Marx and Engels 

German philosophers, sociologists, and economists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels are seen as creators of historical materialism. Marx and Engels, together, published several books: The German Ideology (1845b), The Holy Family (1845c), and The Communist Manifesto (1848). Marx alone published books The Class Struggles in France 1848-1850 (1850), The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852a), Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany (1852b), Foundations of a Critique of Political Economy (1858), A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), and three volumes of his most important and voluminous work - Capital, Critique of Political Economy (1867, 1885, 1894). The second and third volumes of the Capital were published posthumously, and they were edited and prepared for publication by Engels, based on Marx's manuscripts.

Marx hugely influenced many scientific disciplines - sociology, economics, political science, anthropology - as well as philosophy and ideology. His fields of interest were very wide, which can be seen from his scientific work. The philosophical direction he developed is most often called dialectical materialism. His teaching, which connects economics, politics, society, culture, and history, is called historical materialism. In addition to Engels, he is considered the founder of the so-called scientific socialism, an ideological program for the transformation of society, politics, and the economy.

Marx's dialectical materialism emerges as an elaboration and reshaping of Hegel's (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel) philosophy. Hegel introduced the notion of dialectics into philosophy and applied it to history. Marx, who was often classified as a left-wing Hegelian or a part of the philosophers known as Young Hegelians, re-examined Hegel's philosophy in his book Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843). While Hegel focused on the dialectical movement of ideas throughout history, Marx understood dialectics as a struggle between the opposites that exist in the sphere of economics and politics. This struggle between opposites acts as a dynamic principle and a source of change. The consequence of that struggle is a sudden leap forward toward a new and higher stage of development of society.

                             Social Relations of Production

Marx most clearly states the basics of historical materialism in his book A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859). Marx's conception of man and society is materialistic because he believes that the history of the human race arose when man began to control nature and began to produce a means of subsistence. The production of livelihoods is not an individual, but a joint (social) endeavor, because production requires cooperation. To survive, people must enter into the social „relations of production“, so they can produce all the material goods that are necessary for their survival. Social relations of production shape the "way of life" and human nature because they are the expression of these relations. In this sense, people as individuals, but also the whole society and culture, are a consequence of the production of material life. Marx saw purposeful production activity as "practice" (praxis). Practice is the process by which a person creates himself and the social conditions of his life.

Social relations of production are never arbitrary and random but depend on the stage of development of „material productive forces“. Material production forces are determined by the level of technological and scientific development and technical organization of the production process, on the one hand, as well as raw materials, land, and other natural preconditions of production, on the other hand. Social relations of production are relations that people enter into in order to produce goods. Social relations of production consist of rules governing the ownership of the „means of production“, which consists of „means of labor“ (land, tools and machinery, buildings, etc.) and „objects of labor“, as well as rules governing the „productive forces“. The productive forces are the people who do the work, and throughout history, the legal relationships that have regulated their work have changed. In slavery, the productive forces had the status of slaves, while in capitalism the productive forces have the status of free people who rent their labor to the owner of the means of labor, and in return receive a salary. All these „factors of production“ are the result of a long historical development of technology and economy, and therefore, they are not freely chosen by the people.

Picture 1. Marx's concept of social relations of production.

Such relations of production form the economic „base“ of society (Marx uses the German term basis, but in the English language this term is translated in different ways - as „structure“, „substructure“, or „base“; which are all synonymous), and that economic base has a key influence on the shaping of the social „superstructure“ (Überbau). The social superstructure consists of social consciousness, legal and political way of organizing society, art, ideology, etc. When, at some historical moment, the development of material forces of production exceeds the existing relations of production, then conditions are created for a change in the relations of production, and this leads to their sudden change. Marx calls such sudden changes "social revolutions." After the transformation of the relations of production, gradually, but inevitably, the entire social superstructure is reshaped. The speed and degree of change in the social superstructure cannot be precisely determined, because there is ideological resistance to changes in the social superstructure. Marx summarizes this process as follows:

„No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society. Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation“ (Marx, 1859).

