Historical materialism is the doctrine of Marxism-Leninism on the laws that govern the evolution

of the human Society. Historical materialism is the consistent application of the principles of
dialectical materialism to the study of social phenomena. Before Marx, the idealist interpretation
of history prevailed in science. The creation of the theory of historical materialism is linked to the
greatest discovery made by Marx regarding the interpretation of history and historical events. "Just
as Darwin discovered the law of the evolution of the organic world, Marx discovered the law of
evolution of human history; the simple fact, but hidden until then under the ideological
undergrowth, that man needs, in the first place, to eat, drink, have a roof and get dressed before
being able to do politics, science, art, religion; that therefore the production of the immediate
material means of life and, consequently, the corresponding phase of the economic evolution of a
people or of an epoch are the basis on which the state institutions, the juridical conceptions, the art
have developed and also the religious ideas of men, according to which, therefore, they must be
explained and not the other way around, as it had been until then "(Engels). Historical materialism
sees in the development of the modes of production of material goods necessary for the existence
of men, the main force that determines all their social life, also conditioning the transition from
one social system to another. Without producing material goods there can be no Society. The man,
with the help of the instruments of work, of the technique, in the production process influences
Nature, obtaining what is necessary to survive. The progress of the Society depends on the
improvement of the process of evolution of material production.
The history of the human Society begins from the moment when man rises to the use of
implements, becoming "an animal that produces instruments". The increase of the dominion that
man exerts over Nature finds its expression in the evolution of the productive forces of the Society.
And with the evolution of these, the other necessary aspect of material production also changes:
the relations of men in the process of production, the relations of production; changes the socio-
economic regime. The change of socio-economic formations (see) in history (the regime of
primitive communism, the slave regime, the feudal, the bourgeois, the socialist) is, first of all, the
substitution of some relations of production by more progressive ones . This change is always the
consequence, necessary and subject to laws, of the evolution of the productive forces of the
Society. The consolidation of the new relations of production usually takes place with the
revolutionary overthrow of the old relations of production.
The greatest merits of Marx's theory of historical materialism lie, therefore, in having placed first
and foremost his attention on the objective conditions of material production, on the economic
laws that govern the life of the Society and that are the foundation of all the historical activity of
men. Thanks to Marx's theory, "the chaos and arbitrariness that prevailed in the opinions on history
and politics left the position to an astonishingly complex and harmonious scientific theory, which
reveals how a social life system, growing productive forces, develops another higher, how the
servitude of the glebe, for example, capitalism is born "(Lenin). Discovering in the material
production the true foundation of all life and the evolution of the Society, made it possible to
understand for the first time the great creative role that the popular and working masses play in
history.
The history of social evolution was understood for the first time as "the history of the producers of
material goods themselves, the history of the working masses, who are the fundamental factor of
the production process and those who carry out the production of goods. materials necessary for
the existence of society. This means that historical science, if it pretends to be a true science, should
not continue to reduce the history of social development to the acts of kings and military leaders,
to the acts of the "conquerors" and "subjugation" of states. , but must deal first and foremost with
the history of the producers of material goods, the history of the working masses, the history of
the peoples "(Stalin).
Depending on the existing mode of production, the material existence of the Society, a certain
historical character of the entire social regime, of political institutions, the way of thinking of men,
their conceptions, ideas and theories are also structured. Social existence determines social
consciousness. It is not possible to correctly understand the essence of political institutions, of
ideas and theories, if one loses sight of the material basis of their origin: the economic structure of
the life of the Society.
One can not understand why institutions and ideas are born at a given time, and others at different
times, if one takes as a starting point the institutions and ideas themselves and not the mode of
production. For example, the forms of the exploitative state (the slave, feudal and capitalist state)
always depended on the division of society into classes: slave and slave, feudal and serf, bourgeois
and proletarian. Also the forms of social consciousness (political conceptions, philosophy, science,
religion), Always depend, in the last instance, on the relations of production prevailing among
men, forms that change radically when changing the way of production, by changing the economic
regime. In explaining the origin and dependence of political institutions, ideas and theories
regarding the mode of production, the theory of historical materialism does not deny, far from it,
the importance of the former in the life of the Society. On the contrary, historical materialism
emphasizes its enormous social role. And with that, it differs from the root of economic
materialism) (see). Once emerged, institutions and political and social ideas become a force that
influences the very conditions that generated them. They act as reactionary forces at the service of
the sectors and backward classes of the Society, slow down social development; or, serving the
advanced and revolutionary classes, they promote that development.
Materialism and consequential historicism are intimately and indissolubly united in the theory of
historical materialism. That is why, precisely with the discovery of the theory of historical
materialism, social science has for the first time become the authentic science of the laws that
govern the evolution of human society.