Introduction

Today, the concepts of the historical process (formational, civilizational, modernization theories) have discovered their limits of applicability. The degree of awareness of the limitations of these concepts varies: most of all, the shortcomings of the formation theory are realized; as for the civilizational doctrine and theories of modernization, there are more illusions regarding their ability to explain the historical process.

The insufficiency of these concepts for the study of social changes does not mean that they are absolutely false; the point is only that the categorical apparatus of each of the concepts and the range of social phenomena it describes are not complete enough, at least in relation to the description of what is contained in alternative theories.

It is necessary to rethink the content of descriptions of social changes, as well as the concepts of general and unique, on the basis of which generalizations and differentiations are made, and diagrams of the historical process are built.

Theories of the historical process reflect a one-sided understanding of historical changes; there is a reduction of the diversity of their forms to some kind. The formational concept sees only progress in the historical process, and total progress, believing that progressive development covers all spheres of social life, including humans.

Theory of socio-economic formations by K. Marx

One of the important shortcomings of orthodox historical materialism was that it did not identify and theoretically develop the basic meanings of the word "society". And this word in scientific language has at least five such meanings. The first meaning is a specific separate society, which is a relatively independent unit of historical development. In this understanding, I will call society a socio-historical (sociohistorical) organism or, in short, a socior.

The second meaning is a spatially limited system of socio-historical organisms, or a sociological system. The third meaning is all socio-historical organisms that have ever existed and currently exist together - human society as a whole. The fourth meaning is society in general, regardless of any specific forms of its real existence. The fifth meaning is a society in general of a certain type (a special society or type of society), for example, a feudal society or an industrial society.

There are different classifications of socio-historical organisms (according to form of government, dominant religion, socio-economic system, dominant sector of the economy, etc.). But the most general classification is the division of sociohistorical organisms according to the method of their internal organization into two main types.

The first type is socio-historical organisms, which are unions of people that are organized on the principle of personal membership, primarily kinship. Each such socior is inseparable from its personnel and is capable of moving from one territory to another without losing its identity. I will call such societies demosocial organisms (demosociors). They are characteristic of the pre-class era of human history. Examples include primitive communities and multi-communal organisms called tribes and chiefdoms.

The boundaries of organisms of the second type are the boundaries of the territory they occupy. Such formations are organized according to the territorial principle and are inseparable from the areas of the earth’s surface they occupy. As a result, the personnel of each such organism acts in relation to this organism as an independent special phenomenon - its population. I will call this kind of society geosocial organisms (geosociors). They are characteristic of a class society. They are usually called states or countries.

Since historical materialism did not have the concept of a socio-historical organism, it developed neither the concept of a regional system of sociohistorical organisms, nor the concept of human society as a whole as the totality of all existing and existing sociors. The latter concept, although present in an implicit form (implicit), was not clearly distinguished from the concept of society in general.

The absence of the concept of a sociohistorical organism in the categorical apparatus of the Marxist theory of history inevitably interfered with the understanding of the category of socio-economic formation. It was impossible to truly understand the category of socio-economic formation without comparing it with the concept of a sociohistorical organism. Defining a formation as a society or as a stage of development of society, our specialists in historical materialism did not in any way reveal the meaning that they put into the word “society”; worse, they endlessly, without completely realizing it, moved from one meaning of this word to another, which inevitably gave rise to incredible confusion.

Each specific socio-economic formation represents a certain type of society, identified on the basis of socio-economic structure. This means that a specific socio-economic formation is nothing more than something common that is inherent in all socio-historical organisms that have a given socio-economic structure. The concept of a specific formation always captures, on the one hand, the fundamental identity of all sociohistorical organisms based on the same system of production relations, and on the other hand, the significant difference between specific societies with different socio-economic structures. Thus, the relationship between a sociohistorical organism belonging to one or another socio-economic formation and this formation itself is a relationship between the individual and the general.

The problem of the general and the separate is one of the most important problems of philosophy and debates around it have been waged throughout the history of this area of ​​​​human knowledge. Since the Middle Ages, two main directions in solving this issue have been called nominalism and realism. According to the views of nominalists, in the objective world only the separate exists. There is either no general thing at all, or it exists only in consciousness, is a mental human construction.

