6.5 Marx and Engels

Marx, Engels, and Scientific Socialism

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels co-wrote The Communist Manifesto (1848), arguing history is driven by class struggle between the bourgeoisie (owners of capital) and proletariat (industrial workers). They rejected utopian socialism, calling their approach scientific socialism because it claimed to be based on historical and economic analysis rather than idealistic wishes.

Dialectical Materialism

Marx adapted Hegel's dialectic into dialectical materialism: economic conditions (the material base) shape society, politics, and ideas (the superstructure). History moves through stages—feudalism to capitalism to socialism—via conflict between classes, each stage's contradictions producing the next until class conflict ends in a classless, communist society.

Revolution and Legacy

Marx predicted capitalism would collapse from its internal contradictions: workers, increasingly exploited and impoverished (alienation), would eventually revolt, seize the means of production, and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat leading to communism. Marxism later inspired socialist parties, labor movements, and 20th-century revolutions (Russia, China), profoundly shaping modern political ideology.

Key terms

The Communist Manifesto (1848)

Pamphlet by Marx and Engels arguing history is driven by class struggle and calling for proletarian revolution.

Bourgeoisie vs. Proletariat

The capital-owning class vs. the industrial working class—Marx's central conflict driving historical change.

Dialectical materialism

Marx's theory that economic/material conditions shape society's politics and ideas, evolving through class conflict.

Scientific socialism

Marx and Engels's term for their theory, claiming it was based on historical/economic analysis, unlike utopian socialism.

Dictatorship of the proletariat

Marx's proposed transitional stage after revolution, where workers control the state before achieving a classless communist society.

Try an AP-style question

Marx argued history is driven by…

1. class struggle
2. geography alone
3. great individuals
4. religious faith