Marxist historiography, or

historical materialist Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...

historiography, is an influential school of

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...

. The chief tenets of Marxist

include the centrality of social class, social relations of production in class-divided societies that struggle against each other, and

economic An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...

constraints in determining historical outcomes (

historical materialism Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...

). Marxist historians follow the tenets of the development of class-divided societies, especially modern capitalist ones. Yet, the way Marxist historiography has developed in different regional and political contexts has varied. Marxist historiography has had unique trajectories of development in the

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

, in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

, and in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, as well as in the

pan-Africanist Pan-Africanism is a worldwide movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all Indigenous and diaspora peoples of African ancestry. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atlantic slave trade, the movement ext ...

and

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

traditions, adapting to these specific regional and political conditions in different ways. Marxist historiography has made contributions to the history of the

working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...

, and the

methodology In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for br ...

of a history from below. Marxist historiography is sometimes criticized as deterministic, in that it posits a direction of history, towards an end state of history as

classless The term classless society refers to a society in which no one is born into a social class. Distinctions of wealth, income, education, culture, or social network might arise and would only be determined by individual experience and achievemen ...

human society. Marxist historiography within Marxist circles is generally seen as a tool; its aim is to bring those it perceives as oppressed by history to

self-consciousness Self-consciousness is a heightened sense of awareness of oneself. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. Historically, "self-consciousness" was synonymous with "self-awareness", referring to a state of awareness that ...

, and to arm them with tactics and strategies from history. For these Marxists, it is both a historical and a liberatory project. However, not all Marxist historiography is socialist. Methods from Marxist historiography, such as class analysis, can be divorced from the original political intents of Marxism and its deterministic nature; historians who use Marxist methodology, but disagree with the politics of Marxism, often describe themselves as "marxian" historians, practitioners of this "marxian historiography" often refer to their techniques as "marxian".

Marx and Engels

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' ''The German Peasants' War'', 1850), which analysed social warfare in early Protestant Germany in terms of emerging capitalist classes. Although ''The German Peasants' War'' was overdetermined lacked a rigorous engagement with archival sources, it exemplifies an early Marxists' interest in history from below and in class analysis, it also attempts a dialectical analysis. Karl Marx's (1818–1883) most important works on social and political history include ''

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon ''The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon'' (german: italic=yes, Der 18te Brumaire des Louis Napoleon) is an essay written by Karl Marx between December 1851 and March 1852, and originally published in 1852 in ''Die Revolution'', a German mo ...

'' (1852), ''

The Communist Manifesto ''The Communist Manifesto'', originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (german: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), is a political pamphlet written by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Commu ...

'' (1848), ''

The German Ideology ''The German Ideology'' (German: ''Die deutsche Ideologie'', sometimes written as ''A Critique of the German Ideology'') is a set of manuscripts originally written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels around April or early May 1846. Marx and Engels ...

'' (written in 1845, published in 1932), and those chapters of ''

Das Kapital ''Das Kapital'', also known as ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' or sometimes simply ''Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, link=no, ; 1867–1883), is a foundational theoretical text in materialist phi ...

'' (1867–1894) dealing with the historical emergence of capitalists and proletarians from

pre-industrial Pre-industrial society refers to social attributes and forums of political and cultural organization that were prevalent before the advent of the Industrial Revolution, which occurred from 1750 to 1850. ''Pre-industrial'' refers to a time before ...

English society. Engels' short treatise ''

The Condition of the Working Class in England ''The Condition of the Working Class in England'' (german: Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England) is an 1845 book by the German philosopher Friedrich Engels, a study of the industrial working class in Victorian England. Engels' first book, ...

'' ( de , Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England, 1845; English-language translation published in 1887) was salient in giving a

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

impetus to British politics from then on, for e.g. the

Fabian Society The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. T ...

