Progress Publishers Moscow

Translated from the Russian by Cynthia Carlile Designed hy Suetlana Matveeva

Editorial Hoard: L. P. Buyeva, D. Sc. (Philosophy); V. V. Denisov, D. Sc. (Philosophy); L. I. Novikova, D. Sc. (Philosophy)---General Editor; Y. K. Pletnikov, D. Sc. (Philosophy).

CONTENTS

UHBHJllI3AUnfl II HCTOPIIMECKIIH IIPOHECC

Ha a

Page FROM THE EDITOR................ 5

Section I. Society and Its Classification

Khachik Momjian. Society and Civilisation....... 13

Mikhail Mclicdlov. The Concept of Civilisation in Marxist

Philosophy.................. 26

Yevxcni Li/xiuan/cin. The Relationship Between the Concepts

\Socio-Econoniic Formation' and `Civilisation'..... 41

Eduard Markarian. The Correlation of General and Local

Historical Types of Culture............ 57

Yulian Rromlcy. Civilisation as a Hierarchical System of Socio-

Cnlliinil Regions................ 77

Section II. The Unity of the Historical Process

Yuri Plcinikov. Tim Social Development as a Process of

Natural History.................

97

Irina Sizemskaya. The Objective Basis of the Historical Process

117

Vadim Semyonov. Culture and Human Development ....

129 Vladimir Denisov. The Popular Masses as the Subject of the

Historical Process................

139

Lyndmila Buyeva. Man as an End in Himself Within Social

Developmenl.................. 154,

Section III. Culture and Civilisation

Vadim Mezlniyev. Civilisation and the Culture-Building Function of Philosophy...............

171'

Leonid Arkhangelsky, Grigory Kvasov. Morality, Civilisation

and Culture..................

187

Andrei Sukhov. Religion and Civilisation........

204

Nelli Motrosliilova. Science and Civilisation.......

218

©

«Hporpeec», 1983

English translation

© Progress Publishers 1983

Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 10503-166

~^^66^^'^^83^^

014(01)-83

Lidiya Novikova, Stanlslav Zavadsky. The Arts and Civilisation 239 Vyacheslav Ivanov. Some Semiotic Aspects of Communication

in Culture and Science.............. 264

Section IV. The Emergence of a Civilisation of a New Type

Vladimir Mshvenieradze. The Technocratic Model of ' PostIndustrial Society' and the Political Reality of Contemporary Capitalist Civilisation............ 283

Sergei Popov. The Fate of Bourgeois Civilisation in the Ideology of Social Pessimism............299

Nataliya Kozlova, Valentino, Fedotova. The East-West Problem

in the Era of the Scientific and Technological Revolution 313

Richard Kosolapov. Socialism: The Establishment of a New

Type of Civilisation............... 335

Taraara Kerimova. Scientific Management---a Characteristic

Feature of Communist Civilisation......... 354

Valentin Tolstykh. Communist Civilisation as a New Mode of

Human Life.................. 372

BIBLIOGRAPHY.................. 388

FROM THE EDITOR

Every generation is inclined to view its own period of history as exceptional, as marking a turning point. This is the natural view from within. Nonetheless there are grounds for viewing our age, and particularly the last quarter of the twentieth century, as a watershed in the development of human society.

The scientific and technological revolution has become all-- embracing, affecting every sphere of social production, including the intellectual and cultural, in every country throughout the world. Space exploration, first begun by two great powers---the Soviet Union and the USA---is now becoming international in character and is increasingly regarded as an activity engaged in by mankind as a whole. The preservation of the ecological system that constitutes the natural environment of our planet requires the implementation of integrated scientific and practical programmes at international level. The development of the mass media has drawn all the peoples of the world into one cultural-informational process that cuts across the cultural and semiotic boundaries that once separated local civilisations. We witness the rediscovery of the traditions of former civilisations and cultures long forgotten or sunk into ruin, whose achievements then become part of international cultural exchange. The upsurge in social development has stimulated new countries and peoples to engage in creative cultural activity. The concept of man as the highest and absolute value is spreading through society and winning increasing acceptance. Such, in brief, are the basic characteristics of social development in the modern world, characteristics that point to the integrating processes now taking place in cultural development.

However, the socio-political reality of the modern world is such that these integrating cultural processes assume the form of confrontation between world civilisations. As a result, cultural development becomes one-sided, even distorted, threatening the very existence of mankind. Scientific and technological progress is used primarily for military-industrial purposes, to assist in the production of ' ultramodern' means of mass annihilation. The arms race diverts the lion's share of mankind's material and intellectual resources into this grotesquely absurd activity, condemning the truly humane spheres of cultural activity to subsist on a starvation ration, and casting over them the ominous shadow of death.

Production based on extracting the maximum profit 'at any price' •can lead only to the exhaustion of the Earth's natural resources. Transnational monopolies are exacerbating the problem of uneven economic and cultural development and provoking political tension in various 'flash points' around the world. 'Mass culture' destroys the values of traditional cultures, and this in turn leads to a defensive and isolationist reaction that may seek to revive even the most conservative spiritual systems.

The misuse of science breeds distrust of science, encourages the rebirth of religious views and provokes social pessimism and apocalyptic sentiments, all of which create a suitable environment for various kinds of political adventurism. Many people, particularly among the young, who had hoped to become directly involved in the cultural and historical process, felt that they had been deceived and adopted an asocial, counter-culture position. Nor is this surprising. Understanding the dialectic contradiction in the relationship between culture and contemporary civilisation requires a philosophical analysis of the existing situation and a definition of its objective causes, and therefore cannot be grasped at the level of everyday consciousness. In this respect the theme 'Philosophy and Culture' put forward for discussion at the 17th International Congress of Philosophy is particularly relevant. However, it must be pointed out that philosophy is not only called upon to examine and explain a given situation in cultural development, but also, and primarily, to recognise its share of the responsibility for finding a solution; for philosophy does not only explain the world but also, in defining and offering an axiological system, contributes, for good or ill. to subsequent change. The problem of the relationship between civilisation and culture, has become a traditional domain of philosophical enquiry. It was first posed by the social philosophers of the Enlightenment, a period that saw the formation of bourgeois civilisation and the attendant social upheavals. Later, following the establishment and development of capitalism, bourgeois philosophers and sociologists turned their attention to more specific problems of socio-cultural activity. In contemporary bourgeois society the problem of civilisation has once more become the object of socio-philosophical investigation at the level of universal speculative concepts concerning the process of cultural and historical development and the prognosis of human destiny (Spengler. Toynbee. Sorokin. Suzuki. Collingwood). At the same time, micro-investigation of cultural structures and mechanisms, particularly in traditional societies, carried out within the framework of cultural anthropology and ethnography, and investigation of individual cultural segments and their organisational forms (social information, science, technology, political awareness, art, morality, religion, etc.) carried out at the level of the culturological sciences, have become widespread. However, these investigations lack a single philosophical-methodological basis, and are therefore incapable of grasping the process of cultural and historical development as a whole. In any case, the problem of the relationship between culture and civilisation is of minor interest at the level of micro-investigation.

Marx and Engels used the term `civilisation' in accord with the accepted scientific and philosophical traditions of their day as a concrete empirical concept that made it possible to describe, evaluate

and classify various stages in the cultural and historical process. However, unlike their predecessors, they developed the concept of civilisation within the context of the theory of historical materialism, providing the concept with a single conceptual and theoretical content, and the related empirical theories of civilisation with a universal scientific meaning. At the same time, thanks to empirical research into various civilisations, the theory of historical materialism was enriched with data from comparative history, thus providing the socio-philosophical concepts with a value meaning which enables them to be used not only to determine the qualitative properties of the social process but also to evaluate and ideologically direct that process. This naturally demanded that the cognitive status of the concept `civilisation' be rendered more precise in relation to other categories of historical materialism and related concepts used in certain social sciences.

After investigating, on the basis of a materialist understanding of history, the dialectic of culture and civilisation within the historical process, Marx and Engels were able to draw a number of methodologically important conclusions. They perceived in the development of society one single historical pattern based on the mode of material production. It is the conditions of social production which, in the final analysis, determine the development of culture as the means of the self-realisation of the individual members of society. The investigation into ancient society carried out by Lewis Morgan had already done much to confirm these general propositions of historical materialism, and on the basis of this and other research, Marx and Engels concluded that the rise of civilisation is historically determined by the social division of labour, commodity production and the need to control the redistribution of social wealth, the latter a function performed by the state by means of specialised institutions.

The rise of civilisation caused a revolution in the previously existing society. Sweeping tradition to one side, civilisation became a mode of the social organisation of culture operating in the conditions of a class society, so that the development of culture was subordinated to the interests of the economically dominant class, which were usually presented as those of society as a whole. However, from the very beginning this social organisation of culture was achieved by means of the exploitation of the working masses and other social estates and classes, who were denied the benefits of civilisation and cultural creativity. It is this that lies at the root of the contradictions between culture and civilisation.

The classics of Marxism-Leninism reveal the complex and dialectically-contradictory nature of the relationship between culture and the civilisation that gives rise to it and within which it develops. Marx turned to the art of Ancient Greece to illustrate this point, showing the link between this art form and the specifics of ancient civilisation as a type, while also emphasising that a similar attitude to nature and society was impossible in Ancient Egypt, and all the more so in bourgeois civilisation. At the same time he noted that cultural development is a universal phenomenon, and that cultural values retain their significance beyond the borders of the civilisation that created them, serving as the basis for further cultural development. This view is pursued further by Engels in his letters

attacking the vulgarisation of Marxism. Refuting the arguments of those who propounded a so-called 'proletarian culture', Lenin emphasised that communism could only be built by assimilating all the cultural achievements of mankind, including those (in the fields of science, technology and art) produced by capitalism.

In contrast to sentimental critics of civilisation, the proponents of the theory of the 'natural man' or those who prophesied the end of the world, Marx and Engels showed that the development of civilisation is progressive, if extremely contradictory in nature, and that the alienation of culture as a form of the realisation of civilisation is a temporary phenomenon. This then served as the basis of their evaluation of capitalism, the first civilisation in human history to be universal in nature and to take the contradiction between social wealth and the forms of its alienation to its extreme.

The abolition of capitalist alienation, including cultural alienation, in the course of the proletarian revolution and the building of socialism creates the prerequisite conditions for the formation of a new, communist civilisation. Lenin was the first to determine the specific features characterising the formation of communist civilisation and the development of socialist culture, and to lay down the general laws governing this process. Insofar as the development of socialist culture is a conscious, purposeful activity, a knowledge of the laws that govern it is combined with the planning and scientific organisation of its social forms. This synthesis of a scientific analysis of the objective laws of cultural development and the planned direction of its organisational forms in relation to the social development of socialist society as a whole is carried out in the USSR under the leadership of the Communist Party. The need to adopt a scientific approach to the social management of cultural development is underlined in the policy documents of the 26th Congress of the CPSU.

Today we approach the problem of the relationship between culture and civilisation guided by the methodology of MarxismLeninism, the experience of world social development both past and present, and the results of research into specific problems of social and cultural development by the historical and culturological sciences in the USSR and abroad.

This present collection is the result of a philosophical investigation into various aspects of culture and civilisation and their interrelationship within the historical process.

The first section, 'Society and Its Classification', defines the initial methodological premises used in approaching the problem of classification, indicates the main stages in the development of the theory of civilisation in the Marxist classics, and provides an epistemological basis for both the classification and investigation of the socio-cultural process. It also correlates general philosophical concepts involving varying degrees of abstraction---society, culture, civilisation, socio-economic formation---with the concepts used in the applied culturological sciences, and explores their cognitive potential.

The second section, 'The Unity of the Historical Process', provides a materialist-philosophical explanation of social development viewed as a natural historical process, and reveals the objective basis of the unity of this process, which Marxism perceives in the material life of society, in the social mode of production. The authors of this

section have set themselves the task of elucidating the mechanism whereby the essence of cultural and historical development is expressed in various concrete forms during the process of social development, and of explaining regional variations in terms of secondary socio-historical factors. The second section then goes on to analyse the cultural creativity of the popular masses and define the criteria of socio-cultural progress.

The third section, •Culture and Civilisation', seeks to identify the distinctive features characterising different spheres of cultural activity and to show how they are determined by the material conditions of life prevailing in one or other society belonging to a specific historical type. It also attempts to determine the causes, conditions and consequences of the discrepancy between the development of certain spheres of culture and the development of civilisation as a whole. At the same time, an analysis of certain spheres of cultural activity whose general pattern of development spreads beyond the boundaries of a given civilisation reveals the unity of the historical process and the progressive nature of cultural activity.

The fourth section. 'The Emergence of a Civilisation of a New Type', analyses contemporary socialist society as a stage in the formation of communist civilisation, and also examines contemporary bourgeois civilisation and the transitional civilisations of the countries of the 'third world', concluding that the socio-cultural development of mankind is leading objectively to the formation of a single, communist civilisation corresponding to the present level and nature of social production, and therefore capable of solving the contradictions of socio-cultural development in the modern world.

This collection may be described as a summary of the development of the Marxist-Leninist theory of civilisation, revealing its ability to identify and analyse the urgent problems of the modern world. At the same time, however, in view of its subject-matter and the latest empirical data, it is essentially investigative and in no way claims to provide an exhaustive examination of the problem.

Prepared by the Institute of Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences for the 17th International Congress of Philosophy, this book contains contributions by philosophers already well-known for their research into the process of cultural and historical development, and also by specialists from applied branches of the humanities. In selecting the authors and compiling the material, the editors sought to provide a comprehensive review of the problem and also to acquaint the foreign reader with Soviet authors, with their fields of enquiry and individual style.

The book concludes with a short bibliography of the classics of Marxism-Leninism and works by Russian and Soviet researchers on the theory of civilisation and culture.

Authors: L. N. Arkhangelsky. Doctor of Philosophy; Yu. V. Bromley, Member of the I'SSR Academy of Sciences; V. V. Denisov, Doctor of Philosophy; V. G. Fedotova. Cand. Sc. (Philosophy); V. V. Ivanov, Cand. Sc. (Philology); T. V. Kerimova, Cand. Sc. (Philosophy); R. I. Kosolapov. Doctor of Philosophy; N. N. Kozlova, Cand. Sc. (Philosophy); G. G. Kvasov, Cand. Sc. (Philosophy); E. N. Lysmankin, Cand. Sc. (Philosophy); E. S. Markarian, Doctor of Philosophy; M. P. Mchedlov, Doctor of Philosophy; V. M. Mezhuyev, Cand. Sc. (Philosophy); Kb. N. Momjian, Doctor of Philoso-

phy; N. V. Motrosliilova, Doctor of Philosophy; V. V. Mshvenieradze, Doctor of Philosophy; L. I. Novikova, Doctor of Philosophy; Yu. K. Plotnikov. Doctor of Philosophy; S. I. Popov, Doctor of Philosophy; V. S. Semyonov. Doctor of Philosophy; I. N. Sizemskaya. Cand. Sc. (Philosophy); A. D. Sukhov, Doctor of Philosophy; V. I. Tolslykh. Doctor of Philosophy; S. A. Zavadsky, Cand. Sc. (Philosophy).

The bibliography was compiled by N. N. Kozlova and A. A. Orlov.

Lidiya Novikova, Doctor of PhilosopJiy

Section I.

Society and Its Classification

Khachik Momjian

Society and Civilisation

What is meant by civilisation, its essence, its driving forces and its future development is a problem that poses itself with particular force at major turning points in history, when a new civilisation is taking shape and establishing itself, heralding a new stage in the history of world development.. This has happened in the past, and it is happening today, as we witness the emergence and development of a radically new, communist civilisation.

The very concept `civilisation', its determining factors, the characteristics distinguishing one civilisation from another and, more particularly, the question of the interrelationship between civilisation and socio-economic formations, is the subject of increasingly bitter debate and sharp exchanges. Heated debates are going on between those who support the theory of so-called 'local^^1^^ civilisations, and those who support the theory of a continuous link between civilisations. Also of great importance is the question of the approach to be adopted in investigating civilisations, and more specifically the role of dialectics and the comparative-historical method.

It is this last question which will be discussed in the present article, with due account taken of analyses arid conclusions contained in certain of the author's previous works. ^l

To begin with, it should be noted that the concept ' civilisation' has an extremely wide range of meanings, some of which are mutually exclusive. Without claiming to pro-

X. II . ITpo6jiOMa MGTOflojionm coijiiojiornqecKoro HC.---CuiuiojioniH H conpe.weHHocTF). T. 1, M., HayKa, 1977 (Kh. H. Momjian, 'The Problem of Methodology in Sociological Research'. In Sociology Today, Vol. 1, Nauka. Moscow, 1977).

vide an exhaustive or indisputable definition, we will describe civilisation as the historically-determined unity of material and spiritual culture. Perhaps it would bo more exact to say that civilisations are essentially socio-cultural complexes that take shape and exist at different times and in different regions of the ecumene and have their own specific technical, economic and cultural features. This definition, of course, also applies to contemporary civilisations.

Each civilisation functions as an integrated system of interacting structural elements. In the social organism, however, not all the interacting elements are equally important for the existence of the system. The link between the parts is not merely functional, but also genetic and causal, some phenomena within the social organism giving rise to and determining others. At the base of any civilisation, however, there lies some substantive, determining principle. This proposition is perfectly acceptable to proponents of the most varied theories of civilisation; the parting of the ways begins with the definition of this 'principle^^1^^. It is a well-known fact that many Western philosophers and sociologists seek this principle in the spiritual sphere. Thus at the base'of his pluralist system of local civilisations, Arnold Toyhhcc locales some form of religions belief. Civilisations, he writes, find themselves in a position to fulfill their role if they create a new, higher religion.' Only too well aware of the depth of the crisis gripping bourgeois civilisation, Toynbeo suggests that a renewed religions awareness would be able to rescue it from decay. The renowned American sociologist, Pitirim Sorokin, proposes the theory that social supersystems akin to the concept of civilisation are based on different world outlooks and corresponding types of cognition:

'In the beginning [of the socio-cultnral world] was the Word [meaning]... And the Word [meaning] was made flesh and dwelt among us [acquired veliicules and agents].' If not in time, then on a logical plane the Word (meaning) is the first. component of any cultural phenomenon; when it is made flesh (acquires veliicules and agents), it becomes a system of this empirical socio-cultura] reality.^^2^^

The concept of the primacy of the spiritual, seen as the most important and determining factor in a given civilisation, has many other supporters among Western theoreticians. Typical in this respect is the interesting work by Louis Dumont entitled Homo hierarchicus. The author is justifiably critical of superficial, formal comparisons and parallels in literature investigating the question of civilisation, and also rejects research that is abstracted from the process of change and development. He strives to arrive at a meaningful analysis of civilisations, but, to put it mildly, complicates matters for .himself by seeking the essential origin of civilisation in the ideological sphere which, in his point of view, cannot 'be explained by, or reduced to, other aspects of society'.^J

Each civilisation undoubtedly has its own specific spiritual character which leaves an indelible mark upon its structural elements and upon the civilisation as a whole. The question is whether this spiritual character is really the origin of civilisation. The factual material used by Louis Dumont in his book would seem to suggest the opposite, viz., that it is the material conditions of life which serve as the foundation upon which rises the ideological superstructure in all its richness and variety, Human liistory is itself the irrefutable proof that religious and other world outlooks are not the prime factors, but are themselves determined by the material conditions of life, and reflect those conditions, each in its own particular way.

History demonstrates that every civilisation is based upon a specific historical mode of material production, for without this human society itself could not exist. Such an interpretation makes it possible to correlate the concept of civilisation and the concept of socio-economic formations which, in Marxism, refers to an integrated system covering all the major aspects of social life: economic relations and their corresponding manifestations in the superstructure.

This in no way implies (hat Marxism considers the two concepts lo be synonymous. The aim of the theory of civilisation is to identify those particular features which distinguish one civilisation from another and to discover which relations serve to bind into one living whole the

~^^1^^ Arnold I. Toynbee, A Study of J/iston/. Abridgement of Volumes VII---X, Oxford University Press, London,' 1957. p. 111.

~^^2^^ Pitirim Sorokin, Social and Cultural Dynamics, Vol. IV, American Book Company, New York. 1941, p. 95.

~^^1^^ Louis Dumont, Homo hierarchicus, Gallimard, Paris, 1966, p. 15.

production-labour practices, racial and ethnic community, way of life, and cultural, ethical, aesthetic and religious concepts and practices that together constitute a given civilisation. In this sense the concept of civilisation approaches that of culture in its broad interpretation, i. e. as the construction and use of instruments and means of labour and weapons of defence and attack, as the building of dwellings and the accumulation and transmission of information, as a particular mode of life and a particular level and forms of intellectual development, as a characteristic mode of thinking and using oral and written language, and as a particular set of political and legal concepts, practices and institutions.

There are yet other important reasons why the terms `civilisation' and 'socio-economic formations' may not be treated as synonymous. Some civilisations have undergone substantial changes and passed through several socio-- economic formations. On the other hand, one socio-economic formation may give rise to a variety of civilisations, as did feudalism, for example, in the countries of Europe and Asia.

Any civilisation examined at a particular moment in its history is found to rest upon a variant of a particular socio-economic formation. Can we, when speaking of Roman civilisation, separate it from the slave-owning socio-- economic formation, from the economic basis of this formation and its particular superstructure? Niether the Roman pantheon, nor its cultural achievements, nor the moral code of the ruling class, nor yet the level of development of its instruments and means of labour are able to explain the specific character of Ancient Rome. The `mystery' of this civilisation can only be solved by first grasping the nature of the slave-owning formation and only thereafter can we speak of the particular variant that operated in the Roman Empire as distinct from that which operated in, say, Babylon or Ancient Egypt.

We have already noted that different civilisations can be based upon one and the same socio-economic formation. This then raises the question of the cause of (he differences between civilisations having the same socio-economic base. The answer lies mainly in the material conditions of life. However, there are other factors involved. Each civilisation gives rise to a specific culture, religion, moral

code, etc., whose unique combination affects every other aspect of that civilisation, serves as its main identifying characteristic, and would appear to be its determining base. It is indeed true that each civilisation has a specific spiritual character, but this specific character, which is expressed primarily in its legal, political, ethical aesthetic, mythological and religious concepts and institutions, is ultimately conditioned by a historically determined mode of production.

In saying that any civilisation is determined by the socio-economic formation upon which it rests and which itself is based upon a particular mode of production, it is important to make one reservation. Western philosophical, sociological, historical and culturological literature occasionally betrays a tendency to view the level and nature of material and technical development as the type-shaping factor in the formation of a given civilisation. This view gained broad acceptance as a result of the spread of the ideology of 'technological determinism', which attempts to prove that civilisation is determined primarily by technology, and also by the social structure and spiritual culture that this technology gives rise to. Technology is thus transformed into a demiurge, into the basic factor determining social changes, changes in morals, social structure and, finally, the whole complex of values of a given society.^J This fetish of technology presented as the main driving force of social development, of civilisation, is designed to replace a dialectical-materialist explanation of social processes. It must be emphasised that this `ultra-materialist' technological determinism leads to a fairly banal idealism. Thus Rostow suggests that this original technology develops as a result of the inner needs of men, their curiosity, etc.^^2^^

Technology is one element of the productive forces which, together with the production relations, constitute a given historically-determined mode of production. Technology thus cannot be divorced from its social context and transformed into the driving force of civilisation. The genet-

~^^1^^ Cf. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two Ages. America's Hole in the Technetronic Era, The Viking Press, New York, 1970.

~^^2^^ W. W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth. A Non-Communist Manifesto , Cambridge, at the University Press, 1960; idem, Politics and the Stages of Growth, Cambridge, at the University Press, 1971.

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ic foundations of civilisation are to be found not in technology alone, but in the realm of social production taken as a whole, that is, in Ihe system of social relations.

Investigated in its direct relationship to the theory of socio-economic forma lions, the theory of civilisation rests upon a secure scientific foundation and is supported by verifiable and verified facts. Such an approach makes it possible to preserve the theory of civilisation from subjectivism and social mythologisation, and also from an excessively and unjustifiably broad interpretation of civilisation.

Up to this point we have been looking at what one might call the `horizontal' aspect of civilisation, civilisation as the totality of socio-cultural complexes existing simultaneously or at different times in different regions of the globe and placed side by side. Civilisation also has a ' vertical' aspect related to the diachronic replacement of one civilisation by another and the genetic relationship between successive civilisations. Basing itself upon historical reality, dialectics examines civilisations in their sequential, genetically-related stages of development. A new civilisation, while negating its predecessor, nonetheless preserves the most essential material and spiritual achievements of the previous stage of social development. As a rule, no civilisation disappears before having prepared the essential prerequisites of its own negation and the rise of a new social reality, a new system of social relations and material and spiritual values.

While emphasising the sequential link between civilisations as an objective historical process, we cannot overlook the fact that some civilisation have arisen, developed and disappeared in almost total isolation, neither inheriting nor bequeathing anything of any import. Thus specialists speak of the isolated civilisations of the Mayas, the Incas and others. The reasons for this relative isolation in specific instances must be sought in particular historical, geographical and other factors.

The supporters of the theory of isolated civilisations have absolutised the fact of the existence of relatively isolated civilisations with specific characteristics, and have erected insuperable barriers between these civilisations, comparing them to the monads of Leibnitz.

The concept of isolated, enclosed civilisations creates a false picture of human history and disrupts the unity of the histori-

cal process. Such a concept rules out any possibility of there being universal historical laws and denies the progressive dimension of human development. If every civilisation is viewed as absolutely original, unique, and existing independently of all other civilisations, then the problem of historical progress as constituting the general trend in human history is thereby removed. Each civilisation arises as it were spontaneously, inheriting nothing from any previously existing social structures, and develops without any contact or exchange with other contemporary civilisations. Having reached its apotheosis, the civilisation falls into decline and perishes without bequeathing anything that could be adopted and developed further.

One of the supporters of the theory of isolated civilisations, Oswald Spongier, expressed his credo in the following words:

I see not a monotonous picture in which world history follows a single straight line, a view possible only if one ignores a whole host of facts, but rather a kaleidoscope of many mighty cultures ... each culture has its own idea, its own passions, its own life, will, feelings and its own death... Each culture has its own possibilities of expression which emerge, bloom and fade and are never to be repeated... In world history I see eternal creation and change, the miraculous genesis and passing away of organic forms. The professional historian, however, merely sees something resembling a tapeworm indefatigably building epoch upon epoch.'

The negation of the unity of historical progress has its shaky foundation in the absolutisation of the qualitative features of civilisation. Wherever peoples belonging to different races entered into some form of intercourse, they exchanged not only material commodities but also the production practices, ideas, and achievements of their respective civilisations. The more advanced production practices and ideas of one people were adopted by other peoples. This is particularly true of scientific and philosophical ideas, as the history of Marxism, its rise and development, serves to demonstrate. Having first arisen in Western Europe, in Germany, Marxism then spread to every country and continent and became the intellectual weapon of peoples

~^^1^^ Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes. Umrisse einer Morphologie der Weltgeschichte. ErsterBand. Gestalt und Wirklichkeit, C. II. Becksche Verlagsbuchhandlung Oscar Beck, Munich, 1924, S. 28-29.

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belonging to the most diverse civilisations in their struggle for a revolutionary transformation of society.

The establishment in various countries of one and the same mode of production inevitably led to the formation of similar political and legal concepts and institutions, to similarities in moral consciousness, in literature and art, in the whole structure of social and cultural life. The recurrence of historical phenomena, of which we have already spoken, was not the result of some imaginary endless round but of the rise of single-type socio-economic formations. Thus capitalist relations took root in Japan despite its isolationist policy, giving birth to material and spiritual phenomena similar to those that had previously occurred in Europe. Naturally the essence of capitalist civilisation was expressed in a specific manner in Japan, as it was in other countries.

History is not characterised by wastefulness. Nothing, or almost nothing is lost in the rational experience of mankind. Achievements in any sphere of life and knowledge, regardless of their geographic and ethnic source, gradually become the possession of all the peoples of the world.

The rise of a new, advanced civilisation has by no means always coincided chronologically with the collapse of an old civilisation. In the majority of cases the old civilisation is able to continue in many countries and regions of the world for a considerable time after the emergence of the new civilisation. In noting the rise of civilisations, dialectics does not exclude stagnation, regression in social development, instances of the temporary suppression of important and progressive social relations and institutions by reactionary forces. The history of Europe knows of cases in which ethnic groups at a lower stage of civilisation succeeded in overthrowing and destroying states that had achieved a relatively high level of social and cultural development. Nonetheless, the destructive forces then ebbed away, and the previous centres of civilisation 'rose from the ashes' and pursued further the temporarily discontinued process of social development. The interconnection and mutual enrichment of different cultures and civilisations can only be denied by distorting the facts of history.

The dialectic method has a special role to play in arriving at an understanding of social phenomena, and of civilisa-

tions in particular. Dialectical materialism examines any object of research in the course of its spontaneous movement. Viewed in this way, the rise, development and decline of every civilisation has its objective reasons, and every civilisation prepares the way for a more developed and more progressive civilisation. The driving forces of civilisation lie hidden within the process of social development, within the internal contradictions whose resolution is the creative force behind the history of civilisation, behind the different stages in its development. Such an approach to the problem reveals the futility of attempts to explain the fate of a civilisation merely in terms of external influences or collisions with other civilisations. Dialectics is thus directed towards a search for the internal causes of and objective laws governing the development of civilisation and the various stages by which it reaches maturity and is then invariably replaced by a more advanced and viable civilisation.

Dialectic analysis is essentially a qualitative analysis that attempts to discover the essential differences between the given object of investigation and any other comparable object. In comparing civilisations, the dialectic method lays groat stress upon identifying the specific characteristics, the qualitative features that make a particular civilisation what it is. In devoting most of its attention to the qualities of a given civilisation, however, Marxist analysis does not, unlike the method used by those who support the theory of isolated civilisations, ignore the points of contact between different civilisations, the inherited links between them. The need to study the qualitative characteristics of different civilisations thus in no way precludes the search for common elements. This approach makes it possible to account for the radical differences between various civilisations while understanding these civilisations as links in the unified historical process.

Dialectics reveals the unity and diversity of the emergence and development of civilisations in various social and national milieus and various geographical regions of the world. Despite the wide variety of social structures the dialectic of the general and the particular identifies the general laws governing this diversity and excludes the atomisalion of social phenomena where such phenomena express a single essence. A substantial dialectical analysis

also prevents heterogenous civilisations from being identified one with another by demanding that due consideration be given to the 'social incompatibility' of antagonistic social systems.

Marxism values the contribution made by the comparative-historical method to linguistics, sociology, biology, geology, paleontology and other branches of science. The comparison of phenomena and the identification of their similarities and dissimilarities is an important, indeed essential stage in the acquisition of scientific knowledge. The process of comparison becomes even more significant when it is applied to developing phenomena and to the identification of similarities and differences in phenomena of the same category existing at different stages of historical development. None of this is disputed. However, the principle of comparison, despite its undoubted advantages, may reveal negative aspects if the comparative-historical method is absolutised and isolated from other, more universal methods of scientific investigation. Such an approach restricts the comparative-historical method itself to the sphere of phenomenology, and converts it into a tool of description rather than into an instrument permitting a theoretical analysis of fundamental processes with a view to perceiving the essence of the phenomena being compared and identifying the laws governing their emergence and evolution. Taken to its extreme, the absolutisation and simplification of the comparative-historical method leads to the production of meaningless historical analogies and parallels that lack any identification of or concrete investigation into the essential properties characterising the development of the object of research. The already discredited oversimplified comparativism that arose, for example, in the spheres of culturelogy, the history of literature and folklorism, eloquently testifies to the consequences of applying the comparativehistorical method without adopting a dialectical approach.

In a number of works by the school of thought referred to above, the vulgarised, simplistic application of the comparative-historical method has led to a purely superficial comparison of cultural phenomena and to the identification of external similarities between them, similarities, moreover, which, emerging in different ethnic milieus, were explained primarily by the influence of the prototype. The socio-economic and other causes of similarities in the

intellectual and cultural sphere were ignored, as were both the essence and the specific characteristics of these intellectual and cultural phenomena and processes. Unfortunately this erroneous approach has now been adopted in sociological investigation. Suffice it to mention the unjustifiable thesis of the similarity, and even identity, of the social consequences of the technological revolution in a society based on private ownership and under socialism. In its hunt to find external analogies, superficial comparativism is unable to identify mutually exclusive processes and trends of social development. Thus a distorted method, totally unable to pass from appearance to essence, is used to construct every possible kind of social centaur, to point the convergence of incompatible social systems and civilisations.

Up to this point we have spoken primarily of the simplistic and distorted results of the application of the comparative-historical method. A question arises: is this method designed mainly to identify similarities and dissimilarities in the objects of investigation, capable of proving a sufficiently reliable instrument, even when correctly applied, for resolving such cardinal socio-historical problems as the disclosure of the essence of civilisation? Before answering this question it should be pointed out that the comparativehistorical method is a specialised method which deals with primary empirical data. It does not set itself the task of prognosing the future, of analysing given phenomena and the trends of their future development. While recognising the importance and potential of the comparative-historical method, we must also remember that, like any specialised method, it has a limited field of application, beyond which it may prove invalid and even create considerable difficulties. This holds true of the study of civilisations, too.

A comparison of the civilisation of Ancient Khorezm and that of the ancient Mediterranean in terms both of their general characteristics and of their individual features and specific qualities would, of course, be quite interesting. However, such comparison and contrast embraces only superficial phenomena; in order to penetrate to the essence a more universal method is required which makes it possible to pass from the identification of similarities and differences in the socio-economic organisms under study to an explanation of the essence of different civilisations,

of the conditions in which they arise, develop and decay, or which makes it possible to identify and explain the common characteristics indicating that they belong to one type of socio-economic formation. The dialectical method in all its various aspects is precisely such a universal method. The comparative-historical method is merely one of the components of the dialectical method of cognition.

The study of such a complex problem as civilisation is unthinkable without the use of the dialectical method, without its laws and categories which enable social phenomena to be studied in their development and operation, in the variety of forms in which they manifest themselves. One can confidently state that the impasse in which certain Western schools of sociology find themselves, and the now obvious crisis facing Western sociology as a whole is largely a consequence of the failure to apply the dialectical method. Numerous socio-ideological prejudices prevent certain sociologists from using a method that is essentially revolutionary in nature, and this in an age when the enormous rate of social development and the profound contradiction it involves can only be adequately understood by applying the dialectical method of cognition. This is equally true for any investigation of the complex problem of civilisation.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, surveying the revolution taking place in the natural sciences, the collapse of previous concepts in physics and other sciences and the bankruptcy of spiritualist, metaphysical and mechanistic views of the world, Lenin concluded that the latest discoveries in the natural sciences confirmed the materialist dialectic, developed it and broadened the scope of its application. He also noted that it had become impossible to assimilate this more complex picture of the world without the conscious application of the dialectical method of cognition to natural phenomena and processes.

In extending Lenin's ideas to the modern revolutionary age, with its complex internal contradictions, its social cataclysms, its evolutionary and revolutionary processes, its variety of ways of establishing a new world and the equally varied ways in which the old disappears, the role of the materialist dialectic in modern philosophical and sociological theory must be constantly emphasised. No detailed and comprehensive understanding of an age so dy-

namic and so full of dialectical contradictions as ours is possible without a strictly scientific, dialectical method of investigating social phenomena.

There is yet one more important aspect to the problem under discussion, and that is the comparison of capitalist and communist civilisations. Over its long existence, the first has revealed great creative potential. Despite its internal antagonistic relations, it heralded an important stage in the process of social development and now, like all preceding civilisations gripped by class antagonisms, has reached its apogee and started upon its decline. The passing decades only serve to reveal more clearly its insoluble contradictions, irrationality and obsoleteness.

Communist civilisation, which is now replacing that of capitalism, won the sympathy of hundreds of millions of people from the very beginning, its achievements a source of inspiration and its victories full of promise for the future. Now it is developing at a rate unknown to any previous civilisation.

Mikhail Mchedlov

typos of civilisation, of the contradictory nature of their development. Describing the progress achieved in the sphere of material and intellectual production, the founders of scientific communism pointed out that human progress takes place within a specific cultural, social and class medium, that is, within the context of different historical types of civilisation, and, in the case of all pre-socialist types of civilisation, within the context of exploitation and class struggle. In The Poverty of Philosophy, Marx formulated the following idea: 'The very moment civilisation begins, production begins to be founded on the antagonism of orders, estates, classes and finally on the antagonism of accumulated labour and immediate labour. No antagonism, no progress. This is the law that civilisation has followed up to our days.' *

In The Origin of the Family. . . Engels develops this idea still further. Basing himself on a survey of concrete scientific data, he reveals the contradictory nature of all historical types of civilisation that develop within the framework of an exploiter society. The three main consecutive stages of pro-communist civilisation are characterised by three basic forms of enslavement---slavery in the ancient world, serfdom in the Middle Ages, and wage-labour in modern times. Insofar as civilisation was founded upon the exploitation of one class by another, the entire course of its development was marked by contradictions, ' assigning to one class pretty nearly all the rights, and to the other class pretty nearly all the duties'.^^2^^

At the end of this particular work, Engels concludes by quoting from Ancient Society the conditions which Morgan sees as necessary to supercede `civilisation' as defined above. The completion of that form of historical development whose sole ultimate aim is personal enrichment and profit leads Morgan to contemplate the next, higher stage of social development 'to which experience, intelligence and knowledge are steadily lending' and which will be characterised by 'democracy in government, brotherhood in society, equality in rights and privileges, and universal education'.~^^3^^

Thus Ihe meaning of (be term `civilisation' is bore quite

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, The Povert;/ of Philosophy, p. 132.

" Frederick Engels, The Origin of the family..., p. 333.

~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 334.

The Concept of Civilisation in Marxist Philosophy

Any meaningful analysis of the Marxist concept of civilisation requires that at least two factors he taken into consideration. Firstly, the concept of civilisation in Marxist social philosophy has undergone a degree of evolutionary change, secondly in dealing with theoretical and political questions, the term `civilisation' has slightly different shades of meaning.

In the classics of Marxism-Leninism the term ' civilisation' has a variety of meanings. In the nineteenth century the historical sciences traditionally used this term to refer to that stage of social development that followed barharianism, and this is the meaning lhat predominates in Marxist literature, and particularly in the work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Engcls.

Engcls frequently expresses his support for the ideas of Lewis Henry Morgan, a renowned American ethnographer and author of the book Ancient Society. Morgan considered the monogamous marriage (as distinct from the pairing couple characteristic of the barbarian period, and the earlier group marriage characteristic of savagery), the shift from tribal to political organisation and the division of society into antagonistic classes to be the attributes of civilisation. In the above-mentioned hook Engcls summarised Morgan's views as follows:

. . .Civilisation is that, stage of development of society at. which division of labour, the resulting exchange between individuals, and commodity production, which combines the two, reach their complete unfoldment and revolutionise the whole hitherto existing society. '

The great achievement of Marxist theory was its identification of MIP antagonistic content of all pro-socialist

~^^1^^ Frederick Rngels, The Origin of the Family, Private I'ropurli/ and the Slate, p. 330. (More detailed information on the quoted works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin is given in the bibliography.)

clearly defined, historically delimited. Civilisation as a specific stage in the development of civil society must be superceded in order to establish a new, higher social system that will bring freedom, enlightenment, equality and brotherhood.

A similar interpretation of the term `civilisation' was also used by the Utopian socialists. In the social philosophy of Charles Fourier, for example, a great deal of attention is devoted to the contemporary stage of civilisation, that is, to the bourgeois system, which is subjected to harsh criticism for its socio-economic and moral flaws. According to Fourier, the civilised system based ou deceit and compulsory labour (le monde a rebours) will be replaced by a higher social system characterised by harmony and justice (le monde a droit sens). ^

A careful analysis of the theory of scientific communism as formulated by Marx and Engcls reveals that, for them, the term `civilisation' has a somewhat broader meaning. In defining and describing civilisation, Marxist historical science also takes account of the level of cultural development---the emergence of a written language and of the division of physical and intellectual labour (a progressive phenomenon at that time), achievements in the development of productive forces, and even in weaponry (let us recall here the words of Engcls, 'the bow and arrow was for savagery what the iron sword was for barbarism and firearms for civilisation, namely the decisive weapon,'^^2^^) increasing labour productivity, the rise of industry, artistic and scientific achievement,^^3^^ etc. Science, technology, knowl edge in general, cannot begin to develop without a written language the essential prerequisite and attribulo of material

and intellectual culture which makes it possible to register words and perpetuate the useful practices and experience that assist Ihe transmission of socio-cultural values and the entire stock of cultural information from one generation to the next. Mankind owes an enormous debt to the unknown genius from Mesopotamia who around 4000 B. C. first began to use pictographs to represent sounds. Tho subsequent invention of an alphabetic script stimulated the development both of a communications system and of science and technology.

Without the transmission to subsequent generations of the sum of social experience, registered and preserved by means of the written word (and also by means of preserved material values, primarily work tools and buildings, and by means of skills, customs, social organisation, etc.) the knowledge arid values of the past could not become a part of the present. Similarly, if the common human heritage were not preserved in the social memory, no tangible progress could take place and civilisation would not arise and develop.

The term `civilisation' also expresses a value judgement and is used in comparative descriptions of various sociocultural communities and in assessing their ability to create original values surpassing the achievement of others. In describing the Sumerian civilisation, for example, we first of all note their achievements---the invention of cuneiform script, the plough, the wheel, etc.

In the works of Marx and Engels, the term `civilisation' occasionally has other meanings, or shades of meaning. It is also used to describe a social organism more limited in space and time than the whole of class-antagonistic history, and is also used in analysing the specific features of historical types of production relations and the corresponding socio-cultural communities ('the old civilisation', 'bourgeois civilisation',^^1^^ etc.). Marx and Engels frequently used the word `civilisation' to designate and evaluate the sum total of human cultural achievement, both material and spiritual, to characterise progressive shifts in social development and the level of achievement in various spheres of social activ-

~^^1^^ Ch. Fourier, 'Lo nouveau monde industricl et societaire, ou invention du precede d'industrie attrayanto et naturelle distribute en series passionnees', Oeuvres completes, Vol. fi, La Lihrairie societaire, Paris, 1848, p. 2.

~^^2^^ Frederick Engels, The Origin of the Family..., p. 205.

~^^3^^ In The Origin of the Family... (p. 209) En'gels wrote: 'Savagery---the period in which the appropriation of natural products, ready for use, predominated; the things produced by man were, in tho main, instruments that facilitated this appropriation. Barbarism---the period in which knowledge of cattle breeding and land cultivation was acquired, in which tnelhods of increasing the productivity of nature through human activity were learnt. Civilisation---tho period in which knowledge of the further working up of natural products, of industry proper, and of art was acquired.'

~^^1^^ Cf. Frederick Engels, The Peasant War in Germany, Progress Pub" lishers, Moscow, 1965, p. 41; Karl Marx, 'The Future Results of British Bule in India', in Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 12, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1979, p. 221.

ity, and also to indicate the degree to which the masses had access to these achievements. * When used this way, the terms `civilisation' and `civilised' are closer in meaning to the concept ol progress.

In contemporary Marxist research the term `civilisation' also has a variety ol meanings, and is used to designate a whole hierarchy ol' socio-cultural communities. Thus it might refer to an essentially ethiio-social organism (for example the Maya, the Egyptian, the Sumer civilisations), that is, to a community that is, ethnically speaking, relatively homogeneous. It might be used to refer to a broader socio-cultural community that includes a number of ethnic groups which, by virtue of their socio-cultural parameters, constitute one traditional-cultural area (the Hellenic, European and Latin American civilisations, for example). The term `civilisation' is also frequently used to designate all socio-cultural communities belonging to one historical type of socio-economic formation (slave-owning civilisations, bourgeois civilisations, etc.). Finally, the term `civilisation' can be used to refer to all the socio-cultural achievements of mankind. In this case the term is being used in its broadest sense and includes all that has been achieved in a number of formations.

Given the variety of meanings indicated above, it is essential that in the course of any scientific investigation it be made clear which particular meaning is being used. It should also be noted that the process of investigating and summarising the historical process and the consequent development of social philosophy is serving to further enrich and deepen this concept.

The meaning of the term `civilisation' has been considerably enriched during the period following the Groat October Revolution in Russia, which heralded the creation of a new world free from exploitation, a world in which socialist and communist transformation is being consistently carried through. A major contribution to the development of the Marxist concept of civilisation was made by Lenin.

In his article 'Our Revolution (Apropos of N. Sukhanov's Notes)' Leriin, analysing the characteristic features of the communist socio-economic formation, developed a number

~^^1^^ Cf. F. Engels, 'Die Armeen Kuropas', Marx/Engels, Werke, Hand 11, Dielz Verlag, Berlin, 1974, S. 412; idem., Tersien-China', Marx/Engels, Werke, Band 12, 1974, S. 213-214.

of important concepts that shed new light upon the meaning of the term `civilisation'. Naturally, Lenin's interpretation continues to involve a historically high level of economic and cultural development, a high level of democracy, the spread of education among the population and their active involvement in political life. It was precisely in this sense that Lenin, noting the unique socio-geographical position of Russia in the 1920s, declared that it stood

on the border-line between the civilised countries and the countries which this war has i'or the first time definitely brought into the orbit of civilisation---all the Oriental, nonKuropoan countries... '

It was also this meaning that Lenin had in mind when he wrote in some of his last articles that, as a result of the centuries-old reactionary policy of tsarist autocracy, the working people of the young Soviet republic were insufficiently civilised and that one of the main tasks of the revolution was to draw them into the world of culture.

At the same time, arguing that Russia had now only to create the prerequisite conditions for the further development of civilisation, Lenin makes another significant statement, namely that the prerequisites of genuine civilisation were 'the expulsion of the landowners and the Russian capitalists', which will then enable the movement towards socialism to begin.^^2^^ The concept formulated by Lenin of the link between socialist transformation and the development ol' a new civilisation anticipated to a large degree the meaning that was later to be attached to the term ' civilisation' in Marxist-Leninist historical and social science.

Thus the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, which represented a turning point not only in the life of the peoples of Russia but also in the historical development of the whole of mankind, breathed new meaning into the Marxist concept of civilisation. Thanks to the harmonious link between universal human values and class values in the ideology and socio-political practice of the working class, the revolution made it possible for the people to realise their hopes of enjoying the benefits of civilisation, made these benefits, created by the labour of the people, the property of the people themselves. The socialist revolution has considerably enriched the meaning of the concept

~^^1^^ V. I. Lonin, 'Our Revolution...', p. 477.

~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 480.

`civilisation' by giving civilisation itself a new path of development.

In contemporary Marxist literature, the most important components of the concept of communist (sometimes, given the particular stage of historical development, referred to as socialist) civilisation are the following: the generalised characteristics of a new type of social progress, the high level of material and spiritual culture under socialism, the achievements of a social system free from exploitation and oppression, and the advantages of the new formation. In correlating these socio-class factors and characteristics with the material and spiritual values created by mankind during the course of history, and in disclosing their place within the unified progressive movement of world history, the humane nature of the new type of civilisation is revealed. It constitutes a higher stage of human civilisation, as it creates the conditions necessary for the full flowering of the individual and the development of the working classes, of nations and of the whole of mankind.

As a rule, the Marxist concept of civilisation covers sociocultural communities that exist at different times in different parts of the ecumene. It reflects a specific stage in the development of these socio-cultural communities, limited in time and space, and the sum of their social, material and spiritual values. Each community is characterised by comparatively stable features (traditional culture, language, habitat, a single economic or spiritual system, etc.). This cultural milieu, traditional for a given region, affects every type and form of life-activity engaged in by the social organism and predetermines the particular way in which the general laws of the historical process manifest themselves in that particular community. Thus, in identifying socio-cultural communities due consideration is given to both the sociological, formational characteristics and the traditional characteristics of the given culture. Thus, according to Yu. V. Bromley, Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the criteria for identifying socio-cultural regions are to be found,

on the one hand, in the factors characteristic of the social organisms composing that region and belonging to one type and, on the other, in the typical features of the corresponding traditional-cultural areas.'

In our opinion, a particular form of civilisation emerges and takes shape during that period when a society is capable of creating values that represent a contribution to the forward development of mankind and leave their mark on the history of culture, as did the Sumer civilisation, whose contribution was mentioned above.

The main problem facing the theory of civilisation is the unity of social, formational and traditional-cultural factors, combined with a certain autonomy, a relative independence, and the fact that civilisations can exist for far longer periods than any one given socio-economic formation. Understanding the essence of the problem is rendered all the more difficult if due account is not taken of its component parts and their specific features.

A given civilisation---that of Sumer, of Ancient Greece, the Arab civilisation or that of Western Europe---can, of course, be described solely on the basis of its external characteristics. However, the disclosure of the essential characteristics of a historical type of civilisation, produced by qualitative differences in the nature of its social relations, and the identification of the generic essence of a social organism (the slave-owning type of civilisation, for example) of which specific civilisations (Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Greek, Ancient Roman, etc.) are particular manifestations, require a deeper analysis that relies upon the capacity to extrapolate and generalise.

In order to examine objectively and comprehensively the essential core of each civilisation, the causes of its rise, development and subsequent historical fate, it is essential to discover the link between that civilisation and the historically determined mode of material production, the existing economic relations and the consequent socio-economic formation. ' Such an approach makes it possible to understand the inherent nature of a given socio-cultural community rather than dealing only with its individual elements, be they tcchno-economic or spiritual.

In analysing the 'theory of civilisation' advanced by the economist Henri Storch, Marx showed its methodological invalidity, which was displayed in the argument that civili-

~^^1^^ Cf. the articles by Yevgeni Lysiiiankin and Yuri Pletnikov in the present collection.

Cf. the article by Yulian Bromley in the present collection.

:i--0328

sation is a 'general category' based on the division of material and spiritual produclion.

If material production itself is not conceived in its specific historical form, it is impossible to understand what is specific in the spiritual production corresponding to it and the reciprocal influence of one on the other, '

and therefore it is impossible to determine the historical ! type of civilisation and explain the dynamic of its development,

i

In his polemic with the Narodnik philosophers, Lenin elaborated on the Marxist proposition that the mode of production plays a determining role in the development of social, political and spiritual processes, substantiating the proposition that culture rests on a material base. This proposition is crucial to a scientific understanding of the theory of civilisation. The concept of the 'material base of culture' is, of course, quite specific and varies with different historical periods and different regions. Lenin saw the material base of culture in Russia at the end of the nineteenth century in 'the development of capitalist technology, the growth of commodity economy and exchange, which bring people into more frequent intercourse with each other and break down the medieval isolation of the separate localities'.~^^2^^ However, if we leave aside the concrete content of the concept 'the material base of culture', then its general methodological importance lies in the fact that it indicates the necessity of analysing the objective prerequisites of cultural activity, without which the function and development of culture in any civilisation cannot be understood. In the same way, it is impossible to understand the social characteristics of any historical typo of civilisation without analysing the dominant economic and production relations, without taking into account the specifics of the existing mode of production.

Thus the essence of the Marxist concept of civilisation can be summarised as follows:

First, every civilisation, examined at a specific historical

moment of its existence, is based upon a particular socioeconomic formation.

Secondly, the existence of a number of civilisations of the same type based on one and the same socio-economic formation, is a consequence of the unique and unrepeatable combination of forms of culture, ethnic and national characteristics, and specific socio-political, religious, legal, ethical and aesthetic relations and institutions. It is a stage in the socio-cullural development of the given part of the ecumenc linked to a definite level of social achievement in material and spiritual production.

Thirdly, the progressive development of socio-cultural communities reflects the consistent development of the possibilities, the potential of the human mind, of science and culture, and the development of social organisation; the contribution of each specific civilisation to this forwardmoving process is original, yet at the same time each civilisation is gencticaly linked to those that preceded it. This continuity can be observed even when the new civilisation is a negation of the previous one, as the new civilisation preserves the universal material and spiritual values created in the course of previous social development. This universal human legacy, preserved thanks to the social memory of mankind, accumulates everything from the past that is of significance for the future, that will serve as the prerequisite for the emergence of the new, being an essential aspect of the process of development.

This process is, of course, extremely contradictory. Natural disasters, wars, political and religious division have caused irreparable harm to the development of human civilisation, wiping off the face of the Earth individual local formations. Mankind has more than once lost much of what had already been achieved, having to 'rediscover America', and repeat the same steps in mastering the forces of nature, improving social organisation and developing science, technology and art.

However, the development of mankind, viewed as a whole, moves irresistibly forward, though sometimes at the cost of sacrifice. Today the unparalleled increase in military expenditure and the accelerated development of new types of strategic nuclear arms constitute, as was noted at the 26'th Congress of the CPSU, a potentially lethal threat to the whole of mankind. This process is accompanied by the

a*

35

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus-Value, Part 1, pp. 284, 28,^r).

~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, 'What the "Friends of the People" Are and How ( They Fight the Social-Democrats', p. 249.

promotion of dangerous doctrines, such as the notorious Carter doctrine according to which nuclear war could be limited. However, in his report to the 2b'lh Congress, Leonid Brezhnev noted that

a `limited' nuclear war as conceived by the Americans, in, say, Europe, would from tho outset mean the certain destruction of European civilisation. And of course the United States, too, would not be able to escape the flames of war. '

Hence such plans are being firmly rejected throughout the world. We are convinced that the progressive iorces oi civilisation will prove able to overcome the destructive forces and defend peace. As a result, on the basis of all the losses and all the achievements in a given epoch, the level of development of a given form of civilisation takes shape.

Fourthly, the content of each civilisation is determined by the creative labour of the people, who are the source of ail material and spiritual advance. Hence the main driving force of civilisation was and remains the working people, the popular masses.

Elitist theories of civilisation still exist today. According to such theories, gifted individuals are the ' genuinely active factor', and not only do they 'propel civilisation forward' but they also mould civilisation. Consequently, in these theories, civilisation is presented as the product of individual genius educating the inert mass of the population, who live off the fruits of the activity of genius. Such views, according to which any civilisation can only progress thanks to the florescence and independent activity of an elite who guide the masses, are today being propagated by a number of Western sociologists. In his article 'Social Classes and Civilisations' Maurice Allais, a follower of Vilfredo Pareto, declared that the existence of an elite is an inevitable and permanent aspect of any civilisation as a result of the natural difference in abilities, of biological factors, etc. In his opinion, the progress of civilisation depends on the existence within society of con-

ditions favouring the optimum development of real elites. ' While the role played by outstanding individuals in the development of culture must not be underestimated, it should bo noted that these individuals are born of a specific environment and of a specific people, and that their creative activity cannot bear fruit outside the activity of the mass of the population. Various social classes and their individual members play each a specific role in creating the values of civilisation, but the activity of progressive classes and sections of society is of special importance.

In different civilisations (antagonistic or communist) the relationship between the popular masses and the material and spiritual goods possessed by that society is different. In a society based on private property, most of the achievements of culture or civilisation are available only to a relatively small group of socially privileged people, as a result of which the mass of the population are robbed of what is rightfully theirs, and even find that many of the achievements of culture and civilisation are used against them. Therefore in assessing the progressive nature of any socio-cnltnral community it is most important to consider not only its material and spiritual achievements, but also their effect upon each individual, the degree to which they help to disclose his spiritual, intellectual and physical abilities, and the degree to which the individual may participate in the shaping of his way of life and that of the given society. The need to find a broad and comprehensive solution to the problems facing mankind and to develop civilisation in the interests of the popular masses presupposes that the limitations and flaws of a civilisation based on the alienation of labour and social wealth be overcome by means of radical reorganisation.

Naturally, when speaking of the flaws of antagonistic civilisations, and in particular of bourgeois society and the essential qualitative limitations of its basis and values, no Marxist denies the major advances achieved in the course of its development. Commenting on the contribution made by bourgeois civilisation to the development of the produc tive forces of society, Lenin, echoing Marx and Engols, noted: 'Capitalist culture has created large-scale produc-

~^^1^^ Documents and Resolutions. The 26th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Novosli Press Agency Publishing Jlouse, Moscow, 1981, p. 28.

~^^1^^ M. Allais. 'Classes socinlos pt civilisations', Economies et societ^s Vol. 8. No. 3. 1974.

lion, factories, railways, the postal service, telephones, etc...^^1^^ While subjecting the anti-popular, inhumane qualities of antagonistic civilisation to justified criticism, they did not view it as a regressive movement in history. The 'mole of history' carries on with his task notwithstanding; socio-cultural communities continue to develop despite opposition from reactionaries. Whenever antagonistic class relations threatened to destroy the fruits of civilisation, the forces of social progress have always found a way on I of the situation. Elaborating on this idea, Marx wrote in a letter to P. V. Anncnkov:

...In order that they may not be deprived of the result attained and forfeit the fruits of civilisation, they are obliged, from the moment when their mode of carrying on commerce no longer corresponds to the productive forces acquired, to change all their traditional social forms.^^2^^

Progressive processes and trends manage to clear their way forward oven when their hearers and supporters are temporarily defeated.

At every turning point in human history, social revolutions cleared the way for ihe further development of the positive potential of every type of civilisation. Whereas Ihe formation and initial development of civilisation required that savagery and barbarism be overcome and a class society established, today mankind is faced with the urgent need to shatter the bonds of the bourgeois class-based civilisation.

As a result of socialist revolution and the establishment of a radically new typo of civilisation, not only do the benefits aiid values of civilisation achieved over the course of history become available to all, but also new values intrinsic to socialism are created which meet the needs of the individual, of the nation, and of all of mankind. Bourgeois civilisation is incapable of creating those values. The new economic and political conditions and the new overall social climate make it possible to draw Ihe mass of Ihe people into creative historical activity. The social and cultural activity of Ihe people assumes a hitherto unparalleled scope and diversity. Describing the new society in his book

The Slate and /{evolution, Lenin remarked that under socialism

for the First time in the history of civilised society, the mass of tlie population will rise to taking an independent part, not only in voting and eleclions, but a/so in the everyday administration of the slate. '

Socialism is the establishment of a new type of civilisation---communist civilisation--that is to be identified by the level of social progress, the level of material and spiritual culture achieved in the new society and the universal nature of its values. These identifying characteristics permeate the socialist type of social progress and are manifested in the emancipation of labour, in the establishment of peace throughout the world, in the just distribution of national wealth, in the participation of the mass of the population in the management of state and public affairs, in the universal accessibility of culture, in the new lifestyle and in the qualities marking the socialist type of individual.

The principles and characteristics of this new historical type of civilisation are inseparable from a radical, revolutionary change that replaces uncontrolled economic and social development with the conscious organisation of production and the whole of social life. They are inseparable from the consistent implementation of those ideas that have inspired the best social thinkers throughout the ages and which wore scientifically formulated by Marx, Engols and Lenin, namely freedom, full well-being and free, all-round development for all the working people and other members of society.^^2^^ Consequently, the emergent communist civilisation is characterised not only by the assimilation and propagation of the entire progressive cultural heritage of mankind, but also by the radically now content of human activity in various spheres of social life, by the wealth of its social relations and way of life, by a new set of values, requirements and motivating forces, by a high level ol spiritual culture and a genuinely humane social climate.

To sum up, the historical role of communist civilisation in the development of mankind derives from the fact that

~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, The Slnle find rirrnltilinn, pp. 425-'i2G.

~^^2^^ Marx to P. V. Anncnkov in Paris. In K. Marx and I^^1^^'. Ungets, Selected Worlds in three volumes, Vol. 1, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1973, p. 519.

~^^1^^ V. T. Lenin, 'The State and Revolution', pp. 492-493.

2 V. I. Lenin, 'Draft Programme of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party', Collected Works, Vol. 6, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1974, p. 26.

it alone is capable of solving the social and class contradictions and the universal problems facing the world today in a way that meets the interests of the whole of humanity. Communist civilisation is an essential prerequisite of further social progress. As its basic characteristics correspond to universal human interests, it is capable of being the legitimate heir to the values accumulated by previous generations. The new values that it itself gives rise to meet to the fullest the basic needs of men. For this reason, the transformation of communist civilisation into a single universal civilisation is historically inevitable.

Yovgeni Lysmankin

The Relationship Between the Concepts 'Socio-Economic Formation' and 'Civilisation'

In analysing contemporary history, Marxist philosophy has over recent years made frequent use of the term ' civilisation'. Defining the relationship between this concept and those fundamental to historical materialism, and in particular the concept 'socio-economic formation', is a problem of major importance whose solution will help to render the meaning of the term `civilisation' more precise and to clarify its methodological function in social cognition.

Marxist philosophers both in the Soviet Union and abroad have already attempted to determine the relationship between `civilisation' and 'socio-economic formation'.<sup>J</sup> Investigation into the term `civilisation' has revealed that in fact a whole complex of concepts and meanings are comprised under this one term. Thus, for example, it can refer to definite socio-cultural entities existing at a specific moment in history. In a number of cases these socio-cultural formations arc ethnically relatively uniform communities and constitute ethno-social organisms. It may refer to sociocultural communities covering larger regions (for example the Hellenic civilisation, the European civilisation, etc.). The term `civilisation' is also used to refer to specific stages in history marked by a change in social relations and culture. In this case, civilisation is contrasted against barbarism to denote a progressive stage in the development

~^^1^^ For a Kciioral (Inscription of the sitnalion with regard lo this problem of.: Ahtedjioa M. U. COHIHUIHM -- CTanoDJK'imc nonoro Tiina i;HBiijiH3annn. M., IfojuiTusflaT, 1980, c. 58-61 (M. P. Mchedlov, Socialism: the Kmergence of a New Type of Civilisation, Politizdat, Moscow, 1980, pp. 58-61).

of mankind associated with Ilie social division of labour, (he appearance of private property, classes, etc. Wbcn defined in this way, `civilisation' is then further subdivided into progressive periods associated with the formation of a qualitatively new social system, which is then referred to as a `civilisation' in contrast to the `barbarism' of the outmoded social order. Hence in the Marxist classics capitalist society was sot against feudal barbarism, and communism was considered to be the highest type of civilisation.

The term `civilisation' may also refer to the sum total of human socio-cultural achievement. Thus it is possible to speak of the achievements of world civilisation, referring to the cumulative nature of its development.

On the basis of the foregoing it is, in the opinion of the author, possible to attribute two basic meanings to the term `civilisation'. Firstly it can he used to refer to sociocultural entities, which are primarily an object of investigation by individual sciences. Such entities are historical communities which left their mark upon the development of world history and culture (the Maya civilisation, the Egyptian civilisation, etc.). Such a definition of the term `civilisation' also covers an investigation into civilisation as a specific regional phenomenon (Hellenic, European, etc.).

The second meaning of the term `civilisation' constitutes a general concept of an axiological nature in which a particular level of social development is compared with a previous level and its advantages are then described as the achievements of civilisation. In this case it is possible to speak of the civilising mission of the progressive class or social system. When used in this way, the term ' civilisation' acquires a far more general meaning and identifies certain essential characteristics of the historical process. The term `civilisation' can then be included within the system of concepts used in historical materialism to explain the axiological aspect of the development of human society. Tn this connection, the correlation between civilisation as an intcrscience concept and the socio-philosophical aspect of the term `formation' is of theoretical interest.

The term `civilisation', when used to refer to specific historical socio-cultural communities, cannot he directly correlated with the term `formation' as these two terms involve different levels of abstraction. The term 'formation'

belongs to the essential-universal category of concepts, while the term `civilisation' refers to a specific historical entity, to something individual, and therefore it includes the unity of the general, the particular and the unique. The leaching on socio-economic formations is, of course, extremely important to any understanding of such a specific historical entity, but rather as a means of elucidating the methodological function of this theory, a question that will be discussed later.

The second, that is, the axiological definition of the term `civilisation' involves an evaluation of essential-universal characteristics in the development of human history, and as such can be directly correlated with the term ' socioeconomic formation'. However, the teaching on socio-- economic formations does not deal primarily with the axiological aspect of the issue but is concerned with providing a theoretical explanation of the essence of human history as a world-historical process. Marxism-Leninism views tin's process as a process of natural history governed by objective laws that determine the sequence of specific historical modes of organising social life.

In adopting this view of the historical process, the teaching on socio-economic formations is continuing the best traditions of pre-Marxist philosophical thought, which had already begun to view the development of history as an internal, integrated process that comprised a number of succeeding stages whose sequence was the expression of the objective logic of history. Giovanni Vico is generally considered to he the founder of this philosophical tradition, lie was the first to attempt to draw a general picture of world history and to strive to understand it as an allembracing global process with its own cyclic pattern, which was revealed in the rise, florescence, decline and death of each nation that emerged onto the arena of world history. Thus human history appears as the sum total of these cyclic repetitions. This idea gave rise lo the so-called cyclic theory which sees history as a sequence of mutually independent civilisations (cf. Toynbce). However, this view of history as a global process also stimulated the search for a more profound explanation of the process of social development. Such an explanation was formulated by the German classical philosophers in the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century.

The dialectical method, even in combinalion will) the idealist world-view characteristic of these philosophers. made it possible to examine the content, of social life and the nature of the changes occurring within it. Tn (heir writings, these philosophers presented human history as a world-historical process which was seen not only as global in nature, but also as purposeful, progressive and possessed of its own inner logic. The inner logic of history was, in their opinion, an expression of the essence and objective pattern of social development. Attempts were made to distinguish qualitatively definite stages in the forward movement of history, attempts that anticipated the discovery by Marx and Engels of a scientific approach to the identification of such stages and the pcriodisation of history.

German classical philosophy, therefore, sought the key to the periodisation of history not only in chronological sequence, evaluating a given historical period of the basis of how far removed it was from contemporary society for example, ancient history, medieval history, modern history. contemporary history, etc.) but also in essential characteristics. This led to the identification of qualitative turning points in the unfolding of the very essence of the historical process. Naturally, the substantive basis of history remained within the realm of the ideal.

Immanuel Kant, for example, sought the inner meaning and logic of history in the moral sphere. In Kantian philosophy man is both a sensual biological being and also a being endowed with moral consciousness that operates independently of sensual motives or individual, egotistical considerations. According to Kant, moral consciousness is par! of the sensual consciousness of individuals, but constitutes an autonomous system. Following this, the external and internal aspects of social evolution are also distinguished from each other. The external aspect is identified with the subjective aims of man. which are based on sensual motivations such as egoism, ambition, pursuit of wealth and other passions and desires. The internal aspect of social evolution, concealed from direct observation, involves the increasing pre-eminence of the rational principle which liberates men from subordination to sensual motivation. The gradual liberation of man from the rule of emotion and his subordination to the rule of reason and the moral law is lite inner meaning of history. The movement towards moral

perfection is, according to Kant, the objective result of the subjective aspirations of men. The interacting subjective activity of individuals and of nations constitutes the realisation of an objective Jaw. This inner logic of history involves the idenlilicalion of essential stages in the development of human society. Human progress consists in the movement of society towards the moral autonomy of the individual, and it is this that reveals the main trend of the inner logic of social evolution.

Fichte followed Kant in viewing the development of society as a world-historical process, as a sequence of succeeding epochs. Any given epoch is seen as a link in the chain of epochs that together make up the process of human development, and as such can only be understood in connection with the other epochs.

According to Fichte, the basic meaning of the term `epoch' stands in the same relationship to its specific characteristics as does unity to diversity. In the course of the historical process the destiny of man is accomplished, the world plan for mankind is achieved. In its journey towards this destination, the human race passes through five epochs distinguished from each other by the level of individual self-awareness, which depends in its turn on the level of human intellectual development.

Hegel also distinguished between the external and the internal aspects of the historical process. According to Hegel, the historical process is essentially the expression of the Spirit's discovery of itself. In objective idealist philosophy, the subjective aspect, individual aims, passions and objectives are presented as the instrument of the World Spirit. At the same lime these subjective strivings on the part of individuals conceal an essential reality which is the expression of the objective logic of history. The overall movement ol history is caused by the idea of freedom (which is the essence of the spiritual) seeking self-- knowledge. This then serves as the basis for dividing world history into stages corresponding to the level of awareness of the idea of freedom achieved by the Spirit and by man.

However, the idealistic interpretation of history cannot reveal the truly objective basis of history and its true essence as its search for this basis is confined to the spiritual. Nonetheless, the very attempt to discover such a basis and to use it to demarcate the historical stages of social

development proved very fruitful. Referring to the importance of understanding the essential foundations of history, David Hume wrote:

...General principles, if just and sound, must always, prevail in the general course of things, though they may fail in particular cases; and it is the chief business of philosophers to regard the general course of things. '

This search for the substantive basis of human history was continued by Marx and Engels in their elaboration of the theory of socio-economic formations. The basis of history was thus discovered to lie beyond both objective and subjective reason, in the sphere of material production. In the course of human productive activity, which is directed at transforming nature, social relations of production arc formed independently of social consciousness. Formed as a result of the development of the productive forces, these relations determine the whole of the superstructure of society and the entire course of social development.

We are not here concerned with analysing the principles of the materialist interpretation of history. Suffice it to say that Marx and Engels discovered the essential basis of history, which exists independently of social consciousness. Moreover they also identified the internal causes that explain subjective thoughts and feelings, the objective logic of history and the objective laws governing its development. Social development started to be viewed as a process of natural history in which qualitatively different specific historical types of social organisation successively replace each other. The identification of particular types of production relations based on qualitatively distinct forms of ownership of instruments and means of production made it possible k> identify different types of social organisation, which arose not accidentally but in response to the demands of the developing productive forces.

In order to understand the essence of the teaching on socio-economic formations and the meaning of the category itself, it is essential to note that this teaching is concerned with the essence of the actual historical process. However, identifying this essence and elaborating the theory of specific historical socio-economic formations is by no means an

easy task. It involves the use of the appropriate forms and techniques of theoretical analysis and theoretical generalisation. Thus the theoretical analysis of society is performed using not only specific techniques of social research (an approach necessitated by the singularities of the object under investigation) but also universal methods of theoretical analysis and theoretical generalisation.

Marx and Engels recognised that the elaboration of the theory of socio-economic formations was the result of the formulation of the materialist interpretation of history. The link between the materialist interpretation of social life and the theory of formations is twofold. Firstly, the theory of formations was developed as a means of reflecting the actual historical process, which is determined by objective factors independently of theories and theoreticians. The content of this theory of formations must therefore be recognised as objective, as is the value of a philosophical understanding of society. Secondly, the identification of economic relations as objective and determining the course of social development and the entire structure of social life then became the starting point for defining the specific historical types of society in essential-universal terms.

Having identified economic relations as the determining factor, Marx and Engels then discovered a certain recurrence in social life which enabled them to classify social phenomena and disclose the objective laws of history. This recurrence was found to reside primarily in the forms of ownership of instruments and means of production, which constitute the material base of production relations. This discovery then became the fundamental principle underlying the theory of socio-economic formations.

It was precisely the analysis of material social relations that at once made it possible to delect recurrence and regularity in social phenomena and to generalise the systems of various countries to form the single fundamental concept: social formation. Recurrence in socio-historical development revealed itself in the fact that countries with approximately the same level of production development had identical production relations. This generalisation made it possible to proceed from a purely empirical description of social phenomena to a strictly scientific analysis at the level of a general theory that penetrates into the essence of the historical process and individual specific historical

~^^1^^ David flume, Kssai/s, Literary, Moral and Political, Ward Lock and Tyler, Wurorck House, London, s.a., p. 150.

types of society. At this level oi analysis, the theory ignores the differences between countries that have attained approximately the same level of development in order to concentrate on that which is common to them all.^d

It follows from the above that the concept 'socio-- economic formation' is not used to refer to the sum total of concrete objects of one specific type (or category) but rather to identify and specify the essential-universal characteristics which, although in reality existing only in individual typos, can, in the course of theoretical analysis, be abstracted and converted into an object of independent analysis. This is, indeed, the starting point of the theory.

In order to grasp the essence of the process of its construction, let us look at the history of the formulation by Marx and Engels of the theory of the capitalist socioeconomic formation.

^f Marx himself admitted that in Capital he had concentrated primarily on an analysis of one specific historical formation, namely the capitalist formation. However, the logical techniques used in constructing the theory of the capitalist formation have a universal validity and can be used in constructing theories for any other specific historical socio-economic formation.

One of the most important techniques used by Marx and Engels in the construction of their theory was the ' cleansing' of capitalist relations from various `accretions' that, in reality, existed alongside it, that is, from non-capitalist social forms. Essentially this is a technique widely applied in constructing any scientific theory.

By the process of abstraction, Marx separated out `pure' capitalism. This technique is of great cognitive importance since natural and social processes are extremely complex and comprise numerous interacting factors. In order to understand them, the actual processes are `simplified' by first separating out just one aspect that is essential to grasping the essence of all the interacting phenomena. Therefore, out of the aggregate of social relations to be found iii individual capitalist societies, Marx selected only those that were related to the capitalist type. This process of abstraction was the prerequisite of his theoretical analysis of capitalist society in order to understand its essence.

~^^1^^ See V. I. Lenin, 'What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social Democrats', p. 140.

f

According to Marx, theory examines the `pure' processes, and presents the laws governing capitalist production as they would operate in their pure form, not obscured by any of their non-typical manifestations.^^1^^

Thus, in developing the concept of the capitalist formation, Marx put to one side all the non-typical, non-- essential aspects characteristic of both European and non-- European bourgeois countries. However, the elaboration of the theory of the capitalist formation involved yet another technique of logic known as idealisation.

Capitalism, as a specific type of society, passes through a number of stages in the course of its development, and the key to the understanding of the less developed forms in this social evolution is to be found in the more developed forms. In order to construct the theory of capitalism, Marx had to visualise an idealised model of pre-monopoly capitalism in which all social relations had reached their ideal development. Thus the category 'bourgeois social formation' as elaborated by Marx referred to the ideal capitalist system. The concept `ideal' is not used here in the sense of perfection and permanent value for mankind, but in the sense of the extreme limit of development of given social relations. The technique used by Marx is also of a universal scientific nature and is important in the construction of theories and the process of theoretical analysis. Noting the use of such techniques in the natural sciences, Engels referred to Sadi Carnot who, upon examining the steam engine, discovered that its basic processes did not operate in their pure form but were obscured by secondary processes. These he put to one side, and created an ideal steam engine (or gas engine) which cannot be built in practice but which is essential for theoretical analysis. It can be added here that Karl Marx would never have constructed the theory of capitalism if he had not applied these universal scientific techniques of theoretical analysis, if he had not set aside social relations that were purely secondary to capitalism, and if he had not mentally taken premonopoly capitalism to its extreme form. The essence of this type of social relations would have remained hidden in obscurity and its discovery would have been impossible.

There is yet another aspect to consider as regards the

^L Cf. Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. Ill, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1974, p. 175.

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definition of the concept 'socio-economic formation' and the techniques used in constructing the theory of the basic socio-economic formations. A given specific historical type of society is usually examined in that form which represents its extreme development, and this serves as the basis for the theory of specific socio-economic formations. This aspect of formation analysis is sometimes known as typological analysis. There is, however, another aspect without which the dialectical approach to this teaching would ho incomplete. This second aspect can he referred to as genetic, that is, it deals with the genesis, development and decline of specific historical social formations. The genetic analysis of a given socio-economic formation involves an examination of all the essential stages of development which it passes through while still retaining its qualitative distinctness with regard to other types of social formation.

Marx and Engels revealed the essence of both developed and undeveloped forms of social relations in a given type, together with the stages of development passed through by various socio-economic formations. At the same time, each formation is seen as an essential stage of social evolution which cannot be by-passed in the process of world history.

The typological and genetic aspects of the analysis of socio-economic formations reflect the inner contradiction of the historical process itself. Hegel was one of the first to attempt to give this contradiction theoretical expression within a system of concepts in his famous thesis 'All that is real is rational; and all that is rational is real'. This formula attracted the attention of ideologists from various classes and for a long time lacked a correct interpretation. Engols interpreted it by applying the principle of historism. Setting aside the idealist form in which this thesis was presented, he revealed its concealed dialectic essence: the unity of stability and mutability in the historical process. A given form of social relations retains its qualitative distinctness for as long as it continues to ho historically necessary, that is, while it corresponds to the level and nature of the development of the productive forces. It disappears as soon as it ceases to satisfy the requirements of the more advanced productive forces. Engels emphasised the fact that the stable aspect of specific social forms is relative, while their mutability is absolute.

The theory of formations assumes that the historical

process of each specific historical type of society is described from two distinct, yot complementary and interrelated points of view: functional stability and genetic mutability. Any definition of the relationship between the concept `civilisation' and the concept `formation' also involves comparing these concepts with certain other closely related categories. In philosophical literature the terms `society' and `formation' are often treated as synonyms, and if any distinction is made between them, it is treated as being of little importance. A more thorough analysis, however, reveals that the distinction is quite significant. In our opinion, the concept `society' is not identical with the concept ' socioeconomic formation.' The concept `society' has two meanings. First, it is a form of the motion of matter that has emerged within the natural world, possesses qualitative distinctness and functions and develops according to specific laws. Secondly, it can be used to refer to individual societies as real historical entities. In order to make the distinction between the two terms clear, it can be said that `formation' discloses the essence of qualitatively distinct stages of social development, while `society' (in its second meaning) refers to the historical process in all its diversity. A society of a given kind, therefore, exists as the unity of the general, the particular and the unique, and possesses the qualities of a definite formation. The term `formation' refers only to the type of society and its essential characteristics. Thus, for example, capitalism as such is the capitalist formation, while capitalist Britain is a society which belongs to a definite formational type.

Not all philosophical or historical enquiry into the theory of socio-economic formations uses the term `society' with the meaning given above, although the need for such a concept has now become persistent. In order to distinguish clearly between the term `formation', referring to the essence of a society of a given type, and a particular society as the unity of the essential-universal, the particular and the unique, the Soviet philosopher Yu. I. Semyonov has suggested the new term 'social organism',^^4^^ to be used to refer

~^^1^^ Ce.neuoe 10, H. KuTeropna «connajiMihiii opranii3M» u ee snaieHHe /yin iiCTopn'iocKoii iiayKii. «Boupocw iicTopiiii)), 1968, JV» 8, c. 88- 106 (Yu. I. Semyonov, 'The Category "Social Organism" and its Significance for the Historical Sciences', Vo/irosi/ islorii, No. 8, 1968, pp. 88-106).

4*

to actual individual societies. This new term is now quite widely used in philosophical and historical publications, and has made it possible to distinguish more precisely between the actual historical process and its theoretical representation. As a result, the term 'historical epoch^^1^^ has also gained in precision. This term refers to a particular period of history with its numerous facts and events, and comprises the universal, the particular and the unique aspects characteristic of all 'social organisms' existing in a given historical period.

Marx, Engels and Lenin did not regard the formulation of the theory of socio-economic formations as an end in itself. By disclosing the essence of social phenomena this theory makes it possible to deal with social processes in all their complex diversity. The abstract categories of historical materialism, commented Marx, arc meaningless when divorced from real history. Their value lies in the fact that they make it possible to organise historical material and reveal the relationship between its various layers. Indeed,

the difficulties begin only when one sets about the examination and arrangement of the material---whether o[ a past epoch or of the present---and its actual presentation.'

Thus the category 'socio-economic formation' represents an essential-universal concept, just as the theory of formations constitutes a theoretical representation of an essential-universal type. It reflects the real essence of specific historical types of social organisation and the historical process of their self-development.

Marxist literature on social-economic formations generally distinguishes five historical types of social system: primitive-communal, slave-owning, feudal, capitalist and communist. There are also those who favour the identification of yet another type of social organisation which is known as the `Asiatic' formation.

Historians have noted regional characteristics specific to the historical development of the countries of the East, and such singularities cannot bo ignored by social philos-

ophy, even at the level of generalisation. Nonetheless, the materialist interpretation of history makes it possible to delect a general line of historical development and common major types of production organisation both in the East and in the West.' There is little foundation for the isolationist tendencies in interpreting the social institutions and culture of the East.^^2^^ It would seem that attempts to depict Oriental social organisation as a special type of formation arc the result of confusing together the concept ' socioeconomic formation' and the regional manifestations of certain types of social organisation.

One must, for example, distinguish between the slaveowning formation and ancient society. Ancient society is a social phenomenon that includes not only features common to all slave-owning societies, but also features unique to itself. Therefore it would be unacceptable to identify ancient society with a formation, which expresses the essential-universal features of any form of slave-owning society. From a methodological point of view, the theory of the slave-owning formation serves as a means of explaining antiquity as a special form of that formation in comparison with other slave-owning social systems in other parts of the world. In precisely the same way, the theory of formations (primitive-communal, slave-owning, feudal, etc.) makes it easier |o understand the common essence of their development and the specifics of their emergence within the world process of civilisation.

