Such is, as simply as I can phrase it, the materialistic interpretation of history. Put into its dress of scientific language it reads: the dominant method of production and exchange in any society determines the institutions and forms of that society. I do not think I exaggerate in saying that this formula, applied with judgment and discrimination, is a key to the understanding of human societies. Wherever man has moved into the stage of slavery and private property there has been some group which has held power and sought to maintain and increase it. This group has set the standards of behavior and belief for the community, and if you wish to understand the government and religion, the manners and morals, the philosophy and literature and art of that community, the first thing you have to do is to understand the dominant group and its methods of keeping itself on top. This statement applies, not merely to those cultural forms which are established and ordained by the ruling class; it applies equally well to the revolutionary forms, the behavior and beliefs of those who oppose the ruling class. For men do not revolt in a vacuum, they revolt against certain conditions, and the form of their revolt is determined by the conditions. Take, for example, primitive Christianity, which was certainly an effort to be unworldly, if ever such an effort was made by man. But you cannot understand anything about primitive Christianity unless you see it as a new form of slave revolt against Roman imperialism and capitalism. The theory of the class struggle is the master key to the bewilderments and confusions of history. Always there is a dominant class, holding the power of the state, and always there are subject classes; and sooner or later the subject classes begin protesting and struggling for wider rights. When they think they are strong enough, they attempt a revolt, and sometimes they succeed. If they do, they write the histories of the revolt, and their leaders become heroes and statesmen. If they fail, the histories are written by their oppressors, and the rebels are portrayed as criminals. One of the commonest of popular assumptions is that if the rebels have justice on their side, they are bound to succeed in the long run; but this is merely the sentimental nonsense that is made out of history. It is perfectly possible for a just revolt to be crushed, and to be crushed again and again; just as it is possible for a child which is ready to be born to fail to be born, and to perish miserably. The fact that the Huguenots had most of the virtue and industry and intelligence of France did not keep them from being slaughtered by Catholic bigots, and reaction riveted upon the French people for a couple of hundred years. The fact that the Moors had most of the industry of Spain did not keep them from being driven into exile by the Inquisition, and the intellectual life of the Spanish people strangled for three hundred or four hundred years.