Ideology can be defined as a way of masking or hiding social contradictions and domination, reversing the way of processing thought about some realities.
For Karl Marx, ideas are values that men create according to their material conditions of existence. And these values are created for a very specific purpose, which is not to explain reality but to maintain the status of private property and the owners of the means of production. Hence the notion of Ideology.
According to this way of thinking, reality is constituted by a class struggle caused by the social division of labor. The classes in conflict are those of the owners of the means of production and the proletarians, without property. Thus, to ease conflict and maintain control over the dominated class, the ruling class creates psychological instances, values, and ideas that seek to maintain their goal.