There is a grain of truth in each of these two points of view, but both are wrong. For scientists, the existence of laws, patterns, essence, and necessity in the objective world is undeniable. And all this is common. The general thus exists not only in consciousness, but also in the objective world, but only differently than the individual exists. And this otherness of the general being does not at all consist in the fact that it forms a special world opposed to the world of the individual. There is no special world in common. The general does not exist in itself, not independently, but only in the particular and through the particular. On the other hand, the individual does not exist without the general.

Thus, there are two different types of objective existence in the world: one type is independent existence, as the separate exists, and the second is existence only in the separate and through the separate, as the general exists.

Sometimes, however, they say that the individual exists as such, but the general, while actually existing, does not exist as such. In the future, I will designate independent existence as self-existence, as self-existence, and existence in another and through another as other-existence, or as other-existence.

Different formations are based on qualitatively different systems of socio-economic relations. This means that different formations develop differently, according to different laws. Therefore, from this point of view, the most important task of social science is to study the laws of functioning and development of each of the socio-economic formations, i.e., to create a theory for each of them. In relation to capitalism, K. Marx tried to solve this problem.

The only way that can lead to the creation of a theory of any formation is to identify that essential, common thing that is manifested in the development of all sociohistorical organisms of a given type. It is quite clear that it is impossible to reveal what is common in phenomena without being distracted from the differences between them. It is possible to identify the internal objective necessity of any real process only by freeing it from the concrete historical form in which it manifested itself, only by presenting this process in a “pure” form, in a logical form, i.e., in the way in which it can exist only in theoretical consciousness.

It is quite clear that a specific socio-economic formation in its pure form, that is, as a special sociohistorical organism, can exist only in theory, but not in historical reality. In the latter, it exists in individual societies as their internal essence, their objective basis.

Each real concrete socio-economic formation is a type of society and thereby an objective common feature that is inherent in all sociohistorical organisms of a given type. Therefore, it may well be called a society, but in no case a real sociohistorical organism. It can act as a sociohistorical organism only in theory, but not in reality. Each specific socio-economic formation, being a certain type of society, is the same society of this type in general. The capitalist socio-economic formation is a capitalist type of society and at the same time a capitalist society in general.

Each specific formation is in a certain relationship not only to sociohistorical organisms of a given type, but to society in general, that is, that objective commonality that is inherent in all sociohistorical organisms, regardless of their type. In relation to sociohistorical organisms of a given type, each specific formation acts as a general one. In relation to society in general, a specific formation acts as a general of a lower level, that is, as special, as a specific variety of society in general, as a special society.

The concept of a socio-economic formation in general, like the concept of society in general, reflects the general, but different from that which reflects the concept of society in general. The concept of society generally reflects what is common to all sociohistorical organisms, regardless of their type. The concept of a socio-economic formation generally reflects what is common to all specific socio-economic formations, regardless of their specific features, namely, that they are all types identified on the basis of socio-economic structure.

As a reaction to this kind of interpretation of socio-economic formations, a denial of their real existence arose. But it was not only due to the incredible confusion that existed in our literature on the issue of formations. The situation was more complicated. As already indicated, in theory, socio-economic formations exist as ideal sociohistorical organisms. Not finding such formations in the historical reality, some of our historians, and after them some historians, came to the conclusion that formations in reality do not exist at all, that they are only logical, theoretical constructions.

They were unable to understand that socio-economic formations exist in historical reality, but differently than in theory, not as ideal sociohistorical organisms of one type or another, but as an objective commonality in real sociohistorical organisms of one type or another. For them, being was reduced only to self-existence. They, like all nominalists in general, did not take into account other beings, and socio-economic formations, as already indicated, do not have their own existence. They do not self-exist, but exist in other ways.

In this regard, it cannot be said that the theory of formations can be accepted or rejected. But the socio-economic formations themselves cannot be ignored. Their existence, at least as certain types of society, is an undoubted fact.

