l f'. r,

World History: Studies by Soviet Scholars (1)

I.Zhukov

i Methodology I of History J

"Social Sciences TodayHEditorial Board USSR Academy of Sciences

Moscow, 1983

p

D \b ztf5t3 \ 983

EDITORIAL dOUNCIL

FEDOSEYEV P . N. , AcaQ.emician , Chairman

GRIGULEVICH I. R. , Corre spond ing Jlemb_er , USSR Academy of Sc iences , Deputy Chairman

. MAIOBOV E.I., Executive Secretar�

JI.embers

AFAUASYEV V. G . , Academi c ian ARBA.TOV G . A. , Academician BOGOMOLOV O . T. , Academi9ian BROMLEY Yu. V. , Academic ian FROLOV I.T. , Correspond ing Member , USSR Academy of Sc iences GAPOCHKA M. P ., Cand . Sc . (Philo s . ) GROMYKO An.A. , Correspon d ing Member , USSR Academy of Sc iences GURYEV I.E . , Cand . Sc. (Eccn. ) GVISHIANI J . M. , Academician KAPUSTIN E. I. , Correspond ing Member , USSR Academy of Scienc e s KHACHATUROV T.S. , Academic ian KHR.APCHENKO M. B. , Academ ic ian

KHROM.QV S.S. , D . Sc.(H i s t . ) KOMI(OV G. D. � D . Sc.(His t . J KOSTYUSHKO l. I. , D.Sc . (H i st . )

KOVAL B.I. , D.Sc. (H is t . ) KOVALCHENKO I.D . , Correspond ing Member, USSR Academy of Sc iences· KRIVTSOV V .A. , D.S c . (H ist . ) KUMA.NEV V .A. , n.sc.(Hi.st . ) KUZNETSOV D.V. Cand.Sc.(Hist.) MARKOV D.F. , Corre sponding Member , USSR Academy of Sc iences'.

MASLOVA N .I. ·

; MCHEDLOV :M. P. t D.Sc. (Philos.J MOMJAN Kh. N. , D.Sc. (Philo s . )

© Soc ial Sciences Today , 1983 Reprints aut hor ised w i th wri t t en p ermi ss ion

from t he Ed itor ial Board

NA.ROCHNITSKY A.L. , Academic ian PIOTROVSKY B . B. , Academ ic ian PRilfA.KOV E. M. , Academic ian SEMYONOV V.S •

D.S c . (Philos.) SHAPOSHNIKOV V.S. SHIRYAEV Yu. S. , Correspond ing Member, USSR Acad emy of Sciences �IKHVINSKY S.L. , Academ ician TIMOFEYEV T.T. , ' Correspond ing Member , USSR Acad emy of S c i enc es

TRUKHANOVSKY V.G. , Correspond ing Member , USSR Acad emy of Sc iences UDALTSOVA Z. V. , Corresp ond ing Member , USSR Acad emy of Sc iences VINOGRA.DOV V.A. , Corre spond ing Memb er , . USSR Acad emy of Sciences VOLSKY V. V. � D.Sc . (Econ. J ZHILIN P.A. , Corresponding Member , USSR Acad emy of Sc iences

Consulting Editor Qf the "World History: StUdies by Soviet Scholars" series z. Udalysova, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

�ted·by M.Gonoharuk and F.Belel;yubsky.

Published in English, French and Spanish.

Ed itorial O ffice: 33/12 Arbat , Moscow , 121002, USSR

z. Udaltsova

Section I.

CONTENTS

Introduction ••••••••••••••••••

HistorY as a Scientific Discipline

The Subject of Historical Science ••••••••••••••••••••••

The Theory of Cognition of the Human Pest •••••••••••••

'.5,

11

23

Partisanship in the Battle of Ideas in Historical

Science •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 38

Section II. The Lawe of the World Historical Process

sociological and liistorical Laws •••••••••••••••••••••••

Socio-Econo�ic Formations ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

59

$0.

Social Revolutions ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 191

The Di.vision of History-into Periods (the Periodisation

of History)•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 1�2�

Social Progress •••••••••.••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 1??.

Section III. The Researcher's Laboratory

The Historical Fact ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

The Historical Source •••• � ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Conclusion. History and Our Times ••••••••••••••••••••

173·

1E!�

1 95;

INTRODUCTION

Academician Evgeny Zhukov (1907-1980), the eminent

Soviet scholar, began his career as a historian in the ear­

ly 1930s with the publication of a series of papers on the

current social development and ideology of Japan. �ese

were followed by generalising studies on the history of

international relations, the break-up of the colonial sys­

tem and on the regularities of the national liberation

movement in the developing countries.

The theoretical problems concerning the scien ce of

history :t'igured largely in the historian's scientific in­

terests, especially in the last twenty-five years of his

lif'e. He was awarded the Karl Marx Gold Medal of the USSR

Academy of Sciences for his distinctive contribution to

the developnent of social sciences.

Academician Zhukov was not only an outstanding re­

searcher. He was also an outstanding organiser of scienti­

fic work. As the head :ror many years o:r important acade­

mic centres (Director o:r the Pacific Ocean Institute, De­

puty Director of the Institute of Oriental studies and

:t'rom 1968 onwards, Director of' the Institute of World His­

tory), as well as o:r the USSR Academy of Sciences' Section

of the Science o:r History, Zhukov exerted a considerable

in:t'luence on the planning, organisation and content o:r in­

vestigations in this area. He actively contributed to suoh major publications as the World History (in several volumes)

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·e.nd The Soviet Historical Encyclopaedia. As Chairman of the

USSR National donmittee of Historians he did much to streng­

then international cooperation of historians study:l.ng human

history.

Shortly before his death, Academician Zhukov sent to

press the manuscript of his book Jlethodoloq of History.

Below we publish a translation of its main sections.

In the opinion of the author, the history of science

has over the past few decades accumulated a vast amount of

factual material requiring generalisation. He therefore set

himself the object of theoretically comprehending this mate­

rial, of summing up some of the resul�s of generalising works

by Soviet historians.

The first section of the book "History as a Scienti­

fic Discipline", opens with e characteristic of the subject

of the science of history. The author tmder11.nes that al­

though the development of production and the labour activi­

ty of people are the basis and initial cause of social move­

ment they far from exhaust its content. The historical pro-

cess is much richer.

The unity of the world-wide historical process mani­

fests itself in the general laws of social.development. It

would be incorrect _to assume that this unity presupposes

absolute coincidence of the concrete forms in which general

laws manifest themselves . They do not lead to identity of

this development in all cases. The historical process as

a whole cannot be understood without a study of all its com-

ponents in their interaction.

In particular, both the social behaviour of �he popu­

lar masses of a given epoch and the choice by a historical

personality of his individual social position are largely

determined by the spiritual life of the epoch: the confron­

tation of ideas and the traditions inherited. social con­

sciousness and culture as a whole are therefore undoubtedly

part of the subject of the science of history.

Of course, such a presentation of the question has no­

thing in common with the pluralistic approach when econom:l:cs

are treat·ed not as the underlying basis but onl:.v as one of

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the factors of the historical process. Pluralistic concepts do not contain a profound explanation of no matter what historical phenomena, since they inevitably lead to subjec­tivism. Authors who take such a stand arbitrarily "choose" the factors which, in their opinion, play a role in the gi­ven concrete case.

In the final analysis the empirical and the logical coincide. But only in the final analysis since world history is an extremely complex process of human development, is anJrthing but a straight-forward one. If the logical (i.e., the general law of development) and the historical (i.e., the empirical manifestation of' thie development in all the complexity of individual modifications) were to t'ully coin­cide there would then be no special subject.of the history of •oience, history and science would then coincide. But in reality history has its specific character. It is engag­ed in investigating the very complex, and far from concrete, ways in which the general laws o:f development manifest them­s·elves, and mankind is advancing. Investigation o:f these variants, disclosing the reasons for the appearance and spe­cific features and the tendencies under way (if reference is to the present day, to prognosticating development)--this is one o:f the important spheres of history as a science.

The development of historical thought, the new methods of research make it possible to see the new even in mate­rial repeatedly studied. The object of historical invest·i­gation is not something that has become fossilised for all time and is immutable.

In the next chapter Academician Zhukov examines the theory o:f knowledge of the science of history. History is made by people, but it is also written by people. On the social stand o:f the s cholar depends a correct or incorrect understanding of the events analysed by him and, according­ly, their objective or unobjective interpretation. Histori­ans who adhere to historical materialism and are united by a common world outlook, a common ideology and, consequently, a ·single methodology of historical cognition do not nece­ssarily give identical evaluations of certain historical facts end phenomena. This is by no means a weaknes15 or in-

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auf'fict�nt "exactnea.s" of the Marxist science of history. The author stresses that the very division of the sciences into "exact" and "inexact" is beneath criticism. The bat­tle of opinions is evidence of the constant gro.vth of Marx­ist historical thought which is impossible without a con­frontation and comparison of various views, without scien­tific debate and argumentation.

Zhukov discusses in detail the content and interac­tion of the principles of the historical method and determi­nism, underlying the Marxist theory of knowledge, underlines the necessity of workl.ng out specific research methods (con­ducive to the realisation of these principles) and the role of hypotheses in the structure of historical cognition.

Zhukov·' s book is polemical in many respect a. He cri­tically analyses the standpoint of opponents. He devotes a special chapter "The Battle of Ideas in the Science of History" giving a retrospective picture of historical thought in the 20th century and enabling him to underscore the ac­tive, creative and optimistic character of the Marxist ap­proach to the study of the past.

The central part ot the book is devoted to a charac­teristic of the regularities of the historical process. The author shows that the theory of socio-economic formations is the corner-atone of the materialist understanding of his­tory.

The successive change of socio-economic formations is a general sociological regularity. Its discovery has turn­ed history into an objective science able not only to re­cord or reproduce the course of social development, but also to explain it.

The concept "socio-economic formation" is a multi­dimensional one. It springs from the indivisible unity of three component elements:

1) the productive forces; 2) the relations of production corresponding to them; 3) the superstructures arising on their basis.

Each socio-economic formation is a very definite his­torical stage.in mankind's advance from th� lower to the

higher forms of its existence. This logical category is em­bodied in_ a diversity of forms of concrete social organism which are at the same level of hi_storical development. The plurality of actual variants in·which the same socio-eco­nomic formation can appear makes it possible to speak of it as "unity in diversity". Contradictions in this unity, and a constant internal struggle (the motive forces of t he for­mation's development) cannot be ©:-ounds for doubting that it is a single system, that there is a close interconnec­tion of its various components.

Zhukov stresses the inadmissibility of a dogmatic and doctrina��e approa.ch to the history of socio-economic for­mations. It should be clearly realised that if there are no "chemically pure" processes in nature then all the more they are abacent in society. Throughout world history we observe that simultaneously existing socio-economic formations do .not coincide, are diverse in character. In all anta­gonistic formations the survivals of the more archaic social relations were present. History abounds in "obliterated" forms of socio-economic relations characteristic of one or another type of social organisation. Sometimes it depends on the temporary coexistence of structurea--the relics of the departed socio-economic formation with more advanced relations of production, with the new, predominant struc­ture, which represents the mode of production, determining the formation of the given society. In all cases it must be remembered that each antagonistic socio-economic formation is a living, developing o�ganism, that passes through the natural stages of inception, growth, maturity and decline. The non-coincidence (both in time and in apace) of concrete forms in which a specific formation takes shape is quite possible and natural.

The category "socio-economic formation" enables the researcher not only to establish the real content of the society he is studying and to correctly understand the di­rection ot its development and the nature of internal con­flicts. It also enable him to find the given society's place in the world historical process.

�a- r - 9 -

Zb.ukov conSistently examines the possibility of aP­plying the category "socio-economic formation" and the abi­lity o:r this category to explain things at various levels o:r research, in particular when considering history .in "chronological" or "spatial" terms.

The third section of the monograph treats of the problem of the researcher's professional skill ("The Re­searcher's Laboratory" ). In the cbapters "The Historical Fact" and "The Historical Source" Zhukov stresses the nec­essity of high professionalism, of mastering the form of presentation, and that th�y should be tied in with the world outlook · of the historian.

The a�thor concludes his work with an investigation o:r the numerous mutual links o:r the epoch and the science of history. From the viewpoint of Marxists history and oc::r:zlaa­poraneity have never been divided. On the contrary, they have always been organically fused and indivisible: in the general sense contemporaneity 1s the continuation of the on­going historical process; in the particular, a knowledge of history, of its laws facilitate the conscious regula­tion, management of the modern advance of society.

Zhukov's study discloses the unity and continuity of the Marxist conception of human history and show� also cre­ative character of the work of Soviet hist orians .

z. Udaltsova , Director of the Institute of World History of �be USSR Academy of Sciences, Cor responding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences

Section I. History as a Scientific Discipline

THE SUBJECT OF HISTORICAL SCIENCE

History is a science which d elves into the variety of

forms of social d evelopment and makes it possible to under­

stand complex paths traversed by mankind. Like every science,

history. cannot exist without systematising objective know­

ledge, without theoretical ge_neralisation of empirical mate­

rial and examination of the very essence of phenomena under

study by way of disclosing the inner laws governing these

phenomena.

It was only with the appearance of Marxism that man­

kind's past became an object of scholarly studies and has

acquired reliable objective criteria and methods of research.

Of course, before Marx :thinkers often asked themselves whether

human society d evelops chaotically, in a free-wheeling fash .i­

£!l, or according.to definite laws. Does each country, people,

tribe d evelop independently of other countries, peoples,

tribes, or do they, despite all their d ifferences, have .!&­

thing in common? Many thinkers have raised such questions.

Answers have been given, at times quite interesting and note-

worthy.

Representatives of pre-Marxian historical schools re­peatedly put forward various hypotheses in an attemp�,to elu­cidate both the be.haviour of large popular masses in signi­ficant historical d evelopments and the role of outstanding individuals.

Many prominent historians of the early 19th century realised the existence of social classes and even recognised

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'the class struggle: But no one could correctly answer the question: why did the classes emerge, what hidden springs influence people's actions and inspire them to struggle, to advance various slogans, political and social ideals?

The promine�t thinker H. Saint-Simon regarded the d eve­lopment of knowledge as a major element of the historical process. Since the concept of the invariability of human nature was predominant before Saint�Simon, the transition to the idea of evolution, to the recognition that human ideals change was a step forward. However, he failed to explain why knowledge d eveloped, and finally, returned to the tenet about the specific features of man's striving for perfection.

The tendency to interpret the concrete d evelopment of. some or other societies by arbitrarily chosen reasons was current in pre-Marxian historical science. For example, for a long time attempts had been made to explain the spe­cific character of the evolution of certain societies and even whole civilisations by the peculiarities of their re­ligious views, the complexities of their hierarchical struc­ture, the specific stability of communal and tribal relation­ships.

Marx was the first to'

provid e a scientifically substan­tiated answer to crucial questions of the study of the past. Developing his principles of hi.Storical analysis he proceeded from previous achievements of advanced social thought. Lenin repeatedly emphasised that Marxism was not "sectarian" in character, that it was not a certain self-centred, ossified theory which emerged asid e from the mainstream of the deve­lopment of world civilisation. On the contrary, he pointed out, "the genius of Marx consists precisely in his having furnished answers to questions already raised by the fore­most minds of mankind 11• 1

·Marxism elaborated t"he solution of problems which for centuries had remained without acceptable explanation. The basic features of this solution are as follows: the ways of meeting the societal man's needs and, to a great extent, the need s themselves are d efined by the characteristics of the

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instruments and means at his d isposal and with the aid of which he exists. The totality of these instruments and means and the capability of using them constitute the con­cept of productive forces. The latter are of specific, sa­lient significance in the life of mankind . Marx wrote: "� the social relations within which individuals produce, the social relations of production, change, are transformed, with the change and d evelopment of the material meaps of pro­

d uction. the productive forces. The relations of production

in their to.tali ty constitute what are called the social re­

lations, society, and specifically, a society at a definite

stage of historical d evelopment, a society with a peculiar, d istinctive character."2

The Marxist und erstanding of the historical process stems from the fact that with the perfection of the means and instruments of labour and the development of material produc­tion mankind , stage by stage, traverses the path from primi­tive to higher, more progressive forms of social being and consciousness. Marx discovered that the emergence of any social or political institution or idea may be explained only by the d efinite economic interests of this or that so­cial stratum upholding particular institutions and ideas.

In his opinion, "the anatomy of civil society is to be sought

in political economy". 3

The discovery of the materialistic conception of histo­ry, whereby the objective conditions of the production of ma­terial wealth create the basis of man's entire activity is Marx's greatest merit. This d iscovery laid the foundation of historical science and provided a scientific approach to the study of history, in L�nin's words, "as a single process which, with all its immense variety and contradictoriness, is governed by d efinite laws11•4 It has made it possible to scholarly analyse social d evelopment as an objective, natur­al-historical process.

What underlies the Unity of the world -historical process, d espite its diversity?

The d efinitive condition-for the existence and d evelop­ment of any people, any community, as well as society as a

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whole, has always1been the satisfaction of basic vital re­

quirements, first and foremost, for food, clothing and hous­

ing.- One of the tasks of historical science is to elucidate

how various ways of meeting these needs affect social rela­

tions and how these relations are shaped.

The study of the progressive evolution of human society,

the eliciting of the regularities of the past of peoples

and countries at a similar stage of social development has

enabled scholars to discern significant stages in the pro­

gress of mankind corresponding to definite levels'of the

development o� social material production. It is precisely

the change of these levels which shows the most general

trend of the society's forward movement.

However,· being the foundation and the primary cause of

social progress, the development of production and man's

productive activity do not eXb.aust its entire content. The

:historical process is much richer. Engels pointed out at the

end of the last century while ridiculing those pseudo-Marx­

ists who did not like to see any other relations in society­

except economic: "The economic situation is the basis, but

the various elements of the superstructure--political forms

of. the class struggle and its results, to wit: constitut­

ions established by the yictorious class after a successful

battle, etc., juridical forms ·and even the reflexes of all

these a,ctual struggles iii the _brains of the participants,

poli�ical, juristic, philosophical theories, religious views

and their further development into systems of dogmas--also

exercise their influence upon the course of the historical

struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining

their � There is an interaction of all these elements

in which, amid all the endless host of accidents (that is,

of things and events whose inner interconnection is so re­

mote or so impossible of proof that we can regard it as non­

existent, as negligible), the economic movement finally as­

serts itself as necessary. Otherwise the application of

the theory to any period of history would be ee.sier than

the solution of a Sif4ple equation of the first degree.115

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Nuting the primary, det�rminative role of economics, Engels· underscored the necessity of a dialectical .approach to the analysis of the historical process, and proper con­sidera�ion of the interdependability of its form and con­tent. The superstructure is by far not a passive element: it is determined by the basis and, in turn, is capable of exercising its own effect on the latter. The united march of a social movement is directed by economic causes only in the final analysis and is not absolutely straightforward. A tremendous variety of specific concrete-historical forms originate in its course. The founders of scient.ific commun­ism have repeatedly elucidated this princip.le� Marxist his­torical science does not confine its �ask to analysing ex­clusively dconomic aspects of social life. For all the sig­nificance of this task, its solution fails to give an answer as to the causes of the emergence of any concrete forms of class struggle, and of social and ideological phenomena accelerating or hindering the society's progress.

The content o� politics is predetermined by the social organisation of production, and the source of its particu­larly active role lies precisely in this. Receiving its pulse from economics and being dependent on it, politics, by virtue of the widest "representation" of deep-seated· economic interests, often acquires a predominant position in the life of society.

The unity of the world-historical process is manifest in the most general laws governing social development. It would be wrong to regard this unity as an obligatory co­incidence of concrete �orms.of the manifestatio� of general laws. Marx wrote in Capital: "This does not prevent .the same economic basis--the same from the standpoint of its main conditions--due to innumerable different empirical circumstances, natural environment, racial relations, ex­ternal historical ·influences, etc., from showing infinite variations and gradations in-appearance, which can be ascer­tained only by analysis of the empirically given circumstan­ces. 116 The laws of social development do not lead to this development being identical in every case. It is impossible

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to cognise the historical process as a whole without study­ing the interaction of all its components.

It goes without saying that this has nothing to do with the pluralistic approach whereby economics is given the role of not the leading f'o:rce but only as one of the factors in the historical pro9ess. Pluralistic concep.tions do not give an in-depth explanation of any historical phenomena, since they inev.itably result in subjectivi�m. The scholars ad­hering to these positions arbitrarily "choose" factors which, in their opinion, play a certain role in this particular case. They are unable to identify the regularities of so­cial development, for they have no substantiated initial data or stable criteria for the purpose. Solidarity with pluralism inevitably leads to positivist vulgar empiricism ruling out the possibility of generalisations.

Dialectical-materialistic monism, which is opposed to pluralism, is based on the recognition of the fact that the activity of social man constitutes the main content of the historical process. The cementing element in the life of each society is the mode of production, expressing the uni­ty of productive forces and the relations of production in­herent in them. It is precisely the development of the mode of production that �n the final count de.termines the state of society, the degree of its inner maturity and strength, and opens up the pro�pects and direction of its f\lrther advance. The mobility of productive forces direct­ly affects the relations of production corresponding there­to. The two constantly interact and influence each other. Both nature and society exist in motio» and never remain unchanged. Hence, a historic approach is needed to study them. It is in this sense that Marx and Engels said that they knew "only a single science, the science of history".7

The determining role of the mode of production in the historical process, the revolutionising significance of the productive forces do not at all mean that they automatically influence the development of society. The ultimate deter­mi�ateness of man's activity by econ�mic factors (i.e. , economiq determinism) has nothing in common with fatalism.

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History is made by people striving to attain a definite goal. The essence of economic determinism consists in that the freedom of man's will is actually limited by the socio­economic and natural conditions of labour. An individual cannot overcome either the existing level of material.poasi­bili ties of a given soc.iety, or the social environment he belongs t9. In the final analysis, there will of necessity occur, irrespective of his will, a so-called "correction" of the previously chosen path if the latter is erroneous. Such is the way.the principle of economic determinism of social development manifests itself. If the free choice of a goal and the means to attain it is based on a know­ledge of' reality, or at least, on an intuitive understand­lng of the leading trend of social development (its regu­larity) such a choice may be a success. In this case free­dom actually becomes a realised necessity.

The problem of correlation and interaction between the necessary and the accidental in tr� �¥�cess of historical development, as well as of the borderline between that which to be and t.hat which is possible was elucidated by Engels: "Men make their history themselves, but not as yet w.i th a collective will according to a collective plan or even in a definite, delimited given society. Their aspirations clash, and for that very reason all such societies are go­verned by necessity, the complement and form of appearance of which is accident. The necessity which here asserts it­self athwart all accident is again ultimately economic ne� cessity... The further the particular sphere which we are investigating is removed from the economic sphere and ap­proaches that of pure abstract ideology, the more shall we find it exhibiting accidents in its development, the more will its curve run zigzag. But if you plot the average axis of the curve, you will find that this axis runs more and more nearly parallel to the axis of economic deve·lopment the longer the period considered and the wider the field dealt with. 118

Men can choose both the goals and definite means of at­taining them. The choice is made from a wealth of possibi­lities. It may be correct or erroneous. If the choice

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happens to be ,erroneous, the' desired goal cannot be achie� ved. This factor directly influences the historical proc­ess and may entail tangible, sometimes tragic, .consequences fo� one or another category of people. Jl.arx wrote: "World history would indeed be very easy to make if the struggle were taken up only on condition of infallibly favourable c.hances. It would on the other hand be of a very mystical nature, if 'accidents' played no part. These accidents naturally form part of the general course of development and are compensated by other accide'nts. But acceleration and delay are very much dependent upon such 'accidents', including the 'accident' of the character of the people who ·first head the m6vement."9

The role of the individual ftgures prominently at a subsequent level of the problem's investigation and is largely determined by the individual's ability to .take into account the objective tendencies of social development, the actual needs of society at a definite stage of its progress. The individual may greatly influence the course of history. Kan's initiative is a powerful accelerator of social pro­gress, particularly when it awakens the energy of a great mass of people and channels it for solving .vital problems. "Marxism �iffers from all other socialist theories," Lenin pointed out, "in the 'remarkable way it combines complete scientific sobriety in the analysis of the objective state of affairs and the objective course of evolution with the most emphatic recognition of the importance of the revolu­tionary energy, revolutionary creative genius, and revolu­tionary initiative of the mB.sses--and also, of course, of individuals, groups, organisations, and parties that are able to discover and achieve contact with one or another class.n10

It is common knowledge that outstanding personalities in different epochs are justifiably called "great people", whose number is small but the legacy they-have left behind is rather tangible. This is due, first and foremost, to the fact that the_se outstanding figures acted not as lone men of genius, but as the exponents of the interests and stirrers of the ac.tiv-ity of whole classes and social groups

.;. 18 -

at such a stage of historical development when these class._ es or social groups hold leading positions and are the ex­ponents of social progress.

Naturally, one cannot exclude from historical analysis individuals whose activity hindered social progress. Man­kind knows the names of the personalities who have done enormous harm and are guilty of the senseless deaths of many people and the destruction of material and cultural values. It should be noted that this category of negative outstanding figures could not have gone down in history only due to their individual wishes. Their destructive activity was,.possible only because their personal "evil will" was realised in definite social conditions reflect­ing a reactionary counter-trend of social progress and the resistance to H on the part of the class forces on the way out and historically doomed. Writing about Napoleon III, Marx said that "the class struggle in France created cir­cumstances and :relationships that.made it possible for a grotesque mediocrity to play a hero's part". 11 Hitler is among the most loathsome personalities who disgraced them­selves with monstrous crimes against humanity and who deli­berately planned the annihilation of whole nations and drowned the European continent in blood. However, it would be wrong to explain this solely and exclusively by the per­sonal features of the maniacal Fiihrer. Attempts of this kind are being made by people interested in removing the responsibility for the perpetrated crimes from the capital­ist monopolies and imperialist militaristic circles which gave birth to nazism. And had there been no Hitler, there would. possibly have appeared another stooge of aggressive imperialism who would have tried to advocate a misantb:rop­i.c "programme" to enslave whole nations and to attain world domination.

Both the social behaviour of the masses in any particul­ar epoch and the choice by a historical personality of· its own social position are in large measure dete�ined by the intellectual life of t.hat epoch, the clash of ideas, and the inherited traditions. Therefore, the problems of social QQ.nsciousness and culture as a whole are no doubt part of the subject of historical science •

- 19 -

The history of culture (spiritual culture above all) is a specific area of research into the past, an area in whose investigation, incidentally, a noticeable lag is still observable. Cultural elements not only penetrate deep into all the pores of a socio-economic system, but also hold a markedly autonomous position there. Being very closely linked with the field of social psychology, the cultural heritage is relat ively slowly influenced by even the greatest social upheavals, preventing rapid re­structuring measures by inertia, as it were.

However, by far not all the elements of the old, . so­called traditional culture preserved from the p�st have a progressive part to play in the intellectual development of society• This applies, in particular, to the vestiges of religious and other idealistic ideas exerting an adverse, retarding effect on the development and strengthening of progressive world outlook, arid a new psychology correspond­ing to the revolutionary changes which have occurred in the socio-economic sphere.

Attention to the historical and cultural processes tak­ing place in the society is a necessary condition for its profound invest igation and understanding. At the same time, one should not take, oversimplified, mechanical approach to the processes of cu-:).. tural development: .they should not be attributable directly to -changes in the political and eco­nomic spheres. For example, when analysing the l iterature of a definite society, one should study its "historical background". But a mere synchronisation of creative work w ith the indicators of the level of socio-economic develop­ment is insufficient for making well-substantiated deduct� ions. Deep-going cultural and. psychological processes defy understanding if they are only examined within narrow chro­nological bounds. It is necessary to study the effect of numerous contradictory'factors of a given historical epoch in the conditions of which the struggle and competition of temporarily coexisting socio-economic systems is in progress. The study of the history of culture is of paramount import­ance for ascertaining the connection between outstanding phe-

- 20 -

• nomena in cultural and, notably, artistic life and those complex processes modern history is replete with.

Of extreme importance is closer cooperation between historians and philosophers, economists, literary critics and jurists, which would make it possible to enhance the synthetic approach to major historical processes and phe­nomena.

In the f inal count, the h istor ical and the logical co­incide; but only in the final count, since world h istory is an extremely complicated and by far not straightforward path of mankind's development. If the logical ( i.e. , the general pattern of development) and_ the historical (i.e., the empir ical manifestation of this pattern in the totali- .. ty of its partial modificat ions) fully coincide, then his­tory would not- exist as a separate subject, then history and sociology would coincide. In fact, however, history has its own specific features. It examines rather complex, intricate and by far not straightforward concrete ways of manifestation of the gene�al patterns of development, ways of mankind's forward movement.

Marx, Engels and Lenin repeatedly pointed to the abund­ance of variants of social development.existing w ithin the framework of general patterns. The analysis of these vari­ants, the identificat ion of the causes and peculiarities of their emergence and tendencies, and (as concerns the present epoch) the elaboration of development forecasts--such is one of the major spheres of h istory as a science.

The dev�lopment of h istor�cal thought, new methods and techniques of research makes it possible to see the new even in a repeatedly scrutinised factual material. The ob­ject of historical research is not something fossil and un­changed. Archaeology has made many d iscoveries which .have made it possible to look at long-known and seem ingly well­studied monuments of culture from a different angle. Stones begin to "speak" and enable one to reproduce the· picture of the remote past, sometimes with rather appreciable corrections

In the later historical per iods any object which the scho­_ lar happens to deal with is in no lesser degree subject to

- 21 -

unexpected metamori}hoses, revealing previously unknown data on it. Kost skeptical remarks, and even accusations of historical science of being biased are heard in connect­ion with the interpretation of facts and events which in terms of time are the nearest to the historians. And this is not surprising because the most recent material the his­torian has to deal w.ith is to be given precision in most cases. 'The source base of contemporary history is in the. stage of organisation. Finally, the behaviour of people active in the contemporary scene may change providing the basis for reconsidering former assessments.

· The volume and complexity of the problems facing histo­rical science are continuously growing, which is certainly affecting the framework. of the subject of historical science, a framework which never remains unchanged. The exceptional scope of this subject sets great demands of historians: they must have a good professional and general theoretical train-ing.

� 1 V.I. Lenin, Co

.llected W�rks, Jloscow,

. Vol. 19, P• 23.

2 K. Marx and F. Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 9, Moscow, 1977, P• 212.

,

3 K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. 1, Moscow, 1969, P• 503.

4 V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 57. 5 K. Marx· and F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. J, Moscow,

1970, P• 487 • 6 K. Marx, Capital, Vol. III, Moscow, 1971, pp. 791-792. 7 K. Marx and F. Engels, The German Ideology, Moscow, 1968,

P• 28. 8 K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. 3, pp. 503-504. 9 Ibid., Vol. 2,.Moscow, 1969, P• 421.

'

10 V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 13, p. 36. 11 K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. 1, P• 395 .

THE THEORY OF COGNITION OF THE HUlllN PAST

Cognition is not a passive, mirror-like reflection of objective processes and phenomena in the thought of man. Cognition is a complex process, with its subject playing an active role. "The reflection of nature in man's thought must be understood not 'lifelessly', not 'abstractly', not devoid of movement, not without contradictions, but in the· eternal process of movement, the arising of contradictions and their solution."1

Lenin's theory of reflection provides the most vivid example of the application of dialectics that permeates the entire materialistic outlook. Lenin pointed out that "our sensation, our consciousness is only an image of the exter­nal world, and it is obvious that an image cannot exist with­out the thing imaged, SJ.ld that the latter exists independent­ly of that which images it".2 No matter what form conscious­ness may take, it reflects reality that exists independently of it. Such an interpretation of the theory of reflection presupposes that delusions and errors, although in a diatort­e� form, also reflect objective reality. The subjective as­pect does not change the premise that "cognition is the eternal, endless approximation of thought to the object•.3 Historical cognition is no exception. The comprehension of history is a process composed of a sum.of the individual ap­proaches of historians to the given concrete material.

Any subjective opinion of a historian is bS.S.d on· -t'hat

- 23 -

material and is its specific reflection. "The epistemologi­

cal concept of reflection implies that the essence of cons­

ciousness (and knowledge) is engendered not by consciousness

itself, but stems from that which is comprehended, co�sed,

fonns the subject of investigation. Even when the subject

of cognition is cognition itself, the concept of reflection

retains its meaning, inasmuch as knowledge as an object of

investigation exists independently of investigation. The

faot that the given object is a reflection of the outer

world in consciousness changes nothing essentially, because

the reflection of the outer world in consciousness is a pro­

cess determined by objective laws • • • Cognition is a specific

form of· reflection, since not every type of reflection of

the outer world by a living being (including man) is cogni­

tion. "4 The specificity of cognition as a form of reflection

is manifested in the active position of the subject of cog­nition.

History is both made and written by people. The correct

or erroneous, objective or subjective, interpretation of the

events analysed depends on the civic position of the scholar.

Even if correctly evaluating some or other facts, phenomena

and processes, he presen�e them in the light of his indivi­

dual consciousness. Lenin pointed out that "man's conscious­

ness not only reflects .the obJective world, but creates it. �.

There is a difference between the subjective and objective,

but it, too, has its limits". 5 Consciousness does not crea­

te objective reality. In this case Lenin only emphasised the

creative role of the subject of' investigation in the process

of cognition� He repeatedly explained it.

The activity of' a scholar in the process of cognition

is manifested, above all, in defining the task or direction

of' research, creating �r applying theoretical prerequisites,

formulating hypotheses and verifying them. Even in the pro­

cess of the most elementary, initial stage of work, consist­

ing in the registration and systematising of facts to be in­

vestigated, a scholar of history should reveal.a. certain

degree of initiatiye and his social position. Inasmuch as

- 24 -

' the process of cognition is not a mechanical one, it gives the subject of investigation the possibility of abstracting himself theoretically when he investigates empirical mate­rial. This makes for a better objective comprehension and interpretation of it.

In.practical research, the cognition of a phenomenon is inseparable from the cognition of its essence. Any ap­proach to the object of study presupposes, from the very beginning, the exposure of such aspects of it which express its very essence. �he task of investigation is, first and foremost, to explain concrete historical phenomena. Too general, abstract evaluations which only pretend to explain them, should be avoided.

A question naturally arises as to the extent of the .correctness of a historian's interpretation of real histo­rical processes and phenomena. Of course, scientific cog­nition is distinguished by a certbin desree of relativity. Lenin wrote that "dialectics--as Hegel in his time explained --contains an element of relativism., of negation, of scep­ticism, but is not reducible to relativism. The materialist dialectics of Marx and Engels certainly does contain relati­vism, but is not reducible to relativism, that is, it re­cognises the relativity of all our knowledge, not in the sense of denying objective truth, but in the sense that the limits of approximation of our knowledge to this ·truth are historically cond.itional. "6

In scientific work the relativity of conclusions is determined, above all, by the fact that a scholar is unable to completely leave the bounds of concepts and ideas inhe­rent in the epoch and society to which he belongs. Neverthe­less, the socio-class contradictions, social progress, prac­tical experience and the logic of research broaden the field of vision of science as a whole and the scientists and scho­lars creating it. Some hypotheses that used to be taken for truth, are discarded, for they prove insolvent. Instead, new concepts are advanced which better correspond to the correct understanding of the manifold properties and f onns of the movement of matter. Transition process from relative

- 25 -

to absolute knowledge is practically infinite.

Scholars adhering to historical materialism and united

by a common world outlook, common ideology and, consequent­

ly, a common methodology of historical cognition, can pre­

sent different evaluations of historical facts and phenome­

na. This 1n no way proves a weakness or insufficient "exact­

ness"7 of Marxist historical science. On the contrary, this

is a proof of its vitality and constant progress on the ba­

sis of the development of Marxist historical thought, which

is impossible without comparing different views, without ar­

guments and discussions.

· Relativism in historical science is being overcome by scientific progress. With the emergence and consolidation of the moat ·advanced social structures' there are more pos­

si bili tiea of adequately reflecting the objective historical

process in scientific researcnes. At the same time, the re­

lativism of scientific cognition remains, which should in no

way be regarded as something detracting from its merit. The

uninterrupted progress of science--both natural and social-­

is the law of its existence� This progress is based precisely

on a constant, etsady transition from an insufficient know­

ledge to a fuller one. However, one should not agree with the authors who claim, that historical science .is constantly changing in such a degree that it is necessary to constantly rewrite history, ther.eby influencing the entire social prac­tice. Hist�� should not be reswritten, but only complement­ed and interpreted, taking into account new, previously unknown sources.8 It is therefore difficult to completely agree with the fo:nnula advanced by the Polish historian J. Topolski--"moderate

.or dialectical relativism".9 The use of

such a te:nn leads to exaggerating the role of relativism, which is present in the dialectics of historical cognition as a definite, but far from decisive, factor. It should be. noted that Topolski, of course, does not deny the existence of "obj�ctive history" and, consequently, the possibility of it� truthful description and objective interpretation.

Both :Marxist· theoretical sociology--historical materi­alism--and the science of history study society in all its

- 26 -

entirety and development. But historical materialism and historical a·cience approach one and the same subject of investigation from different standpoints. "Historical mate­rialism analyses the inner logic, essence and general and specific laws of society's functioning and development, in­terpreting it as a consecutive change of socio-economic structures, that is, regards the historical process in its logical aspect. The science of ;history studies social prog­ress in all multifonrdty of its manifestations."10

The methodology of history is far from being reduced to recreating general philosophical concepts in the sphere of historical science. The essence of the methodology of history lies, above all, in establishing a correct approach to the study of concrete historical material. This material being multifaceted and virtually inexhaustible, the first task facing the methodology of history is to dete:nnine the principles of "organising" the m��0rial, its objective se­lection and interpretation. Methodo�vgy is to help "clas­sify" direct objects of investigation and single out the most essential. A historian has to deal with rich concrete material in the course of society's development. This great­ly complicates his task and "prompts" him to describe "uni­que" situations, processes and phenomena of the past. But this "uniqueness" can sometimes be deceptive. A researcher always comes across some particular material which, at first glance, seems to pertain only to the given concrete situa­tion. The methodology of history fulfils its task only when it helps find and distinguish in the historical process the dialectics of the general, specific and individual.

G.V.Plekhanov fo:nnulated this premise in the following way: "At present, we must regard the development of the pro­ductive forces as the ultimate and most general cause of mankind's historical movement, and it is the development of the productive forces that determine the successive changes in the social relations of men. Parallel with this general cause, there operate specific causes, i.e., the historical situation in which the development of a given people's pro­ductive forces proceeds, and which is itself ultimately

- 27 -

created by the 'development of the same forces in other pe­oples , i . e . , the selfsame overall cause . Finally , the in­fluence .of specifi� causes is augmented by the operation of Particular cause s , i . e . , the personal traits of public figures and other ' fortuitie s ' , thanks to which event s finally assume their individual features. Singular causes cannot bring about radical change s in the operation of general and specific cause s , which , moreoV'e�, determine the direction and the bounds of the influence exerted by particular· cause s . " 1 1

Correct methodology allows a historian to overcome an approach to concrete historical material as an amorphous mass of fortuities and to reveal the inner logic of socie­ty ' s progre�s. To find the genera.l in the historical pro­cess means to obtain a stable foundation for scientific analysi s , a guarantee of genuine obj ectivity of historical research.

The MarX:ist theory of cognition is distinguished by th� unity of ·the empirical and theoretical . However , one should make a distinction between the historical method in its broad interpretation and the concrete methods of his­torical research. Engels regarded this problem in the fol­lowing way : "Marx ' world outlook is not a doctrine but a method. It does not provide ready-made dogmas , but serves as the starting points for further inve stigation and a me­thod 1Q!: this investigation. n 1 2 This statement emphasises the creative character of the process of research. Marxism­Leninism is profoundly alien to all and sundry fonns of dog­matism and demands that the researcher be completely obj ec­tive in hi s approach to any historical material . At the sa­me time it provide s the researcher with the dialectics of the historical method which helps find the stable and reli­able "starting point s" and a correct path in the labyrinth of the processes and phenomena under study . It s use requires a concrete analysi s of a concrete situation and a strict account ot the specific feature s of the time and place of these processes and phenomena . No fonnula, even the most correct , can serve as a simple "guide " to penetrating into the essence of the subj ect under research. The methodology

- 28 -

of hi story is far from being a set of abstract schemes and logical constructions existing outside the connection with a historical study. The elaboration of methodological ques­tions cannot be a monopoly of "professional theorist s " . Each conscientious historian cannot but strive to theoreti­cally comprehend and generalise the concrete material he comes across.

The revealing of contradictions in society as a source and impulse of its progress helps ascertain the degree of importance and independence of the historical process under study and determine its leading trend and qualitative as­pect � Lenin emphasi sed that a Marxist "does not limit him­self to speaking of the necessity of a proces s , but ascer­tains exactly what social-economic fonnation gives the pro­cess its cont ent , exactly what class determines this �eces­sityn . 1 3 The range of problems grouped unde; the general concept "the methodology of history" ( law-governed patterns in hi sto ry , its periodisation , unity of the world historical process , the conceptual apparatus of a hi storian , the place and role of historical science in solving the t asks advanc­ed by present-day realitie s , etc . ) requires for their solu­tion the unity of theory and practice . Thia . means that each researcher should combine his approach based on and dete� mined by his world-view with reliance on the obj ective data resulting from concrete inve stigations .

Attempts are being made in historiography to fonnulate the e ssence of the methodology of history in a more compli­cat ed way . For example , J . Topolski proceeds from the con­tention that the tenn "history" has three meanings , each with it s own methodology . History as a "historical event " has "subj ect methodology" . It s task is studying historical fact s and the causes and laws of the historical proce ss . History as a "research function of a historian" has "prag­matic methodology" ( selection of the sphere of re search , determination of the source ma�erial base , principles of historical evaluation , interpretation , e t c . ) . Finally , his­tory as a "re sult of re search work" , a sum of conclusions about historical ·event s has a special , "non-pragmatic me­thodology" which deals with an analys�s of stat ement s and

- 29 -

conclusions formulated by a scholar and examine s the most general regularitie s following from his work , and also the principles of hi storical narrative . 1 4 In the se definitions one sens e s a certain underestinlation of the philosophical aspect s of the Marxist methodology of hi story . We believe it would be more c orrect t o regard the methodology of his­tory as a single , integral concepti on , irre spective of . �he possible aspect s of its funct ional applicat ion .

Hi storici sm is one of the basic t enet s of the Jlarxist­Leninist world outlook . It s principal re quirement is to consider all processes and phenomena in their development and in conne ction with the concret e event s that engendered them. It is incompatiple with the subst itution of abstract scheme s with . the study of real processes and phenomena. For the principle of hi storicism· nthe mo st important thing if one is to approach thi s que stion sci entifically is not t o forget the underlying histori cal connection , t o examine every que st ion from the standpoint of how the given pheno­menon aro se in hi stor� and what were the principal stages in its develop�ent , and , from the standpoint of its deve­lopment , to examine what it has become todayn . 1 5

Marxist hi storici sm interpre t s the progre ss of society

as the consecutive change of socio-economic formations . The

basic components of a socio-economic formation do not exi st

in i solation , as a sum of social factors and phenomena � but

interact with each other , thus forming a syst em. The cogni­

tion of the inner laws inherent in this or that socio-eco­nomic formation is impossible if we do not approach it as a qualitatively definite , integral complex . Any change s going on within a formation and pertaining either to the

basis or the superstructure , can be properly underst ood on­

ly in the historical interaction of it s element s , in their unity.

A systems approach doe s not mean levelling or " e quali-ty" of all the . element s of a formation . The int erconnection and interaction of · the element s comprising a socio-economic formation do not violate their inner hierarchy . The produc­tive forc e s and production relations are the decisive , sys­tem-forming factor of its progre s s .

- 30 -

Men are not free to choose the productive force s . Neverthele s s , the mystic idea about the productive forces as something suprasocial , having no connections with the concret e activity of man as a social being is ali en to the mat eriali st conception of hi story .

This i s e ssential for the elaboration o f an int egral , systems approach to studying socio-economic formati ons. In rec ent years , a systems approach to the study of all social organi sms has become quite wide spread . It has become fashio­nable for bourgeois sociologi st s and hi st oriographers t o speak about " systems analysi s" whi ch i s int erpreted , how­eve r , from the posi tivi st positions and has nothing in com­mon with materiali st dialecti c s .

Marxi st hist orical science examines hi stori cal proces s­e s and phenomena in their development as an integral system ; it re solut ely re j ect s any one-sided , schemat ic approach to them. Such an approach to history i s a violation of the very principle of hi st orici sm , which should underlie hi storical studi e s . Consequently , the di scovery of histori cal laws ne­ver relieve s a re searcher from the need of concretely ana­lysing a concrete situation . The very reali sat ion of a cog­ni sed hi storical law can be different in different condi­tions . The operation of a law depends on circumstanc'e s . Com­binations of similar social factors in different condit ions produce complet ely different re sult s . Hence , the need to use many approaches and methods· in re search .

The comparative-hi stori cal method i s of great signifi­canc e . A compari son of identical phenomena in different re­gions but in one and the same socio-e conomic formation often provide s the clue to understanding of the principal fact ors of the hi storical proc e s s . Any hi storical phenomenon exi s t s not i n i solation , but as a component part , a n element of the historical proces s , out side which it cannot emerge . Natural­ly , a historian has to deal also with an individual event or fact whi ch happened only once and did not last long . In this case , too , i t s interpretation i s tangible only if he take s due account of all the circumstance s of time and pla­c e . Only when they are duly studied ( and the comparative­hi storical method contribut e s to thi s ) will it be possible

- 3 1 -

to ascertain ihe cause of a historical phenomenon and its place among other facts and events connected with it .

The statistical method is now being widely used in his­

torical science . Statistics help us to reveal the regulari­

ties of certain processes, particularly in areas characte­

rised by mass indices . This method makes it possible to as­

certain the dynamics of social and economic progress and

j udge about its ultimate determination . But the decisive

condition of its use in any historical research is the ab­

sence of any bias in both selecting statistical indices and

their grouping . A rese�rcher should always critically as­

ses_s the statistical material he comes across. For instance ,

i.t is known th,at the data of official population censuses

made public in many countries cannot be regarded as a com­

pletely reliable historical source, inasmuch as they often

do not contain indices showing social differentiation , and

have artificially mixed-up figures of the dynamics of wages ,

prices , etc .

In recent years the statistical method has considerably

yielded to the mathematicisation of history. Mathematical

methods command the use of statistical material , just like

any other material subject to formalisation. The experience

of· employing computers in historical research has already

been known for some time , and there is no doubt that it will

be perfected . Works by I . Kovalchenko , V . Ustinov and others

show that mathematical methods are applicable to research in a number of problems of history , archaeology and source studies . The idea has been confirmed about the possibility of formalising the basic classification concepts of archaeo­logical sources on the basis of the application of the theo­ry of sets and mathematical logic . The isolation of formal indications makes it possible to establish uniform and simple classifications of subjects and archaeological types. The study of historical sources, notably texts, with the help of cybernetics , seems quite promising.

