Prerequisites for the development of the theory of socio-economic formation

In the middle of the XIX century. Marxism arose, an integral part of which was the philosophy of history - historical materialism. Historical materialism is the Marxist sociological theory - the science of the general and specific laws of the functioning and development of society.

To K. Marx (1818-1883) idealistic positions dominated in his views on society. For the first time, he consistently applied the materialistic principle to explain social processes. The main thing in his teaching was the recognition of social being as primary, and social consciousness as secondary, derivative.

Social being is a set of material social processes that do not depend on the will and consciousness of an individual or even society as a whole.

The logic here is this. The main problem for society is the production of the means of life (food, housing, etc.). This production is always carried out with the help of tools. Certain objects of labor are also involved.

At each specific stage of history, the productive forces have a certain level of development. And they determine (determine) certain production relations.

This means that the relations between people in the course of the production of means of subsistence are not chosen arbitrarily, but depend on the nature of the productive forces.

In particular, for thousands of years a rather low level of their development, the technical level of tools that allowed their individual use, led to the dominance of private property (in various forms).

The concept of the theory, its supporters

In the 19th century productive forces acquired a qualitatively different character. The technological revolution caused the massive use of machines. Their use was possible only by joint, collective efforts. Production acquired a directly social character. As a result, ownership also had to be made common, to resolve the contradiction between the social character of production and the private form of appropriation.

Remark 1

According to Marx, politics, ideology and other forms of social consciousness (superstructure) are derivative. They reflect industrial relations.

A society that is at a certain level of historical development, with a peculiar character, is called a socio-economic formation. This is a central category in the sociology of Marxism.

Remark 2

Society has gone through several formations: the original, slave, feudal, bourgeois.

The latter creates the prerequisites (material, social, spiritual) for the transition to a communist formation. Since the core of the formation is the mode of production as a dialectical unity of productive forces and production relations, the stages of human history in Marxism are often called not a formation, but a mode of production.

Marxism considers the development of society as a natural-historical process of replacing one mode of production with another, higher one. The founder of Marxism had to focus on the material factors in the development of history, since idealism reigned around him. This made it possible to accuse Marxism of "economic determinism", which ignores the subjective factor of history.

In the last years of his life, F. Engels tried to correct this shortcoming. VI Lenin attached particular importance to the role of the subjective factor. Marxism considers the class struggle to be the main driving force in history.

One socio-economic formation is replaced by another in the process of social revolutions. The conflict between the productive forces and production relations is manifested in the clash of certain social groups, antagonistic classes, which are the actors of revolutions.

The classes themselves are formed on the basis of the relationship to the means of production.

So, the theory of socio-economic formations is based on the recognition of the action in the natural-historical process of objective tendencies formulated in such laws:

• Correspondence of production relations to the nature and level of development of the productive forces;
• The primacy of the basis and the secondary nature of the superstructure;
• class struggle and social revolutions;
• Natural and historical development of mankind through the change of socio-economic formations.

conclusions

After the victory of the proletariat, public ownership puts everyone in the same position with respect to the means of production, and therefore leads to the disappearance of the class division of society and the destruction of antagonism.

Remark 3

The biggest shortcoming in the theory of socio-economic formations and the sociological concept of K. Marx is that he refused to recognize the right to a historical future for all classes and strata of society, except for the proletariat.

Despite the shortcomings and the criticism that Marxism has been subjected to for 150 years, it has more influenced the development of the social thought of mankind.

Socio-economic formation- according to the Marxist concept of the historical process, a society that is at a certain stage of historical development, characterized by the level of development of productive forces and the historical type of economic production relations. At the heart of each socio-economic formation is a certain mode of production (basis), and production relations form its essence. The system of production relations that form the economic basis of the formation corresponds to a political, legal and ideological superstructure. The structure of the formation includes not only economic, but also social relations, as well as forms of life, family, lifestyle. The reason for the transition from one stage of social development to another is the discrepancy between the increased productive forces and the preserved type of production relations. According to Marxist teaching, humanity in the course of its development must go through the following stages: primitive communal system, slave system, feudalism, capitalism, communism.

The primitive communal system in Marxism is considered as the first non-antagonistic socio-economic formation through which all peoples without exception passed. As a result of the decomposition of the primitive communal system, a transition was made to class, antagonistic socio-economic formations. The early class formations include the slave-owning system and feudalism, while many peoples moved from the primitive communal system immediately to feudalism, bypassing the stage of slave ownership. Pointing to this phenomenon, the Marxists substantiated for some countries the possibility of a transition from feudalism to socialism, bypassing the stage of capitalism. Karl Marx himself singled out a special Asian mode of production and the formation corresponding to it among the early class formations. The question of the Asiatic mode of production remained debatable in the philosophical and historical literature, without having received an unambiguous solution. Capitalism was considered by Marx as the last antagonistic form of the social production process, it was to be replaced by a non-antagonistic communist formation.
The change in socio-economic formations is explained by the contradictions between the new productive forces and the outdated production relations, which are transformed from forms of development into fetters of the productive forces. The transition from one formation to another takes place in the form of a social revolution, which resolves the contradictions between the productive forces and production relations, as well as between the base and the superstructure. Marxism pointed to the presence of transitional forms from one formation to another. Transitional states of society are usually characterized by the presence of various socio-economic structures that do not cover the economy and life in general. These structures can represent both the remnants of the old and the embryos of a new socio-economic formation. The diversity of historical development is associated with the uneven pace of historical development: some peoples rapidly progressed in their development, others lagged behind. The interaction between them was of a different nature: it accelerated or, conversely, slowed down the course of the historical development of individual peoples.
The collapse of the world system of socialism at the end of the 20th century, the disappointment in communist ideas led to a critical attitude of researchers to the Marxist formational scheme. Nevertheless, the idea of ​​singling out stages in the world historical process is recognized as sound. In historical science, in the teaching of history, the concepts of the primitive communal system, the slave-owning system, feudalism and capitalism are actively used. Along with this, the theory of stages of economic growth developed by W. Rostow and O. Toffler has found wide application: agrarian society (traditional society) - industrial society (consumer society) - post-industrial society (information society).

It is generally accepted that Marx and Engels identified five socio-economic formations (SEF): primitive communal, slaveholding, feudal, capitalist and socialist-communist. For the first time, such a typology of the OEF appeared in the "Short Course on the History of the CPSU (b)" (1938), which included Stalin's work "On Dialectical and Historical Materialism." In the work, the history of human society was divided into 5 OEF, which are based on the recognition of special production relations and class antagonisms. The historical process was presented as an ascent from one OEF to another. Their change is through revolutions. However, a more accurate adherence to the thought of the classics of Marxism allows us to noticeably correct this classification.

(Pletnikov): The term “formation” was adopted by K. Marx from geological science, where he denoted the stratification of geological deposits of a certain period, which was a formation formed in time in the earth's crust.

For the first time in the context of the philosophy of history, the term "formation" in its categorical meaning was used by K. Marx in the book "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte".

Analyzing the political processes of the formation and development of bourgeois society, K. Marx drew attention to the peculiarity of the formation of ideas that reflect the fundamental interests of the rising bourgeoisie. At first these ideas were dressed up by bourgeois ideologists in a form characteristic of the social consciousness of slavery and feudalism. But this was only before the establishment of bourgeois relations. As soon as "a new social formation took shape, the antediluvian giants disappeared, and with them all the Roman antiquity that had risen from the dead..." 1 .

Generic in relation to the category of social formation is the concept of human society as a life activity of people isolated from nature and historically developing. In any case, a social formation represents a historically determined stage in the development of human society, a historical process. M. Weber considered Marxist categories, including, of course, the category of social formation, "mental constructions" 2 . Undoubtedly, the category of social formation is “mental construction”. But this is not an arbitrary “mental construction”, but a construction that reflects the logic of the historical process, its essential characteristics: a historically determined social mode of production, a system of social relations, a social structure, including classes and class struggle, etc. At the same time, the development of individual countries and regions richer in formational development. It represents the whole variety of forms of manifestation of the essence of the historical process, the concretization and addition of formational characteristics with the features of economic structures, political institutions, culture, religious beliefs, morality, laws, customs, mores, etc. In this regard, the problems of civilization and the civilizational approach arise, which I will dwell on below. Now I want to draw attention to a number of issues of the formational approach to the historical process.

Human society in the past has never been a single system. It acted and continues to act as a set of independent, more or less isolated from each other social units. The term “society” is also used to designate these units, and in this case, the word “society” is accompanied by its own name: ancient Roman society, German society, Russian society, etc. A similar name for a society can also have a regional meaning - European society, Asian society and etc. When the question is raised about such formations in general, they often simply say "society" or in a figurative sense, especially in historical research, use the concepts of "country", "people", "state", "nation". With this approach, the concept of "social formation" denotes not only a historically defined stage in the development of human society, but also the historical type of a separate, specific society, in other words, a society.

The basic links of formational development are the "formational triad" 3 - three large social formations. In the final version (1881), the formational triad was presented by K. Marx in the form of a primary social formation (common property), a secondary social formation (private property) and, probably, one can say so, although K. Marx did not have such a phrase , - tertiary social formation (public property) 4 .

They (primarily Marx) distinguished three OEFs: archaic (traditional societies), economic and communist.

The secondary social formation, in turn, was designated by the term "economic social formation" (in the correspondence, K. Marx also used the abbreviated term "economic formation"). Asian, ancient, feudal and bourgeois modes of production were named as progressive epochs of the economic social formation. In an earlier text, in a similar situation, K. Marx spoke about ancient, feudal and bourgeois societies 6 . Proceeding from the progressive eras of the economic social formation, the listed methods of production can also be considered formational methods of production, representing small social formations (formations in the narrow sense of the word). In the same paragraph that raises the question of the bourgeois epoch of the economic social formation, the term "bourgeois social formation" is also used. K. Marx considered it inconvenient to designate two or more concepts by the same term, at the same time he noted that it was not possible to completely avoid this in any science 7 .

In 1914, in the article "Karl Marx" Lenin (vol. 26, p. 57): Asian, ancient, feudal and bourgeois modes of production as an era of economic formation.

The primary social formation is characterized by archaic syncretism (unity, indivisibility) of social relations, under which common property relations and, consequently, production relations do not have a separate form of being, they are manifested not by themselves, but through family ties - family-marriage and blood relations. For the first time, this problem was posed by F. Engels in the preface to the first edition of the book "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State." Considering the concept of the production of immediate life (formulated back in The German Ideology), he noted that the production of immediate life includes the production of means of subsistence and the production of man himself, the procreation. Social order is determined by both types of production: the degree of development, on the one hand, of labor, on the other, family, marriage and blood relations. The less labor is developed, "the stronger the dependence of the social system on tribal ties" 8 .

Under the conditions of the primary social formation, tribal relations were a specific means of expressing production relations. Hence the peculiarity of social life, in which the economic and tribal systems coincide with each other, as is preserved even now in the patriarchal way of life. Only the emergence and development of private property draws a line between them. Production relations acquire an independent form of being. Accordingly, the Marxist theory of the economic structure of society, the economic basis and superstructure reflects the historical realities of precisely the secondary social formation. This explains its dual designation: economic social formation.

There are no sufficient grounds to extend the characteristics of the secondary social formation to the tertiary social formation, no matter what term one uses to designate future development. The essence of the problem is that K. Marx caught the emerging trend in his time of an increase in the role of general labor in the system of social production. Under the concept of universal labor, he summed up every scientific work, every discovery, every invention 9 , and if we expand the subject of abstraction, then we can say - every really creative intellectual work. The uniqueness of universal labor, which correlates with spiritual production in its Marxist understanding, means the fundamental impossibility of measuring the results obtained by the costs of socially necessary labor. It is hardly permissible to talk about their ultimate utility, because the possibilities for the practical use of fundamental scientific discoveries may arise only many years later. The concept of universal labor becomes not an economic, but a sociocultural category.

