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__COPYRIGHT__ © Translated into English Progress Publishers 1973People have always sought to lift the veil separating the present from the future. These attempts were closely bound up with the efforts of progressive thinkers to sketch an outline, albeit a very general one, of an ideal social system which would set a limit on the sufferings of the working people. The dreams of such a social order, combined with criticism of the vices of the exploitative system, gave rise to various types of Utopian socialism. And for many a long year the realisation of this happy future remained a dream.
The emergence of the Marxist doctrine of society marked the change-over of socialism from a utopia into a science. The communist future of mankind ceased to be a dream of a model society appealing to reason and became a scientifically based prospect, proceeding from a profound analysis of the objective laws of social development.
This prospect is indissolubly linked with the development of the working-class movement, with the class struggle and with the liberation of the proletariat which, in freeing itself, also frees the whole of society and organises the building of socialism. But all this also involves the inevitable collapse of capitalism.
The Marxist-Leninist approach to the problems of scientific forecasting is examined in this work with regard both to its historical aspect and fundamental tenets.
Social progress as the historically determined transition from capitalism to socialism has become the dominant 7 feature of the new epoch in human history, the beginning of which was ushered in by the Great October Socialist Revolution. Lenin wrote: ``Progress, if we leave out for the moment the possibility of temporary steps backward, can be made only in the direction of socialist society, only in the direction of the socialist revolution."^^1^^
It is this mechanism of social development, discovered by the founders of Marxism, which has determined the negative attitude of bourgeois ideologists to real social progress. This attitude is the product of the basic class interests of the bourgeoisie, which are incompatible with the objective necessity of historical development.
Bourgeois social thought attacked not only Marxist-- Leninist theory and the revolutionary movement of the working class, but also the actual building of socialism, that is, the realisation of the communist prospect for the future.
Modern bourgeois conceptions of social development are characterised by an idealist and anti-dialectical interpretation of social processes. It is this attitude towards social development which explains why bourgeois doctrines and schools have not withstood the test of time and why their various appraisals and forecasts have turned out to be wrong. Idealist philosophy is incapable of ascertaining and understanding the objective laws of the functioning and development of society. Any modern trend in bourgeois philosophy demonstrates this quite clearly (see the chapters dealing specifically with positivism, existentialism, structuralism, etc.).
The inability to penetrate into the essence of social phenomena is common to all these trends for a variety of reasons. For example, how could positivist philosophy, which rejects the possibility of cognising the essence of phenomena and excludes dialectics from the science, ever reveal the laws of social development and the direction of the social process? Existentialism, which divorces man from society and diverts human activity to the sphere of private emotions, is also incapable of making scientifically based deductions about the direction in which human society is developing. The same applies to neo-Thomism, which abounds with the ideas of Catholic doctrine, regarding the sacred _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 316,
8 order of the church as the peak of historical development and opposing mystical religious ideas to the scientific principles of communism.The Christian conception of the social process is an eclectic combination of fatalism and voluntarism, which reduces the role of the subjective factor in history to nothing, a role based on the cognition and rational application of the laws of nature and society. In recent times the West has seen the spread of new religious conceptions of progress which claim to combine the methods of the natural sciences and religion in treating all problems, including the future development of mankind. However, as is clearly pointed out in the chapter on the conception of Teilhard de Chardin, this abstract humanist trend fails to understand the specific nature of society as a social phenomenon, and, consequently, its laws of development as well.
The sociological and socio-political thought in the capitalist countries of the West also fails to understand the prospects for mankind. Rejection of the dialectico-- materialist approach to history as a natural-historical process, lack of a concrete historical analysis of society as an integral organism, and the rejection of the laws of social development---all these defects in bourgeois social thinking deprive it of the possibility to make a proper scientific examination of the prospects for social development and distort its vision of the future. Consequently, the basic bourgeois sociological conceptions of the future of mankind are onesided. Bourgeois theoreticians do not see the laws of developing society as a system having a qualitatively determined structure at each historical stage. They either try to reject the concept of social development altogether and regard society as a static, immobile abstraction, or single out in a random way this or that aspect of social development as its determining factor and make this aspect absolute. Thus they single out from time to time, say, technology, or the political superstructure, or moral consciousness, or human organisational activity, or biological instincts.
The adherents and propagandists of modern bourgeois conceptions of social development do not always openly criticise Marxist views on the prospects for the development of society, but objectively their theories are invariably directed against Marxism and communism.
9What is characteristic of these conceptions is their claim to refute the Marxist-Leninist theory of social progress. Sometimes this is not declared openly, whereas other times it is stated quite categorically. But in either case bourgeois ideologists seek to create an alternative to Marxist-Leninist doctrine and to advance a view of the future which precludes the transformation of the world along socialist lines.
This tendency has received concrete expression in the emergence and rapid development of the so-called futurology which is intended by those who created it to challenge the Marxist-Leninist conception of the future of society. It regards the Marxist-Leninist conception as an ``obsolete'' theory of ever-ascending progress. In their most general sociological premises and deductions concerning the future, however, bourgeois ideologists are in fact seeking to perpetuate the capitalist system.
Modern bourgeois socio-political views of the future contain an interesting reflection of the process of growing differentiation among the intelligentsia in the capitalist countries. Following the polarisation of the ideologists themselves (towards the forces of progress or the forces of reaction) their theories also assume a variety of shades.
One might perhaps note as a growing tendency the interest in capitalist countries in the pacifist brand of social utopia. As a result of the breach between the adherents of bourgeois ideology, which is cosmopolitan in essence, one sees a clear identification of its extremely reactionary wing, on the one hand, and intensified attempts to find a solution to social problems and the future of mankind in pacifist ideas, on the other. The scientific untenability of these attempts becomes obvious upon closer examination of these theories, as can be seen in the chapter analysing modern mondialism and regionalism. However, these theorists occasionally have the best subjective intentions---they seek a way out of the present international situation which will lead, in their view, to the consolidation of peace. The world outlook and social origins of these theories prevent their adherents from finding the true way to their desired aim, but nevertheless people who support these views can make a contribution to the struggle for peace and against militarism and neo-fascism. One must conduct a patient dialogue with them, 10 helping them to overcome the limitations of their views. Here one cannot help recalling Lenin's apt remark: ``...It is obviously by no means a matter of indifference to us whether we shall deal with those people from the bourgeois camp who are inclined to settle the problem by war, or with those who are inclined towards pacifism, even the worst kind of pacifism, which from the communist viewpoint will not stand the slightest criticism."^^1^^
At the same time another tendency is becoming increasingly apparent in bourgeois thought about the future, a tendency which clearly reflects the growing reactionary nature of capitalism as a system, the incompatibility of the capitalist system with democracy. Striking confirmation of this is the neo-fascist version of the ``formed society''. A detailed analysis of this is given in one of the chapters.
Considerable influence is exerted on social thought in the West by man's great achievements in mastering nature and also by the scientific and technological revolution. But in reflecting the processes of this revolution in their socioeconomic and socio-political conceptions, bourgeois social thinkers usually distort its social aspects. This distortion takes various forms. There are attempts to interpret scientific and technological progress as a means of perpetuating capitalism and the desire to identify progress in the sphere of technology with social progress; supporters of modern technicism also try to explain and thereby justify all the vices of capitalist society by saying that they are the product of technological progress. Furthermore one finds both over-optimistic and extremely gloomy and pessimistic moods and opinions among them. All this motley variety can be fitted perfectly easily in the real framework of bourgeois thought, which is limited both in its epistemological and class possibilities. However, in spite of this, elements of anxiety and worry figure fairly frequently even in the case of eminent bourgeois ideologists and theorists.
Below we examine some of the most widespread theories about the future of mankind in modern bourgeois social thought. One of the main theories is the ideology of industrialism, which bases its hopes primarily on the _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected H`orA's, Vol. 33, p. 264.
11 omnipotence of technology. But even on this, it would seem, very firm ground, bourgeois thinkers do not feel secure and become victims of ``disillusion with progress''. A vivid example of this is the new book by the famous French sociologist Raymond Aron with this phrase as its title.^^1^^Attempts to find ``similarities'' between capitalism and socialism with the accent on their alleged increasing rapprochement are particularly characteristic of those who support the convergence theory which is basically anti-communist, although this is sometimes carefully camouflaged. This theory is examined in detail below, with a number of other very new versions by bourgeois and reformist sociologists.
Because of its transitional character the present age is making the ideological struggle more and more intense. The future of society is one of the spring-boards on which extremely fierce ideological battles have already begun and will continue in the future.
Naturally, this book does not claim to offer a full examination of all the aspects of this struggle.
We do not wish to repeat what has already been said in other works on the development of social thought. A broad historical analysis of the development of social thought was provided by Academician G. P. Frantsov.^^2^^ I. S. Kon, Y. N. Semyonov and Kh. N. Momjan have also written some interesting critiques of bourgeois philosophy of history and social philosophy.^^3^^
We do not claim to have provided a full explanation and analysis of the philosophy of history in full. We are interested primarily in the problem of scientific forecasting, its history and present state and, consequently, its theoretical and practical aspects, the various solutions offered (both social and those relating to the natural science) and, finally, the ideological struggle which has arisen on these questions.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Raymond Aron, Les desillusiuns du progres, Paris, 1969.
~^^2^^ G. P. Frantsov, The Historical Trench in Social Thought, Moscow, 1965 (in Russian).
~^^3^^ Y. N. Semyonov, Social Progress and Modern Bourgeois Social Philosophy, Moscow, 19(J.r> (in Russian); Kh. N. Momjan, The October Revolution and the Collapse of Idealist Conceptions'of Social Development, Moscow, 1967 (in Russian).
12This book examines the problem of scientific forecasting from the historical and the methodological point of view (the first two chapters). It is followed by a critical analysis of modern bourgeois philosophy with reference to explaining its attitude towards the prospects for social development. This section includes a study not only of traditional philosophical systems, but of a number of new trends.
The next section of the book examines the latest trends in bourgeois socio-political thought on the future of mankind. An attempt is made to present a broad outline of the ideological struggle on the prospects for social development.
We have taken full account of the complex nature of these problems. Thus, for example, we are of the opinion that there are grounds for assessing in various ways the sociopolitical and scientific forecasts of bourgeois specialists on questions relating to the future. This is why we have devoted a special section of the book to analysing modern forecasting in the sphere of the natural and technical sciences both in the capitalist countries of the West and in the USSR.
Marxist-Leninist theory alone is capable of scientifically forecasting the social process. The emergence and development of the world revolutionary movement, the socialist system and communist construction provide historical confirmation of the Marxist scientific foresight that the future of mankind is communism. The final section deals with this question.
This collective work provides a more or less general picture of the history and logic of the origin and development of ideas about the future of mankind, showing how bourgeois and socialist ideologies differ on the basic problems of the development of mankind.
If this book stimulates the reader to new reflections and enquiry and, in particular, to generalising the new processes of social development, of which we are all the participants and witnesses, we shall consider that our efforts have not been in vain.
__AUTHORS__ see below.This book was compiled in the Institute of Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The authors of the chapters are as follows: introduction---Y. D. Modrzhinskaya; Part I, 13 ch. 1---I. V. Bestuzhev-Lada, ch. 2---V. S. Gott; Part II, ch. 1---G. Schultze and A. Bauer (GDR), ch. 2---L. N. Danilova, ch. 3-Y. G. Fogeler, ch. 4-E. M. Babosov, ch. 5--- M. N. Gretsky; Part III, ch. 1-M. L. Polishchuk, ch. 2--- L. S. Yeremenko, ch. 3---L. A. Leontiev, ch. 4---Y. M. Kondakov, ch. 5---L. V. Andreyev, V. S. Markov, ch. 6--- V. A. Nikitin, ch. 7---Y. D. Modrzhinskaya; Part IV, chs. 1 and 2---1. V. Bestuzhev-Lada, R. A. Fesenko; Part V--- Ts. A. Stepanyan. Auxiliary scientific work was performed by T. V. Naumova, the secretary of the team of authors.
