The bourgeois historian Arnold Toynbee once said that “history is just one damn fact after another”. This talk will explain, however, that underlying all the seeming accidents that make up history are general laws which can be studied and understood. This means that the study of history can enable you to make certain predictions in order to guide future struggles to success. For this reason, it is vital that communists have a theory of history.

Watch

Reading list

Articles

What is Historical Materialism? – Alan Woods

A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy –  Karl Marx

On the role of the individual in history – Plekhanov

Books

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte – Karl Marx

Class Struggle in the Roman Republic –  Alan Woods

The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State – Friedrich Engels

Podcasts

What can I do? The role of the individual in history – Ben Curry

The Marxist view of history: historical materialism – Josh Holroyd