As Engels puts it:
all past history with the exception ofits primitive stages was the history
of class struggles; that these warring classes of society are always the
products ofthe modes of production and exchange — in a word, ofthe
economic conditions of their time; that the economic structure of society
always furnishes the real basis from which we can alone work out the
ultimate explanation ofthe whole superstructure ofjuridical and political
institutions as well as ofthe religious, philosophical, and other ideas of
a given historical period.