Marxism as sociology

pp. 15-30

in: Tom Bottomore, Marxist sociology, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1975

Abstract

In the period from Marx's death in 1883 to the outbreak of the First World War Marxism developed mainly in the form of a science of society. This orientation (although, as I indicated, it could find support in Marx's own views) was imparted above all by Engels, and it is clearly expressed in his "Speech at the Graveside of Karl Marx", in the claim that: "Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history." Engels' version of the theory, which was largely accepted by Kautsky, then became, under the name of 'scientific socialism", the orthodox doctrine of German Social Democracy and of the Second International.