ABSTRACT
F. Engels rated the materialistic conception of history as the true core of Marxism, V. I. Lenin esteemed it as “a great achievement in scientific thinking” and R. Aron held that the gist of Marxism is the theory of the capitalistic mode, which is grounded in historical materialism. For many years Karl Marx described history as a process which is governed by laws and unfolds as an endless chain of changes in social interrelations. A few explanatory notes concerning Marx’s estimation of Darwin and Darwinism will help clarify the line of reasoning ascribed to Marx so far. The descriptions of reality respectively offered by Darwin and Marx are not only different, but antithetical. A well-known saying by Marx runs that “what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is that the architect builds the cell in his mind before he constructs it in wax”.
