p The unscientific nature of contemporary bourgeois sociology is also manifested in the negation of historical progress and society’s advance.

p In this connection it should be noted that the views of sociologists on the character of the historical process have undergone important changes. When the emerging capitalist class was fighting for power, bourgeois enlighteners had a lot to say about social progress. The idea of progress served the bourgeoisie as a weapon for breaking up the old feudal system and establishing the more progressive capitalist society. But once the capitalist class came to power its understanding of social progress became amazingly one-sided. The ideologists of the bourgeoisie began to praise the capitalist order to the skies and to hold it up as the eternal kingdom of freedom and justice, an embodiment of the ideals of progress. Bourgeois sociologists declare that the aim of 190 social progress has been attained and that there is no further road ahead. It is fear of the future which holds out no favourable prospect for capitalism, and fear of the new, communist world that is logically coming to replace the old bourgeois society, that makes them negate progress.

p Quite often contemporary bourgeois sociologists put up in contrast to the concepts of “progress” and “development" the term “social change" which they apply to numerous secondary processes that take place in society and exert no noticeable influence on the course of history, and thus side-step the question of the progressive nature of social development. They want thereby to divert attention from the radical, revolutionary changes now taking place in society, to belittle their significance, and also to avoid solving the burning social problems of our age.

p Renunciation of the idea of social progress by bourgeois sociologists is also manifested in the numerous theories of the “cycle”, “stagnation” and “regress” of society which they are now assiduously spreading.

p In the 1920s, the “cycle” theory was preached by the ideologist of German imperialism, Oswald Spengler. In his book The Decline of the West he sought to prove that society is unable to escape the “vicious circle" in which the selfsame three stages are invariably repeated: rise, apex and decline. In Spengler’s opinion, capitalism is the apex of civilisation and culture. With its decline mankind will inevitably revert to barbarism. From this follows condemnation of the fight against capitalism and rejection of the need for the socialist revolution and socialism, which are alleged to be generally impossible since society cannot arrive at something new.

In recent years the reactionary theory of the “historical cycle" has been revived by Arnold Toynbee who negates the universal progressive development of society, calling it an “illusion of progress”. By opposing socialism and asserting that all attempts to undermine capitalism lead to the degeneration and decline of civilisation, Toynbee endeavours to present capitalist society as eternal and inviolable.