“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” This crucial opening to The Communist Manifesto holds the key to understanding Karl Marx’s conception of history. Marx outlines history as a two dimensional, “linear” chain of events. A constant progression of class divisions being created and overthrown, one after the other, until the result is the utopian endpoint, otherwise known as communism. Karl Marx, in writing the Communist Manifesto, argued that human history unfolds in a teleological manner; therefore it unfolds according to a distinct series of historical stages, each necessarily following the other. These stages ultimately lead to a given Utopian endpoint, after which there will be no more change, an end to history. Marx thought that these stages can be forecasted, because there are scientific laws, which govern the progress of history. He believed to have discovered these laws and with certainty, predicted the demise of capitalism and the success of communism.According to Marx, the course of human history takes a very specific form, class struggle. The reason for change in the aforementioned historical stages is class animosity. He states, “Hitherto, every form of society has been based…on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes.” So at any point in time, history can be defined by the relationships between different classes. Using these models, Marx explains his account of feudalism's passing in favor of bourgeois capitalism; and his forecast of bourgeois capitalism's passing in favor of proletarian rule. These changes are not the results of random social, economic, and political events. Each change follows the other in a predictable linear succession. Marx presents a logical explanation for this “class progressivism” approach to history. According to Marx's account of history, every class is naturally unsound, and ...