[14] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Part I __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE EMERGENCE OF THE SCIENCE OF THE FUTURE __NUMERIC_LVL2__ Chapter 1 __ALPHA_LVL2__ THE DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS ON THE FUTUREMore than a century ago the emergence of Marxism marked the beginning of scientific forecasting of the development of society. The theory of scientific communism brought about a radical change in the development of ideas on the future of mankind.
Increasing attention is paid in discussions on the future of mankind to the question of whether this or that conception responds to the demands of modern science and the retention in bourgeois social thought of vestiges of prescientific conceptions belonging to former ages. So there is more need for a study of ideas on the future of mankind, beginning with their development in social thought before the emergence of Marxism.
What we mean here is basically the pre-history, the gathering of the prerequisites for scientific forecasting. Material about this is to be found primarily in sources on the history of social Utopias and the philosophy of history. But since the subject of interest to us is not either the history of Utopias or the philosophy of history (statements about the future are found both in general philosophy and natural science, as well as religious works and fiction), the researcher's field of vision must include works on the following additional subjects: the history of socio-political and economic theories (not falling within the history of social Utopias); the history of philosophy and natural science (not falling within the philosophy of history); the history of religion; the history of literature, and also ethnographic and archaeological material.
15Marxist literature has dealt comparatively thoroughly (thanks mainly to the works of V. P. Volgin and other historians) with the problem of pro-Marxian Utopian socialism. The recently completed six-volume History of Philosophy and also a number of other works on various aspects of the history of philosophy in various periods and on individual philosophers are of great assistance to the researcher. The same also applies to the recently published courses on the history of political and economic theories.
Soviet scholars have made considerable progress in the elaboration of the problems pertaining to the history of natural science and the history of religion. But much work in these spheres still lies ahead.
It would be impossible in this chapter to try to trace, even in general outline, the whole process of the development of ideas on the future in pre-Marxian social thought. The aim of the chapter is more modest: to outline the main problems encountered by the researcher in this branch of the history of social thought, namely, problems concerning the formation of ideas on the future in primitive thought, the development of religious conceptions of the future, utopianism and its evolution, and finally the problem of the formation of prerequisites for scientific forecasting in the narrower sense---in the sense of the direct historical sources of the latter.
Presentism in primitive thought.^^1^^ Before examining the development of ideas about the future it is essential to dwell .on the point of departure of the study---on the condition of isocial thought (or, to be more precise, primitive thinking), which preceded the emergence of the ideas in question. Thanks to archaeologists and ethnographers we are now able to judge this condition with a reasonable degree of objectivity from two groups of sources: the material of archaeological excavations (primarily those of primitive burials), and the material of ethnographic studies of the life of tribes whose cultural level judging by archaeological information is comparable with that of primitive mankind at the various stages of its development (particularly _-_-_
~^^1^^ For more detail, see I. V. Bestuzhev-Lada, ``The Development of Ideas about the Future: First Steps (Presentism in Primitive Thought)'', Sovietskaya etnografia, No. 5, 1968.
16 material relating to customs, religions and folklore). Of special importance to us is primitive mythology.The sources show that only after long development did primitive thought conceive the idea of the past and ( considerably later) the future as categories different from the present. In the early stages of the development of primitive society the problem of the duration of time appears not to have been perceived by man. Figuratively speaking, his mental vision was capable of embracing only the events ``of the moment" and not of extending to the events of the past and certainly not to those of the future. The material of the Neanderthal burials (Middle Paleolithic) enables us to assume the emergence of concepts more or less definitely distinguishing the present from the past.
But even at later stages when mythology had been formed, including legends about the origin of the earth and man, life beyond the grave and the human destiny (discussed below), a characteristic feature of primitive thought attracts the attention: the past and future are thought of to a greater or lesser extent (depending on the level of development of thought) as being the same as the present. This, incidentally, made it seem possible to ``predict'' the future and even ``influence'' it with the aid of magic.
The mythological ancestors of the tribal community led more or less the same way of life as the actual tellers of the myths. According to these myths, the deceased members of the tribe continued to hunt in a world beyond the grave which did not differ essentially from the earthly world. The material of primitive burials, in which objects essential for the dead person to continue in the afterlife the same way of life as on earth were discovered, bears this out fairly conclusively.
This feature of primitive thought, which was wholly determined by the conditions of life of the tribal community (in particular, the very slow, almost imperceptible changes in these conditions during the course of many generations) is stressed by all Soviet specialists.^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ See P. P. Yefimenko, Primitive Society, Leningrad, 1938, p. 536; S. N. Zamyatnin, Paleolithic Sketches, Moscow, Leningrad, 1961, pp. 33, 34, 44, 54; L. Y. Shternberg, Primitive Religion in the Light of Ethnography, Leningrad, 1936, p. 330; S. A. Tokarev, Early Forms of Religion and Their Development, Moscow, 1964, pp. 197-- __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 18. __PRINTERS_P_17_COMMENT__ 2---0749 17
This likening of the past and future to the present ( presentism) in primitive thought attracts the attention to the problem of the specific features of the latter. The wellknown works of Lucien Levy-Bruhl on this subject^^1^^ have been seriously criticised. There is a great need for special works to study the problem comprehensively, from the Marxist standpoint.
Religious conceptions of the future. The accumulation of early ideas about the future is closely bound up with the evolution of primitive mythology from the fairy-tale myths which explained (in fantasy, of course) the most simple phenomena of nature, to the myths which explained the establishment of tribal morals and customs and, finally, to the myths explaining the origin of man and the world as a whole, and also the fate of the dead. Whereas the first are, as a rule, hardly connected at all with religious concepts, then not properly developed, and the second are connected sporadically (mainly with totemism and other forms of primitive religion), the third are definitely linked with the fairly developed views of a religious character.^^2^^ Thus, the main sources for studying early ideas about the future are material on the history of mythology and, closely related to it, the history of religion.
The questions as to how the existing orders, people themselves and the world as a whole appeared and also where the dead ``depart'' did not arise from idle curiosity. The answers to them were of great importance for the life of the tribal community. They had a bearing on the authority of the _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 17. 204; A. M. Zolotarev, The Tribal System and Primitive Mythology, Moscow, 1964, pp. 91--93; V. N. Chernetsov, ``The Concept of the Soul with the Ob Ugrians'', Transactions of the Miklukho-Maklai Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences, New Series, Vol. 51, ``Studies and Materials on Questions of Primitive Religions'', Moscow, 1959, p. 152; G. M. Vasilevich, ``Early Ideas About the World with the Evenki'', Ibid., p. 169; The Peoples of Australia and Oceania, Moscow, 1956, pp. 234, 244, 279, 472--473, 625; V. F. Zybkovets, The Pre-- Religious Epoch. The History of the Formation of Social Consciousness, Moscow, 1959, pp. 144, 145, 151, 181; P. F. Protasenya, Problems of Communication and Thought Among Primitive People, Minsk, 1961, pp. 95, 102, 128. (All the above-mentioned works are in Russian.)
~^^1^^ L. Levy-Bruhl, La Mentalite primitive and Le Surnaturel et la nature dans la mentalite primitive, Paris, 1931.
~^^2^^ See L. Y. Shternberg, Primitive Religion in the Light of Ethnography, S. A. Tokarov, Early Forms of Religion and Their Development; A. M. Zolotarev, The Tribal System and Primitive Mythology.
18 elders, the education of the young in the traditions of the established order, behaviour towards the dead, in a word, on all the many aspects of the community's way of lifeAll this encouraged the primitive thought, which for a long time did not venture beyond a narrow set of concrete, empirical concepts connected with the needs and impressions of the moment, to tackle the fairly abstract problem of the possibility of a different order of things.As a result human thought advanced considerably in this direction even in primitive society: the idea arose of original chaos out of which the existing world was formed; images were created of so-called cultural heroes---mythical ancestors who were accredited with the discovery of fire, the invention of tools, the establishment of the existing order. Finally there gradually arose ideas of ``other worlds" to which the dead ``passed over'', beginning with fantastic lands (or islands) somewhere far away on earth and ending with equally fantastic worlds in the sky and under the earth. All this ideological arsenal subsequently equipped modern religions.
Here we are interested not in the role of this set of concepts in the history of religion, but in the idea of the possibility of the existence of ``a different world''. This was a considerable achievement in the development of human thought from the concrete to the abstract---the embryo of the concepts which arose later of a future which could and must be different from the present.
True, it was a vast distance from the idea of ``another world" to the concept of ``another future''. As already mentioned, the ``afterworld'' of primitive religions was a copy of the earthly one. The afterworld of modern religions has not departed very far from that. Whereas in the religions of the North American Indians the hunter's soul speeds over the snow's soul on the skies' soul in pursuit of the moose's soul in the ``hereafter'', the paradise of the antique myths, the Bible and the Koran, is also very similar to the palace gardens of the slave-owners, and hell to the dungeons where slaves toiled away or languished after suffering infernal torture aimed at quelling the rebellious spirit.
However, ideas about a ``different future" gradually gained ground in spite of religious dogma, because they corresponded to the urgent requirements of the ideological __PRINTERS_P_20_COMMENT__ 2* 19 struggle which accompanied the disintegration of primitive society and later the development and crisis of slave-owning society.
In the course of this struggle the ancient religious philosophical thought worked out a whole complex of ideas conducive to the development of views about the future as something different from the present. These included the idea of retribution in the afterlife for one's behaviour on earth, the idea of Providentialism---divine providence which determined the course of events independently of human will, and the idea of Messianism---the future coming of the Saviour or Messiah who would radically change the existing order for the better. Other conceptions linked with the idea of Providentialism were elaborated, namely, that of the historical process as the cyclic alternation of different socio-political orders (within the framework of the experience of past centuries) with a recurring cycles of catastrophes on a world-wide scale (the flood, etc.) and that of the motive forces of this process as a struggle between the superhuman forces of good and evil, which was to end in the triumph of justice. Finally, a conception linked with the idea of Messianism arose, namely eschatology---the doctrine of the inevitable coming of the ``end of the world" after which the world would be totally transformed.
The process of formation of religious conceptions of a ``different future" was a long and complex one. Even Buddhism, the basic dogmas of which developed in the 5th to 3rd centuries B.C. and which made use of many of the great achievements of early Indian philosophy, allows of no other future than the eternal transmigration of souls and the final return of the world to the initial state of ``non-being''. But alongside this, even in Egyptian religion of the second millennium B.C., we observe the appearance of Providentialist, Messianic and eschatological ideas which, in the following millennium, were developed in the Mazdaic (old Persian) and Judaic religions from which they were subsequently accepted by Christianity and later Islam.^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ See S. A. Tokarev, Religion in the History of the Peoples of the World, Moscow, 1964, p. 288 et al.; G. P. Frantsov, The Sources of Religion and Free Thought, Moscow-Leningrad, 1959, p. 410 et al.; A. P. Kazhdan, Religion and Atheism in the Ancient World, Moscow, 1957, p. 54 et al.; A. Donini, Lineamenti di storia delle religioni, Rome, 1960, p. 26 et al.