The use of the theory of information is of definite significance for .historical science ( and for other sciences , for that matter ) . The amount of materials of various kind

- 32 -

( source� and literature ) to be used by scholars is steadily increasing . And difficulties are piling up as far as both the collecting and processing of this material are concern­ed . The need arises to find accessible and expedient me­thods of utilising computers for historical science. With­out them it is well-nigh impossible to find and exam1ine within a reasonable time all variants of the interconnecti­on and interdependence of the phenomena under comparison . Nevertheless , machines cannot play an independent role . The information extracted . from materials should be coded in the machine language . This requires special training of a his­torian and his cooperation with a mathematician. �e impor­tance of the application of mathematical methods in histori­cal science notwithstanding , they will always remain an auxiliary means in historians' work . Even a considerable amount of material subject to formalisation does not alter the fact that the application of mathematics cannot become the principal method in historical research.

I . Kovalchenko justly_ notes that mathematical methods can be used only within strictly limited bounds. "The broad­est application �f mathematical methods in any fields of knowledge does not create any new science by itself ( 'mathe­matical history ' , in this case ) , neither does it replace other methods of investigation , as some people tend to be­lieve . Jlathematical methods allow a researcher to obtain some quantitative characteristics of the indications under investigation , but they do not explain anything themsel­ves . n 16

The methods used in historical research cannot be re­duced to a sum total of definite rules. But regardless of whether the logical or concrete-historical approach predo­minated , they are always of a comprehensive , integral cha­racter and have a common trend. In all cases their main task is the inner organisation and systematisation of the materi­al under study. This functional task has a special signifi­cance. Its solution is only possible on the basis of a syn­thesis of the scientific theory chosen by a researcher ( and also his initial knowledge ) and the new data contained in the empirical material being studied .

- 33 -

The so-called auxiliary disciplines (palaeography , nu­mismatic s , sphragistics , heraldry , etc . ) play an important role in historical research. The development of these dis­ciplines ensures a high level of source analysi s . The va­riety of methods employed in historical research largely depends on their being a result of the development of seve­ral sciences and borrowed from their practice in mo st diver­se combinations .

In such special fields of historical science aa archae­ology , methods have become widespread that are borrowed from natural science (for example , c 1 4 analysi s ) . But in all ca­ses the methods employed in concrete investigations do not replace the need for theoretical comprehension of material , which presupposes the corresponding level of scientific ab­straction , i . e . , that which comprises the basi s of methodo­logy.

N�turally , methodology should n9t be confused with methods . Methodology presupposes theoretical comprehension of material . Whereas methods mean a sum total of ways and technical means employed by the researcher. Of course , the methods of Marxist hi storical science cannot but be connect­ed with methodology and subordinated to it . But they vary , depending on the concre,te obj ect of inve stigation.

A historian and hi_storical science it self are inevi tab­ly faced with questions which are sometimes difficult to answer definitely , due to the insufficient amount of obj ec­tive material. More often than not , it depends on the lack or incompleteness of sources , or, sometimes , on controver­sial data related to the given subj ect . In that case a re­searcher has to advance a hypothetical solution of the prob­l em posed . Historical hypothesi s is a nece ssary component of re search. Hypothesis . i s a temporary , conditional , conj ec­tural solution of the problem. HY,pothe sis is subj ected to a thorough checking and is either rej ected or become s a quite definite , well-founded solution , i . e . , cease s to be a hypo­the si s . In this context it represents an essential auxiliary "working" aspect in · the process of historical research, per­forming the function of scaffolding , as it were , during the

- 34 -

erection of a new building. As construction work proceeds successfully and the necessary material i s properly used , the need in auxil�ary structures passes .

However, one cannot exclude the possibility o f hi sto­rians being unable for quite a long time to prove the vali­dity or groundlessne ss of hypothetical solutions of the problem suggested by researchers . The possibi lity of the t rustworthine ss of the given solation is retained. Recogni­tion of such a probability ( or possibility) should necessa­rily be stipulated in an appropriate way by the researcher. In any scie�ce , including hi storical science , ways are never closed to revealing new , previously unknown obj ective data and sources which can allow , at any time in the future , to clarify and substantiate the existing hypotheses , and some­times , to advance new one s . They reflect the general co�­cept of a hi storian. What is required i s not only a thorough verification of the trustworthiness of the evaluations ( "theories " ) expressed , but also a proper comprehension of the initial ideologi ca l ! positions of their authors .

In selecting historical material and advancing hypothe­ses of its possible, interp;r:etation , a hi storian utili ses the data and methods accumulated by science . There is bound to be a priori aspect in hi s investigation .

There should be no absoluti sing either the inductive or deductive approach to material . Both of them can be used , to a greater or lesser extent , depending on the charact er of the material on which the researcher is working . The deduc­tive method is "invisibly" present already in the resear­cher ' s initial approach to the source , inasmuch as any ini­tial position presupposes a preliminary hypothetical assess­ment of the given source , while the hypothesis it self is a result of the researcher ' s general knowledge , outside the source , and hi s general concept s . · 0n the _ other hand , the in­vestigation of a concrete source necessarily leads the hi s­torian to conclusions that require an inductive approach.

A scholar studying the past constantly has t o inve sti­gate the causes of the phenomena under review. Solution of this task requires at first ascertaining all the inner and

- 35 -

. uter connections and dependences of the given phenomenon. Without establishing the causes of historical events and phenomena it would be impossible to come to comprehend the laws of social development at a higher level of abstraction. Any event , even a fortuitous one , as it might seem , cannot but have a cause . In assessing a historical process or phenomenon, circumstances are usually considered "fortui­tous• if they do not have a direct impact on the essence of the given process or phenomenon and do not belong to the causes conditioning them. But these "fortuities" do not emerge all by themselves ; they are· engendered by a number of reasons which may not be connected with the obj ect under investigation. They can be , and are , �anifeatations of quite definite �awe which operate independently of the laws under­lying the process or phenomenon under study. However, since "fortuities" do exist , a historian should not ignore them in his work. The "fortuitous" does not explain the essence of the principal object of historical analysis , but it should necessarily be taken into consideration in investi­gating outer connections and circumstances which exert at least some , indirect influence on the process being studied. From this f ollowe that both the "necessary" and the "fortui­tous" should be the subj ect of historical analysis .

Concrete research 'work plays the key role in the deve­lopment of Marxist historical science. The constant raising of the theoretical level of investigations is an indispen­sable condition of this qevelopment . Thia calla for an imp­rovement of a dialectical-materialist approach to the mate­rial under investigation. Methodology should not be regard­ed as eomet?lng "external" with regard to a historian ' s work. The enrichment of concrete materials should contribute to a higher theoretical level , i . e . , better methodological foundations of historical research.

� 1 V. I .Lenin , Collected Works , Moscow, Vol . 3'8 , p . 1 9 5 . 2 Ibid . , Vol . 1 4 , p . 69 .

- 36 -

3 Ibid . , Vol . JS , p . 1 95 . 4 Th. I . Oizerman , lfain Philosophical

.PP - 1 09-1 10 (in Russian) . Trends , Moscow, 1 97 1 ,

5 V . I . Lenin, Collected Works , 6

Vol . JS , pp . 21 2 , 9S. Ibid. , Vol . 14 , p . 1 J7 .

7 Incidentally, the very division of sciences into "exact " and "inexact " does not withstand any serious criticism.

8 The past JO or 40 years have witnessed such essential changes in the natural scienc�s that it is practically impossible to use literature ·on these disciplines , which was written some 20 or JO years ago .

9 J. Topol�ki , Swiat bez historii , Warsaw, 1 972 , pp . 1 96-1 98 . 1 0 L . F . Ilyichev , Philosophy and Scientific Progress, Moscow ,

1 977 , p . 1 63 (in Russian) . 1 1 G. V. Plekhanov , Selected Philosophical Works ,

Moscow , 1 976 , pp . J 1 3-3 1 4 . Vol . 2 ,

1 2 K. Mar.x, F.Engels , Werke , Vol . 39 , p . 428 . 1 3 V. I . Lenin, Collected Works , Vol •. 1 , p . 401 . 1 4 J. Topolski , Metodologia historii , Warsaw, 1 973 , p . 428 . 1 5 V. I .Lenin, Collected Works , Vol . 29 , p . 473 . 1 6 I . D.Kovalchenko , "On Applying .Mathematical-Statistical

Methods in Historical Research" , The Sourse Studies : Theoretical and Methodological Problems , Moscow, 1 969 , pp . 1 1 8-1 1 9 (in Russian) ; J . Kahk: , I .Kovalchenko , "Quanti­tative Methods in Historical Research" , Social Sciences , No . 2 , 1 976 .

PARTISANSHIP IN THE BATTLE OF IDEAS IN HISTOR!CAL SCIENCE

The historian cannot abstract himself from his social milieu and its dominant views •. Consequently , one or ano­ther attitude to historical processes and phenomena , i . e . , their assessment , even regardless of the author ' s will , will always be present in any hist orical study . The Marxi st-Le­

_ninist und erstand ing of the partisanship of science holds that there is a definit e dependence between the socio-poli­tical class position of the hi storian and the degree of ob­j ectivity , approximation to the truth, in his appraisal of the historical process .

As every social science , hi stOTy cannot be indifferent or neutral to the subj ect of its analysi s . Thi s applies to every stage of re search , even the assembly of factual data . The science o f society pre supposef! research conducted from definite class positions .

Can a class position be obj ective ? Ye s , it can , if the assessmerit of hi storical processe s , phenomena and event s is made by the more progre ssive social forces , by the class that is the Yehicle and �otive force of social progress . "Neutrality" in relation to social phenomena , i . e . , obj ec­tivi sm , inevitably leads to renounyement of a critical at­titude to these phenomena , to their apologia and , consequ­ently , to retreat f�om obj ectivity .

Marxism discovered the social conditioning of human

- 38 -

consciousne s s . And in this lie the roots of "partisanship in science " , i . e . , the dependence of hi storical cognition and its related j udgement s on the class ideological positi­on of the hi storian. Parti sanship should not be j udged in terms of the personality of the given scholar and his pure­ly individual qualities , trait s , origins , psychology , e t c . W e must proceed from an analysi s o f the obj ective intere st s of the social milieu t o which the historian belongs. One must not imagine , Marx wrote , "that the democratic represen­tatives £reference is to bourgeois democracy - �.] are indeed all shopkeepers or enthusiastic champions of shop­keepers . According to their education and their individual pos it ion they may be as far apart as heaven from earth. Wha·t makes them repre sentatives . of the petty bourgeo i s i � is the fact tha� in the ir m inds they do no t ge t beyond the l imits which the latter do not get beyond in life , that they are conse quently driven , theoretically , to the same problems and solutions to which material interest and social positi­on drive the latter practically. 11 1

In upholding partisanship in science , Lenin trenchant­ly criticised those who artificially counterpose obj ectivi­ty in scientific research to the class sympathie s and anti­pathies of the researcher. He wrote : "If a certain doctrine demands of everyone taking part in public life an inexorab­ly obj ective analysis of realities and of the relationships between the various classes ari sing from these realities , by what miracle can the conclusion be drawn from t·his that they must not sympathise , are 'not entitled ' to sympathise with one or another class? It is ridiculous , in this con­nection , even to talk of duty , for no living person .£fil:!. help taking the side of one ciass or another ( once he has understood their interrelationships ) , can help rej oicing at the successes of that class and being di sappointed by its failure , can help being angered by those who are hos­tile to that class , who hamper its development by dissemi­nating backward views , and

.so on and so forth. "2 And so ,

partisanship in the social science is not artificially in­j ected from without , but is organically intrinsic to the process of re search inasmuch as it s subj ect is "living man " .

- 39 -

Obj ectivism , which bourge ois critics counterpose to the Marxi st propo sition of parti sanship in science , usual­ly turns into bourgeois parti sanship . The philistine notion of the "incompatibility" of an obj ective analysis of reali­ty with parti sanship wholly ignore s the dialectic of social development , and is premi sed on crude evolutionism in exa­mining social proce sse s . Every social phenomenon is intrin­sically contradictory , compo sed of element s imperatively demanding that the subj ect of research reveal his at titude to th�m . Georgi Plekhanov explained that reliance on reali­ty (without which there ca.n be no scientific analysis ) does not mean passive acceptance of or reconciliation with that reality. He wrote : "When the metaphysi cian hears that one who serve s, society must take his stand on reality , he ima­gines that he i s being advi sed to make hi s peace with that reality. He is unaware that in every economic reality there exist contradictorY' element s , a.nd that to make his peace with reality would mean making his peace with only one o·f its element s , namely , that which dominates for the moment . The dialectical materialists pointed , and point , to another element of reality , hostile to the first , and one in which the future i s maturing. "3

Lenin gave an even more clear-cut fo:nnulation of the difference between obj ectivi sm (as counterfeit obj e ctivity) and a genuine obj ective , class , materialistic approach to social phenomena . Iri the struggle with reactionary Narodism , which operat ed under the false flag of obj e ctivity in sci­ence , he explained in detail the fundamental difference bet­ween obj ectivity and obj ectivism. "The obj ectivi st speaks of the nece ssity of a given histo�ical pr0cess ; the materia­li st give s an exact picture of the given social-economi c formation and of the antagoni stic relations to which it gi­ves rise . When demonstrating the necessity for a given se­rie s of fact s , the obj ectivist always runs the risk of beco­ming an apo�ogist for the se fact s : the materialist di scl os­e s the class contradictions and in so doing define s hi s standpoint . "4

.

- 40 -

I Partisanship in hi storical science has nothing in com­

mon with vulgar subj ectivi sm . P�rtisanship has , in effect , a:lways been pre sent in the science of hi story. "Practi cally all titans of 1 9th-century historical thought , far from con­cealing their politi cal convictions , regarded history as a weapon of their propaganda . They were partisan hi storians · in the direct and precise meaning of the tenn • • • Men of diffeping politi cal persuasions , of differing social ide­als , turned to the past in the que st for argument s to sup­port their views , de epen their understanding of the pre sent and gain an insight into the future . ,_,5

Partisanship in the social science s , hi st ory in parti­cular , has been the subj ect of ceasele s s attacks by a wide range of ideological opponent s . Some critics of Marxism s ub­scribe to the vulgar notion that parti sanship in the so­cial (in thi s case historical ) science means that the scho­lar is writing hi story on the ex.::- i icit orders df hi s poli­tical party. Actually , parti sanship , 1 . e . , the so cio-poli­tioal orientation of one or another hi storical work , is de­tennined not by the subj ective position of its author , but by the obj ective conditions that shape hi s choice of ideo­logical position and govern hi s creative work . A contradiction DU.ght arise between partisanship and scientific obj ectivity--inde.ed is bound to ari se--if the researcher disregards the real requirement s of progre ssive social devel opment , or clashe s with them. Hence , partisan­ship of Marxi st social science , reflecting as it doe s the views of the most progre ssive class of modern society , is free of all bia s . It i s truly obj ective . Engels had every reason to point out that Marxism was acquiring- supporters "in every country whi ch contains , on the one hand , proleta­rians and , on the other , undaunted scientific theore ti ci­ans . "6

Bourgeois critics accuse the Marxists of "dogmati sm" , the absence of any de sire to make an impartial appraisal of the facts . This is a hypocritical accusation , for it is pre­cisely bourgeois historical science that is dominated by subjectivism. And it is precisely bourgeoi s historiography

- 4 1 -

that que stions the very possibility of obj e ctively inter­

preting hi storical source s . The appeal for an "impartial

appraisal of the fact s " , i s , therefore , largely demagogy ,

and claims that bourgeois science is "obj ective " have no

foundation in fact . I �

Bourgeois obj e ctivism is clo sely relat ed t o "pure " sub-

j e ctivism. Engels sarcastically remarked on the "self-com­

placent ' ob j e ctivity ' which sees no further than its nose

and precisely for that reason amount s to the most narrow­

minded sub j e ctivity even when it i s shared by thonsan�s of

stioh subj e ct s . "7

The science of human hi story has always been and is an

arena of ideological struggle , of conflict of progressive

and reactionary views . Hi storiography (i . e . , the history of

hi st orical science ) is a politi cal discipline that studi e s

the development o f historical thought against a wide back­

ground of philosophical ideas and social intere st s . This

lends exceptional importance to historiographic re search

studying the development of science , the emergence of his­

torical conceptions reflecting the different ideological

positions of the conflicting class force s .

Sovie t hi st oriography has made undoubted progre ss in

assessing the contribution to the science of hi story by a

number of Soviet and fore:i,gn hi storians . However., our mono­

graphs , t extbooks and study aids have not fully revealed

many significant facts of the interaction and int erinfluen­

ce of hi storiographic concept ions of different authors and

entire schools . They are usually examined in i solat i on of

each other and not as manife stations of the "pervading spi­

rit " of the epoch . A . M. Sakharov has j ustly remarked that

" since the principal fact or in the process of cognition is

its methodology , the development stage s of science differ

from e ach other in method of re search , in principles of cog­

nition and conceptualisation succeeding each other" . 8

The significant progre s s of Marxi st historical science

is internationally acknowledged . Not only in the sociali st

world , but also in developing and capitalist count ries , the

- 42 -

pre stige of Marxi st hi storiography is very high . Some schools of bourgeois and reformi st hi storiography owe their very appearance to the influence of Marxism-Leninism on scholars who , though conscious of the weakne ss of their own theoreti cal positions , are not yet prepared to abandon their idealist views . This finds particular refle ction in the changing themes of hi st orical re search , more at tention f o­cused on economic history , the role of mass movement s , and the hi story of revolutions .

At the same time , the battle of ideas in hi story i s st eadily becoming sharper , whi ch i s but an obj e ctive reflec­tion of the confrontation of the two socio-economic systems .

Many bourgeois and revi sionist hist oriographers claim that their ideas are innovat ive . Charact eri stically , non­Marxi st ide ali stic theories and construct s in the philoso­phy of hi story are undergoing gradual change and are adopt­ing to the time s . Re cognit i on O:t· oemi-Y.'3 cogni ti on of indi­vidual Marxi st propo sitions have produced a series of eclec­ti cal conceptions who se authors seek to uni te the ununitab­le , materiali st and idealistic interpretations of the past .

For a long time H . Rickert and W. Windelband were the most :prominent figures among bourgeois philosophers se eking to undermine the mat erialist conception of hi story . Taking as their premise Kantian dualism� they have sought to re con­cile acceptance �f the alleged exi stence of unknowable hi s­t orical fact s , and the cardinal role of the hi storian in their interpre tation and asse ssment .

Acoordilll? t o Rickert , the science of hi story is incon­ceivable without value criteri a . Criticising his subj ecti­vi st interpre tation of axiological j udgement s , Plekhanov wrote : "Unddubtedly , every historian arrange s hi s scientific material-- separa�ing the essential from the non- e s sential-­from the viewpoint of a certain value . The whole que stion i s : what is the nature of thi s value? It is quit e impossible t o answer this que stion by asserting that , in thi s particu­lar case , the value concerned is in the cate-go-ry o"f cu;tu;�l value s . Not a t all . A s a man o f science--and within the fra-

- 43 -

mework of his science--the historian ·considers as · essential

that -which helps him to determine the causal connection of

those events tha aggregate of which constitutes the indi­

vidual process of de�elopment he is studying ; and as non­

essential that which is irrelevant to this theme . Consequ­

ently , what is involved there is not at all category of

values spoken of by Rickert . 119

Max Weber ' s philosophical conceptions are based on

Kantian views as well . In contrast to the Marxist-Leninist

theory on socio-economic fonnations , he has advanced his

own conception of artificially constructed "ideal types of

society". He denies the obj ective character of social regu­

laritie s , proposing instead these "ideal tyPes" as a sub­

j ective surrogate for historical conceptualisation.

Unlike the Rickertians , bourgeois scientists of the

positivist school work from the principle of the impermis­

sibility of any value judgements in the study of the past ,

for thi s , they allege , dooms science to subj ectivist rela­

\ivism. At the same time , however, the positivists identify

the facts of history with the facts of. natural science ,

which reduces history to the level of a mere recorder of

events .

On the whole the ·contemporary non-Marxist historiogra­

phy strives to undermine the principle of obj ectivity of

historical knowledge and to- affirm the priority of the sub­

j ect in historical cognition. The American historian Henry

Steel Commager remarks,: tiit should be clear that history as

what happened , over some thousands o r tens o f thousands of

years , has no inherent philosophy. It is only in historio­

graphy that we can discover • • • some philosophy. History

has no philosophy , but historians do . Whatever philosophy

is found in history has first been put there by some histo­

rian--or perhaps by some philosopher. When the historian

purport.a to discover some laws or principles of history ,

they are laws and principles of his own making or his own

discovery and application ; when the philosopher reads some

purpose into history, it is hi s own reading. " This extreme­

ly subj ectivist position rej ects any attempt to penetrate

- 44 -

the essence of the historical process and understand its implications . But Commager goes further, negating the very concept of history : "There is nothing that is in fact · l:!!§.­� as there are atoms , rocks , or chemicals. These things exist in Nature ; they would be there if man passed away from the scene . But history does not exist in Nature , but merely in man ' s imagination , and it is not there unless man is there to imagine it and formulate it. It is a sophisti­cated concept whereby man organizes his collective memory and imposes order and meaning on an incoherent past . n 1 0

Such is the extreme , and lucidly formulated , rej ection not only of scientific knowledge , �ut of the science of histo­ry as such.

There is any amount of pronouncements on this subj ect . . I Some exaggerate the fact that the student of the paFt does not have a broad experimental basis , allegedly the only guarantee of scientific obj ectivity. Many boureois scholars are inclined to "reduce " history to the level of a "pariah" far removed from modern Western sociology with its "strict­ly scientific" mathematicalised conclusions . We have , in short , a curious "rearrangement of concepts " : the data the researcher puts into the computer· is tacitly accepted as obj ective , "cleared" of the influence of the researcher ' s personality. Even bourgeois scholars have drawn attention to this "innocent trick" with the help of which the comput­er programmer is fully "obj ectivised 11 • 1 1 These claims to strict scientific obj ectivity , to 0non-partisanship" of so­ciological experimental research , should be viewed with a critical eye .

It is no accident that negation of the obj ective cha­racter ·of historical research is often justified in bourge­ois science by the plea that we cannot authentically reconst­ruct event s of the past . Many non-Marxist historians are inclined to put concrete sociolo'gy above history or , at any rate , impose the idea that "sociological methods0 are supe­rior to historical ones. But what kind of sociology have they in mind? Bourgeois historiography understands social sciences ( or sociology in its general implications ) not as

- 45 -

phi losophical , 1 id e o lo gical s c ience s , but as s ome thing oppo­sed to them , some th ing that can e as ily b e " d e i d eo logis­e d " ., In their view , the social science s include primarily applied di scipline s in whi ch the use of mathematical me­thods can allow experimental verification of empiri c mat e ­rial , but n o t e ss ential analysi s or formulation of ideolo­gical conclusions .

The Cypriot. hi storian Theodore Papandopoul o s , addre ss­ing the 1 3 th International Congre s s of His torical Science s in Moscow i n 1 970 , maintained that the only link between hi story and the " so cial scienc e s " was that both c ould be

the subj ect of quantitative inve st igat ion . And the quant i­

tative metho d , in his view , is a powerful universal analy­

tical tool . Its independent use in history has practically

the same feature s as in anthropology : "The physical and ma­

t erial asp e c t s better lend themselves to quant itative defi­

nition than the human aspect • • • Physical and mat erial area s

of study are b e s t sui ted t o quantitative treatment be cause

of their stabili sed forms and be cause , due t o the dynamic

pro c e s s , they have c omplet ely withdrawn from hi story . 11 1 2

Papandopoul o s ne eds thi s c onclusion only t o substantia­

te hi s negative attitude to the "non-experimental " s cience

of hi story . Following ,the exampl e of mo st Western bourgeoi s

hi storians , he fears the "non-obj e ctive human a sp ec t " of

re search. In other words , he want s to avoid an analysis of

socio-class relations . For in hi s opinion , "the methodolo­

gy of hi st ory i s not in a p o sit ion deci sively t o ext end i t s

scientific understanding o f phenomena t o the hi storical pro­

c e s s a s a whole " . 1 3

Fear of the socio-political , class problems in hi stori­cal re search is the main reason why non-Marxist hi storiogra­phy insist s so vehemently on the priority of " social " scien­c e s , or purely quant itat ive methods of re search , which more easily eliminate the "human aspec t n , i . e . , the t ruly social aspe ct . This idea has been set out quite clearly by the West German hi storian Theodor Schieder. He c ont ends that only the social sciences reveal the regulariti e s of development . Hi s­tory can only give us a picture of individual , non-re current

- 46 -

event s , but can draw no regulari t i e s from them. For inas­much a s "the pro c e s s of hist ory cannot be generalised in any of it s phas e s " , i t simply repre s ent s the subj e c tive creative act of the hi st orian . 1 4

No mat t er how near t o the t ruth the empiri cal data provided by sociology c ome , taken in their t otality--and even more so individually--they cannot explain the cause s o f maj or his tori cal proce sse s and phenomena . The mo st scru­pulous sociological analys i s base d on a mult iplicity of di­verse mathematical indicat ors cannot fully di sclose the mainsprings of so cial development or determine the c orre la­tion between c onflicting social forc e s , or reveal the c apa­bility of the dominant t rend to overco�e o r paralyse c oun­tert rend s operating within society . Re search based exclusi­vely on mathemati cal data that can be experimentally veri­fied cannot go beyond the study. of c e rtain l ocal proc e s s e s i n their narrow , pragmati c int e rpretation . The claim of mo­dern bourgeo i s sociology that it can replace the tradition­al science of hi story with i t s allegedly obsolete methods and lack of modern t echnologi cal facilitie s , i s a shee r de­c eption .

Po si tivis t "dire ct experi enc e " turns out to be inade­quate even for a sat i sfactory explanation of re c ent event s . Concret e sociological methods ( a s int erpreted by bourgeois authors ) , both in i t s ext e rnal charact e ri s t i c s and substan­c e , bypasses the p rincipal action of obj e c tive regularitie s of social development , which are not always dete ctable on the surface and do not easily lend themselve s to mathemati­cal formalisation .

At the 1 3 th Int ernational Congre s s of Hi st ori cal Scien­c e s in Moscow there were differen c e s even among We stern hi s­t orians on the relation between history and sociology . Pro­fe s sor Dubuc of Canada , for instance , made a cl ear case against the c oncept'ion formulat e d by T. Papandopoulo s . "The r e i s talk i n the human�tie s , " h e said , "only about quantita­tive methods , mathemat ic s , models , information , c omput ers , the language of Fortran , and so on . The advantage s of pre­cise scientifi c t e rminology and pre ci s e measurement s are

- 47 -

obvious . But tq the degree in which history is now seeking to formalise everything and gain knowledge of everything as a result of the latest achievements in the social sci­ences , it will be put in reverse movement . History risks falling into a new positivi sm • • • Many historians have ta­ken a painstaking examination of national bookkeeping , without fully realising the theoretical problems confront­ing the economi st s : The very word 'model ' has become vogu­ish among historians ; and in using it they do not always ta�e into account that the e conomist s who coined it associ­ated it with a strict statistical analysis • • • For the hu­manities ideology is what creative imagination i s for the mathematicians . Those who claim to hold aloof from ideology do not take the trouble to question the validity of their scientific research and do not acknowledge the exist ence within themselve s of certain concept s . Such scientist s are misled and are misleading others . In reality , the propo si­tion that ideology has vanished is the most ideological proposition of all . " 1 5

The primacy of the researcher ' s philosophical position in the cognitive process doe s not signify complete negation of concrete sociological methods in examining maj or social processe s . In fact , they can help to precise. many aspect s of these processe s . And yet , concrete historical sociology cannot replace the whole of science of history . For it can provide only some stable indicators for prognostication of social phenomena . And these can be employed only if based on a correct understanding of the obj ective sociological and historical regularities operating over a long period of time .

Bourgeois authors are concentrating their attacks on the cornerstone of historical science , namely , the princip­le of historism. Many representatives of bourgeois s cience rej ect the approach to social processes and phenomena as the reflection of definite historical conditions. In their view , historism is a "loop hol e " for explaining social phe­nomena which, they claim, do not l end themselves to a satis­factory interpretation .

- 4 8 -

A whil e ago bourgeois hi storical science abided by the principle of historism in its limited, formal under­standing. The source s of bourgeois historism go back to the close of the 1 8th century and are associate d with the gra­dual overcoming of the doctrine of natural law , based on the non-historical notion about the existence of " e ternal truth" and the immutability of man. The emergence of histo­rism was associate d , above all , with the establishment of the fundamental difference between natural and social phe­nomena . As distinct from the mechanical uniformity of natu­ral phenomena , the world of man was for the first time stu­died as being in constant change . A long step t owards estab­lishing historism was recognition of the thesis that man ' s character and actions could be underst9od only in their de­velopment . This t rend in historical science first emerged as a reaction to the rationalistic ideas , which later prov­ed fallacious , of the bourgeois Enlightenment . The idea of a "kingdom of reason" turned out to be a . pure Utopia , a li­feless plan to reorganise society by introducing ideal le­gislative and constitutional norms . The conviction was prov­ed wrong that a rational plan devised by the lawmaker could chang� the destini e s of society which , moreove r , was regard­ed as the sum t otal of individuals , as obj ects influenced by rat ional ideas .

Bourgeois histori sm , which replaced speculative ratio­nalism in interpreting and asse ssing social processes , sig­nified a definite step forward in the understanding of his­t ory . In general , historiSm. became the distinguishing fea­ture of 1 9th-century scientific thought . ·The use of this principle required a genetic analysis of social phenomena , concrete study of their development stages from their very origins . The t endency towards histori sm was present also in the historical thinking of the Enlighteners , but was seri­ously weakened by the abstract-rationalistic and mechanis­tic methodology of the Enlightenment a s a .whole • . As a re­sult , whole epochs of human history , notably the Middle Ages , were bereft of positive historical content . 1 6

However , bourge.oi s histori sm , which found i t s fullest

- 49 -

philosophical sµbstantiation in the conceptions of Hegel , could not serve as a basis of obj ective investigation o the historical process . In analysing every phenomenon in its gradual development , bourgeois historism regarded it as something unique , as an individual phenomenon. In the opi­nion qf H. Schleier, a GDR historian , the rational core of bourgeois historism was its establishment of ties between the general and the particular , but with attention focused on the particular. It s absoluti sation led t o all historical phenomena being regarded as unique and individual . Bourge­ois hi storism denied the possibility of identifying obj ec­tive regularities of social development , and thus of under­standing the hi storical process as a whole . 1 7

At th� turn of the century bourgeoi s historism was in a state of profound crisi s : the view spread among histori­ans that the historical process was not only unknowable , that it was but a collection of "fortuitous event s " .

The reactionary German historian L . Ranke , taking a long step back from Hegel , denied the unity of the world historical process , maintaining that every epoch can be understood only in itself , without relation to other epochs . 1 8

Modern We stern historiography cat egorically re j ects the very principle of histori sm , even in its limited interpreta­tion . Thus , the American sociologist M. Mandelbaum denies the unity of the hist orical process , arguing that there is a multiplicity of partial "histories" , and though they are connected , they cannot be scientifically studied because of the unpredictable external influences on one or another his­t orical process . Mandelbaum capsules his theo.ry in the se words : "The human past will not be taken to have been a sing­le developing process , nor a set of such processes going on independently of one another. 11 1 9

French sociologi st R.Aron says that historism , that com­bination of scepti cism and irrationalism, is not so much a philo sophy as an excuse for the absence of a philosophy. 20

In 11?-s opinion , every concret e interpre tation of the past is det ermined by the political views of the historian , hi s

ft r PM*'�

- 50 - • I

desire to see the future in a definite light . The philoso­

phy of hi story cannot eliminate thi s multiplicity of inter­

pretations of the past . The underlying idea of history , he

says , is . neither optimi sm , with its faith in progre ss , nor

pessimi sm. In the final analysi s , mankind as a whole is his�

tory. "Man ' s exist ence is dialectical , one might even say

dramati c , because man act s in a world of i solat ed phenome­

na • • • His quest for the truth , which constantly eludes him ,

leave s him only a fragmented science and formal thought . 112 1

Soviet historiography has long maintained that the sci­ence of history examines factual dat a , above all , from the standpoint of their conformity with reality , i . e . , from the standpoint of their truth or falsene ss . In this sense it differs from the so-called exact sci�nces .

In the past few decade s bourgeois hi st oriographers and sociologi st s have sought to overcome the nihilist attitude to hi story and give it a new interpretation . Much prominen­ce has been given , in this context , to structuralism. It i s being presented as a new , " synthetic " hi st orical science whi ch , we are told , has adopted many Marxist theses . Suppor­t ers of predominantly positivi st views are rallying t o the banner of structuralism . But their constructs , which lead towards a materialist under�tanding of hi story , re quire a critical assessment by Marxi st hist orians .

Every obj ective hi storical phenomenon is multi-faceted. The hi storian studies its different facet s without in any way challenging the existence of the whole . And though every hi storical fact is limited by place and time , i t s recurrence could lead the scholar to exaggerate its importance . Expan­sion of hi story ' s source base , the appearance of newly di s­covered material s and fact s relating to a given phenomenon can always justify its examination from new positions and different standpoint s .

The examination o f fac t s o r event s a s facet s , element s or structures of a much wider hi storical process is the ore­tically possible not only in development , but al so in a sta­tic state . But the "extraction" of individual structures for isolated examination pre supposes a definit e degree of abet-

- 51 -

raction from tpe real historical proce ss .

The concept of social structure , as well as a method of structural analysi s are part of the dialectico�materia­list approach to history. A splendid example is Lenin ' s work , The Development of Capitalism in Russia ( 1 899 ) , in I which there i s , both a quantitative and qualitative analysis , with structures examined in development and in their static stat e . J. Topolski rightly remarks that "to this day Lenin ' s book , which continued and enriched the Marxist approach , i s an !xample o f how statistics c an b e used to study phenomena in their development ( in this case Russian capitalism) . Thi s pioneer work is often underestimated in discussing the evolution of quantitative methods in examining social struc­ture s . n22

. Lenin ' s structural analysis is not divorced from hi s

analysis of the proce ss as a whole . He does not regard structure as something autonomous . Lenin wrote : "What Marx and Engels called the dialectical method--as against the metaphysical--is nothing else than the scientific method in sociology , which consists in regarding society as a living organism in a state of constant development ( and not as something mechanically concatenated and there�ore permit­ting all sort s of arbitrary combinations of separate social element s ) , an organism , the study of which requires an obj ec­tive analysis of the production relations that constitute the given social formation and an inve stigation of · its laws of functioning and development . n23 In this way Lenin clear­ly comes out against arbitrary t reatment of " separate social element s " . In other words , he treat s society as a single or­ganism and contrasts its comprehensive study to what ha� come to be known . as structuralism, i . e . , isolated examina­tion of individual social elements (or structure s ) .

Struct�lism in bourgeois hi storiography in effect ne­gates dynamic development and absoluti se s social instituti­ons as something e stablished for all time . The structural­i st s claim that their approach is the acme of obj ectivisin and that they make no concessions whatever to subj ectivi sm. In reality their examination of social structures i s divorc-

- 5 2 -

ed from the general process of history , of which the se structures are but element s . That method does not allow for obj ective appraisals , for every soc�al structure can be properly understood and apprai sed only as a facet of cons­tantly changing and developing social .relations . Making an absolute of structures i s tantamount to rej ecting the prin­ciple of historism. 24

It Bh;ould be noted that st3'.'llcturali sm i s criticised al­so from extreme idealist positions . Bourgeois historians who categorically negate the regularities of the historical process and contend that it is unlmowable , are inclined to rej ect al so the very idea of identifying structures as more or less stable obj ective element s of social development . Structuralism is condemned , wrongly , also as a variety of the "materialist understanding of . history " . Exi st entialism , which claims t o b e the antipode o f structuralism , i s wholly based on t�� subj ective activit1 of man and complete nega­tion of all obj ective factors .

Both structuralism and exi stentialism , though they seem to be poles apart , are ho stile to materialist dialec­tics and are incompatible with the genuine science of his­t ory.

The problem of the essence of historical cognition i s no-t<the only area o f confrontation o f ideas in historical science . Tlie� � 1\ll irreconcilable confrontation at every level of historical re search , against every deviation from the scientific method of studying the past .

What the critics of llarxism-Leniniem di slike most is that it recognises the regularities of · social development . They emphasise the diversity of concrete paths of social de­velopment . And from this diversity they draw the conclusion that there is no mainstream of human development . And that conclusion i s the central thesis of the dominant school of thought in contemporary bourgeois historiography . Ko st bour­geois hi storians concentrate on scrupulous and detailed stu­dy of artificially i solated fragments of the past , devoting most attention to narrow , partial que stio�s and studiously avoiding all generalisation as both harmful and dangerous .

- 5.3 -

Scepticism is the hallmark of the crisis of bourgeois historical thought . It leads , in effect , to the division of historical science int o a series of applied di scipline s con­cern�d mainly with the study of sourc e s . Bourgeois hist orio-

'---graphy , as personified by its l eading exponents , is prepar-ed to give the reader an abundance of factual mat e rial , not infrequently substantiated and backed up by careful criti­cal · analysis of sourc e s . But there is no generalisation , no serious conclusions enabling the reader t o det ermine the leading trend . of social development . It stands to ret?-son that thi s applied only to the more conscientious bourgeois historians who , despit e their fallacious theorie s , do not want to take up avowedly reactionary positions and refuse to become t ools of anti-communism. What we have is a pro­found crisis of world outlook , masked by talk about a de­sire to avoid subj ective appraisals of fact s .

The most glaring example o f att empt s to vulgarise the . materialist method of explaining the past is the exclusion of man from the process of history. History is thus reduced to the history of material values , Of technology. What we have is a caricature of the Marxist the sis of the revolutio­nary role of change in the productive forc e s . The purpose of this is t o remove the central , decisive element of the historical process , nam'ely , social class relations . Thi s has found its most apologetic expression in W . Rostow ' s Non-Communi st Manife sto . In it , Rostow name s five "stages of growth" to replace the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of so­cio-economic formations . 25

A large group of bourgeoi s historians are engaged in empirical studies of economic history , without drawing the generali sed conclusions formulated by Rostow. But like him they regard e conomic phenomena in isolation from social and class problems . Thi s formal "concession" to Marxism by ack­nowledging the importance of economic factors , degenerate s into a polemic with the real Marxist understanding o f hi sto­ry , into its negation. For rej ection of a cl�ss analysis is often accompanied by. the invention of vague "social struc­tures" , the obvious aim being to avoid a study not only of

- 54 -

class antagonisms , but of the very dynamics of social de­velopment . ·

Some foreign historians pay homage to Marxism but ac­cept economics only as "one of the - factors " that shape the historical process . The pluralistic theory current among bourgeois hi storians , which assigns e qual importance t o dif­ferent factors , including economics , is in most cases of a positivist charact er.

The search for alternative s t o the Marxist understand­

ing of social devel opment has produced theories that consi­

der human hi story only as the sum-total of civilisations or

cultural-historical entitie s . At one t ime A. Toynbee ' s theo­

rie s were e specially popular in this context . Unlike Toyn­

bee and other exponent s of the theory of the cyclical deve­

lopment of society through separat e unco�ected or weakly

connected civilisations , K. Jaspers contends that there i s

a universal path o f history common t o the whole o f mankind ,

but he makes the reservation that not all people s have gone

through progre ssive development . He does not accept the the­

ory that the starting point of global period� sation of his­

t ory can be ·tne ·emergence of world religions , rightly point­

ing out to the untenability of the chronologi-eal system bas­

ed on the Chri stian era . In his opinion , the starting pol:nt

must be the much earlier philosophical conceptions which so

strongly influenced the destinies of mankind . Jaspers argue s

that world hi story must begin with the "axial times " ( appro­

ximately 800-200 B. C . ) . It was in this period , according t o

Jaspers , that there t ook place the parallel development o f

powerful spiritual processes .in China , India , Persia , Pale s­

tine and Ancient Greece , which impelled man t o reflect on

the meaning of the exist ence and gradually to free himself

of mythological illusions . In short , this was an age of

" spiritual fis sion" . One result Qf this philosophical break­

through was the spread of reflective thought which was t o

have widely different consequence s . I t was in this era , Jas­

pers says , that the basic categories were formulated which

guide our thinking to this day , are intrinsic t o the world ' s

religions and still direct the live s of people s . �ere was .

- 5 5 -

a general transition to universality. 26

Jaspers avoids defining the character of this epoch. But he enumerates the great spiritual processes of the time and their continued development in the first millennium B. C . and in the first antagonistic social formation. It should not be difficult to see .that Jaspers ' "axial time s " , the existence of which he substantiates from. purely idea­listic positions , actually reflect the process in the first millennium B . C . of the rise and growth of the first antago­ni stic class , slave-owning socio-economi:c formation .

A fundamental feature of anti�Karxist historiography is absolutisation of the particular , the nationally spe cifi c . For the anti-Marxist fears serious generalisations , perferr­ing to deal with individual , artificially isolated facts , events , ideas. He carefully avoids conceptions that would suggest regularities in the development of society , or even the concept of historical progress . He artificially parti­t'ions the universal process of history , dividing it into se­parate links , facet s , structures , and thi s tends to exagge­rate the particular and preclude s all possibility of analys­ing it in its dynamic movement and giving it a truly obj ec­tive appraisal . In particular, there has been much great er activity of late by ad�erent s of nationalistic hist oriogra­·phy. Their aim is artificially to separate the process of history of ·a given country from the course of world history.

Marxist historiography has many achievements to its cre­dit in illuminating the historical past traversed by many people s of Asia , Africa and Latin America . "Eurocentrism" is totally alien to it . :Marxist-Leninist historical science strongly rej ects all nationalistic and racist conceptions . Expressed in this is also the common tendency of anti-Marx­ist historiographY to negate all regularities of social de­velopment and give prominence to the specific , in this case the national specifics.

Internationalism is part of the obj ectivity of Marxist­Leninist historical science . It wholly rej ects a biased at­titude to the history of any people or the tendencies to be-

- '5 6 -

little or exaggerate the role of any nationality in the historical process .

!!2.m 1 K.Karx , F.Engels , Selected Works , Vol . 1 , Moscow , 1 969 ,

p . 424 . 2

3

4

5

6

7

V . I . Lenin , Collected Works , Moscow , Vol . 2 , p . 53 1 .

G .V. Plekhanov , Selected Philosophical Works , Vol . 1 , Moscow , 1 974 , p . 672 .

V. I . Lenin , Collected Works , Vol . 1 , pp . 400-40 1 .

B. G . Mogilnit sky , '"Obj ectivity and Party Spirit in· Histo­rical Scienc e " , Methodological and His�oriographic Prob­lems of Historical .Science , Issue 2·, Tomsk , 1 964 , p . 9 . ( in Russian ) .

F. Engels , Anti-DUhring, Moscow , 1 969 , p . 1 3 .

Marx-Engels , Selected Correspondence , Moscow , 1 95 5 , p . 420 .

8 A .M. Sakharov , The Historiogtjipliy of the History of the USSR. Pre-Soviet Period , Moscow , 1 978 , p . 1 5 ( in Russian ) .

9 G .V. Plekhanov , Selected Philosophical Works , Vol . 3 , 1 976 , pp . 485-486.

1 0 Mind , Sc ience and History , Ed. H . E . Kieier , M. K. Muni t z , Albany , 1 970 , · pp . 300-301 .

1 1 A . Dubuc , "L ' hiatoire au carrefour des science s humaines " , 1 3th International Congress of Historical Sciences , Pa-pers : Vol . 1 , Part 1 , Moscow, 1 973 .

1 2 Theodore Papandopoulos , "La methode des sciences socia­les dans la recherche historique " , 1 3 th International Congress of Historical Sciences , p . 97 .

1 3 Ibid. , p . 93 . 1 4 Theodor Schiede r , "Unterschiede zwischen historischer

und sozialwissenschaftlicher Methode" , 1 3th Internat ional Congress of Historical Sciences , p . 66 .

1 5 A . Dubuc , op . cit . , pp . 1 48 , 1 49 , 1 5 5 .

- 57 -

1 6 Historiogr&i>hY of 11odern and Contemporaey Riston of

Europe and .America . Moscow. 1 977 . p . 43 (in Russian) .

1 7 H. Schleier. "Zum Verhiltnis von Historiamue , Struktur­

geschichte und sozialWissenschaftlichen Methoden in der

gegenwartigen Geschichtsschreibung der BRD" , Probleme

der Geachichte in Methodologie , Berlin� . 1 972.

1 8 Historiograph.y of Modern and Contemporaey Histoey of

Europe and America , p .80. 19 M.Mandelbaum. History, Men and Reason. A Study of Nine­

teenth-Century Thought , Bal tiillore , London, 1971 , p . ·133 .

20 R�Aron , Introduction a la philosophie de l 'histoire . Es­

sai sur lea limites de l ' objective historigue , Paris ,

1 948 , p .JOO! 21 Ibid. , p .350. 22 J. Topolaki , Metodologia historii , Warsaw, 1 973 , p .333 .

23 V. I.Lenin, Collected Works , Vol . 1 , p . 1 65 . 24 I.D.Kovalchenko and N.V. Sivachev , "Structuralism and

Structural Quantitative Methods in Contemporary Histo­

rical Science" , Iatoria SSSR, No. 5 , 1 976 , pp. 7 1 -72.

25 W.Roatow , The Stages of Economic Growth. A Non-Communist

Manifesto , New York:·, 1 960. 26 K. Jaspers , Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Gesc"hichte , Munich,

1952 , pp. 20-21 .

Section II. The Laws of the World Historicat Process

SOCIOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL LAWS

Even in_,. antiquity it was well understood that historic­al facts and events have to be explained. In Thucydides and Polybio one already finds rudiments of the idea of laws of the historical process. At a time when the bourgeoisie was in the ascendant and fought against feudal ideas, particular­ly that of divine Predestination as the universal motive force of nature and society, bourgeois ideologists did not'

reject the existence of objectiv� �r natural laws. Montes­quieu wrote, for. instance, that "laws , in the most extended meaning of the term, are the necessary connections which de­rive from the nature of things; in this sense, all beings have their laws • • • ". 1

In the period of modern history, there were many at­tempts to formulate laws of social development. However, the interpretation of these laws was extremely one-sided and limited. It was dominated by the tendency of Auguste Comte, and especially his followers, John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer, to transform historical science into an applied na­tural science disciplin�.

It was only Marx's discovery of the materialist inter­pretation of history which provided a really solid foundat­ion for historical science. Objective knowledge supplanted count.less speculative hypotheses and sometimes remarkable conjectures worthy of genius ( of . Saint-Simon) . Historical science was now able to interpret the immense quantities of factual information with which it had to deal. This was made possible by the discovery and employment in histo;rical re­search of an extremely powerful instrument--the category of ob.j_e.c ti ve law.

