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p There is good reason why it was Ogburn who was among the first in our day to attack the very notion of progress in social history. He claimed that it was “unscientific” and proposed a substitute—“social change"—that was to help expel from social science any notion about a succession of stages of development and of society’s advance. But the conception of “social change”, far from excluding, in effect implies the progressive development of society. When Ogburn considers the question of innovation as a factor of “social change”, there can be no objection. But we object to the effort to expunge from social science conceptions like progress and progressive change, for there can be no scientific theory of social development without such conceptions.

p The arguments presented by the opponents of the social development theory do not hold water. The conception of “social change”, far from releasing the sociologists from the need to answer the question of what precisely undergoes change and what this change consists in, in effect makes it necessary to establish the fact that a change has occurred in a given phenomenon. There is also need to decide what this change is. Is it a sign of growth of the new element to which the future belongs, or is it a modification of the old, which is bound to recede into the past. But this means that the sociologist, whether he likes it or not, must tackle the question about development, formation, tendencies of change and direction of change. That is something scientific cognition cannot in any way avoid.

p The opponents of the theory of progress make a point of referring to science and scientific data which, they claim, make the scientists abandon the conception of progressive social development. They say that 19th-century social science, which was short of facts, produced an oversimplified theory of straightforward progressive development, while present-day social science, immensely richer in content, has upset the old primitive theories of development and has discarded them.

p The content of science has certainly been enriched. Spencer and Comte, taking the agnostic approach, did not blush to lay down the 352 “limits to human cognition”. Science has long since gone beyond these limits. The successes in mathematics, nuclear physics, chemistry, astronomy and biology have long since invalidated all talk about the “limits” to human knowledge laid down by the 19th-century agnostics. The boundaries of human knowledge have also been broadly extended in the social sciences. New and hitherto unknown stages in the development of society have been discovered, the history of mankind since the Great October Socialist Revolution has entered a new epoch, opening up grand prospects for social development, while the Soviet Union is engaged in its successful construction of communism.

p What then are the data allegedly testifying against the theory of development? Modern science requires a doctrine of development in its fullest and most profound form, that is, materialist dialectics. A study of natural and social phenomena shows that dialectical materialism is right while Comte and Spencer, with their positivist schemes of flat evolutionism, are totally wrong. The development of science and the growth of our knowledge about the history of nature and society have upset the metaphysical schemes of development as a gradual accumulation of changes without any leaps or retreats.

p Many bourgeois theorists believe that the emergence of the new marks a break in the line of development which they see as a straight line between the two points. Instead of giving up their incorrect and limited notions of development, which the positivists advocate, they prefer to discard the very idea of development as applied to nature and society.

p Emile Brehier, a prominent French historian of philosophy, wrote: “The importance attaching to the problem of origin in history was connected in spirit with Darwin’s doctrine of the origin of species.... But this research into origins appears to have led history to totally unexpected results....

p “One finds different social structures which have neither been the results of preceding ones nor the basis of subsequent ones, but which emerged with their own spirit and their own irreducible individuality; this has been neither transformation, nor metamorphosis of one into another but was rather death and destruction."  [352•4  This expresses the incorrect idea that the theory of development does not recognise the emergence in society of qualitatively new elements “with their own spirit, and their own individuality”. Having presented the theory of development in this grotesque form, Brehier claims that “social structures" exist in history which had “neither been the result of preceding ones, nor the basis of subsequent ones”. This idea has become very popular with many bourgeois historians and sociologists, and Brehier holds its appearance to be a most characteristic mark of the transformation undergone by present-day philosophical thought. Closely connected with this 353 metaphysical conception are present-day “transformations of philosophical thought”, claiming that “social structures" unconnected with each other exist in history. This is a real sign of the degradation of bourgeois theoretical thought.

p To illustrate what he means, Brehier cites, for instance, the discovery of the so-called Aegean culture on Crete (2nd millennium B.C.) which preceded the culture of Ancient Greece. Let us take a closer look at these claims. These examples, in effect, indicate no more than that the new discoveries in historical science cannot be understood or explained in the light of the old flat evolutionism. These examples once again confirm, the fact that only the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of socioeconomic formations can explain the different ways in which the slave-holding society took shape and how its concrete forms developed.