Labour and class struggle

The key to understanding Marxist historiography is his view of labour. For Marx "historical reality is none other than objectified labor, and all conditions of labor given by nature, including the organic bodies of people, are merely preconditions and 'disappearing moments' of the labor process." This emphasis on the physical as the determining factor in history represents a break from virtually all previous historians. Until Marx developed his theory of

, the overarching determining factor in the direction of history was some sort of divine agency. In Marx's view of history "God became a mere projection of human imagination" and more importantly "a tool of oppression". There was no more sense of divine direction to be seen. History moved by the sheer force of human labour, and all theories of divine nature were a concoction of the ruling powers to keep the working people in check. For Marx, "The first historical act is... the production of material life itself." As one might expect, Marxist history not only begins with labour, it ends in production: "history does not end by being resolved into "self-consciousness" as "spirit of the spirit," but that in it at each stage there is found a material result: a sum of productive forces, a historically created relation of individuals to nature and to one another, which is handed down to each generation from its predecessor..." For further, and much more comprehensive, information on this topic, see

Historic materialism

Introduction

Historical materialism is a

to understand human

societies A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societ ...

and their development throughout history. Marx's theory of history locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labour together to make their livelihoods. Marx argues that the introduction of new

technologies Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

and new ways of doing things to improve production eventually lead to new social classes which in turn result in political crises which can threaten the established order. Marx's view of history is in contrast to the commonplace notion that the rise and fall of kingdoms, empires and states, can broadly be explained by the actions, ambitions and policies of the people at the top of society kings, queens, emperors, generals, or religious leaders. This view of history is summed up by the 19th-century Scottish philosopher

Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy. Born in Ecclefechan, Dum ...

who wrote "the history of the world is nothing but the biography of great men". An alternative to the "great man" theory is that history is shaped by the motivating force of "great ideas" – the struggle of reason over superstition or the fight for democracy and freedom. The "great man" and occasionally "great women" theory of history and the view that history is primarily shaped by ideas has provoked no end of debate but many historians have believed there are more fundamental patterns at play beneath historical events.

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

(1818–1883) asserted that the material conditions of a society's

mode of production In the Marxist theory of historical materialism, a mode of production (German: ''Produktionsweise'', "the way of producing") is a specific combination of the: * Productive forces: these include human labour power and means of production (tools, ...

, or in Marxist terms a society's productive forces and relations of production, fundamentally determine society's organization and development including the political commitments, cultural ideas and values that dominate in any society. Marx argues that there is a fundamental conflict between the class of people who create the wealth of society and those who have ownership or control of the means of production, decide how society's wealth and resources are to be used and have a monopoly of political and military power. Historical materialism provides a profound challenge to the view that the historical process has come to a close and that capitalism is the end of history. Since Marx's time, the theory has been modified and expanded. It now has many Marxist and non-Marxist variants. The main modes of production that Marx identified generally include primitive communism, slave society,

feudalism Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structur ...

, mercantilism, and

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...

. In each of these social stages, people interacted with nature and production in different ways. Any surplus from that production was distributed differently as well. To Marx, ancient societies (e.g. Rome and Greece) were based on a ruling class of citizens and a class of slaves; feudalism was based on

nobles Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The characteri ...

and serfs; and capitalism based on the

capitalist class The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...

( bourgeoisie) and the

( proletariat).

Description

Historical materialism builds upon the idea of historical

progress Progress is the movement towards a refined, improved, or otherwise desired state. In the context of progressivism, it refers to the proposition that advancements in technology, science, and social organization have resulted, and by extension w ...

that became popular in philosophy during

the Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...

, which asserted that the development of human society has progressed through a series of stages, from

hunting and gathering A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...