20It has now been proved that the basic tenets of Christian eschatology were worked out in antique religious literature of the 2nd and 1st centuries B.C., when apocalyptic moods became widespread during the impending crisis of slave-owning society, and each year the ``end of the world" was expected.^^1^^ Throughout the first three centuries A.D. in the ideological struggle which reflected the convulsions experienced by the antiquity, Christian eschatology included the Chiliast (Millenarianist) doctrine that Christ would return to earth to rule for a thousand years and assumed the character of a distinctive ``history of the future''. The ``second coming" of Christ was expected at any moment and the establishment of ``Christ's Millennium" in which Jesus and the resurrected righteous would rule people justly, and Satan and the powers of darkness would be deprived of the opportunity to harm people. Then, at the end of the thousand years it was believed that the Satanic forces would revolt, and be finally defeated, that there would be a `` universal resurrection of the dead'', ``the end of the world'', ``the day of the last judgement" and a completely new state of ``eternal bliss" for the righteous and ``eternal torment" for the sinners.^^2^^
For all the obvious absurdity of these fantastic, highly unscientific ideas, one should not forget that the religious conceptions of the future exerted a colossal influence on the masses and were a powerful ideological weapon in the sociopolitical struggle. In particular, Messianic and eschatological expectations were the ideological banner of many slave uprisings at least from the 2nd century B.C.^^3^^ These expectations gave strength to the communities of early Christians _-_-_
~^^1^^ See S. A. Tokarev, Religion in the History of the Peoples of the World, p. 358; N. A. Mashkin, ``Eschatology and Messianism in the Final Period of the Roman Republic'', Reports of the USSR Academy of Sciences, History and Philosophy Series, 1946, Vol. 3, No. 5.
~^^2^^ L. Atzberger, Geschichte der christlichen Eschatologie innerhalb der vornicdnischen Zeit, Freiburg, 1896.
Here only one of the most developed Chiliast versions of Christian eschatology is given, moreover in a more or less logical sequence of predicted events. In fact, there existed several versions with the most fantastically intertwined events of this kind, extremely remote from elementary logic.
~^^3^^ See N. A. Mashkin, ``Eschatology and Messianism in the Final Period of the Roman Republic'', Reports of the USSR Academy of Sciences, History and Philosophy Series, 1946, Vol. 3, No. 5, p. 444.
21 during the terrible persecutions in the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. They also had a very strong influence on the whole culture of late antiquity.But the fourth century witnessed the sudden decline of eschatology. The Christian church became established instead of persecuted; the former Messianic and eschatological expectations with their explosive ideological content directed against the existing order became ``superfluous'', and the ``second coming'', expected year in year out, simply did not take place, so it was necessary to find an explanation for this. In addition, the most glaring discrepancies were discovered in eschatology itself, obvious even to the believers of those times. They resulted from the mechanical mixing of old (mostly Judaic) and new religious concepts.^^1^^ Thus, the idea of divine predestination contradicted the idea of man's free will, i.e., the possibility of falling into sin contrary to the will of God, and the ideas of the ``end of the world'', ``the day of the last judgement" and particularly ``Christ's Millennium" contradicted that of the immortality of the soul, for Christians believed that after a person's death his soul immediately went either to heaven or to hell and, therefore, neither ``Doomsday'', nor ``the Last Judgement" nor the ``Millennium'' had any significance for it. Here too explanations were needed.
As a result Chiliasm was declared to be a heresy. In the writings of Saint Augustine (354--430) a prominent place was given to the doctrine of the eternal struggle between the realm of Satan, ``the earthly city" and ``the city of God'', embodied on earth by the church. The latter was destined to triumph, but in the indeterminate future, so that the problem of an impending ``Doomsday'' was replaced by the problem of ``the salvation of the soul" of each person by means of communion with the church. Augustine also tried to solve the insoluble task of reconciling the ideas of Divine predestination and human free will.
For many centuries Augustine's teaching determined the main tenets of official Christian eschatology.^^2^^ These tenets _-_-_
~^^1^^ See S. A. Tokarev, Religion in the History of the Peoples of the World, p. 488.
~^^2^^ B. Topfer, ``Die Entwicklung chiliastischer Zukunftserwartungen im Mittelalter'', Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Humboldt-- Universitdt zu Berlin, Gesellschafts und sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe, Jahrgang XII, No. 3, 1963, S. 253--262.
22 were developed in the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225--74) which, to this day, are canonical for Catholicism. Orthodox and Protestant eschatology differs from Catholic eschatology only in inessential details.In the meantime Chiliasm, repressed by official church ideology which was now hostile to it, continued to smoulder in the numerous heresies of the Middle Ages and then, in the late Middle Ages (roughly from the 13th century), flared up again in the maturing crisis of West European feudalism.
The advent of the Enlightenment dealt a severe blow to church ideology. Chiliasm and related eschatological views became the property of a few individual sects and ceased to serve as the banner of anti-feudal movements. Their place was taken by new conceptions of a Utopian character, far more effective as ideological weapons, which are discussed below. As for Chiliasm, it ``revived'' again in the last century and exists to this day. but now as the ideplogical weapon of the reaction in its struggle against the forces of progress.^^1^^ Eschatological Chiliast views form the basis of the dogmas of the modern Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses and other sects.
It should be noted that religious conceptions about the future have not remained unchanged. ``It is precisely because the roots of religion are social, because religion serves as the fantastic reflection of external forces dominating people in their everyday existence, that eschatology and Chiliasm even when they proceed from a single literary source (such as, for example, the Revelation of St. John, which served early Christianity, medieval sects and the Adventists), are subjected to historical revision: the eschatology and Chiliasm of the early Christians differ from the corresponding ideas of the medieval anti-feudal sects, just as the latter differ from the eschatological Chiliast views of the Adventists."^^2^^
It is not possible to describe here the evolution of eschatology over the centuries. Meanwhile the study of religious conceptions about the future is important not only because _-_-_
~^^1^^ See F. L. Baumer, ``Twentieth Century Version of the Apocalypse'', Cahiers d'histoire mondiale, January 1954, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 623--40.
~^^2^^ A. I. Klibanov, A History of Religious Sects in Russia (From the 1860s to 1917), Moscow, 1965, p. 308 (in Russian).
23 these conceptions are the first that go to form the pre-- history of scientific forecasting, but also because, as mentioned above, they played an important role in the social struggle of past millennia.Studies of this nature are also relevant because religious conceptions about the future had a great influence on the philosophy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in particular, on the philosophico-historical conceptions of Leibnitz, Lessing, Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. They exerted an equally strong influence on Utopian thought, particularly on the works of Saint-Simon and Fourier, Owen and Weitling. Without studying them it is difficult to understand certain reactionary trends in modern Western philosophy, such as the conceptions of Berdyaev and Toynbee. Some bourgeois historians and philosophers tendentiously portray Marxism as a special type of eschatology, and this in itself demands that attention be paid to the latter, since an analysis of it reveals the complete untenability of such fabrications. Finally, the study of religious conceptions about the future is important with respect to extending anti-religious propaganda: there can be few such vivid examples of how religious dogmas are incompatible with common sense as in this sphere which is of interest to a large public.
Utopism, its types, forms and evolution. Alongside religious conceptions about the future and in close connection with them, there developed conceptions of another character---Utopian ones, not yet scientific, but no longer religious. They differ from the latter in that the ``different future" of people is determined here not by superhuman forces, but by people themselves, their reason and actions. This is a fundamental difference. And this is why, in spite of many similar features and connections between religious and Utopian conceptions about the future, it is wrong to confuse them, as has been done, for example, by Karl Mannheim and other bourgeois sociologists, who unreservedly rank Chiliasm with the Utopias.^^1^^
Analysis of Utopian conceptions of the future is complicated by the fact that in historico-philosophical literature (including Marxist works) the definition of the concept of a _-_-_
~^^1^^ G. Duveau, ``Introduction \`a une sociologie de l'Utopie'', Cahiers internationaux de sociologie, N. 9, 1950, p. 39.
24 Utopia, the principles of classifying Utopias, and the main trends in the evolution of utopistic views continue to remain debatable.^^1^^ Without going into detail on these questions, each of which deserves special examination, we shall confine ourselves to a few general remarks of a purely preliminary nature.With regard to the concept of utopia (in the historico-- sociological sense), it would seem more acceptable to define it as an arbitrary idea, not directly connected with Providentialism, about the desired future of the world and mankind, an idea which is not based on a scientific interpretation of the objective laws of development of nature and society. This definition proceeds from Lenin's famous thesis about utopia in politics as the type of wish that can never come true---neither now nor afterwards, a wish that is not based on social forces and is not supported by the growth and development of political, class forces.^^2^^ It reflects the substance of a utopia and makes it possible to distinguish this concept from the similar, but not identical concepts of eschatology, fantasy, didacticism,^^3^^ etc.
Most Utopias deal with problems of a future society and come under the heading of social Utopias. However, some concentrate on problems of science and technology, technical questions of town planning, provision of medical services, etc., with little or no reference to the social side of the question. Such Utopias, it is true, did not develop on the whole until the second half of the 19th century. However, in their embryonic, primitive form they can also be found earlier.^^4^^ The various types of Utopias similar to the above-mentioned may conveniently be classified under the general heading of technical. More often, however, one finds Utopias in which social problems are only slightly less prominent than technical ones. This type comes under the intermediary heading _-_-_
~^^1^^ See quoted issue of the Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der HumboldtUniversitat zu Berlin, S. 197, which deals, among other things, with the problem of ``typical forms of Utopias, and the problem of the nature and consequently the definition of the Utopia''.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 18, p. 355.
~^^3^^ Here we have in mind works containing instructions to sovereigns.
~^^4^^ See, for, example, the remarks of Roger Bacon (13th century) on the science and technology of the future.
25 of socio-technical.^^1^^ There are also pacifist Utopias. Finally, there is the special heading of anti-utopias which, unlike Utopias, draw arbitrary pictures of an undesirable future for the world and mankind.The basis for the classification of social Utopias is not the form of the Utopian works or the secondary peculiarities of their content,^^2^^ but the basic principle: which social system is reflected or portrayed in the given Utopia. From this point of view social Utopias may be divided into those which idealise primitive society (communal ones), slave-owning, feudal, bourgeois and socialist.^^3^^ Each type, in its turn, may be divided according to the same principle into groups and sub-groups. Thus, according to the classification proposed by V. P. Volgin, socialist Utopias may be divided into socialist ones (proclaiming the principle ``to each according to his labour'') and communist ones (``to each according to his needs''). Bourgeois Utopias contain petty-bourgeois ( egalitarian, egalitarian-cooperative, etc.) Utopias.^^4^^
This type of classification is determined by the principles expounded by Marx and Engels in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, in which a description is given of types of feudal, petty-bourgeois, ``true'', bourgeois and critical-utopian socialism. Naturally, the above-mentioned types of Utopias are of a concrete historical character, i.e., by virtue of the principle on which it is based the classification in question acquires meaning only within the framework of definite historical epochs.
An additional difficulty in analysing Utopias is produced by the question of their form. It would be wrong to regard as Utopias only ``state novels" or socio-political treatises of _-_-_
~^^1^^ See I. V. Bestuzhev-Lada, ``The Future Through the Eyes of a 17th-Century Thinker (From the Pro-history of Scientific Forecasting)'', in the collection The Future of Science, Moscow, 1966 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ As is the case with certain Western writers who contrast Thomas More with Tommaso Campanella, thereby deducing two, as they have it, different types of Utopias (see, for example, F. Polak, The Image of the Future, Vol. 1, New York, 1961, p. 220).
~^^3^^ One might quote as examples: of the first---Jambulus' Utopia, of the second---Plato, of the third---M. Shcherbatov, of the fourthJames Harrington, and of the fifth---Thomas More, Tommaso Campanella, etc.
~^^4^^ See V. P. Volgin, ``The Heritage of Utopian Socialism'', The History of Socialist Doctrines, Collected Essays, Moscow, 1962, p. 18 et al.