The supporters of the concept of an `Asiatic' formation frequently refer to Marx, who formulated the concept of the 'Asiatic mode of production'. However, Marx referred not only to the `Asiatic' mode of production, but also to the `ancient', the `German', the `Slav', etc. In each case these terms were used to refer to regional specifics, singularities of social development, mainly in the early stages. Marx distinguished a number of regional manifestations of the

~^^1^^ Cf. Konpatl If. H. Sanafl H BOCTOK. M., Ilayita, 1972; )K\iKn« E. M., Blips M. JT., ^TIepnxK E. ft., TTaMoa B. W. TeopeTHiecime npofiJIOMH nceMTTpno-TTCTOpTTnpCKoro nponerca. M., TTayKa, 1979 (N. I. Konrad. West and Fan!. Nanka Publishers, Moscow. 1972, Ye. M. Zhukov, M. L. Bir?, Ye. B. Chornyak, V. T. Pavlov, Theoretical Problems of the World-Historical Process, Nauka Publishers, Moscow, 1979).

~^^2^^ Cf. the article by Natalia Kozlova and Valontina Fedotova in the present collection.

^^1^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, 'The German Ideology', p. 37.

primitive-communal system Roman, German, Celtic, Slav, Hindu, etc. However, the concept 'primitive-communal formation' includes only those essential-universal characteristics typical of all primitive social forms.

As has already been mentioned, the formulation of the theory of specific historical formations is not the final aim of investigation into given social systems. It marks only the first step in the theoretical understanding of the actual historical process or contemporary history. Empirical data on countries, regions and historical epochs is acquired along the difficult road leading from abstract theory to factual knowledge.

Having now defined the term `formation', we can return to examining its relationship to the term `civilisation'.

If `civilisation' is understood to refer to a specific sociocultural community, that is, to a specific historical entity, then the term `formation' represents a different level of abstraction. The teaching on formations will function vis-a-vis such communities as a general theory that assists in their typological definition as members of a particular formation, and also helps in understanding the essential characteristics of their social organisation at a particular level and the basic Jaws governing their mode of operation and development.

When `civilisation' is contrasted against barbarism, then the emphasis is put upon the axiological meaning of this concept, whereas `formation' refers to the essence of a society of a given type.

The concept `civilisation'includes within it a value judgement, implicitly confirming the superiority of a given stage of social development over the preceding stage. It underscores the significance of the first form of the social division of labour and the contribution made by the social organisation and culture based on this form of the division of labour to the common human heritage. The term ' formation', on the other hand, discloses the nature of the social system of a specific type, its structure and its place in the world historical process. These two concepts arc complementary in that the teaching on formations makes it possible to determine the historical type of `civilisation', while the category `civilisation' helps in evaluating a society of a particular historical type within its specific historical context.

I

It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between the concepts `civilisation' and `formation' in terms of their structural organisation. Hero the concept ' formation' would include the essential aspects of social life, the historical forms of community, etc., whereas the concept `civilisation' acts as a structural framework for those aspects of social life that arc susceptible to value judgement, primarily cultural achievements.

Sometimes the concepts `formation' and `civilisation' can be distinguished in space and time (the geographical and historical limits of civilisations and formations). Further elucidation is required here, particularly as regards the geographical limits of formations. Strictly speaking, it is theoretically inaccurate to use such an expression in speaking of a formation, as the essential-universal (in this instance `formation') does not exist independently of its concrete manifestations. Therefore certain reservations must be made when speaking of the geographical and historical (spatial and temporal) limitations of `formations'. In our opinion, it is more accurate, theoretically speaking, to talk of the chronological limits of a historical epoch dominated by a given type of social organisation or a specific 'socio-- economic formation'. It is historical epochs belonging to the corresponding formalional type that have temporal limits. If the formalional type itself is seen as having temporal limits, this could lead to the conclusion that beyond these limits the given formational type ceases to exist, whereas history proves this to be wrong. There still exist today not only developed but also extremely archaic social forms whose theoretical investigation requires a knowledge of the theory of the primitive-communal organisation of social life, etc. An analysis of the modern historical epoch requires a knowledge of all the aspects of the theory of formations.

The same reservations must be made as regards the spatial limits of formations. This obviously refers to the geographical location of those countries and regions which are comprised within that formation which expresses the basic content of the given epoch. This is, in fact, the basis for determining the formationa] character of the historical epoch itself, while the formational character of individual countries or regions is based on their dominant forms of social organisation.

Thus the concepts `formation' and `civilisation' serve to unite the content of social life and the historical process from different points of view and at various levels of abstraction. They are distinguished by their methodological, cognitive function. The further development of these concepts will make it possible to penetrate still further into the essence of historical events and their axiological significance.

I

Eduard Markarian

The Correlation of General and Local Historical Types of Culture

The elaboration of methodologically effective methods of researching into and expressing both the general and the particular parameters of cultural-historical processes in their systemic unity lias always been one of the basic tasks facing the philosophy of culture. Today tin's is necessary not only in order to understand history, but also in order to meet the demands of practical social management. It should also be added that the very development of historical eullurology as a whole did not favour a balanced study of the general and the individual-specific aspects of cultural-historical processes, as can be seen from American cultural anthropology. Here the development of one-sided evolutionism that took place at the turn of the century, with its emphasis on the common, universal aspects of Ihe development of mankind, later gave way to an equally unbalanced tendency (in the other direction), with allcntion being paid mainly to the unique individuality of culturohistorical systems.

A significant shift towards the absolutisation of the unique aspects of various cultures also took place as a result of a philosophical idealist interpretation of history whose main tenets were given their fullest and most consistent expression in the views of Spengler and Toynbee. Both these writers advance the relativist principle of the equivalence of their proposed basic units of human history, regardless of the epoch represented by the given unit. Spengler named his units `cultures', while Toynbee named his `civilisations'. As a result, both ancient and modern civilisations were ranged side by side as equivalents. This relativist principle in the historical philosophy of Spengler and Toynbee denies the progressive development of world

history. Although much has been written on these and other similar concepts in the philosophy of history and cultural anthropology, there has boon little critical analysis o[ their common principle of the equivalence of the historical units or of the initial conceptual structure which expresses these units. However, such an analysis is essential to understanding the essence of these concepts and the common approach to history from which they spring. Moreover, an analysis of the principle of the equivalence of cultures or civilisations, a principle characteristic of this approach, is of into rest not only as a critique of the concepts involved. In fact, the principle itself is the result of a distorted view of real and important, but poorly-studied problems of historical science. These problems deserve close attention and detailed examination. It is proposed to look at some of them in the present article.

Before moving to the problems themselves, let us first note the one-sided, local-individualising interpretation given by Spongier and Toynbee of the units of the development of human history (e. g. cultures, civilisations). The concept of local culture or civilisation was introduced by us in a critical analysis of the views of Spongier and Toynboo in which we set out to identify and precisely define the nature of the historical parameter expressed in these units. The general principle used in constructing such systems we named 'the concept of local cultures or civilisations'.^^1^^ In a later work we labelled this approach to the philosophy of history 'the concept of equivalent cultures or civilisations'. Both these expressions then became accepted terms. Moreover, the first, the concept of 'local culture' and 'local civilisations', was then sometimes ascribed to Spongier and Toynbee, even though they labelled their historical units `cultures' and `civilisations' without the epithet `local'. Indeed it is this omission that lies at the root of the problem. The use of the terms `culture' and `civilisation' would be quite acceptable provided they reflected not only the localindividualising but also the general-phasic characteristics

of the historical complexes under consideration. However, the idealism of Spongier, Toynbee and other representatives of this trend makes it impossible for them to grasp the dialectic unity of these characteristics.

In their attempts to explain the dynamics of the historical process, idealistically orientated scholars turn their attention immediately to the spiritual, most individual and distinctive spheres of the social practice of various peoples. As a result, they almost always concentrate upon the local form and stylistic singularities of the object of investigation, its overall 'spiritual shape' as it were. It is precisely these local singularities that the idealistic scholar is often obliged to regard as the solo basis upon which to integrate culturo-historical complexes and the sole criterion of their correlation. Thus the factors which legitimately permit local singularities in the social practice of different peoples and regional communities to be equaled with each other become the factors that serve as the basis for equating whole historical complexes. This is the key to the concept of equivalent cultures.

Historical materialism adopts a very different approach to research, providing criteria that permit a far more comprehensive and detailed analysis of culturo-historical systems. For the most part, these criteria pertain to material production. The theoretical generalisation of the historical sequence of modes of production, which constitutes the objective basis of the history of social formations, makes it possible to distinguish the phasic parameters of history, which ai'c almost completely ignoi'cd by those who support the theory of equivalent cultures. Indeed, it is above all this aspect of historical materialism that is evoking enormous and growing interest in Marxist methodology in an effort to find an alternative to the theory of equivalent cultures and various forms of neo-evolutionism.^d

The aforesaid in no way implies that those who base their approach on historical materialism ignore the local parameter of history. Rather they view it in a far broader, and therefore far richer context. The interest of Marxist researchers in the local aspect of history is reflected, for example, in Soviet literature on this subject over the last

~^^1^^ Cf. MapKapnii ,9. C. 0 Koitn,Pinuni JIOKUJIMIMX i;uniuiit:iai;nii. Epenair, n^-no ATI Ap.\i. COP. 1002; on ;KP. Oqppi.ii Toopini Kyjn,Typw. Epeuan, iKi/i-no AH Ap.\r. CCP, 1909 (K. S. Markarian, On the Concept of Local Civilisations, Academy of Sciences of thp Armenian SSR, Yerevan, 1902; idem., Outline* oj a Theory of Culture, Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR, Yerevan, 1969).

~^^1^^ Cf. David Kaplan, Robert Alan Manners, Culture Theory, Prentice-Hall Inc., Knglewood Cliffs (New Jersey), 1972.

few years, which reveals that a great deal of research is being conducted on the individual-specific aspects of the development of mankind within the framework of the theory of social formations.

Clearly, the main methodological problem is that of correlating these two aspects of research into culture ( civilisation) and giving them precise conceptual expression within a unified theoretical conceptual system. The conceptual system that divides historical types of culture into `general' and `local' is meant to serve precisely this purpose. This system can be used to investigate and represent specific historical cultural complexes in their entirety, allowing for two qualitatively different cognitive projections. One of these requires that the objects of study be abstracted from their specific historical, local-individual links with the surrounding world. Such abstraction is necessary in order that attention be concentrated on their general characteristics and their historical similarity or dissimilarity established. It is this abstract-analytical approach that makes it possible to distinguish the corresponding stages of cultural development. The second cognitive projection, on the other hand, concentrates attention on those specific historical, local-individual links between the systems under investigation and the surrounding world which arc ignored in investigating general historical types. Accordingly, the generalisation and typologisation of the objects under investigation at this level takes account of characteristics localised in time and space. This particular method of generalisation and typologisation is designed 1o express local historical types of culture.

The concept of socio-economic formations corresponds to the first, most general level of investigation into the social process. This concept is the classical expression of that form of general historical type which represents the systemic phasic unity of social processes^^1^^ and it can only fulfil its cognitive functions if the local-individual aspects of the societies it comprises are set aside, this being the indispensable prerequisite of a phasic-formation description of these societies. These aspects of the concept of socio-economic formations must be fully appreciated in order to arrive at a correct formulation of the problem of its relationship to culturo-historical processes, and also in order to formulate

~^^1^^ Cf. the article by Ycvgeni Lysmankin in the present collection.

a concept of culture that is essentially similar to the concept of socio-economic formations both logically and in content. Such a concept is that of formatioual types of culture. This concept expresses the various phases of cultural development as determined by radical changes in the modes of material production.

Any explanation of the relationship between socio-- economic formations and fonnational types of culture inevitably touches upon a problem fundamental to cullurological theory, that of clearly defining the criteria to be used in distinguishing culture from social life as a whole. The very nature of the phenomenon of culture, a phenomenon that is `diffused' throughout the entire social organism, that literally penetrates its every pore, makes this problem particularly difficult to solve. Moreover, when separating culture out from the entire complex of social life in order to subject it to scientific investigation, it is essential to avoid (he frequently restricted interpretations of this phenomenon (as a system of values, as the creative aspect of human activity, etc.), and to preserve its comprehensive integrity and richness of content. This problem cannot be solved by a one-dimensional approach. Its solution requires the construction of a multidimensional model which permits a systemic examination of society and in which culture is not merely seen as one of the parts, but as one of the basic dimensions of social life. The structural cross-section reflecting this dimension then reveals social life from the point of view of those modes of human behaviour that are characteristic of social life in being extra-biological.

The other two dimensions of the proposed model are designed to reflect the subjects (individual and collective) and the diversity of human activity, the latter being the result of corporate activity directed towards the corresponding objects of reality.

The above-mentioned categories (subjects of activity, spheres of activity, and extra-biological means of activity) together form, in our opinion, the basic componcnlial structure of society. In other words, all the diversity of sociocultural phenomena can be expressed and represented by these categories. In reality, these categories are indissolnbly united into one whole which serves as the basis for the integrated network of social life and the source of its development.

From a general typological point of view, Ibis inlegraterl unity of llie elements tlial conslilule social life is expressed by the concept of socio-economic formation. Formalional types of culture give phasic expression lo only one of these categories of elements--the specific means by which human communities interact with their natural and sociocultural environment and organise their social life on (lie basis of the inslilulionalisalion, slimulation, programming, material provision and social reproduction of the activity of their individual members. The construction of formational types of culture is a specific line of theoretical enquiry within the general process of investigation into socio-- economic formations.

The elaboration of a multidimensional systemic model of society that provides the criteria for correlating the cullurological and other fundamental theoretical lines of enquiry involved in investigating social life also has an important role to play in substantiating the teaching on socio-economic formations as applied to every epoch of human history without exception. The theoretical potential of historical materialism in this respect is recognised not only by Marxists. The well-known American anthropologist Marvin Harris places great value on precisely this property of historical materialism as developed by Marx, who, in Harris's words, formulated a principle no less valid scientifically than Darwin's principle of natural selection. ^J

However, in the West considerable influence is still enjoyed by interpretations of the theory of socio-economic formations which declare that, while this theory makes it possible to explain the nature and development of certain historical epochs, in particular the age of capitalism, it is of no assistance in understanding other epochs. The most common argument is that economic institutions play the dominant role in some societies, but others are dominated by other types of institutions---religious, for example, or military. However, such arguments are based on a false premise and cannot invalidate the teaching on socio-- economic formations. This theory is not based on asserting the determining role of economic institutions, but points to the ultimately determining role played by economic activity in

the development of society and the shaping of general types of social development. Therefore, in this particular instance it is not social institutions (i.e. elements of culture), but the institutionalised spheres of human activity that are to be directly correlated, and these last express a qualitatively different structural cross-section of society.

The cognitive situation under analysis requires that two corelalive units---economic and extra-economic activity ---be distinguished within the given structural cross-section. The historical relationship between these two spheres in the process of social development permits the conclusion that the mode of economic activity determines the essential characteristics of the basic spheres of extra-- economic activity, i.e. their general type. It is this cognitive function of the given principle of historical materialism that we will apply to all the phases and all the epochs of human history.

While not claiming that the concepts of socio-economic formations and formational types of culture can explain everything, we would nonetheless like to stress yet again their general-typological nature. Their application is restricted to the identification of the common, invariable characteristics of social development on the basis of the criteria discussed above, and it cannot be used directly to explain the specific characteristics of individual societies, which are the product of concrete historical conditions. The teaching on socio-economic formations serves as the essential general methodological prerequisite in studying these individual characteristics, which, however, themselves require a different principle of explanation and generalisation. The systematic and comprehensive elaboration of this principle is a problem that has arisen only recently.

Paradoxically, it is the modern age with its powerful unifying tendencies that has posed with particular urgency the problem of conducting scientific research into the local parameter of cultural development. Until recently, interest in the individual-unique, local characteristics of culture was limited, at the scientific level, mainly to the corresponding historical and geographical disclipincs. A dramatic change is occurring today in this regard. From being a strictly academic and peripheral problem, research into the local aspect of human development has now become of ma-

^^1^^ M. Harris, The Hisr of Anthropological Theory, Crowd 1, Now York, 1909.

I

jor theoretical and practical importance. A major reason for this change is that, in managing social processes on a scientific basis, it is becoming increasingly important to take account ol the local parameter expressing the individual-unique aspect of history and embodied in cultural traditions. The need for a branch of learning able to give precise and systematic expression to the local parameter of human history is today making itself felt in various spheres of practical activity, from socio-economic planning to the formulation of foreign policy towards speciiic countries and regions.

For a long time research into the local diversity of culture was dominated by purely descriptive and phenomenological methods based on a subjective understanding of and emotional response to specific forms of culture, and on an intuitive grasp of their individual stylistic characteristics. There can be no doubt that this phenomonological approach is quite legitimate and, indeed, in some cases indispensable. However, in the instance now under consideration, an approach is needed that makes it possible to express in a system of precisely defined terms, the local, individual-unique experience of historical communities as embodied in their ethnic and local traditions. Tin's would then make it possible to represent the units of this experience as comparable objects.

The integralive interaction of the social and natural sciences that is typical of our age enriches social research with universal scientific methods and useful analogies. Of potentially enormous significance in this respect is the view of human social development as a qualitatively distinct form of adaptive processes. At present, this approach to human history raises more questions than it solves. However, this research strategy, whose aim is to disclose the invariable characteristics of the adaptive processes and on this basis establish the fundamental nature of society as an adaptive system, would seem to be promising. Such an approach, which fully corresponds to contemporary processes of scientific integration, sheds new light on many social science problems, including the problem of the ontological status of local variation in the development of human culture.

Of interest in this connection is the concept of specific and general evolution put forward by the American an-

thropologist M. Sahlins.^l Attempting to find some common reference points in examining socio-cnltural development and biological evolution, Sahlins believes he has found them in the essentially similar forms these two processes assume, even though the processes are accomplished by qualitatively different mechanisms. Both biological and cultural evolution occur by means of adaptive modification of the corresponding forms to the existing conditions of the environment, and both involve a progression from lower to higher levels of development. These two aspects of development are very similar lo the differentiation of two types of biological change proposed by the Soviet scientist A. N. Scvertsov.^^2^^ These are `idioadaptation' (adaptation to a specific environment, the former being wholly relative to the latter), and `aromorphosis' (changes of a general and progressive nature). However, as has already been pointed out, Sahlins is attempting to view these aspects of development as invariants characteristic of the development of all forms of life, including human social life.

Sahlins' approach deserves attention because of its attempt to discover an objective basis for correlating the general and the Jocal (or, as Sahlins describes it, `specific') aspects of human cultural development. However, this merely indicates the general direction of research. Sahlins not only fails to discuss, but does not even mention the fundamental methodological problems involved in such a correlation of the general and local aspects of cultural development. Thus, for example, Sahlins does not deal with the problem of differentiating the methods of generalisation to be used for the general and local aspects of cultural development, although this problem should, in our opinion, be considered as fundamental to any investigation of the questions under review.

The local parameter in both biological and socio-cultural evolution derives from the fact that the potential capacities contained in the evolutionary units can only manifest

~^^1^^ M. Sahlins, Evolution: Specific and General in Theory oj Anthropology. Ed. by R. Manner and D. Kaplan, Aldino Publishing Company, Chicago, 19G8, pp. 230-234, 229-240.

- Ceeepnoa A. II. P-namme iiaiipaBJiciuiu onojiiouuwmoro upou,ecca. M., M3/i;-BoMocKOBCKoroyHiincpcnTeTa, 1907, c. 58, 07, 87 (A. N. Scvertsov, The Main Trends in the Evolutionary Process, Moscow University Press, Moscow, 1967, pp. 58, 07,87).

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themselves in a plurality of evolutionary forms by means of regional soli'-limilalion. This supposes I ho development, of corresponding, integrated, locally specialised modes of existence which are capable of reflecting Ihc concrete conditions obtaining in the environment to be assimilated. As a result, the maintenance of a local cultural individuality is as important for social units of human development as is the maintenance of the appropriate programmes for the units of biological evolution.

The maintenance of the local individuality of different societies was particularly important during the past stages of human development, when the historical accumulation of economic experience assumed a stable ethnic pattern, being woven into national traditions. However, even today when some of the more important ecological functions that were previously carried out by ethno-cultural traditions have started to shift to the realm of supra-ethnic culture, characterised by a tendency to unification, the localised diversity of human culture is displaying a notable capacity for survival. This is explained primarily by the fact that the local diversity of human culture is one expression of its redundancy. This redundancy is potentially of great adaptive importance, for it is culture that serves as the specific adaptive mechanism of society thanks to which society has been transformed into a 'universal adaptive-adapting system' unique among all forms of life. If it is to carry out its adaptive functions effectively, culture, like modes of organising and reproducing biological life, must have some degree of redundancy. In other words, it must not only be constantly able to meet the minimum demands of the environment, but also contain within itself the capacity to adapt to new, sometimes sharply changing conditions. The form and degree of the expression of local cultural diversity can vary considerably at different stages of social development, but diversity itself nonetheless remains an essential feature of any of these stages as a consequence of the factors mentioned above, and others, which are produced by the processes of social self-organisation.

These processes are fundamentally contradictory, as is the very means of their realisation---culture. Although culture serves as the specific adaptive mechanism of society, it has always carried within itself a destructive, destabilising element. This is particularly noticeable in the local

diversity of culture, one of whose manifestations can be seen in the contradictions of ethnic and regional interests, ideas and social institutions. These contradictions and conflicts have naturally proved to be one of the most important destabilising factors in history. However, in the actual process of interaction between human communities, these contradictions also act as the source of cultural forms corresponding to the existing environment.

Until now, the process of adapting local cultural traditions to the existing social environment was spontaneous and took place over long historical periods. Thai this should be so was natural for ages characterised by a relatively slow rate of social development. However, today the situation has undergone a qualitative change as a result of the sharp acceleration of social change. Thus the main common task facing humanity involves the need for a scientifically grounded mechanism of adaptive self-modification for human communities living in the rapidly changing contemporary world.

The task of exercising direct control over the dynamics of cultural traditions in order to adapt them to the imperatives of world development can be considered as the maximum programme. Today we are faced with another, also very important but comparatively easier scientific and managerial task connected with the systemic study of cultural traditions, and in particular their local parameter. This is the task of allowing for cultural traditions in setting up forecast models simulating social systems at the global and regional level in order to determine their most likely paths of development. Cultural tradition is a phenomenon whose study makes it possible to combine into one whole the past, the present and the probable future of the system being simulated.

The study of the local parameter of culture-historical processes is directly linked with their individualisation, i.e. with the comprehensive reproduction of the unique experience of the units of Ihe given processes as expressed in their cultural heritage. The individualisation of cultures is, however, one of the methodologically least explored problems of social science. The Baden school of neo-- Kantianism, and in particular Heinrich Rickert, did, it is true, devote considerable attention to this problem, but Rickert, who put the individualising, historical (idiographic) meth-

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od in opposition to the generalising, natural-scientific (nomothetic) met hod, produced a one-sided and distorted interpretation of the task oi' individualising Hie objects of historical research, and in fact led such research into an impasse, where, in Western literature on this topic, it lias remained to this day.

Rickert overlooked the fact lhat, in addition to the ' idiographic individualisation' of the objects of historical research, which involved the perception and description of single events and facts selected on the basis of their relation to the corresponding values, there is another, special type of individualisation based on the generalisation of these objects within their given regional space-time co-- ordinates. We have called this method of generalisation ' generalising individualisation'.^^4^^ Moreover, as one might expect, this method of individualisation is particularly important for historical and geographical research into culture, since in the process of carrying out its functions culture is constantly reproduced in the actions of various individuals united within specific groups.

In order to carry out these functions (which, as was stated earlier, consist in stimulating, programming, controlling, co-ordinating, materially providing for and socially reproducing human activity by special, extra-biological means), culture must necessarily assume the form of the corresponding stereotyped actions. The processes involved in the stereotypisation of culture are reflected in norms of behaviour, tools, weapons, works of art, means of transport, dwellings, food and many others. It is very important to note that culture is seen as that which is self-repeating, reproducing a large number of basically identical copies, not only by those engaged in the theory of culture, but also by those engaged in historical and geographical research, for each is attempting to interpret certain manifestations of the culture-historical process, including their characteristic individual-unique aspects.

The cultural historian is, of course, perfectly justified in

examining certain cultural manifestations not as identical samples of the corresponding cultural complex, but as facts having a value of Ihemselves and to be viewed in their unique integrity. However, what is then to be the approach to the study of the specific characteristics not of individual products of a culture but of the culture itself, of which these products arc the direct expression; as, for example, in the study of the unique characteristics of the culture of a given people? In such a situation, the historian is naturally obliged to generalise the diverse manifestations of culture, to examine them in the light of the stereotypes typical of that particular ethno cultural tradition. Only when the various cnltiiro historical practices of a given people have heen repeatedly compared amongst themselves, and their inherent characteristics typologiscd in comparison with the culturo-historical practices of other peoples is it possible in principle to individualise their respective cultures. This is true of any historically delimited culture. In other words, the individiialisation of culturo-historical systems is achieved in such cases by a process of generalisation, this last understood in the literal sense of the word, a process that the representatives of the Baden school of nco-Kantianism repeatedly tried to represent as being the antithesis of historical knowledge. It is this process that was referred to above as 'generalising individualisation'.

Although the method of investigation described as ' generalising individualisation' is widely used in both historical and geographical research (suffice it to mention here the investigative techniques iised in archeology or ethnography), it has still not achieved recognition in its own right as a logico-mothodological procedure. This is no doubt largely explained by the fact that, in terms of abstract logic, generalising individualisation in no way differs in principle from other forms of generalisation, and also necessarily presupposes abstraction from the individual characteristics of the objects under investigation. If, for example, a particular ethnic group is taken as the object of generalising individualisation, then the cognitive task undertaken in relation to this group can only he accomplished by, on the one hand, separating out those features typical of I he given ethnic culture while, on the other, leaving to one side all those features that deviate from what is, in the given instance, the recognised ethno-cultural norm.

~^^1^^ E. Markarian, 'Methodological Principles of Studying tlu> Local Diversity oi Culture^^1^^. In (!Ui International Congress of Logic, M t'lli. oilnlogy and Philosop/it/ uj Scieiict-. Abstr. (sections 10, 11, 12), Hannover, 1979, p. 10.

The qualitative distinctness of generalising individualisation as a method of generalising objects is revealed not by abstract logic but in the course of its application in actual multidimensional cognitive situations, which require that different functions be allocated to different types of generalising mental activity. Only in the actual cognitive situations that arise during the investigation of human history does the procedure of identifying the models of activity typical of a particular ethnic culture acquire an individualising function that enables it to be relatively clearly distinguished from those forms of generalisation which are intended to disclose the generic features of ethno-social organisms.

The existence of a distinct, generalising form of individualisation should naturally be reflected in the corresponding historical types. Therefore a special concept is required that is capable of providing a generalised description of that kind of typological concept as applied to culture. The concept 'local historical type of culture' is designed to provide a generalised expression and definition of the direct result of the generalised individualisation occurring in the course of cultural development.

The use of the concept 'local historical type of culture' requires that the term `local' be more fully explained, as it is often linked to the identification of relatively small geographical areas. Indeed, it was in this sense that it was used to designate one of the rungs in the hierarchy: global-regional-local. It is worth noting here that this widespread, restrictive interpretation of the term `local' is never substantiated. Nor is this surprising. It is impossible to give any precise criteria for restricting the local nature of any cultural phenomenon for the simple reason that we are dealing here with a characteristic intrinsic to any unit of human development regardless of its scale. Our use of this 'erm in the concept 'local historical type' differs from that just described in two ways. First, we use it to describe not I lie hierarchical levels of a system, but one of the logically equivalent parameters of a two-dimensional cross-section of that system (i.e. correlated to the parameter expressing the general properties of the system). Secondly, we use the concept `local' in combination with the units of historical development at any taxonomical level on condition that these units are examined within their specific space-time

co-ordinates. These characteristics are the expression within the systems under investigation of the complex of specific conditions within which they exist, and of the crystallisation within the corresponding modes of historical existence of those individual features naturally acquired by these systems as a result of interaction with their environment. It is this factor which objectively justifies the use of the concept `local' in a manner permitting variability as to range and content according to the cognitive task.

The factors mentioned above are of fundamental importance and are essential in selecting a qualitatively distinct projection of individualising research into systems together with the corresponding specific method of generalisation.

As with general historical types of culture, its local historical types arc not concepts that can be used directly in a particular piece of research. This is because these concepts are not correlated with specific units of analysis such as, for example, `nation'. However, these types, expressing as they do two different points of reference in investigation into culturo-historical systems, are designed to function as generic types for all concepts reproducing in one way or another either the individual or the general features and properties of the given systems. Practical research in contemporary culturology and the social sciences in general sorely needs such clearly formulated and expressed theoretical concepts. By establishing the initial reference points of the analysis of socio-cultural systems, Ihey avoid any blurring of the different aspects involved and provide an appropriate method of classifying the research data.

In terms of the range, content and number of identifiable characteristics, general and local historical types may vary considerably. Earlier we looked at the fundamental concept of socio-economic formations. From this is derived the concept of formational types of culture (civilisation) as the manifestations of general historical types of culture. However, it should be noted that the latter can be based on the identification of certain other general features and properties of (lie socio-cnltural process, of which an example is the concept of economico-cultnral types so important in ethnographic research.^J

~^^1^^ Cf. the article by Yulian Bromley in the present collection,

Formational types of culture and economico-cullnral typos in different projections (phasic and geographical) arc designed lo express whole cultural complexes. However, general historical types of culture can also he used to reproduce their individual subsystems (segments): technology, science, religion, ethics, art, etc. ' In this way the concept of a general historical type of culture is generic in relation to any historical type of culture abstracted from its direct local links with its environment. Viewed in this way, this concept serves as an elementary and variable theoretical unit of the phasic and generalised geographical diversity of culture.

As regards (he local historical type of culture, this concept is designed to serve as the generic concept in relation to all historical types that are the result of the generalising individualisation of the units of cultural development. Accordingly, it can also be seen as an elementary and variable theoretical unit of the individual diversity of human culture reflecting the unique features of its development within specific space-time co-ordinates. The particular space-time co-ordinates chosen may vary according to the objective properties of the development process itself and of the cognitive problems under consideration. Thus they may comprise both large culture-regional complexes such as Latin America, South-East Asia or Western Europe, or micro-units of culture that comprise only a few hundred, or even a few dozen, individuals.

In the earlier analysis of the concepts of Spengler and Toynbee, it was noted that the suggested use of the terms `culture' and `civilisation' for the units of the historical process singled out by these two authors would have been acceptable if these terms were methodologically capable of expressing not only the local-individual but also the general-phasic characteristics of the given units. However, this problem can only be solved by adopting the Marxist synthetic approach that makes it possible to combine their general ! and individual characteristics and identify their dialectic re- ( lationship and its objective basis. The suggested concepts of general and local historical types of culture arc designed to fulfil those cognitive functions and provide precise criteria

for distinguishing between characteristics within the framework of a single conceptual system, thus making it, possible to consider their relationship and interdependence within the system.

Let us now turn to the problem of the equivalence of historical cultures mentioned at the beginning of this article. It is our opinion that the principle underlying the differentiation of general and local historical types of culture will provide the key to solving this intricate problem, which is of prime importance for the comparative study of historical systems. There is a qualitative difference between a comparison of equivalent objects helonging lo the same type and a comparison of ohjecls that are not equivalent and do not belong to the same type. Hence the question of the criteria of equivalence to be used in comparison is of great importance. Indeed, the methodological value of any theory for comparative research is determined primarily by the adequacy of the criteria used to class the systems under comparison as equivalent objects belonging to the same type, or as non-equivalent objects belonging to different types.

In order to illustrate this problem, let us take a comparison between the culture of the East and that of contemporary Western Europe. Only too frequently, this comparison is made without any allowance for one extremely important factor, namely that these two cultural systems reflect qualitatively different stages of social development. As a result, the researcher in comparative social history is deprived of the concept of general phasic types in history, an important tool of cognition, and is effectively restricted in his examination of the objects of history to just one, `horizontal' dimension. The cognitive importance of the concept of genoral phasic historical types lies mainly in the fact that it supplies research with the criteria necessary to determine whether the cultural systems being compared are equivalent or not. It is therefore not surprising that the relativist, principle referred to above was subjected lo vigorous criticism even by Western social science, in which it enjoyed considerable influence during the first half of the twentieth century.

The whole problem of the equivalence of cultures springs from the fact that it is not capable of such a simple solution. Hence the fundamental difficulties involved in cxam-

~^^1^^ Cf. Section II of the present collection.

ining this problem. The concept of phasic historical types provides precise criteria for determining the degree of equivalence of the objects of culture by establishing their common nature. However, this, though indeed important, is not the only factor involved. There is another approach which provides a qualitatively different projection of the problem of the equivalence of the objects of culture. This projection is designed to reveal the individual-unique characteristics of the given objects, whose theoretical crystallisation and classification is possible thanks to a distinct generalising individualisation and local typologisation. If, for example, Buddhism, Islam and Confucianism and the traditional decorative arts or etiquette systems of Cliina, India, Japan and the Arab countries on the one hand, and the corresponding components of Western European culture on the other are examined from this point of view, they can be considered to be essentially equivalent. However, this equivalence is determined not by their belonging to one type, but by other criteria connected with the individual originality of cultures. The concept of local historical types of culture, which expresses the individual variations of socio-cultural development, is here adequate to meet the given cognitive situation.

Thus in dealing with the problem of the equivalence of the objects of culture we are confronted once more with different projections as concerns their investigation and evaluation. To sum up, one can say that there are two kinds oj equivalence between the objects of culture. One derives from the principle of identity oj type, while the other derives from the principle of idioadaptive relativity. In the first case, by constructing general historical types of culture, the objects of culture can be ranged together as equivalents thanks to certain commonly possessed inherent and invariable characteristics. In the second case, by con structing local historical types of culture, the objects of culture can be ranged together as equivalents because they all express idioadaptive solutions to particular, concrete problem situations based on the capacities of Ihe specific traditions of historical communities.

Therefore, when speaking of the individuality of traditions, we must hear in mind not only, and not mainly, the originality and uniqueness of the (dements of culture (more often than not, elements of culture are repealed in nume-

rous local traditions), but rather the way in which these elements fit into the general system of the traditions under consideration, and the combinations they form with other elements of these traditions. It is precisely in this systemic combination of the elements of experience that the cause of cultural individuality is to be sought.

On the whole, local historical types of culture viewed in the abstract can be considered idioadaptively equivalent, as they are relevant in relation to a particular combination of conditions characteristic of particular environments in which human communities are living, and of those means of assimilating the environment that present themselves as complexes of cultural traditions typical of given communities. It is hero that one must sock that criterion whoso absolutisatiori leads to historical relativism.

Although the thesis advanced above is heuristically useful, it must be remembered that in reality the true equivalence of local forms of culture is by no means common as they are not infrequently found in combination with general-typological characteristics. Sometimes this combination is obvious, but at times it may be difficult to detect. Furthermore, the possibility in principle of a number of local solutions to the same problems leads in practice to a situation in which, from the point of view of the effectiveness of these solutions, local types of culture may be either equivalent or characterised by a significant difference in value. This is particularly noticeable as regards ecological practices. The mere fact that a society has survived does not mean that its culture is the optimum possible, but simply that it corresponds to a certain adaptive minimum.

None of this, however, invalidates the thesis advanced earlier, for it should also be noted that historical systems ranged together as equivalents on the basis of general types of culture are also, in reality, by no means always characterised by actual equivalence. Here, as in the study of other objects of scientific investigation, it is necessary to average out and idealise to a certain degree. This method of forming concepts, intrinsic to the very nature of logical thought, is here legitimately used to distinguish the aforementioned idioadaptive form of equivalence between objects of culture.

To conclude, we would like to point out that it is impos-

sible, in the space of an article, lo deal with all the questions connected with the principle of the differentiation of general and local historical types of culture (civilisation), nor with its application to ciillnrological problems. However, we hope that the arguments advanced above are sufficient lo prove (he necessity of formulating a special principle Ihat will make it possible to differentiate and proportionally express general and local cultural forms.

Yulian Bromley

Civilisation as a Hierarchical System oJ Socio-Cultural Regions

The term `civilisation', first introduced into historical science by A. Ferguson, subsequently came to acquire a variety of meanings. If was used to refer to a definite stage (epoch) of social development (Morgan),^^1^^ and also to spatial communities (l)anilevsky,^^2^^ Spongier^^3^^), in which case it is generally used in the plural. Although this second use of the term has become widespread over recent years, there are fundamental differences in its interpretation. On the one hand it is used, for example, to refer to certain components of spiritual culture, in particular religion, world outlook, ideology (Toynbee, Sorokin) '', while on (he other

~^^1^^ Lewis Morgan, Ancient Society, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 1964.

~^^2^^ jlaiiujiciicKiii: II. }l. POCCIIH 11 Knpoiia. BIH'JIHA iia KyjiM-ypiibie H nojinrimecKiie OTHOIMOIIMH cjiansincKoro MM pa K pOMaiio-repiuaHCKoiuy. Ma/i,. 5-e, CFIG., 1895 (II. Ya. Danilevsky, llussia and Europe. An Examination oj Cultural and Political delations Betireen the Slav anil the Romano-Germanic Worlds, 5lh edition, St.-Petersburg, 1895).

^:t 0. Spongier. Der Unlergang des Ahendlandes. Umrisse einer Morphologie der Wellgeschichle. Erster Band. Geslall und Wirklic.hkeit. C. II. Becksche Verlagslmchhandhing Oscar Beck, Miinchen, 1924. (Por a critical analysis of (be concepts of Spongier see: Ce.nenoa 10. II. ciinuii nporpecc n coiuiajn.iiaji <}mjioco<j)HH conpOMennoii 6 ypM., llayita, 19(15, c. 7-12 (Yu. N. Somyonov, Social Progress and the Social Philosophy of Hie Contemporary Bourgeoisie, Nauka, Moscow, 1965, pp. 7-12).

~^^4^^ Arnold Toynbee, Change and Habit. The Challenge oj Our Time, Oxford University Press, London, 1966; Pitirim Sorokin, Social Philosophers oj an Age oj Crisis, Beacon Press, Boston, 1951. (For a critical analysis of tbe concepts of those authors see: Ce.v,eiimi 10. II. OSmeCTeenimii nporpecc..., c. 13-94; idem., Coii,iiaju»nan (J>iijioco<j>Hfi A. Toiin6n. KpiiTMiecKiiii 0'iepit, M., Hayua, 1980 (Yn. N. Somyonov, The Social Philosophy oj A. Toi/nbec. A Critical Oul/ine, Nauka, Moscow, 1980).

it is used to refer to Hie material and technical achievemenls of mankind (Walter, Ogburn) *.

Moreover, there exists the not unjustified opinion that the terms `civilisation', `society' and `culture' are frequently synonymous.^^2^^ Therefore, in examining the use of the concept `civilisation' (more exactly, `civilisations') to designate spatial (geographical) communities, it is necessary to examine its relationship to such closely allied concepts as ' society' and `culture'. However, these also have a variety of interpretations, a circumstance that must also be taken into account. The narrow interpretation of the concept `culture' limits it to purely spiritual values, while the broad interpretation includes not only spiritual but also material culture and, in addition, language. In the given instance it is the second, broader meaning of the concept `culture' that would appear to be the one necessary, as otherwise any solution to the problem of its relationship to both society and civilisations will inevitably be restricted.

Using the term `culture' in the broad sense, we are in general agreement with the view that culture constitutes one aspect of the functioning of society, while the other (and basic) aspect of society is made up of social phenomena proper: social relations and the social structure.~^^3^^ Accordingly it is possible to conditionally distinguish two types of human community: the specifically social and the cultural. In the first case the main structural factors are, obviously, certain parameters of the social structure, which are themselves based upon certain social relations. These are the factors used in defining such social communities as classes, professional groups, societies, etc. As, among all the specifically social communities, we are particularly interested in `societies', it is necessary to say something about this term. Firstly, it is a term with a wide range of meaning. In Russian, the word `society' may simply refer to the human community, and also to any specialised group with-

in it (a philatelist society, for example, or a sports society, or a philosophical society). It may refer to the inhabitants of a particular country and slate. The situation is similar in many other languages. Therefore the suggestion that independent units of historical development (and it is precisely such units that the triad already mentioned had in inind when using the term `society') be termed 'social organisms' * is worthy of attention. In primitive history, the role of 'social organism' is played by the tribe; in conditions of class relations it is played by the state as a social, territorial-political community.

World history has been built up out of the sum total of all the histories of these social organisms; in viewing ' societies'---'social organisms' as the basic self-reproducing cells of the world-historical process, it is essential to emphasise that these terms represent human communities which are bound together by an entire network of social relations based, according to Marxist theory, upon production relations. The nature of these basic relations and the corresponding superstructural relations ultimately determines the phasic type of any given social organism. However, within history nothing exists in a pure form, and therefore

the same economic basis---the same from the standpoint of its main conditions---due to innumerable different empirical circumstances, natural environment, racial relations, external historical influences, etc. [shows] infinite variations and gradations in appearance, which can be ascertained only by analysis of the empiricially given circumstances.^^2^^

Moreover, in addition to the dominant typical (typological) social parameters, each specific social organism comprises atypical parameters---various social structures belonging to other types (both preceding and succeeding). Finally---and this, as we shall see later, is quite important as regards the point under discussion---each particular social organism possesses not only specifically social, but also cultural parameters. Thus, although each social organism contains subgroups distinguished both by specifically social and by cul-

~^^1^^ Emil J. Walter, 'Das Problem einer wissenschaftlichen Theorie der Kultur'. In Kultur und Norm, Dr. Georg Liittle Verlag, Berlin, 1954; William Fielding Ogburn, On Culture and Social Change, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1964.

~^^2^^ Philip Bagby, Culture and History. Prolegomena to the Comparative Study of Civilizations, Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1958.

~^^8^^ MapnapsiH 9. C. OiepKH Teopmi KyjitTypu. Epesae, H3fl-no AH ApM. CCP, 1969 (E. S. Markarian, Outlines of a Theory of Culture, Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR, Yerevan, 1969).

~^^1^^ CeMenoe K). H. KaieropiiH «coi;HajibHHH opraHH3M» M ee anaieHHe HJIH HCTopHiecKoii nayKH. «Bonpocu HCTOPHH», 1966, Ns 8, c. 88- 106 (Yu. N. Semyonov, 'The Category "Social Organism" and Its Significance for Historical Science', Voprosy istorii, No. 8, 1966, pp. 88- 106).

~^^2^^ Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. Ill, p. 792.

I

lural differences, the social organism nonetheless constitutes a (Iclinile socio-cuJtural whole. It is Inie that the pluralistic nature of such social organisms frequently causes problems of typologisalion, particularly when the criteria for typologisation are chosen from among phenomena belonging to the superstructure. The selection of production relations provides an objective criterion allowing all the social organisms which, on the basis of this criterion, belong to the same type to be grouped together into one macro-typological community known as the socio-economic formation. ^l

As regards cultures or cultural communities, the process of typologisation here has its own specific characteristics, due largely to the absence of any direct link between or rigid hierarchisation of the numerous cultural components. It must also be pointed out that a number of cultural components develop to some degree independently of the socio-economic basis as is clearly evidenced by art. Those who are inclined to identify Marxism with vulgar economism should take note of a comment made by Marx which bears directly upon this question:

As regards art, it is well known that some of its peaks by no means correspond to the general development ot society, nor do they therefore to the material substructure...^^2^^

However, such is not the case with many of the components of material culture, nor yet with the ideological, political and legal components of spiritual culture, which are directly linked to the socio-economic structure of society.

In examining the question of the typologisation of cultural communities it is essential to remember that the most diverse individual components of culture (or even several simultaneously) may serve as the system-forming factors distinguishing individual types of such communities. Moreover, this role may also be played by either externalised (objectivised) or internalised forms of the existence of culture, and by either individual components or entire complexes of material and spiritual culture, awareness of the very fact of community or the absence of such awareness. To 111 is must be added space-time factors. Thus any investigation into cultural communities from a `horizontal' view-

~^^1^^ CF. Lenin, 'What the "Friends of the People" Are and TIow They Fight the Social-Democrats', p. 140.

~^^2^^ Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Kcononuj, p. 215.

point involves taking into consideration the dimensions, degree of homogeneity and extent of territorial diffusion of their system-forming components. Any description of the temporal parameters of cultural communities requires that (in addition to purely chronological indices) due account be taken, firstly, of their relationship to any given stage in the socio-historical development of mankind, and secondly, of the degree of stability of such communities: are they traditional by nature, or are they characterised by dynamism and instability.

All these factors taken together make it possible to identify a large number of different cultural-areal communities (for example, areas characterised by specific components of material and spiritual culture: dwellings, clothing, food, traditional practices and ceremonies, etc. as shown on ethnographic maps). Moreover, many of these communities not only exist simultaneously, but also overlap in space, forming a multilayered network. Individual components within this network are, for reasons explained above, to varying degrees autonomous and dependent both upon each other and upon socio-economic factors. In order to identify within this network the relatively homogeneous 'cultural foci' it is essential to examine those cultural-areal communities that are complex (multicomponential) in nature. The very nature of such communities itself indicates the significance of the cultural components for their bearers. We are speaking here, of course, not of a random selection of different cultural components (as is sometimes the case in the identification of so-called archeological cultures), but of their interconnected integrity in both time and space.

The historical sciences are known to adopt very different approaches to solving the problem of identifying basic complex cultural-areal communities. For example, in North American cultural anthropology and Western European ethnology it was common practice until recently to identify, alongside the culture of individual peoples, only one other type of wide-ranging complex cultural sphere, viz. one that comprises diverse components from the cultures of a number of peoples.^t However, we are of the opinion that, when

~^^1^^ Clark Wissler, The Relation of Nature to Man in Aboriginal America, Oxford University Press, New York, 1926; Wilhelm Schmidt, The Culture Historical Method of Ethnology, The Scientific Approach 10 the Racial Question, Fortuny's, New York, 1939.

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dealing wilh this question, il is more appropriate to distinguish not (wo, but three types of complex cultural-areal communities. One of these is related primarily to material culture (economy), while the remaining two are related primarily to spiritual culture.

In Soviet ethnographic literature the first is traditionally known as the economic-cultural type, which refers to historically formed complexes of specific economic and cultural features characteristic of peoples living in particular natural-geographical conditions and having reached a particular level of socio-economic development. Economic-- cultural types constitute a phenomenon that not infrequently occurs simultaneously in different parts of the ecumene, provided the ecological conditions and levels of economic development are approximately the same. Such, for example, is the economic-cultural type represented by the nomadic hunter-gatherers. Until comparatively recently it was still possible to iind such tribal groups in Africa (Pygmies, Ituri, Hadzapi, etc.), Asia (Punans, some Aeta, Kubu, etc.), and America (the Siriono, Lengua, etc.); yet another example is provided by the semi-nomadic stock-- breederhunters in Africa (Hottentots, Herero), or in Siberia ( Evenks, Nenets, etc.). However it must be pointed out that, taken overall, such economic-cultural communities are expressed differently at different stages in the world-historical process: clearly denned in primitive society, less clearly denned in the pre-capitalist class-based social organisms, and almost without importance under capitalism. Following the industrial revolution, the economic-cultural differentiation of peoples and countries is increasingly determined by differences deriving from the balance between industrial and agrarian forms of economic activity.

Among the complex cultural-areal communities, an important place is occupied by the ethnos in the narrow sense of this term. Such communities are not only complex or multicomponential in character, but are also distinguished by self-awareness. We have more than once set forth our point of view concerning this community, and therefore we will restrict ourselves here to a brief description. In contemporary Soviet literature, the term `ethnos' is, to a large extent, used as a synonym for the term 'the people' (as in 'the people of France', 'the people of Ancient Greece'---Tr.) However, in Russian as in many other lan-

guagcs, the word `people' has a wide range of meanings. Therefore, when (he term 'the people' is used to refer to a historical community possessed of a stable culture and clearly defined self-awareness, it is proposed to use the term `ethnos' (from the ancient Greek ' e6vos ', `people', `crowd', etc.). Moreover, in Soviet scientific usage this term can refer to both small and large ethnic groups existing both in the past and today. Sometimes in scientific usage the essence of ethnoses is reduced to the self-awareness of I heir members, which distinguishes a given ethnos from all other similar communities. However, this is clearly an over-simplification. Meliind such self-awareness are the real and important differences of each ethnos that serve to express its particular integrity. In this respect it is obviously important to note first and foremost the stable characteristics of ethnoses as these characteristics are usually preserved down many centuries. The ethnos is also usually closely associated with yet another stable component of culture (understood in the broad sense of the term), namely language. However, it would be a mistake to simply identify together ethnic and linguistic communities. If language and ethnos, linguistic and ethnic division, always coincided then the distinction between these two concepts would clearly have lost any purpose. It is no accident that in identifying ethnoses, not only language, but also such other stable cultural components as religion, national artistic traditions, customs, ceremonies, norms of daily behaviour and traditional practices belonging to the traditional-everyday (domestic) aspect of culture are commonly indicated.

It has, it is true, long been pointed out that no one cultural component serves as an invariable indicator of ethnic differentiation. It would be wrong, however, to deny on this basis the ethnic functions of culture. Wo have before us evidence which merely indicates that it is not one single cultural component that characterises an etlinos, but rather the totality of all the specific features typical of its culture. Ethnoses are also distinguished from one another by certain psychological characteristics, for the most part psychological nuances, by their particular manner of displaying the universal properties of the human psyche. It is this more than anything else which constitutes what is known as ethnic (national) character.

e«

83

As has already been mentioned, an essential characteristic of the ethnos is ethnic self awareness---the awareness on the part of the members of the ethnos of their membership of that ethuos, an awareness that involves demarcation from other ethnoses and is revealed above all in the use of a common name (ethnikon). An important component of ethnic self-awareness is the sense of common origin, the real basis i'or which is the common historical destiny of the members of the ethnos and their forbears throughout its existence. Common cultural and psychological characteristics and self-awareness can, in our opinion, be defined as specifically ethnic properties. They are invariably possessed to some degree by all the members of each ethnos, regardless of whether they live together in a particular region or are widely separated from each other (for example, the Armenians in the USSR, Syria, the USA and elsewhere). Thus the purely ethnic community, or ethnos in the narrow meaning of the term, can be denned as a historically formed group of people having common and relatively stable cultural (including language) and psychological characteristics, aware of their unity and their distinctness from other similar groups, and possessing their own name. For this narrow interpretation of the term `ethnos' we propose the term `ethnikos' (from the Greek ' e0vikos '---the adjective from `sOvos').^^1^^ As for the `broad' interpretation of the term `ethnos', this will be discussed later, as here the term refers not to purely cultural but to socio-- cultural communities.

Among the areal, specifically cultural communities of a complex character Soviet ethnographers distinguish, alongside economic-cultural types and the ethnikos, historicoethnographic areas. This term refers to parts of the ecumene whose population has, as a result of common socioeconomic development and a long history of links and mutual influence, developed a similar culture and way of life. Whereas cultural-economic types are characterised chiefly by the communality of those components of culture that are directly linked to production (instruments of labour, production practices, etc.), the population of each histori-

co-ethnographic area is united primarily by communality in the sphere of traditional spiritual culture. Moreover, this communality is also revealed to a certain degree in material culture, and particularly in those of its elements that have an aesthetic value. Historico-ethnographic areas take shape over long periods of time in the course of cultural interaction among neighbouring peoples. Consequently, such communities have a multilayered structure and their boundaries are relatively flexible. As a rule, if the population of a given historico-ethnographic area is aware that it belongs to such an area, this awareness is rather vague. Such communities ace characterised by the retention of the basic features of their culture down many generations. Indeed, it would seem more appropriate to term them ' traditional-cultural' (and in our opinion such a term would be preferable). It is important lo bear in mind that, viewed spatially, traditional-cultural communities have different taxonomical levels. Amongst them can be distinguished the largest subdivisions or `provinces', which comprise entire continents or large groups of neighbouring countries, and smaller regions, which in their turn are further subdivided into subregions and local historico-cultural districts. <sup>J</sup> Defining the criteria lo be used in demarcating the different levels within historico-ethnographic or traditional-cultural communities is quite a complex problem. This is explained by the fact that, on the one hand, such entities are genetically and structurally multilayered, and that, on the other, they are frequently found in association with various types of `imicomponential', mctaethnic communities ( religious, linguistic, cuUiiro-political, etc.), which for such entities play to some degree or other a system-forming role.

In examining the basic types of multicomponcntial cultural-arcal communities it must be remembered that such communities, insofar as one is considering past or present complexes, do not exist independently of people living in specific social organisms--the basic independent units of historical development. This, in its turn, makes clear the irn-

~^^1^^ Yu. V. Bromley, Soviet Ethnography: Main Trends USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 1976; Yu V. Bromley, Ethnos und Ethnographie, Akademie Verlag, Berlin, 1977.

~^^1^^ Cf. VeGoKcapoe H. If., VedoKcapoaa H. A. Hapoflu, pacu, Kyjitrypu. M., Hayna, 1971 (N. N. Cheboksarov, I. A. Cheboksarova, Peoples, Races, Cultures, Nauka, Moscow, 1971).

portance of clarifying the relationship between the basic types of complex cultural-areal communities discussed above and social organisms. It is not difficult to perceive that we are here talking of that part of the problem under discussion that bears upon the autonomy and dependence of societies and cultures.

We will retain the order followed above, and begin with a comparison of social organisms and economico-cultural types. The role played by such areal communities is extremely important for social organisms. The type of economy, and in particular the economic level, i.e. the level of development of the productive forces, largely determines the character of the production relations, which, as has already been stated, are of typological importance for social organisms. Economico-cultural types are of particular significance during the early stages of social development, when membership of one or other such community almost entirely determined the mode of life of the social organism concerned. (As, for example was the case until recently for the gatherers and hunters of the forests in the tropical zone---the Kulu of Sumatra, the Semang of Malacca, the Aeta of the Philippines, the Pygmies of the Congo basin, etc.)

However, it would be a mistake to assume (as is frequently done, particularly in Western literature on contemporary society) that the economico-cultural type always determines the essential parameters of social organism and its characteristic mode of life. On the one hand, it is a well-known fact that one and the same economico-cultural type may `serve' social organisms belonging to various social formations. In addition, many, if not all, economicocultural types survived several formations. The economicocultural type represented by fishermen, for example, has survived over an extremely long historical period. Nomadism, which first began towards the end of the primitive epoch, continues to this day, as does primitive plough farming, which emerged at the dawn o[ class-based formations. The economy of many social organisms of both the capitalist and the socialist type is industrial. On the other hand, a given socio-economic formation may comprise within itself various economico-cultural types, as is illustrated by the fact that during the Middle Ages there existed both plough farming, nomadic stock-breeding and other econo-

mico-cultural patterns. ^J Equally, individual social organisms can prove to be multiple in the economic sense, combining, for example, hunting and stock-breeding, arable farming and industry, etc.

As regards the relationship between social organisms and such cultural-areal communities as the ethnos, taken in the narrow sense of the term, it is important to note first of all that the ethnikos generally takes shape within the framework of specific social organisms (either of a tribal or of a state nature); i.e. from a historico-genetic point of view the social organism is primary and the ethnikos secondary. However, viewed diachronically the ethnikos is usually longer-lived than the social organism, and typologically different social organisms may function on the basis of one and the same ethnikos (the Polish ethnikos, for example, has served as the `substratum' for the feudal, bourgeois and socialist social organisms-states). Viewed synchronously, the symbiosis of an individual social organism and a specific ethnikos may be regarded as a particular type of community, which we have termed an ethno-social organism (ESO). The phasic type of the ESO is determined by the socio-economic formation, or sequence of socio-- economic formations to which the social organism belongs. (Thus Soviet scientific literature identifies the following basic types of ESO: for the primitive-communal formation ---the tribe; for the slave-owning and feudal formations ---the nationality; for the capitalist formation---the bourgeois nation; for the socialist formation---the socialist nation.)

If this question is now examined from a spatial viewpoint, it must be pointed out that, as a natural result of their genetic link with social organisms, the ethnikoses frequently coincide with thorn territorially. Sometimes this territorial coincidence remains fundamentally unaltered during the entire existence of a given ESO. However, it is also common for a greater or smaller part of the ethnikos to he distributed among various social organisms and, moreover, not only in adjacent areas but in territories far re-

~^^1^^ Cf. Ma/iKiiH /'. /•;. DTIIOC, :>Tiiii'iecKiii> npouw.M n npo6jiOMa o6 paaa jKiiamt. «Pacu 11 napoAiJ». 11)77. ,N^;j 0. c. 10 (G. Ye. Markov, 'Ethnos, Ethnic Processes and the Problem of the Mode of Life'. Rasij i narody, No. 6, 1977, p. 16).

moved from each other. In addition, it is also not uncommon to find several ethnikoses, sometimes dozens, and even hundreds within one social organism (for example the USSR, India, Indonesia, etc.). In describing the `structural' aspects of the relationship between the ethnikos and social organisms, i.e. for the main part the basic characteristics of the ESO, it is important to note two factors. On the one hand, the 'outward appearance' of the ESO, its specific characteristics, are largely determined by the characteristics of the ethnikos that it comprises, i.e. primarily by traditional-domestic culture. On the other hand, as has already been stated, the formational type of the given community is of phasic-typological significance. Thus the culture of each ESO is characterised by two inseparably interwoven tendencies---continuity and renewal---which reflect the basic laws governing its evolution.

Let us now move on to the question of the relationship between social organisms and historico-ethnographic or traditional-cultural areas. First of all it must be remembered that, when examined from the synchronous, spatial point of view, such regions are either associated with one polyethnic social organism (as with modern India, for example), or comprise a number of adjacent social organisms. Moreover, because of the hierarchical nature of traditionalcultural areas one and the same social organism may simultaneously belong to taxonomically different communities of this kind (regions, provinces, etc.). It is important to note that, viewed diachronously, traditional-cultural areas (like ethnikoses) are usually longer-lived than the corresponding social organisms and, in addition, often predate them, i.e. enjoy considerable continuity through time. (Some of the characteristic features of the Caucasian traditional-cultural area, for example, date back to the Neolithic period.) ^l In other words, traditional-cultural areas are to a certain degree autonomous with respect to social organisms. However, this in no way implies that they arc totally independent of them. By no means every characteristic feature or typical clement of the culture of a social organism goes on to become a stable acquisition of the entire corre-

sponding area. For this to happen at least two conditions are essential. Firstly, such an element must spread beyond the boundaries of its `native' social organism to penetrate the entire area, or at least the greater part of it. * Secondly, it must become a tradition capable of outliving the social organism itself, or at least that phase of its development that gave rise to this cultural element.

Viewed structurally, the relationship between traditionalcultural areas and their constituent social organisms (or organism) are strongly reminiscent of the ESO. The characteristic features of the traditional culture, features typical of the given area, find varying degrees of expression in tin) 'external appearance' of such social organisms (acting as the complement, as it were, within each ESO to the specifically ethnic characteristics of the traditional culture). However, the phasic characteristics of that socio-cultural complex formed by all the adjacent social organisms (or by one social organism) comprised within the traditionalcultural area are determined (as with the ESO, and for the same reasons) by the formational type of these organisms (or organism). This means that all those social organisms belonging to one formational type and comprised within one traditional-cultural area constitute a specific socio-cultural whole (a socio-cultural region). Thus, within one traditional-cultural area it may be possible to distinguish separate socio-cultural regions belonging to different formational types (within the Central Asian traditional-cultural area, for example, there exist today both socialist and capitalist socio-cultural regions).

Traditional-cultural areas may, in their turn, exert a certain influence upon the formation of complexes of social organisms belonging to the same formational type. As is well known, the specifics of the concrete manifestation in one or other social organism of the general laws of sociocultural development depends to no small degree upon the traditional-cultural environment. Also, as a result of the hierarchical nature of traditional-cultural areas, the sociocultural regions formed under their influence belong to different taxonomical levels. Thus, using the term 'macro-

~^^1^^ Cf. AjieKceee B. JJ. IIpoHCXOJKfleHHe napoflOB KaBKaaa. M.₍ HayKa, 1974 (V. P. Alexeyev, The Origins of the Caucasian Peoples, Nauka, Moscow, 1974).

~^^1^^ This may bring with it the diffusion of the cultural values themselves (things and ideas), and also their spread in the course of migrations.

level' with reference to the contemporary capitalist world, it is obviously possible to describe Western Europe, North America, Latin America, etc. as socio-cultural regions. In the feudal age, viewed typologically, it is possible to identify Western Europe and Eastern Europe as socio-cultural macro-areas. Within medieval Europe it is possible to distinguish various types of socio-cultural development ; one took shape in regions strongly influenced by the traditions of the ancient world (Italy, Byzantium), a second in regions only moderately influenced (northern Gaul), and a third in regions very slightly influenced (England, Scandinavia). ⁱ As has already been stated, the ESO is also a kind of socio-cultural region. In our opinion it can, with certain reservations, be considered the basic unit of the hierarchy in question. The ESO itself, of course, includes various socio-cultural subdivisions formed by classes, professions, and other groups. However, here we have already stepped outside that hierarchy which reflects varying degrees of intersection and symbiosis between traditional-cultural areas and social organisms.

This hierarchy of socio-cultural regions is manifest to some degree everywhere in the ecumene throughout the whole of human history. Although individual components of this hierarchical system display a notable stability and adherence to tradition, the system as a whole is fairly dynamic as it is based upon social organisms whose development is determined by formational factors.^^2^^

What are the criteria for identifying socio-cultural regions? Clearly the answer to this question has a double aspect. On the one hand it must be sought in the factors

characteristic of the social organisms belonging to one formational type comprised within the region, while on the other it must also be sought in the characteristic features of the corresponding traditional-cultural areas. In addition, the particular socio-economic formation, or phase within it, to which the social organisms belong is of phasic-- typological significance, while the spatial communality of the traditional cultural characteristics is the determining factor in identifying the regional boundaries. The mode of life of the population of a socio-cultural region is a synthetic expression of these parameters,^f and reflects the underlying features of the social awareness, perception of the world, ideals and moral values of that community. Therefore it would be an over-simplification lo totally deny the role played by religion in identifying socio-cultural regions in pre-capitalist formations, and particularly the feudal formation. Religion served as an ideological synthesis of the existing social system. However, as society progresses and science, philosophy, art and ethics develop, the significance of a religious world outlook diminishes. It is significant that the early stages of capitalism saw the rise of rationalism, the antithesis of the irrationalism characteristic of religion, as is revealed by the Renaissance.

There are, however, considerable difficulties involved in identifying both individual socio-cultural regions and, even more so, their hierarchy. These difficulties are to a large extent connected with the specifics of traditional-cultural areas; firstly, with the above-mentioned flexibility of their borders, and secondly, with the fact that, as such areas are `complex' in nature, Iho system-forming role is usually played by a number of factors, which makes it difficult to establish single-value indices for the traditional characteristics of the mode of life. Finally, it must be remembered that in the communities under investigation the systemforming role of the various components varies at different hierarchical levels. The identification of the hierarchy of socio-cultural regions is complicated by another of their components, namely the social organisms. In particular, the typologisation of social organisms is made difficult by the fact that their social structure often has numerous layers

~^^1^^ Cf. rymitoea E. B., Ydajibnoea 9. B. K Bonpocy o TMIIOJIOFHM pasBHioro (j>eoj;ajiH3Ma 11 aanafliioii Eflponc.---IIpoojiOMM cou.najn.no-

3KOHOMHH6CKHX $OpMau.Hii. MCTOpHKO-TIIIIOJIOni'ICCKUC I1CCJIO;i,OIiaHMH.

Hop; pe«. E. M. JKyitona. M., llayua, 1975, c. 114-115 (Ye. Gutnova, E. V. Udallsova, 'On the Question of the Typology of Dcvi'loppd Feudalism in Western Europe. In Socio-Econoinic Formations. A Historico-Typological Study. Edited by Ye. M. Zhukov, Nauka, Moscow, 1975, pp. 114-115).

~^^2^^ Cf. EpoMjieil K). B. Ociiomme niiflbi iiCTopiiKo-KyjibTypnwx o6m,-

HOCT6H H TeHfleHUHH 1IX AMUBMUKH. «CoiieTCKafl 3THOrpa(f>lIH», 1981,

JSs 1, c. 10-23 (Yu. V. Bromley, 'The Basic Types of HistoricoCultural Communities and Their Trends of Development', S ovetskaya Etnografia, No. 1, 1981, pp. 10-23).

~^^1^^ Cf. G. Ye. Markov, Op. cit.

in which are represented various types of social relations. This is particularly true of `inter-formational' periods, which in turn give rise to a variety of transitional ideological forms.

However, these cognitive difficulties do not serve to refute the fact of the existence of the phenomenon in question. This is an objective reality whose significance lies in the fact that the social and cultural aspects of its activity never exist apart.

Is the concept `civilisation' related in any way to this hierarchy of socio-cultural regions? The answer is largely dependent upon the interpretation of the concept itself. As has already been pointed out, the lerm is used with many meanings, which considerably lowers its cognitive value. However, it would be premature to reject the term altogether for this reason, for it is now too well established in both the scientific arid everyday vocabulary of most modern languages. The solution, in our opinion, lies not in introducing new definitions of the word `civilisaiton', but in bringing it closer to its etymological origin, the Latin word civilis, whose basic meaning is `civil' or 'of the state'. It is therefore evident that its use to designate material-technical and spiritual achievements is one that is far removed from its original meaning and that severely restricts it. Those definitions which cover not only cultural but also social factors are far closer to the original. In other words, it properly designates socio-cultural communities. However, such communities vary in scale, including micro-communities such as the family, the local community, the settlement, and macro-communities such as socio-cultural regions, which, as we know, have various taxonomical levels. Here we are clearly not dealing with micro-communities. This in turn means that, in defining the concept ' civilisation', the socio-cultural regions we have identified may be used as a reference. Indeed, the `cultural-regional' meaning of this term in scientific usage is then complemented by the meaning `social', which returns to it its original meaning. * The hierarchical nature of the structure of so cio-cultural regions must, of course, be borne in mind, and

the different taxonomical levels of civilisation distinguished accordingly.

The first of these taxonomical levels is, as we have seen, the ethno-social organism, which serves as the base unit in the hierarchy of socio-cultural regions. The second level is comprised of groups of complex social organisms belonging to the same socio-economic type and the same traditional-cultural area, the latter being relatively distinct from other, similar areas. (It lias already been noted that such formations may themselves have various taxonomical levels as a result of the hierarchical nature of traditional-cultural areas.) The third level is composed of the sum total of all Ihe social organisms of one socio-economic type, and constituting from a spatial point of view one fairly closely interrelated whole. Such a community may cover the greater part or the whole of the ecumene. This last level must be distinguished from the concept 'world civilisation', which generally refers to all human socio-cultural achievements, this phenomenon being hypothctically contrasted against extra-terrestrial civilisations.

Different stages in the world-historical process are characterised by the dominance of civilisations belonging to one or other level. Thus, the first (in their region) early class-based societies are characterised by civilisations of the first level (for example, Egyptian, Sumer, Harappa, the Maya civilisation, etc.), which are relatively ethnically homogeneous social organisms, i.e. ESOs. Developed pre-- capitalist class formations are clearly dominated by civilisations of the second order, which themselves consist of sociocultural regions at various levels, including the first (for example, at one level the Spartan civilisation, at another the Hellenic civilisation, and at a third, ancient civilisation). With the rise of capitalism and its extension to include a considerable number of social organisms on the world-- historical arena, there emerges a civilisation of the third order, namely capitalist, which also comprises socio-cultural regions at various levels (including the first, and in this sense it is quite permissible to speak of contemporary French civilisation). With the appearance of socialist states in Europe, Asia and America after the Second World War, the socialist world, as is well known, has considerably extended its borders. Although, viewed territorially, it does not constitute one whole, and the main socio-cultu-

~^^1^^ Cf. the articles by Khachik Momjian and Yevgeni Lysmankin in the present collection.

ral parameters of its individual regions arc slill marked by specific distinctions, the increasing convergence of these parameters among the countries of the socialist community and the intensive development of various links among them give grounds for speaking of the emergence of a world communist civilisation.* This civilisation, according to the Marxist-Leninist teaching on the sequence of socio-- economic formations, is ultimately to become world-wide.

Section 11.

The Unity

of the Historical

Process

Cf. the article by Richard Kosolapov in the present collection.

Yuri Pletriikov

The Social Development as a Process of Natural History

Despite the various interpretations of the concept of civilisation, a fact already referred to in the foregoing articles, its content is bound up in one way or another with the etymology of the word itself. In the history of social thought, civilisation has been contrasted against savagery and barbarism and viewed as a civil condition associated with the rise of the stale (in the ancient world---the polis, the citystate), the division of intellectual and physical labour, the creation of a written language and the spread of agriculture and handicrafts. As for the original cause of the rise of civilisation, this is inseparable from the development of material production- the increase in labour productivity and the appearance of surplus product, trade, private properly and exploitation, the division of society into antagonistic classes and the beginning of the class struggle.

The very moment civilisation begins---wrote Marx---production begins U> lie founded on tbe antagonism of orders, estates, classes, and finally on tlie antagonism of accumulated labour and immediate labour. No antagonism, no progress. This is the law that civilisation lias followed up to our days.'

The formational stages of the development of antagonistic society are simultaneously the formational stages of the development of human civilisation. The culmination of this development is bourgeois civilisation. Having created a world market and thereby fulfilled its main civilising mission, capitalism converted history into a single world-- hislorical process. However, a progress based on the dynamism of social antagonisms had been taken to its limit. Today the truth discovered by Marx is more clearly manifest llian ever before:

Karl Marx, 'The Poverty of Philosophy', p. 132.

Barbarism reappears, but created in tbe lap of civilisation itself and belonging lo it; hence leprous barbarism, barbarism as leprosy of civilisation. '

Marxists have never predicted the 'automatic collapse' ol capitalism. They assessed and continue to assess objectively its reserves and its capacity for adaptation lo new conditions. However, such adaptation, including as it does statemonopoly regulation of the economy, does not mean that capitalism has been stabilised as a system Falling production, growing unemployment, energy and raw material crises, inflation and the strikes of recent years have only served to further confirm the conclusion that capitalism is a society without a 1'ulure.

However, this in no way means thai human civilisation is without a future. Not for nothing did Marx distinguish between `sham' and 'real and general civilisation'.^^2^^ The liberation of mankind from oppression, exploitation and the class struggle, the free development of each as the condition of the free development of all constitute the essential characteristics of the formation of a genuine civilisation, a new civilisation of the communist type. The establishment of this civilisation is a natural-historical process in the same way as is the development of human society and the whole of human history.

In what docs the development of society, the development and succession of socio-economic formations consist? What are the distinguishing arid characteristic features of this natural-historical process? The present article is devoted lo answering these questions.

Upon entering into existence, no new generation can choose at will the conditions of its life. It inherits that which has been created by its predecessors, and in one way or another continues the trends contained within that legacy. Therefore within concrete historical conditions are accomplished only concrete historical changes. Summing up the results of his scientific research, Marx declared:

My standpoint, from which the evolution of the economic formation of society is viewed as a process of natural history, can less than any other make the individual responsible for relations whose: creature be socially remains, however much ______be may subjectively raise himself above them.^^3^^

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, `Wages', p. 434.

~^^2^^ Karl Marx, 'The Kinaucipation Question', p. 147. ~^^8^^ Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, p. 21.

As with processes occurring in nature, the natural-- historical process of the development of society does not depend upon human consciousness and will. However, as distinct from natural processes, it acquires an objective form of being only in and through human activity. People, more accurately the popular masses, create history. Marx described history as 'the activity of man pursuing his aims'.¹ However, the individual is not a 'social atom'. In pursuing his aims, the individual, consciously or unconsciously, is contributing to the achievement of the common aims of a given socio-liislorical community of people (in a class-based society, I his community is first and foremost a given class), from which he is inseparable in terms of his social position and social outlook. Where the surface of social life is marked by the interplay of accidental phenomena (the clash of numerous separate aspirations and activities), these very accidents are revealed to be the products of historical necessity. Human activity reveals general, fundamental, essential interconnections that are objective by their very nature and serve as the laws of social development.

The natural world, exclusive of man, is governed by blind, unconscious forces, and the laws of nature operate as the interaction of these forces. Society is composed of men endowed with consciousness and will, positing goals and striving to implement them. However', this raises a question the answer to which eluded many great thinkers. What are the true causes behind the motives, including the ideological motives, of human activity? Only Marxism was able to provide a scientific answer to this question. Kngels used the term "historical materialism''

to designate that view of the course of history which seeks the ultimate cause and the great moving power of all important historic events in the economic development of society, iu the changes in the modes of production and exchange, in the consequent division of society into distinct classes, and in the struggles of these (lasses against one another.^^2^^

Human activity is the only possible means by which historical reality, including the rise, development and solution of social contradictions as the source of social devel-

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, 'The Emancipation Question' p. 147.

~^^2^^ Frederick Kngcls, 'Socialism: Utopian and Scientific', p. 103.

7*

99

opment can exist. However, the fact that, social development is determined by its economic basis as the ultimate cause, does not exclude the existence ol! other driving forces, such as those factors that create Uie conditions necessary for the development ol human activity. The economic causes are revealed not only in the class struggle--- the driving force behind the development of antagonistic society. At the stage of developed socialism they bring into existence other driving forces. Important among these as a factor in the solution of non-antagonistic contradictions is the socio-political and ideological unity of society. Of fundamental significance in understanding the specifics of social development are those human interests and needs that are classed as sociological.

As a phenomenon of the material world, needs emerge at the level of biological movement, where they express a sensation of lack on the part of the organism and stimulate it to action. The satisfaction ol' these needs brings the organism into a state corresponding to its characteristic mode of life activity. In a sublaled form, social life retains biological (animal) needs, but also creates a totally new, social type of need. This second type of need is conditioned by society: by the productive forces and production relations, by the social position of social groups, by human spiritual life, etc. Biological needs are the direct expression ol' a contradiction between the organism and its environment, whereas social needs express the same contradiction, but mediated by the production of the means of existence and their consumption. Moreover, it is never simply a question of production and consumption, but of production and consumption in a given historical epoch. Above the material-production, i.e. economic needs that constitute the basis of the human way of life, there rises an entire structure of other social needs---political, spiritual, etc.--- which then determine the whole gamut of human activity.

Needs, however, do not function independently as a driving force of human activity, but are related to interests. Interests always presuppose human needs and do not exist independently of them but arise out of them. However, need gives rise to interest only when the path to satisfaction of the need is blocked by an obstacle or when the need constantly recurs and its satisfaction becomes a continuous process. As a phenomenon of historical reality, iii-

teresl is the manifestation within the process of social life of a need demanding satisfaction, which obliges people to act and thus brings social forces into action.

Interests do not exist without their subject. However, they arise not out of the consciousness of the subject, but out of his objective situation, and are inseparable from the totality of all social relations. Interest is that objective factor of social life, bound up with the social individual, classes and the masses, which, rightly or wrongly interpret ed, arouses in the consciousness of the subject desires, molives, motivation, in short the stimuli without which, in (lie final analysis, people would be unable to determine the aim of their practical activity. In the dialectics of social development, a fundamental role is played by human awareness of common interests, which transform the activity of classes and the popular masses into the activity of those who are the subjects of historical creativity. Through common interests, among which the needs of social development are particularly important, the social laws function as the stable links ensuring a common objective, and also the content and, to a certain extent, the form of the practical activity of classes and the masses.

That men should be aware of their interests and compare and evaluate these interests alongside a number of oilier values becomes an essential prerequisite of goalorientated activity. Thus the goals pursued by men are not external to historical reality, for on the determination of the goals of activity (the orientation of the activity of classes and the masses) depends the rate at which the impending changes are accomplished. Goals are an essential factor of social practice as an ideal model of the future desired. However, the ideal cannot acquire material form of itself; therefore 'men arc needed who can exert practical force'.~^^1^^ Only in such practical force, only in the use of material means to transform reality, can goals become real, active causes.

The correspondence between the means of human activity and its goal expresses the internal Jink between freedom of choice and the dependence of choice of available means on the practical (asks being accomplished. Thus the

~^^1^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Enrols, 'Tho Holy Family or Critique of Critical Criticism', p. 11!).

subordination of the means to the CM id is not the result of the ideal nature of the end, hut of the objective conditions of social development and of the fact that the goal reflects the interests of classes and the masses.

...It seems to man---wrote Lenin---as if his ends a IT taken Irani outside the world, and are independent, of llie world (`freedom')... In nctnal fact, men's ends are engendered by the objective world and presuppose it.---they find it as something given, present. '

The goal-orientated nature of activity is not a denial of social determinism, nor does it replace historical necessity with 'free will^^1^^. Rather it is one of the mediating links in the determination of social phenomena. A scientific analysis of the historical process always requires that due account be taken, firstly, of the cause of the emergence a goal and, secondly, of the actual conditions in which it is accomplished. It must also be remembered that determinism is not an alternative to freedom defined as the human ability to act knowingly. Determinism 'provides the basis for rational human activity, for creativity directed at the transformation of reality'.^^2^^ Thus the natural-historical process of social development is inseparable from goal-- orientated activity. However, Ibis does not tell us how this activity is subordinate to the objective conditions of life and which elements in the development of history, do not depend on human will and consciousness. Before examining this question let us note that the essence of society and social man lies not in the facts of his social being and joint activity witli other men, but in the totality of all social relations. Formed in the course of human practical activity, social relations become the social form of this activity, which they transform into socio-historical practice. This last 'welds together', as it were, activity and social relations, and always has the form of a concrete historical

phenomenon.

The complex and diverse totality of social relations is composed of material relations (primary) and ideological (secondary). Marx was the first in the history of social

~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, 'Conspectus of Hegel's Hook The Science oj Logic', Collected Works, Vol. 38, 1901, p. 189.

~^^2^^ 0er)oceen U. II. /JiiaJiOKTiiKii conppniPiinoii :>iioxn. M., HayKa, 1978, c. 24 (P. N. Fedoseyev, The Dialectics of tlie Modern Af>e, Nauka, Moscow, 1978, p. 24).

102 ,

philosophy to thus differentiate social relations. Having studied the mechanism of human activity and, in particular, material (economic) interests, Marx came to the conclusion that legal relations as a form of ideological (volitional) relations cannot be understood of themselves, nor on the basis of the so-called general development of the human spirit, but are rooted in essential material relations. Ideological relations (political, legal, moral, aesthetic, religious) are merely the superstructure rising upon the malerial or, in other words, economic (production in the broad sense of the word) social relations. In referring to this proposition, Lenin (who himself formulated the term ' ideological relations') emphasised its fundamental scientific importance.

In contrast to ideological relations, material social relations are able to take shape without first passing through the consciousness and will of men. Lenin investigated the mechanism of their formation as applied to the conditions obtaining under capitalism, when the uncontrolled form of development was the determining factor in history. ' However, material social relations can also be formed in a controlled manner (consciously), as is the case under (level oped socialism. Does this not mean a change in the nature of material social relations? Not at all. Kven under socialism, material social relations are able to lake shape independently of human will and consciousness. Thus, for example, if, under^^1^^ socialism, the organs of slate administration do not, for some reason or other, take into account or sufficiently allow for the demands of the economic laws in determining their economic activity, then the economic life of sociely will be marked by negative phenomena---by disproportion and arbitrary elements; material social relations are, as it were, distorted, do not correspond to human consciousness and will. Reality conies into contradiction with what is desired.

Throughout the whole of history men always consciously produced the necessary material means of existence. However, the establishment of material social relations, or more exactly in this instance, the production relations into which social individuals enter in the course of material production, has never depended on whether men are con-

~^^1^^ Cf. V. I. Lenin, 'Materialism and iMnpino-Crilicisin', p. 32T:.

scious of them or not. Ultimately, in terms of world history, these relations are determined by one factor alone---the level of development and the nature of the material productive forces of society.

In acquiring new productive forces---wrote Marx---men change; their mode of production; and in changing their mode of production, in changing the way of earning their living, they change all their social relations. The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with theindustrial capitalist.'

