Marx’s Materialism/Types of Materialism
 Dialectical Materialism is the philosophical basis of Marxism and Communism.
 The term, which was never actually used by Marx himself, refers to the notion of a synthesis of Hegel's theory of Dialectics (the concept that any idea or event - the thesis - generates its opposite - the antithesis - eventually leading to a reconciliation of opposites - a new, more advanced synthesis) and Materialism (in the respect that Dialectics could also be applied to material matters like economics).
The application of the principle of Dialectical Materialism to history and sociology, the main context in which Marx used it, is known as Historical Materialism (see below).
 Historical Materialism (or the "materialist conception of history") is the Marxist methodological approach to the study of society, economics and history which was first articulated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1820 - 1895), and has been expanded and refined by many academic studies since. It is essentially the application of the principle of Dialectical Materialism (see above) to history and sociology.
According to Marx, for human beings to survive, they need to produce and reproduce the material requirements of life, and this production is carried out through a division of labour based on very definite production relations between people. These relations form the economic base of society, and are themselves determined by the mode of production which is in force (e.g. tribal society, ancient society, feudalism, capitalism, socialism), and societies, and their cultural and institutional superstructures, naturally move from stage to stage when the dominant class is displaced by a new emerging class in a social and political upheaval. a big change that causes a lot of confusion, worry and problems
Although Marx himself said that he was only proposing a guideline for historical research, by the 20th Century the concept of Historical Materialism had become a keystone of modern Communist doctrine.