26 the same type as the well-known works by Saint-Simon and Fourier. Indeed, as is no less well-known, elements which constitute the essence of the utopia are found in works which, generally speaking, cannot be classed as Utopias themselves. We also find them in eschatological, Ghiliastic works (in Miintzer, say, who developed clearly Utopian views in a purely religious form), and in many works of pure fantasy, beginning with folk tales and ending with science fiction, in the afore-mentioned books of instruction for sovereigns and in works of social satire (such as Rabelais and Swift).Such complexity makes it advisable to understand the concept of utopism as the type of approach to the problems of the future in which Providentialism essentially loses its significance, and a scientific understanding of the objective laws of the development of nature and society has not yet been attained. This interpretation of utopism makes it possible to analyse more profoundly the views not only of the Utopians, the authors of full-scale Utopias, but also all manner of other writers who cannot be unreservedly classed with the Utopians, but whose works contain elements of utopism.
Seen from this angle the history of Utopian thought appears not as a collection of Utopias arranged in a chronological order, but as the process of evolution of utopism, developing logically in accordance with changing economic and socio-political conditions, and reflecting the concrete historical ups and downs in the class struggle. This makes it possible to contrast the Marxist analysis of the history of social Utopias, characteristic of Soviet historical literature, all the more sharply with the picture of the process in question as a simple filiation of ideas independent of the sociopolitical struggle in each epoch, which is characteristic of non-Marxist literature.
Examining the evolution of utopism, we find that it consists of two stages: ascent and decline, the dividing line between them being the appearance of scientific sociology, a scientific approach to the problems of historical development, scientific communism---the appearance of Marxism. Until this division there was a struggle in Utopian thought between progressive trends, which urged man forward along the road to progress, and reactionary trends which fought to 27 preserve the existing order or even return to the order of the past. The struggle proceeded in accordance with the socio-political struggle, i.e., in accordance with historical progress. The progressive Utopias invariably remained overwhelmingly predominant at this stage. At the stage of decline the struggle between the two trends continued, but on the whole utopism became a reactionary force, a force objectively striving to preserve the bourgeois or semi-feudal orders, and resisting the onset of scientific communism under the banner of Marxism-Leninism.
Since the socio-economic development of individual countries proceeds at different rates, however, and the conditions for the spread of Marxism in this or that country emerge at different times, the dividing line in the evolution of utopism is not chronologically fixed, but varies according to the rise in the level of social development. As a general rule, this dividing line manifests itself fully when the country in question enters the period of a developed working-class movement: for the countries of Western Europe it appeared in the middle of the 19th century and for Russia about the 1880s.
The examination of the evolution of utopism in the present chapter is confined to the middle of the 19th century. The comparatively full study of the history of socio-political doctrines (particularly Utopian socialism) in Marxist literature,^^1^^ makes it unnecessary to give a detailed examination of this process here. We shall, therefore, deal with only a few main points.
As mentioned above, Utopian views do not simply vary from one writer to the next, but have definite social roots. Two important points emerge from this: firstly, the question arises of the popular origins of Utopias, of folklore with its protest against social injustice and its dreams of a better future as the primary source of Utopias. The study of this question, to which A. L. Morton devoted a special chapter in his book The English Utopia,^^2^^ is all the more important as by no means all Utopias have been preserved (particularly _-_-_
~^^1^^ See V. A. Dunayevsky and B. F. Porshnev ``The Study of West European Utopian Socialism in Soviet Historiography (1917--1963)'', A History of Socialist Doctrines, Collected Articles, Moscow, 1964; see also A History of Philosophy, Vols. I-II, Moscow, 1957.
~^^2^^ See A. L. Morton, The English Utopia, London, 1952, pp. 11 et al.
28 those of antiquity and the Middle Ages), so that those which have survived must be examined not in isolation, but in the light of the development level reached in Utopian thought. In this respect the folklore ``background'' of each epoch is extremely important for a thorough analysis of the work of each Utopian writer. Secondly, the level of development of Utopian thought depends directly on the level of socio-- economic and cultural progress of the country in question. The emergence and flourishing of utopism require a definite minimum level in the development of philosophy and also religious conceptions of the future, in close connection (and opposition) with which utopism develops. At the same time, as history shows, the excessively strong development of religious conceptions of the future under militant clericalism results in Utopias being stifled by eschatology, and social convulsions of great force are required to force religion to weaken its ideological grip and open up the way for utopism.Utopism first flourished in the second half of the first millennium B.C. in the antique world and China, where the level of philosophical thought was extremely high and religion did not oppress it as strongly as in Egypt, Persia and India. The social Utopias of Plato, Zeno, Euhemerus, Jambulus, Lao Tzu, Confucius, Mo Ti and other Utopian thinkers of the ancient world have long since been accepted in historical literature as specimens of the great accomplishments of Utopian thought. Recent studies have revealed more fully the importance of the Utopias of Ancient Rome in the first century B.C. and the Taoist utopia in China during the 2nd and 3rd centuries A. D.^^1^^
Utopism in the ancient world is seen to possess the following characteristics.
Contrary to the assertions of R. Pelman and other supporters of the modern trend in bourgeois historiography, there were no Utopias of a bourgeois character and certainly _-_-_
~^^1^^ See N. A. Mashkin, ``Social Utopias at the time of the Perusine War and Brundisium Treaty" in the book: N. A. Mashkin, The Principate of Augustus, Moscow-Leningrad, 1949; S. L. Utchenko, The Ideological and Political Struggle in Rome on the Eve of the Fall of the Republic, Moscow, 1952; V. M. Shtein, ``The Early History of Social Utopias (The Taoist Utopia in China)" in Vestnik Istorii Mirovoi Kultury, No. 6, 1960; G. F. Alexandrov, A History of Sociological Doctrines. The Ancient Orient. Moscow, 1959.
29 none of a socialist nature in existence during this period. All the Utopias either idealised primitive society (Lao Tzu, Euhemerus, Jambulus), or ``rationalised'' slave-owning society (Plato) and feudal society (certain late Chinese Utopias of this period). This ``rationalisation'' of slave-owning and feudal societies was conceived as the return in this or that respect to the old order, in the spirit of an idealised tribal system (retaining slave-owning or feudal relations). This is understandable, because the Utopias of the ancient world reflected the ideological struggle taking place in the disintegration of primitive society and the establishment of class society. Protest against social oppression, on the one hand, and attempts to extinguish the fire of the class struggle that had broken out, on the other---all this produced pictures of an idealised past as a desirable future.^^1^^However, even within the period in question, the level of development of utopism did not remain the same. V. P. Volgin points out the substantial difference between Utopias of the Hellenist period (from the 3rd century B.C.) and those of the preceding period. Comparing the Utopias of Plato and Euhemerus or Jambulus, he writes, we see, in particular, a shift of thought from the organisation of consumption to the organisation of production.^^2^^ This important process in the development of utopism in the ancient world requires' special examination.
Finally, the direct connection of the Utopias of the ancient world with the socio-political struggle of that epoch is most evident. Important social reforms, such as those of Lycurgus, Clisthenes, Solon, Agis, Cleomenes and Brothers Gracchus, encouraged the development of utopism, dealing severe blows to presentism and Providentialism, and showing that the existing order could be changed, not by superhuman forces, but by people themselves. It is significant that many of the utopists (including Plato) tried to put their theories into practice. Together with religious ideology, the ideology of utopism helped to inspire a number of popular uprisings, beginning with that of Aristonicus in Pergamum _-_-_
~^^1^^ See V. P. Volgin, Sketches on the History of Socialism, MoscowLeningrad, 1935, p. 21; S. L. Utchenko, The Ideological and Political Struggle in Rome on the Eve of the Fall of the Republic, pp. 116, 117.
~^^2^^ See V. P. Volgin, A History of Socialist Ideas, parts 1-2, Moscow-Leningrad, 1928--1931, pp. 53, 54.
30 (2nd century B.C.) and ending with the ``yellow bands" in China (2nd-3rd centuries A.D.). It is known, for example, that Aristonicus tried to establish on earth the ``City of the Sun" which Jambulus described in his utopia.The second stage in the evolution of utopism is the period of the Middle Ages. The dominance of religious ideology at this stage brought about a sharp decline in the level of utopist thought. Militant clericalism over a period of almost 1,500 years precluded the appearance of any significant social utopia in Europe (including Russia). All that one can detect during this period are isolated elements of utopism in folklore, and also in religious and secular literature. In the 9th to 12th centuries Utopian thought in the Near and Middle East showed a certain flourishing which is reflected in the works of Al Farabi, Ibn Bajjah, Ibn Tufail and Nizami.^^1^^ However, the subsequent decline of utopism continued until the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. There was also hardly any progress in utopism up to this time in China, India and other South-East Asian countries.
The third stage in the evolution of utopism is linked with the Renaissance and Enlightenment, covering the period from the 16th to the first third of the 18th century (roughly from Thomas More's Utopia to Jean Meslier's Le Testament and Voltaire's Lettres Anglaises ou Philosophiques). This period is covered comparatively well in Soviet literature.^^2^^ We shall merely point out that this stage is marked by a strong upsurge of utopism and the appearance of such outstanding Utopian writers as Thomas More, Thomas Miintzer, Tommaso Campanella, Francis Bacon, James _-_-_
^^1^^ H. Simon, ``Arabische Utopien im Mittelalter" in Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, S. 245--252; M. Shaginyan, Nizami s Utopia, Izvestia AN SSSR. Literature and language section, 1947, Vol. VI, No. 4.
~^^2^^ See V. P. Volgin, French Utopian Communism, Moscow, 1960; A History of Socialist Ideas, parts 1-2, Moscow-Leningrad, 1928--1931; Sketches on the History of Socialism, Moscow-Leningrad, 1935; and The Revolutionary Communist of the 18th Century (Jean Meslier and His ``Testament''), Moscow, 1919; A. M. Deborin, Socio-Political Doctrines of Recent and Very Recent Times (in three volumes), Moscow, 1958; M. M. Smirin, The Popular Reformation of Thomas Miintzer and the Great Peasant War, Moscow-Leningrad, 1947; Germany at the Time of the Reformation and the Great Peasant War, Moscow, 1962; B. F. Porshnev, Meslier (1664--1729), Moscow, 1964; Jean Meslier and the Popular Sources of His World Outlook, Moscow, 1955.
31 Harrington, Gerrard Winstanley, Denis Vairasse, Jean Meslier and others. It is interesting to note that Utopias of the slave-owning kind finally disappear, and feudal Utopias are pushed into the background by bourgeois and socialist ones, the latter predominating. Utopism (together with religious conceptions of the future) becomes the ideology of the bourgeois revolutions of the 16th and 17th centuries.At first glance, it would seem that there is not any substantial change in the level of Utopian thought during this stage. More's Utopia is in no way inferior to those of Campanella and Vairasse, nor is Mvintzer's to Winstanley's, although they are separated by more than a century. However, this largely correct impression is somewhat one-sided: a more profound analysis shows how utopism gradually gained strength, freeing itself from the grip of eschatology and adapting itself better to the needs of revolutionary struggle (in the case of Winstanley, for example). A direct result of the development of science and technology was the utopia of Francis Bacon, inconceivable earlier, which posed the problem of the connection between social, scientific and technological progress. All this had a considerable influence on subsequent stages in the evolution of utopism.
