Historical Materialism

[Coggeh]

Right this topic confuses so much its not funny . Ive been trying to understand this but it keeps messing up my brain :wacko: .

Someone please help me :(

I understand that its the study of economics and history through marxist teachings or from a methological approach .... but after this point i get confused

[rouchambeau]

From what I understand it's simply the belief that historical events were and are guided by material conditions (i.e. Economics).

[Wanted Man]

What do you specifically want to know? One book that provides a decent introduction to HM(and Marxism in general) is "Elementary Principles of Philosophy" by Georges Politzer. The English version is not on marxists.org, but it can apparently be ordered. If you want to know a bit more, consider it:

http://www.amazon.com/Elementary-principle...s/dp/0717804690 (http://www.amazon.com/Elementary-principles-philosophy-World-paperbacks/dp/0717804690)
http://www.alibris.com/search/search.cfm?q...tches=2&qsort=r (http://www.alibris.com/search/search.cfm?qwork=1998254&matches=2&qsort=r)
http://www.cpusa.org/wa/readings.html

Edit: also, Lenin: http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/KM14.html#KM1c

[Janus]

Historical materialism is the application of Marx's materialist views towards history and historical change. Humans act on based on their material interests and conditions and thus developments in human society act in accord with these principles.

[BreadBros]

Historical materialism at its most basic level simply means that when looking at history one has to analyze why things happened based on the economic structure of society instead of the ideological basis that traditional historians give (the ideological aspect of society, the "superstructure" is simply an abstraction or expression of the economic production and contention at work).

If you could ask some more specific questions it might help clear up the concept a lot more.

[Severian]

What other people said, about historical materialism.

As for "socialism is just a matter of time", that's a rationalization for doing nothing, which was never expressed by Marx or any other revolutionary fighter.

The Manifesto points out that past periods of class struggle have ended either in the revolutionary reorganization of society - or in the common ruin of the contending classes. Engels, and later Rosa Luxemburg, applied this to capitalist society and imperialist war: humanity faces a choice between socialism or barbarism. Take the nukes away from the ruling class, before they bomb Earth back to the Stone Age.