Marx observes the historical development of the main forms of relations of production and the associated social superstructure. At the beginning of history, there was "primitive communism". In primitive communism, the means of production and the products of labor were in common possession, and each person produced, both for himself and for society as a whole. At that stage, there were no contradictions and conflicts in the relations of production. With the emergence of private ownership of the means of production, a minority of society begins to control the entire production process and dominates and appropriates the fruits of the labor of the rest of society. Then, for the first time in history, conflicts arise in relations of production, which become the main engine and determinant of historical change. Shortly after the disappearance of the original communism, two similar economic and political systems were created: slavery and the "Asiatic mode of production". After the cessation of slavery in Europe, with the fall of the Roman Empire, a period of feudalism emerged, and in the modern age, the capitalist mode of production replaced the feudal one.

                                       Theory of Classes

To understand Marx's analysis of classes, the most important are his conceptions of the theory of value of goods, and the theory of exploitation. Marx took over the theory of value introduced into economics by Adam Smith. This theory of value views the market value of each commodity as the exclusive product of the socially necessary working time for a commodity to be produced and transported. Marx concluded from this that the difference between the wage that a worker receives for work and the price at which goods are sold, obtained by that work, represents the surplus value that the owner of the means of labor appropriates for himself, and to the detriment of the worker. This appropriation of surplus value is the essence of the economic exploitation that is done by the class that possesses the means of labor; while, by the same process, the class that performs the work is being exploited. In capitalism, capitalists are the owners of the means of labor, and the surplus appropriated is their profit, while the workers, who possess only control over their own labor, are exploited. This is the essence of the contradiction in the productive forces under capitalism.

Marx distinguishes between "class in itself" and "class for itself." The class in itself is made up of all individuals who share the same objective attitude toward the means of production. In that sense, in order to define a specific "class in itself", it does not matter whether all those who belong to it are aware that they belong to it and whether they have a feeling that some common interests should emerge from the common position they share. A class for itself arises when there is a spread of a single "class consciousness", i.e. when all or most members of a class become fully aware of common „class interests“ and recognize a common „class enemy“. In addition, members of the class must become aware that only by joint action against class enemies can they achieve „common class goals“, but also take concrete practical measures to achieve class interests through „class struggle“. The relationship between opposing classes is always, in every society and every historical period, a relationship of conflict. These conflicts are sometimes hidden, and sometimes there is a completely open struggle. When there is a complete conflict of classes, there is either a revolutionary reconstruction of society as a whole or a common collapse of the conflicting classes. Marx believed that the class struggle was the basic mover and determinant of complete human history.

Marx's view is that in the capitalist societies of Western Europe in the mid-nineteenth century, there were two key classes in society - the capitalist class, which owns the means of production, and the "proletariat" class, manual workers who own only their own labor. In addition to these two classes, in capitalism, some classes remained from the feudal era, such as aristocratic landowners and peasants, as well as the petty bourgeoisie consisting of merchants, craftsmen, and the like. Apart from them, at the absolute bottom of the social ladder are those whom Marx called the "lumpenproletariat." The Lumpenproletariat corresponds to what Engels called the "reserve army of labor" (see Engels).

The capitalist class monopolizes political power and creates laws that protect its (capitalist) property, as well as its class interests, and thus dominates the working class. In this sense, the entire capitalist state and its institutions are only a reflection of the interests of the ruling capitalist class. Marx was very critical of the bureaucracy, which through formalized procedures, secrets, and hierarchies turns the goals of the state into its own goals so that the bureaucracy acts as an imaginary state next to the real state.

