Marxist socialism, developed mainly by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the nineteenth century, was a systematic critique of capitalism and an explanation of how human society changes through class struggle. Marx and Engels presented their major ideas in works such as *The Communist Manifesto* (1848) and Marx’s *Das Kapital*. Marxist socialism sought not merely to reform capitalism but to replace it with a classless and ultimately stateless society based on common ownership and social equality. A central tenet of Marxism is the materialist conception of history, commonly known as historical materialism. Marx argued that the economic structure of society, particularly the way production is organised, strongly influences its political, legal and social institutions. Human history therefore develops through changes in the means and relations of production. Different historical stages, such as feudalism and capitalism, arise from particular economic conditions and eventually create contradictions that lead to social transformation. Another fundamental idea is