, through

pastoralism Pastoralism is a form of animal husbandry where domesticated animals (known as " livestock") are released onto large vegetated outdoor lands (pastures) for grazing, historically by nomadic people who moved around with their herds. The a ...

and cultivation, to commercial society. Historical materialism rests on a foundation of

dialectical Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing ...

materialism, in which matter is considered primary and ideas, thought, and consciousness are secondary, i.e. consciousness and human ideas about the universe result from material conditions rather than vice versa. Marxism uses this materialist methodology, referred to by Marx and Engels as the materialist conception of history and later better known as historical materialism, to analyse the underlying causes of societal development and change from the perspective of the collective ways in which humans make their living. Historical materialism springs from a fundamental underlying reality of human existence: that in order for subsequent generations of human beings to survive, it is necessary for them to produce and reproduce the material requirements of everyday life. Marx then extended this premise by asserting the importance of the fact that, in order to carry out production and exchange, people have to enter into very definite social relations, or more specifically, "relations of production". However, production does not get carried out in the abstract, or by entering into arbitrary or random relations chosen at will, but instead are determined by the development of the existing forces of production. How production is accomplished depends on the character of society's productive forces, which refers to the means of production such as the tools, instruments, technology, land, raw materials, and human knowledge and abilities in terms of using these means of production. The relations of production are determined by the level and character of these productive forces present at any given time in history. In all societies,

Human beings Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, an ...

collectively work on

nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

but, especially in class societies, do not do the same work. In such societies, there is a division of labour in which people not only carry out different kinds of labour but occupy different social positions on the basis of those differences. The most important such division is that between manual and intellectual labour whereby one class produces a given society's wealth while another is able to monopolize control of the

means of production The means of production is a term which describes land, labor and capital that can be used to produce products (such as goods or services); however, the term can also refer to anything that is used to produce products. It can also be used as an ...

and so both governs that society and lives off of the wealth generated by the labouring classes. Marx's account of the theory is in ''

'' (1845) and in the preface ''

A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy ''A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy'' (german: Zur Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie) is a book by Karl Marx, first published in 1859. The book is mainly a critique of political economy achieved by critiquing the writings of the ...

'' (1859). All constituent features of a society ( social classes, political pyramid and

ideologies An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied prim ...

) are assumed to stem from economic activity, forming what is considered as the base and superstructure. The base and superstructure metaphor describes the totality of social relations by which humans produce and re-produce their social existence. According to Marx, the "sum total of the forces of production accessible to men determines the condition of society" and forms a society's economic base. The base includes the material

forces of production Productive forces, productive powers, or forces of production (German: ''Produktivkräfte'') is a central idea in Marxism and historical materialism. In Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' own critique of political economy, it refers to the combinat ...

such as the labour,

and relations of production, i.e. the social and political arrangements that regulate production and distribution. From this base rises a superstructure of legal and political "forms of

social consciousness Social consciousness or social awareness, is collective consciousness shared by individuals within a society.dominant ideology In Marxist philosophy, the term dominant ideology denotes the attitudes, beliefs, values, and morals shared by the majority of the people in a given society. As a mechanism of social control, the dominant ideology frames how the majority of the ...

of a society. Conflicts between the development of material productive forces and the relations of production provokes social revolutions, whereby changes to the economic base leads to the

social transformation In sociology, social transformation is a somewhat ambiguous term that has two broad definitions. One definition of social transformation is the process by which an individual ''alters'' the socially ascribed social status of their parents into a ...

of the superstructure. This relationship is reflexive, in that the base initially gives rise to the superstructure and remains the foundation of a form of

social organization In sociology, a social organization is a pattern of relationships between and among individuals and social groups. Characteristics of social organization can include qualities such as sexual composition, spatiotemporal cohesion, leadership, s ...

. Those newly formed social organizations can then act again upon both parts of the base and superstructure so that rather than being static, the relationship is dialectic, expressed and driven by conflicts and contradictions. Engels clarified: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman Freeman, free men, or variant, may refer to: * a member of the Third Estate in medieval society (commoners), see estates of the realm * Freeman, an apprentice who has been granted freedom of the company, was a rank within Livery companies * Free ...

and slave,

patrician Patrician may refer to: * Patrician (ancient Rome), the original aristocratic families of ancient Rome, and a synonym for "aristocratic" in modern English usage * Patrician (post-Roman Europe), the governing elites of cities in parts of medieval ...

and plebeian,

lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or are ...

and serf,

guild A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...

