The author of "The Communist Manifesto" is Karl Marx, alongside his collaborator Friedrich Engels. Published in 1848, the text is a political pamphlet that critiques capitalism and lays out the principles of communism. It calls for the working class, or proletariat, to unite and overthrow the bourgeois capitalist class. The manifesto provided a framework for understanding class struggles and has had a profound impact on political thought and movements around the world. Its ideas contributed to the rise of socialist and communist parties and influenced critical events such as the Russian Revolution.