The fourth stage covers the remaining two-thirds of the 18th century (roughly speaking, from Meslier to Babeuf).. It differs from the preceding one basically in the following respects. First of all, one observes a sharp break with religion and its eschatology, which is seen already in Meslier who stands, as it were, on the dividing line between the two stages. Secondly, one finds the use of fine achievements in philosophic thought by the founders of modern West European philosophy (Francis Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Locke, etc.), whose ideas do not appear in the works of Utopian writers until this stage. To the aid of utopism came the ideology of the Enlightenment (Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Holbach, Helvetius, Diderot, Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Jefferson, Franklin, Novikov, Radishchev and others), which began to influence Utopian thought even at this stage. Utopias began to assume the more precise character of concrete programmes of political struggle. This applies not only to the Utopias of Morelli and Mably, but particularly to those of the French Revolution, above all to Babeuf. Even Rousseau's communal type of utopia in 32 concrete socio-political conditions objectively assumes the character of a petty-bourgeois, egalitarian utopia, becoming one of the ideological banners of the revolutionary forces.
Feudal Utopias reappear at this stage, which reflects the ideology of the feudal reaction. But bourgeois and particularly socialist Utopias remain overwhelmingly predominant.
Finally, the fifth stage covers approximately the first half of the 19th century (from Saint-Simon, Fourier and Owen to Blanc, Cabet, Dezarny and Weitling, inclusively Herzen and Chernyshevsky in Russia). Like the preceding one, it has been fairly closely examined in Marxist literature^^1^^. We shall, therefore, again confine ourselves to its main distinctive features. These, to our mind, are the following: attempts at a critical reappraisal of the French Revolution, in the course of which the untenability of utopism became particularly obvious; attempts to link utopism with the incipient movement of the working class (hence the different types of ``socialism'', the feudal, petty-bourgeois, German, or ``true'', bourgeois and critical-Utopian socialism, mentioned in the Manifesto of the Communist Party); and attempts to use not only the ideology of the Enlightenment, but also classical philosophy (Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel), and classical bourgeois political economy (Smith, Ricardo, Sismondi and others)---attempts which, like the preceding ones, were unsuccessful until the emergence of Marxism.
All this raised the level of Utopian thought considerably. One observes attempts to discover the logic of the further development of society (Saint-Simon), to advance from ``ideal'', once and for all given pictures of a future society to an original, by no means Chiliastic ``history of the future" (Fourier), attempts to link the conceptions of social, scientific and technological progress more deeply than Francis Bacon had done earlier (Saint-Simon, Cabet).
_-_-_~^^1^^ Apart from the works of V. P. Volgin, one might also mention the following: V. M. Dalin, Gracchus Babeuf on the Eve of and During the French Revolution (1785--1794), Moscow, 1963; I. I. Zilbcrfarb, The Social Philosophy of Charles Fourier and Its Place in the History of Socialist Thought in the First Half of the 19th Century, Moscow, 1964; A. R. loannissyan, Charles Fourier, Moscow, 1958 and The Genesis of Fourier's Social Ideal, Moscow-Leningrad, 1939; see also: From the History of Socio-Political Ideas, Collected Articles, Moscow, 1955; A History of Socialist Doctrines, Moscow, 1962 and 1964.
__PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3---0749 33As a result, Utopian thought at this stage of its development exhausted itself, as it were, and faced a crisis. The question of genuine scientific forecasting came to the foreground. Some elements of this forecasting can be found in the works of the great Utopians of the West and especially in the works of Herzen and Ghernyshevsky.
The role of philosophical conceptions of the historical process in the development of ideas on the future. We have made a separate examination of religious and Utopian conceptions of the future only for ease of analysis in this chapter.
In fact, however, they both developed not only in close connection with each other, but equally closely linked with philosophical conceptions of the historical process, the latter serving simultaneously as both the theoretical basis and synthesising generalisation of the other two. The history of the philosophy of history (in the broadest sense---from ancient times to the present day) is a subject of special study of vast complexity. This sphere of the history of development of social thought has been examined far more intensively in Marxist literature than the history of religious thought and social Utopias (not falling within Utopian socialism),^^1^^ although there are still no special Marxist works dealing with the problem as a whole. Here we shall touch only upon the main trends in the development of. conceptions of the historical process and only to the extent to which they have influenced ideas about the future, only as a third connecting component of these views, so to say.
Views of history as a process subject to certain definite laws can be found in embryonic form even in the social thought of the Ancient Orient. By the middle of the first millennium B.C. these ideas had already assumed the character of philosophical systems, and over the following centuries there grew up (originally in a primitive form, naturally) all three conceptions of the historical process which still exist to this day: the conception of the degradation of mankind from some sort of the ``Golden Age" in ancient times to the decline and approaching collapse of human culture; the conception of the cyclic development of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Sec G. G. Aslanyan, The Idea of Progress in Bourgeois Philosophy of History, Yerevan, 1965, and the bibliography appended to this work.
34 the historical process---the endless rises and falls of human culture in an endless rotation of one and the same stages of development; and finally, the conception of progressive development from the lower to the higher, the latter, it is true, in a most primitive, embryonic form, which is generally seen as the ascendant stage in the development of the given cycle.The view of present events as a stage in the eternal evolution of the world in the past, present and future is found in early Indian, early Chinese and early Greek philosophy of the middle of the first millennium B.C. It appears in the teaching of the philosophical schools of the Charvakas and particularly the Sankhya in India (7th century B.C.), and in the teaching of Lao Tzu, Confucius, Plato and Aristotle. As far back as c. 800 B.C. in Greece Hesiod expounded in mythological form the conception of regression from the ``Golden Age''. Plato and Aristotle, Mencius (372--289) and Ssu-ma Ch'ien (145--86) developed the conception of cycles, trying to discover the laws behind the origin of each cycle and to find the factors determining this process ( geographical, economic, and juridical), here, on earth, regardless of the ``will of the Gods".^^1^^ From the conception of the ``Golden Age" there emerged the theory of the natural state which served as a new stimulus for utopism.^^2^^ This conception, developed by the philosophical school of the Cynics and later the Stoics, was opposed by the schools of the Sophists, and subsequently of Democritus and Epicurus, which proclaimed the idea of social progress.^^3^^ Both the Stoics and Epicureans came up against the problem of determinism in the historical process, and the latter developed the theory of the social contract which, in itself, was an encroachment upon the then prevalent idea of Providentialism.^^4^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ See G. F. Alexandrov, A History of Sociological Doctrines. The Ancient Orient, pp. 290, 339, 410--428 (in Russian); W. Tarn, Hellenistic Civilisation, London, 1952, p. 325 et al.; A. B. Hanovich, Hellenism and Its Historical Role, Moscow-Leningrad, 1950, pp. 303, 308 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ See V. P. Volgin, Sketches of the History of Socialism, p. 24.
^^3^^ See N. A. Mashkin, ``The Age of Lucretius'', in the book: Lucretius. De Rerurn Natura. Articles and Commentaries, Vol. 2, Moscow, 1947, p. 257 et al. (in Russian); A. B. Ranovich, Hellenism and Its Historical Role, p. 303; H. Becker, H. E. Barnes, Social Thought from Lore to Science, Vol. 2, Washington, 1962, p. 429.
~^^4^^ See W. Tarn, Hellenistic Civilisation, p. 325.
__PRINTERS_P_36_COMMENT__ 3* 35The conception of cycles was developed in such detail in the works of Polybius (3rd-2nd centuries B.C.) that some Western historians of sociology regard all subsequent theories of this kind right up to Gumplowucz, Pareto, Spengler, Pitirim Sorokin and Toynbee as nothing but a rehash of his views. In Roman philosophy the conception of the ``Golden Age'', which continued to occupy a dominant position (Seneca, Cicero, Virgil, Tibullus and Ovid), was strongly challenged by the idea of social progress developed by Lucretius in his poem De Rerum Natura. Lucretius tried not only to draw up a complete picture of the historical process as the development from the lower to the higher, but also to find out that people's needs, their experience and culture are the motive forces of progress.^^1^^
The philosophical views of Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius represented a great advance in the development of antique thought. It was no accident that the conceptions of regress and cycles dominated antique thought: the former proceeded from observing the painful process of the disintegration of the tribal system and the fierce social struggle accompanying the establishment of a class society; the latter was determined by the very slow pace of historical progress in the ancient world, for the complex zigzags of social development were naturally perceived as endlessly recurring cycles. An extremely high level of philosophical thought was needed in order to distinguish the line of progress behind the complex peripeteia of history.
The militant clericalism of the Middle Ages stifled for a long time all conceptions of historical development except that of regress---regress by virtue of man's ``Fall from Grace" and by Divine predestination, regress which was to culminate in the ``end of history" and the transition to the completely different state of the world beyond the grave.^^2^^ Only towards the end of this period does one catch a new glimmering of the idea of progress (technical) in Roger Bacon and a new, more profound treatment of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ See V. I. Svetlov, ``The World Outlook of Lucretius'', in the book: Lucretius. De Rerum Natura. Articles and Commentaries, Vol. 2, pp. 106, 110.
~^^2^^ See V. I. Gerye, The Philosophy of History from Augustine to Hegel, Moscow, 1915, pp. 5-10; H. Becker, PI. E. Barnes, Social Thought from Lore to Science, Vol. 2, pp. 433--436.
36 conceptions of cycles by Ibn Khaldun (1332--1406), who again tried to solve the problem of historical determinism by studying the influence of geographical and other factors.The age of the Renaissance again brought the conceptions of cycles and progress to the fore. The former was developed in the writings of Machiavelli (1469--1527) and particularly Vico (1668--1744), who still refers to Divine providence, but at the same time grasps the idea that by force of objective laws, which exist independently of human will, all peoples without exception pass through definite stages of development, which he saw not as circles, but as spirals.^^1^^ The latter conception gradually gained even more influence, finding eminent supporters in Bodin and Montaigne, Francis Bacon and Descartes, Spinoza and Fontenelle, Leibnitz and Lessing. A fierce dispute broke out among the thinkers in this trend between those who tried to explain progress as before, by Divine providence (Bodin, Leibnitz and Lessing), and those who in effect rejected the idea of Providentialism, seeking the roots of progress in material factors (Montaigne, Francis Bacon, Descartes and Spinoza).
The clericals (Bossuet and others) sought in vain to defend Providentialism. The Encyclopaedists, particularly Voltaire, dealt them blow upon blow. Voltaire marked the beginning of the development of the philosophy of history in the true sense of the term. The idea of progress broke out the fetters of Providentialism with growing intensity. Turgot, Condorcet, and Godwin explained progress not as Divine providence, but as the perfection of human reason. Turgot sought to prove the inevitability of progress by the influence not only of geographical but also biological and psychological factors. Condorcet referred to scientific and industrial advance, population growth and the development of political institutions. God-win emphasised the unlimited capacities for the development of human reason.^^2^^ Increasingly extensive use was made of the theories of natural condition and historical determinism to support the conception of progress. This conception became one of the most important components of the ideology of the French Revolution. The direct connection between these views and the pictures of _-_-_
~^^1^^ See A History of Philosophy, Vol. 1, Moscow, 1957, pp. 462--463.
~^^2^^ H. Becker, H. E. Barnes, op. cit, Vol. 2, pp. 470--477.
37 a happy future which were painted by the great utopists in the first half of the 19th century is obvious.It would, however, be incorrect to depict the development of the philosophy of history in the second half of the 18th and the first half of the 19th century simply as the triumph of the conception of progress over the dogmas of Providentialism. The process was far more complex. Not only did the champions of the idea of progress encounter growing resistance from the theological reaction (Joseph de Maistre, Louis Bonald and others), who challenged the legality of this idea in principle. The main point was that the idealist world outlook of the great philosophers and historians of that period who worked out the conception of progress contained a very curious intertwining of providentialist and anti-providentialist views.