-master and

journeyman A journeyman, journeywoman, or journeyperson is a worker, skilled in a given building trade or craft, who has successfully completed an official apprenticeship qualification. Journeymen are considered competent and authorized to work in that fie ...

, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes." Marx considered recurring class conflicts as the driving force of human history as such conflicts have manifested themselves as distinct transitional stages of development in

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...

. Accordingly, Marx designated human history as encompassing four stages of development in relations of production: # Primitive communism: co-operative

tribal The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to conflic ...

societies. # Slave society: development of tribal to

city-state A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world since the dawn of history, including cities such as ...

in which aristocracy is born. #

Feudalism Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structur ...

: aristocrats are the

ruling class In sociology, the ruling class of a society is the social class who set and decide the political and economic agenda of society. In Marxist philosophy, the ruling class are the capitalist social class who own the means of production and by exte ...

while merchants evolve into the bourgeoisie. #

Capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...

: capitalists are the ruling class, who create and employ the proletariat. While historical materialism has been referred to as a materialist theory of history, Marx did not claim to have produced a master-key to history and that the materialist conception of history is not "an historico-philosophic theory of the , imposed by fate upon every people, whatever the historic circumstances in which it finds itself." In a letter to editor of the Russian newspaper paper (1877), he explained that his ideas are based upon a concrete study of the actual conditions in Europe.

Summary

To summarize, history develops in accordance with the following observations: Tomb of Nakht (2)

# Social progress is driven by progress in the material, productive forces a society has at its disposal (

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and Reproducibility, reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in me ...

, labour,

capital goods The economic concept of a capital good (also called complex product systems (CoPS),H. Rush, "Managing innovation in complex product systems (CoPS)," IEE Colloquium on EPSRC Technology Management Initiative (Engineering & Physical Sciences Researc ...

and so on) # Humans are inevitably involved in productive relations (roughly speaking, economic relationships or institutions), which constitute our most decisive

social relations A social relation or also described as a social interaction or social experience is the fundamental unit of analysis within the social sciences, and describes any voluntary or involuntary interpersonal relationship between two or more individuals ...

. These relations progress with the development of the productive forces. They are largely determined by the division of labour, which in turn tends to determine social class. # Relations of production are both determined by the means and forces of production and set the conditions of their development. For example, capitalism tends to increase the rate at which the forces develop and stresses the

accumulation of capital Capital accumulation is the dynamic that motivates the pursuit of profit, involving the investment of money or any financial asset with the goal of increasing the initial monetary value of said asset as a financial return whether in the form of ...

. # The relations of production define the mode of production, e.g. the capitalist mode of production is characterized by the polarization of society into capitalists and workers. # The superstructure—the cultural and institutional features of a society, its ideological materials—is ultimately an expression of the mode of production on which the society is founded. # Every type of

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

is a powerful institution of the ruling class; the state is an instrument which one class uses to secure its rule and enforce its preferred relations of production and its

exploitation Exploitation may refer to: *Exploitation of natural resources *Exploitation of labour ** Forced labour *Exploitation colonialism *Slavery ** Sexual slavery and other forms *Oppression *Psychological manipulation In arts and entertainment *Exploi ...

onto society. # State power is usually only transferred from one class to another by social and political upheaval. # When a given relation of production no longer supports further progress in the productive forces, either further progress is strangled, or 'revolution' must occur. # The actual historical process is not predetermined but depends on class struggle, especially the elevation of class consciousness and organization of the working class.