                          Superstructure – Capitalist Ideology

The relations of production in capitalism create a specific type of social superstructure that aims to preserve the reproduction of such relations of production. Hence, in addition to direct political control, the capitalist class creates an ideology that aims to justify and legitimize existing relations of production and capitalist exploitation and domination. The capitalist class, with its ideology that uses the ideas of equality and freedom, achieves to disguise, to other members of society, the basis of exploitation and domination on which that class rests. However, equality, freedom, and civil rights are an illusion, because the worker is neither free nor equal to the capitalist. The worker is not free, because he is forced to work for the capitalist in order to survive. The worker is not equal either, because all political power and ideological narrative are created, and held by the capitalist class. That is why Marx sees ideology as a „false consciousness“, that is, a false image of society and the world. Marx believes that capitalist control over political power and ideological narrative will not be able to prevent the collapse of the capitalist system when the contradictions within the social base become too great.

One of the key consequences of the capitalist relations of production and the ideology that defends them is what Marx calls "alienation." Alienation occurs when workers in capitalism begin to view the things they produce as foreign objects. They see goods as something foreign to them and that has the power to control people. „Productive labor“ is the primary and most important human activity, in which people truly express their own being. When people give up the products of their labor to place them on the market as goods, they then lose a part of themselves. Workers are alienated not only from the things they produce but also from the whole system - economic flows and impersonal market forces of supply and demand, as well as from the ruling ideology and institutions that support capitalist domination. Eventually, workers become alienated from themselves. Religion is one of the main examples of human alienation and, as a value and as an institutional system, it plays a crucial role in protecting and justifying capitalist domination. Marx believes that "man makes religion, religion does not create man." People attribute their own powers to supra-empirical forces and thus become alienated from themselves. Since religion is the most important source of alienation, people must abolish religion and religious illusions and myths, so they can become truly free.

                                Transformation of Society

Marx wanted to transform the capitalist society into the communist one. This change will not be due to the emergence of new productive forces but will be a consequence of the internal contradictions of the capitalist system. Marx hoped that, at that moment, the members of the petty bourgeoisie would also side with the proletariat. Once communism is realized, the ownership of the means of labor will be collective, and the products of labor will be redistributed according to their needs, all following Marx's slogan " From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" (Marx, 1875). In addition, communism will cease to alienate people from themselves, society, and the products of their labor. The communist organization of the material base will not contain contradictions and internal conflicts. In this way, communism represents the end of the dialectical struggle of classes and the "end of history", because there will no longer be contradictions that create historical change.

One of Engels' earliest texts is the essay Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy (1844), which forms the basis for all future economic analyzes of Marxism. In this essay, Engels emphasizes the importance of periodic crises for the functioning of the capitalist economy. Economic activity in capitalism constantly oscillates and goes through states of equilibrium and disequilibrium. There is a constant tendency of the economy to bring supply and demand into a state of equilibrium, but this state is almost never achieved in practice.

While liberal economists believed that there was a "law" that regulated the equilibrium of supply and demand spontaneously in the free market, so supply could never exceed demand, Engles believed that trade crises occurred regularly, between five and seven years apart. In addition, he believes that these crises are becoming more pronounced and universal over time and that each new crisis brings a new decline of small capitalists and an increase in the proletariat. In his opinion, there will be an increasing concentration of capital and property in the future, because large industrialists, landowners, and traders have many advantages over their smaller competitors. Economic crises only increase these advantages, which will result in a situation in which the large capitalist will erode the small capitalist, which will lead to the disappearance of the middle class. Unlike other economists, Engels paid great attention to the development of science and technology and their impact on economic development. He believed that Robert Malthus' fear of excessive demographic expansion was unrealistic because both the population and the technology of food and other goods production were growing exponentially.

                                  Working Class Condition

Engels used his stay in Manchester to conduct research that resulted in the book The Condition of the Working Class in England (1885, in German 1845a). For research purposes, Engels used several different methods of data collection: he surveyed working households in Manchester, used official statistics, studied the reports of parliamentary commissions, interviewed factory inspectors, etc. The period of the middle of the nineteenth century in England was marked by rapid industrialization and a sharp increase in the number of industrial workers, which was especially evident in large industrial cities such as Manchester.