In the conditions of the predominance of universal labor, the transformation of economic, i.e. public industrial relations. They, apparently, will be woven into the totality of socio-cultural relations that are formed on the basis of universal labor, and manifest themselves through these relations. In the historical perspective, based on the trend under consideration, a new kind of now socio-cultural syncretism of social relations will arise. Therefore, the tertiary social formation (as well as the primary one) will not have signs of an economic social formation. It is no coincidence that the term “post-economic social formation” has already become widely used in Russian science 10 .

The results of universal labor can influence social life not by themselves, but only through the practical activity of people. Therefore, universal labor by no means excludes socially necessary labor. Whatever degree of development the “unmanned” technology based on the achievements of science rises to, it will always involve the direct labor of technologists, programmers, adjusters, operators, etc. And although their labor becomes close to the production process, it will still be measured by the costs of the worker. time, i.e. bear the stamp of socially necessary labor. Its economy, as a universal requirement of social progress, cannot but influence the state of general labor, and social property relations, presented in the social form of universal labor, influence the development trends of sociocultural syncretism of social relations in general. Although in the process of interaction the cause and effect constantly change places, we must not forget about the presence of the main cause - the basis and the justified one.

Historical Non-One-Dimensional Development of the Secondary Social Formation

K. Marx used the concepts of "slavery", "slave-owning mode of production", "a society based on slavery", etc. However, when listing the formation stages of historical development, he uses a different term - "ancient society". Is it by chance? I think not. Indeed, slavery existed in antiquity. But, strictly speaking, the slave-owning mode of production arose only at the final stage of the history of Ancient Rome, when the plebeians - once free community members - lost their land plots and large latifundia based on slave labor arose. Ancient society, on the other hand, covers a long epoch, the main productive force until the final stage of which remained free community members. Ancient society, although it was extended to the Middle East and North Africa, is a specifically Western European phenomenon. Feudalism has the same Western European origin. Compared with Western Europe, the originality of the historical process makes itself felt not only in Asia, but even in Eastern Europe. Let us refer to the history of Russia.

Until the introduction of serfdom, the way of economic life here was "free arable farming". Peasants (smerds) rented land plots from landowners (boyars, church, sovereign) and after the fulfillment of the lease agreement - inherently feudal duties - they had the right to freely transfer from one landowner to another. There are conditions for the development of feudal relations of the Western European type. However, already in Russkaya Pravda (XI-XII centuries), along with smerds, slaves are also mentioned. In Upper Volga Russia (XIII - mid-XV centuries), the servile (slave) way of life was most widespread. Slave labor was used as a productive force on an incomparably larger scale than, for example, in ancient Athens. Examining the classes of Novgorod land, the famous Russian historian V.O. Klyuchevsky wrote: “In the depths of rural, as well as urban, society in Novgorod land we see serfs. This class was very numerous there. Its development was facilitated especially by boyar and living land tenure. Large estates were settled and exploited mainly by serfs” 11 .

If we impose the formational scheme of Western European historical development on the Russian history of the period under consideration, then we must state the simultaneous equivalent existence and interaction of two formational modes of production that are different in their social nature - slaveholding and feudalism, and characterize this state from the same Western European positions as an interformational stage of the historical process. But you can approach it differently: to single out a special East European formational stage. In any case, it is not possible to state unambiguously that Eastern Europe has bypassed the slave-owning mode of production.

It is possible that it is in the modification of ideas about the economic basis of the secondary social formation that one must look for the key to understanding the problems associated with the Asian mode of production. It is worth recalling the well-known words of K. Marx, who categorically rejected the attempt to transform his “historical sketch of the emergence of capitalism in Western Europe into a historical and philosophical theory about the universal path along which all peoples are fatally doomed to go, no matter what the historical conditions in which they find themselves ..." 12 .

What is a society based on the Asiatic mode of production? Emphasizing the universality of the Asian mode of production, some authors come to the conclusion that it is possible to single out a small social formation corresponding to it in the historical process. Others consider it a transitional era from the primary social formation to the secondary. There is also a hypothesis that defines a society based on the Asian mode of production as a model, along with slavery and feudalism, of a large “feudal” (pre-capitalist) formation 13 .

These interpretations of the Asiatic mode of production deserve attention if only because they stimulate scientific research. At the same time, the very Eurocentric concept of the approaches under consideration raises serious doubts. It is known that for Hegel world history is a one-dimensional and linear movement of the world mind: the East, the ancient world, Christian-Germanic Europe. K. Marx also borrowed Hegel's ideas about world history in a new interpretation. Hence his original striving to put the Asiatic mode of production on a par with the ancient, feudal and bourgeois.

Yes, indeed the Asiatic mode of production (Cretan-Mycenaean society) preceded the ancient and feudal modes. But the history of the Asiatic mode of production was not limited to this. In the vast expanse of Asia, pre-Columbian America and pre-colonial Africa, it continued its development in parallel with Western European history. The peculiarity of the Asian mode of production is the combination of relations that are very different by European standards: tributary, tax-rent, conscription-labor, bondage, slave, etc. Therefore, when studying it, it is necessary to change the Western European research paradigm. History is indeed non-one-dimensional and non-linear.

Compared with European history, the history of society based on the Asiatic mode of production does not have such a clearly defined line of historical progress. The eras of social stagnation, backward movement (up to the return under the influence of natural disasters and wars of conquest from the state-communal to the communal system), and cyclicality are striking. Apparently, the concept of the Asiatic mode of production is a collective concept. It designates both its special historical epochs and its special formational stages. In any case, the ancient and medieval East are not the same thing. Only capitalism, with its predatory expansion, began the process of merging European, Asian, American and African history into a single stream of universal history.

As we can see, the Marxist formational triad is far from coinciding with the so-called “five-membered” formational triad, which until recently was widespread in Marxist literature. Contrary to the warnings of K. Marx, this "five-term structure", constituted mainly on the basis of Western European historical material, was presented as the universal, the only possible stages of the historical process. Faced with historical facts, the comprehension of which did not fit into such a formational scheme, Orientalists and other researchers of non-European countries and regions declared the failure of Marxism. However, such a "criticism" of Marxism actually means only criticism of a surrogate for Marxism. The formational triad puts everything in its place. Marxism does not provide ready-made dogmas, but the starting points for further research and the method of such research.

Civilizational stages and civilizational paradigms

The formational approach to the historical process can be defined as a substantial one. It is connected with finding a single basis of social life and the allocation of stages of the historical process, depending on the modification of this basis. But K. Marx discovered not only the formational, but also the civilizational triad, which does not coincide in its fundamental characteristics with the formational triad. This already testifies to the difference between the formational and civilizational approaches to history. Moreover, the considered approaches do not exclude, but complement each other.

In contrast to the formational civilizational theory, in relation to each historical stage it singles out, it deals not with one, but with several grounds. Therefore, the civilizational approach to the historical process is complex.

The civilizational triad is a staged development of human sociality. The elucidation of its essential characteristics is associated with the cognitive model of reducing the social to the individual. Civilization stages are 1) personal dependence; 2) personal independence in the presence of property dependence; 3) free individuality, the universal development of man. Civilizational development acts as a movement towards real freedom, where the free development of each is a condition for the free development of all.

Civilization is a special kind of a separate, concrete society (society) or their community 15 . In accordance with the etymology of the term, the signs of civilization are statehood, civil status (the rule of law, state-legal regulation of social relations), urban-type settlements. In the history of social thought, civilization is opposed to savagery and barbarity. The historical foundation of civilization is inseparable from the productive (as opposed to gathering and hunting) economy, the spread of agriculture, crafts, trade, writing, the separation of mental labor from physical labor, the emergence of private property and classes, the formation of hierarchical (vertical) and partner (horizontal) ties, etc. .

Describing civilization as a stage of social development, K. Marx and F. Engels also paid attention to the "barbarity of civilization" or, one might say, "civilized barbarism" 16 . It finds its expression in wars of conquest, armed suppression of popular protest, terrorism and other forms of organized violence, up to the destruction of the civilian population, the implementation of a policy of genocide.

The formational approach proceeds from the cognitive model of reducing the individual to the social, because this is the only way to understand the historical type of a particular society. A feature of the formational approach is the study of social structures, their subordination in the system of society. The civilizational approach proceeds from the opposite model - the reduction of the social to the individual, the expression of which is the sociality of man. Civilization itself reveals itself here as the vital activity of society, depending on the state of this sociality. Therefore, the requirement of a civilizational approach is an orientation towards the study of man and the world of man. Thus, during the transition of the countries of Western Europe from the feudal system to the capitalist one, the formational approach focuses on the change in property relations, the development of manufactory and wage labor. The civilizational approach interprets the transition under consideration as a revival on a new basis of the ideas of ancient anthropologism and cyclicity. It was this mindset of European social science that later brought to life the very concept of civilization and the concepts of enlightenment, humanism, civil society, etc. associated with it.

The considerations expressed by K. Marx can be presented in the form of development and change of three historical stages of human sociality. The first step is personal addiction. The second stage is personal independence, based on material dependence. The third stage is the universal development of man, free individuality 18 .

In the formative aspect, the first stage of civilization covers antiquity and feudalism in Western European history, the second - capitalism, the third - in the Marxist understanding, future communism. However, the essence of the problem is not reduced only to the discrepancy between the historical boundaries of the first stage of the formational and civilizational triads. More significant is something else. The formational triad emphasizes the discontinuity of the historical process, expressed primarily in the radical transformation of the system of social relations, while the civilizational triad emphasizes continuity. The societies it represents can go through a number of formational and civilizational stages. Hence the continuity in the development of civilization, especially socio-cultural values ​​of previous historical eras. Russian civilization, for example, has more than a thousand years of history in this regard, going back to pagan times.

The formational approach is the logic of the historical process, its essential features (the social mode of production, the system of social relations, the social structure, including classes and class struggle, etc.), the civilizational one is the whole variety of forms of manifestation of these essential features in separate, specific societies ( societies) and their communities. But K.Marx discovered not only formational, but also civilizational triads. Accordingly, the formational approach can be defined as substantive. It is associated with finding a single basis of social life and the allocation of stages (formations) of the historical process, depending on this basis and its modification. Civilizational - as complex. We are talking here not about one, but about several foundations. The concept of a civilizational approach is a collective concept. It denotes a series of interconnected paradigms, i.e. conceptual settings of the study. The author highlights the general historical, philosophical and anthropological, sociocultural and technological paradigms of the civilizational approach.

The ratio of the formational triad (three large formations) and progressive eras (small formations - formations in the narrow sense) of the economic social formation has been clarified. It can be argued that small social formations were defined by K. Marx mainly on the basis of Western European historical material. Therefore, the ancient and feudal stages of development cannot simply be transferred to the history of the East. Already in Russia, features have arisen that do not correspond to the Western European model of development. What K. Marx called the Asian mode of production is a collective concept. Indeed, the Asiatic mode of production (Cretan-Mycenaean society) preceded antiquity. But in the future it also existed in parallel with antiquity and feudalism. This development of his cannot be adjusted to the Western European scheme. At least the Ancient and Medieval East are not the same thing. The rapprochement of the western and eastern branches of the historical process was marked as a result of the predatory expansion of the West, which marked the beginning of the formation of the world market. It continues in our time.

The civilizational triad is a staged development of human sociality. The elucidation of its essential characteristics is associated with the cognitive model of reducing the social to the individual. Civilization stages are 1) personal dependence; 2) personal independence in the presence of property dependence; 3) free individuality, the universal development of man. Civilizational development acts as a movement towards real freedom, where the free development of each is a condition for the free development of all. Formational and civilizational approaches are not mutually exclusive, but complement each other. In this regard, the prospects for Russia's development should focus not only on the formational, but also on the civilizational features of Russian history.

1 Marx K., Engels F. Op. T. 8. S. 120.

2 Weber M. Fav. works. M., 1990. S. 404.

3 See: Popov V.G. The idea of ​​social formation (formation of the concept of social formation). Kyiv, 1992. Book. one.

4 See: Marx K., Engels F. Op. T. 19. S. 419.

5 See: Ibid. T. 13. S. 7.

6 See: Ibid. T. 6. S. 442.

7 See: Ibid. T. 23. S. 228. Note.

8 Ibid. T. 21. S. 26.

9 See: Ibid. T. 25. Part I. S. 116.

10 See: Inozemtsev V. To the theory of post-economic social formation. M., 1995.

11 Klyuchevsky V.O. Cit.: In 9 t. M., 1988. T. 2. S. 76.

12 Marx K., Engels F. Op. T. 19. S. 120.

13 See: Marxist-Leninist theory of the historical process. Historical process: integrity, unity and diversity, formation steps. M., 1983. S. 348-362.

