Abstract

It is appropriate to begin with a preliminary outline of the topic. Historical Materialism makes its appearance in the intellectual context of Marxism which comes about, not as a scientific theory or a system of truths whose significance lies in their correctness as knowledge, but as a theory of social activity and historical action. Marxism is the theory of the proletarian revolution and the revolutionary critique of bourgeois society. It is a science to the extent that the revolutionary activity which it seeks to bring about and direct requires the comprehension of its historical necessity and of the validity of its own nature.