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everytime i hear a communist say something it's always about material conditions. everything was a result of material conditions. but what does that mean? so material conditions shape a person and shape history?
I think the best summary that clears this up (at least for me) is a quotation of Marx that says "Men make their own history, but not as they please."
Historical materialism isn't to say that everything is the result of blind forces that just toss human beings around. If that were the case then there would be no need for a revolutionary theory, if the future was already set in stone we could, in fact we would have no choice but to just look forward to watching all the pieces falling into place rather than bothering to try to understand and steer the course of history.
But since the past sets the stage for the present and the present for the future, it should be possible to predict what may happen next (I mean isn't planning for the future what human society is all about?). Marx's idea was that by looking at the conflicts within a society one would see which problems would need to be solved in order to move forward. Capitalist society has various contradictions which is what makes it more dynamic than previous social orders that remained stable for centuries but were very stagnant. But this very dynamism makes it unsustainable for various reasons, including the original arguments about the decline of profitability, the worsening of conflict between rich and poor, these prior two reasons causing major wars, and now the ecological limits to expansion that get harder and harder to ignore.
So when you hear the slogan "socialism or barbarism", it is simply drawing attention to the fact that capitalism has passed the point of being a positive development and is now stuck in a rut just like the decadent society it overthrew (think King Louis and his ridiculous palace). Through hard work we human beings must transcend it and build a better society, or else we will end up spending centuries picking up the pieces after this great machine we have built spins out of control. It has happened many times before, a society's contradictions going unresolved and leading to a collapse. The Mayans, Rome, and Easter Island come to mind.
So to clarify, communism isn't necessarily inevitable, but the end of the current system
is and that can either occur by moving to a higher level (ie. moving towards communism) or by a major collapse (and the bigger they are the harder they fall, this collapse would be way worse than any Dark Age that came before).
Also there is a wide consensus that the strict and naive view that everything is determined by the economic base of society (ignoring the metaphor that a house is built ON its base, not by it) is a severe misinterpretation of Marxist thought and its been called "economism", "economic determinism" or "vulgar marxism" by critics. It has been popularized as a definitive interpretation of Marx by certain elements in liberal academia for obvious reasons. I wish I could say they just made it up for purposes of propaganda but sadly it's not a very uncommon mistake among socialists at all.
I hope this helps :)