14 Fukuyama F. The End of History? // Question. philosophy. 1990. No. 3. S. 148.

15 See: Toynbee A.J. Civilization before the court of history. M.; SPb., 1996. S. 99, 102, 130, 133, etc.

16 See: Marx K., Engels F. Op. T 9. S. 229; T. 13. S. 464 and others.

17 See: Kovalchenko I. Multidimensionality of historical development // Svobodnaya mysl'. 1995. No. 10. S. 81.

18 See: Marx K., Engels F. Op. T. 46. Part I. S. 100-101.

19 See: Klyagin N.V. The origin of civilization (socio-philosophical aspect). M., 1966. S. 87.

20 Spengler O. Decline of Europe. M., 1993. T. I. S. 163.

21 Brodel F. The structure of everyday life: the possible and the impossible. M., 1986. S. 116.

22 See: Huntington S. Clash of Civilizations // Polis. 1994. No. 1. S. 34.

23 Marx K., Engels F. Op. T. 23. S. 383. Note.

24 See: Toynbee A.J. Civilization before the court of history. S. 159.

Throughout the 20th century world historical science, in essence, adhered to the Hegelian view of the historical process as progressive development along an ascending line, from lower forms of organization of society to higher ones, a process based on the struggle of opposites. Economists have sought to provide an economic basis for this concept by identifying for each major stage in world history the corresponding stage of economic development. So, for ancient history it was mainly a household, for the Middle Ages it was an urban economy and a system of commodity exchange, mainly within the city, in modern times the national economy becomes such an economic form.

Hegel's formula in its fundamental basis was also accepted by Marx, who concretized it, putting forward as the main criterion the division of world history into socio-economic formations, each of which acted as a step on the path of the progressive evolution of mankind. The struggle of opposites acted as the driving force causing the change of these historical epochs. The difference in approaches consisted only in the fact that Hegel gave preference to evolutionary development, while Marx put forward the revolutionary path, which was based on the struggle of antagonistic classes.

In the 90s, when the formational approach was sharply criticized, not only the foundations of the theory of formations were called into question, but also the concept of the linear development of world history (of which the formational approach is an integral part), the postulates of a single path of development of mankind, a single origin, about social progress, about the existence of any regularities in the development of society. The book “The Poverty of Historicism” by K. Popper is popular: knowledge exists only in the form of assumptions, and a person cannot establish the laws of social development, denial of the objective laws of social development, criticism of historicism. In fact, it was no longer about “Marxist dogmas”, but about discarding the concept of the linear development of world civilization, which was professed not only by Soviet, but also by 90% of pre-revolutionary Russian historians. Not only M.N. Pokrovsky, B.D. Grekov or I.I. Mintz, but also, for example, S.M. Solovyov, who also believed in the laws of history, in social progress, in the fact that humanity ultimately develops in one direction.

Arguments against the Marxist concept (Iskenderov): 1) The inconsistency of the theory of socio-economic formations is quite clearly manifested in the fact that the very principle of the struggle of opposites as the driving force of the historical process applies only to three of the five formations, namely those in which there are antagonistic classes , and the mechanism of social development within non-antagonistic formations (primitive communal and communist societies) is practically not disclosed. One cannot but agree with those researchers who believe that if a social movement is the result of a struggle of opposites, then this law must have a universal character, therefore, apply to all formations.

2) According to Marxist theory, the transition from one formation to another is nothing but a revolution. It is unclear, however, what kind of revolution we are talking about if a formation in which there were neither classes nor antagonistic relations, as in the primitive communal system, is replaced by a formation with more or less pronounced social stratification and class antagonisms. In general, the question of the mechanism for changing socio-economic formations has not been developed clearly enough, therefore, many important problems, in particular, the place and significance of transitional epochs in the history of mankind, including major interformational periods, have not received proper coverage in Marxist historiography. These issues were, as it were, excluded in the formation of a general model of historical development, which impoverished and, to a certain extent, simplified the unified scheme of social development.

3) Theories and concepts based on the recognition of the postulate of the movement of history along a progressively ascending line have a significant defect: they are inevitably associated with fixing not only the beginning of this movement, but also its end, although each of these theories has its own understanding of the “end of history” ". According to Hegel, it is connected with the fact that the "absolute spirit" recognizes itself in the "high society", which he considered the Christian-German world in the face of the Prussian state, on which, in fact, the movement of history ends with him. Marx saw the end point for the development of all mankind in a communist society. As for some modern Hegelians, they associate the end of history with the formation of a post-industrial society, the triumph of "liberal democracy and technologically developed capitalism." So, the German world, communist society, modern Western consumer society with a market economy and liberal democracy - these are, according to the representatives of the basic concepts of the world-historical development of mankind, the three final stages along this path and the three highest goals of historical progress. In all these constructions, the political bias of their authors is clearly manifested.

4) With such a formulation of the question, the very idea of ​​historical progress appears in an extremely impoverished form.

Meanwhile, the idea of ​​historical progress as the basis of the entire course of world history must be identified with at least three major components. Firstly, with a change in the nature of man himself as the main object and subject of history, his constant improvement. Deriving his formula for progress in the study of history, the prominent Russian historian N.I. Kareev believed that "the history of progress, in the end, has a human being as its object, but not as a zoological creature - this is the matter of anthropology - but as a hominem sapientem." Therefore, the main thing in historical progress is the embodiment of what he called humanity, which consists in reason and society, in other words, in the improvement of "the human race in mental, moral and social relations." Kareev identified three types of progress: mental, moral and social. For the 20th century this formula could be expanded to include scientific and technological progress.

Secondly, the idea of ​​historical progress also includes such a direction as the evolution of social thought, the formation of various ideas, political views, ideals, spiritual and moral principles and values, a free and independent personality.

Thirdly, historical progress can be judged on the basis of what ideas and principles developed by mankind over a sufficiently long period of time have received real implementation and how they have influenced the change in the nature of society, its political and state structure and people's lives.

4) The following claims were also made against the concept of linear development (of course, mainly formational theory): a) it cannot explain all the facts known to science, especially with regard to the so-called eastern mode of production; b) is at odds with practice, which became quite obvious in connection with the collapse of socialism in the USSR and other countries. The arguments are serious, but they are directed more against the theory of formations than against the concept of linear development in general. After all, not all of its supporters considered the socialist system that existed in the USSR, and many did not believe in socialism at all. As for the impossibility of explaining decisively all the facts known to science, what theory can do that today?

It should not be forgotten that the postulates of the linear development of mankind were criticized, first of all, for reasons of a political and ideological nature, i.e. for "association with Marxism".

However, contrary to numerous forecasts, the concept of the linear development of world civilization and even the formational approach retain serious positions in historical science. Why? First of all, it should be noted that this is the most developed scientific concept in Russia by historians, which has deep roots in world historical science.

Recall in this regard that one of its main postulates - the idea of ​​progress, linear development from the lowest to the highest and, ultimately, to a certain kingdom of goodness, truth and justice (no matter what you call it - communism or the "golden age") is embedded in the Christian tradition. . All Western philosophy from Augustine to Hegel and Marx is based on this postulate. Of course, as rightly noted in the literature (L.B. Alaev), this postulate itself can hardly be scientifically proven. But the more difficult it is to refute it precisely from scientific positions. In addition, the postulates of all other scientific concepts, in particular, the civilizational approach, are also equally unprovable from purely scientific positions.

Of course, the crisis of the ideas of the formational approach and the linear development of mankind is obvious. But it is also obvious that the supporters of these concepts have done a lot to overcome this crisis. Having abandoned the classical five-term concept of the formational vision of the world-historical process, which has not been justified in practice, they are actively looking for ways to modernize the theory, and not only within the framework of Marxism. In this sense, the works of Ya.G. Shemyakina, Yu.G. Ershova, A.S. Akhiezer, K.M. Kantor. With very significant differences, there is one thing in common: the rejection of economic determinism, the desire to take into account the objective and subjective factors in the development of history, to put the person at the forefront, to show the role of the individual. In general, this undoubtedly strengthens the position of this trend in Russian historical science.

Let us note another factor that contributed to the strengthening of the positions of the supporters of the linear approach: the expansion of ties between Russian historians and foreign, especially Western, science, where the prestige of non-Marxist concepts of the linear development of world civilization is traditionally high. For example, the publication of the work of K. Jaspers, who defended the idea of ​​the unity of the world historical process in a polemic with O. Spengler, has an ever-increasing impact on Russian historians. An important role was played by F. Fukuyama's article "The End of History?", based on the ideas of the unity of the paths of development of world civilization.

Why criticize Marx's theory? Let's note some provisions.

I. Criticism of Marxism as a kind of universal (global) theory of social development.

So, a number of Russian historians of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. noted the following features of Marxism, which prompted them to take a critical position in relation to the then newfangled doctrine. (Iskenderov)

Firstly, Russian historians, including those who were quite loyal to Marxism, did not agree to recognize the only, universal and all-encompassing method of historical knowledge behind the materialist understanding of history. But they were ready to consider it as one of the many directions that existed at that time in world historiography.

Secondly, few Russian historians of the end of the last and the beginning of this century did not speak out (albeit with varying degrees of severity) against the idea of ​​introducing the laws of materialistic dialectics into the sphere of historical knowledge, considering such efforts to be unfruitful. For this alone, they believed, the Marxist approach cannot be carried out sufficiently "consistently and conclusively." They considered the desire of the Marxists to elevate their approach to the level of methodology and even worldview as extremely dangerous, having nothing in common with genuine science and fraught with a serious threat to the free and creative development of historical thought. This approach was called by some of them "a surrogate for social science"; this schematism, they argued, must inevitably lead to the stagnation of historical thought. The very selection of any single factor (in this case, socio-economic) as the main and decisive in social development (both in general and in its individual areas), as well as in the process of knowing history, does not allow one to correctly determine the content , the mechanism and direction of social evolution, which, as Petrushevsky noted, in particular, is a consequence of "the interaction of economic, political and cultural processes." An exclusively materialistic solution - in relation to history - of the main question of philosophy by many Russian historians was considered as oblivion and belittling of the spiritual and moral aspects of public life. As noted by M.M. Khvostov, one can share the ideas of philosophical idealism and at the same time remain a materialist in the understanding of social life and, conversely, defend "philosophical materialism", but consider that "it is thought, ideas that create the evolution of society."

Thirdly, it should be noted that an important circumstance is that many Russian historians considered Marxism as a Western European doctrine, formed on the basis of a generalization of European historical experience. The main provisions and formulas of this theory reflected the socio-economic, political and ideological conditions, largely different from those in Russia. Therefore, the mechanical imposition of these formulas and schemes on Russian historical reality did not always lead to the desired results. The thoughtful Russian historian could not but see and feel the contradictions that inevitably arose between the theory of the historical process, worked out in different conditions and intended for other countries, and the historical life of Russia, which did not fit into the Procrustean bed of Marxist dogmas and schemes. This concerned many aspects of the historical and cultural development of Russia. Already in the course of post-war discussions, this circumstance was again brought to the attention of Acad. N.M. Druzhinin, who called for "resolutely dissociating ourselves from the theory of mechanical borrowing, which ignores the internal laws of the movement of each people."

In the very essence of the materialist understanding of history, there was a fundamental methodological flaw, since this approach actually excluded the possibility of a comprehensive and objective study of the historical process in all its integrity, versatility, complexity and inconsistency. The data obtained in this way and the conclusions and laws formulated on such a methodological basis not only squeezed real historical life into pre-prepared schemes and stereotypes, but also turned historical science and historical knowledge into an integral part of a certain worldview. This was the reason why many prominent Russian and Western European historians rejected this understanding of history. They believed that the combination of materialism with dialectics and the extension of such an approach to the study of history is not at all a blessing, but a disaster for historical science.

