Karl Marx, in collaboration with Friedrich Engels, developed the comprehensive socio-economic and political theory known as Marxism. His seminal works, including 'The Communist Manifesto' and 'Das Kapital', established the foundational principles of historical materialism, class struggle, and the critique of capitalism that define Marxian Socialism.

According to Marxist theory, the state is an instrument of class rule used by the bourgeoisie to oppress the proletariat. Marx and Engels argued that following the proletarian revolution and the establishment of a classless society, the state would lose its function as an instrument of class domination and would gradually 'wither away' as society transitions into pure communism.

In Marxist theory, surplus value is the difference between the value created by a worker during the production process and the wage they are paid. The capitalist appropriates this surplus, which is the source of profit. While option C is related, option B more accurately captures the structural retention of value by the capitalist, which Marx identified as the fundamental mechanism of exploitation in a capitalist system.

While Marx is famously associated with the necessity of revolutionary upheaval to overthrow capitalism, his broader analysis of historical development acknowledges that social change involves complex processes. He recognized that evolutionary shifts in the economic base often precede the revolutionary ruptures that transform the political superstructure, suggesting a dialectical interplay between gradual development and sudden, radical change.

Joseph Stalin initiated the policy of forced collectivization of agriculture in the late 1920s as part of his first Five-Year Plan. This policy aimed to consolidate individual landholdings into collective farms (kolkhozes) to facilitate state control over agricultural production and support rapid industrialization, resulting in significant social and economic upheaval across the Soviet Union.

Marx identified technological development as a critical mechanism for capital accumulation. By increasing the efficiency of production through machinery, capitalists can extract more surplus value from labor. While Marx also discussed wage suppression, technological innovation is central to his analysis of how capital expands and how the organic composition of capital changes over time in a capitalist economy.

Socialism emerged as a response to the industrial revolution, focusing on the collective ownership or regulation of the means of production. Its primary historical base is the working class (proletariat), aiming to address economic inequality and improve labor conditions through social and political reform, distinguishing it from movements centered on the middle class or purely intellectual circles.

Marxist theory posits that justice is inherently tied to the mode of production. Marxists argue that capitalism is fundamentally exploitative because it relies on the extraction of surplus value from the proletariat. Therefore, they contend that true social justice is impossible within a capitalist framework, as the system is designed to maintain class inequality rather than achieve equitable distribution of resources.

Marx was preceded by Utopian socialists like Saint-Simon and Fourier. Furthermore, the intellectual development of class analysis was significantly advanced by French historians and social thinkers like Guizot, who analyzed class conflict in European history, providing a foundation that Marx later synthesized into his own historical materialism.

Marxist historical analysis often references the harsh conditions of early human existence where survival was the primary objective. While 'survival of the fittest' is a Darwinian concept, it is sometimes used in political discourse to describe the competitive nature of early human survival before the development of complex social structures and the subsequent emergence of the state as a regulatory body.