In showing that social relations could be reduced to production relations as the economic basis of society, and in showing that production relations depended on the level of development of the productive forces, Marx, in the words of Lenin, 'provided a firm basis for the conception that the development of formations of society is a process of natural history'.^^2^^ The essence of the materialist view of history was formulated as follows:

In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.^^3^^

Historical materialism identifies and investigates the law of the determining role in social development of the means of the production of material life as the key factor in history. This determinant is neither simple nor unidimonsional. The determining role of the means of production of material life is revealed within historical reality itself, and primarily through the interaction within social development of its primary level, which in its social essence, is

independent of human consciousness and will, and its secondary level, conditioned by human consciousness and will. The dialectics of this interaction, which is of fundamental importance in understand ing the natural-historical process of social development, is reflected in historical materialism by means of correlated, paired concepts such as material social relations and ideological relations, economic basis and superstructure, social being and social consciousness.

The interaction in question always involves an interrelationship between the material and the ideal, and is therefore, of epistemological significance. However, this interaction is not to be identified with the interaction of the material and the ideal since the secondary in social development has a material-practical as well as an ideal expression. The secondary level has a specific material substratum ni the form of the material-technical basis of spiritual production, the material means of recording and preserving the results of spiritual creativity, and the physical attribute of the practical organisational methods of consolidating ideological relations---the various institutions of the superstructure, among which the decisive role is played by political institutions. There is no reason to doubt, for example, the material nature of armed forces or of the economic planning bodies of a socialist state, etc. At the same time, one cannot overlook the fact that the material substratum of the secondary level in social development is subordinate to social consciousness, nor the fact that without such social consciousness the institutions of the superstructure lose their objective reality. The essence of such institutions is not determined by their physical attributes but by the economic basis, of which they are the expression, as reflected through social consciousness.

The material substratum of the secondary level in social development cannot function apart from social consciousness. The antithesis between the material substratum and social consciousness is of a relative character, and goes beyond the question of the primary and secondary nature of I he material and the ideal.

The secondary level in social development reflects the primary, and this reflection is realised in the ideal forms (opinions, attitudes, theories, etc.) of extra-economic superstructural activity, in ideological relations and the practical organisational forms in which these relations are con-

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, 'The Poverty of Philosophy', p. 166.

~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, 'What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats', pp. 140-141.

~^^3^^ Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, pp. 20-21.

solidaUul---llie institutions of the superstructure. However, liie .secondary level possesses a degree of independence, as is revealed in the sequential development of its entities and their retroactive influence upon the primary level, which accelerates or decelerates social development as a whole.

The disclosure of this specific characteristic of the natural-historical process of social development indicates the dividing line between historical materialism and the theory of 'economic materialism', according to which social development depends exclusively upon the economic factor. The importance of such a clear distinction was pointed out by Kngels in his letters on historical materialism in the 1800s.

What these gentlemen all lack is dialectics---he noted---They always see only cause here, effect there. That Ihis is an einply abstraction, that such metaphysical polar opposiles exist in Unreal world only during crises and that the whole vast process goes on in the form ol' interaction---though of very unequal forces, the economic movement heing hy far the strongest, tlio primary and the most decisive and that in this context everything is relative and nothing absolute---they cannot grasp at all.'

The dependence of ideological relations on material social relations, of the superstructure on the economic basis, of social consciousness on social being is the expression (as has already been stated) of one of the aspects of the operation of the key determining factor of social development--- the mode of production of material life. The category of social being as the reflection of the genesis and essence of the primary level in social development most fully reveals the originality of this aspect.

The mode of the production of material life constitutes the basis of social existence. Without the mode of production considered in its entirety there can be no materialeconomic (production in the broadest sense of the term) social relations, nor an economic basis, which is the totality of production relations. However, social being is not synonymous with the mode of production of material life. Social being and mode of production are categories designating different theoretical-methodological levels of the reflection of historical reality. Of fundamental importance in understanding the distinction between these two categories is

Lenin's proposition on the absolute and relative opposition of matter and mind. According to Lenin,

...the antithesis of matter and mind has absolute significance only within the bounds of a very limited Ik-Id---in this case exclusively within the bounds of the fundamental opisleinological problem of what is to be regarded as primary and what as secondary, lieyond these hounds the relative character of this antithesis is indubitable. '

The mode of the production of material life always represents the relative antithesis of matter and mind. Thus, the productive forces invariably include such components as production experience, work skills, technical and economic knowledge, including, in modern conditions, the conscious use of scientific achievements. In contrast to the mode of production, social heing as characterising the primary level in social development expresses the absolute antithesis of matter and mind. Social being comprises the material production process and the processes (dependent upon the social form of the material production process) of distribution, circulation (exchange) and consumption of I he material means of existence, these processes being viewed in themselves as the objective reality, as the objective logic of 'economic evolution'.^^2^^ Social being exists independently of social consciousness and is the material source of its formation and development, as it is also the material source of the formation and development of ideological relations, and the institutions of the superstructure, which interact with this source not directly, but through social consciousness, without which they would lose their social functions and the very possibility of existence.

The above is a description of the modus operand! of the law of the determining role of the mode of the production of material life in the development of society, examined from the point of view of the relationship of the primary and the secondary levels within the natural-historical process. However, this law is not limited to this relationship. The essence of this aspect of its operation is that the mode of the production of material life determines the social, political and spiritual processes of social development. There-

~^^1^^ Eugels to C. Schmidt in Berlin, October 27, 18^CJO, p. 402.

~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, 'Materialism and iMiipirio-Crilicistn', p. 147.

~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 325.

fore we are speaking of the liicrarcliisalion of Hie basic processes and their corresponding spheres of social life economic, social, political and spiritual. Before going on to examine this hierarchisaliou, it would be appropriate to give a brief explanation of the specific cliaraclerislics of social and spiritual processes.

Material and ideological relations mark (he boundary between the primary and secondary levels of social life. However, not all social phenomena can be attributed to either one or the other of these two level.*. Such social entities as historical communities (classes, nations, etc.) are related to both material and ideological relations. As a result, class, national and other social relations are formed which constitute, in relation to primary and secondary levels, coin plex `synthetic' entities. These last represent the social form of the process in question, and in Marxist literature are referred to as social relations in the narrow sense of the term. Personal relations arc also `synthetic' in nature and are inseparable from social relations, although they do not coincide exactly, the former including psychological relations such as sympathy, antipathy, mutual understanding, etc.

The social form of spiritual processes is also complex, though here the complexity is of a different kind. In one sense, all ideological relations can be considered as spiritual relations. However, there are specifically spiritual relations which are of a different kind and which emerge as an essential factor of human intercourse in such processes as the acquisition of knowledge, the exchange of information, the battle of ideas, and the formulation of a common understanding of a problem. Without such spiritual links between people there could be no process of spiritual production, of upbringing, education, etc. However, the social form of these activities is not represented by a particular kind of spiritual relationship, but by the totality of social relations. Economic relations are also reflected in a particular way in the social form of the spiritual process, an important feature here being that the economic forms of the production, distribution, circulation (exchange) and consumption of the spiritual means of existence appear transformed. They cannot find direct expression if only because the concept of socially necessary labour is riot applicable to the results of spiritual production. In spiritual

production, the concept of the usefulness of the end result acquires special meaning, too.

An analysis of the social form of economic, social, political anil spiritual processes makes it possible to reveal particular areas of interaction and interpcnetration between the basic spheres of social life, the 'operational field' of the main determinant. Moreover, in the hierarchy of the basic spheres of social life, this determinant itself assumes a variety of forms. It appears as the direct (albeit far from simple) dependence of the development of the social, political and spiritual spheres as such on the development of the economic sphere, and also as mediated dependence, in which the other spheres rise successively above the economic sphere, the sequence of cause and effect unfolding as a chain composed of the links between the economic process and the social process, the social process and the political, the political and the spiritual, uniting all the spheres of social lift; into one whole. This chain of cause and effect is not always complete. It does not exclude the possibility of spiritual processes being directly conditioned by social processes. The retroactive impact of the effect upon its cause must also be borne in mind.

The first level to rise above the economic life of society is the sphere of social life. Its content, the social process, is primarily the process of the emergence, development and decline of historical communities. The key determinant of social development here reveals itself in the form of the direct link between a historical community and the development of material production. The evidence supplied by Marx to the effect that 'the existence oj classes is merely linked to particular historical phases in the development oj production~^^1^^ may be justifiably considered as one of the major discoveries of social science.

When we come to the political sphere of life, the activity of the key determinant of social development is more complex. It cannot be denied that politics is always a concentrated expression of economics. However, here it is the indirect links with the key determinant of social development that play the dominant role. The dependence of the

~^^1^^ Marx l.o .1. Weydemeyer in New York, Marcli 5, 1852. In K. Marx and V. Enrols, Sclrcled Works in three volumes, Volume One,

Progress Publishers, Moscow, lit?.'!, p.

J

political life of society upon the social lift^^1^^ comes to the fore. Economic development gives rise to the political life of society only when the social process is a class process. Therefore, the political process is always directed at using state power as a means of controlling society in accord with the basic interests of specific classes. The abolition of class distinctions in the course of communist construction will mean the abolition of the political life of society, this sphere being transformed inlo a managerial sphere, where the process of managing society will acquire a new social form as compared with political relations.

The causal dependence of the spiritual life of society upon economic development is even more complex. In describing the spiritual process, one cannot ignore the direct determination of spiritual production by the material nor the fact that the scientific, moral, artistic, religious and other components of the spiritual process arc conditioned by the contradictions of economic life. However, this dependence of the spiritual sphere of social life on economic life, of the secondary on the primary is not exhaustive. There also exists a whole range of mediated dependencies only ultimately determined by economic factors.

Of great importance in understanding the mediation of the determinants of the spiritual process is the statement made by Engels regarding the history of Western European thought in the seventeenth-nineteenth centuries: 'Mere economy creates nothing anew, but it determines the way in which the body of thought found in existence is altered and further developed .. .'^] Among the causes having a direct influence upon philosophy, Engels names political factors as the most important, as they are also as regards the history of art, morality, religion and, to a large degree, science, i.e. as regards the development of the spiritual life of society as a whole.

Economic development is the basis of social development. This very statement explains the attention that Marxist literature has always paid to the contradictious in the social mode of production and to the dialectic of the interaction of its two aspects---the productive forces and production relations. Contemporary bourgeois philosophy and sociology also cannot ignore this issue. Under the influence

of Marxism, attempts are made to `clarify' the category meaning of the concepts 'productive forces' and 'production relations', attempts which in fact turn into a revision of Marxism.

Declaring that the categories 'productive forces' and ' production relations' do not represent that level of generalisation necessary for a study of social processes, 'nco-- Marxist' theoreticians propose that they be replaced by the categories `labour' and `interaction'. The significance of the interaction between the productive forces and production relations for social development is not denied, hut kept within the framework of pre-monopoly (`liberal') capitalism. Increasing state regulation of the economy arid the increasing interaction between science and technology are, in their opinion, creating new conditions not allowed for by Marx. Therefore it follows that what Marx associated with productive forces and production relations is now to be attributed to labour ('rational-purposeful activity') and to interaction, the latter interpreted in the spirit of the theory of 'social action', which reduces the nature of social relations to the psychological characteristics of human groups. The meaning behind these arguments produced by the ' neoMarxists' can be expressed as follows. The concepts of labour and interaction can be applied equally to all the spheres of social life, and therefore the substitution of these terms for the terms 'productive forces' and 'production relations' brings into question the material basis as the primary cause of the historical process and, in consequence, the development of socio-economic formations as a naturalhistorical process. In this way, the `reconstruction' of historical materialism can be fully accommodated within the framework of the typical bourgeois theory of factors.

The dialectic of the productive forces and production relations is the key to understanding the sources of the development of the social mode of production. This dialectic is expressed primarily in the law of the correspondence of production relations to the productive forces. The essence of this correspondence lies in the dependence of the production relations (the social form of the mode of production) upon the level of development and the nature of the productive forces (the content of the mode of production) and the simultaneous strong retroactive influence of the production relations upon the productive forces. The proIll

Engels to C. Sdmiidt, October 27, 1800, p. 401.

duction relations as any form, are more resistant to change than the productive forces, and contradiction between them can arid does arise. Overcoming such contradiction through the development of production relations, including even the rejection of the old form of the mode of production and its replacement by a new form, always involves a transformation of the social mode of production while simultaneously fully restoring the function of the production relations as the driving force of the development of the productive forces.

The dialectic of the development of the productive forces and production relations is far more complex than their direct interaction. It also operates through the interaction mediated by the social mode of production as a whole. In an analysis of this question Marx noted that, on the basis of changed production relations

there develop the specifics of a changed mode of production which, on tho 0110 hand, creates new material productive forces and, on the other, itself develops only on the basis of these new material productive forces and therefore in fact creates for itself new actual conditions. '

The objective link between the productive forces (and the production relations) arid the social mode of production is expressed in the fact that, firstly, production stimuli obliging people to develop the productive forces and, secondly, the realisation of the possible ways of developing the productive forces, which is given material expression iu the specific level of (he technical base of society, take shape according to such systemic (integrating) qualities of the social mode of production as its goal and the means of achieving it.

An investigation of the dialectic of the direct and indirect interactions between the productive forces and the production relations makes it possible to arrive at a deeper and more complete understanding of the Jaws of the succession of formalional modes of production, a dialectic feature of the natural-historical process of social development, We will examine this problem in closer detail, as its clarification opens the way to understanding the historical necessity of the establishment in tho modern age of a civilisation of a new, communist type.

~^^1^^ K. Marx and F. Eugels, Collected Works. Second Edition, Vol. 49, t'olitizdat, Moscow, 1974, p. 118 (in Russian).

Previously, the emergence of capitalist production relations required only the formal subordination of labour to capital, the simple separation of the personally free worker from the means of production and the establishment of his position as a wage-worker. In terms of the productive forces, such a subordination of labour to capital fully corresponded to their functional changes: the transformation of the individual into a specialised worker trained to carry out one particular operation, and of the work force into an aggregate worker constituting, thanks to the specialisation and co-ordination of labour, a productive force in its own right. However, the functional transformation of the productive forces caused by manufacture fully preserved the manual mode of labour. While the individual adapted himself to the production process, the production process had already been adapted to the abilities of the individual. The accomplishment of any given technical operation was totally dependent upon the ability of the worker to manipulate his tools or instruments, on his strength, skill, speed and confidence. The principle of the division of labour was based not on the objective content of the production process, but on the personal abilities of the individual worker, i.e. was subjective.

The technological basis of manufacture limited the possibilities of reducing the necessary labour time expended on manufacturing the products, i.e. of increasing the relative surplus value. Therefore it was inevitable that

at a given stage in its development, the narrow technical basis on which manufacture rested, came into conflict with requirements of production that were created by manufacture itself.'

New material-technical conditions were necessary that would be adequate to meet the aims (profit) and means (exploitation of wage-workers) of the capitalist mode of production. These conditions were provided by large-scale machine production. By the very logic of its development, capitalist production was compelled to revolutionise its technical base. And indeed, by using machines to produce machines, large-scale capitalist industry accomplished just such a revolution and thereby, to use the colourful image of Marx, 'stood on its own feet'.^^2^^ The transformation of the

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, p. 347.

~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 363.

8-0328

material-technical base of society brought with it the transformation of the formal into the actual subordination of labour to capital, and of undeveloped into developed capitalist relations. Thus the interaction between the productive forces and production relations occurred not only directly, but also indirectly, via the specific characteristic of the social mode of production. Correspondence between them was established by subordinating them to the aims and means of the mode of production.

The emergence of capitalist production represents the transition from an individual form of labour to a collective form, from indirect social (private) production to direct social (co-operative) production. However, direct social production or, to use the accepted term, the social character of production, requires a social form of appropriation, viz. social ownership of the means of production and the produce, while the capitalist mode of production affirms private ownership. As a consequence, it subordinates the social character of production to the private form of appropriation, despite the fact that, in effect, 'it abolishes the conditions upon which the latter rests.' ⁱ The main contradiction of capitalism---the contradiction between the social nature of production and the private form of appropriation---is born and develops alongside the capitalist mode of production. If this is so, then it is perfectly legitimate to conclude that socialist production relations based upon the social character of production are more appropriate to the collective use of the means of labour.

In contrast to capitalist co-operation, socialist co-- operation combines the social character of production with the social form of appropriation. Thus the socialist mode of production inevitably gives rise to common social interests and production stimuli for the whole of society, and creates the conditions necessary for the accelerated development of the productive forces of society, as is clearly evidenced by the experience of the socialist countries. However, as regards human history as a whole, the natural sequence was that the age of the decline and decay of feudal society should give rise not to socialist but to capitalist relations. Although from the very first capitalist production relations contradicted the social character of production, they fully

corresponded (as a result of the transformation of the indirect into the direct social form of labour) to the level of development of the productive forces achieved at that time and to the requirements for their further improvement--- the replacement of manual technology by machine technology. Moreover, socialist production relations, relations of co-operation and mutual aid among people free from exploitation, could not and cannot arise spontaneously within an antagonistic society. This requires a social force capable of breaking the opposition of the exploiters and, what is more difficult still, overcoming the private-ownership traditions and habits of small-scale producers, the peasants and the craftsmen. Such a force did not exist within feudal society. It emerged in the form of the industrial proletariat only with the development of capitalism.

Such was the situation in the past. As for the modern age, radical changes have occurred. Alongside the world capitalist system, on the whole ripe for socialist changes, world socialist system, the community of socialist countries, has emerged and gained in strength. Major successes have been achieved by the international communist and workers' movement, while the foundations of colonial domination have crumbled beneath the blows of the nationalliberation movement of the peoples oppressed by imperialism.

In such a situation, the struggle of the working people to obtain national liberation inevitably develops into a struggle for social liberation, and in the developing countries the necessary conditions are emerging for the further consolidation of national-democratic and socialist forces. With the support and assistance of the socialist countries and the international workers' movement, these social forces are capable, in the course of a class struggle that must inevitably escalate, of gradually nationalising the property of the exploiters and socialising via socialist cooperatives the means of production belonging to the peasants and the craftsmen, thus ensuring the correspondence between the social character of production and the social form of appropriation without passing through the capitalist phase of development.

The level of the productive forces, which in the past was sufficient to give rise to capitalist production relations, is today sufficient to give rise to socialist production relations.

8*

115

Frederick Engels, Anti-Duhring, p. 320.

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The once unique role of the capitalist mode of production, which consisted in concentrating and consolidating scattered, small-scale means of production, has lost its historical necessity. With the replacement of the indirect by the direct social form of labour the conditions have now arisen that make it possible to realise social progress of the socialist type. The socialisation of individual means of production, achieved earlier by the ruin of small private owners, can now be achieved by their voluntary association in co-operative economic units of workers free from exploitation. Having arisen on the basis of the correspondence between production relations and the functional characteristics of the productive forces, the socialist mode of production demands that the development of the productive forces be raised to a level adequate to its aims and means, and this in turn requires the further transformation of undeveloped socialist production relations into developed social

ist relations.

A comprehensive analysis of the dialectic of the interaction of the productive forces and production relations thus becomes the starting point for understanding the essential nature of the contemporary world revolutionary process and for explaining those radical social shifts which are now the main factors in the acceleration of social progress and the historic movement of mankind towards genuine civilisation, civilisation of the communist type.

Irina Sizemskaya

The Objective Basis

of the Historical Process

In any theoretical, socio-philosophical analysis of the historical process, the question of its objective basis is of methodological importance, regardless of the philosophical position from which the researchers approach such an analysis---whether they regard history as the result of the spontaneous self-expression of a `Spirit' or as the unfolding in space and time of the vital activities of individuals. In both cases there inevitably emerges the problem of identifying the mechanisms and determining factors of human history, and hence the objective basis of its development. It is therefore not surprising that all the most important questions pertaining to the theory of the historical process centre on this problem, which polarises the researchers according to the mode of interpretation they have chosen.

Within the framework of a materialist understanding of history a solution to this problem has been provided that, from the point of view of its scientific validity and value, is clear and unambiguous. Marx wrote:

Individuals producing in a society, and hence the socially determined production of individuals, is of course the point of departure. '

Before 'making history', men must obviously eat, drink and clothe themselves, as

tliis is an historical act, a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly ho fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life.^^2^^

~^^1^^ K. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 188.

~^^2^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,'The German Ideology', pp. 41-

42.

But is this the only meaning of the production of immediate life? No, it is not, although it must be a prime consideration in describing historical reality. Its real significance, as has been convincingly demonstrated by dialecticmaterialist analysis, lies in the fact that the production of the means of existence excercises a determining influence upon all other human activities, thus conditioning social, political and spiritual processes as a whole. It is in this sense that the production by men of the material conditions of their lives is, as Marx called it, 'the origin of history'^j and material-production activity constitutes the universal principle of the historical progress of society.

In producing material goods, people simultaneously produce themselves as social individuals, as the result of their productive activity is always, and today scarcely anyone would dispute this, not only use values, material and spiritual values, but society itself, man himself as the bearer of social being. For this reason the history of the development of social production is always the history of the social development of individuals, their own history, and vice versa. Thus Marx and Engels recommended that human history be studied and analysed in connection with the history of industry and exchange, for as men produce the essential means of existence, they also `produce' themselves ( physically and spiritually), i.e. they create their history.

It is of course true that ideas---political, moral, religious, etc.---also have a determining influence upon the historical process. It is not that ideas do not influence social development, but rather that social-historical movement is founded upon changes occurring in the material-productive life of men. The process whereby men acquire mastery over the surrounding natural world and thus ensure the provision of the necessary means of life is the content of social production. However this process, interpreted according to Marxist theory, expresses something more: the production of the means of existence is simultaneously the production of life itself, of society itself, of all that is in one way or another linked to the actual historical condition of human activity.

Referring to this aspect of social production, Marx wrote:

If we look at bourgeois society as a whole, then the final product of the social process of production is always society

itself, i.e. man himself in his social relations.. . The direct process of production as such appears only as one factor.'

This view of social production involves seeing it as a process embracing the production of both material and spiritual goods. This integrity of social production is the result of the universality of the human relationship to nature. Acting as a social individual, man, in transforming reality, sets himself conscious aims and thus comes to know the world and himself, perfecting himself both physically and spiritually. Both the material and the ideal are implicitly involved at every level of human activity, and therefore the moulding of consciousness in the form of images, ideas, etc., and the production of immediate life never exist separately. The production of things and the production of ideas are the two necessary aspects of social production, both when it is based on a social practice in which both are still integrated together, and when material and spiritual activity, separating out from each other, become distinct and independent aspects of social practice and form two opposite types of production.

Understood in this way, i.e. as a mode of the integrated activity of society, social production coincides with its agents, with their way of life, forms of intercourse, and world of material and spiritual culture. In this sense it is nothing other than the production of man. Thus the historical progress of the human individual, from the limitation and total dependence of primitive man to comprehensively developed human individuality `repeats', as Marxism has proved, the historical process itself, the succession of the modes of social production from primitive-communal to communist.

The introduction by Marxism of the category of social production into the conceptual arsenal of the theory of social development made it possible to discover and explain the material bases of history existing independently of human consciousness, to grasp the objective logic of history and perceive it as a natural-historical process. It also made it possible to introduce the working man into history, now presented as the history of actual individuals, thereby over-

~^^1^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, 'The Holy Family', p. 150.

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Grundrisse der Krilik der Polilischen Okonomie ( Rohentwurj 1857-1858), S. 600.

coming the narrowness and limitation of historical theories for which

the real production of life appears as non-historical, while the historical appears as something separated from ordinary life, something extra-supi'rterrestrial.'

The introduction of the materialist concept of production into the theory of social development made possible a new interpretation of the key part of that theory---the teaching on civilisation. The discovery of the objective basis of the historical process and the identification of its actual mechanisms and the determining factors of its development, which was achieved by turning to the material-productive sphere of human life, established a truly scientific concept of civilisation. Civilisation appeared as a stage of social history linked to the increasing division of labour and to commodity production.

The Marxist teaching on social production brought precision into the very content of the concept `civilisation' by enabling it to be understood within the unity of the material and traditional-cultural factors of social life and by abolishing the opposition between civilisation and culture caused by reducing the former to material-technical values and social institutions, while seeing the latter exclusively as the sphere of individual spiritual life, as the expression of individual freedom.

From among all the other criteria (ethnic, territorial, religious, etc.) used to identify particular civilisations Marxists singled out the characteristic that served to integrate them together---the type of production relations, which determines that specific `fusion' of the material and spiritual activity of a given people, that unique manner of seeing and transforming the world, that unique combination of practical and spiritual attitudes, expressed in particular moral, aesthetic, legal, religious and other views and their corresponding institutions, that we call civilisation.

With human productive activity seen as the objective basis of human history, the concept of the progressive development of civilisation was substantiated. This was understood to be the succession of specific social conditions caused, in the final analysis, by the development of the pro-

ductive forces and the division of labour. It was seen as an ordered progression from the lowest to the highest stage. The teaching on social production put into the hand of the researcher that missing objective criterion of recurrence (mode of production) whose identification enabled the history of civilisation to be seen not as the history of individual civilisations isolated from each other, but as the movement of all mankind along the path of social progress, assimilating as it progresses the cultural achievements of each people. The discovery of the ordered succession of stages in historical development then made it possible to identify the true reasons for the rise of civilisation and the contradiction in historical progress, revealed as springing from the antagonism of ranks, social estates, classes, accumulated labour and direct labour, to disclose the driving forces behind the development of civilisation and to substantiate the concept of the inevitable transition from `sham' to `real' civilisation. From that moment the concept `civilisation' not only registered the results of human activity but also expressed the progressive movement of world history. The theory of civilisation rose to a new scientific level, overcoming the limitations of theories which claimed that the development of the civilised world was a vicious circle creating contradictions which it was unable to resolve.

Finally, the Marxist teaching on social production gave the concept `civilisation' a concrete socio-class content. In showing that material production plays the determining role in the historical activity of men and in showing that the contradiction that arises within this sphere between the level of the productive forces and the nature of production relations acts as the source, the driving force of historical development, the teaching on social production also irrefutably demonstrated that history is nothing other than the activity of the working masses, and that the achievements of civilisation are the result of this activity. This being so, cultural development and the corresponding succession of the historical stages of civilisation register the various levels of individual freedom not only from subjugation to uncontrolled natural forces, but also from various forms of social dependence. Having identified three types of labour exploitation---slavery, serfdom and wage-labour---it is possible to identify the three corresponding stages in the de-

~^^1^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, 'The German Ideology', p. 55.

velopment of a civilised world based on class antagonisms. Each civilisation, even local---ancient, African, etc.---- emerging and developing as a particular socio-cultural community, inevitably appears woven into the fabric of the class struggle, social contradictions and antagonisms of the historical period with which it is connected.

What is the nature of the correspondence between human production activity and the world of culture as it takes shape within the framework of a specific historical civilisation?

At each stage of its historical development, civilisation registers the results of socio-cultural activity and appears as a specific unity of material and spiritual culture. This unity is always founded upon the material-productive life of men. The production of immediate life constitutes that material base which gives to the culture of each people an integrated aspect and presents itself as the unity of the constituent (material and spiritual) cultural elements. The socio-economic mode of production activity determines the characteristic features and driving forces of those socio-- cultural factors typical of a given civilisation.

In conditioning the social form of spiritual activity, the mode of the production of immediate life also exerts a determining influence upon the nature of cultural creativity. The nature of the production of cultural values and the attitude towards these values largely depend on whether the link between the individual and the material conditions of his activity takes the form of a natural fusion with the means of production in which the individual relates to these material conditions as prerequisites given along with his own existence, or whether this link is entirely mediated by commodity exchange, as a result of which he perceives these values as constituting a world of alien property. Material production based on private ownership and the socio-economic separation of the producer from the material conditions of his activity, with its attendant alienation of labour and depersonalisation of the forms of intercourse, goes hand in hand with the alienation of the individual in cultural creativity from the cultural world lie creates.

Thus the self-alienation of the individual in material production, a characteristic of capitalist civilisation that follows upon the separation of labour and ownership and the inclusion of the individual in the production process as an

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appendage to the machine rather than as a personal being in his own right, is `repeated' in the cultural sphere. Science, art and other forms of spiritual creativity become for the individual activities largely determined 'from above' and not connected with his own being and initiative, and thus appear to restrict his free self-expression. Science, art, morality, politics become forces that subjugate the individual to the interests of the ruling class. Spiritual and material values form their own particular, independent world of things unconnected with his own being, a world whose riches do not belong to him.

The basic contradiction of economic life---the contradiction of labour and capital---is transposed to the cultural sphere, leading to the concentration of material and spiritual wealth at one end of the social spectrum and the material and spiritual impoverishment of whole classes at the other. The entire cultural progress becomes a contradictory process in which

oven the pure light of science seems unable to shine but on the dark background of ignorance. All our invention and progress seem to result in endowing material forces with intellectual life, and in stultifying human life into a material force.'

The contradictions and class antagonisms of the economic sphere are reflected in a specific form in the structure of spiritual life, giving rise to a situation in which culture emerges as the contradictory interaction of two cultures--- that of the economically dominant exploiter class and that of the exploited class. The capitalist mode of production, with its cult of utility, generates its own particular attitude to material and spiritual values, to creativity and to culture as a whole. The essence of this attitude is expressed in the fact that social recognition is awarded not to artistic (or scientific) creativity as such, but to that creativity which brings with it advantage and economic benefit. Social interest in science and art is directly conditioned by the `higher' interest of capital in profit. As a result, not only material but also spiritual activity is commercialised, which leaves its mark upon the functioning of culture as a whole.

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, 'Speech at the Anniversary of the People's Paper'* In K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works in three volumes, Volume One, p. 500.

It should he emphasised that spiritual activity is greatly influenced not only by the social mode of the production of immediate life and the assimilation of the material conditions of labour, but also by production technology and the existing system of labour division, the totality of the material-technical factors of production. We will quote here a statement by Marx and Engels on this subject:

Sancho [Max Stirner---/. S.] imagines that Raphael produced his pictures independently of the division of labour that existed in Rome at the time. If he were to compare Raphael with Leonardo da Vinci and Titian, he would see how greatly Raphael's works of art depended on the flourishing of Rome at that time, which occurred under Florentine influence, while the works of Leonardo depended on the state of things in Florence, and the works of Titian, at a later period, depended on the totally different development of Venice. Raphael as much as any other artist was determined by the technical advances in art made before him. by the organisation of society and the division of labour in his locality, and, finally, by the division of labour in all the countries with which his locality had intercourse. '

We have unfolded before us, as it were, the process whereby the material conditions of life affect both artistic development and the entire production of consciousness. This effect is, as we can see, the combined result of a number of factors: (1) the `situation' in which the artist is working; (2) the 'technical advances' achieved in art; (3) the 'organisation of society'; and, finally, (4) the 'division of labour' not only in the given locality but also in neighbouring countries.

The development of material production and of the whole world of material culture underlies the historical progress of society. Therefore it is not surprising that Marx saw the historical significance, the 'civilising mission' of capitalism as residing precisely in the hitherto unprecedented potential development of the productive forces, labour and technology rendered possible by the establishment of capitalist

production.

This, of course, must not be understood to mean that the world of material culture is the exclusive index of civilisation, as is claimed by those representatives of contemporary bourgeois sociology who espouse the theory of technological determinism. The Marxist solution lo the problem

~^^1^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, 'The German Ideology', p. 393.

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of the correlation of culture and civilisation is based on a recognition of the constant reciprocal conditioning of the historical progress of social production on tlie one hand, and tlie cultural progress of society, on the other, within the framework of a specific historical civilisation. This interaction manifests itself as a general tendency that excludes a one-to-one relationship between the development of production and cultural progress. The reason, as Marx and Engels pointed out, is that, on the one hand, the economy affects all the other aspects of social life only 'in the final analysis', and, on the other, cultural development is characterised by continuity and relative independence, which means that it is subject to its own specific laws.

The Marxist interpretation of social production, which excludes its reduction to the process of ensuring the means of physical existence, sees this process as assuming three forms: the assimilation of the surrounding natural world, the development of the creative capacities of the individual and, finally, the process of the formation of social links. While the criterion for measuring the level of development of the first is the economic level of society, the development index for the second and third is provided by the opportunity for material and spiritual creativity and the comprehensive manifestation of human individuality. This `three-dimensional' nature of material production causes a certain disparity between its techno-economic and its general social content: the development of material production, expressed in the growth of labour productivity, does not always correspond to cultural progress, to human spiritual development and the formation of those relations that assist this development. More than this, these processes may, in specific social conditions, develop in diametrically opposite directions.

Hence the development of production and consequent economic growth are not of themselves a sufficient condition for the progressive development of civilisation as a whole, while the development of individual spheres of cultural creativity is in no way directly dependent upon the general development of society nor, therefore, upon the development of its material basis.

This, of course, does not imply that techno-economic progress as such is hostile to art, as is asserted by certain `leftists', or that there exists some inexorable law which

dictates that economic prosperity is achieved at the price of spiritual bankruptcy, and the loss of the aesthetic capacity. The spiritual poverty of 'one-dimensional man', of which Herbert Marcuse writes, is Hie result of social alienation and the depersonalisation of human forms of intercourse. It springs not from the `viciousness' of scientific and technological progress, which purportedly destroys the 'emotional dimension' in man, but from the fact that capital and the production process founded upon it distort the entire system of human relations. In this sense it is hostile to many forms of spiritual creativity regardless of the scientific and technological progress occurring within in.

Clearly, when dealing with the question of the dependence of cultural progress on the socio-economic development of society, the point to be discussed is not so much the correspondence between spiritual wealth and the level of the productive forces, but rather the degree to which this wealth depends upon the wealth of the real forms of human intercourse. Social production, which always takes places 'within and with the help of a definite social organisation',ⁱ exerts its influence via labour and men's attitude towards nature and each other as shaped in the process of transforming the surrounding world. Thus not only the economic level of social life, but also the nature of the relationships between the individual and society is a determining factor within the aggregate criterion used to evaluate the progressive character of a given historical civilisation and its contribution to human development.

Material production does not exert its influence in such a way as to create a situation in which economics is the cause and culture, only the effect. In reality, the interaction between socio-economic and traditional-cultural factors is such that cause and effect are constantly changing place. The absoluteness of the influence of material production ultimately reveals itself as the basic trend of social development.

The ways in which interaction takes place are also variable, constantly changing and becoming more complex. In a word, they are developing. This is to be expected, insofar as the development of human practice and social organisa-

tion leads to change in the interrelationship between social being and social consciousness. At each new stage of historical development this interrelationship acquires new features reflecting the changes that have taken place in the spheres of material and spiritual activity in connection with social development as a whole. The forms of interaction between the production of the means of life and cultural creativity, and also the ways in which the former acts upon the latter, change accordingly. Therefore, declared Marx,

if material production itself is not conceived in its specific historical form, it is impossible to understand what is specific in tlie spiritual production corresponding to it and the reciprocal influence of one on the other.'

Material production exerts its influence indirectly, acting through the complex system of social links and intermediary factors which fulfil the function of 'intermediary link', transforming the impulses received from material production in accord with the nature and characteristics of cultural creativity. Moreover, the intermediary link itself operates as a complex system that comprises both material and spiritual elements. The historical progress of material production only determines the general trend of cultural development, while the inner impulse, the driving force of this development is the interaction between the cultural elements themselves.

The ultimate supremacy of economic development is for me an established fact in these spheres too,---wrote Engols, speaking of the influence of socio-economic factors on the spiritual activity of society---but it operates within the terms laid down by the particular sphere itself.^^2^^

Cultural development has its own logic, and therefore the determining influence of material life upon cultural development and upon the development of civilisation as a whole is extremely complex and involved.

Finally, the mechanisms whereby material production affects culture include, in addition to specifically economic determinants, social determinants that express two sets of social laws connected with the functioning and development of society as both an economic system and as a so-

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, p. 192.

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus-Value, Part I, p. 285.

~^^2^^ Rngels to C. Schmidt, October 27, 1890, p. 401.

cial organism. This means that material production has a diversified effect upon all aspects of social activity. As social production develops as a result of the scientific and technological revolution and the transformation of science into a direct productive force, arid as humanity progresses along the path to communist civilisation, general social, including also spiritual factors start to assume a significant role, as is revealed in socialist social practice. Under socialism, in the context of the scientific and technological revolution, the dependence of material production on scientific advance and on the level of the creative intellectual potential and cultural-technical level of the worker increases. The changes taking place, under the impact of contemporary scientific and technological advance, in the structure of the productive forces, in the nature and content of work and in the place and role of the individual in the direct production process are creating a situation in which it is precisely the development of the social individual that is becoming the basis of social production and wealth. On the other hand, the scale and proportional importance of spiritual production increase significantly, enhancing its role in the activity of society. Human labour is increasingly shifting to the spheres of science, education and art. (In the socialist countries, these forms of labour occupy third place after industry and agriculture in terms of the numbers employed in them, and first place in terms of rate of growth.) In other words, mature socialism creates the conditions necessary to unite material and spiritual production into an integrated social whole in which the determining role of the economy and the determining influence of material production assume a new dimension.

Vadim Semyonov

Culture and Human Development

The concept of culture and the concept of man are indissolubly woven together. In the historical process, culture is both the product of human activity and the expression of what man has achieved, and is therefore both the result of the development of man himself and the index of the progress of human society.

As a philosophical concept, culture is correctly viewed as a specific type of human activity, as the complex expression of human development. It is the active, and in most cases materialised embodiment of human creativity, the self-- realisation of man's inherent capacities. Culture expresses the degree to which man is in control of his relations with the natural world and society, and also his control over himself. It is man who creates culture, hence it is profoundly human in character. It is the product of man and the manifestation of his active, creative traits and abilities, which explains the active nature of culture itself.

Thus culture, as the object of human creativity, is inseparably bound up with its creator, the subject. Culture cannot be separated from human activity and creativity, and thus it constitutes both the means and the result of the self-realisation of man as regards his essential qualities. For this reason, culture is the repository of the noblest human values.

In philosophical literature, the term `culture' usually has three basic meanings, and all three are intimately connected with human creativity. Eacli of these three basic meanings registers a particular characteristic of culture, the specific way in which and degree to which it is the embodiment of man, its creator.

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Used in the ])i'oadest sense, culture is the totality of the results oj material and spiritual activity. According to Marx, Hie whole of human aclivity is divided into malerial and non-material, spiritual production (intellectual labour), expressed in concrete historical form. The difference between the two lies in the fact that the iirst creates material wealth, material goods, while the second creates spiritual wealth and values. * As the totality of material and spiritual wealth crealed by man, culture, to nsc the words of Marx, is 'the development of human productive forces, in other words, the development oj the richness of human nature as an end in itself.^^2^^

Used with a narrower, more specific meaning, the term `culture' is applied to spiritual culture alone, but a spiritual culture that embraces all the spiritual values produced by man and that includes philosophy, science, ideology, art, literature, religion, education, etc.

Summed np together, all these components of spiritual culture are expressed in the concepts 'spirit' and ' spirituality', which reflect human intellectual and emotional capacity, both conscious and unconscious, in all its singularity and richness. Philosophy, science, art, literature are all products of man's intellectual and emotional powers, the creation of his mind and heart. Moreover, they are the highest creation of the human spirit, revealing man's creative, spiritual nature. Among these components of spiritual culture, philosophy is that which combines and integrates, disclosing the basis of human being and the laws governing man's theoretical and practical, cognitive and artistic, and other creative aclivity.

Marx selected scientific and artistic production,^^3^^ finding their expression in scientific and artistic culture respectively, as the most important manifestations of spiritual, nonmaterial production. Science represents theoretical activity, conceptual thought directed at discovering truth, while literature and art (artistic creativity as a whole) are directed at disclosing and revealing the beautiful by means of figurative thought.

The narrow, `specialised' definition of the term `culture' is used in referring to the specific characteristics of individual cultural spheres. Thus, artistic culture may be defined as the figurative objecliftcation of artistic creativity. As Marx pointed out more than once, the distinguishing characteristic of artistic culture is that it is externalised not only in things (this being a characteristic of all material culture), hut also in performance, in artistic-- expressive acts. Under capitalism, such spiritual, non-material production has two types of product:

\. It results in commodities, use-values, which have a form different from and independent of producers and consumers; these commodities may therefore exist during an interval between production and consumption and may in this interval circulate as vendible comi/iodilies, such as books, paintings, in a word, all artistic products which are distinct from the artistic performance of the artist performing them... 2. The production cannot be separated from the act of producing, as is the case with all performing artists, orators, actors, teachers, physicians, priests, etc. '

Thus figurative-objectified artistic culture takes the form both of material products and direct activity. Moreover, in the second instance the production of culture is directly linked with the very act of creativity.

Culture, understood in any of the three meanings described above---both material and spiritual, spiritual only, or specifically artistic---having been given objective form by human creativity, becomes an independent phenomenon and acquires its own independent life governed by definite laws of development and constantly striving towards universality.

Culture, rooted in the material aspect of social life, is closely interwoven with all its other aspects, including economics and ideology. All these aspects of social life, and in particular actual social practice, the economic and sociopolitical life of society, have a significant influence upon culture, which in a class society has a class character.

Culture is the creative aspect of human activity. Labour created man and in labour man discovers himself. However, labour and creativity, labour and the creation of culture are not equivalents, although labour itself, if it is free of oppression and exploitation, brings man joy and satis-

~^^1^^ Cf. Karl Marx, Theories oj Surplus-Value, Part I, pp. 284- 280, 287-288, 300, 409-411.

~^^2^^ Karl Marx, Op. tit., Part II. pp. 117-118.

~^^3^^ CI'. K. Marx, Theories of Surplus-Value, Part I, p. 410.

Ibid.

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faction. The greatest joy and satisfaction is found in that labour which creates a new cultural value, in culturally creative labour.

Such an interpretation of culture means that Ihe creation of any cultural product is always bound up with the spiritual capacity of man, with his thoughts, purposes, ideals, emotions, insights and intuitions---in short, with his spirit, his spirituality, regardless of whether the cultural product is of material or spiritual value. Cultural creativity is linked to purposefulness, to the realisation and incarnation of the main, essential aim, together with other important human capacities.

The spiritual capacity of man, as embodied in either a cultural object or act, expresses his abilities, talent, emotion and imagination, his will and effort, self-organisation and self-control. Therefore a cultural product or act always represents man's expression of his abilities, talent, essence and spirit. The work of culture discloses the spiritual wealth of man, its creator.

Genuine culture is always humanist. The very concept of culture and civilisation coincides with the concept ' human', since civilised behaviour and a civilised attitude means, first, the existence of a profoundly conscious, considered and self-controlling principle, and secondly, a similarly conscious acceptance of the norms and rules of communal life which satisfy the interests of men and therefore also the interests of the acting individual.

While men are mortal, culture and its products are immortal. Human products of material and spiritual value accumulate over the course of the historical development of humanity. The cultural wealth of society is the result of human activity in history and is the expression of the level of human self-realisation. Hence cultural products are by their nature international and universal, despite the fact that the specific socio-political system existing within society and based upon private ownership gives these cultural values a narrowly national, elitist, class character.

All the nations of the earth are involved in the creation of cultural values; here there are no `chosen' either by nature or by God. However, there are oppressed and savagely exploited peoples (particularly the peoples of colonies) who, for certain social reasons, have so far made less significant contribution to the treasures of world culture

and civilisation. However, the `guilt' is not theirs, but rather that of those classes ruling in the metropolitan countries and the colonies who have delayed the creative contribution of these peoples to world culture.

From this can be drawn the important socio-- philosophical conclusion that the elimination of the exploitation and oppression of one people by another, the abolition of the system of colonialism and neo-colonialism is the main social prerequisite for ensuring equal opportunity for all the peoples of the world in creating the wealth of world culture.

Alongside the general characteristics marking the relationship between man and culture there are also specific features which depend upon the breadth of meaning given to the concept of culture and also upon the type of cultural activity engaged in. These specific features differ from each other above all in their aims, purposes and results. These differences are expressed in the concepts `thing' and `relationship'. Material production, and that part of it constituted by cultural creativity, have both the aim and result of creating a new thing for the benefit of man. This thing may bo a new object of labour, a new means of production; it may be a new consumer commodity, a means of satisfying requirements, improving material living conditions and increasing the comfort of the surrounding environment. Spiritual production and that part of it constituted by cultural creativity have as their aim and result the creation (in the form either of a thing or of an expressive act, a figurative objectification) of a scientific or artistic product which, through knowledge or imagery, explains, discloses, expresses either in general or specific terms, deepens and specifies one of man's numerous relationships: (1) his relationship to himself; (2) his relationship to other people; (3) his relationship to society; (4) his relationship to the natural world. At the same time man is creating that which is simultaneously both a thing and a relationship, that which is both a means of satisfying specific human material and spiritual needs and represents a high spiritual value as tho wonderful work of the hand and spirit of man, i. e. possesses both material and spiritual value.

In addition, various forms of culture and cultural product differ in their effect upon the various aspects of the integrated material-spiritual being of man. The products of

material culture satisfy primarily the material requirements and needs of men, although their perception and evaluation necessarily occurs at the level of emotion and intellect. The theoretical data obtained by science extend and develop man's cognitive capacity and enrich his mind, his intellect. Works of literature and art presented in figurative form act upon the intellect and in particular upon the emotions. On the whole, with that degree of simplification needed to express complex phenomena, it can be said that material culture acts upon the material needs of man, upon his `body', while spiritual culture acts upon his spiritual needs, upon his `soul'. Moreover, philosophy and science act upon the human mind, while artistic culture acts upon his emotions, his heart.

In his preface to the Russian edition of Rolando Cristofanelli's book The Diary of Michelangelo Renato Guttnso wrote that Michelangelo had countered the harshness of his age with 'great works of artistic creation that were the noblest manifestation of man's inherent creative power and ability to express passion, contradiction and the twists and turns of history in poetic images, so that, as he himself wrote, "weeping, loving, raging and suffering", one can reveal all by one's own heart to the hearts of others'.^^4^^ The German playwright and director Bertolt Brecht seeking for ways in which the theatre might act upon more than just the emotions and sympathy of the audience, but also reach the mind and Weltanschauung of the public, advocated what he called an 'epic form of theatre' as distinct from the usual 'drama form', striving by moans of the same structure of figurative perception to influence the civic, social position of the spectator, the structure and content of his social activity, directed towards the truth.^^2^^

Finally, it is characteristic of spiritual culture that it provides man with the possibility of expressing his integrity of being, and thus reveal his inner essence, its fullness and universality. This possibility of self-realisation offered by spiritual culture, both scientific and artistic, brings man the greatest happiness.

Marx wrote that in those societies that preceded the communist,

wealth takes material form, either as a thing or as a relationship mediated by a thing that is located outside the individual mid apparently accidental to him... In fact, however, if this limited bourgeois form is discarded, what is wealth if not the universality of needs, capacities, means of consumption, productive forces, etc. of individuals as created by universal oxchange? What is wealth, if not the full development of man's dominion over the forces of nature, i.e. over the forces of that which is called `Nature' and also over his own nature? What is wealth, if not the absolute manifestation of man's creative gifts with no prerequisites other than the preceding historical development, which makes this comprehensive development (i.e. the development of all human powers as such, independently of any previously established scale) an end in itself? Here man does not reproduce himself in some specific aspect, but produces a totality. He is not striving to remain that which he lias already become, but is in the absolute movement of becoming. '

In the words of Marx, this is 'the total expression of the inner essence of man. . .'^^2^^.

The great works of culture that have survived their brilliant creators and indeed, entire nations are proof of the profound inner essence of man---his sense of the beautiful and his desire for freedom, harmony and happiness.

This ability of culture to function as the comprehensive, universal embodiment of man is inseparable from man's desire to rise, by means of cultural creation of his own hands, above the `one-sidedness' and `liiuitation' of his natural as well as social existence. At the centre of the universal union of 'nature-culture (as the vehicle of this nnion)-society' there stands man himself, using culture to harmonise his relationship with society, nature and himself. In the words of the Soviet philosopher Yn. N. Davydov,

Ilie cultural creativity of mankind, examined ontologically, is a continuous series of attempts to somehow `harmonise' the relationship between natural and social `organisms' and, therefore, the natural and the social principle in each individual human organism, to `harmonise' by arriving at a `third' posi lion, free from the limitations of both `pure' nature and `pure' sociality, i.e., a universal position. To do this it is necessary

~^^1^^ Poji(iHtl<N\pucmo<f>ancjuiu. /fuenmiK MiiKejn.anwKPJio neuCTonoro. M., ITporpecc'. 1980 c. 13.

~^^2^^ Bertolt Brecht, Stiicke, Band TTI, Aufbau-Vcrlag, Berlin, 1955, S. 266.

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, (Irumlrissc der Krilili drr 1'ulitisrlinn Okonoinii' (II ohfiilii'iirf. J.X57-IX5X), S. .'{87.

~^^2^^ Ibid.

to discover the highest principle on the basis of which nature and the 'social individuals' would bo commensurate, to lay hold of that higher measure which would not violate the measure proper to each of the sides. '

The totality of the general and specific characteristics of culture opens before mankind unlimited possibilities for development and perfection in various directions.

First, human development takes place in the process of labour. In his daily practical activity man is engaged in creative activity, in attempting to give expression in a particular product to an idea or an image. Participation in the creation of the material or spiritual values of culture is one of the most important means whereby man develops and realises himself, disclosing and revealing his inner, specifically human essence by his practical influence upon culture and his participation in culture-building activity.

Secondly, human development takes place in the process of mastering the existing, accumulated cultural wealth. This is the influence of culture upon man. Both these lines of development---the influence of man on culture and culture on man---are closely interconnected. Human inspiration is born not only of man's own creative capacity, not only of the influence of the surrounding world but also of knowledge and an appreciation of the cultural values created by other people in other ages. This cultural exchange between subject and object is natural and inevitable.

An important factor in human development is the inclusion of the individual within a network of social relations seen as a specific cultural environment, and intercourse between one individual and numerous other individuals who are bearers of a culture, cultural traditions, skills and experience.

Being himself the embodiment of the totality of actual social relations, the individual is able to express the level of cultural development characterised by these social relations. This level varies in different ages and in different social conditions. There are also variations in the cultural environment in which the individual finds himself and which invariably acts upon him while he acts upon it.

A specific cultural environment is bound up with the principal characteristics of a specific mode of life. The development of the individual is actively influenced by the existing specific cultural environment, just as this cultural environment is affected by each individual and his cultural potential.

The cultural development of the individual is inseparably linked to the social environment. On the actual social conditions existing at a specific historical period depends the degree to which the masses and individuals are involved in culture-building activity.^^1^^

Another vitally important condition of cultural progress is that everyone have guaranteed equal right of access to the sources and riches of culture. If the greater part of the wealth of material and spiritual culture is privately owned, then it is inaccessible for the bulk of the population, and is available only to an elite.

Under socialism the people and culture are reunited after a long historical separation. Under socialism and during the building of communism, the creative essence of man increasingly becomes the integrated expression of emancipated labour, a high level of social activity in the management of public affairs, and cultural creativity, these factors constituting the basis for the comprehensive development of the individual.

The increasing integration of various spheres of culture both in society and in the individual as the creator and bearer of culture is an important trend in the interconnected development of culture and man at the present stage in the progress of socialist society. The development of socialism against the background of the scientific and technological revolution is accelerating the process of interpenotralion between, on the one hand, production and culture, and on the other, various spheres of culture: material and spiritual, material and scientific, material and artistic, scientific and artistic.

Science is increasingly becoming a direct productive force. The demands of artistic culture---aesthetics, design, etc.---are making themselves felt in production. Philosophy is penetrating ever further into Ilie applied natural, social

~^^1^^ Cf. the articles by Vladimir Denisov and Lyudmila Buyeva in the present collection.

~^^1^^ Kyjibxypa, ncTopiiH n coupeMeHiiocTb. «Bonpochi (jmjiococ(>nii», 1978, JV« 12, c. 151 ('Culture, History and the Modern Age', Voprosy filosofii, No. 12, 1978, p. 151).

and technological sciences and various fields of literature and art, while science and art are complementing each other in the field of spiritual creativity to carry out the necessary `aesthetisation' of science and `scientisation' of art. The various spheres of material and spiritual production are drawing together as specific and independent fields of social practice in a movement tending towards an integrated, mutually complementary and balanced whole of production and science, production and culture, material and spiritual culture, and science and art.

Under socialism, the requirements of social development and of scientific and technological progress, and also the aspirations of modern man himself lead to the organic combination of a qualified, advanced worker, an active citizen and fighter for communism, and a man possessed of well-grounded theoretical, scientific knowledge who participates in material and spiritual culture-building activity, a man with a rich spiritual culture and of high moral principles and standards. Labour, knowledge, culture and a sense of civic responsibility are the main components of the new man in the making.

Labour created man, separating him out from the natural world. Culture creates the individual, separating him out from the totality of men. Culture gives the individual the means of asserting his ego, the means of creating Man with a capital M. Culture translates man from the sphere of the struggle to exist, and from the sphere of existence as such, into the sphere of life. It converts the individual into a unique and integrated personality, affirms the truly human in man. Biosocial by his nature and linked to nature, society and his fellow men, the individual uses culture---his product, the yardstick of his development and the expression of his being---to assert himself within the universe as a universal value in himself.

Vladimir Denisov

The Popular Masses as the Subject of the Historical Process

The history of mankind is above all the history of the popular masses, the innumerable generations of working people to whom civilisation owes all its material and spiritual achievements. By their daily labour, creative energy and diversified knowledge, the working masses have ensured the constant progression of historical development. Howover, nothing in history has been so undeservedly belittled or so unjustly ignored as this age-old exploit of the people. More, the people are not infrequently presented as the `destructive' element in history, as an irrational and inarticulate force in opposition to the creative principle represented by the great figures of history. According to certain bourgeois ideologists, the irruption of the `ordinary' man into the- -for him---forbidden zone of political and intellectual life leads only to the distortion of normal historical development, to social upheavals and the slowing down of the process of civilisation. Walter Lippmann, for example, referring to the functions of the popular masses in the life of society, said that their duty was to pay taxes, work, go to war and. if necessary, die for the interests of their government. '

The scholars of the past and even some contemporary scholars present the historical process as being exclusively the result of Ihe will and consciousness of chosen individuals, and the consequence of the socio-political activity of 'heroes of history', of those whom Hegel termed 'the chosen of agents of the World Spirit'.

~^^1^^ Cf. Walter Lippmann, Essays in the Public Pliilosopli.i/, Atlantic Monthly Press Rook, Boston, 1955.

The theory of 'heroes and the mob^^1^^ is as old as philosophy itself, as old as the class roots of society. The depreciation and even total rejection of the role of the popular masses on the one hand, and the absolutisation of the significance of individual historical personages on the other are linked to a subjective-voluntarist and metaphysical interpretation of the historical process, to the rejection or underestimation of the determinant influence of the objective laws of material production and socio-economic conditions and the reduction of the history of society to the history of ideas or acts of will. Such an understanding of history inevitably produces what the Russian Marxist philosopher Plekhanov aptly described as an 'optical illusion' in which the individual eclipses the age that gave him birth. The idealist scholars, he wrote, looked upon history

from the point of view of the exploits of individual personages, of the Romuluses, Augustuses and Brutusrs. The popular masses, all those who wore oppressed or liberated by the Augustuses and Brutuses, slipped out of the historians' field of vision.'

They were unable to see behind the acts of individual personages, i. e. behind the form in which the law of history manifests itself, the most important, namely the development of the mode of production of material goods, and the working masses responsible for this production and thus creating by their labour the basis of all the social, political and spiritual transformations of society, the basis of its progressive development.

In elaborating the materialist theory of historical development, Marx and Engels identified in the popular masses~^^2^^ the main subject of history, its main driving force that ensures the very existence and development of society. The recognition of the popular masses, their labour and revolutionary struggle, as the chief creative force in social

development is one of the fundamental principles of the materialist interpretation of history. Yet another, no less important and fundamental aspect of the materialist interpretation of the historical process is the law of the growing role of the popular masses during the course of the forward movement of history, a law also discovered by Marx and Engels.

Marxism discovered the dialectic interrelationship between the objective and subjective sides of the historical activity of the masses, noting that each new stage in the progressive development of society, each revolutionary change carrying humanity forward to this new stage, is accompanied by an essential change in the subjective condition of the popular masses, inevitably increasing their social activity.

One of the main tendencies of the historical process, and one that is becoming particularly noticeable today, is the growing significance of the subjective factor in the life of society and its increasing influence upon objective conditions. This characteristic feature is organically linked with and in direct dependence upon the law, discovered by Marx and Engels, of the growing role of the popular masses in social development. 'Together with the thoroughness of the historical action,' they wrote, 'the size of the mass whose action it is will therefore increase.' *

The growth of the role of the popular masses and their transformation from the object to the subject of history in the course of its progressive development is, therefore, one of the main manifestations and criteria of social progress. Thus the law referred to above is the expression of the objective necessity of the progressive development of history, and also serves as the proof of the decisive role played by the masses in this process.^^2^^

~^^1^^ Hjiexanoe P. B. Co-umemiH, T. XXIV, M.---JI., 1927, c. 263 (G. V. Plekhanov, Works, Vol. XXIV, Moscow-Leningrad, 1927, p.263).

~^^2^^ The category 'popular masses' refers to the specific historical community of those classes and social groups who have an objective interest in and are capable of participating in accomplishing the tasks involved in the progressive development of society. The composition of the popular masses changes with the development, of society, with the succession of socio-economic formations and dominant social relations, but the core is always composed of working people, the direct producers of material goods.

~^^1^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, 'The Holy Family or Critique of Critical Criticism', p. 82.

~^^2^^ Historical necessity, which is expressed, on the one hand, in the continuous development of the productive forces of society and, on the other, in the law-governed emergence and resolution of the contradictions between the developing productive forces and the increasingly outdated form of production relations, coincides with the vital needs and interests of the popular masses. Hence the basic, essential identity between the objective laws of social development and the activity of the popular masses, who fill the role of the main productive and revolutionary force.

The accelerating rate of historical development itself reflects the growing role of the popular masses. While primitive-communal society survived for several tens of thousands of years, the slave-owning age existed for only around live thousand years, the feudal system for less than two thousand, and the capitalist system has existed for only a few centuries and is already being replaced by a now, more progressive social system-- socialism.

The present age is the most revolutionary and the most dynamic in human history. Never have the achievements of civilisation and of social and cultural progress appeared so impressive or been so comprehensive in character as today. In all of this we see the manifestation of the law of the growth of the role of the popular masses in the historical process and their increasing influence on social

life.

Just as the laws of nature are the means whereby nature itself operates and develops, so the laws of history do not stand above society, do not function as faceless categories, but are manifest and operate in the labour and struggle of the popular masses, in their practical activity directed towards achieving the historically impending social transformations. The historical development of mankind from savagery to civilisation, from the first stages of independence and the seeds of freedom, from the domination of uncontrolled natural and social forces to contemporary social and material progress is being achieved by the purposeorientated activity of men.

By human activity Marxism understands not the individual activity of separate individuals, even those who achieved renown, whose actions may be based upon accidental, non-essential motives, but primarily the totality of the social activity of the popular masses as determined by objective laws and social requirements, i. e. activity of a historically essential nature. Therefore, in analysing the laws governing the historical process and its true driving forces

it is not a question so much of the motives of single individuals, however eminent, as of those motives which set in motion great masses, whole peoples, and again whole classes of the people in each people; and this, too, not momentarily, for the transient flaring up of a straw-fire which quickly dies

down, but for a lusting action resulting in a groat historical transformation. '

Moreover, according to Marxism, the motives which set in motion the popular masses have an objective basis in specific, objective historical conditions. Therefore the nature of their activity and its effectiveness depend first and foremost upon the degree to which the existing conditions are favourable to that activity, on the nature of the material prerequisites and possibilities for the revolutionary-- transformatory creativity of the masses.

Men build a new world for themselves . . . from the historical achievements of their declining world. In the course of their development they first have to produce, the. material conditions of a new society itself, and no exertion of mind or will can free them from this fate.^^2^^

On the other hand, the end to which the historical activity of the popular masses is directed, and their own development in the course of this activity is profoundly affected by the ideological determinant, i. e. by the particular reflection of social being in human consciousness and psychology. For this reason it is impossible in historical practice to achieve any radical social reforms 'which have not absolutely matured both in economic reality and in the minds of the overwhelming majority of the people'.^^3^^

It is primarily in the sphere of material production that the popular masses make their decisive contribution to the development of civilisation. As the most important element in the productive forces and in producing material life, the working masses appear as the main subject of the historical process, in which they have always played and still play the decisive role.

Thanks to labour directed at the production of imple-

~^^1^^ Frederick Engels, 'Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy'. In K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works in three volumes, Volume Three, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977, p. 367.

~^^2^^ Karl Marx, 'Moralising Criticism and Critical Morality'. In Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 6, Progress Publishers. Moscow, 1976, pp. 319-20.

~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, 'The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution', p. 69.

ments, food, housing, clothing, etc. the very existence of humanity and social life is rendered possible. By their labour the popular masses create the social wealth which is the basis for the development of science, technology and art. The productive labour of the mases, whose purpose is the satisfaction of vital requirements, is one of the most important aspects of the objective factor in history, determining the nature and progression of historical development and ensuring the material, social and spiritual progress of mankind.

In the process of productive activity the working people not only create and improve the instruments of labour, but also change themselves, developing as human individuals. It is thanks to labour that man has achieved the evolution that has taken him from a primitive life to the heights of contemporary civilisation.

Modern civilisation is developing against the background of and in close interaction with the ever-expanding scientific and technological revolution, which is having an increasing effect upon every sphere of social life and is significantly accelerating the rate of the historical process. In this connection the proponents of the philosophy of techno.' gical determinism are attempting to present the development of scientific knowledge and technological capacity as the main driving forces of history, and to prove that in a 'technological civilisation' the decisive role is played by financial capital and the organisation and mangement of production processes. They claim, for example, that scientific and technological progress leads to a decline in the role of labour in production and an increase in the role of capital and management.^J Having absolutised the role of science and technology in social development and presented them as self-contained phenomena functioning independently of society, they reduce the entire range of revolutionary processes occurring in the modern world to the scientific and technological revolution and depict the 'self-development of technology' as the sole determining factor in the social and cultural progress of mankind. However, capital and technology produce nothing of themselves;

Ihey are in themselves lifeless, but are the products of men and represent reified human labour. Therefore the realisation of their potential in the productive-economic and social process is possible only through the labour of the millions who compose the masses and who always remain the chief productive force of society. 'The primary productive jorce of human society as a whole is the workers, the working people.'ⁱ

While it is determining to a large extent the historical prospects of the development of civilisation and humanity in the modern age, the scientific and technological revolution is itself an integral part of this development and ultimately subject to its objective laws.

Scientific and technological progress is undoubtedly the key factor in the development of production and assists in creating the potential and the essential material conditions for the development of civilisation. However, science and technology cannot of themselves automatically ensure the achievement of radical social changes, and all the more so, therefore, are they unable to determine the course of history. Today, as in every stage of history without exception, it is the labour of the masses that is the main material basis of all social and spiritual changes and that functions as the demiurge of the progress of civilisation. Social development, including scientific and technological advance, is today accelerating precisely because people are being drawn in over-growing numbers into the historical process, because of their increasing consciousness and organisation, their creative activity in every field. The scientific and technological revolution is itself nothing other than the result of the high level of development of the productive forces of society, achieved and implemented thanks to the enormous creative activity of industrial workers, engineers and scientists, thanks to the qualitative improvement in their qualifications and cultural level, thanks to their profound and effective influence upon all aspects of llic life of contemporary society. This revolution is also the result of those socio-revolutionary processes in which the popular masses play the decisive role, and which detcr-

~^^1^^ Cf. Louis O. Kelso and Mortimer J. Arller, The New Capitalists, Random House, New York, 1961, p. 4.

~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, 'First All-Russia Congress on Adult Education, May 6---19, 1919', Collected Works, Vol. 29, 1965, p. 364.

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mine the shape of the modern world and modern civilisation.

The cardinal law of historical progress is that the production relations must correspond to the productive forces. The realisation of this law is not a spontaneous process, but is brought about only by the revolutionary activity of the masses. Only the popular masses are able, by revolutionary struggle, to resolve in practice ihe pressing contradictions that exist between the constantly developing productive forces and the increasingly outdated production relations, thereby ensuring the replacement of one socioeconomic formation by another that is more progressive. Therefore the transition from capitalism to socialism, for example, is impossible without a socialist revolution. Although in both the USSR and the developed capitalist countries the productive forces and scientific and technological progress are at approximately the same level, their production relations are nonetheless radically different, and despite the concept of 'convergence^^1^^, this difference cannot be removed by 'technological means'.

The method of concrete historical analysis used in examining the social activity of the masses at different stages in world history and in different socio-economic formations enabled the founders of Marxism-Leninism to distinguish between the status of the popular masses as the 'creators of history' and as 'the subject of history' proper (although this distinction is, of course, relative to a certain degree). As the productive activity of the masses is a continuous process, it is of permanent significance for social development regardless of the methods or forms of the realisation of this process in different socio-economic formations, for the people constitute the decisive force of history at every stage. However, while the popular masses are always the creators of history, they only become the subject of history under certain conditions, only when their activity becomes conscious and purpose-orientated.

The concept 'subject of history' is, when applied to the activity of the masses, a concrete historical phenomenon, as is the very category 'popular masses'. In the course of the development of society this concept changes riot, only in terms of quantity and class structure, but also in terms of qualitative content, in the degree of consciousness and organisation of the historical subject and in the force and

effectiveness of its influence upon the social object. In an antagonistic society, for example, the means of production, labour, management of the stale and culture are alienated from the working people, who are therefore unable lo fully realise their potential as the subject of history. For this reason Marxists consider the basic criterion for defining the process of the formation of the masses as the historical subject to be the degree of their influence upon all aspects of the historical process, the level and forms of their conscious socio-polilical activity at various stages in the development of society.

The popular masses may function simultaneously as both Hie subject and the object of history. Thus, for example, even in those relatively brief periods when the people, living in an antagonistic society and actively participating in the revolutionary-liberating struggle against the outdated social system, raised themselves lo some degree to the stalus of historical subject, they nonetheless still remained the object of exploitation and oppression by the ruling class or the class coming to power.

As Marx repeatedly pointed out, two basic forces have a major effect upon politics: the organised power of the stale and the spontaneous power of the popular masses. It is therefore not surprising that history knows instances of (he exploiter classes themselves being compelled to turn to the popular masses for help, using their force and influence in their own interests. Such appeals to the popular masses at crucial moments in history are yet further proof that it is the people who are the decisive force in social development.

Naturally, in all antagonistic social formations, where the people arc denied participation in the management of slate affairs, they are more frequently the object of political life than the subject. In this situation, popular participation in the life of society primarily takes the form of opposilion lo Ihe polilical oppression and alienation to which it is condemned by the ruling exploiter classes, the form of class and national-liberation struggles of various kinds. Nevertheless, in almost every period of history the people oxccrciso enormous indirect and, occasionally, by rising lo a certain level of conscious historical activity, direct influence on politics, it is this 'pressure from below' in the form of popular demands and protests, political strikes and

10*

uprisings that not infrequently compels the ruling classes to change their previous policy and develop a new one, adapting their political strategy to some degree to the actual balance of class forces and level of class struggle at each moment in history.

.. .The class struggle---wrote Lenin---the struggle of the exploited part of the people against the exploiters ... lies at the hottom of political transformations and in tkc final analysis determines the fate of all such transformations.'

Even during those periods characterised by the sociopolitical inertia of the popular masses, their historical creativity and class struggle continue. They are simply concealed as the forces are accumulated and prepared for open popular demonstrations.

We know that the form of the social movement changes, thai periods of direct, constructive political activity by the masses of the people give way in history to periods of outward calm...^^2^^

In writing these words, Lenin emphasised the relative nature of this 'outward calm'.

The role of the masses in the political life of society increases beyond all comparison and is filled with a qualitatively new content during revolutionary epochs, at turning points in history when mankind is moving from one socioeconomic formation to another, higher one. Social revolutions are periods of greatest popular activity, vividly illustrating the selflessness and heroism of the masses. For this reason the reactionary classes have always feared above all else the popular revolutionary uprising that sweeps away conservative regimes which have decayed and are retarding historical development.

Marx described revolutions as the 'locomotives of history' for they sharply accelerate the speed of the historical process and make it possible to achieve in a relatively short period qualitative changes in the life of society more significant and profound than those produced by centuries of

gradual evolutionary development. That this should be so is explained by the fact that revolutions rouse broad masses of the people to active and conscious historical creativity. Lenin emphasises and develops this concept on the basis of an analysis and generalisation of the experience o[ the first Russian revolution:

Revolutions are festivals of the oppressed and the exploited. At no other time are the mass of the people in a position to come forward so actively as creators of a new social order, as at a time of revolution. At such times the people are capable of performing miracles. '

However, more often than not the working people did not enjoy the fruits of victory in the revolutionary struggle, for the old forms of oppression and exploitation were replaced by new ones. For a long lime the ideals of freedom and equality for which the people were struggling remained out of reach. However, the historical results of revolution were always the more significant, the greater the numbers involved and the more actively they urged their own independent demands.

As the decisive force in economic and political progress, the popular masses also make a great contribution to the development of spiritual culture. Science and art, which express the progessive ideas of the age, have always had as their ultimate source the life and experience of the people and therefore belong essentially to the people. Hence the working masses are the legitimate heirs lo all the cultural wealth created during human history. The creative activity of outstanding figures in different fields of culture and science depends upon their social environment and is, in the final analysis, the fruit of the social development of the whole of mankind.

The people are not merely the force which created all material values.---wrote Maxim Clock y---they are the exclusive and inexhaustible source of spiritual values; in time, beauty and genius, they are, collectively, tlie first and foremost philosopher and poet.~^^2^^

~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, 'Preface to the Pamphlet Memorandum, oj Police Department Superintendent Lopukhlii , Collected Works, Vol. 8, 1977,

p. 204.

~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, 'The Victory of the Cadets and the Tasks of the Workers' Party', Collected Works, Vol. 10, 1978, p. 256.

~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, 'Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution', Collected Work*, Vol. 9, 1965, p. 113.

~^^2^^ Maxim Gorky, 'The Disintegration of Personality', On Literature, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1961, p. 71.

The people are always the subject of cultural-historical progress, but in an exploitative society working individuals are, in the overwhelming majority of cases, alienated from the spiritual values created by their collective labour.

Throughout the ages.---wrote Rabindrnnalh Tagore---civilised communities have contained groups of nameless people. They are the majority---the beasts of burden, who have no time to become men. They grow up on the leavings of society's wealth, with the least food, least clothes and least education, and they serve the rest. They toil most, yet theirs is the largest measure of indignity.. . They are like a lampstand hearing the lamp of civilisation on their heads; people above receive light while they are smeared with the trickling oil. '

The people not only stand at the sources feeding classical art, but also create the language used to embody and fix scientific data and artistic images.

However great the role played in the development of scientific knowledge by individual genius, this process is unthinkable without the experience of the people. Science develops on the basis of the generalisation of practical experience and the pressing demands of social development, both of which arc the result of the knowledge accumulated by mankind over its long history and preseved by the whole people.

The law of the decisive role of the popular masses in historical development is absolute, but whereas the essence of this law remains unaltered in all social formations, its modus operandi, i.e. the specific mode whereby objective social links are realised in conscious human activity, differs in each historical age.

The vast social changes taking place in the modern world are the direct result of the revolutionary-- transformatory activity of the popular masses and serve as convincing proof of the law of the decisive and growing influence of the masses on the course and rate of historical development. At the same time, our age brings its own specific characteristic to this historical law, to the manner and forms of its manifestation.

The qualitatively new level of popular influence on social

life and the historical process as a whole is seen most clearly and fully in the transition of society from capitalism to socialism, and to the communist social formation. The highest form of popular creative activity in political life is the socialist revolution. In the course of socialist revolution, the working people not only destroy the old social system and its institutions, but also create a new system, build a new society that is free from oppression and exploitation.

The main feature distinguishing socialist revolution from all previous revolutions is that it is the first to bring into history as its subject not a new exploiter class, but the working masses led by the working class. The emergence and development of the communist formation is heralded by the inclusion of ever broader sections of the population into conscious historical creativity with the purpose of organising and improving the new forms of social life. This creative activity involves virtually all the members of society, and therefore the historical subject and creator of the new society is now not the minority but the overwhelming majority of the working people.

The increasing importance of consciousness and the application of its `qualitative' function in the social activity of the masses under socialism are directly proportional to the increasing influence of the masses on the historical process and its rate of development. A fundamentally important aspect of the increasing historical activity of the masses under socialism is the fact that this activity, which in antagonistic formations was largely negative and destructive in the socio-political sphere, now acquires a positive nature and becomes mainly creative.

Socialism not only identified and revealed the inexhaustible supply of creative energy and constructive power possessed by the popular masses, but also was able to organically combine the historical creativity of the masses with (he socio-economic advantages of the new social system. Tt is therefore no accident that socialism is characterised by the growing role of the popular masses in every field of social life. This is explained above all by the very position of the working people, by the fact that under socialism the people are for the first time the sole and plenipotentiary masters of society and play the decisive role not only in the creation of material and spiritual values, but also

~^^1^^ Rabindranath Tagore, Tellers from Russia, Visva-Bharati, Calcutta, 1960, p. 1.

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I

in the management of all social affairs, in state-political development.

The organic fusion of scientific, technological and social progress under socialism is also a vital prerequisite of the increasing role of the masses in every field, of their conversion into the conscious subject of history. As the social activity of the masses acquires an ever more conscious and creative character in the course of the further development of socialism, the functions of the people as the creator and subject of history are gradually converging. Their full and final convergence is to occur in the classless, communist society.

The qualitatively new features characterising the activity of the masses under socialism are also connected with changes in the structure of society itself. Class antagonism and 'social war' are replaced by 'social peace', * enriching and stimulating the activity of all the working people, the alliance and cooperation of the working class, the collectivefarm peasantry and the people's intelligentsia, of all the socialilst nations.

During the building of socialism and communism the decisive, constructive role of the masses is accomplished on a qualitatively new objective basis, that of the socialist mode of production, socialist social relations and the highest form of democracy. Hence the decisive role of the masses acquires under socialism not only new features and new functions, but also a new organisational form. With the growth of the role of the popular masses under socialism there is also a growth in the importance of mass worker associations---trade unions, public organisations, youth, women's and other movements.

The communist formation can emerge and develop only on the basis of the conscious historical creativity of the masses guided by a scientific world outlook and enriched by the entire wealth of human culture. Therefore the problem of the spiritual renewal of society, the development of culture and its availability for all the working people is one of the fundamental problems of communist theory and practice to which the Communist Party of the Soviet Union gives its constant attention.

the successes achieved in every sphere of life by the USbH and other socialist countries, the power and prestige of the world socialist system as a whole provide the practical proof that the popular masses, having come to power are capable not only of assimilating all the achievements' ol the human mind, but also of raising civilisation and culture to their highest level and ensuring the all-round progress of society and each individual.

~^^1^^ Cf. Frederick Engels, 'Speeches in Elberfeld, Februarys, 1845', Marx. Frederick Enrols, Collected Works. Vol. 4. 1975, p. 248.

Lyurlmila Buycva

activity and forms of social intercourse between individuals and social groups, classes and organisations expressing their interests, which have been shaped by history and become social practice. On the basis of social aims, requirements and interests there arises a system of stimuli which activate the popular masses, classes and various groups and organisations, rousing them to active historical creativity. The social forms of this creativity, the degree to which the various social groups and individuals involved actually participate, depend upon the totality of objective and subjective conditions. At the same time, the position of the individual within the social system, within the economic and social structure of society, indicates the objective conditions and possibilities that the given society and civilisation as a whole have created for the development and realisation of man's inherent capacities. The position of the individual, the nature of the stimuli used to promote human development, the areas in which human creativity is applied and the purposes for which it is used, together with the relationship between the entire process of social reproduction and human development on the one hand, and the general line of development of a given society on the other, constitute one of the most important, if not the most essential characteristic of the social type of civilisation, its socio-cultural basis.

Over a hundred years ago Marx wrote that, prior to communism, social wealth is 'embodied in things, in material products, over against which stands man as the subject. . .' Social wealth may also take the form of value, 'which is merely power to control the labour of another ... for private use'.' When they assume such social forms, things and money become the aim of social development and man becomes merely a means of their attainment. Things and money become the chief symbols of social power and might. This is the basis of the entire values system of capitalist society. In those social forms in which man is enslaved by his own products, the main stimulus of human activity is not the transformation of the world with a view to creating human conditions of existence and promoting the development of man himself, hut control over the world of material wealth, accumulation, the acquisition of money

Man as an End in Himself Within Social Development

The emergence of man as the subject and conscious creator of history presupposes his comprehensive development and the manifestation of his creative powers. It is the result of a long process of social development marked by contradictions, by the struggle to create humane conditions of existence and development, and the struggle against all forms of exploitation and social and national inequality. As a specific socio-cultural complex, as a form of organising the vital activities and interactions of peoples living in a given age, civilisation, despite its diversity and complexity of definition, always lias one key criterion used in determining its historical and social type, namely its system of objective aims. These aims are not only a characteristic sign of human activity as such, but also express the purpose and line of development of social systems. The social aims are, first and foremost, the quintessence of the objective laws of history as they operate in specific socio-economic formations at one or other stage in the historical process. However, these aims cannot be reduced to the more or less conscious requirements of economic development; in them arc expressed all the characteristic features of the vital activity of a given social, ethnic and cultural community of people, the diversity of the traditions, customs and modes of life of society. In the diversity of these aims, in their nature, content and contradictory interaction are reflected the specific features of the social structure and organisation of society, the nature of its socio-cultural values and its line of development. The relationship between the social aims and the means of their attainment, both of which are specific to given social systems, reveals the modes of

~^^1^^ Kurl Marx. Crundrisse tier Krltlk tier Polilischen Okonomie, S. 387.

as the universal substitute for individual ability and personal creativity.

Consumption and production change places and the creative powers of the individual begin to serve the selfish aims of the propertied classes and their distorted consumption of social wealth. The products of human activity are alienated from their creator and assume dominion over him as the alien and hostile power of private property. If, instead of being a means of human development, a sphere of creative activity, material wealth is converted into an end in itself, an instrument of power to wield against one's fellow men, it distorts every aspect of human nature and creates illusory requirements, the satisfaction of which provokes the predatory dissipation of human creativity, of the priceless and irreplaceable wealth of human nature.

Those civilisations for which the thing, capital, constitutes the chief treasure and in which it is the main aim of social movement, while man himself, their creator, is merely a means, belong to the prehistory of humanity. Their historical purpose lies in the fact that they create the necessary material and spiritual prerequisites for the transition to the true history of mankind, in which the aim of social development is man himself, the development of his creative powers, the comprehensive and harmonious development of the individual, while the world of things created by man is restored to its `natural' function, that of being a means of developing the abilities and satisfying the needs of the social individual, the object of the application, realisation and development of his creative powers, which he uses to transform and beautify his environment.

However, the formation of a civilisation in which man himself will be the goal of social development is a long, complex and contradictory process which includes a number of stages related to the creation of the necessary objective and subjective conditions. Mankind is now standing at a crucial turning point in history. The historical process appears as a complex combination of diverse revolutionary changes---national-liberation, anti-feudal, anti-imperialist movements and bourgeois-democratic and socialist transformations taking place in various countries with different levels of socio-economic and cultural development and different systems of traditions, customs, and values. In the lifetime of one generation one epoch is giving way to another.

Men arc caught up in the whirl of events and face a choice of fundamental importance -the choice between peace, the preservation of civilisation, culture and progress, on the one hand, and nuclear war, with the possible death of all mankind, on the other.

The present scientific and technological revolution and contemporary social progress are taking place within different social forms, where they have a different social and humanist content and pursue different ends. Their relationship is contradictory, and changes in science and technology are by no means always accompanied by the development of man himself, nor do they always operate to his benefit. Moreover, man's material, technical and spiritual effect upon nature, social organisation, and the mode of life and the development of the individual is now becoming global and exceptionally intensive, threatening in a number of uncontrolled situations the physical and social being of man, his culture and civilisation as a whole. The paradox of history lies in the fact that the entire material and spiritual culture of the world is created by the hand and mind of man and is the expression of his creative powers, but the relations of private ownership, social inequality and militarism turn culture into a means of his enslavement and exploitation, and even of his own destruction along with all the fruits of his labour. The question as to whether the creative powers of the human mind, human emotions and human will are being used to the benefit or to the harm of mankind is now a question of life and death for man and his civilisation. It is therefore an urgent social necessity that the content, rate and objectives of scientific, technological and social progress he correlated and harmonised and that they be subordinated to the development of man himself, to the safeguarding of life upon earth and the preservation of culture and world civilisation.