The development of historical thought in the 20th century, including the evolution of Marxist historiography itself, shows that in many respects Russian historians were right in their assessments of Marxism and its possible consequences for the development of historical science. These assessments still sound very relevant today, serve as a kind of reproach for those who did not listen to them at that time and continue to ignore them today, blindly believing that the materialistic understanding of history was and remains the main and only true method of knowing historical truth. .

The crisis of Russian historiography is mainly and mainly generated by the crisis of Marxism (primarily the method of materialistic understanding of history in its extremely deterministic form), that Marxism, which in Soviet times turned into a state ideology and even a worldview, arrogating to itself the monopoly right to determine within what framework it can develop some area of ​​the humanities. Marxism, in essence, brought history beyond the bounds of science, turned it into an integral part of party propaganda.

The apogee was the publication of the Short Course in the History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, approved in 1938 by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and immediately becoming almost the bible of Bolshevism. Since then, historians have been assigned the very unenviable role of commentators and propagandists of the supposedly scientific nature of the primitive propositions of historical materialism contained in this Stalinist work. After the publication of the "Short Course" and its elevation to the rank of the highest achievement of philosophical and historical thought, it is no longer necessary to speak of any development of genuine historical science. It is increasingly falling into a state of stagnation and deepest crisis.

Could one seriously think about the development of historical science, if the "Short Course" proclaimed its primary task "the study and disclosure of the laws of production, the laws of the development of productive forces and production relations, the laws of the economic development of society", This book categorically stated that "over the course of three thousand years in Europe, three different social systems managed to change: the primitive communal system, the slave-owning system, the feudal system, and in the eastern part of Europe, in the USSR, even four social systems were replaced. Historians had to either confirm this thesis, or take a neutral position, not agreeing with this judgment, but also not opposing it. The latter were in an absolute minority.

The discussions that took place in the 1930s and 1950s, and partly in the 1960s, to a greater or lesser extent experienced direct pressure from the authorities. Whatever problems were brought up for discussion (be it the nature of ancient Eastern societies, the Asian mode of production, the periodization of national and world history, or even the dating of The Tale of Igor's Campaign), all these discussions did not go beyond what was permitted and, in essence, boiled down to once again to confirm the correctness and inviolability of the main provisions of the materialistic understanding of history. These discussions and discussions had some common features and peculiarities.

II. Criticism of a number of ideological and theoretical postulates of Marxism, which were of a utopian nature:

1) utopianism in assessing the prospects of capitalism.

The founders of Marxism scientifically explained why the previous socialist and communist teachings were inevitably utopian in nature. These teachings arose under the conditions of an undeveloped capitalist system, when trends indicating the regularity of the socialization of the means of production in the course of the development of capitalism had not yet emerged, when there was still no organized labor movement, which later played an outstanding role in the evolution of bourgeois society. The utopians, says Engels, were compelled to construct the elements of the future society from their own heads, since these elements had not yet been born in bourgeois society. Utopian socialists did not see and did not want to see the already emerging fact that capitalist society still has a long way to go before it exhausts its social resources and the transition to a post-capitalist social system becomes possible. The sense of social justice that animated the utopians pushed them to the conclusion that the time had come to replace the unjust social system with a just society of social harmony.

Marx strongly opposed these subjectivist ideas of his predecessors. In the preface to the Critique of Political Economy, he declared with impressive scientific sobriety: “No social formation perishes before all the productive forces for which it gives sufficient scope have developed, and new, higher production relations never appear before than the material conditions of their existence in the depths of the oldest society will ripen” 3 . This classic position, expressed in 1859, when the foundations of Marxist economic doctrine had already been created, is an instructive answer not only to utopian socialists and communists, but also to their own, former views, which were formulated by the founders of Marxism in the late 40s and early 50s years of the 19th century. However, the sober scientific conclusion formulated by Marx did not affect the assessment of the capitalist system that we find in their works of subsequent years. It is a paradoxical fact that, having recognized the viability of the capitalist mode of production, Marx and Engels continue to express the hope that each new crisis of overproduction will herald the collapse of the entire capitalist system. Despite the fact that in Marx's Capital it was explained that crises of overproduction are the normal cycle of the process of reproduction of capital, Engels in Anti-Duhring characterizes these crises as a crisis of "the mode of production itself" 4 .

Engels explained that the utopians were utopians because the capitalist system was underdeveloped. However, both Marx and Engels also lived in an era of still underdeveloped capitalism, which had barely entered the era of industrial production. This circumstance was later recognized by Engels when he wrote that, together with Marx, he overestimated the degree of maturity of capitalism. But the point was not only in this overestimation of the maturity of capitalism, but also in those essentially utopian conclusions that were drawn from this false statement.

Let us return again to "Anti-Dühring" - a work in which the socialist teaching of Marxism is most fully and systematically expounded. This book was published in 1878. Marx read it in manuscript, agreed with Engels' conclusions, and supplemented his study with another chapter written by himself. Anti-Dühring can be regarded as one of the final works of Marxism. In it we find a detailed critical analysis of utopian socialism and along with it ... statements, utopian in nature, about the end of capitalism, the proximity of a new, socialist system. "The new productive forces have already outgrown the bourgeois form of their use," Engels categorically asserts 5 . The same thought is expressed elsewhere: "The productive forces revolt against the mode of production which they have outgrown" 6 . And further: "The whole mechanism of the capitalist mode of production refuses to serve under the weight of the productive forces created by itself" 7 .

The whole of Anti-Dühring is full of such statements, but we do not need to quote other quotations in order to show the utopian character of the convictions of the founders of Marxism that the collapse of capitalism is imminent. These convictions were fully accepted and even reinforced by Lenin, who, unlike Marx and Engels, did not associate the expected collapse of the capitalist system with a conflict between highly developed productive forces and bourgeois production relations that did not correspond to their level and character.

Thus, the Marxist critique of utopian socialism and communism turns out to be inconsistent. Rejecting the idealistic views of the utopians, who believed that socialism would defeat capitalism in the same way that truth and justice defeat falsehood and injustice, Marx and Engels also found themselves in the grip of humanistic illusions, predicting the collapse of the capitalist system in the coming years.

2) Like the utopians, they did not see that the contradictions generated by capitalism would find their gradual resolution within the framework of the capitalist system, and they unilaterally, pessimistically assessed the prospects for developing capitalism. This found its most striking expression in the law formulated by Marx of the absolute and relative impoverishment of the working people. According to this law, the progress of capitalism means the progressive impoverishment of the proletariat. It should be noted that we find the main idea of ​​this law in Fourier and other utopians, who argued that wealth breeds poverty, since the source of wealth is the robbery of workers.

The law of the absolute and relative impoverishment of the working people was actually refuted already during the lifetime of Marx and Engels thanks to the organized labor movement and the activities of the social democratic parties, which managed to force the capitalists to make serious concessions to the class demands of the proletariat. Thus, historical development itself exposed one of the main utopian ideas, which served for Marxism almost as the main theoretical argument in criticizing capitalism and substantiating its inevitable collapse within the framework of the next, already begun historical period.

3). Marx also sought to substantiate his conviction regarding the approaching collapse of capitalism by the general provisions of the historical materialism he had created. Ideas according to this doctrine are secondary; they reflect certain material conditions, social being. Consequently, the appearance of socialist and communist ideas on the historical arena testifies to the fact that the conditions already exist that determined their content and the corresponding social requirements and tasks. Therefore, Marx wrote: “... Humanity always sets itself only such tasks that it can solve, since upon closer examination it turns out that the task itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution already exist, or at least are in the process of becoming. " eight .

The above position is an obvious concession to utopian socialism, which believed that the creation of a socialist doctrine is the main condition for the fulfillment of the tasks set by it. Meanwhile, the ideas of utopian communism arose, as is known, in the pre-capitalist era. Of course, they reflected the historically determined social existence, the interests of the masses of working people enslaved by feudal relations, but did not in any way indicate the approach of the social system, the need for which they proclaimed.

Anti-capitalist utopias arose already in the 17th-18th centuries, but this, contrary to the above thesis of Marx, did not at all indicate that the material conditions of a post-capitalist society were already in the process of formation.

4) Marx and Engels criticized the utopian socialists and communists for describing in scrupulous detail the future society that would replace capitalism. In contrast to the utopians, the founders of Marxism limited themselves to pointing out those features of the post-capitalist system that are a continuation of the processes already taking place under capitalism. Thus, stating that the development of capitalism is characterized by the socialization of the means of production, the founders of Marxism came to the conclusion that the end result of this process would be the abolition of small and medium-sized production, the absorption of small capitalists by large joint-stock companies, in short, the cessation of the existence of private (owned by individuals, private individuals) ownership of the means of production. This conclusion differed from those utopian socialists and communists who considered it necessary to prohibit private ownership of the means of production. Nevertheless, this conclusion of Marx and Engels turned out to be erroneous, since the development of capitalism, especially since the end of the 19th century, not only did not lead to the abolition of small-scale production, but in every possible way contributed to its development, creating the material and technical base necessary for it. Private ownership of the means of production turned out to be the permanent basis of capitalist production, which, contrary to the beliefs of Marx and Engels, did not create the economic preconditions for its abolition.

5). Following R. Owen and the utopian communists, the founders of Marxism argued that a post-capitalist society would put an end to commodity-money relations forever and move on to a system of direct product exchange. And this conclusion of Marx and Engels also turned out to be a clear concession to utopianism.

Commodity exchange arose already in pre-class society; it existed, developed in slave-owning, feudal societies, without giving rise to the economic relations inherent in capitalism. And the current level of social development shows that commodity-money relations, the market economy are rational economic relations both within each country and in relations between countries. Commodity-money relations arose long before capitalism, and they, as a civilized form of economic relations, will continue in post-capitalist society. Does this mean that they are not subject to change, development? Of course not.

6). Marx and Engels believed that the socialist principle of distribution "from each according to his ability, to each according to his work" could be implemented in a society that had abolished commodity-money relations. And this conclusion is, of course, a concession to utopianism. The absence of commodity-money relations makes it impossible for economic accounting and remuneration for labor commensurate with its quantity and quality (the latter is especially important). As one of the well-known critics of Marxism, L. von Mises, rightly notes, “socialist society simply cannot determine the relationship between the importance of the work performed for society and the reward due for this work. Wages will be forcedly arbitrary” 9 .

The historical experience of "real socialism", despite the fact that commodity-money relations were preserved to some extent, fully confirms the correctness of these words.

III. Criticism (denial) of the fundamental methodological principles of the theory of the GEF.

a) Bolkhovitinov N.N. (VI, 1994. No. 6. p. 49, 50): the main drawback of the formational approach is that the main attention is paid to production, the development of productive forces and production relations, wars and revolutions. Meanwhile, at the center of history has always been a man. It is the position of a person, his rights and freedoms that determine the degree of progress of society. The most technically perfect production, in which a person is reduced to the position of a slave and a cog, cannot be considered progressive.

The role of religion in history turned out to be very significant, and sometimes even predominant. If we in the most general terms try to determine the significance of Christianity and its three main directions in the history of various regions, then it is easy to notice that the countries where Protestantism prevailed (England, Holland, USA) reached the highest development. Countries where Catholicism prevailed (Spain, Portugal, Latin America, Italy) lagged behind their more fortunate neighbors, and East. Europe, including Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, where Orthodoxy dominated with its servility to the state, found themselves in the last row of developed countries of the Christian world.