- 59 -

J

The law " taking it in the sense of an es tablished in� terdependence and connect ion between phenomena ( essences ) , became an .integral part of histor ical knowledge , transform­ing it into a syst em , into a genuine science. In his notes on Hegel ' a Science of Logic , Lenin po inted out : "The co.ncept of law is one of the stages of the cognit ion by man of unity and connect ion , of the rec iprocal dependence and wholeness of the world process " . 2 Lenin formulated th� concept .of law as "re lat ion of essences or betwe en 'essenc es " . 3

The materi al i st .int erpre tat ion of his tory made it pos­s ible to create a sc ience of the general laws of so cial d·eve­,lopthent--his torical mater ial ism. Thea� ge:neral laws ( those

1 relat ing to the in terconne ct ions between the basis and the ·superstru� ture , to changes in the social sys tem in accordance with changes in the forces of pr oduction , to the dependence of soc ial consc iousness on so c ial be ing, and many others ) are relevant to society as a whole. For that reason they are called general soc iological laws.

They form the fo.undat ion for und erstanding all soc ial phenomena ; therefore all � o�her so cial sc ience s , inc lud ing history , are based on histor ical mater iali sm. At the same t ime , each spec ial soc ial science reveals and s tudies the more specific laws pertaining usually not to so ciety as a whole , but to concrete ' aspects of so c ial activity. "It is , of course , impossible to explain the concre te histor ical pro­c ess with the aid of universal laws only. But it . is well known that any law is only applicable under definite cond i t­ions : it is the law of a defin'i te class of phenomena. Cer­tain general soc io logical laws operate in history· which are necessary for any human soc iety ( e . g. , the law that social be ing is .deteruiin,ing soc ial consciousn,ess , the law that re­lations of product ion correspond to the nature of the forces of product ion , etc. ) . At the same t ime , each soc io-economic format ion has its own specific la�s , so that any concrete social phenomenon is subj ect .to the operat ion of many laws , bo th general and specific. n 4·

As compared to histori cal mater ialism, the Marxist sc ience of the pas t . stud ies the more special laws of soc ial

- 60 -

development . These are called historical laws. In scient :L­fic literature there are at temp ts to delimitate the conc ep t ot law and regulari ty. In fac t , these concepts cannot be opposed to each other. General soc iological and historical laws are assert ions of the normat ive and regular nature of certain processes and phenomena. It follows that a regtila­ri ty is an act ion correspond ing to a law and determine d by i t . I n wo rks of history , the "r.egular " . i s interpreted as t he usual , that is , as something in which no "specific ity" i� manifested . In this kind of usage , the term "regular i ty" loses its genuine meaning. His tor ical laws emerge and act under concre te cond it ions of t ime and place. The ir origin is cond i t ioned ent irely by the development of so c iety , by its progress ive movement .

Marx and Engels regarded the. historical process prin­c ipally as movement , stress ing its dynamism. Engels wro te : "History is made in such a way that the f inal re sult always ar ises from conflicts between many ind ividual wills , of whi ch each in turn has been made what i t is by a host of particular cond itions -of l ife . Thus there are innumerable intersect ing forces , an infinite aerie� of parallelograms of forces which give r ise to one resultant--the historical event . This may again i tself be viewed as the product of a power which works as a who le unconsc iously and without vol.it ion. For what each ind ividual wills is obstructed by everyone else , and what emerges is something that no one willed. Thus his tory has proceeded hi therto in the manner of a natural process and is essent ially subj ect to the same laws of mo­t ion. But from the fact that the wi lls .of ind ividuals--each of whom des ires what he is. impelled to by his phys ical con-s t i tut ion and external , in the last :re sort economic , .c ircum­stances ( e i ther his own personal c ircumstances or those of soc iety in general )--do no t at tain what they want , but are1 merged into an aggregate mean 1 a common resultant . it must no t be concluded that they are e qual to zero . 1 On \he contra­ry , each contr ibutes to the resultant an� is to this extent included in i t . n5 Develop ing this fipea, Enge ls indicated that , unlike nature , where on�y bl ind unconscious forces act and general laws are manifes ted>,,!n the int eract ion of these

- 61 -

forces , " in the history of society • • the actors are all en­dowed with consc iousness , are men act ing with del iberat ion or pass ion , working towards definite goals ; no thing happens without a conscious purpos� without an intended aim. But this d is t inct ion , important as it is for histor ical invest­igat ion , particularly of s ingle epochs and events , canno t alter the fact that the course of history is governed by inner general laws • • • Where on the surface acc ident holds sway , there actually it is always governed . by inner , hidden law� and it is only a matter of d iscover ing these laws 11 • 6

What is the or igin of his torical laws?

If we were to look for the source of his tor ical regula­rit ies in ind ividual acts and des ires , which commonly contra­d ict one another , we would. be unable to cast off the yoke of c hance. Historical fac ts provide evid ence , however , that at all times there have been maj or events accompanied by ser ious change s in the lives of great masses of peop le--entire nat ions and classes rather than ind ivi dual! . The only cert.ain way of d iscovering the laws of soc ial development is to study the causes which set great mas·ses of people in mo t ion , and result in substant ial or , as Enge ls put i t , " great histor ical chan­ges" in the ir dest iny. Of course , the scholar has to take into account that the genuine causes of these · 11 great hfstori­cal changes" are often d is torted or even fantast ically re­flected in people ' s consc iousness , and in the dominant ideas and conceptions. The incent ives mo t ivat ing the masse s or t he ir ideologists , the ir leaders , do not always ade quately correspond to the great historical processe s which are actu­ally taking place. But the study and comparison of concre te informat ion characte:t"is ing the essence of his t or ical changes , that is , the movement of soc iety , can provide a . key t o reveal­ing the o bj ective . regularit ies of this movement , however deep­ly they might be concealed . by a mass of chance events .

As society develops , e conomic re lat ions a s absolutely dominant relat ions act more and more openly and nakedly. It is easier in this sense to establish the effec� of obj ect ive laws in capi.tali st soc ie ty than in feudal or slave-owning soc iety.

- 62 -

It is a well-known fact that pre-Marxian botirgeois

scien�e ( Guizo t , llignet , Thierry) recognised the existence .

,of classes and class s truggle. The modern French .historian

Mousnier definitely takes a step back compared to these

c lass ic figures of bourgeo is historiography when he opposes

the term "social stratum" (strate ) to the llarxist concept

"class " . He claims that Marx unj us t ifiably extended a "par­

t icular case '� ( �he class division of capital is� s_oc iety) to

the ent ire his tory of human society. Accord ing to Kousnier ,

soc ial s trata are formed as a result of d ifferences in the

nature of labour or other funct ions they perform , regardless

of ownership of the means of product ion. 7 The "elimination"

of the "class " concept and the subst itut ion of the art ific i­

al "strat ificat ion of society" for it is a common feature of

modern Western hist orio graph;y.

When he s tud ies soc ial development , the histor ian deals with two kinds of obj ec t ive laws : firs t , the general soc iolo­gical laws d iscovered by the founders of :Marxism , which are of prime significance ; and second , historical . laws which usu­ally are revealed in the invest igat ion itself.

The study of general soc io logical laws i s not the ful:ict­

ion of historical scienc e , but historical scienc e stud ies the

act ion of general so c io logical laws in the his�orical process

under concre te cond i t ions of t ime and p lace. One of the fun­

ct ions of his torical research is to trace the effe?t of a ge­

neral soc io logical regular ity on the d iv�rse phen��na of the

histor ical process , in establishing the links between general

soc iological laws and .the more specific historical laws. Ge­

neral soc io logical and historical laWE! are closely int erdepen­

dent , and the ir act ions are cont inually interwoven.

Any soc iological law , even the most abstract , is at the

same t im� historical : in the first p la'Oe , it has a _ certain

durat ion , and is in this sense · var iable ; in the second , it is

a result of the j uxtapos it ion , analysis , and generalisation

of certain historical experiences , of repet1t1on in practice .

The essence of general soc iological laws consists in reveal-

_ ing the most general principle,EJ of the development and . move­

ment of society rega.1'dless of _the concrete forms in which

- 63 -

they are emboq ied. The content o:f the laws that are prope:u­ly M storical is determined by establishing the specific traits and :features of' the development and movement of' so­ciety in its concrete :forms. At . the same time, historical laws reveal the mechanism of' action o:f ge�eral sociological laws under concrete historical condit ions. In this respect they are subordinate to the general sociological laws. But the role of hi storical ;Laws is not , o:f cour�e, exhausted by the concretisation of the ir operation·. As they are genetic­ally linked to general sociological laws, they also have certain independence, and in ttirn form a system of coordina ­ted, interrelated, and mutually interd.ependent historical laWS · Of a more or less specific nature pertaining to differ­ent forms of soc iety or stages of its development.

Sociological laws are manifested in vast processes as general tendencies of development. Historical laws operate

· w ithin comparatively short per iods of time, and are formed on the basis of an ensemble of relat iqns of social develop­ment at a given stage of a given type of society.

The . correlat-iori of general sociological and historical laws ( both the more .general and the more specific) mey be tentatively expressed in the categor ies of the dialect ical relat ions between the general, the particular, and the ind i­vidual. This approach' compl.etely el im il1ates any opposing of some laws to others · and assumes their cqnnections and interpen�ation.

The law that the relations of product ion must corres ­pond to the level of product ive forces is an example of' a ge ­neral sociological law which i s determ ining for many histori ­cal laws·. · This general sociological law, which absolutely dominates the specif ic laws, can be said to intercoDJ;l.ect all socio-economic formations and thus makes it possible to con­sider social development as a single nat�al-historical . pro­cess. The general sociological law posi ts that changes in the mode of production become a necessary consequence of pro ­gress in the forces of production which at a certain stage require discarding and the replacement of the obsolete pro­duction relations that are impeding development� Their "na­tural-historical". interaction determines the entire course

- 6 4 -

of world history , as it is the objective source of social progress. Human history is a continual progress :from 'the lower to the higher and more advanced forms of socio-eco­nomic organisation. But thi s general sociological law is aef initely not realised in a mechanical way.

The law o:f class struggle in antagonistic :format ions

is another example of an extremely important sociological

law, and is itself a derivative of the even more general law

of materialist dialectics o:f the unity and struggle of oppo­

sites. The range of application of this law is extremely

broad, and its concrete manifestation is poss ible at ext�e­

mely diverse levels--from the socio-economic :format ion level

down to the most basic elementary cell of the social. organ­

i sm.

Another general sociolog ical law which :flows out o:f

the f irst law and is of fundamental s ign ificance for histo�

r ical science is the law of the progressive replacement of

one socio ... economi'c i'ormation by another. This l�w is in

turn the source of severai correlated historical laws, whi9h

are a manifestation of both the general principle of mot ion

( emergence , develQpment, and decline ) of def inite socio-eco­

nomic format ions and of the forms of concrete development of

their ind ividual components or stages.

. It goes without saying �tha.t the entire complex hierarchy

· of historical laws cannot be deduced through abstract logical

constructions, as they are rather a result of profolUld gene­

ralisation of the information of hi storical research. The

relat ionship between general soc iological and historical laws

is sometimes compared with that between the categor ies of the

logical and the empirical, with general soc:lological laws re­

garded as the logical, and general isat ion at the empirical

level regarded as the historical. This oppos i t ion seems to

us to be overs implified. Any laws of social development,

both the more general and the more specific, are a Wlity of

the logical and the emp irical, for a historical law, or the

principal tendency in the movement of a given society, nece ­

ss�rily possesses a logical " core".

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��

The diale�tical unity of the logical and the empirical does not s.ignify the ir identity , or the abE;Jence of any dif­ference b�tween the two. Historical events do not always happen in the order assumed by the logic of social develop­ment. This is .shown particularly clearly by examples of the concrete replacement of certain socio-economic format­ions by others , and · by the possi.bili ty of bypassing the slave-owning or the capitalist stages of development in · cer­tain conditions. The logical cannot , therefore , be simply reduced to the empirical , alt.hough one cannot ·exist wi-:thout· the other. The gr_eater the scale of historical research , the clearer their unity stands out.

Closely ?i�ed to this is another quest ion. The view is current th�t only general 1sociological laws are applic­abl� at the socio-economic format ion level , that ' is , in the study of socio-economic formations consid ered as a whole. It is absolutely true that in considering socio-economic forma�ions as major stages or steps in the <:levelopment· of hlime,n · society , one . cer�ainly ascrib�s greater significance to theoretical abstraction. General sociologic�l laws are of prime importance here. Even so , the above view is erro­neous , as it proceeds from a denial of . the fact that sociq­economic formations are a historical reality and not simply a logical abstraction. ' Apart from the general sociological laws , specific historical laws are inherent in each socio­economic formation as a who.le. Thus , the founders of · scien­tific communism discovered a goodly number of historical laws reflecting the specificity of the capitalist formation as a whole • . At the same time , these laws are c.oncretely historical in nature • . It is enough to r�member here the historical law .of the transition of capitalism to the mono­poly stage which Lenin d iscovered and formulated. The dis­covery of this econom.ic and at the same time hi.storical law entailed the establis.hment of several other �aws·, of smaller compass but extremely significant for understanding the essence of the capitalist formation.

Another example of a historical law , which Lenin d is­covered through the study of bourgeois revolutions in Europe , was_ that the character of bourgeois democracy and the measure

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1 ·

of democracy depend · on the degree to which hegemony passes on to t.he lower classes rather than to the bourgeoisie. 8

It has already been pointed out that general sociolo--gical laws are essentially historical laws as well. A great many general sociological laws can be called , on good grounds ,· economic laws also ; such as the universal law of the correspondence of the relations of production to the

level of the productive forces.

No historical study based on dialectical materialism can fail to pursue the goal of a scientific explanation of

the processes and pheno111§!na . bei�g anaqsed. "History be­comes a· science" , wrote Plekhanov , "only in so far � it succeeds in explaining from the point of view of sociology

the proces�es it portrays".9 The knowledge of the general

sociolog ical laws studied by Marxist sociology , i.e.�, by

historical materialism , provides the historian with an in­

strument for discovering the objeqtive explanation for the

facts he is examining. The goal of historical inquiry is

to elucidate the . mechanism of the sufficiently well-known

ge�eral sociological laws under concrete historical condi­

tions rather than to collect illust�ations of the ir effect.

Fundamentai differences in time and place , and in the mate­

rial conditions of the funct ioning of a g iven type of socie­

ty often entail not only changes in the way the general laws

are m:inifested , but also an eventual increase in or , quite

the oppos ite , a weakening of the ir impact. The historical process , influenced by an ensemble of laws , is thus comple­

tely free from any mystical predestination.

The uneven character and multiplicity of forms of his­

torical development increase as one moves away from the so­

c io-econom ic formation level , and approaches time-and-place­bound hi.�tory which is particularly abundant in "chance events". '· rn this area of study the· historian encounters

the greatest difficulties , which at the same time open up

the perspectives for �ndependent theoretical conclusions and generalisations. "The historian's attentive and in­quisitive scrutiny is d irected at a variety of. historical laws , which , although they are connected to general socio-

- 67 -

logical laws , cannot be reduced to them. The historian can d iscover the spec ific histor ical ·1aws by studyillg the interact ion of economic , political and ideo logical process­es in so c ial life . The general soc io logical laws reflect the mater ial bas is of thiB interact ion � ind icat ing the role of the economy , polit ics and ideology in histor icai develop­ment . , -But the elucidat ion of the laws of these processe_s in th�·ir illteract ion under definite concrete cond it ions is the j ob of his tor ical science" . 1 0

Ill a concrete histor ical pro cess , the general is always manifested in the par ticular. I_t follows that the general and t�e law-governed are the criter ion for sele c t ing the fact s in a histor ical study. General soc io log ical laws merely provide the guidelines for the researcher : they are definitely no t a unive.rsal key for expla ining all historical events. The deeper the researcher de lves in.to the layers of concrete historical events , into the par t icular and the ind ividual, and the farther away from the upper strata of cogn i t ion , the greater the nee d for the creat ive generali­sat ion and theore t i cal interpre tat ion of the factual inform­at ion. This assumes , of course , an enormous amount of pre­paratory work on the ve:r ificat ion , spec ificat ioll , and class i­f ication of the factual d qcumentary data. The histor ian mus t also be completely versed in the historiographic her i tage o f h i s area of :research. Ollly 0nce this great and complicated endeavour is accomplished , it is po ss ibl� to engage in serious independent theoretical generalisat ion , whi ch by far not always :results in the d iscovery of a new histor ical law.

The d iscovery of historical laws assumes the accumulat­ion and study of recurring facts and phenome'na in the his­torical process . Of coitrse , it is no t a quest ion of mecha­nical repet i t ioll· (which is practically imposs ible ) but of d iscovery of sim_ilar s�tuat ions in a general soc io-economic structure charac ter ised by uniform causal dep endenc ies. As Lenin po inted out � the general scient ific criterion of repe­t i t ion was init ially . confirmed by an analys is of the relat­ions of product ion , which later made it poss ible to establish

µpe t i t ion in the soc ial sphere as well , in " the soc ial phe-

- 68 -

nomena of the various · ceµntries " . 1 1 Repetit ion of paenomena

does not impfy their ident ity , nor does t he d iscovery of ge­

neral law e l im inate therefore the necessity of studying the

specif'i c i ty of ind ividual phenomena falling within the

sphere of this law.

The goal of hil!ltorical. research is to es tabli sh the

law of develop�ent of a given c oncrete ·so c ie ty , often hid­

den very deeply , to isolate it from a mass of " chance events",

and to d iscover the specific forms in which thi s law mani­

fests itself , or its specific· derivat ives. The d ialect ical

unity of the general , the parti cular and the ind ividual en­

ables one to d iscern the general in the par t icular reflect­

ing the local or temporal feature s , the general provid ing ,

in the final analys is , the obj e c t ive qual itat ive character­

istic of the histor ical pro cess . His tor ical science canno t

avo id studying not only the iaw-governed and t he necessary ,

but the acc idental as we ll • . It stud ies everything that re­

fle cts the operat ion of 'historical laws , and everything

that contrad icts th� manifestat ion of certAin historical

t endenc ies , for that is exac tly what comprises the actual

historical .process .

Histor ical law somet imes appears as a k ind of resultant

of many conflict ing forces and d iverse historical factors .

The po int has to be made quite clearly that this does not

at all imply the e quali ty of all these factors , but ne ither

does it overturn the thesis that the determining factor in

the final analys is is the economic determinat ion of the his­

torical process .

Some bourgeo is histor ians some t imes audac iously recog­

nise that there -are de�inite laws of soc ial d evelopment ,

although they do so with ma.ny reservat ions . Typi cal in

this sense is the French historian M. Bouvier-Ajam , who

believes that soc iology is the study o f the so cial process

and its components taken as a who le , whereas ht.story must

analyse concrete facts and the various phases of this pro­

cess . As he believes , the experience of s tudy ing economic

history shows , for example , that the fact o f . defect ive co ins

supplanting full-w� ight coins in the coufse of money c ircul-

- 6 9 -

ation , as conf1rmed by numerous studies , cannot be called a permanent law. Bouvier-Ajam , therefore , emphasises the conventional nature of the concept of historical law. Any historical law lacks the degree of universality which would warrant this appellation.1 2 This historian , like many other critics of Ma.-rxism , presents the materialist concept­ion of historical law in a purely mechanistic fashion.

Of considerable theoret ical interest is the . . question of alternatives in history. Some critics of Marxism pro­poEn:l the idea of alternatives with the obvious intention of questioning the exis tence of the objective laws of historic­al development. The existence of alternatives is presented here as the subs.tant iation of the accidental direction of historical development. This is an obvious substitution of one concept for another. No one is going to deny the abund­ance of "accidents" in history. One can speak in this sense of multiplicity of variants the course of historical events may take rath�r than of alternat ives. But this has nothing to do with the general direction of the historical process , which is always ultimately de termined by society ' s economic needs.

The concre te historical process is complex and contra­dictory. As was not�d above , mankind ' s progress ive movement is; never rectilinear , but involves all sorts of "zigzags". !his is the only sense in which one can speak of alternat­ives in history. It is , therefore , a matter of definite torm in which social development is realised , subject never­theless to the action of objective laws. Alternatives arise primarily at the lower stages of social development , in the microprocesses of given social organisms • . The greater the historical scale , the more distinct is the overall trend-­the objective laws of so9ial development overcoming the mass of " accidents" .

G. Stiehler ( GDR) correctly points out that the number of possibilities ( "alternatives" ) in the historical process grows as one moves farther away from the basis , where ob-3 ective laws dominate. In the superstructure , where subjec­tive factors are of overxiding importance , the multiplicity

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of variants of the historical process grows.1 3 It follows from this t.hat alternatives in history are limited and con­ventional. It does not rule out the general laws of social -development . At t he same time it should be clearly realised that the determinism of the historical process should not be understood simplistically. New laws· of social movement will probably be discovered as a result of creative endeav­our by people in different social sciences , including his­tory.

As the sciences studying society are rapidly becoming more and more diffe rentiated , there is also a growing t en­dency towards their cooperation , which makes possible a more comprehensive interdisciplinary study of extremely complex phenomena and proc esses of social development.

The opponents of Marxism attempt to disprove the exist­ence of objective laws of social development , referring principally to the diversity of t he concrete forms in which social development takes place. The crit ique of Marxism is primarily levelled at the concept itself of law in social relations. The principal arguments are based on the fact that h istorical development does not allow the recurrence of iaentical or coinciding situations , and therefore , makes impossible the formulation of object ive laws pertaining to society--as distinct from nature , where laws ac tually do exist. It may be noted , by the way , that uniqueness and individuality of events and phenomena is by no means a spe­c ific feature of social development. There is also unique­ness in nature , as well e:s a great d.iversi ty of phenomena and forms which are nevertheless explained by objective laws.

Acceptance or denial of the laws of social development is a most ·important dividing line between Marxist and non-14arxist historiography. Kost modern opponents of Marxism try to dissociate themselves from recognition of object ive laws in the historical process , just ifying this· at tempt by a deliberately vulgarised and falsified interpretation of the concept " economic determinism" itself. They distort determinism to pres�nt it as something which func tions · auto-

- 7 1 -

ma.ti cally and' c ompletely excludes creat ive ac t ivi ty. The concept of economic determinism is thus taken to the po int of· absurd i ty , while the ma ter.ialist concept ion of the his­torical pro cess is treate d as a rectilinear and monochroma­tic interpretat ion. This is a clear indi cat ion , first of all , that the se " cr i t ics" have no idea of d ialectics at all. For example , in his cri t i que of Marxism , Karl Popper rej e cts ·

the poss i b ility of d iscover ing the law of society ' s . mot ion.1 4

He proceeds from the false interpretat ion , which has some

currency , of e conomic development as �ome thing completely

unconnected w ith other manifestat ions of so c ial life . On the.se ground� l>opper insists that economic development can­

not play a determin ing ro le , as it is itself subject to the influence of sc ient ific and rel igious ideas . -

Some Marxis t s have defended the idea of the automat ic act ion of object ive laws • . Even a maj or revo lut ionary theo­re tic ian l ike Rosa Luxemburg made mechan ist ic errors of this kind . · However , admit t ing that the histori cal process is law-governed , and that there are both general soc iologi­cal and concrete hi storical laws in operat ion is no t fatal­

ism. Opponents of Marxism most frequently attack the pro­pos i t ion that the realisat ion of the economic laws of soc ial mot ion is no t automatic but requires the act ivi ty of the people . This d i�lect ical thesis is considered evidence of a contrad ict ion between . the object ive nature of the laws of the movement of so c iety and the need for their subj ect­ive manifesta tion. In fact , there_ is no contrad iction at all. It is quite obvious that what we have i s a d ialect ic­al interconnect ion between the oDj ect ive and the subj ective aspects of the integral histor ical proces s . Obj ect ive eco­nomic c·ond itions . create the possibil i ty of the emergence of the subj ect ive factor , and act ivise and strengthen it . In its turn , the dynamic action of the subj ective factor fac i­litates and accelerates · the manifestat ion of the potent ial inherent in the obj ect ive aspect of the hi storical process. So i t is a quest ion of the d ialec.t ical uni ty o f form and content .

The laws of so cial development expre ss the o bj ect ive

-economically determined d irect ion of the mo t ion of soc i�ty .

- ·7 2 �

�

r. lj

t

They do no t d ep end on the will of men and canno t be arb i tra­rily d ecre e d or · abo lished . However , as Lenin po inted out , any so c io logical law " is narrow , incomplete , approxi mate 11 •1 5 It i s , therefore , clear that any me taphys i cal , formal-logi­cal approach to the int erpre tat ion o f soc ial d e ve lopmen t character ist ic o f the opponents o f :Marxism i s to tally un­t enable .

Laws do no t func t ion by themselve s , t hey are man ife s t e d only through so c ial prac t ic e . The t o tal i ty o f concre t e his­tor i cal cond i t ions may e i t her s low down or ac celerate the real isat ion o+ the pr imary t end ency expressed by a law or even t empor ar ily oppo se i t . Histor ical exp er ience shows that human progre ss has proceeded no t o nly in z igzags , but

· that t here have also been re treat s in sp e c i f i c t emporal and local sphere s . Thi s makes obvious the great s i gnificance for history of the real ly progress ive soc ial forces that mo s t ad e quately refl e c t the ne e d s nf the ir t ime , that is , of t he concre te his torical epoch. i�e i� act ivi ty helps es­tab l i sh t he general so c iological and historical laws , be ing in agreement w it h the t end ency they expres s . The d ivers i ty of soc ial pheno mena is an ind ub i table r�al ity .

The laws of soc ial d evelop ment d o no t at a l l abo li sh this reality. They only d et ermine t he lead ing tend ency o f t h i s d eve lopmen t , wh i ch i s no t always v i s i ble on the sur­face but which in the final analys is ne ces sarily d ep e nd s on the corre lat ion between the exi s t ing relat ions of pro d uc­tion and the cons tantly c hanging leve l o f the prod uc t ive forc e s . Change s in t he prod uct ive forces ult imat ely prede­termine the most profound so c ial change s . But so c i e ty d oe s no t remain inert e i ther . The obj e c t ive t end enc ies o f d eve ­lopment cond i t ioned by t he mo t ion of the mat erial produc t ive forces are real ised only thro ugh soci e ty ' s own ac t ivi ty and t he re sult s of the confron tation of the confl i c t ing internal forces . The mat er ial i s t int erpre tation of �ist ory is orga­nically al ien to vulgar mechan i sm . In d ifferen t his torical epo chs , t he laws of soc ial development break d ewn the barri­ers and triumph sooner or lat er--the length of h i s tor i cal per io ds th�s pro c es s invo lve s is d ependent on the ac t ivi ty

- 7 -;, -

of the genuine creators of hi story , the popular masse s . "History: is no thing but the act ivity of man pursuing his aims0 • 1 6

The act ivity of the progress ive so c ial forces ( c lasses , . part ie s , an d ;l.nd ividual s ) correspond ing to the need s ·of pro­gress ive mo t ion of society and re present ing t he sub j e c t ive aspects of the histor ical process becomes in this ca1;Je an express ion of an o bj e ct ive tend ency. It goes wi thout say­ing that this approach to the quest ion is of spec ial s igni­ficanc e , primary s i gnificance for that mat t er , for the . pre­sent epoch , when t he communist :f'ormat icn , which is in i t s f i%st phase , i s opposing cap italism and develop ing success­fully in a s ituat ion where the role of the subj ect ive fact­or is constantly growing , this factor is itself func t ioning on the bas is of cognised obj ective laws and becoming a great transforming force .

It is also no teworthy that many Wes tern histor ians , who on the whole are idealists and hes i tate to recognise laws , realise at the same t ime that any serious s c ient ific analys­is is incompat ible wi th the rej ect ion of theore t ical inter­pretat ion and tto general isat ion of concrete his torical ma­terials . A graphic illustrat ion of this is O . F. Anderle ' s "plea for theoret i cal his tory" : "His tory i s in great danger of sl id ing into chaos . The ne ed to keep inner form is mor e press ing than in any other area of culture . Trad i t ion , inner correlat ion , and cons ist ent development are nowhere of greater si gnificapce than in history11 • 1 7 At the same t ime Anderle believes that thi s crit ical cond i t ion of bourgeois sc ience is no cul-d e-sac but a defini te stage in its deyelopment , a transi t ion from de scri pt ion to theory. The " theore t i cal history" advocated by Anderle demand s the establishment of uniformity and repe t i tion of types and mo­dels , as we ll as the development of general concep t s . At t he same t ime Anderle no tes that the " theore t ical history" does not necessar ily presuppose the e stablishment of gene­ral laws , for in hi story there are � strict , constantly operat ing laws due to the absence of recurrence of absolu­tely ident ical cond it ions . 1 8

- 7 4 . -'f I �

The interest of Western historians and so c io logists in the problem of law in hi storical d eve lopment i s apparent ; this was part icularly obvious from the conference on the pro blem of laws in various scienc es held at the Techn ical Higher S c ho o l at Karlsruhe ( FRG) in 1 9 64. In the ir papers ·there , F. -G • . Maier and. E . To pi tsch were on the whole nega­t ive towarde,, laws in hi st ory. At the same t ime both had to admit that the issues of law in the histor ical pro cess were first raised in the works of the anc ient--Thucyd i d e s and Polybio . Top i t sch said that Thucyd ides ' hi sto r i cal works , which grew out of the " great cris is of the Hellenic po l i s during the Peloponnes ian war" , contained n o t only de scr ipt­ions . of various histor ical events and charac ter i st ics of ind ividual figure s , but al so demons trated the author ' s de­sire for cogn i s ing t he laws o f human soc ial con duc t pr imar i­ly in the realm of pol i t ics during a war. 1 9

Maier ' s po si tion was even more cate gor ical : "The quest­ion o f such histor i cal l aws i s ac �:no,:::y as old as European histor io graphy itself. Thucydides was conv inc e d that he had observe d , through a k in d of e mp ir ical general i sat ion , c ertain regula�it i e s of cond uc t of groups and ind ivi d uals in hi st ory . S i de by side with thi s i d ea of law-governed recurrence of defin i t e ind ivi d ual s i t uat ions and cond i t ions in hi s tory Po lyb io pos i ts • • • a se cond typ e of hi s t or i cal law , whtch expres s e s t he re gular recurrence of ind ivi dual s e quence s in an overlapp ing an d d e t ermine d overall pro c ess 11• 20

In Maier ' s view , aft er Thucyd ides and Po lybio t he tra d i t ion of " law-forming" hi stor ical tho ught was never interrup t e d . H e made a sp e c ial po int o f t he id eas o f Hege l and Marx : nHe ge l gave a ske t ch of a d iale c t ical but at the same t ime fin i t e and d e t ermined pro c ess of wor ld history , in whi c h ind ividuals and nat ions ar e mere inst rument s o f t he over­r i d ing world spir i t , whi c h in i ts t urn neces sar ily unfo l d s i tself ac cord ing t o t he law of . superpersonal reason. Out of this , Marx and hi;:i torical ma terialism have create d , thro ugh replac ing t he Hege l ian ideas by " mate rial pro duc t -

ive force s " , . a d ial e c t ical law of the course of history , in which the law-governe d var iat i on in the relat ion s of pro d uc­t ion d e t eJ:!lll ine s the histori cal proc es s 11 • 2 1 He never the le ss

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s poke out s trongly against the idea that historical sc ience can cognise the o bj ect ive laws of t he his tor ical pro ce ss . But he was . compelle d to re cognise , in. the spirit of Max Weber , that there i s a ne e d for typificat ion of phenomena in the s c ienc e of h is tory. For this reason Maier ·regards as admiss ible only " general statement s" , which neverthe less remain hypo theses , about certain serie s of histor ical events. 22

Certain · bourgeois histor ians who bel ieve that hist ory is an ind ividuali s ing sc ience admit that generali sing hypo­theses may be applied at the first stage of his tor ical re-s ear�h as subst itutes for general laws . 23 But that does not in any way s ignify reco gnit ion of obj e c t ive laws o f so­c ial development . Collingwood , Whi te and many o ther bour­geo is his torians s trongly obj ect even to a tentat ive mod e l­l ing of " comprehens ive " ( that i s , soc io lo gi cal and his toric­al ) laws of the pas t . The mo st rad i cal po s i t ion was taken by White , who wrote that the re was no an swer to the quest­ion of the es sence Of historical explanat ion. 24

As has already been ind i cated , o bj e c t ive laws are fir s t of all expressed i n the ac t ivity o f pro gress ive soc ial for­ces . But thi s act ivity assumes an extremely acute s truggle b e tween the o ld and t�e new , whi ch may take var ious forms and proceed on d ifferent planes . �t may be a d irect econo­mi c struggle for the survival an d conso li dat ion of a new and more advanced s truc ture whi ch has ari sen within the framework o f a definite soc io-e co nomic format ion. The con­flict betwe en the o ld and the new soc ial and class forces is often mani fested in a rather camouflaged form as con­frontat ion be tween re lat ively abstrac t polit ical , philoso­phical , and rel igious doc trine s .

The act ion of the general sociological law o f the obli­gatory correspond ence of the re lat ions of pro duc t ion +;o the level of the pro d uc t ive forces , comb ined wi t h t he act ion o f another and e qually general so c iolo gical law , the law o f c lass s truggle i n antagonist i c format ions , d e term ine s the princ ipal tendency. of soc ial d eve lo pment and at the same t ime the general d irect ion of social pro gress . Class s trug-

- 7 6 -

gle apparently assumes re s i s tance by reac t ionary soc ial forces repre �ent ing obsolete so c ial relat ions and order that are be ing re legated to his tory to the progre ss ive and new e lements who come to replace them. Soc ial progre s s in antagonis t i c format ions is reali sed in fierce confrontation betwe en the o ld and the new. "No antagonism , no progre ss . This is the law t ha t c ivi lisat ion has followe d up to our days" . 2 5 History s hows that the struggle of oppo s ing so­c ial forces may for a whi le be inconclus ive . The law-ten­dency is oppo sed by an o bj ec t ive exi s t ing countertendency express ing the force o f the inert ia of the o ld which is un­willing to voluntarily give way to the new.

No t only general t heore t ic al cons id e rat ions but al so the study of the world historical pro ces s provi de an o bj ect­ive foundat ion for an o p t imist ic appra isal o f its perspec­t ive s . The laws of so c ial deve lopmen t which .have ac tually funct io ned througho ut the hi st ory of human society warrant the conc lus ion that i ts movemen t is pro gre s s ive .

The exist ence of o b j e c t ive laws o f so � ial d eve lo pment opens up the prospects for a sub stant iat e d progno s t icat ion of the hi st orical pro gre ss . The pas t is more and more �le­arly seen as forward mo vement , whose internal contradict ions are extreme ly compl icated , but whi ch is st i ll amenable to explanat ion , and no t as an agglomerat ion of i so lated fac t s and event s . This enables u s t o bui ld a bri d ge betwe en the pas t and the pre s ent , re gard ing today as the cont inuat ion of yest erday . History as science can thus go beyond the rigidly defined boundaries separat ing it from real life , and take i t s place among the d i sc iplines whi ch should fac i­l i tate so c ial ac tivity and an und erstand ing of the tasks of the future as well as of the pre sent .

�

Ch. Mont es quieu , De l ' esprit d e s lo is , Par is , s . a. , Vo l . 1 , P• 7 .

2 V . I . Lenin , Co llect e d Works , Moscow , Vo l . 38 , p p . 1 50-1 5 1 .

3 I b id . , p . 1 5 3 .

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4 Histor ic al1Material i sm and t he Soc ial Phi losophy of the

Mo dern Bourgeo i s ie , Mos cow , 1 9 60 , p . 7 5 ( in Rus s ian ) .

5 K. Marx , F. Enge ls , Selec t e d Works , Vo l . 3 , Mo scow , 1 970 ,

p . 488 .

6 I b i d . , pp . 365-366 .

7 R. Mousn ier , "La concept de classe soc iale e t l ' hi s t o ire " , Revue d ' histo ire �conomi gue et soc iale , Par i s , 1 970 ,

Vo l . 48 , No . 4 , pp . 449- 459 .

8 V . I . Lenin , Collected Works , Vo l . 1 7 , p . 2 1 5 .

9 G. Plekhanov , Selected Phi losophi cal Works , Vo l . 3 , Mos co� , 1 97 6 , pp . 485- 486 .

1 0 P . N. Fe doseyev , Yu. P. Frantsev , "On the Me thodo logical Que s t ions of History" , His tory and Soc iology , Mo scow , 1 9 64 , p. 1 6 ( in Russian ) .

1 1 V . I . Lenin , Co llec t e d Works , Vo l . 1 , p . 1 40 .

1 2 M . Bouvier-Aj am , Essai d e me tho d o logie his tor igue , Par i s , 1 970 .

1 3 G. S t iehler , Ges chicht e und Verantwortung. Zur Fraga d er A l ternat iven in der Gesellschaftl ichen Entwicklung , Berlin , 1 97 2 � p . 1 5 .

1 4 K. Popper , Die o ffene Ges e llschaft und ihre Fe in d e , Berne-Munich , 1"969 , p . 1 1 4.

1 5 V. I . Lenin , Collec t e d Works , Vol . 38 , p . 1 5 1 .

1 6 K. Marx , F. Engels , The Ho ly Fam ily , Moscow , 1 9 56 , p . 1 2 5 .

1 7 O . F. Anderle , "A Plea for Theore t ical History" , History and Theory , 1 9.64 , Vol . 4 , No . 1 , p . 5 5 .

1 8 I b i d . , P• 44.

1 9 S tud ium Generale , Wes t Berl in-He i d e lberg-New York , 1 96 6 ,

Vo l. XI , P• 67 3 .

- 7 8 -

20 Ib i d . , P• 6 5 9 .

21 Ib i d . , p . 659.

22 Ib id. ' P• 666 .

23 P. Gar d ine r , The Nature of Histor i cal Explanat ion , London , 1 95 5 .

2 4 M. White , "Foundat ion of Histori cal Knowled ge " , Phi loso­

ph.y and His tory , New York , 1 963.

2 5 K. Marx , F. �ge ls , Collec t e d Works , Vol . 6 , Moscow , 1 97 6 ' p. 1 32 .

SOCIO-ECONOJ[[C FORMATIONS

The Marxist-Leninis t proposition that the fo:r-ward move­ment of society is subject t o �he obj ective laws of deve­lopment , is especially applicable to the theory of the pro­gressive change of socio-economic format ions . For clearJ y and sharply revealed here is the irreconcilable difference between the mat erialist and idealist understanding of hi s­tory. This applies both to the base-proposition (sociolo­gical law) of mankind' s continuous advance , through con­secutive stages , from lower to higher forms of the organi­sation of societ y, and to the exist ence of obj ective regu­lari.ties of development for every socio-economic formation .

Th e theory o f socio-economic format ions i s the corner­stone of the mat erialist conception of hist ory. Referring to thi s di scovery of Marx, Lenin wrote : "By examining the totality of opposing t endencies , by reducing them to pre­cisely definable conditi ons of life and production of th e vari.ous classes of society, by discarding subj ectivi sm and arbitrarines s in the choice ?f a particular ' dominant ' idea or in it s int erpretat ion, and by revealing that , without exception, all ideas and all the various t endencies � from the c ondition of the mat erial forces of production, Jlarxism indicat ed the way to an all.-embracing and compre­hensive study of the process of the ri.se , development , and decline of socio-economic syst ems . 11 1

- 80 -

A theoretical examination of this global , process pre­supposes an 8llalysis of it s more common, typical featl.lre s , with due account o f the obstacles mankind has had to sur­mount in its progress.

The concept " socio-economic formation" is multidimen­sional. It includes , above all , definition of the phas e of economic development achieved by manldnd. And it s core is the category "mode of production" which expresses a definite degree of correspondence (unity) o� prevalent production re­lations to the level of exis ting and constantly expanding productive forces. This conc ept includes not only the eco­nomic basi s of a given society, but also its highly complex superstructure . Consequently, the soci o-economic formation represents the unity of three pri.ncipal components :

1 ) productive forces ; 2) production relat ions corresponding t o them, which

det ermine the patt ern of the economic sys t em ; 3 ) the superstructure .

Every socio-economic formation reflects a clearly de­tinable stage in mankind ' s advanc e f.rom lower t o higher forms of it s exist ence . At the same time , . it is the embo­diment of widely different forms of concret e social organism.a, but at one and the same level of histori.cal development . The multiplicity of such concret e variant s in a given so cio­economic formation ( e.g. , differing forms of feudal re la­tions in many Jgiropean and Asian countri.es ) fully justifies the formula "unity in diversity" . But a mechanistic int er­pretation of mankind ' s continuous progres s di_sregards the det erminative role .of the concret e activity of social man and of the people generally. From this follows the inevit able dif'fere�e not only in specific forms , but also in the de­velopment pace of the coDDD.on worldwide proc es s of hist ory.

Lenin w:Dot e that )(arx , by singling out 'production re­lations as the main factor in the st ructure and development of the capit alist format ion, ·" everywhere and incessant ly scrutinised the superstructure corresponding to these pro­ductio.Ji. relat ions and clothed the skeleton in flesh and blood� The reason Capital has enj oyed such t remendous success

- 8 1 -

i s that this book by a ' German economist ' showed the whole capitalist social formation to the r eader es a living thing-­with its everyday aspeetB, with the actual social manifes­tation of the class antagonism inherent in production re­lations , with the bourgeois political superstructure that prot ects the rule of t� capit alist class , with . the bour­geois ideas of liberty, equality, and so forth , with the bourgeois family relationships. " 2

Economic relations play the det erminative , and conse­quently the more constant and stabilising role , in the rise and development of every socio-economic forma tion. Lenin re�rked that Karx formulated his underlying idea of:' the -na­tural-historic al process of the development of socio-economic formations "by singling out the econoniic sphere :rrom which the various spheres of social life , by singling out prodnc­tion relations from all social re lations as being basic , primary, det ermining all other relations" .3 .However , it should also be borne in mind that (as :Marx points out ) , "the same economic basis--the same from the standpoint of it s main conditions--due to innilmerable different empirical circum­stances , natural environment , racial relations , external his­torical influences: etc . , from showing in:finit e variat ions and gradations · in appearance , which can be ascertained only by analysis of the empirically given circumst ances . n 4 ·

It would be wrong to reduce the concept of socio-eoono­mic formation to the mode of production. By it s very nature it is highly dynamic .

Deprived of one o r another o f its component s , the socio­economic formation loses it s charact er of a unified syst em. expressive of a definite level or stage in the development of society. The contradictions and ceaseless int ernal strug­gle within this unity power the development of the forma­tion and should �ot , of cours e , pla ce in question it s sys­t ems quality, close interacti on of its various components . And i t i s e qually wrong t o separate , still less counterpose , it s economic and social aspects .

Of special interest in dealing with this problem i s the collective work o f GDR historians , The Theorz at Porma-

- 82 -

1: g:: I

t ione and Historz, edited by E. :Engelberg and w. Kiittler.5

Guided by the relevant pronouncements of Karx, Engels and

Lenin, the authors examine the ris e a:p.d developaent of the

capitalist format ion in the 1 9th and 20th centuries , with

special reference to Lenin' s theory of socialist revolution

and the transition from capitalism to communism.

In sumnarieing the discussion -among Jlarxist scholars , it should be not ed that the multidimensional concept o:r so­cio-economic formation has found reflection in many works of the ,:rounders of scientific commtmil!IJll. There is , for instance , this passage in Capital : "What ever the social form. of production, labourers and means of production always re­main factors of it .; But in a stat e of separation from each other either of these factors can be such only pot entially. Por production t o go on at all they 1DU8t unite . The speci­fic mamier in which this union is accomplished distinguishes the different economic epochs of the structure of society from one another. "6 Note )[arx ' s reference to the "specific mamier" , i . e . , the concret e system of uniting, "coupling" and assurillg the int eraction of the cardinal element s of social production, that determines their qualitative diffe­rence ..

qels point ed out that the emergence of large-scale landholding was predetermined by the alienation of land. He wrot e : "The allodium made it not only possible , but also ne­. cessary to transform t he ini t ial e qual i ty of landho ld ing in-to i t s oppo s i t e . For with t he es tabli shment of the allo d ium by the Germans on former Roman t erritory-, the land became what Roman landholding had long been, a coaaodity. And such is the inexorable law of all societies founded on colmlOdity production and exchange : the distribution of property becomes increasingly unequal , the gap between the rich and the poor becomes ever wider, with property increasingly concentrat ed in the hands of a few • • • • From the very rise of the allo­dium land is freely alienat ed and becomes a conaodity, and the emergence of big landholdings becomes only a matt er o:r time . "7

- 83 -

Ertra-economic coercion of the producer is an essen­tial factor in the f'u.nctioning of pre-bourgeois antagonis­tic formations . This has found glaring expression in the slave-owning formation. The slave works under coercion and with tools provided by his owner. In contrast , the feudally dependent peasant has his " own" huisbandry, but his relative economic independence is always "complement ed" by ertra­economic coercion. Lenin wrot e : "A condit ion for such a system of economy was the personal dependence of the pea­sant on the landlord. If the landlord had not possessed direct power over the person of the peasant , he could not have compelled a man who had a plot of land and ran. his owri farm to work for him. "8 It would be wrong , however, to exeg$erate the role of extra-economic coercion in gene­ral and under feudalism in particular.

In deaoliehing Iiihring • s fallacious contentions on the dominant role of coercion, Engels emphasised : "Wherever private property evolved it was the result of alt ered re­lations of production and exchange , in the interest of in­creased production and in furtherance of int ercourse-­hence as a result of economic causes. Force plays no part in this at all. "9

History knows of , instances of a temporary regression resulting from mass coercion, military invasion and destruc­tion of the productive forces when the victorious invador brought with hi� more backward social forms . "In all co� q�est s , " Karx wrot e , "there can be one of three results . The conquering people impose on the vanquished their own mode of production in this century Cf or instance , the English in Ireland, partly in India) ; or retain the old aode of production, and are satisfied with tribute (for instance ,

• r' the Turks and Romans) ; or there is an int eraction to pro-duce a kind of eyntheds (as pertly is t�e case of the Ger­man conquests ) . In all cases it is the mode of production, whether imposed by the victors , retained by the vanquished, or produced by a combinat ion of both , that det ermines the new mode of exchange that is established • .And though it acts as the prerequisit e for a new period of production ,

- 8 4 -

it is itself the product of production and not only in the historical se?Ule , but of definite historical produo­tion ..

" 1 0

Economic determinism ill the world historical process is manifest ed mainly on a large scale and not automatical­ly, but rather through the activity of the masaes , their struggle , often involving mutually opposed interests the result of which indicates , :fJ1 the final analysis , the main trend of society' s progressive development .. The general direction of social development is not a choice made by people and does not depend on their desires , but is deter­mined in the proces s of transition from one level of deve­lopment of the productive forces to another, higher one . Lenin reaarked in this connection: "In act�al fact , men 1 8 ends are engendered by the ob� ective world and presuppose it--they find it as something given, 'present . But it � to man as if his ends are taken from out side the world, and are independent of the world ( ' treedom' ) ., n 1 1

The rise and development of socio-�oonomic formations are identical in basic essential features � !he development of each country through its various stages is subj ect t � laws coBBJlon to all countries . The mode o f production de­termines the essence of the socio-economic formation, its type of social relations , it s principles of soci�l organi­sation and its dominant ideology. But identical essence does not mean identical forms.

