The previous answer is as good as you're going to get. I'll just briefly talk about Marx's philosophy or science of history which is called 'dialectical materialism' or 'historical materialism.' This theory supposes that even if there is a God, God is uninvolved. Human history is created by humanity and the laws of nature: materialism. Marx took Hegel's idealist philosophy and made it material - no metaphysics, just science.
His historical materialism was based on the dialectical formula of thesis, antithesis, synthesis, where all things contain contradictions and eventually, synthesis. This science of history showed how society develops not via consciousness but via the means of production. In other words, history is determined by humans producing the means of their own subsistence (food, clothes, goods of all kinds). So, it is through our production of things, that we reproduce ourselves. And in the events when class becomes an issue, when in capitalism, the owning class oppresses the workers, the workers lose all ownership of the means of production, and thereby, the means of producing themselves. So, they have no say in the development of personal or world history. After years of quantitative class/political struggle this will, mathematically and scientifically, give rise to a qualitative change, possible a revolution (American, French and Hatian occur during the Enlightenment). Think of a rising wave, gaining momentum bit by bit and finally crashing when the inequality between the top and the bottom becomes too great. This would be bringing the top down, giving the control of the means of production to those who do the actual producing: the workers. Marx saw this as an evolutionary thing, moving towards a realistic utopia. So, society would progress, get better. This is the whole idea behind the Enlightenment: that through scientific examination, we can create a better world.
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