The housing situation in that period was very bad in Manchester, and it was especially pronounced among a large number of Irish immigrants. Engels notes that the new industrial cities were built by industrial and financial speculators, with the sole goal of creating as much profit as possible, regardless of the living conditions of those who work and live in those cities. Engels' research showed that due to industrialization, there was a huge deterioration in the living conditions of workers. Housing conditions were so poor that most working families lived in only one room, in very poor-quality buildings; their clothing and food were in extremely dire condition, and the mortality of children and adults was several times higher than that of the rest of the population; diseases and infections were very widespread; workers did not have an access to even the most basic health and educational resources; the average working day lasted twelve hours; even the children did the hardest jobs.

Engels noted that industrialization had led to the creation of, what he called, a "reserve army of labour" made up of unemployed workers. This reserve army of labor grows during periods of economic crisis and decreases during periods of economic growth. The reserve army of labor enables employers to easily find workers in periods when the economy is working well and to easily fire workers when there is a period of crisis. Engels' data indicate that in that period there were over a million and a half people who belong to the reserve army of labor, who, in order to survive, do the dirtiest jobs (e.g. collecting horse dung on the streets) or begging. Workers also differ from the bourgeoisie in cultural features: they have different dialects, different values ​​, and different social and political attitudes.

                                   Principles of Communism

The Communist Manifesto (1848), co-written by Marx and Engels, is one of the most famous political pamphlets in history, but a year earlier Engels, alone, had written a similar pamphlet named The Principles of Communism (1847). This pamphlet remained almost unknown for several decades and therefore did not achieve nearly as significant an impact as The Communist Manifesto. In the essay The Principles of Communism, Engels asks the 25 most important questions about communism and then gives answers to them. In his opinion, communism is an ideology focused on the conditions for the liberation of the proletariat. The proletariat is a class made up of individuals whose survival depends entirely on their ability to sell their own labor to capitalists. The proletariat did not always exist but appeared with the industrial revolution in the second half of the eighteenth century. The development of capitalist competition and the race for profit, the rise of industrial machines, and the associated division of labor have led to a state in which workers have lost all of the already small autonomy they previously had. Many strata are falling into the proletariat - manufacturing workers, agricultural workers, petty bourgeois, craftsmen, etc. The whole society is divided into two great classes - the proletarians who own only their labor and the great capitalists who own almost all the means of production.

The capitalists pay for the work of the proletariat only as much as is sufficient to achieve the minimum of the physical survival of the proletariat. Engels analyzes the key consequences of the development of industrial capitalism. The industrialization and development of international capitalism have led to the fact that the entire planet is connected economically, so the events in the most developed countries have great consequences for all other countries. The industrial capitalists managed to become the dominant class in the most developed countries, replacing the aristocracy and large landowners from the top. The capitalists secured their power by introducing parliamentary democracy (in which they control parliament), legal equality, and free market principles. The proletarian revolution cannot happen in only one developed capitalist country but must happen in all of them at the same time. As the main instruments by which communism will be realized, Engels singles out: the restriction of private property through high taxes and the prohibition of inheritance; gradual expropriation of private capital; abolition of private banks and centralization of control over money and credit; free education for all children, etc.

Engels later became even more famous thanks to the book Anti-Düring (1878), in which he critically analyzed the views of Eugen Dühring and his version of socialism. Three chapters of this book were later published under the title Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880).

                            Evolution of Family and the State

Engels's book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (2010, in German 1884) is the most important for extending the Marxist perspective to the field of anthropology. In this book Engels uses anthropological and archaeological research, primarily that of Lewis H. Morgan and his book Ancient Society (1877), to study the historical conditions of marriage, family, private property, and the economy, as well as political relations and states. Engels takes over Morgan's division of prehistoric stages of cultural development, according to which human society went through three stages - savagery, barbarism, and civilization - of which the first two are further divided into the lower, middle, and higher levels of development. Engels also takes over the evolutionary classification of marriages and family types created by Morgan.