p Actually, the development of slave-holding society which Brehier has in mind, when dealing with the culture of Crete, has proved to be a very complicated process, and in no sense a straightforward one. The initial forms of the slave-holding society are more primitive, being connected with a continuation of the land commune. This form was widespread in the Ancient East, and the civilisation of Crete also had such an initial form of slave-holding society. At the early stages, slavery helped to make considerable advances in building, the arts and the art of writing. The civilisation of Crete was destroyed by the barbaric tribes who occupied the island. Many Western historians speak of a period of “Greek Middle Ages”, but the analogy is a purely superficial one. The history of the early slave-holding society abounds in events when the emerging pockets of slave-holding civilisation were drowned out by the flood of barbaric invasion. At any rate, this kind of reference will not help to refute the theory of progress. The ancient slave-holding society which then emerged marked a new and higher stage in the development of the mode of production based on slave labour. One need merely recall that ancient society produced the alphabet, the writings of Euripides and Aeschylus, the philosophical works of Aristotle and Epicurus. Under Crete’s primitive slave-holding system nothing of the sort was achieved, although the figurative arts and some other aspects of slave-holding culture did rise to a fairly high level. But the slave-holding despotisms of the Ancient East did not reach the state of Greek antiquity. Consequently, the relative retreat was simultaneously a time of preparation for a fresh leap forward.

p The opponents of the theory of progress also refer to the MohenjoDaro (Harappa) culture in Ancient India (III-II millennia B.C.). They are delighted with its building techniques and hold forth about the level reached by that culture. But Mohenjo-Daro was also a culture of primitive slave-holding society, which also fell under the blows of conquering tribes, and this meant some retardation, but the progressive development of slave-holding was not thereby stopped in any way. 354 There arose the culture of Ancient India, from which remarkable political tractates, profound philosophical works and undying literary works have come down to us.  [354•5 

p The breaks in the history of society do not at all signify the absence of advance. On the contrary, an analysis of these breaks helps us to gain a fuller and deeper understanding of the dialectics of the historical process. That is precisely what present-day bourgeois theorists, who are captive to the metaphysical way of thinking, refuse to understand.

p The fact is that Brehier’s examples upset the schemes of flat evolutionism and the conceptions of rectilinear development, but not the scientific theory of progressive social development. On the contrary, these examples show very well that progressive development goes forward within the framework of formations, and that formations are not fixed once and for all.

p Slave-holding societies which emerged in different historical conditions and at different times in the Ancient East, in Greece and in Rome were different, being concrete stages in the development of the slave-holding formation and slave-holding relations, all resting on a common basis—the use of slave labour. These were different epochs in the life of slave-holding society.

p What was Lenin’s approach to the conception of historical epoch? First, he urged the need to consider “which class stands at the hub of one epoch or another, determining its main content, the main direction of its development, the main characteristics of the historical situation in that epoch, etc.".  [354•6  In the history of Antiquity, which has attracted the attention of bourgeois sociologists, this would of course be the slave-holding class. But the slave-holding elite in Crete and the slave-holding democracy of Antiquity characterise different stages of maturity of slave-holding relations.

p Second, Lenin used to stress that “only a knowledge of the basic features of a given epoch can serve as the foundation for an understanding of the specific features of one country or another".  [354•7  In this context, Lenin said that a distinction should be made between the main features of different epochs, and that one should not confine oneself to studying separate episodes in the history of individual countries.

p Lenin urged an analysis of “the most outstanding and striking historical events only approximately, as milestones in important historical movements".  [354•8  Thus, a scientific relation between the conceptions of 355 “historical event" and “historical epoch" is established. An historical event like the fall of Crete under the onslaught of barbaric tribes should be regarded as a milestone in a major historical movement. This event showed the internal weakness of Cretan society, which was unable to withstand the barbaric drive against the seats of slave-holding civilisation.

p Bréhier’s examples taken from ancient history merely serve to illustrate the correctness of the Marxist-Leninist methodological principles in defining the various epochs. Bourgeois theorists who reject the conception of formation, a key category of scientific sociology, are unable to sort out the question of epochs, because outside the context of formations epochs have no meaning at all and cease to demarcate qualitatively distinct stages of important historical movements and to be milestones on the way of the development of formations. Without the dialectical development of formations there can be no understanding either of epochs or of historical events. Scientific analysis of social phenomena in their development requires a unity of the historical and the logical, and any rupture of this unity spells defeat for sociology and the science of history. The “birth and death" of separate events, epochs, cultures and civilisations cannot be the subject of scientific analysis if it is assumed beforehand that these are totally isolated phenomena which have no connections either with preceding or subsequent history. Nor will it do to string out such phenomena in time.

p How did Lenin analyse the epochs in modern history? He identified them as stages in the development of the capitalist formation. One epoch—from 1789 to 1871—was the epoch of the rise of the bourgeoisie and marked its total victory. Another epoch opened in 1871. “From a rising and progressive class the bourgeoisie has turned into a declining, decadent, and reactionary class. It is quite another class that is now on the upgrade on a broad historical scale."  [355•9  Thus, historical epochs in the main express the logic in the development of formations. They can also, of course, express the zigzags of history, since the development of formations is a dialectical and contradictory process in the course of which the progressive forces now and again suffer temporary defeats. But these zigzags cannot be understood outside the logic of historical development.