"Western" historiography

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels worked in relative isolation together outside the larger mainstream. However, by the turn of the twentieth century, Marxist thought was perhaps the most prominent opposition to the

idealist In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to id ...

traditions. R. H. Tawney (1880–1962) was an early historian working in this tradition. ''The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century'' (1912) and ''Religion and the Rise of Capitalism'' (1926), reflected his ethical concerns and preoccupations in economic history. He was profoundly interested in the issue of the enclosure of land in the English countryside in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and Max Weber's thesis on the connection between the appearance of

Protestantism Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

and the rise of capitalism. His belief in the rise of the gentry in the century before the outbreak of the Civil War in England provoked the "Storm over the Gentry" in which his methods were subjected to severe criticisms by

Hugh Trevor-Roper Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton (15 January 1914 – 26 January 2003) was an English historian. He was Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford. Trevor-Roper was a polemicist and essayist on a range of ...

and John Cooper. A circle of historians inside the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was formed in 1946. It became a highly influential cluster of British Marxist historians, who shared a common interest in and contributed to history from below and class structure in early capitalist society. While some members of the group (most notably Christopher Hill 912–2003and E. P. Thompson 924–1993 left the CPGB after the

1956 Hungarian Revolution The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 10 November 1956; hu, 1956-os forradalom), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the Hung ...

, the common points of British Marxist historiography continued in their works. They placed a great emphasis on the subjective determination of history. E. P. Thompson famously engaged

Althusser Louis Pierre Althusser (, ; ; 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy. Althusser ...

in '' The Poverty of Theory'', arguing that Althusser's theory overdetermined history, and left no space for historical revolt by the oppressed. Christopher Hill's studies on 17th-century English history were widely acknowledged and recognized as representative of Marxist historians and Marxist historiography in general. His books include ''Puritanism and Revolution'' (1958), ''Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution'' (1965 and revised in 1996), ''The Century of Revolution'' (1961), ''AntiChrist in 17th-century England'' (1971), ''The World Turned Upside Down'' (1972) and many others. E. P. Thompson pioneered the study of history from below in his work, ''

The Making of the English Working Class ''The Making of the English Working Class'' is a work of English social history written by E. P. Thompson, a New Left historian. It was first published in 1963 by Victor Gollancz Ltd, and republished in revised form in 1968 by Pelican, after ...

'', published in 1963. It focused on the forgotten history of the first working-class political left in the world in the late-18th and early-19th centuries. In his preface to this book, Thompson set out his approach to writing history from below: Thompson's work was also significant because of the way he defined "class". He argued that class was not a structure, but a relationship that changed over time. Thompson's work is commonly considered the most influential work of history in the twentieth century and a crucial catalyst for social history and from social history to gender history and other studies of marginalized peoples. His essay, "Time, Work, Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism" is also hugely influential and argues that industrial capitalism fundamentally altered (and accelerated) humans' relationship to time. He opened the gates for a generation of labour historians, such as David Montgomery (1927–2011) and

Herbert Gutman Herbert George Gutman (1928–1985) was an American professor of history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he wrote on slavery and labor history. Early life and education Gutman was born in 1928 to Jewish immigra ...

(1928–1985), who made similar studies of the American working classes. Perhaps the best known of the Communist historians was E. B. Hobsbawm(1917–2012). He is credited for establishing many of the basic historical arguments of current historiography and synthesizing huge amounts of modern historical data across time and space – most famously in his trilogy: The Age of Revolutions, The Age of Empires, and The Age of Extremes. Hobsbawm's ''Bandits'' is another example of this group's work.

C. L. R. James Cyril Lionel Robert James (4 January 1901 – 31 May 1989),Fraser, C. Gerald, '' The New York Times'', 2 June 1989. who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J. R. Johnson, was a Trinidadian historian, journalist and Marxist. His works are i ...