• 1. The basis of the Marxist theory of socio-economic formations is a materialist understanding of the history of the development of mankind as a whole, as a historically changing set of various forms of human activity in producing their lives.
• 2. The unity of productive forces and production relations constitutes a historically determined method of production of the material life of society.
• 3. The method of production of material life determines the social, political and spiritual process of life in general.
• 4. By material productive forces in Marxism we mean instruments of production or means of production, technologies and people using them. The main productive force is man, his physical and mental abilities, as well as his cultural and moral level.
• 5. Production relations in Marxist theory denote the relations of individuals regarding both the reproduction of the human species in general and the actual production of means of production and consumer goods, their distribution, exchange and consumption.
• 6. The totality of production relations, as a method of producing the material life of society, constitutes the economic structure of society.
• 7. In Marxism, a socio-economic formation is understood as a historical period in the development of mankind, characterized by a certain method of production.
• 8. According to Marxist theory, humanity as a whole is moving progressively from less developed socio-economic formations to more developed ones. This is the dialectical logic that Marx extended to the history of human development.
• 9. In the theory of socio-economic formations of K. Marx, each formation acts as a society in general of a certain type and thereby as a pure, ideal socio-historical organism of a given type. This theory features primitive society in general, Asian society in general, pure ancient society, etc. Accordingly, the change of social formations appears in it as the transformation of an ideal socio-historical organism of one type into a pure socio-historical organism of another, higher type: ancient society in general into feudal society in general, pure feudal society into pure capitalist society, capitalist into communist society.
• 10. The entire history of human development in Marxism was presented as a dialectical, progressive movement of humanity from the primitive communist formation to the Asian and ancient (slaveholding) formations, and from them to the feudal, and then to the bourgeois (capitalist) socio-economic formation.

Socio-historical practice has confirmed the correctness of these Marxist conclusions. And if there are disputes in science regarding the Asian and ancient (slave-owning) methods of production and their transition to feudalism, then no one doubts the reality of the existence of the historical period of feudalism, and then its evolutionary-revolutionary development into capitalism.

11. Marxism revealed the economic reasons for the change in socio-economic formations. Their essence lies in the fact that at a certain stage of their development the material productive forces of society come into conflict with existing production relations, or - which is only a legal expression of this - with property relations within which they have so far developed. From forms of development of productive forces, these relations turn into their fetters. Then comes the era of social revolution. With a change in the economic basis, a revolution occurs more or less quickly in the entire enormous superstructure.

This happens because the productive forces of society develop according to their own internal laws. In their movement, they are always ahead of the production relations that develop within property relations.

Dialectics of social development Konstantinov Fedor Vasilievich

1. Socio-economic formation

(The category “socio-economic formation” is the cornerstone of the materialistic rise of history as a natural historical process of the development of society according to objective laws. Without understanding the deep content of this category, it is impossible to know the essence of human society and its development along the path of progress.

Developing historical materialism as a philosophical science and a general sociological theory, the founders of Marxism-Leninism showed that the starting point for the study of society must be taken not the individual individuals that make it up, but those social relations that develop between people in the process of their production activities, i.e. total industrial relations.

For the sake of producing the material goods necessary for life, people inevitably enter into production relations independent of their will, which in turn determine all other - socio-political, ideological, moral, etc. - relations, as well as the development of the person himself as an individual. V.I. Lenin noted that “a sociologist-materialist who makes the subject of his study certain social relations of people, thereby also studies real personalities, from whose actions these relationships are made.”

Scientific materialist knowledge of society was developed in the struggle against bourgeois sociology. Bourgeois philosophers and subjectivist sociologists operated with the concepts of “man in general,” “society in general.” They proceeded not from a generalization of the real activities of people and their interactions, interrelations, not from social relations emerging on the basis of their practical activities, but from an abstract “model of society”, completed in accordance with the subjective view of the scientist and supposedly corresponding to human nature. Naturally, such an idealistic concept of society, divorced from the immediate life of people and their actual relationships, is opposite to its materialist interpretation.