p The reactionary nature of the bourgeois theoretical approach becomes especially clear when one deals with the definition of the present epoch of sharp change in the history of mankind. Anyone taking the metaphysical approach cannot say what determines the main content of the present epoch and the main lines of its development. None of them can understand the emergence of the new, and keep regarding our epoch as being merely a “continuation” of the earlier period or some kind 356 of isolated episode in the history of mankind. Those who continue stubbornly to insist that the present epoch is an epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolution thereby assert that imperialism determines the main content of our time. But the fact is that a world socialist system has been established and has been developing. Its development does not at all take place because of the existence of imperialism, for it creates its own basis and develops on that basis. That being so, it is no longer possible to hold that the bourgeoisie is at the center of the epoch and determines its main direction. The class struggle is a sign of the growing might, organisation and consciousness of the proletariat and all the other working people. In the presence of the world socialist system, the class struggle between labour and capital is influenced by the growing strength and solidity of the developing new society. The working people’s strength is multiplied as time goes and their struggle against their oppressors takes on a new quality because the working class and all the other working people now have an organised state which relies on an economy independent of capitalism. This provides the working people with totally new instruments for putting pressure on the exploiters and gives socialism a preponderance over the forces of capitalism. A truly scientific view of the epoch cannot be static; it is dynamic, being connected with an analysis of historical movements, motive forces and tendencies in social development.

p Lenin set out his doctrine of historical epochs in application to the history of capitalism. But it is also equally applicable to earlier antagonistic formations. Only with respect to the primitive communal formation, when classes did not yet exist, are historical epochs determined directly by production and completely coincide with the stages in the development of production, to which the development of primitive social relations also corresponds. Such, in short, are the conclusions drawn by Marxist sociology about historical epochs as stages in the development of formations. Here, bourgeois sociologists are totally confused, because historical epochs and the scale and nature of historical events can be determined only within the framework of formations, as the only basis for bringing out the specific features in the development of individual countries and the meaning of separate episodes in their history. Bourgeois sociologists have discarded the conception of formation, and that is why they find historical events and epochs falling apart in their hands like a house of cards. They keep shuffling these cards at will, labelling them with pseudo-scientific names and holding forth about their sudden birth and unexpected death.

p This approach naturally carries the scientists from flat evolutionism to abandonment of the very notion of development. Bourgeois theorists have discarded the key categories of historical science, thereby dooming it to blind groping in the chaos of events and epochs, and have drawn the conclusion that any idea of development is defective as such. French 357 sociologist Eric Dardel said that the “illusions have burned down in the flames of reality”,  [357•10  using the word “illusions” to designate all the sociological theories which, even if in idealistic form, recognised the development of the history of society, including the theories of progress advanced by the 18th-century Enlighteners, Hegel’s philosophy of history, etc.

p But actually it was only the idealistic theories, the liberal-positivist schemes of development that were burned in the “flames of reality”, while the weapons of dialectical materialism have been tempered in these purifying flames.

p That is the point at which bourgeois theorists began to put the most diverse and unexpected interpretation on the conception of “social change”, seeking to deprive it of any positive content. They used the conception to reach the conclusion that it was not right at all to use expressions like “mankind’s progressive development" or “evolution in world history”, but only “long-term change”. Social life tended to change, bourgeois sociologists said, but it was impossible to say which way such change took.

p The conception of “social change" was used to fragment the coherent historical process into separate processes of “change”, while history began duly to break up into independent civilisations or societies genetically disconnected from each other, social life in this or that period being cut apart into separate spheres in which “social changes" also took part almost without any connection with each other. The only bond that was recognised in this chaos of processes was the human psyche, on which relations between men were based, but this bond did not explain anything in the objective process. Coherent world history, law-governed stages of change in social being, objective stages in its development, prevailing tendencies in various social changes at every one of these stages have all disappeared. In this way, the present-day bourgeois philosophy of history has broken with scientific historical knowledge, having destroyed the living bond of social phenomena both within each historical epoch and in the succession of epochs. Present-day bourgeois sociology, which wants nothing to do with any conceptions of the philosophy of history, actually finds itself closely connected with such conceptions.

The most characteristic aspect of this philosophy of history is the absence of any conception of concrete stages in the historical development of society and of any conception of the social whole uniting the various aspects of social life. The 19th-century positivists believed it to be necessary to emphasise, in their own way, the existence of a social whole, declaring it to be an evolving “organism”. Bourgeois sociology in 358 the 20th century has discarded this unscientific notion of society as an “organism”, but together with it, it has rejected not only the notion of social development but also the notion of the social whole, retreating even farther away from any scientific notion of society.