Marx, speaking of the so-called. PNK, greatly simplified the picture. The history of the formation of capitalism was not limited to robbery and speculation. For primitive accumulation in a number of countries in Western Europe and America, Protestantism, with its ethics, was of great importance. Normal business has put these countries in first place in economic development.

b) In addition to the historicist flaw already revealed earlier, it is necessary to emphasize the dubious ability of Marxism to give a convincing answer, in particular, to an important question: why did societies of different formational affiliation coexist and coexist today in the same geohistorical conditions? Why, in the presence of the same type or very similar basis, the superstructures of the corresponding societies are rather peculiar?

c) Many researchers have drawn attention to the relative applicability of this model almost exclusively to Western Europe, i.e. on its Eurocentric character, on the desire of Marxism to emphasize the unilinear nature of social processes, underestimating the invariance and alternativeness of their vectorization.

d) Non-Marxist authors question the Marxist thesis about the constantly inexorable nature of the manifestation of “objective laws” not only, for example, in the sphere of a market economy (with which they agree), but also in society “as a whole”. At the same time, they often refer to W. Windelband, who founded a large philosophical school in Baden (Germany) in the second half of the 19th century. He argued that there are no laws in history, and that what is passed off as them are only a few trivial commonplaces, while allowing for countless deviations. Other critics of Marxism rely on the opinion of M. Weber, for whom the concepts of "capitalism", "socialism" are only more or less convenient theoretical constructions, necessary only for the systematization of empirical social material. These are only "ideal types" that do not have an objectively true content. Over time, old "types" are replaced by new ones.

e). Alaev LB: (VI, 1994. No. 6, p. 91): Formation theory never became a theory in its time. Discussions about what the productive forces are, what is the relationship between production relations and property, about the content of the concept of "mode of production" - showed that there are only outlines of this theory. It turned out that all aspects of the human personality and all manifestations of sociality can be considered both as productive forces, and as relations of production, and as a basis, and as a superstructure, which provides the analytical possibilities of these categories. Thus, with any understanding of the category "mode of production", it is not possible to find in history the "slave-owning mode of production." Nevertheless, the very factor of the level of economic development, of course, must be taken into account as one of the serious indicators of overall progress. The now fashionable tendency to replace the economic factor with the factor of spiritual development leads to another dead end. There is no reason to take one of the aspects of development as the main and everything determining. It is necessary to move away not so much from the exaggeration of the role of the economic factor as from the monistic view of history in general. Other criteria may be the spiritual state (the level of morality in society, the quality of religious ideas), the degree of freedom of the individual, the nature of the organization of society (self-government, statehood) and others.

The theory of history or the theory of progress can only be developed and applied at the global level. Real local stories cannot be reduced copies of the world one. They are subject to the action of many factors: the influence of the natural environment and its changes, a combination of internal and external impulses, the specific correlation of economic, demographic, military and spiritual processes, the ability to stop in development or disappear from the historical map. We can also recall Gumilev's idea of ​​passionarity (still inexplicable outbreaks of activity in different parts of the world are a fact). For world history, a) there is no external factor, b) it is unstoppable, and c) humanity as a whole has not yet allowed its disappearance.

In Marxism, the question of the relationship between world and local laws has not been developed at all. The scheme of formations is focused on Western Europe. Marx and Engels cannot be blamed for the fact that they practically did not raise the question of the relationship between European and Asian history: such was the level of European science at that time. But Marx professionally dealt with the question of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe, and nevertheless left the question of the relationship between the general (Western European) and the special (English) in the genesis of capitalism not clarified.

f) Turning points in history do not necessarily have to be associated with political revolutions. Apart from "bourgeois", history knows no other revolutions: neither "Asiatic", nor "slave-owning", nor "feudal". The category of “proletarian revolution” was generally introduced into theory in spite of all dialectics, since according to “theory”, it first takes place, and only then brings a basis under itself. It is quite characteristic that none of the "bourgeois revolutions" begins the formation of capitalism and does not complete the formation of this system. Apparently, determining the moment of transition to a new quality is a much more difficult task than finding some kind of political cataclysm, which could be attributed the role of a “dialectical leap”.

Yanin V.L. (VI, 1992. No. 8-9. p. 160): Actually, Marxist science does little to understand Russian feudalism, which none of the researchers has yet been able to give a clear definition. The modern historian will not be able to do without three propositions of Marxism, which have fully justified themselves: the doctrine of the development of mankind along an ascending line; the doctrine of the class struggle (of course, not as a general form of the development of society); thesis about the primacy of economics over politics.

Thus, the study of Novgorod statehood confirmed that management reforms were carried out here precisely when there was another aggravation of class contradictions or when the self-consciousness of one class or another manifested itself with particular force.

Landa R.G. (VI., 1994. No. 6. P. 87): the former methodology cannot be completely denied. Such postulates of the Marxist methodology of history retain all their significance as: the primacy of social being and the secondary nature of social consciousness (which does not exclude their interaction, and in specific cases and for a certain time, changing places); economic (in most cases, but not always) and social (less often - group and personal) background of political movements and political interests. The concept of “class struggle” also retains its meaning, although, obviously, it would be worthwhile to figure out when it is replaced, supplanted by national-ethnic and religious struggle (especially in our time), and when it is simply veiled by ethno-confessional confrontation. All this does not, of course, preclude, under appropriate circumstances, the merger of all or some of the above types of social struggle. All these postulates have stood the test of time. Moreover, they have long ceased to be specifically Marxist and are widely used by non-Marxist and even anti-Marxist historians.

1. The essence of the socio-economic formation

The category of socio-economic formation is central to historical materialism. It is characterized, firstly, by historicism and, secondly, by the fact that it embraces each society in its entirety. The development of this category by the founders of historical materialism made it possible to put in place of abstract reasoning about society in general, characteristic of previous philosophers and economists, a concrete analysis of various types of society, the development of which is subject to their specific laws.

Each socio-economic formation is a special social organism that differs from others no less profoundly than different biological species differ from each other. In the afterword to the 2nd edition of Capital, K. Marx cited the statement of the Russian reviewer of the book, according to which its true price lies in “... clarifying those particular laws that govern the emergence, existence, development, death of a given social organism and replacing it with another , the highest".

Unlike such categories as productive forces, the state, law, etc., which reflect various aspects of the life of society, the socio-economic formation covers all aspects of social life in their organic interconnection. At the heart of every socio-economic formation is a certain mode of production. Production relations, taken in their totality, form the essence of this formation. The data system of production relations, which form the economic basis of the socio-economic formation, corresponds to a political, legal and ideological superstructure and certain forms of social consciousness. The structure of the socio-economic formation organically includes not only economic, but also all social relations that exist in a given society, as well as certain forms of life, family, lifestyle. With a revolution in the economic conditions of production, with a change in the economic basis of society (beginning with a change in the productive forces of society, which at a certain stage of their development come into conflict with the existing relations of production), a revolution also takes place in the entire superstructure.

The study of socio-economic formations makes it possible to notice the repetition in the social orders of various countries that are at the same stage of social development. And this made it possible, according to V. I. Lenin, to move from a description of social phenomena to a strictly scientific analysis of them, exploring what is characteristic, for example, of all capitalist countries, and highlighting what distinguishes one capitalist country from another. The specific laws of development of each socio-economic formation are at the same time common to all countries in which it exists or is established. For example, there are no special laws for each individual capitalist country (USA, Great Britain, France, etc.). However, there are differences in the forms of manifestation of these laws, arising from specific historical conditions, national characteristics.

2. Development of the concept of socio-economic formation

The concept of "socio-economic formation" was introduced into science by K. Marx and F. Engels. The idea of ​​the stages of human history, differing in forms of ownership, first put forward by them in The German Ideology (1845-46), runs through the works The Poverty of Philosophy (1847), The Communist Manifesto (1847-48), Wage Labor and Capital "(1849) and is most fully expressed in the preface to the work "On the Critique of Political Economy" (1858-59). Here Marx showed that each formation is a developing social production organism, and also showed how the movement from one formation to another takes place.

In "Capital" the doctrine of socio-economic formations is deeply substantiated and proved by the example of the analysis of one formation - the capitalist one. Marx did not limit himself to the study of the production relations of this formation, but showed “... the capitalist social formation as a living one - with its everyday aspects, with the actual social manifestation of class antagonism inherent in production relations, with a bourgeois political superstructure that protects the dominance of the capitalist class, with bourgeois ideas of freedom, equality etc., with bourgeois family relations.

The specific idea of ​​the change in the world history of socio-economic formations was developed and refined by the founders of Marxism as scientific knowledge accumulated. In the 50-60s. 19th century Marx considered Asian, ancient, feudal and bourgeois modes of production as "...progressive epochs of the economic social formation." When the studies of A. Gaksthausen, G. L. Maurer, M. M. Kovalevsky showed the existence of a community in all countries, and in different historical periods, including feudalism, and L. G. Morgan discovered a classless tribal society, Marx and Engels clarified their specific idea of socio-economic formation (80s). In Engels' work "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State" (1884), the term "Asian mode of production" is absent, the concept of the primitive communal system is introduced, it is noted that "... for the three great epochs of civilization" (which replaced the primitive communal system) are characterized by "... three great forms enslavement ... ": slavery - in the ancient world, serfdom - in the Middle Ages, wage labor - in modern times.

Having singled out communism in his early works as a special formation based on social ownership of the means of production, and scientifically substantiating the need to replace the capitalist formation with communism, Marx later, especially in his Critique of the Gotha Program (1875), developed the thesis of two phases of communism.

V. I. Lenin, who paid great attention to the Marxist theory of socio-economic formations from his early works (“What are the “friends of the people” and how do they fight against the Social Democrats?”, 1894), summed up the idea of ​​a specific change in the formations that preceded communist formation, in the lecture "On the State" (1919). On the whole, he joined the concept of the socio-economic formation contained in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, singling out the following successively replacing each other: a society without classes - a primitive society; a society based on slavery is a slave-owning society; a society based on feudal exploitation is the feudal system and, finally, capitalist society.

In the late 20's - early 30's. among Soviet scientists there were discussions about socio-economic formations. Some authors defended the notion of a special formation of "commercial capitalism" that allegedly lay between the feudal and capitalist systems; others defended the theory of the "Asiatic mode of production" as a formation that allegedly arose in a number of countries with the disintegration of the primitive communal system; still others, criticizing both the concept of "commercial capitalism" and the concept of the "Asiatic mode of production", themselves tried to introduce a new formation - "serfdom", whose place, in their opinion, was between the feudal and capitalist systems. These concepts did not meet with the support of most scientists. As a result of the discussion, a scheme was adopted for changing socio-economic formations, corresponding to that contained in Lenin's work "On the State".

Thus, the following idea of ​​formations successively replacing each other was established: the primitive communal system, the slave-owning system, feudalism, capitalism, communism (its first phase is socialism, the second, the highest stage of development, is communist society).

The subject of a lively discussion that has unfolded since the 60s. among scientists-Marxists of the USSR and a number of other countries, the problem of pre-capitalist formations again became. During the discussions, some of its participants defended the point of view about the existence of a special formation of the Asian mode of production, some questioned the existence of the slave system as a special formation, and finally, a point of view was expressed that actually merges the slave and feudal formations into a single pre-capitalist formation. But none of these hypotheses was supported by sufficient evidence and did not form the basis of concrete historical research.

3. Sequence of change of socio-economic formations

Based on a generalization of the history of human development, Marxism singled out the following main socio-economic formations that form the stages of historical progress: primitive communal system, slaveholding, feudal, capitalist, communist, the first phase of which is socialism.

The primitive communal system is the first non-antagonistic socio-economic formation through which all peoples without exception passed. As a result of its decomposition, a transition to class, antagonistic socio-economic formations is carried out.

“Bourgeois relations of production,” Marx wrote, “are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production... The prehistory of human society ends with the bourgeois social formation.” As predicted by Marx and Engels, it naturally comes to be replaced by the communist formation, which opens a truly human history. The communist formation, the stage of formation and development of which is socialism, for the first time in history creates conditions for the unlimited progress of mankind on the basis of the elimination of social inequality and the accelerated development of productive forces.

The successive change of socio-economic formations is explained primarily by the antagonistic contradictions between the new productive forces and the obsolete production relations, which at a certain stage are transformed from forms of development into fetters of the productive forces. At the same time, the general pattern, discovered by Marx, operates, according to which not a single socio-economic formation perishes before all the productive forces for which it gives enough space have developed, and new, higher production relations never appear earlier than in the bosom of the old. societies will mature the material conditions of their existence.

The transition from one socio-economic formation to another is accomplished through a social revolution, which resolves the antagonistic contradictions between the productive forces and production relations, as well as between the base and the superstructure.

