ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses an important part of Marxist inheritance, namely, historical materialism, with its methodological approach underlying historiography. The Marxist belief in inevitable communism was based on "determinism," that is, on the idea of some "iron" historicallaws, as non-historical forces or essences governing the historical process and realizing a certain historical scenario. The most important contribution of Marxist philosophy of history was its consistent materialism in explaining historicalprocesses, which launched the search for objective, rather than mystical or speculative, causes of historical development. In the Marxist approach, historical materialism was always considered as a genuine methodological approach to historical research, since the latter aims to search for specific variations of general assertions in a particular society at a certain period. Marxism and historical materialism, however, remain influential only if combined with other theories. Prior to the October Revolution in Russia, Marxist historiography was a minor dimension of Marxism and historical materialism.