Historical materialism, when analyzing the category of socio-economic formation, operates with the scientific concept of society. It is used when analyzing the relationship between society and nature, when the need to maintain an ecological balance between them is considered. It is impossible to do without it when considering both human society as a whole and any specific historical type and stage of its development. Finally, this concept is organically woven into the definition of the subject of historical materialism as a science about the most general laws of the development of society and its driving forces. V.I. Lenin wrote that K. Marx discarded empty talk about society in general and began studying one specific, capitalist formation. However, this does not mean at all that K. Marx will reject the very concept of society. As V.I. Razin notes, he “only spoke out against empty speculation about society in general, which bourgeois sociologists did not go further than.”

The concept of society cannot be discarded or contrasted with the concept of “socio-economic formation”. This would contradict the most important principle of the approach to the definition of scientific concepts. This principle, as is known, is that the concept being defined must be subsumed under another, broader in scope, which is generic in relation to the one being defined. This is a logical rule for defining any concepts. It is quite applicable to the definition of the concepts of society and socio-economic formation. In this case, the generic concept is “society,” considered regardless of its specific form and historical stage of development. This was repeatedly noted by K. Marx. “What is society, whatever its form? - K. Marx asked and answered: “A product of human interaction.” Society “expresses the sum of those connections and relationships in which... individuals are related to each other.” Society is “man himself in his social relations.”

Being generic in relation to the concept of “socio-economic formation,” the concept of “society” reflects the qualitative certainty of the social form of the movement of matter, in contrast to other forms. The category “socio-economic formation” expresses the qualitative certainty of the types and historical stages of the development of society.

Since society is a system of social relations that make up a certain structural integrity, knowledge of it consists in the study of these relations. Criticizing the subjective method of N. Mikhailovsky and other Russian populists, V. I. Lenin wrote: “Where will you get the concept of society and progress in general, when you ... have not even been able to approach a serious factual study, an objective analysis of any social relationship?

As is known, K. Marx began his analysis of the concept and structure of a socio-economic formation with the study of social relations, primarily production relations. Having isolated from the entire totality of social relations the main, defining, i.e., material, production relations on which the development of other social relations depends, K. Marx found an objective criterion of repeatability in the development of society, which was denied by subjectivists. Analysis of “material social relations,” noted V.I. Lenin, “immediately made it possible to notice repeatability and correctness and to generalize the orders of different countries into one basic concept social formation." Isolating what is common and repeats itself in the history of different countries and peoples has made it possible to identify qualitatively defined types of society and to present social development as a natural historical process of the natural progressive movement of society from lower to higher levels.

The category of socio-economic formation simultaneously reflects the concept of the type of society and the stage of its historical development. In the preface to the work “A Critique of Political Economy,” K. Marx singled out Asian, ancient, feudal and bourgeois modes of production as progressive eras of economic social formation. The bourgeois social formation “ends the prehistory of human society”; it is naturally replaced by the communist social economic formation, which reveals the true history of mankind. In subsequent works, the founders of Marxism also singled out the primitive communal formation as the first in the history of mankind, which all peoples go through.

This typification of socio-economic formations, created by K. Marx in the 50s of the 19th century, also provided for the presence in history of a specific Asian mode of production and, therefore, an Asian formation that existed on its basis, which took place in the countries of the Ancient East. However, already in the early 80s of the 19th century, when K. Marx and F. Engels developed a definition of the primitive communal and slave-owning formation, they did not use the term “Asian mode of production”, abandoning this very concept. In the subsequent works of K. Marx and F. Engels, we talk only about... five socio-economic ones. formations: primitive communal, slaveholding, feudal, capitalist and communist.

The construction of a typology of socio-economic formations was based on the brilliant knowledge of K. Marx and F. Engels of historical, economic and other social sciences, because it is impossible to resolve the issue of the number of formations and the order of their occurrence without taking into account the achievements of history, economics, politics, law, archeology, etc. .p.