In the beginning, there was group marriage, which was followed by a  „consanguine“ type of marriage and family, after that came the "punalua" family (marriage between brothers from one family and sisters from another family), then a „pairing family“ developed, and finally, a monogamous family was formed. In group marriage, there were no rules prohibiting incest, and sexual intercourse was allowed even between close relatives. With the termination of group marriage, the first form of family is formed - the family of blood kinship or consanguine family, where sexual intercourse was restricted to members of the same generation. In the punalua family, there is a ban on marriages between siblings, so for the first time, there is a difference in classification between cousins ​​on the mother's side and relatives on the father's side. Since the lines of kinship were distinguished at this stage, this caused the appearance of "gentes", that is, kinship lines. Since kinship can be determined with certainty only through the mother's line, the matrilineal calculation of kinship and matriarchy was formed.

Gradually, there was a ban on marriages with all relatives on the maternal line, which was the basis for the formation of matrilineal gentes. Due to the expansion of the rules according to which marriages can be concluded, a pairing family  (family of couples) appears, in which, most often, one man and one woman marry, although some men could have more than one wife or mistress, while women were required to be strictly faithful to one man. However, even in this type of marriage, the marital relationship status could be easily broken, and the children still belonged only to the mother. In this type of marriage, the purchase and abduction of women for the sake of marriage also occur. Women do most of the work in these families, but their social position is also high. Due to poorly developed production, private ownership is rare, and communist relations prevail in the household.

With the advent of animal husbandry, there is a sharp jump in the level of economic production, and this leads to the emergence of slavery, because, for the first time in history, defeated members of another tribe can be of economic benefit to the victor, as slave labor. With cattle breeding comes the greater economic role of men, so they also become owners of cattle and slaves. This also leads to changes in family relations, as it causes patrilineal calculation of kinship and to right of inheritance of property only through the paternal line, which, in the end, leads to the fall of matriarchy and the arrival of patriarchy to power. Engels believes that the fall of matriarchy is "a historic defeat for women of world proportions". Men came to power, while women became subordinate to male autocracy, and their purpose became only to serve and give birth to children. Patriarchy, unlike matriarchy, where relations between the sexes would be more equal, introduces the autocracy of men as the heads of the family, not only over women but also over children and family slaves. To ensure that children born in wedlock are the direct biological descendants of the father, complete control over the movement and behavior of the woman is introduced. Although polygamy was reserved only for men, it was rare and a privilege only for richer men.

With the advent of animal husbandry and later agriculture, economic development and technological discoveries took place. This paves the way for the emergence of crafts and the division of labor into agriculture and crafts. Craft production leads to the creation of products intended for exchange, therefore, comes the advent of commodity production and trade. With economic growth comes increasing economic stratification, while land ownership shifts from local communities to full private ownership. All this leads to an increase in population density and the creation of large alliances of tribes, formed to wage wars of conquest and defense, and headed by military leaders. By transforming the leadership from the occasional military leader into a permanent and formal position of power, a hereditary monarchy is formed.

The division of individuals from the same gentes into poor and rich landowners leads to the disintegration of the genetic order of society, and the creation of classes and hereditary nobility. The disintegration of the gentile organization into a class organization led to the formation of the first state and civilization. Thus the state emerges as a political expression and organ of power for the economically dominant class of large landowners and slaveholders. The formation of the state leads to the further development of trade, which in turn led to the creation of a separate mercantile class, metal money, money market, lending of money and interest payments, and loan-sharking. The formation of the state also leads to the creation of a state bureaucracy that serves to organize the army and collect taxes.