(1901–1989) was also a great pioneer of the 'history from below' approach. Living in Britain when he wrote his most notable work ''The Black Jacobins'' (1938), he was an anti-Stalinist left, anti-Stalinist Marxist and so outside of the CPGB. The Black Jacobins was the first professional historical account of the greatest and only successful slave revolt in colonial American history, the ''Haitian Revolution''. James's history is still touted as a remarkable work of history nearly a century after publication, an immense work of historical investigation, story-telling, and creativity. Other important British Marxist historians included Raphael Samuel (1934–1996), A. L. Morton (1903–1987), and Brian Pearce (1915–2008). In the United States, Marxist historiography greatly influenced the history of slavery and labour history. Marxist historiography also greatly influenced French historians, including France's most famous and enduring historian Fernand Braudel (1902–1985), as well as Italian historians, most famously the Autonomous Marxist and Microhistory, micro-history fields.

In the Soviet Union

Soviet-era historiography was deeply influenced by Marxism. Marxism maintains that the moving forces of history are determined by material production and the rise of different socioeconomic formations. Applying this perspective to socioeconomic formations such as slavery and

is a major methodological principle of orthodox Marxist historiography. Based on this principle, historiography predicts that there will be an abolition of capitalism by a socialist revolution made by the working class. Soviet historians believed that Marxist–Leninist theory permitted the application of categories of dialectical and historical materialism in the study of historical events. However Soviet

was significantly influenced by the Censorship in the Soviet Union, strict control by the authorities aimed at Propaganda in the Soviet Union, propaganda and Soviet power as well, as a result Marxist historiography suffered in the

, as the government required overdetermined historical writing. Soviet historians tended to avoid contemporary history (after 1903) where possible, and effort was predominantly directed at pre-modern history (before 1850). As history was considered to be a politicized academic discipline, historians limited their creative output to avoid prosecution. Since the late 1930s, Soviet historiography treated the Party line (politics), party line and reality as one and the same. As such, if it was a science, it was a science in service of a specific political and ideological agenda, commonly employing Historical revisionism (negationism), historical negationism. In the 1930s, historical Archive, archives were closed and original research was severely restricted. Historians were required to pepper their works with references—appropriate or not—to Stalin and other "Marxist–Leninist classics", and to pass judgment—as prescribed by the Party—on pre-revolution historic Russian people, Russian figures. Nikita Khrushchev commented that "Historians are dangerous and capable of turning everything upside down. They have to be watched." The Soviet interpretation of Marxism predetermined much of the research done by historians. Research by scholars in the USSR was limited to a large extent due to this predetermination. Some Soviet historians could not offer non-Marxist theoretical explanations that did not fit with the parties official ideology for their interpretation of sources. This was true even when alternate theories had a greater explanatory power in relation to a historian's reading of source material. Marx and Engels' ideas of the importance of class struggle in history, the destiny of the working class, and the role of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the revolutionary party are of major importance in Marxist methodology. Marxist–Leninist historiography has several aspects. It explains the social basis of historical knowledge, determines the social functions of historical knowledge and the means by which these functions are carried out, and emphasizes the need to study concepts in connection with the social and political life of the period in which these concepts were developed. It studies the theoretical and methodological features in every school of historical thought. Marxist–Leninist historiography analyses the source-study basis of a historical work, the nature of the use of sources, and specific research methods. It analyses problems of historical research as the most important sign of the progress and historical knowledge and as the expression of the socioeconomic and political needs of a historical period. The Marxist theory of

identified

as chief determinants of the historical process. They led to the creation of Social class, social classes, and class struggle was the motor of history. The sociocultural evolution of societies was considered to progress inevitably from slavery, through

