Negative Interpretation of History

The events of the First World War were a practical test for this Marxist ideology, and it failed at this very first experiment. Vladimir Lenin, the famous communist leader, founded the communist International (Comintern) in 1919. Based on the Marxist ideology, workers of the whole world were on one side while the capitalists of the world were on the other side. In 1939, when World War II broke out, all the heads of the countries involved in this war belonged to the bourgeoisie. As per the Marxist theory, it was assumed that the working class of those countries would not side with or support the bourgeoisie, rather they would side with the working class of the world, but this did not happen. In each country the working class sided with the ruling bourgeoisie of their respective countries, thus putting an end to the theory of historical materialism or dialectical materialism in this very first experiment. Similarly, many other scholars have also attempted to present an interpretation of history but in practice they too succumbed to confusion. Professor H. Butterfield of Cambridge is a case in point in this regard. He has written a 146-page book on the subject titled “The Whig Interpretation of History”, published in 1931 in London. The book seeks to give a moral interpretation of the whole of history in the light of a universal moral