The formational stage that a particular country or region goes through is determined primarily by the prevailing production relations in them, which determine the nature of social, political and spiritual relations at a given stage of development and the corresponding social institutions. Therefore, V.I. Lenin defined a socio-economic formation as a set of production relations. But of course, he did not reduce the formation only to the totality of production relations, but pointed out the need for a comprehensive analysis of its structure and the interrelations of all aspects of the latter. Noting that the study of the capitalist formation in K. Marx’s “Capital” is based on the study of the production relations of capitalism, V. I. Lenin at the same time emphasized that this is only the skeleton of “Capital”. He wrote:

“The whole point, however, is that Marx was not satisfied with this skeleton... that - explaining structure and development of this social formation exclusively relations of production - he nevertheless everywhere and constantly traced the superstructures corresponding to these relations of production, clothed the skeleton with flesh and blood.” “Capital” showed “the reader the entire capitalist social formation as alive - with its everyday aspects, with the actual social manifestation of the class antagonism inherent in production relations, with the bourgeois political superstructure protecting the dominance of the capitalist class, with the bourgeois ideas of freedom, equality, etc., with bourgeois family relations."

A socio-economic formation is a qualitatively defined type of society at a given stage of its historical development, which represents a system of social relations and phenomena determined by the method of production and subject to both general and its own specific laws of functioning and development. The category of socio-economic formation, as the most general in historical materialism, reflects all the diversity of aspects of social life at a certain stage of its historical development. The structure of each formation includes both general elements characteristic of all formations and unique elements characteristic of a specific formation. At the same time, the determining role in the development and interaction of all structural elements is played by the method of production, its inherent production relations, which determine the nature and type of all elements of the formation.

In addition to the method of production, the most important structural elements of all socio-economic formations are the corresponding economic base and the superstructure rising above it. In historical materialism, the concepts of base and superstructure serve to distinguish between material (primary) and ideological (secondary) social relations. The basis is a set of production relations, the economic structure of society. This concept expresses the social function of production relations as the economic basis of society, developing between people regardless of their consciousness in the process of producing material goods.

The superstructure is formed on the basis of the economic basis, develops and changes under the influence of the transformations taking place in it, and is its reflection. The superstructure includes ideas, theories and views of society and the institutions, institutions and organizations that implement them, as well as ideological relations between people, social groups, classes. The peculiarity of ideological relations, in contrast to material ones, is that they pass through the consciousness of people, that is, they are built consciously, in accordance with the ideas, views, needs and interests that guide people.

The most general elements that characterize the structure of all formations should include, in our opinion, the way of life. As K. Marx and F. Engels showed, a way of life is “a certain way of activity of given individuals, a certain type of their life activity,” which develops under the influence of the method of production. Representing a set of types of life activity of people, social groups in the labor, socio-political, family and everyday spheres, etc., the way of life is formed on the basis of a given method of production, under the influence of production relations and in accordance with the value orientations and ideals prevailing in society . Reflecting human activity, the category of lifestyle reveals the individual and social groups primarily as subjects of social relations.

Prevailing social relations are inseparable from the way of life. For example, the collectivist way of life in a socialist society is fundamentally opposite to the individualistic way of life under capitalism, which is determined by the opposition of the social relations prevailing in these societies. However, it does not follow from this that lifestyle and social relations can be identified, as was sometimes allowed in the works of some sociologists. Such identification led to the loss of the specificity of the way of life as one of the elements of a social formation, to its identification with the formation, and replaced this most general concept of historical materialism, reducing its methodological significance for understanding the development of society. The 26th Congress of the CPSU, determining ways for the further development of the socialist way of life, noted the need to practically strengthen its material and spiritual foundations. This should be expressed primarily in the transformation and development of such spheres of life as labor, cultural and living conditions, medical care, trade, public education, physical culture, sports, etc., which contribute to the comprehensive development of the individual.

The method of production, the basis and superstructure, the way of life constitute the basic elements of the structure of all formations, but their content is specific to each of them. In any formation, these structural elements have a qualitative certainty, determined primarily by the type of production relations prevailing in society, the peculiarities of the emergence and development of these elements during the transition to a more progressive formation. Thus, in exploitative societies, the structural elements and the relationships they define have a contradictory, antagonistic character. These elements already originate in the depths of the previous formation, and the social revolution, which marks the transition to a more progressive formation, eliminating outdated production relations and the superstructure that expressed them (primarily the old state machine), gives scope for the development of new relations and phenomena characteristic of the establishing formation. Thus, the social revolution brings into line outdated production relations with the productive forces that have grown in the depths of the old system, which ensures the further development of production and social relations.