and

to socialism and finally communism. In addition, Leninism argued that a vanguard party was required to lead the working class in the revolution that would overthrow capitalism and replace it with socialism. Soviet historiography interpreted this theory to mean that the creation of the Soviet Union was the most important turning event in human history, since the USSR was considered to be the first socialist society. Furthermore, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Communist Party – considered to be the vanguard of the working class – was given the role of permanent leading force in society, rather than a temporary revolutionary organization. As such, it became the protagonist of history, which could not be wrong. Hence the unlimited powers of the Communist Party leaders were claimed to be as infallible and inevitable as the history itself. It also followed that a worldwide victory of communist countries is inevitable. All research had to be based on those assumptions and could not diverge in its findings. In 1956, Soviet Academy of Sciences, Soviet academician Anna Pankratova said that "the problems of Soviet historiography are the problems of our Communist ideology." Soviet historians have also been criticized for a Marxist bias in the interpretation of other historical events, unrelated to the Soviet Union. Thus, for example, they assigned to the rebellions in the Roman Empire the characteristics of the social revolution. Often, the Marxist bias and propaganda demands came into conflict: hence the peasant rebellions against the early Soviet rule, such as the Tambov Rebellion of 1920–21, were simply ignored as inconvenient politically and contradicting the official interpretation of the Marxist theories. Notable histories include the ''History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik)'', published in 1938, which was written to justify the nature of Bolshevik party life under Joseph Stalin. This work crystallised the ''piatichlenka'' or five acceptable moments of history in terms of Vulgar Marxism, vulgar dialectical materialism: primitive-communism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism and socialism.

In China

Most Chinese history that is published in the People's Republic of China (PRC) is based on a Marxist interpretation of history. These theories were first applied in the 1920s by Chinese scholars such as Guo Moruo and became orthodoxy in academic study after 1949. The Marxist view of history is that history is governed by universal laws and that according to these laws, a society moves through a series of stages, with the transition between stages being driven by class struggle. These stages are: * Slave society * Feudal society * Capitalist society * Socialist society * The world communist society The official historical view within the People's Republic of China associates each of these stages with a particular era in Chinese history. * Slave society – Xia dynasty, Xia to Shang dynasty, Shang * Feudal society (decentralized) – Zhou dynasty, Zhou to Sui dynasty, Sui * Feudal society (bureaucratic) – Tang dynasty, Tang to the First Opium War * Feudal society (semi-colonial) – First Opium War to end of Qing dynasty * Capitalist society – History of the Republic of China, Republican era * Socialist society – People's Republic of China, PRC 1949 to present Because of the strength of the Chinese Communist Party 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 favour 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 it is a rather simple matter to modify an alternative historical theory to use language that at least does not challenge the Marxist interpretation of history. Partly because of the interest of Mao Zedong, historians in the 1950s took a special interest in the role of list of rebellions in China, peasant rebellions in Chinese history and compiled documentary histories to examine them. There are several problems associated with imposing Marx's European-based framework on Chinese history. First, slavery existed throughout China's history but never as the primary form of labour. While the Zhou dynasty, Zhou and earlier dynasties may be labeled as feudalism, feudal, later dynasties were much more centralized than how Marx analysed their European counterparts as being. To account for the discrepancy, Chinese Marxists invented the term "bureaucratic feudalism". The placement of the Tang as the beginning of the bureaucratic phase rests largely on the replacement of nine-rank system, patronage networks with the imperial examination. Some World systems theory, world-systems analysts, such as Janet Abu-Lughod, claim that analysis of Kondratiev waves shows that capitalism first arose in Song dynasty China, although widespread trade was subsequently disrupted and then curtailed. The Japanese scholar Tanigawa Michio, writing in the 1970s and 1980s, set out to revise the generally Marxist views of China prevalent in post-war Japan. Tanigawa writes that historians in Japan fell into two schools. One held that China followed the set European pattern which Marxists thought to be universal; that is, from ancient slavery to medieval feudalism to modern capitalism; while another group argued that "Chinese society was extraordinarily saturated with stagnancy, as compared to the West" and assumed that China existed in a "qualitatively different historical world from Western society". That is, there is an argument between those who see "unilinear, monistic world history" and those who conceive of a "two-tracked or multi-tracked world history". Tanigawa reviewed the applications of these theories in Japanese writings about Chinese history and then tested them by analysing the Six Dynasties 220–589 CE period, which Marxist historians saw as feudal. He concluded that China did not have feudalism in the sense that Marxists use, that Chinese military governments did not lead to a European-style military aristocracy. The period established social and political patterns which shaped China's history from that point on. There was a gradual relaxation of Marxist interpretation after the death of Mao in 1976, which was accelerated after the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989, Tian'anmen Square protest and Revolutions of 1989, other revolutions in 1989, which damaged Marxism's ideological legitimacy in the eyes of Chinese academics.