Thus, Herder looked for objective laws in the development of society, but reduced them simply to geographical factors, accepting the decisive influence of God on the fate of mankind. As a result he saw human development as a process rooted in nature, but sought to reconcile this somehow with the idea of Providentialism. He proclaimed the continuity of progress and at the same time tried to reconcile it with the conception of cyclic development.^^1^^
The influence of the religious view on the historicophilosophical conceptions of Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel is well known. Kant's ideas of social progress and the laws of social development are mixed up with ideas of a teleological nature, and the essence of the matter is not changed by the fact that in place of Divine providence we find here a ``plan of nature" which is carried out in the course of human history.^^2^^ The historico-philosophical views of Fichte, who tried to reconcile the conception of progress with the most reactionary socio-political principles,^^3^^ were highly contradictory. Schelling's thesis that man ``can and must create his own history himself" exists alongside his other thesis that history is the ``revelation of the absolute".^^4^^ _-_-_
~^^1^^ See A History of Philosophy, Vol. II, pp. 20--21; H. Becker, H. E. Barnes, op. cit, Vol. 1, p. 416.
~^^2^^ See A History of Philosophy, Vol. II, pp. 34--54; H. Becker, H. E. Barnes, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 481--486.
~^^3^^ See A History of Philosophy, Vol. II, p. 63.
~^^4^^ See y. I. Gerye, The Philosophy of History from Augustine to Hegel, pp. 154, 158.
38 Engels devoted two special works to an examination of how Schelling's ``seething mind" was threshing about in the ``snare of religion".^^1^^ The imprint of eschatology is clearly apparent in the philosophy of history of Hegel, who acknowledged progress in the past, but refused to acknowledge it in the present and future, and who saw world history as ``the highest manifestation of the world spirit'', but regarded the Prussian monarchy as the peak of socio-political development.^^2^^In spite of these contradictions, understandable for that period, the importance of the philosophy of Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel for the views on the future is enormous. The element of utopism in their works was considerable, as is well known. Kant and Fichte were the authors of detailed Utopias. Nevertheless as utopists these thinkers played a comparatively secondary role in the development of ideas on the future, but as philosophers their role in it is one of primary importance. They made a great contribution to the methodology of analysing the historical process as a lawgoverned and dialectical one (seen, it is true, still from an idealist viewpoint), which played a great role in the emergence of scientific forecasting from the viewpoint of historical materialism. Particularly great in this respect were the services of Hegel, given special mention by Engels.^^3^^
Prerequisites for the scientific forecasting of the future. Towards the middle of the 19th century the social Utopias, above all Utopian socialism, reached a stage in their development at which it became possible to turn from Utopian pictures to a scientific study of the prospects for human development. Philosophy (including the philosophy of history) discovered the dialectical laws of the development of nature and society, and substantiated the conception of historical progress (still from an idealist viewpoint). Political economy came very close to discovering the decisive role of economics, social production, in human progress. Apart from this, great discoveries in the natural sciences revealed a completely _-_-_
~^^1^^ See F. Engels, ``Schelling and Revelation; Schelling, Philosopher in Christ, or the Transfiguration of Worldly Wisdom into Divine Wisdom'', K. Marx, F. Engels, Werke, Berlin, Ergiinzungsband, 2er Teil.
~^^2^^ See A History of Philosophy, Vol. II, pp. 78--112; V. I. Gerye, op. cit., p. 168;»H. Becker, H. E. Barnes, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 499.
~^^3^^ F. Engels, Anti-Duhring, Moscow, 1969, p. 34.
39 different picture of creation and historical progress from what had been drawn before. Finally, historical science had by this time succeeded in systematising the basic facts of world history and describing such an important factor in historical progress as class contradictions and class struggle in society.All this at the given level of economic and cultural development in a period when class contradictions had become very acute and the working-class movement much stronger led to the emergence of the truly scientific dialectico-- materialist sociology of Marx and Engels with its logically based theory of historical progress, embracing the economic, social, political, intellectual and moral progress of society.
__NUMERIC_LVL2__ Chapter 2 __ALPHA_LVL2__ MARXIST-LENINIST SCIENTIFIC FORECASTINGAs has already been shown in the preceding chapter, mankind has been striving for many centuries to predict the future, but before the emergence of Marxism these predictions were Utopian and fantastic.
Brilliant guesses, the high soaring of creative thought and the accumulated wealth of factual material and valuable observations were combined, right up to the first half of the19th century, with naive dreams and idealistic ideas about the nature of social relations.
It was only when the working class entered the historical arena, with the capitalist mode of production in existence, and a scientific theory of social development was elaborated, that there arose the real possibility of predicting the main tendencies and features of the society of the future.
More than a century ago Marx and Engels discovered the objective dialectic of social development and changed socialism from a Utopia into a science. They discovered the dialectic of the development of the working class, its transformation from a ``class in itself" to a ``class for itself'', the dialectic of the transition from the stage of its development when it has not yet realised its basic interests and was Fighting for a partial improvement of its position to the new stage when the working-class movement is consciously struggling to destroy capitalism and set up its own political power.
40By generalising socio-historical practice in general and the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat in particular, by generalising the whole store of knowledge about the past and present of society, nature and epistemology, and critically adapting the Hegelian dialectic, Marx and Engels not only explained the most important stages in human history, but also scientifically predicted the course of its future development. It should be emphasised, in particular, that generalising the practical revolutionary activity of the working class was of prime importance for the formation and development of Marxist theory because this practice coincided with the operation of the objective laws of social development. Thus, theoretical generalisation of the sociohistorical practice of the proletariat also means understanding the nature of the historical process and is one of the prerequisites for authentic forecasting of the most important stages in the future history of mankind.
Engels pointed out that ``to the crude conditions of capitalist production and the crude class conditions corresponded crude theories'', for the theoretical thought of each era is its historical product. Thus, it is no accident that the eminent socialists of the pre-Marxist period were Utopians, they attempted to evolve ``the solution of the social problems, which as yet lay hidden in undeveloped economic conditions . . . out of the human brain".^^1^^ Depending on their productive forces people create corresponding production relations and also ideas and categories, i.e., abstract, ideal expressions of these social relations.
In the new historical conditions Marx and Engels adopted a materialist approach to problems of history. They did not stop at 18th-century materialism, but created a new type of materialism---dialectical materialism. They were the only thinkers to rescue dialectics from German idealist philosophy and apply it to the materialist interpretation of nature and history.
Lenin wrote that by deepening and developing philosophical materialism Marx carried it to completion and extended its cognition of nature to cognition of human society.
The materialist interpretation of history became possible _-_-_
^^1^^ K. Marx, F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. 3, Moscow, 1970, p. 119.
41 only thanks to dialectics, which is why Marx, Engels and Lenin paid so much attention to revising Hegelian dialectics. ``What distinguished Hegel's mode of thought from that of all other philosophers'', wrote Engels, ``was the tremendous sense of the historical upon which it was based. Abstract and idealist though it was in form, yet the development of his thoughts always proceeded parallel with the development of world history and the latter was really meant to be only the test of the former. If, thereby, the real relation was inverted and stood on its head, nevertheless, the real content entered everywhere into the philosophy.... This epoch-making conception of history was the direct theoretical premise for the new materialist outlook...."^^1^^By his materialist interpretation and revision of Hegel and by creating dialectical materialism, Marx discovered ``the great law of motion of history, the law according to which all historical struggles, whether they proceed in the political, religious, philosophical or some other ideological domain, are in fact only the more or less clear expression of struggles of social classes, and that the existence and thereby the collisions, too, between these classes are in turn conditioned by the degree of development of their economic position, by the mode of their production and of their exchange determined by it".^^2^^
Marx demonstrated that society is the product of human interaction, that people are not free in the choice of the productive forces which form the basis of all their history, since all productive forces are the product of preceding activity. He wrote that ``the social history of men is never anything but the history of their individual development, whether they are conscious of it or not. Their material relations are the basis of all their relations. These material relations are only the necessary forms in which their material and individual activity is realised."^^3^^
Engels foresaw that the development of machine production, invention and discovery, and the hitherto unprecedented growth in the productivity of human labour would create a conflict from which modern capitalist economy would _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx, F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. 1, Moscow, 1969, pp. 512--13.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 396--97.
^^3^^ Ibid., p. 518.
42 eventually perish. ``On the one hand are immeasurable riches and a superfluity of products which the purchasers cannot cope with; on the other hand, the great mass of society proletarianised, turned into wage-workers, and precisely for that reason made incapable of appropriating for themselves this superfluity of products.... This state of affairs becomes daily more absurd and---more unnecessary. It must be abolished, it can be abolished."^^1^^For Marx and Engels socialism and communism were the logical result of the changes taking place in existing reality in conformity with certain laws.
They wrote: ``Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence".^^2^^
The classics of Marxism not only reached a scientifically based conclusion on the inevitability of the revolutionary replacement of capitalism by socialism, but also devoted all their lives to explaining the ways and means for transforming this historical possibility into reality.
As well as developing the scientific theory of socialism and communism they took part personally in the revolutionary struggle of the working class, whose acknowledged leaders they were for many years.
It must be remembered, however, that Marx and Engels did not develop in detail either the theory of the socialist revolution or the theory of building a socialist society. ``All that we knew,'' wrote Lenin, ``all that the best experts on capitalist society, the greatest minds who foresaw its development, exactly indicated to us was that transformation was historically inevitable and must proceed along a certain main line, that private ownership of the means of production was doomed by history, that it would burst, that the exploiters would inevitably be expropriated."^^3^^
The further development of Marxist theory is indissolubly linked with Lenin. From the very beginning of his revolutionary activity Lenin organically combined loyalty to the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 149.
~^^2^^ K. Marx, F. Engels, The German Ideology, Moscow, 1968, p. 48.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lonin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 410.
43 basic scientific principles of Marxism with their creative application in new historical conditions. He bequeathed mankind some unsurpassed examples of creative Marxism. Lenin represents a whole epoch of human history.Lenin always regarded the dialectics as the soul, the decisive factor in Marxism, and consequently he devoted great effort to developing it further. He saw it as a condition for the correct scientific analysis of new historical data. He organised the struggle of the masses to create the right conditions to realise Marx's and Engels' predictions and made his own brilliant forecasts about the future of mankind.
Marx defined the objective material-economic and socioeconomic conditions for the proletarian revolution. These are the conflict between productive forces and obsolete bourgeois production relations which fetter the development of productive forces, and the antagonism between the social nature of labour and the private form of appropriating the results of labour. This antagonistic contradiction finds expression in the bitter class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
Consequently, the socialist revolution can triumph only at a certain stage in capitalist development, namely, the stage when its production relations begin to hamper the development of productive forces.
Marx and Engels elaborated the theory of proletarian revolution in the age of pre-monopoly capitalism, when it was still on the ascent. This was the age of comparatively ``peaceful'' capitalism, when it was able to develop more or less smoothly, seizing new territories and subjecting hundreds of millions of people in these countries to its rule. In this situation Marx and Engels believed that a simultaneous triumph of the socialist revolution throughout the whole world or in the majority of the developed countries was possible, but did not think it could triumph in one country alone. This conclusion, right for its time, was based on a scientific analysis of the development of capitalist society in the pre-monopoly period.
In 1858, Marx put to Engels the following question in his letter: ``... on the Continent the revolution is imminent and will immediately assume a socialist character. Is it not bound to be crushed in this little corner, considering that 44 in a far greater territory the movement of bourgeois society is still in the ascendant?"^^1^^
If a socialist revolution had begun in a single country at that time, there was the real possibility that the capitalists in other countries would ally to suppress it. The reactionary forces of feudal or semi-feudal Eastern Europe were also a vast reserve of counter-revolution.
Thus, in the pre-monopoly period the socialist revolution could only have triumphed if it had taken place simultaneously in all or in the majority of the most developed capitalist countries.