Man is the sole active, creative force producing the wealth of culture and changing the forms of civilisation that no longer correspond to social progress. However, acting in this capacity man docs not function as an abstract, isolated individual endowed with spontaneous creative powers whose operation is unpredictable, and, therefore, uncontrollable. Human existence has not only an individual but also a communal character, and the relationship between the community and the individual, between men and

mankind are repeatedly mediated by the social structure of society, by specific historical types of community, classes, social and ethnic groups, who are the social subjects of historical creativity. These last differ in their objective ability to develop and realise their creative powers, and are included within different systems of socio-cultural links stimulating creativity to different degrees and along different lines of development. For this reason the level and degree of realisation of the human essence in each individual depend upon the nature of the socio-economic system in which he finds himself; the fate of each individual and the range of opportunities available to him to develop and apply his capacities have, until this point in historical development and the succession of forms of civilisation, been determined to a greater or lesser degree by the age, society, class or social group to which he belongs. These factors determine the nature and methods of his professional activity, and therefore the level and nature of the development of those abilities that actualise the culture of that society and indicate the actual level of the accessibility and assimilation of cultural values, the different degrees and form of participation by various groups and individuals in their creation. Until now, the fact of belonging to a specific age, society, class or social group also determined the chief aims, stimuli and motives governing the professional and non-professional activity of the individual, the level of development, the nature and the forms of his requirements, and the methods of their satisfaction---in short, the entire way of life and thought characterising the specific historical mode of activity of the individual in society.

The class structure in antagonistic formations splits human activity, separating and placing in opposition to each other both intellectual and physical labour as the `natural' forms of human activity, and also material and spiritual culture, and distributing them among opposing classes and social groups. The very possibility of creativity, of the development and use of the diversity of creative human abilities becomes the province of the elites of society. This possibility is then realised at the cost of the alienation of the creative powers of the mass of the working people, doomed to monotonous labour which sometimes exceeds the natural strength and capacity of the individual and provokes an aversion to work, the natural source of

the existence and development of society. The disintegration of activity and the alienation of the overwhelming majority of individuals from creativity leads to the disintegration and spiritual bankruptcy of the individual. Instead of the universal development of human nature there emerges the 'partial individual' who has received one-sided development at the cost of the suppression of the essential powers of human nature.

The abolition of the antagonistic class structure of society is the essential prerequisite of the integration of the material and spiritual spheres of human activity, ending the alienation of man from work and creativity. The development on this basis of the universal, integrated individual constitutes the development of the human essence in each individual. In making the development of the individual and his creative powers its aim, communist civilisation is the first civilisation in history to spread the solution of this problem not only to humanity as a whole but also to each individual.

What does it mean, however, to speak of revealing the gifts and abilities of man himself and setting as the goal of social development the development of man's creative powers regardless of any previously established scale? The material and spiritual conditions and forms of culture that have taken shape over the course of history determined the particular range of possibilities and the line of development of both the individuals and the groups that make up the social structure of any given society. In this sense one can say that each society `standardises' and regulates the process of individual development. Human creativity itself is filled with a specific historical content, and individual achievements become links in the chain of social development. It is within the system of social activity and relations that there emerge objective `demands' for the development of specific kinds, levels and forms of ability, stimulating the development and realisation of human creative powers in a particular direction, within a particular historical range and in particular historical forms.

Social requirements are reflected in the aims which the social and individual subjects of activity set themselves. These aims already contain within themselves the seeds of the future both in the particular line of social development as a whole and in the development of human abilities

and requirements. The system of aims, norms and values created, developed and defended by each society is given concrete form in actual programmes of acliori and determines in its turn the particular parameters and modes of social intercourse and the forms in which human social qualities develop.

In this sense the culture of society (both material and spiritual) represents the specific historical `dimensions' of human activity and development and the conditions in which man socially reproduces himself as the subject of historical activity. It is a unique social yardstick of the development and use of man's creative powers.

Culture is a complex and multifarious phenomenon, which no doubt explains the extraordinarily wide range of definition given to this term. * While not denying the originality and scientific importance of various approaches to culture, the author would also like to point out that to seek the substratum of culture exclusively in the world of objects---in the physical, material being of culture---or in human social experience, which preserves both the methods by which men carry out their diverse activities, their ' general technology', and also the systems of values, norms, aims and ideals---or yet again in the specific historical forms in which this experience is transmitted and assimilated down the generations, would yield a one-sided picture. The basic 'unit of measurement' must be the active individual himself, with his subjective world and all its diverse qualities formed under the influence of the above-mentioned factors. Without this particular living unity of the objective and the subjective which is man himself, with his historically formed requirements, values and abilities stimulating him to creative activity, culture would be nothing

~^^1^^ Cf. KyjibTypa it ofimecTno. M., Ilporpecc, 1976, (Culture and Society, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1970); /(aaudoeim B. E., ) KdaHOB IO. A. CymnoCTb KyjibTypu. PocToi)-na-/l,OHy, ii3)\. POCTODCKOTO ymiuepCHTeTa, 1979 (V. Ye. Davidovich, Yu. A. Zhdanov, The Essence of Culture, Rostov-on-Uon University Press, Rostov-on-Don, 1979); MapKapbuu d. C. OnepKii Teopmi KyjitTypw. EpeaaH, us/],. AH Ap.M. CCP, 1969 (E. S. Markarian, Essays on the Theory of Culture, Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR, Yerevan, 1969); Mewyee B. M. Kyjnyrypa n MCTOpiiH. M., llojiHTiiSHaT, 1977 (V. M. Mezhuyev, Culture and History, Politizdat, Moscow, 1977); Caepancnuii H. Jl. KoMMyimKaTnBHo-3CTeTnnccKne (jiyiiKniiH KyjibTypi.i. M., Hayna, 1979 (I. L. Savransky, Communicative and Aeslhelical Functions of Culture, Nauka, Moscow, 1979).

but a museum of lifeless objects. It is man, the creator, preserver and transmitter of culture, who gives it life, who is the source of its constant 'creative unrest', its search to overcome existing canons and measures, the existing way of life, and its attempt to create new forms of life. The level and nature of (he development of the individual conslitules a kind of subjective measure of the level of development and particular quality of the given culture. The alienation of culture from the individual, from the broad working masses engaged in the basic spheres of human activity, finally strikes at the source of cultural development. It is therefore a social necessity that social antagonisms be abolished, that social equality be developed and that cultural values be made accessible to each individual, as this will free and stimulate the creative potential of the whole of society.

Culture, however, is not merely utilitarian, is not concerned simply with the most effective modes of activity `sifted' and selected by human experience. Culture is also concerned with beautifying the human environment, with the aesthetic assimilation of the world and its creation ' according to the laws of beauty' (Marx), with the manifestation of the entire creative wealth of human nature, with that interplay of physical and spiritual powers that enables men to draw inexhaustible pleasure from the unlimited capacities of human nature.

At the very best, a `scientific', `functional', ' technological' explanation of culture is inadequate as it comprises within its system of concepts only the basic outline of human activity, leaving out the multicoloured pattern of life made up of the diversity of human destinies and the individuality of human powers and abilities. The wealth of the human individual resides not only in methods of work and cognition, but also in the methods and forms of human interconrs, in the entire system of knowledge, values, ideas aims, ideals, mores and norms that regulate human behaviour. All of this is created by man arid is expressed not only in the world of 'petrified essences' but also in his own powers and abilities. This wealth is manifested both as the realisation of socially essential tendencies and as the free play of human creative powers, including accidental forms, which create and shape their own particular human world full of meaning and significance and comprehensible

11-0328

only to man, who deciphers it as he interacts with it. The `typification' of modes of activity, patterns of behaviour, etc. is the necessary expression of the universal tendency of culture to develop from isolated, local, relatively independent ethnic, national and other social (class, group) forms into a universal world culture, of the universality of social relations and of man himself. However, the dialectic of this process is such that it can occur only in individual forms and only through individual achievements. For this reason an essential role in the creation of new forms of material and spiritual culture has always been played by human individuality and originality of approach to reality, by individual outlook, thought, feeling and activity. Indeed, those `stereotypes'---be they of values, modes of activity, relations, etc.---which characterise the 'objective body of culture' could not emerge and reveal themselves in human experience were it not for the individuality of the creative, subjective powers of man and their actualisation

in social life.

This, however, is only one side of the question. The other concerns the fact that the positing of man himself as the goal of social development presupposes not only the development of the human essence of each individual via the assimilation of human experience accumulated down the generations and embodied in existing cultural forms, but also the creation of new forms of being and the development of man himself. Individual assimilation of existing cultural forms is only the essential precondition of individual development, although this reproduction of the culturohistorical potential accumulated by society in the unique individuality of human creative powers and abilities is itself a sufficiently complex task, whose solution is linked to the establishment of social equality as the condition of development for all. The inclusion of the broad popular masses into the process of conscious historical activity is a law of history that increases the creative potential of social development. This law reveals both the social need for intensified social development, and also the tendency towards its humanisation.

Another task facing society is even more complex than the one described above since the purpose and meaning of human activity do not reside in the mere reproduction of already existing forms of being. The actual historical pro-

162 ~

cess presupposes the creation of a future which is not fatalistically predetermined by the existing conditions of life but involves the fulfilment of creative tasks---the selection of possible lines of development, the active struggle by progressive forces to create and establish new forms. This complex nature of the historical process within the context of specific objective possibilities inevitably presupposes the activation of man's creative powers. Man is constantly faced witli new tasks whose achievement involves not only the use of the modes of actiivty already existing in a given culture, but frequently also the abolition of fixed, stereotyped thinking and traditional forms of activity. Moreover, this is true not only of those results of human activity which are embodied in material or other objective forms, but also of internal, subjective processes which transform man's way of thinking and acting, his world outlook, ideals, aims, values, abilities and requirements.

Insofar as development is a contradictory process of establishing new forms and abolishing them when they cease to correspond to the objective conditions and subjective aspirations of men, the process of social reproduction and human self-development cannot be limited to the mere adaptation of individuals to existing forms of being, to the existing framework and scale of activity. This would spell the end of both individual and social development. Historical forms of civilisation in which culture was directed solely at reproducing existing methods of activity by the canonisation of existing forms and their transmission down the generations via a system of customs, ceremonies, rituals and traditions that permitted no deviation from strictly programmed activity, finally condemned the peoples involved to conservation and stagnation, or gave rise to distorted, lop-sided forms of development.

Thus the reproduction and preservation of the existing content of being within the context of the existing culture of society is simply the essential basis for the emergence of future cultural forms together with the development of new abilities and powers in man himself as the subject of historical creativity. The future does not automatically `arise' out of the past and the present, but is created by each generation, by the interaction of social (groups, classes and other communities) and individual subjects acting in specific historical, social forms. No one generation is able to

11*

foresee all the possible variants of future development. The chain of essential events is prepared and unfolds as a result of numerous `non-programmed' accidents, and only if these are sufficiently recurrent do they become a typical trend and the basis of a future pattern. Scientific prognosis determines only the basic law-governed tendencies of social development which appear at a given stage in that development, and on this basis it is able to predict the typical lines and forms of human development but cannot allow for all the individual originality of human destinies, powers and abilities.

Social aims are the predicted models of future forms, the ideal results of future activity posited on the basis of lawgoverned trends in the past and present. The designation of man himself as the goal of social development involves a particular prognosis of the 'man of the future', a prognosis which is itself linked to the solution of a number of methodological problems, and primarily to the prospects of the development of society as a whole, the development of its culture.

How should society be organised so that it can not only stimulate the creative powers of the individual, but also provide him with freedom of action and forms of realisation worthy of man? This problem constantly engaged the minds of the great humanists and thinkers of the past, and remains with us today. The question of where to look for the sources of creativity, of the nature of the social and individual stimuli promoting the development of human creative abilities is still the subject of heated debate and ideological warfare. The problem of the formation of the 'new man' endowed with a new, intellectual and emotional structure, new requirements and new abilities, a man free from the faults of the past, capable of consciously creating rational and humane forms of social life and ol consciously managing these forms in the interests of man himself, of comprehensive human development, is no longer merely an abstract idea. For socialist society this constitutes the actual programme of education, having its own stages and levels of realisation as determined by the existing objective conditions and the actual social structure of

society.

The prognosis of the forms, and even more so of the level of development of human creative powers, abilities

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and talents is based upon the regular trends characterising the achievements of the masses and of classes in the relevant social conditions. As for individual manifestations of human capacities, any prognosis here is highly problematical, the solution of which requires a philosophical examination of the processes of human development at both the social and the individual level, and also the combined efforts of the natural sciences and the humanities with due allowance made for the specifics of their methods of enquiry.

One of the main difficulties in attempting to predict the future development of man is allowing for the constantly accelerating rates of social progress occurring within different social systems as a result of the scientific and technological revolution. Here the source of the difficulty lies in the fact that man, the creator of the conditions of his own being and development, changes more slowly than his environment and, moreover, by no means always foresees the social consequences of his actions and the path being followed by his own development. The modification of social conditions and human development are two processes that occur relatively independently of each other, mediated by the social structure of society and the type of social relations, which themselves determine the forms of the distribution of material and cultural goods and the availability or unavailability of the conditions necessary for the development of given human abilities.

Finally, it must be remembered that creativity always contains an element of the unpredictable. This, of course, does not mean that it is purely spontaneous, irrational, or that its fundamental nature defies scientific investigation. The basic trends of human development can be predicted as this process is governed by the laws of social development, which themselves determine the laws governing the social reproduction of man, continuity within the system of upbringing and education, and its originality in different civilisations and cultural systems.

Social aims and ideals always include models of the future which direct and regulate human creative activity and determine the main objectives serving as the basis for future alternatives and programmes of action. All of this then determines the development of man's creative powers. However the forms in which and the methods by which

these creative powers are actualiscd, the rate of development and the results, the entire pattern of historical development with all its originality of form---from the creation of the material-object environment and material culture, forms of social relations and the institutions that uphold them, to the development of the individual himself---are created by men in a process governed not only by necessity but also containing an element of the accidental, of individual originality.

The growth of the creative potential of society presupposes increasing social activity on the part of each individual and social encouragement of creative diversity and originality. This task is formulated more fully and is more adequately resolved as socialist society matures. With the further development of socialism, increasing value is put upon the human individual, upon the comprehensive development of creative originality and its realisation within social advance.

Many complex problems must be solved for the comprehensive development of human creative powers and the disclosure and realisation of the richness of human nature to become the goal of social development. One of these problems consists in determining the individual human potential for development, the creative possibilities of the individual's subjective world in all its richness. However, this does not mean that this potential must be sought in the mysterious, inaccessible depths of the irrational, or in the physiological structure of the individual, in his subconscious or psyche, isolated from social being. Creativity is not a natural, spontaneous force that emerges and disappears independently of social conditions and the historical process. These determine the place, role and form of the subjective factor. Nonetheless, man's subjective development has its own specific features and is relatively independent within the general process of social development. Man, with all the wealth and uniqueness of his individuality, is not simply shaped by the conditions of his being, arid his abilities are not merely the product of the type of education and the existing conditions and modes of activity, although social being, way of life and cultural forms objectively determine the content, level, form and degree of realisation of human creative powers.

Talent is always unique. History itself supplies evidence

of the fact that the forms of the development and manifestation of human talent are limitless and cannot be reduced to professional activity alone. However important the latter may be, it by no means exhausts the wealth of human nature. Moreover, the historical forms of the division of labour still existing today have frequently not only failed to stimulate the development of human creative powers, but have limited them and rendered them onesided as a result of the separation of physical and intellectual labour and the antagonism between them. Creative abilities are far more widespread than is generally thought if one is considering only the development of science and the arts. The unique creative talent of the people has produced the multicoloured tapestry of material, social and spiritual culture.

Each individual also possesses his own store of talent not only given him by nature, but also acquired in the process of assimilating the culture of society. To refute the one-sided, biologistic interpretation of human development is not to deny the role of natural abilities in human development and in the prognosis of human potential. Individuals would appear to bo endowed with different levels of ability, with subjective capacities more or less favourable to mastering different types of activity. Although each individual is potentially capable of mastering all that humanity lias created, the actual level of this mastery varies. The primitive levelling approach to individuals who differ in their natural and acquired abilities is as incapable of explaining the diversity of human capacities as is the approach based on fatalistic biological determinism dooming the individual to one-sided development. Much still has to be done in investigating those determinants of human development that are connected with man's physiological organisation and natural abilities, and also those that derive from the interaction between the biological base and various 'socio-cultural complexes' that determine the forms of being and the development of man within society.

Today as a result of the scientific and technological revolutions and social progress, the entire network of natural links between man and his habitat, links that determine his normal vital activities and his modus operandi within society, is undergoing change. The interconnection between these two determinants is by no means always harmonious.

Indeed, in certain social conditions there exists the danger that they will split and come into opposition, as a result of which the relationship of society to nature (specific forms of material production) changes from being a means of human development into factor destructive of the fundamental natural links ensuring human life. The threat posed by the ecological crisis, caused by the uncontrolled, predatory attitude to natural resources typical of capitalism, is very real and is assuming global proportions, as ecological problems are not confined to individual countries but affect the planet as a whole. Understanding and control of natural forces in the interests of mankind presupposes the harmony of scientific-technological and social progress, and also an increase in the scientific understanding of man himself and his potential. This requires investigation into human nature, into those typical and individual qualities that are bound up with the physiological organisation of the individual (type of constitution, type of higher nervous activity, temperament, etc.).

Developed socialist society faces the still more complex task of elaborating science-based recommendations for determining the parameters of those optimal social conditions and forms of vital human activity within society that correspond to man's natural abilities and ensure his health, physical development and physical being. Medical experts, biologists, geneticists, phycliologists, sociologists and philosophers must all be involved in determining those forms of the interaction between man and nature occurring in the course of social production in the context of the scientific and technological revolution that will not only not upset the ecological balance, nor destroy man's natural habitat, but also not destroy that natural and cultural potential for development that is possessed to varying degrees by every individual. The result is the formulation and implementation of a series of measures that help to ensure the most important natural and social rights of man as recorded in the Constitution of the USSR---the right to life, the right of access to all the benefits of culture created by mankind.

f

Section III.

Culture

and

Civilisation

Vadim Mezhuyev

Civilisation and the Culture-Building Function of Philosophy

It is generally acknowledged in literature on the subject that the study of culture involves a variety of cognitive problems. From this it follows that in its investigation into the phenomenon of culture, philosophy must be guided by its own aims and objectives, which are to be distinguished from those pursued by other sciences such as history, sociology, ethnography, etc. For the philosopher attempting to analyse culture, this fact raises a basic problem: in proceeding with his analysis, he must always bear in mind the nature of the philosophical interest in culture, the specifics of a philosophical attitude to this complex and multifaceted phenomenon. If he does not, he risks producing not a philosophical but a specialised, restricted interpretation of culture, and this not only distorts the meaning and essence of philosophical enquiry, but also leads to the absolutisatiori of individual (and sometimes secondary) aspects of the cultural process.

Philosophical enquiry is characterised by constant selfexamination as regards the nature, limits and aims of its own knowledge. This is understandable if one remembers that philosophy deals with the same objective realities as do the specialised sciences. Nature, society and man are simultaneously objects of both general philosophical and specialised scientific investigation. However, in studying the natural world the philosopher does not become a physicist, chemist or biologist; in studying society he does not become a sociologist or an economist; and in attempting to grasp the meaning of historical development he is not trying to replace the historian. Similarly, in interesting himself in culture, the philosopher does not approach it from the same angle as the historian, the sociologist, the economist, or the culturologist.

That this is so is explained, amongst other things, by the fact that philosophy is not simply an individual, specialised branch of knowledge, but constitnes, alongside other sciences (and also art, morality, etc.) a particular form of social consciousness. Each of these forms of consciousness reflects the world in all the fullness of its being, but each reflects it in its own special way, according to its own nature and purpose. For this reason the shift from specialised theoretical knowledge of the world to philosophical reflection upon it cannot be compared with the shift from one specialised science to another. The shift to philosophical reflection involves a more radical transformation of consciousness, an essential shift in the mental position of the investigating subject vis-a-vis the reality under investigation. Thus in all the major philosophical systems of the past, the philosophical interpretation of the world was preceded by a philosophical examination of methodology, and philosophical theory was preceded by philosophical propaedeutics. This last was intended to transform consciousness, to adjust it, as it were, to the philosophical mode of thought. A philosophical investigation into culture should obviously also be preceded by its own propaedeutics linked to the recognition of philosophy itself as the specific tool for such investigation.

Philosophy is that type of knowledge that is connected with a world outlook. Such knowledge has as its aim not only cognition, but also the unification or integration of men within a particular social (national, class, etc.) community. Philosophy is therefore characterised by its integrating function, i.e. by a function that consists in establishing unity or agreement among men as regards their attitude towards the world and towards themselves. The use of universal concepts, terms, formulae and equations is, of course, a highly typical characteristic of specialised theoretical knowledge, too. However, a world-view is called upon to express not only common theoretical concepts of the world, but also common practical aspirations, the common aims and objectives which men set themselves in their practical activity. It indicates the basic aims of man's practical being in the world, the basic purpose of his existence as a practically active subject.

In his attitude to the world, therefore, the philosopher bases himself not only on theoretical interest, but also on

practical requirements. He is interested in the world not as something existing independently of man, but primarily in terms of its relationship to the practical aims of human activity, in terms of its significance for man. Just as man, in his practical activity, 'realises a purpose of his own that gives the law to his modus opcrandi, and to which he must subordinate his will', ' so the philosopher in his cognitive activity proceeds on the basis of a specific aim, consciously subordinating his train of thought to this aim and converting it into a means of explaining and interpreting reality. He not only investigates human practice (this being analysed by other social sciences also) but himself thinks practically, i. e. in accord with a given practical aim. Thus philosophy unites both the theoretical and the practical aspects of man's relationship to the world or, more precisely the practical relationship is given theoretical expression, acquires the appropriate rational formulation. For this reason Marx compared philosophy not only with science, but also with practice, seeing in philosophy a particular mode of the intellectual-practical assimilation of reality. What is the specifically practical aim of philosophical activity? Ultimately the aim is the same as that governing human activity in general, namely the assimilation, the `humanisation' of reality and its conversion into the world of culture. Philosophy provides its own particular spiritual expression of man's practical position in the world. Whereas in material practice men physically convert nature into culture, in spiritual practice, and therefore in philosophy, this process takes place in the mind and by means of the mind. Thus, for example, 'all mythology subdues, controls and fashions the forces of nature in the imagination and through the imagination...'^^2^^ In contrast to mythology, philosophy, in formulating an idealised transformation of reality, relies upon rational thought or intellect. Intelligence is that faculty which enables men not simply to know something about the world but to use that knowledge in order to change the world in accord with human aims. In philosophy, this practical or rational human ability assumes the form of a purely mental transformation of the world of reality into the world of culture.

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, p. 174.

~^^2^^ Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, p. 210.

All of this serves to explain the special relationship between philosophy and culture. For philosophy, culture is more than an extraneous object to he observed and contemplated from the outside. It is also, to a certain degree, the product or result of the activity of philosophy itself. Philosophy not only studies culture (as the natural world, for example, is studied by the natural sciences), but also creates culture (as it is created, for example, by art). Hence philosophical systems exist within the history of culture as the magnificent structures of the human mind. Howevermuch our theoretical knowledge of the world may change and improve, these systems retain their significance as the unique and inimitable products of human spiritual creativity.

It would obviously be wrong to evaluate the work of Plato and Aristotle, Descartes and Spinoza, Kant and Hegel exclusively from the point of view of their scientific accuracy in the narrow sense of the term. In terms of the theoretical knowledge of the world upon which they rest they have long since been superseded by contemporary scientific thought. However, their cultural significance, their significance as the expression of the accumulated spiritual experience and practice of their age, cannot be annulled by any subsequent developments in the field of scientific thought. Philosophical creativity naturally possesses its own specific features distinguishing it from other types of spiritualpractical activity. In philosophy, culture acquires not a material, not a symbolic, nor yet an artistic-figurative but a rational-conceptual form of existence. In philosophy, culture becomes a specific, rationally developed system of concepts concerning the world and the objects of which it is composed. The production of ideas as achieved through philosophical activity constitutes a particular branch of spiritual production, and also a particular means whereby men create their culture.

The idea, as the product of philosophical creativity, must be distinguished from the concept as a theoretical form of knowledge. Theoretical concepts register the objective content of our thoughts and views of the world, i. e. that content which is independent of men, including the objective content of those ideas that pertain to man himself (for man can also be viewed objectively, conceptually and theoretically, as can any other phenomenon of reality). The

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idea, on the other hand, registers reality and any of its natural or social constituent parts from the point of view of their human, subjective significance and value, i.e. from the point of view of that aspect of human existence which is determined not by the physical or transcendental nature of man, but by his socio-historical, practical-creative nature. Thus the idea reflects the world not as it is in itself, but as it exists for man, man's relationship to the world---his relationship to nature, to other men and, finally, to himself. Consequently, the idea appears as a particular form of the human awareness of the world in which the world is seen not only as objective but also as subjective being, is seen, one might say, from the point of view of human freedom. Whereas scientific concepts express our theoretical relationship to the world, ideas are the rational expression of our practical relationship to the world. This distinction between ideas and concepts is, therefore, valid only in relation to the distinction between theory and practice, between the theoretical and practical relationship of men to the world, which is, of course, extremely relative.

From the above it follows that in the idea any object is seen as some desirable, necessary, ideally postulated result of our practical activity. In the words of the Soviet philosopher P. V. Kopnin,

in the idea the object is reflected in its ideal form, i.o. not only as it `is' but also as it 'ought to be'... The idea guides our practical activity by depicting in ideal form the future product or process. '

The idea is, as it were, born of two worlds, the objective and the subjective, the natural-necessary and the practicalpurposeful, in short, of the natural and the cultural. The idea is the rationally comprehensible (subjective) raison d'etre of the objectively existing thing and is produced not by its physical, tangible, sensuously-perceived properties but by its relation to `another', non-natural world---that of human subjectivity.

The thing in itself, viewed in terms of its own physical being, has no meaning and possesses no cultural value. Of itself, the thing is simply nature, blind to all that occurs

~^^1^^ (I>mioco<j>CKaH oHniiKjionoAHH. T. 2, M., CoBCTCKan 3imnKjione/uiH 1962, c. 236 (Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 2, Sovetskaya entsiklopodia, Moscow, 1962, p. 236).

around it. It acquires meaning only when it ceases to be purely a thing and becomes the expression, the manifestation of some other nature, its `other-being', becomes the sign and symbol of some extra-natural or supernatural world. Thus in religious consciousness, meaning is born of the interpcnetration of the natural and divine, as a resull of which the thing acquires sacred moaning. However meaning is seen as arising, it is that which the thing possesses not in the context of its own natural being but rather in the context of some other being.

Man has always been imbued with the belief that the things with which he deals contain within them something more than that which is accessible to his senses, thai there is more to them than what he can see, hear and feel. They seemed to possess some `secret' meaning not visible to the human eye yet more important to man than his objective knowledge of them. This conviction is also the hallmark of philosophy, which attempts to discover the meaning of the material world by the use of reason, and to express this meaning in ideas. Different philosophical systems may have different ways of expressing the existence and origin of this meaning and thus validating their conviction that such meaning does indeed exist, but philosophy always draws attention to the meaning of the thing, and not simply lo its theoretically cognised essence.

The conviction that things do not simply exist of themselves, but also possess some meaning significant for us as men, is no doubt the result of man's special position within the world. In their attempt to discover the meaning of the thing, to comprehend it via mythology, religion, art or philosophy, men are proceeding not on the basis of their organic, purely natural (physical) requirements, but on the basis of their social `generic' requirements, determined by the existence of that social whole to which they directly belong. They look at the thing from the point of view, so to speak, of that whole, striving to see in it its universal meaning, a meaning equally important for each member of the whole. The thing interests them not only in terms of its singular, isolated natural existence, but as that which possesses a universal meaning, i.e. as a `species' or `idea' of the thing. Himself a `generic' being, man seeks in things that which unites them into one `genus', that whicli lies concealed behind their tangible-material covering. At the

level of consciousness, this social interest in the thing reveals its meaning, its `generic' essence. Man's mental picture of the world is shaped by his position within the social whole, by the nature of his social being. The diversity of spiritual-cultural meanings which man has given the world down the centuries is simply the consequence of his changing position in society and, therefore, his changing relationship to the world.

The meaning of the thing is, however, inseparable from the thing itself, from its material-objective being. Meaning is always objective, is comprised within the object and not added to it arbitrarily from outside. Meaning arises with the thing itself, in the course of its actual or mental transformation. The ability of things to reflect man back to himself derives not from their own natural properties, but from those that have been impressed upon them by man, by his objective-transformative activity. The meaning of the thing constitutes its human, and not its natural form, that is, the form that it receives in the course of and as a result of its assimilation- actual or mental---by man. The world acquires a meaning for man as a result of its transformation by man. Man looks at the world as if in a mirror because he himself transforms it into such a mirror, gives it a `human' form or `humanises' it.

In contrast to the actual transformation of the world, its mental transformation brought about by one or other form of social consciousness does not change the world itself but rather our view of it. In the course of such a mental transformation, the external world is given an ideal form of existence that corresponds to the actual position of the individual in the world, his actual historico-social being. In changing his perception of the world, man is striving to bring it into correspondence with himself, with his own existence, his actual life. He is attempting to unite his own being within the world with his understanding of the world, to unite his being and his consciousness. In so doing, he gives the world a mental form that corresponds lo his own actual position within the world.

In philosophical Ihought, this ideal image of the world is created by a specific type of interpretation, by rational reconstruction. The purpose of such a reconstruction is to establish a correspondence between the world and man acting within it, between the objective order of things and the

12-0328

subjective intents and purposes of men. The philosophical view of the world is distinguished by the fact that, although it apparently deals with the same real objects as applied science, it seeks to grasp thai which goes beyond the confines of strictly theoretical knowledge, namely their subjective (i. e. human, cultural) meaning and significance. Philosophy seeks to understand and convey existence in its entirely not merely as some natural given whose origin and purpose is unknown but as something that is directly and intimately related to man, as a reality filled for him with profound meaning and significance. However, in so doing it seeks to perceive the world not simply through the eyes of a theoretical reasoning about that which lies on the other side of its cognitive activity, hut primarily through the eyes of a practically minded man for whom the world exists as the object and result of his own activity. Thus in philosophy the world is revealed not in its natural existence but in its cultural existence, that is, as a human world, the world of man.

Having set itself the aim of representing the world in the form of ideas which correspond to the aims of human existence, philosophy, in the final analysis, appeals not to thai experience of external observation and contemplation of the world lhal is Ihe basis of specialised theoretical knowledge, hul lo Ihe experience of ils change and transformation by man, to practical experience. It is human practice that serves here as the analogue of the philosophical interpretation and explanation of the world and its mental reconstruction. Hence ideas as the product of philosophical creativity, the ideal forms (models, images) of the world created by philosophy, do not simply correspond to our direct observations of the world, do not simply generalise from the data of our senses, but shift the world, so to speak, from its own orbit in order lo bring it closer to, and finally adapt it to, the needs and interests of human life. Thus, to use the well-known expression of Lenin, consciousness in the form of ideas does not simply reflect Ihe world, but also to some degree creates it.

Opposing Ihe dogmatism of previous philosophy, Kant declared that ideas, which constitute the basis of metaphysical (philosophical) knowledge, are those concepts which have no sensual analogue (object) in our experience. They originate not in experience will) ils a priori

ITS

forms of sensuous perception and reasoning, but in the very activity of the mind striving lo comprehend itself in relation lo any form of knowledge. As regulative (but not constitutive) principles of knowledge, ideas tell us nothing about the objects of experience; they simply indicale the limits of our knowledge, the ultimate boundary of our experience. In ils teaching on ideas, the mind as it were establishes that limit beyond which it cannot go in ils cognitive activity without entering into contradiction with itself. The idea, therefore, would appear to separate the sensuous, phenomenal world from the siipersensuous, nonmenal world about which wo can know nothing. In oilier words, a boundary is drawn between Ihe sphere of knowledge limiled by sensuous experience, and the sphere of meaning, which is theoretically inaccessible.

However, according to Kant, the mind cannot be satisfied with experience, which is incapable of revealing what things are in themselves. It will inevitably seek to go beyond experience in order lo arrive at some conception of the basis or essence of the world of phenomena. Insofar as we can know nothing of Ibis essence in theoretical terms, the human mind, or human reason, can only postulate the nalure of Ihe relationship between the nonmenal and phenomenal world. We can say nothing about the ultimate essence as such, but we can postulate the nature of the relationship between it and our world of experience. In order lo do this, we can base ourselves upon an analogy with our own activity and posit the existence in the world of a certain unknown X which creates Ihe world as wo create our implements or works of art. This is not a theoretical assertion about Ihe world, but only a supposition which is strictly conventional, of purely `symbolic' significance. However, it permits us lo arrive al a certain wholeness or completeness of knowledge.

The nature of such a supposition is interesting in itself. Kant posits the creation of the world by Supreme Being whose activity is analogous with the culture-building activity of man. This then enables the mind to deduce the ultimate cause of the world. If nalure is seen as constituting the theoretically knowable world of sensuous perception, then in its relationship to the siipersensuous essence that is its origin it is analogous to culture. We do not know, argues Kant, who created the world or how, mil we are obliged

12*

to view it as if it wore the creation of Supreme Mind and Will. The basis for .such a view is analogy wilh those relations whirl) exist between man and his sensuously perceptible products.

In the philosophy of Kant, the dominating concept is that of the theoretical impotence of the human mind in the face of the activity of the supernatural forces determining the existence of the world. It is this that constitutes the sphere of the `lhings-in-thernselves', a sphere which by its very nature lies beyond our cognition and which we can approach only by analogy with our own culture-building activity. In the subsequent development of philosophical thought (from Fichle to Hegel), the Kantian limitation of the mind by the 'thing-in-itself was removed by pointing out that the relationship between mind and the supernatural world is not only cognitive or theoretical, but also practical, that mind is not only the sine qua non of cognition of the world, but also of its origin and development, the prime cause of its existence. The mind cannot be ignorant of that which it itself has created, and therefore actual knowledge of the world is also knowledge of the laws of the mind's own activity, which are simultaneously the laws governing the development of the world. Viewed in this way, philosophy is knowledge of the world in terms of its ' rationality', i.e. as the result, the product of the activity of mind

itself.

Classical philosophy is characterised by an approach which interprets the world by analogy with the active thinking subject in conscious control of his activity in the world. Human logical thought about the world becomes the logic of the world itself. In classical philosophy, noted one Soviet research paper,

thi' world, although incomparably vaster than man. was seen as a rational structure commensurate with his mental activity, as an objective whole that is self-organising, self-reproducing and law-abiding. '

The objective structure of the world, its extra-personal natural order, is correlated with the universal forms of human activity and organisation, with the nature and charactcrislics of human subjectivity, which is then reduced to consciousness. Classical philosophy was thereby attempting to see in the world not that which is alien or `other' to man, but rather that in which it and man are essentially similar. Philosophical cognition of the world, even when it took the form of strictly objective knowledge, the form of a rationaltheoretical construction, viewed the world not as a purely natural given but as a reality filled throughout with human meaning and content.

Cosmic organisation, the world order, was not conceived of as something antithetical to the universal forms of human activity. On the contrary, il was assumed that there existed an essential relationship between the cosmic order and these universal forms. '

The conviction expressed in classical philosophy that there exists an essential internal relationship between the world and the universal forms of human activity and that, therefore, it has human meaning and content corresponds, as has been staled earlier, to the specific, practical position of man in the world, to his active unity with it. The world exists for man not only as the object of his contemplation and theoretical study, but also as the object of his sensuous objective activity, as the object of his modifying and transforming activity. This position of man in the world, his practical relationship to it, in which the world functions as the object and man as the subject of practical activity, is given a corresponding rational-ideal expression in philosophy. In the philosophy of German idealism, this relationship is conceived of purely as the spiritual form of the assimilation of the world, as its purely mental transformation, this confined for the most part to the activity of the philosopher himself or, more exactly, to the activity of the philosophical mind. Thus philosophy becomes the only possible means of grasping the `secret' of the concealed essence of the world, of its profound human meaning. The mind, in engaging in philosophical cognition of the world, knows the world because it is simultaneously creating it, giving birth

~^^1^^ MaMapdauiGUjiu M. K., Ciuioobea 9. 10., llluupea B. C. Kjiaccimu H coBpCMOiiiiocTi): j\iw anoxii ii paammiii fiypmyaiwoii <j>njioco<Jmu.--- cl)HjiocoiJ)HH n conpOMCimoM umpe. M., llayita, 1973, c. 38 (M. K. Mamardashvili, E. Yu. Soloviev, V. S. Shvyrev, 'Classical and Contemporary Bourgeois Philosophy: Two Epochs'. Tn t'liilnttophi/ Totlai/, Nauka, Moscow, 1973, p. 38).

180 -

~^^1^^ Ibid.

lo all its forms. Philosophy is the mind comprehending itself in ils own creation of the world.

The real meaning behind such a view of the world is that philosophy is declaring its main sphere of competence to be spiritual creativity, the production-transforrnatory activity of the mind or, in other words, the entire sphere of spiritual-practical interaction between man and the world, which makes the very existence of human culture possible. In this sense, the whole of classical philosophy can be described as the philosophy of culture, i.e. as that understanding of the world which interprets it not as a natural but as a cultural phenomenon (in the terminology of Hegel, as a phenomenon of the `Spirit'). Nature itself is here conceived of as one of the manifestations of the spiritual power of the mind, and therefore as a particular spiritualcultural entity.

It should be pointed onl that the nineteenth-century idealist philosophy took the absolntisation of the mechanisms of cultural, spiritual creativity to the extreme, converting them into the demiurge of Ihc entire real world. Whereas in Kantian philosophy these mechanisms serve simply as an analogue for understanding the ultimate essence of the world, in Hegelian philosophy they become, in the form of 'the Absolute Idea^^1^^, the sole possible method of ils existence and development. The principles of human spiritual activity become for Hegel the principles of the universe and its creation. The methods used in producing ideas are the forms in which the world develops, and the mental transformation of the world (a fact of spiritual culture) is presented as its actual transformation.

This absolutisation of spiritual creativity and the identification of the laws that, govern it with the laws governing world development was the result of divorcing spiritual activLy from the actual, concrete subject of this activity. By attributing creative ability to the absolute subject stripped of living, human personal identity, idealism mystified creative activity, taking it outside the boundaries of human culture and crectiong it into a force standing above the world. This explains why the term `culture', which refers specifically to actual products of the human mind and hand, is not generally used to describe the activity of the `mind' or `spirit'. Although essentially a philosophy of culture which bases its explanations of the world on the principles

of human spiritual-cultural activity, classical philosophy would seem not lo have appreciated Ihe nature of Ihe principles it was using, their real significance.

Had the content of the activity of Ihe 'World SpinT been seen as deriving from the actual world of men, if il had been understood lo be simply the abstract expression of the activity of real, concrete, empirically existing human individuals producing their material life and more, the whole of social life, then the real stale of affairs hidden behind the idealist covering would have become apparent. Marx expressed the essence of the situation when he said that idealism had developed a purely abstract theory of the active aspect of the relationship of man lo the world insofar as it ignored actual, sensuous activity as such. Put another way, the idealisl philosophy of the past gave purely abstract expression to human practice, using ils concepts and categories lo explain the whole of reality. While the earlier, contemplative materialism had to a certain extent naturalised reality, including human reality, by approaching il from Ihe point of view of the natural sciences, idealism absolnlised the spiritual-practical forms of man's assimilation of reality, projecting these forms onto nature as a whole. For ancient materialism, everything was nature, while for idealism everything was culture and, moreover, spiritual culture. Materialism attempted lo interpret, culture by analogy with nature, while idealism saw in culture an analogue wilh which to explain nature. The absolutisation of spiritual-cultural creativity led lo the total idealisation of reality.

Marx' criticism of both contemplative materialism and idealism is by no means a rejection of the practical point of view in explaining and interpreting reality. On the contrary, Marx emphasised the need lo understand the object, reality, as human sensuous activity, as practice, i. e. subjectively. In other words, reality must be understood in both ils natural and its cultural aspects, in terms of ils natural and human existence. Reality must be disclosed both as nature which exists independently of man, and as culture which exists for man. For Marx llie ideal of scientific knowledge is cognition of the world in Ihc unity of its natural and cultural aspects, in the context of the organic linkbetween ils natural, objective causality and its human, i. c. subjective significance. For (his reason Marx predicted the

inevitable fusion of the sciences dealing with the natural world and those dealing with man to form one science concerned equally with nature and man. Such a fusion will, however, be based not on the history of the `Spirit' but on 'the history of industry', i. e. the history of all that human material and social transformation in the course of which men change not only their views and concepts, hut also all the conditions of their life, and therefore also themselves. Reality, seen from the point of view of practice as described above, can be understood as being both a natural and a cultural phenomenon simultaneously, i. e. can bo understood as the indissoluble unity of nature and man. This desire to make the viewpoint of human practice the basis of man's real knowledge of the world is completely in harmony with the nature and spirit of the scientific philosophy of Marxism, in which philosoply itself is perceived as an integral part of human socio-transformatory activity, as a particular mode of the spiritual-practical assimilation of the world. Philosophy approaches the world not from a purely meditative, theoretical point of view, pursuing exclusively cognitive aims, but from a practical point of view, setting itself the task of changing and transforming the world, even if only in ideal form. However, this does not mean that theory is of no importance for philosophy. The practical, culture-building function of philosophy can be realised only in the form of theoretical knowledge about the world, only by means of a particular theoretical interpretation and explanation of the world. Indeed, philosophy is the prime example of the indissoluble unity of theory and practice, for it is both practical knowledge about the world and the theoretical expression of the interests and aims of practice. Philosophy would seem to reflect upon the world not as it is in itself, in its own self-contained, natural being, but as it is for us, in its correspondence to our practical aspirations and social requirements. The aims of human sociotransformatory practice are taken by philosophy as the basis of its theoretical interpretation of the world. Thus practice as it were directly prescribes the nature of theory, removing the `abstruseness' typical of scientific knowledge. Whereas in the natural sciences the practical purpose is only revealed at the end via the various forms in which scientific knowledge may be put to practical use, this purpose appearing as a disinterested quest for the truth, in

philosophy knowledge about the world is consciously regulated by the practical purpose from the very start. However, this means that philosophy insofar as it is conscious of its practical orientation and concern approaches reality ( natural and social) as a cultural phenomenon, as an object possessed of subjective (human) significance and value. For philosophy, the world is always the world of culture directly united with man. Thus theoretical comprehension of the world is here identical with its cultural assimilation and transformation, as men mentally convert it into their own world. Hence the hallmark of philosophy is that it deals with culture not as an object of special study but as a specific characteristic of reality as a whole, revealing its significance and value for man. It is no part of the aim of philosophy to separate culture off from other social or natural phenomena, but rather to present any such phenomenon as a cultural phenomenon. In other words, philosophy mentally transforms the whole of reality into the world of culture, into a world of human significance. Nature and society, the whole of man's environment, interest philosophy not for their own sake but from the point of view of their cultural moaning and content, their relationship to our own human aims and interests. This is why philosophy is knowledge of the world in its unity with man and not in isolation from him.

Understood in this manner, culture does not have any clearly determined and empirically registered boundaries separating it from other spheres of activity. It constantly goes beyond any naturally existing given, any natural or social entity, any materially designated sphere of reality. Being potentially universal, culture cannot he reduced to any single form of natural or social being. The impossibility of ascribing to culture strictly material---extra-personal, extra-subjective---boundaries means that culture can only be described as the urge towards the limitless, the unbounded, the universal. The philosophical concept of culture links it not to a specific, empirically distinct material sphere of existence, but to a particular type of reality possessed of one sole property, one quality, namely the capacity for unlimited and universal development.

Such a capacity, however, can only be ascribed to man as a being engaged in practical activity affecting the entire world and transforming it into his own world. As a partic-

ular type of reality striving towards universality, culture coincides with the limits of human existence within the world, with the limits of specifically human being. The level of universality achieved by man in the process of the practical assimilation of the world is the only possible criterion by which to identify and designate the sphere of culture. This criterion is set not only by theoretical reflection upon the world but also by man's practical relationship to it, ol which philosophy is the generalised expression.

Leonid Arkhangelsky, Grigory Kvasov

Morality,

Civilisation and Culture

The question of the relationship between morality and civilisation is not new. It was raised in its historical aspect, For example, as early as 177.1 by the Academy of Sciences ol' Dijon, which put the question 'Is the scientific renaissance assisting in the improvement of morals?' A positive or negative answer to this question is determined by tbe definition given to the basic concepts of civilisation and morality, for on this depends the position accorded to the one phenomenon (morality) within the system of the other (civilisation), and therefore the identification of their functional dependence. An indispensable condition of any scientific analysis of this problem is an examination of the relationship between morality and civilisation in the context of their determining factors---the mode of production and those elements of the superstructure that exert a relatively independent influence upon morality. The relationship between morality and culture is particularly complex. Culture always possesses definite moral characteristics, as it is itself an object of moral evaluation and also participates directly in the formation of specific historical links between morality and civilisation. This article will examine the above-mentioned methodological aspects of this question as variously interpreted in past and present attempts to answer it.

The emergence of morality as the totality of moral norms which, working together with certain other factors, govern human behaviour, is not linked directly to the rise of human civilisation. Mores are a specifically social product linked to the stable behavioural characteristics of a particular community and serving to reinforce certain socio-- psychological properties that bear the stamp of custom and tradition.

They have their origin in the long historical development that preceded civilised society, an epoch whose distinctive feature was its acceptance of the actual equality of men heforo nature, an altitude which spread to include all Forms of vital activity.

Having inherited the mores of the preceding age, civilisation gradually replaced them with new norms of bchaviour corresponding to a different mode of organising human activity. During the period which saw the emergence of civilisation, moral development felt the direct impact of class contradictions and therefore itself hecame extremely contradictory. Describing civilisation from the point of view of its social relations, Marx noted that from the beginning civilisation has been founded on the antagonisms of orders, estates and classes,^J while Engels pointed out that

since the exploitation of one class by another is the basis of civilisation, its whole development moves in a continuous contradiction.^^2^^

As regards morality, these contradictions were revealed in the fact that, on the one hand, the age of civilisation brought with it a more perfect form of the social regulation of human relations---moral regulation in the true sense of the term---while on the other, being the age of the antagonistic, class society, it limited its own possibilities, Tindermining the previous moral foundations of human society. Let us examine this proposition more closely.

In Marxist literature, morality is viewed as a particular form of social consciousness and, therefore, as the reflection of social being, of universal, class and individual interests, which arc themselves the product of the social position of the individual, his work conditions, his way of life and cultural level. The harrnonisation of these different interests is essential to the normal existence of human communities, and this is the basic role, the basic historical purpose of morality. If morality is analysed from the point of view of its social role, it is revealed to bo one of the moans by which men enter into a spiritual-practical relationship with the world one of the forms of spiritual activity and spiritual production. This description of morality considerably

extends and clarifies the concept of morality as a form of social consciousnes, and showing it to be an active, creative force, one of the spiritual capacities of society. However, this mission can only be fulfilled by a morality that expresses the basic interests of a specific socio-historical community while leaving the individual free to choose the moral forms of his own activity.

In the tribal society of the prc-civilisalion period, morality was implemented through tradition and custom, by the instinctive subordination of each to the interests of the whole (the tribe, the gens), accepted unthinkingly by the individual. This subordination could not yet base itself on the free choice of the individual to act in this manner as at this period individuality did not exist in the true sense of the word. To be an individual does not simply mean to function as social, or communal being, firmly tied to a historical community; it also means to possess individuality, the capacity to take deliberate decisions that bring one's own behaviour into harmony with the interests of the whole. The individual for whom

the tribe, the gens and their institutions were sacred and inviolable, a superior power, instituted by nature, to which the individual remained absolutely subject in feeling, thought and deed '

was not yet able to ho the conscious subject of moral activity.

The morality of the tribal system and that of civilised society are distinguished first and foremost by qualitatively different methods of regulating the relations between individuals and society. Having arisen upon an economic basis hound up with the social division of labour, commodity exchange, and other factors permitting the development of human individuality, civilisation creates the conditions necessary for a morality that will be based upon free choice. Capitalist civilisation completes a trend that had its beginning in slavery and feudalism, when the freedom of decision of separate individuals was limited by numerous class, social-estate and religious prescriptions. Having surmounted social-estate limitations, capitalist civilisation remained the victim of others: free human relations cannot fully develop

~^^1^^ Frederick Kngels, 'The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the Slate', p. 207.

~^^1^^ Cf. Karl Marx, 'The Poverty of Philosophy', p. 132.

~^^2^^ Frederick Engels, 'The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State', p. 333.

on the basis of proprietary individualism and the morality of competition. Nonetheless the economic basis of civilised society, from the moment of its emergence through to its maturity, has built up that mode of moral regulation which can only come fully into operation with the abolition of private ownership and exploitation, i. e. in a communist civilisation.

Morality is that mode of regulating human relations which presupposes a conscious desire for good and rejection of evil, the conscious subordination of behaviour to the dictates of moral duty and the control of behaviour on the basis of the demands of conscience, dignity and honour. Although all these individual mechanisms of moral control, deriving from self-awareness, have been shaped by previous historical experience, they only begin their true development when society enters the age of civilisation. However, the content of these forms of moral self-awareness is determined by the nature of the specific historical epoch, and in particular by class relations and the corresponding criteria used to morally evaluate the relations thai have formed between people engaged in the most diverse activities.

From the point of view of the content, the mores of civilised society lose the unity characteristic of the moral development of the previous age as the result of class-based opposing moral systems and the triumph of those practices that destroyed the former links between men, their moral unity. As Engels noted:

The lowest interests---base greed, brutal sensuality, sordid avarice, selfish plunder- of common possessions---usher in Hie new. civilised society, class society; the most outrageous means---theft, rape, deceit and treachery---undermine and topple the old. classless, gentile society. '

However, the base passions of men---violence, greed, ambition, treachery---can function as the levers of historical development only in a situation of opposing class interests, since in the age of civilisation the ruling exploiter classes engage in economic activity using any and all methods, including the most immoral, in order to achieve their class aims.

The main source of private wealth is (lie exploitation and oppression of the working people.

Every advance in production is at the same lime a retrogression in the condition of the oppressed class, that is, of the great majority. What is a boon for the one is necessarily a bane for the other; each new emancipation of one class always means a new oppression of another class. '

The further civilisation travels along the path of exploitation, the more it gives rise to hypocrisy, using for this end the universally accepted language of morality and the meaning commonly ascribed to the terms `good' and ' happiness'.

In order to arrive at a clearer understanding of the mechanism of moral regulation as it operates in civilised sosiety, let us examine the main element in this mechanism, (he concept of moral norms. The distinguishing feature of moral norms is that they depend both on the authority of public opinion and on individual good will. However, this does not mean that moral norms function exclusively through the consciousness. The dialectic of the operation of moral norms moans that as they arc assimilated by the individual they cease to be purely ideal injunctions but, entering into everyday relations, become the indices of commonly accepted moral experience. All the moral norms or practices that have become objecLivised in behaviour constitute that which we commonly call morality. Civilisation has need of such moral norms which help to regulate human relations within that society and ensure the survival of civilisation as a particular historical socio-culluraJ community that to a certain extent rises above the mechanisms of strictly economic, political and administrative control. A special role in this process is played by the simplest norms of communal life. As has been noted earlier, the concept of civilisation places the emphasis upon the continuity of the historical process, the unity of the human race, the processes of social research into and the preservation and enrichment of human culture. All of this is assisted by giving the concentrated human experience of communal life, of joint, social existence, a normative expression in simple moral norms. The elementary norms of communal existence support social (communal) life and vital labour activity. For this reason the demand for discipline, order, the observance of basic norms, and responsibility constitute the healthy core of ~^^2^^ Frederick Engels, Op. cit., p. 333.

~^^1^^ Frederick Engels, ''I he Origin of the Family, Privalo Properly and the State', p. 267.

popular moral practice. These norms retain their value through all the historical stages of the development of civilisation and constitute an irreplacable spiritual treasure. An important aspect of simple popular morality is praise for positive moral qualities such as industriousncss, respect for work and the working man, compassion for the poor and the destitute, disapproval of those who do nol work and the idle and the exploiters, support for class brothers and the defence of justice. These norms also constitute the core of a universal morality. Their humanism and worker solidarity ensure their permanent significance.

It should be noted that not all of that which is commonly accepted is universal-human, i. e. is objectively in accord with good, with truth and justice, and that not ail oi that which is universal-human is commonly accepted. It is therefore possible to distinguish between the actual and potential universal-human content of morality. Actual universal morality is composed of those moral norms which have clearly manifested themselves and received common acceptance at any given moment. The potentially universalhuman is composed of those norms which have not yet become commonly accepted moral regulators, but are objectively more adequate to the needs of the majority of the members of society. To the former belong the positive norms of communal existence, while to the latter belong the moral principles of progressive class morality such as communist morality, which is gradually extending its sphere of influence, though it has not yet become a universal code of behaviour.

Universal morality and class morality arc here clearly seen in their dialectic relationship. The morality of the progressive classes is at any given moment the most complete expression of universal-human interests; the morality of the conservative, reactionary classes destroys the common human basis of morality. However, no social contradictions can obliterate the firmly established popular traditions of moral purity, conscientiousness, honesty, solidarity, uprightness and loyalty to common interests. These qualities constitute the basic features of moral culture as an integral part of spiritual culture as a whole.

Spiritual culture is the vehicle through which morality is included within civilisation, for morality is closely connected with every aspect of spiritual culture: art, politics,

I

law, religion (while this outdated form of social consciousness continues as an active phenomenon) and science. Through these morality penetrates into all the various forms of human activity to give them a moral content. The concept of culture is used as the universal description of the generic, social characteristics of human activity, as indicating a particular level in the development of the system of human activity, in the development of its various aspects and of its unity. These essential features of culture are also wholly applicable to the social nature of morality as a component of culture.

In other contexts the concept of culture expresses an evaluation of modes of activity from the point of view of the values system accepted in a specific social milieu. The objective criterion used in making a value assessment of culture reflects its humanist purpose, its orientation towards human happiness and the realisation of the essential powers of man as an end in himself. It is precisely here that the class nature of culture is reflected in the class nature of morality. The struggle between democratic morality and the moral systems of the ruling exploiter classes reflects the existence of two cultures in antagonistic class society. The democratic nature of genuinely human morality derives from the decisive contribution made by the working people to the ethical creativity of the peoples and to the establishment of the norms of progressive morality.

The concept of culture, which assesses the subject himself, is the index of the level of individual moral development. Individual moral culture expresses the degree to which the individual has assimilated the moral norms and other spiritual-practical values of society, the organic unity of his moral consciousness, moral feeling and the moral orientation of his will. Thus spiritual culture as an integral part of civilisation rests upon fundamental moral principles which Marxism sees as consisting in the humanisation of human relations and the harmonisation of every aspect of the vital activity of social communities for the benefit and all-round development of the individual, with priority accorded to the interests of the community.

Morality is, therefore, an integral part of civilisation revealing its inner socio-cultural nature and indicating the level of development and the orientation of the human, subjective aspect of civilisation. Morality displays the system,

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qualities of a specific historical type of civilisation, a specific historical type of culture.

The confrontation between the two basic types of contemporary civilisation---socialist and bourgeois---is also reflected in the moral sphere, in direct moral relations, in actual behaviour and personal contacts, and also in the moral motivation and evaluation of all other forms of human activity. Social relations as the social determinants of morality act upon individual moral consciousness via such mediating factors as conditions of life and work and the specific characteristics of culture.

Bourgeois civilisation is characterised by an increasingly manifest contradiction between the material and the spiritual (human) factors of development. The possibilities opened up by science and technology in industrialised production and in every form of communication and transmission of information, and the level reached in the consumer industry have come into collision with the anti-humanism of bourgeois civilisation and have turned against man. A parallel to this can he found in the evolution of bourgeois individualism, which is closely linked to that of capitalist free enterprise. Initially bourgeois individualism assisted progress and the liberation of man from the shackles of feudalism; it was a form of humanist ideology and the herald of freedom and the development of initiative. However, as capitalism entered the state-monopoly stage the individual ceased to feel himself to be a free entrepreneur and became an agent ensuring the functioning of the economic and political mechanisms of corporations. * Careerism, venality, hypocrisy, and group loyalty as forms of adaptation to the new conditions of bourgeois reality undermine the foundations of capitalist civilisation from within, utilitarianise and profane the values of life and culture. The call for freedom and equality that had a progressive ring in the mouths of the ideologists of the bourgeois revolution and that served as the rallying cry for the forces rejecting the feudal order and striving to achieve general well-being, has long since become an empty phrase. The gap between expec-

~^^1^^ Cf. SUMOUIKUH K>. A. JlaiHocTB B coBpeineHHofi AMepHKe. M., Mtacnb, 1980; OK xe, JIIMHOCTI. B XX ctoneTHH. Ananas 6yp»«ya3Hux Teopnft. M., Mucjib, 1979 (Yu. A. Zamoshkin, The Individual in Modern America, Mysl, Moscow, 1980; idem,, The Individual in the Twentieth Century. An Analysis of Bourgeois Theories, Mysl, Moscow, 1979).

194 ~

iations and reality, and uncertainty about the future are provoking instability in the moral-psychological climate and social neuroses. Moral degeneration, as manifest in the increase in crime, suicide, drug addiction and sexual perversion, is leading to a revision of the moral criteria developed over the centuries. The idea of permissiveness is held aloft to justify social and moral evil provided it does not directly impinge upon the interests of big capital and its respectability.

The chief danger threatening the well-being not only of individual people and individual nations and states, but mankind as a whole and, therefore, civilisation itself, is modern imperialist militarism and, in politics and ideology, neo-fascism. The proclamation and implementation of force as a means of achieving world domination, genocide carried out in the name of the myth of the racial superiority of an elite nation, and the destruction of the material values created by the labour of entire people over the centuries are sending civilisation into reverse. The escalation of the arms race and preparation for nuclear war threaten the very existence of civilisation. Such would be the tragic conclusion were it not for the restraining power of the socialist community, whose development is decisive for the future of world civilisation. The development of man is central to the progress of civilisation and culture. Hence the objective criterion of moral development is social revolution and the humanisation of social relations. Describing the socio-historical type of communist morality as an essential aspect of communist culture and communist civilisation, Lenin defined its role as that of elevating man and mankind, and assisting the victory of the communist system, whose highest aim is the all-round and harmonious development of the individual.^^1^^ Socialist society proclaims humanism and collectivism to be the highest moral values. The humanism of socialist civilisation lies in the nature of the new system, which frees the working people from class and national oppression. Marx linked together tlie formation of communist production relations and the establishment of practical humanism, seeing their source in the social form of ownership. Socialist equality as expressed in economic relations and secured in the political and I>)gal structure of

~^^1^^ Cf. V. I. Lenin, 'The Tasks of the Youth Len jues', pp. 294-295.

13*

the new society (real equality in the right to work and to enjoy other social benefits as guaranteed hy the constitution) is also reflected at the moral level. Socialist humanism does not permit respect for some to be based upon lack of respect for others. The moral demands of socialism are made equally of all members of society regardless of their social position. This, however, does not exclude diversity of behaviour among the people of the new civilisation, this reflecting the various degrees to which different individuals have assimilated socialist morality and culture.

Socialism not only guarantees to each individual adequate living conditions but also promotes active, creative individuality through communist upbringing and education, holding each member of socialist society morally responsible for fulfilling the social role that follows from his professional and social position. This comprehensive mutual reliance between society and the individual is expressed in the principle of the unity of rights and obligations. The practical realisation of this principle in socialist society confirms the effectiveness of socialist humanism and assists in transforming man into the active subject of historical creativity. Every aspect of communist civilisation, both in the material-technical sphere and in the sphere of spiritual life, is created by the purposeful efforts of the working people themselves.

The humanism of communist civilisation derives from the fact that man's attitude to the external world and to himself is measured exclusively in terms of its humanity. At this point it is important to examine more closely one particular aspect of this question. Man, as the goal and the measure of social relations and moral behaviour within the system of demands and evaluations that compose communist morality, is seen not as an isolated, abstract being but as an individual viewed in the unity of his social and personal characteristics, as the personification of social being. The value of the individual is perceived in his unity with society, and society is viewed in its unity with the individual. Following the best traditions of social thought, communist morality asserts the indissolubility of the link between the social and the individual, and thus the aim of its social activity is to actualise the principle 'the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all', which is recorded in the Constitution of the USSR.

196 "

The basic link uniting the social, the national and the personal is the socialist work collective. This collective, which is a community of individuals bound together by common production aims, by a single organisation and will, by the same moral principles, is the original product of communist civilisation. The work collectives are the main centres of the vital activity of the working people, and they play an organisational and mobilising role in resolving questions relating not only to production, but also to upbringing and education. The collective is a special type of social community that moulds the diverse social links between the individual and society and his active stand in life. Socialist work collectives have become that social form of human existence of which Marx spoke as the crucial factor in developing the essence of man.ⁱ

The socialist collective creates the basis for new labour, social and interpersonal relations of a communal nature. Socialist collectivism can only be understood in its organic link with socialist humanism, that is, as humanist collectivism. The collective and collectivism are inseparably united as the one forms the other. Collectivism develops not by suppressing and levelling individuality within the work collective, but by promoting individuality. The collective unites together and develops various types of social activity (labour activity, socio-political activity, scientific and technical activity), which are of particular importance in accomplishing social tasks, including that of developing the individual. In the context of the gradual equalisation of the degree of individual participation in the basic forms of vital activity, the achievement of harmony between the accomplishment of the practical-purposeful tasks of the collective and spiritual-moral, educational tasks, the collective acquires special significance. The individual brought up under socialism cannot conceive of life without the collective within which he moulds his personality, enters into various practical and personal relations, and enjoys the moral and practical support of his colleagues. The collective docs riot divide socialist society into isolated cells consuming the vital energy and labour of the individual. Social-

~^^1^^ Cf. Karl Marx, 'Critical Marginal Notes on the Article "The King of Prussia and Social Reform. By a Prussian'". Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 3, 1975, pp. 204-205,

ist society is characterised by the constant interaction of collectives of different levels and types---basic and subsidiary work collectives, educational collectives, and voluntary associations; industrial collectives, party, trade-union and youth collectives---all serving to broaden the social intercourse of the individual. Society thus appears before the individual as an open system offering the possibility of social mobility, which is achieved by the purposeful application of individual capacities, the satisfaction of individual requirements and the pursuit of basic aspirations.

Human development has relied upon collective forms of life during all its previous stages, but they were restricted and undermined by the individualist mentality and moral practices of the exploiter classes, particularly during the capitalist epoch. Significantly, collectivist forms of work organisation are imposing themselves on contemporary bourgeois society as a result of the increasingly social nature of production and the integration processes occurring in social management. However, they cannot form the basis of true collectivism as they do not affect the inner moral-- psychological make-up of the workers, who are guided by limited group aims. Socialist collectivism is the expression not only of social necessity but also of the need for a truly human existence as reflected in the corresponding moral motives, and in the awareness of the advantages of collectivist unity.

Socialist collectivism is the highest form of collectivism at the present stage in the development of civilisation. The members of socialist society consciously unite their efforts to contribute to the creation of communist civilisation. Socialist collectivism does not depersonalise the individual, but relies upon individual initiative and promotes the development of the social activity of the individual. In this sense socialist collectivism is the manifestation of true humanism.

Socially homogeneous, developed socialist society creates the conditions necessary for the achievement of moralpolitical unity and the growth of the social role of morality as a particular mechanism for regulating relations between individuals and between society and the individual, a mechanism which consists in acting upon human behaviour 'from within', via the shaping of the diverse, socially significant motivations of moral relations. The place and role of morality in the consolidation of communist civilisation are mediated by the development of spiritual culture. Com-

munist civilisation proclaims the humanist role of culture, transforming it into the real measure of the development of the truly human in man. By assimilating the riches of spiritual culture, the individual is brought into contact with the highest moral values. By participating in cultural creativity and raising their own activity to a high cultural level, the builders of communism create a genuinely human existence worthy of 'the true community of men'.ⁱ

The humanist essence of communist civilisation determines its great social role as the bulwark of peace. Peace is the greatest social value; it is life, labour, happiness, the basis of world civilisation and the essential condition of its further progress. Socialism is that system whose banner carries the words `labour' and `happiness' alongside `peace'. Moreover, peace is not merely a declaration, a moral appeal, but also the aim pursued in the concrete practical initiatives taken by the Soviet Union and the countries of the socialist community to avert the holocaust of war. Soviet peace initiatives are the firm foundation underpinning world public opinion and the international peace movement. Speaking at the 26th Congress of the CPSU, Leonid Brezhnev declared:

By safeguarding peace we are working not only for people who arc living today, and not only for our children and grandchildren; we are working for the happiness of dozens of future generations.^^2^^

Up till now we have been examining those basic moral characteristics of socialist society as the first stage of communist civilisation which distinguish the latter from all previous types of civilisation. It would, however, be an oversimplification not to recognise that the emergence and development of the moral aspect of communist civilisation brings with it many problems as regards educating the masses in the spirit of the new morality. Morality is not governed by the laws of biological inheritance, but it bears the heavy weight of tradition. Not everyone is capable of assimilating the wealth of socialist culture and morality immediately and fully. The cause is to be sought in a num-

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, 'Critical Marginal Notes on the Article "The King of Prussia and Social Reform. By a Prussian"', p. 204.

* Documents and Resolutions. The 26th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, p. 40.

her of objective and subjective factors, of which one of the most important is the effectiveness of moral education at every level (the family, the school, the work collective). The Communist Party and the Soviet state are doing much to improve moral education alongside the ideological, labour and other types of education that compose the integrated system of communist education.

In achieving the educational objectives referred to above, it is important to take into account the contradictions that arise in the course of the emergence and development of communist civilisation. The viability of any particular civilisation depends not only upon the existence of contradictions, but also upon the nature of those contradictions and, most importantly, the ability to overcome them. In communist civilisation there is no fundamental contradiction between the development of the material-technical aspect of society and that of its spiritual-moral aspect. However, at different stages there arise contradictions between individual aspects and levels of communist civilisation, e.g. between short-term and long-term planning targets, between the social importance of labour and the technical level achieved in a given sector of production, between the various concrete applications of the socialist principle of distribution in the form of material labour incentives, etc. These contradictions are not antagonistic of themselves, but this does not exclude residual manifestations of old attitudes and individual antagonisms which have their source in the as yet inadequate development of the potential of socialism as the first stage of communism, in subjective errors, or---- occasionally---in an irresponsible attitude to the matter in question. Such contradictions are eliminated by improving the mechanism of economic management and increasing moral responsibility and other moral factors promoting a communist attitude on the part of workers to the task entrusted to them.

The present stage in the development of communist civilisation is characterised by certain moral processes resulting from the technological revolution, urbanisation, increased migration, ecological factors, etc. Mechanisation and automation, for example, bring with them a number of complex moral problems that can only be resolved by a society free of social antagonisms. Among such problems one can name a preference among young people for creative as

opposed to non-creative labour, although the latter may be socially necessary. This attitude reveals itself in labour discipline, quality of work and job satisfaction. The scientific and technological revolution is also causing a change in the attitude to education and other spiritual values, which are coming to play an increasingly important role in the life of each individual. However, not everyone immediately recognises those as spiritual values; there are those whose attitude to education is primarily utilitarian and who see it as a means of increasing their social prestige, improving their career prospects, etc.

Urbanisation and contemporary demographic processes are also provoking acute moral problems. Their scale is such that there is the danger of depersonalisation, of superficial contacts and lack of personal communication even though the range of social intercourse is expanding. The worsening ecological situation is creating new problems. .Most people have become more appreciative of nature, but individual responsibility for preserving it has also grown. The environment can only bo conserved by agreed and planned economic management and social planning combined with individual responsibility.

If these and other similar processes are viewed purely superficially, they may appear identical to those occurring in capitalist society. However, socialist society, which bases itself on the consistent implementation of the principles of planning, on the dynamism of the working people and 'the organised strength of the collective, is able to avert the unpleasant and dangerous consequences of scientific and technological progress. Here it is public opinion that plays the most important role by reacting sharply to such contradictions. Thus the development of communist society is based on the growing role of the subjective factor, and in particular upon morality.

The active role played by the subjective factor, by the ideological superstructure, in the establishment of communist civilisation is explained by the nature of this new socio-economic formation, its planned activity and the scientific management of its development. A special role, that of guide and organiser, is played by a new type of party^tho Marxist-Leninist communist political organisation of the working class and all working people. The Party functions as a major force in promoting moral progress,

takes the lead in asserting the ideals, principles, norms and traditions of communist morality, provides a model of social self-management and moral behaviour, of a principled struggle against the moral flaws and manifestations of evil that appear in practical life. In the Guidelines for the Economic and Social Development of the USSR for 1981-85 and for the Period Ending in 1990, heightened emphasis on moral education under the leadership of the Party is denned as one of the most important tasks facing the state and the public in the USSR.

The Party is also playing a growing role in supporting, developing and generalising the advanced moral experience of the masses as expressed in examples of moral creativity such as the Moral Code of the Builders of Communism, professional codes of ethics, the worker codes of honour, etc. Of particular concern to the Party, the state, social organisations and all the morally conscious forces of society is the strengthening of the moral-political foundations of friendship among the peoples of the USSR, its internal unity, patriotic national pride and internationalist awareness.

Comprehensive internationalist education is the guarantee of the emergence of a world communist civilisation, one of its decisive spiritual prerequisites. This is why a wealth of experience in educating the new man as a patriot and an internationalist is a notable feature of social consciousness under developed socialism among every social stratum and category. The interrelationship and unity of patriotic and internationalist education manifests itself in respect for national dignity and national cultures and rejection of any signs of a relapse into nationalism and chauvinism.

As it reaches the highest stages of development, socialist society acquires new, higher forms of moral relationships as a result of the active, purposeful shaping of the morality of developed socialism, which affects virtually all the most important spheres of social activity. People become more sensitive to moral problems, less tolerant of shortcomings, errors and deviations from the norms of socialist communal life. The maturity of the moral stand of the socialist individual is revealed in the fact that the solution of moral problems is linked to the solution of economic problems, the problems of social planning and cultural progress.

The future of world civilisation is bound up with the

victory of communism. Communist civilisation is characterised not only by a high level of material-economic development and social progress, but also by moral integrity, by the sincerity of human relations, by the unselfish, voluntary service performed in the name of the common good by each individual, who sees in this his greatest satisfaction and happiness. The all-round development of the individual as social reality in the making and the ideal of the future presupposes the harmonisation of the moral world of the individual and the moral relations obtaining in every sphere of public and private life.

Andrei Sukhov

established and played a not inconsiderable role in the development of the Russian variant of feudal civilisation.

However, if the social conditions necessary for the acceptance of a given religion are lacking, then attempts to introduce it, however energetically they are applied, meet with little success. When the Russian autocracy and the Russian Orthodox Church attempted to extend Orthodoxy to certain other regions in Russia they met with insuperable obstacles. One such region was the Far North. The Russian Orthodox Church repeatedly sent missionaries to this region and churches were built, but all in vain. When Christianity was accepted, it was so only superficially. All the efforts of two such powerful social forces as the tsarist autocracy and the Russian Orthodox Church were frustrated by the exceptional backwardness and archaic social system of the peoples of the region, and therefore Christianity, having had no significant impact upon the consciousness of the local inhabitants, was almost completely forgotten following the October revolution, which put an end to the enforced claims of the Orthodox Church in the area.

Thus if the social system does not correspond to the religious system of thought, it blocks the progress of that religion. However, this social incompatibility has never been so clearly revealed as it is today. Previously the contradiction between a given religion and the social system did not provoke a religious vacuum. With the emergence of communist civilisation, the situation is changing radically. Starting with socialism, religion slowly loses the basis for its existence.

Thus religion, as the whole of civilisation, is directly dependent upon the social system, which cither produces or stimulates, or, on the contrary, limits it. No stage in religious development is the result of arbitrary invention, but is the product of the age.

This raises the question of the limit of the dependence of religion on the social system. Is the existence of one specific system of religious views as opposed to another fatally predetermined in each concrete instance, or are variations possible? The facts of history leave no doubtvariations are possible. In any civilisation that has gained control over a considerable geographical area, there exist not one but many religions. In their essence they are similar, but have numerous secondary differences. Each type

Religion and Civilisation

Tho fundamental principle of the Marxist analysis of the history of religion is that it is viewed as part of the history of society, and in particular as part of the history of civilisation.ⁱ Social changes lead to the development of civilisation, and therefore also to the development of religious consciousness and to its reformation. One form of religion gives way to another that more fully corresponds to the new conditions. Only with the appearance of communist civilisation, which by its nature is alien to religion, does the history of religion begin a rapid descent.

In previous (pre-socialist) civilisations, the system of social relations not only dictates the formation and development of one or other system of religious concepts, but also determines their possible expansion and the subordination of new territories to their influence. Thus the introduction of feudalism into Rus and the formation of a state structure there gave rise to new religious needs. As the early Russian state had fairly close contacts with its neighbours whose religions corresponded to the feudal stage of social development, there was no need for Rus to pass through the long and painful process of developing a new religion, and the feudal elite, led by Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich, chose the Eastern branch of Christianity, the state religion of the Byzantine Empire. Towards the end of the tenth century A. D. there occurred the krescheniye (baptism) of Russia and Orthodox Christianity was declared the state religion. Although the chrislianisation of the entire population took several centuries, Orthodoxy finally became firmly

~^^1^^ On the typology of civilisation cf. the article by Eduard Markafian in the present collection.

of civilisation has a corresponding typological unity of religious consciousness, but within this unity their exists a degree of pluralism.

Is not the Marxist teaching on the social nature of religion contradicted by the fact that during one and the same historical period in one and the same geographical area not one but several religions may co-exist? In the Roman Empire, for example, both Christianity and paganism coexisted. During the late Middle Ages in the countries of Western Europe, Protestantism emerged alongside Catholicism. How is it that one and the same epoch can produce fairly distinct religious systems?

In answering this question it must be remembered that at a given stage of social development, namely a transitional stage, the existing and by now traditional form of civilisation continues, while the elements of a new type of civilisation are emerging, including new religious concepts. The triumph of the new social system brings with it the triumph of the corresponding religious system.

In the Roman Empire the slave-owning system was in a state of crisis, and the elements of feudalism were forming within it. Whereas the slave-owning system was crowned by polytheism, one of the elements of this new type of civilisation was Christianity. The defeat of the old civilisation spelt the end of polytheism, and although the victory of Christianity was achieved only with great difficulty, attempts to halt its progress and preserve polytheism proved ineffectual. At this stage in social development, Christianity was assured of success, insofar as the future lay with emergent feudalism, of which it was the embodiment.

In the late Middle Ages there again emerges differentiation within the existing religious concepts. In Western Europe, alongside traditional Catholicism there appeared various Protestant trends, which emerged as a result of the bourgeois relations emerging within feudal society and became an integral part of bourgeois civilisation. Within Catholicism itself, under the influence of the new social trends, there repeatedly appeared new elements closely related to Protestantism. Subsequently, whenever the appropriate conditions emerged in any part of the world, reformist movements arose within the framework of other religions. In every instance, religious diversity follows upon social diversity.

IL

Within the general framework of civilisation, the links and relationships between its various parts are rather complex. Within this system of interrelationships, religion may be defined as a high order of ideology in which

the interconnection between conceptions and their material conditions of existence becomes more and complicated, more and more obscured by intermediate links.'

The mode of production as a whole, and production relations in particular, shape the general form of religion, fixing the limit of its possible variants within specific historical conditions. However, economics affects religion not only directly. In a class society, the class structure always corresponds to its economy and is determined by it. In its turn, the class structure is reflected in religion.

Religion, together with social consciousness as a whole, embodies the interests of one or other class, and first and foremost the ruling class. With the help of religion, the privileged classes consolidate their position, and only those religious attitudes which correspond to the interests of these classes and which sanction the existing class structure are diffused throughout society. This is made easier by the fact that the exploited classes seek consolation in religion, to which they look for illusory solutions to urgent social problems. Religion reconciles them with the position they occupy in the class structure of society, and those religious views which deviate from orthodoxy are suppressed by every available means.

However, the protest of the exploited classes against the existing order results in the emergence of ideological platforms on the basis of which the demands of these classes take shape. When society has powerful religious traditions, these trends find their way into religious consciousness and come into opposition with religious orthodoxy; during periods of social crisis and upheaval, these movements gain in strength and class interests acquire considerable influence in religious consciousness.

Politics, legal awareness and the law also correspond to the class structure of society, and these, directly or indirectly, are reflected in religion, particularly the political

~^^1^^ Frederick Engels, 'Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy'. In K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works in three volumes, Volume Three, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1975, p. 371.

and legal consciousness of the ruling classes, and the law safeguarding the given social system. Official religion sanctions the political and legal privileges of those social i'orccs which are in power, and the main religious organisations of an antagonistic class society support that political orientation which generally coincides with the policy being pursued by the ruling classes. At the same time, to quote the words of Lenin, 'political protests in religious guise are common to all nations at a certain stage of their development'. *

Religion also has an indirect link with politics and law, as it may reflect them via such forms of social consciousness as morality. Moreover, in contrast to those social structures which can be reflected in religion via certain intermediary links, morality operates in direct conjunction with religion with no intervening social structures.

The influence of politics, legal awareness and law, and morality upon religion, and the fact that religion reflects these social structures, means that religion has a normative-evaluative character. It reflects specific attitudes to given realities, gives them a positive or negative evaluation, urges that they be supported or rejected, and prescribes norms of behaviour, etc.

All the basic forms ol' religion known to history are linked to the social structures they reflect as their own social roots. These links are obviously organic. In cases where the social structures reflected by religion are not the social roots of the religion itself, the links between religion and these structures are less stable.

Today new political, legal and moral norms are finding expression in religion, which is striving to establish links with socialist ideology. However, these links cannot become organic as the new social structures reflected in religion are alien to it, are not its social roots. Religion becomes eclectic in content, and the process of secularisation operates from both without and within. This process of reorientation in contemporary religious consciousness is not universal but partial, although advancing.

If ideology is examined in terms of its proximity to the economic basis, then religion and philosophy are the furthest removed. As both are of a high ideological order, they are intimately connected, directly reflect each other

'i V. I. Lenin, 'A Draft Programme of Our Party^^1^^, p. 243.

and for a long time influence each other. There is an intensive exchange _Of ideas and opinions between philosophical idealism and religion. Here the links are closest and the contacts numerous. At times this process of convergence becomes so intensive that the boundary between them becomes relative, and religious-idealistic complexes frequently emerge.

The other philosophical trend---materialism---which develops in close contact with science, is in direct opposition to religion. Materialist criticism obliged religious systems to reform themselves, led to the loss of certain important links within those systems, obliged theology to seek new ways of defending itself, and finally led to the considerable weakening of religion. The history of religion is marked by materialist and atheistic criticism and cannot be fully understood without taking account of the degree and depth of this criticism.

Religion as a form of social reflection does not necessarily pass through all the stages of economic mediation. Religion may reflect economics directly, or through the sole mediation of morality in the absence of a class structure and therefore also the absence of politics, legal awareness and law, as in primitive society. Subsequently these social structures wedge themselves as it were between economics and morality, rendering social life considerably more complex, and removing religion further away from the economic basis.

As with all forms of social reflection, religion enjoys relative independence vis-a-vis social being, and this independence increases in the course of religious development, with the growing distance between religion and the economic basis and the appearance of numerous intermediary links rendering the process of religious reflection more complex. Furthermore, this independence increases as religion acquires a longer and longer history and the past increasingly influences its newly emerging concrete forms. The material at the disposal of religion causes modifications in the religious reflection of all the social structures, including economics.

This relative independence permits religion to exercise vigorous and fairly considerable retroactive influence upon those social structures which assisted the formation of religion and are reflected in it. In the course of this retroactive influence, religion is in its turn reflected in other

14-0328

ligion, this does not mean that the process of civilisation can be identified with the development of religion (even though this process occurred under the auspices of religion), nor yet that the actual links between them can be ignored' During its formation and development, each religion ' absorbs' a certain quantity of social ideas. These may be moral principles, political and legal concepts, philosophical views, etc. Having been assimilated in religion, they give the latter social significance.