In India

In India Marxist historiography takes the form of marxian historiography where marxian techniques of analysis are used but Marxist political intentions and prescriptions are discarded. Bhupendranath Datta, B. N. Datta, and Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi, D. D. Kosambi are considered the founding fathers of Marxist historiography in India. D. D. Kosambi was apologetic of the revolution of Mao and thought of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's policies as pro-capitalist. Kosambi, a polymath, viewed Indian History from a Marxist viewpoint. The other Indian scholars of marxian historiography are Ram Sharan Sharma, R. S. Sharma, Irfan Habib, D. N. Jha, and K. N. Panikkar. Other historians such as Satish Chandra (historian), Satish Chandra, Romila Thapar, Bipan Chandra, Arjun Dev (historian), Arjun Dev, and Dineshchandra Sircar, are sometimes referred to as "influenced by the marxian approach to history." The marxian historiography of India has focused on studies of economic development, land ownership, and class conflict in precolonial India and deindustrialisation, deindustrialization during the colonial period. One debate in Indian history that relates to a

schema is on the nature of

in India. Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi, D. D. Kosambi in the 1960s outlined the idea of "feudalism from below" and "feudalism from above". Element of his feudalism thesis was rejected by R. S. Sharma in his monograph Indian Feudalism (2005) and various other books, However R. S. Sharma also largely agrees with Kosambi in his various other books. Most Indian marxian historians argue that the economic origins of communalism are feudal remnants and the economic insecurities caused by slow development in India. The marxian school of Indian historiography is accused of being too ideologically influenced. Though influenced by Marxist theory B. R. Ambedkar criticized Marxists, as he deemed them to be unaware or ignorant of the specifics of caste issues. Also though most criticisms of marxian historiography is levied by people who are not historians, some historians have debated marxian historians and critically examined their analysis of the history of India. Many have alleged that marxian historians used Historical negationism, negationism to whitewash some of the atrocities committed by Islamic rulers in the Indian subcontinent, Muslim rulers in the Indian Subcontinent. Since the late 1990s, Hindu nationalism, Hindu nationalist scholars especially have polemicized against the marxian tradition in India for neglecting what they believe to be the country's 'illustrious past' based on Vedic-puranic chronology. An example of such works is Arun Shourie's ''Eminent Historians'' (1998). Even non-academic and lay men contributions to Marxist historiography exist in India. The book "Coffee Housinte Katha" (The Story of Coffee House), written in Malayalam, a regional language of India, spoken in the state of Kerala, by one of the leaders of the Indian Coffee House Movement, Nadakkal Parameswaran Pillai, is an example of this.

The effects of Marxist historiography

Marxist historiography has had an enormous influence on historiography, and compares with empiricist historiography as one of the basic and foundational historiographic methodologies. Most non-Marxist historians make use of tools developed within Marxist historiography, like dialectical analysis of social formations, class analysis, or the project of broadening the scope of history into social history. Marxist historiography provided the first sustained efforts at social history, and is still highly influential within this area. The contribution of class analysis has also led to the development of gender and race as other analytical tools. Marxism was one of the key influences on the Annales school, ''Annales'' school tradition of French historiography.Olivia Harris, "Braudel: Historical Time and the Horror of Discontinuity." History Workshop Journal (2004) (57): 161–174. ISSN 1363-3554 Fulltext: OUP. Only Ariès was a true conservative—indeed a royalist.

References

*Perry Anderson, ''In the tracks of Historical Materialism'' *Paul Blackledge, ''Reflections on the Marxist Theory of History'' (2006)
"Deciphering the past"
''International Socialism'' 112 (2006) {{Theories of History Historiography Marxism Marxist historians,