according to the materialist conception of history the ultimately determining element in history is the production of real life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence, if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase. The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure: political forms of the class struggle and its results … constitutions … juridicial forms … philosophical theories, religious views … exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and, in many cases, preponderate in determining their form. (ibid., p. 48).