The superstructure is not a passive element : changes in it influence the socio-economic formation as a whole . Engels emphasised that negation of the independent hist ori­cal development of ideological spheres that play a role in history is tantamount to rej ecting . all possibility of their influencing history. He wrote : "The basis of this i s the common undialectical conception o f cause and effect a s rigidly opposit e poles , the t otal disregarding o f int erac­tion • • • Once a historic element has been brought into the world by other, ultimately economic causes , it reacts , can react on it s enviromnent and even on the causes that have given ri se to it . " 1 2 Th.is confirms the absolut e need

- 85 -

to analyse and 1 sys�ema t i se par t ial features of the · s up er­structure .

Differences within one and the same antagonistic for-mation can result from the organisation patt ern of the ru.1-ing classes , including the structure of state power. Theo­cratical pre-bourgeois stat e forras , to cite one example , can strongly inf'luence the pattern of a formation, espe­cially if the church feud�ls have the upper hand over their aecular breth:r.e:n. As a rule , such phenomena exert a certain influence on forms of the class struggle . Besides , in all antagonistic formations there are residual elements of more archaic social relations .

A dogma�ic and doctrinaire approach t o the theory of socio-eco'1.omic . formations i s inadmissible . There are no "chemically pure" processes in nature and even less in soci e­ty. Lenin repeatedly emphasised that Mar.xi.em, and reali-ty, do not know of any . "pure" processe s . Every socio-eco­nomic formation has certain "alien" element s , and upon their relative weight depends the level of the dominant so� cial relations . "Did feudalism ever correspond to its con­cept ?" Engels asked Karl Schmidt in a lett er dat ed )(arch 1 2 , 1895 , and he continued : "Founded in the ldilgdom of the West Franks , further developed in Normandy by the Norwegi­an conquerors , it s format ion continued by the French Norse­men in England and Southern Italy, it came nearest to its concept-in the ephemer

,al kingdom of Je rusalem, which in

the Assize of Jerusalem left behind it the most classic expression of the feudal order. " 1 3

W e have always to take into account the many widely differing and dissimilar aspect s of every socio-economic formation ..

Ancient and Asiatic slave-owning relations provide many examples of dissimilar concret e forms within one end the same formation. In both cases. there are abundant spe­cific features , end they have engendered a discussion about the formational classification of whole regions . A similar discussion arose over the hist ory of Byzantium (many chal­lenged the e:cistence of the Byzantian feudali sm) . It should

- 86 -

be noted, in this context , that it would be illogical to expect identical patt erne within a formation , consider­ing geographic , ethnic end other factors that influence the development of society.

FeudaliBlll, the dominant mode of product ion in the world for · at least one thousand years , was distinguished by the wide range of' its concret e forms . And much the sam� applies to other socio-economic systems .

We know, for instance , the wide differences of capit al­!!!. forms within the "classical" West ern count:ties , though

no one is likely t o challenge their adhere�ce t o one and

the saae socio-economic formation.

These differences in individual countri es or regions concern the degree of maturity of capitalist relations and .the presence of' survivals of pre-bourgeois forms·, .or spe­cific features of the super-structure .

Some forms of slavery and s erfdom persist ed for a long t ime within the capitalist formation.

Unlike capitali sm in the vast maj ority of European bour­geois state s , North American capitalism had practically no residual forms of feudalism. But th� presence of slave­owning relations over a long period left it s definit e im­pri�t on the hi story and socio-economic structure of the United Stat es . This is beyond disput e , as is the fact that there are element s of racism in modern American history. Nonetheless , the absence of feudal barriers at the crucial stage in the as sertion of capitalist relations gave the US advantages over most European bourgeois countries , enabl­ing it to overtake them economically ( "the American path of capitalist development " ) .

The dissimilarity of economic , socio-political end cul­tural levels of countries or regions which have more or less simultaneously entered a certain stage of the historical process , determines inner-format ional differences that main­ly affect the super-structure , but also the basis .

The development of the productive forces is bound t o affect the overall pace o f economic growth and the operation

- 87 -

of the obj ective econOlllic laws of the given formation. This , in turn, creates conditions for certain differences in the fol"lllB of the historical process. Certain differenc­es within one and the same antagonistic formation can be due t o peculiarities of the class struggle or the organi­sational structure of the dominant classes .

Some authors maintain that the concrete process o f ·hi s­t ory is so vari ed that we callllot be guided by the five­rung formula of the succession of eocio-economic formati­O?l8 : primitive soci ety, slave-owning society, feudalism, capitalism, communism. Reference is made , in particular, to the "diversity" of :fe.udalism and the existence of substan­t ial regional differences in slave-onriJ'la relations . Some orientalist s �intain that the so-called "Aaiatic mode of' production" represent !J a special socio-economic formation. In fact , this was the subj ect of a di•cuasion sponsored in 1 965 by the USSR Academy of Sciences ' Institute of Ori­ental Studies . 1 4 ?lo one will, of cours e , deny that the t erm "Asiatic mode of production" occurs in the works of the founders of scientific cODDD.unism. But we do not find there a:ny comprehensive eiplanation of the t erm to enable us , f'irst , to formulat e a precise qualitative charact eristic of the Asiatic mode of production as an independent socio-eco­nomic . .t'ormat ion and , second , to delineat e its t erritori­al and t emporal limit s , · or, in short , localise it . The dis­cussion centered mainly on interpreting of individu_al pro­nouncements by the 11arxist classics . From t ime to t ime a controversy would arise over wh ether or not the Asiatic mode of production should be regarded as a special socio­economic formation. So far the discµssion has not yielded any conclusive results , for there is no scientifically va­lid proof, in favour of such an "Asiatic formation" , though most . Marxist researchers do not deny "Asiat ic forms" of social organisation.

It should be not ed that there is no unity among propo­nents of the "Asiatic - formation" . Some beli eve that it exist ed during the transition t o _a class soci ety and , con­sequent ly, was the first antagonistic format ion. others

- 88 -

believe that it existed parallel with the slave-owning so­cieti·es of the West and was bas ed on exploit ation of cOJaU­lli t y aembers by the state . Ie•tly, there is the view that the Asiatic mode of product ion exist e d in the so-called "new era " , that is , after the 1 6th century, in India and Chixia � One can agree with v. J'i�orov that this latter v:l.ew i• so flagrantly at odds with established fact s of h�s­tor,y that it need not be taken into account . "What the ad­TOcat es of the Asiatic formation hold in coDDon, " he writ es , "and what strengthens their position, and in fact , made the di•.cussion necessary, is tiie inadequacy of the conceptions of the slave-owlling society advanced in our lit erature . n 1 5

Kost of the .direct producers in the so-called slave-own­ing states of .Antiquity were not slaves at all , but co11D1.un­al fal'llers exploited by the de�potic st at e . A similar si­tuation obtained in several countries , usually classed as " early feudalism" .

!he Hungarian orientalist F. Tokei subscribes t o the

view that the Asiatic mode of production should be treated

as an independent socio-economic formation. However , he

hedges this off with res ervations which suagest that he

could accept the vi ew that the Asiatic mode of production

was but a phase , more precisely the last phase , in the dis­

int egration of primitive society. In Tokei ' s reasoning, the

emergence of' class society (which rests on exploitation

of the direct producer by a stratum or class of stat e offi­

cials ) was complicat ed by the conservation of communa l pro­

perty and residual forms of patriarchal relat ions . It is

therefore difficult t o single out concret e class differen­

ces • .And since Tokei argues that the emergence of a new

social ruling stratum begins within the framework of primi­

t ive society, we can only infer that he is referring to a 1 6

specific form of . the disint egration of that society.

Soviet researcher E. Loone writ es : "The question of

whether or not certain common features in different count­

ries and different peoples justify their classification as

a separat e format ion is a hist orical rather than philoso­

phical question. - The existence of one or another mode of

- 89 -

,_,,!_ ...•• "''''-''·'···-��'m'il''2'�\���l7XZ:4Gh����

production. is discovered empirically. Philosop)Q' and .. tho­dology can only pose this question: is the concept ' forma­t ion' ' e qually applicable to a ll cases ( and reveal th� lo­gical contradiction of it s· differing usage) , or does the researcher have a set of procedures to establish the mean­ing of the concept they apply7" 1 7

W e can, o f course , return t o the problea of the exist ence or non-exist ence of another socio-economic formation if new and sufficiently convincing mat erial becomes available . But for the time being let u s adhere to the traditional five-rung formula .

Bor can we put up with attempts to regard slave-owning end feudal relations as a singl e , int egral socio-economic formation. · !fhis runs counter to all available historical evidence. As distinct from the slave-owning syst em, feudal­ism was everywhere e higher form of social organisation end had its distinctive features. The most important of these is the emergence , t o a certain degree , of the possibility of property differentiation among the main, exploit ed pro­ductive class , the peasantry. The prere quisit es are · thus creat ed for the rise of elements of new , aore progressive social relations.

Opponents of the five-rung formula usually argue that there is not enough . concrete historical evidence to provide a clear-cut picture of the presence ot .!!! the attribut es of aicy" of the five s·ocio-economic foraaticms . Bllt hi st ory has any number of exaaples of "blurred" forms of socio­economic relations iD.trillsic in one or another type of the organisat ion of societ1. In some e�ses this depends on the t emporary "coexistence" of economic s.truetures-the relics of extinct formations existing side by side with the more progressive productive relations with the new , dominant

· structure representing th• mode �f production that detel'lli­nes the formational charact er of the given society.

In ell case�, however, we must see the socio-econoaic formation as a living, developing org&llism passing through the natural stages of birth , groWth , maturity end then decline . It is both possible and logical tor formational phenoaena .te 'b• •mtHt•d dise:1.Jdlarly both is •pece, and. time . - 90 - .

Th e problem o f formetional change-over and tranl!!lfor­mation, that is , the problem of social revolution, is be­ing int ensively studied by Jlarxist science.

In the opinion of GDR historian w. Kiittler, llarx dis­closed three different aspect s of this problem. The first was formulated by him in 1 859 as follows : formations differ from each other by their dollinant l!!lystem of production re­lations . Second aspect , fol"llUlated in Capital : formati-ons should be treated, in their relation to capitalism, trom the standpoint of the remnants of pre-cepit�list forms that persist in them. Third aspect : formations differ from eaoh other by the type of ownership of the means of pro­ductioJl.

Kuttler writ es : "It is preciaely the coordinated use of these three aspect s or dimensions that enables us to traoe the development of formations and help solve the basic problem involved in the historical study of social forma­tions-their sequence and replacement ,, Olly in this way can we fully apprehend the oruoiel •teges of hist orical progress and·, at the same t ime , appreciat e the contribu­tion the different cotllltries , regions end peoples · have made to the march of history. n 1 8

!he historica l process i s very multi-form, with a wealth of detail that comes t9 light in analysing socio­econo'llic formations . At ti'Bles this can make things diffi­cult for the researcher. Jor instance , to this day there is controversy over the charact er of the social system in ancient India . Feudal relationa in a number of Asian count­ries and West ern Eb.rope do not coincide , but their speci­fic features do not detract from the single end law-govern­ed prooel!!ls , nor from the operation of the common regule-ri ties of the given formation as a whole .

The study of the concret e specifics of each formation is the province of specialist s. But above ell it is neces-11817 to solve the more general problem, na•ely, should dif­ferent f�rm.a of one and the same stage of historical prog­reaa be grouped together, or, in other words , what are the

- 9 1 -

f' �, �

'��··. \

·� \ .�. � ··� �·�· ""· � " �

FCT

obj ective cauaes of non-identical, differing forms of ane and the same law-governed socio-economic process in the glven

fo1"1l8tion?

Formations can be studied both in t erms of space (ty­

pologically) , taking for our basis stable forms and region­

al di:rferences through the exist ence of the format ion, and

also in terms of time , when we examine stadial differences

characterising .the time ditferent�al in th• rise and aatu­

ri ty of a gi ve:n formation. '

And the first thing we should bear in a:lnd is the un­even and asynchronous process of world hiatorJ. Solle peoples

and regions , even whole continents , pass through ,, albeit

at dif�erent t imes , the same stages of development . This time differential soaeti11es leads to the sillultaxuaous erl-

. stence of different foraations . But the essence of every ·

historical epoch is determined not by this multiplicity

of social forma , but by the appearance of "shoot s of the

new" , that is , aore progressive social relations , even if

at first they appear only 1n one country, for they • et the main direction of society' s forward moveaent . !l:le simulta­

neOUJI existence of different formati0l'19 is a lways linked

with their· int eraction. fb.e external enviromaent . ·can have a retarding O'l" stimulating influence on a people or region belonging to one and the saa• formation. !hi• C9ll. change the con�rete fo:rma and pace of · �ooial developae:nt .

Worldwide ·experience has 8hon. that external political

and ideological fact or• can in.fluenoe intra-fol'llational pro­

ces•es . OD.e need onl7 aention the influence of world reli­

gions i · Chr:l.•tiani t7, Ialaa, Buddhiam. ..

At various stages of soci ety' s development , in other �orda , in various socio-econ.oaio fo%9t10lls , there. :eoae to the fore diHillilar factors that deterlline the uneven flow of the historical process . !hus , the more prim:Uv• the organintion of societ7 (pr.l.111.tive-co�l •1•te•,

slave-owning society, feudalia) , the greater i• the iJl:tluace

of b. matural enviroaaent . hvoureble enrtronaental comi­tiOD.S can aocelente the growth of the productive forces i

. - 92 -.;.: :

we have only t o ooapare , for example, the Mediterranean oo'b:Jl­tries and the land-locked continental African countries . l!hviromental differences make for more uneven developaent · and ill the end · exert a serious influence on · the forms of social relations .

The ethnic factor is important , too. A homogeneous or heterogeneous population can strongly inf'lu�nce the course , form and pace of socio-economic development , and creat e un­equal conditions for the maturing of the same social phe­nomena . Ethnic unity is also an advantage in the s ense that it t ends to lessen int ernal conflict s . But this advantage manifest s it self only at the early stages , for wJien bourgeois nations come into their own, the ethnic factor is relegat-ed to the background , giving way to class relationa and class conflicts .

An important theoretical problem as sociat ed with the internal modification of socio-economic fonnations , parti­cularly in antagonistic societies , is that of the so-called s:vnthe•is . There i s a :fund o f concret e historical materi­al to show that the transition from lower to higher forins of social organisation can follow two paths.

The first is the independent , relatively free of ex­ternal influence s , maturing of the conditions for transition from one formation to another, higher. one . And inasmuch as this is always accompanied by sharp social con:flicts , that eliminat e the rule of one class over another , this is a revolutionary path. Its distinguishing feature is the change of the socio-economic syst em as it s internal cont radicti­cm.a reach full aaturity without any extel"Jlal stimulation. We" oan therefore assume that what we have is a "pure" form of the revolutionary change of socio-economic formations . One example is Japan. Because of its relatively isolat ed geographical position, it was for many centuries free of serious external influences .. This ensured it , aaang other things , ethnic unity. But more important still was that socio-economic processes developed there in total disregard of what was happening on the Asian continent •

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file second path is best described by the t erw. "syn­thesis " . It implies , in essence , int era ction and eventual larger of diverse progres sive element s originating within the moribund formation with new ext ern.al fact ors which mature in radically changing s ocial and econoaic . conditi­cms. ID short , th• a111theeis i•pliea transition to a new formation result ing from. the clash of the given soci ety with the ext ernal enviroment . !his can lead to the emer­gence of transitional forms , or to the t riumph of more pro­gressive social relations , with ret ention and use of "auit­able " element s of the old system.

The development of' countries or regions b elonging t o the same formation can be subj ect to specifics whi ch might provoke . intra-formationa l differences affecting not only the superstructure , but also the basis . But these diffe­renc es can be of a restrict ed nature inasmuch as the �­mining factors are the dominant economic relations .

Such differenees might aris e a s a result of discrepant levels of economic , social , polit ical and cultural develoP­ment of · countries or regions which have more or less simul­taneously ent ered their format ion.el st age .

Differences in the level of productive forces are bound to influence not only the overall pace of economic development_, but also opt i.nisl use. of the obj ective economi c laws of the given formation which, in turn , creat es the con­ditions for a certain modification- of the historical pro-ces s .

I n some cases the comparatively minor peculiariti es ex­istent at the initial stage in the economic end political organisatio�, culture and way of life , not only remain in­tact , but can even develop t o an ext ent that they become respon•ible for a special type of organisation within the formation. However , the reverse pro ces s , the gradual level­ling out of init ial differences , is much more frequent .

In the past the great est minds of humanity could only dream of " et ernal peace " , of an end to the wars that dest­royed the result s of man ' s creative effort s , his priceless

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mommenta ot eulture and art . The veey nature of s ocial re­lations in pre-eOllimnist antagonistic formations produced the obj ective oonditiol18 for aggressive wars , which became an inevitable and colllltant concomitant of such soci et i e s . The slave-owning fo1"118tion could not , in general , exist wi 1;hout wars of conquest ' att ended by cruel "hunt for :people". �eudal int erneDine strife was the "norm" of political rela• tions in •ediaeval Europe . · As . for the great Asiatic despo­tic stat es , their rivalry was resolved in long bloody cam­paigns . !?he first st eps by bourgeo�s society . were aarked by ld.litary confli ct s . The eo-called ti;ade wars and, more especially, i:olo?lial wars ot aggrandisement are as o ld as bourgeois so ciety. Only a relatively small part of bourge­oi• military actiollS wee of a progressive natur'e , ·fo r it wais direct ed against states that were the bulwark of feudal reacti on� But even these wars , begun as defensive and prog­ress ive , soon became the ir oppo sites , in :f'u.ll conformi ty with · the e:q:> lo itat ive nature of bourgeois soc i ety • . The Marx-ist clas sic8 rep eatedly 'Cited the. example of the Nepoleolrl.c wars , thotigh they began in defence of the French Republic against the feudal ooalitions ot Europe , they were not o f ·

a liberatory character . Quit e the contrary, they degene­rat ed int·o aggressive wars of' conquest fully in line with the repacious interests of the big French bo�geoisie .

The Franco-Pruss ian War o f 1 87 1 is still ano ther exam­ple o f how the campai gn , :f'u.lly j ust ified in i tself , to uni te Germany in the race of opposition from Bonapartist France , degenerated into a war of conquest in which Prussian-German militari sm built up it s strength and directly support ed the French count er-revolut ionary bourgeoisie in putt ing down the heroic Paris Commune .

Monopoly capitalisa has multiplied the aggressiveness of the iaperialist bourgeois i e . Along with the numerous "local" wars , humanity was plunged int o the vort ex of world warl! , the second of which, in scale and loss of life , has no equal in the whole of history.

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This means that the a�uts s ocial probleD.8 oallllOt be reeolved within the capitalist formation. !he acooapliall­sent of tasks vita1 to the whole of hwaanity fall.8 to the comnunist formation. And historical experience has demonat­rated the profound humanistic nature of socialism.

11aj or conquests have alwaya been a factor in the de­formation of dominant •ocio-economic relations . Depending on concret e oonditio:ns , they have usually nrved to retard the progressive development of society, though in some case• they sti11.t1lated such development . It i s rare , indeed , for a war of conquest to play even a ' limit ed positive role . Ill contrast , wars of liberation are fought to uphold progres­sive social. and economic relations agajmst backward poli­tical ayst eDlS that haD18tri:ng them. Such wars contribut e t·o social progress ;· which sometimes find• expression in tran­sitional form.a to a new socio-economic formation that pro­mise faster developaent of the productive forces .

Only the rise of fundamentally new , socialist relations-­the init ial phas e of the cOllllU.Uist. formation--pave• the way to banishing war from the life of soci ety.

Problems relating to the emergence of the communist formation's initial phase, socialism , are of exceptional importance . Leonid Brezhnev has said in reference to these problems : "Not · only are we now theoretically aware but also have been C"!-vinced in practice that the way to eo­cialism and its main features are determined by the gene­ral regularities , which are inherent in the development of all the socialist countries . We are also aware that the effect of the general regulariti eL'!I is manifest ed in di1"­ferent fol'lll!J consist ent with concret e historical conditions and national specifics . " 1 9 The unity of regulariti es common to all socialist countries does not preclude certain dif­ferenc es in the way they ere manifested. ·

In studying the substance and forms of socialist con­struct ion, att ention should be ·concentrated primarily on obj ective data c�ract erising the stat e of the produvtive forces , economic basis and super-structure .

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The �ocialist countries began from widely different · economic levels. !he German Democrat ic Republic, for ina-

tence , had 11ature t echnical and product ion requisites for building sociali sm.. The situation was different in, say, the Ko:ngolian People t s Republic, where there was no indust­ry of any kind.

Different industrial ·levels also meant a different re'!'" lative weight of the wor�, olass. Its degree of org&Di­sation , concentration and consciouaness has a ·direct bear­ing 0n a count ry ' s rat e of progress .

And though rapid development i a part of the s ocialiat system, the disparat e starting point s made for distinct differences in form and pace of implementing the tot ality of L'!locialist economic and cultural t ramfomatio:na . Hence , development stages o f the L'!!Ooialiat countries do not coin­cide in time , though ever-y country passes through thea, for th�y are a manifestation of the regularities in build­ing the. new, socialist society.

Co�cret e social and economic dii'ferenees between· so­cialist countries meen , different rates of revolutionary · transformations . Differences at the start of the social­ist revolution can be so great that el�t ing t&ea wil� take a very long time.

!fhe USSR haL'!I built developed socialism end soae other socialist countries are nearing that goal , but not all of them are at the same stages in completing the econO'llic , social and cul�urel processeL'!I of bUilding sooialisa.

These examples llhow that a genuine historical approach that takes int o account the stages of social and e coJM>mic development rests on obj ective data and mu.st be strict ly adhered to in every study of the sociali•t countries .

Partial distinctioll8 in individual countries do not contradict t�e overall regularities, of building socialism and communism, which are the same for all socialist count­ries .

Socialism, �olDDlUllism differ ra dically from the anta­gonistic formations based on exploitat ion of man by man.

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Thi• applies not only to the nature of socialism and com­Dnl;llima, but also to the conditions of, their construction. Socialism, the initial phHe of the communist format io�, is not formed spontaneously. The progressive social class , for the first time in world hist ory, consciously, in a planned way, fashions new social relations , both the basis and superstructure . The dictatorship of the proletariat is the starting point of the socialis t revolution and lays the foundations for the long process of planned buil<ting of the new economy and culture , transformation of the entire social structure , ahange of psyChology, way of life and liv­ing standards .

Notwithstanding the essential differences in socio-eco­nomic levels of member, coun�ries of the socialist system, there is one thing charact eristic ·of all of them, and this has been oonv:l.ncingly confirmed by the experience of his­tory--the active and leading role o! the political super­structure created in the course of the socialist revolution. It is decisive in creating the necesaary conditions for the formation and strengthenilig of the new 'bads and for perfecting socialist relations�

Proletarian dictatorship, in what ever form, is a ne­cessary condition for , the successful building of social­il!!llll. Where the world.� class and its party, the revolution­ary vanguard, 1- guided by llarx:Lst-Leninist theory .and makes full use .of all tae epportunities offered by proletarian dictatorship !or building socialism, :victory is asaured. Lenin repeat edly used the formula : "Politics is a concent­rated expression of eco:nomics" •. :And inas11.Ucb. as the socialist b$sis · is built aft er the working class takes pcr.w•r, the politics of proletarian diptatorahip acquire deciaive im­portance in the building of socialie. In Lenin' s words , "Politics mu.9t ' take precedence over eeen.Ollics� To argue otherwise ia to forget the .ABC of .. nin". 20 Lellin' • ap­proach t o , an� analysill of, politics is the very oppos.ite of' voluntariam in all it s forms , which ignore• the ob�ective econollio laws and absolutises force and -�ol#dlc� the r�­volutionary process.

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In building socialism and communi sm the dialectical unity of economics and politics stands out in. bold relief. Economic procesaes , and even more so social and cultural processes , are no longer of a spontaneous charact er.

Of vast importance is conscientious and planned direc­tion of social development on the basis of cognised obj e ct ive �aid.ties . fb.e economic int egration process of the so­¢ialist countries , which expresses the obj ective requirement s of our epoch and is ba sed on the principles of socialist i�ternat ionalism,helps t o narrow the gap betwe:en the eco­nomic levels of the various countries and assures their harmonious and effective cooperation.

fb.e existing differences between socialist countries

do not affect the esa•nce of sociali st social relations .

It _ would be a gross error to exaggerat e 8lld absolutise

partial differenc es in the initial phase of the co111JB1lllist

formation.

The uneven development of society and the asynchronous

character of identical hist orical processes and event s , are

but a variable magnitude -. st emming from concrete historical

conditions . As socialist relat ions continue to grow and

strengthen on an ilat ernational scale , the uneven development

of •ociety 1Dheret ed from previous stages' 1will be oTercome .

In this epoch of history-the epoch of the triumph

and building of the co-unist fo:niat ion--the po&11ibility

can clearly be aeen, given certain conditions, that countriH

with pre-bourgeoi• relations can bypas• capitalism as a

stage of social and econom:ic development and through certain

t ransitional stages advance to .the au.ch higher type of ao­

ciel relations , :aam.ely, aocialil!!lll.

!Qll§. · 1 V.I. Len:f.ll, Collected Works , Koscow, Vol . 21, P• 57.

2 Ibid. , Vol. 1, PP• 141-142.

3 Ibid. , PP• .137-138.

4 ·x. Kar.z: , Capital, Vol. 3, Moscow , 1971, P • 792.

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""'"' H,, , ,_,, ,,,,,., .. ,. .. .. , �--- -- ,.,,,,,, .... , ...... .. ,,., .. .. ,. , ..... ,,,.,,,., ., • ., ,.,.,._,�,,,,., ,.,,,.,,,,, • .,, .,,,,,, ,. • .,.,,.,.,,,.,,.,,,_,,,

5 Formationtheorie und Gesahioht e , Berlin, 1 978. 6 Karl 11arx, Capital , Vol . · 2 , pp . 36-37 .

7 K. 11arx and F. Engels , �' Vol. 1 9 , p . 476 .. 8 V.I . Lenin, Collected Works , Vol . 3 , pp . 1 92-1 93 . 9 �. Ellgela , .Anti-Inhring, Moscow , 1 969 , P • 1 94. 10 K. Jla.rx and F. Engels , � ' Vol. 1 2 , p p . 723-724

( in Russ ian) . 1 1 .

V . I . Lemn, Collect ed Works , Vol. 38, p . 1 89 . 1 2 K. Ma�- and F . Engels , Sele cted Works , Vol. 3 , Moscqw ,

1 910 , p . 497 . 1 3 Marx-Engels , Selected Correspondence , Moscow , 1 953 ,

p. 565. 14 The General an d the Spe cifi� in the His torical Deve lopm�nt

of Oriental Countries , Koscow , 1 966 .; V .. N. Nikiforov, The East and World Hbt ory, Moscow , 1 976 (both in Russian) .

1 5 V.N. Nikiforov, "!!!he Conc eption of , the Asiatic Mode of Production and Modern Soviet Historiography" , f4• Genez:al pd the Specific 1l'l the Hiatorioal Develo•ent of Ori­elltal O!Ui!tr:les .

1 ' -, . Tokei , Zur !l'heor:l.e der Geeell!ohat!!fpraen, Budapest , 1 977.

1 7 E.li .. Loone., "Jlethodological Notes on the 1!1.eory of Soeio­Economic Formations" , !rp.aaotion.s cf,:!· !artu Pglvmil.tz, Issue 225 , lhiloaoppi,cal Btudie• � Vol. XII, 1 969 , PP • 1 47-1 48 (in Russian) .

1 8 w .. ·Jdittler, i••chi9htaejodolog;LMe MR!�• der gtenrJ.e

CfH9hahaftatomtionen, Berlin, 1 974, p . 32. 1 9 L .. I .. Brezhnev , )1ollowing Lepi!'• 0oFf8, Ioaoow, 1972 ,

P• 328 .. 20 V.I .. Lenin;' ·collected Wor)Cs , Vol. 3 2 , p .. 83 .

SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS

The hi story of mankind i s a history literally abounding

in revolutionary actions of different scale and significance .

Their specific features and those of civil and national li­beration wars , as well as of aggressive actions directed at their suppression are shaped by a given historical epoch . In

order to understand the c·oncret e nature of revolutionary ac­tions it is necessary to compare them with a concrete epoch , with a given historical situation. Scholars constant ly have to deal with contradictory fact s pertaining to one or ano­ther reyolutionary �ction. Sometimes actions that outwardly appear to be revolutionary are , in fact , an unscrupulous struggle for power by various groups of the ruli'ng classe s .

The tendency to clothe actions that are anything but reyolu­tionary in revolutionary garb , to make wide use of demagogic slogans which di stort and slur over the e ssence of the event s taking place , is well known.

At the 1 4th International Congres s of Hi storical Scien­ces in San Franci sco difference s arose regarding the inter­pretation of the very tenn "re�olution" . A comprehensive classification of revolutions can be made only on the basi s

of a thorough study , first of all , of the far-ranging revo­lutionary actions of the masses ( according to the corre spond­ing hi�torical e�och ) , and then on the basis of a detailed examination of the innumerable empirical circumstances that determined the actions . The general rule here must be that

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act ions not involving the broad mass of the population can­not be considered revolutionary . What mot ivat ed these mass­e s , their real role in the movement is the key to under­standing event s . Not all revolutionary actions , it should be clearly realised , are necessarily positive in the sense of furthering social progre s s . Hi st orical example s t e st ify to initially progre ssive movement s even becoming reactiona­ry· one s , · or vice versa . The dialectical process of the deve­lopment of revolutionary movement s is a highly complex one , the correlation between their component element s is capab-le of changing .

A special t ask of historical science is to work out a

typological characteri stic of revolutions relating to a de­

finite l:iist orical epoch . They can . be the revolutionary ac­

t ions of slaves , of the enslaved fre e populat ion , the maj or

revolutionary unheaval s known in hi story as peasant wars .

The series of bourgeois revolutions beginning with the ma­

nufactory period of capitali sm and up to the consolidation

of capitali st social relations merit a special study . The

revolutionary acti ons of the working class make up an inde­

pendent chapter in mankind ' s progre ssive struggle for a bet­

ter future . An4 finally , the sociali st revolut ions , consti­

tuting the highest s�age of the revolutionary struggle .

But in all this. very complex and ramified syst em o f re­volutions , which were and remain the principal expre ssion of the progre s sive activity of the popular masse s , it is e ssen­tial to single out the event s which have become landmarks in mankind ' s forward movement . Reference is to revolutions which have changed the prevailing mode of production , have led to new socio-economic formations. It is precisely thi s cat egory . of revolut ions , occupying the highest position in the hierarchy of all revolutionary actions , that are · called " social revolut ions " .

Social revolution i s a process of advance from one so-cio-economic formation t o another. K. Sele znev di stingui shes three aspect s of this term: "a) social revolut ion in the broadest sense of the word is the transition from the lower formation to the higher ; b ) social revolution as a general phenomenon , as an �deal progre ssive leap , as a process of

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transition from one formation to ano�her finds it s concrete embodiment in the diversity of individual , particular soci­al revolutions ; c) social revolution in it s full scop e must include a progre s sive l eap in the development of the produc­tive force s , production relations and the superstructure . " 1

Social revolutions are , t o use Marx ' s t e rm , the "loco­motive s of hi st ory" heralding the vict ory of new socio-eco­

_no:mic relati ons over the old.one s . They extend beyo�d local

limit s , are key fact ors in the world hi st orical p rocess . They are � therefore , of e qual importance for underst anding the hi st orical destinies of all people s in all continent s .

Social revolutions are the determinant o f mankind ' s forward movement . Society ' s transition from one socio-e cono­mic formation to another can be achieved only by a revolu­t.ionary upheaval , not by an evolutionary process .

Of course , social revolutions are not a unifp rm , simul­taneous act . The revolutionary transi tion from one socio­economic formation to another i s a process of deep-going po­lit ical , e cbnomic and ideological change s who se forms and the pace at which they are carried out cannot be the same , since thi s i s det ermined by the profound qualitative di s­tinctions of the respective formations . The change-over of socio-economic formations i s an obj ect ive and , in the final analysi s , a determined proce s s . But it does not proceed au­tomati cally . Social revolutions are the culmination of the activity of the popular masse s . Their role as the makers of hi story most vividly mi;mife sts it self during social revolu­tions , when there clearly emerge s the key signifi cance of the progres sive social force s , classes and parties expre ss­ing the vit al demands of broad soci al strata and rallying them to fight for the sati sfaction of these demand s .

Social revolutions are always the direct re sult o f a concrete struggle of opposing social forc e s .

The correlation o f the se forces determine s both the du­ration and the out come of the struggl e . Lenin stre s sed that "Marxi sm differs from all other socialist theories in the re­

, ·markable way it combines complete scientific sobriety in the analysi s of the obj ective state of affairs and the ob-

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j ective course of evolution with the most emphatic recogni­tion of the importance of the revolutionary energy , revolu­tionary creative geriius , and revolutionary initiative of .the masse s--and also , of course of individuals , group s , or­ganisations , and parties that are able to discover and achie­ve contact with one or another class . n2 Lenin thus expressed with the utmost clarity the idea of the dialectic interac­tion , interdependence of the obj ective and the subj ective factor in the revolutionary process .

One cannot but agree with V.Afanasyev ' s premise that it is essential to take into account the sliding bounds of the . concepts "obj ective conditions" and "subj ective factor" . "What on the plane of general historical materialism appears as the subj ect , as the subj ective factor can , in one or ano­ther concrete sphere of social life , appear as the o·uj ect , as obj ective conditions. "3

Throughout the history of mankind the subj ective factor of social revolutions kept changing., affecting not only the content but also the forms of the revolutionary process. In some cases it appeared as a series of internally connected links but outwardly as independent revolutionary actions co­vering a comparatively long period of time , during which the dying socio-economic relations were destroyed and replaced

. ' . by new , more progressive ones . In other cases the formation leaving the hi storical arena came under such heavy blows that it yielded it s place in a relatively short period. Where the revolutionary activity of the masse s is far ranging the degree of participation in the revolution cannot be the same for different categories and strata of the population. Along­side the vanguard , the minority , acting as the most consci­ous and purposeful subj ective factor of social revolution its shock force can also be social strata which mostly act spontaneously and do not always have a clear idea of the concret e aims of the struggle . But without th;i. s force the revolution would be doomed to defeat .

Since every social revolution is directed at aboli shing the prevailing political and economic relations it i s bound to encounter bitter resistance on the part of the reactiona-

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ry forces in power bent on retaining the old relations . A great concentration of effort and all means of struggle i s required to overcome thi s resi stance . The revolutionary ele­ments can achieve victory only given their preponderance .

At the same time nearly in every social revolution ca­sual and unstable social strata are drawn into the movement who eventually prove to be nothing but temporary· "fellow­travellers " . It should always be borne in mind that not on­ly the basic classes of the given society act as the offen­sive or defensive forces in the revolutionary proces s . Al­though the bas ic classes are the chief exponents of soc ial antagonism. , the non-basic clas.ses , like the various social strata often appearing in the political arena with their "particular" demands , can sometime s influence the general course of the movement . The peculiar ideological covering of their political position can temporarily even obscure the essence of the basic revolutionary process. And the va­rious combinations of the heterogeneous social forces parti­cipating in the struggle can al so determine , to a consider­able degree , the forms of the revolutionary movement .

The diversity and extreme complexity of the processe s accompanying a social revolution have prompted some authors to advance the idea of its modelling . We believe , however , that modelling conf ormably t o invariant types o f social phe­nomena , in particular to social revolutions , falls short of the tasks of identifying the individual featur� s of the se phenomena. Modelling presupposes the intentional creation of definite conditions of existence of the given phenomenon. But the model create s these conditions in static , not in mo­vement , which i s in irreconcilable contradiction with the very essence of hi storical knowledge which proceeds from the dynamism of obj ectively exi sting historical fact s .

The first social revolution in the history o f mankind was the transition from a classless society to a class so­ciety. The long and agonising process of the division of so­ciety into classes proceeded in a form totally unlike the usual conception of revolution. In the sharp struggle accom­panying the process of the destruction of the primitive-com-

- 1 0 5 -

/

l �

. . . . · �

-

munal system 'and the enslavement of a considerable part of the population by the emergent social hi erarchy there wer� no revolutionaries in the generally accepted sense of the wo-rd:. A . Pershit s , A . Mongait and V . Alexeyev are of a different opinion , however. They hold that when the negative role of disintegrating primitive-communal producti on re lat ions , of the artificial imp ediment of the growth of the product ive f�rces manifest e d it self ; "the social forces which came out in favour of the abolition of communal ownership of the means of produc tion and it s replacement by privat e proper­ty , the abolition of the clan-based tribal social community and its rep lacement by stat e-political institut i ons , i . e . , in favour of a fundamental progressive reorgani sati on of the social structure--tho se social forces were , indisputab­ly , revolutionary forc e s " . At the stage of the disint egra­tion of t he primitive-communal system , the said authors not­e d , a cert ain part of it s members was int ere sted in break­ing away economically , in passing from clan t i e s to t errito­rial t ies , in the clan-based t ribal communit y becoming a neighbour community. 4 Thus , not only the emergent exploit er stratum but much broader . social strat a want ed an end t o the archaic tribal-clan syste�. It does not follow , of course \ that thi s signified, conscious opposit ion of antagoni stic class relati ons t o the clan syst em.

The crisis of primitive society continued for a long t ime . Studie s on the hi st ory of archaic Gre ece convincing­ly show that the appearance of commodity-money relati ons undoubtedly undermined the primitive-communal system . En­ge ls point ed out that Solon ' s reform which provided for the annulment of the system of mortgaging land plot s and of debt s which placed the debt or in servitude to the creditor,

shorte r seri e s of int ermediat e stage s i s t ransformed int o private propert y . n6 This observati on by Engel s i s of great import ance for understanding. the economic cont ent of that first social revolution in history which gave ri se to a class-antagonistic society .

N� mat t e r in what form thi s society aro se--as a slave-owning or as a feudal society--private property with it s sundry specific feature s became · i t s basi s . The attempt s t o deny the privat e-property nature o f feudal relat i ons whi ch were allegedly det ermined by personal t i e s and were , there­fore , �out side the deci sive sphere of economic determini sm , must b e flat ly rej e c t e d .

F o r a l l the peculiari t i e s of mankind ' s transition from a primit ive classle �s society to an antagoni stic society it cannot be denied that it was a social revolut ion of far­ranging conse quence s marking a significant step along the path of social progre s s , of overcoming stagnation and ex­panding the sphere of the application of human labour ( al­though forced labour) and thus opening up wide vi stas for the further development of the productive forces -

Social revolutions ushering in the feudal formation on the ruins of the slave-owning . system of relat ions or as a result of the dis�ntegration of the primit ive-communal sys­t em , have their specific feature s .

In thi s re spect the evolut ion o f the community i s of particular intere st . In hi stori cal literature the u se of the category "community" has acquired an extremely broad , one might say , universal charact e r . Not only the more or less successful att empt s of the p ea�antry to upho ld some of their right s against the feudal lord s , but also their at-

clearly bad as it s purpose the conservation of t he primit ive f t empt s t o influence the formation of new bourgeoi s social community . 5 I relat i ons and , in a cert ain s ense , even t o modify these re-

But no reforms could prevent the disint egration of pri- f lations are due to the stability of the c ommunity . mitive society. "All civili sed peoples begin wi th the common l . � the other

.hand , we

.know of the effort s of the th_eo-

ownership of the land . Wi th all peopl e s who have pas sed a ! ret1c1ans of Russian Narodism to see in the Russian p easant cert ain primitive stage , thi s common ownership become s in

j· community the embryo of socialist relat i ons , although hi s-the course of the development of agriculture a fetter on , t orical experience showed the illusory nature of such as-production . It i s abolished , negat e d , and aft e r a longer or \ sumptions . On vast concre t e material Lenin di sclosed the in-

- 1 06 - I - 1 01 -

evitable process of the capitalist break-up of the communi­ty. Some ideologists in the Asian and African countries view the community not in its historical development. but as something permanent , stable , bearing at time s even a mystic character. Argument s based on exaggeration of the stability of the communal structure are oft en echoed by the proponent s of the "Asiatic mode of production" .

Of course , it would be wrong t o completely ignore the

role of the community in the hi storical process or to mini­

mise it s significance . But any study of the community re-•

qu:ire s a concrete hi sto�ical approach. Thi s premi se i s of

decisive importance . Nowhere did the community remain immu­

table . It aro se , evolved under the impact of various inter­

nal and ext ernal conditions. and , finally , disappeare d . Any

exaggeration of the community , let alone it s ideali sation ,

leads t o a serious di stortion o f the historical proc e ss .

Reference is sometimes made to the fact that the commu­nity i s , pre sent ( though in various forms ) in all known socio­economic formations . But what is actually meant is the pre­sence of rudimentary relics of some archaic and social in­stitutions , and nothing- more .

The slave-owning formation did not as yet , at the stage

of it s di sintegrati�n , give rise to a new mode of production .

But individual element s of social relations , different from

slave-owning relations , began to appear relatively early. A

contributing factor was the circumstance that social antago­

ni sms were no longer confined to slave-slaveowner relations .

Of enormous significance was the con£lict between big and

small landownership . In thi s confli9t the ruling class of

slave-owners , who represent ed big landownership , were oppos­

ed by a broad stratum of small landowners , legally free but

systematically subj ected t o all kinds of coercion by the

landowners of the latifundia.

The crisis in slave-owning relations , which was basical­ly caused by' the low product ivity of slave labour , precipi­tated a series of contradictory , but nonetheless int ercon­nected processe s . The free . small farmers ' economy , for all its relative weakne ss , proved to be comparatively more pro-

- 1 08 -

ductive , even though it was expo sed to the political mono­poly of the big landowners maintained through social diff e­rentiat ion. Seeking to increase the profitability of their latifundia , the big landowners combined forced slave labour with the more profit able labour of the various groups of free and "semi-free " peasant farmers , securing at the same tiine their dependence in various forms . In some cases the slave-owners even allowed the ir slaves certain e conomic ini­tiative . Thi s led to the social position of the slaves draw­ing closer to those of the "free " farmers who were dependent in one way or another on the big landowners . All this even­tually stimulated the contradictory and extremely slow pro• cess of crystalli sation , in the bowels of slave-owning so­ciety , of such types of exploitation which were no longer "typical" of the given society and which could be regarded as a prototype of future feudal relations.

J . Herman , a Marxi st hi storian from the GDR, examining the role of the popular masse s in the history of the first antagonistic formations , believe s that. al though one cannot speak of a "revolution of the slave s and colons which dest­royed the slave-owning system" , nevertheless the long strug­gle of the popular masse s was instrumental in furthering the expansion of the economic sphere of the free and semi­free agricultural population . Thus , an offensive on the po­sitions of the ruling class was under way , the p�ere qui si­t e s were being created �or the abolition of the slave-own­ing formation . The upsurge of the mas s movement s , Herman stresse s , oft en took place on the periphery of the slave­owning empire . It was precisely the periphery that began to play a maj or role , as a re sult of the mass movement s , in the further development of the progre ssive hi storical pro­cess. 7

De spite the emergence of obj ective prere qui site s for a revolutionary transition from the slave-owning to the feudal formation , it could not , and did not , t ake place automatical­ly. There is the saying that with the end of the slave-own­ing formation both clas ses--slave s and slave-owners--peri sh. Thi s should not be taken lit erally , for we are dealing with the complex process of the ri se of a new class structure .

- 1 09 -

""�

./

Of course , a �ertain part of the former ruling class be­come s feudal · lords . Also a new large clas� of dependent peasant s appears , formed naturally . from the basic mass of dire ct producers , which was "inherit ed" from the former formation . The change in the class structure of the new so­ciety consolidate s the revolutionary proce s s under way.

The t ransition from one antagoni st ic socio-economic formation to another i�variably entailed �reat sacrifice s , cruel . suffering for the broad mas s of t he people . The slave­owning mode of product ion re sted on the use of the cruellest methods of /compulsion . The· feudal socio-economic format i on , although i t was based on somewhat l e s s brutal forms o f ex­plpitat�on , was one of sharp class struggle and ruthl e s s suppre s sion· of a i l and every f o rm of prot e st b y the main mas s of the direct producers . Chapt e� XXIV of Volume I of Marx ' s Capital gives a stark picture of the inhuman methods whereby so-called primit ive accumulation was effe c t e d . Capi­t ali sm. , the bearer of social progre s s at that time , made it s appearance in · the world arena- on the bones of hundreds of thousands of nameless vi ctims .

Not a single one of the socio-economic formations can arise before the formation preceding it has exhaust ed the obj ective condit ions' of progre ssive development . We are speaking , of course , . of the world hi stori cal pro c e s s as a whole and not of a hi story of a definit e region .

Although slave-owning society was the first antagonis­tic class formation , not all peoples passed through that stage . Feudal relations sometimes arose directly on the ru­ins of the archaic clan-tribal classless society. Thi s was not , however , a departure from the principle 0 of the histori­cal succession of formations , for the feudal formation could not appear , and did not appear , before slave-owning relati­ons had , in the course of the world hi st oric proce s s , proved their insolvency. The German tribe s , which played no small part in the downfall of the slave-owning Roman Empire , were able to pass direct ly to fe�dali sm. only and precisely becau� se they had already formed class relat i ons when slave-own­ing society had hi stori cally exhaust ed it self on a world scale .

- 1 1 0 -

The feudal formati on dominat ed for more than a thou­sand. years . De spite the comparatively early signs of i t s di­sintegration , which began with the incept ion and develop­ment of capitali st element � in the bowel s of the feudal sys­t em , it s revolutionary replacement c alled for a long strug­gle .

The social revolution c ons�lidating the capitalist sys� t em was not a simult aneous act . Lenin wrote that one can speak of the consummation of the bourgeoi s-demo crat ic revo­lution both in the broad and in the narrow sense . Taken in the broad sense , "it means the fulfilment of the obj ect ive hist orical t asks of the bourge ois revolution , i t s ' consum­mati on ' , i . e . , the removal of t-he very soil capable of en­gendering a bourgeois revolution , the consummat ion of the entire cycle of the bourgeois revolut i ons . In thi s sense , for example , the bourgeoi s-democrati c revolutio� in France was c onswmnat ed only in 1 87 1 ( though begun in 1 789 ) . But if the t erm i s used in it s narrow sense , it means a parti­cular revolut ion , one of the bourgeoi s revolutions , one of the ' wave s ' , if you like , that bat ters the old regime but doe s not destroy it altogether , does not remove the basi s that may engender subse quent bourgeoi s revolutions . In thi s sense the revolution of 1 848 in Germany was ' consummat ed '

_in 1 850 or the fift i e s , but it did not in the least thereby remove the soil for the revolutionary revival in the sixt i­e s . The revolution of 1 789 in France was ' consummat ed ' , let us say , in 1 794 , without , however , thereby removing the soil for the revoluti ons of 1 830 and 1 848 . 118

In view of the unevenne ss of wo rld hi s tor i cal d e velop­ment the revolutionary pro c e s s connected wi th the change of socio-econQmic formations proceeds in the form of a cyc­le or "wave s" of revolutions , to cit a Lenin . They differ from each other ln their different degree s of int ensit y , de­t ermined by the prevailing hi st orical condition s . The cycle of bourgeois revolutions is complet e d , as we see from Le­nin ' s words , only when they have fulfilled their task s , i . e . , when all the component s of the capit ali st socio-economic

- 1 1 1 -

-

formation have finally taken shape .

