The two most important figures in Marxism are Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. They collaborated to write one of the most famous treatises – The Communist Manifesto (1848). In our course we have said that a basic question that arises is ‘why do we live the kind of lives that we live?' What is it to live a certain kind of life? A certain kind of life would have certain habits which come from certain beliefs and values that we hold to be good or bad, or things desirable to be followed or not to be followed. Marxism is a cultural theory which seeks to give a historical and materialist explanation for the kind of lives we live. This is a systematic way of answering our basic question.