The interaction between religion and other elements of civilisation also gives rise to distinct components which appear as autonomous units within the framework of religious consciousness, and accompany specifically religious concepts. Ecclesiastical law, art, religious politics, morality and philosophy enable the religious system to occupy a stable position within social life. These components considerably increase the influence of religion and extend its sphere of operation. In cases where religion acquires the right to a dominant spiritual position within society, and the religious organisation acquires the right to function as an influential social institution, the integration of civilisation occurs on the basis of religion, and various aspects of civilisation become entirely religious in their essence. However, at other stages of social development, loo, these aspects are supervised by religion. Only the age of socialist revolution and socialist and communist construction enables them to be consistently secularised.

The religious formations of which we have been speaking occur as a result of close and intensive interaction between religion and various aspects of civilisation, in the course of which religion converges with legal awareness, morality, etc. At the points of contact between them, there emerge such phenomena as ecclesiastical law and morality. Here religion and other elements of civilisation would appear to intertwine.

These phenomena are studied by specialists in religion, ethics, art, philosophy and other branches of scientific knowledge. It is difficult to imagine the history of art without Rublev and Dionisius, the history of philosophy without Augustine, the history of ethics without Christian morality. It is obvious that a study of religion cannot ignore these phenomena cither, although the emphasis here is on the religious aspect.

social structures. Religious influence may be direct or indirect, as is the influence to which religion itself is subjected. In fact, religious reflection, and that reflection which other social structures receive in religion, are but two trends of one single process of interaction. Impulses are both received and emitted by religion, but the prime trend in this interaction is the process of religious reflection, and the secondary is that of retroactive reflection. Moreover, in the early stages the dominant impulses are those received by religion, with the impulses emitted by religion intensifying at the later stage. When the entire social system achieves a certain degree of stability the interacton between religion and other social structures acquires a relative equilibrium. In the course of its retroactive influence, religion undoubtedly increases its range and sphere of influence to a considerable degree. This influence embraces not only the social structures that brought it into being but spreads far beyond. In its retroactive influence, religion seeks to influence art and science and subordinate to itself those elements of morality, politics and legal awareness that are not official, but in opposition. For a long period of time religion influenced the simple norms of morality and justice, obliging them to exist and develop in a religious form.

The various elements of civilisation develop unevenly. During specific historical periods some develop more intensively and come to the forefront, while others recede. All of this is reflected in the general system of the interaction of the components of civilisation. This unevenness depends upon a number of factors, but the most important among them is the economic basis. It it this basis which causes one or other social institution to acquire a dominant position. Thus the feudal basis led to a considerable increase in the influence of religion and the Church. Thus in the Middle Ages the influence of religion on the entire social organism and its individual parts was at its greatest.

The degree of religious influence varies in different periods of historical development, depending primarily on the position occupied by religion in social life. This influence may also vary substantially depending upon the various concrete conditions existing in various countries and regions in the same historical periods.

If elements of civilisation are obliged to develop within a religious framework or to experience the influence of re-

14*

The subordination of whole areas of social consciousness, or at least large sections thereof, to the influence of religion led to a situation in which conceptual-ideological development has taken place within the framework of religious systems, social needs have been perceived in the form of religious concepts or been advanced in religious form, and religious institutions have played an active role in the spiritual life of society. Thus religious formations require differentiation in attitude and evaluation, depending upon whether they embody the interests of a class that is advancing or declining, an exploiter or an exploited class. Only thus is it possible to identify the role of religion at any given stage in social life.

Marxist philosophy excludes any apologist approach to religion. It is obvious that religious philosophy, politics, law and morality, as complexes of dominant ideas or important components of such complexes, and therefore the ideas of the ruling classes, fully share the fate of their proponents from the point of view of historical evaluation. As components of the religious system, they come under the general principles of the Marxist evaluation of religion. However, the Marxist philosophy of religion cannot be reduced to that simplistic interpretation of all religious philosophy, law, morality, art and politics that was characteristic of enlighteners and atheists prior to Marx and Engels.

From the point of view of Marxist philosophy, the content of certain of the component parts of the religious system is far more important than the form which mystifies it. A social ideal may be expressed not only in secular but also in religious form. However, the fact that it assumes a religious form does not necessarily mean that this social ideal is backward or reactionary, just as a secular form does not always mean that this social ideal is orientated

towards the future.

Thus, patristic philosophy, whose major representative is Augustine, formulated a concept of the future society, which cannot be other than feudal, and of the position ot the individual within it. Patristic philosophy took shape during a transitional period.

The period of transition from the ancient world to the Middle Ages---writes the Soviet historian N. I. Konrad---is no longer the slave-owning in its classical form, but not yet the feudal system in its classical form, either. However, the change was

212 -

already taking place and was reflected in human consciousness. • • Tho mental revolution which took place consisted in the collapse of the previous pagan world-view, as it was then called, _and its replacement by a new, Christian world-view.^l

Konrad ranks Augustine's The City of God alongside other major works that influenced an entire epoch, describing it as a great work 'calling for the creation of the new'.^^2^^ A new philosophical and sociological doctrine, corresponding to the spirit of the times, was expressed in the 'religious language' that was then universally user).

Early Christian views were in active opposition to the philosophical-sociological teachings of the late ancient world, which reflected political conservatism and the desire to keep society in the slave-owning stage. A particularly colourful figure of the period is Emperor Julian, a proponent of nco-Platonism, and called the Apostate by Christian writers for his attempt to restore the pagan cult. The religiousphilosophical views of Julian were closely linked to his political platform, which met the interests of the conservative aristocracy. This aristocracy admired the self-- government of the polis, classical philosoply and the polytheistic religion which crowned a state that was an alliance of poleis.

When bourgeois relations entered the period of struggle with feudal relations, the political, moral and other principles and doctrines that corresponded to the former, whatever their form, played a progressive role, while those that corresponded to the latter, whatever their form, were reactionary. Engels warned against seeing the struggle that arose at the end of the Middle Ages only as 'violent theological bickering', and satirised those 'home-bred historians and sages'~^^3^^ thus inclined. During the Middle Ages, when religion dominated in every sphere of social life, revolutionary opposition to feudalism was obliged to assume a religious form, and therefore, writes Engels, 'all revolutionary social and political doctrines were necessarily also

~^^1^^ Konpadll. tt. 3anaflii BOCTOK. CtaTbH. M., HayKa, 1972, c. 422 (N. I. Konrad, West and East, Articles, Nauka, Moscow, 1972, p. 422).

~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 430.

* Frederick Engels, 'The Peasant War in Germany'. In Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 10, 1978, p. 411.

mostly theological heresies'.^^4^^ Later, when the influence of the religious world-view was on the decline, bourgeois ideology opposed feudal ideology not only in religious, but also in secular form. Similarly, feudal doctrines also began to assume a non-religious formulation. Sometimes a situation emerges in which bourgeois ideology has a religious form, and feudal ideology a secular form. Engels points to the paradoxical situation that occurred in Britain during its transition to the bourgeois system: the British bourgeoisie was religious, and the most militant forces of the progressive middle class were Protestant sects, while the deist form of materialism became an esoteric doctrine supported by the aristocracy and connected with the anti-bourgeois political trend.~^^2^^

In the present age, when the leading force bringing about progressive changes in the world is the world communist movement, a considerable number of religious centres and trends remain linked as before to the capitalist system. However, a careful study of the allies and opponents of communism reveals a fairly complex system of relationships. Large numbers of believers, religious figures and organisations are participating in mass movements for social progress, democracy and peace. They are making more and more frequent attempts to establish contacts with the communist movement. Their views, principles and doctrines expressed in traditional religious categories and embodied in religious form are often closer to those of the communist movement than are the doctrines of certain groups of bourgeois free-thinkers inclined to anti-- communism, shunning mass movements and giving clear preference to abstract enlightenment. Although those socialist ideas that exist outside the framework of scientific communism suffer from inconsistency and vagueness, nonetheless the socialist ideal even in its religious form, and therefore to some extent deformed, will help certain social strata and groups to move along the path of social progress.

Religion is not only the product of a specific social system but also an ingredient of that system. By concentrat-

in£ in itself the basic characteristics of the social system religion makes it possible to assess it together with the civilisation of which it is a part.

In a number of cases where the elucidation of the total complex of production relations at a given period of history is rendered difficult because those living at the time paid no attention to these relations, being, as Lenin pointed out, often unaware of them, religious concepts may assist research, as information on religious ideas is generally well preserved, religion being a manifest phenomenon of everyday consciousness that is frequently registered.

Research into Ancient India has shown that the least investigated and most debated question is that of economic and social development, the social structure and the nature of socio-economic relations. It is pointed out that the difference of opinion on this subject is to a certain degree explained by the lack of a sufficient quantity of reliable material. * Information on the religion of Ancient India is far more specific than data about its economic life.² It may therefore be possible to analyse socio-economic problems via a study of Ancient Indian religious concepts, and in particular by a comparison of the problems of social history and the emergence of Buddhism, which may serve as a 'social indicator' of feudalism.

Another important question that is a matter of dispute at present, this time in connection with the social history of Russia, is the existence of the germs of bourgeois civilisation in the sixteenth century. Research carried out initially in the Pomorye region (the region bordering on the White Sea), and subsequently in other regions, would indicate that by the sixteenth century new, bourgeois relations were beginning to form both in the towns and rural areas, and that by the middle of century bourgeois relations were emerging in a number of the most economically developed regions of the country. The class struggle, which intensified at this time, centred essentially around the choice between different paths of social development: feudal or

~^^1^^ Cf.EoHsapd-JfeeuHT. M. HH«HJIB anoxyMaypteB. M., HayKa, 1973, c. 12, 105 (G. M. Bongardt-Levin, India in the Age ofAfaurya Dynasty, Nauka, Moscow, 1973, p. 12, 105).

^^2^^ A. L. Bashem, The Wonder That Was India. A Survey of the Culture of the Indian Sub-Continent Before the Coming of the Muslims^ Sidgwick. and Jacksen, London, 1956.

~^^1^^ Ibid., pp. 412-413.

* Cf. Frederick Engels, 'Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. Special Introduction to the English Edition of 1982', p. 107.

bourgeois. The third estate gained a measure of success in this struggle, but it proved short-lived. *

Other views, however, are also to be found in historical literature, where the beginning of the development of bourgeois relations is dated to the seventeenth and even the second half of the eighteenth century. Of interest here is the question of whether the study of religion might shed any light on this subject, and how. It has already been noted that the elements of capitalism emerging during the crisis of feudal society inevitably cause definite shifts in religious consciousness. One of llie social indicators in Western Europe of tlic beginning of the development of capitalist relations was the emergence of religious dissent, which subsequently gave rise to various Protestant denominations. Similarly, the emergence of capitalist elements gives rise to dissenting views resembling Protestantism within other creeds.

Was there a branch of Christianity in sixteenth-century Russia which, although perhaps not sufficiently clearly denned, reflected a trend towards bourgeois development? There is evidence that there was.

Opponents of Russian heretics within the official Orthodox Church were not slow to detect the 'Protestant inclination' of heretical views, particularly those of Feodosii Kosoi, the leader of the Russian heretics in the first half of the sixteenth century. In Church material compiled against him, Feodosii Kosoi is compared to Martin Luther.~^^2^^

Supported by a broad democratic section of the urban population, the Russian heretics exercised considerable influence on social life during the first half of the sixteenth century although their social base was much narrower than that of the Western reformers. The feudal reaction that emerged triumphant in the middle of the century had

i Cf. Home H. E. PyccKiiii ropofl B XVI CTojieTHii.---POCCHH H HiajiHH. MaTepaajiH IV KoH$epeimnH COBOTCKHX H iiTajibHHCKHx HCTOPHKOB. PHM, 1969. MoeKBa, 1972.

(N. Ye.Nosov, 'The Russian Town in the Sixteenth Century. In Russia and Italy. Proceedings of the IV Conference of Soviet and Italian Historians. Rome, 1969. Moscow, 1972).

• Cf. KjiudanoaA. H. Pe^opMau^OHHueflBHHtemiHB POCCHH B XIVnepBOH nojioBHHe XVI BB. M., HSR. AH CCCP, 1960, c. 272 (A. I. Klibanov, The ReformatlonMovement in Russia in the 14th to the first half of At 16th centuries, Moscow, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, I960, p. 272).

tragic consequences for the heretics, and religious opposition was destroyed. It was not until the next century, at a time when social development was once more leading to the formation of bourgeois relations, that it was able to regather ils forces.

The repression that began in the middle of the sixteenth century forced some of the Russian heretics, including Feodosii Kosoi, to flee abroad to Poland, Lithuania and Byelorussia (then part of Lithuania), where a powerful Protestant movement was emerging. The similarity between the views of the Russian heretics and Protestantism was manifest and the emigrants were easily `absorbed' into the movement. In Vitebsk they condemned icons, a move fully in accord with Protestant doctrine, and threw them out of churches and chapels whenever the opportunity presented itself. Shortly thereafter one of the companions of Feodosii Kosoi, a man named Foma, became the leader of the Protestant Church in Polotsk. The Russian reformers were completely 'at borne' and did not have to give way on any of their views. *

Despite this heavy blow, the heretic movement in Russia did not disappear completely, and the ideas that had inspired it continued to evoke sympathy among a number of people. Sometimes the similarity between the Russian heretics and Protestantism revealed itself quite unexpectedly. Lutherans captured by the Russians during the Livonian War found people holding similar views among those sympathetic to the Russian heretics, who strove to give them moral support, to comfort them with 'the word of God' and to supply them with basic necessities and money.

Thus an examination of the history of religious movements in the sixteenth century provides indirect confirmation that Russian society at that time contained the seeds of bourgeois relations and that religion can serve here as a social indicator.

A comparison of religious history and social history is also useful in examining a number of other problems concerning the development of civilisation.

Ibid.,'p. 60-61.

Nelli Motroshilova

those and the changing, yet relatively stable special semiotic systems.

The term `civilisation' will here be understood to refer to the prerequisites and products of human labour (both material and conceptual) which have emerged in the course of history and which are preserved while being subject to continuous change, to the socially organised forms of activity, types of social control and management, to forms of human interaction and intercourse, ideal principles and norms, semiotic systems---in short, to all those forms of human activity thanks to which the historical epochs form a continuous process of historical development and which enable different countries and peoples to co-operate during the same historical period. The term `civilisation' is most appropriately used in its global sense, uniting the different ages and regions and identifying the most important social forms that enable mankind to exist and develop as one whole.

We have deliberately defined the terms `science' and `civilisation' in such a way as to bring out the link between the civilising activity of man and his scientific research. Science is one of the products of the long, continuous process of socio-historical development, i. e. a product of civilisation which emerges at a fairly mature stage in its development. Together with human civilisation and under its influence, science undergoes sometimes gradual, sometimes radical, truly revolutionary change. Once it has emerged and become a highly important component of civilisation, science exerts a transformative influence upon the subsequent development of mankind.

There is undoubtedly a similarity between ' transhistoricaP forms of activity which ensure the very existence and progressive development of civilisation, and that knowledge attained by science which Marx described as 'the general spiritual product of social development'. Science becomes a mighty civilising force because it answers the human need (a need which is always specific to a given historical period, yet which is ultimately the expression of a universal human need) for objective knowledge. It develops, objectivises and places at the disposal of men effective ways of putting objective and accurate results to universal use. This means that from a certain moment onwards a major role is played by science in the unification of historical periods, peoples and individuals into that community known

Science and Civilisation

The concepts `science' and `civilisation' have both a broader and a narrower meaning, and therefore it would he useful to define from the start the precise meaning that will be used in this present article.

Science is a socially organised form of human spiritual activity which arose at a particular stage of historical development and is closely connected with the historical evolution of mankind. Working within the context of society and history, special groups of people are engaged in the continuous production of systematic, logically consistent, theoretically provable, empirically verifiable, new objective knowledge of the laws of nature, society and human thought which is applicable in practice and expressed via specific semiotic means. In the words of Marx, this knowledge as a whole forms 'the general spiritual product of social development'. * Thus our definition emphasises the following specific and essential features of science as a form and mode of human activity: (1) the emergence and development of science in connection with the historical development of society; (2) the socially organised (in modern history, institutionalised) nature of scientific research; (3) the existence of particular social groups and particular types of individuals engaged in scientific work and interacting with each other and other social groups; (4) the uniqueness of the aims, social functions, general conceptual results and methods of scientific work, and the link between

~^^1^^ Marx and fmgels^^1^^ Archives, Vol. II (VII), Moscow, 1933, p. 157 (in Russian).

S18

as mankind, and the transformation of their activity into the general history of civilisation. Conversely, the development of civilisation creates a broad basis for the emergence and growth of science insofar as it 'draws together' and concentrates in particular human activities various universally significant cognitive forms which have been subjected to repeated testing.

The gradual accumulation of these forms leads to a situation in which, at, certain focal points in history that activity whose purpose is to process, summarise and unify universally significant, general conceptual forms into new, integrated bodies of knowledge, emerges as an independent, specialised sphere and undergoes rapid (in comparison with the previous, less dynamic) development. Such a 'focal point' in the development of civilisation is represented by the history of Ancient Greece, beginning approximately from the seventh-fifth centuries B. C. One may assume that prior to that moment civilisation had not given birth to science. However, 'scientific civilisation' (whose history, even when understood in the broadest sense of the term, covers only 2,500 years) was preceded by the lengthy improvement of certain forms typical of pre-scientific civilisation. It should be noted that the 'Greek miracle' that has hitherto been considered so amazing is not a localised historico-cultural phenomenon but the manifest result of accumulated social achievement, the result, direct or indirect, of fruitful intercourse between the ancient Greeks and their European and non-European contemporaries. The summarisation of previously accumulated knowledge, the visits paid by the ancient Greeks to Egypt in quest of knowledge are clear historicl evidence of the 'drawing to-

§ ether' of the wealth of experience gathered during the long istory of human civilisation, including the already existing germinal forms of scientific observation and knowledge. However, the history of Ancient Greece is a convincing illustration of the emergence of a totally new type of knowledge and hitherto unknown forms or spheres of cognitive activity. One of the essential changes that it is customary to note is that in Ancient Greece in the seventh century B. C. there begins to appear a field of specifically cognitive activity distinct not only from material production or politics but also from religious mythology, art and literature. Its prerequisite and result is a particular type of knowledge

with its own specific semiotic systems * and a new orientation in vital activity that is shared by entire groups of people. In his `Theaetetus', Plato speaks of the lack of interest displayed by the `coryphaeus' or genuine philosopher in practical affairs:

.. .The outer form of his only is in the cily: his mind, regarding all these things with disdain as of slight or no worth, soars---to _use tho expression of Pindar---everywhere 'beneath the earth, and again beyond the sky', measuring the land, surveying the heavens, and exploring the whole nature of the world and of every thing in its eternity, but not condescending to anything which is within roach.^^2^^

Plato himself (who, as is well known, attempted not only to theoretically substantiate but also to implement his project for the `perfect' state) is striking proof of the fact that the philosophers and scholars of the ancient world, and of later ages, could not renounce practical affairs, and particularly social problems, even if they so desired. However, this renowned thinker of the ancient world correctly perceived the essence of the new type of activity, which consists in a certain aloofness from that 'which is within reach' in an attempt to explore 'the whole nature of the world and of every thing'.

The emergence of science was directly dependent upon centuries of cultural development as that vital element of civilisation that enabled man to stand back from that 'which is within reach' and `soar' to that which is more distant (for example, from the Earth to the cosmos), that enabled him to engage in activities not directly dictated by basic natural-material vital needs and to subordinate his activity to ideal social principles not imposed by direct `material' requirements. Thus the emergence of science depends first and foremost on the long process of development and the civilising influence of those aspects and spheres of activity that created and put at man's disposal intrinsically, spiritual, yet inevitably `materialised', externalised ( including via symbols) products.

Those Western philosophers of the twentieth century who formulated theories on the development of culture and

~^^1^^ Cf. the article by Vyacheslav Ivanov in the present collection.

~^^2^^ The Dialogues of Plato in four volumes, Vol. Ill, Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1953, p. 273. (My italics---./V. M.)

civilisation often limited their enquiry to that aspect °1 this multiple process that is related to the production of spiritual values. Such is the case, for example, as regards the concepts put forward by Edmund Husserl in his work entitled The Crisis of European Science and Transcendental Phenomenology. Husserl correctly notes that 'the new position of the individual vis-a-vis the surrounding world', which was ushered in by the birth of a totally 'new cultural form' which came to be known as philosophy, played an enormous role in shaping that socio-historical entity referred to as 'European mankind'.

Correctly interpreted, in its original meaning, it [philosophy--- Tr.J means nothing other than universal science, knowledge of the universe, of the unity of all that is,'

writes Husserl, adding that shortly thereafter philos ophy revealed a tendency to break up into separate fields of study dealing with different forms and areas of being, while the unified science---philosophy--- stimulated the development of individual scientific disciplines. However, Husserl exaggerates the historical role of concepts and values and thus he finally arrives at an idealistic interpretation of the development of civilisation.

.. .Mankind appears as a single living entity of individuals and peoples bound together solely by spiritual characteristics, a living entity in the fullness of its types of humanity and culture and in their continuous interpenetration.^^2^^

Speaking of Europe (given loose, non-geographical interpretation), Husserl constantly emphasises the unity of its various nations and cultures, i. e. the unity of civilisation. Husserl's idealism and teleologism are also revealed in the fact that he attributes to 'European mankind' an 'inherent entelechy', a particular 'spiritual telos' which allegedly distinguishes and elevates European civilisation.

However, the actual historical continuity and integrity of the development of Europe as a civilisation cannot be explained by spiritual factors alone. European civilisation emerged and exists thanks to the interaction and renewal of the diverse forms, modes and mechanisms of the whole

of human activity---in a word, the 'medianisms of civilisation'. A whole group of such mechanisms is even more directly related to the birth and development of science. These mechanisms underlie the emergence of special forms of spiritual labour and corresponding categories of individuals with their value-based attitudes. We are speaking here of the fundamental characteristic of human civilisation as a whole, in considering which it would be a mistake to concentrate on spiritual phenomena alone.

One of the most important objective characteristics not only of European but of the whole of human civilisation is the formation over thousands of years of internally differentiated bodies of knowledge which form relatively independent spheres of social activity, yet at the same time are in constant interaction. The long history of differentiated and integrated human labour constitutes the foundation of civilisation, including spiritual culture. However, it should be noted that on this basis, and thanks to it, Ancient Greece made a remarkable leap forward; the differentation of social entities was free from various strict limitations such as the caste principles of regulation characteristic of many countries of the East. The emergence of new spheres of human labour occurred more freely, more spontaneously in Ancient Greece than, for example, in neighbouring Egypt. The relatively `smooth' process of development gave way to dynamic development occurring with hitherto unprecedented speed.

In the space of a few short centuries there arose in Greece a host of new, socially significant forms of activity, and the social content of traditional spheres of human labour underwent considerable renewal. Whether we are looking at the Greek world as a whole, at the life of individual citystates, or at specific fields of labour and creativity, we everywhere find structurally complex, broadly differentiated social entities. In addition, each of these entities interacts with other related entities (one sphere of production activity with many others, one field of social action with other socio-political `subsystems', one area of spiritual labour with others), and together they all compose a unified system of specific, integrated socio-historical development. The emergence of science is directly dependent upon this aspect of objective historical development in which material and spiritual elements are closely interwoven. This makes it

i Husserliana. Edmund Husserl. Gesammelte Werke, Band VI, Martinus Nijhoff, Haag, 1954, S. 321. a Ibid., S. 319.

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possible to formulate a general social law: the emergence of new spheres of spiritual production and social consciousness (in particular science), and also their fundamental historical renewal are closely connected with radical, leaptype transformations in the sphere of differentiated and integrated human labour, with accelerating differentation and changes in the mechanisms of integration. This law confirms the proposition that the emergence and renewal of science depends upon the evolution of the whole of civilisation, and iu particular upon the stages of its truly revolutionary development.

The 'Greek miracle' did not consist only in the objective social renewal referred to above, which served as the prerequisite for the emergence of science, but also in the realisation on the part of the great thinkers of Ancient Greece of the importance of the achievements attained down the centuries and of the rapid changes affecting the difterentation and integration of human labour. Marx had a high opinion of Plato's contribution to the formulation of the problem of the division of labour, pointing out that this great philosopher had idealised the caste system in Egypt, presumably seeing it as the strictest and most clearly defined method of securing these distinctions and divisions of spheres of activity that had been found most useful by society.

The socio-philosophicai concepts of Plato summarise, as Marx points out, the experience of what was, for the thinkers of the time, world civilisation. However, it was primarily the rapid and diversified development of Ancient Greece that Plato had in mind when he raised the question of the significance of the division of labour for society as a whole and for the emergence of science as a specific sphere of activity. In several of his dialogues (in particular ' Republic', `Statesman' and the `Laws') Plato carefully distinguishes and classifies the most important functions which in a well-organised state should be carried out by special groups of people. The philosopher attempts to take account of even the slightest differentalion, with respect to 'all that we produce and acquire'. At the same time he criticises those who 'fall into the . .. error of dividing ... things not according to their parts' and 'jumble together two widely different things'.^^1^^

i The Dialogues of Plato, Great Books of the Western World, Vol. 7, Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., Chicago, 1952, p. 595.

When Plato thus describes with amazing accuracy and precision the spheres of differentiated human labour, h^£ is actually speaking of the activity of the free jiopulat'ioii °f Ancient Greece. The question of slaves, which is recognised as posing 'great difficulty',^] is raised as it were en passant although the whole magnificent structure of the division oi' the Jabour of free citizens, including the newly emerging scientific-cognitive activity, rested upon slavery. This enormous degree of functional differcntalion was possible because, in the first place, the slaves were given tiie simplest, most monotonous, routine, dependent forms oi' labour, and, secondly, there were slaves who, in the words of Plato, ^can help him [the free citizen A'. M.} in what he has to do'.~^^2^^ Thus slavery enabled the free Greek citizens to transfer their activity to more `worthy', that is, more reputable, more interesting labour associated with more subtle cognitive processes.

Though Plato and Aristotle had not discovered and could not discover the fundamental historical significance of the division of their contemporary society into slaves and free ^men> they began to reflect seriously upon the characteristics of the social structure that had arisen on the basis of slavery, on the basis of the class differentation of society. We may justifiably assert that their relevant socio-- philosoI'hical speculations covered the essential characteristics of human civilisation. The genius of Plato perceived in differentation and ordered interaction between various spheres of human activity a social function of permanent significance for historical development.

Special mention must be made of Plato's understanding of I'^^10^^ mechanisms serving to unify those spheres of activity undergoing rapid differentiation, as this has a direct bearing upon the emergence of science. According to Plato, all the separate spheres of activity are connected with some cognitive art.^^3^^ Examining the art of weaving in all its concrete functions and operations (carding, ability to wield the shuttle, etc.), Plato comes to the conclusion that it has a cognitive aspect which brings it into kinship with other forms of human activity such as, for example, the running

' The Dialogues of Plato, in four volumes, Vol. Ill lOfif! p. 344. ~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 346. a The Dialogues of Plato, Vol. 7, p. 581.

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of the state: it is the art of composition and the _art _Of division.ⁱ Among these common cognitive activities developed by various types of `art', Plato includes the '<sup>ai>t</sup> of computation' and the 'art of measurement'. Thus Plato sees various types of separate `arts' as related to each other by the common activity of cognition, which may be found either in the form of certain 'sensible images'~^^2^^ _Or in the `pure' form, as the idea of their basic similarity. According to Plato, dialectic reasoning must perceive ^tno diverse in the universal and the universal in the diverse. In this instance, identifying the differences in the universal means that the social functions and spheres of activity _Of particular groups of individuals must he carefully differentiated, while identifying the universal within the diverse means, according to Plato, identifying that 'cognitive art' _which unites and crowns all types of art, from medicine, shipbuilding, architecture and weaving, to the supreme art of

state management. What does Plato see as constituting mankind's major

achievement uniting all forms of activity, all forms of, `art'? F°<sup>r</sup> Plato, the universal uniting the diverse, true modes of human activity is to be found in a certain contradiction: on the one hand, the laws and prescriptions applying to the appropriate activity are only effective when they are 'copies of the true particulars of action' <sub>an(</sub>j <sub>arc</sub> 'being written down from the lips of those who have knowledge'~^^3^^; <sup>on</sup> the other, those 'who have knowledge' cannot be governed by unchanging, ready-made laws and prescriptions. They must constantly engage in investigation guided by art, 1 i.e. they must seek for the truth,^^5^^ <sub>a</sub> particular sphere'of activity guided by its essential nature. This constituted a brilliant philosophical-theoretical summary of <sup>tlic</sup> living contradiction of the whole of human civilisation. The search by particular groups of people to discover general principles and laws 'reflecting the essence of things', the creation of externalised forms which render these principles and laws available for truly universal application, the constant work to change such `paradigms' _Of activity

^anfl cognition, tlic .specialisation and inlerpenetration ^{of oacjl} type of `K'livity all constitute (hose specific characteristics of human civilisation without which science could not emerge. The day of science `dawns' when, on i\_lc basis of various auxiliary cognitive arts there emerges a relatively independent sphere of predominantly cognitive activity (for example, the specialised `arts' of measurement and computation which had developed and already received a measure <sub>O</sub>f generalisation i<sub>n</sub> Ancient Egypt, gave rise in Ancient Greece to mathematics as the most striking prototype of theoretical ^science). It is interesting that in his dialogue `Statesman', pl_ato also ponders deeply upon the transitional stage and supplies a vivid description that is worthy of being viewed as a piece of documentary history.

Plato ^uscs the concept `science' with two basic meanings. He uses this term to summarise knowledge of various kinds---for example, knowledge relating to music or in any way connected with manual dexterity; he speaks of 'the art of speech and persuasion', of that `art' which advises on war and rjeace. However, these arts (sciences) are already hierarchised; the science of politics (and the corresponding 'political art') i_s, according to Plato, higher than all particular_t and secondary `sciences' connected with social life, as it 'truly weaves them all into one'. * Hence for Plato the dearee of universality and practicality of the cognitive element <sub>O</sub>f respective spheres of activity determines their position in the hierarchy: first comes directly material activity, where cognition is connected primarily with material objects and has a practical purpose; then come the `arts', which introduce into the corresponding activity more universal knowledge (some of these arts are also connected with the need to issue instructions and to watch over the execution _Of work).^^2^^ Above all, however---for example, above the activity of specialists in the sphere of the art of computation, whose purpose is to comprehend differences in numbers---Plato values the role of the judge of that which is cognised. This is `science' in its second, most specific and, for Plato, highest meaning, engaged in for the sake of knowledge itself, for mastery of `Being' itself. In other words, Plato places at the summit of his hierarchy

~^^1^^ The Dialogues of Plato, Vol. 7, p. 605. ~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 581.

~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 593.

~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 595. ^s Ibid., p. 602. * Ibid.

s Ibid.

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of human knowledge `pure' cognitive art not directly ^con~ cerned with material activity or concrete practical needs but rather the equivalent of what was then theoretical science.^J

Of particular interest in Plato's philosophy is his attempt to `work' with both concepts of science, as a result of which he reveals with truly genial insight the process whereby the cognitive `arts' conditioned by practice are 'drawn inlo the `pure' activity of cognition, into theoretical science, which already constitutes the prototype of modern objective science. Conversely, the influence of emergent science on the totality of human activity is also clearly revealed, mediated through the interrelated cognitive efforts of men in search of the universal rules, principles and regulators ot human activity. The other aspects of Plato's philosophy--- the theory of ideas, the theory of the relationship between ideas and material objects, of the role of numbers, not to mention his social Utopia---are fully in accord with the reasoning of the great Greek philosopher as discussed above. The summit of Platonic thought is reached in his ethical philosophy, which emphasises the absolute value of the ideas of Good, Truth and Beauty and justifies the ideal of the individual who prefers these values to any transitory

worldly blessings.

The significance of Plato lies in the fact that he was the first to direct his attention to the following interrelated social processes important to civilisation: (1) the division of labour and widespread differentation and integration °' various types of human activity; (2) the emergence _and subsequent generalisation of 'cognitive arts'---both those, which belong to one type or one group of related types °' activity, and those which have their application in many and different spheres of labour; (3) the development over many centuries of daily practice of methods of ' externalising' ^or `materialising' in physical and spiritual labour, ^and also of giving universal application to or `abstracting' it_s material and ideal---symbolic---products; (4) the emergence and subsequent development of specialised forms of activity

arid special social groups who occupy themselves exclusively with cognitive functions.

The above by no means constitutes an exhaustive list of ^a'l the trends in the development of civilisation which directly stimulate the birth of science, nor even of all those processes studied by Plato in this regard. However, these are without any doubt among the most important. Nor is it surprising that revolutionary leaps in the subsequent development of science were linked with historical changes affecting the forms of civilisation listed above.

The scientific revolution of the sixteenth-seventeenth cenInrics _{was a}i_so the result of radical changes in the system of differentiation and integration of social labour. The rise of manufacture and then machine production led to a reslructuring _Of the division of labour. The social changes that led to a new leap in the development of civilisation consisted essentially in the creation of more effective instruments of material and spiritual labour, the introduction of new labour practices and new methods of socially organising labour, which also meant the elimination of the routine forms of work and life, of the regulations and limitations, norms and values that had arisen during the feudal epoch.

From among the numerous problems concerning the link between this turning point in the development of civilisation and the emergence of a new science we will again concentrate on the question of the changes---in comparison with the Middle Ages---in the forms of knowledge dominant throughout all the spheres of divided labour. The feudal town-dweller was usually a craftsman, handicrafts being the labour engaged in by the free man. Those who tend to consider Plato's attempt to formulate rigid prescriptions for all forms and varieties of human activity as a sign that he had fallen into his `dotage' should note the prophetic power of the Platonic ideal: the free artisans of the Middle Ages relied upon strict prescriptions which expressed the essence and the specific nature of the respective types of labour, and were guided by 'art itself, i.e. by elusive ' secrets' which had, in fact, elevated their subtle craft to the level of art. The particular secrets of a specific craft were the `property' of the master and his apprentices, and the more general instructions were the property of the guild. As for the forms of knowledge, this represented what one might call the victory of the specific and individual over

1 For an analysis of Plato's understanding of science i_n this^econd sense, and particularly with reference to mathematics, see: ra.uaeu KO ⁿ- H- 9nojiiounn noiiHTiifi irayKH. M., TTayita, 1980, c. 187-190 (P. P. Gaidenko, The Evolution, of the. Cancuptoj Science, Nauka, Moscow, 1980, pp. 187-190).

Hie universal. The relative isolation of the artisan `arts' of the town, the subsistence economy of feudal estates, and the weakness and sporadic nature of the links between various spheres of the social whole were the basis in terms of civilisation of the dominance of unique, specific knowledge over the universal. Of course, the movement towards the universal continued, but mainly outside the field of science.

A far more important role was played by those social institutions, ideological forms and types of activity which carried out integrating social functions. The Church and religion, literature, art and philosophy interacted, with religious forms pre-eminent, and fulfilled the social functions necessary for the ideological-moral unification of the medieval world. Precise, generalised knowledge of the natural world did not enjoy independent status and social prestige in the Middle Ages. The sphere of activity known as `science' or `philosophy' comprised very little experimentally tested objective knowledge but consisted for the most part of speculative-deductive reasoning (analytical a priori reasoning, to use the terminology of Kant). The link between this deductive reasoning and technical-inventive activity was rather limited. As a result, practical technical activity in the Middle Ages was placed very low down on the hierarchical ladder of human knowledge and activity.

However, when the leading minds of the modern age began to review the previous course of development, they laid the emphasis not on the formerly highly respected process of theoretical deduction, but on the practical benefits of the activity of engineers and inventors and those scholars who contributed to the experimental exploration of the physical world. Francis Bacon pointed to

Printing, ('•impowder, and the Noodle. For those three have changed the face and state of things in all the world: the first, in loiters, the second, in war, the third, in navigation. And from them have followed changes innumerable.. . '

This is already the view of a philosopher of the new age directed towards dynamic social change. Whereas the ' practical art' of the `mechanic'(engineer, builder, architect, etc.)

and mechanics as a theoretical science had previously developed separately, and had even been antagonistic, the philosophers and scholars of the seventeenth century directed their attention towards the achievements and potential for change offered by mechanical inventions and the mechanical sciences, and indeed by all those types of human labour which according to Descartes, contain order, system, and therefore serve to develop the natural intelligence of man. It is particularly important to note that the philosophers and theoretical scholars of the seventeenth century, in thus acclaiming the renewal of the 'mechanical art' and the improved manufacture and artisan production of their age, converted them into a kind of model of what was, in their eyes, the most important and most promising type of human activity.

It is not surprising that the thinkers of the seventeenth century were so sympathetic towards engineers and inventors. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had seen an unprecedented growth in the demand for their specialised activity as a result of the expansion of towns and cities, the development of a complex urban economy, increasing manufacture, the appearance of machine production, and I he expansion of navigation, demanding the constant improvement of ships, instruments, port facilities, etc. Of no less importance were the changes taking place, as Bacon expresses it, 'in letters' as a result of the invention of the printing press. This meant that, from the late Middle Ages onwards, it became possible to spread technical principles and knowledge to the most diverse spheres of human life (for example, the principle of the water wheel was used during the pro-industrial manufacture in many branches of labour in order to provide motor power).

During the seventeenth century, an increasing number of those engaged in practical mechanics started to gravitate towards science, and as science was itself shifting more towards practical mechanics, practical and theoretical mechanics came more and more frequently into contact. Gradually this (li'lenni/ietl the nature of practical mechanics and science and thus shaped the whole of this new stage in the development of civilisation.

In summarising what has just been said it is possible to single out the following civilising social processes essential lo the modern scientific revolution: (1) a change in the

~^^1^^ Francis Bacon, The Noruin Organon, or a True Guide to the Interpretation of Nature, Oxford, at tho University Press, 1885, p. 110.

meaning, social significance and prestige of a number of spheres of `fruitful' practical activity; (2) a consequent expansion of the social need for objective knowledge, for principles already proven by experiment and capable of repeated and diverse application; (3) the establishment of more stable, flexible, dynamic links between technology and science.

The example examined above is but one illustration of the fact that for science the many centuries of the development, of civilisation take the form of a historical `challenge': an unprecedented social need for objective knowledge about nature, society and man, knowledge born of and tester! by practical experience. However, it would be a mistake to assume that the practical need for such knowledge was satisfied only, or primarily, by science. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries production as such was very rarely based directly upon scientific data developed specially for this sphere of activity. There wore some exceptions, but they were relatively few.ⁱ Scientific discovery and invention was far more frequently used for military purposes, for navigation and mining (gunpowder, the compass and the printing press---three major inventions -had only a marginal effect upon production). Therefore it would be more accurate to say that social practice as a whole (and not just material-production activity) created the need for objective, relatively accurate, experimentally verified knowledge, and that for a long time this need was satisfied in practice not only by, and not mainly by science but by the rapid consolidation, improvement and wide application of the tried and tested results of human experience, by that which one may properly call 'practical truths'.

However, the building of the bridge between 'practical truths' and 'scientific truths' was of great importance. With the development of machine production, the role of science in the development of the instruments of labour constantly grew. Of equal importance is the fact that from the very beginning modern science assumed the responsibility of satisfying the practical need for objective and verified knowledge. It not only accumulated a store of scientific

knowledge that was exploited by industrial production in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but also created i\ new, forward-looking social model for scientific penetration into every sphere of practical life, thus anticipating the future development of civilisation. Modem science, accepting the challenge put before it by civilisation, replied with an unprecedented expansion of scientific investigation, accompanied by a renewal of the principles and norms of scientific work, the emergence of new institutionalised forms of its social organisation, and a new differentiation of labour within science itself. Alongside these objective (`practical') processes a philosophical theory of scientific cognition was also forming which investigated not only the epislomological, logical-methodological problems, but also (though this is often overlooked) the social and communication problems of the new science. One may justifiably say that the philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, like Plato and Aristotle before them, adopted a broad approach lo the new science, seeing it in its connection and interrelationship with such objective factors of human civilisation as practical needs, the development of a new technology, the need to eliminate dogmatism and ritualism and the other social limitations of the preceding age, and in connection with the principles of freedom and equality, the education of the new man, etc. Once again there appeared plans for (lie most `rational', the most `perfect' state system in which, as in New Atlantis by Bacon, the key social role is accorded to the new science and the scientific community, thus anticipating much of the further development of civilisation. TTowevcr, the scholars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries could not anticipate the profound social contradictions that would arise during the capitalist stage of that development. These became manifest in the middle of the nineteenth century. In his comprehensive analysis of the transition from prc-machine manufacture to machine product ion, Mar\ revealed these contradictions, among which the following are directly related to the matter under discussion.

(1) Machine production was born thanks mainly to individual skill, 'the muscular development, the keenness of sight, and the cunning of hand' of the craftsmen, who down the centuries had improved mastery of mechanical tools, and also to the fact that the ago of pro-industrial

~^^1^^ For example, the solution by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century scholars of certain problems in the field of physics and mathematics with a view to improving the mill wheel.

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manufacture prepared 'a considerable number of .skilled mechanical workmen', * and tested the initial forms of direct collective labour. In other words, the new leap in the development of civilisation was prepared by many centuries of development in the division and integration of human labour.

(2) On the basis of a number of concrete examples, Marx gives a detailed account of the chain of interaction in production which finally leads to the restructuring of the whole material-technical base of civilisation. In other words, Marx discloses a new way of integrating diverse types of labour in which the decisive rolo is played by general, objective knowledge externalised in machines; the penetration of machines and mechanical principles into various types of labour will also mean that production and objective knowledge are woven together. Thus, Marx points out, the whole of the production organism will become `objective'.

(3) In Chapter XV of Capital, entitled 'Machinery and Modern Industry', Marx refers to the Cartesian definition of animals as simple machines, and to the belief held by both Bacon and Descartes that alterations in the mode of production and the practical subjugation of Nature by Man result from altered methods of thought.~^^2^^ And, indeed, this new change in the 'intellectual technology' that dominates production and is the result of the preceding stages of historical development, itself becomes at a given moment a process that revolutionises the very basis of the development of civilisation.

(4) The progressive process of increasing the productivity of social labour and socialising production takes place under capitalism in such a contradictory manner that it results in the separation of the

intellectual powers of production from tlie manual labour. . . The special skill of each individual insignificant factory operative vanishes as an infinitesimal quantity before tbe science, the gigantic physical forces, and the mass of labour' that are embodied in the factory mechanism...^^3^^

The most complex, `sophisticated' methods of 'intellectual technology' are externalised in the machine (thus making

it possible to constantly improve machines through science and inventiveness), while the simplest, mechanical, monotonous operations are left to the live labour of workers. The simplification and levelling of labour operations, their rapid adaptation lo the universal, results in hitherto unparalleled progress in the technology and organisation of production. However, there simultaneously emerges a tendency to level various types of work and the individual abilities of the workers--i.e. there emerges a profound social contradiction which is further aggravated by the fact that externalised, general scientific knowledge, the most sophisticated intellectual technology, together with fixed capital, appears to be in the control of tbe capitalist.

The theoretical analysis provided by Marx makes it possihle to understand the link between the processes of differcntation and integration in the sphere of aggregate human labour, these creating tbe basis for a new leap forward in the development of civilisation in the twentieth century, and the accelerated development of science. It is not possible to provide in this one article a detailed account of the complex and multifaceted links between these two, and therefore we will look only at those changes which affect the integrating role of scientific cognition in human activity, a role for which it had been prepared by the preceding course of development of civilisation.

On the example of the most developed branches of modern production it is possible to show that, thanks to the development of civilisation down the centuries, there has been a change in the nature of the knowledge that mediates the operation of the basic elements of the production process. This change consists in the following: alongside the ' practical truths', i.e. objective knowledge accumulated during the spontaneous and lengthy process of historical development, more consciously and rapidly externalised scientific knowledge penetrates into production and other spheres of activity. Today the objects of production activity, and also (he instruments of labour used to produce, preserve and transport them, are for the most part natural products that have already undergone considerable modification during the previous stages of human activity.

It is important to note that in producing tbe objects and instruments of labour necessary for many types of modern production processes, scientific knowledge is conscious-

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. T, p. 361. ~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 368. 3Ibid., p. 399.

ly and dynamically externalised. In the course of their transformation into the material basis of subsequent production processes, these objects and instruments of labour must be yet again united with intellectual technology, which, in the most advanced modern production processes, is nothing more than the direct result of scientific research specially developed to meet the needs of a particular branch of production. Inasmuch as the basis of production activity is today increasingly composed of scientific knowledge that is cither externalised or presented in the form of the ' intellectual technology' of production, it is possible to speak of the new differentiating and integrating role of scientific knowledge in every branch of divided human labour.

An even more impressive historical change is the penetration of scientific knowledge into the definition and achievement of the aims of production activity, into the organisation of live labour and the exchange of activity. There is a growing need for the scientific prognosis and regulation of the purpose-orientated aspects of the production process and for special comprehensive programmes uniting together different branches of production. All of this was clearly reflected in the documents of the 26th Congress of the GPSU.

All these apparently familiar processes demand that we attempt to understand the specifics of this new stage in the development of civilisation in order to more fully and realistically appreciate the consequences of this radical restructuring of essentially every sphere of human activity under the influence of science, and the restructuring of science itself under the influence of this new `challenge' by civilisation.

There are clearly grounds for considering that the present period constitutes a turning point, with mankind having only just begun to adapt itself to the new trends of civilisation. At every stage the development of society was determined by inner contradictions, and today those contradictions must he understood and eliminated if mankind is to progress to a new stage of civilisation.

One of the problems springs from the fact that the technological revolution, as a process occurring at the level of civilisation as a whole (a civilisation one might even qualify as `scientific'), is a comparatively recent phenomenon, and one that is taking place with unprecedented speed. How-

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Over, not every sphere of activity is equally affected. The crucial factor here is that the penetration of science into the production process does not necessarily lead directly, automatically, to the enrichment of the creative nature of labour. That the content and nature of the production process in the modern age make increasing demands upon the direct producer in terms of qualifications, knowledge and initiative cannot be disputed (the twentieth century has seen an unparalleled increase in the educational level of mankind, and this can be undoubtedly considered as one of the progressive aspects of the development of modern civilisation). However, there still exists a discrepancy between the complexity, the considerable `density' of the new scientific knowledge externalised in material means and intellectual technology, and the partial, even occasionally prescriptive assimilation of this knowledge in the direct production process. The essential and permanent advantage of civilisation is that it makes it possible to reduce, simplify and 'smooth the path' of any creative search, and to reduce the results to easily applied `paradigms'. However, in the context of the scientific and technological revolution this contradiction acquires new features. From both the objective and subjective viewpoint it constitutes a barrier to the further development of civilisation. A major and growing problem facing contemporary society is that as science-based, intellectual technology penetrates into various branches of human activity, there is increasing dissatisfaction with the remaining non-creative (in modern terms) aspects of the labour process. This is a new phenomenon whose roots lie in the development of civilisation and science, and the broad influence of the latter upon society. The second problem, which now affects the very fate of human civilisation, is that the rapid development of modern science poses with particular force the question of the ways in which scientific achievements are used. This question is not as such a new one for civilisation. However, the consequences today of using scientific knowledge for military purposes defy in their scale and danger any comparison with the situation in previous centuries. Despite the fact that this would seem to be apparent, there are still not a few individuals and social groups who continue to act according to principles and norms that do not correspond to the present stage in the development of civilisation. They

hold the unrealistic belief that it is possible to `forbid' or `block' certain areas oi' scientific investigation. Others believe that the consequences of the militarisation of science can be directed exclusively against the `enemy', which is equally unrealistic. From the theory presented above, which establishes the link between science and civilisation, it follows that civilisation has now reached a stage in history at which mankind as a whole must learn to work together to control science and the global problems lhat it brings in its wake. Science has generated forms and products of activity such that their successful development depends upon conscious human mastery of the laws and mechanisms of civilisation. In short, wo must seek the optimal ways and forms, principles and norms that will ensure the peaceful development of mankind, preserve the noblest achievements of human civilisation, including science, and protect life on Earth.

Lidiya Novikova, Stanislav Zavadsky

The Arts and Civilisation

The problem of the arts and civilisation was raised by bourgeois aesthetic philosophy. Jean Jacques Rousseau was the lirst to note the contradiction between art and social progress. Science, literature and art simply deck out in flowers the iron chains of civilisation by which man is bound, and thus compel him to love his bondage. Art and science replace and devalue reality with its appearance, encourage the reckless expenditure of social wealth and valuable time on ostentatious luxury and serve as examples of useless and dissolute behaviour to be imitated at the behest of 'good taste'. By subordinating the taste of the community to `convention', art stifles individual opinion and turns people into members of a herd that is called `society'. The artist, even though he be a genius, is obliged to adapt himself to the taste of this herd, reducing his genius to the level of mediocre `fashionable' creations. This situation breeds an entire class of mediocre writers and untaleuted scholars who have made a profession of producing works acceptable to `society' and lacking any rational meaning.

In coming to such a conclusion, Rousseau could not but raise the question of the cause of such abuse, and it was his answer to this second question rather than his description of the contradictions in the spiritual development of society that brought him fame as a philosopher. The cause lay in fatal inequality. `Society' can wallow in idleness and empty talk, beautify the emptiness of its existence with art and discuss meaningless abstractions only because the farm labourer supplies it with the necessary means of existence and pays for its luxury with his ceaseless labour and hunger.

Rousseau is far from preaching a return to barbarism. lialher he is calling for an end to inequality in the distribution of spiritual goods, which should be used lor the benefit of society as a whole. This can be achieved by public control, which Rousseau, in the spirit of his times, links to enlightened monarchy and its rational institutions. Later, \\\Le Control social, he corrects this error and puts forward tlio idea of the sovereignty of the people, which is to include the control of spiritual production. Only rational control by the people can eliminate the curse of alienation from the socialised forms of the spiritual wealth of society. The one deficiency in Rousseau's thinking, and one that was shared by all the representatives of enlightened thought, was his failure to perceive that even the most rational control must be secured by socio-economic means.

If Rousseau raised the problem of art and civilisation, Spengler, in his work The Decline of the West, explored it in all its aspects. Although almost all of its individual propositions and conclusions have now been refuted, this work still retains its significance as a paradigm, albeit negative. According to Spengler, art is the basic symbol of culture, the shaper of its soul. It emerges when the _S0ul of the ethnos overcomes unconsciousness and finds itself face to face with a vast and alien world. This meeting calls forth two emotions: world nostalgia and fear before the created. These two feelings then serve as the basic impulses in the development of two basic forms of art: imitation of the visible world, as represented by various forms of realism, and the attempt to subordinate it by incantation, to evade the inevitable by the use of magic. This second form of artistic consciousness is expressed in ornamental art, in stylisation and symbolism, and it is precisely this form that has given birth to great artistic styles. Imitation always loses in its attempt to rival nature, and also permits subjective arbitrariness. However, as a result of refusing to imitate reality, art becomes less accessible, esoteric, comprehensible only to those initiated into the secrets of creativity.

Every culture inevitably gives rise to its own inalienable symbol, which is revealed in an entire system of images, concepts and ideas which have moaning only in relation to the whole. The direct expression of this cultural whole, and therefore the basic phenomenon of any culture is style.

240 '

Style, represented by art, binds together all the elements °f a given culture, correlates them and simultaneously serves to separate off one culture from another by turning each into a closed system with its own internal values. Spengler denies the existence of general laws governing the development of art and, therefore, the possibility of interaction, mutual understanding and integration. There can only be a mixing of styles resulting in hybrid 'impure forms of culture'.

Wh,at '^las Tolstoy, who from his innermost self rejects the entire Western world of ideas as something alien, in common with t_ne Middle Ages, with Dante or Luther; what has a Japanese _m common with Parsifal and Zarathustra or a Hindu with Sophocles? >

asks Spengler rhetorically. No culture can be understood in terms of another culture, nor is culture susceptible to objective, scientific explanation. The key to the understanding of culture must be sought in art, and art can be understood only by immersing oneself in it.

The development of art within the limits of one style is evidence of the development of that culture itself from its inception to its florescence and maturity, and then to its equally inevitable decline, which begins with the age of civilisation. The collapse of style is a sign that a given culture is doomed. Western culture, defined by Spengler as Taustian', i.e. bourgeois, has now entered this final stage at which the living, changing forms of culture become lifeless and formalised. The importance once accorded to art is now transferred to `business' and to `calculation'. Art retains the right to exist only insofar as it serves `business'. However, in thus becoming a `useful', mass phenomenon, art loses its original character, ceases to be art and becomes artificial.

This period also has its greatness, but it consists of cold, practical activity, not spiritual culture. Great art perishes in the icy waters of calculation, and it is not in our powers to resurrect it. This is without doubt the age of decline. However, argues Spengler, it may continue for a long period

~^^1^^ Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes. Erster Band. Gestalt und Wirklichkeit, C. H. Becksche Verlagsbuchhandlune Oscar Beck, Miinchen, 1924, S. 31.

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IL

of time if we recognise our i'ale and resign ourselves to it. Spengler sees the purpose and message of his hook as consisting in its prescription lor delaying the death of bourgeois civilisation, which may prolong its existence at the cost of the destruction oi' culture. The responsibility for such a solution is removed from the artists and transferred to fate alone. We, wrote Spengler in 1920, did not choose this age, and it can cause no harm that the strong and realisticallyminded new generation recognises in time the illusory nature of the idealist aspirations of their fathers and of the hopes for a new renaissance. Let it abandon idealist illusions, and concern itself with practical affairs, symbolised in the Taustian' culture by the conquest of Lebensraum. We now know this postponement of the fate of Western bourgeois civilisation at the cost of the destruction of culture assumed real and ultimate form as fascism.

Spengler was the first to 'sense that culture was growing numb', to use the colourful expression of the Soviet writer and critic Yuri Tynyanov.ⁱ However, his diagnosis and, more importantly, his recommendations for, if not preventing, at least delaying the end are proof that it is impossible to explain the cause of the crisis of bourgeois culture on the basis of that culture as such. The rational subject is inclined to describe the situation in which he finds himself as universal, and Spengler fell victim to this aberration. The crisis of bourgeois civilisation, which made itself sharply felt after the First World War, its hostility to culture, and in particular to art, were absolutised by Spengler and converted into the essential basis of the historical process and the fate of art at the stage of civilisation.

As regards the description and explanation of culture, Spengler is a firm supporter of 'pure historism'. However, having imposed upon the history of culture the morphological structure of the life cycle by analogy with living organisms, Spengler, in effect, abolishes the idea of development and replaces it with that of fate. Contemporary Western European Tauslian' (bourgeois) culture is passing

through iho _same stages of development as the Snmer, ^An' cient Greek and Ancient Roman and Arab cultures, and is approaching its final hour. On this basis Spengler resorts to a comparison of cultures that are considered `equivalent' though existing at different times, and declares them to be of equal value, a principle that constitutes in effect cultural relativism.^l

AH subsequent exploration of this problem (Toynbee, Sorokin, Mumford, Suzuki, inter alia) remains within the confines of the paradigm drawn up by Spengler and may be viewed as comments taking up or reconsidering individual relationships within it. This means that later concepts were ⁿ°t- in any way more scientific. They simply made the initial paradigm more and more intricate until it became obvious that its very basis needed re-examination, i.e. that the paradigm itself had to be reconsidered.

The materialist explanation of history makes it possible to understand and explain both the unity of the culturohistorical process---ultimately determined by the development of social production---and the immanent specifics of its individual spheres, which are cumulative and relatively independent, and thus to identify the methods and forms of their social organisations within a given civilisation as determined by the unique and unrepeatable combination of the material conditions of the life of society, the nature and level of its economic development, and its socio-- political organisation and ethno-cultural traditions as shaped by its history.

Proceeding on this basis, art can be understood as a phenomenon of culture subject to the general laws governing culture and to its own specific laws, and also as a social institution. Moreover, these two views do not simply exist side by side but have a complex dialectic relationship which gives rise to contradictions within the development of art and to their resolution. The task of socio-cultural analysis is to disclose the dialectic contradictions of art within society at the various stages of social development and to define the conditions and methods of overcoming these contradictions.

By the very fact of its emergence and subsequent development, art is connected with a particular type of civili-

i

„„ 10. H. lloaTHKa. HcTopnH JiHTepaiypu. KHHO. M., Hay-

Ka, 1977, c. 125 (Yu. N. Tynyanov, Poetics. The History of Literature. Cinema, Nauka, Moscow, 1977, p. 125).

Cf. the article by Eduard Markarian in the present collection.

16*

Sation. In historical terms, art emerges within the sphere of the culture-building activity of society as a method of its self-cognition and self-definition at the stage of civilisation. At this stage, society is increasingly interested in finding specific, including fairly sophisticated, methods of solving class and other, but nonetheless class-based, contradictions. On the basis of an already invalidated syncretic mythology, art emerges in response to this need as a highly specialised form assisting the solution of social contradictions. Its imaginative-poetic system and organisational structure _are moulded and its functions determined at the Icvel _Of the new requirements and tasks set before it by civilisation. It is precisely civilisation which, on the basis of the socialisaton and redistribution of the surplus product among the various spheres of culture, breathes life into art and directs and regulates its development.

The new position occupied by art at the stage of civilisation is revealed in the fact that it loses its direct culture-building functions and is for the first time seen as an activity whose development is regulated by the social institutions of a given civilisation, which reflect the cultural achievements and requirements of various social strata. Art is told to help find a solution to social conflicts by supplying spiritual methods that do not go beyond the functions of existing socio-cultural structures. Hence the creative functions of art are restricted by the dominant characteristics of the given civilisation and its situational possibilities. Thus art, from the moment of its emergence, comes under the socio-economic control and ideological influence of the state, and later the Church, as representatives of the given civilisation. Its subsequent development is achieved at the price of the alienation from artistic life of the mass of the population, who are engaged in the sphere of material production, with the result that the historical development of politics, art, science, etc. 'occurs in the higher spheres above them'.^^4^^ This alienation is not, it is true, absolute. There exist or emerge channels of communication between professional and folk art, the latter remaining the constant source of artistic development, and the fate of both depends to a large degree upon the nature of this link

between them and the relationship of professional art to this source. ⁱ

Art, however, can only be functional if it preserves a certain autonomy, and this is assisted to some extent by civilisation itself, though often this is in contradiction with its own direct demands on art. On the basis of the division of labour within art, relatively stable elements are formed which convert it into a highly specialised form of culturebuilding activity with its own immanent mechanisms of self-regulation and autonomous outlets into the sphere of social relations. However, the rationality of this activity is evaluated differently according to the specific nature of the socio-class relations and cultural traditions of society, which is obliged to take into account the laws governing art insofar as it desires to use art in the interests of its own stability. It is this that generates the negative aspect of the institutionalisation of art, which reveals itself in a tendency to render art purely functional and to thus limit the culture-building potential of this type of activity. Consequently art, as 'something higher in itself, as a law unto itself'^^2^^ can exist mainly in socially peripheral forms or, in the terminology of Marx, as free spiritual production. Nonetheless, the existence within art of a system of relatively stable elements and functions both at the level of its peripheral existence and in its institutionalised forms, together with its self-reproduction during the process of historical development, enable us to speak of art as an essential component of culture in any civilisation.

The above naturally leads to the following question: are there sufficient grounds for inferring or constructing an invariable diachronic model of art applicable to all types of civilisation and reproducing itself at all the stages of civilisation, or at least over sufficiently long periods of its development (in which case we must indicate its limits)? If not, then Spengler is right, , in which case we must seek the unique model (protophenomenon) of art for each local civilisation?

Everyday consciousness, based on experience and common sense, will give a positive answer to this question. However,

JI. H. MeTOflOJIOrMieCKHe BOlIpOCU (JlOJIBKJIOpHCTHKH.

Jf-> HayKa, 1976 (L. I. Yemelyanov, Methodological Problems ofpolklorism, Nauka, Leningrad, 1976). * Marx. Grundrlsse..., S. 313.

i Karl Marx, Grundrlsse der Krilik der politischen dkonomie, S. 484.

not only everyday consciousness will give such an answer. The concept `art' is widely used as an invariant by modern art historians, for only thus is it possible to compare methods of research, historical analogies and evaluations; only thus, in the final analysis, can there exist such a branch of knowledge as the general history of art.

The great works of art of the nineteenth century give us a picture of the world 'as co-existent with reality'. In our opinion this definition by the Soviet art critic Mikhail Bakhtin succeeds in grasping the essence, the invariable core of art.^^1^^ Moreover, this concept is not new in aesthetics. Aesthetic philosophy constantly hovered in the vicinity of, and has more than once drawn very close to, such an understanding of the essence of art, as is shown by mimesis or the theory of art as the shadow of reality, a theory widespread during the early, pre-scientific stages of the development of aesthetic thought. In medieval poetics art was frequently described as the mirror of reality reflecting its spiritual essence, and this idea was taken up and given a new interpretation by the artists and thinkers of the Renaissance. The effectiveness of this view is proved by the fact that contemporary artists and thinkers also have frequent recourse to it. In his analysis of Tolstoy's work, Lenin also made use of the image of art as a mirror.~^^2^^ The idea of art as a special world co-existent with reality was developed by Schiller into a well-articulated theory of aesthetic education. The aesthetic impulse constructs between the dreadful kingdom of forces and the holy kingdom of law a third kingdom of play and appearance in which can be realised the ideals of freedom not achieved in the real world. Thus art as the kingdom of freedom opposes reality while coexisting with it. The metaphorical nature of such definitions means that they must be interpreted within an accepted philosophical-aesthetic system, and thus on the basis of what is, in our opinion, the rational `core' there arise the numerous contradictory concepts of art to be found in history and modern aesthetic thought. For Plato, the comparison of art with a shadow justifies the denial or dcprc-

ciation of its cognitive and not only cognitive value, while for the Chinese classical artist Huang Yue (eighteenth century), whose work has been researched by the Soviet Sinologist V. M. Alekseyev, the shadow serves as a means of understanding the world and penetrating into its most secret mysteries, hidden from direct observation, as a means of penetrating the too. '

The co-existent world of art, whether it assumes the form of stylised or symbolic images, is always relevant to reality and is, to a certain degree, its isomorph. When it ceases to be so, it loses its co-existence, i.e. its very raison d'etre, as it would if it became fully identical with reality. In the first instance it becomes transcendental, religious, while in the second it fuses with the practical world of men and becomes utilitarian.

As distinct from scientific cognition, which strives to construct the most accurate possible model of objective reality and has no independent significance apart from that reality, as distinct from the everyday, spiritual-practical cognition of the world in which the ideal co-exists in indissoluble union with the real and is represented in numerous autonomous living worlds, art creates a special world coexisting with reality but which retains its independent significance as a posited image of reality, its ideal consummation. However, there is no impenetrable barrier between these two worlds, as suggested by Schiller or some of the present-day proponents of art as the 'new reality'. They are linked by the aesthetic relationship of the artistic subject (the artist and the viewer), which constitutes a sort of partnership. Moreover, the co-existent world of art has original value only in this aesthetic relationship. The participation of the artist differs from the objective stance adopted by the theoretician. It permits him to constantly traverse the border between the world of reality and its co-existent world, to penetrate the inner world of `another' and to act out his unrealised potential or the alternatives rejected by him in his practical life, to represent their probable, or oven improbable actualisation and to evaluate them by comparison with what has actually happened. This change

~^^1^^ EaxTHH M. M. ScreTHKa cjioBecHoro TBopiecTBa. M., HcKyccxBo,

1979, c. 163 (M. M. Bakhtin, The Aesthetics of Literary Creativity, Iskusstvo, Moscow, 1979, p. 163).

, . ,

* Cf. Lenin, 'Leo Tolstoy as the Mirror of the Russian Revolution , Collected Works, Vol. 15, 1977, pp. 202-209.

~^^1^^ AjienceeeB. M. KHTaiiCKaH JiHTepaiypa. M36paHHue Tpyflu. M.,

HayKa, 1978, C. 200---213 (V. M. Alekseyev. Chinese Literature. Selected Essays, Nauka, Moscow. 1973, pp. 200-213).

of position, this transition from the real to the co-existent world, this transposition, may take place any number of times.

The awareness of free transition from the real to the coexistent world, the element of play that always accompanies such a transition when it is conscious, and also the limitless possibility of extending the co-existent world either within the bounds of probable or beyond, gives the subject of artistic activity (the artist or the viewer) a feeling of satisfaction, which Kant described as satisfaction from the game between reason and imagination. 'Serious* art may conceal this game, but it is revealed in the play of the actor (in which Diderot was the first to detect the transposition of the artist, which he denned as a paradox), and in the playful world of the fairy-tale. De la Mare, who researched the works of Lewis Carroll, believes one of the reasons for the eternal fascination of his immortal Alice to be the amazingly smooth transitions, their unconstrained inconsequence. However, while deviating from the logic of the real world and crossing into the non-sensical Looking Glass world, the author and his young heroine never totally lose sight of the fact that this is the co-existent world, similar to the world of dreams and games, because one may freely enter and leave. And, indeed, this amazing world is strangely credible, like a dream.

What relation any such region of the world of dreams has to the world of our actual, who can say?---declares tho author.--- Our modern oneiromantics have their science, but the love of the Alices [i.e. those who have an intimate aesthetic relationship with this co-existent world---L. N., S. Z.J, have no need of it.^^1^^

While emphasising the creative activity of the artist, we must not forget that it is determined by the real world, at both the epistemological and socio-cultural level. The artist has at his disposal already existing conceptual-- aesthetic material (mythology, perhaps, or an already existing tradition), and the corresponding manner of thinking or looking at the world. As an artist, he is immediately immersed into the co-existing world of art. However, he is

not only an artist but also a practical man who lives and acts in the real world, and this position is as important as the first, although the two would seem to be opposed. Writing on this subject, Bakhtin, for example, has the following to say about literature:

One has to contend with old and nol-so-old literary forms, to make use of them or combine them, to overcome their opposition or derive support from them; however, this movement is based on the most important, determining, primary artistic battle with the cognitive-ethical [real---L. N., S. Z.] orientation of life.

Every artist, insofar as his work is significant and serious,

is tho first artist, that is, directly confronts and contends with the raw material of the cognitive-ethical spontaneity of life, with chaos (spontaneity and chaos from the aesthetic point of view) and only this confrontation ignites the truly artistic spark.'

To sum up what has been said so far: a special form of cognitive-projecting activity produced in the spiritualmaterial co-existent world may be considered, in accord with Marxist methodology, the invariant of art as an essential and constant component of the phasic development of various cultures. In relation to the real world, this coexistent world of art fulfils the function of its cognition as a whole and the definition of the ideal purpose of man within it, i.e. the 'required future'. However, it is obvious that certain elements or functions of art can only be considered as constant at an extremely generalised, invariable level, since an analysis of art as an actual system functioning in different civilisations reveals that even those functions that appear superficially identical have a variable culture-historical content. The invariable core of art allows it, depending upon the requirements and organisational efforts of a given civilisation, to fulfil a number of fundamental or specialised functions, any of which may, under certain conditions, acquire prime significance or sink into the background. Thus there exists a certain distinction

~^^1^^ Walter de la Mare, Lewis Carroll, Faber & Faber Ltd.. London.

1970, pp. 62. 65.

~^^1^^ BaxmunM. M. 9cTeTHKa cjiosecHoro TBopiecTaa. M., HCKVCCTBO,

1979, c. 171 (M. M. Bakhtin, The Aesthetics of Literary Creativity, Iskus- stvo, Moscow. 1979, p. 171).

between the culture-building functions of art as the total of its possible realisations, and its socio-cultural functions, which are actualised in response to the requirements of a given civilisation. Consequently, the development of art and its individual branches or sectors may, under certain specific historical conditions, become either one-sided or even destructive. However, the social need for its culturebuilding functions has always restored its viability.

Up till now we have spoken about the essence and specific characteristics of art as one of the essential components of culture, and have said little of its social determination. Such abstraction is permissible provided one then goes on to discuss the social conditions in which art exists, and its determinants.

The nature of the development of art, its position within the cultural system and the specific characteristics of its social functions are determined by the type of civilisation in which it exists. There may, of course, be different bases for typologisation depending upon the nature of research. In our case, the basis for typologisation is the nature of the relationship of civilisation to culture. Such typologisation makes it possible to identify three basic types: static, adaptive and dynamic. The so-called primary (early) civilisations may be included within the first type. Their characteristic features are: deep-seated traditionalism, isolated development taking place almost independently of other contemporary civilisations, and self-sufficiency and autonomy of operation. Ancient India and China may be considered as classic examples of civilisations of this kind.

In static systems, the various spheres of culture-building activity are examined and evaluated primarily in terms of their possible contribution to the stability and resilience of the system as a whole, which also serves as the criterion for evaluating the consequences of artistic creativity. As a result, the evaluation itself acquires regulative significance and has direct influence upon both artistic strategy and individual features of the products of artistic activity. Within the system of mechanisms of self-regulation whose function is to maintain the stability and resilience of the social system, art assumes the function of organising that activity designed to eliminate the destructive and disruptive trends jvhich accumulate within society and which, in the context of the existing order, are viewed as chaotic. Within the

system of a static civilisation, localised art is seen as being 'in the service' of society and contributing to its further consolidation, and only thus can it function. Within these confines, art is accorded considerable freedom in using the representational-expressive means and the conceptual potential of rich mythological or religious traditions at their deepest levels. This immersion in tradition as a prerequisite of achieving the desired actualisation of its diverse levels enables the artist not only to fulfil a 'social order', but also to give expression to the creative impulses intrinsic to artistic activity. This is possible because the civilisation was initially formed out of genetically diverse cultural-creative material drawn from diverse sources. In China, for example, the complex and sophisticated religious-ethical systems developed out of primitive beliefs and myths served by elementary rituals. Hence the mythological-religious tradition provided a means of expressing the beliefs and moral attitudes of the `uneducated' sections of the population and include them within the so-called 'great tradition' of Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. Within the system of static societies, such complex, multifarious traditions served as the living source feeding further cultural-creative and artistic development.

Characteristically, the possibility of using such a tradition in all its possible dimensions depends upon its vitality. As an example one may cite the art of the slave-owning state of Gupta, which arose in the fourth century A. D. in the Ganges basin as a transitional stage between slaveowning and feudalism. The florescence of the classical art and culture of India during this period was directly connected with the intensive use of the traditional levels of popular culture, including its most ancient myths, which reappeared with the revival of the ancient cults of Vish'nu, Krishna and Shiva. The re-emergence of these traditions threatened the existence of Buddhism, the official state religion, but was finally accepted and sanctioned in an attempt to justify and preserve existing social relations via art. As a result, religious representations of the Buddhic Mahayana received what is commonly considered to be their perfect artistic expression, the images of the Buddha acquired their final canonical form, and the Adjanta frescoes, which embodied 'the intimate and harmonious link between Ancient Indian . .. and the infinite sweetness of

Buddhic mysticism', appeared as the 'synthesis of the soul of India'.^^1^^

Thus the link with a religious practice directed towards the preservation of the system, did not prevent art, i.e. a co-existent and unique expression of the real world, rising aesthetically above its narrow limitations and capable of surviving social upheavals. Moreover, the same can be said not only of the art of a particular static civilisation, but of any genuine art. The life of art cannot be limited to the life of one, even relatively progressive civilisation. Art, as culture as a whole, inevitably goes beyond the already existing, even when its creative achievements are assimilated by the official culture and adapted to serve the needs of the ruling class representing a given civilisation. From this point of view, any genuine art existing within the confines of a static civilisation can be said to be both functional and disfunctional simultaneously. However, the existing official culture has difficulty registering the dysfunctional aspect of the products of artistic activity sinee the settled, static nature of artistic activity at the ideological and technological levels, and the emphasis on the reproduction of the existing system of values tend to convert art into one of the mechanisms serving to stabilise the basic qualitative features of civilisation. Artistic life appears inert, manufacturing only `triumphal' portrayals of the `victory' of civilisation, i.e. themes that assert and confirm its right to exist, and does so in quite traditional manner, using the already existing stylistic means. Nonetheless, the Qin dynasty (221-207 B. C.) almost completely destroyed the literary heritage of Ancient Chinese culture in its attempt to unite the Chinese Empire, and 460 representatives and defenders of this culture were buried alive.^^2^^

Static civilisations have no desire for any change, but as change must necessarily occur, and will do so in an uncontrolled and therefore arbitrary manner, such civilisations set up an entire system of prohibitive, protective norms. The sanctiiication of traditional norms may be considered as being one of the most widely used forms of social reaction to possible change. However, since 'in no sphere can

one undergo a development without negating one's previous mode of existence',ⁱ the reverse side of this emphasis on tradition is stagnation both in society and in art, which threatens their existence no less than social contradictions and changes in the form of state organisation.

We have already mentioned the fact that within static civilisations art is viewed as a legalised method of removing the destructive tendencies of life by transferring them to the co-existent idealised world. Here, in the special world of art, the taboos and limitations of life seem to disappear. Hy use of the most striking images and symbols, art makes it possible to savour freedom, while at the same time demonstrating the dangerous and irreversible consequences of the absence of restrictions. Thus having found for the phenomena of the real world a value-equivalent in the co-existent world, art as it were renews the real world within its stable and inflexible boundaries and reconciles the observer with its existence.

The rehabilitation of the existing forms of social organisation serves to indicate the functional value of artistic activity and becomes a kind of filter enabling the creative potential of such activity to be mobilised and canonised in its existing forms. The canonisation of optimal variants at the level of stereotypes of artistic activity and artistic products means adherence to the given model. Departure from it is permitted insofar as improvement in existing techniques is preparing the way for further optimisation, after which there is a return to the set model, but now at a more technically advanced level. Art may assume this cyclic form of existence not only in archaic societies, but also in a situation where 'mass art' has assumed the function of a mechanism permitting the elimination of the ' inconvenience of culture', as is the case within the system of bourgeois civilisation.

Within an adaptive civilisation (such as Arab civilisation during its florescence) art fulfills an integrating function vis-a-vis the diverse cultures from which it emerges and develops. Islamic culture was 'a cosmopolitan product' to which all the conquered peoples and then cultures---Syrian, Persian, Arabic, Spanish, Berber and Turkish---contributed.

~^^1^^ R. Grousset, Hlstoire de VExtreme Orient, Paris, 1929. Quoted in: Mieczyslaw Porebski, Dzieje sztuki wzarysie. Vol. 1, Wydawnictwo Arkady, Warsaw, s. 168.

^^4^^ Ibid., p. 171.

~^^1^^ K. Marx, 'Moralising Criticism and Critical Morality', in: Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 6, 1976, p. 317.

The prominent Soviet Arabist, Ignaty Krachkovsky, noted that to this must be added the influence of the whole complex of the Byzantine-Syrian-Caucasian world. His research has revealed that the ability to adapt was the characteristic feature of Arab culture.

While remaining Arabic in language, in content, and even, in part, in form, it was subject to the most varied influences. '

Hence the difficulty in defining it. According to Krachkovsky, the replacement of the qualification `Arab' by the qualification `Muslim' (Islamic) is not capable of substantiation. We suggest that the typological description of this culture as adaptive helps to remove this difficulty and makes it possible to preserve the old term 'Arab culture'. Adaptive cultures are characterised by the distribution of functions. While religion (here Islam) fulfils a segregative-adaptive function within the cultural system, the art of the Arabic-speaking world, having preserved a sufficiently large degree of independence in relation to the dominant religion and being not only tolerant of but even curious about the religious beliefs and other spiritual products of `non-Muslims' as something exotic, assumed an integratingadaptive function.

.. .Together with the Arabs there appeared upon the historical scene not only Islam, not only a new religion, but also a new language bringing with it a new poetry [writes Krachkovsky]. This language spread across the entire Islamic world, a comparatively rare example in history of non-civilised peoples taking over spheres of culture. However, even more surprisingly, the metric system developed by Arabic poetry subordinated to itself the literary creativity of other, non-Arabic speaking peoples (for example, the literature of the Persians).^;

When speaking of the `Arabisation' of alien cultures, the scholar has in mind the integration of these more refined sources by means of their assimilation and adaptation. This applies equally to the plastic arts, which adapted and assimilated Hellenic-Byzantine, Indian and Persian influence, i.e. it can be taken as a typological characteristic of Arab art as a whole.

The assertive character of art in civilisations of'the adaptive type thus manifests itself in purely negative form: it lacked any oppositional content, not affecting in any way the essence of the given civilisation and its ideological core---Islam. Art can be said to have functioned here primarily in aestheticised forms, i.e. it was assimilated into the system of Islamic ideology only in forms free from any magical and dogmatic significance (hence the decorative style), and as a special, aesthetically neutral means, it helped, without realising it, to stabilise its own civilisation. This assimilation was initially facilitated by the fact that Islam lacked any strong artistic traditions of its own, which undoubtedly assisted the assimilation and adaptation of local artistic forms, and later also by that cultural unity, that particular, homogeneous environment that emerged as the result of economic, cultural and artistic exchange among a large number of peoples united into a single, albeit weakly centralised state.

The integrating-adaptive character of Arab art also revealed itself in its mediating functions in relation to the cultures of other regions and types.

The Arabs did the world a great service [writes Krachkovsky]. Without them we would not know the Thousand and One Nig/its. This great work of literature came from India, the land of the fairy-tale, but only the Arabs were in a position to introduce it into the West... Among the countless number of such works, the Arab version also enabled Kalila and Dimna to achieve world fame on a par with the Thousand and One Nights. ^l

How nearly Arab art follows the model for adaptive civilisations is shown in its highly idiosyncratic evolution during the fifteenth century, a period critical for Arab civilisation. In civilisations of this type, development as the renewal of artistic culture occurs by means of the constant adaptation and assimilation of ever new and diverse artistic systems, which are stylised to form one variegated whole. In the fifteenth century this process came to a halt. During this period the Islamic world closed in on itself, as it were. The same happened in art, whose subsequent development was marked by refined aestheticism and a loss of vitality.

. K). H36p. coi., T. II. M.---JI., M3«. AH CCCP, 1956, c. 54 (I. Yu. Krachkovsky, Selected Works, Vol. II, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow---Leningrad, 1956, p. 54). * Ibid., p. 247.

~^^1^^ I. Yu. Krachkovsky, Op. cit., p. 433.

In civilisations belonging to the dynamic type (of which the prime example is European civilisation), art is also included within a system of mechanisms of self-regulation, and is also a legalised form of activity reflecting upon, defining and shaping existence, whose essential feature and positive value, however, is not traditionalism but dynamism and social mobility. Here the accumulation and transformation of internal and external experience by art is seen as necessary to the preservation of continuity in the development and propagation of its civilising influence, and as a means of actualising belief in the long-term benefits of the chosen path. In such conditions, the identifying role of art in the system of static civilisation is replaced by an aesthetic aloofness as a result of which the relationship between the co-existent world of art and the real world becomes more tense and indirect. This permits art in dynamic civilisation to assume the function of renewing and criticising tradition in accord with the changing conditions of life. Tradition is no longer treated as sacred, and art immerses in the forms of life itself.

The constant need for the aesthetic assimilation of new aspects of the real world stimulates art in dynamic civilisation to continually improve its own methods and techniques. Furthermore, the search for new artistic techniques on the basis of the division of labour within art can result in the emergence of an independent sector of artistic production which, detaching itself from and `forgetting' its functional attachment to the whole, assumes the form of 'art for art's sake', demonstrating its purely formal possibilities. Thus even within a civilisation of the dynamic type, art can also be both functional and dysfunctional simultaneously, but this ambivalence is easily registered as it is now not a sporadic feature of the artistic structure but a legalised form of the existence of artistic activity as a system whose active operation within society is based upon the dialectical interaction of its various productive aspects. Indeed one might say that this ambivalence ensures for art as a whole a sovereign position within the system °' civilisation and prevents the stereotyped and popular forms of artistic activity from losing their vitality.

In civilisations of the dynamic type, art has its own algorisms of development. Criticism, which is a feature inherent in this type of culture, singles out innovative products,

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which are evaluated as a model within the production of art as a complex systemic entity. The existence of such a flexible standard of artistic creativity subsequently leads to the formation of different artistic approaches as a result of different attitudes to this model. On the one hand, this is a process whereby artistic activity is improved on the basis of a jointly developed concept of the standard form of this activity or its manifestations, while on the other, it is a process permitting art to go beyond the previously developed stylistic limitations in order to broaden its possible field of creative activity. The stimulus for artistic experimentation may be either a `non-aesthetic' situation or critical aesthetic consciousness investigating the broad spectrum of artistic tradition with a view to renewing the conceptual-aesthetic content of art. However, it should be noted that immersion in artistic tradition at the level of a professionally isolated artistic position is not always beneficial as regards the further development of the system of artistic culture. We are talking here of art that is essentially afunctional.