Unlike the change of socio-economic formations, the change of different phases (stages) within the same formation (for example, pre-monopoly capitalism - imperialism) occurs without social revolutions, although it represents a qualitative leap. Within the framework of the communist formation, the development of socialism into communism takes place, carried out gradually and systematically, as a consciously directed natural process.

4. Variety of historical development

The Marxist-Leninist doctrine of socio-economic formation provides the key to understanding the unity and diversity of human history. The successive change of these formations forms the main line of human progress which defines its unity. At the same time, the development of individual countries and peoples is distinguished by considerable diversity, which is manifested, firstly, in the fact that not every people necessarily passes through all class formations, secondly, in the existence of varieties or local features, and thirdly, in availability of various transitional forms from one socio-economic formation to another.

Transitional states of society are usually characterized by the presence of various socio-economic structures, which, in contrast to a fully established economic system, do not cover the entire economy and life as a whole. They can represent both the remnants of the old and the embryos of a new socio-economic formation. History does not know "pure" formations. For example, there is no "pure" capitalism, in which there would be no elements and remnants of past eras - feudalism and even pre-feudal relations - elements and material prerequisites for a new communist formation.

To this should be added the specificity of the development of the same formation among different peoples (for example, the tribal system of the Slavs and ancient Germans differs sharply from the tribal system of the Saxons or Scandinavians at the beginning of the Middle Ages, the peoples of Ancient India or the peoples of the Middle East, Indian tribes in America or nationalities Africa, etc.).

Various forms of combining old and new in each historical era, various ties of a given country with other countries and various forms and degrees of external influence on its development, and finally, the features of historical development due to the totality of natural, ethnic, social, domestic, cultural and other factors , and the commonality of the fate and traditions of the people determined by them, which distinguish it from other peoples, testify to how diverse the features and historical destinies of different peoples passing through the same socio-economic formation.

The diversity of historical development is associated not only with the difference in the specific conditions of the countries of the world, but also with the simultaneous existence in some of them of different social orders, as a result of the uneven pace of historical development. Throughout history, there has been interaction between countries and peoples that have gone ahead and lagged behind in their development, because a new socio-economic formation has always been first established in individual countries or a group of countries. This interaction was of a very different nature: it accelerated or, on the contrary, slowed down the course of the historical development of individual peoples.

All peoples have a common starting point for development—the primitive communal system. All the peoples of the Earth will eventually come to communism. At the same time, a number of peoples bypass one or another class socio-economic formation (for example, the ancient Germans and Slavs, the Mongols and other tribes and nationalities - the slave-owning system as a special socio-economic formation; some of them are also feudalism). At the same time, it is necessary to distinguish between historical phenomena of a different order: firstly, such cases when the natural process of development of certain peoples was forcibly interrupted by the conquest of them by more developed states (as, for example, the development of Indian tribes in North America was interrupted by the invasion of European conquerors, nationalities Latin America, Aboriginal people in Australia, etc.); secondly, such processes when peoples who had previously lagged behind in their development got the opportunity, due to certain favorable historical conditions, to catch up with those who had gone ahead.

5. Periods in socio-economic formations

Each formation has its own stages, stages of development. Primitive society over the millennia of its existence has gone from a human horde to a tribal system and a rural community. Capitalist society - from manufacture to machine production, from the era of free competition to the era of monopoly capitalism, which has grown into state-monopoly capitalism. The communist formation has two main phases - socialism and communism. Each such stage of development is associated with the appearance of some important features and even specific patterns, which, without canceling the general sociological laws of the socio-economic formation as a whole, introduce something qualitatively new into its development, strengthen the effect of some patterns and weaken the effect of others, introduce certain changes in the social the structure of society, the social organization of labor, the life of people, modify the superstructure of society, etc. Such stages in the development of a socio-economic formation are usually called periods or epochs. The scientific periodization of historical processes, therefore, must proceed not only from the alternation of formations, but also from epochs or periods within these formations.

From the concept of an era as a stage in the development of a socio-economic formation, one should distinguish the concept world-historical era. The world-historical process at any given moment is a more complex picture than the process of development in a single country. The global development process includes different peoples at different stages of development.

A socio-economic formation designates a certain stage in the development of society, and a world-historical epoch is a certain period of history during which, due to the unevenness of the historical process, various formations can temporarily exist next to each other. At the same time, however, the main meaning and content of each epoch is characterized by "... which class stands at the center of this or that epoch, determining its main content, the main direction of its development, the main features of the historical situation of this epoch, etc." . The character of a world-historical epoch is determined by those economic relations and social forces which determine the direction and, to an ever-increasing degree, the character of the historical process in a given historical period. In the 17-18 centuries. capitalist relations had not yet dominated the world, but they and the classes they had engendered, already determining the direction of world historical development, exerted a decisive influence on the entire process of world development. Therefore, since that time, the world-historical epoch of capitalism has been dated as a stage in world history.

At the same time, each historical epoch is characterized by a variety of social phenomena, contains typical and atypical phenomena, in each epoch there are separate partial movements either forward or backward, various deviations from the average type and pace of movement. There are also transitional epochs in history from one socio-economic formation to another.

6. Transition from one formation to another

The transition from one socio-economic formation to another is carried out in a revolutionary way.

In cases where socio-economic formations same type(for example, slavery, feudalism, capitalism are based on the exploitation of workers by the owners of the means of production), a process of gradual maturation of a new society in the bowels of the old one can be observed (for example, capitalism in the bowels of feudalism), but the completion of the transition from the old society to the new acts as a revolutionary leap.

With a fundamental change in economic and all other relations, the social revolution is distinguished by its special depth (see Socialist revolution) and lays the foundation for a whole transitional period, during which the revolutionary transformation of society is carried out and the foundations of socialism are laid. The content and duration of this transitional period are determined by the level of economic and cultural development of the country, the severity of class conflicts, the international situation, etc.

Due to the unevenness of historical development, the transformation of various aspects of the life of society does not coincide entirely in time. So, in the 20th century, an attempt at the socialist transformation of society took place in countries that were relatively less developed, forced to catch up with the most developed capitalist countries that had gone ahead in technical and economic terms.

In world history, transitional epochs are the same natural phenomenon as the established socio-economic formations, and in their totality cover significant periods of history.

Each new formation, denying the previous one, preserves and develops all its achievements in the field of material and spiritual culture. The transition from one formation to another, capable of creating higher production capacities, a more perfect system of economic, political and ideological relations, is the content of historical progress.

7. The meaning of the theory of socio-economic formations

The methodological significance of the theory of socio-economic formations lies primarily in the fact that it makes it possible to single out material social relations as determining from the system of all other relations, to establish the recurrence of social phenomena, and to elucidate the laws underlying this recurrence. This makes it possible to approach the development of society as a natural-historical process. At the same time, it allows revealing the structure of society and the functions of its constituent elements, revealing the system and interaction of all social relations.

Secondly, the theory of socio-economic formations makes it possible to solve the question of the relationship between the general sociological laws of development and the specific laws of a particular formation.

Thirdly, the theory of socio-economic formations provides a scientific basis for the theory of class struggle, makes it possible to identify which methods of production give rise to classes and which ones, what are the conditions for the emergence and destruction of classes.

Fourthly, the socio-economic formation makes it possible to establish not only the unity of social relations among peoples standing at the same stage of development, but also to identify specific national and historical features of the formation of a particular people, which distinguish the history of this people from the history of others. peoples.

Dyachenko V.I.

We already know from previous lectures that the Marxist theory of communism is based on a materialistic understanding of history and the dialectical mechanism of the economic development of society.

Let me remind you that the essence of the materialistic understanding of history according to the classics is that the causes of all historical changes and upheavals must be sought not in the minds of people, but in the economic relations of a particular historical period.

And the dialectical mechanism of economic development is the replacement of one mode of production by another more perfect one through the dialectical removal of the contradictions between the productive forces that developed in a particular era and the production relations that lagged behind them by an evolutionary-revolutionary path.

Proceeding from the materialistic understanding of history, Marx called the periods of human history economic social formations.

He used the word "formation" as a working term by analogy with the then (beginning of the second half of the 19th century) geological periodization of the history of the Earth - "primary formation", "secondary formation", "tertiary formation".

Thus, the economic social formation in Marxism is understood as a certain historical period in the development of human society, which is characterized by a certain way of producing life during this period.

Marx presented the entire human history as a progressive change of formations, the removal of an old formation by a new, more perfect one. The primary formation was removed by the secondary formation, and the secondary formation must be removed by the tertiary formation. In this finds expression the scientific dialectical-materialist approach of Marx, the law of negation of negation, Hegel's triad.

According to Marx, each formation is based on the corresponding mode of production as a dialectically bifurcated unity of productive forces and production relations. Therefore, Marx called formations economic social.

The basis of the primary formation in the Marxist concept is represented by the primitive communal mode of production. Then, through the Asiatic mode of production, there was a transition to a large secondary economic social formation. Within the secondary formation, the ancient (slave-owning), feudal (serfdom) and bourgeois (capitalist) modes of production successively succeeded each other. The large secondary economic social formation must be replaced by a tertiary formation with a communist mode of production.

In their works and letters (“German Ideology”, “Manifesto of the Communist Party”, “Toward a Critique of Political Economy”, “Capital”, Anti-Dühring, “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State”, in a number of letters) Marx and Engels scientifically , theoretically substantiated how the historical removal of some economic relations by others took place.

In the German Ideology, in the section: “Conclusions of the materialist understanding of history: the continuity of the historical process, the transformation of history into world history, the need for a communist revolution,” the classics noted: “History is nothing but a successive change of separate generations, each of which uses materials, capitals, productive forces transferred to it by all previous generations; By virtue of this, this generation, on the one hand, continues the inherited activity under completely changed conditions, and on the other hand, modifies the old conditions through a completely changed activity. In this work, they analyzed various segments of human history in terms of their characteristic economic relations.

Marx substantiated the provisions formulated by C. Fourier in his works of the very beginning of the nineteenth century that the history of the development of mankind is divided into stages: savagery, patriarchy, barbarism and civilization, that each historical phase has not only its own ascending, but also a descending line.

In turn, a contemporary of Marx and Engels, the American historian and ethnographer Lewis Henry Morgan divided the entire history of mankind into 3 epochs: savagery, barbarism and civilization. This periodization was used by Engels in his 1884 work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.

So, according to Marxist theory, a certain historical period, i.e., an economic social formation, corresponds to its own mode of production, as a dialectical unity of productive forces and production relations.

The classics proceeded from the fact that societies based on the same system of economic relations, based on the same mode of production, belong to the same type. Societies based on different modes of production belong to different types of society. These types of society are called small economic social formations. There are as many of them as there are basic methods of production.

And just as the main modes of production are not only types, but also stages in the development of social production, economic social formations are such types of society that are at the same time stages of world-historical development.

In their works, the classics explored five sequentially replacing each other modes of production: primitive communal, Asian, slave-owning, feudal and capitalist. They substantiated that the sixth mode of production, the communist one, is replacing the capitalist mode of production.

In the Preface to the Critique of Political Economy of 1859, Marx formulates a very important conclusion that communists must not forget. This is a conclusion about the prerequisites for the change of one social formation by another. “No social formation will perish before, - points out Marx, - how will all the productive forces develop, for which it gives enough scope, and new, higher production relations will never appear before the material conditions for their existence in the bosom of the old society itself mature. Therefore, humanity always sets itself only such tasks that it can solve, since upon closer examination it always turns out that the task itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution already exist or, at least, are in the process of becoming. He confirms this conclusion in the first volume of Capital. In the "Preface" to the first edition of 1867, he writes: "Society, even if it has attacked the trail of the natural law of its development - and the ultimate goal of my work is the discovery of the economic law of the movement of modern society - cannot either skip over the natural phases of development nor cancel the last decrees. But it can shorten and alleviate the pangs of childbirth.

