Historical materialism is the core component of Marxist philosophy, and it is the most obvious sign that Marxist philosophy is different from all previous philosophies. Engels believes that with the continuous development of human society, historical materialism has emerged, which is also an inevitable result. After the bourgeois revolution in Britain, France and other countries was completed, the industrial revolution continued to develop, which led to great changes in social class relations in developed countries in Europe, and the struggle between different classes became more intense.

Bourgeois historians begin to realize that the struggle between these classes is the key to understanding modern history, which provides an objective possibility for revealing the law of human social development. Marx's historical materialism was founded under this historical condition. 1June, 894, Engels said in a letter to Bolgiu: "If Marx discovered historical materialism, then all British historians before 1850, such as Thierry, Maina and Gizzo, showed that people made efforts in this regard, and Morgan found the same point of view, indicating that the time was ripe to discover this point of view."

The establishment of historical materialism is a great revolution in the history of human thought development. The establishment of historical materialism has driven idealism out of its last refuge, that is, from the historical view, materialism has thus become a thorough materialism-from the natural view to the historical view.

1February 884, Engels studied Marx's detailed summary of the book Ancient Society written by the famous American ethnographer and historian Luhen Morgan from the end of 1880 to the beginning of 188 1. Marx intended to introduce Morgan's works in a comprehensive and detailed way, but failed to achieve it. Engels decided to write a book on the basis of Marx's comment on writing in this abstract, using Morgan's deeds and some conclusions, taking historical materialism as the guiding ideology, analyzing primitive society and private ownership in detail, and analyzing the history of the origin of the country at the same time. This is the famous "The Origin of Family, Private Ownership and State" written by Engels later.

In order to write this book, Engels carefully analyzed and studied Morgan's Ancient Society, and gained new basis from it, which confirmed Marx's and his own views on the history of primitive society. He believes that Morgan's research on North American Indians and many ancient national social systems is consistent with Marx's research. In his book The Origin of Family, Private Ownership and State, Engels mainly studied the early stage of human development, discussed the disintegration of primitive social system and analyzed the formation of class society based on private ownership.

Engels also analyzed the general characteristics of class society, studied the main characteristics of the development of family relations under different socio-economic forms, studied the origin and essence of the country in detail, and finally came to the following conclusion: in a communist society without class, the country will inevitably perish, which is the inevitable development of history. Engels sketched the outline of the future communist society in his book The Origin of Family, Private Ownership and State.

This work of Engels occupies an extremely important position in the history of Marxist development and has made new and significant contributions to Marxist historical materialism. Lenin spoke highly of this work in On the State, pointing out that it is a basic work of modern socialism. "Every word in it can be believed. Every word is not spoken out of thin air, but written according to a large number of historical and political materials."