The accumulation of afunctional elements within the system of dynamic civilisations assumes menacing proportions with the transition to capitalism. Continuity of artistic development comes into conflict with the capitalist mode of production, which draws artistic activity into the sphere of its influence and subordinates it to the laws of commodity circulation. The hostility to art displayed at the capitalist stage of civilisation was first noted by Hegel. Marx returned to this idea more than once and explored it in all its aspects. Art itself cannot see in bourgeois reality any subject-matter worthy of artistic idealisation, and therefore either openly opposes bourgeois reality (critical realism, romanticism), or attemps to `evade' it, retreating into afunctionalism ('art for art's sake'). This situation gave birth to the concept of the end of art as an essential component of culture, which Spengler then developed into an all-- embracing theory.

As defined in the Marxist classics, capitalism is the first world-wide civilisation. Pre-capitalist civilisations, based on socialisation in the form of the alienation of ground-rent, were for this reason alone localised in character. Bourgeois civilisation is based upon the all-pervading essence of capitalist, commodity relations. Capital knows no frontiers.

17-0328

I

By the rapid improvement of the means of production and the continuous easing of the means of communication, the bourgeoisie draws every nation into civilisation, coinpells them to become `civilised'. Marx describes this process as basically progressive, while noting that it can

neither emancipate nor materially mend the social condition of the mass of the people, depending not only on the development of the productive powers, hut on their appropriation By the people. But what they [the bourgeoisie] will not fail to do is to lay down the material premises for both. '

the universal values developed by art. However, in the last case art must discover the actual force interested in realising these values without claiming the right to use them in its own interests. Such a force is represented by the proletariat as a consistently revolutionary class interested in the full development of the culture-building, projective activity of art.

Marx assessed bourgeois civilisation as the objective preparation for a civilisation of a new, communist type. This proposition also includes a change in the status of art, which becomes universal in character. The former local and national insularity in which existence was sustained by domestic production is replaced by the total interconnection and interdependence of one nation upon another. This, Marx pointed out, is equally true of both material and spiritual production.

The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidcdness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures there arises a world literature. '

The emergence of capitalism erodes the local types of civilisation formed down the centuries. However, cultural tradition remains too strong to be ignored. It continues to operate unseen, making the whole process of capitalist civilisation extremely contradictory and painful, calling I'orth both hope and disillusionment among democratic forces and extreme reaction among the traditionalists, yet at the same time accelerating the ripening of the elements of socialist culture.^^2^^

Thus the present condition of bourgeois artistic culture is exceedingly unstable both as regards the inner laws of its development and as regards the system of relations in the world artistic process. This provokes within art a feeling of crisis which is assessed at the level of artistic and philosophico-aoslhetic thought as a crisis of art or even the death of art at the stage of civilisation.

'The death of art' as its final end or as a description of the contemporary stage of its development is not a new

~^^1^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, 'Manifesto of the Communist Party. In Karl Marx, Frederick Erigels, Collected Works,Vol. 6, 1976, p. 488.

~^^2^^ Cf. the article by Natalia Koslova and Valoutina Fedotova in the present collection.

The capitalist nature of civilisation manifests itself in every sphere of culture. Capital strives to draw them all into its orbit, to make use of all, including artistic, values. Disclosing this tendency, Marx comments ironically that from the point of view of the normal logic of the capitalist type of development,

Milton, who wrote his Paradise Lost for live pounds, was an unproductive labourer. On the other hand, the writer who turns out stuff for his publisher in factory style, is a productive labourer.~^^2^^

In bourgeois civilisation, art is limited as regards the realisation of its culture-building functions. The bourgeoisie, in attempting to use to the maximum and to unconditionally functionalise the institutionalised forms of art, either destroys or undermines art's culture-building nature. Only that art which has proved able to preserve its freedom of spiritual production and is, according to Marx, located at the periphery of bourgeois culture, retains cultural creativity. However, the tragedy of art in bourgeois civilisation is that the culture-building potential of peripheral art is reduced to nought in a society, which is interested only in harmonising the tempo of social and cultural development. This gives rise to three characteristic tendencies: the esoteric development of art as a consequence of the search for purely formal solutions ('art for art's sake'), the recognition of the claims of bourgeois civilisation (pop art) and, finally, the conscious orientation towards the assertion of

1 Karl Marx, 'The Future Results of British Rule in India^^1^^. In Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 12, 1079, p. 22.

2 Karl Marx, Theories of Surplus-Value, Part I. p. 401.

17*

concept. The present situation of art within the system of bourgeois culture, described as a crisis or even as the 'death of art', is characterised by the fact that it covers not only reflective but also practical artistic consciousness. So called 'mass art' openly recognises its total dependency (rendered respectable under the term `commitment') on the socio-ideological orders placed by the bourgeoisie, _On the commercialisation of art and its orientation towards consumption.

Wo live in a consumer society; the term `consumption' applies both to washing machines and to Gothic cathedrals---writes Abraham Moles.---What is new in the mass society is that it consumes works of art... '

Great art perishes, Moles continues, because its mass consumption renders it banal. Hence the need for constant artistic renewal. The raison d'etre of art is shifted from the content to the effect of novelty. According to Moles, this problem is to be solved by the new permutational ( mechanised) art, in which the role of the artist undergoes a radical change; from being the creator of works of art he becomes the generator of ideas and the inventor of the means of producing an original effect upon the public. The rest is the job of the machines.

Following Spengler, Theodor Adorno links the crisis of art and its inevitable death with the last stage in late capitalist society. In depriving nature of its originality, culture of the `rational-bourgeois' type (to use the terminology of Adorno) deprives art of its substantive principle. Its sovereign reality is now technique, which 'replaces the substantive unity of works of art with the hollow unity of becoming'.^^2^^ Hence the crisis of art follows logically from its position within a civilisation of the `rational-bourgeois' type, and acquires a universal character. However, towards the end of his life, Adorno defined his position more clearly, drawing closer to Marcuse. Taken as a whole, art loses its importance with the decline of Western civilisation, but nonetheless the professional artists reveal UrnnenschlichkeU and construct Gegenwelt, which creates a refuge for t^nc

unhappy consciousness.^J Yan Aler believes that one should speak not of the crisis of art, but rather of the art of crisis as a kind of transitional stage in its development and as the path along which art begins to free itself from isolation and, perhaps, from a number of traditional functions in the system of Atlantic culture.^^2^^

Consciously or unconsciously, naturally or painfully, positively or in the form of criticism, art has always striven, and still strives to harmonise its aims with the laws of the historical process, for only thus can it realise its social [unctions. However, this does not answer the question of the effectiveness of this realisation. Human experience has revealed that every step in the history of society is a step towards human freedom. Therefore even slavery was progressive in comparison with the tribal system. Capitalist society ensured more progressive conditions, in comparison with the previous stages of social development, for the development of art both in terms of the dynamic improvement of its expressive means and in terms of its democratisation and communicability. However, the limitations of this civilisation also limit the development of art. In such unfavourable conditions the internal sources of artistic selfdevelopment, give rise to one-sided and even distorted phenomena which then generate the crisis of art. Only the elimination of the social limitations of capitalist civilisation by the revolutionary transformation of society, and the emergence and development on this basis of a civilisation of a now, communist type will provide the freedom necessary for artistic development.

Socialism as the formation of a civilisation of a new, communist type provides a positive solution to the contradiction between art as a cultural phenomenon, and civilisation. Lenin expressed the idea that a civilisation of a new type presupposed the abolition of the economic and social alienation of culture. However, this of itself does not solve Iho problem. Lenin therefore pointed to the need for a cultural revolution, which would make it possible to overcome the spiritual alienation of the people from cultural activity in a situation where the concentration of artistic talent in

1 Abraham Moles,Art et ordinateur, Casterman, Paris, 1971, p. 257.

2 Th. W. Adorno, PkUosophie der neuen Muslk, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1956, S. 69-70.

~^^1^^ G. Herbert, Marcuse, Die Permanent der Kunst: Wider eine besUmnitc marxislische Astetik. Eine Essay, Miinchen, Hanser, 1977.

~^^2^^ Yan Aler. 'Kunst Krise---Krise der Kunst', Schopenhauer Jahrbuch, Frankfurt-am-Main 1970, S. 57.

a

separate individuals goes together with its suppression among the broad mass of the people. The solution of ihis problem does not necessarily involve the destruction of institutionalised forms of art, rather it is dealt with by the socialist state by moans of its art policy, which protects those forms of institutionalisation which permit the interaction between culture and society to lead to the rehabilitation of art as a socio-projective activity, which is then able to perform an integrating function with respect to other spheres of culture.

As Lenin predicted, socialism was initially victorious in a single country. Today it constitutes a world civilisation alongside capitalism.ⁱ This has a definite effect upon the laws of artistic development. On the one hand, socialist art is subject to the influence of bourgeois art, and thus, indirectly, to the influence of bourgeois ideology, and reacts to them in some way or other. On the other hand, the inclusion of socialist art within the world artistic process increases the impact of socialist tendencies within it and promotes the general humanist orientation of its development. However, it would be methodologically inaccurate to posit a future ideal state of art, free of contradiction. Such a situation would, in fact, spell the death of art. In contrast to bourgeois ideologists, Marxism does not view contradictions in the development of contemporary world art as a sign of its universal crisis, but rather as a sign, sometimes assuming the form of a crisis, of the emergence of an artistic culture corresponding to the new, communist type of civilisation in a situation in which there exist two world social systems.

The different positions and self-perceptions of art in civilisations of different types, which is a consequence of its close association with the real world, allow us to raise the question of the most favourable conditions for the development of this form of culture-building activity. Both philosophers and artists have more than once created imaginary models of a bright future in which socially useful activity would coincide with aesthetic activity. These models and projects contained, alongside their Utopian details, a number of significant ideas concerning the being of art and its functions within a society marked by 'social liar-

mony', i.e. a communist civilisation. Models of the future of art are still being created. Such a form of art's selfconsciousness is justified provided one remembers that one is dealing with art, i.e. provided one does not attribute a prescriptive nature to these models. Communism is not a static ideal of perfection, as was supposed by the Utopians, but a historical movement whose future can only be determined on the basis of the inner logic of that movement. Moreover, any prediction of the future development of art is possible only on the basis of the principle of historism, which presupposes the re-creation of its genuine history, i.e. a retrospective analysis which, together with an analysis of the present situation, makes it possible to indicate in general terms the nature of its future development.

Only under communism, notes Marx, does production determined exclusively by necessity come to an end, and its basic aim becomes the `production' of man himself, without any previously determined limits, as the main productive force and absolute value of social development.ⁱ It is here that art, 'as something more valuable and a law unto itself, becomes virtually the basic form of independent activity by tree individuals associated in society as a means of their self-supposition and self-determination.

Cf. Richard Kosolapov's article in the present collection.

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~^^1^^ Cf. K. Marx, Capital, Vol. Ill, p. 820.

Vyacheslav Tvanov

there appeared the first rudiments of decorative art, whose more abstract signs (which, as with some of the more concrete signs, such as pictures of animals, had primarily a mythological significance) constituted in effect the first written language. The same may be said of the notches by which the phases of the moon were registered as early as the Upper Paleolithic. However, despite the relative diversity of these sign systems, their use was irregular: notches used as numerical signs had a very narrow application, restricted to what might be termed pro-science, pre-- astronomy, and therefore the numerical signs themselves were limited to the lunar month.

A dramatic increase in both the number and use of material and numerical pre-literate signs (from around 15, supplemented by a large number of additional marks, up to 200 in the later stages) occurred immediately following the Neolithic revolution. With the emergence of arable farming and stock-breeding and the corresponding increase in the complexity of the economic structure, the use of numerical and material signs (indicating the nature of the objects counted: `bull', `sheep', 'piece of material', etc.) becomes widespread. For around five thousand years, such preliterate signs were fairly bulky, being, in fact, miniature moulded symbols which were first threaded onto cord, and later placed inside special clay containers. Later still, in order to ensure greater reliability, the containers were stamped with the same moulded symbols as those placed inside. Towards the end of the 4th millennium B. C. in Sumor these moulded symbolic stamps led to the development of a script which subsequently became a means of recording oral language. However, it took more than two thousand years, the period separating proto-Sumerian script from the Phoenician and Greek alphabets, for abstract and material symbols to become a means of transmitting an oral text.

The invention of an alphabetic script was a turning point in the search for economic methods of transmitting and preserving information. Tn early alphabets (such as the Greek alphabet), the letter corresponds fairly closely to the phoneme, the basic unit of oral language. Each linguistic sign- word---is composed of a limited number of phonemes. The phonemes themselves are not signs, as they have no individual meaning, but they serve to distinguish between

Some Semiotic Aspects

of Communication in Culture

and Science

The semiotic approach to the development of culture is based on the principles first elaborated in the 1930s by Lev Vygotsky, a renowned Soviet psychologist. Since then these principles have won broad recognition. According to Vygotsky, signs are a means of controlling human behaviour. The individual is incapable of controlling his own behaviour directly, and therefore uses signs to control it indirectly, systems of such signs being created by society. The history of culture can, to a large degree, be described as the invention, improvement and transmission of sign systems (i.e. semiotic systems) used to control behaviour.^l Consequently, one can speak of the semiotic aspect of cultural memory, which changes according to the type of signs used (oral tronsmission of information, pre-litorate signs, written language, contemporary means of communication: memory banks, sound recordings, etc.)

It may be supposed that even at the early stages of the development of human culture, simultaneous use was made of several semiotic systems. For Homo sapiens, oral language became the chief means not only of communication, but also of codifying other sign systems (such as myths, rituals, etc.) and---in combination with musical mnemotechnic means, such as those used by the later minstrels and storytellers---of preserving the accumulated store of information. The language of gestures, more developed in man's predecessors, was also retainer!, though only to a limited extent. Almost simultaneously with oral language

~^^1^^ Cf. BbuomcKuu JT. C. PasBHTHe BMCIIIHX ncwxiwecKMX ^ymtuHif M., HBJI;. AKafleMHH Tleji;. nayu. CCCP, 1960 (L. S. Vygotsky, The Development of Higher Psychic Functions, M., USSR Academy of Pedagogics, 1960).

26 -

IL

different words. Every oral language has tens of thousands of words, but only a few dozen phonemes. These simple numerical relationships are important in understanding the difference between human oral language and the signal systems of other vertebrates. All higher vertebrates ( including apes) are capable of transmitting information to each other by means of a limited number of short, oral signals. On average, the number of such signals corresponds to the number of phonemes in normal human language. However, in the case of the higher vertebrates (excluding man) each signal has a specific meaning attached to a concrete situation (danger signal, feeding-time signal, etc.) In the case of man, the phonemes have no meaning of themselves, but they can be used to construct a large number of words (and the words can be used to construct an unlimited number of sentences). From this and other examples mentioned below it is obvious that early human sign systems may have had a pre-human (biosocial) origin, but that in human society these signs acquired a new significance that distinguished them from the signal systems of animals as studied by zoosemiotics.

The semiotic approach makes it possible to correlate data from the field of linguistics---the science of the signs used in language systems---with the conclusions arrived at in other scientific disciplines studying both signal systems and human non-linguistic sign systems, such as, for example, the signs used in rituals and myths in `primitive' societies, or the signs used in the decorative arts, or those in the 'artificial languages' of science. Such a correlation may also take into account the latest conclusions in the field of human psychophysiology, and thus form a bridge between the natural-scientific and the social approach to cultural phenomena. A clear illustration of this can be seen in the semiotic approach to colour signs. The basic similarities and differences between the semiotic aspects involved in the investigation of language systems and systems of non-linguistic signs can be shown using the example of colour signs and the perception of colour. A comparison of data from language and culture has made it possible to postulate the existence of certain general laws governing colour sign systems.

The systems of colour signs and symbols used in various languages and cultures have been investigated many times

in connection with the hypothesis of linguistic relativity, according to which native language influences the nature of colour classification. These investigations led to the conclusion that there exists a basic similarity among all the languages studied. In a considerable number of languages whose colour terminology has been examined a hierarchy has been discovered which determines the number and type of colour signs: if the language possesses a sign for red, then it inevitably also has terms for white (light) and black (dark), which, however, may themselves form a minimal two-member syslom. These colours make up the basic, universal triangle of verbal colour signs, which corresponds to the triangle identified during research into the colour symbols used in the rituals and myths of various peoples.

The fact lhal the colour red is part of this triangle is interesting from an evolutionary point of view. The use of ochre for ritual purposes is well known from the huts of Terra Amata, whose age---230,000 ± 40,000 years---has been recently confirmed by new dating techniques ( determining the age of the `afterglow' of stones subjected to fire). The triple colour system, red-black-white, was used in the cave paintings of the Upper Paleolithic, and may therefore be reliably considered as typical of Homo sapiens from the beginning of his archeologically testified existence.^J This system, in which the colour red (ochre) is accorded a special role, differs sharply from the system used by anthropoids, in which blue played the dominant role. Individual, isolated instances of the formation of cultural systems in which black and white are contrasted against not red but blue (and yellow), are a rarity in the history of culture.

As regards individual colour perception, blue played a special, `exclusive' role in the works of the romantic authors: the blue flower of Novalis, the poems by the Georgian poet Nikoloso Baralashvili on the colour blue, etc. According to data on Ihe linguistic typology of colour signs, the colour blue exists only in those six-member systems which invariably include, in addition to the three colours compos-

~^^1^^ Cl'. Htianoa B. B. ^TIoT ii uo'iOT. AciiMMOxpnH Mosra H anaKOBHX CHCTOM. M., COUCTCKOO pa/u-io, 1978 (V. V. Ivanov. Odd and Even. The Asymmetry of the Brain and Sign Systems, Sovietskoye Radio, Moscow, 1978).

ing the base system (black-while-red), the colours yellow and green. There also exist four-member systems including one of the last two colours, and five-member syslems ihal include both, hut not blue.

According to the recently proposed model for describing basic colour signs using the terminology of the theory of fuzzy sets, il is suggested that six colours make up the basic colour calegories. The remaining five linguistically important colours---brown (which, together with the six colours named above, makes up the seven-member syslem), purple, pink, orange and grey---are formed by the intersection of fuzzy sets (as was indicated by the tradilional concept of mixed colours). Although many languages have a separate term (not derived from other colour names) for each of these colours, which, together with the six basic colours, compose the eleven-member universal collection of colours expressed in languages throughout, the world, the designation of the five `complex' (mixed) colours is considerably more difficult for people speaking a language such as English. The latest research into the semiotics of colour has made it possible to postulate not only the existence of a single, universal system for designating colours, but also a correspondence between this system and the basically similar main psychophysiological colour `standards' which serve as the means of comparison in perceiving colour.

Colour contrasts of the type black-white (black-red) are included in the number of universal differences between signs which (like the similar difference between left and right, male and female) were known to Paleolithic art and pre-literate sign systems. Evidently, from the beginning of his history Homo sapiens made use of such differences in order to codify certain basic images of mythology and rituals. Mythological and ritual sign systems determined human behaviour for many thousands of years and operated as man's principal models of the world. They also contributed to a certain degree to the extreme rigidity of semiotic structures. Also of importance to semiotics is the fact that even the most `primitive' peoples made attempts to classify mythological symbols and ritual signs, in which (to use the terminology of one of Ilie American-Indian languages) the members of those societies perceived the `echo' or `shadow' of some reality. In recent years more and more features have been discovered which unite the 'thought of

Ihe savage' with pro-scientific thought. Mythological symbols have been shown to reflect primitive man's knowledge, sometimes fairly detailed, of the external world---cosmic myths, for example, codify in their symbols a fairly complex `pre-science' about the heavens which first came into existence many thousands of years ago.

The science of the ancient East, notwithstanding individual notable achievements by Egyptian and Babylonian priests and scribes in astronomy and mathematics, was characterised mainly by the development of ancient mythological images and ritual-magical associations. One need only recall the detailed elaboration by the Babylonians (and later by the Etruscans, who came under their influence) of methods of fortune-telling from the liver of a sacrificial animal. Some of the features of the animal's liver were viewed as signs, on the basis of which it was possible to predict events of the greatest moment for the state. Babylonian astrological concepts were similar in nature. Here science or pre-science is completely subordinate to the sign system of ritual prophecy (fortune-telling).

In considering ancient Eastern cultures as a whole, it is as yet impossible to speak of science as a separate sign system (or group of such systems) constituting an independent whole in relation to other semiotic systems, and in particular the mythological and ritual systems. The separation of science from such systems and the emergence of sign systems for individual sciences occurred in Greece, starting in the fifth century B. C. Particular mention must be made of the introduction in the later stages of the development of Greek science of such recording systems as the Diophantine mathematical symbolic system, fairly similar in principle to the later algebraic system. Such systems are important from the semiotic point of view. Greek science (and, at about the same time, ancient Indian science in the I'anini grammar) had taken the first step towards the construction of an artificial language.

The separation of science from mythology (still linked together in the Pythagoreans and, to some extent, even in Plato) that occurred in Greece may be compared with the gradual separation of poetry (lyrical and dramatic) from syncretic action, which in early Greek religious drama still expressed the ordered sequence of ritual and mythological signs. Ancient Greek culture was gradually transformed into

an integrated body of relatively independent semiotic systems that were not subordinate to one single model of the world, but which together provided what one might term a stereoscopic view of the world as a whole. Hence the separation of poetry and drama from ritual action, and the separation of science from mythology were but the two sides of one process.

The basic feature of the new approach to semiotic systems that emerged (both in science and art) in Greece and was continued (after a long interval during the early Middle Ages) in the later European tradition, consisted in the conscious emphasis upon the invention of new signs and sequences of signs---i.e. texts. All ancient Eastern civilisations, possessing an abundance of texts, were characterised by the opposite tendency, namely the repetition of that which already existed: in the first millennium B. C. texts written two thousand years previously (and in some cases now poorly understood) were still being copied. This repetitive tendency is even more noticeable in the cultures of `primitive' societies, where prescriptions and the semiotic systems and texts that codified them were transmitted down the generations in popular traditions. The new orientation that emerged in the Athenian polls in the fifth century B. C. and was to undergo accelerated development in Europe after the Renaissance (particularly from the seventeenth century onwards with the birth of modern science) was exactly the opposite. Here the emphasis was deliberately placed upon the creation of new signs and semiotic texts that do not repeat those already existing.

One of the main functions of semiotics is to evaluate each period in the development of culture according to the number and diversity of the systems being used, beginning from those ancient times when oral language and the primitive decorative arts were used alongside syncretic action (ritual and pantomine), up to and including contemporary civilisation characterised by the complex interrelationship of a host of semiotic systems whose number (particularly in science and related fields, such as computer languages) is constantly increasing. Semiotics belongs to that group of new scientific disciplines which (like the closely related theory of information) examine from one point of view phenomena which were previously investigated by separate branches of knowledge. For semiotics, such phenomena as

natural language, the artificial languages of mathematical logic, computer languages, informational-logical computer languages created to facilitate the storage and retrieval of information, the systems used in various branches of the arts, and in the mass media (cinema, television, etc.), the language of gestures, the codes used in street signs, the rituals of primitive societies, and the signalling methods used by animals are all related by the fact of belonging to semiotic systems. Also included is the system used by each science insofar as it constitutes an integrated set of means used to describe some aspect of the world (that is, functions as a model of the world in the semiotic sense of the term). In order to identify the characteristic features of these sign systems, semiotics examines them from three points of view: syntactical, which concentrates exclusively on the internal relationship between the signs of the system; semantic, which examines the correlation between the signs and the objects or concepts which they designate; and pragmatic, which looks at the relationship between the signs and their users, both individuals and groups. Let us now look at some aspects of the semiotics of the development of science in the twentieth century as an example of the application of semiotic models to the history of contemporary culture.

The strictly syntactical aspect of the examination of many semiotic systems played a major role not only in science but in culture as a whole (including art) during the first half of this century, a period which saw the triumph of an approach called by one of its founders---the great mathematician David Hilbert---'axiomatic thinking'. To Alexei Lyapunov and his followers goes the credit for having constructed grammatical models of natural language in the Form of an axiomatic system, an achievement which paved the way for the development of mathematical linguistics. In linguistics itself, this approach first emerged as early as the 1930s in the works of the proponents of structural linguistics. In 1938, the renowned Polish linguist Jerzy Kurylowicz, who died only recently, wrote, referring lo the ideas of Hilbert:

(',OMtemporary linguistics, basing itself upon the famous traditions of Haiulouin de Courtenay and Ferdinand do Saussure, is attempting to create, its own axiomatic system, which would

enable the researcher to automatically reduce even a seemingly highly specialised and detailed question to elementary concepts and statements so as to have, from start to finish, a clear idea of both the premises upon which his work is based and its ultimate purpose. '

Research into the 1'oundatioris of mathematics, where the success of the Hilbert programme at first appeared particularly striking, also clearly revealed the limitations of axiomatic thinking. It became obvious that even in mathematics it was impossible to elaborate a purely syntactical (in the semiotic sense) model of the system, a model in which individual signs are simply accorded the role of chess figures whose value is determined by their relative position alone. A roughly parallel development occurred in structural linguistics, where the descriptive trend founded by Bloomfield and most fully expressed in the well-known works by Zellig S. Harris attempted to describe all the elements of language solely on the basis of their possible combinations (or, to use the specialised term, their distribution). The impossibility of arriving at a comprehensive description of language by such a method made it necessary to introduce semantics into the description of natural language. At first, however, semantics was understood as being determined by the relationship between signs, as dealing with the meaning of the words of natural language established by synonymous transformations in which the meaning is preserved (the latter being thus understood as the invariant throughout the course of such transformations). Both linguistic (generative) semantics, which has made considerable progress over the last few decades, and the logic of the deductive sciences (particularly in works by representatives of the Polish school of logic) have developed the basic methods of research into semantics determined by the internal relationships within the given semiotic system. Alfred Tarski, one of the founders of logical semantics, the most advanced branch of general semiotics, declared even in his early works that the semantics of natural languages was the most promising field of research, and that the role of formalised languages here was comparable with the role of isolated systems in physics.

A number of prominent modern scholars and scientists have underlined the importance of investigating the evolution of the language of science in its relationship with natural language, noting thai mathematics can be viewed as the result of the perfecting of this language; in particular, mathematical language avoids 'the reference to the conscious subject which infiltrates daily language'.^^4^^

It is particularly important to note that both the logical analysis of natural language and the works of prominent linguists in the middle of the twentielh century ( Kurylowicz, Benveniste, Jakobson) reveal the degree to which the structure of grammatical categories in natural language is determined by a pattern of communication incorporating the speaker. The language of science, on the other hand, even if it has not yet become a formalised artificial language, is characterised by the elimination of forms of personal expression. The personal and other categories, which are rooted in the structure of the very act of communication, are removed from scientific language, in contrast to a considerable number of other categories, which are common to natural language and the language of science. Comparative research into these two languages is one of rapidly developing branches of semiotics and is of considerable practical importance in constructing programmes for automated translation from natural language into informational-logical language and vice versa.

Probably the most controversial issue today in research into scientific language systems and natural language is that of describing their semantics as given by the relationship between the signs of a particular system and certain fragments of the objective world. The great mathematician, Hermann Weyl, insisted on the need for a more profound analysis of

what constitutes an experiment, a measurement, and what sort of language is used to communicate its result. Is it that of classical physics, as Niels Bohr seems to think, or is it the 'natural language', in which everyone in the conduct of his daily life encounters the world, his fellow men, and himself? Tho analogy with Hilbert's mathematics, where the practical manipulation of concrete symbols rather than the data of

~^^1^^ Jerzy Kurylowicz, Esquisses linguisliqueK, Wydawniclwo Polskioj Akademii Nauk, Wroclaw, s. 51-65.

~^^1^^ Niels Bohr, Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge, John Wiley and Sons Inc., New York, 1958, p. 68.

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i

some 'pure consciousness' serves as the essential extra-logical basis, seems to suggest the latter.'

One of the tasks lacing semiotics is Hie establishment of the rules governing such manipulation.

Among the recent achievements in this sphere, the research done by Anna Wierzbicka into the semantics of natural language^^2^^ deserves special mention, as it represents the development of the combinatorial ideas advanced by Leibnitz. In essence Wierzbicka developed that programme of combinatorial semantics which, following Leibnitz, was outlined by Gustay Shpet in semiolic terms.

Within each scientific system which can, to some degree or other, be included among the experimental sciences, there are a considerable number of terms and statements whose meaning is established by reference to experimental data. Many scientists are of the opinion that increasing the number of such statements is itself the aim of science. However, there is another point of view (to some extent a continuation of the specifically syntactical approach, but without the extremes of a purely axiomatic programme) according to which the aim is the 'elimination of arbitrariness^^1^^ ^{m sucn} statements by the creation of a system from which they would be deduced. The basic problems involved were perceptively noted by Vladimir Vernadsky roughly forty years ago in his exceptionally penetrating investigation into the evolulion of science.~^^4^^

From a semantic analysis of the meaning of signs (terms) in scientific language it follows that the experimental correlation of the sign and reality is essential _at every stage in the development of the natural sciences. An extremely important feature of contemporary scientific knowledge, and one that affects the nature of civilisation as a whole, is the spread of experimental verification of hypotheses (and as a consequence, of the semantics of the

signs used in a given scientific system) to many branches of science previously separate from the natural sciences. Nikolai Vavilov was one of the first to formulate the new approach to the history of culture in his research into the origin of cultivated plants.ⁱ The achievements of experimental archeology are confirming the correctness of his programme drawn up more than 40 years ago. Over the last iifty years, for example, experimental research has been conducted into the fundamental questions of the history of metallurgy, from the cold and hot gorging of bronze to ancient methods of iron production. Various methods for attaining the necessary temperature have been experimentally verified for every progressive phase in the treatment and production of metals, and this has made it possible to reconstruct the 'thermal history' of human civilisation from the discovery of fire. Experimental archeology has revealed (contrary to the `scientific' myths that circulated until only recently) that bronze weapons are considerably more effective than stone weapons: a bronze saw is 15-20 times more efficient than a stone saw, a bronze axe 3 times more efficient than a stone axe, and a bronze knife 6-7 times more efficient than a stone knife. The experiments performed by the Soviet archeologist S. A. Semyonov^^2^^ and his colleagues provided the first substantiated explanation of the transition from the Stone to the Bronze Age. Moreover, they also provided information of considerable importance with regard to the history of Egyptian technology and architecture, showing that bronze implements are particularly effective in treating hard stone. This solved the puzzle of the vast quantities of dressed stone in early dynastic Egypt. As regards the huge stone structures ( megaliths) of prehistoric Britain (which Fred Hoyle and other scientists consider to be ancient observatories), experiments have made it possible to determine the number of people who must have been involved in the construction work, which in turn has justified the use of models based on

1 In Applied Combinatorial Mathematics. Edited by Edwin V. ^^e~ ckcnbach. John Wiley and Sons Inc., New York, 1964, p. 562.

2 A. Wierzbicka, Lingua Mentalis, Academic Press, Sydney, 1980.

~^^3^^ Cf. fllnem 1\ F. 3cTeTiiiecKne iJiparMeHTKi. Bun. 2. 11. 1923, c. 57, 58 (G. G. Shpet, Aesthetic Fragments, 2nd Edition, 1923, pp.

57-58).

~^^4^^ Cf. BepnadcKuu B. H. Paa.Mumjiemin iiaiypaffliCTa. Hayqnan Mwcjib Kau njianeiHoe HBjiemie. M., Ilayita, 1977, c. 82, 85 n jip.

(V. I. Vernadsky, Reflection of a Mathematician. Scientific Thought as a Universal Phenomenon, Nauka, Moscow, 1977. pp. 82, 85 and others).

274-

~^^1^^ Cf. Baeujioe H. H. HaSpaimLie Tpyjju Bmmi TOMRX. T. V, M---JI M3fl. AH CCCP, 1965, c. 131, 132, 141 (N. I. Vavilov, Selected Works in five volumes, Vol. V, Academy of Sciences of the USSR Moscow---, Leningrad, pp. 131, 132, 141).

~^^2^^ CeMenoe C. A. PaaBHTHe TexnHKii B KaMOHHOM BGKC. JI Hayna 1968, c. 124, 352, 356 (S. A. Semyonov, The Development of Technology in the Stone Age, L., Nauka, 1968, pp. 124, 352, 356).

18*

a comparison with the ethnographic data concerning primitive societies. Today the experimental method can he used not only in those sciences dealing with the history of material culture, where the objects of investigation (metals, stone structures, domesticated animals, cultivated plants, etc.) may be subjected to scientific experiment. Electronic computers have made it possible to construct verifiable models for research into kinship systems, ^l which determined the social organisation of primitive societies, or into ^oco~ nomic relations in the ancient world.

From the point of view of semiotics, there are no grounds for a sharp division between the natural and other sciences, particularly as in a number of cases experiments conducted in the natural sciences may be of considerable importance for sciences dealing with man. A striking case in point are the experiments in which chimpanzees (and recently gorillas) have been taught the human language of gestures. This kind of experiment was suggested around 40 years ago by Lev Vygotsky, but has only recently been carried out by animal psychologists. The conclusions drawn from the success of the experiment are of exceptional importance in comparing the data from zoosemiotics with semiotic investigation into the human language of gestures. Not only in `biosocial' questions related to the functioning of communities of organisms, but even in its investigations into interactions at the supracellular level, biology is encountering a number of problems whose solution requires an apparatus similar to that needed by the sciences dealing with man. Thus in investigating the evolution of science from the point of view of semiotics, the traditionally established boundaries separating different branches of knowledge must be re-examined. There are good grounds for proposing that the traditional division into natural sciences and humanities be replaced by a division into primarily experimental sciences---i.e., to use the terminology of semiotics, semantic sciences that are related to certain fragments of^obiectiyq reality---and those sciences that are primarily 'syntactic and which concentrate on the internal relationships between the elements of a given system. As regards mathematics,

which is a classic example of a basically syntactic science, it is not a question of experimental verification, but rather of whether an abstract system can be used to describe data obtained by some other science. The history of modern physics has many examples of a mathematical apparatus, previously elaborated without any thoughtof application, unexpectedly proving to ho of practical use.^^1^^ Obviously such scientific discoveries depend upon the prior development of `syntactic' theories regardless of any possible application. Hence to the argument advanced over recent years by prominent physicists that fundamenlal research must be developed independently of possible practical uses^^2^^ must be added the need for the free construction of abstract systems developing within a given discipline as purely syntactic systems. The relationship between mathematics ( including to some exlent, also mathematical physics) and physics is a typical and much studied example of the importance of a science with a primarily`syntactic'orientation for a discipline bound up with the 'scientific apparatus'; nor is this by any means the only well-known historical illustration of the need for freely constructed `syntactic' theories.

The famous French mathematician, Rene Thorn, who examined the use of a number of mathematical models in physics, biology and linguistics, is of the opinion that the future development of these practical sciences involves the gradual elimination of such general, non-local (and therefore non-verifiable) concepts as `order', `disorder', etc., which would become exclusively mathematical terms. Another possible approach to the problem of such key scientific concepts as `information', `symmetry', `sign', etc., was put forward more than 30 years ago by Andrei Kolmogorov. Each of these general concepts should form the focal point of a special scientific discipline, and the sciences investigating such general, non-local concepts could then occupy an intermediate position between the primarily syntactic areas of mathematics proper and the experimental sciences. The general progress of science is largely depend-

~^^1^^ Cf. Eugene P. Wigner, Symmetries and Reflections. Scientific Essays, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1967, p. 228.

~^^2^^ Cf. Kanuna 77. J!'. BKCnepnuenT. Toopnn. ITpaKTiTKa. M., HayKa, 1977 (P. L. Kapitsa, Experiment, Theory, Practice, Nauka, Moscow, 1977).

i Cf-HeanoeB.B. KjioAJIenH-Orpocc H cxpyKTypHan airrponojionw---«npHpo_fla», 1978, X° 1, _c. 86 (V. V. Ivanov, 'Claude UviStrSiSS ^and structural Anthropology', Priroda, No. 1> 1978, p. 86).

ent on the rapid development of both types of science investigating non-local, general concepts.

The pragmatic aspect of the semiotics of science, dealing with the nature of the relationship between the sign system °f science and its creators and users is of particular interest from the point of view of the semiotic theory of cultural evolution, and is also the best researched, as the relevant data has been thoroughly investigated by the contemporary science of science, which concentrates almost ^cx~ clusively on this aspect (in some ways to the detriment of the others mentioned above). Nonetheless, even here the semiotic approach may also help to shed light on certain essential factors, and in particular thanks to its use of syntactic and semantic data. The answers to the majority of questions arising in this field will diffcrdepending on whether the disciplines in question are primarily syntactic or closely related sciences investigating non-local, general concepts, or cxprimental sciences whose aim is to clarify the semantics of the signs used in scientific language. In the latter case, the spatial-temporal structure of the scientific team must be such as to facilitate the successful joint conduct of the experiment, which requires the daily collaboration of all those involved. Today, as a rule, the scale of the experiment (for example, using large accelerators) is such that a large number of people are involved, as is clearly shown by the publication of works written jointly by several dozen authors (who may well work at different scientific centres in different countries). References to the scale of contemporary scientific work are usually based on such experiments, which lead to an enormous increase both in experimental data and in the number of people (and computers) processing this data. Without such experimental work, the majority of sciences could not extend and clarify their sign system. However, the development of science as a sign system requires not only an increase in the number of signs and greater precision in their semantic interpretation, but also, and above all, the 'elimination _Of arbitrariness' (to use the words of Rene Thorn), the reduction of the accumulated data to a fcwbasic principles from which it can then be deduced. This second---and in many ways more important---task facing science not only does not require large working groups, but cannot in principle be carried out by such groups. The efficient solution of one scien-

278 -

tific problem requires a working group of 20 individuals. However, the formulation of a radically new scientific theory requires not more, but fewer people---often two (e. g. Francis Crick and James D. Watson at the decisive stage of the development of molecular biology), although each of them usually maintains informal contact with other scientists (tho number of the latter reaching even 10^^2^^).^^1^^

Scientific journals are usually happy to publish works in which the analysis of experimental data is made within the confines of an established paradigm, but are noticeably less willing to publish theoretical and methodological articles that question upon the effectiveness of the traditional mode of investigation.^^2^^ Without this restriction, one set of published empirical data would not be capable of comparison with another. However, as a result, the publication of fundamentally new scientific work is considerably slowed down. A partial solution has been found in the system of pre-prints, which facilitate the initial formulation of the `crazy' idea. However, the increasing flow of pre-prints may hinder the selection of ideas as, the value of the report (if the author or the scientific group he represents are unknown) is not, as is the case with standard scientific journals, guaranteed by the nature of the publication. Standard scientific literature is more structuralised, and the replacement of this structuralised system by pre-prints is justified only if there exists a well-established group (' invisible college') supported by the circulation within it of copies of scientific works, or in the case of communication by correspondence in a newly constituted group; a classic example is provided by the 'work notes' written by Michael Ventris, which, starting in 1950, he sent to specialists in linear B throughout the world. This considerably accelerated the process of decipherment, which he finally completed in 1953, together with John Chadwick.^^3^^ Thus pre-prints

~^^1^^ Cf. Belver C. Griffith and A. James Miller, 'Networks of Informal Communication Among Scientifically Productive Scientists'. In Communication Among Scientists and Engineers. Edited by Carnot E. Nelson, Donald K. Pollock, D. C. Heath and Company, Lexington (Mass.), 1970, p. 126.

~^^2^^ Cf. Richard D. Whitley, 'The Operation of Science Journa s: Two Case Studies in British Social Science'. In The Sociological Review. New Series, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 247-258.

^^3^^ John Chadwick, The Decipherment of Linear B, Cambridge, at the University Press, 1959, p. 47.

are effective given Lhc existence of the appropriate intellectual micro-environment in which they can function as the simultaneous equivalent of or supplement to scientific correspondence. Correspondence between scientists, which began with the development of modern science in the seventeenth century, was one of the chief means of exchanging information. Scientific journals appeared later. Each stage in the development of culture is characterised by its own means of transmitting, storing and seeking information, by a particular relationship between these means and society itself, which corresponds to the given type of civilisation. If each of the basic stages in the development of culture and civilisation is examined from the point of view of the semiotic distinction between the signifier (perceived by the senses) and the signified (the semantics of the sign), then the development of semiotic systems must also be assessed in terms of the evolution of each of these aspects and the relationship between the two. Recent technological achievements have made it possible to create and combine the signifying aspects of signs (in cinema, television, radio and other mass media), which have dramatically increased our ability to register the real world. As regards the semantics of signs, the need to register information in electronic computers is gradually increasing the use of artificial languages which bear little resemblance to natural languages. In the systems of information exchange between man and machine, which have become more and more important for civilisation in the last quarter of the twentieth century, both the signifying aspect of signs (visual display on a television screen, etc.) and their semantics are equally new. The massive increase in various (sometimes parallel) means of transmitting and processing information coded by a new type of signs has become one of the characteristic features of civilisation as a whole. Thus the semiotic comparison of the present period of development, in which the main role is being assumed by increasingly specialised scientific sign systems (and the technical means of coding them), with the earlier stages of the history of individual cultures and civilisations may be of fundamental importance in identifying the specific characteristics of each of these stages and analysing the prospects for cultural development as a whole.

Section IV.

The Emergence of a Civilisation

of the New Type

Vladimir Mshvenieradzc

The Technocratic Model of 'Post-Industrial Society' and the Political Reality ofContemporaryCapitalist Civilisation

Whatever typology of civilisation one supports---that of Danilevsky, or of Spengler, of Toynbee, Sorokin or the one proposed by Marxists---formulating a general description of tho contemporary stage of Western European civilisation and its future course of development in relation to the world historical process may be justly considered as one of the burning issues of the day. It is rendered still more acute by the emergence and progressive development of the world socialist syslcrn, which constitutes a civilisation of a new type. In a situation in which there is increasing international division of labour and an intensification of economic, political and ideological ties, the co-existence of two types of civilisation is assuming the form of competition, and even confrontation between the two systems. The problem is further complicated by the emergence onto the historical scene of nations and entire continents that were previously in the wings, as this deprives it of its 'classical purity'. The multidimensional nature of the problem enables it to be examined from several different points of view, while its urgency and direct bearing upon the historical process itself gives such theoretical enquiry a clearly defined class nature.

In September 1916, Lenin formulated a general, objective and at the same time predictive definition of contemporary capitalism * on the basis of a profound scientific analysis of the actual processes and trends of economic and sociopolitical development occurring within it. He showed that capitalism had entered the highest and last stage of its de-

~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, pp. 185-304.

yclopment, namely imperialism. Using the facts of economic development and international politics, he demonstrated that at this stage in its development, capitalism is characterised hy reaction in every sphere, by increasingly sophisticated forms of labour exploitation, by the fusion of monopolies with the state apparatus, by militarism and by economic and political expansion. Imperialism is the final, decadent stage of capitalism, and, at the same time, it is the eve of socialist revolution. This was the conclusion drawn by Lenin concerning the place of imperialism in the historical process. The uneven economic and political development of capitalism at the imperialist stage leads _to unevenness ^m the degree of ripeness for revolution in different countries, and the possibility of revolutionary victory in _Qno capitalist country alone. The October 1917 Revolution confirmed the accuracy of Lenin's scientific analysis and conclusions, and the contemporary socio-liistorical process is developing as he predicted.

.

, Spengler saw in bourgeois civilisation llio highest, arid mature phase of the development of Western European culture, which is also the beginning of its end, when it stagnates, petrifies and becomes incapable of further development from within. However, according to Spengler, this epoch is not without its grandeur, the grandeur _Of _co\^ practical activity and calculation. Although, having entered into this stage, culture is doomed, bold and resilient ^m~ dividuals who accept the fate of their civilisation are capable of delaying its final end indefinitely.

TJ_O who does not understand that this end is inevitable, that no must desire either this or nothing at all, that he must love this fate or despair of the future and of life, is incapable of feeling t,i_ie grandeur which is also to be found in this activity of powerful minds, in this energy and discipline of men of _steel. ^m this battle using the coldest and most abstract means, is nursing a provincial idealism.. . and must abandon any attempt to understand history, experience history, create

history.'

This article provides a description of the present stage of capitalist civilisation on the basis of a comparative analysis of the model of 'salvation or overcoming the crisis' as presented by its ideologists, and the political reality of contemporary bourgeois society.

i Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes, s. 51.

284-

Let us examine from this point of view one of the models of `post-industrial' society that has attracted widespread interest in Western countries, and was proposed by the prominent American political scientist Samuel Huntington.<sup>1</sup> it is based upon a palteru of `industrialism' which is unconditionally accepted as axiomatic, despite the fact that it remains to be proved. The description of the economic structure of post-industrial society omits the most important factor---the forms of ownership. The essence of the historical process is incorrectly identified with the interrelationship between the service sector on the one hand, and the industrial and agricultural sectors on the other. From this follows the conclusion, desirable from the point of view of a bourgeois ideologist but totally unsubstantiated, that as the service sector outstrips the other two, this will lead to the gradual reduction, and finally to the total disappearance of the working class. It should be remembered that all of this pertains to capitalist society, which is simply termed `post-industrial'. ^^2^^ The now dominant industrial system of factories and plants will be replaced by an information system of 'brain trusts' and colleges.

In the political life of 'post-industrial society', the main role is accorded to theoretical knowledge, rationality and also to the development of technology. Consequently there emerges a new, `post-bourgeois' system of values which functions as the essential characteristic of the entire historical process. `Post-bourgeois' in no way means non-class. On the contrary, it is a clear expression of the bourgeoiselitist mode of thought and political evaluation, to which the functions of political institutions and management must be adapted. Political thought was and remains the exclusive possession of the ruling class. Hence mass conscious participation in the political process can only have negative consequences.

The high level of popular education that should characterise the political atmosphere of post-industrial society is considered by Huntington to be an unavoidable evil. Edu-

~^^1^^ Samuel P. Huntington, 'Postindustrial Politics: How Benign Will It Be?', Comparative Politics, Vol. 6, No. 2, January, 1974.

~^^2^^ Huntington does not hesitate to give the dates of this transition by individual countries into the 'post-industrial era': USA---1950, Great Britain---1965, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden---1970, Japan and France---the end of the 1970s.

cation encourages the growth of political awareness, ^slirm| lates activity, and in general 'tends to produce too ^mucu interest and participation, which leads in turn to political stalemate'. * In many of his arguments the author dearly presupposes that the interests of top government _ci_rcl_es in a bourgeois state inevitably clash with the interests of the people. He declares that

stitutional procedures' which could then `legalise' both the functions of mass political action and its new forms, including political parties, associations and groups.

In the absence of institutionalised procedures and agreement on the legitimacy of such procedures---writes Huntington--- each group acted in politics in its own way and with its own weapons. The result was often a divided, praetorian society in which • • • the wealthy bribe; students riot; workers strike; mobs demonstrate; and the military coup... '

This statement sums up the ideological limitations of a bourgeois thinker, who simply notes undesirable phenomena which must be `ended', but does not trouble to elucidate why 'workers strike' or the causes of radical LeftWing activity ('students riot').

The concepts and ideas of Western ideologists are, almost without exception, imbued with political utopianism. They wish to give capitalism the appearance of rationality and respectability, and also to free it from certain ' undesirable' phenomena which are its objectively inevitable products. Thus, one of the causes of the mass radical protest movements that have arisen in the West is rejection of the bourgeois social ideal or, more accurately, of its `negative' aspects. Radical consciousness is the same utopianism turned inside out. It lacks any politically grounded positive programme of action. Radicalism overthrows bourgeois ideals, seeks, but cannot find itself, cannot understand and theoretically substantiate its political activity, and therefore cannot clearly formulate any positive aim.

Radicalism not infrequently gives rise to anarchism, which, while it disturbs society, cannot present any fundamental threat to the established socio-economic system. Many bourgeois ideologists see radical and anarchist movements, viewed in isolation, as a breach of legal norms, deviations from the officially recognised obligatory rules governing mass political conduct. Hence the proposed change of legal norms, their 'toughening up' or the `legalisation' of mass action may, in this particular case, contribute to 'installing political order'.

However, in the conditions of contemporary capitalism, radical movements may possess real strength. The Soviet

effective governmental action could bu more, rather

than

difficult |_u a society with a more highly educated

and partici-

pant population.^:

Faced with political reality, Huntington, like manv other speculative bourgeois ideologists, attempts to 'freely determine the object of his investigation, to construct or create it as he will in order to be independent of it. However, the speculative thinker then runs the risk of falling into 'slavish subordination' to that object. Conceptual _and methodological looseness may, in such an instance, assume various forms__appeals to force, the breeding of fear, the creation of unrealistic, Utopian ideals, deliberate mythologisa-

tion, etc.

Huntington cannot ignore the clear evidence of increasing, large-scale anti-imperialist movements particularly in developed capitalist countries. However, h° does not see them as an object of enquiry, does not analyse them, but attempts to make do with an `explanation', thus demonstrating his `independence' of the object. He does not see in these movements any actual internal causes, ^llor does he link them with the corruption of the political system which gives rise to them. The logic of his argumentation here is quite different, it is ideologised to the extreme: the ^t)OU1" geois political system functions as a 'universal.

For Huntington, the mass protest movement is merely the result of the political sluggishness of the existing institutions of power, whose structure and mode of operation are not effective enough, for they are unable to keep pace with the growth of mass activity and, as a conseauence. ar.c unable to control or `institutionalise' it. The rational antidote is seen in 'structural changes' and sophisticated ^1U"

1 Samuel P. TTuntington, Op. elt., p. 177.

2 Ibid

~^^1^^ Samuel P. Huntington, Op. ett., p. 175.

sociologist Ernst Balalov has given a precise description of this phenomenon:

As for tho radical striving t.o achieve Fundamental social changes, ho is orientated to action outside the system. Thus radical consciousness, which lakes shape within bourgeois society, inevitably carries within it the germs of new institutions, relations and values which register the dynamics of the historical process, and it acquires in the course of its development a more or less clearly expressed anil-capitalist content. '

Despite the numerous variants of radical thought, the socio-class basis of the radical movement invariably remains the petty bourgeoisie, with its political vacillation, fears of both defeat and victory, and lack of faith in the revolutionary-transformative potential created by capitalism and the forces already present within this society.

It is only fair to note that Huntington more than once appeals for `socio-economic' changes. However, one has the impression that these appeals are made purely en passant. First of all, his interpretation of such changes in no way involves any investigation into the forms of ownership and the social relations that derive therefrom, that is, the specifically economic structure of society. Secondly, not only does Huntington fail to relate socio-economic changes to political changes, but, on the contrary he refutes the existence of any such relationship in principle. He declares, for example: 'In the United States, industrial society emerged hi such a manner as to abort the development of class consciousness. . .'^^2^^

The mutual dependence of socio-economic, political and cultural changes, with the first playing the determining role, is, however, in irrefutable law of history. It operated during earlier stages and it operates today. Moreover, these changes are progressive in nature, a feature also intrinsic to the capitalist mode of production. The various stages of capitalist development---pre-monopoly, monopoly, statemonopoly---are, amongst other things, distinguished by the level of socialisation of production and by the degree to which elements of regulation and planning have penetrat-

ed into the economic system These elements emerge within capitalism, but are not, strictly speaking, capitalist in their nature. Rather they arc evidence of the gradual maturing of the objective conditions necessary for the transition to socialism.

At the same lime, state-monopoly capitalism is characterised by tho unprecedented violation of workers' rights by monopolies, by intensified exploitation and a general crisis that spreads to include the various spheres of social activity and culture. Those two aspects of the situation---the ripening of elements of socialism and the intensification of internal contradictions---must be examined in their unity. The separation of the first from the second, for example, may give rise to the illusion that capitalism may ' gradually grow into' socialism, an illusion that stimulates reformist views and that frequently serves to inspire various theories of the convergence of the two socio-political systems.

The aggravation of the internal contradictions of capitalism increases the revolutionary self-awareness of the working masses, which finds expression in mass movements and often threatens the political system of capitalism. This threat is very real, and Huntington is well aware of it:

If this gap between the ideas which people had as to what society could accomplish and what government ought to accomplish, on the one hand, and the actual achievements of government, on the other, were sustained for any length of time, it could lead to deep feelings of frustration, a reaction against existing political institutions and practices, and a demand for a new political system that could and would do what had to be done. '

Regardless of whether the arguments advanced by Huntington are correct or not, the method of collecting and processing statistical data in government institutions or private firms is such that their degree of objectivity is directly dependent upon the interests (class, economic, political, commercial, etc.) of capital.~^^2^^ However, even this data per-

^^1^^ Ibid., p. 177.

~^^2^^ The American economist A. B. Laffer, who was employed at the White House, wrote: 'Based upon my two years experience in the Office of Management and Budget, I realize how little value one can place on the published numbers' (Arthur B. Laffer, 'Beneficial Programs', Social Science and Modem Society, Vol. 14, No. 3, March/ April 1977, P. 95.)

~^^1^^ Cf CoBpeMeHHoe nojiHTHiecKoe coanamie BCIIIA, nonpefl.

KHHa K). A. H BaTajioua 9. fl. M., HayKa, 1980 (Contemporary Radical Consciousness in the USA. Edited by Yu. A. Zamoshkin and E. Ya. Batalov, Nauka, Moscow, 1980).

~^^2^^ Samuel P. Huntington, Op. cit., p. 173.

19-O328

mils a deeper analysis than the ono actually made. Contemporary bourgeois philosophical and socio-political thought is unable to cope with the dialectics of contemporary social development. Although everyone is agreed as regards the principle ol' development, the future is_ portrayed---though, it is true, without any notable conviction--- simply as an extension ol the present. This is particularly noticeable among political scientists, who present recipes rather than scientihc arguments. However, even plain common sense leads investigators to far from reassuring conclusions. 'Postindustrial politics, in short, could be the darker side o£ postindustrial society', ^L writes lluntington. It is therefore not surprising that the political sphere creates far more problems than bourgeois political thought is able

to solve.

The theoretical impotence and methodological limitations of bourgeois ideologists when laced with the problems raised by the contemporary social process are a powerful stimulant to the search for realistic ways of solving urgent social problems, and increase the class consciousness of the working class that has learned from its own experience that the interests of the workers are essentially international, and that only the workers themselves are capable oi' defending them, in particular by participation in the organs of state administration. Today the formation and development of class consciousness among the working people in capitalist countries is bound up with both internal and external conditions. Investigating the objective position of the working class in capitalist countries, Marxist-- Leninist social science has come to the undeniable conclusion that the main theoretical content of the class consciousness of the proletariat is their understanding of the objective nature of the internal economic contradictions of capitalism and of the consequent political tasks, which aim at the overthrow of capitalism, the establishment of the power of the working class, and the building of a classless society.

The basic economic contradiction of capitalism---the contradiction between labour and capital, between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie---has its theoretical expression in the basic ideological contradiction, the contradiction be-

tween proletarian and bourgeois consciousness. Examining the question of the class consciousness of the working class, Lenin wrote:

I lie workers' class-consciousness means the workers' understanding that the oniy way to improve their conditions and to achieve their emancipation is lo conduct a struggle against the capitalist and factory-owner class created tiy the big lactories. Further, the workers' class-consciousness means their understanding- that the interests of all the workers of any particular coimlry are identical, that they all constitute one class, separate from all the other classes in society. Finally, the class-consciousness of the workers means the workers' understanding that to achieve their aims they have to work to influence affairs of state... '

However, this does not mean that all economic, political and ideological contradictions can be reduced to one basic contradiction. Marxism is opposed to any such primitive reductionism, which is eagerly attributed to it by its bourgeois opponents. The formation of the workers' class consciousness has its source not only in their understanding of the basic economic contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, but also in their allowance for the real economic and political position of other sections of capitalist society, which are shaped by the diversity of social relations. Nonetheless, an accurate understanding of the various contradictions of capitalist society requires that they be examined in the context of the basic class contradiction and `deduced' from it.

The structure of political consciousness in capitalist society is quite complex and differentiated. Alongside proletarian and bourgeois consciousness there also exist such forms of consciousness as the petty bourgeois, the liberal, the conservative, the radical the reformist, the social-- democratic, the revisionist, the hegemonic, etc.^^2^^ Each is subject to the influence of both Marxist and bourgeois ideology

~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, 'Draft and Explanation of a Programme for the Social-Democratic Policy', Collected Works, Vol. 2, 1976pp. 112-113

~^^2^^ The Institute of US and Canadian Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences has made a thorough critical analysis of the contemporary forms of non-Marxist political consciousness in the USA. Basing themselves on the internal conditions of the development of political processes in that country, the authors identify and examine 12 forms of non-Marxist political consciousness, each of which has a solid historical foundation. It is possible to question whether the typology advanced

~^^1^^ Samuel P. Huntingtou, Op. cit., p. 166.

la*

and reacts in its own speciiic way lo the political processes occurring in the world, striving to extend its political influence and speaking in the name of individual classes, political movements, social groups or parties. Some forms of political consciousness are transitional forms, others are viations from the basic opposing ideologies. They differ in their level of political maturity, their activeness, the size of their following, and their connection with institutional organisations, the state apparatus and actual political

movements.

The diversity of political consciousness in bourgeois society is the result not only of the immanent, internal conditions that have shaped it, but also of the influence of '^ex~ ternal' factors such as the development and propagation of the teaching of Marxism-Leninism, the existence of the socialist community of nations and of developed socialism, the progress achieved by the national-liberation and the international communist movements. The distinction between external and internal factors is relative, and sometimes purely conventional. Following the emergence _Of socialism upon the world arena it is impossible to name even one more or less important political movement, one influential form of the manifestation of non-Marxist political consciousness that has not been either directly or indirectly affected by the factors mentioned above.

The co-existing and opposing mechanisms of the formation of different types of political consciousness having different aims create a general ideological atmosphere which affects the entire process of the formation of proletarian political consciousness. On the one hand, this complicates the development of political self-awareness, since consciousness ^on the part of the working class of its historical mission and political goals can only occur thanks to the assimilation of the scientiiic knowledge elaborated by its ideologists and lo the ability to go beyond purely economic demauds. Oⁿ the other hand, the complex interactions among

all class and political forces constitutes precisely that condition which can assist in the successful formation of proletarian class consciousness. Lenin wrote:

Class political consciousness can bo "brought to the workers only from without, that is. only from outside the economic struggle, from outsido the sphere of relations between workers and employers. The sphere from which alone it is possible to obtain this knowledge is the sphere of relationships of all classes and strata to the state and the government, the sphere of the interrelations between all classes.^l

Thus tlie class consciousness of the working class is its understanding of the objective laws leading to the replacement of capitalist by socialist society. This is the essential condition of its organised revolutionary-transformative activity in alliance Avilh the other working masses and in accord with these laws. Of inestimable importance hero is the theoretical and practical experience of existing socialism, which significantly strengthens the position of the international working class and helps it to understand not only its economic situation, political interests and aims, but also the historical prospects for its struggle. Existing socialism, organised as the world system of the socialist community, is a most important factor in stimulating class consciousness among the working class and is the source of its inspiration, strength and confidence in victory.

At the same time, existing socialism is the target of bitter attacks from bourgeois ideologists, who use to this end the mass media systems---radio, cinema, television, the press, satellite and space communication---which form a powerful industry for implanting anti-communist, anti-- Soviet ideology into the everyday consciousness of the masses.

The mechanism of the 'industry of consciousness' is intended to provide for purposeful influence upon the social orientation of individuals, groups and classes, whose behaviour is no longer regulated only by juridical and legal norms, but also by the general atmosphere of psychological suggestion, which is hourly created and reproduced on a large scale by the mass media. One powerful means of suggestion is the `criticism' of individual political moves by governments and the negativist elements which fill the

by the authors is complete, but they provide convincing evidence of the basic thesis concerning the unquestionable complexity of the 'crisis °f consciousness' and the 'consciousness _oi' crisis'. ^ct- CoBpeMCH

Hoe HTiecKoe coanamie B C111A, uo« pefl. 3aMoniKHHa 10. _A a

, M., Hayica, 1980 (ContemporaryPolitical illed by Yu. A. Zam'oshkin and Yu. A. Batalov,

V. I. Lenin, 'What Is To Be Done?', p. 422.

Moscow, 1980).

bourgeois press, particularly in moments of crisis. This criticism pursues a number of aims simultaneously. It is an attempt to `purge' the political system of capitalism of certain `deficiencies', a noisy demonstration of 'free speech', `democracy' and the 'struggle of opinions' intended to illustrate the advantages of the 'free world', and also an attempt to prove `independence'. Most importantly, it is an attempt to impose upon a mass audience a purpose-- orientated system of political assessment represented by a range of stereotypes of political behaviour. In a situation of proclaimed `criticism' and tolerated `pluralism', a powerful propaganda machine of demagogy and misinformation is operating to shape the officially sanctioned type of'one-- dimensional' consciousness. Whatever the other aims being pursued in their vast output, the mass media are also intended to prevent the development of class consciousness of the proletariat.

The programming and unification of mass consciousness and the creation of social stereotypes is one of the aspects of actual spiritual production in bourgeois society.

Given the complexity of the political establishment, the interrelationships between politicians, political science and the industry of 'mass consciousness' acquire particular importance. The professional bourgeois political scientist considers politics to be a universal form of activity, and himself as someone standing apart from the masses and belonging to a small group of experts who claim a monopoly on the capacity for political thought. He creates theoretical concepts which reflect the political and moral condition of society, its general perception of itself, and he also formulates political ideals and values, needs and interests.

The political scientist very often does not have the opportunity to engage in practical politics, but he is always represented in the sphere of theoretical political thought. He views his own activity as a kind of `free' profession which is relatively independent of the ruling class, although in fact this very position serves to mask the continuation of this internal dependence. The 'industry of consciousness' co-exists alongside this `free' profession and gradually ousts it. The fabrication of mass illusions about reality becomes an integral part of the general political climate.

In those cases where the political scientist does become a politician---which does not happen all that frequently---

he undergoes a strange metamorphosis. Having entered practical politics and gained access to `classified' information, tlte newly fledged politician is filled with supercilious contempt for the previous basis of his existence---`pure' theory---and separates himself off from the circle of professional thinkers in order to engage in the practical ' creation' of real politics. He is concerned exclusively with immediate pragmatic interests and situational thinking, which obscures any nnderslanding of the historical perspective but intensifies his feeling that it is necessary to ' communicate' with a mass audience. The contemplative thinker pursuing a 'free profession' is replaced by the energetic political agent who is directly interested in the purposeful systematisation and unification of spontaneous mass consciousness and who assists in the enforced regulation of mass behaviour.

The politician always claims to be the ideological-- political representative of the masses, but almost never engages in a truly intellectual process. Genuine intellectual activity is replaced in official political activity by the mass propagation of apologetics. Having discarded his previous intellectual exccrcises, the politician becomes directly involved in operating the gigantic brain-washing machine, for he is far from being indifferent as regards the kind of consciosnp.ss that is being fed into the mind of the average citizen in a given political situation.

Despite the socially organised imposition of illusions, it would be extremely naive to assume that mass consciousness is intellectually dependent. Both 'mass consciousness¹ and daily experience are today complex phenomena that are systematically subjected to the powerful objective influence of both internal and external factors. The inability of the capitalist system to solve the acute problems created by its own general crisis and the glaring discrepancy between the offered illusions and the actual course of the political process on the one hand, and the successes of existing socialism, the international communist and workers' movement and the national-liberation, anti-imperialist struggle on the other, leave their indelible mark upon the formation of mass and individual consciousness and give rise to the desire on the part of the individual to develop his own attitude to social reality, thus weakening the impact of the mass media.

Mass consciousness cannot be `purged' of the influence of the factors mentioned above. The bourgeois politician must deal with the existing spiritual material. In such a situation, fostering political apathy is not an end in itself. The complex propaganda mechanism must operate with precision in order to convert the unending flow of information into a centripetal force directed at producing a socially distorted anti-communist political consciousness. The struggle for hearts and minds, for control over mass consciousness, has become the issue of the day. 'Modern politics,' writes W. Mackenzie, 'depends on the art and science of mass communications.' * As a result, the spiritual life of society is subordinated to the technology of the production of mass consciousness. Mackenzie continues:

In politics 'a mass' is not a blank and passive unity; tho audience is structured. In a rough general way, from the rest of our knowledge about politics, wo can guess how the audience is structured, but the general knowledge has not been related closely to operational devices for measuring the range and impact of political communication and political language in general .This is technically a very difficult field, hut it is a particularly important one, in that the range and intensity of political communication help to delimit the boundaries of viable systems and subsystems.^^2^^

The operation of the mechanisms of mass information does not, however, always produce the desired results. They tend to have a boomerang effect, as they unavoidably draw the mass audience into active participation in political life, assist in stimulating the desire to form an independent, personal opinion on political reality, and provoke protest against attempts to artificially force human consciousness and behaviour into a pre-arranged `unidimensional' schema. The level of individual political thought is raised, and people begin to have a deeper understanding of the political significance of social behaviour in various spheres of activity. The social character of modern man is not as easily subject to psychological erosion and automatic adaptive reactions as politically orientated mass propaganda would

like to believe. The man in the street, with his complex structure of consciousness, cannot be viewed simply as human raw material for the mind-shaping industry. On the contrary, today he constitutes a major obstacle blocking manipulation.

Two tendencies can be clearly detected within this situation. One is the diminishing tendency to adopt an attitude of political indifference and refrain from any active participation in the political life of society. Marx gave a precise and perceptive description of the mechanism used by the bourgeois state apparatus to develop and spread mass political apathy.

The government hears only Us own voice, it knows that it bears only its own voice, yet it harbours tho illusion that it hears tho voice of tho people, and it demands that tho people. too, should itself harbour this illusion. For its part, therefore, the people sinks partly into political superstition, partly into political disbelief, or. completely turning away from political life, becomes a rabble of private individuals. '

Political escapism is greatly encouraged by mass propaganda and enables the ruling circles to freely engage in antipopular action,^^2^^ creating conditions in which opportunist, mediocre but energetic political careerists can flourish. The other, growing tendency is linked to the increasing political activity of the working masses, directed against the reactionary policy of the ruling class and against racial and social oppression.

Contrary to the assertions of Western ideologists, bourgeois democracy does not offer the working people the right to exert any real influence on economic and political life, although it creates the illusion that the people possess a broad range of powers under the law. Strictly speaking, the mechanism of bourgeois democracy has neither an economic nor a political platform, and is based only on legal phraseology. If the working class does achieve any genuine rights and leads a successful attack on monopoly, this is not because bourgeois democracy 'allows for' activity on the part of the

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, 'Proceedings of the Sixth Rhine Province Assembly. First Article. Debates on Freedom of the Press and Publication of the Proceedings of the Assembly of the Estates'. In Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 1, 1975, pp^. 167-168.

* Huntington points out that 'innovation is easier when substantial portions of the population are indifferent' (Op. elt., p. 177).

~^^1^^ W. Mackenzie, 'Political Science'. In Main Trends of Research in the Social and Human Sciences. Part I. Social Science, Mouton/ UNESCO, Paris, The Hague,. 1970, p. 215.

* fbtd., pp. 215-218.

296 -

workers, but despite the fact that it does not. It is only at the cost of enormous effort and sacrifice that the working people manage to break through the formal norms and fictitious nature of bourgeois pseudo-democracy. If bourgeois democracy offered them genuine rights, they would not have to struggle to achieve them. It is due to the class struggle of the working masses that the bourgeoisie is compelled to make concessions and sacrifice its own interests. Lenin pointed out that 'the stronger the onslaught of the workers, the greater their achievements in improving their standard of living'.ⁱ

Neither spontaneous consciousness nor objective reality in the form of political reality can themselves shape the political consciousness of the individual and of a class. The main cause and condition of this process is political activity---the dialectic unity of active and purposeful subjectobject interaction.

The key aspect of social activity is political movement, which has its own stages of political maturity and finally leads to class self-awareness. Lenin noted that 'the political movement of the working class will inevitably lead the workers to realise that their only salvation lies in socialism'.~^^2^^ That this is inevitable does not mean that it is automatic. It is rather a real possibility whose realisation presupposes a number of additional factors in order to become a reality. In this instance the existence of the subjective factor is necessarily included in the operation of objective law, of which it becomes an integral part.

On the other hand---Lenin went on to say---socialism will hecome a force only when it becomes the aim of the political struggle of the working class.~^^3^^

Today the working class in each country constitutes a part of the single and integrated international workers' and communist movement bound together by one scientific ideology and based upon the fundamental principle of class solidarity and mutual aid, the principle of proletarian internationalism.

Sergei Popov

The Fate of Bourgeois Civilisation in the Ideology of Social Pessimism

Optimism and pessimism as two diametrically opposed axiological views of the world and man's position within it are a most important element in the structure of any worldview. It would clearly be an oversimplification to assert that optimism is progressive and pessimism reactionary, but nonetheless optimism is usually characteristic of the worldview of those classes and social strata who are at the centre of their historical epoch and who in their activity objectify the requirements of social progress, while pessimism is characteristic of those classes and social strata who have no historical future. Moreover, it is important to distinguish between the view of the world characterising classes as a form of their self-cognition and self-evaluation and those propaganda products which are developed by the exploiter classes and imposed upon the exploited masses. A case in point is official optimism as a feature of mass culture in the age of the general crisis of capitalism, when the dominant mood and genuine altitude to the world on the part of the bourgeoisie is pessimism.

The pseudo-optimistic apologetics of state-monopoly capitalism constituted the leitmotif of bourgeois ideology for almost three decades after the Second World War, though its optimistic major key could not completely muffle the minor tones of criticism, could not totally conceal the unavoidable historical pessimism rising up from the depths of bourgeois consciousness in the age of the general crisis of capitalism. Existentialism and other main trends in bourgeois philosophy and sociology are imbued with pessimism, as is the bourgeois philosophy of history, which occupies a special place in the bourgeois world-view and is a particular expression of the denial of the objective laws of social development and the unity of human history.

~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, 'Economic and Political Strikes', Collected Works, Vol. 18, 1973, p. 85.

* V. I. Lenin, 'Frederick Engels', Collected Works, Vol. 2, 1977, p. 22. , » Ibid., pp. 22-23.

Today, a sense of helpless inevitability and submissive resignation in the face of impending and seemingly unavoidable `total' catastrophe marks the attitude to the world held by those sections of the petty bourgeoisie and the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia who are experiencing the oppression of monopolies and the repressive apparatus of the bourgeois' state, and who cannot envisage any realistic way out of the situation. Such an attitude, for example, is typical of the Frankfurt school. Theodor Adorno called the present age the age 'of the disintegrating individual and regressive collectives' and spoke of the 'absolute isolation' of the individual and his total alienation from society.^l In his words, the contemporary world is worse than hell. If, from the point of view of existentialism, genuine individual originality and freedom are possible only in situations close to death and thus death becomes the only rational aim of existence, then, according to Adorno, life and death, being and nothingness are all devoid of meaning.

The pessimism of contemporary bourgeois consciousness is ultimately rooted in the objective contradictions of capitalism. The absurdity of bourgeois existence is perceived as the absurdity of all existence; the antagonistic nature of its contradictions finds its expression in the dialectics of tragedy and split consciousness as the fatal and incurable alienation of the individual from himself and from the conditions of his existence. Absurdity becomes not only the subject-matter of philosophical and sociological research, but also a legitimate category of contemporary bourgeois social science. Attempts were made to formulate a sociology of the absurd as a special branch of social research into contemporary mass society.~^^2^^ However, bourgeois consciousness sees pessimism as a consequence of the `total' development of technology, which then assumes an impersonal, alien nature. Tcchnophobia becomes the basic form of social pessimism in bourgeois philosophical thought.

The propagation of `technological' pessimism and technophobia via the mass media is the result of profound socioeconomic changes in the structure of contemporary capital-

ism, which is experiencing a serious aggravation of its general crisis. The content ol contemporary pessimism, including `teclniological', `ecological' and `demographic' pessimism, is the product oi the exacerbation of old and the emergence oi' new contradictions within capitalism, the appearance of global problems which cannot be resolved within the framework of bourgeois social relations. This pessimism is `total' and `global' in form, but bourgeois (and petty-bourgeois) in content and social nature.

The major economic crisis of the l⁽J70s, accompanied by a level of unemployment and inflation unparalleled in the post-war period, together with growing ecological, energy and raw material crises, led to major changes in capitalist apologetics. The concepts of crisis-free capitalist development were quickly removed, and bourgeois ideology underwent rapid and dramatic change. The optimistic predictions about the future produced in large numbers in the 1960s gave way to gloomy prophecies of the supposedly inevitable death of civilisation as a result of the uncontrolled development of industry, technology and science. The glorification of science and technology gave way to criticism, scieiitism gave way to anti-scientism, and technomania to tcclmophobia.

Many proponents of 'technocratic models' of post-- industrial society have moved sharply from optimism to pessimism. The prophet of the 'super-industrial revolution', Alvin Toffler, for example, introduced the concept of the ' ecospasm' as an unexpected and dangerous attack of `cramp' which, in his opinion, threatens to grip the capitalist economy. <sup>l</sup> Other authors predict the collapse or sudden death of human civilisation at some point in the first half of the twenty-first century. Daniel Bell speaks of `climactic' changes in American life, of the fact that the USA has passed through its period of florescence and has lost its world leadership. This well-known American sociologist has also made a rapid shift from technological-scientific optimism to gloomy scepticism and historical pessimism. Faced with crisis phenomena, he has ceased to place his hopes on the magical powers of science and the rationalisation of social life, but is calling for cultural self-restraint and for moral

~^^1^^ Th. Adorno, Negative Dtalektik, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt-- amMain, 1966, S. 190.

~^^2^^ Cf. S. Lyman, M. Scott, A Sociology of the Absurd, AppletonCentury-Crofts, New York, 1970.

~^^1^^ Cf. Alvin Toffler, The Eco-Spasm Report, Bantam Books, New York, 1975, p. 51.

and religious sell'-improvemenl. Declaring knowledge and happiness lo be incompatible, Bell is attempting to formulate the principles of a 'political philosophy' which include the 'moral preparation' for disaster, and a 'religious revival' capable of teaching modern man resignation, submission and modesty, these being particularly important when the shortage of vital means of existence becomes the constant companion of civilisation. '

Contemporary bourgeois ideologists seek metaphysical solace in extending their gloomy forecasts to cover the whole of mankind, including the socialist part of the world. They prophesy the death of culture and the end of mankind as a specific biological species. An example of such literature is provided by the book entitled Decadence in the Modern World,^^2^^ by Robert Sinai. This US author also expresses his pessimistic views in the article 'What Ails Us and Why. On the Roots of Disaster and Decay'.^^3^^ By the end of the 1960s the concept of the approaching end of civilisation had become characteristic not only for many millions of Europeans, but also, and for the first time for Americans also. During the 1970s fear in the face of crisis and decline had become a daily reality. Mankind as a whole, Sinai declares, is experiencing the tragic decline of civilisation, which is merely the manifestation of the tragic dialectic of the development of all societies, according to which every civilisation, having passed through its age of maturity and florescence, enters the age of decline and finally dies. The present crisis, the author continues, is not a partial or local one, but a `systemic' crisis which is 'an expression of social entropy'. He points to the powerlessness and decline of society, to the exhaustion of its potential, to the return to chaos and unstructured uniformity. The systemic crisis embraces all subsystems, political, social and cultural, and even the sphere of human relations. The author notes that

capitalism, or industrialism in all its forms lias created a sick civilisation. For this is a civilisation which has not only rebelled against and rejected the static traditional order but

has also rebelled against and rejected the classical and traditional concept of human nature. '

Moreover, as has already been mentioned, he sees no fundamental difference between capitalism and socialism, describing the latter as a variant of `industrialism' with all its characteristic deficiencies and vices.

The modern industrial system whether in its capitalist or socialist forms, is now facing the cruel prospect that the curve of exponential growth, prosperity and rising expectancies is beginning to turn downward toward decline. We have discovered that the Faustian drive toward unlimited growth and [lower is a dangerous process as well as a beneficial one. Growth exacts heavy costs. The uncontrolled and uncoordinated forces released by modern science, technology and politics, each functioning separately with an excess of power, only serve to injure the health and balance of the organism as a whole.^^2^^

As the majority of his colleagues, Sinai falls back on the abstraction of industrialism and anthropologism. Abstract industrialism oppresses and destroys an equally abstract human nature; according to the author, the roots of disaster and the decline of mankind are to be found in this conflict. The 'superabundance of goods' produced by modern industrialised society, and the hedonism and sensuality that it stimulates, foster, in the words of the author, the emergence of apocalyptic sentiments and irrational behaviour in every section of society. The very development of civilisation leads to the liberation of increasingly destructive forces. Abundance does not bring satisfaction. Things, when they start to multiply, lose their value, and unprecedented prosperity creates unparalleled ugliness, boredom and spiritual bankruptcy. The unending pursuit of economic growth by the developed countries is provoking a series of crises that threatens to tear them apart. According to Sinai, the ultimate cause of the new industrial revolution lies in psychological factors: the ambition of the technocrats and the insane egotism and greed of the consumer society.

The same views are presented in the book Teknosis by John Biram, a well-known British scholar and poet. ' Teknosis' is the writer's term for the general crisis gripping man-

~^^1^^ Cf. Daniel Bell, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, Basic Books, New York, 1976.

~^^2^^ Cf. Robert Sinai, Decadence in the Modern World, Schenkman Publishing Co., Cambridge (Mass.), 1978.

~^^3^^ Cf. Encounter, Vol. 52, No. 4, April 1979.

~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 10.

~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 9.

kind and caused by the excessive development of technology, which gives rise lo a 'teknotic consciousncs' comparable with spiritual derangement. As the universal illness ol our time, `teknosis' does not recognise differences in social systems and manifests itself in a declining quality of life in the highly industrialised countries, where consumption has outstripped 'natural individual needs'. At the same time, the excessive development of technology destroys the natural environment. It is `tekuosis' that gives rise lo the pursuit of wealth, to alienation, mental degradation and a high level of individual aggressiveness.

Can the fatal threat to mankind posed by `teknosis' be averted? According to Biram, the further stimulation of scientific and technological progress, social revolution, religion and 'uncontrolled flight from reality' in the form of alcoholism, drug-taking and suicide are all of no avail. Something else is needed, namely `antiteknosis', which is described as follows:

simplification of human life; elevation of women to their deserved social rank; a substantial diminishing in world population; du-mechanising of as much industry as possible; a ' handsoff policy for tho ecosystem; agricultural bases for national economy; de-urbanisation; educational and political reforms.'

Antiteknosis is intended to be a transitional stage ushering in a new, higher stage in the development of human society that is the direct antithesis of `teknosis'. This age the author calls ' ateknosis', but apart from this name, does not, and apparently cannot, tell us anything specific about it. In his opinion, the concrete forms of `ateknosis' will depend both on ecological conditions and on the evolution of man himself. Society must have some ideal, whose formulation depends upon fully 'controlled do-industrialisation' and the existence of a 'true myth' or a 'non-scientific, noiitheological cosmology'.~

It is clear that the author is attempting to solve complex problems by constructing abstract systems and social Utopias that have no scientific basis. A negative attitude to scientific and technological progress is combined with what

is, in effect, a vindication of imperialism inasmuch as the guilt is laid upon abstract `industrialism'.

There are, however, certain bourgeois ideologists (a small but growing number) who question the viability of the 'system of free enterprise', 'business civilisation', etc., that is, who question the future of capitalism as a socioeconomic formation. Such is the pessimistic prognosis offered by the well-known American economist Robert Heilbroner in his book JJusines Civilisation in Decline. The author recognises that

the civilisation of business---the civilisation to which we give the name capitalism---is slated to disappear, probably not within our lifetimes but in all likelihood within that of our grandchidren and great grandchildren,'

provided that a depression can be avoided and inflation overcome, which, according to the author, is extremely problematical.

A particular source of concern to bourgeois ideologists and politicians are financial and monetary crises, the ' social dynamite of inflation'. They usually see the cause of inflation as lying not in the parasitic nature of monopolies, nor in the arms race, but in poor political leadership, a weakening of commitment to civic duty, and the erosion of moral principles and religious belief.

