utilize commonplaces that his audience could easily understand as the means of establishing trust.

In the first section of the Communist Manifesto Marx discusses the non-communist relationship between bourgeois, who make up the middle and upper class, and proletarians, who are primarily lower and working class. In doing so Marx highlights the severe division between these two groups, in which capitalism always breeds inequality. Marx symbolizes this idea by emphasizing the commonplace of rich vs poor. This commonplace enables Marx to persuade his audience that in non-communist societies this unjust division will always be prevalent. This commonplace is mobilized through logos. Marx paints a picture of communism to make it easy for an uneducated person to understand. With his audience being largely uneducated it aids in persuading them that communism is the means to achieve equality in society. This is directly supported by pathos as Marx evokes anger and frustration in his audience through this commonplace that symbolizes the unfair fight that the lower and working class suffer every day, underscoring the divide in the capitalistic societies that his audience resides in. This then gives him the platform to contrast communism’s relationship with the proletarians.

In the second section of the Communist Manifesto Marx describes the relationship between communists and proletarians. He claims that there is very little difference between the communists and proletarians other than the fact that communists all work for the betterment of the whole. He utilizes the commonplace of common ground to bridge the gap between communism and the working class in other areas of Europe. By considering communists as members of the same community as the working class of Europe he argues that they are equals, contrasting the relationship between the bourgeois and proletarians. In doing so Marx appeals to ethos. Marx overcomes the constraints of being foreign and builds credibility amongst his audience who now consider him and communists as allies. Furthermore, the commonplace of common ground is mobilized in appealing to logos for Marx’s audience. It assists in painting a picture of communism, making it much easier for someone uneducated to understand. Since Marx’s audience is lower and working-class people who were largely uneducated this allows Marx to bypass this constraint and get his message across. The inclusive environment fostered by communists persuades the audience that they can finally achieve equality through communism, which in more recent times has been proven true in China.

The first of July 2021 marked the 100th anniversary of China’s Communist Party. China being one of only five communist countries and being the oldest of these five makes this a monumental occasion. President Jinping’s speech was televised across China and translated and broadcast worldwide. His speech praised communism’s effects on China, solidified the Chinese public’s views on communism, and criticized the western world for supporting inequality inherent in capitalistic systems. Like Marx, Jinping had to overcome barriers of mistrust from his western audience that arose from him being a foreigner. He also had to balance praising the Chinese public for their success under communism while addressing and persuading the western world to make the shift away from capitalism and inequality. To combat this and build his argument Jinping focused on establishing trust with his audience and utilizing commonplaces.

In the first section of Jinping’s 100th Anniversary Speech, Jinping praises the Chinese people for their unity in paving the way for communism. He highlights the success that China has had in becoming a world power without sacrificing the lower class as many capitalist countries have done. He also underscores the widespread equality that China has achieved by eliminating classes through communism. Jinping supports this claim by reinforcing the commonplace of being a pioneer. He repeats that the Chinese people have the “founding spirit” that has enabled them to be pioneers for communism and equality. In doing so, Jinping appeals to logos. He evokes a sense of pride in his audience of Chinese people, as well as a sense of jealousy in the Western audience as they normally pride themselves in doing things quicker, bigger, and better. Furthermore, Jinping caters to ethos by building his and communism’s credibility through the commonplace of being a pioneer. In a similar fashion to Marx, Jinping utilizes this to improve his audience’s opinions of communism and thus persuade them that communism is something to aspire for. This also gives Jinping the basis to go into depth in describing the journey of how his audience can achieve communism.

In the second section of Jinping’s 100th Anniversary Speech, Jinping spotlights the different times that China, especially the Chinese lower class, was taken advantage of by the bourgeois and capitalist countries. He then contrasts this with where China is at the time of the speech, after 100 years of communism. In doing so he sheds light on the journey of improvement that communism has provided for China. Jinping emphasizes the commonplace of the journey’s significance to persuade his audience that communism begets equality and has allowed China to go from one of the most abused countries to a world power. Jinping achieves this by appealing to logos. By describing the conditions in China before and after communism through this commonplace, he highlights the positive difference in achieving equality and prosperity. This has a similar effect to when Marx implemented the commonplace of common ground, as it makes it much easier for his western audience to rationalize supporting an ideology much different from their current situation. Furthermore, Jinping takes advantage of pathos. He evokes a sense of pride in his Chinese audience and a sense of shame and jealousy in his western audience. He persuades his Chinese audience to continue supporting communism and convinces his western audience that the only way to resolve their current unjust and unequal society is to convert it to communism.

The Communist Manifesto was written before communism’s implementation, and Jinping’s 100th Anniversary speech is looking back on 100 years of success under communism, so juxtaposing these two artifacts through a change in time reveals that there is consistency between Marx’s claims and China’s reality. Jinping proves Marx to be correct in that communism is the only solution for inequality. Although there is inequality present worldwide in both periods, there is much less in China due to communism’s elimination of classes. Therefore, communism is the only system that births equality, which is also revealed in who is for and against it.