In France , the a4vent t o power of the bourgeoisie as a

result of the mo at radical French bourgeoi s revolut ion in

1 789 de stroyed the feudal order but did not as yet fully

�reate the mature economic forms for the new , capitalist

society . Thia required a new cycle of revolutions , each of

which , irrespective of it s immediat e motive s , made for one

or another change in the development of the bourgeois sys­

t em. The completion of the cycle of bourge oi s revolutions

in France , i . e . , the full maturity of capitalist society ,

coincide s in time with the appearance in the political are­

na · of an inevitable concomitant and antipode--the working

class .

Social revolutions are a qualitative leap i n social de­

velopment , separating one aocio-econom�c formation from ano­

ther. "The hi storical experience of social revolutions , in­

cluding the experience of socialist revolutions , " notes Yu.

Krasin , " shows that there are no ' pure ' forms of the leap .

Peaceful and non-peaceful' forms , gradualne ss and interrupt­

ed gradualnes s , evolut ion and a fundamental qualitative re­

structuring of social relations , reforms and revolutionary

breakup--theae are features and aspect s inherent , in one or

another proportion , · in any revolution . It i s on the diffe­

rent correlation , o� the . character of the connecting links

of the se elements that the concrete form of the revolutio­

nary process dependa . "9

Thi a doe s not mean , however , that the leap dest roys the continuity of social development . Social revolutions leading to the t ransition from one socio-economic format ion t o another , should not be regarded as a t otal negation of all component s without· exception of the formation being re­placed. What is changed radically is the mode of production and the system of socio-economic relations corre sponding t o it . Political power passes into the hands o1' new social for­c e s . But the material means of the exi stence of people , such as the instrument s of labour and the technical skills con­nected with them cont inue to exist . Thi a applies to many as­pect s of not only material , but also spiritual culture . The

- 1 1 2 -

change of socio-economic f ormationa through revolutions could not constitut e the basis of society ' s general prog­res s if it spelt the total negat ion ,. let alone the dest ruc­tion of the mate rial and spiritual value s that have remain­ed from the past . Of course , the character of the social re­volution and the new formation it has given rise t o , entire­ly determine to what extent the heritage of the past wj,11 be preserved and incorporat ed in the general value s of the new society. But the continuity of civilisation is undoub­t edly pre served , though in an unequal degre e . The operati­on of the dialectical law of negation provide s for a defi­nite link between the qualitatively different stages -0f so­cial development . The new society cannot be created on the basis only of the de struction of the old society. The old has t o be used on a new baa � a .

Lenin paid special att ention t o the pre servation and utili sation of the achievement s of the mat erial and spiri­tual culture of the past in the int erest of the victorious socialist revolution . He clearly reali sed that in the c on­di tiona of the radical break-up of social relations by the revolutionary masses dangerous extreme s were possible in the sense of a t otal negation of the bourgeois cultural he­ritage and it s de struction . Thi a kind of danger was particu­larly great in a relatively backward country with a predo­minantly peasant population and where rebel element s were capable of destroying everything coruiected in one way or another with the pre-revolutionary past . The clas s consci­ousne ss of the revolut ionary prol�tariat , its high degree of organisation and di scipline were the conditions needed for curbing tho se dangerous tendencie s that had surfaced among the unprepared peaa�t mas se s bent on " settling scores" for the long y�ara of inj ustice , oppre s sion and exploitation that had been their lot .

Lenin said in the early years of the sociali st revolu­tion that " the task of combining t4e vi ctorious proletarian revolution with bourgeois culture , with bourgeois sci ence and t echnology , which up t o now has be en available t o few people , is a difficult one . Here , everything depends on the

- 1 1 3 -

organi sation and discipline of the advanced sections of the working -people . 11 1 0 He parti cularly stre s-sed the ne ceasi ty· of building a communi st society which could be bui lt only on the basi s of the complete assimilation of the cultural heritage of the past . " If , in Russia , the millions of down­trodden and ignorant peasant s who are t otally incapable of independent development , who were oppre s sed by the landown­ers for centurie s , did not have at their head , and by their side an advanced section of the urban workers whom they un­derst ood , with whom they were intimat e , who enj oyed their confidence , whom they believed as fellow-workers , if there wer� not thi s organi sat ion which is capable of rallying the masse s of the working people , of influencing them , of exp­laining to them and convincing them of the importance of the t ask of taking over the entire bourge ois culture , the cause of communi sm would be hopeless . 11 1 1

Marxi st lit erature contains sufficient substantiation of the viewpo�t: that the transition period as a defini te historical category exi st s only when society advanc e s from capitali sm to sociali sm , for sociali st production relations cannot arise in the bowels of bourge ois society. Hence , so� me t ime is needed before the se re lat ions can take s hape af­ter the e st ablishment , of the political p9wer of the vi cto­rious working class and with the mo st act ive assi stance of the state of proletarian dictat orship .

The que stion naturally arise s : was there any transi tion period between other socio-economic format ions? The main ob­j ect ion to such an assumption is that in other socio-econo­mic formations the newly arisen production relations had evolved mainly in the shape of corre sponding structure s , in the bowel s of the old formation that was leaving the hi sto­rical sc ene . In all social organi sms ( except the mo st archa­ic clan-t ibal system) preceding socialist society only the forms of already exist ing exploit ation were changed leaving the continuity of the antagoni stic character of so cial re­lations intact . This is borne out by numerous examples from his�ory confirming , for instance , the long coexistence of newly ari sen bourgeoi s relations with feudal-serf and even slave-owning relations .

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_..._ _________ _

And yet , de spit e the above argument s , it must be admit­t ed that when examining the process of the progre s sive change of all the successive socio-economic formatio�s we can di scern a definite transit ion phase , although different from the capitalism-to- socialism transition period .

The main common feature of the se t ransition phase s i s the incomplet enes s o f the devel opment an d c onsolidat ion of the basi s and superstructure cat egories of the new formati­on . The high proportion of the more archaic. social forms still pre served--in many case s accompanying the revolution-­�ampers , or at any rate , retards the new formation fully

.,�ak.ing shape . The appropriate period for doing away with 'the old can be a comparatively long one . In some case s it abounds in sharp clashe s between the new and the old , even in revenge- seeking att empt s by the remnant s of the former format ions t o reverse the course of history . The transition period from the primitive-communal system to a class socie­ty come s t o an end with the de jure and de fact o subordina­tion or enslavement of the main mass of community members by the ruling class of the slave-owners or of the feudal lords . In the same way , the transition period from feuda­limn to capitalism come s to an end with the t riumph of bo­urgeois property relations , which override and transform the pre-capitali st forms of exploitation . Marx e st abli shed the fact of the exist ence of such a transition period : 'fWhen capital--not any kind of defini t e capit al , but capit al i n general--is only still forming , the proce ss of it s formati­on i s a process of the di sintegration and a product of the collap se of the social mode of production preceding it . Hen­ce , it is a hi st ori cal proce s s and a . process belonging to a definit e historical period. It i s the period of i t s hi stori­cal gene sis . 11 1 2

The exi stence of a transition period does not change the revolutionary ( and not the evolutionary) character of the replacement of one socio-economic formation by anothe.r. The victory of new social relations cannot be a.chi eved with­out violence although its role and scale in a revolutionary upheaval are determined by a concrete hi s torical eituat ion .

- 1 1 5 -

...._

A feature of 'the initial phase of any social revolution , including a socialist revolution , is particularly desperate forms of the class struggle , for it involve s storming the ramparts of the old society , crushing the re sistance of the outgoing exploiter classe s and clearing the way to building new , progressive social relations . Marx always recogni sed the role of violence as the "midwife" of history . But the revolutionary working class has never ideali sed and never absolutised purely forcible methods of struggle . Lenin ' s negative attitude .to the idea of artificially impo sing "blessings" on the peoples , is well known . 1 3

The classics of scientific socialism repeat edly expres­

sed the view that although the revolutionary working class

must be prepared to repul se the reactionary forces in de­

fence of it s gains , it must not be the initiat or of forcib­

le means of struggle . If the react ionary classe s had not

re sorted t o violence , the working class would not have re-

sorted to arms .

Unfortunately , hi stori cal experience has up to now

practically everywhere disproved the assumption that the

exploiter classe s are capable of reconciling themselves to

the possibility of redeeming their privileges voluntarily .

Every att empt , even · the slightest , to re strict the rule of

the exploiter classe s , has , as a rule , led to bloodshed.

Still the historical tendency is that the revolutionary pro­

cess in the period of the transit ion from capitali sm to so­

ciali sm , when the international working clas s grows in num­

bers and strength , is not necessarily connected with violen­

ce inevitably leading to bloody civil wars . Whether the so­

cial upheaval will entail human sacrifices or not depends

upon the character of the resistance to the revolutionary

process on the part of the reactionary . classe s leaving the

hi storical arena .

Civil and national liberation wars which the revolutio­

nary proletariat always support s , proceeding from its inter­

nationalist principle s , are not contrary t o it s anti-war po­

sitions . Civil war i s the mo st acute manife station of the

class struggle in which the exploited society seeks the abo-

- 1 1 6 -

ti

lition of the domination of the exploiter minority. Civil war , the proletariat versus the bourgeoi sie , is an expres­sion of the operation of the obj ective laws of social deve­lopment , an effective driving force of the social process . The victory of the revolutionary working class over the re­actionary bourgeoisie bas as it s aim , in the final analysi s , not only the social liberation of the working people but al­so their deliverance from the militarist machine , the sup­pression of chauvini sm , the isolation , the curbing or de­struction of the anti-popular forces who are a constant source of aggressive , predatory wars bringing incalculable mi sfortune and suffering to the people s . Unjust , aggres sive wars are an indispensable concomitant of capitali sm , intrin­sic in its social nature . It therefore follows that the only guarant ee of putting an end to such wars is the vict ory of sociali st social relations on an int ernational scale . Impe­rialist propaganda ' s assertion that the sociali st state s ' peace policy i s allegedly incompatible with their policy of rendering assistance t� the revolutionary struggle of the prolet ariat and t o the national liberat ion movement s i s un­t enable , false and hypocritical .

Incit ement to civil wars in foreign territ ories , any direct or indire ct instigation of the proletariat of other countries to overthrow the power of the exploiter classes by force are feature s totally alien to the socialist count­ries which adhere to the principle of non-int erferenc e in the int ernal affairs of other states . But while deci sively rej ecting "export of revolution" , the socialist st at e s can­not remain indifferent to the destiny of the international proletarian revolutionary movement . A civil war of the pro­letariat ·against the bourgeoisie cannot but evoke sympathy and a natural desire to lend support to the revolutionary force s . Such support doe s not imply state interference ex­cept in case s when there is a threat of the imperialist "ex­port of counter-revolution" . Armed int ervention by some po­wer which seeks by force to suppre ss the insurgent working class in another country , e ssentially changes the nature of a civil war. Out side aggre ssion launched with a view to cru­shing �evolutionary forces is in effect directed against the

- 1 1 7 -

�

sovereign right of the people to decide their own de stiny , t o choose their political and social system. In such cases the civil war of the proletariat assume s an all people ' s character. The socialist countrie s , in no way departing from their basic policy , have the right to render assi stan­ce in repul sing foreign aggr.ession and preventing the " ex­port of counter-revolution " . This applies al so to the natio­nal liberation wars which the oppressed peoples are compel­led to wage against the imperiali st colonialist s .

Revolutions take place as a result o f the aggravation

of · the int e-rn.al social antagoni sms inherent in the given

society . The essence of the revolut ionary proce ss under way

in . one or another country cannot be understood without an

understanding of the int ernal socio-economic and political

cause s underlying it . Every revolution , of course , experi­

· ence s , to one extent or another, the impact of external fac-

tors which can have either a stimulating . or obstructive ef­

fect on the revoiutionary process , can further or impede

its development . But in no case can the external factor be

the initial cause of revolution. Hi storical experience at

the same t ime offers nu�erous ins tances of military support

from the out side rendered by class forces in solidarity with

revolutionary actions in other countries , and just as many

instances of attempt s to crush such actions by whole coali­

tions of stat e s united by their common count er-revolutiona-

ry aims .

It is but natural that the sociali st stat e s should ren­

der assi stance t o the peoples fighting for their indepen­

dence against coloniali sm. Such assi stance i s necessary and

its effectiveness i s proved by historical facts . Colonial

exploitation , national and racial oppression not only bring

incalculable suffering to the enslaved people s , doom them

to starvation , and even extinction , obstruct their progres�

sive development ; they are also constant source s of int erna­

tional conflicts and wars . Hi storical experience is rich in

example s showing what dangerous seat s of war arose where the

imperialist s carried out direct or indirect seizures , encroa­

ched upon the natural resources and other national wealth of

other countri e s .

- 1 1 8 -

No matter in what form the coloniali st poticy i s pur­sued it i s always aimed at consolidating the positions of the mq st reactionary social force s , at intensifying exploi­tat ion and encouraging aggression . Coloniali sm alienate s the working people o f different nations , divide s them and sets. on each other, spreads chauvini stic and racist views . Lenin repeat edly cited Marx ' s words that "no nation can be free if it oppres se s other nations 11 • 1 4

The various assumptions by bourgeois ideologist s that the Bol sheviks allegedly for a time recognised war as a means of revolutionary influence on other nations are com­pletely .disproved by the experi ence of the struggle Lenin waged against the so-called "left Communi st s " . He consi st en­t ly adhered to and further developed Marx ' s and Engel s ' s tenet that obj ective economic stimuli , furnishihg the force of example , are the main means of spreading revolution . "Once �ope i s . reorganised , and North America , " Engels wro­te , "that will ·furnish such colo ssal power and such an example that the semi-civilised countries will of themselv­es follow in their wake ; economic needs , if anything , will see to that . 11 1 5 He did not expre ss any definite views as to what social and political phase s the "semi-civili sed countries " , i . e . , the countries still at a low level of ca­pitalist development , would have to pas s through before ar­riving at 'socialist organi sation. Engels stre ssed that the active leading role of the working class was to lead the co­lonial countries to independence as rapidly as possible . He pointed out that thi s process would not be an easy one , "it would not pass off without all sort s of destruction , of course , but that sort of thing i s inseparable from all re­volutions . n 1 6

It should be underlined once again that Marxi sm-Leni­ni sm has always re solut ely condemned predat ory wars , includ­ing colonial wars , an inevitable concomitant of capitalism .

In the "Inaugural Addre ss o f the Working Men ' s Int erna­tional Association" , writt en by Marx in 1 864 , the predatory foreign policy of the bourgeoisie "in pursuit of criminal

de sign , playing upon national prejudices and squandering - 1 1 9 -

in piratic�l wars the people ' s blood and treasure " �s op­posed by a proletarian foreign policy whose task is "to vindicate the simple laws of morals and justice , which ought to govern the relations of private individuals , as the ru­les paramount of the intercourse of nations .

"The fight for such a foreign policy f onns part of the general struggle for the emancipation of the working class­e s . � 1 7

Socialist revolutions differ fundamentally from other social revolutions not only in· content but also in fonn. Lenin elaborated an integral theory of socialist revolution the correctness of which has been fully borne out by histo­rical exp·erience , by revolutionary practice . In the report of the CC CPSU to the 25th Congre ss of the CPSU Leonid Brezhnev defined the process of the building of a communist society as a social revolution . 1 8 This fully accords with the Marxist-Leninist understanding of the essence of so­cial revolution or the transition from one socio-economic fonnation to another.

�e completion of the relatively long phase of the existence and development of a mature socialist society , on the basis of which a communi st society is being built , will signify the definitive emergence of the communist fonnation.

The di stinctive feature of this great social revolution i s that it triumphs not � as a result of the struggle of anta­gonistic classe s , since such no longer exist s in a develop­ed socialist society. Under way now is not a spontaneous , but the regulated process of improving advanced socialist social relations and their systematic development into com­munist relations .

� 1 M . A . Seleznev , .. Social Revolution , Moscow , 1 97 1 , p . 252

( in Russian) .

2 V . I . Lenin , Collected Works , Mos�ow , Vol . 1 3 , p . J 6 .

J V .Afanasyev , Scientific Management of Society , Mosco!l , 1 968 , p . 1 1 7 ( in Russian) .

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f I �

4 A . Pershit s , A. Mongait , V .Alexeyev , A History of Primi­tive-Communal Society, Moscow , 1 968 , p . 1 59 ( in Russian) .

5 K . Marx , F . Engels , Selected Work s , Vol . J , Moscow , 1 97 0 , p . 28 1 .

6 .. F . Engels , Anti-Du.bring, Moscow , 1 969 , p . 1 65 . 7 Introductory article by J . Herman in the book : Die Rolle

der Volksmassen in der Ge schicht e der Vorkapitalisti­schen Ge sellschaftsformation , Ed . by J� Herman and G. Sell­now , Berlin , 1 975 .

8 V. I . Lenin , Collected Works , Vol . 1 6 , pp . 202-203 . 9 Lenini sm and Philosophical . Probiems Today, Moscow , 1 970

( in Russian ) . 1 0 V . I . Lenin , Collected Works , Vol . 29 , p . 74 . 1 1 Ibid . , pp . 74-75 . 1 2 K . Marx , F. Engels , Works , 2nd edition , Vol . 26 , Part III ,

p . 5 1 6 ( in Russian ) . 1 3 V. I . Lenin� Collected Works , Vol . 22 , p . 35 2 . 1 4 Ibid . , Vol . 2 1 , p . 1 04 . 1 5 K . Marx , F . Engels , Selected Works , 'Vol . J , p . 481 . 1 6 Ibidem. 1 7 K . Ma.rx , F . Engels , Selected Works ,_ Vol . 2 , p . 1 8 . 1 8 L . I . Bre zhnev , Report of the CPSU Central Committee and

the Immedi ate Tasks of the Party in Home and Foreign Policy. 25th Congre ss of the CPSU , Moscow , 1 97 6 , p . 5 6 .

THE DIVISION OF HISTORY INTO PERIODS

( The Periodi sa ti on of Histo ry ) .

The problem of the periodi sation of world history ha s

long attra c te d a ttent ion from hist orians and soc io logists.

There i s no ne e d to prove the complexity of the problem and ,

a t the same t ime , its va st significance to hi storical sci­

ence as a who le : the pe riodisat ion of the historica l pro ce s s

give s a bet te r understand ing of that proc e s s , facilitates a

comprehension of its inner law-governed patterns , and conse­

quently makes it po ssible to draw a scientific gene ralisa­

t ion. It would be hard to f ind a .hi st orian who , whatever

his sub j e c t ive methodologica l vie w , would give up the idea

of periodisa t ion. However , it is coumon knowle dge that a

wide varie ty of views exists among historians on the que s- .

tion of a scientif i c crite rion of world histo ry ' s periodisa­

t ion, e spe ci� lly among those who on the who le adhere to ide a-

listic stands .

The ve ry c oncept of "world history " ha s given rise to

ce rta in difference s or sha de s o f opinion. By "world history "

we unde rstand the road trave lled by mankind a s a whole . World

history is called upon to provide a summa rising_ but in no

way abstract no tion of the deYe lopment of human socie ty and

i ts a dvance from lowe r stage s to higher one s . World history

means the history of a ll people s . In such a formulation, the

subj e ct o f world hi story canno t , of c ourse , be l imite d to

any convention.a l and mostly arbitrarily selected e thnic or

- 1 2 2 -

cultura l and historica l complexe s , " c ivi lisations " .. It is

sufficiently we ll known tha t , in hoary anti quity a nd in pe­

riods clo se r to us , va st ma s se s of pe ople live d beyond the

pale of compara tive ly be tter stud ie d cultur a l and histori­

cal c omplexe s . The overa l l course o f wo:r:ld hist ory cannot

be unde rstood if one disrega rds the fortune s of that part

of mankind which deve loped out s ide the tradi t io.n.al " c ivili­

sa tions " . One will rarely find , . in pre sent-day litera ture ,

s o obvious an anaohl'onism a s the division of people s into

"historica l " and "non-historica l " , but_ the trend , linke d

with such a division, to cla ssify peo ples a ccording to the ir

be longing to known to us ( or even invente d ! ) " cultura l com­

p lexe s " and " c ivi li sations" is surprisingly tenacious o f

life .

Sovie t hist orians are aware tha t , at the given leve l

of the ava ilabi lity of source s , it is difficult· in pra c ti ce

to e s tablish , in a ll its ou t standing deta ils , the histo ri­

c a l road trave l le d by a ll people s . Howe ver , Sov ie t hi st ori­

c a l science is working towa rds an a scerta inment of the a c tu­

a l ro le playe d by e a ch pe ople in the world-histori c a l pro­

ce s s , and ha s re j ec t e d a l l and every subj e c t ive pre fe rence s

f o r a ny parti cular e thnic group . One ca.ILD.o t write or unde r­

s tand the re a l history of human socie ty without e schewi.Dg

the sub j e c t ivist predile ction to substitute the hist o ry of

s tate s and re ligions fo r the history of people s , the subj e c t

of hist orical s tudie s . T o pre sent a s world histo ry the his­

tory of rel igions or civilisat ions that have been a rbitra ri­

ly se le cted by the scho lar is jus t as unsc ientific as to in­

sist on the outmode d ge ocentric the ory of the universe .

Historical sci ence is unthinkable without a pe riodisa­

tion of the historica l pro c e s s . Perio disat ion define s the

very e s sence , the e ssentia l content of the stage s in the

e me rgence and deve lopment of historical pro ce sses character­

i st ic of a given pe ople , country , region, or llll!lnkind a s a

whole . 1

There can be no genuine his·to rice.l sci ence without a

periodisat ion of his tory , i . e . , without a generalising ap­

proa ch t o history. A re cognit i on of the overal l law-governed - 1 23 -

pa tterns in the deve lopment of human socie ty is the founda­t ion of a scientific periodisat ion of world hist ory .

Mankind ha s existed for over two million yea rs , wi th pre-cla ss socie ty being the lengthie st in time , invo lving many tens of millennia . The primitive-communa l system was the first progre ssive epoch' in world hi story , whose emergence and development pro cee ded at an e xtremely slow rate in the conditions of im.ature pro du ctive force s and primitive te ch­nology . Without any excepti on, all the people s inha bi ting our plane t went through thi s initial stage in . the develop­ment of society. Howeve r, tha t system was not abso lute ly uniform in type , and its deve lopment wa s ne ither smooth nor simultaneou s .

Whereve·r the na tura l conditions favoure d man ' s labour,

the obje ctive , preconditions arose earl ier than e l�ewhere

for certain surpluse s to appear over and above wha t was im­

me diately c onsume d . Some surpluse s were forme d art ificially ,

a a a re sult of military plunder. Thus , in a number of regions ,

the condi ti.one appeared ob j e c tively promoting the gradual

emergence of a soc ial upper crust which initial ly merely

c ontrolle d, on behalf of socie ty, the accumulated so cial

wealth, but then took to appropriat ing tha t wea lth and cont­

rapos ing itse lf to soc ie ty . Thousands of years were nee de d

for so cie ty to be come. divide d into classe s .

The slave-owning s oc ial system was the f irst form of c la s s socie ty and cons�quently the s e cond pro� ssive e poch in the overa ll deve lopment of mankind. The first state s-­and the se were slave-owning state s--appeared amidst a va st number of· tribe s standing at various stage s in the deve lop­ment of primitive-communa l re lations . The armed s truggle against such tribes wa s a ma j or source of acquiring slave s from among the capt ive s . The very emergence of slave-own­ing sta tes and theh the more rapid rate of e conomic and cul­tura l deve lopment in slave-owning. so cie ties had a va st and ever mounting influence on the far more backward but nume ­rica lly bigger tribe s , which in the ir turn also exerted an influence on the slave-owning state s . The transition from the primi tive-communa l system to a class soc ie ty , which wa s a gigantic leap forward in world soc ial deve lopment , wa s re -

- 1 2.4 -

volut ionary in chara c te r and wa s accompanie d by an acute struggle embracing whole centurie s. �he slave-OWne rs had to impose the ir supremacy by fo rce.

Slavery existed practica lly everywhere , though in vari­ous forms and not a lways reaching the leve l of a deve lope d s ocio-e conomic forma tion. Be side s , e ven those tribe s which had no t achieved the stage of a cla ss soci e ty but experien­ced the powerful impa ct of neighbouring slave-owning states began to reveal an extens ive deve lopment of pat riarcha l form of slavery.

It should be empha sised tha t the illhabitant s of the s lave-owniJ:Jg stat e s did not c onsist only of slave-owne rs and s lave s . Be sides , thes.e ba sic cla sse s in the f irst antagonis­tic socie ty , there was a c onsiderable part of the i:ahabitants , and in many ca se s the ma j ority re pre senting the free landho lde rs , who conti.nue d to adhere to the communal forms which they were cons tantly defending aga ins t encroachments by the slave-owne rs . Enslavement , tha t most primitive and forcible form of exploitat ion , me t with fierce re sistance , not only from the communa l freemen but a lso from tribe s that l ive d on the pe riphery of the s la ve-ownil:Jg stat e s and were c onstant obj e c t s of campaigns of conquest by the slave-own­e rs .

Though re lations of sla ve-ownership arose a t diffe rent t imes and di d not bec ome unive rsa lly pre dominant , the slave­owning soc ial system wa s an important progre s sive stage in mankind ' s deve lopment . On a hitherto unpara lle l scale , the new re lations of produc tion expande d tl:i.e sphe re of the a pplica tion of la bour .and conse quently created co ndi tions for the deve lopment of the produc tive force s .

Th e transition from s lave-owne rship to feudalism, just lik7 the transition from the primit ive-communal system to s lave or feudal socie ty , could not and wa s no t uniform and simultaneous. In gene ra l , it wa s impo ssib le before the slave­owning system had outlived i tself econoDli ca lly alld the ob­j e ctive conditions mature d for the re placement of s lave la­bour by the more produc tive labour of dependent til lers of the soil .

- 125 -

For a lengthy period of time , clashe s be tween oppos­

ing cla ss intere sts did no t lea d to any decisive re sult s.

Indee d , the struggle was an extreme ly lengthy one and there

temporarily coexiste d , on b ig territorie s , various eo cio­

e cqnomic systems such as the primitive-communa l , the slave­

owniDg and the feudal .

Th e e s tablishment o f feuda l re la t ions ins tead of slave­

owne rship meant the repla ceme.nt of · some exploiters by o thers

and the sub jugation of the va st mass of the population to

new , feudal exploitation. Neverthe le s s , the feuda l soc ie ty

wa s a considerable step forward as aga ins t the s lave soc ie ty ,

the productive forces being given a new an d powerful impe ­

tus . Fresh prospects appeare d for further advances in land

cul tivati·on and handicrafts . Industrial production wa s mak­

ing its way , which revealed, in the me a sure of it s spre a d ,

the big a dvantage s o f wage labour over the exploitation of

the labour of slave s or serfs .

Like the s lave system, the feudal system wa s marke d by

a varie ty of c oncre te forms and ma.ni.fe sta.uions condit ione d

by lo ca l feature s . This ove rall chara cteris tic wa s compli­

cated by the unequal blending, in various countrie s , of

feuda l re la tions both w ith surviva ls of previous so ci o-e co­

nomic systems ( primi tive-communa l or slave re la tio.ns ) a.nd

embryonic forms of future capitalist re la tio.ns .

Feudal socie ty yie lde d pla ce to capi tal i sm, which wa s

born and mature d with:i.n the feudal system. It s tands to

rea son tha t the victory of the capita list mode of production

could not come abou t at one and the same time . The ini t ia 1 forms of capita list re la t ions came to the fore iD. the t owns

of Ita ly in the 1 3th and 1 4th centurie s . The Ne therlands

revolution of the 1 6 th century took the form of a popular

struggle aga iD.st foreign rule , but ha d dee p so cio-e conomic

roo.ts : the development of capita list re la t ions . The mid-1 7th

century saw the bourgeo is re volution in England. Though ba­

sed on compromise , it pre pare d the triumph of a new bourgeo is

order. Fina lly , the French Revolution of the end of the 1 8th

century ushe re d in an historic pha se of the liquidat ion of

feudalism and the triumph of cap italism. While the downfal l

- 1 2 6 -

ii>

.of the slave-owning system wa s spontaneous and unorgani se d ,

the bourgeois revolutions were made by the ma s se s , who came

out against the bulwarks of feudalism w ith their own po liti­

cal programme s , the ir pa rti e s and the ir own organisat ions .

It is noteworthy tha t the ma s se s who repre se.nted the main

driving force iD. bourge ois revo lutio.ns , could not as a rule

reap the benefi ts of their effort , which went to a compara­

tively sma ll uppe r crust who were out to re stri ct the aims

se t by the re vo lution to a single a im, i . e . , the e l imina­

tion of a ll obs tacle s to privat e ente rprise . If tha t aim

could be achieved through compromise wi th the feuda l lo rds ,

the big bourgeo isie were mo st willing to make such a compro­

mise and unhe sitatingly sa crificed the intere sts of the

masses , whose fate was of l i ttle concern to them.

The act ive invo lvement of the pea sant ry , e specially

in Germany and England , ma de it po ssible to strike blows at

the feuda l re a ctio.na rie s , some thing tha t the bourgeoisie it­

self wa s iD.capa ble of do ing. But it wa s aga1nst the iD.tere sts

of the ma s se s , iD.c luding the pe asantry, tha t the imme diate

re sults of the re vo lution prove d obje ctive ly di re cted. Fo l­

lowing the de fea t in the Gre a t Peasant War, the German pe a-

3ants were mercile ssly crushe d and subjuga te d. A hundre d

years after Cromwe l l , the Engl ish yeomanry had a lmos t dis­

appeare d , while the French pea sant s , who ha d fa llen . . vic tims

to the parce l ling of the land and beside s , ha d be en ble d

white in Napole on ' s campa igns , prove d to b e strippe d o f all

and any e conomic independence .

The re volutio.na ry spiri t of the bourge oisie re ache d

its peak in the French Revolution which , howe ver , showe d ,

first , tha t th e peo ple , i . e . , th e urban ple bs and th e pea­

sants , forme d the backbone of the revolutionary armie s ;

they were the maiD. re vo lutionary force that ensure d the a ccom­

plishment of anti-feuda l ta sks ; se cond, a lready iD. the course of the revo lutiona ry events , there took place a bifurca tion ,

a divergence , between the interests of the bourgeoisie a.nd

those of tae people ; third , the fore runners of the present­.day 'pro le tariat had a lre a dy formula ted the ir own . intere sts

which were distinct from the bourgeoi sie ' s , and , fourth ,

after a chieving the ir aims in the re volution, with the he lp

- 1 27 -

of the pe ople ,, the bourgeo isie ha stene d to cut short the revo lutiona ry proce s s and strip the revolut ion of its lea­dership . The Re storation of 1 660 and the "Glorious Revolu­tion" of 1 688 in England a ccomplished socia l ta sks in the same way a s the Thermidor event s and the a cce ssion of Napo­leon Bonaparte did 'in France .

Though the era o:f capita li sm le d to a ra pid upsurge in the productive :force s and to outs tanding progre ss in science , technology and culture , tha t advance went hand in hand with an exceptionally sharp exacerbat ion o:f interna l contradi c-t ions . Capitali sm triumphe d as a re sult of severa l re vo lu­tions separated from one another by centurie s , wh ile the re ­volution o f 1 848 , one o f the la st , coincide d imme diat e ly with the , revolutionary . st ruggle of the pro le tariat against capitalism.

The first pro le tarian revo lution t ook pla ce in France in 1 87 1 but it did no t and could not triumph, since bourge­ois soc ie ty had not yet exhausted all its pos sibilitie s . De spite the ir heroism, the Paris CoDEUD.ards la cke d a re vo lu­tionary va�rd--its own party , and could no t ensure gui­dance of the pe asantry and give leadership to the non-pro le­tarian se ctions of the peo ple . Neverthe le ss , the Paris Com­mune will a lways rems� a land.mark in world history .

A new era se t in, when cap i ta li sm entered i ts imperia l­ist pha se . In 1 905 , the Russian pro le taria t he a de d the peo­ple ' s revolution, which had its repercussions in all conti­nents . This was the first revolution in world history in which the working cla s s , guided by an advanced party , a ssum­e d the role of leader of the broa d ma sse s , in the first pla ce , the who le peasantry , in the st ruggle against semi-feudal and capitalist exploi tation. The 1 905-1 907 revolution was defea­ted, first and :foremost , because revolutionary action by the workers and pea sants wa s no t unite d in a single current but took place at different time s , which allowe d the re actiona­rie s to muster all their fo rce s and crush the movement. How­eve r, the re volution o:f 1 905- 1 907 , a world-wide histori c event , had an immediat e impact on the destinie s of the peo­ple s o:f Europe and Asia , for it was the thre shold to the Grea t Soc ialist Revolution in Russia i.h October 1 9 1 7 .

- 1 28 -

The succes sive repla cement of so cio-e conomic :formati­ons--the primitive coDBnunal , s lave-owni.Dg , feudal , capita l­ist and the communi st forma ti on--comprise the obj e c tive foun­da tion and the ore tical ba si s for the periodisat ion of the historical proc e s s .

Th e scient ific pe riodisat ion of his tory took initial shape in an early work by the :r ounders of scientific so cial­ism--The German Ide olog.y ( 1 845- 1 846 ) , in which the stage s in the histo rica l development of socie ty are de fine d as sue- ·

ces sive forms of ownership : the tribal , the antique , the feu­da l , and the b ourgeo i s . It stated :for the first time tha t the 1periodi sation -Of the entire his torical pro ce ss is ba se d on e conomic his tory , the stage s in the deve lopment of ma te ri­a 1 production. In 1 859 , this propos i tion wa s amended by an important quali fication : "The produc t ive forces de termine re la t ions of production" ( Prefa ce to A Contribution to the Critique of Poli tica l Economy) , where dire ct re ference is made to what is called an "e conomic forma tion of soc ie ty" . It fo llows therefrom that the referenc e is to his torica lly definite stage s in the deve lopment of so cie ty . 2 As Karl Jlarx wrote in the Preface to the first e di tion of Vo lume I of Capita l : "My standpoint , from which the evolution o f th e e co-

· nomic forma tion of socie ty is viewe d as a proce ss of natura l .history" . 3

.

As is coD111on knowle dge , Marx took a dee p intere s� in geology , :from which he borrowed the t erm ":format ionn to de­termine the giganti c strata in the hist ory of mankind which can be distinguishe d according to the hist orical succe s sion in the ir emergence and re placement . An. example of his use of thi.s geo logical term can be found iii the second draft of a le t ter to Vera Za su li ch ( 1 881 ) ; " The archa i c , or primary f orml!l tion of the globe consists of a series of strata of va­

rious periods , of which some were superimposed on others . In exactly the same way , the a rchaic so cial foI'Dll!l tion opens up to us a number of various stage s which mark ·a succession of epochs that re place each othe r . . .. . " Further, in the third draft of the le tter , Karl Marx speaks of the se conl.ary :for­mation tha t involve s three periods of deve lopment : slave­owning , :feudal and bourgeo i s so ci e ty . 4 These variants of

- 1 29 -

Marx ' s le tt�rs to Vera Za suli ch were never sent off , the wri­ter evidently not considering his considerations comple te • However , considerable intere st lies in the fact tha t Karl Mar.x--as is borne out by the contemporary a chievement s of archaeology and e thnography-regarded pre-cla ss socie ty , which in this case he calle d the "archa ic or primary" forma­t ion, as a very lengthy and va st historical perio d divis­ible into individua l epochs .

The problem of periodisation i s all the more c omplex because of the difficulty of e s tablishing a single cri�erion to mee t the nee d bo th for a substantiated division of the world-historical process and of re gional or local historie s . What is beyond doubt i s tha t th e the ory of soc io-e conomic forne tions is , in a ll case s , a most important guideline in the approach to the scientific periodisation of histo ry . A� th e same time , i t should b e taken int o account that the succe s sion 9f soc io-e conomic forID!l tions doe s not procee d s imultaneously , an d conse quently the soc ial revolutions which give it c oncrete shape take place at different historical time s . Fo llowing the most lengthy period of the existence of the primitive communal system--that primary and universa l s ocio-economic formati on--a.nd a lready with the appearance of slave-ownership ther set in the simultaneous functioning of two or more soci a l formations . Tha t is why the underlying principle of so cial .formations calls for a certain augmenta­tion of the periodisation of the world-hist orical process.

In this re spe c t , use of the concept "hist orica l e poch" is the mos t . convenient . Lenin, who made fre quent use o f thi s concept , gave i t a pro�ound scientific substantia tion. Thus , in the article "Under a False Flag" he wrote : " We are un­doubte dly living a t the juncture of two epochs , and the his­t oric events tha t are unfolding before our eye s can be un­derstood only if we analyse , in the first pla ce , the ob­jective conditions of the transit ion from one epoch to the other. Here we have important historica l epochs ; in each of them there are and will a lways be individua l and partia l move­ments , now forward now backward ; there are and will a lways be various deviat ions from tpe average type and mean tempo of the movement . We canno t know how rapidly and how succe ss-

- 1 30 -

fully the various historica l move100nt s in a given e poch will

develop , but We can and do know_whi ch class stands at the hug

of one epoch or another, de termining its main content , the

main dire ction of its development , the ma in chara cteristics

of the historical si tua tion in that epoch , e t c . Only on that

basis , i. e . , by taking into account , in the first pla ce , the

fundamental distinctive features of the various ' epochs '

( and not single e pisodes in the history of individual count­

rie s ) can we corre ctly evolve our tactics ; only a knowledge

of the ba sic feature s of a given e poch can se rve as the foun­

dation for an understanding of the specific feature s of one

countr,y or �nother. 11 5 Thus, Lenin emphasi sed that a defini­

tion of a hist orical e poch should be grounde d in an obj e c­

t ive c lass approach, which cannot depend on the way the over­

a ll historical proc ess is modifie d in individual countrie s .

The borderlines of an e poch are e stablishe d within a n inter­

nationa l framework. An e poch give s expre ssion to the typica l

social proce sse s in which a particular so cial cla s s assume s

the role of a leading and de termining force . In imparting

a concrete content to the concept of epoch, and in e s tabli sh­

ing the trend of so cial deve lopment il:lherent in a given

epoch , Lenin at the same t ime constant ly cautioned aga inst

s implificat ion, a stere otype approa ch t o the characteri st ic

of an e poch. " • • • An epoch , " he sai d , " is a sum of varied

phenomena , in which , in addition t o the typica l , there is

a l�azs some thing e lse . 116

Afi historical e poch is in no way a logical abstraction.

It take s in the sum of varie d phenomena and pro ces se s , bo th

typical and non-typical, gre at and small, and peculiar to

b o th advanc e d and backward countrie s . In an article entitle d

"The Military PrograDBne o f Pro letarian Revolution" , Lenin

wro te a bout the war of 1 9 1 4- 1 9 1 8 : "The pre sent imperia li s t

war is the continuation o f the imperialist policie s of two

groups of Gre at Powers , and the se policie s were engendere d

a nd fostere d by the sum total of the re la t ionShips of the

imperia list e poch. But this very epoch must also neee ssari­

ly engender and f oster policies of struggle against nation­

a l oppre ssion and of pro le tarian struggle a ga inst the bour­

geoisie and , conse quently, a lso the possibility and ineyita-

- 1 3 1 -

bility , first, , of revo lutionary nationa l rebe llions and wars ; second , of prole tarian wars and re be llions against the bourgeoisie ; and , third, of a combinat ion of bo th kinds of revolutionary war , etc. 117 That is why the imperia list e poch is some time s defined as "an e poch of wars and pro le tarian revolutions " .

· The Leninist understanding of an hi stor ical epoch con-:- · tains e definition of a leading trend in social development and a definition bo th of the c la sse s tha t s tand a t the hub of the historica l process and give dire c tion to its a dvance and the cla s s force s tha t stand in opposi tion to each o ther. The historica l proc e s s is examine d , not in an �bstra c t fa­shion but in the totality of the concomitant concre te phe­nomena .

Highly important in principle are Lenin ' s words tha t , in a de terminat ion .of the concre te borderline s be tween one historical e poch and another, these should not be absoluti­sed • . "Here , of course , as everywhere in Nature and socie ty , the line s of . division are conventiona l and variable , re la­tive , not absolute . "8 This proposition is dire cte d aga ins t a dogmatic striving to pe riodise the historical proce ss a l­mos t by the day and hour, and to absolutise the significance of concre te histories� dates , this ultimate ly leading to an oversimplifie d understanding of history .

The concept "historica l epoch" is indissolubly linke d with the llarxist-Leninist theory of the progre s sive succe s-

sion of socio-e conomic forma t ions . One cannot speak of a!J3 histo rica l epoch in the a bstract from the socio-e conomic formations existing in that epoch. An historica l epoch is defined �s a lengthy historical pha se tha t is marke d by more or les s stable interre lations between two or more coexistent s ocio-e conomic formations. The chronological framework of an historical epoch hinges on the radical change s in the align­ment of force s be tween such format ions . Every e po ch is narked by a dominant trend in the deve lopment of socie ty , this find­ing expre ssion in the progre ssive conso lidat ion and mount­ing re la tive weight· of a more advanced socio-economic fprma­t ion.

- 1 3 2 -.

The dynamism of the historical pro ce ss finds expre s­sion, not only in a chaDge in the a lignment of force s between various forllll!l t ions but also in substantial changes wi thin each format ion. Since they a ll go through various s tage s of maturity, development and dec line , this canno t but exert a.n influence on the historica l epoch in que stion. The re sult is a nee d to distinguish, wi thin every historica l epoch , the individua l periods that reflect. its interna l deve lopment.

The pre sen t historical e poch , which i s marke d by the revolutionary transition from cap it alism to so cialism, a lso

. c ontains individual periods ·that co rrespond t o the growth stage s and the mounting impact of socialism on world deve lop­ment.

Conse quently , every historic a l e po ch c an have its own interna l diyi. sions. It gee s without saying, tha t t.a.e perio­disation of world history ca lls for extensive pre liminary re search, e spe cial ly in re spe ct of those distant times · when regions were far more iso late d from one another and the in­teraction be tween various formati0J1s wa s le ss felt than in later time s . Prior to world history becoming an " empiri ca l fact" , i . e . , the emergence of the world system of capita l­ist e conomy , the his tory of mankind was , as it were , " spli t ' into various se lf-containe d are a s , where internal soc io-e co­nomic p ro ce sse s mature d autonomously.

The farther we di'p into the past , the more d ifficult it proves to provide a more or le ss pre cise dating of histo­rical proce sse s and phe nomena . This is e spe cia l ly true of the so cia l re vo lutions which brought about the transition from non-class to c la ss soc ie ty, and then from: .the slave­owning system to feudali sm. In the former instance , the re­volutionary pro ce ss was lengthy and la rge ly sponta.p.e ous and it' is only with a certain degree of approximat ion that one can de termine its spatio-temporal bo rderline s .

The concept o f historical epoch as grounde d in the theory of socio-e conomic forue tions makes i t possible to periodise his.tory on a global scale . However, what is neces-sary a longside an overall periodisa tion of the world-his-torica l proce s s is a scientific e laborat ion of the loca l

- 1 33 -

periodisat ion ,of history. An intimat e link cannot but exist be tween t he two , for both are ultima t e ly de te.nnined by the overa ll law-governe d pa tterns in the progre ssive advance of socie ty , i . e . , again by th e progre ssive succe s sion of soc io­e conomic forma t ions. The opera tion of these pat terns can be traced in the deve lopment of all re gions and even individua l count rie s without exception, but the concre te his tor ic a l timing f o r individual re gions or c ountrie s to a chieve e qua l degre e s in the overal l progre s s ive movenent is not the same , a s a rule . The s o lution is to be seen in the e s ta bl ishment of a system of the "hierarchies l " dependence of pure ly loca l historica l phenomena on the regiona l , while the la tter , in the ir turn , on the more genera l one s , which find expre ssion in the qua litative feature s of an hist orica l epoch. In a work on the hi story of a pa rticular country or pe ople , it is pos­sib le and ne ce s sary to de te rmine concre te landmarks in the local historical pro ce s s , pro ceeding from the i:nner logic of that proces s. Such local i se d periodisat ion i s , as it we re , the lowest stage in the general system .. The next and highe r stage is provided by fa c t s that chara cterise the his toric a l deve­lopment of an entire re gion with appropriate chrono logical links . A comparison of dat e s te s tifying t o similar pro c e s se s , this on a purely loc a l and re gion a l s ca le , make s i t possible

to e s tablish the grea ter or le s ser degree of interdependence be twe en these pro ce sse s and permi t s mapping out an. outline of a single periodisa tion involving bo th the re gion as a whole and it s component e lenents. Finally , the data obt a ine d in this way are , a s it were , superimpo sed o� the o bj e ctive ma te� ria l tha t provide s the groundwork of the worl d-hi storical periodisat i on. This permit s e st abli shing the place he ld by. s particular re gion in a concre te historica l epoch. Thus , the re searcher is enabled to approa ch the e sta bli shment of the degre e of the impa ct exerted by the overa ll world hist ori­cal proce s s on the fate bo th of a given re gion and the pure­ly loca l e lement s that enter it . Of c ourse , the a s certain­ment of a definite "resultant " is conventiona l in its nature . But any periodisat ion cannot but be approximate and c onven­tiona l. Jfa j'Or histo rica l proc e s se s and phenomena .g.anno t be dated with abso lute pre cision . What is more important i s to

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e stablish , even in the approximat ion, the dependence -of loc a l historical proc e s se s on the overal l t rend o f soc ia l deve lop­ment as expre ssing the fundament a l law-governed pat tern in mankind ' s a dvance . In a number of case s , one can speak o f histor i c a l epochs, proceeding from the ext e rna l conditions in the deve lopment of individua l regions as de termining the d ire c tion of their inne r evolution. Thus, for examp le , the priinitive margina l are a of class soc ie t ie s--the extensive zone of the Euro-Asiat ic continent--wa s , from ancien time s , a n arena o f c la she s be tween d iffe re nt c la s s-e thnic forma t i ons , c ivilisat ions , mos t ly in forms of gro s s vio lenc e--conque st and plunder--with the concomitant de st ruction of the pro duc­tive f orce s . 9 The hi stor.y of the pe ople s o f the Ame rican ·and African continent s pro cee de d amidst the same conflic t s , a 1 though in a some what different fashion, in the pre-coloni­al period.