Richard Barnet, one of the directors of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, notes that

in the United States there are increasing doubts about the capacity of the peculiarly organized mixed economy that Americans continue to call 'free enterprise' to solve the problems of advanced industrial civilisation---inflation, unemployment, decay of the cities, pollution, and crime. Some top business leaders are ... openly expressing doubts about the compatibility of American democracy and the American economic system. The depressing results of the Decade of Development, which show rising unemployment, worsening income distribution, and increasing misery in tho Third World, have convinced many former true believers that the optimism of Dulles' day about making the world rich by spreading the American model was an illusion...^^2^^

~^^1^^ Robert L. Heilbroner, Business Civilisation in Decline, Marion Boyars, London, 1976, p. 9.

~^^2^^ Richard J. Barnet, The Giants. Russia and America, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1977, p. 84.

~^^1^^ John Biram, Teknosis, Arlington Books, London, 1975, p. 256.

~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 266-267, 270-272.

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At the end oi' the 1960s-beginniug of the 1970s bourgeois pessimism was provided with iurther arguments, this time by ecology. An ecological pessimism is taking shape and is becoming an obsessive concept in bourgeois consciousness. This concept did not, oi course, emerge from nowhere, but is a particular expression of an ecological crisis that is affecting all the most industrially developed capitalist countries. By the beginning of the 1970s, the ecological problem had assumed global proportions and revealed signs of worsening still further. Accusations directed against scientists and engineers (science and technology), criticism of economic `giantomariia' and calls for a return to smallscale economic units in order to save the human environment constitute the basic postulates of ecological pessimism and contemporary alarmism.

Ernst F. Schumacher, a well-known British economist and political figure, is a representative of this school of bourgeois thought and also the author of a book with the striking title Small Is Beautiful. * In it he warns of the danger of continuous economic growth and scientific and technological development, declaring that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. He not only appeals to the authority of Christianity, but is also full of admiration for the Buddhic way of life and Buddhic economic theory, whose key concepts he sees as simplicity and non-violence. The main contradiction of our age, in his opinion, is the conflict between two theories and two value systems, that of the 'people of the forward stampede' and that of the `homecomers'. The former believe in the beneficience of economic, scientific and technological progress, while the latter assert that technological development has taken the wrong path and must change direction. The very term `homecomers' has religious connotations related to the parable of the Prodigal Son. Men must return to nature, to small-scale enterprises based on private property, to technology with a human face, and turn away from large-scale, highly productive technological

processes.

In preaching the reconciliation of opposites, a 'mixed economy' and a `middle' path between capitalism and socialism, Schumacher reveals himself to be an ideologist of the

~^^1^^ Cf. E. F. Schumacher Small Is Beautiful. Study oj Economics As If People Mattered, Harper and Row, New York, 1973.

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petty bourgeoisie, expressing the objective contradiction of its social position. Mis views are very similar to (though not identical with) those of Proudlion and his followers, o!' whom Kngels wrote:

A reactionary streak run? through the whole of 1'roudhonism; an aversion lo the industrial revolution and the desire, somelimes overtly, sometimes covertly expressed, to drive the whole of modern industry out of the temple -steam engines, mechanical looms and the rest of the husiness---and to return lo old, respectable^^1^^ band labour. '

The views of Schumacher are as contradictory and ambivalent as are those of Proudlion, who protested against big capital while trying to preserve small-scale private property. The spirit of Proudlion can also be felt in the attempt to reconcile opposites by balancing them. This similarity between Proudlion and Schumacher is not, of course, explained by the mere borrowing of ideas, but by the fact that both ideologists belong to one and the same social type, namely the petty bourgeoisie. There is, however, one very important reservation: the philosophy of Proudlion is a petty bourgeois ideology in the context of the industrial revolution, while the views of Schumacher and other ' homecomers' correspond to the position of the middle strata of society in the context of the contemporary scientific and technological revolution occurring in the extremely contradictory conditions of the rule of state-monopoly capitalism.

At the beginning of the 1970s, social pessimism entered a new phase with the creation of mathematical models of the development of human society, on the basis of which it was concluded that economic growth and scientific and technological progress must be halted or at least limited in order to preserve the environment and natural resources. Do/ens of such global models have now been created, the most famous of which are the reports to The Club of Rome. The most important methodological premises and theoretical conclusions were formulated in the first reports to The Club of Rome, and also in the works of Jay Forrester, which drew the attention of society to objectively existing global problems and struck at 'incompetent optimism with

~^^1^^ Frederick Engels, 'The Housing Question". In K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works in three volumes, Volume Two, p. 313.

20*

respect to the process of development'.^J While fully agreeing that global modelling combined with extrapolation and analogy is becoming one of the duel' methods of social prognosis, contemporary Marxists also warn against making a fetish of this method. All the global models of Tho Club of Rome are models of extensive growth that exclude the possibility of radical, qualitative changes.^^2^^

Contemporary social pessimism is a complex mixture made up of a variety of tendencies, theories and ideas that are far from identical in their socio-class content.

Among those in the West who are sounding the alarm with regard to the exhaustion of non-renewable resources, the pollution of the environment and the threat of increasing famine there are a number of honest and sincere humanists who are concerned about the fate of mankind. However, only a few of them realise that it is private ownership, the capitalist system, the selfish interests of military-industrial complexes and oil companies that constitute the main obstacle to a democratic solution of the urgent problems facing mankind today.

While not denying the logic of certain of the propositions put forward in the reports to The Club of Rome, it must be pointed out that a number of the reports are imbued with neo-Malthusian eschatology and are, in effect, an attempt to surmount the growing difficulties by improving state-monopoly capitalism. The authors of alarmist models predict that the economic gap between the `rich' and the `poor' nations will widen still further, frightening their audience with the prospect of population growth, unprecedented famine, and bitter conflicts to secure the diminishing resources of fossil fuel and other raw materials. They call for the restriction of independence and sovereignty and praise multinational monopolies. Imperialist integration is presented as the only path to salvation for mankind. Mihajlo Mesarovic and Eduard Pestel, the authors of the second report to The Club of Rome, proclaim a new political

crusade and demand 'limits to independence---even for the strongest and biggest nations of the world'.^J

There is no need to emphasise the danger in today's world of such recommendations, which provide a respectable `theoretical' base for the aggressive designs of the imperialists striving for control of oil resources. Equally dubious, to say the least, are alarmist recommendations to shift to a 'zero development cycle', to a policy of economic equilibrium. On the one hand, such advice effectively provides pseudo-theoretical justification for stagnation, the freezing of the crises affecting the capitalist economy. On the other, it proposes the maintenance of tho status quo--- a high level of production and consumption in the developed capitalist countries and an extremely low level in the developing countries.

In the more recent reports to The Club of Rome the emphasis is on cultural, and above all moral and religious regeneration. Both the authors of the reports and the members of the Club themselves show a growing tendency to assume tho role of prophets, teachers and saviours of mankind. This tendency is clearly detectable in the writings and speeches of the President of The Club of Rome, Aurelio Peccei, who sees a 'new humanism' and the transformation of human consciousness as the only possible driving force behind the development of society. In his book The Human Quality he gives an extremely abstract definition of the principles and aims of this 'new humanism': a sense of globality, love of justice, abhorrence of violence.~^^2^^

The idealistic methodology and Utopian nature of Peccei's arguments are clearly revealed in an interview given to the Polish weekly Polityka, where he declares that there is need for a profound 'cultural revolution' which will determine the direction of further human development and bring about the necessary 'qualitative leap'. The human brain, a 'natural resource' possessing enormous but as yet untapped potential, will play the only and the decisive role in this evolution. Our future depends on whether we are able, over a short period of time, to learn how to use this

~^^1^^ M. Mesarovic, E. Pestel, Mankind at the Turning Point. The Second Report to The Club of Rome, E. P. Dutton Co. Inc., New York, 1974, p. 114.

~^^2^^ Aurelio Peccei, The Human Quality, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1977, p. 131.

~^^1^^ Cf. FeuiuuaHu fl,. M. MeioflOJiorHHecuHe npoCjieMU

HHH rjio6ant>Horo pasBHTMH. «Boiipocu 4)Hjioco<j>nn», 1978, N° 2, c. 16 (D. M. Gvishiani, 'Methodological Problems of Modelling Global Development', Voprosy filosofii, No. 2, 1978, p. 16).

~^^2^^ Cf. Apa6-Ozjiu 9. A. ^CMorpa^imecKHC M BKonorMHecKiie nporHoau. M., GraTHCTHKa, 1978, c. 192 (E. A. Arab-Ogly, Demographic and Ecological Forecasting, Statistika, Moscow, 1978, p. 192).

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dulled human potential which we have up till now ignored. ' Peccei considers it essential that 'enormous educational work be done in every sphere---political, social, cultural and institutional'. He proposes that the concept of economic development be replaced by the concept of ' cultural development'. He and his supporters interpret the principle of globality in the abstract-anthropological sense, presupposing no changes in the biosocial nature of man.

Thus, whereas in the recent past the alleged inevitability of the convergence and finally the fusion of the two opposing socio-economic systems was based primarily on arguments related to the specific characteristics of scientific and technological progress, now it is more often based on arguments related to ecology. According to this line of argument, the global dangers threatening mankind should give rise to a 'single global consciousness' free from ideological and class-party `narrowness'. There are calls to build a 'new ethic of the post-technological era', a non-class-based `ecological' and `biological' ethic, etc. The concept of state sovereignty is also declared outdated.

It is indeed true that the urgent problems facing the world today are global problems. However, global is not the same as non-class or supra-national. In other words, globality is a social phenomenon, and at present sociality cannot assume `pure' form, free from class, ideological and national characteristics.

`Globalistics', or the sum total of global problems examined in the context of the basic trends of contemporary social development, has always been at the centre of a bitter ideological struggle. This has given rise to a large number of propaganda sensations and myths that are products of ideological deception and a fevered imagination. It must be admitted, however, that bourgeois-liberal futurology not only frightens, but is itself badly frightened by the disturbing symptoms of the uncontrolled development of ' industrial civilisation'.

The feeling of purposelessness and meaninglessness, the absence of any positive programme of action, of noble aims and progressive ideals clearly illustrates the ideological bankruptcy of the contemporary bourgeoisie and its real social essence. This is the class truth of the bourgeoisie---

truth not in the sense of an objective and accurate reflection of social being, but truth in the sense of an accurate expression of its social psychology, its actual view of the world in the period of the general crisis of capitalism.

In the context of increasing militarism and an adventurist 'position of strength' policy going hand in hand with the attack by the monopolies on the living standards of the working people and also on the vestiges of bourgeois-- democratic rights and freedoms, fatalism, alarmist and other variants of bourgeois pessimism have a clearly defined social purpose. These gloomy visions of the future which cast the horrors of apocalypse into the shade, are intended to frighten, to stupefy the mind and paralyse the will. One must be satisfied with what there is, because tomorrow and the day after will be worse than the present---this is the social meaning of the 'stoical pessimism' that accompanies the technocratic models of post-industrial society.

This ideology is being propagated by the mass media and the industry of 'mass culture', whose main themes, alongside sex, have become burning skyscrapers, earthquakes, the death of entire countries and continents and annihilating warfare on earth and in space. This is not merely spiritual bankruptcy, philosophical nihilism, moral crisis and the absence of ideals (although all of this is also involved) but the accomplishment of a pragmatic socio-political task by using bourgeois pessimism, whose most dangerous and insidious form is the concept of the inevitability, and even the benefit of world war. However, the peoples of the world have other plans, and have no reason to hurry towards a global nuclear catastrophe.

The pessimistic prophecies of bourgeois ideologists are countered by the historical optimism of the progressive section of mankind. Thanks to the policy of peace and detente consistently pursued by the Soviet Union and the entire socialist community, and also to the efforts of all men of goodwill, it has proved possible to break the vicious cycle of world war---short respite---world war.

To safeguard peace---no task Is more important now on the international plane for our Party, for our people and, for that matter, for all the peoples of the world.

By safeguarding peace we aro working nol only for people who are living today, and not only for our children and grand-

~^^1^^ Polttyka, No. 5, 1979, s. 1, 12.

children; we arc working for the happinoss ot dozens of future generations,'

declared Brezhnev at the 26th Congress of the CPSU.

The optimism characteristic of Marxist-Leninist philosophy is scientifically grounded. It is based on the course of world history, on its objective laws, on anticipating the future, on faith in the creative powers and intelligence of the broad masses of the people, who are capable of conducting a resolute struggle in defence of peace and social progress.

Nataliya Kozlova Valentina Fedotova

The East-West Problem in the Era of the Scientific and Technological Revolution

^^1^^ Documents and Resolutions. The 26th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, p. 40.

The East-West problem is the result of the fact that different regions pass through the formational stages of historical development at different times and at different rates. This has caused particularly acute difficulties twice in the course of history: the first time was during the age of industrial revolution and colonial conquest, and the second during decolonisation and the scientific and technological revolution.

The colonial conquest of the East by developing capitalism increased as a consequence of the first industrial revolution, which brought with it the transition to machine industry. Britain, for example, became the cotton factory of the world, basing its industry on Indian raw materials. The process of colonisation revealed the economic backwardness of the countries of the East, further aggravated by capitalism, which encouraged their subsequent economic dependence upon one commodity. As a result of this disparity in socio-economic development, the East-West problem first arose as the problem of the relationship between non-civilised countries being drawn into civilisation, and civilised countries. As the countries of the East moved from the patriarchal, feudal system to a more advanced system via colonialism, the specifics of socio-economic processes in the East and the resilience of its socio-cultural traditions became manifest. The resilience of Eastern cultural forms led scholars to view West and East as two distinct civilisations, a view that registered not only the geographical location of societies, but also qualitative differences in the socio-cultural life of these societies, resulting primarily from socio-economic factors.

'Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet', wrote Kipling, giving poetic expression to the contradictions between Western and Eastern civilisation as types of social formation with distinctly different cultures.

Marx pointed out that the colonisation of the East, which led to the collapse of the old Asiatic society, also created the conditions necessary for the transition to new, more advanced social relations. The penetration of Western capital destroyed the village community, which had ensured the patriarchal link between crop growing and handicrafts and was based on domestic production. Moreover (and Marx laid particular emphasis on this point), srich forms of social organism disappeared not so much as a result of the direct intervention of the colonial soldier and official, but rather as a result of the introduction of free trade, new technology, etc. In destroying the economic basis of the village communities---semi-barbaric, semi-civilised cells of society---the processes referred to above caused 'the greatest ... social revolution ever beard of in Asia'.^J These enormous destructive forces were, at the same time, also enormously creative forces. The destruction of traditional social structures was accompanied by the unification of the conquered countries, which were thus included into the system of worldwide commodity exchange, and by the introduction of new methods of communication and the achievements of Western industry and technology. The destruction of the hereditary division of labour created the conditions necessary for the formation of modern industry.^^2^^

However, none of this brought freedom to the popular masses, nor did it improve their social position, for these changes did not give them access to the productive forces. Nor, in the context of colonialism and capitalist social relations, could it be otherwise, particularly as, in fulfilling what was, objectively speaking, a civilising mission, capitalism displayed in its colonies its most reactionary qualities, reproducing by means of its relatively advanced technical and organisational methods the social relations of tra-

ditional society in order to maintain its own domination.^J The old world was destroyed, but no new world replaced it, and this massive disparity between the new trends and the past with its ancient traditions led to the erosion of all that was truly great and magnificent in Eastern society and to the denigration of the achievements of national cultures. The ruthless nature of such socio-historical development caused a number of the spiritual leaders of the countries of the East to view Western culture (including science) and colonialism, with all its consequences as synonymous,² while native religions beliefs became the symbol of their former independence, the symbol of the uniqueness and originality of the peoples of the East. If these factors are ignored, it becomes impossible to understand the anti-- Western animosity towards science so widespread in the East. The foregoing explains the difficulties and contradictions facing science and scientists in the countries of the East. In the West, science already has a long history. It developed as an element of a specific type of culture, although it also inherited the scientific and technical experience of the ancient and medieval East.^^3^^ The creation of modern scientific social institutions and a specific code of social conduct for scientists occurred in the West gradually and purposefully, whereas in the East, modern science as a social institution is still in its formative stage. The scientific traditions of the East were interrupted, and the gap between modern science and 'wisdom writings', the basic form of traditional knowledge, seems to be too vast to be bridged. Native scientific and technical specialists are educated abroad, in Europe and America. However, the main difficulty is that the social applications of science are extremely limited, because society as a whole is not ready to assimilate and use the achievements of scientific and technological progress.

At the present stage of social development, when the countries of the East have freed themselves from colonial-

~^^1^^ Cf. CUMOHUH II. A. CTpanu BocxoKa: FlyTH pasBHTiin. M., HayKa, 1975 (N. A. Simonia, The Countries of the East: Paths of Development, Nauka, Moscow, 1975).

~^^2^^ Cf. D. P. Mukherji, foreword to A. Aranson's Europe Looks at India. A Stud;/ of Cultural Relations, Tlind Kitabs Publishers, Bombay, 1946.

~^^3^^ Cf. the article by Nelli Motroshilova in the present collection.

~^^1^^ Karl Marx 'The British Rule in India'. In Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 12, 1979, p. 132. = Cf. K. Marx, Op. cit., pp. 218, 220-221.

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ist oppression and have started upon the construction of a new society, conservative forms of social consciousness are not merely regrettable errors, but factors that may act as a brake upon the socio-revolutionary process in these countries and constitute a serious obstacle to their progress. The regeneration of the countries of the East is not simply a return to the florescence of medieval Eastern culture. History cannot bo made to flow backwards, and this is recognised by rationally-minded public figures and scientists in these countries. The well-known Indian specialist in the sociology of science, Abdur Rahman, points out that the developing countries must not close themselves off within their system of traditional values, but must strive to create the conditions necessary for scientific and technological progress and its social application, as otherwise it will not be possible to bridge the gap between the developed industrial countries of the West and the countries of the East. The scientific revolution requires major social change, or else the process of modernisation will take as long in the East as the transition from the Middle Ages to the present day took in the West.^l

The scientific and technological revolution and the emerging 'second industrial revolution' produce qualitative new changes in the development of the productive forces. They affect every branch of the economy, completing the industrialisation of those which had not yet been mechanised. The capitalist countries of the West have entered the scientific and technological revolution, which has significantly increased the role of science in material production through new technology and the intensive development of such key brandies of the economy as atomic power, computer technology, chemistry, space technology, etc. These branches of the economy demand a level of capital investment, material expenditure and labour collaboration such that these countries, despite their considerable experience in science and industry, have been obliged to combine their efforts and to attract specialists from outside. Tin's only serves to increase the gap between the developed and the developing countries and further aggravate the East-West problem.

Unlike the first industrial revolution, which affected only a small number of developed European countries, the scien-

^^1^^ A. Rahman, Trimurtl. Science, Technology and Society. A Collection of Ettays, People's Publishing Mouse, New Delhi, 1972, p. 73.

tide and technological revolution is a global phenomenon. For the countries of the East, scientific progress means catching up with the present level of scientific development, introducing modern technology into agriculture and traditional branches of industry, increasing the number of native scientists, and joining in the worldwide process of scientific advance. Certain researchers claim that the present quantitative parameters of science---its exponential growth exceeding tliat of the population---can only be maintained if the developing countries are drawn into the production of scientific knowledge.^^1^^ Contacts between East and West and assimilation of the latest Western technology are speeding up the modernisation of the countries of the East at this stage.

However, the East-West problem is often presented in bourgeois literature (both Western and Eastern) as the problem of two mutually exclusive cultures having diametrically opposed characteristics, the spiritualism of the East and the materialism of the West, the passive contemplation of the East and the vigorous activity of the West, the non-scientific orientation of the East and the scientific orientation of the West, the pessimism of the East which can go as far as denial of the world and of life and the optimism of the West, etc. This concept of the East and the West as opposites is held not only by those who are proponents of the hermetic, self-contained nature of economico-cultural and social formations in these two regions, but also to some degree by Western and Eastern comparativist philosophers, who declare that their aim is to overcome the opposing modes of thought of East and W^^7^^est.^^2^^

The comparativist philosophers Huston Smith, Charles Moore, Kuttat, P. T. Raju, Bammate and others have done much to elucidate the specific features of such cultural regions as China, India and the Arab world. In many cases attempts to identify the specific spiritual characteristics of

~^^1^^ Cf. for example: <I>eiiH6epr E. Jl. Tpa^myioHHoe 11 ocoSeHHoe u MCToflonorimecKHx npHHiranax ^HSHKH XX aeKa. «Bonpocu <J>HJIOCO<}>HH», 1980, JVslO, c. 108 (Ye. L. Feinberg, 'The Traditional and the Particular in the Methodological Principles of Physics in the 20th Century', Voprosy filosofii, No. 10, 1980, p. 108).

~^^2^^ Cf. the comparativist journal Philosophy East and West, whose contributors are mainly American and Indian philosophers, and representatives of some West European and Eastern countries.

these regions involve a denial ol' their social conditioning, with socialist development and Marxist ideas contrasted against tiie `timeless' traditions of the East; Chinese consciousness directed towards social organisation to the detriment of mastery over the natural world and psychological development; the psychological orientation of Indian philosophy, developing to the detriment of natural-scientihc and social analysis; Arab-Muslim culture, closer to that of the West by virtue of their mutual links, its interest directed towards the natural world, but, in contrast to the West, lacking a synthetic attitude towards it. Here the body of science is inseparable from the body of religion, creating a situation similar to that of the medieval West.

The detailed investigation into the categories of Chinese, Indian and Arab-Muslim philosophies carried out by these comparativist scholars, their semantic analysis and search for analogues in the philosophical systems of the West, is occasionally marked by insufficient allowance for the context in which they function.

These comparativist philosophers ignore the actual processes involved in the relationship between East and West, the fact that the East was drawn into the orbit of world development, and the resultant contradictions in the spiritual life of the East, which had direct analogues in the contradictions in Western spiritual life provoked by its own development. We are referring to the problem of traditionalism versus modernism widespread in the East, and scientism versus anti-scientism typical of the West.

Early bourgeois thought, and particularly classical bourgeois philosophy, saw the reason for the success of the bourgeoisie in rationalism. This last was understood in its broad sense to mean the ability of the mind to understand, to posit rational purposes, to master the natural world and build society on rational principles. The identity of mind and reality and the rationality of reality, were the fundamental tenets of classical bourgeois rationalism, imbued with the optimism of a class with the future before it. The subsequent development of capitalism brought disillusionment: men found that they could not bring objective social and natural processes under their rational control. Rationalism faced opposition from irrationalism and was contrasted against the 'other rationality' of the East ( Schopenhauer and the romantics).

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As capitalism entered its state-monopoly stage, optimistic bourgeois rationality faced a crisis. Capitalist rationality acquired a new meaning as orientation towards a specific goal and the will to achieve it, as utilitarianism and calculation. The standard against which this new rationality was measured was science and technology.

The theoretician of the new rationality was Max Weber. In his typology of social actions, he identified value-- orientated rational actions, where rationality was based upon subordination to an absolute value---religious, ethical, etc.--- and purpose-orientated rational actions typical of capitalism.~^^4^^ Of all the abstractions used in bourgeois social philosophy to describe the East and the West, the most widespread, according to Weber, is that which views the forms of Eastern activity as value-orientated rationality linked first and foremost to values, and only secondly to aims, while the forms of Western activity are primarily purposeorientated rationality, i.e. always involve first and foremost the positing of a goal, with values taking second place and therefore losing their absoluteness to become situational values. Thus bourgeois society does not create values that are not identical with its production interests. Production becomes for this society an end in itself, its values guide. This last then determines the sphere of consciousness production, bringing into being a cultural industry which continually produces the new, and breaks with the spiritual traditions of the preceding period. The purpose-orientated rationality of Western activity is inextricably bound up with the development of science, its penetration into production and the expansion of production potential, and also with the cultivation of values by science itself.

This new interpretation of rationality meant that science was seen not simply as one type of cognitive activity, but as an attitude to the world that determines fundamental human principles and purposes, and dictates the specific content of the idea of progress, the fate of culture and society. Thus Max Scheler argued that the basic difference between East and West lay in their different attitude towards and use of science and technology: the West is a civilisation that develops a science and technology directed

~^^1^^ Cf. Max Weber, Gesammelte Aujsatze zur Wissenschaftslehre, Volag J. G. B. Mehr (Paul Siebeck), Tubingen, 1951, S. 551.

outwards to the natural world; while in the East they are directed inwards, to the perfection of man's inner world. *

The reaction to the characteristic features of contemporary capitalism mentioned above was the absolutisation of the role played in it by science and technology, as is revealed in the bitter confrontation between scientism and anti-sciontism. Scientism is that theoretical and philosophical trend in bourgeois consciousness which expresses approval of the purpose-orientated rationality of the West directed towards production. It sees the source of optimism and the basis of stability in the development of the natural sciences and in the formulation of a world-view free from metaphysics and based upon empirical data. This view does not enjoy broad popularity in the East.

In anti-scientistic thought, contemporary Western society appears as the practical realisation of a specific orientation of the mind and the revelation of its essential nature. The development of science and of scientific and technological rationality has, according to the proponents of this theory, led in the West to the growth of material wealth at the cost of human development, whereas in fact these changes were linked to the final stage in the rise of capitalism and the exhaustion of its spiritual potential. A number of Western theoreticians are of the opinion that the contradiction between the social structure and culture, between an empirical reality built on the principles of economic rationality on the one hand, and humanitarian values on the other was merely further aggravated during the scientific and technological revoluton. With science and technology constituting the basis of all rational human activity, human existence is stripped of genuine purpose and value, and man himself is turned into a depersonalised part of a machine. As a result, man has lost sight of the past and the future in order, according to Karl Jaspers, to be restricted by the narrow band of the present to become easily replaceable and suitable for any purpose.~^^2^^

This anti-scientistic attitude towards the world proved a powerful opponent of scientism. Anti-sciontism sees the

Western model of development, supposedly determined by science, as the source of wars, pollution of the environment and the suppressions of human nature, and in the scientistic outlook it sees soullessness and the rejection of nonscience-based and non-production-based values. Anti-- scientism wishes world outlook to be based upon philosophicalartistic reflection (Heidegger), art (Adorno), aestheticised experience (Marcuso) and also everyday consciousness.

Clearly, the anti-scientistic models of social development constructed in the West cannot be applied in the countries of developed capitalism. They are intended primarily for the developing countries, and this is the reason for the praise of Oriental modes of thought by many supporters of anti-scientism. Their orientation towards the East is a way of expressing their discontent with Western civilisation, and traditionalist circles in the East in their turn base themselves upon anti-scientistic social criticism in arguing their own case.

Despite the fact that anti-scientism has a large number of variants, they are all united by one basic attitude, namely doubt as regards the achievements of Western civilisation as such, and the conviction that it has from the very beginning been based upon certain mistaken premises. This view is taken up by Eastern traditionalists, who base their theories on the historical material pertaining to Western culture and the arguments of anti-scientistic theoreticians, and also upon the setbacks experienced during modernisation in their own countries. Eastern traditionalists see their views mirrored in the concepts advanced by Catholic critics of Western civilisation and the views of leftwing radical theoreticians and existentialists, who call for the rational-technological model of communication, based upon endless monologue, to be abandoned in favour of genuine dialogue.

Many Eastern scholars who belong to what we have referred to as the traditionalist movement follow Max Weber in according formal logic a particular role in the genesis of Western civilisation. They see the essential characteristics of this civilisation as having sprung from the tradition of precise logical thought which developed in European culture as a result of the long reign of scholastic theology, which found its consummation in modern science. Such is the view of the well-known Iranian researcher into Eastern

~^^1^^ M. Scheler, Die Wissensformen und die Gesellschaft, der Neue Geist Verlag, Leipzig, 1926.

~^^2^^ K. Jaspers, Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte, Artemis-Verlag, Zurich, 1949, S. 129.

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science, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, whose outlook is the ultimate expression of the traditionalist approach to science and society. He is convinced that the roots of Western science are to he sought in the fact that Western civilisation is Christian. Concentrating its efforts upon the quest for the 'kingdom of God' and simultaneously denying that man was in the power of a natural world governed by mysterious `demoniac' forces, Christianity placed the natural world in the hands of men. As a result, natural philosophy found itself on the periphery of European medieval culture, and although a contemplative and metaphysical dimension of Christianity running counter to official theology can be seen in the works of Dante, Ekhart and Erigena, amongst others, this tendency was later superseded. By the thirteenth century, the 'golden age' of European culture marked by a balance between theology and natural philosophy came to an end. According to Nasr, the paradise of 'the age of faith' was finally lost to Western man with the onset of the Renaissance, when man ceased to be a being akin to angels and became merely a man firmly bound to the earth. Nature ceased to be a reflection of a 'heavenly reality'. The system of Copernicus was conclusive evidence of the emergence of a new view of the world as a physical universe lacking a divine dimension. The mathematics and philosophy of Descarlcs completed a process in which the diversity of the world was reduced to quantitative relations, as a result of which science separated off and became indifferent to the values of human existence. The fusion of the 'personal energy of Jahweh' with the 'rationality of Greek philosophy' is the source of the tendency in Western thought to abstract from man, to seek knowledge for its own sake, and to separate the means of activity from its

purposes.ⁱ

In the opinion of Eastern traditionalists critical of Western civilisation, the main result of its existence and development is the quest for unlimited control over the natural world and the attempt to construct an 'endlessly progressing society'. The single most important consequence of this was the 'great denial' of the mystery of human existence, which led to the 'death of man' not only in terms of his ~^^1^^ Cf. S. II. Nasr, Man and Nature. The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man. A Mandale Book published by Unwin Paperbacks, London, 1976, pp. 57-64.

T

divine origin, but even in terms of his historical existence. The symbolic view of the world and the things it contains has been lost. The majority of men have been forced to exist in a desanctified world of phenomena whose only meaning is either that they have some reciprocal quantitative relationship which satisfies the requirements of the scientific mind or that they are materially useful to man who feels he has no purpose other than his existence upon earth. This situation is the direct result of forgetting the true hierarchy of scientific knowledge, ignoring knowledge of the super-reality that gives aims and purposes to human activity.

According to Nasr, the loss of metaphysical knowledge as genuine wisdom and its abandonment in favour of scientific rationality led to the loss of harmony between man and the natural world, to a disproportionate growth in the importance accorded to the natural sciences within the system of knowledge. Individual manifestations of a metaphysical attitude to the world (for example, Jakob Bohme and the romantics) only serve, so the traditionalists believe, to underscore the general tendency, whose result can now be seen in the negative consequences of the development of Western civilisation.^l This argument has served as the justification of East-centrism as a method of conserving Eastern societies.

An analysis of the views of the traditionalists reveals that commitment to the East is (in contrast to that of the Western proponents of anti-scientism) `positive' in principle, objectively conditioned by the general upsurge in national self-awareness in those countries that have freed themselves from colonial dependence. Their attitude is marked by confidence that a solution will be found both to the general problems of social development in the modern world, and to the problem of the social consequences of the scientific and technological revolution. That which the West has failed to solve, the East will solve. Moreover, the traditionalists are convinced that the problems facing Western society and its culture cannot be resolved without turning to the East. However, whereas the crisis of contemporary bourgeois society has simply reinforced a tend-

Ibid., pp. 82-83.

21*

ency on the part of Western thinkers to turn to a civilisation built on 'a different kind of rationality' in an attempt to broaden the horizons of consciousness and find a way out of social and spiritual crisis, the attitude of Eastern thinkers is frequently marked by a distinct anti-- Westernism and a desire to return to the past.

What precisely is being proposed as the alternative to the declining West? What exactly do the traditionalists mean by 'a different kind of rationality'? It is suggested that the urgent problems facing mankind as a result of the negative consequences of the scientific and technological revolution are to be solved primarily by a return to the lost metaphysical tradition of the West and the retention of that which still exists in the East. This tradition is to be revived and given comprehensive development. Only thus, claim the traditionalists, will it be possible to include science within an integrated, universal system of knowledge, regulate purpose-orientated scientific and technological activity and control its social and practical parameters. The renaissance of the metaphysical tradition in the West is impossible without turning to the East and to that ancient tradition of studying the natural world that is represented by medieval alchemy in Europe and the living tradition of 'genuine metaphysics' that has been retained in the East, where it is possible to find, despite certain differences in argumentation, that unity of doctrine that makes it possible to speak of 'Eastern metaphysics' as a theory of reality incorporated within the system of the tradition of divine revelation.ⁱ

What tradition is meant here? In the Far East, in Confucianism, Ch'an and Shintoism, a profound meaning was

given to a reverential attitude to nature and to an appreciation of its religious-metaphysical significance. The same is true with regard to Hinduism, where the `transparency' of nature in relation to metaphysical realities was accorded considerable importance, and cognition of the natural world in traditional science was linked to its subordination to universal spiritual principles and to the moral purity of the bearer of knowledge. As for the Islamic tradition, the basis for iho hierarchisalion of natural science and theology was attributed to the Koran.

Thus the traditionalists consider that the most valuable achievement of the spiritual-cultural traditions of the East is the subordination of scientific knowledge to religious principles. It is this that they consider to be worthy of preservation and of imitation by the West. That neither China nor the Islamic countries gave birth to a science comparable with that in the West they explain by arguing that in the East the natural world was never stripped of its divine and spiritual dimension, and the religious tradition did not permit natural science and secular philosophy to develop outside the matrix of traditional religious orthodoxy. Thus Nasr writes:

.. .The fact that modern science did not develop in its bosom is not the sign of decadence as some have claimed, but of the refusal of Islam to consider any form of knowledge as purely secular and divorced from what it considers to be the ultimate goal of human existence.'

It is this `refusal', and not the fact that Eastern societies were at a lower level of socio historical development that, in the opinion of Western proponents of anti-scientism and Eastern traditionalists, conditioned the absence of the profit motive in the social production of those countries, together with the renunciation of the search for the maximum number of material goods to the detriment of human development. The subordination of economics to metaphysical aspirations prevented the unlimited growth of material production and encouraged the formation of the 'self-contained economies' of Eastern towns and village-communities. The continuation of this situation enables society to live in

~^^1^^ The call 'Back (or Forward?) to Metaphysics'---that of the East or that of the Christian early Middle Ages---can also be heard in the West, particularly among Catholic philosophers, who represent the most reactionary, retrograde section of contemporary bourgeois consciousness. (Cf. Technology and Christian Culture. A n Oriental View. Edited by Robert Paul Mohan, the Catholic University of America Press, Washington, 1960, pp. 99-118.) However, direct attempts to unite objective and `existentialist' knowledge, synthesise science and myth are very rare (cf. 16. Weltkongress fiir Phllosophle, 27 Aug.-2 Sept. 1978, Dusseldorf); BoeoMoAoe A. C. Hayna H untie $ODMU pan; HOHajibHOCTH. «Bonpocu HJIOCOHH», 1979, Ns. 4, c. 110-111 (A. S. Bo

~^^1^^ Cf. S. H. Nasr, Op. cit., p. 98.

gOmOlOV, 3CU3llv>e auu <-.

No. 4, 1979, p. 110-111).

of Rationality', Voprosy filosofit,

peace with the natural environment, and this creates the optimal conditions of life for the individual. *

Concepts similar to those of S. II. Nasr, K. Saran ( India), R. Kothari (India) and Kasai (Japan) constitute in effect a defence of the view that there exists a specific Eastern science characterised by an attitude to the natural world which preserves the unity of nature and man.^^2^^ This trend towards an unconditional acceptance of the values of traditional society and its science, tin's belief in the need to preserve them, and in (he elernily of existence as opposed to the 'instrumental activism' of Ihe West, can be found in the East in various seclions and al different levels of society. It is worth mentioning at this point thai many leaders of the national-liberation movement in Kastern countries share this traditionalist oullook. Mahatma Gandhi, the great leader of the Indian liberation movement, sharply criticised false European civilisation as a technological, a machine civilisation. Gandhi'? criticism was focussed not, on the capitalist mode of production, hut on machine production as such, whose development had allegedly been prohibited by the ancestors of present-day Indians.³ As for the traditionalism of popular consciousness, this requires no comment.

The basic conclusion of the defenders of traditional societies and a specific Eastern science is that only traditional Eastern wisdom can save man in terms of both his material and spiritual existence. Here the concept of tradition ceases to refer to one of the means ol Iransmilling culture and acquires a halo of elemily and transcendentalism, becoming `Tradition' with a capital T. This desire to putEastern tradition in absolute opposition to Ihe scientific ra-

~^^1^^ Cf. S. II. Nasr, Islamic Science. An Illustrated Stud*/, World of Islam Festival Publishing Co. Ltd., Westerham, Kent, 1976, p. 233.

Marx severely criticised those who idealised the Eastern villagecommunity: '...These idyllic village communities, inoffensive though they may appear, had always been the solid foundation of Oriental despotism... they restrained the human inincl within Ihe smallest possible compass, making it the unresisting tool of superstition, enslaving it beneath traditional rules, depriving it of all grandeur and historical energies.' (Karl Marx, 'The British Hnle in India', p. 132).

~^^2^^ Cf. Meeting of Experts on the Impact oj Science and Technology on Cultural Values and the Quality of Life in Asia, 4-8 Sept, 1978, Huberabad. 1978.

~^^3^^ The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. X, The Publications Division Delhi, 1963, pp, G-68.

tionality of the West leads to Asia-centrism, which is no less one-sided than the still surviving Eurocentrism. Filled with perfectly legitimate pride in the millennia-old history of their countries and their enormous cultural development, the Asia-centrists fail to recognise that the same is true, and to no lesser degree, of other countries, and particularly those of Europe. This was rightly noted by the renowned Soviet orientologist N. I. Konrad, who accurately observed that these traditionalists sincerely believe that 'the light comes entirely from the East, forgetting the powerful light of the West'.<

In the consciousness of Eastern societies, traditionalism is opposed by modernism. Just as scientism in the West provides an apologetics of Western scientific and technological development, so modernism in the East provides an apologetics of Eastern modernisation. However, modernism is less homogeneous than scientism, as modernisation in the developing countries is still a new and unstable process. Within modernism there are serious debates on the paths to modernisation, and on the relationship between old and new in the course of Eastern development.

There are several basic capitalist methods of modernising the economies of the developing countries. The first involves attracting foreign capital and importing ready-made technology. This method has a fairly rapid economic effect and leads to the capitalisation of a number of branches of social production, causing the intensive growth of main cities and the adoption by their population of the more superficial and often the worst characteristics of the Western way of life. This tiny island of modernisation in the centre of the country stands over against the traditional forms of life still pursued by the bulk of the population.

In other instances, national traditions, rights and needs are rudely violated in the course of modernisation, and development is linked up with militarisation in order to lend a spurious stability to the ruling regime and enrich the ruling elite. A particularly striking example here is Iran, where tradition revealed its potential for action and Islam displayed its active power, contradicting the myth of the passivity of the religions East.

The second method of modernisation is based on copying

~^^1^^ Konpad II. E, 3anaA H BOCTOK. CraTM. M., HayKa, 1966, c. 31 (N. I. Konrad, West and East. Articles, Nauka, Moscow, 1966, p. 31).

Western models of technology and culture, development being interpreted to mean direct imitation of the West. Fifty-seven associate members of the EEC have taken advantage of the offer of preferential trade (a guaranteed market for their goods) and have engaged in the process of imitating Western models, thereby experiencing the same difficulties with regard to the traditional sector as those provoked by the first method.

The third method, represented by Japan, has proved unique. The assimilation of Western technology was carried through in a situation of military and political independence, which enabled the country to become a centre of developed capitalism, combining urbanisation and industrial growth with the partial retention of ancient traditions, and in particular the specifically Japanese ethic of duty, which made it possible to retain patriarchal relations in industry, to provide cheap labour and to ensure a fairly high level of general education. In its spiritual culture, Japan has been drawn towards the Western mode of thought, rejecting the traditions of Confucianism and Buddhism. Yu. B. Kozlovsky noted that

the concepts 'Western philosophy', 'Western ideas', etc., became less alient with the passage of time, as the content of 'Western thought' penetrated more and more deeply into Japanese social consciousness, modified to a certain degree to meet the ideological requirements of Japanese society.'

However, the Japanese method also contains contradictions between old and new.~^^2^^

The fourth method involves the development of the state sector of the economy, tariff barriers to protect local produce against competition from more experienced and advanced firms, and industrial progress secured by the efforts of the country itself, or, as is the case with India, with help from developed, usually socialist countries. This method provides for the slower but surer fusion of modern industry and social organisation with traditional ways of life, and

I constantly makes allowance for these traditional ways in I the process of modernisation. Such a method is far from easy, and traditionalist opposition is also considerable, particularly as it involves the abolition of traditional privileges.

It should also be noted that the dramatic clash between traditionalism and modernism is not limited to philosophical views. It is also a feature of mass consciousness in the developing countries and finds expression in art. *

This is the problem discussed by Krishnan Sondhi, an Indian specialist in the mass media, who also researches into cultural problems. He said that the Indians had to meet the challenge of a new age and new values, which they must accept, but on the their own terms, and not on the terms dictated by an alien power or by exploitative industrialism. The result of modernisation must not be 'a pariah---a vagrant, a cast-away who belonged neither to the East nor West, neither to God nor man^^1^^.^^2^^ This is a perfectly legitimate and just demand. However, pondering over the ways to achieve this end, Sondhi concludes that the renaissance in the East can only be a religious renaissance, as in Eastern cultures the final aim of human existence has always been spiritual self-realisation. In Europe and North America the spirit of reason and science caused an unprecedented growth in technology and material wealth. The East can accept the achievements of Western civilisation, but only on the condition that they are subordinate to the unchanging system of absolute values.~^^3^^

It is not surprising that the same tendency can be found in science. Many Indian scientists are convinced that modern science, their own field of study, must be supplemented by, or more accurately, hierarchically subordinate to a higher type of knowledge, traditional philosophy, religion and ethics. Only then is it possible to have an integrated attitude to the world. Traditional Eastern spirituality, having breathed life into alienated Western science, will give rise to a new kind of knowledge, and therefore to a new kind of man. The conversion of science from an end in it-

~^^1^^ Cf. KosjioecKuii K). B. OHJIOCO^HH 3K3HCTeHu,HajiH3Ma B cospeHnoHHH. M., HayKa, 1975, c. 171 (Yu. B. Kozlovsky, The Philosophy of Elistentionalism in Modern Japan, Nauka, Moscow, 1975, p. 171).

^z Cf. Bopt6a Hfleii B coDpeMennoM Mnpe. T. 3. Eon pefl. KoHCTaH-- raHoaa <D. B., M., nojiHTH3«aT, 1978, c. 112-113 (The Struggle of Ideas in the Modern World. Vol. 3. Edited by F. V. Konstantinov, Politizdat, Moscow, 1978, pp. 112-113).

328 '

~^^1^^ Cf. the article by Lidiya Novikova and Stanislav Zavadsky in the present collection.

~^^2^^ Krishnan Sondhi, Uprooted. An Inner Voyage to India's Past, Arnold-Heinemann, New Delhi, 1977, p. 142.

~^^8^^ Ibid.

self into a means, and the recognition of the eternal mystery of human existence, which modern science is unable to fathom, will make it possible to construct an 'ethical culture' in which the means of activity will take their rightful position with regard to these aims.ⁱ

The views of Western scholars concerning Eastern science are also worth noting for they are not dissimilar to those examined above. Joseph Ncedham, well known for his research into Chinese science, differs from the proponents of traditionalist views in giving due emphasis to the social roots of the development of science, and does not accept that these differences are the result of psychological, ethnic or other peculiarities. Just as he links the development of European science with the Renaissance, the Reformation and the rise of capitalism,^^2^^ he also suggests that sociological studies 'will greatly elucidate my own problem of the early advanced and later retarded character of Chinese science and technology'.^^3^^ Moreover, Needham clearly delimits the use of the term `science' as a European phenomenon: '. . .the essential point is that the development of modern science occurred in Europe and nowhere else'~^^4^^~i.e. science in China is something other than that which is usually termed science. With Needham, this idea is combined with the concept of the universality of scientific development and with a call for respect for the traditions of Chinese science. The search for the specific quality of Eastern science leads Needham to his first proposition, namely that Eastern science is an `organism' in contrast to the `mechanism' of European thought. In his opinion, the organic, homcostatic nature of Chinese science derives from the fact that it is inseparable from every other aspect of socio-political and cultural development. Science for China is not, according to Needham, an independent institution, but is constructed, as is the whole of Chinese social life, upon the basic principles of The Book of Changes, which determine its qualitative nature. European science, on the other hand, is constructed on the

basis of quantitative, measurable principles which allow its development and subsequent institutionalisation. In his second proposition Needham goes on to criticise Eurocentrism in the evaluation of scientific achievements, thereby contradicting to a certain degree his first proposition: the continuity, the link which, according to Needham, exists between Chinese and European science is not to be sought in those areas marked by the differences between `organism' and `mechanism', but in the area of technological innovation and invention. Needbam's comparativist theory crashes as a result of his denial of the unity of world history and of any stages of development that are obligatory for all mankind. Insofar as lie does see any unity, it is merely in the form of empirically observable links between cultures.

Thus in the East the search for paths of social development only too often assumes the form (even in modernist trends) of nco-romanticism, which seeks within the context of contemporary socio-historical conditions to resurrect a view of the world that belongs to an age already passed beyond recall. Moreover, it is widely believed that spiritualcultural values constitute an immutable system. This belief does not correspond to the actual facts of the history of spiritual culture. It is a well-known fact that orthodox religious traditions in the countries of the East constantly developed and adapted to changing historical conditions. Both progressive and reactionary and conservative social forces appealed to the ancient religious-philosophical systems of the East.^^1^^ Individual values also undergo gradual change, a process that is particularly dynamic today, when the broad diffusion of the culture and way of life of the developed Western countries is causing a radical shift in the values system of individuals, a transformation of norms.^^2^^

~^^1^^ Cf: Bacujij.ea JI. C. KyjibTypHO-pejiHrnoaiiHe TpajjimiiH crpan BocTOKa. M., MocKoncKim roc. uncTHTyr MejKAynapopiHHX OTHomeHHii, 1976 (L. S. Vasilvev, The CuUuro-Beligious Traditions of the East, Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Moscow, 1976).

~^^2^^ On tho specifics of tho process of modernisation in the countries of the East in terms of its effect upon the individual cf.: Ratna Dutta, Values in Models of Modernization, Vicas Publications, Delhi, 1971, pp. 122-128; Alex'Inkeles and David H. Smith, Becoming Modern. Individual Change in Six Developing Countries, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass.), 1974.

~^^1^^ Cf. A. Rahman, Trimurti. Science, Technology and Society, Peo pie's Publishing House, New Delhi, 1972, p. 153-194.

~^^2^^ Cf. Joseph Neodham, 'Science and Society in East and West'. In The Science of Science. Edited by Maurice Goldsmith, Alan Mackay. Penguin Books, Harmends-worth Middlesex, 1966, p 162.

~^^8^^ Ibid., p. 178. * Ibid., p. 162.

330-

At the same time, the existing level of the development of the productive forces on the one hand, and the nature of social production relations, the economy and social institutions on the other, are such that they are unable to satisfy the expectations of society. Such a situation only serves to aggravate the 'disillusionment with progress' which is now a characteristic feature of the developing countries, and to intensify anti-Western, conservative tendencies. It must also he remembered that the rapid spread of Western culture also helped to stimulate consciousness of national cultural traditions. It is therefore impossible to examine the antiWestern trends, manifesting themselves in modernising and traditionalism, without taking into account their specifically social origin in the general process of social development in the countries of the East.

The similarity of views among certain Western and Eastern social philosophers who belong to the above-mentioned schools of thought is not, and cannot be absolute. It should be noted, however, that the main similarity between traditionalism versus modernism in the East, and sciontism versus anti-scientism in the West is that in both cases they are not only socio-cultural but also socio-political trends in social consciousness. They express not merely an attitude to the position of science within a given system of values, but also an attitude towards the prospects of social development. Scientism believes in the stable and continually forward-moving development of capitalism, and in the importance of the role of science and technology in this process. The conformist, bourgeois-reformist, bourgeois-liberal consciousness of scientism prompts it to propose the natural, positive evolution of capitalism on the basis of the development of science and technology, and the spread of capitalism to the developing countries. Anti-scientism criticises contemporary capitalism from left-wing radical, bourgeoisliberal and right-wing religous positions, and is worried by its continuation. It is sharply critical of Western society, going as far as to reject scientific and technological development and to call for a return to patriarchal pre-capitalist relations. The supporters of the anti-scientistic trend typically adopt a retrospective view, noting the setbacks of Western society rather than seeking a realistic solution to urgent social problems. This attitude is revealed, amongst other things, in the doubts expressed by Heidegger on the

usefulness of any positive formulation of these problems (particularly socio-political problems), and the absolutisation by the theoreticians of the Frankfurt school of social research of the principle of the 'total rejection' of contemporary bourgeois society.

It is clear that the present situation of contemporary science in the East brings it into conflict with the traditional system of knowledge about the world and the existing structure of spiritual production. However, this does not mean that modern science and technology arc unsuitable for Eastern civilisations, which are supposedly concerned exclusively with the soul and not with the `base' material needs of man. The real problem is that the level of development in the countries of the East does not correspond to the tasks facing science, the latter viewed not merely as a stock of knowledge, but as a universal productive force that meets the needs of contemporary society and contemporary man for universal development and that helps overcoming the traditional way of life and traditional consciousness, with their limitations and inward-looking isolation. The task which the leaders of the national-liberation movements of the East have set themselves, that of liberating their peoples from centuries of backwardness, securing the unity of material and spiritual progress and building a new culture on the basis of the positive elements of traditional culture, is a complex one, and indissolubly linked with the socio-political orientation of the newly independent countries. Those countries which have adopted the path of socialist development are guaranteed economic independence and assistance, a growing number of native specialists and skilled workers and the development of education, and they now face the need to build a new type of culture. The non-Russian peripheral areas of the Soviet Union which are developing new cultural forms, against the background of economic prosperity, while retaining the unique characteristics of their national culture, are eloquent proof of the fact that the dilemma of modernism versus traditionalism is not restricted to the attitude to the development of science and industry in the East. The fact that contemporary social development is impossible without scientific and technological progress led to oversimplified understanding of both modernism and traditionalism, linking them exclusively either to scientific and technological progress or the rejec-

tion of such progress. However, modernisation in the countries of the East has vividly demonstrated the impossibility of securing scientific and technological progress without modern social development. The socio-political face of modernism depends not only on the degree lo which modern technology is mastered, but also upon orientation towards either capitalism or socialism. The socio-political face of traditionalism cannot be interpreted without bearing in mind that the defence of traditional ways of life is not merely the defence of cultural uniqueness, but also the defence of backwardness, of reactionary socio-political forms of life, such as tribalism, the caste system and feudal privilege.

Hence scientism and anti-scientism, modernism and traditionalism are socio-cultural and socio-political trends in the West and East which are attempting to resolve the problem of the development of these regions, including the problem of their convergence, without reference to the basic question of our day, namely 'capitalism or socialism?'.

The contradictions between Eastern and Western civilisations will be solved not by attempts to unite them at the level of speculative philosophy or practical palliatives but by the transition to a new type of civilisation, to communist society, in which the unity of world history is realised not only as a law, not only as the empirically observable universal link between all cultures, but as mankind's emergence onto the path of the universal production of social and cultural links.

Richard Kosolapov

Socialism:

the Establishment

of a New Type of Civilisation

The term `socialism' is now generally used to designate three social phenomena:

(1) An ideological-political teaching on a social system that offers justice to the working people, that is, to the majority of the population. This teaching, originally Utopian and consisting on the one hand of a criticism of exploitative practices, and on the other of an unrealistic programme for an `ideal' human society, is now, thanks to the discoveries of Marx and Engels, a scientific, realistic, revolutionary socialist doctrine.

(2) The socio-political liberation movement of the masses and those classes and organisations that are pursuing socialist aims. This movement assumes its most consistent and successful form in the revolutionary class struggle of the proletariat led by Marxist-Leninist, communist parties.

(3) That actual system of social relations that arises following the overthrow of capitalism and private ownership of the means of production, and which meets the class interests of the industrial workers, who carry along with them the entire body of working people.

However, research by Soviet social scientists published over recent years would appear to indicate yet another meaning of the term `socialism', namely the emergence and first phase of a world civilisation of a radically new, industrial collectivist, dedicated-worker type---communism--- which takes shape in the course of the natural-historical development of society with the abolition of the final, bourgeois forms of labour alienation. This new type of civilisation possesses its own social structure based on the ideological-political alliance of the friendly working classes and

groups, who together compose the living material of the emergent classless society. This last meaning of the term `socialism' requires additional definition.

The theoretical foundation of communist civilisation, which emerges from within bourgeois civilisation as inevitably, as the operation of a natural law and which inherits the best achievements of bourgeois civilisation while being at the same time its dialectical negation, was provided in the works of Marx and Engels. The practical groundwork for this new civilisation was first begun in Russia. The development of the concept of communist civilisation on the basis of the generalised experience of socialist construction in the Soviet Union, is linked to the name of Lenin, who continued the great work of Marx and Engels.

A genuinely scientific, dialectic-materialist understanding of the essence and historical prospects of civilisation and of the inevitability of its development onwards to its highest, communist stage is provided by the law of the universal socialisation of labour and production discovered by Marx, for the very birth of civilisation itself is linked to such a process of socialisation.ⁱ However, prior to socialism, this process assumed alienated, antagonistic forms which gave rise to every other form of social alienation. This fact then enables us to draw a distinct line between socialism, whose development is itself a process of abolishing alienation in every sphere of social and individual being and consciousness, and all preceding types of civilisation.

The antagonistic nature of the operation of the law of the universal socialisation of labour and production in alienated forms becomes manifest in capitalist society where, by continually aggravating the irreconcilable contradictions between the increasingly social character of production and the private form of appropriation, it takes the private ownership system to its destruction.

According to Marx, the above-mentioned law is revealed in the centralisation of capital, the development of a cooperative form of the labour process, which continually expands in size and scope, the increasingly conscious application of science, rational agricultural technique, the collective use of the means of labour, the economising of all the means of

production thanks to their use within a system of combined, socialised labour, the spread of the international market to include all the peoples of the world, and the consequent internationalisation of the capitalist order.ⁱ

As these various processes unfold, they increase both the number and the spiritual awareness of the mass of proletarians, the exploited wage-workers. Large-scale production I rains them in independent economic management without capitalists, while class struggle shapes them as a politically active, anti-capitalist force.

Centralisation of the moans of production and socialisation of labour---wrote Marx---at last reach a point whore they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds.^^2^^

The development of large-scale production reveals with increasing clarity the social redundancy of the bourgeoisie (and of all exploiter classes), who are replaced within the production apparatus by hired managers. At the same time, this development increases the numbers of the working class and also requires that it be more highly qualified. New groups of workers engaged in physical and intellectual labour are incorporated within its ranks, including those engaged in new occupations that arise as a result of scientific and technological progress. All of this creates an objective situation in which the working class becomes that section of the population which dominates the entire capitalist economy, and both economically and politically expresses the real interests of the overwhelming majority of working people. For this reason it is able to, and is called upon to take the organisation of production into its own hands and put it upon a new, collectivist basis, while simultaneously carrying through the revolutionary reconstruction of the whole of social life and, most importantly, putting an end to alienation.

When Marxist-Leninists use the term `alienation', which is now fashionable and therefore not always used accurately, they are not referring to the externalisation ( objectification) of human abilities during the labour process (the

~^^1^^ Cf. Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, pp. 714-715. ? Ibid.., p. 715.

^^1^^ Gf. Frederick Engels, 'The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State', pp. 191-334.

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subject-object relationship), a phenomenon that will continue for as long as social production continues. In Marxism-Leninism the term `alienation' is used primarily to refer to the expropriation of the material embodiment of labour to the benefit of those who do not work. This is the social alienation that arises between man and man, and it is this which Marx had in mind. It emerged at a specific stage in social development and is a temporary, albeit longlasting phenomenon.

The product of labour, which invariably lies at the disposal not of the producer-worker but the owner of the means of production, 'confronts it [labour-TV.] as something alien, as a power independent of the producer^^1^^, * just as one who owns is independent of one who does not. Thus

.. .This realisation of labour appears as loss of realisation for the workers; objectification as loss of the object and bondage to it...^^2^^

Consequently, as Marx wrote in his original version of Capital,

the emphasis is placed not on objectification (reification), but on alienation (Entfremdet, Entaussert, Veraussertsein), on the ownership of vast material power which social labour has put in opposition to itself as one of its factors---on ownership of this power not by the worker but by the personified conditions of production, i.e. capital.^^3^^

The product of labour, the object created by the hands of man, begins to dominate over man.

The activity of the worker, which belongs not to the worker but to the capitalist, ceases to be his own activity, 'it is the loss of his self.~^^4^^ Thus the exploitative system objectively fosters an attitude to labour which sees it as something alien, as a compulsory activity unworthy of man. The aversion to exploitative labour transfers itself to any kind of labour. The reverse side of the material alienation of the product and the process of labour is the moral alienation of the worker from his labour.

In a situation where the purpose-orientated activity of the individual is perceived by him as something alien and confronts him as a hostile force, it is pointless to speak of freedom.

The conversion of the social link between individuals into an independent force standing above them, whether it is presented as a force of nature, as fortuitous or in any other form---wrote Marx later---is the necessary result of the fact that point of departure here is not the free social individual.'

More than a century has passed since those words were written, and therefore one may reasonably ask whether contemporary bourgeois society has undergone any substantial changes as a society based upon the gratuitous appropriation of part of the labour of wage-workers (the bulk of the population) by the bourgeoisie (the minority), who own all the basic means of production either directly or indirectly (via the class state). Not at all. It is true that bourgeois writers attempting to show that Marx's analysis is now outdated, point to the fact that, in the context of the scientific and technological revolution, the increasing application of science and technology in production inevitably produces a rapid growth in the number of mental operations performed, resulting in the `intellectualisation' of labour. However, such an argument proves nothing. The `intellectualisation' of labour under capitalism simply means that now it is not the physical but more and more the intellectual capacities of the worker that are subjected to exploitation. The identification of this new source of profit, far from refuting, only serves to further develop the Marxist concept of the mechanism of the capitalist oppression of the masses and the alienation of labour, thus in no way alters, but rather confirms the basic conclusions drawn by the author of Capital.

Having discovered in the increasing exploitation of intellectual powers of the workers a new and most effective source of profit, capitalism realises that it is to its own disadvantage to hold down consumption by the wage-workers of those products which satisfy their physical and basic cultural requirements. Furthermore, as contemporary technology means that more profit can be extracted from qual-

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, 'Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844', p. 272.

~^^2^^ Ibid.

I~^^3^^ Karl Marx, Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Okonomie, S. 716. « Ibid., S. 274.

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Okonomie, S. 111. 22»

339

338 -

ifications that from more physical strength, monopoly owners prefer to deal with workers whose material needs arc satisfied, and who are even 'semi-intellecluar.

As the cost of labour now includes a considerable percentage intended to cover a wide range of new socio-- cultural requirements which are satisfied by capitalism, though only in part, it is clearly necessary lo modify the concept of 'social poverty'. Only those who have an attitude akin to that of the Ilongweibings believe that social poverty is eliminated by the provision of food and clothing, etc. In some countries today, capitalism can avoid making a profit at the cost of the manifest undernourishment of the masses, but does not fail to seize the opportunity of profiting from their chronic spiritual starvation. All thai has changed is the form of alienation, not its essence.

An immediate consequence of the fact that man is estranged from the product of his labour, from his life activity, from his species-being---noted Marx---is the estrangement oj man from man. When man confronts himself, he confronts the other man. What applies to a man's relation to his work, to the product of his labour and lo himself, also holds true of a man's relation to the other man, and to the other man's labour and object of labour.'

Alienation comes in many forms. Not only does it separate the basic classes, but also divides and atomises the whole of society, coming between old and young, educated and semi-literate, husbands and wives, white and `coloured', those who work and those who study, those engaged in creative and those engaged in non-creative labour, managers and live robots, civilians and soldiers etc. It is this very diversity that the ruling elite has succeeded iu putting

to its service.

It may at first seem that only working people arc adversely affected by the alienation of labour, and that the exploiters who appropriate lo themselves ihc products of both material and spiritual production thereby enrich their existence and have every opportunity to develop their own individuality. However, the dialectic of this process is such that the basis of the well-being of the propertied classes--- the alienation of labour is simultaneously that force thai

disfigures and dehumanises Ihcse classes themselves. However, while this is indisputable, it docs not follow that all classes are equally interested in Ihe abolition of alienation.

From the very start the worker stands above the capitalist in this respect, insofar as the latter is rooted in this process of alienation and finds in it his absolute satisfaction, while the worker, its victim, rebels against it and perceives it as a process of enslavement.'

In his Economic Manuscripts of 1857-1859, Marx analyses the types of dependence, and the processes involved in Ihe evolution and removal of Ihe alienation of labour. The main stages arc as follows:

(1) 'Relations of personal dependence (at first wholly primitive) are those initial forms of society in which the productivity of men develops only to a small degree and in isolated points'.^^2^^ Here Marx is referring to the slaveowning and the feudal systems, in which the alienation of labour is Jinked to the alienation of the individuality of the worker.

(2) 'Personal independence based on material dependence is the second major form, in which for the first time there emerges a system of universal social commodity exchange, universal relations, all-round requirements and universal potential'.^^3^^ This is the characteristic feature of capitalist society.

Tlio worker leaves the capitalist lo whom he hires himself whenever lie likes, and the capitalist discharges him whenever he thinks Jit, as soon as he no longer gets any profit out of him, or not tlie anticipated pro lit. But the worker, whoso sole source of livelihood is the sale of his labour, cannot leave the whole class of purchasers, iliat is, the capitalist class, without renouncing his existence. He belongs not to this or that bourgeois, but lo tlie bourgeoisie, llie bourgeois class, and it is his business lo dispose of himself, that is to find a purchaser within this bourgeois class.^^4^^

(3) Tree individuality, based upon the universal development of individuals and transformation of their collective,

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Collected Works, Vol. 49, Politizdat, Moscow, 1974, p. 47 (in Russian).

- Karl Marx. Griiiulrisse ..., S. 75.

`` Ibid.

~^^4^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engcls, 'Wage Labour and Capital'. In Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 9, 1977, p. 203.

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, 'Economic ami Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844', p. 277.

340 .

social productivity into their social property is the third step. The second creates the conditions for the third,' * the latter beginning with socialism.

The above clearly defines the position of Marx and of Marxists with regard to the problem of the alienation of labour and the emancipation of the individual.

In socialist society, the product belongs to those who produce it. It ceases to be a means by which one man enslaves another, and increases man's mastery over nature. The age when the product

appears only as the expression of my loss of self and of my powerlcssness that is objective, sensuously porceplihle, obvious and therefore put beyond all doubt^^2^^

recedes into the past. On the contrary, the mode of the appropriation and use of the product becomes the cleatevidence of the omnipotence of the working people. Labour becomes work for oneself. It is transformed from compulsory into voluntary, conscious labour that develops into a consciously perceived necessity, the prime vital need of free individuals.

The abolition of the private appropriation of both the material results and the very process of labour is followed by the abolition of every other manifestation of such alienation. Obviously, vestiges of the past, a negative attitude to work, the psychology of dependence, parasitism, privateproperty attitudes, egoism and other residual phenomena do not vanish automatically. They continue to occur even after their objective basis has been abolished and constitute a serious obstacle to the building of socialism and communism. The Communist Party combats those remnants of the alienation of labour, seeing this struggle as one of the most important prerequisites of the formation of a new type of civilisation---communism.

In order to fully overcome both alienation and its consequences it is essential to remove all that impedes the conversion of labour into a free activity. Such obstacles are to be found not only in economic relations, but in purely

technical phenomena which, often independently of the nature of the social system, render the labour process unattractive by making it arduous, tiring, monotonous, or result in its being accompanied by unpleasant sensations such as cold, heat, rapid changes of temperature, dampness, noise, pungent smell, etc.---in short, in everything which, to use the terminology of the German Marxist philosopher Georg Klaus, results in 'technical alienation^^1^^ and functions as the 'last ally' of social alienation.^J Under socialism this is probably the only objective factor that may still hinder the formation of a communist attitude to labour, and it is eliminated by the development of socialist large-scale machine production, particularly at the automated stage, when, to quote the words of Marx,

labour appears less and less as something included in the process of production, since man himself increasingly relates that process as its supervisor and regulator.~^^2^^

Already under socialism labour has developed into a necessity for many individuals, though not to the degree necessary to meet the needs of society. Thus the worktime of each individual is conditionally divided into two parts: (1) the time spent on labour perceived as a need, when the individual derives satisfaction from his activity, and (2) the time spent on work that exceeds individual need, but that is compulsory and necessitated by the present level of production.

Increasing the productivity of labour makes it possible to reduce the working day. At the same time, raising the level of consciousness, improving the qualifications and broadening the horizons of the socialist production worker increases the time spent on labour as a need. Thus both tendencies---the reduction of the working day and the increase in time spent on work as a need---are complementary, and socialist society is free of those social forces that might thwart this process of harmonisation.

In fact, the realm of freedom---writes Marx in Cap Hal--- actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Grundrisse ..., S. 75^,70.

~^^2^^ Karl Marx, 'Comments on James Mill, Siemens ffeconomie politique'. In Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Vol. 3, 1975, p. 228.

~^^1^^ Cf. Georg Klaus, Kybernetik und Gesellschaft, VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin, 1964, S. 150.

~^^2^^ K. Marx, Grundrisse... S. 592.

342 ~

and mundane considerations erases; thus in the very nature of things it lies beyond tho sphere of actual material production. '

These words do not mean either that it is necessary to put an end to labour altogether, nor yet that freedom is possible outside material-production activity. What is meant is that the realm of freedom begins when the stimulus to work in any and every branch of production is not only material need (food, clothing, protection from the elements, against disease, etc.), not merely economic considerations, but also the desire to satisfy socio-cultural requirements, which are moulded 'beyond the sphere of actual material production', i.e. not in the sphere of commodity production, but in the sphere of the `production' of man himself as a social being, in the sphere of the development of the individual.

Marx did not put the realm of freedom in opposition to material production as the 'realm of non-freedom'. His statement has a quite different meaning. Although social production is indeed the material basis for the increased freedom of mankind in relation to nature, the realm of freedom requires a qualitative reconstruction of social relations and of man himself. A necessary condition of human freedom, alongside other social factors, is his ability to change himself. In order to free himself from 'labour . . . determined by necessity and mundane considerations' in a situation in which ho cannot halt the production process without condemning himself and society to death, man musl vastly increase the attractive power of labour. Only thus is it possible to transform the externally dictated need to work into an inner necessity to develop 'human energy, which is an end in itself and to establish the 'true realm of freedom'^^2^^, since the factor stimulating work will be work itself seen as a method of satisfying the desire to work.

What is the present situation as regards this problem?

Soviet society is a society of working people---declares the report of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the 26th Party Congress.---Now, as before, the Party and the Government are doing much to make tho work of people not only more

productive but also more meaningful, interesting, and creative. To a great extent this will be fostered by the eradication of manual, unskilled, and arduous physical labour. Millions of people in our country are still engaged in such labour. This is not only an economic but a serious social problem. To resolve it means to remove the substantial barriers to tho conversion of labour into the prime vital need of every person.'

Unless changes in

(lie social structure of society and of state power... are understood---wrote Lenin---not a single step can be taken in any sphere of social activity. The understanding of these changes determines the prospects for the future, by which we mean, of course, not idle guessing about things unknown, but the basic trends of economic and political development---those trends, the resultant of which determines the immediate future of the country, those trends which determine tho tasks, direction and character of tho activity of every intelligent public man.~^^2^^

The social structure, as the natural reflection of the division of labour expressed in tho form of groups of people engaged in different specialised spheres of production and social life, undergoes radical qualitative changes in the process of disalienation that occurs in the relations between these different groups as a result of socialist revolution. Just as, according to Engels, Marxism found in the history of the development of labour tho key to the understanding of the entire history of society,^^3^^ so Marxists see in the history of the division of labour the key to the history of social relations and tho basis for determining realistic ways of consistently ensuring social equality.

The social structure of society in the USSR already differs from the `classic' structure of class-based society. Developed socialism is a social system free of antagonisms; it is based upon the virtual destruction of class barriers and ensures flexible social boundaries and a high level of social mobility among working people. Although there still exist (he friendly classes---the working class and the collective-

~^^1^^ Documents and Resolutions. The 26lh Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, p. 74.

~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, 'The Social Structure of State Power, the Prospects and Liquidationism', Collected Works, Vol. 17, 1977, p. 144.

^:l Cf. Frederick Engels, 'Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy'. In K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works in three volumes, Volume Three, p. 376.

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. Ill, p. 820. * Ibid.

344 -

farm peasantry---together with the people's intelligentsia, the trends in social relations indicate the formation of a classless society within the forsceable future, followed by social homogeneity.

In evaluating the experience of our society's development over the past few decades---stated Leonid Brezhnev at the 26th Congress of the CPSU---I think we can assume that a classless structure of society will take shape mainly within tho historical framework of mature socialism.'

It is becoming increasingly evident that ensuring first a classless and then a socially homogeneous society arc but two component parts of one and the same task. However, they do not fully coincide either in content or the time period needed for their realisation.

As the. formation of a classless, socially homogeneous society is, although an objective, law-governed process, also a consciously organised one, it is important to keep in mind that social force which is at the centre of these changes and which vitally affects them. This force, the 'social mind and social heart' of the emerging classless structure and of every other revolutionary process is the working class. Engels' thesis that 'the condition of the working-class is the real basis and point of departure of all social movements of the present'^^2^^ has retained all its significance while being further developed and enriched.

The working class is the mass guarantor of the building of a society characterised by social equality and social justice because, as Lenin pointed out, is possesses the following basic qualities: (1) This class has been trained, united, educated and steeled in years of economic, political and ideological struggle against capital; (2) it has assimilated all the urban culture created by large-scale industry created by capitalism, has the ability and determination to defend it, preserve it and develop its achievements further, making it available to the whole of the people, to all workers; (3) it is capable of bearing the burdens, trials, adversities and heavy sacrifices that history inevitably lays upon the shoulders of the leading warrior, on the shoulders

~^^1^^ Documents and Resolutions. The 26th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, p. 69.

~^^2^^ Frederick Engels, 'The Condition of the Working-Class in England', p. 302.

of those who break with the past and boldly prepare for the future; (4) its best representatives are full of hatred and contempt for all that is vulgar and philistine, the smallmindedness typical of a petty-bourgeois environment; (5) it draws particular strength from having been through the hardening school of labour, and is able to inspire respect for its industriousness in every working person, every honest man. *

In socialist society, the working class has long since overcome its former proletarian position. It has become the majority of the working people and controls a powerful modern industry, the decisive factor in the development of the productive forces and therefore also the basis of the prosperity of society as a whole. The working class creates the bulk of social production using the latest technology, and is engaged in those branches of production which are the source of scientific and technological progress and from which scientific and technological achievements are spread to all the other branches of the economy. It is united by tho large-scale organisation of machine production and the corresponding discipline, and by modern production processes which demand high level of concentrated and coordinated activity.

The historic task of the proletariat---wrote Lenin---is to assimilate, re-school, re-educate all the elements of the old society that the latter hequeaths it in the shape of offshoots of the petty bourgeoisie. But the proletariat must re-educate these newcomers and influence them, not be influenced by them.^^2^^

The results of the successful achievement of this task are clearly illustrated in the Soviet working class and in the whole of the Soviet people, amongst whom the working class plays the role of the leading socio-political force and the social model in the process of eliminating class distinctions.

Its revolutionary ideology and ethics, its collectivist psychology, and its interests and ideals are now being adopted by all (he strata of Soviet society.^^3^^

~^^1^^ Cf. V. I. Lenin, 'Greetings to the Hungarian Workers', Collected Works, Vol. 29, 1965, p. 390.

~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, 'The Faction of Supporters of Otzovism and GodBuilding', Collected Works, Vol. 16, 1977, p. 60.

~^^3^^ Documents and Resolutions. The 26th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, p. 69.

Socialism as such (that is, of course, after its complete victory, at the end of Ihe transitional period) is a long stage of development in Ihe course of which the new society is finally transformed into a communist society. It cannot and does not claim to he recognised as an independent socio-economic formation, since from both the scientific and practical points of view it is seen as that phase during which the social relations and forms of consciousness thai took shape during the entire course of human prc-history are eliminated, superseded, or transformed, and the seeds of a conscious-historical mode of life, a radically new organisation of communal life and culture are purposefully cultivated.

Socialism is incomplete communism, and as Ihe first phase of a new formation it is still far from having achieved ils mature form in every sphere. It has not yet achieved that final, completed state when it `suhlates' itself and, revealing the mature forms of communist civilisation, becomes communism.

Politically, the distinction between llio first, or lower, ami the bigher phase of communism, will in time, probably, be tremendous---wrote Lenin shortly before the October revolution---But it would bo ridiculous to recognise this distinction now, under capitalism, and only individual anarchists, perhaps, could invest it with primary importance...^^1^^

Now, however, under developed socialism, the identification of the enormous political difference between the first and second phases of communism is, on the contrary, a condition of adopting a genuinely serious attitude to the problems of communist construction.

It was not by chance that Lenin referred specifically to political distinctions. During the transition to the second phase of communism, the very basis and source of politics the class structure of society---undergoes a fundamental change. Those functions that were formerly political are replaced by a system of management which continues to have the characteristics of a slate system, but which expresses the interests of the working class, interests that have become the interests of the whole people. It is a system of management which still requires specialised managerial

staff, yet which simultaneously has the features of mass, popular self-government.

Whatever aspect of the distinction between socialism and communism is being examined, the human dimension must not be forgotten. It was staled at the 24th Congress of the CPSU that

A great project---the building of communism---cannot be advanced without the harmonious development of man himself. Communism is inconceivable without a high level of culture, education, sense of civic duty and inner maturity of people just as it is inconceivable without the appropriate material and technical basis. '

This material and technical basis is itself able to play its historical role only as part of communist productive forces, of which the most important is man himself. On his orientation towards communist progress depends the successful operation of the emergent material prerequisites of communism. The moulding of men who possess a scientific, Marxist-Leninist world outlook and the skills necessary to manage public affairs, a high level of general, professional and political culture, a developed need for creative labour and the ability to make wise use of the benefits of socialism and communism, is a task that requires many years, and each generation of the builders of the new society has ils own specific ways of dealing with it. However, one factor is equally valid for all: the individual has less and less grounds for considering himself a passive product of circumstance, and his development can be rationally understood only in the light of revolutionary practice, as Ihe combined result of changing circumstances and human activity.

Socialism as the first phase of communism is the beginning of a genuinely collcclivc life, as distinct from the surrogate collectivism, the illusory community with which people had to content themselves in the privale-ownership system. Clearly, socialist society is not yet completely free of surviving individualistic, small-minded attitudes which still occasionally make themselves felt, but this does not change the essence of socialism as a genuinely collectivist system whose essential characteristic is built into the entire sys-

~^^1^^ 24ih Cnnnr^s of the CPSU, Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow, 1071, p. 100.

~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, 'The Stale and Revolution', p. 475.

tern of social relations and social institutions, into the type of culture and the norms of morality and law.

It in the definitive bourgeois system---wrote Marx---each economic relationship presupposes another in bourgeois-economic form, and thus each proposition is simultaneously a premise, the same is true for any organic system. The organic system itself as a totality has its own premises or prerequisites, and its development towards totality consists precisely in subordinating all the elements of society to itself or creating out of that society those organs which it still lacks. Thus it develops historically towards its totality. The movement towards this totality constitutes a factor in the process of its development. '

This statement is obviously applicable to socialism also. Following the complete victory of socialism, and therefore its transformation into an 'organic^^1^^ social system, each socialist socio-economic relationship (and to a greater degree as the process advances) presupposes others, functions as their prerequisite and, at the same time, has these other socioeconomic relationships as its own prerequisites. The socialist system also tends to become a particular qualitative totality that subordinates the various spheres of social life one after the other to its principles and norms, eliminating all forms of relapse into the private-ownership system and all alien social phenomena.

Developed socialism---declared Leonid Brezhnev---is that stage of maturity of the new society at which the restructuring of the entire system of social relations on the collcctivist principles intrinsic to socialism is being completed. Hence the full scope for the operation of the laws of socialism, for bringing to the fore its advantages in all spheres of the life of society. Hence the organic integrity and dynamic force of the social system, its political stability, its indestructible inner unity. Hence the drawing ever closer together of all the classes and social groups, all the nations and nationalities, and the formation of a historically new social and international community, the Soviet people. Hence the emergence of a new, socialist culture, the establishment of a new, socialist way of life.^^2^^

As it develops into a totality whose core is a socialised economy, the socialist social system is increasingly charac-

terised by the law-governed correspondence of its constituent parts and elements, a correspondence which gradually spreads to cover a wide range of production relations (practical-technological, organisational-managerial and economic), and finally the sum total of all social relationsproduction, socio-political and moral-juridical, material and ideological. The stage during which the Soviet system is converted into a totality is the stage of developed socialism. All the elements of the life-style of society continue to be actively restructured on the basis of the existing collectivist foundation and the homogeneity of direct links and feedback becomes increasingly evident.

According to Lenin, socialism is not a ready-made system with which mankind will `suddenly' be `blessed'. An appreciation of this truth is one of the fundamental differences separating the supporters of scientific socialism from modern proponents of Utopian socialism. To await the appearance of a new society in its final, perfect form emerging from ready-made prerequisites that are in every way perfectly adequate for this historical task is to reveal a political naivety that is today without any justification. At best, such an attitude may be held, as Lenin said,

only by a 'man in a muffler', who forgets that there will always be such a `discrepancy', that it always exists in the development of nature as well as in the development of society, that only by a series of attempts---each of which, taken by itself, will be one-sided and will suffer from certain inconsistencies---will complete socialism be created by the revolutionary co-operation of the proletarians of all countries. '

Real socialism, which has been established in a number of countries in three continents, stands before mankind as a confidently developing social system in which practical expression is given to the communist ideals of freedom from exploitation and oppression, the possession of all power by the working people, the development of socialist democracy, the flowering of culture and the growing prosperity of the vast majority of the people, and the equality and unity of all nations and nationalities.

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Grundrisse..., S. 189.

~^^2^^ L. I. Brezhnev, Our Course: Peace and Socialism, Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow, 1978, p. 152.

~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, '``Loft-Wing'' Childishness and the Petty-Bourgeois Mentality', Collected Works, Vol. 27, 19G5, pp. 345-346.

Today the emergence and evolution of individual socialist societies cannot be separated from the global network of relations between peoples and states. Thus no description of the liberating-civilising essence of socialism is complete that does not include an examination of the external manifestation of this essence in the process of international intercourse. The emergence of the new civilisation is no longer taking place in isolation, but within the framework of a world system that is leading a historic global attack upon the position of the exploitative system.

Relations between states---Leonid Brezhnev noted at the 20th Congress of the CPSU---have been called international since olden days. But it is only in our time, in the socialist world that they have truly become relations between nations. Millions upon millions of people take an immediate part in them. That, comrades, is a fundamental gain of socialism, and its great service to humanity.'

The first socio-economic formation gradually to have taken shape as a world system---capitalism---differed from all the previous formations in that its characteristic economic laws were, thanks to the existing international division of labour and developed trade, transformed from laws governing the internal relations of nations into laws governing their international relations. The capitalist exploitation of the working class and other sections of the working people in each country was supplemented by the imperialist exploitation of backward peoples:

.. .Developed capitalism, in bringing closer together nations that have already been fully drawn into commercial intercourse, and causing them to intermingle to an increasing degree, brings the antagonism between internationally united capital and the international working-class movement into the forefront.^^2^^

Internal and international social relations have acquired a stable social homogeneity and have become so interwoven that the elimination, for example, of exploitation in one country is at the same time an encroachment upon exploita-

live relations throughout the world. The revolutionary possibilities of national contingents of the working class, the peasantry, middle strata of the population, the intelligentsia and national-democratic forces, and the content, scope and rate of social change in any given country, have acquired international significance. This means that the revolutionary success of any one people has an immediate international impact, shaking the system of internal and international Jinks. Moreover, the revolutionary potential of one country inevitably fuses with that of others and is strengthened by the example and might of the world socialist system.

