It is a fact that within Marxist theory, the concept of social class has always played a pivotal
role. Since it is a theory based on the principles of historical and dialectical materialism, the
theory of class tends to change alongside with the developing material circumstances, which it
tries to analyse and transform. Substantial discrepancies regarding class analysis have arisen in
different currents of Marxism. Because of the role that class plays in Marxist theory such
discrepancies translate to different political approaches and practices. Both reformism and
different revolutionary approaches, however, tend to appeal to the same framework of
understanding social class, which was formulated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In this
thesis, some of the different approaches to Marxist class analysis will be summarised and
contextualised in the historical circumstances from which they arose.
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