<p><strong>Noun</strong></p><ul><li>The system of economic and political thought developed by Karl Marx, along with Friedrich Engels</li><li>The doctrine that the state throughout history has been a device for the exploitation of the masses by a dominant class</li><li>The belief that class struggle has been the main agency of historical change</li><li>The idea that the capitalist system, containing from the first the seeds of its own decay, will inevitably, after the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, be superseded by a socialist order and a classless society</li></ul>