With the emergence of civilization and the formation of the state, there is the development of a monogamous family. Monogamous marriage is characterized by the greatest strength of the marital relationship, the woman is completely separated from the public sphere and her role is only to maintain the household and give birth to children. Although marriage is very difficult to resolve, men are allowed to have sexual intercourse outside of marriage, primarily in the form of prostitution or sexual exploitation of slaves. In this sense, monogamy, and prostitution, although seemingly in opposition, are inextricably linked and caused by the same socio-economic circumstances. With the emergence of the state and the disintegration of kinship gentes, marriage ceases to be controlled by complex kinship ties but begins to be based only on the material and class interests of the fathers of future newlyweds. With the development of industrial capitalism in the modern age, family control over marriage declined, and the freedom of choice of marital partners grew, but class origin was still crucial for the choice of marital partners. In civil law, the marriage begins to be treated like any other contractual relationship, which has its own precisely defined economic obligations and duties.

Engels believes that proletarian marriages no longer fall into the category of monogamous marriages because proletarians left the domestic sphere and entered the public sphere by being employed in factories. In an envisioned communist society, the patriarchal monogamous family will disintegrate, and all women will participate in the economy, which will give them political and economic equality, and men's concern about leaving an inheritance to direct biological descendants will disappear, because all means of production will be socially owned. The care and upbringing of children will become a public thing because society will take care of its children, whether they were born in or out of wedlock. Instead of double moral standards of sexual behavior for men and women, there will be a free expression of sexual behavior, unlimited by hypocritical moral scruples. Marriages will be concluded completely freely, without any class or other restrictions, and the marriage itself will last only as long as both parties want it, otherwise, it will be easily resolved.

                        Other Historical Materialists 

Other important early followers of Marx and Engels who contributed to the theory of historical materialism are: Vladimir Lenin, Eduard Bernstein, Plekhanov V. Georgi, Ernst Bloch, Nikolai Bukharin, Karl Kautsky, Karl Korsch, Antonio Labriola, Paul Lafarge, and Rosa Luxemburg. 

                                         Vladimir Lenin

Russian philosopher Vladimir Lenin, throughout his entire intellectual work, developed the ideas of Karl Marx and put them into practice. The first significant work in which he uses Marxist theory is the book The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899). In the nineteenth century, Russia represented a feudal society in which the peasantry continued to live in serfdom, while at the same time, the cooperative form of ownership persisted. However, Russian feudalism is not characterized by only one form of production (agricultural-feudal), but it forms a "social formation" that includes other forms of production, and above all, the beginnings of the capitalist form of production. Russian feudalism, as an economic order, operates within a strong and centralized absolutist state. Lenin concludes that Russia is going the "Prussian way", that is, it is going through the same form of transformation that happened in Prussia. As in Prussia, in Russia, the feudal lords slowly became an agricultural bourgeoisie (similar to the Junkers in Prussia) as they began to employ workers to produce goods for the market. This path of development leads to the breakdown of rural cooperative life and rapidly divides the peasantry into several strata. At the top is the agricultural bourgeoisie, in the middle is the middle peasantry, and at the bottom of the pyramid are the rural proletarians and semi-proletarians. In Lenin's opinion, this stratification is positive because it creates natural allies for the industrial workers from the rural proletarians and semi-proletarians, to carry out the communist revolution.

Lenin in the book What is to be done? (1902) presented his view of the best practical strategy for revolutionary Marxists to come to power. He decisively rejects all strategies of gradual or evolutionary implementation of socialism and resolutely defends, revolutionary strategy as the only correct strategy for socialism to come to power. Lenin believes that ordinary workers are often only interested in short-term economic improvements to their position and that they, therefore, develop a self-awareness that supports the union's goals. To develop a true class consciousness among the workers, and overcome the divisions that exist between the workers, an organized, disciplined, and centralized party must be formed in all capitalist societies, which will be led by the most militant and class-conscious members, and which will strictly adhere to orthodox Marxist principles and then transfer those principles to the entire proletariat. A centralized revolutionary party is the best way to carry out a successful socialist revolution and then introduce the "dictatorship of the proletariat".

