This chapter describes different 'theory of history', but it would perhaps be more accurate to say that Karl Marx is sceptical of theories of history altogether. The idea of communism has had a very long history. The utopian form of communism presents a vision of an ideal society based on a moral and political conception of how society ideally ought to be. Alain Badiou has done a great deal to promote the idea of communism through his writings, and in talks and conferences. Capitalism has been going through a crisis of just the sort that Marx describes in his work, and that has put the idea of communism firmly back on the agenda. Towards the end of his life, Marx seriously considered the idea that the persistence of traditional communal forms of property in nineteenth-century Russia might create a basis for communism in Russia and enable it to skip the capitalist stage.