Recently, this theory has had a lot of opponents. The most detailed scientific analysis of the available points of view is given in the work of N. N. Kadrin. Problems of periodization of historical macroprocesses. History and Mathematics: Models and theories. Kadrin notes that in “the years of perestroika, the prevailing view was that the theory of formations should be replaced by the theory of civilizations. Subsequently, a compromise opinion spread about the need for a "synthesis" between these two approaches. What is the difference between the civilizational approach and the Marxist formational approach? The civilizational approach is based not on economic relations, as in Marx, but on cultural ones. Civilizationists argue that various cultures have constantly arisen in the history of mankind, for example, the Mayan culture, Eastern cultures, etc. They sometimes existed in parallel, developed and died. Then other cultures emerged. There was supposedly no linear connection between them. Currently, in the social sciences and history, there are not two, but already four groups of theories that explain in different ways the basic laws of the emergence, further change, and sometimes death of complex human systems. In addition to various unilinear theories (Marxism, neoevolutionism, modernization theories, etc.) and the civilizational approach, he notes, there are multilinear theories, according to which there are several possible options for social evolution.

An article by the historian Yuri Semyonov is also devoted to the consideration of this problem, which is called: "Marx's theory of socio-economic formations and modernity." The article is posted online.

Semyonov states the fact that in Russia, before the revolution and abroad, both before and now, the materialistic understanding of history was criticized. In the USSR, such criticism began sometime in 1989 and acquired a landslide character after August 1991. Actually, all this can be called criticism only with a big stretch. It was a real persecution. And they began to crack down on the materialistic understanding of history (historical materialism) in the same ways that it was previously defended. In Soviet times, historians were told: whoever is against the materialistic understanding of history is not a Soviet person. The argument of the "democrats" was no less simple: in Soviet times there was a Gulag, which means that historical materialism is false from beginning to end. The materialistic understanding of history, as a rule, was not refuted. Just as a matter of course, they spoke of his complete scientific failure. And those few who nevertheless tried to refute it acted according to a well-established scheme: attributing deliberate nonsense to historical materialism, they proved that it was nonsense, and triumphed.

The offensive against the materialistic understanding of history that unfolded after August 1991 was greeted with sympathy by many historians. Some of them even actively joined the fight. One of the reasons for the hostility of a considerable number of specialists to historical materialism was that it had previously been imposed on them by force. This inevitably gave rise to a feeling of protest. Another reason was that Marxism, having become the dominant ideology and a means of justifying the “socialist” (in reality, having nothing to do with socialism) orders existing in our country, was reborn: from a coherent system of scientific views into a set of stamped phrases used as spells and slogans. Real Marxism has been replaced by the appearance of Marxism - pseudo-Marxism. This affected all parts of Marxism, not excluding the materialistic understanding of history. What F. Engels feared most of all happened. "... materialistic method, he wrote, “turns into its opposite when it is used not as a guiding thread in historical research, but as a ready-made template according to which historical facts are cut and redrawn”

He notes that the existence of slave-owning, feudal and capitalist modes of production is now essentially recognized by almost all scientists, including those who do not share the Marxist point of view and do not use the term "mode of production". Slave-owning, feudal and capitalist modes of production are not only types of social production, but also stages of its development. After all, there is no doubt that the beginnings of capitalism appear only in the 15th-16th centuries, that it was preceded by feudalism, which took shape, at the earliest, only in the 6th-9th centuries, and that the flowering of ancient society was associated with the widespread use of slaves in production. The existence of a continuity between the ancient, feudal and capitalist economic systems is also indisputable.

Further, the author considers the inconsistency of understanding the change in socio-economic formations as their change in individual countries, that is, within individual socio-historical organisms. He writes: “In the theory of socio-economic formations of K. Marx, each formation appears as a human society in general of a certain type and thus as a pure, ideal historical type. Primitive society in general, Asiatic society in general, pure ancient society, etc. figure in this theory. Accordingly, the change of social formations appears in it as the transformation of a society of one type in its pure form into a society of another, higher type, also in its pure form. For example, a pure ancient society in general grew into a pure feudal society in general, a pure feudal society into a pure capitalist society, etc. But in the historical reality, human society has never been one single socio-historical pure organism. It has always been a huge multitude of social organisms. And specific socio-economic formations have never existed as pure ones in historical reality either. Each formation has always existed only as that fundamental common thing that was inherent in all historical societies of the same type. In itself, such a discrepancy between theory and reality is nothing reprehensible. It always takes place in any science. After all, each of them takes the essence of phenomena in its purest form. But in this form, the essence never exists in reality, because each of them considers necessity, regularity, law in its purest form, but there are no pure laws in the world.

... The interpretation of the change of formations as a consistent change in the type of individual societies that existed was to a certain extent in accordance with the facts of the history of Western Europe in modern times. The replacement of feudalism by capitalism took place here, as a rule, in the form of a qualitative transformation of the existing modes of production in individual countries. … The scheme of the change of formations outlined by K. Marx in the preface to the “Critique of Political Economy” to a certain extent agrees with what we know about the transition from a primitive society to the first class - Asian. But it does not work at all when we are trying to understand how the second class formation, the ancient one, arose. It was not at all that new productive forces had matured in the depths of Asiatic society, which became crowded within the framework of the old production relations, and that as a result a social revolution took place, as a result of which Asiatic society turned into ancient society. Nothing even remotely similar happened. No new productive forces have arisen in the depths of Asiatic society. Not a single Asian society, taken by itself, has been transformed into an ancient society. Antique societies appeared in territories where societies of the Asiatic type either never existed at all, or where they had long since disappeared, and these new class societies arose out of the pre-class societies that preceded them.

One of the first, if not the first of the Marxists who tried to find a way out of the situation was GV Plekhanov. He came to the conclusion that Asian and ancient societies are not two successive phases of development, but two parallel existing types of society. Both of these options equally grew out of primitive society, and they owe their difference to the peculiarities of the geographical environment.

Semyonov rightly concludes that “the change in socio-economic formations was conceived as occurring exclusively within individual countries. Accordingly, socio-economic formations acted, first of all, as stages of development not of human society as a whole, but of individual countries. The only reason to consider them stages of world-historical development was given only by the fact that all or, at least, most of the countries “passed through” them. Of course, researchers who consciously or unconsciously adhered to such an understanding of history could not but see that there were facts that did not fit into their ideas. But they mainly paid attention only to those of these facts that could be interpreted as a "pass" by one or another "people" of one or another socio-economic formation, and explained them as an always possible and even inevitable deviation from the norm, caused by the confluence of certain specific historical circumstances.

… Soviet philosophers and historians, for the most part, took the path of denying the formational difference between ancient Eastern and ancient societies. As they argued, both ancient Eastern and ancient societies were equally slave-owning. The differences between them were only that some arose earlier, while others later. In the ancient societies that arose somewhat later, slavery acted in more developed forms than in the societies of the Ancient East. That's actually all. And those of our historians who did not want to put up with the position that ancient Eastern and ancient societies belonged to the same formation, inevitably, most often without even realizing it themselves, again and again resurrected the idea of ​​G. V. Plekhanov. As they argued, two parallel and independent lines of development go from primitive society, one of which leads to Asian society, and the other to ancient society.

Things were not much better with the application of Marx's scheme of changing formations to the transition from ancient to feudal society. The last centuries of the existence of ancient society are characterized not by the rise of productive forces, but, on the contrary, by their continuous decline. This was fully recognized by F. Engels. “General impoverishment, the decline of trade, crafts and arts, the reduction of the population, the desolation of cities, the return of agriculture to a lower level - such is,” he wrote, “ was the end result of Roman world domination”. As he repeatedly emphasized, ancient society had reached a “dead end”. The way out of this impasse was opened only by the Germans, who, having crushed the Western Roman Empire, introduced a new mode of production - the feudal one. And they could do it because they were barbarians. But having written all this, F. Engels in no way coordinated what was said with the theory of socio-economic formations.

An attempt to do this was made by some of our historians, who tried to comprehend the historical process in their own way. They proceeded from the fact that Germanic society was indisputably barbarian, that is, pre-class, and that it was from it that feudalism arose. From this they concluded that from primitive society there are not two, but three equal lines of development, one of which leads to Asian society, the other to ancient, and the third to feudal. In order to somehow harmonize this view with Marxism, the position was put forward that Asian, ancient and feudal societies are not independent formations and, in any case, not successively changing stages of world-historical development, but equal modifications of one and the same formations are secondary. The idea of ​​one unified pre-capitalist class formation has become widespread in our literature.

The idea of ​​one pre-capitalist class formation was usually combined explicitly or implicitly with the idea of ​​multilinear development. But these ideas could exist separately. Since all attempts to discover in the development of the countries of the East in the period from the VIII century. n. e. until the middle of the 19th century. n. e. ancient, feudal and capitalist stages ended in collapse, then a number of scientists concluded that in the case of the change of slave ownership by feudalism, and the latter by capitalism, we are dealing not with a general pattern, but only with the Western European line of evolution and that the development of mankind is not unilinear, but multilinear. Of course, at that time, all researchers who held such views sought (some sincerely, and some not so much) to prove that the recognition of the multilinear nature of development is in full agreement with Marxism.

In reality, of course, this was, regardless of the desire and will of the supporters of such views, a departure from the view of the history of mankind as a single process that constitutes the essence of the theory of socio-economic formations. The recognition of the multi-linearity of historical development, which some Russian historians came to back in the days of the formally undivided domination of Marxism, consistently carried out, inevitably leads to a denial of the unity of world history.

With the progressive development of human society as a whole, the supporters of the classical interpretation of the change of formations also had serious problems. After all, it was quite obvious that the change in the stages of progressive development in different societies was far from being synchronous. Let's say, by the beginning of the 19th century, some societies were still primitive, others were pre-class, others were "Asian", fourth were feudal, and fifth were already capitalist. The question is, at what stage of historical development was human society as a whole at that time? And in a more general formulation, it was a question about the signs by which it was possible to judge what stage of progress human society as a whole had reached in a given period of time. And the supporters of the classical version did not give any answer to this question. They totally bypassed it. Some of them did not notice him at all, while others tried not to notice him.

“Summing up some results,” notes Semyonov, “we can say that a significant drawback of the classical version of the theory of socio-economic formations is that it focuses only on “vertical” connections, connections in time, and even then they are understood extremely one-sidedly. , only as links between different stages of development within the same socio-historical organisms. As for the “horizontal” connections, they were not given any importance in the theory of socio-economic formations. Such an approach made it impossible to understand the progressive development of human society as a single whole, the change in the stages of this development on the scale of all mankind, that is, a true understanding of the unity of world history, closed the road to genuine historical unitarism.

A different point of view was held by the so-called historical pluralists, who believed that society developed in a multilinear fashion. These include "civilizationists", who are talking about the development of not the entire human society, but about individual civilizations. “It is not difficult to understand that, according to this point of view, there is neither human society as a whole, nor world history as a single process. Accordingly, there can be no question of the stages of development of human society as a whole, and thus of the epochs of world history.

… The works of historical pluralists not only drew attention to the connections between simultaneously existing separate societies and their systems, but forced a new look at the “vertical” connections in history. It became clear that they could by no means be reduced to relations between stages of development within certain individual societies.

... By now, the plural-cyclical approach to history ... has exhausted all its possibilities and is a thing of the past. Attempts to revive it, which are now being made in our science, cannot lead to anything but embarrassment. This is clearly evidenced by the articles and speeches of our "civilizationists". In essence, they all represent a transfusion from empty to empty.

But the version of the linear-stage understanding of history is also in conflict with historical reality. And this contradiction has not been overcome even in the latest unitary-stage concepts (neo-evolutionism in ethnology and sociology, the concepts of modernization and industrial and post-industrial society).

Such is the point of view of Yuri Semyonov on the problems of the Marxist theory of the change of socio-economic formations.

The theoretical problem of the correlation of civilizational and modernist approaches with the formational theory of Marx is also considered in the book by Vyacheslav Volkov. (See Russia: interregnum. Historical experience of Russia's modernization (second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries). St. Petersburg: Politekhnika-Service, 2011). In it, the author comes to the conclusion that the history of human society is moving according to the scenario predicted by Marx and Engels. However, the formational theory does not exclude both civilizational and modernist approaches.

