Marxism I: The World Spirit With a Quill Pen

Hegel and the birth of History

The World Spirit With a Quill Pen

This essay is part of the series “The Busy Man's Primer on Marxism.” You can read the introduction here.

The foundational principle of Marxism, serving as its principal analytical framework for deconstructing the social, economic, and political intricacies of capitalist societies, is a doctrinal thesis by the name of historical materialism. This intellectual construct underpins Marxist examinations of social transformation, political economy, class struggle, and the fundamental paradigms through which Marxism interprets the world. In other words, one may consider it the worldview of Marxism, and one must understand it if one were to comprehend Marxist or Marxian politics, propaganda, aspirations, pronouncements, and actions. While subsequent evolutions of Marxist thought, especially those within Western Marxism and Third Worldist Marxism, have diverged from or modified key aspects of historical materialism, its stature as the bedrock and philosophical nucleus of Marxism's intellectual cosmos is undeniable and inescapable. So integral is historical materialism to Marxism that it has often been characterized as a "science of history." However, to fully grasp this purported science, one must delve into its roots, which lie in the philosophy of history and its roots in German Idealism.