ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the major historical themes that Marxism has been concerned with, since its early formulation. Early statements on prehistory were made by Marx and Engels and an incipient concept of 'surplus' as basic to the beginning of history is already present in Marx's Paris MSS. Two major later breakthroughs in knowledge occurred in Marx's own lifetime. Marx consistently denied that pre-colonial Indian economy was feudal. The concept of 'Indian Feudalism' was developed by D. D. Kosambi and R. S. Sharma. Its major features shared with European feudalism are decline in the use of money and commodity production and decline of towns. Pioneer works of D. D. Kosambi and R. S. Sharma, as also of Suvira Jaiswal, from the side of Marxist historians, are particularly important for a study of the origins and evolution of the caste system.
