Given the inherent ambiguity of the term, it is therefore useful to define Marxist sociology rather narrowly and concretely as a specific form of conflict theory associated with Western Marxism's objective of developing a positive (empirical) science of capitalist society as part of the mobilization of a revolutionary working class.
It is also useful to distinguish three basic types of relations between sociologists and Marxist sociology: those who work directly within the Marxist tradition (Marxist sociology proper) but "incorporate sociological insights, findings, and methodologies"; those who are Marxist-influenced in the sense of being stimulated by its historical approach and the "big questions" Marxists have posed but remain indifferent to "whether the best explanatory answers turn out to be Marxist" (Burawoy and Skocpol 1982, p. vii); and those identifying with highly revisionist critical theories (sometimes still in the name of Marxism) that seek to preserve the emancipatory vision of the Marxist tradition despite abandonment of the conventional notion of working-class revolution (Held 1980; Kellner 1989). It should also be stressed that Marxist sociology in this first sense refers to a historically identifiable—but widely contested—interpretation of the sociological implications of Marx's approach. As the most well-known British Marxist sociologist has concluded with particular reference to the German Frankfurt tradition of critical theory: "The tasks of a Marxist sociology, as I conceive it, are therefore very different from those of a neo-critical theory of society" (Bottomore 1984, p.
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