In the book, The State and Revolution (1917) Engels sees the inherent nature of the State to be a tool for the capitalist class to oppress other classes. Even in democracies with universal suffrage capitalist class retains its power. Engels, unlike anarchists, opposes the immediate abolishment of the state after the socialist revolution, because the proletariat would need state mechanisms to crush any bourgeois resistance that is left after the revolution. When the dictatorship of the proletariat is fully implemented then the state will wither away on its own, as state institutions begin to lose their capitalist and political character.

In the book Materialism and Empirio-criticism (1909), Lenin strongly criticizes empiriocriticism and subjective idealism, and their relationship to the possibilities of scientific cognition, and develops his own Marxist theory of cognition.

The book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) is Lenin's most famous work. In this book, he analyzes the relationship between capitalism and imperialism. Western capitalism postponed the anti-capitalist revolution by starting the exploitation of colonies and semi-colonies. The imperialist expansion of the world's largest powers, at the end of the nineteenth century, resulted from the development of monopoly capitalism, in which the economies of rich countries were increasingly concentrated in a relatively small number of large firms, while at the same time the merger of industrial capital with large banks, as well as the growing integration of interests between private companies and the state, took place.

Such development of capitalism leads to a competition of capital to conquer new markets. "The more capitalism develops, the more there is a shortage of raw materials, and a fiercer competition and race for raw materials around the world leads to an increasingly desperate struggle to conquer new colonies." (Lenin, 1916). The newly formed financial capital increases the already existing rivalries between the capitalists of different countries, and therefore also between the countries themselves. The rivalries and wars between the great powers were the product of the very dynamic of capitalist development, especially the new stage in the development of capitalism dominated by financial capital and the monopolization of the economy. This is precisely why Lenin defined imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism.

This kind of imperialism is characterized by six main features: 1) concentration and centralization of capital into large monopoly cartels; 2) the increasingly pronounced merging of banking and industrial capital into parasitic oligarchic "financial capital"; 3) the export of capital itself begins to become more important than the export of goods; 4) the emergence of international capitalist monopolies that divide the entire world between them; 5) completion of the territorial division of the planet between the capitalist powers; 6) since capitalism develops with different dynamics in different capitalist countries, those countries that have rapid economic development, but have a lack of colonial territories, tend to implement a new territorial division of the world. It was precisely this development of the situation that led to the outbreak of the First World War. The most important engine of the race to conquer new colonies is the need to export capital because there is a surplus of capital that cannot be profitably invested in one's own country.

Lenin believed that it was necessary to form an international anti-imperialist alliance that would fight both against capitalism and against imperialism. The end of imperial rivalries can only come about through a radical reorganization of the economic system of the entire planet, whereby capitalism would be replaced by socialism. The fall of capitalism has become necessary to ensure the survival of the human species. Due to the similarity between Lenin's interpretation of imperialism and the theory of imperialism given by John Hobson this interpretation of imperialism is often called the "Hobson-Lenin theory of imperialism" in science.

                                        Georgi Plekhanov

Russian philosopher and social theorist Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov.  His greatest contribution is the further development of Marx's interpretation of society, and above all historical materialism. Plekhanov starts from the simple dichotomy of the economic base and social superstructure, introduced by historical materialism, and further elaborates this division by creating a new theoretical scheme - a five-step scheme in which there are complex deterministic relations between each of the spheres: 1) productive forces, 2) economic relations; 3) socio-political organization; 4) social psychology and 5) ideologies. It is the productive forces that condition economic relations, which further determine the socio-political order. Social psychology derives partly directly from economic relations, and partly from the socio-political system. Ideologies are created by reflecting social psychology.