Engels wrote: ``...The large-scale industry has equated social development in all civilised countries with the result that everywhere the bourgeoisie and the proletariat have become the two decisive classes of society and the conflict between them became the main conflict of our time. Therefore, the communist revolution will not be only national, it will take place in all civilised countries, that is at least in Britain, America, France and Germany."^^2^^
At the same time Marx and Engels predicted that the ascent of capitalist society would be replaced by a period of uneven, spasmodic and catastrophic capitalist development.
This period arrived and was subjected to a profound and comprehensive analysis by Lenin. In his work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism he summed up the development of capitalism throughout the world over the fifty years since the publication of Marx's Capital. In full accordance with the laws of the emergence, development and decline of capitalism discovered by Marx, Lenin revealed the economic and political nature of imperialism and defined its laws and tendencies of development. He showed that certain basic properties of capitalism had begun to turn into their opposites. Thus, for example, free competition was being replaced by rivalry between monopolistic unions of large capitalists. The monopolies socialised production on a vast scale, but appropriation remained, as before, private and capitalist. Competition that took on the form of rivalry between the _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx, F. Engels, Selected Correspondence, Moscow, 1955, p. 134.
~^^2^^ K. Marx, F. Engels, Werke, Bd. 4, Berlin, 1969, S. 374.
45 monopolies, became fiercer, and was accompanied by the continued attacks of capital on the working class.Lenin showed that imperialism is parasitic, decaying and dying capitalism, the eve of the socialist revolution. He wrote: ``... monopoly, which grows out of capitalism, is already dying capitalism, the beginning of its transition to socialism".^^1^^ Lenin's analysis of imperialism demonstrated that the contradictions inherent in capitalism had become extremely acute, that a sharp disproportion had arisen between the different branches of the economy, and that the struggle had grown more fierce in the highly developed capitalist countries between the monopolies who had transcended national boundaries and turned into international unions of large capital which concentrated in its hands whole branches of industry of many countries.
Basing himself on the works of Marx and Engels, which provided scientific proof of the inevitability of the communist revolution, and having made a detailed and comprehensive study of monopoly capitalism and the revolutionary working-class movement, Lenin discovered the law of uneven economic and political development inherent in imperialism. In his article entitled ``On the Slogan for a United States of Europe" he wrote: ``Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone."^^2^^
Lenin's conclusion on the possibility of the victory of socialism in one or several countries was a brilliant new achievement for Marxist science, bearing witness to its creative nature which is incompatible with stagnation of thought, conservatism and dogmatism.
The question of the dialectic of objective and subjective factors occupies an important position in the MarxistLeninist theory of socialist revolution. It was shown that, given the existence of the necessary objective factors, the victory of the socialist revolution is impossible if the subjective factors are riot present, if there is no revolutionary proletarian party to educate the working class to take mass revolutionary action, to fight heroically and selflessly _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 107.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 21, p. 342.
46 for the great goal---victory over the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.History confirmed this scientific prediction. The workingclass movement gained its first victory in Russia alone, where the objective and subjective factors for socialist revolution were present.
In many highly developed capitalist countries a revolutionary situation has still not developed. As a rule, this is linked also with the absence of a subjective factor. One of the leaders of the Communist Party of the United States, William Z. Foster, noted that in spite of the fact that the workers in the United States were struggling determinedly against capitalism they ``have not yet drawn the full ideological meaning out of the class war which they themselves are waging.... This is one of the very greatest assets of the employers".^^1^^
Lenin paid special attention to further elaboration of the question of the dialectic of objective and subjective factors in revolution. It was he who produced the theory on the revolutionary situation, its content and regularities of development. He showed that the presence of objective conditions creates only the possibility of revolution, since its victory is obtained solely through the active and purposeful action of people. The revolution can only be victorious when there is a unity of objective conditions and the subjective factor. Speaking of the subjective factor, Lenin stressed that it is connected, first and foremost, with the existence of a revolutionary party of the working class, with a certain level of political consciousness of the masses, and with the support of the revolutionary vanguard by broad sections of the working people.
Lenin wrote as follows about the dialectic of the objective and subjective: ``Marxism differs from all other socialist theories 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 masses---and also, of course, of individuals, _-_-_
~^^1^^ William Z. Foster, The Twilight of World Capitalism, New York, 1949, p. 63.
47 groups, organisations, and parties that are able to discover and achieve contact with one or another class."^^1^^Lenin's theory of socialist revolution does not only substantiate the possibility of the victory of socialism in one country. It also shows the increasingly uneven development of capitalism in the era of imperialism, highlights among other things the hegemony of the proletariat in the liberation movement, the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution, the decisive role of the dictatorship of the proletariat and its various forms, and the leading role of the Marxist-Leninist party in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In his work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin made a profound and comprehensive analysis of monopoly capitalism and came to the conclusion that imperialism is the eve of the socialist revolution, that it is dying capitalism in the era of transition to socialism. This scientific prediction of social development has been fully justified.
The course of history has fully confirmed Lenin's conclusion that the basis of the transition from capitalism's first phase to its highest and final one---imperialism---is the concentration of production and the consequent emergence of capitalist monopolies. Lenin's conclusion that monopoly capital is based on pre-monopolistic forms of economy on the scale of the world system of capitalism has also been confirmed.
Lenin maintained that the possibility of world wars would exist as long as there was imperialism. He paid great attention to the role of wars, particularly world war, in the creation of the revolutionary situation, although none of the founders of Marxism linked the victory of the proletariat solely with imperialist wars.
As early as 1887 Engels concluded the inevitability of war on the basis of an analysis of international relations and also of German domestic and foreign policy. He wrote that for Germany this war would be one of unprecedented scale and strength. He calculated that up to ten million soldiers would take part in it and that it would bring destruction to Europe, hunger, epidemics and brutality to both the armies and the civilian population. He also stated that one of the results of this war would be absolutely beyond question: _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 13, p. 30.
48 universal exhaustion and the creation of conditions for the final victory of the working class.In 1918 Lenin wrote as follows about Engels' prediction: ``What genius is displayed in this prophecy!... Some of Engels' predictions have turned out differently; and one could not expect the world and capitalism to have remained unchanged during thirty years of frenzied imperialist development. But what is most astonishing is that so many of Engels' predictions are turning out 'to the letter'. For Engels gave a perfectly exact class analysis...."^^1^^
Kaiser Germany did, in fact, unleash the First World War in 1914, bringing about not only its own collapse but also that of the Russian and Austro-IIungarian monarchies and promoting the growth and victory of the proletarian revolution in Russia.
Lenin and his followers strove unremittingly to avert a world war. Suffice it to mention, for example, Lenin's speeches at the Stuttgart (1907) and Copenhagen (1910) congresses of the Second International, in which he proposed a programme of action against militarism and against the approaching imperialist war. Significant in this respect is the account of the Polish journalist Alfred Maikosen, to whom Lenin said the following in April 1914: ``I am doing everything and will do everything within my power right up to the end to prevent mobilisation and war. I do not want millions of workers to destroy one another to pay for the madness of capitalism. Objectively predicting war and, should this disaster be unleashed, striving to turn it to the best possible advantage is one thing. Wanting war and working towards it is something entirely different."^^2^^
Lenin's study of the laws of the actual course of the war served as a basis for his prediction that the imperialist war would turn into a civil war, that the chain of imperialism would snap at its weakest links and that one of these links would be Russia. The fact that this prediction came true testifies to the depth of the theoretical analysis with the help of which Lenin, disengaging himself from the accidents of historical development, revealed the long-term tendencies, the laws which he himself called the key to the ``self-progression'' of all that is.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Ibid., Vol. 27, p. 495.
~^^2^^ Krasnaya zvezda (Rod Star), August 6, 19C5.
__PRINTERS_P_49_COMMENT__ 4---0749 49Lenin fully revealed the true nature of the First World War and his slogan ``turn the imperialist war into a civil war" played a large part in preparing and carrying out the revolution in Russia.
On the basis of Lenin's teaching on war, peace and revolution the Bolshevik Party carried out a vast amount of propaganda and practical work among the working class and the peasantry at the front and at home, preparing them to overthrow the power of the landowners and capitalists. Lenin foresaw that a revolution in the course of the imperialist war would be a civil war of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. This was in fact what happened.
``Of course,'' he wrote, ``there are people who believe that revolution can break out in a foreign country to order, by agreement. These people are either mad or they are provocateurs.... We know that revolutions cannot be made to order, or by agreement; they break out when tens of millions of people come to the conclusion that it is impossible to live in the old way any longer."^^1^^
In his opening speech at the VII (April) All-Russia Conference of the RSDLP(B) in 1917, Lenin said: ``The time is approaching when the assertion of the founders of scientific socialism, and the unanimous forecast of the Socialists who gathered at the Basle Congress, that world war would inevftably lead to revolution, is being everywhere proved correct."^^2^^
At the same time the founders of Marxism-Leninism, far from rejecting the possibility of the victory of a proletarian revolution in the absence of world war, stressed in all manner of ways the need to make use of every favourable situation for carrying out a revolution. A victorious proletarian revolution is primarily the result of the internal development of each country, the solution of irreconcilable class contradictions.
It would be difficult to find more vivid confirmation in world history of the power of scientific prediction than the victory of the socialist revolution in Russia, whose inevitability was proved by Marx, Engels and Lenin.
Marx and Engels devoted a great deal of attention to Russia, carefully following the events taking place there. _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 480.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 24, p. 227.
50 They are known to have studied the Russian language in order to read Russian sources in the original. They also corresponded with Russian politicians (Annenkov, Kovalevsky, Danielson, Vera Zasulich, Plekhanov and many others), discussing with them the future of Russia, the coming revolution.Unlike the Narodniks, Marx and Engels proceeded from a scientific analysis of concrete Russian reality. Since there was not yet a fully developed working class in Russia at the time, they expressed alternative ways for the development of the revolution in Russia. On the one hand, there was the possibility of Russia developing along non-capitalist lines in the period of pre-monopoly capitalism. If this were to be realised it was essential that a democratic revolution should take place after a victorious proletarian revolution in the West.
Engels wrote to Tkachov: ``If anything can still save Russian communal ownership and give it the chance of turning into a new, truly viable form, it is a proletarian revolution in Western Europe."^^1^^
For their part Marx and Engels did not exclude the possibility that Russia would take the capitalist path of development. In his letter to the editorial office of Otechestvenniye zapiski in November 1877, Marx wrote: ``If Russia is tending to become a capitalist nation after the example of the West European countries---and during the last few years she has been taking a lot of trouble in this direction---she will not succeed without having first transformed a good part of her peasants into proletarians; and after that, once taken to the bosom of the capitalist regime, she will experience its pitiless laws like other profane peoples."^^2^^
Marx and Engels believed that ``this time the revolution begins in the East (meaning Russia---Ed.), hitherto the unbroken bulwark and reserve army of counter-revolution".^^3^^
The Great October Socialist Revolution---the greatest event of the twentieth century---opened up a new era in the history of mankind, the era of socialism and communism, the era of the liberation of peoples from colonial dependence, _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Correspondence of K. Marx and F. Engels with Russian Political Figures, Moscow, 1951, p. 204 (in Russian).
~^^2^^ K. Marx, F. Engels, Selected Correspondence, pp. 378--79.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 374.
__PRINTERS_P_51_COMMENT__ 4* 51 the era of the collapse of capitalism. Mankind, as Lenin had predicted, ``now entered into a new stage of development of extraordinarily brilliant prospects".^^1^^The leaders of the Second International and other apostates to Marxism, including the Russian Mensheviks and Trotskyites, attempted to prove that a proletarian revolution and the victory of socialism were impossible in Russia, and that only after a victorious proletarian revolution in the West would it be possible for socialism to triumph in Russia. But Lenin's theoretical prediction was borne out completely, being put into practice by the broad masses of the working people led by the Party of the Bolsheviks.
