Introduction¶
Core Argument¶
This introductory chapter establishes the scientific foundations of the Marxist conception of history, arguing forcefully that historical development follows comprehensible laws rooted in the mode of production and class struggle. The text explicitly rejects postmodernist claims that history lacks such laws, tracing this erroneous position back to Henry Ford and Arnold Toynbee. Historical materialism is presented as the key to understanding social development: the fundamental condition for any socio-economic system is its capacity to satisfy basic human needs, and the mode of production conditions all social, political, and intellectual life. Class struggle, accordingly, constitutes the driving force of history.
The chapter substantiates these theoretical claims through a detailed analysis of ancient Rome, demonstrating how historical materialism explains Rome’s transformation from a small city-state into an imperial power not through genetic or racial factors but through the development of its military machine and the consequent destruction of the free peasantry. The class struggles of the late Republic—including the Gracchi reforms and Spartacus’s slave revolt—are rooted in the conflict between small and large landed property. Spartacus’s failure is attributed to the parasitical nature of the Roman proletariat, while the Republic’s collapse produced Caesarism, a form of Bonapartism in which the state rose above society. The Roman slave economy reached its limits when imperial expansion ceased under Hadrian, as slave supply depended on continuous warfare. The system was ultimately undermined by oppressive bureaucracy, predatory taxation, and the failure of oppressed classes to unite against the slave-state, with barbarian invasions delivering the final blow to a moribund order.
The chapter concludes with a crucial theoretical point: a hypothetical victory for Spartacus could not have ended class society, since the material basis for communism was absent and would remain so for two millennia. Capitalism first had to develop the productive forces. However, valuable lessons emerge from Roman history: just as Rome’s rise and fall resulted from contradictions in the slave mode of production, capitalism’s fate is explained by its own internal contradictions. Capitalism has exhausted its progressive role and now displays the same senile decay as the late Roman Empire. The task, therefore, is to overthrow capitalism through proletarian victory and socialist transformation, fulfilling the historic struggle begun by Spartacus. The German revolutionaries Liebknecht and Luxemburg, who took Spartacus’s name, are remembered alongside him by class-conscious workers today.