In Sovie t hist or iography , the English bourge o i s re vo lu­t ion of the 1 7 th century i s consi dered the starting point of "modern hist ory" . �his periodisat ion i s grounded in the English revolution being the first vi ctory of bourgeo i� re la­t ions over the feuda l in one of Europe ' s leading countrie s . It wa s thus tha t the English revolution ushered i n the epo ch of a re vo lutionary transit ion from the feuda l format ion to the capita lis t . Conse quently , we see here the operat ion of the forma ti on principle a s a criterion of historical perio­disat ion, but we cannot pre clude other variant s of the s o lu­tion of thi s problem. Without infiinging on the a bove-menti­one d princ iple of so cial forma t ion, we can a lso re c ognise a s the onse t of the epoch of trans ition from feudal i sm t o capita li sm e ithe r the e a rlier Ne therlands P.e vo lut ion of the 1 6th century or e lse the later French Revolution of the 1 8th century.

The Ame rican Re vo lution of the 1 8th century, whi ch pre­c e de d the French Revo lution, wa s in the main anti-colonia l­i st and playe d no independent role from the viewpoint of

. the formation approa ch.

A definition of the Engl ish Revo lut ion of the 1 7 th p en­tury a s the start ing po int of the e po ch of modern history

- 1 35 -

cannot be absoiutise d either. Like a ll chrono logical land­marks in the deve lopment of soc ie ty , it is conventiona l , for

all th�e possible variants of the starting point of the new epoch have the right to exist inasmuch as they do not

infringe on the princ iple of social formations. At the same time , there are certain we ighty argument s in favour of the

variant accepted in Sovie t historiography.

England played a very important ro le in Europe ' s poli­

tica l life , far more than the Netherlands. Karl Marx consi­dered it a "cla ssical country" of the capit alist mode of

'

production. In the Pre fa ce to the first edition of Capita l,

he wrote : "The physici st either observe s physical phenomena where they occur in the ir mos t typica l form and mos t free from disturbing influence , or, wherever possible , he make s experiment s under conditions tha t assure the occurrence of the phenomenon in its normality� In thi s work I have to exa­

mine the capita list mode of producti on, and the condi tions

of produc tion and exchange c orre sponding to tha t mode . Up to the present time , their classic ground is England. That is the re a son why England is used as the chief illustrat ion in the development of my the ore tica l idea s . " 1 0

When the revoluti�n wa s comple te d , England was already

a maj or c olonial power whose influence extended far beyond the borders of Europe .. · Be sid_es , be cause of its compromise na·ture , the Engli sh Revolut ion may be considere d as the s tart­

ing po int of the e po ch of struggle waged by emergent bourge­ois re la tions agains t the practically universa l feud.a l re la­tions. The compromise na ture of the Engli sh Revolution was manife ste d ma inly in the sphere of the superstructure . Karl

llarx emphasised that , "wherever the conditions ha nded down

from his tory were a t variance with, or did not correspond to , the re quirement s of capitalist produc tion on the land,

they were ruthle ssly swept away ; this applie s not only to

the position of the village communities but to the village c ommunitie s themae lve� , not only to the habita ts of the ag­ricultura l popula tion but to the agricultural populat ion itself, not only to the origina l centre s of cultivation, but to cultivat ion it se lf. 11 1 1

- 1 36 -

The French bourgeois re voluti on, which dea lt mos t ra­

dica lly with the feuda l order of ·things , was not the begin­

ning but rather the cre st of the new hist ori ca l e po ch on reaching which the bourgeoi sie quite rapidly shed its re vo lu­

tiona rine ss .

Undoubte dly , most o f the countrie s that were re lat ive ly

more e conomical ly develope d ( though s ti ll feuda l) already

saw, in the 1 7th century, and a t place s even e arlier , mo­

lecular pro ce sse s of the emergence and enrichment of bour­

ge ois element s , and the appearance of the capitalist struc­

ture . These proce sse s exerted a direc t or indire c t influence

a lso on o ther countrie s with s lowe r rates of economic deve lop­

ment. •

A concre tely · historical ana lysis will show tha t , in different historical periods , various people s become ve ctors

of a dvanced trends and come into the forefront of world his­

tory. Countrie s and peoples that were previously mo re ba ck­

ward would catch up with and s ometime s outstrip those which

had been the first to set out on the highway . of soc ia l pro-

gress. All that depended on concre te hist oric a l circumstan-

ce s .

The experience of history speaks o f the variable rates

and intensitie s in the deve lopment of any particular country

or people .

Big feudal powers that had long been predominant later fell far behind in the overall hist orical proce ss. Thei r

impac t o n the c ourse o f world events , -which s temmed ma inly from aggre s sive policies of conque st pursue d by the ru ling classe s , wa s in the ma in ne gative . The de cline of such count­ries wa s predetermine d by the weakne s s or subservience of element s of progre s sive socia l re la t ions . Example s of such development are provide d by feuda l Spain, the Ottoman Em­pire , and the Mongol state of the Jenghiz ids.

There is nothing reprehensil>le in ill.dividual countrie s o r pe ople s now advancing into the forefront, now re ce ding into temporary obscuri ty . No people s can be inhere ntly back­

ward or inherently advanced. Throughout the course of wor�d history , any peo ple can, at soma pa rticular s tage , become

- 1 37 -

involve d in the overall historical proc e s s . Iii certain con­

di tiol18 , an.y pe ople is capable of making a contribution to

mankind' ' s a dvance .

It would be e qua lly wrong to suppose th.at only ma j or

countries can se t the tone in mankind ' s progre s s at a ll

stage s of hist orical deve lopmen t . The experience of history

has shown tha t , in conditions of a crisis in feuda l socie ty ,

more progre ssive so cio-economic re la tions aro se first in a

sma ll oountr,y , the Ne therlands , which fo r a time came into

the fore ground. Of course , one cannot ignore the internat i­

onal role o f a.ny particular country , and the ob j e c tive de g-

· ree · of its influence on o ther state s . The Netherlands Revo­

lution did not le ad to the triumph of bourgeo is so cial �-

1.a tions even on a , European scal e , the le s s ao on a world

sca le . That proved po ssible only after the re volutions in

England and France .

A study of the ba sic lines of deve lopment and of the struggle of progre ssive p�inciple s against the regre s s ive ones , which form .a single world his t oric a l pro ce s s , primarily calls for the ma instream of so cie ty ' s a dvance to be examine d , with d isre gard o.f se condary streams which do not exert a decisive influence on that moveme nt . World hist ory is not comprise d . of the sum of particular historie s. When they sum up the vast ma terial ava i la ble a nd s tep back to t ake in the overall pic­ture , scho lars must a sce rtain the main dire ction of socie­ty ' s deve lopment in its mos t typica l fo rms . The periodisa­t ion of world history must also be grounded in tha t .

Here , of course , one should not disre gard such import- •

ant feature s in the deve lopment of individua l countries whi ch

give grounds to speak o f variants of a single historica l

process.

It is through 1le particular tha t the genera l often reve a ls itse lf. Conse quently ; due a ccount should be t aken of i�stance s of the wo rld-histo rica l pro ce ss deve loping, not in a stra ight line · but in " de tours " , as it were , a long vari­ous channe ls of the sp e cific , the "part icular " . However , a longside the pa rtial and the "pa rti cu lar" in hi storical deve lopment it is important t o e s tablish what is the mo st

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''unadultera te d " expre s sion o f the ba sic trend in the world­histo ric a l proc e s s , and it is to the la tter tha t priori ty should be given in an appra isa l of t he course of world his­t o ry. Tha t make s it possible to bring out the lea ding and pre dominant elements in the histori cal proce ss which pro� vide it s qua litat ive chara c teristic and permit e stabli shing to which social formation a c onc re te re gion or country be­longs in a given historica l per19 d.

Such a definition be come s pos sib le whenever a kind of "yardst ick" can be found . fo r a given s ocial formation : the presence of a soc ia l , e'conomi c , political and cultural com­p lex tha t embo die s the typical fe ature s o f that social for­ma tion, and " re pre sents " it , as it were . The identificat ion of the mos t unadultera ted forms of histo rical proce sse s or phenomena mus t go hand in hand with the a scerta inment of the o bj e ctive law-governe d pa tterns that de termine the line of deve lopment of soc ie ty in the given concre te c onditions.

It is in the "pure " fo rms of socia l a dvance tha t the law-governe d patterns manife s t themse lve s mos t dist inc tly . Where tho se forms are blurred be cause of various "a dmix­ture s " and secondary circumst ance s , the obj e c tive pat terns do no t operat e so di st inc tly , though they are pre se nt , re­vea ling the mse lve s , in the f irst place , as a ma in trend , but in the soc iologica l sense , not the summa t iona l.

This ha s a certa in bea ring on chronology a s we 11. The above-mentioned t ime-differe nce s in typologically overa ll world-historic a l phenomena cannot be considere d absolute . In many case s , historic al facts t e s tify to the simultaneous ma turing of proce s se s and phenomena which, while of the same type , are not dire ctly interlinke d . In thi s c onne ction, it is worthwhile to recall a highly intere st ing opinion expre s­se d by B; Piotrovsky in respect of the his t ory of materia l culture : "A certain sum of the :e lement s o f the produc t ive force s as cha ra cter ising the leve l of the ir deve lopment , as we ll as the c orre sponding production re la t ions , can be c on­s idere d a s a definite soc ia l degree in the deve lopment of materia l culture • • • Similar ne eds have le d to primitive t oo ls , similar in function and similar in form • • • Culture s

- 1 39 -

of the Aene o lithic age pro duc e a considerable similari ty in the t o o ls and other a rt icle s use d • • • Complexes of artic le s of that stage similar in nature are to be seen at a consi­derable territ orial and t emporal distance from one another ( for example , the Aene oli thic age in Africa and Japan ) . 1 2

In later periods , too , there a lso existe d a certa in unity in the founda t i ons of the ma terial and spiri tua l cul­ture of diffe re nt. peo ple s . The repe titivene ss ( and para lle l existence ) of certa in hist orical phenomena in pe oples tha t have never even known of each other ' s existence unt il re­cently is COIIWlOll knowledge . In re spe ct of the development of feudal re lat ions , N. Konra d wrote that one can only 11be amaze d a t the c losene ss in time in the deve lopment of this proce s s in thre e le ading s tate s of the anc ient worl d : in Ea st Asia , the Middle East , and in We stern Europe " . 1 3 He no ted the ama zing coincidence in the external forms of the

nobili ty ' s le gi slat ion when absolutist sta t e s were c oming into existence in the early 1 7 th century in France and in Japan, although no contacts be tween the se two countrie s exis­ted at the t ime . Regu lation o f the behaviour of pea sant s by two absolutist stat es so profoundly different from each other a nd located at the oppo site ends of the extensive Euro-Asi­an world wa s close ly +e la t e d even in the terminology used. This shows that in different ·countrie s abso luti sm �s a spe­c ia l form of the feudal stat e faced problems tha t were c om­mon, irre spe ctive of re gional o r loc a l feature s . This can a lso serve as ano the r confirmation of the unity of the world his to rical pro c e s s .

While France experienc e d t he immedia t e impac t of the English bourgeo is re volut ion, Japan cou ld never have done so , yet both in France and in Japan one can e a sily e s ta bl ish c oncre te deve lopment la ndmarks pe culiar only to them, which can underlie a loc a l per iodisat ion of his tory. At the same t ime , it is po ssi ble to compare such part icul:ar pe riodisa­tions with world his tory, i . e . , to c onsider the history of France and Ja pan against the ba ckground of such historic eve nt s as , fo r example , the triumph of bourgeoi s re la t ions in England. This wil l he lp be tter understand the subs e quent

- 1 40 - ·

historica l pro ce sse s chara cterising the deve.lopment bo th of French and of Japanese socie ty. In re spe c t of France , tha t is quite obvious : the Engli sh revo lution, no doubt , spe e de d u p th e anti-feudal t re nds which a century later ende d in a mighty re volutionary uphe ava l . As for Japan, the c ollapse of the policy of artifi cia l se lf-isola tion as pursued by the feuda l T okugava rulers wa s a lso pre de termine d by the overa ll onslaught of the bourge o i s ie , which wa s initia t e d by the events · in Euro pe . Ma .oy f a c t s o f Japanese history in the 1 7 th and 1 8th centuries fo llow the ma instream of the wo�ld-wide proc e s s of the decline of feudali sm.

In this re spect , the hi story of Russia i s no exception. The emergence and deve lopment of Russian absolut ism can be underst ood only aga inst the background of the overa ll crisis of' the feuda l socia l fo rma t ion.

Synchronisat ion of historical e vents taking pla ce s i­multaneously in wide ly se pa ra ted places and , henc e , indepen­dently of one anothe r , is a spe cifi� me thod of analysi s used by the founders o f scie nt ific communism a s we l l . I .

During the la st ye ars o f his l ife , Kar l Ma rx did a va ? t amount of work o n writ.ing a precis of books on world histo ry he knew , with s pe c ia l empha sis on the dating of the fa c ts and e vents taken note by him. After the author ' s de ath Fre­derick Enge ls �a lle d thi s va st work , over 1 00 signa ture s in volume , " chrono logica l excerpts " . Use of the method o f chronological corre la tion make s it po ssible to compare the historica l deve lopment of diffe­rent countrie s within the framewo rk of one and the same e poch, and , conse que nt ly , pre se nt s considerable intere st for a sci­entific per iodisat ion of hist ory. The chronological method he lps to e s tabli sh bo th wha t is common and wha t is differe nt in regions and c ountrie s . It is parti cu larly important that this method can a l so be use d in. a scerta ining the genera l law­governe d pa t terns in hi story.

The unity of the worl d-his torica l proce s s confirms the important conclusion to be drawn from the e st ablishment of partial t ime-co incidenees in de finite stage s of world deve-

- 1 4 1 -

lopment , some time s at opposite ends of our planet . With all

the numerous particular departure s from the mainstream of

mankind ' s a dvance , the overall dire ction of that advance and ,

conse quently , the stage s through whi ch all countrie s and pe­

opl� s pas s , are , in the ma in , the same . It is economic de­

terminism tha t ultima te ly re ctifies a ll. deviations from the

logical and pre determines the overall progres sive nature of

that movement .

Without using the comparative chronological me thod, it would be very hard to give a scientific typology of histo ri­cal processe s and phenomena .

Mention has al so been made of the possibility of draw­

ing up a ,purely local periodisation of history as well.

Equally possible is a particular periodisat ion of hist�ry ,

that i� periodi sation in re spect of even micr.onucle i of the

social organi sm ( provinces , towns and so on) . However , the

impossibility of revealiJ:lg the deep-lying iJlner force s de­

termining the a dvance of soc i� ty is the main chortcoming of

such particular periodisati ons . Only a sufficiently large-

soa le approach to a consideration of historical proce sses

and phenomena can permit a judgement of their law-governe d

nature . The prob lem of periodisation is directly linked with

the methodological points of departure . Only on the basis

of the ma terialist understanding of history i s a genuinely

scientific periodisat ion of history possible , one that i s free

of subje ctivism.

A de tailed knowledge of the factual material is -a p�ime

condition for the e laboration of the obj e ct ive pe riodisat ion

of b.iHtory ( like any generalisation) . It is only given veri- �

fied data on all the p�rameters of a concre te historical

proce ss that they can be re duce d to a s ingle time--frame of

reference . Further , the re searcher must se t about groupillg

the historical informat ion available.

The periodis·at ion of wo rld history calinot be effected

solely on the basis of the existe nce of any partic.ular socio­

e conomic forma tion. Tha t is impossible , since the pe oples of

our plane t have gone through. definite stage s of the histori­

cal proce ss at different time s .

- 1 42 -

As follows from the above , the Marxist pe riodisat ion of world history as a ccepte d by Sovie t historians proceeds from the fact of a law-ioverne d overa ll pattern and a unity of the economic pro ce ss as re veale d in the successive emer­geace and re placeme•t of so cio-e conomic forma tions . Ye t--and this should aga in be eaphasi sed-wi th all the overall t re nd towards a conse cutive succe s sion of !!!.! soc io-e conomic forma­t ions with .!!l]; people s , some of them, given certain condi­t ions , can bypa ss individua l stage s in mankind ' s overa ll a d­vance . Thus , in particular , most Slavic and Germanic tribe s were able to bypa ss the slave-owning system and went over directly from primit ive-communal re lat ions to feudalism. Among the people s iDhabiting the Sovie t Union there are such that bypassed the capitalis t forma tion and went over from

feudal re lations dire ctly to social i sm. Thi s, a s a rule , stems from the internal "particular" law-governed patterns of the deve lopment of each people some�ime s being modified under the powerful impact of .the milieu\land be coming sub­ordinated to more genera l patterns in s cial deve lopment . The first state formations of the German and Sla vs took shape at a time when the slave-owning syd'fem was go ing through a profound cri si s and when the disintegration of slave-own­ing empire s gave way to the gradual re plac�ment of unproduct-\ ive s lave labour by the far more productive\ labour of depen-dent peasants. This faci li tated the . developn\ent , amon��

tlle Slavs and the Germans , of feuda l re 18t ionships , a nd not of \ ' the outmoded re lationships of slave ownership . The formerly backward pe ople s illhabi ting the margina l areas of the forme r Russian Empire , which had pre se rved feuda l and even patriar­cha l re la tions , did not follow the discre di te d capita list road afte r the triumph of the socialist revolution in Russia , but took to the road of so ciali sm.

World history ha s been ma rke d by the s teadily growing interlinkage and mutual influence between all countries and peoples . While , .in ancient t ime s , that influence was re la­tive ly inconsiderable and limited to contacts between imme­diate neighbours, in class sooietie e--sla ve owning, feuda l and e specially capita list--e conomic , cultural and political tie s between the most distant area s be came commonplace . That ,

- 1 43 -

�I �! � ·I; :r: t'

' .11 �I �I ' ' !11

l : +

of course , promote d not only to higher ra t e s of histories�· deve lopment but a lso the overa ll pa t terns of the deve lop­

ment standing out in eve r bo lder re lief , with ever fewe r pa r­

ticula r deviat ions . In gene ra l , communica t ions be twe en peo­

ple s do away with the illus ory ideas of the a llege d existence of spe c ia l and spe cif ic laws of the deve lopment of Europeans and Asians , bla cks and white s , and the like . Such laws have a lways be en common, though the forms of the ir manife s ta tion

do no t a lways co incide .

The particular que stion some time s arise s of the pos si­bi lity of an inde pendent periodisat ion of individua l a spe c t s o·f soc ia l a c tivity a s conventionally examine d out side the ove ra ll historical proce ss , fo r example , a veriodi sat ion of the hi story of culture . Cultura l proc e s se s , on the plane o f hi story , a s we ll a s severa l othe r pro ce sse s , c a n undoubte dly deve lop a cco rding to the ir own internal laws . For example , the Renais sance can be re garde d as an indepe ndent complex of inte rlinke d cu ltura l pheno100 na ; consequent ly , it c an have its own inte rna l periodisat ion .. However , i t is import­a nt no t to. lose s ight of the fact tha t the Rena issance wa s the outcome of a quite concre te per iod of world history. Though the chrono logy doe s not always co incide , one c annot disre gard the inte� link be twe en various aspects of the multi­lateral his toric a l proc e s s. Such is the e lementary demand pre sented by the Ma rxist-Lenini st _ a pproach to hist o :ry ..

Ob j e c tive indicat ors of the c ourse o f a.ny country ' s so cio-e conomic deve lo pme nt should b e the point of departure in e s tablishing criteria for the periodisat ion of that count­ry ' s his tory .. Such crite ria include manife sta tions of substan­tia l advances in the material productive fo rce s , the ir ine s­c apable refle ction in the sphere of production re la t ions , landmarks in the c ourse of mass so cia l move100 nt s (with the ir corre sponding influenc e on super-structura l categorie s ) , and the dire ct or indirect impact of ma j or interna t iona l event s . When he colla t e s such indi cators , the re se archer cannot but come up aga ins t the non-coincidence of concre te dat e s a.nd nu­merous variants of internal proc e s se s , but , in de termining the pe riodisat ion of hi st ory , the priority must go to events tha t have exerted a dire ct impact--po si tive or negative--on

- 1 44 -

the fate of the dominant so cio-e conomic re lations . In o ther words , an obj e c tive appra isal of a concre t e hist ori cal proces is ult ima te ly de termine d by the f ormation approa ch als o a t the given leve l o f periodisation.

Al l other a ttempt s to pe riodi se his t ory cannot but be sub j e ctive , for they permi t an arbitrary choice of various date s , and preferenc e for certain particular event s , irre s­pe ctive of th e ir a c tual significance in the overall course of the histor ic a l proc e s s . Example s of such attra ctively s imple pe riodisat ion are prov ided bY" the thought le s s div i sion

of history a ccording to the formal chronology : "The hi sto-ry of the 1 6th century" , or "hist ory down to 1 500" and the l ike . Another example of an a c tua l re j e c t ion of the ob j e c­tive approach is provide d by a ttemp t s to periodise ,history a ccording t o f ormal changes exclus ive 1.y in the are a of con­st i tutiona l law. An extreme example is the so-ca lled " dy­

nastic hist ori e s " .

Re cent years have seen the appe ara nce , i n histo riog­raphy abro a d , of a t re nd that subordinat e s historica l perio­disat io� to the po litica l intere sts of de finite social groups , from a highly nat iona listi c viewpoint .. Thus , in par­ticular , attempts have be come wide spre ad . to " i solate " th e histo ry o f one ' s " own" country from the proce s se s of world hi story , and in some mea sure to contra pos e to those pro casse a the course of so cia l deve lopment on a loca l nat ional scale . This is done both to artificia lly " enhance " the imp&rtance of one ' s " own" nat ion or nat i ona l sta te and corrE¥ spondingly be lit tle the impact of world event s , and a ls o to " justify" nationa lis tic and hegemonic a spirat ions or even t e rritori a l claims .. O f course , a ny nat iona lis t ic interpre tation of his­tory has nothing in c ommon with sci ence .. In some case s , a t­tempts are made to artificially " extend" the history of a part icula r country on the f a lse pre sumption that the more a ncient a particular people or its culture , the more s igni­f icant its role , not only in the pa s t bu t even today .

It should be remembere d �hat at time s a nationalist i c interpre tat ion of the his toriclal p a s t o f a given pe ople , which ha s only re cently cast off the yoke of c o lonialism.,

..; 1 45 -

c an be a rea c tion to a · 1ong-standing ignoring or deliberate d istortion o f that pe ople ' s hist ory by the colonia lis\ im­plante rs of "culture " .. Howeve r , even if such a one -sided approach to the history of a given c ountry can be a ccounte d for, tha t cannot in any way se rve to justify a l l a.B.d eve ry nationa lis tic distortions of the his torical past .

The non-a cce ptance of the Marxist princ iple s of histo­rica l periodisation by tra ditipna l bourgeo is hist oriography is who lly determine d by i ts reftisal to re cognise the obj e c t-ive law-governe d pa tterns of social deve lopment and, in par­t i cular, i ts negation of the theory of socio-e conomic forma­t ions . Mos t We stern historians have advance d purely ide a l­istic grounds for a periodisation of histor.r . An example is the s tand taken by the We st German author F . Scha lk, in whose opinion periodisation is the p ro ce s s of man' s histo­rica l se lf-de terminat ion , i . e . , an ideological proce ss which re fle cts in its own way the clash of various views on his­t o ry . As an examp le , F. Scha lk make s reference to the appear­ance of the conc e pt of humanism and the exis tence of the e poch of Humanism. As an integra l conc ep t , humanism in Scha lk ' s opinion, is de termine d . not so much by obj e ct ive characteristics as by the idea o f it 'a s a new epoch. The concept of the Kiddle Ages , which . aro se simultaneously with humanism, e s tablishe s its re lation with antiquity ( links and distinc t ions ) .. An awa re ne s s of links through dis t inc ti­ons is , from F. Scha1k ' s point of view , the theore t ica l foun­dation of hist oric al periodisation .. 1 4

Attempt s have been made in bourgeois historiography to find grounds for me chanic a l a.oa logy in an examination of events perta ining to diffe rent historica l epochs and c onse ­quently e s sentia lly different and de fying comparison. Such is the approach of A. Toynbe e to the hist orica l proc e ss , which he sees at a suc.ce.ssion of unconne cted and a llege dly independent cultura l his t orical· c omplexe s , . or "civilisa­t ions •i . Strict ly speaking, A. Toynbee proce e ds from a the o­logical interpre tation o f history .. 1 5 While di ssocia t ing them­s e lve s from Toynbee.' s concept , many We stern bourgeo is his­torians have rej e cted the validi ty of a periodisation that procee ds from a c omparison of the ob j e ctive fa cts of so cio-

- 1 46 -

e conomic �eve lopment bo th on a wo rld-wide and a re giona l sca le .

One can fully a ccount for bourgeois his torica l scien­ce ' s negat ive attitude towards the . Marxis t the ory of the re­v o lutionary re pla cement of so cio-e conomic fo rma t ions , 'Which , by revea ling the overa ll law-governe d pa ttern in the wor ld historical pr o ce s s , shows tha t cap it ali sm doe s not exis t .for a l l time , and is not the " a cme " of c ivilisat ion.

As a rule , bourge ois his toriography fla t ly denies the very concept of " so c io-e conomic fo rma tion" , and trie s to substitute f or it vari ous kinds of succe danea such as M. We­be r ' s " ide a l type s " or w .. Rost ow ' s -" stage s of growth" , in which se condary e lement s in _the historical proc\e s s a re seen a s the foundat ion of pe riodisat ion, While its qua litative ly defined fea ture s are ignore d;

Of la te years , bourge ois so ciology ha s se en the spre ad ;of a t tempt s to pe riodise history a ccording to the te chnica l !a spe c t , in the a bstra c t from man and from the sys tem of l so cia l re la t ions . Chara c terist ic in this re spe ct is the l trend towards re pla cing pa tently ide alist conc e pts of the !historica l proce s s with a kind of pseudo material ist inter­,pretat ion, by means of which the course of his torica l deve-1lopment is re duced e ithe r to change s in the exclusively I 1te chnica l a spec t s of social production or to the evo lution of obj e c t s o f material cu·lture , the "his t ory of things " . By proclaiming the priority o f produc tion proc esse s in the 1 deve lopment of soc ie ty , the We st German hist orian Th. Schie­de r claims tha t it is po ssib le to "defeat historical mat e r­

i ialism with its own weapon11 • 1 6 In divorcing the development 1 of the productive force s from the re lations of produ�t ion , :Th .• Schieder has de liberately distorte d the ver.r conc e pt

1o f his torical material ism. The same device has been use d lby othe r bourgeois historians who try in one form or an­other to "e liminate " so cia l problems and " substantiate " the conc ept of the eonverg8nce of capit a li sm and so c ia lism .. '

The te chnica l proc�s se s at any leve l of development 1do not exist of themse lve s a s a blend of pure ly mechanical 1elem.ent s . Like t e chno logy , technic a l proc e sse s are the pro- ·

- 1 47 -

·duct of soci a l man ' s activitie s an,d are , conse quent ly , in­

t imately c onnected with a concre te soc io-e conomic structure .

Tha t is why the two cannot be examine d in isola t ion from

so cie ty ' s organisation. All a t tempts to spe cify the stage s

of progre s s ive deve lopment ba sed exc lusive ly on te chnical

i ndica tors , and withou t an analys is of the dominant social

re la tions are whol ly untenable . It i s impossible to re place

human history with the hist ory of ma chinery a s strippe d

of socia l cont ent . Such a st and, which ignore s the c la s s

s tructure of so cie ty , is de s igne d t o glo ss over the antago­

ni stic contradic tions inherent in capita li sm.

The a dherents of the " t e chnica l " approa ch to the pe ­

riodisation of his to ry some time s br:.ish a si de the a ccusat io n

that they have gone over to materialist positions which

involve the re co gnition of the priority of the e conomic

fa ctor s . For-instance , w. Ro stow says that e conomi c fa ctors

do not play any de cisive pa rt ; he cla ims tha t the f irst im­

p e tus towards economic modernisat ion should be seen, not in the e conomic force s but in a kind of re a c tion to some form

of external pre s sure --re a l or imaginary--exerted by the

stronger over the .weaker . 1 7 In thi s c a se , llos t ow ha s come

out in def'ence of the " theo ry of force " . This cannot be

considere d fortuitous,, for he " the o re tically " just ifie s the

imperial i s t pra c t ice of forcibly implanting " culture " on

de ve loping c ountrie s .·

Chara cteris tic of mos t bourge o i s hi st orians is the de­

s ire to totally abandon any global periodi sat ion of his­

t ory , with the pre ference going to local or "partial " peri­

o disat ions . In th is re spe c t , one c anno t bu t not e how clo se

this position stands to efforts by nat iona list e le ments to

c onstruct exclusively "nationa l " periodisations of history ,

which a ls o glo s s over the pro c e s s of the revo lutionary re­

pla cement of soc io-e conomi c forma tion s .

In de aling wi th the pro blem of historical perio di sa­

tion , one cannot take up any quant itative , or arithme t ic

approa ch to the sum of phenomena which te stify to the ap­

pearance or the onse t of new and more a dvanced soc io-econo� Ilic relations. As a ru le , the .new is at first weaker than

- 1 48 -

the pre dominant forma tion which it is ultima t e ly c al le d up­

on to re pla ce . The territ orial location of more progre ssive

socia l re la tions is re s tricte d at f irst , and the emergent

new s tructure is the harbinger of more a dvance d soc io-e co­

nomic forms . Neverthe les s , the very fac t of the emergence

of wha t is new calls for its re fle c t ion in the pe riodisa­

t ion of hist ory , ina smuch a s i t te stifie s t o the a ppea rance

o f a genera l trend ( law) in m�ind ' s deve lopment which is

beginning to de termine its a dvanc e .

Bourgeo i s , re formist and re vi sionis t-nat iona l i st hi s­

toriography fla tly re fuse s to "a cknowledge " tha t the Gre a t

October Soc ia lis t Revo lut ion was an hi storic divide which

ushere d in a new epoch of hi sto ry, contemporary his to ry . Que s­

tions of his t orica l pe rio disation are thus intimately con­

ne cted wi th overa ll wrorld-view problems , wi th the ideo lo­

gical confronta ti on be tween oppo sing s oci o-e conomic systems .

Change s in the wo rld-hist oric a l proc e s s and the a c ce le ra t­

ing pace of so ciety ' s a dva.nce w i th the transi tion from one

socio-e conomic forma t i on to anothe r , that is more progre s­

sive one--the se are ob je ctive fa c t s long e stabl i she d in hi s­

tori ca l scienc e .

Hence the ne e d to spe ak of " time " in terms of his t ory .

The succe s sion of historical e vent s in the t ime sca le is

one of the · most important aspe cts of the historica l proc e s s ;

it is o b j e c t ive in cha ra cter and independent of anyb o dy ' s

consci ousne s s . But "his t or ical time " is not a const ant mag­

nitude . It changes in accordance with the o b j e c t ive condi­

t ions of soc ie ty ' s existence . The difference s in the deve­

lopment ra te s of soc io-e conomic format ions a ls o de termine s

the distinc ti ons in the t ime -count . Thus , "his t orica l time "

is a kind of scale for measuring s o c ie ty ' s accele ra t ing for­

ward movement .

Problems of "his torica l time " a re s ignificant for

the pe ri o disa t io n of hist ory as a whole . The determination

of time di ffere nce s in the development of various pro ce s-

se s he lps spe cify the ir ro le in soc iety ' s overa l l moveme nt

and to e stabli sh the length , ra te , onse t and c onclusion of

definite forms of that movement . In the opinion of P. Anev ,

- 1 49 -

•

the Bulgarian,_hist or ian, an important part i s playe d by the rhythm o f his torical deve lopment . The rhythmical nature of the e conomic pro ce s s , he write s , lays the ground for the deve lopment of s o c ie ty ' s poli tica l and inte l le c tual life ,

which po s s e s s e s i t s re la t ively independent dynamism and rhythm. The re la t ively rhythmica l nature of so cio-po lit i c a l p roce s se s in antago.n is t ic ( c la s s ) forma ti ons manife sts it­self in the c onst ant succe ssion of periods of exacerbat ion of the c la s s contradicti ons during the e pochs of compara­t ive ly pe aceful developmen t . 1 8 Of course , the prob lem of the rate of the / historical proc e s s canno t even be pos e d wi thout re sort to the c a t e gorie s " soc io-e conomic format ion" , "his­torica l epoch" and "histor ical period" . " In hist ory , rhythm ( periodic i ty ) change s its nature in the c onditions of dif­ferent e po chs and soc io-e conomic fo rmations. " 1 9

Within the framework of any so cio-e conomi c fo rmat ion there may take pla ce both quanti ta tive change s ( a gre a ter or le s ser -number of variou s phenomena ) , and qual itative change s ( the a ppe arance of new and pre viously unknown as­pe ct s , which make i t possible t o speak of the onse t of the new stage in the deve lopment of a given format ion) . Quali­tative change s in soc ie ty are his torical s ci ence ' s main and d ire ct obj e c t of stU<;ly , and · the hi storian is in :duty bound to study phenomena a s they a ppear in terms of time . Other­wise , it will be hard fo r him to determine , not only thei r imme dia te cause s but the ir a c tua l significance , the i r place in the chain of other phenomena.

Alongside historical time , a definit ion of the spa-tial borde rs of phenomena under study is of grea t signifi­cance to his tori cal re se arch. Sov ie t hist orical litera ture ha s dea lt with the que s t ion of a hist orica l re gion a s an in­de pe ndent cate gory in his torical science . There is no doubt that the very conc e pt of regi on cannot be examine d in i sola t ion from historica l t ime . Any hist orical phe nomenon ca lls for a single spa tia l and t ime chara c teris t i c .

The a c ce lerat ion � th e rate o f so ci a l deve lopment in definite per iods is a lso linke d wi th techno logic a l pro gre ss , for example in the are a of communi cat ions . This ha s exerte d

- 1 5 0 -

a defini te influence on a te rritory where certain histori­ca l proce sse s or events are under way ; d is tanc e s lose their former s ignificance and the t ime re quire d fo r re late d pro­ce sse s or event s to be taken in is re duce d , tha t involving even extensive t e rrit orie s . The highe st acce le rat ion rate of socie ty ' s a dvance i s to be se en in periods in which the most radical change s take pla c e , the c ou.irse of his.tori c a l time hinging dire c t ly on the dynamism o f the soc ial pro­ce sse s taking place .

Que st ions of hi st ori cal · periodi sat ion have a number of a spects of pra ctical significance. Thu� , in parti cula r , the tea ching of history ha s a lway s been marke d by a c onventi­onal divi sion into ancient , me diaeva l , modern, and contem­pora ry hist ory . As will re adi ly be re a l i se d , tha t st ems from the ne e d to provide a compre ssed compedium of histor ic a l knowle dge convenient for the proce s s o f tuiti on. B y ancie nt hi story is underst ood mankind ' s deve lopment within the frame­wo rk ' of· two socia l formations : the primi t ive-communa l and s lave-owning. :Me diaeva l hi sto ry is in fa c t ident ifie d wi th the predominant po sition he ld by feuda l i sm. Mo de rn hist ory is understood a s the pe riod o f th e triumph o f bourgeois social re lati ons , wi th .Marxist and a llie d hist oriography s e t t ing the b e ginning of contemporary history at the comple­t ion of the w orl d ' s first vic tor ious so.cialist re vo lut ion in Oc tober 1 9 1 7 . In bourgeo i s li terature , the line of divi­sion be tween me diaeval , modern and contemporary hi st ory is drawn differently.

Of course , though the four-element div ision o f wo rld history is pra ctica l ly convenient , it suffe rs from s ome short co�ings of an overa ll and te rmino logical nature . Thus , ancient hist ory includes bo th pre-cla s s re la t io.ns ( " de e p antiquity" ) and the f ir st antagonis tic soci a l forma t ion. It . would be advisable to tre a t pre -c la ss so c ie ty under a · separate rubri c .

The t e rm "Middle Age s " make s sense only i n i t s appil­ca tion to Europe . In mo s t As ian countrie s , feuda l re lat ions

- 1 5 1 -

''' I 1111 �l! ! rn

I

t

arose earlier1 than in the We st and continue d to exis t over a far gre a ter length of t ime . Tha t is why , in the. ma in,

one can speak of "mo de rn histo ry " in re spect of the people s

of Asia and Africa in the s ense that the emergence and tri­

umph of the Europe an bourgeoisie were dire ctly linke d with

the ir co lonial expansion into the Afro-Asian c ountrie s and

the latter ' s enslavement . Conse quent ly , the use of the t ra ­

d itiona l division of his tory into ancient , me diaeva l , mo de rn

.and contemporary which aro se on a Eurocentrist ba sis calls

f or a de taile d definition of the fo rmat iona l content of

that impe rfe ct t e rmino logy . All this a ga in empha sise s the

c onventiona l .na ture of historica l periodisation.

In , the. theore tica l sense , the re lation be tween the s c ient ifi c perio disation of hist ory and the a c tual histori­ca l proce s s corre sponds to the dia le c ti cal int erl ink bet­ween the logical and the hi st orica l ( the empiri ca l ) . The se two conce pts should no t be ma de fully identica l , but it wi ll be no le s s e rroneous to contra s t them wi th each other , since the logica l is ult ima t e ly hi st orical ( empiri ca l ) .

� v. Ha j inikolov, Bulga.rian hist orian ha s de fine d the pe ri­odisation of history as a t ime-divi sion " a cco rding to the qual itative distinct ions of the proc e s se s taking place in i t " . (V. Ha j iniko lov, " Some Methodo logica l Problems in the Perio disat ion of Histo ry " , The Methodologica l and

Hi storiographica l Problems of Historical Science , Sofia ,

1 973 , Vo l . 1 , . p. 571 in Bulgarian) .

2 ' K. Marx and F. Enge l s , Sele cted Works , Vo l . 1 , Moscow,,

1 969 , PP • 503-504. .

- 1 5 2 -

3 Karl Marx, Capit a l , Vo l . 1 , Mosco w , 1 969 , p. 2 1 .

4 .K. Marx, F. En.ge ls , �' Vol . 19 , pp . 398 , 404.

5 V. I . Lenin, Colle c te d Works , Mo s cow, Vol . 2 1 , p . 1 45 .

6 Ibid . , Vo l . 35 , p .. 2 29 .

7 Ibid. , Vol . 23 , p . 80.

B Ibid . , Vo l . 21 , p. 1 46 .

9 For de tails , s e e : The Primitive Periphery of Pre -Capita l­ist So cie t ie s , Mo s cow , 1 978 ( in Russian ) .

1 0 Karl Ma rx , Capita l , Vo l . 1 , p . 1 9 • .

1 1 Karl Ma rx , The orie s of Surplus-Va lue , Part 2 , Mo scow, 1 968 , p. 237 .

1 2 Historica l Ma terial i sm and the Soc ial Phi los ophy of the Bourge o i sie Today , Mo scow , 1 960 , p. 1 6 2 ( in Rus sian) .

1 3 N . I . Konrad , "The Middle Age s in His torica l Sci ence " , From the History of Socio-Poli ti cal Idea s , Mo scow , 1 9 5 5 , p . 82 ( in Rus sian) .

1 4 H. Diller , F . Scha lk , "Studien zur Peri odis ierung und zum Epochebegri ff " , Mainz , Wie sbaden, 1 97 2 , No . 4, pp . 1 57-1 60.

1 5 A. Toynbee , A Study of History , London , Vo l . 1 , 1 934.

1 6 Th. Sch i eder , " G:rundfragen d er neueren d eutschen Ges ch i ch­t e " , H i storische Ze i t s chrift , Vo l . 1 92 , Part I , 1 96 1 , p . 3 .

- 1 53 -

1 7 W . Rostow ,'

Polit ics and the Stage s o f Growth , Cambridge ,

Mass . , 1 97 1 , P • 3.

1 8 P. A.nev , "Time and Structure in the Historical Process" ,

Kethodological and Historiographica l Problems of His­

torical Science , Sofia , 1 973 , Vol. 1 , p . 3 1 ( in Bulgari­

an) .

1 9 Ibid. , P • 30. SOCIAL PROGRESS

Many pre sent-day document s , books and article s , spee ch­

e s and o the r public addre sse s make frequent mention of

social progre ss , the hi st orical progre ssivenes s of vari­

ous so cial phenomena , and progre ssive trends in the de­

velopment of mankind. The very word "progre s s" ha s come

into genera l use and is constantly being used to expre s s

the idea of forward movement, the victory of the new over

the old , the transition to higher forms of development ,

and the like . For instance , we often speak of "teehnolo­

gical progre ss" , a term which stands in no need of any

special explanation.

But what i s meant by 11socia l progre ss " , or, in other

words·, by progre s s in the development of soc ie ty? What is

the c riterion of social progre ss? Doe s it exist at all?

Though such que stions may seem elementary , they stand

at the hub of an acute ideological struggle and are one ·

of the sources of irreconcilable difference s be tween Varx­

ist social science and various trends in bourgeois so ci­

ology and historiography.

Though this struggle arose in the fairly distant pa st ,

we would like to dea l here in brief with tbe que stion a s

i t stands today.

- 1 55 -

The idea o'f progre ss is expre ssive of improveuent , a transition to higher stages of development , the e limina­tion of what is obsolete and outmoded, and the vic tory of what is new and advanced. Social progre s s , i .e . , prog­re ss in the development of so ciety , has a similar mean­ing. It is a que stion, first and foremost, of mankind ' s forward movement.

The Sovie t scholar Boris Porshnev was quite right v.zhen he wrote : "The main distinction between the :Marxian theory of progre s s and the Hegelian one is that Marx placed . . the latter from its head onto its feet , and revealed the ma­terial content of the movement from non-freedom to free­dom . . . . In the place of the se lf-development of the spi­rit and tbe corre sponding progre s s in the consciousne ss of free dom, Marx put the development of the productive force s , succe ssive change-over in forms of ownership, the law of the antagonism between, and the struggle of, cla s­se s . " 1 Thus , inherent in the materialist understanding of history i s the idea of social progre s s , the mo st generali­sed expre ssion of which i s the succes sive replacement of socio-economic forinations by new ones , - inasmuch a s each of these is a higher stage in the development of society.

The idea of social progre s s , i. e . , the forward movement of society , is in e ssence revolutionary. It means the de­ve lopment of socie ty in an - ascending line , in other words , not a regre ssive or circular moveuent , not marking time , not stagnation, not the conse rvation of existing social forms and phenomena , but the unfailing replacement of obso­lete and outmoded institutions by new one s that are young and in a state of development . Just ·a s the . slave-owning system yielded place to the feuda l, and the f'eudal to the capitalist , the latter, i .e . , pre sent-day capitalism will be swept away by a mo� perfect social structure that ha s been prepared by the entire previous deve lopment of society--by communism,

Marxism regards socie ty a s "a living organism in a state of constant develop1119nt11• 2 The lll! terialiet understandillg

- 1 5 6 -

of history has provided a genuinely scientific interpre­tation of mankind ' s roads of' deve lopment and ha s made p ossible a comprehensive study of the inception, develop­ment and de cline of succe ssive so cio-economic formations : the primitive-communal , slave-owning, feudal, capitalist , and communist . These are ascending stages in the develop­�ent of human society , being distinguishe d from one another first and foremost by the leve l of the development of the productive force s and the social conditions of their utili sation.

Change s in the nature of the productive force s comprise the foundation that determine s the break�up of the old product ion re lations and the emergence of new one s , the transition from lower to higher stage s of socie ty ' s deve­lopment . That is why Lenin had every re a son to call the development of the produc tive force s the ''highe st criteri­on of social progre s s " .3 The concept ''productive forces" include s not only the �eans and implement s of labour but also the activiti e s o:Eiman a s user · of tho se means. That i s why the productive force s cannot be divorced from the pro­duction relations that corre spond to them. The productive force s do not exist of and for themselves , or without a close interaction with socie ty. The ir revolutionising in­fluence i s due to changes in the produc tion rel�t ions , which may sometime s lag behind or be delaye d but must ul­t imately come into keeping with the productive force s . As an example , mention might be made of the Industrial Revo­lution in bourgeoi s England at the turn of the 1 9th cen­tury, then spreading to other West Europe an countries. Its material ba sis wa s provided by industrial inventions which brought about a revolution in the proce ss of produc­tion ( the loom, the steam engine and othe r technological innovations ) . All this gave a con siderable impetus t� the progressive development of the productive force s and al­mo st imme diately led up to substantia l change s in the pro­duction relations. The manufacture stage in the develop­ment of capitalism wa s succee ded by the machine stage , which encouraged the capitali st sociali sation of labour

- 1 57 -

on a ma s s s cale and c onsolidated •bourge o i s produc tion re­lations .

There soon fo llowed the c oncomitant change s in the s ocio-political sphere of capitalist s ociety ( the c onsoli­da tion of the prole tariat a s a cla ss , the s truggle for unive rsal suffrage , a certain "democratisation" of the b ourge ois state and so on ) .

The c onsi stent revolutionary transition from one ' socio­economic fo nna t ion to another , from a lowe r to a higher one , is an expre ssion of so cial progre ss in i t s mo st gene­ra l form. But within each soc io-e conomic formation there take·s pla ce a constant struggle be tween what is new and what is o ld , between what is outmode d and wha t is coming into the . fore ground. supe rstructural phenomena may provide a powerful encouraging or c ramping impact on the material conditions of socie ty ' s life . The activiti e s of eociety ' s progre s sive force s help to e liminate what holds up the ad­vance of so ciety , and c onvey a forwar

"�movement .

�,;,1t Marxism, which regards progre s s as an obje ctive pa t-tern of so cia l deve lopment , e schews a primitive understand­ing of so cial progre s s a s an a scent in a straight line . The law-governe d pa t tern in soc ie ty ' s a dvance from lo� r forms of existence to ' higher. one s proce eds amidst an acute s t ruggle be tween the progre ssive and the outmo ded. The transition from one socio-e conomic forma tion to a higher one i s revoluti onary, no t evolutionary in nature . Lenin e mpha sise d that "it i s undia lectica l , unscientific and the­ore ti cally wrong to regard the c ourse of world history a s smooth and a lways i n a forward direction, without occa sion­a l gigantic leaps ba ck" . 4

The course of historical development cannot but en­gende r the new , which contains certain transforme d elements of the old. As Lenin empha sised in this conne c tion, the re exi st s "a deve lopment that repea t s , a s it were , stages that have already been pa sse d , but repeats them in. a diffe :re nt way , on a higher ba sis ( ' the negation of negation • ) , a de­ve lopment , so to spe ak, that procee ds in s pira l s , not in a

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straight line . n5 He often expre ssed the i de a of the in­evitable growth, with mankind ' s forward development , not only of the s ca le of the ma sse s ' activity but a lso of the ir i11111edia te impact on the course of history. In the e arly anta_gonistic clas s forma tion s , the bulk o f those directly involved in pr0duction remained more or les s pa ssive pa i-1ticipants i n th e historical events of t he time . However, under capitalism, the re ·already appea re d a new so cia l cla s s , the proletariat , which, primarily because o f i t s obj e c­tive position in the proce ss of production, has proved able to become a great revolutionary .force . The s pe cial TOle of th� working cla ss grew steadily a s capitali sm she d its progres sive role . The working c la s s , which has ra llied .about itself the va st ma sse s o f the people , : is a vital fac­tor of progre ss in world history. The a ct ivity of the toiling masse s , and in the first place the working cla ss , i s a powerfUl a ccelerat or of so cial progre ss. The mounting tempo of mankind' s progre ssive development is a direct out­come of the involvement in it of fre sh hundreds of millions of people , a s Lenin pointed out . 6

Recognition o f th e development of th e p roductive forces a s the ''highe st criterion of social progre ss" should not oversimplify the problem a s a whole , or reduce historical progres s to a cut-and-dried scheme � All overall criterion can provide only an objective foundat ion, whose existence pre suppose s a concrete analysis of particular alld local manife stations of social life .