Plekhanov believes that a materialist explanation of history requires determining the factors that affect the economy of a particular society, in order to understand the further development of that society. Geographical, geological, and ecological properties of an environment (mountains, rivers, seas, ores, flora, and fauna) determine the development of productive forces that will be available to society. The more diverse the properties of the geographical environment, the better the basis for the development of productive forces. With the development of primitive agriculture came slavery, because pastoral tribes killed their captives because they could not use their labor, while agricultural tribes turned captives into slaves so that they could cultivate the land instead of the victors. With the appearance of slavery, for the first time, there was the exploitation of other people's labor and the first class division. A developed slave-owning system affects the overall economic relations, and thus determines the form of socio-political organization. All ancient states, regardless of differences, had a political organization that protected the interests of only free people. As an example that the ideology is based on social psychology, Plekhanov cites French romanticism, whose most important representatives acted completely independently, but came up with the same ideas.

                                       Rosa Luxemburg

Luxemburg, in the pamphlet Social Reform or Revolution? (1899) criticized the views of Eduard Bernstein, leader of the German Social-Democratic Party. She attacked Bernstein’s ideas as „revisionist”, as he argued for an evolutionary and gradualist path to reaching socialism. While Bernstein thought that capitalism is entering into a stage of economic and social stability and lessening of class polarization; Luxemburg, on the other hand, asserted that the social contradictions are only deepening in the system and that competition between capitalist countries for global hegemony could lead to a world war. 

In the book The Accumulation of Capital: A Contribution to the Economic Explanation of Imperialism (1913) Luxemburg presents her greatest contribution to political economy, her theory of the causes and the rise of imperialism. Luxemburg examines various socio-economic systems with communal ownership of the property that existed in pre-capitalist societies, all across the world – ancient Germany, the Inca Empire, Africa, Russia, and India. She admired the fact that those systems were marked by egalitarianism, longevity, and flexibility. The rise of modern capitalism in the West was intrinsically tied to and spearheaded by imperialistic subjection and exploitation of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Western imperialism destroyed those communal economic systems and caused immense social and economic devastation, hunger, and deaths. She argued that inherent tendencies of capitalism for limitless production and capital accumulation and the need for new markets inevitably lead to imperialism. Luxemburg was extremely critical of war and militarism and saw them as outgrowths of capitalism and imperialism.

Luxemburg also criticized Marx, as she thought that capitalism was much more prone to crises caused by a lack of effective demand. Luxemburg deemed that capital’s quest for surplus value would lead to society’s fall into “barbarism”, hence the socialist revolution was inevitable to avoid that path. But her views on the best way to achieve revolution were different from Lenin’s view on revolution, as she opposed his insistence on centralism and primacy of the party in directing evolution and establishment of post-capitalist society. In her view spontaneity and radicalization from below have to be primary features of the working class movement and its revolution. Luxemburg differed from Lenin in one more way, as she did not support nationalist movements in Europe or in the colonies, because she saw those movements as reactionary nationalistic diversion from the universal struggle for socialism.    

Books:

Engels, Friedrich. The Condition of the Working Class in England (1885, in German 1845a);

     -     Essential Writings of Friedrich Engels: Socialism, Utopian and Scientific; The Principles of Communism; And Others (2011, in German 1880, 1847, 1886, 1884); 

     -     The Principles of Communism (2019, in German 1847);

     -     The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (2010, in German 1884);

     -     Anti-Dühring (2020, in German 1878).

Lenin, Vladimir. State and Revolution (1932, in Russian 1917);

     -     Essential works of Lenin (1987, in Russian 1899, 1902, 1916, 1917).

Marx, Karl. The Communist Manifesto (in German 1948); 

     -     Wage Labour and Capital (in German 1849);

     -     Class Struggles in France (in German 1850);

     -     The XVIII Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (in German 1852a);

     -     A Contribution to The Critique Of The Political Economy (in German 1859);

Capital Vol. 1, 2, & 3: The Only Complete and Unabridged Edition in One Volume (2020, in German 1867, 1885, 1894);

Plekhanov, Georgi. The Development of the Monist View of History (1947, in Russian 1894);

     -     On the Question of the Individual's Role in History (1961, in Russian 1898);

     -     Fundamental Problems of Marxism (1992, in Russian 1908);