This article discusses the contributions of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and later Marxists to understanding political participation. It argues that Marxism is fundamentally historical, so that rather than assuming a fixed and general institutional situation across states and periods the Marxist contribution can best be expressed as empirical questions about popular participation in specific contexts. The expectation is one of popular attempts to assert participation in decision-making, with institutional forms shaped by the outcome of such struggles between social movements from below and the agency of the powerful. This argument is illustrated with examples from the struggle for democracy in Europe since the 19th century, the changing nature of political participation in postcolonial India, “the world’s largest democracy”, and popular politics in the age of austerity.