* Chris Harman, A People's History of the World ( Marxist view of history according to a leader of the International Socialist Tendency )

Some Marxist historians prefer to describe the Renaissance in material terms, holding the view that the changes in art, literature, and philosophy were part of a general economic trend from feudalism towards capitalism, resulting in a bourgeois class with leisure time to devote to the arts.

Marx and Engels held the view that the consciousness of those who earn a wage or salary ( the " working class " in the broadest Marxist sense ) would be moulded by their " conditions " of " wage-slavery ", leading to a tendency to seek their freedom or " emancipation " by overthrowing ownership of the means of production by capitalists, and consequently, overthrowing the state that upheld this economic order.

In the Marxist view of capitalism, this is a conflict between capitalists ( bourgeoisie ) and wage-workers ( the proletariat ).

In the view of the young orthodox Marxist intellectuals, such as Jaime Wheelock, economic development had turned Nicaragua into a nation of factory workers and wage-earning farm laborers.

However, it has been theorized that the supremacy of the Communist Party means that the Constitution and law are not supreme, and that this perspective is the result of the Marxist view of law as simply a superstructure combined with a lack of recognition of rule of law in philosophical or historical tradition.

This is orthogonal to the Marxist view, but not necessarily opposed.

As a result, in ensuing years he would defend those who proposed a Marxist interpretation of history coupled with the existentialist view of the human individual.

Sigmund Freud's idea that religion is nothing more than an illusion, or even a mental illness, and the Marxist view that religion is " the sigh of the oppressed ," providing only " the illusory happiness of the people ," are two other influential reductionist explanations of religion.

In the early 20th century, in the field of international relations, the Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci developed the theory of cultural domination ( an analysis of economic class ) to include social class ; hence, the philosophic and sociologic theory of cultural hegemony analysed the social norms that established the social structures ( social and economic classes ) with which the ruling class establish and exert cultural dominance to impose their Weltanschauung ( world view ) — justifying the social, political, and economic status quo — as natural, inevitable, and beneficial to every social class, rather than as artificial social constructs beneficial solely to the ruling class.

In a Marxist view, those who control the means of production ( the economic base ) essentially control a culture.

Influenced by the Marxist view of history, Childe used the work to argue that the usual distinction between ( pre-literate ) prehistory and ( literate ) history was a false dichotomy and that human society has progressed through a series of technological, economic and social revolutions.

History ( 1947 ) continued his belief that prehistory and literate history must be viewed together, and adopted a Marxist view of history, whilst Prehistoric Migrations ( 1950 ) displayed his views on moderate diffusionism.

Marxist and Neo-Marxist theories of IR reject the realist / liberal view of state conflict or cooperation ; instead focusing on the economic and material aspects.

It was argued in the West that the Soviets rejected the Western concept of the " rule of law " as the belief that law should be more than just the instrument of politics ; the Soviet view on rights was criticized for considering the Marxist – Leninist ideology above natural law.

The Marxist view of the English Revolution suggests that the events of 1640 to 1660 in Britain was a bourgeois revolution in which the final section of English feudalism ( the state ) was destroyed by a bourgeois class ( and its supporters ) and replaced with a state ( and society ) which reflected the wider establishment of agrarian ( and later industrial ) capitalism.

Later developments of the Marxist view moved on from the theory of bourgeois revolution to suggest that the English Revolution anticipated the French and later revolutions in the field of popular administrative and economic gains.

The Marxist view also developed a concept of a “ Revolution within the Revolution ” ( pursued by Hill, Brian Manning and others ) which placed a greater deal of emphasis on the radical movements of the period ( such as the Agitator " Levellers ", Mutineers in the New Model Army and the Communistic " Diggers ") who attempted to go further than Parliament in the aftermath of the Civil War.

In the Marxist view, " normal " exploitation is based in three structural characteristics of capitalist society:

As a socialist, Taylor saw the capitalist system as wrong on practical and moral grounds, although he rejected the Marxist view that capitalism was responsible for wars and conflicts.

Marxist and Neo-Marxist international relations theories are structuralist paradigms which reject the realist / liberal view of state conflict or cooperation ; instead focusing on the economic and material aspects.

Mannheim's work was influenced by Lukac's Marxist view, as he credits Marx as the forerunner to the sociology of knowledge.

Orthodox Marxists view state socialism as an oxymoron ; while an association for managing production and economic affairs would exist in socialism, it would no longer be a state in the Marxist definition ( which is based on domination by one class ).