Both, the Communist Manifesto and Jinping’s 100th Anniversary Speech expose who benefits from communism and who is resisting it. Marx highlights the benefits to the lower class and the resistance by the bourgeois. Jinping reinforces this by underscoring the benefits that the lower class has seen from communism. The audience of the lower and working class is in support whereas the upper class is still against it, highlighting that the system of classes is behind this divide in society. So why does this matter? As revealed by my analysis, with communism eliminating all classes and capitalism exacerbating class separation and inequality, communism as the solution effectively symbolizes the ideal civic condition whereas capitalism reinforces inequality.

Close textual analysis of the Communist Manifesto and Jinping’s 100th Anniversary Speech reveals that communism begets equality; therefore, Marx and Jinping effectively frame the ideal civic environment. The juxtaposition through time of communism shows a parallel timeline of capitalism and communism where the primary difference is that inequality decreased with communism and showed little progress under other systems, especially capitalism. If you are truly interested in participating in civic life and fulfilling your responsibility as a citizen, you need to rethink society’s structure as capitalism fosters an environment of inequality and injustice. The state of civic life in the western world is in dire need of repair and as revealed by Marx and Jinping mirroring communism worldwide as it is the only true solution to inequality.

Speech Outline for the Communist Manifesto

• Introduction (1:00)
  • Attention Getter – Inequality has been a chronic problem throughout human history, and it raises the question: is equality even possible?
    • Karl Marx believed so and wrote the Communist Manifesto, a 23-page pamphlet, and my civic artifact, outlining how equality is obtainable.
  • Rhetorical Situation
    • The exigence of the Communist Manifesto was the rise of capitalism, which led to widespread inequality in Europe, especially the poor treatment of the lower and working classes.
    • Marx’s audience was the lower and working class in Europe, who he referred to as proletarians.
    • The constraints were that the audience was largely uneducated, and Marx is foreign, so he had to build trust to overcome being looked down upon and seen as untrustworthy.
  • Lenses
    • I will be looking through the lens of close textual analysis to break down this pamphlet into distinct sections, where I can then further analyze them.
      • I will then identify the commonplaces utilized to deliver the arguments within these sections of the Communist Manifesto.
        • Finally, I will highlight the ways of establishing trust, including ethos, logos, and pathos that emphasized the commonplaces and mitigated the constraints.
  • Thesis
    • Communism begets equality and therefore Marx effectively frames the civic, which is everyone being equal and supporting one another.
  • [Transition] – Preview of Main Points
    • The utilization of commonplaces and establishment of trust through ethos, logos, and pathos allows for the criticism of capitalism and praise of communism, strengthening the argument for communism in the civic.
• Body of the Speech (2:30)
  • As outlined in the first section of the Communist Manifesto, capitalism breeds inequality through the division between the bourgeois (middle and upper class) and the proletarians (lower and working class).
    • As the vehicle to present this, the Communist Manifesto utilizes the commonplace of rich vs poor, a commonplace throughout Europe at the time due to large-scale inequality and conflict between the two classes.
      • The Communist Manifesto mobilizes logos to paint a picture of capitalism, highlighting this division, and making it easy for an uneducated person to understand.
        • With the audience being largely uneducated it aids in persuading them that it is impossible to achieve equality through capitalism and that capitalism isn’t a positive representation of the civic.
      • The Communist Manifesto exploits pathos to evoke anger and frustration in his audience, underscoring the unfair fight that the lower and working class suffer from every day under capitalism.
  • [Transition] – This gives Marx the platform to contrast this poor relationship with communism’s relationship with the proletarians in the second section of the Communist Manifesto.
• As discussed in the second section of the Communist Manifesto, the strong relationship between communists and proletarians highlights that communism embodies a more equal society than capitalism.
  • The commonplace of finding common ground, a staple of communist beliefs, emphasizes that communism is the most equal ideology.
    • The Communist Manifesto applies ethos to bridge the gap between communism and the working class in other areas of Europe.
      • It asserts that communists and proletarians are equals, contrasting the relationship between the bourgeois and proletarians in capitalistic societies.
      • Doing so builds credibility amongst the audience who can now consider communists as allies, and highlights the heavy presence of equality under communism, framing the ideal civic condition.
    • The Communist Manifesto takes advantage of logos by painting a picture of communism, in which finding common ground is a key value, making it much easier for someone uneducated to understand.
      • This allows Marx to bypass the constraint of mistrust and a lack of education in his audience.
  • [Transition] – By contrasting the relationship between the proletarians and the bourgeois and the relationship between the proletarians and the communists, it highlights the severe varying degrees of equality in both societies.
• Conclusion (1:00)
  • Thesis
    • Close textual analysis of the Communist Manifesto reveals that communism begets equality and therefore Marx effectively frames the civic, which is everyone being equal and supporting one another.
  • The utilization of commonplaces and establishment of trust through ethos, logos, and pathos allows for the criticism of capitalism and praise of communism, strengthening the argument for communism in the civic.
    • He builds communism’s credibility in the eyes of Europe, criticizes capitalism’s inequality while explaining communism, and draws on emotion to call for change across Europe.
  • Closer – It’s time to rethink capitalism since equality is impossible under this unjust system and convert to communism where it is evidently successful.