As early as 1915 Lenin advanced the thesis that the socialist revolution ``may and probably will consist of many years of fighting, of several periods of onslaught with intervals of counter-revolutionary convulsions of the bourgeois system".^^2^^
A few years later the 14th Conference of the RGP(B) passed a resolution stating that Lenin's forecast ``is now being fully confirmed by the development of world revolution".^^3^^
Many years have passed since the 14th Party Conference. We are now able to cast our mind's eye back over a considerably larger stretch of history and see how the above-mentioned thesis of Lenin's has been corroborated. The USSR and the other socialist countries have repeatedly been subject to onslaughts from capitalism, but the latter always has been and always will be defeated.
Lenin's theory of imperialism and the socialist revolution, which has been further elaborated in the historical documents of the international communist movement, still arms the working class and all progressive forces with knowledge of the laws of development and decline of modern capitalism, and serves as a reliable guide in the fight for socialism and communism.
Advocates of capitalism make great play of temporary, transient achievements in the post-war economic _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 498.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 21, p. 399.
~^^3^^ The CPSU in Resolutions and Decisions of Its Congresses, Conferences and Plenary Meetings of the Central Committee, Vol. 3, Moscow, 1970, p. 208 (in Russian).
52 development of individual capitalist countries, presenting them as a sort of ``economic miracle''.Turning to the works of Lenin, however, we find there statements which in one way or another forecast the abovementioned situations.
Lenin regarded assertions about inevitable stagnation in capitalist production and absence of development in monopoly capital as unscientific. He revealed the existence of contradictory trends inherent in this stage of capitalism, namely, competition and monopoly. The tendency towards decay and stagnation in productive forces, characteristic of all monopolies under private ownership of the means of production, is linked with the tendency of capitalism towards rapid development in individual branches of industry, in individual countries at individual periods. Lenin pointed out the connection between this tendency and competition, the opportunities for which grew with the development of the scientific and technological revolution which makes it possible to lower production costs and increase profit.^^1^^ This contradiction, the struggle between these tendencies, leads either to stagnation or to a temporary boom in a concrete country given certain conditions.
A great deal has taken place in the development of capitalism over the last century, but its basic laws and contradictions remain unchanged, and the teaching on the socialist revolution, far from losing its significance, continues to play an important role in the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat in its more developed form.
Marx and Engels substantiated the variety of forms and ways of the proletariat gaining political power, which depend on the concrete historical situation. Lenin predicted that all nations would arrive at socialism---this was inevitable--- ``but all will do so in not exactly the same way, each will contribute something of its own to some form of democracy, to some variety of the dictatorship of the proletariat, to the varying rate of socialist transformations in the different aspects of social life".^^2^^
Given certain conditions, the socialist revolution is inevitably accompanied by an armed uprising, civil war and the military suppression of the exploiters, whereas _-_-_
~^^1^^ See V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 276; Vol. 23, p. 106.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 23, pp. 69--70.
53 in other conditions, if the resistance of the exploiting classes is weakened and the strength of the proletariat and its allies is superior to that of the bourgeoisie, and there is a powerful movement of the masses led by the proletariat, the socialist revolution may take on peaceful forms, i.e., it can be carried out without an armed uprising and civil war. The founders of Marxism-Leninism did not rule out the possibility of the proletariat gaining political power by peaceful means.Marx, Engels and Lenin showed that the abolition of private ownership of the instruments and means of production and their transformation into public, socialist property could be carried out through the expropriation of the expropriators in certain conditions and through various forms of state capitalism or through compensation in others. ``We by no means consider compensation as impermissible in any event,'' wrote Engels, ``Marx told me (and how many times!) that, in his opinion, we would get off cheapest if we could buy out the whole lot of them."^^1^^
Developing this theory of Marx's, Lenin wrote: ``...Marx was profoundly right when he taught the workers the importance of preserving the organisation of large-scale production, precisely for the purpose of facilitating the transition to socialism. Marx taught that ... the idea was conceivable of paying the capitalists well, of buying them out, if the circumstances were such as to compel the capitalists to submit peacefully and to come over to socialism in a cultured and organised fashion, provided they were paid well."^^2^^
The peaceful form of the socialist revolution certainly does not mean that no revolutionary force or compulsion is used in relation to the deposed exploiting classes. Addressing the 4th Conference of Moscow Trade Unions and Factory Committees in July 1918, Lenin said that the experience of the October Socialist Revolution was confirming the correctness of the words which always distinguish the representatives of scientific socialism, Marx and his followers, from the Utopian socialists, the petty-bourgeois socialists, the socialist intellectuals and the socialist dreamers. ``The intellectual dreamers, the petty-bourgeois socialists, thought, and perhaps still think, or dream, that it is possible to _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Marx, F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. 3, Moscow, 1970, p. 474.
^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, pp. 338--39.
54 introduce socialism by persuasion. They think that the majority of the people will be convinced, and when they become convinced the minority will obey; that the majority will vote and socialism will be introduced. No, the world is not built so happily; the exploiters, the brutal landowners, the capitalist class are not amenable to persuasion.'' Lenin went on to say that the socialist revolution confirms what everybody has seen---the furious resistance of the exploiters. ``The stronger the pressure of the oppressed classes becomes ... the more furious does the resistance of the exploiters become.'' He points out that the period of transition from capitalism to socialism ``will inevitably be a very long one in all countries, because, I repeat, the oppressors retaliate to every success achieved by the oppressed class by fresh attempts at resistance, by attempts to overthrow the power of the oppressed class".^^1^^ Lenin also wrote that ``it would be extremely stupid and absurdly Utopian to assume that the transition from capitalism to socialism is possible without coercion and without dictatorship. Marx's theory very definitely opposed this petty-bourgeois-democratic and anarchist absurdity long ago".^^2^^The Marxist-Leninist parties led and continue to lead the struggle against the petty-bourgeois, liberal ideas of a peaceful (which they regard as a reformist, not revolutionary) path of transition from capitalism to socialism. The socialist revolution in any form, peaceful or non-peaceful, as it was predicted by the classics of Marxism-Leninism, means the destruction of the political rule of the bourgeoisie, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the abolition of private ownership of the instruments and means of production. Coercive and compulsive methods should be applied to the ruling exploiting classes---such is the objective law of historical development.
The real facts of the present-day situation confirm over and over again that the working class, the consistently revolutionary class in modern society, is the main motive force of the revolutionary transformation of the world.
The Programme of the CPSU rightly stresses that ``in fulfilling its historic mission as the revolutionary remaker of the old society and creator of a new system, the working _-_-_
^^1^^ Ibid., Vol. 27, pp. 465--66.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 263.
55 class becomes the exponent, not only of its own class interests, but of the interests of all working people. It is the natural leader of all forces fighting against capitalism."^^1^^The content of the socialist revolution is the gaining of political power by the proletariat and the establishment of its revolutionary dictatorship. Marx, and later Lenin, demonstrated the unity of the socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is the inevitable consequence, the logical result of the victorious socialist revolution.
Lenin predicted that the transition from capitalism to socialism was possible only with the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. For suppressing the resistance of the overthrown classes and abolishing them ``requires a long, difficult and stubborn class struggle, which, after the overthrow of capitalist rule, after the destruction of the bourgeois state, after the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, does not disappear (as the vulgar representatives of the old socialism and the old Social-Democracy imagine), but merely changes its forms and in many respects becomes fiercer".^^2^^
The tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat are not simply to suppress the resistance of the exploiting classes both at home and in the international arena (the struggle against military intervention, economic blockades, etc.). Its main task is to set in motion the building of socialism.
Lenin made a profound and comprehensive study of the tasks and functions of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Developing the Marxist doctrine of the working class as the main social force called upon and competent to build the new society, he showed that organising the new economic relations among people was the main and most difficult task of the proletarian revolution. He persistently stressed that the creation of a socialist economy was the most important task and the most important aspect of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The socialist state, the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, unlike the bourgeois state, does not receive any new ready-made economic relations which have formed in the old society, but creates these relations and builds a new, _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Road to Communism, Moscow, 1961, p. 453.
^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 389.
56 socialist economic basis. The main function of the dictatorship of the proletariat, as Lenin repeatedly emphasised, is to build a communist society, abolish classes and class distinctions, improve the material position of the workers and educate the new man.This great historical task of the dictatorship of the proletariat is profoundly humane and full of concern for the human personality and bears no relation whatsoever, for example, to the anti-Marxist accusations that the dictatorship of the proletariat is nothing but naked military coercion.
Lenin showed that the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat is not a short episode, but a whole historical epoch, characterised by the intense class struggle of the proletariat against the overthrown exploiting classes who are attempting to restore the old order.
The state of the dictatorship of the proletariat, first and foremost, ensured the defence of the gains of the revolution against the attempts of internal and external enemies with the help of the intervention, civil war, economic blockade, sabotage and kulak terror to return the country to the capitalist camp. As Lenin had predicted, the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat also ensured the building of socialism, the transformation of backward Russia into a country with a powerful industry, a highly mechanised agriculture and a high level of scientific and cultural development. Lenin wrote that ``the dictatorship of the proletariat is not only the use of force against the exploiters, and not even mainly the use of force.... The proletariat represents and creates a higher type of social organisation of labour compared with capitalism. This is what is important."^^1^^
The history of socialist transformation in the Soviet Union more than confirms the truth of these statements.
The socialist state is a special type of state, the consolidation and development of which in the course of the building of socialism and communism is bound to lead to the withering away of the state altogether after the victory of communism on a world-wide scale. The withering away of the state is connected with the creation of the necessary economic conditions which preclude the existence of classes and class distinctions and thereby make the existence of the state _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 419.
57 superfluous. These conditions are the creation of a communist economy and the application of its main principle ``from each according to his ability, to each according to his need''.A most important principle of the socialist state, developed by Lenin, is that of the alliance of the working class and the peasantry with the former taking the leading role. The participation of the broad mass of the working people in solving the tasks of socialist construction and running society is the essence of the socialist state and the expression of the highest type of democracy and freedom.
The opponents of Marxism, including all brands of revisionists and opportunists, have specialised for some time now in contrasting the dictatorship of the proletariat with bourgeois democracy which they attempt to present as true democracy.
Lenin wrote: ``The Scheidemanns and Kautskys speak about 'pure democracy' and `democracy' in general for the purpose of deceiving the people and concealing from them the bourgeois character of present-day democracy. Let the bourgeoisie continue to keep the entire apparatus of state power in their hands, let a handful of exploiters continue to use the former, bourgeois, state machine! Elections held in such circumstances are lauded by the bourgeoisie, for very good reasons, as being `free', `equal', `democratic' and 'universal*. These words are designed to conceal the truth, to conceal the fact that the means of production and political power remain in the hands of the exploiters, and that therefore real freedom and real equality for the exploited, that is, for the vast majority of the population, are out of the question."^^1^^
Naturally, the proletariat is not indifferent to the methods used by the ruling bourgeoisie. It prefers parliamentarism to fascism, although these are only two different forms of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Bourgeois parliamentarism is not evidence of popular rule in capitalist countries, whereas the socialist state of the dictatorship of the proletariat whatever form it may take, is the organ of true popular rule, the highest form of democracy.
Lenin repeatedly drew attention to the fact that ``in the same way as there can be no victorious socialism that _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, pp. 368--69.
58 does not practise full democracy, so the proletariat cannot prepare for its victory over the bourgeoisie wit