Plekb.Snov wrote : "We must study the facts of the ·pa st life of 11Snkind in order to discover :In them the laws of its progre s s . On ly h e i s capable of fore seeing the future who has understood the pa st • "" 7

As the experience of hi story shows , soc ia l progre ss prior to the epoch of socialism is not effected along a straight line , and painle ssly. The entire his tory of man­ldlld until the emergence of the first phase of the co11111lJ1-i st format ion bore an indelible imprint , indeed a kind of mark .of Cain:· social progress carved its way with fire and sword , with blood alld iron. Thi s was achieved by meaus that

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were a torment to the ma sses of the people alld a ppe ared in the role of an uncontrollable and fear-inspiring :force .

Under the primi tive-communal system , a s pointed out by Porslmev, "All were e qua lly free but at the same time profoundly un:free , since the individual did not s tand out :from the clan, comnunity, or tribe . In ·the c ontext of world progress, this primitive non-free dom o :f man wa s even :ful­ler and deeper than slavery. "8

Yet the slave-owning mo de of produc tion was a tremend­ous stride forward, progre ss as against the previous thou­sands of years of the supremacy o f primitive-communal re­lations • . The ruthle ss exploitation of slave labour speede d up the advance o :f socie ty. As Frederick Engel s pointed out in .Anti-Diihring : "It wa s . slavery that first made po ssible the divi sion of labour be tween agriculture and industry on a large scale , and thereby also Hellenism, the flowering of the ancient world. Without slavery , no Greek state , no Greek art and science ; without slavery, no Roman Empire . But without the basis laid by Grecian culture , and the Ro­man Empire , also no modern· Europe . We should neve r fo rget that our whole econ6mic , poli tical and intellectual deve­lopment p re suppo se s a state of things in which slavery was a s ne ce ssary as it wa,s universally re cognised. "9

The feudal socio-economic formation, which arose on the ruins of the slave-owning ey:stem, a ctually rule d :for over a thousand years . Feudal relations of production were a new and considerable forward step in the deveiopment of socie ty , as against slave-ownership. This form of exploi­tation wa s les s bruta l than i t s predece s so r , ye t throughout the enti're existence of feudal state s , the latter were rocke d by anti-feudal movement s .

The birth, within feudal socie ty, of new, capital-i st production relations in keeping with the rapid change s in the nature of the productive f orce s--and thi s wa s a profoundly progre ssive phenomenon-wa s accompanie d by the massive and forcible expropria tion, the impoverishment and death of very manY' people . It was literally on the bone s

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of millions of namele s s victims that capi talisa emerged on the world scene as the then vehicle of socia l progre ss.

Today , social progre s s is no longer compatible wi th c apitalism. All the progre s sive phenomena tak:lng place in the capitalist world are in e ssence directed against capi­talism and are linked with i t s negation, with numerous factors that promote the revolutionary transition from capitalism to sociali sm. The struggle f or social progre ss in capitalist countries i s a struggle f or the destruction of the rule of the monopoly upper crust of the bourgeoi sie , .

a struggle for the unity and cohe sion of the democratic force s as headed by- the working cla ss , a struggle directe d towards thwarting the military plans o f the imperialist s , hold back the onslaught of th e re actionary monopolie s · against the living standards and the political rights of the working people , give a re buff to bourgeois ideolo gy , which is vitiating th e minds o f t he masse s , and ensure the spread of advanced social ide a s , those of socialism. It i s only with manlrind ' s transition from antagonistic class for­mations t o social ism tha t socia l progre ss she ds its contra­dictory and dual nature and , for the first time in hi story , operete s openly and in a straight line .

Even in the e arly yea rs of the 20th century, the idea of progre ss in world history--true , in the specif ic sense of world progre s s-wa s shared by the overwb.el.ming majority of historians , including tho se who , on the whole, a dhered to the ideali stic positions . In 1 907 , the e ditors of :the well-known multivolume Cambridge Modern History pointed out in the Preface that the idea of mankind ' s progress should be accepted as a scientific hypothe sis for the writing o£ histor;r. 1 0 Bourgeois historians were not yet apprehensive of the idea of progress in world hi story, which they linked now with an overall rise in culture , now with the develop­ment of rat ionaµ sm and even with -;l;he s truggle for the free­dom of conscience and political convictions.

Of course , there were numerous attempts to inte rpre t the idea of progre ss in a mystically speculative spirit and

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to de duce it from various kinds of theological concepti­ons . However, the idea of progress was most fre quent-ly a ssociated with the spre ad of e duc ation, the deve­lopment of ideas of free dom { in the ir bourgeois sense ) , religious tolerance , the growth of cultural nee ds , and finally , with the improving welfa_re of 'the population.

All that ha s, in the main, rece ded into the past. At the 1 1 th Inter.national Congre ss of Historical Scien­ce s , held in Stockholm in 1 960, Erich Rothacker deli­vered an address on the philo sophy of histo J:Y , in which he unequivocally stated tbe following : "The :Marxist the­o-ry of progre ss in the stri ctly constructive sense ha s hardly had aey significance in historiographica l prac­tice outside · the Russian world . " 1 1 He distorted the actual state of af�airs ani· at the same time tried to pre sent Jlar.rl.sm as a pure J.Y "Russian" phenomenon. Erich Rothscker himself i s , of course , a repre sentative of the ba sic trend in bourgeoi s historiography., which procee ds from a negat ion of the unity of the world-hi sto­rical proce ss and its law-governed pattern, and adva�es theorie s of the cycli cal nature of socia l developaent , the ine scapable repetitivene ss of definite "cycle s" in the life of mankind , �le re garding world history now as the sum of i solated civilisations, each develo p­ing of itse lf a:nd with i t s ()W?l period o:r ri se , efflo­re scence and decline , now as a vast conge ri e s of fortui­tie s , with.out alJ1' inner meaning.

In considering why mo st Wes tern histo rians have re j e c­ted progres siveness in social development , E. Carr see s the cause s in the change s in the fortunes of th e eotill­tries they repre sent and in a relative decline of such countries ' role in the world hi storical pro ce ss. As an example , carr make s reference to the evolution of the views of li'. Jleineke who , with . the development of hi st o­rical event s , went over to ever more conservative , or, a:>re precisely, reactionary , positions in hi s interpreta­tion of hist oey. The same rea sons have· :underlain the cri-

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t

sis in Brit ish bourge ois historiography. " In the nineteenth century , " Carr write s , "British historians , with scarce ly an exception, regarded the c ourse of hi .. tory as a demonstra tion o'f the principle of progre s s : tbey expre sse d the ide ology of a society in a condition of re­markably rapid progre ss. History wa s full of meaning for Briti2!h historians , so long as it seemed to be going our way ; now that i t ha s taken a wrong turning, belief in the. meaning of his tory ha s become a heresy. After the .Pirst World War, Toynbee made a desperate a ttempt to re­place a linea r view of his tory by a cycli cal theoi:y--the chara cteris tic ideology of a society in decline . Since Toynbee ' s failure , British historians have for the most part been content to throw up their hands and dec la re that there is n o genera 1 pa ttern in history a t a l 1. " 1 2 It is noteworthy , Carr goe s on to add, tha t the most recent prophets of dec line , the sceptics , who see no sense in history and c onsider that no progre ss exists, belong to that part of the world ani tha t cla ss of so cie ty lilich had played a leading role in the development of civilisa­tion for seve ral re cent generat ion s . !rhey can hardly find c omfort in that role now having passed over to others. 1 3

There can be no doubt that the idea o f social progres s which was originally sha re d by the va st aajori ty o f bour­geois philo sophers , sociologist s and histo rians , has lo st all it s attractivene ss to them with the exace rbation of the class struggle and the emergenee on the poli tical scene of th.e proletariat as the antipode . of the bourgeoi­sie . "The appearance of the proletariat on the political scene in England and France engendered in the mind of the bourgeoisie uncertainty of the eternal durati on of 1hedr social predominance ; progressive Progress had los t its charms. " 1 4

When capita li sm entered its monopoly stage , imper ial­i sm, bourgeois society se t its historians and sociologi sts the " social task" of "proving" the thesis that capi tal­iam ie the ultimate s tage of development , the peak of what

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can be achieved by mankind, so that radical evolutionar,y changes are impossible : it only remains for the capital­i st system to be improved along evolutioDar,y line s� It was then that there began the corre sponding s eeld.ngs in various directions , which have _o:rten been diametrical­ly opposed to one another. Some bourgeoi s histor:fans .hav.e taken to discrediting the objective laws of. social deve­lopment and denying the role of revolutiomr,y changes in history, doing so by invent� "proofs" of the undying na ture of capitalism. Others have tried t o "sub stantiate " the perfect nature .of bourgeo i s social re la tions by a s­serting that capitali sm i s an e ternal category, whose e lements are to be found both in . the hist ocy of antiquity and in �e life of' all tribe.a and peoples.

Although the development of the productive forces un­der the capitalist system has re sulte d in an unparallel­ed upswing, that system is incapable of' fully realis-ing the vast scientific and technological potential accu­mulated by mankind. Under capi tal ism, even narrowly under­stood, technological progre ss re ce ive s a one-sided and dis­torted development.

It is therefore not fortuitous tha t almo st all present­day bourgeo is histo�ography ha s either re jected or a t lea st denied recognition o f' social progre ss i n history. !r;fpical in this re spect are the "radical" utterance s of R. Collingwood , who has calle d all hi story nothing but "the his tory of thought" . He has found the idea of his­torical progress totally unacceptable , for, a s he see s it , i t has been a conse quence of' ignorance and a re stric­ted knowledge on the part of previous historians , who se historical outlook wa s hemmed in by the limit s of the iumediate pa st . When Voltaire proclaimed that all his tory is contemporary and that notl;ling can be genera lly e stab­lished earlier th.Sn the end of the 1 5th centur.y , he meant , a s R. Collingwood write s , not only that we can learn no­thing of' earlier periods but that such an earlier period doe s not deserve anything to be known about i t. !he pau-

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city of' historical sources in re spect of the Middle Age s led Voltaire to the conviction that they were a period of barbarism and superstition.

Consequently, social progress, in Collingwood ' s opi­nion, is the outcome of an uneven level of knowledge on the part of' historians of separate historical periods , this because of the insufficient . number of' sources at their disposal. The more re searchers de·lved into the his­torical past, tbe fewer documentary evidence they were able to unearth , which :re sulted in the invention that the farther removed an historical period is from the re search­er, the more it was a period of "de cadence " , while clo­ser periods were seen as periods of "greet age s " . " �e old dogma .of a s ingle histo rical progre ss leading to the pre sent , and the modern dogma of hi st orical cycle s , that i s , of a multiple progre ss leading to • great age s ' and then to decadence , are thus mere projections of th:! his­torian ' s ignorance upon the screen of the past. " 1 5

Karl _ .Popper al so que stions the possibility of e s­

tabli shing some kind of' "reasonable meaning" in histor,y .

At the same time , he re jects the existentialist idea of'

the comple te senselessne s s and e ven " ab surdity" of the

historical proce ss. In his opinion, it is possible , with

purely practical purposes , to make history "meaning­

ful " , proceeding from e thical ideas. The historian should

take up a definite stand, guided by his e thical views

and, on that basi s ,. give his interpretation of the ·course

of' historical event s. That kind of interpretation is an

expre ssion of rational "practical politics" . For lf. Pop­

per, 'there exists no law of' his torical development a s en­

suring further progre ss. "The fate of that progre ss-and ,

at the �a:me time" -our fate-depends on us ourse lve s. " 1 6 In

itself a denial of the ideas of progre s s in history tes­

tifies to a profound crisis in bourgeois historical

thought . •

When problems o,.f' the periodisation of world history c8Jle up for discussion at the Stockholm Congre ss , s ome

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We st German and US hi storians , in their polemic with the Marxists, advance d the thesis that it i s te chnologic a l achievement s and di scoverie s promoting the development of industry that are landmarks in the history of man­kind, for they determine it s progre s sive ( sic l ) deve­lopment , and not social revolutions , which mark a tran­s ition from one socio-e conomic formation to another . Thus , for example , it wa s asserted that the industri a l re ­volution i n Europe wa s "more impo rtant" than the French bourgeois revolution of the end of the 1 8th centuJ."Y , and that the discovery of nuclear energy is a more important date than the Great Oc tober Sociali st Revolution of 1 9 1 7 in Russia .

What is the s ignificance of thi s "the ory" ? The ma in thing i s that i ts authors and propagandist s are trying to lead people away from problems of social devel opment that present a danger from the. viewpoint of the pre sent-day bourgeoisie towards a "calmer" a re a of · 1 the his-tory of technology. The c oncept of socia l progre s s is re placed by ·progre ss in technology. But the genuine his­tory of mankind is complex and multi-coloured , ri ch in such events as clashe s be tween antagoni stic class force s , socia l and na tiona l mo�ements , the appearance o f vari�s kinds of poli tical and economic institution s , the strug­gle between ideas , and so on. All this is disrega rded by the adherents of the theory of "teclm.ologieal progress" , who are intere sted in ema sculating the c omplex, many­sided and vivid proce ss of history and treating it in a one-sided and drab manner. The re can be no doubt that the t echnologic al theory of progre s s , which has been ta­ken up by ce rtain reformi st and revisionist element s , i s a kind of subversion against Marxism.

There are people in the We st who have been impre s se d b y th e alleged ob j e ctive and scientific nature of thi s " the ory" , which i s publicised by the %ight-wing soc ial­ists es "mate rialistic " . Karl Renne r, an Austrian So cia l­i st leader, wrote that it i s t e chnology tha t wa s ulti­mately "d�terminative " in soc ial life . 1 7 The Social -Demo-

- 1 6 6 -

c ratic apologi sts of capitali sm, who speak so magn.ilo­quently of its "transformation" as conditioned by the re­volut ionary changes in the area of te chno logy , are at one with the pre sent-day revi sionist s , who al so fee l grea tly drawn to the task of era sing the borderline be tween sci­entific and technologic al pro gre s s and its conse quenc e s , in the socialist countrie s and in the USA.

Thus , the p seudo-scientific, and a llegedly obj ective technological theo ry of progre s s is an attempt to c oncious­ly di stort the c ourse of the worl d-hi storical ' pro ce ss , justify capi talism and coloniali sm , and paper over the ge­nuine significance of so cie ty ' s forward movement , thi s by absolutising the development of ' technology and de libe rate­ly divorcing it from its de terminative socio-e conomic en­vironment .

That is how things stand with the "fashionable " theo­rie s , ho sti le to Marxism, of the negation of soc ia l pro­gre ss or the falsification of the idea of progre s s in pre­sent-day bourgeo i s hist oriography.

All th i s goe s hand in hand wi th the growth of suc�.h in­terre late d t:rends and phenomena in bourge ois historiog­raphy a s : 1 ) a hypercrit ical approa ch to hi sto rical events , and a :re jection of all attempts to explain or genera lise them ; the reduction of hi st ory to a "microanaly si s" of individual document s and particular re search into narrow theme s ; 2 ) a negation of the very possibility of ob je ctive hi.storica l �e search , and the proclama tion of extreme sub­gec tivi sm in his toriograpby a ccording to the principle : "eve ry hi storian i s himse lf a creator of historytt . Then comes an actual negat ion of history as a science , thi s be­ing linke d with the spread of the view of history a s a spe cia l art ; 3 ) an upsurge of voltmtari sm , which leads t o a conscious fa lsification of history in the spirit of the "pragmatic presenti sm" , now fairly wide spre ad in the USA. Hist o rians belonging to this trend wilfully "adapt" history to the ne eds of the ruling so cia l upper crust , and engage in an "interpretation of th� past for the sake

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of the present�' .. Substantiation of an '�At lantic community'� the " superiority of the American way of life " and anti­communism-such is the e s sence of thi s trend ..

In his gene ral preface to A General Hist ory of Civi­

li sa tions, its edit or Maurice Grouzet categori cally de­

nie s the ve ry po ssibility of e comparison between indi­

vidual epochs and the ir · cla ssification, and tba more so

the justification of judgement s of progre ss or the laws

of development of various c ivilisations ..

1 8 Thus , we have

here a conception of the incognisability of the world­

hi sto rical process and its negat ion, that stemming from

the overall methodological principle s in present-day

bourgeois historiography. Obviously , if the world-histo­

rical process as such doe s not exist , whence a movement

that embraces all this proce s s , which advance s indiffe­

rently ( progres s) or move s backward ( regression) ..

In e ssence , pre sent-day bourgeois hi storiography

finds itse lf in an individious situation because of its

re jection of social progre ss in his tory .. Such an all-

out negation inevitably brings in its tra in a pessimistic

conclusion regarding the stagnation of mankind and the

absence of any prospects for it s development. Tho se bour­

geois his torians who cautiously use the term " so ci a l pro­

gre ss" eschew any recognition of its revolutionary con­

tent. In their understand :tng of social progre ss a s a

system for the improvement of the organisation ·of socie­

ty , they are unwilling to agree with fundamental improve­

ments being achievable on1:Y along the revolutionary roa d ..

* * *

Ina smuch as in lite ra ture and in political documents ( declarations and programme s of political organisations ) ; the term " social progre ss" ha s acquired extensive use , it is necessary to d ist inguish the use of this concept in its broad and narrower meaning.

As ha s already been pointed out , the first and funda­mental meaning of .the term 11 social progre ss" expre sse s

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mankind ' s forward movement , who se global expre s sion i s the progressive suc ce ssion of socio-e conomic format ions.

In its se cond mean:t.ng , social progre s s doe s not have such an all-embra.oing content .. In it s narrow sense , it can be regarded a s measures designe d to improve the orga­nisation of a giv�n socie ty , including definite loca l reforms , which a re not ne ce ssarily revolutionary i n na­ture . In everyday use , so cial progre ss is often under­stood in this limited meaning.

The researcher has to take ac count of both meanings of the term in the appropriate context·.

In i-ts narrow senf!e , social pro gre ss i s , . a s a rule , delayed in its ac tion. It s genuine historical significance may di�fer in c onnection with i ts so cial conten t , dire c­tion and scale . The re searcher into history ha s c onst.ant­ly to dea l with the origins of a:ny parti cular re form o r to discover its initiator s , so as t o be able t o determine with greater or le sser c onfidence the actual significance of the various progre ssive transformations. One c omes up against so-called mini-reforms , which form part of the ove ra ll concept of so cial progre ss taken in the narrow sense , but the actual significance of which should not be exaggerated .. The hi storian ha s to take into a ccount tha t the various manife stations of social progre ss in the nar­

row sense of the term, right down to the moat inconsider­able , are an area of constant struggle , with human pas­sions flaring up , with the variegated interests of cla s­ses , their sections and individua l groupings being re­

vealed .. Practice ha s shown that c ontrasting or non-co in­cidental intere sts of classes or big so cial groups are conducive to the c oncept of social progre ss b eing given a c ontent tha t reflec ts the particular ai ms pursued.

Socia l progre ss in it s :f'undamental and broad sense is of particular importance to mankind ' s historical de sti­nie s . !oday social progre ss is synonymous with the c ons­truction of communism in the USSR, the succe s se s scored by the world soc2a list system, the liberation of oppre ssed

- 1 6 9 -

peoples from the yoke of colonialism, the mounting scale of class battle s in the cap italist countries , the tr.tumph of the force s of pe ace , and the .. :further decline and dis-, \

- integration of the world capitalist system.

The que stion of the rates of social progress is of methodological significance in principle . One hundred and fifty years after the English bourgeois revolution, the French �evolution broke out . Fifty years lie between the French bourgeois re volution of the end of the 1 8th cen­tury and the 1 848 revolution. Then a somewhat shorter pe­riod�3 4 years�-lie s between the first attempt to set up a dictatorship of the proletariat--the Paris Commune-­and the 1 905- 1 9 07 revolution in Russi a.

Ten years after the defeat of the first Rus sian revo­lution, the February Revolution broke . out , to be followed by the October Revolution of 1 9 1 7 , wbich ushered in a new epoch in human history. The ma s se s who carried out the 1 9 1 7 Revolution in Russia were not relegated into the background and stripped of the fruits of their vic tory , e s �d always been the case in great bourgeo i s re volu­t ions. On the c ontrary, those masse s .became full ma sters of their own fa te . The growing rate of historical develop­ment is ever more reducing the time for capitalism' s exis­tence as a single al).-embracing \'K>rld system.

We are liVing in highly intere sting times rich in ma­j or historical events which are determining what lies in store f�r future generations• The . world of today is a kind of 'gigantic laboratory which is evolving a new human socie ty.

We enjoy an opportunity , rare in history , of sensing its pulse ,. comparing the two oppo site worlds , two civi­lisations , in the ir struggle and competition. As a result , the 1very notion of progre ss in world history and in its b roade st sense has lost i ts abstract nature and i s becom­ing tangible . Since we are in a position to compare the two socio•economic fo rmations , we can distinctly see , not only the overall directions of mankind ' s forward movement

- 170 -

but also its concre te results. We c an observe the varie ty o f forms in the transition from capitalism to sociali sm and study the highly effectual methods of dealing , in an unparalleled brief period of time, with va st and hitherto irresolvable social problems.

� B.F. Porsbnev, "The Periodisa tion o f the worl d-Hi storical Progres s in Hegel and Marx" , Transactions of the Hipjher School. The Philosophical Sciences , 1 969 , No . 2, p . 6 1 ( in RUssian ) .

2 V.I. Lenin, Collected Works , Mo scow, Vol. 1 , P• 1 65� 3 Ibi d. , Vol. 1 3 , P• 243 . 4 Ibid. , Vol. 22, p . 3 1 0 . 5 Ibid. , Vol. 2 1 , p. 54. 6 Ibid. , Vol. 3 3 , p. 1 58. 7 G.V. Plekhanov, Selected Philosophical Works , Vol. 1 , Moscow, 1 974, p. 5 1 0.

. 8 6 B.F. Porshnev , op. cit. , p. 1 .

9 .•

. F. Engels, Anti-Dtili.ring, Moscow, 1 9 69 , p. 2 1 6 . 1 0 The Cambridge Modern His tory , Cambridge , Vol. 1 , 1 93 1 , pp. V-VIII .

1 1 .. XI Congre s international des science s histo :rigues . Rap-ports , Stockholm, Vol • .1 , 1 9 60 ,,

p . 3 . 1 2

6 E. Carr, What Is Histo;r? y London, 1 9 2, p.. 37. 1 3 Ibid. , p . 1 1 1 . 1 4 Paul Lafargu.e , Le determinisme �·conomigue de Karl Marx, Pari s , 1 928, p. 1 7 . 1 5 R. Collillgwood, The Idea o f H:f..stor;r, New York, 1 95 6 , p. 328.

- 1 7 1 -

1 6 K. Popper, �elbstbetring durch ias Wiesen. In der Sinn

der Ge sch:l.chte , Jfunich, 1 946., p. 328.

17 K. Renner, The T.nstitutions of Private Law and Their

Social Functions, London, 1 954, pp. 282-283�

1 8 Histo ire Generale des C ivilisat ions . Vol. 1 , Pari s , 1 960 , .

P• IX.

Section III . The Researcher ' s IBbo.ratory

THE H!STORICAL FACT

The "historical fa9 t " category is the foundat ion of the ent ire ·ed ifice of hi storical science . No development of historical thought is conce ivable without fac tual ma­terial. But the " fac t " concept i tself re quires spec ifi­cat ion , for i t has very mSJJy aspects. The main f'eatlire of its study , from the historian ' s s tandpo int , is that it is not ,_ as a rule , an obj ect d irec tly o bserved by the research­er , but one studied through some sources. The material ist concept ion of. history pos its "fac t " as an o bj e c t of s tudy exist ing outs ide the hi storian ' s cons c iousness and independ­ent of it. There are s imple fac ts and more compl icated ones . · The historical process , be ing a chain of inter­connected facts , in i tself may be regarded as a historical fact . At the same time reflected in the cognis ing subject ' s thinking is the more or less accurate content of the fact , mediated though i� is by a source . It does not change its essence even when pass ing through the Pirism of human per­cept ion , and remains o bj e ct ive real i ty. Approximat ion to that reali ty cons t i tutes the subs tance of hist9rical cogni­t ion.

Historical sc ience has gone through a rather complicate d evo lut ion in i t s at t i tude to fac t . At first it was assumed a priori that the researcher ' a task was to gather facts , the .pro blem of the nature of' facts not Qe i� cons idered at al l. Later the contradict ion be tween the faot and its inter­pre tat ion gradually became ap�arent . Some historians

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1•�1 1 ,

persisted in rej ect ing the need for generalisat ion and a

substant iated explana't ion of the emp irically given reality.

They believed t h.at facts somehow lost the ir obj ective s igni�

ficance if they were in any way interpreted.

The obj ectivity of such an approach has always been

purely illusory. In actual fact even the init ial record­

ing of data by any researcher cannot be absolutely neutral.

It reflects to a certain extent his posit ion. Essent i'ally ,

fac'ts as obj ects of historical research cannot exist by

themselves , without any evaluat ion.

As long as bourgeo is historical science held comparat­

ively progress ive 'posit ions , taking issue with feudal theo­

logical and o ther react ionary interpretat ions of the histor­

ical process , moa t historians recognised the organic links

between hi storical facts and the ir generalisat ions . As

the crisis in bourgeo is historiography grew, these concept s

came into conflict with each other. There was a sharp shift

from the original rais ing of historical facts to an absolute

rej ec t ion of the ir independent significance. Already late

in the 1 9th century a number of prominent historians ins isted

that historical facts were entirely determ�ned by the sub­

j ect ive posit ion of the scholar who was t hus said to "create "

them.

Two extreme views of historical fact s st ill exist in

bourgeois historiography. One of them may be characterised

as rais ing facts to an absolute and rej ect ing the need for

the ir interpre tation and evaluation. The Prench historian

Fustel de Coulanges believed that the writ ten source was

the be-all. Any stepping beyond textual stua, of documents

was quest ioned or condemned.

The other and exact opposite approach that has become mos t widely spread now is based on negat ing the existence of facts as o bj ec tive realit ies. In the view of the support­ers of this s tandpo int , the concep t of fact is formed in the historian ' s consciousness . W. Windelband , H. Rickert , as well as the :i,:r numerous imitators , advocated "from crit ical posit ions" the , unknowability of !acts and , consequently , the historian ' s arb itrar;y approach to the ir evaluat ion.

A. La.ppo-Danilevsk:y , a Russian pre-revolutionary historia� ,

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regarded the historical fact as " the impact of t he given ind ividual ' s consciousness on the environment , part icularly on the social environment 11 • 1

C . L . Becker, one of the most prominent represe�tat ives of present ism - in the USA , ins ists that historical facts are illusory , and that it is no t t he facts but bias that guides the historian. He doubts the reliab ility of any historical facts whatsoever because "these vanished realities give place to pale reflec t ions , impalpable images or ideas of ' themselves , and these pale refle ct ions , and impalpable images which �anno t be touched or handled are all that is left of the actual oncurrence" . 2

R. Coll ingwood comple tely rej ects the independent sig­nificance of so urces , emphas ising the ir arbi trary inter­pretat ion by the historiau. In his opinion , the researcher is an autonomous interpre ter of the past , which deprives the latter of obj ectivity._ The "historical fact " concept thus turns out to be largely illusory. 3

�. Cfa.Xr believes that it is not any event that may be regarded as a historical fact , but only that event which has historic signif icance . The scholar must know the great­est poss ible number of facts pertaining to t he period under study , in order to be able to select a few significant facts , thus turning them into his torical facts and discarding the ins ignificant fac ts as non-historical. In Carr ' s view , history is interpre tat ion ; interpre tat ion is history ' s arte­rial blood. He s t resses at the same t ime that the scho lar is not a " tyrannical master" of fact s . The relat ions between the historian and facts are tho se of e quali ty. They need each o ther. A historian without facts is not on solid ground , he is useless ; the. facts without him are dead and meaningless . In answering the quest ion "what is hi story? " , Carr states that history is a cont inuous process of interact ion between the historian and his facts , an unending dialogue between the present and the pas t . 4

J . Topolski regards historical facts as a dynamic in­tegral system ( holism) , underlining that they are in a s tate of coDStant change . "!!!he quest ion arises , " he writes , "at

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i i :·: 1 '' 1 :: : f 1 11 1 1: 1 1 !

I ' 1 11'! U' i i:1

il 1 i i

what moment w� deal with t he given fac t and at what o ther moment , w i th a d i fferent one . " 5

However cond it ional the trans "j.tions from one s tate t o

ano the r , hist orical knowledge cannot d o w it hout record ing

the exact quali tat ive defin iteness of t he o bj ect under s tudy.

The very formulat ion of t he que s t ion of ho l ism , that is , of

the integrity of the hist orical fac t , presuppo ses its qualit­

at ive definiteness . If this assump t i on is re j e c te d , the

researcher will slip towards unrestricted relat ivism lead ing

to the " d isappearance " of facts . As for t he ini t ial and

final boundaries , they can only be define d if there i s a

pre? ise qual i tat ive charac teristic of t he fac t i tself. At

the same t ime Topolski ' s formulat ion cannot be regarde d as

definit ive , as cove r ing t he pro blem with all i t s numerous

face t s . Ho l ism , that is , the uni ty of the obj e c t under

study , does no t alt er the si tuat ion in which t he researcher working with certain data is no t capable of exhaus t ing all of the ir asp ect.a. One and the same o bj ect may be approache d from various po s i t ions and cons idere d from d ifferent angles depend ing on the concre te task the researcher has s e t himself. For examp le , t he statement that in t he Presnya d i stric t t he revolut ionary workers ' re s i s tance d uring the De cember 1 90 5 Upris ing in Moscow was s tronger than in o ther p laces may be use d by d ifferent h ist or ians in varying degrees depend ing on the ir concre t e goals �

There is a tendency t o complicate t he pro blem o f the

his torical fac t unnecessarily. Discuss ion of i t s nature

and me t ho d s of i t s class ificat ion are mostly speculat ive .

The numerous bo oks on t his subj ect do no t , as a rule , aim

at making concrete his torical research eas ier. Neverthe less a general theore t ical formulat ion o f t he que s t ion seems to be ne cess ary .

The his torian ' s work i s a k ind of synthe s i s o f the emp irical and t heore t ical approaches to the obj e c t of study. The very process of sele c t ing factual data assume s that the his torian has no t only purely profe ss ional qual ificat ions but also a theor� t ical concep t ion or hypo t hesis materially affect ing the p rocess of select ion. The d is t inct ion is often drawn be twe·en " the historical fac t n. and " the concep t " , with

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which t he historian has to deal. It is no t advisable , for example , to confuse a historical fac t , such as t he preval­ence of opportunist ic e lements in the Second Internat ional , and t he concept of re formism.

In selec t ing certain facts from an infinite number of event s , t he hist orian already begins the ir t heore t ical interpretat ion and explanat ion in a real sens e . In t he course of analys is of data , he rises an ever h igher leve l o f t he ir comprehens ion. A s h e rises above the emp irical level of research , t he hi storian increas ingly uses the met hod of abs trac t ion , that is , the logical method , which reveals the real essence of the h is torical .

The view is o ften expressed that a d is t inc t ion should be made be tween fact as obj e c t ive reali ty and fac t a s t he obj e c t o f study , " t he his tori cal fac t " . " A s c ient ific fac t i s no t the event as such but i t s reflect ion in a specific form11 • 6

The concept of the so-called hi s toriographic fac t , t here­fore , gained some currency among Marxist historians ; i t d iffers from t he " ord inary" his torical fact in that i t is regarded as a ne cessary component of t he hist orian ' s research. The Pol i s h historians c . Bo binska and J. Topo lski define t he his torio graphic fac t as a s c i ent ific reconstruc t ion or as a resul t of the creat ive pr ocessing of fact s by the re ­s earcher. 7

Apparently i t wo uld be more corre c t to speak of inter­pre tat ion rather t han of recons truc t ion of historical facts . It would be wrong to oppose historical fac ts as a certain real i ty ( obj e c t ive truth refle c t e d in consc io usness ) to arb i t rary use o f t he given phenomena in t he his torian ' s work.

The area of search for new historical real i t ie s would be made unj us t ifiably narrow if we rej e c t ed t hem as non­his torical from the outse t s imply because t hey are as yet inaccess ible to histo�iograpby. History i s a cont inuously deve lop ing sc ienc e , and what was yes t erday a "non-fac t " may tomorrow prove t o b e a well-established and generally recognised fac t . It is t heore t ically wrong to regard as ac tually exist ing only tho se phenomena which are reflected in , the his torian ' s consc iousnes s . I f we accep ted this view ,

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I

I

I i I i 1 i

we would inv�luntarily be moving towards a purely subj e c t iv­i s t appro ach to the historical process .

Taking all this into account , it appears to be suffi­c ient to view as "historiographic " all tho se fac ts whi ch were in s ome way reflec t e d in historiography { often extremely one-s idedly ) . One nee d no t apparently cons truc t any o ther art ificial class ificat ions of historical fact s .

A ny obj e c t ive reali ty is a his torical fac t . It follows that no phenomenon becomes hi storical simp ly for the reason

that historian A. has not iced , discovere d , or de scribed i t . One can eas ily assume that t he given fact missed by historian A. will .be d is covere d by his torians B . and c. under d i ffer­ent- external circumstances and at d ifferent moments . These external c ircums tances may undoub tedly affect the chain of proofs adduced by . t he historian in his study. A s i tuat ion is also qui t e poss ible in which the given fact will in ge­neral remain unknown to anyone for a long t ime . I t s exi's t­ence will inevi tably be ignored in hi storical construc t ions . I t is wrong to d e c lare an und iscovered fac t to be non-exis­t ent , non-historical. The histor ian is cont inually s earch­ing for knowledge , and he bas pract ically unl imited poss i­b i l i t ies for augment ing t he stock of his s c ient ific instru­ments { in t he f irst p lace of facts and sources ) . It would be unj ust ifiable to restrict his scope of v i s ion to an al� ready es tabli shed range of fac ts reco gnised as his torical .

This has no d irec t bearing on the important quest ion of class if i cat ion of histor ical facts and certain hierarchical dependences es tabl ishe d between t hem. Ye t the dependence itself appears as a derived magnitude d e termined by t he researcher ' s me thodological po s it ion and qual ificat ion as well as by the number of new , previously unknown and recently discovered historical fac t s . I t would thus be wrong t o " canonise " in any way the historical fac ts familiar to the scho lar as d i s t inc t from the as ye t unknown ones , which are nevertheless j ust as real and j us t as independent of his cons c iousness .

In emphasis ing t he h i storian ' s act ive role in, the cognit­ive pro cess , Topo lski takes issue with Bo binska ' s cri t i c ism of the approach to historical fac ts as s c ient ific cons truct ions

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only. ·Topo lski believes that , as long as the existence of o bj e c t ive real i ty , indep endent of the co gn i s ing subj e c t , is re cognised , the " cons truc t ion" of historical fac ts cannot be regarded as subj ect ivism.

A de c is ive cond i t ion for select ing fac ts in hist or ical research is mastering the general princ iple s whi ch permit to proceed from the part icular to t he general on the bas i s of the concep t ion of re curre�t phenomena , the exist ing hi stori cal laws. The historian s tart s on his work armed with a knowledge of certain fac tual materials as well as w i th pre l iminary i d eas about what he can expect from t his material and the d ire c t ion of his re sear ch. The obj ect ive quali ty of select ing factual data i s fully de termined by the historian ' s general world-view. Sele c t ing facts is a very respons ible part of the work of t he his torian , who uses t he e nt ire sum of his knowledge drawn bo t h from the sources and o t her channel s .

The absolute sup eriority o f the mat erialist concep t ion of history and , c onse quently , of Marxist histor ical sc ience lies in its princ iples o f data sele c t ion on the bas is of the general soc io logical theory of historical mater ialism . Both the sele c t ion of and the approach to t he mass o f his­torical fact s by· the llarxist historian are no t arbitrary at all . He be gins his research wi t h s tudying the concrete c ircumstances , place and t ime o f the h istorical event , .and w i th establishing t he role i t can play in the overall soc io­e conomic develo pment of the given epo ch.

The external histori cal communi ty is invariably re­presente d by a soc io-econom ic format ion . It is pos s i ble to reveal the essenc e · of - the historical fac t only if the context of the epoch is properly taken into account , and f irst and foremost of the format ion in which i t exi s t s . Only the d ialec t ical-material ist e p i stemology can ensure the s cholar ' s obj ect ivity in select ing and evaluat ing h is tori cal facts . !he data wi th which. the historian d eals may prove to be in­sufficient for draw ing convincing conc lus ions or for subs tan­t iat ing a certain concept ion , or it may complet ely refute his ini t ial assumpt ions . · The researcher ' s duty is in this case to take measures for extending the range of sources

-.&11.4. materials o r , i f this is out of the que s t ion , to · introduce

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the necessary ,correct ions in the working hypo thesis. The historian canno t ignore the facts , even if they run counter· to his ini tial conclus ions . The part isanship of the Marx­ist hist orical sc ience rests on the reliab ility , authenti­c i ty of the facts on which it is based.

But the hils torian is no t pass ive with regard te the facts that he has collected and verified. His duty i� to establish the "hierarchical" po sit ion of these facts in the chain of o ther facts that are already known. That is achieve'd through the ir j u:x:tapos i t ion and analys is of the ir interdependence and mutual influences. Each his torical phenomenon must be considered in its deve lopment and move­ment rather than stat ically. Lenin demanded of the research­er: "Cri� ic l.sm must cons ist in comparing and contrasting the given fact with ano ther fact and not wi th an idea; the one thing of moment is that both facts be invest igated as accu­rately as possible , and that they actually form , in respect of each other , different moments of development ; but most import­ant of all is that an e qually accurate invest igat ion be made of the whole series of known s tates , the ir sequence and the relat ion between the d ifferent stages of development11 • 8 On numerous occasions he ,ins isted that "we must take not ind i­vidual facts , but the sum total of facts , without , a s ingle except ion, relat ing to· the ques tion under discuss ion. Otherwise there w ill .be the - inevitable , and fully j ust ified , suspicion that the facts were selected or compiled arb ittari­ly , that instead of historical phenomena be ing presented in obj ec t ive interconnect ion and interdep endence and treated as a whole , we are presenting a ' subj ect ive ' concoction to j ustify" . 9

There exists a reliable Karxist historiographic tradition regarding the historical fact . K. Pokrovsky interpre ted explanat ion of a historical fact as "the estab­l ishment of cause-and-effect links between them [the facts]. Unt il the real links are establishe d , · as well as the causes of the origin of the fact and the consequences following from it , it (the fact} is acc idental , unexplained , isolated , incomprehensible. And this fac t bas to be explained histo­rically rather than soc iologically , that is , it should be

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expla�ned on the basis of the princ iple o f historism , and the inevitability of i ts emergence under concrete condi tions of place and t ime should be shown , as well as t he fac ts and

'events that condit ioned its emergence " . 1 0 Pokrovsky as­cribed different ro les to different fac ts in historical cognition , emphas is ing the dependence of a fac t on its o b­j ec t ive role in the historical process by us ing spec ial t�.rms : " the bas ic fac t " , " the primary fac t " , " th:e. character­istic fac t " , e tc . The bas ic or dec isive fac ts included those which reflected the his tory of economic relat ions and of class s truggle , those which ac tually determined the essence of maj or events , e�ress ing the inevi tability of these events and processes condit ioned by o bj ective laws • 1 1

Pokrovsky j ustly assumed that the "crude work" of establish­ing historfoal facts , which demands a great expend iture of labour and t ime , is in i t self a compl icat ed me thodological process .

Academic ian Yu. Frantsev s tressed this idea: "There is no such science of his tory that is engaged in merely amass ing facts. Just as there is no such sc ience of hi story which would no t rely on the fac ts but merely repeat the truisms about the logic of the historical process . But what is an appraisal of fac t? It implies revealing the ac tual obj e c t ive links be tween certain . facts and t he tendency of de­velopment of historical real ity. .A sc ient ific approach is inconce ivable wi thout linking up facts , e ither newly d is­covered or previously known but incorrectly e lucidated , with other facts and phenomena , without contrast ing them with general tendenc ies of historical deve lopment , in the first place with the course of class s truggle " . 1 2

Some bourgeois h istorians express the view t hat the . researcher cannot and should no t take into account all the fact s relat ing to the subj ect-mat ter he has chosen. E. Ses­tan remarks , for example , that subj ect ivism dominates both the select ion of the subj ect of study and of the facts for researching t he sub j e c t . This cho ice , he states , " is con­d i t ioned by t he environment and the t imes in which the historian lives , his views of life in all its aspects and problems--polit ical , economi c , soc ial , religious , and mo-

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ral11 • 1 3 Indeed , t he h istorian ' s cho i ce is ult imately de­termined by his soc io-polit ical pos i t ion , but t hat does not s ignify e ither any arb itrariness in selec t ing the fac t s or sub j e c t ive d efe c t iveness of his con clus ions . It all depends on the class and me thodological views d e fended by the re­s earcher.

Cons iderable attent ion is paid in historical l i t erature to the s e quence of processes involved in t he s tudy of his to­rical fac t s . This se quence canno t , of course , be set down as a norm . I t largely d ep end s o n whe ther the h i storian

• begins his s tudy with an analys is of a given fac t or group of facts , or whe t her he wants to e s tablish t he i r p lace in a concept ion of the content o f an event or process that was forme'd on the b as i s of other sources . In the lat t er case the historian has previously determined the internal and external regularit ies operat ing under the given concre t e cond i t ions . He , therefore , can , following t he d e duc t ive me t hod , pro ceed from general theore t ical premi ses in analys­ing the given fac t or some o ther add i t ional fac t s .

The founders o f sc ient ific communism were unanimous in s tat ing that in any scient if ic area , natural or historical , the available fac ts should be the start ing po int .

It fo llows that e st abl i shing fac t s is the primary and necessary func t ion of any histo rical s tudy .

�

A . S . Lappo-Danilevsky , The Met hodo logy of History , St . Pe tersburg , 1 9 1 3 , Issue 2 , p . 322 ( in Russ ian) .

2 C . L . Becker , "What Are His torical Fac t s ? " , Wes t ern Po l i t i­cal Quarterly , 1 955 , Vo l . VIII , No . 3 , pp . 330-331 .

3 R. G . Collingwood , The Idea of History , Oxford , 1 946 ,

pp . 5 6 , 259 , 27 1 -281 , 305 .

4 E . H . Carr , What I s History? , London , 1 962 , pp. 1 8 , 22-24.

5 J. Topolski , Me todologia his tori i , Warsaw , 1 97 6 , p. 62 1 .

6 A . I . Uvarov , "The Structure of Theory in Historical

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Sc ience , Issue 3 , 1 9 65 , p . 3 6 ; see also V . A . Dyakov , The Me t ho dology of His tory in the Past and Pres ent , Mos cow , 1 97 4 , p . 1 09 ( bo t h in Rus s ian ) .

7 c . Bo b inska , His toryk , fakt , me toda , Warsaw , 1 96 4 ,

pp . 49-50 ; J . Topolski , o p . c i t . , p . 1 50 .

8 V . I . Lenin , Collected Works , Moscow , Vol . 1 , PP• 1 66-1 67 .

9 I b id . , Vol . 2 3 , pp . 272 -273 .

1 0 A . A . Govorkov , M . N . Pokrovsky About the Subj e c t-llia.tter

of His tor�cal Sc ience , Tomsk , 1 97 6 , pp . 239-240 ( in

Rus s ian) .

1 1 Ibid. , p . 2 48.

1 2 His tory and Soc io logy , Mo scow , 1 96 4 , p. 334 ( in Rus s ian).

1 3 E . Ses tan , The History of Events and t he His tory o f

Struc ture s , Mo scow , 1 970 , p. 6 ( in Rus s ian ) .

THE HISTORICAL SOURC·E

A:rJ.y information pertaining to mankind ' s past may be a historical source . Hist orical sources being het erogene­ous , this requires their classificati on (written sources , monuments of material culture , et c . ) .

Mo st important for historical inve stigat ion i s , of course , attr ibutive class ificat ion , that is the establishment of the correlation between soil.roes and the spat io -temporal complexes under study1 rether than a formal classification of historical sources of different types.

The success of hist orical investigation largely dep ends

on the ut ilisation of an ensemble of sources providing com­

plementary information and not on the study of' one part icular

kind of sources ( archaeological or documentary mat erials ,

etc . ) . 1!b.e more ext ensive and varied the s ources relat ing

t o a definite process or event , the more reli able the re­searcher • s conclusions. Close cooperation i s therefore es­sential between speci alists in different historical disci p­lines , including the so-called auxiliary di sciplines , for the s olut ion of diverse problems arising in hi stori cal stu­di es • . Scient ific analysi s of sources also requires sp eciali­sat ion of researchers act ive in various branches of history ( archaeology, palaeography, et c . ) .

Specili sati an of individual historical disciplines expanding along with their inner development ( increasing

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range of ma�eria ls and methodologies of their s tudy) leads to great er differentiation of historical kn.owledge ' and , more­over, result s in c onsiderable i solati on of it s various bran­ches. Along with this proc ess, however, and es a natural re­action to it , there is also an increase in the int erdependence between the historical discipline s . At the same t ime hi st ori­ans more and more extensively use the meth9ds and data of the natural and mathematical scienc es . The so-called relat-ed disciplines appear. All of this increases the range of scientific instram.ent s that can be applied in hist orical study. · A hist orian ' s specia.l profes sional qualifications some­times prove inadequat e for carrying out a thorough hist ori­cal analysis. Cooperati on with other cont iguous and even un­relat ed sciencea i s needed.

It i s of course difficult t o judge the degree of import­ance of hist orical sources without taking into account the concret e circumst ance s . Their· significance · is entirely uet er­mined by the nature of' the problem the hist orian is c oncern­ed with.

Here it is important t o stres s the great diversity of means which the hist orian has at hi s di sposal for reproduc­ing and evaluating the past . Being an independent branch of' historical s cience , source study generali se s these instru­ments and a chieves a synthesi s of' the diverse data studied by the special auxiliary hi st orical discipline s . The latt er include :

palaeography, studying outward chara ct erist ics of an­cient writt en sources ; ·

sphragistics and heraldry ; studying seals and c oats of arms ;

diplomatics , studying old official document s ( a ct s ) ; epigraphies , studying inacriptions (writt en sources

excluded) ; numismati c s , studying coins and medals ; chronology and met·rology, studying systems of time

measuring, weight s and measures ; archaeography, working out the principles of source

publication.

