Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History

Introduction

Under the title “Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History” Labriola published texts written from 1895 onwards: “In Memory of the Communist Manifesto” (1895), a reflection on the significance of the Manifesto, printed with Benedetto Croce’s help, and “Historical Materialism: A Preliminary Clarification” (1896). They present historical materialism neither as a philosophy of history with a fixed goal nor as a reduction of everything to economics, but as a method: the economic structure underlies law, the state, religion and art only through many mediations, which must be traced in each case. The French edition of 1897, with a preface by Georges Sorel, and later translations made Labriola known in European socialism; Georgi Plekhanov reviewed the work, and Croce’s and Gentile’s first writings on Marx began as responses to it.

Connections

Builds on

• The Communist Manifesto1848 · Karl Marx

More works by Antonio Labriola

• 1898Socialism and Philosophy