The socialist basis, superstructure and way of life cannot arise in the depths of the capitalist formation, since they are based only on socialist production relations, which in turn are formed only on the basis of socialist ownership of the means of production. As is known, socialist property is established only after the victory of the socialist revolution and the nationalization of bourgeois ownership of the means of production, as well as as a result of production cooperation between the economy of artisans and working peasants.

In addition to the noted elements, the structure of the formation also includes other social phenomena that influence its development. Among these phenomena, such as family and everyday life are inherent in all formations, and such historical communities of people as clan, tribe, nationality, nation, class are characteristic only of certain formations.

As stated, each formation is a complex set of qualitatively defined social relations, phenomena and processes. They are formed in various spheres of human activity and together make up the structure of the formation. What many of these phenomena have in common is that they cannot be completely attributed only to the base or only to the superstructure. Such are, for example, family, way of life, class, nation, the system of which includes basic - material, economic - relations, as well as ideological relations of a superstructural nature. To determine their role in the system of social relations of a given formation, it is necessary to take into account the nature of the social needs that gave rise to these phenomena, to identify the nature of their connections with production relations, and to reveal their social functions. Only such a comprehensive analysis allows one to correctly determine the structure of the formation and the patterns of its development.

To reveal the concept of socio-economic formation as a stage in the natural historical development of society, the concept of “world-historical era” is important. This concept reflects a whole period in the development of society, when, on the basis of a social revolution, a transition is made from one formation to another, more progressive one. During the period of revolution, a qualitative transformation of the method of production, base and superstructure, as well as the way of life and other components of the structure of the formation occurs, the formation of a qualitatively new social organism is carried out, accompanied by the resolution of pressing contradictions in the development of the economic base and superstructure. “...The development of the contradictions of a known historical form of production is the only historical way of its decomposition and the formation of a new one,” noted K. Marx in Capital.

The unity and diversity of the historical development of mankind finds its expression in the dialectics of the formation and change of socio-economic formations. The general pattern of human history is that, in general, all peoples and countries go from lower to higher formations in the organization of social life, forming the main line of progressive development of society along the path of progress. However, this general pattern manifests itself specifically in the development of individual countries and peoples. This is explained by the uneven pace of development, arising not only from the uniqueness of economic development, but also “thanks to the infinitely varied empirical circumstances, natural conditions, racial relations, historical influences acting from outside, etc.”

The diversity of historical development is inherent both in individual countries and peoples, and in formations. It manifests itself in the existence of varieties of individual formations (for example, serfdom is a type of feudalism); in the uniqueness of the transition from one formation to another (for example, the transition from capitalism to socialism presupposes a whole transition period, during which a socialist society is created);

in the ability of individual countries and peoples to bypass certain formations (for example, in Russia there was no slave-owning formation, and Mongolia and some developing countries bypassed the era of capitalism).

The experience of history shows that in transitional historical eras, a new socio-economic formation is first established in individual countries or groups of countries. Thus, after the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the world split into two systems, and the formation of the communist formation in Russia began. Following our country, a number of countries in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa embarked on the path of transition from capitalism to socialism. V. I. Lenin’s prediction that “the destruction of capitalism and its traces, the introduction of the foundations of the communist order constitutes the content of the new era of world history that has now begun” was fully confirmed. The main content of the modern era is the transition from capitalism to socialism and communism on a worldwide scale. The countries of the socialist community are today the leading force and determine the main direction of the social progress of all mankind. At the forefront of the socialist countries is the Soviet Union, which, having built a developed socialist society, entered a “necessary, natural and historically long period in the formation of the communist formation.” The stage of a developed socialist society is the pinnacle of social progress in our time.

Communism is a classless society of complete social equality and social homogeneity, ensuring a harmonious combination of public and personal interests and the comprehensive development of the individual as the highest goal of this society. Its implementation will be in the interests of all humanity. The communist formation is the last form of structure of the human race, but not because the development of history stops there. At its core, its development excludes socio-political revolution. Under communism, contradictions between the productive forces and production relations will remain, but they will be resolved by society without leading to the need for a social revolution, the overthrow of the old system and its replacement with a new one. By promptly revealing and resolving emerging contradictions, communism as a formation will develop endlessly.