CEVAP:

This is the major principle of Marxism in all its ‘classical’ varieties. History is the product not of conscious decisions and ideas, but of ‘material’ processes and conditions which can be identified and described without reference to the mental states of those who participate in them. It is the changes in these material conditions which make necessary and bring about those changes in social, political, and institutional superstructures which in aggregate form the substance of history. The process of change has been variously described as dialectical, as one of unceasing development of productive forces, and as a class struggle in which the participants are driven by their economic condition to act as they do. Although it is likely that these ideas are not mutually compatible, Marxists have often assumed that they are.