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Kost llJOlll"ces studied _by the _ am:iliary h.is.�oriQ.al d�&.-­ciplines relat e , of course, to . remote historical epochs. �storians specialising in the study of th:e aore recent his­�orical periods are in a comparatively better position, for they have much better systematised and complete data at their disposal. And yet they run into juet as many objective dif­'f'iculties in using the historical sources of modern and con­tempora;ry times as historians speciali�ing _:l.n the hi�tory of .Antiquity and of the Middle Age!S.

Each historical source bears the imprint of the domi­nant socio-economic relations and their corresponding ideolo­g�cal "load". However rich the archive , statistical, and other data characterising the modern and contemporary times may be , they are no more :free of bias than those pertaini.Dg to :the more remote epochs .

A historical source is a monument of the past reflect­'ing the time and conditions of its creation. In other words , � source is itself a historical phenomenon and can be correct­iy understood and int erpreted only if the vital interests and ideas of its authors are taken into accout . "The source ,

,, tradition, notes Th. Schieder, "gives preference , as a rule , to the dominant alld in:f'luential strata : · politica.l a;nd social influence i� everywhere linked with influence on his­toric al tradition;.-not only through a tent�tious impact but also by the very preponderance of written records pos­sessed by the rulers, high-ranking officials , and the stra­ta with a monopoly on education. The behaviour and mentality of the lower classes usually leave no direct written re­cord ; they do not appear clearly as a subject either in of­ficial papers or in individuals ' testimony such as lett ers and personal reoords . "1 These words characterise the actual origin of mo�t written sources . Nevertheless , these sources contain a great deal of information, .indirect though it may be, throwing light on the non-privileged classes and at times on that of the social lower strata .

In recent years , source study has achieved considerable successes. This · is particularly true of Soviet source study. A typical example here is V. Yamn' s book Essays in Interdis­ciplinar:y Source Studt. :Mediaeval Novgorod.2 The progress in

- 1 86 -

this area is mostly due to the interdisciplinary approach to the sources analysed and to a combination of different metho­dological procedures . The facts contained in the sources in a mediated form, can only provide the historian with valuable information if he use s the entire range of instruments for making the source "speak" .

v. Pashuto evaluates the various aspects of · source ana­lysis as follows : " A source may be analysed chronologically (we have in mind a more common case when the formal t exto­lo�cal analysis has already been done and we have a good publi cation available ) , or vertically, comprehending the dynamic s of the t ext ' s development : the place of the source in the hist ory of the collection in which it is contained and the place of the collection ( or code) as a monument of the socio•econom:l.c , political and cultural life , in the struggle for the assertion of a class or group. It is by no means a matter of indifference t o us when, where , and in whose social interest s the given act was compiled, where a given chronicle came from, and whether it was written as a whole , or forms a code or part of a code ( codes) . The purpose of the analysis is , therefore , clear--determining the reliabi­lity of a source , an item of information or , finally, of a fact . A source may also be analysed t erritorially, compara­tively and historically, which invol�es juxtaposition of syn.chronic monument s written in the same or in foreign lan­guages , or different provenance , referring to one and the same event . Here too the main point of departure is defining the political , class and group interest s refiected in the monuments of each of the centres compared . "3

We know that the most ancient written sources which s erve as valuable historical sources often contain various superimposed layers , later interpolations and additions in other authors • hand. The article by Yu. Kizilov cit es numer­ous examples of ?igni:f'icant ideological divergences between the earlier and the lat er chroniclers--the authors of the classical Tale of Bygone Years. "The study of the t exts of The Tale of B:rgone Years" , writes Yu. Kizilov, "written by chroniclers of different ages and traditions , shows once again how promising is a more careful study of the hist orical

- 1 87 -

thinking of it s various authors .. !l!leir world-view reveals a s ignificant evolution from pagan to Orthodox Christian forms .. The struggle between these religious systems , paganism and Christi �ty, largely det ermined the development of the s o-

· cial consciousness o f Old Rua , and unless one t akes i t int o account , it is difficult to conceive even in genera l out­line the evolution of the historical ideas of the Old Russi­an chroniclers .. "4

Real life i s always richer than i t s reflect ion in any document .. In his Lett ers , Bolingbroke writes, not without ac­rimony, about near-cont emporary event s : "You will want no mat erials t o form t rue notions · of t ransactions so rec ent .. Even pamphlet s , wrote on different sides and on ·different occasions in our party disput es , and histories of no more authority than pamphlet s , will help you t o come at truth .. Rea d them with suspicion, my lord , for they deserve t o be s uspect ed : pay no regard to the epithet s given, nor t o the judgement s passed ; :neglect ell declamation, weigh the rea­s oning and advert to fact ,. n5

The same thing is evident from the minut es of the sit­tings of large and small collectives--an import ant source on the hist ory of revolutionary movement and soci al trans­formation , briefly recording the decisions taken .. These do­cuments are as a rule deposited in the archives , and hist ori­ans willingly refer to them .. Archive sources are 't'raditional­ly regarded as the most authoritative and reliable .. Every living witnes s and participant of' s ome concret e sitting may confirm he>Wever that the final record does not give a real ' idea of the work preceding the briefly formulat ed decision. The debat e in the sitting , the concrete arguments which ultimat ely det ermine the final out come leave es a rule only a very dry and scant trace in the archive records .. The his­torian has to find additional means for reconst ructing the circumstances whi ch det erinine d the decision .. These may in­clude such more or �eas obj ective dat a as statistical mate­rials as well as subj ective proof's (private lett ers ; me­moirs of the parti cipant s in the deci sion-making, et c .. ) ..

The histori an ' s training (general theoret ical and pro­fes sions). } is a neces sary condition for his research .. Ill

- 1 88 -

other words ; a hi st orian cannot· extract the neces sary infor­mation :from a s ource unless he has certain qualifications for that .

J. Topolsky suggests the following order in the his­t orian ' s research : ( 1 ) !l!le choice of study area . ( 2) Formu­lat ion of the problem .. (J) Finding out the sources for the study of the problem. ( 4) Int erpreting the information ob-tained from the s ources . ( 5 ) The . study of authenticit y ( ex­ternal crit�que ) . ( 6) The study of reliabilit y (int ernal critique ) .. (7 ) Establishing facts about which there is direct informati on in the sources . ( 8) Est abli shing fact s about which there is no direct information in the s ources ( along with verification) . ( 9 ) The a s certainment of causa l relations ( along with verificat�on) .. ( 1 0) The ascertainment of laws ( along with verifi cat ion) .. ( 1 1 ) Synthetic int erpretat ion (.the answer t o the researcher ' s question) .. ( 1 2 ) Adequate evalua­tion of hist orical fact s ..

J . Topolsky point s out that of the research operations indicat ed , only three ( 5 , 6 and 7 ) are based on knowledge direct�y obtained from the sources . The rest are ba sed on knowledge obtained outside the sources . Nevertheles s , know­ledge obtained from the sources plays the great est role in establishing fact s .. "We est abli sh fact s on the basi s of sources , although it is easy to see that we could not have obtained relative information from the source w ithout kn9w-

. ledge from out side the source . n6 .

A critical attitude of the historian t o the s ource and the need for it s repeat ed verification presuppo se a clear un­derstanding of the fact that the source i s always a more or less di stort ed reflect ion of obj ective reality .. Dialec­tical connections between the obj ective and the subj ective are manifest ed in the following two a spects of cognition: first , the source itself appears as the subj ect ive element with regard t o the obj ect ive one which it reflect s ; second , the hist orian working with this source st ands in relat ion t o it-Sli.bj ect to obj ect .. The hist orian ' s c ognitive work assumes a profound creative process revealing the dialect ics of the interrelation between ·the obj ect ive and the subj �otive ..

- 1 89 -

In using documentary sources , the res earcher i s almost always �n a position to verify again and again the reliabi­lity of the information contained in them by comparing va­rious document s pertaining to the given sub j ect . However, a .critical attitude to writt en sources should not develop in­to hypercriti ci sm.

Source criti que is usually divided under the hea dings of external and int ernal. By external criti que of a s ource is meant it s deciphering and as certaining its authent icity. Here the hist orian often resort s to the methods of auxiliary hist orical di sci:plines , such as epigraphies , textology, and p alaeography. Of considerable importance is also a lingui s­t ic analysis of the source which helps to est ablish it s ori­gin, age , and the nature of the social mi li eu in which it :c ould be created. Inner crit ique of a s ource demands that it s origin, primarily it s so cial orientation , and the degree of reliabili t7 of the information contained in it be estab­l ished.

It i s di:fficult and hardly exp edient t o divide the cri­t ique of a source int o external and int ernal even with re­gard to the order of operat ions . Deciphering the source and defining it s orientation are very closely int errelated and , as a rule , si1111lt aneoµs processes .

The possibility ()f hist ori ca1 process experimentation , mental as well a s real, with the aim o f verification and partial correction of data contained in the sources, cannot be re j ect ed out of hand . N. Erofeyev cit es several examples of experiment s in the sphere of historical scienc e . In par­ticular, he mentions Thor Heyerdahl ' s "Kon-Tiki " end "Ra " voyages as well as that by the . American s . Morrison who , in 1 939-1 940 , followed the route of Columbus . Using Columbus ' ·log , Morri son reached the Western Hemisphere and verified the degree of preci sion of the not es and observat ions made by Columbus .7

The study: of historical sources has as i t s first t ask revealing the intentions and the mood of their authors . In thi s case the sul;>j ective feature that is inTisibly pres ent in every source it self becomes a most important obj ect of

- 1 90. -

study. "The his tori an ' s task is the division of the informa­tion contained in the s ource into two part s : the obj ective reflection of the histori cal situation and �it s int erpreta­t ion by the source ' s author covering the cla s s position , the motives for the creat ion of the s ource , its complet ene s s , reliability , dist ortions , suppres sions , etc . "8

K. Barg not es that every time the res earcher has t o overcome the barrier o f "realit ies transformati on" to · pasp the es sence of things hidden behind their appearance. "In it s t urn, appearance also has two forms : ( 1 ) ob j e ctive , . when the relations are revers ed by the course of the proces s and ·as sume fantastic form, ( 2) subj ective , when social relations , phenomena , and event s are p erceived as revers­ed. "9

Bourgeois hist oriography mostly takes up sub j e ctivist positions in evaluating the role of sources . In the view of s ome authors , the signifi cance of a sourc e is wholly det er­mined by the historian ' s int e llect and his ability to use the information cont ained in it ( e . g. , Jlarrou 1 0) . The his­t orian ' s qualification and training , indeed , either increase or re duce his ability t o use the hi st orical s ource fully and rationally. But evaluation of the obj ective significance of a source should not be made dep endent on i t e individual p er­ception.

Re cent ly , some hist orians abroad have complet ely rej ect­ed reliance on sources in establi shing hi st orical fact s . Sceptic!! insist tha t even aft er the pre liminary very pains­taking work of est ablishing the authent icity, substantia­tion of dating a source , and so on , its value remains ext­rem$ly problemat ic , for it allegedly s eparates the hist orian and. the hi stori cal fa ct .

There ere , of course , no compilers of writ t en document s who would be absolut ely impartial with regard to it s cont ent . Thi s weakens , to some ext ent , the obj ective qua lity of the data cited in the source . But that does not mean that the source it self is worthles s ; it means me rely additional re­search work for the historian. 1 1 Some bourgeoi s historians (for inst ance , E. Tapp) go so far as to insist , absurdly,

- 1 9 1 -

that the sour�e in general pertains t o the sphere of think-1 2 i.ng , having no - exist ence outside men' s imaginat ion.

Recently , spec ial interest has been d isplayed in a spec ific form of the histori cal source--the so-called oral history. The term means the use of oral test imony of par­tic ipants of historical events that are no t recorde d in documents . However , due to the wide use of stenography and sound-record ing , the data of oral history are , as a rule , transformed into a variety of documentary sources .

Oral hist ory is of particular import ance for the peo­ples that have no wriyt en language of their own. Data con­cerning the historical past of thes e peoples are often con­t ained in legends t�ansmitt ed from generation t o generation by word of mouth. D.P. He:ninge , the Briti sh. speci alist on African traditional societies , is rathe r sceptical about the importance of oral legends as a hist orical source . Tradi­tional tales were int ended for singling out and rendering the aspects of the past which were considered import ant for the present . That presupposes an att empt to attribute a form of continuity ( as a rule , within the life-span of more than three generat ions) to orally recount e d event s . Therefore , a s He:ninge point s out , folk poetry , heroic legends , fairy tales and other forms of. folk oral tradition are excluded :f'rom the study as they bear no reference to either continuity or s e­quence of event s � 1 3

B . Grekov and B . Rybakov hold an opposit e vi ew . B . Ry­b akov ' s fundamental study Old Rua . Fairy-Tales , Bylinas , Chronicles co·nsistently expounds the idea that bylinas as a type of oral sources always reflect actual hist orical event s that t ook place in the remot e past . He has made an

. int eresting att empt at comparing the protagoni st s of the Russian bylines with the persons that actually existe d in hist ory and , moreover, at synchronising the events describ­ed in them.

In his critique of the view that the cont ent of bylines as folklore epics is based on art istic invention , Rybakov relies on Grekov' s studies. He writ es : "One of the trends tollows Grekov' s correct thesis : ' A byline is history re-

- 1 9 2 -

cotlnt ed by the people itself ' . This trend , now headed by the historian and lit erary critic D. Likhachov, t akes pains t o

keep alive the hist orical approach to the epos ; i t can also . . 1 4 be referred t q as the Soviet hi storical school. " ·

The study of oral hi story is of import ance not only

for the peoples who have no writt en language of their own. It sllould be borne in mind that almo st in all the . countries of the world many original wri�t en sources on hist ory w ere ,

for �ariouB reasons , lost . There has always been the possi­

bility of the cont ent of these · no longer existing sources being retained in the form of oral lege�ds , although this post!!ibility calls fo:r: a very criti_cal attitude on the part of researchers .

The search for new , earlier unknown sources extending our knowledge of the past is going on.

� 1 Theo�or. Schieder, "Unterschiede zwischen hi st orischer und

sozial-wissensohaft licher Kethode " , The 1 3th Int ernationa l Congres s o f Hist orical Sciences . Papers for the Cong-. �' Vol . 1 , Part 1 , Moscow, 1 973.

2 V.L. Yanin, Essays in Int erdisciplinary Sourc e study. Mediaeval liov5orod, Moscow , 1 977 ( in Russian) .

3 The Kethods of Stud:y:l.ng the Kost .Allcient Sources •• the Histor:y of the Peoples of the USSR, ed. by V. T. Pashuto , Mos cow , 1 978, P • 3. ( in Rus sian) .

4 Yu.A. Kizilov, "The Hist orical World Outlook of the Authors of !fhe z,.ie of Bygone Yea:rs" , Voprosy i st orii , No . 1 0, 1 97 8 , p. 78 (in Russian) .

5 Lord Viscount Bolingbroke , Lett ers on the Study and Use of History, London , KZOOCXCII , P• 386 .

6 J. Topolsky, ·"On the Role of Knowledge Obtained from Out­side the Source in Hist orical Studi es " , Voprosy filosofii , No . 5 , 1 973 , PP • 80-82.

7 N.A. E:rofeyev, What Is Hi st ory? , Moscow , 1 976 , p. 93 (in Russian) .

- 1 93 -

� v.v. Kosolapov, The Methodology and Logic of Hi st orical Research, Kiev, 1 977 , p. 3 1 5 (in Russian) •

. :9 Jl.A. Barg , "Hist orical Facts : Structure , Form, Cont e�t " ,

IstoriYa SSSR, No . 6 , 1 97 6 , p. 60. 1 0 H. Jlarrou, De la connaissanoe hist origue , Paris , 1 95 9 ,

pp . 1 07- 1 08. '11 For details see A. P. Pronstein, Methods of Hist orical

Source Study, Rost ov-on-Don, 1 976 ( in Russian) . 1 2 E. Tapp , "Knowing the Past·" , Journal of P.b.ilosophY, Vol. LY ,

1 958, No . 1 1 , pp . 460-467 . 1 3 D.P. Heninge , The Chronology of Oral Tradition, Oxford ,

1 974, P�· 2 . 1 4 B.A. Rybak�v, Old Rua . Fairz-Teles 1 :Bylines , Chronicles ,

Moscow , 1 963 , p. 42 (in Russian) .

CONCLUSION HI�ORY AID OUR !IDS

Never before ha s hi storical science--or, incidental ly , all the othe r social science s--gaine d such serious signi­ficance for our time s and for the progre ss of mankind a s it has todst i n the countrie s where the a dvanced a m re­Tolutionary lla�ist-Lenini st worldview has triumphed attd beco11e completely dominant . Hist orical knowledge i s a�so acquiring ever greater practical significance , which , of course , in no -.y means that it �s become subordinated to vulgar utilitarianism. In the countrie s of socialie'ia, a scientific understanding of mankind ' s vast historical ex� perience is e ssential, not only to substantiate and con­solidate the dialectico-mat&rialistic worldview, and in­culcate socialist pa trioti sm and internat ionaliSlll, but al­so to be instrumental in t)le construction of a new, com­llU.Dist society . !rhe study of many ideas which have become part of history, an analysis of pa st attempt s to i�ple11ent such ideas , and the ascertaimllent of the concrete causes for the succe ss or failure of many initia tiTe s of the pa st­all the se pro?ide material of the greate st interest and value . !he rich heritage of the pa st can and should be. ful­ly use d to extract the obj ective lessons of hi story which

� of great iaportance for the construction of collllllIDism.

- 1 95 -

Lenin of't�n empha sised the value of' the lessons of .hi s­tory to our time s and the future : "We must • • • sum them up , draw conclusions , draw from the experience of' today ' s hap­penings le ssons that will be useful tomorrow. 11 1 It wa s .nece ssary, he wrote , "to write the history o.f' the present -day" and -11to write it in such a way as to promote the spread of the movement , the conscious selecti on of' the means , ways ,

_ and me thods of' struggle that , wi th the lea st expenditure of' effort , will yield the mo st substantial and permanent re sult s " . 2 For that , two fundamental conditions. have to be met : in the first pla ce , history should be an objective sci• ence reflecting the views of' the a dvanced class in present­day Society, and , second , there must be a desire and readi­ne ss on the pa rt of citi zens to learn the le ssons of' history and make use . of' them :l.n concrete social practi ce .

Of the utmost importance are those le ssons of hist ory which link together historical proce sses and phenomena that a re closest to us in terms of time or are still under way. The study of pre sent-day history provide s anSlfers to many questions posed b;r life itself' , the reby greatly enhanc� t�e practical Talue of' history as a science.

�e present shoul� not be contraposed to the pa st , for the events of today stem from those of' yesterday , the current course of social development cannot be understood or cor­rectly a ppra ised without a knowledge of' its source s. Histo­rica l studie s have borne out tha t the pa st-even if far removed from us--can reveal the roots or begimdngs of' pro­cesse s that -have re ceived the ir fulle st expression in our times .

Consequently, the concept of' "the pre sent" in respect of historical science cannot be re duced exclusively to a matter of' chronoiogy. Parallel with the study of hist orical processe s and events that mark our time s , historical science analyse s those phenomena and proce sses which a ro se in the past but are still under way o r are exerting a direct in­fluence on our days. At the same time , it pays attention to everything that holds out a promise of further development

- 1 96 -

and thus enable s us in . certain mea sure to foresee· the mor-

row.

The borde rline between the pa st and the pre sent is high­

ly relative . Jlarx and Lenin gave cla ssical examples of a

rigorously scientific analysis of' contemporary event s, there­

by laying ba're their genuine hist orical significance . Al­

mo st all the wr1 tings o:r the cla ssics of' Marxism b�ar the

imprint of profound historism, show that dialectics inc1udes

hi storilfDl, and while dealing with the then contemporary pro­

ce sses and events serve a s models of a profound cognition

of' reality with a dire ct bearing on practice . A vivid ex­

ample of' such historical writings is provided by Karl

:Marx ' s !he 1 8th Brumaire of' Loui s Bonaparte and especially

hi s The Civil War in France , in which a profound analysis

of' the events of' those d$Ys proved nece ssary to Karx for

practical conclusions in the revolutionary struggle .

The further development of lfa:r.z:ist historical science

and all its achievements since the end of the 1 9 th century

are indissolubly bound up with the activities of Lenin.

The study of' the current e poch would be practi cally impos­

sible without his fundamental works on imperialism., the

history of' the Russian and the world revolutionary move­

ment , the history of' the · communi st Party , and on concrete

que stions of sociali st construction. Lenin ' s theory of' the

socialist revolution laid the groundwork for research

into the basic proce sse s · and patterns of' the hi�to rioal

epoch of the transition from capitalism to socialism. Six­

ty odd years of' experience have bo rne out the correctness

of' . Lenin ' s theory.

Lenin ' s development of' materialist dialectics c onso­

lidated the me thodological :foundations for an insight into

the roads of' mankind ' s progressive advance . Kany proposi­

tions of Marxism as foramlated or only ske tched out in

the writings of the founders of scientific co'llJllUllism were

e laborated in detail by Len:Lli, with due account of' new

data and a new hist orical situation, which called, not only

for a specification but al so for an enriclraen� . o� 'their

- 1 97 -

theoretical vi.$ws. Lenin e laborated bl detail the question of the vanguard ro le of the working class in the develop-ment of eoeiety, the role of the Party , proletarian dictatorship , the re lation between obje ctive and sub je ct­�ve factors in tbe revolut ionary pro ce ss , and the state . Cif exo�ptional importance is hi s theoretical formulation of the highly compl,ex national. _ question.

Lenin ' s writings on the his tory of Russia provide a •odel of concrete scientific analysis grounde d in a pro­found penetration into t�e e ssence of socio-economic phe­nomena and gigantic fa ctual mate rial ; including statisti cs.

. Lenin was not a profe ssiona l hi storian; he usually re­�erred to himse lf as a publicist . Thus , he titled hi s �e­.oretioal ·work on imperialism very mode stly as a "booklet " . Di sreg�rding a l l other variega te d aspe ct s o f the act ivi­tie s of Le nin ' s genius , it should ' , nevertheless be said that he wa s an historian in the fulle st and broa de st sense of the word, but wa s fir�t and foremost a great :revolution­ary. His historical studie s were always purposeful : he sought in the 1 pa st replie s to maey que stions of the day a s raised by life . The study of hi story wa s never an end in itself for Lenin, for i t wa s nece ssary to him to achieve a be tter understanding of his �wn. time s , and a correct �cientific apprai�l . of proce sse s tha t were under way or were reap­pearing and would enter the f'Utu:re . His publicbt writings be aring , in particular, on the period during which the so­cialist revolution was being prepa re d be tween Karch and October 1 9 1 7 end publi she d day by day in the Party pre ss in the immedia te wake of the political events we re a model

' of a full blend of history , revo lutionary theo ry . and prac­ti ce . 1!b.e logic in such an approa ch is self-evident . The principle of historism, of an apprai sal of socia l phenome­na in their dynamic development , is integral in Jlarxisn­Leninism.

Lenin ma de constant use of the principle of historism to reveal the bankruptcy of metaphysical conce pte �ught

forward by _ the enemie s of Marxism. Lenin ' s historism, like

. - 1 98 - '

that of Jla r:x: , wa s int.ense ly revolutionary, thi s being di­re ct ly linked with the KarXist-Leninist doctrine a s a wo rld­view o f the most advance d and world-transforming soc ia l force s , which look fearle ssly into th e future and are therefore capable of obj e ctively appraising the pa st aJ:id the present , and of seeing the promise of the future in the pa st , of understanding the historically transient .nature of' the antagonistic socia l re lations .

In addressing himee lf even to the most distant hi s-. torica l sub j e ct s , he invariably found , in events ot the past , , links wi th our own t imes , those permitting a comprehensive understanding of the obj ective historica l pro ce s s and the

. present time .

Highly characteri stic wa s his profound pene tration into the motivations and mo tive force s in the ma ss move­ments of the pa st. He called for a thorough analysis of their strong and weak a-spec ts end the cause s of their suc­ce sse s and reverse s • . Lenin had the greatest re spect for re­volutionarie s whose activities were in keeping with the objective demands of the.ir own times and promote d so cial progre ss , even if they often ended in failure and led up to tragic conse quenc e s . In his analysis of the experience of the Paris Commune of 1 87 1 , Lenin followed llarx in de­noting the c ause s of its . defeat and its erro rs .· The obj e c­tive historica l conditions , both external and internal , wb.i_flh deve loped in France in the second half of the 1 9 th century did _ not favour the e stabli shment of working-cla ss rule . Marx had warned that the actions of the ColmUDards were prema ture , whic]l did no t prevent him from. giving the mo st energetic · support to the cause of the · Paris Commune and popu la rising it . In exactly the same W8'3' , Lenin vo iced his a dllira tion of the he roism of the Communards , and recog- 1 nise d the tremendous historic significance of the first attempt in hi story to e stablish a pro_letarian d ictato rmip.

In Lenin ' s writings the theme of the Paris Co'lllDlUUe is al•ost invariably a ssociated or compared with the Sovie t

. experience of prole tarian dictatorship. Thus , for example ,

- 1 99 -

ili. his s peech ,to the '!hird Co:ngres s of Sovie ts in January . 19 1 8 , Lenin called the Paris Commune "the embryo of Sovie t p9we r" . He went o n t o say tha t , unlike th e dictatorship

!O'! the working cla s·s in Russia , which enjoyed the support of millions of the peasantry , "the first experience of' work­a:rs ' g.overn.iaent" in France was not underst ood by the vast ma j ority of' the French pea santry . Be side s , the Communards. o;1d not create . a machine ry of' state , a s was done by the -rl.ctorious pro letariat of Russi a . That wa s why the Paris workers , who held out for two months and ten days , "perish­ed at the �nds of the French Cade t s , llensheviks and Right Socialist-Re volutionaries of a Kaledin type " . 3

He often drew upon the experience of' the pa st , yet there was no . more re solute enemy of' all and every d oubtful and arbitrary historical ana logies than he was . He ri diculed the anti-historism of those poll ticians or authors who ar­tificially brought toge the r externally s imilar social phe­nomena , which they examine d out side the framework of' time and space . To him, a s a genuine schola r, the main thing in the sphere of hi storica l science a s well wa s 'the a sce r-

. ta�nt of the inne r objective pa tterns of social develoP­ment , which only make it possible not only to understand but also to fore se e th� further direction of' society ' s a d­vance .

Thus , the pa st and the pre sent we re not and could not be divorced from each other in Lenin ' s perception. On the c ontrary , they were insepa:ra ble : in an overall sense , the present is a continuat ion of' an unbroken historica l proce ss ; in the particular sense , a knowledge of' hi·story and its laws facilitates a conscious control of socie ty ' s present­day movement .

Also of everlasting significance in hist9rioal c ogni­tion is Lenin' s acute struggle both against vulgar so ciolo­gi sm and spineless empiricism. It enable s Jlar.z:ist histori­cal science to more . e ffectually expo se the pre sent-day fal­sifiers of hi st ory ; it helps umnask the late st and "modish" revisionist theorie s , which, . on the. pr.etext _of . na tional

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spe cifics or else under the fal se flag of' a struggle against dogmatism di ctated by a fal se c oncern for the repla cement of allegedly outmoded propo sitions of Jlar.rl sm , have tried to �rum in bourg�ois ideology by the back door. The pre sent­day a ttacks waged by the anti-communi st force s against the llarxist-Leninist theor.r of the working cla s s , the dicta­torship of' the proletaria t , genuine , i . e . , socia li st , de­mocracy , and socialist inte rnationalism show what a sha rp ideol�gical weapon that the ory i s in the hands o f the world ' s working c la ss , and how inte re sted the world ' s react ionaries a re in dulling the . edge of that weapon and eliminating it from the revolut ionary arsenal.

In themse lve s , Lenin ' s revolutionary activities comp­rise a mo st important chapter in world history. At the same time , Lenin ' s manyfaceted work i s exerting a dire ct and , i t may well be said , ever growing impac t on our time s , on all world development . Hi s struggle against the enemie s of' 11ar.xism, the opportunist s of' the right and the "left " , against the Iensheviks am the Trotskyit e s , the Bundists and other natio�list s , a struggle over the f'u.ndamental que stions of the theo ry and pra ctice of' the revolutionary movement belong both to history and to our time s . Suffice it to re.call the pe rmanent value to our t ime s of Lenin ' s critici sm of' the liberal-phili stine understanding of de­mocra cr or an absolutisation of the nationa lly spe cific ana . the . nationally particular to the de triment of what i s fundamental and overall in the revolutionary movement and historical development . As Lenin pointe d out , " Gene­ral talk about free dom, e quality and· democracy is in fa ct but a blind repetition of conce pt s shaped by the relations of' commodity produc tion. To attempt to solve the concrete problems of' the d ictatorship of the pro le tariat by such generalitie s is tantamount to accepting the tlre orie s a nd principle s of the bourgeo isie in their entire ty . " 4

The pre sent-day �nventors of prescriptions for the ideological "erosion" of socialism devote specia l a tten­t ion to galvani sing the petty-bourgeois understanding o f democracy and t o an · a pologia and fetiahi sation o f the

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attribute s of 'formal , bourge ois democracy. The revis:Lonist practice of today has u.iq things in co1D1110n with the old K:autskian attacks against the dictatorship of the working cla ss , and against the very foundat ions of the llarxis t­Leninist doctrine .

•!'oday too ; the questicm o f cla sse s and the clas s ap­,proaeh to an apprai sal of social phenomena is focal in the ideological struggle . The decade s since the death of I!nin have shown that the enemie s of. Jlar.xiSll-Leninism are tenaciously' attacking the theory of cla s se s and the class struggle . In the conditions of the scientific . and technolo­gical revolutaon, e spe cially fierce and . "ma ssive " attempt s are being made to pre se nt particular structllral change s in _ t he w0rking cla ss linked with inte �l shifts in its ranks as the comple te disappearance of cla s s distinctions in oapi ta list socie ty . !he bourgeo i sie are aware that the revo,lutionary working cla ss i s their main and fully consis­tent enem;y. l'fo . . other revolutionary force s can replace the working class e ithe r in carrying out the so cialist revolu­tion or--the more so--in the construction of socialism.

Already towards the end of the last century the first manife stations of revisionism in the socialist movement were linked with a striving to play down the class contra­dictions b-etween the .proletariat and the bourgeoi sie , spread the illusion of t�e po ssibility of " class peace " , and undermine faith in th e feasibility o f socia li st ideals. Special e fforts were made to inculcate tile idea of a non­olass or �pre-cla ss nature of the stat e . It is not fortui­tous that today ' s revisionist , re formist and bourgeois-­nationalist elements are gro ssly slandering the Sovie t Union and the other socialist state s in an at tempt to be­little or re fute the leading role of the working class in those countrie s , and detract from their significance as the main force in historical development . Pro fe ssors of

. the ultra-left assert that the proletariat has become completely bourgeo i sified and i s no longer an activ e re­volutionary force � The ideologist s of capitalism speak of the "deideologisation" o� pre se nt-day socie_ty in the ir

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atteapts to glos s ove r the special role of the working cla ss in the revolutioDe ry transformation of the world. All absoluti sa tion o:r the revolutionary , role of the pea­eantry is ,chamcteristic o:r Jlaoist and pro-Vaoist i deo­logists.

Lenin conducted a re solut e , energetic and ardent strug-: gle against all kinds of nationa lf. sm. , "One who has a dopt­ed . the standpoint o:r nationali sm naturally arrive s at the desire to ere ct a Chine se Wall around his nationa li ty , his nationa l working-cla ss move?E nt ; he i s unembarrassed • • •

even by the fact that by hi s tactic s o f division and dis­meabe:rment he is re ducing to nil the great call for the rallying and unity of the prole tarians of all na� ion s , all ra�e s and all la:nguage s . "5 !h� s proposition of Ienin ' s has been borne ou t by the experience o f the cla s s struggle a t the present stage . !he efforts made by the Maoists and ot�er nationa li st stooge s of imperialism. are dire cted to­wards undermining the unity of all progre ssive revoluti­onary force s . In the strategy of anti-coDllRUllism, specia l prominence is given to attempts to split up the socia list

. countries , and oontrapo se them to one another through the u se of na tiona li st slogans.

Jlagnified nat ionaliam under the �ui se of a defence of local national intere sts is directed against the world socia list system as a whole , i . e . , is ultimate ly di re cted towards weakening the main revolutionary force of our time s . O f special topicality today is Lenitl ' s call for a fight "against small-nation narrow-mindednes s , se'clusion and i solation" , and a consideration of "the whole and the general" and subordination, of "the particular to the gene-. 6 . ral intere st" .

A re j e ction o f the class and 11arxist appra i sal of ph�­nomena in social . life , of facts , ac�ions , programme s and slogans advanced by poli tical organi sations and the acti­vitie s of their leaders cannot but lead into the embraces of the reactiona ry bourge oi sie . Whatever camoufla ged fo::t'­mula s are inve.l'l.te d by renegade s from communism and by the

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revisionist s , 'who speak of various models of' sociali sm (now "humanistic " , now nat iona li stically hue d) the re exists in the l'IOrld of today a cla sh only be tween two world­outlooks, two ideologie s : the soc ia li st and the bourgeois. �e numerous theorie s or points of view which satisfy the individua li stic pride of bourge oi s profe ssors or pe tty-

1bourgeois politicians are sheer fiction in the sense that they all a re reducible in fact to a re j e ction of a dis­,tinctly proletarian, i . e . ' genuinely scientific ' Lenini st approa ch to social proces se s and phenomena .

· Many hist orical writings by the cla ssics of sci enti-f'i c communism have di spelled the pre judice still existent in certain place s , according to which the historian should not engage in serious research into events that are contempo­ra ry. Here re fe rence i s made to a lack of obj ective sour­ce s , the unaccomplished nature of current proce sse s , and the like .

Of' course , the study of c ontemporary history is linke d with a number of difficultie s : the hi storian who breaks new soil camlot ground himself in any historiographic tradition, since it is often non-existent. The histo�ian has to take into account both the insuffic iency or the one-sidedne ss of the _av�ilable material , this enhancing his responsibility for the conclusions he ha s arrived at.

In v. Ivanov ' • opinion, "a knowledge of our times doe s , and a t the same time doe s not , coincide with a knowledge of hi story. These coincide , ina smuch as a lolowledge of our t imes is 1 a definite link- in one ' s obj ect ive knowled ge of so­cial re ality as a whole . However , a knowledge of our time s a lso include s a new volume of knowledge refle cting the new and hithe rto non-existent� specific feature s of pre sent-day soc ia l phenomena (naturally , a lolowledge of p:re vious-ly existent a spects a ls o change s , in keeping with the pre­sent-day level of scientific knowledge ) . In this sense , a knowled ge of our t ime s does no t , of course , co inc ide with the knowledge of history , this te stifying to the diale ctic­al nature of .' the unity Of histo:ey. and the pre sent dgy . n 7

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It should be noted that a study of any historical period, and not only the contempora ry , calls for a new volume of knowle dge , new facts re garding previously non-existent

. specific feature s of so cial phenomena and the like . Of c ourse , one canno t deny a certain specific nature of re­search work on the part of the hi st orian of the pre sent time but similar re quirements exi st for the historian o f antiquity , the historian of feudali sm and the like .

It is undeniable , however , tha t the a dvantages of a s tudy of pre sent-day histo rical proce sse s cannot but be recogni se d. These l ie in the historian' s field of vi sion and he sense s 'the pulse of life in contemporary socie ty . If he has taken up a firm stand on the cla ss and Party po sitions of the progre ssive social force s , he is able , a s a pa rticipant in the events , to e s tabli sh their ob­jective interlinks , study the motive force s and a scertain the main trend in social development.

Of considerable importance is the que stion of . the to­p icality of hi storica l re search. "The problem of topica­lity in science , " said Boris Ponomaryov at the All-Union Conference of Historians in 1 9 6 2 , " is not only one of a choice of theme s but one of the levels of. the ir e laborat ion , the problem of the significance to our time s of the conclu­sions drawn in re search. "8

Elaborat ion of the theore tical and methodologic al pro­blems of hist ory on the basis of any concrete ma teria l ,

· including the a:rohaic , is undoubtedly topical , inasmuch as it consolidate s the foundation s of the materia li st world­view.

The histo rian should not lose sight of the unbreakable link between the pa st and the pre sent . Marx made the fol­lowing very profound remark : "Wha t is c al le d historical evolution depends in gene ral on the fact that the later form re gards earlie r one s a s stages in the development of i t self. "9 This in no way means a sterile evolutionism in the hist orica l proce ss. It is a que stion of socie ty ' s de­terminative advance , in whi ch there is an enhance d po ssi-

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bility for an objective appraisal of the pa st from the po­sitions of today. SUb stantiation of the materialist view o'f history of antiquity or feudal socie tJ'-this in a strug­gle against Tarious bran4s of falsifiers-is topic•l, since �t promotes the onslaught against the ide olog ical positions of pre sent-day anti-commmima. Consequently , the topica­lity of historical re search is �ot confined to an elab�ra­tion of pre sent-day probleas , to a stud.J' at que stio� of recent history. !heme s pertainillg to tb.e di stant past can be topical, for exaw.ple such that are lillked w1 th the ·restoration of tb.e genu�e history of a nlllllber of African pe oples , particularly those whom the racists and 'the c olo­nialists have falsely called non-historical people s th$t have a1·1egedly acquire d cui ture only as a re sult .of Euro­pean oonque st .

Sovie t historians , who have shown the complete bank­ruptcy of such views have devoted a great deal of a tten­tion in re c$nt years to a study of turning points in the history of mankind as marked by the revolutionary transi­tion from Ol1e socio-economic system to another. such re­search is not only of a general me thodological signifi­cance . As a re sult of the dbintegration of the c olonial system of imperialim, poli tical independence has been won by a large number of countries in Asia and espe cially in Africa . Pre-capitalist relations are predominant in many of the se countrie• , while some of them are going through the ver:1 initial period of class .format ion. In dealing with the queaUcm of possible roads of struggle for social progre ss by the people s in the deyeloping countrie s , it is most advisable to addre ss on.e self to the experience of hist o:ey and, first and foremo st , to the experience of the construction ot socialism in the USSR.

The rich heritage of the past can and should be mobi­lised and used in the intere stm of the c onstruction o f communism only given the condition that it is conducted by historians who are e quipped with the llarxist-Lenil11st methodology and . stand firmly on the principle s of commun­i st partisanship , i .e . , are capable of extracting from

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the material available "le ssons of hi st or:1" tha t are real­ly obj ective . The world-view significance of historical science , which is exceptionally high, make s it important both for the historical re search referring to modern a.nd recent time s and to those that go back to the : mo st dis­t ant historical pa st .

!oday, social elements some time s appe ar . on the poU ti­cal arena , whose .emerge:nce or a,ctivity cannot be attribu­ted exclusive ly to current hi st orical pro ce sse s • .An under­standing of such phenomena calls for attention to be pa id to the pa st . This is most dist inctly to b� seen in example s of the vitality of certain forms of ideolo� or the re­emergence of' slogans which .might seem engendere d by his-torical conditions belonging to the past . Alongside the basic socio-class �ause s, a ce rtain role a lso belongs to religious distincti�s. All this is indicative of the clo se links between the pre sent and the past and bears out the continuity of the historical proce ss, giving great topioa� lity to such · excursuse s into the distant past \llhich help us unde rstand the event s ot today and s ometimes fore see their f'urther development . " In essence , it will be no mis­take to say . that the degree of the impa ct of hi st orical science , its status and pre stige in society , depend con­siderably on the place our t imes hold in its range of problems and on the measure in which they are e ffi catious­ly els.borated, " wri tea B. llogilni tsky. "Only the very concept of contem�oraneity should not be vulgarised. It has long been known that one can write in modern te rms about the most distant pa st and yet fai l to do .so in re s­pect of our own · time s . Historical works can be up-to-date in the genuine meaning of the term, which, be sides being based o n advanced methods o f research , are imbued with ideas t ha t are p�ogressive . for the ir t imes and at the same. _ '

time serve to furthe r substantiate their development as well , thereby promoting the a ccomplishment of taalcs con­fronting society. " 1 0

The ideological struggle in hist orical science 1s often waged, not 9ver pre sent-day material but over problems of

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�he interpretation of the distant .Pa st . It is not fortui­tous that bourgeois authors opposed to Ma rxism are cons­tantly attacking the theory of socio-economic forJJBt ions , an attempt to prove tha t the di'vision o f history acco�rd­ing to the social..;forma ti.on yardstick i s ,inapplica ble to pre-capitalis� time s . They are out to eliminate the c ons­tructive and e ssential elements from the single edifice of Marxist theory, in a hope to weaken it . But the mate­ria li st understanding of hi story is an integral world• view, whi ch cannot be arbitrarily whittle d down to any regional or temporal framework. The Marxis t apprai sa l of the course and patterns of the historica l proc e s s i s grouxided in the totality o f historical data , from ancient time s do� to our day s. History should be e qually effec­· t i ve and prest igious in an analys is of all hi storical pe­riods without exception, all stage s in the development of socie ty.

"The hi story of Soviet science , am our state interests," Boris Ponomaryov write s , "call for a study in our country of all the most important problems of world history and the working out of scientifically grounded viewpoints on the se problems • • • It is high time for us to se t ourselve s the task of having, in all areas of historical knowle dge , scholars of a standing that will se t the tone in 'WO rld science , whose opinions will be authoritative t o all ex­perts in this fie ld . 11 1 1

* * *

Thus, the t asks confronting hist orical science /today , and conse quently the historians , are constantly be coming more complex. History is among those. soc�al disci pline s which cannot but stand in the forefront of the ideologica l struggle . It is not so much a question of a concrete in­terpretation of histo rical events clo se ly linke d wi th our time s but of an understanding of the complex me chanism of social deve lopment , the recognition or non-recognition of the obj ective nature of socia l proce sse s pe rtaining both to our time s and to the most di stant pa st . However, the

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ide ological function of the science of mankind ' s pa st i s not limited to such things . Wtltings on histor.r bring people a knowlege of how present-day society ha s come into being. This obligate s his to ri ans to parti cipate in teach­ing and other e duca tive a ctivitie s , am spread progressiv.e i deas , drawing upon convincing arguments from a ll the rich and varied concrete historical experience at our dis posal . :Marxist-Leninist historical science is e quipped with the advanced world-view an(!. me thod·, thi s making for t.h.e exten­sive mobilisation and propaganda of the fine st revo lution­aey , patriotic and internationa li st traditions.

The histoTian • s specialisation in a:n:y particular period should not and cannot be an obsta cle to hi s participation in active ideological work. There ere many example s of proce sse s and phenomena \'lhich would seem to stand on the side line s of the pre sent ideological s truggle , becoming objeQts of the c onfrontation be tween lfar.x:ist . and non-Marx­i st historiography. Thi s is be st seen from the nume rous a ttempts be ing made to falsify , in a nationalistic spirit , hi stoTical data and materials referring to the distant pa st , · attempts allegedly d e signed to " substantiate " the priority or even superiority of some particular nation. It may be said that there i s no concrete are a , even among the ancilla ry historical di scipline s , tha.t can stand quite neut­ral in the se que stions.

In recent years , historians have be come eve r more prone to speciali se in ever more narrow fie lds. There have a risen enti.:re depa :ctment s in histories 1 scieJJOe which are suscept­ible not only to "self-dete rmination" but even to a certain autonomy. It ha s be come the practice for international congre s se s and conference s to involve e xpe rts on ce rtain definite and s ome times very narrow departments of his tory . Of course , there is nothing unnatural in this , ina smuch a s such practice refle ct s the ob jective development o f ·knowledge .

At the same time , certain negative feature s can be seen in a certain departmentalisation of historians. In parti­cular , one should note the growing trend among certain We ste rn scholars to " split up" histo rical science not only

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on a narrowly pro fe ssiona l ba sis. This can be seen f'r01i. international congre sse s on e conomic history , whose deli­berations reveal a sufficiently obvious intention on the part of bourgeois histo riographer s to " speciali se " e cono­mic history in such a way as to " libe ra te " it from acute p,re-�leas. connected with the replace100nt of' some socio­economic formations by othe rs , the hi sto ry of socia l· anta­gon i sms , and o the r e s sential fa ctors � without due a ccount of' which no genuine e conomic hi story can exist .

The ob j e ctive development o f hi storical science i s also linked with integrational proce sse s . The eve r greate r complexity o f' obje c ts of concrete re search call s . for cons­tant· cooperation between hi storians in different fields , whose , j oint efforts , given a spe cia li se d approa ch t o vari­ous a spects of the ob ject under study , should give it s a llrotmd and :f'ully obje ctive character! sti c . Many succe s s­ful attempts have been made in Soviet lrl.storical seience to IQ'Jlthe sise data :f.'roll varieus historical discipline s , for instance , histoJ:'Y , archaeology, e thnography a nd Orien­tal studie s , so as to accomplish the· task of summing up the rich existent material a s rapidly and fully a s possible .

The dialectic of differentiation and integration in the. area of a knowledge of the past pre sents certain enhanced demands also to historians themse lve s . With all the import­ance and nece ssity of · spe ciali sation, · .the 118rxist hist ori­an cannot fully confine himself' to a range of' hi s spe cifi c and narrowly profe ssional interests .

There can be a single reply t o the que stion o f th e re­lation between hi story and our time : Marxist hi storical science , which is steadily consolidating its inter.national positions 'cannot but go with the time s , cannot but stand at the leve l of topical tasks. Suell tasks are determine d , first and foremost , by the hi st ori c significance of the vast process of the e stabli shment of a conmnmist socio-eco­nomic . formation, vmich is ushering a new and great era in mankind ' s progressive development .

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�. 1 V . I . ,Leni� Collected Worka , lloscow , Vol. 8 , P• 1 04. 2 Ibidem. 3 Ibid. , Vol. 26 , P• 455 . 4 Ibid. , Vol . 30 , P• 1 1 6. 5 Ibid . , Vol . 6, pp . 520-52 1 . 6 Ibid. , Vol . 22, p. 347 .

- 7 v.v. Ivanov, Lenin on Some Que stions of the Relations Between Histo;y and � Time s , Tomsk , 1 970, p • . 1 5 ( in Russian ) .

8 B.N. Ponomaryov , Sele cted speeche s and A,rticle s , Jlo scow, 1977 , PP• 1 84-1 85 ( in Russian ) ,

9 Karl Jlarx, A Contribution t o th e Critique o f' Poli tical Econogy, Jloscow, 1 980 , p. 21 1 .

1 o ·B. G. Mogilnitsky , "Obj ect ivity and Party Sp iri t in His­torical Sci ence " , Metho dological and His toriographi cal Problems of Historical Sc ience , Book 2 , Tomsk , 1 964 , p. 8 ( in Russ ian) .

1 1 B . N. Ponomaryov , o p . c i t . , p. 1 85:

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