I will also draw your attention to the study of this problem by D. Fomin from the Southern Bureau of the Marxist Labor Party. He is a linguist by profession.

An updated translation of Marx's work "On the Critique of Political Economy" led him to the conclusion that "in the history of mankind, a large 'economic social formation' should be singled out; Within this "economic social formation" one should distinguish between progressive epochs - ancient, feudal and modern, bourgeois, modes of production, which, in turn, can also be called "social formations""

He writes: “Marx's periodization of human history differs significantly from the so-called. “Marxist-Leninist five-membered system”, i.e., “five socio-economic formations”! Stalin wrote about the five socio-economic formations (see Stalin I. Questions of Leninism. Gospolitizdat, 1947. He is also “On Dialectical and Historical Materialism”. Gospolitizdat. 1949., p. 25).

Fomin clarifies that, in contrast to the Marxist-Leninist periodization of history, Marx essentially distinguishes the following dialectical triad:

1) the primary social formation based on common property, otherwise - archaic communism. This formation did not disappear from all peoples at once. Moreover, when some peoples had already fully developed the secondary formation, which had gone through a number of stages, including slavery and serfdom, the peoples who remained within the framework of the primary formation continued their stage-by-stage development. Since the central institution of the primary formation is the rural community, then, of course, we are talking about its evolution. This includes the history of the development of Russia.

2) a secondary social formation based on private property. As we have seen, Marx also called this formation "economic". Within the framework of this secondary formation, Marx distinguishes the stages: the ancient mode of production (in other words, slave-owning), the feudal mode of production (otherwise, serfdom). Finally, the highest development of the economic social formation is the capitalist relation, which "develops at a stage of development that is itself the result of a whole series of previous stages of development." Marx wrote: “The level of labor productivity from which the capitalist relation proceeds is not something given by nature, but something created historically, where labor has long since left its primitive state.” And the secondary formation is characterized by the commodity nature of production in it.

3) finally, the "tertiary" formation. A dialectical transition to the highest state of collectivism - post-capitalist (in general - post-private property and, of course, post-commodity-money) communism. As already noted, the dialectical law, the negation of negation, finds expression in this.

Fomin rightly notes that the scientific “dialectical-materialist approach of Marx to the periodization of human history is also characterized by the fact that he:

1. recognized the legitimacy of separating other periods within the framework of primary and secondary formations (different modes of production, as well as transient modes, albeit on a general formational basis);
2. pointed out, as we have seen, the interaction and interpenetration of these modes of production and ways of life, especially since on the globe coexisted in his time not only different stages of development of the secondary formation, but even of the primary. And if we take the Russian agricultural community, then even an intermediate step between the primary and secondary formations ...;
3. emphasized that high technologies have developed only among those peoples who have completely gone through both formations - both primary and secondary.

In his famous Letter to the editors of Otechestvennye Zapiski (1877), Marx specifically emphasized the following: “If Russia tends to become a capitalist nation along the lines of the nations of Western Europe — and in recent years it has worked hard in this direction — it will not achieve this, without first converting a significant part of its peasants into proletarians; and after that, having already found itself in the bosom of the capitalist system, it will be subject to its inexorable laws, like other impious peoples. That's all. But this is not enough for my criticism. He absolutely needs to turn my historical sketch of the emergence of capitalism in Western Europe into a historical-philosophical theory of the universal path along which all peoples are fatally doomed to follow, whatever the historical conditions in which they find themselves, in order to arrive at the final to that economic formation which, together with the greatest flourishing of the productive forces of social labor, ensures the most all-round development of man. But I apologize to him. That would be both too flattering and too embarrassing for me. Let's take an example. In various places in Capital I have mentioned the fate that befell the plebeians of ancient Rome. Initially, these were free peasants, each cultivating, each on his own, his own small plots. In the course of Roman history they were expropriated. The very movement which separated them from their means of production and subsistence entailed not only the formation of large landed property, but also the formation of large money capital. Thus, one fine day, on the one hand, there were free people, deprived of everything except their labor power, and on the other hand, for the exploitation of their labor, the owners of all acquired wealth. What happened? The Roman proletarians became not wage-workers, but an idle "tow" (a "mob", more contemptible than the recent "poor whites" of the southern part of the United States, and at the same time, not a capitalist, but a slave-owning mode of production developed. Thus, events are strikingly similar , but taking place in different historical settings, led to completely different results. By studying each of these evolutions separately and then comparing them, it is easy to find the key to understanding this phenomenon; but you can never achieve this understanding using a universal master key in the form of some common historical-philosophical theory, the highest virtue of which lies in its supra-historicity. Consequently, Marx did not at all imagine that before the onset of communism, all peoples must pass through all the stages of the two previous formations, including capitalism. However, at the same time, peoples who have not passed through capitalism (even, perhaps, through other stages of development of the secondary formation in their classical form!), Will also enter communism, only based on high technologies obtained by peoples who have gone through the secondary formation to the end, i.e. i.e. through the most developed capitalism. Here again, materialistic dialectics.

Fomin also notes that “Marx and Engels did not consider the Asian mode of production within the framework of a privately owned (i.e., secondary) formation. In 1853, an exchange of opinions took place between them, during which they found out that “At the basis of all phenomena in the East lies the absence of private ownership of land”. Since, however, on the basis of the "Asiatic mode of production" a powerful statehood arose - "Eastern despotism" (the solid basis of which were "idyllic rural communities"), the "Asiatic mode of production" should be recognized as a kind of transitional stage between the primary and secondary formations ... And indeed, just societies with such a mode of production, for example, the Cretan-Minoan civilization, preceded the ancient mode of production, which originally developed in Ancient Greece ”... This is the point of view of D. Fomin, which, in my opinion, is closest to classical Marxism (MRP website: marxistparty.ru).

However, it should be clarified that the Asiatic mode of production really did not know the relations of private appropriation of land, but the relations of private property already existed. According to Yu. I. Semyonov, private property was state property, which was disposed of by the despot and his retinue. (Semyonov Yu. I. Political ("Asian") mode of production: essence and place in the history of mankind and Russia. 2nd ed., revised and supplemented. M., URSS, 2011).

As for the transition from slavery to feudalism not through revolution, it should also be borne in mind that, according to the founders of communist theory, class struggle does not necessarily lead to a revolutionary change of formation. In the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" they, relying on the facts of history, indicate that the class struggle can end " common destruction of the fighting classes". This, apparently, happened in the Western part of the Roman Empire, which fell into decay as a result of the inefficiency of slave labor and the constant uprisings of slaves against slave owners. This led to the death of the struggling classes and the subjugation of this part of the Roman Empire by the Germanic tribes, who brought with them elements of feudalism.

Within the framework of Marxist formation theory, it would also be appropriate to consider the idea put forward by the communists of the GDR in the 60s of the last century about socialism as an independent economic social formation. This idea was picked up by some Soviet theorists. Of course, it seems to have been planted in the interests of those in power, as it would perpetuate the dominance of the then party and state nomenklatura. This idea was attributed to the creative development of Marxism. With her, some communists are worn even now. However, it should be noted that it has nothing to do with Marxism, since it denies the Marxist dialectical approach, being a return from dialectics to metaphysics. The point is that Marx in his Critique of the Gotha Program represents the communist formation in development: first the first phase, and then a higher phase. V. I. Lenin, following G. V. Plekhanov, called the first phase of communism socialism (see, for example, his work “State and Revolution”).

An analysis of the text of the "Critique of the Gotha Program" allows us to conclude that the first phase of communism (socialism) for Marx is a transitional period from capitalism to full communism, as he writes about the shortcomings that are "inevitable in the first phase of communist society, when it just emerges after long labor pains from capitalist society.

Marx called this phase the period of the revolutionary transformation of capitalism into communism. He explained: “Between capitalist and communist society lies a period of revolutionary transformation of the former into the latter. This period also corresponds to the political transition period, and the state of this period cannot be anything other than revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat» . (See Marx K. and Engels F. Soch., vol. 19, p. 27). In this regard, one can hardly agree with some authors who believe that here Marx is talking about an independent transitional period as a stage of development before the first phase of communism. That is, the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat is not the first phase of communism, but an independent period before it. But the analysis of the cited text does not give grounds for such a conclusion. Apparently, it was inspired by the Leninist design. According to Lenin, the transition from capitalism to full communism due to the underdevelopment of the productive forces, as it was in tsarist Russia, can consist of two stages: first, the creation of an economic base for the first phase of communism (socialism), and then the first phase of communism begins.

But such a theoretical construction is also not within the framework of Marxist theory, which, as noted, denies the possibility of a transition to communism in a separate, and even backward, country with underdeveloped productive forces. The truth of this construction is not confirmed by socio-historical practice in connection with the death of the USSR. The same fate befell all other countries where the Soviet model was introduced. It turned out to be a utopia, which cannot be considered a development of Marxism, since it denies it in almost all parts.

So, the classical Marxist theory proceeds from the fact that the entire past human history is divided into two large periods, called economic social formations by the classics: primary and secondary and their transitional forms. Within them, there was a change in production methods from less perfect to more perfect, civilizations developed.

Marx based this periodization on the mode of production that prevailed in a given historical period. This does not mean at all that this mode of production encompassed all mankind at the same time. But he was dominant. If we take, for example, the ancient (slave-owning) mode of production, which lasted from about the 4th millennium BC. e. until the 6th century AD, this does not mean that it covered all countries and all peoples, but it was dominant and covered peoples living on a large territory of the planet. Having originated on the territory of Mesopotamia and Egypt, the slave-owning mode of production reached its highest development in Ancient Greece (5th-4th centuries BC) and in Ancient Rome (2nd century BC - 2nd century AD). ). It must be borne in mind that the Roman Empire with the slave-owning (ancient) mode of production extended its dominion to the countries and peoples of Western Europe, North Africa, etc. But along with the ancient mode of production, there were also primitive, pre-class and Asian societies that developed in primary formation.

Gradually, the slave-owning production relations that developed within the relations of the slave-owning form of private property began to slow down the development of productive forces due to the low productivity of slave labor. Slaves by that time many times exceeded the free population of the Roman Empire. As a result, the ancient (slave-owning) society by the 3rd c. n. e. went into a dead end. There was a general decline. The fall of slavery was accelerated by slave revolts and the defeat of the Western Roman Empire by the Germans, who developed feudal relations.

Feudal relations of production, which developed within the relations of the feudal form of private property, dominated Western Europe until the beginning of the 16th century. But this does not mean that they covered all the peoples of the world. Along with it, in other parts of the planet, backward peoples still had primitive communal, Asian, and ancient methods of production. But they were not dominant in the world.

By the beginning of the 16th century, with the development of machine production and large-scale industry, feudal production relations began to slow down the development of large-scale industry due to the serfdom of the labor force. There was a need for labor force. It was then that the bourgeoisie (the future capitalists), which was emerging in Western Europe, led the struggle for the liberation of the labor force from feudal dependence, for the introduction of free wage labor. The capitalist mode of production finally became dominant in Western Europe by the second half of the 19th century. But along with it, elements of the primitive, Asian, feudal, and even slave-owning modes of production still existed and still exist in some places on the planet.

Now, with the collapse and disintegration of the USSR, we are clearly observing how the process of globalization of the capitalist mode of production is taking place, its coverage of all mankind, the universalization of world productive forces, the formation of a universal world-historical, proletarian-international personality. This trend was noted by the classics in The German Ideology. It was also described by Marx in Capital. As predicted by Marx, the accumulation and concentration of capital led to the emergence of global economic crises that took on a chronic and systemic character. They are caused by the overproduction of capital, its drain into the financial sector and its transformation into fictitious soap bubbles. These crises, according to the classics, are the harbingers of the world communist revolution. They urgently demand the creation of an international communist party to meet the world communist revolution, which is being prepared by the international bourgeoisie. This is not a political, but a social revolution. In the course of this revolution, there must be a change of production relations from capitalist private property to communist ones for the further development of the productive forces. The relations of capitalist private property must be replaced by relations of common property or common ownership. Property relations in Marxist theory will be the subject of the next lecture.