According to Kołakowski, neither Sartre's view that freedom must be safeguarded in revolutionary organization nor his view that there will be perfect freedom when Communism has abolished shortages is new in a Marxist context, and Sartre fails to explain how either could have been brought about.

They rejected the Marxist idea that history should be used as a tool to foment and foster revolutions.

Most Chinese history that is published in the People's Republic of China is based on a Marxist interpretation of history.

Because of the strength of the Communist Party of China and the importance of the Marxist interpretation of history in legitimizing its rule, it was for many years difficult for historians within the PRC to actively argue in favor of non-Marxist and anti-Marxist interpretations of history.

However, this political restriction is less confining than it may first appear in that the Marxist historical framework is surprisingly flexible, and a rather simple matter to modify an alternative historical theory to use language that at least does not challenge the Marxist interpretation of history.

Every historian uses one ( or more ) historiographical traditions, for example Marxist, Annales School, " total history ", or political history.

According to Marxist theorists, history develops in accordance with the following observations:

* George Novack, Understanding History: Marxist Essays ( Trotskyist interpretations of problems of history )

The Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara summed up his own appeal to Marxism by stating that Marx produced " a qualitative change in the history of social thought.

Ending a long history of one-party Marxist rule, a specific agenda for this transition was laid out during Congo's national conference of 1991 and culminated in August 1992 with multi-party parliamentary and presidential elections.

The thought behind Marxist Criticism is that works of literature are mere products of history that can be analysed by looking at the social and material conditions in which they were constructed.

Marxist dialectics is exemplified in Das Kapital ( Capital ), which outlines two central theories: ( i ) surplus value and ( ii ) the materialist conception of history ; Marx explains dialectical materialism:

These include Falun Gong's popularity, China ’ s history of quasi-religious movements which turned into violent insurrections, its independence from the state and refusal to toe the Party line, internal power politics within the Communist Party, and Falun Gong's moral and spiritual content, which put it at odds with the atheist aspects of the official Marxist ideology.

Hegelian and Marxist theory stipulates that the dialectic nature of history will lead to the sublation, or synthesis, of its contradictions.

State-monopoly capitalism was originally a Marxist concept referring to a form of corporate capitalism in which state policy is utilized to benefit and promote the interests of dominant or established corporations by shielding them from competitive pressures or by providing them with subsidies.

It is an “ instrument of wholesale destruction, dependency and systematic exploitation producing distorted economies, socio-psychological disorientation, massive poverty and neocolonial dependency .” According to some Marxist historians, in all of the colonial countries ruled by Western European countries “ the natives were robbed of more than half their natural span of life by undernourishment ”.

The concern for a social " base and superstructure " is one of the remaining Marxist philosophic concepts in much contemporary critical theory.

As did Louis Althusser, who later defined Marxism and psychoanalysis as " conflictual sciences "; that political factions and revisionism are inherent to Marxist theory and political praxis, because dialectical materialism is the philosophic product of class struggle:

Marxist orthodoxy is no guardian of traditions, it is the eternally vigilant prophet proclaiming the relation between the tasks of the immediate present and the totality of the historical process.

The International Conference of Marxist – Leninist Parties and Organizations ( Unity & Struggle ) is the most well known collection of these parties today.

More influentially, radical geography emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, drawing heavily on Marxist theory and techniques, and is associated with geographers such as David Harvey and Richard Peet.

Human beings collectively work on nature but do not do the same work ; there is a division of labor in which people not only do different jobs, but according to Marxist theory, some people live from the work of others by owning the means of production.

Perhaps the most influential recent defense of this passage, and of relevant Marxian and Marxist assertions is G. A.

Just as Marx used to say, commenting on the French " Marxists " of the late 70s: " All I know is that I am not a Marxist.

After the French party split into a reformist and revolutionary party, some accused Guesde ( leader of the latter ) of taking orders from Marx ; Marx remarked to Lafargue, " What is certain to me is if this is Marxism, then I myself am not Marxist " ( in a letter to Engels, Marx later accused Guesde of being a " Bakuninist ").

In modern sociological theory, Marxist sociology is recognised as one of the main classical perspectives.

Trotsky's ideas formed the basis of Trotskyism, a major school of Marxist thought that is opposed to the theories of Stalinism.

Rosa LuxemburgLeft communism ' is the range of communist viewpoints held by the communist left, which criticizes the political ideas of the Bolsheviks at certain periods, from a position that is asserted to be more authentically Marxist and proletarian than the views of Leninism held by the Communist International after its first and during its second congress.