The thesis advanced by certain ultra-Left elements that revolutionary struggle should be conducted only by 'relying on one's own forces' is therefore mistaken, if only because it comes close to declaring it impossible to construct socialism in countries with a low or intermediate level of capitalist development, to move, on the basis of an alliance between leading progressive national forces and socialist countries, from patriarchal-feudal societies to socialism, bypassing capitalism. This is, in effect, a denial of several decades of development on the basis of social ownership in countries with the most diverse levels of socio-economic development in the continents of Europe, Asia and America, a denial of the practical experience of hundreds of millions of people.

Communist social relations take shape not only within individual countries, but also between them. The final result of this process will be the achievement of socially homogeneous national and international links, the homogeneity and organic fusion of the external and internal social environment of each people, the consolidation of national socialist societies within the international communist community, which may be described in the words of Marx as 'associated humanity'. *

~^^1^^ Documents and Resolutions. The 26th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, p. 9.

~^^2^^V. I. Lenin, 'The Right of Nations to Self-Determination^^1^^, Collected Works, Vol. 20, 1977, p. 401.

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, 'Theses on Feuerbach', p. 8. 23-0328

Tamara Kerimova

ing class, the collective-farm peasantry and the intelligentsia, the consolidation of the socio-political unity of the Soviet people on the basis of Marxist-Leninist ideology, the defence of the gains of socialism and the safeguarding of peace throughout the world. 'Controlled and continuous progress is an extremely important, historical achievement of socialism',^^1^^ emphasised the Soviet philosopher P. N. Fedoseyev in his book.

The scale, depth and systemic nature of the changes being carried out, the growing complexity of social links, the dynamism characteristic of the whole of social life and the need to combine the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution with the advantages of socialism make is essential to increase yet further the efficiency of the system of social management, and this in its turn requires a theoretical analysis of its fundamental significance in the development of socialist society. Conscious management is no longer merely one of the elements in the mechanism of social activity, but its most important feature, and one without which this vital activity becomes impossible. The functioning of socialist society is ensured by the vigorous, effective participation of management, in which the growing role of the subjective factor in social activity is over more clearly manifest.

Under socialism, the objective laws governing social development are studied by the science of Marxism-Leninism, and the requirements that follow therefrom are given concentrated and summarised expression in state policy and in programmes and plans of social development, and realised in the practice of communist construction. For this reason 'socialism is in vital need of precise and systematic selfanalysis and all-round self-perception. . .'~^^2^^

It would be mistaken, however, to construct management exclusively on the basis of those laws that govern social life, the object of conscious, purposeful influence. It must be remembered that management itself, as an integral part

Scientific Management--- a Characteristic Feature of Communist Civilisation

For the first time in history, socialism has made possible not only the conscious, planned and democratically organised management of the processes of social life, but has also turned this possibility into a reality. Management is beginning to free itself from the restrictions that cramped its potential, for its influence is speading to cover the whole of society as it guides its development towards communism.

Communism---wrote Marx and Engels---differs from all previous movements in that it overturns the basis of all earlier relations of production and intercourse, and for the first time consciously treats all naturally evolved premises as the creations of hitherto existing men, strips them of their natural character and subjugates them to the power of the united individuals.'

At the stage of developed socialism, management has already become a powerful tool for resolving the cardinal problems of communist construction: the creation of the material-technical basis of communism, the further improvement of social relations, the development of socialist democracy and the creation of the most favourable conditions for the all-round development of all the members of society. Under mature socialism, social management is dealing with such problems as the harmonious development of the economic, socio-political, cultural and spiritual spheres of social life, the further concentration of resources with a view to raising the living standards of Soviet citizens, the implementation of a broad programme of social measures to promote the further convergence of the work-

~^^1^^ 3>edoceee IT. II. ^najieKTHKa coBpeiieHHOH BHOXH, M., HayKa,

1978, c. 298 (P. N. Fedoseyev, The Dialectics of the Modern Age, Nauka, Moscow, 1978, p. 298).

~^^2^^ P. H. Kocojianoe. CorrnajiH3M. K Bonpocau Teopmi. M., MHCJIB,

1979, c. 484 (R. I. Kosolapov, Socialism: Questions of Theory, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1979, p. 428).

~^^1^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, 'The German Ideology', p. 81.

23*

and expession of the vital activity of social systems, enjoys a relative independence. On the one hand it is a particular expression of social activity and is subject to the objective laws governing the operation and development of the social system as a whole, while on the other it is also governed by its own specific laws, which constitute a unique modified and concrete manifestation of general laws. Therefore management itself must also be treated as an object of cognition. The disclosure and study of the laws operating in the sphere of management is an essential condition of achieving the unity of society as a social organism.

The thesis that planned, purpose-orientated influence on social life is one of the characteristic features of the communist formation is central to Marxist theory, and was consistently argued in the last century by Marx and Engcls. It can be found in all their basic writings outlining the future social system. Predicting that the transition to socialism would result in social activity assuming new characteristics, Engels wrote:

they naturally paid considerable attention to the problems that the future society would have to solve. They indicated the revolutionary changes that would have to take place in production, the need to eliminate social antagonisms as the basis for transforming class society into 'an association of free and equal producers', and to create the conditions necessary for the comprehensive and harmonious development of the individual, etc.

In outlining the socio-historical progress of the future communist civilisation, Marx and Engels advanced the idea of the future rule of the conscious principle, pointing out that the future would he the age of the rule of 'united, collective intelligence' representing 'associated humanity', which would organise the communal life of men on a new basis.

The life-process of society.. .---wrote Marx---does not strip off its mystical veil until it is treated as production by freely associated men, and is consciously regulated by them in accordance with a settled plan. '

The emergence and formation of communist social progress is by no means merely the consequence of ' spontaneous' social movement. Social management, one of the essential manifestations of this progress, also functions as a most important factor promoting its emergence and formation.

Marx and Engcls naturally did not undertake a detailed examination of the mechanisms that would be necessary to ensure scientific control over social evolution. Hero, as in all their writings, they limited themselves to those theoretical questions the answers to which could be sought in the practice of the social life. They examined the questions of tlie use of authority, the role of the state in society, particularly during the transitional period from capitalism to socialism, self-management under communism, etc. Social management as a characteristic feature of a new type of social progress was a question to which they devoted special attention. Their prediction of the transition of society to managed development clearly revealed the brilliance, practical value and viability of their teaching, and demonstrated

The whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ man, and which have hitherto ruled man, now comes under the domination and control of man, who for the first time becomes the real, conscious lord of nature, because he has now become the master of his own social organisation. The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing face to face with man as laws of nature foreign to, and dominating him, will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by him. Man's own social organisation, hitherto confronting him as a necessity imposed by nature and history, now becomes the result of his own free action. The extraneous objective forces that have hitherto governed history pass under the control of man himself. Only from that time will man himself, with full consciousness, make his own history---only from that time will the social causes set in movement by him have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results intended by him. It is the humanity's leap from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom. '

In the integral picture of the social world drawn by Marx and Engels, planned, purposeful influence on social life, i.e. social management, is viewed as the natural result of historical development, as a feature of social progress typical of socialism. In analysing this type of progress,

~^^1^^ F. Engels, Anti-DiihrinK, pp. 343-344.

356 ,

~^^1^^ Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I, p. 84.

its theoretical and methodological significance in resolving the problem of management under socialism.

Whereas Marx and Engels dealt with the problem of management exclusively from a theoretical point of view, Lenin took it beyond the confines of theory and converted it into the central practical task of socialist construction,⁴ devoting considerable portion of his writings to defining the basic principles of the ogranisation of the system of management, the purpose and role of its mechanisms, and the basic forms and methods of managerial influence.

The writings and speeches of Lenin contain exceptionally valuable and interesting ideas on the role of the management apparatus and its contribution to the implementation of the positive plans of socialist construction. They provide a detailed analysis and definition of the major problems involved in improving the management apparatus. Particular attention is paid to the problems of creating and consolidating the organs of the dictatorship of the proletariat, to the guiding role of the Party, to the state as a powerful instrument of socialist transformation, to democratic centralism as the basic principle underlying the erection of the management system, and also to questions connected with the training of managerial staff. Pointing to the need to assimilate and apply the achievements of science and experience in organising management, Lenin said:

The art of administration is not innate, but is acquired by experience~^^2^^

and that

no amount of conscientiousness or Party aullioritalivoncss can make up for what, in this case, is the most important thing, namely, knowledge of one's business.^^3^^

Scientifically grounded social management is one of the major advantages of the socialist system distinguishing it qualitatively from all other socio-economic formations, and above all from capitalism. This approach to social management does not limit its field of study to purely managerial problems (the operation of the management apparatus, its democratisation, the organisation of planning, management decision-making, etc.) but requires an appreciation of the fact that these questions are part and parcel of the more general problems that arise during the transition of society to communist social progress. It follows from this that the practical solution of management problems will only be effective if allowance is made for the changes occurring in vital social activity as a whole, for the transformation of the latter on the principles of conscientiousness, planning, organisation and collectivism.

Of interest in this respect are Lenin's views concerning the collectivist principles of Communist Party activity as the most important element in the management system. According to Lenin, the workers' ability to work together as a body, an ability they had mastered due to the very conditions of their work, should become the unconditional rule of inner Party life and Party activity. *

The fact that the subjective factor is transformed from an element attendant upon the dynamics of social reality into a major component and characteristic feature of the new type of historical process by no means implies that social development ceases to be objective. The specific nature of socialism consists in the fact that the laws of social development do not operate by means of spontaneously functioning regulators, but on the basis of their cognition and use with a view to achieving social progress and realising communist ideals. Thus in socialist society there is an enormous increase in the significance and role of the human factor, human activity, human conscientiousness, organisation and the scientifically grounded and planned regulation of the processes of social activity.

~^^1^^ For an analysis of Lenin's views on the problem of management cf. BapjiaMoo K. H. JlennHCKaa Koiinciimin con,najiiicTHHOCKoro ynpaiinenHH. renesHC HCTanoBjiOHHe. M., MUCJIB., 1973 (K. I. Varlarnov, The Leninist Concept of Socialist Management. Genesis and Development, Moscow, Mysl 1973).

~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, 'The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government', Collected Works, Vol. 27, 1965, p. 247.

~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, 'Materials to the Article "How We Should Reorganise the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection'", Collected Works, Vol. 42, 1971, p. 438.

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~^^1^^ For fuller details cf. BoflojiascKHii A. BMcmmi npHHiywi napTHHHoro pyKonoflCTBa. «KoMMymicT», 1979, N° 12, c. 30-41 (A. Vodolazsky, 'The Supreme Principle of Party Leadership', Kommunist, No. 12, 1979, p. 30-41).

The system of management takes into account the whole process of social restructuring that takes place during the development of the new formation, formulating programmes, setting tasks and using mechanisms, methods and means that correspond to the actual conditions at each given stage of socialist and communist construction. However, the significance of management is not restricted to ensuring that social processes unfold in accord with the needs dictated by the concrete conditions at each stage of communist construction. Social management is called upon to exorcise purposeful influence on these conditions themselves, to influence the direction taken by the changes in these conditions, and to organise, plan and regulate the progress of technology, the economy and culture accordingly. At the stage of developed socialism, the activity of the management system is therefore directed not simply at adapting to the conditions taking shape as a result of the scientific and technological revolution, but at mastering its achievements and combining them with the advantages of socialism.

During the transition from capitalism to socialism there emerges for the first time the need for society to operate on the basis of a scientifically grounded and democratically organised system of management. In practice this need is satisfied by social management, which leads to the increasing control of men over their own being and to the progressive and planned development of the entire social system.

At the present stage the crucial task being dealt with is the combination of the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution with the advantages of socialism. The mechanisms of management release the enormous potential within each of the factors of social progress, and their combined strength is used to satisfy the economic, social and cultural needs of society. In other words, social management operates as a catalyst accelerating the progress of society towards communism.

The creation of a new socio-economic formation is a multifaceted and complex dialectical process organised and guided by the Communist Party through the management system, which gives unity and pnrposefulness to the entire movement towards communism. The mechanisms of conscious and planned influence are an important and effective tool of socialist and communist construction.

However, social life involves processes that are not co-

360 "

vered by conscious, purposeful management but are regulated by a different means. As this kind of regulation is as yet insufficiently studied, the improvement of social management is often limited to the tasks of transformation within the confines of the management system. The object of management, society as a whole, appears to change and develop solely due to the influence of the subject of management, namely political, state and public organisations.

Marxist research into the correlation between objective conditions and the subjective factor, between conscious and spontaneous processes in social development, which constitutes the theoretical basis for the scientific solution of management problems, indicates a broader approach to these problems.^J Management should bo studied together with other regulating mechanisms operating within society. The development of management would then be understood not only in terms of changes in the organisational structure and operational methods of the management organs, but also in terms of the links and interaction between management and other regulating mechanisms taking part in the process of self-development and self-perfection of the socialist social system. Such an approach would also make it possible to focus attention on other ways of regulating social life, and in particular to explore the role of morality, art and other forms of social consciousness in successfully resolving the tasks involved in the management of socialist society. In this case the investigation into management is kept within reasonable and essential limits: it is not divorced from the phenomena that are directly connected with it but is viewed as an element in the mechanism of social development. Moreover, it is extremely important to take account of other regulating mechanisms in order to raise the efficiency of scientific management as such.

The above is easily demonstrated if one examines behavioural mechanisms, which form and develop under the

~^^1^^ Cf. <t>edoceea II. II. KpiiTHKa B. M. J[OHHHMM cy6t.eKTHBH3Ma H o6i.cK^rniisM3Ma. «Boiipocu (f>njioco$HH», 1970, N° 5; FjiesepMan P. E. McTopinjecKHH M3TepnajiH3M H pasBHTHe coiniajiHCTiiiecKoro o6mecTBa. M., HojiHTHsaaT, 1973; laaun B. A. Cy6^fi>eKTiiBHUH <|>aKTOp. OpyKiypa H saKoiioMepnocTH. M., Mbicjii>, 1968 (P. N. Fedoseyev, 'V. I. Lenin's Critique of Subjectivism and Objectivism', Voprosy filosofti, No. 5, 1970; G. Ye. Glezerman, Historical Afaterialism and the Development of Socialist Society, Moscow, Politizdat, 1973; B. A. Chagin, The Subjective Factor: Structure and Patterns, Mysl, Moscow, 1968).

I

influence of two types of factors. On the one hand, people measure their behaviour against the actual social situation, which indicates the main lines of their behaviour and plays a major role in the selection of one or other variant of action. This social situation is itself composed of a variety of factors: the work, leisure and living conditions of the individual, the social and psychological climate characterising the way of life of those groups of which he is a member (family, enterprise, public organisation, etc.), the nature and system of needs, interests and aims and the possibility of satisfying them, etc. In other words, the social situation is a complex of all the basic conditions that directly determine human behaviour and which reflect in their own particular way the characteristics of objective social reality as a whole. On the other hand, people act in accord with the principles, views, ideals and aspirations that they have assimilated in the course of their socio-- cultural development. Behaviour is never dictated only by actual conditions and circumstances, just as it is never dictated solely by ideals and aspirations. Volitional acts are the consequence of the organic synthesis of these two stimuli, the outcome of their mutual influence and interpenetration.

Social management must necessarily be based upon the correspondence between the spiritual world of men and the obtaining social situation. The conditions of life, and in particular the conditions of work, can be described as functioning vis-a-vis the means of education, explanation, persuasion, compulsion and reward as a litmus which tests management decisions and measures for their relevance, scientific validity and appropriateness in terms of the demands of objective reality.

In improving the mechanisms of scientific management encompassing the whole of society it must not be forgotten that the cognition and use of the objective laws are processes in which men engage in their daily lives and activity, where everyday knowledge and practical experience may be combined with scientific knowledge, and where there also operate the norms of morality, custom and tradition. At the stage of developed socialism the role of the conscious principle increases significantly in every sphere of social life and it exerts considerable influence upon the flow and direction of social processes. It should also be

noted that Ihe objective laws are not only used consciously in scientific management, but that their operation also presupposes the conscious social activity of the masses.

The growth of the role of the subjective factor means an unprecedented increase in the range and development of the creativity and independent activity of the working people, their conscious and active participation in the creation of the new system. Politics and the management of public affairs, formerly the exclusive domain of the exploiter classes, become the concern of the working people themselves, who emerge as the active subject of politics. At the same time, their social activity is the object of management. In other words, socialism is characterised by a qualitatively new relationship between the subject and object of management as compared with bourgeois society, a relationship which consists in their dialectical unity. However, the process of the formation of such a relationship is by no means automatic. Indeed, one of the main purposes of the mechanisms of social management is to activate the masses, organising them and ensuring their participation in the management of public affairs.

The identity of subject and object in socialist management necessarily follows from the very nature of socialism. Consequently the process of management assumes the form of two complementary flows of information. The first flow, having a single origin in the subject of management, determines the scientifically grounded general programme of action of a particular social entity. The second, deriving from the object, supplements and enriches this programme, and occasionally introduces substantial modifications. No management activity, however ideal its organisation, is able to take account of all the details, circumstances and conditions in which the directives, programmes and plans issued by a central organ will be implemented. For this reason Lenin insisted in a number of his works on the fact that under socialism history for the first time creates

the possibility ... of a full and unhampered development not only of specific local features, but also of local inventiveness, local initiative, of diverse ways, methods and means of progress to the common goal. '

~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, 'Original Version of the Article "The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government"', Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 208.

I

Lenin repeatedly emphasised that unity must be maintained only in what is basic, essential, and that the maximum variety must be ensured as regards details, local features and methods of exercising control.^J

Under socialism, when classes, social groups and all members of society are united by common fundamental interests and imbued with a common desire to carry through the programme of communist construction, centralised management and management originating directly in the masses develop in the same direction, supplementing each other. Centralised management, based on the scientific cognition and organised use of the laws of social development, has the most effective influence upon the corresponding social relations, thereby stimulating management 'from below' and speeding up assimilation of management principles, programmes and decisions by those involved in this process. At this point, the behaviour of the members of so ciety and their activity, based upon the basic common aims of social management, do not require scrupulous control on the part of management organs. In addition, the combination of management 'from above' and management 'from below' greatly increases the efficiency of the centralised planned regulation of social processes. Such regulation functions as a stimulus calling forth the creative energy of the masses and promoting the development of their independent social activity.

Popular support for management measures and a creative attitude towards them have become typical of developed socialist society. The experience of socialism has confirmed Lenin's conclusion that socialism will disclose the enormous wealth of skill and talent among the people, who will display them in every sphere of social activity. Socialism has given rise, for example, to the phenomenon of socialist emulation among workers and work collectives, which is a manifestation of the living creativity of the masses, of their initiative, boldness and energy, their selfless and active work to fulfil the plans of communist construction. Once they have arisen, communist emulation, the movement for communist work and other progressive initiatives coming from the working people themselves and constitut-

ing a particular expression of their independent participation in the management process, are then supported by specifically managerial means and methods (organisational, propaganda, etc.), roach the broad masses and become universal. The emergence of various movements of this type was not pre-planned and had not been taken into account by management organs. However, this does not mean that they emerged by accident. On the contrary, the emergence and development of the creative initiative of the working masses is natural to socialism, whose economic and political characteristics give rise to increasingly diverse forms of worker initiative.

Such initiative is conscious, for it corresponds to the general programmes and aims of the scientific management of the construction of communist society. It is evidence of the profound changes that have taken place in social psychology, of the awareness on the part of the working people of the needs and interests of society as a whole, and it expresses their creative attitude to public duty and their labour obligations. Such phenomena constitute a particular expression of the formation of the new and the progressive in social activity. The experience of worker initiative is being studied and generalised. The Party, state organs and public organisations support such progressive undertakings and assist their propagation and development into typical phenomena of socialist reality.

The subject and object of socialist management do not, however, always interact in one and the same way. It would bo an unjustified idealisation to pretend that under socialism social activity is free of processes that do not correspond to the aims of the movement towards communism. Such processes exist, and they play a negative role, slowing down Hie progress of society and disrupting the planned development of individual elements of the social system. Thus one of the most important tasks facing management is to identify and eliminate the causes of such processes, which are the product of both objective and subjective factors. They may be connected with the continuing existence under socialism of vestiges of the old social division of labour and commodity-money relations; they may be survivals from the old world, or the result of hostile propaganda, etc. In his investigations into the factors causing spontaneous processes in the economy, the Soviet scholar V. N. Gherko-

~^^1^^ Cf. V. I. Lenin, 'How to Organise Competition', p. 413.

364 "

vets noted that these factors may include:

(a) ignorance or failure to lake full account of the operation of economic laws and other objective conditions of economic development, as well as the demands of life itself; (b) the impossibility of predicting and allowing for every detail of longterm economic evolution, and the appearance in the future of new, unforeseen processes, links and relations; (c) temporary loss of conscious control over individual sectors of the economic life of society...; (d) outright neglect (over a given period of time) of the requirements of the economic laws in managing the economy.'

Such factors can and sometimes do lead to the emergence of processes that run counter to scientific management.

The most important task in the struggle against negative phenomena is, of course, the elimination of the objective causes that give rise to them. Here a major role is played by the subjective factor, and in particular by management based upon science, democracy and state power wielded by the whole people. It is essential, for example, that the state, as an important instrument of management, exercise systematic control over the measure of labour and the measure of consumption. The effectiveness of the struggle against negative tendencies depends upon the constant improvement of the mechanisms, methods and forms of management, and particular attention is given to this problem in the directives issued by the CPSU Central Committee, the leading organ of social management.

The improvement of the conduct of management will ensure the elimination of the instances of mismanagement that can still be found in certain sections of industrial and agricultural production, and of elements of bureaucracy. It will also help to eliminate errors in the use of material and moral incentives and other miscalculations that reduce the efficiency of the management system.

Mature socialism creates the conditions in which the processes taking place in society increasingly become the object of the democratic and scientifically organised influence of management. However, this does not mean that all social phenomena come completely under the control of scientific management. Indeed, determining those social phenomena

which should become the object of centralised and planned influence is a complex problem. Despite the considerable successes achieved in the development of the natural sciences and the existence of powerful technological means by which people are able to master the laws of nature, society is still faced with problems resulting from the spontaneous operation of these laws, and the process of human assimilation of the natural environment will continue to give rise to new problems. The same is true of social life. Whatever successes men have achieved in disclosing the laws of social development, this development itself gives rise to new phenomena to which men must adjust and adapt prior to achieving mastery over them. Thus, although under mature socialism the period required to attain such mastery is considerably shortened, it still takes time. Given the dynamism of contemporary social life, in which alongside those phenomena that are already cognised, there constantly emerge those which are as yet not understood and not controlled, the problems that are to be resolved by means of purposeorientated management assume particular urgency. One such urgent problem facing comtemporary Soviet society is urbanisation. The excessively rapid rate of migration from the country to the town makes it essential that the organs of management implement a series of concrete measures designed to further improve the conditions of work, the domestic services and leisure facilities provided for agricultural workers, to raise the level of technical provision for and mechanisation of agricultural production, to create agro-industrial complexes, etc.

The existence of processes that have still to become the object of conscious management is evidenced by deficiencies in the existing legislation. Today in the Soviet Union, for example, the public is being increasingly involved directly in the process of resolving numerous questions that previously came within the competence of the state. Consequently the existing legislation must contain norms regulating this participation. The improvement of legislation is a systematic process in the course of which existing law is brought into correspondence with the new requirements of social life. The new Constitution of the USSR adopted on 7 October 1977, reflects and legally confirms the major changes that have occurred in Soviet life since the end of the Second World War. With the adoption of this Consti-

~^^1^^ *IepKoeei4 B. II. HjiaHOMOpHOCTb cooHaJiiiCTiiiecKoro ua. M., 9KOHOMHK3, 1965, c. 84 (V. N. Cherkovets, The Planned Nature of Socialist Production, Ekonomika, Moscow, 1965, p. 84).

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tution, the entire system of the organs of state power and administration and the rights and obligations of public organisations and private citizens were brought into accord with the conditions of mature socialism. At present a great deal of work is being done to carry through the broad programme envisaged in the Constitution for the elaboration of legislation regulating various aspects of the life of the Soviet state.

In order to fulfil the programme for the construction of communism it is vitally important that management draw together all the spiritual elements of the superstructure that exert an active and transformative effect upon social life under socialism. This will allow science, morality and art to more fully realise their creative potential.

The various elements of the superstructure differ considerably in their capacity to participate in the process of purposefully influencing social activity. Whereas, for example, socialist law operates as a direct tool of management whose regulative aspect is clearly denned, the manner in which science and art influence social life is quite different. Law ensures a universally obligatory aspect of behaviour that accords with the tasks of state administration, morality orients people towards that type of behaviour which corresponds to moral values and norms; science is called upon to assist in developing programmes and concrete measures of management. The transformative role of science is enhanced when it is involved in practical management activity, for it is via the system of social management that scientific knowledge, and particularly the science of Marxism-Leninism, is directly involved in the vital activities of society. The products of artistic creativity, which reflect and evaluate reality in concrete sensuous images, possess both cognitive and ideological-educative significance. They play a major role in fostering in the working people an active attitude to life, in educating them in the spirit of the social and aesthetic ideals of communism. However, on contrast to legal and ethical imperatives, art does not instruct the individual on how he should behave. By reflecting life in artistic form and thus educating aesthetic taste, in cultivating in the individual a sense of the beautiful and simultaneously condemning the ugly in the form of philistinism, inertia, consumerism and other negative phenomena, art points man towards the alternatives and prepares him

368 "

to adopt a particular decision. However, the choice of decision and the nature and orientation of behaviour are left to the individual.

The inclusion of spiritual elements into the process of purposeful influence upon social relations means that the organs of management must formulate the optimal methods and forms of such inclusion. The specific nature and social significance of the various spiritual and superstructural elements determine the particular methods of management used in each spiritual-ideological sphere of social life. Thus at the 25th Congress of the CPSU it was noted that the Party approach to questions of literature and art presupposes the combination of a tactful attitude towards the artistic intelligentsia and firmness of principle, and that such an approach is incompatible with administrative methods of solving problems related to artistic creativity.ⁱ

In concluding it must be pointed out that the danger of the emergence in practical management activity of errors of a subjective nature is reduced or even totally eliminated by improving the scientific and democratic basis of management. The more science penetrates into the process of the purposeful construction of communist society and the more the principles of socialist democracy are strengthened, the fewer become the instances of voluntarism. The experience of the Soviet state and of other socialist countries shows that deviation from the principles of scientific grounding and democracy in management provide a breeding ground for arbitrary decision-making, red tape and other subjective distortions incompatible with the nature of socialism. On the other hand, passive compliance with spontaneously operating regulators (prices, market factors, everyday consciousness, etc.) is incompatible with the active, creative nature of socialist management and, in effect, constitute a threat to the cause of socialism. Thus a resolute struggle against such deviations and errors is an indispensable condition of further progress.

We have thus seen that management is a factor which serves either to accelerate or slow down the unfolding of those processes which involve the operation of the objective laws of social development. Successful management depends

~^^1^^ Cf. Documents and Resolutions. XXVth Congress of the CPSU, p. 97.

24-0328

upon the degree to which the trends of progressive social development are understood, the accuracy with which the tasks and nature of social changes arc determined, and also upon the effective and active participation of millions of working people in carrying through these changes.

Mature socialism gradually creates the conditions necessary for social self-management by the working people. The representative organs of the socialist state---the Soviets of People's Deputies---are not only state organs but also increasingly mass public organisations. The apparatus of state power discharges its functions by drawing broad sections of the population into the process of management. Democratic attitudes are penetrating not only the political but also all other spheres of social activity. A wide range of rights and powers in the management of economic and social processes has been accorded to work collectives, and the participation of public organisations in resolving political, economic and socio-cultural problems is increasing.

However, the growing role played by the general public and public organisations in the regulation of social processes at the present stage in historical development does not mean that the socialist state system is already developing into communist self-management. This presupposes a further increase in the effectiveness of the activities engaged in by the socialist state of the whole people as the main tool of communist construction.

The development of the socialist state system into communist self-management involves transformation not only at the level of the state and the law, but also throughout the entire system of social relations, as well as considerable changes within social management as a whole (including, amongst other things, in the management of production, and the regulation of social relations and of relations taking shape in the spiritual sphere of social life).

Engels pointed to the fact that

tho liberation of the working class also requires doctors, engineers, chemists, agricultural and other specialists, for it is a question of assuming control not only of the management of the political machinery, but also of the whole of social production. '

~^^1^^ Frederick Engels, 'An den intornationalen Kongress sozialistischer Studenten'. In Marx/Engels, Werke, B. 22, Dietz Vcrlag, Berlin, 1963, S. 415.

Sucli liberation will be the result of profound internal changes in social activity; it presupposes the achievement of a high level of production, technology, science and culture, the establishment of genuine social equality and the comprehensive and harmonious development of the individual. Such transformations in the vital activity of society will create a situation in which the system of social management organised in the form of the socialist state will give way to communist social self-management.

Themselves the living witnesses of and participants in the processes leading to this transition, our contemporaries have more reason than any previous generation for sharing the optimistic faith expressed by Marx, Engels and Lenin, faith in the triumph and majesty of the 'collective intelligence', whose indivisible rule will be achieved in communist civilisation, when men will 'be aware not only of their actions as individuals, but also of their actions as masses, acting together and pursuing a previously agreed and common goal'. '

' Kngels to George William Lamplugh, April 11, Marx/Engels, Wcrkc, B. 39, Dietz Vurlag, Berlin, 1908, S.

1893. 03.

In

24*

Valentin Tolstykh

of the mode of human life and to outline this problem within Ihe context of actual history.

In bourgeois civilisation, the mode of life of individuals is in sharp contradiction with the socio-historical requirements of individual development. Capitalism gives rise to a situation in which the truly universal appropriation of the productive forces and universal human intercourse are essential in order to secure an independence of activity and an existence which allows the totality of human gifts and abilities to emerge and develop. Indeed, if the productive forces exist and operate within society as an `aggregate' product, and labour is a social activity, then men should appropriate these forces and the fruits of this labour in their totality, collectively. In other words, truly universal human intercourse corresponding to the nature of the productive forces is only possible within the communist association of workers.

Capitalism undoubtedly contains within it the objective prerequisite of the emergence of a new mode of life, for this prerequisite is incorporated within the very nature of the productive forces that capitalism develops, which require from the individual a wide range of abilities and links with the surrounding world. However, this is only the prerequisite. Its aclualisation depends upon the nature of the appropriation of the productive forces (the form of ownership), and also upon the presence of actual bearers of this new mode of life, for if they arc to be capable of an appropriation that corresponds to the nature of the productive forces, men themselves must have a 'universal nature', i.e. they must bo free of all those links and relationships which restrict their independent activity and bind them to a limited, isolated way of life confined to the framework of traditional (local-communal), socially stratified or class existence. They must develop within themselves the totality of their abilities in accord with the universal conditions of their labour and social intercourse.

Marx and Engels put forward and substantiated the concept of the proletariat as the material bearer of the new mode of life. The revolutionary proletariat is precisely that group of people who not only consciously refuse to remain 'as of old' but who set themselves the task of freeing all men from the old mode of life as soon as it becomes possible to change the existing conditions of life. 'Communist

Communist Civilisation

as a New Mode of Human Life

The emergence and development of a new, communist civilisation, a process confirmed hy the entire transformative practice of real socialism, rests upon a sound scientific basis, namely, the Marxist-Leninist theory of social development. The well-known proposition advanced by the founders of scientific socialism that communism is not a condition of social being which must be inaugurated, not an ideal to which reality must confirm, but an actual movement that destroys the `present' condition, that is, the capitalist condition of social being, is equally true of the essential nature of that civilisation which replaces bourgeois civilisation. However, this docs not mean that Communists merely wait upon spontaneous events, allow themselves to be borne along by the flow of 'actual movement' without pursuing any ideal and without constructing in social (scientific) consciousness any model of the future mode of life. On the contrary, while consistently and rigorously taking into account historical reality and concrete situation, Marxists and Communists proceed on the basis of a definite plan, a programme of action, and have a fairly clear and precise picture of the nature and form of the future civilisation. This is given concrete and particularly convincing expression in the description of the mode of human life taking shape in the course of the communist reconstruction of society.

What is the new element that communist civilisation will bring, and is already bringing, to men's way of life, to their habits, interests, requirements and values, to their relations with each other and to their mode of behaving and thinking? While avoiding utopianism and specific individual details that cannot be foreseen, it is possible to give a brief account of the most essential factors in the transformation

372 .

proletarians', in the words of Marx and Kngels, revolutionise society by pulling the relations of production and all other social relations on a new basis, i.e. 'on themselves as new people, on the new mode of life'. Refusing to be reconciled with the conditions of their `proletarian' existence, and seeking to cast off all the muck of the ages, the proletarians adopt the path of revolutionary struggle and change themselves by changing circumstances.' These are the fundamental prerequisites of the emergence and development of a new, communist mode of life. In this connection it would be appropriate to consider certain other important factors. First, in the conditions of capitalist society, only the working class is able to offer a realistically meaningful alternative to the bourgeois mode of life, and to destroy the former mode of individual existence, and to do this, moreover, not from narrow class positions thai merely perpetuate its own domination, but from a truly universal position, as in organising socicly on communist principles the proletariat is pursuing a genuinely world-historical task,

the task of replacing Hie domination of circumstances and oF chance over individuals by the domination of individuals over chance and circumstances.^^2^^

By virtue of its material way of life, the working class, which does not own the means of production and has no interest in oppressing any class or social stratum, is the bearer (at first potential, but increasingly actual to Ihc degree that it becomes conscious of its position) of a completely new form of human social intercourse.

The seeds of a new lypc of sociality are contained within the very way of life of the workers, since the conditions of their material life and activity inevitably serve to unite them on a truly collective basis.

Secondly, in speaking of the 'new mode of life' of the workers, Marx and Kngels were far from lauding their actual mode of existence and the concrete forms of their vital activity under capitalism. They simply based themselves on the indisputable fact that the proletariat, in terms of its way and conditions of life, is the direct opposite of the bourgeoisie. The miserable nature of the 'life process' of the workers, who exist only in order to increase capital,

~^^1^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, 'The German Ideology', p. 214.

~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 438.

i.e. who are allowed to live only insofar as this meets the interests of the ruling class, means that their mode of satisfying their requirements is rendered abnormal, ' inhuman'. However, this `inhuman' existence is possessed of a hidden revolutionary force, for it gives rise to `indignation' directed against both the dominant social relations and the corresponding method of satisfying vital human requirements. Thus the need on the part of the proletariat for a new mode of life is dictated by both the `positive' aspect of or trend in the development of capitalist production (the nature of the productive forces, requiring universal appropriation and intercourse) and ils`ncgalivc'aspect (the desire that emerges within capitalist society to destroy the dominant mode of life). It is only by taking account of both these aspects that it is possible to understand and explain the nature of these characteristics of a specifically socialist mode of life that take shape within the framework of bourgeois society, and which include proletarian solidarity, comradely mutual aid and assistance, a developed sense on the part of the individual of his own dignity, the desire for spiritual improvement, etc., typical of progressively-minded workers.

Thirdly, according to Marx and Engels, the most general result of the change in the mode of life brought about by the communist transformation of society will be the coincidence of individual material life and self-activity, the transformation of labour into self-activity and the transformation of the previously obligatory intercourse into the 'intercourse of individuals as such'.^J This process covers an entire historical epoch, the time needed to eliminate the class-antagonistic nature of property relations, of material and spiritual production, of the division of labour, and of political power and management in order to free society once and for all from the previous mode of vital activity and create a new, communist mode of life. Already at the socialist stage, the basis is being laid for that mode of human existence in which it is possible to detect the basic features and elements of the future system of social intercourse, which will offer the individual broad opportunities for development and self-improvement. Thus the attempt by the proletariat to achieve full, -2un~^^1^^ Cf. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, 'The German Ideology,

restricted self-activity heralds the formation of a mode of life which would correspond to the universal nature of the productive forces appropriated by the proletariat and the consequent universal nature of the proletariat's own development. Hence we are speaking of the need to bring the mode of human life into accord with the reality of a human existence where individuals are drawn by virtue of material and spiritual development into a universal relationship to the world and each other.

What mode of life will fully correspond to the universality of the productive forces and forms of intercourse, and thus adequately express genuine human self-activity?

The communist mode of life is the mode of life of the 'free individual'. It constitutes a creative manifestation of individual vital activity springing from the free development of all the capacities of the integrated individual. In other words, the mode of life becomes communist to the degree that men transform the universally developed conditions of production and activity exchange into the conditions of their own being. It is the mode of life of the all-round individual whose productive activity and consumption are equally well developed. This form of human existence is to be achieved by the establishment of truly collectivist and conscious relations, which men master in the course of the radical transformation of the conditions of their existence.

According to Marx and Engels, the decisive condition of the truly universal development of the individual, and therefore of his universal self-activity, is the collective association of men, their adoption of a collective mode of life. Only in the communist (initially socialist) type of collective does the mode of life of the working man become a direct manifestation of his own individuality, his own selfactivity.

Communist collectivity is radically different from all forms of association within the framework of an exploitative society and state. The latter are 'surrogate collectivity' or `pseudo-collectivity' which offers the freedom of individual development only to those individuals who are members of the ruling class. For the rest---that is, for the overwhelming majority---such associations represent 'obligatory social intercourse' which takes place independently of their will or desire, independently of their own individuality. People are included within the social life of the community not as individuals, but as members of a particular class, and

are included only insofar as they live within the conditions of the existence of their class. In abolishing capitalist social relations, socialist revolution places the conditions of individual existence and development under collective control, making it possible for these conditions to be transformed into an inalienable form of the manifestation and expression of human individuality. The essence of collective association within communist society consists precisely in the fact that individuals participate in this association not merely as representatives of the conditions of the existence of their class, but as themselves, i.e. as independent individuals, as personalities.

The collective nature of association under communism is thus inseparable from men themselves and from their selfactivity. Communist collectivity is simultaneously a social form of individual development, of individual freedom and of individual originality. Only the collective is able to provide the individual with all that ho needs to fully develop his talents, and therefore only the collective ensures individual freedom. In this way, collectivity overcomes the traditional divorce between social and individual being, between way of life and the individuals themselves.

As the nature and make-up of the social roles filled by the individual comes in the course of communist transformation to be determined not only by his objective social position but also by his own individuality, so the diversity of personal life-styles is broadened. Whereas previously the way of life of each individual was more or less a typical expression of the life-style of his class (so that it was possible to speak of the `working-class' way of life, the `bourgeois' way of life, the way of life of `intellectuals', etc. on the basis of the way of life of the `average' representative of that social group), communist collective social intercourse will make it possible for the way of life of each individual to be a manifestation and expression of his particular abilities and originality. The proletarian desire for a collective way of life is, in the words of Plekhanov,

directly proportional to their desire for Independence, to their consciousness of their own dignity---in short, to the development of their Individuality. '

~^^1^^ lljiexanoe P. B. Hs6p. $Hjioco<f>CKne ripOHSBCfleHHH. M., TocnojiHTH3«aT, 1958, T. V, c. 511 (G. V. Plekhanov, Selected Philosophical Works, Vol. 5, Gospolitizdat, Moscow, 1958, p. 511)

To sum up. the more collective becomes men's way of life in the course of communist construction, the more personalised and unique it becomes in relation to each individual. The emergence and establishment of a communist form of social intercourse and daily life is a lengthy and contradictory historical process. However, even at the socialist stage the conditions are already being created that allow for a new and higher form of social intercourse between people who know no other authority 'except the authority of their own unity'. ' This is the association of mutual support on the part of people who by their own example affirm new principles of human behaviour and social intercourse. Marx wrote:

When communist artisans associate with one another, theory, propaganda, etc., is their first end. But at the same time, as a result of this association, they acquire a new need---the need for society---and what appears as a means hecomes an end... Such things as smoking, drinking, eating, etc., are no longer means of contact or means that bring them together. Association, society and conversation, which again has association as its end, are enough for them; the brotherhood of men is no mere phrase with them, but a fact of life, and the nobility of man shines upon us from their work-hardened bodies.^^2^^

In socialist society, this need for association and social intercourse develops and extends, making it possible to resolve and overcome the typical contradictions of the bourgeois way of life---the opposition between `private' and `public' life, between the 'inner world' of the individual and his 'external activity', between individual and collective behaviour, etc.

Within the framework of socialist collectivity and on the basis of the mentality that takes shape within it, the individuality of the `personal' life-style acquires social significance and moral value. The restrictions imposed by the collective are not directed against individuality as such, but against those habits, inclinations and desires that constitute 'negative individuality', against the parasitic way of life. Relations are built upon reciprocity---reciprocal aid

ond reciprocal responsibility. The responsibility of each to the collective and of the collective for each of its members is an inalienable feature of the socialist way of life.^^1^^ It expresses a new type of altitude towards society on the part of the individual and a new attitude to the working man on the part of society, and characterises the relationship between classes and social groups, nations and nationalities united by common aims and interests.

The socialist form of association, collective co-operation and intercourse becomes the practical social basis for the genuinely multinational Soviet way of life. This internalionalisation of the entire life-style of the peoples of the multinational Soviet state, by which the former disunity and isolation of different nations and their socio-economic and cultural backwardness have been overcome in practical terms, is a concrete example of that solidarity essential for the free development of each, without which truly universal social intercourse is impossible. The socialist (collectivist) way of life allows the individual to move beyond the limits of a purely national existence, and feel himself to be not the average representative of a particular nation, but a full and equal member of a qualitatively new and broader social community---the Soviet people. This in no way involves loss of nationhood: the way of life of each individual clearly reveals the unique characteristics of the psychological makeup, the character, cultural traditions and life-style of his particular nation. However, it is not these characteristics that determine the individual originality of each person and the unity of his social and individual being and consciousness. The decisive factor here is the fact that the individual belongs to a socialist (Soviet) community, which provides favourable conditions for the development of the best national traditions and for the formation of universal Soviet characteristics.

The social (collective) way of life during communist development is characterised by consciousness, which excludes the spontaneous and uncontrollable operation of vital social processes. Human activity becomes a conscious process not only with regard to aims and intents, but also with regard to means, results, mode of organisation and the inclusion of individual within it. Thus consciousness becomes an essential organisational factor in human collective self-activity,

l Cf. 24th Congress of the CPSU, p. 97.

~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, 'A Great Beginning', Collected Works, Vol. 29, 1965, p. 423.

~^^2^^ Karl Marx, 'Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844', p. 313.

and consequently the communist way of life depends not only on the purely material hut also and equally on the spiritual conditions of life, which include the totality of man's conscious actions. Consciousness hccomes a real and important condition of human lite, of man's cultural (in the broadest sense of the word) existence, not only 'in thought', but in reality.

The terms `consciousness' or 'the cultural level of human existence' in socialist society are not simply a reference lo the consciousness of those leading a particular way of life. People are always guided in their actions and behaviour by specific aims, intents, desires and interests, and every society has a complex system of cultural norms and values which determine---at the conscious or subconscious level -the behaviour both of individuals and of entire social groups. In communist society, the individual's consciousness of his relations with others becomes quite different. In socialist (collective) social intercourse, where the relationship of the individual to society and to himself is measured in terms of his neighbour (`near' or `far'), a new link is formed between the way of life and the way of thought. The motives and stimuli of daily behaviour for people living a truly collective life are increasingly the expression of a free and conscious choice and the developed ability to behave in accord with the aims and ideals of socialist society.

A way of life directed not at adapting to existing conditions, but at transforming them---a process in which purely personal interests and considerations of personal wellbeing are often pushed into the background---presupposes a high level of consciousness and increases its role as the regulator of human behaviour and thought. The subjective demands made on the world by the socialist individual, the motives governing his actions, his choice of conditions for normal life activity, etc. are not only a consequence of collective social intercourse, but also represent an act requiring the high level of consciousness and self-awareness possessed by the 'collective man'. In other words, this is the consciousness and self-awareness of an individual who makes no distinction between the norms of communal life and personal inclinations, desires and needs, of an individual capable of a high degree of self-control and who assumes full responsibility for his actions.

In the final analysis, it is the level of consciousness that

determines the cultural level of everyday human existence, social intercourse and behaviour. The cultural level of the socialist way of life is measured not only by the wealth of material and spiritual values accumulated by society and made available to all, but also by the nature of man's relationship to culture. According to Lenin's interpretation, the assimilation of socialist culture and the achievements of world civilisation does not mean that the individual is simply drawn into the orbit of some social `milieu' that is external to him and stands above him (a social milieu understood as the sum total of the material and spiritual values of society), but that this social milieu is converted by the individual into his own 'inorganic body', into his material embodiment. When Lenin wrote,

Wo shall work to inculcate in people's minds, turn into a liiibil, and bring into the day-by-day life of the masses the rule: 'All for each and each for all','

lie was referring to the conscious, purposeful transformation of human relations and the culture-historical conditions of human existence in accord with the communist ideal, i.e. to a radical transformation of culture itself, which ceases to be merely 'one of the conditions' of life and becomes the way of life of the individual.

The above does not mean, however, that under socialism the way of thinking of the individual ceases to be dependent upon his actual way of life and that consciousness becomes a self-sufficient factor. The qualitative change in the individual's way of thinking occurs in the course of the socialist transformation of the conditions of his life and activity. The consciousness of an individual for whom the surrounding world is a sphere of universal social intercourse and richly diversified practical activity is possessed of true sovereignty and creative power in converting the `ideal' into the `real'.

It would, therefore, be inaccurate to explain the `limited' existence of certain people solely in terms of an inadequate level of consciousness, ignoring their 'practical relationship to the world' and the actual sphere of activity making up their daily existence.

~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, From the First Subbotnik on the MoscowKazan Railway to the All-Russia May Day Subbotnik', Collected Works, Vol. 31, 1966, p. 124.

I

The communist way of life is based upon concepts of labour and wealth that differ radically from those which characterised the previous stages in the development of human history. What is the essence of those human values which constitute the basis of this new historical form of human existence? As was pointed out earlier, the life-style of the workers, shaped by the development of large-scale machine production, contains within it the seeds of a new way of life whose main characteristic is the relationship of man to labour. Under capitalism, this relationship assumes a negative form, since the alienation of labour, its social organisation and social significance become insuperable barriers which prevent labour from being converted into a manifestation of the individual personality of the worker, and participation in the social labour process from being converted into the prime vital need of each individual. To labour as a worker is to 'sacrifice one's life', and 'life begins . . . where this activity ceases'.ⁱ Therefore the first step in the formation of socialist, and then communist way of life is the emancipation of labour and its conversion into a means of broadening and enriching the entire life process of the workers.

Criticising interpretations of communism that presented it as the realm of 'universal laziness'^^2^^ and 'enjoyable idleness'^^3^^ Marx and Engels named 'universal industrionsness' as one of the most important characteristics of the future communist society, while the development of the capacity for work and the active display of this capacity by the individual they described as the expression of true human freedom.^^4^^ Universal incluslriousness is possible when work itself is converted into a prime vital need and habit, i.e. when work is such that it derives from the individual needs of men themselves, as opposed to what the individual sees as 'sacrificial labour' under capitalism. This transformation of labour takes place in communist society, where it becomes

the sphere of individual self-realisation directly linked to the individual's desire for freedom and happiness.

In acquiring a truly social nature, labour under socialism becomes not only the most important positive element in the way of life of the members of that society, but also the chief indicator of the social essence and specifics of that way of life. Participation in collective labour and the nature of the individual's attitude to labour become fundamental conditions of the socialist way of life and of individual vital activity. By asserting the labour-based way of life as the norm of human existence, socialism ensures the key prerequisite for the transition to specifically communist forms of existence. Socialism brings about a decisive change in the attitude to the very capacity for work, viewing it as a basic indicator of the richness of human individuality. The development of this capacity, that is, the ability of the individual to realise the totality of his physical and spiritual powers to the benefit of society, is essential to the formation of a truly collective way of life, which then enables the individuality of each worker to develop to the full. An inactive or parasitic way of life is in sharp contradiction with the socialist way of life and is therefore viewed by society at large as a survival from the past. In short, the emergence and establishment of a labour-based way of life in the course of the revolutionary transformation of society presupposes not only a change in the nature of labour itself, which, in the words of Marx, 'is stripped of the form of poverty and antagonism' ^ but also the simultaneous development of the capacity for work, which finds increasingly varied application as the range and content of activity are increased.

The nature of consumption is also changed during the establishment and development of socialist social relations, losing its strictly `material' form of expressing the richness of human existence acquired as a result of the capitalist way of life. As with labour activity, the nature and structure of consumption in capitalist society arc alienated from human individuality and self-activity, and this gives rise to false, illusory notions of wealth and the meaning of human existence.

Not a rejection of consuinplion, but a rejection of its

~^^1^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Enrols, 'Articles from the Neue Rhcinische Zeitung, March 6-May 19, 1840'. Tn Karl Marx. Frederick Rngels, Collected Works, Vol. 9, 1977, pp. 202, 203.

~^^2^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Kneels, 'Manifesto of the Communist Party', p. 500.

~^^3^^ Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, 'The Gorman Ideology'\ p. 218.

~^^4^^ Cf. K. Marx, Grundrisse der Krltik der politischen Okonomie (Rohentwurf, 1857-1858), S. 231, 505.

~^^1^^ Ibid., S. 593.

overriding significance in human vital activity, and the conversion of the growing material wealth of society into a means of individual development and self-development are the characteristic features of the communist attitude to consumption. As consumption

reproduces the individual himself in his particular mode of existence, not only in his immediate life, but also in particular social relations,'

the re-orientation of consumption under socialism is intended not only to ensure a constant rise in the living standards of the working people, but also to mould the communist way of life. In the socialist way of life, consumption acquires a truly humanist dimension as the desire for full wellbeing is subordinated to the solution of the basic social task, that of the comprehensive development of the individual. As was emphasised at the 26th Congress of the GPSU, this task consists in ensuring that the existing system of material and moral incentives always and everywhere provides for 'a just and objective evaluation of the labour contribution' of each individual.~^^2^^

Neither asceticism nor consumerism, each of which represents an emasculated, restricted, one-sided mode of existence, can help to attain this goal. According to Marx, the true wealth of existence consists in the absolute revelation of the 'creative talents of man', his all-round development, that is, the development of all human powers as such, regardless of any previously established scale. Further elaborating essentially the same idea, Lenin saw the meaning of communist construction in provision for 'full well-being and free, all-round development for all the members of society'.^^3^^ Socialism, as still 'incomplete communism', cannot yet free itself from consumption as an 'attractive force' and ensure the development of man as an end in himself. This requires a much higher level of productive forces, material wealth and culture than exists at present. However, by extending the frontiers of human life through

active participation in diverse socio-transformative activity, by constantly improving the material and spiritual conditions of work, daily life and leisure, socialism invests everyday existence with a new content, in which the basic yardstick of social wealth is the development and self-development of the individual. The human need for creativity and social intercourse, for the disclosure of human powers and abilities, is gradually becoming the highest value of life not only at the level of consciousness, but also in actual labour practice and daily life.

The creation of a way of life that is rich in the communist sense of the word, i.e. which enables every member of society to realise his creative powers and abilities, presupposes individuals with a wide diversity of needs, of which the most important are: the need for creative labour and an increasingly high level of education; the need for comradely relations and a wide range of human contacts; the need to realise one's individuality and to develop an integrated personality able and willing to respond to others; the need to be well informed on a wide range of subjects; the need for physical activity and close contact with nature, and finally the need for beauty in every form. The revolutionary transformation of the material and spiritual conditions of men's vital activity, combined with social encouragement for the development of their individual personalities, constitutes the main trend in the evolution of the socialist way of life towards truly communist forms of social existence.

The Party sees the purposeful moulding of developed socio-cultural interests and requirements of each individual as one of the main objectives of its social and cultural policy. At the 26th Congress of the CPSU, this concept was expressed as follows:

We have large material and intellectual potentialities for the ever fuller development of the individual, and we shall continue to increase these potentialities. However, it is important that each person should be able to utilise them intelligently. In the long run this depends upon the interests and needs of Ilio individual.'

This statement provides the key to an understanding of the basic characteristics, problems and dynamics of the

~^^1^^ Documents and Resolutions. The 26th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, p. 82.

~^^1^^ Cf. K.Marx, Grundrisse der Kritik der polilischenOkonomie (Rohentwurf, 1857-1858), S. 005.

~^^2^^ Documents and Resolutions. The 26lh Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, p. 76.

~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, 'Notes on Plekhanov's Second Draft Programme', Collected Works, Vol. 6, 1974, p. 52.

25-0328

socialist way of life. The essence of this way of life as a qualitatively new form of human social existence is determined by the humanist mission and goal of communism--- the all-round development of the individual---rendered possible by man's increasing mastery both of the natural world and of his own social relations.

Socialism as an actual movement represents the historical process of the transformation of the whole system and organisation of social life, including the nature of human relations, methods and motives of activity and behaviour, forms of social intercourse and the values system. One of the results of this radical change in social and individual activity, brought about in the course of communist construction, is the emergence of the basic characteristics of a new way of life.

Having properly assessed the advantages and historical achievements of socialism in creating a new form of human social existence, it is important that we turn to an examination of problems that are as yet still unresolved, that is, to the development of the socialist way of life. Such an approach fully corresponds to the objective requirements of the further development of Soviet society, which has already attained a high level of social maturity. A major law governing its development at the present stage is the combination of the advantages of socialism with scientific and technological advance, the latter promoting universal social intercourse among men united by common aims and interests and creating the objective prerequisites of the communist way of life. In the modern age it is socialism which gives this trend in social progress its most adequate expression.

The scientific and technological revolution will undoubtedly cause major changes in life-style, though the details of such changes are as yet difficult to envisage. However, the main trends of this process are detactable even now. First, it is a process that industrialises both labour and daily life on a new energy base, and which creates a fundamentally new situation in production and consumption, in the relationship between working and leisure time, in the development of the production worker himself, etc. Secondly, it is a process causing the intensive internationalisation of the life-style of Soviet society, including the expansion of territorial, demographic, cultural and other links and commu-

nications within the USSR and also the diversification of exchange and co-operation with other states. Thirdly, it is a process serving to turn urbanisation into an increasingly important factor in the dynamics of the socialist way of life. This brings with it the disruption of the traditional forms of human contact with nature and makes new demands upon the intellectual and emotional culture of the individual. Finally, human behaviour, forms of social intercourse and values systems are more and more affected by the mass diffusion of culture brought about by the growing influence of the mass media. By sharply increasing the territorial and social mobility of the population, the scientific and technological revolution is also providing hitherto unprecedented opportuntics to change former life-styles, adopt new forms of social life and perceive new values systems.

However, the further development of the socialist way of life is not determined exclusively by the successful introduction of modern science and teclmology into every sphere of social and individual life. Scientific and technological progress erases the boundaries between different social groups (industrial workers, peasants, intelligentsia), erodes the once strictly regional and local ties, eliminates the essential distinctions---economic, social and cultural---- between town and country, and develops the mutual links between the nations and nationalities of socialist society. Thus the social and cultural conditions of everyday life and activity are rendered increasingly homogeneous.

The spread of the scientific and technological revolution under socialism helps to create a situation in which, on the one hand, the way of life of a given individual is more and more determined by the fact of his belonging to a particular type of social community, be it a group or society as a whole, and not by specifically ethnic, national or everyday factors, while on the other hand, the way of life depends upon the level of individual development, the level of individual cultural maturity and spiritual wealth.

Thus the socialist way of life constitutes a specific qualitative stage in the process whereby new forms of communal life characteristic of communist civilisation take shape. It is therefore essential to note its basic elements and features while also keeping in mind the dynamics of the specific social and cultural relations within which they emerge and develop.

25*

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Works, Vol. 3, 1977. V. I. Lenin, 'The Discussion on Self-Deterinination Summed Up',

Collected Works, Vol. 22, 1974.

V. I. Lenin, 'A Draft Programme of Our Party', Collected Works, Vol. 4, 1977.

V. I. Lenin, 'The Economic Content of Narodism and the Criticism of It in Mr. Struve's Book', Collected Works, Vol. 1, 1972.

V. I. Lenin, 'Extraordinary Seventh Congress of the R.C.P.(B.). March 6-8, 1918', Collected Works, Vol. 27, 1974.

V. I. Lenin, 'The Heritage We Renounce', Collected Works, Vol. 2, 1977.

V. I. Lenin, 'How to Organise Competition?', Collected Works, Vol. 26, 1972.

V. I. Lenin, 'How We Should Reorganise the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection', Collected Works, Vol. 33.

V. I. Lenin, 'The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government', Collected Works, Vol. 27.

V. I. Lenin, 'Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism'. Collected Works, Vol. 22.

V. I. Lenin, 'In Memory of Herzen', Collected Works, Vol. 18, 1973.

V. I. Lenin, 'Karl Marx', Collected Works, Vol. 21, 1974.

V. I. Lenin, ' ``Left-Wing'' Communism---an Infantile Disorder', Collected Works, Vol. 31, 1974.

V. I. Lenin, 'Letter to American Workers', Collected Works, Vol. 28, 1977.

V. I. Lenin, 'The Main German Opportunist Work on the War', Collected Works, Vol. 21.

V. I. Lenin, 'Materialism and Empiric-Criticism', Collected Works, Vol. 14, 1968.

V. I. Lenin, 'On the Slogan for a United States of Europe', Collected Works, Vol. 21.

V. I. Lenin, 'On Co-Operation', Collected Works, Vol. 33.

V. I. Lenin, 'On Proletarian Culture', Collected Works, Vol. 31.

V. I. Lenin, 'On the Significance of Militant Materialism', Collected Works, Vol. 33.

V. I. Lenin, 'One Step Forward, Two Steps Back', Collected Works, Vol. 7, 1965.

V. I. Lenin, 'Our Revolution (Apropos of N. Sukhanov's Notes)', Collected Works, Vol. 33.

390 -

V. I. Lenin, 'Pages From a Diary', Collected Works, Vol. 33.

V. I. Lenin, 'Party Organisation and Party Literature', Collected Works, Vol. 10, 1978.

V. I. Lenin, 'Report on the Work of the 'ill-Russia Central Executive Committee and the Council of Pi )ple's Commissars Delivered at the First Session of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee, Seventh Convocation. February 2, 1920', Collected Works, Vol. 30, 1977.

V. I. Lenin, 'The State and Revolution', Collected Works, Vol. 25, 1974.

V I Lenin 'The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution', Collected Works, Vol. 24, 1974.

V. I. Lenin. 'The Tasks of the Youth Leagues', Collected Works, Vol. 31.

V. I. Lenin, 'The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism', Collected Works, Vol. 19, 1973.

V. I. Lenin, 'What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats', Collected Works, Vol. 1.

V. I. Lenin, 'What Is to Be Done?', Collected Works, Vol. 5, 1977.

M. M. 06iii,nHHoe seMJieBJiaAOHHe, IIPHIHHH, XOR H ero pasjiowemiH. M. I. M., TMII. (\>. B. Mnnjiepa,

SECTION I

1879. KosajicBCKHH M. M. OT npHMoro HapoftonpaBCTBa K

HOMy H OT naTpHapxaJibHoii Monapxnw K napJiaMCHTapHSMy. POCT

rocyAapcTBa H ero OTpawcHHO B HCTOPHH IIOJIHTWIOCKHX yieHHH.

T. 1-3. M., THII. TOB-sa H. )\. CuTmia, 1906.

Konpaji H. H. 3anaA H BOCTOK. CTaTbii. HSA- 2-e. M., «HayKa», 1972. Konpaj; H. H. IlsSpaimue TpyAM- McTopiin. M., «HayKa», 1974. KoHncimnii 3apy6e;KHoii 3Tnojiornn. KpHTHHCCKwc 3Tio;(w. Ilort. peff.

BPOMJICH 10. B., M., «Hayi<a», 1970.

Jlaspos II. JI. (C. C. Apiiojibjui). SaAa^w noiiHMaHHH HCTOPHH. IIpoeKT

BBCACHHH B H3y'IOIIHC 3BOJIIOHHH HCJIOBOleCKOii MblCJIH. MsR. 2-6.

Cnfi., 1903.

JlaspOB II. JI. McTopniccKHe iiiicbma. 1868-1869. JlaapOB Ft. Jl<I)HJiocoiJ)HH H COUHOJIOFHH. Ms6p. co'i. B 2-x TOMax. T. 2. M.)

«Mucjib», 1965.

Mapnapjiii 9. C. 0 rcucsHce <icjioBoqccKoii j(CHTOjn,nocTH H KyjibTypti.

EpCBaii, MsAaTCJibCTBO All APMHHCKOII CCP, 1973. MapKapnii 3. C. 0 KOIIUCIIUHM jionajibuwx nnBHJiH3au,Hii. EpesaH,

MsAaTCJibcTBO AH ApMHHCKoii CCP, 1902. MCTOAOJIOTHH npo6jicMHHX HccjicflOBaHHii 3THH>iocKHX KyjibTyp. Epe-

B3H, HSAaTOJIbCTBO AH ApMHHCKOH CCP, 1978. MC'IHHKOB JI. H. LjHBHJIH3aUHH H BCJIHKH6 MCTOpMqCCKHO pOKH. TeO-

rpa$HHCCKaH TCOPHH uporpccca H con,najibiioro pa3BHTHH. M., «rojioc TpyAa», 1924. Miixiiii.ionciciiii II. K. ^T!TO TBKOC iiporpecc? MnxaiijiOBCKHii H. K.

COIHHOHHH. T. 1. Cllf)., THII. M. M. CTadOJICBHia, 1890.

OB M. II. O MOTOAOJionmccKOM 3iia^liciiiui IIOIIHTHH «u,MBUJiH3a-

». «BonpocM (j)HJiococj)iin», 1978, Ni; 7.

lfiiKu4>opoB 15. II. BOCTOK n nccMiipHaH HCTOPHH. M3/I,. 2-e. M., « HayKa», 1977.

()6inecTBCiiHo-3KonoMH'iecKHe (jjop.Mauiin. ripo6jieMbi ToopwH. HOA pes-

MoMA'KHiia X. H. M., «Mucjib», 1978. OfisepMaii T. H. 'DopMHpoBaiino I|)HJIOCO({)HM MapKCHSMa. USA. 2-e.

M., «MI,ICJII>», 1972.

HJICXHIIOB r. B. MaTepiiaJiHCTimccKoe nounMaiinc UCTOPMH. Hjiexa-

IIOB T. B. Il36p. (j)HJ10C. IIpOH3BOACHHH B 5-H TOM3X. T. 2. M.,

llojiirriKiAaT, 1950. IlncxaiioB T. B. Hainn pa.'iHoniacHH. HjioxaHou P. B. Ms6p. (J)Hjioc.

IIpOHDBCACHHH. T. 1. M., IIojIHTHUflaT, 1950.

IIopiiiHCB B. <I>. ConHaJii.nafi IICHXOJIOFHH H HCTOpiifi. HSA. 2-e. M.,

«IIayKa», 1979. ITpo6jieMR HCTOPHH AOKanHTaJiHCTniecKHX o6ni,ecTB. HOA peA- fla"

HHjiOBa JI. B. M., «HayKa», 1968.

CjICMM COi;HaJIbHO-3KOHOMHHeCKHX (JlOpMallHii. IlCTOpHKO-THnOJIOrH-

^IICCKHO nccjicHOBaHHH. HoA peA- JKyKosa E. M. M., «HayKa», 1975.

npoSjieiau 3THorpa$nii H cOBpeMeimaH sapySraiman nayKa. Tlojs. pe«. Mapernna IO. B. H IlyTHjiOBa B. II. JI., «HayKa», i y /y «

ApsaimHbHH IJ. T. KyjibTypa H n,HBHjiii3an,HH: npo6.ricMbi HCTOPHH H TeopHH. K KPHTHKG cOBpeMeHHoii 3anaAHoii jiHTepaTypbi. «Beci'- HHK HCTOPHH MHpOBOH Kyjibiypbi*. 1961, JM» 3 (27).

ApraHOBCKHH C. H. HcTOpHiecKoe CAHIICTBO TCJioBoiecTBa H

H06 BJIHHHH6 KyjIbTyp. OlIJIOCO^CKO-MCTO^OJIOrH'IOCKHii

cOBpeivieHHbix 3apy6e?KHtix Koiinennidi. JI «HpocBeincHHc», 1967.

BpoMJieJi H). B. BTHOC H oraorpa^HH. M., «Hayita», 1973.

EynaroB P. A. HCTOPHH CJIOB B iicTOpim oSmociBa. M., «Ilpori)cni,o-

HH6», 1971.

A. H. Du developpemcnt dcs idees rcvolutionnaires en Uussie. 0 pasBHTHH peBOJiionnoHHMX HAeii B POCCHH. repueii A. M. Co6p. coi. B 30-H TOMax. T. 7. M., IlaflaicJibCTBo All CCCP, 1956. eH A. H. Lo pouplo russc et la socialismc. PyocKiiii napoA n con,HajiH3M (aBTopusoBaHUbiii ucpCBO^). Fcpucn A. M. Co6p. co-i. B 30-H TOMax. T. 7. M., MsAaTCJibCTno AH CCCP, 1950. repijen A. H. La Russic ot lo vicux mondc. CTapuit snip H Poccim. Fepi^en A. H. Co6p. co<i. B 30-n TOMax. T. 12. M.. AH CCCP, 1957.

H H. H. POCCHH n Eapoiia. BSFJIHA iia Kyjibxypnuc H 110- Kiie OTHOIIICHHH cJiaBHiicKoro wiipa K poMaiio-rcpMancKOMy. Cn6., 1871.

^HaJieKTHKa o6iu,ero H ocoSeimoro B iicTopii'iecKOM nponccce. lion. pefl. MoMflHtHHa X. II. H #P- M., «Mncjib», 1978.

5KyKOB E. M. OTOPKH McioflOJioruH HCTOPHH. M., «UayKa», 1980.

KanaHOBCKBu H). B. Pa6oBjiaAOHHC, (J)COAaJiH3M HJIH asnaTCKuii cnoco6 npOH3BOj;cTBa? Cnop 06 oSmecTBeimoM CTpoe flpcBiicro H cpeAHeseKOBoro BocTOKa, «OKOjionHajibnofi A(J)pHKH H AOKOJiyM6oBOH AMBPHKH. M., «HayKa», 1971.

KejKie B. JR., KosajibsoH M. fl. Teopun n HCTOPHH. ITpo6jieMbi TROHCTopniecKoro npou,ecca. M., IIojiHTHSflaT, 1981.

PaiUKOBCKHH E. B. BoCTOKOBCAHaH IIpoSjIOMaTHKa I) KyJIbTypHO-HCTO-

pimccKoii KOHHOIIU,HH A. }\>K. ToimGii. OIIUT itpiiTHiccKoro aiiajiHaa. M., «IiayKa», 1976.

CCMCIIOB IO. II. Con,naJibHafl (JJHJIOCOCJJMH A. Toiin6n. oiepK. M., «HayKa», 1980.

TeopeTHiecKHC npo6jioMi.i Bcc.MHpHO-HcTopn'iocKoro nponocca.

pe«. JKyKOBa E. M. M., «HayKa», 1979. TOJICTOH JI. II. Ilporpocc M oiipeAcjieiiHO oGpasoaaHHH. TOJICTOH JI. H.

IIojiH. coGp. coi., T. 8. M., «XynoH<ocTBomiaH jmTopaTypa»,

1936.

TOJICTOH JI. II. TaK ITO ;KC naM ffcaaTb? TOJICTOH JI. II. IIojiH. coGp.

coq. T. 25. M., «XyAO)KecTBCHiian jin'ropaTypa», 1937. TOJICTOH JI. H. ^I!TO xaKoe HCKycciBO? TOJICTOH JI. II. HOJIH. coGp.

coi. T. 30. M., «XyAO)KecTBOiniaJi jiHTopaTypa», 1951.

H. <l>. <t>HJioco<j)HH oGiu,ero Rojia. CTaTbH, MLICJIH H iiHctMa H. O. cpesopoaa. T. 1. BepHuii, 1906.

II. H. MapKciwM B XX BGKO. Mapnc, 3nrejibc, JleiiHH H coBpeiaeHHocTb. Raff. 2-e. M., «Mucjib», 1977.

XajIHIIOB B. O. MapKCHCTCKO-JIOHHIICKaH KOHU,Om;Hn Il,HBHJIH3aU,HH.

«HayiHtiii KOMMynii3M», 1979, JvTs 5.

HeSoKcapoB II. H., ^TIe6oKcapoBa H. A. Hapo;;u, pacti, Kyjibiypu.

M., «HayKa», 1971. HcpHbimeBCKHH II. F. KpHTHKa <J>HJioco<i>cKHx iipoffy6e)K;i;onnii( npo-

THB oGiUHHHoro BjiaflOHMH. HepiiwiiiOBCKHii H. P. HOJIH. co6p. coⁱi.,

T. 5. M., «Xyflo>KocTBCHnaH jinTopaTypa», 1950.

CKHii H. P. 0 npiiiHiiax naAOinui PHMa. ^lIepiiuuiOBCKnii II-

F. IIojiH. coGp. co'i. T. 7. M., «Xyno>KCCTBOiniaH jiHTOpatypa*, 1950-

KOMMyHHSM H KyjII.typa: 3aKOHOMCp!IOCTn <})OpMHpOBaHHH H paSBHTHH

iioBoii KyjibTypu. UOA P«A- MatJinna A. II. M., «HayKa», 1966. KoMMynH3M H cou,HaJii>ii]>iii uporpccc. HOA pCA- EjibMocaa B. f\. H KasaKOBa A. II. JI., MsAaTCJibCTuo JIoiiHHrpaACKoro yiiHBepcnxeTa

1973.

MapKCHCTCKO-jicmiiicKaii ToopHH ncTopHHOCKoro npou,ecca. T. I. IIoA PCA. KoHCTanTuiioBa <l>. B., M., «HayKa», 1981.

MblCJIHB'ICHKO A. F. ^llejIOBOK KaK HpCAMCT c})HJIOCO(J)CKOrO HO3HaHHH.

M., «MLICJIIJ», 1972.

IO. K. 0 iipupoAC counajibiioii (j)opMi,i AUWKGHMH. M., MOCKOBCKOTO yiiiiBopcHTCTa, 1971.

CllSCMCKail M. II. MCJIOBCK H TpyA- VCJIOBHH rapMOHHH H P33BHTHH (CoU,Ha.JII»HO-(i>MJIOCO<j>CKHri ailajlH3 oGlUCCTBOHHOrO npOH3BOACTBa).

M., DojiHTHHAaT, 1981. VJICAOB A. K. ConHOJiornMCCKHO saKoiiu. M., «Mwcjib», 1975.

(1'HJIOCOlflCKHO IlpOUJIOMW oGlUCCTBCHIIOrO paSBHTHH. DoA peA-

MoMpKHHa X. H. M., «Mbicjib», BI.III. I., 1974; Bun. II, 1974; Bun. Ill, 1975.

<1>POJIOB H. T. IIcpCJICKTHBU ^l!OJIOBCKa. OlIUT KOMriJIBKCHOH I10CT3HOBKH

M., ]lojuiTn;iAaT, 1979.

Maniii B. A. CyGi>CKTHBiiuii 4>aK^rrop. Cipyiwypa H 3aKOHOMepHOCTH.

M., «Mucjib», 1968.

SECTION III

SECTION II

C. C. llouTHKa paiiHcBiKJaiiTiiiicKoii jiHTepaiypu. M., « HayKa», 1977.

AJICKCCCB B. M. KuraiicKaii jiHTcpaxypa. IlsGp. TpyAU. M., «HayKa»,

1978.

ApXanrCJIbCKHH JI. M., CoH,HaJIbUO-3TimOCKHe UpoGjIOMU TCOpHH JIH<niO-

CTH. M., «MUCJII.», 1974.

BaxTHn M. M. Bonpocu jmrcpaTypu H acicTHKH. HccjieAOBaHHH paaHux

JIOT. M., «XyAO)KOCTBOHiiaH HHTepaTypa», 1975.

BaXTHH M. M. BcTBTHKa CJIOBOCHOrO TBOpTOCTBa. M., «HcKyCCTBO»,

1979. EorarbipcB II. F. Bonpocu Tcopnn napoAHOro HCKyccTBa. M., «HcKyc-

CTBO», 1979. BOFOMOJIOB A. C, HayKa H nuwu (JiopMi.i pau,noiiaJibiiocTH. «Bonpocu

(j)naoco(|iHH», 1979, JV° 4. BWIKOB B. B. BcxoTHKa nosAHoii aiiTiwnocTH. II-III BeKa. M., «Hay-

Ka», 1981. BcpnaACKHii B. H. PasMwnijiemin iiarypaJinrTa. Ilayquan MMCJib KaK

iijiancTiioc HBJICIIHO. M., «IIayKa», 1977.

BCCCJIOBCKHH A. H. llCTOpH'ICCKaH ]IO3THKa. JI., «XyAO!KCCTBOHHaH JIHTG-

parypa», 1940.

AIIIHH T. K. KpHTHKa coBpcMoiiiibix CypjKyauiiux KOHH,OIIH,UH CTBa. M., «Mucjib», 1978.

BarenHH C. C. MOJIOBCK B cro IICTOPHH. JI., HsflaTCJibciBO JIoiinnrpaA-

CKOTO yHHBepcHTcxa, 1976.

Byesa JI. II. ^lejioacK: fleHTOjibnocTb H oGmoHno. M., «Mucjib», 1978. BiiHorpa;(OB B. F., FonMapyK C. H. SaKonu o6iu,ccTBa H nayiHoo npeA-

BHAOHH6. M., HoflHTHSAaT, 1972.

BonKOB F. H. HCTOKH H ropHSOiiTH uporpocca. ConnojiornⁱiccKHo iipoG-

JIGMbl paSBHTHH HayKH H TCXHHKH. M., DojIHTHSAaT, 1976.

TjiesepMaH T. E. 3aKOHi,i oGmccTBeHHoro pasBHTHH: HX xapaKTep H Hcnojib30Banno. M., DojiHTHSAaT, 1979.

FpHPOptHH B. T. (I'HJ10CO(})IIH H CymnOCTL TOJIOBCKa. M.,

1973.

J],yxoBHoe npOHSBOACTBo: couHajibiio-(j)Hjioco(|)cKHii acneKT aiiajinsa Ay xoBHoii AeHTCJtbiiocTM. UOA PCA- TOJICTUX B. M. M., «IIayi<a», 1981

394 -

BOJIOIIIHHOB B. H. MapKCiniM H <J>HJIOCO(j)MH H3bIKa. OCHOBIIMO

couHOJiorHHecKoro MCTOAa B uayxc o niii.iKo. 2-o 11371;. JI., «llpn6oii», 1930.

BbjrOTCKMH JI. C. 1'aSBHTHe BMCIIII1X IICHXU'ICCKHX <|>yUKUIlii. Ml) IIOO-

uySjiMKOBannbix xpyAOB. M., «HayKa», 1900.

FaHACHKO II. II. 3nojiK>UHH IIOHHTHJI nayKii. CTaiionjieimo n paauiiTiio uepBbix naymbix nporpaniM. M., «HayKa», 1980.

FypeBHi A. H. KaTcropmi cpeAHOBOKOBoii KyjihTypw. M., «McKyccTuo», 1972.

MoTpoiUHJioea II. B. no3Haime H o6iu,ccTBO. Ms Hciopun (finjioco$nn XVII---XVIII BCKOB. M., «M!,ICJII,», 1979.

HoBiiKoaa JI. H. BcrcTHKa u TcxmiKa: aJibiepnaTHBa HJIH HHTerpai;MH

(3cTCTII<leCKaH flCHTCJIbHOCTb B CHCTGMe oGmeCTBeHHOH npaKTHKH).

M., l!ojniTii3p,aT, 1976.

P. P. /(,najicKTMKa uporpccca H ee npoHBJieHHe B iipaBCTBeiraocTH. M., «IIayKa», 1978.

Ci;a:ticiin C. J\. II:» ncTopmi con,iiaJii.iio-iiojniTnqccKoii H nyxoBHoii H<H3- IIH 3aiia;;noii Knpoiiw B cpe;;nno HOKa. MaTcpitaJibi nayiHoro HacjieAMH. M., «IIayi<a», 1981.

CyxoB A. )[. I'ojiiirim n iicTOpmi oomocTBa. M., «IIayKa», 1979.

TMTapciiKO A. M. CrpyKTypbi HpaiicTBcmioro co3iiannH. OIIHT BTHKO-

(|)MJiocoi|icKoro HCCJioAOuaiiHH. M., «Mbicjii>», 1974.

ToiIOpOB B. H. 0 KOCMOJIOril'ICCKHX HCTOIHHKaX paHHCHCTOpHqeCKHX

onucaniiii. Tpy^u no snaKOBtiM cHcxeMaM, VI. VieHbie sanncKH TapiycKoro yimBcpcMTOTa. Buir. 308. Tapxy, 1973.

/(. M. BBCACIIHC B ToopeTii-iccKoo pojiHrHOBOAenHe. M.,

», 1973.

B. E., SKAaiiOB IO. A. CymnocTi, Kyju/rypw. 1'ocTou-- naM:)AaTcjii>CTBO 1'ocTOBCKoro ymiHopcitTOTa, 1979.

Jlpo6llllHKHH O. P. noiIHTHC MOpaJllI. McTOpIlKO-Kpimi`ll'CKllii 0'IOpK.

M., «HayKa», 1974.

Eropofl A. T., ITpoGjiCMbi SCTCTHKM. Maji;. 2-e, M., «ConeTcunii 1977.

E. B. KyjibTypa BOCTOKB B COBPCMUUIIOM aaiiawioM Miipc.

M., «HayKa», 1977. 3aBa;\CKaji E. B. ScTCTH'iecKiio upoGjioMbi /KHBOUHCH craporo li'nxaH.

M., «HcKyccTBO», 1975. 3jio5iiH H. C. Kyjiwypa H oGiuecTBOHiibiii uporpocc. M., «HayKa»,

1980.

HBBHOB BHI. Be. OqcpKM no iicTopmi CCMHOTIIKH B CCCP. M., «IIayKa»,

1976. HB8HOB BHM. Be. *JeT 11 no'icr. AcciiMOTpiiH Moara u 3iiaKOBbix CIICTOM.

M., «COBCTCKOO pafliio», 1978. HcKyccTBO H nay^lino-TcxHM'U!CKnii iiporpecc. Ilo;i, pcj(. HOBIIKOHOU

JI. 11. M., «ilcnyccTBo», 1973.

KpuBCJiCB H. A. MCTOPHH pojnirnii. 0'iopKii a 2-x TOAUIX. M., «Mucjn.»,

T. I, 1975, T. 2, 1970. KyjibTypa B CBOTO (J)HJioco(|)]in. AUT. KOJUI. /1,/Kiiocn O. 11. n Ap. T6ii-

^HCH, «XcjiO])iic6a», 1979. KyjibTypa, >KH.'iHOo6ociTO'iciiiio u UTHOC.. OIIF.IT DTiiojioni'incunx

ii. EpoBan, M3«aTCJibCTi!0 AH ApMKHCKoii CGI', 1981.

<l'iuioco(j)HH H iiayKa. KpHTii'iecKHe oncpKit 6yp?Kya3iioii (JiHJioco(J)HH.

!!OA pi'/^ MiiTpoxima JI. II. M., «Hayita», 1972. `I'luroooiJK'KMe npo6jioMU Kyjir.Typw. !!OA peA- ^LlaBiaflaA3e H. 3.

T6njiiicn, «Meii,niic'pcfia», 1980.

SECTION IV

B. P. MOJIOBCK B yiipanjioiniH ofimccTBOM. M.,

1977.

3. H. CoupcMcmioc KainiTaJiiiCTii'iccKoo oGiuoctBO it yTOiiHiecKOO coiiiiauiiu. «Bonpocbi (J^)MJ1°^CO(i^IHH>>> 1973, J\i> 10.

C. C. MCJIOHCK KOMMyniicTH'iccKoii nnBiuiH3aii,HH. JI., «3 ua, 1980.

LiopbGa iiAcii u conpcMcmiOM Mwpc. !!OA pCA- KoncxaHTHHOBa O. B.

M., IIojiiiTiKiAftT, T. I, 1975; T. 2. 1976; T. 3, 1978. liyTciiKo A. n. CoiiiuuiiicTM'iecKuii oGpas JKHSHH: npoSjieMM H cy>KAe-

HMH. M., «IlayKa», 1978.

/(PIIIICOB B. B. Cou,HOJiori!H iiacnjniii: KpwTnKa COBPCMCHHHX 6yp5 Kyasnijx ]{onii,o]|]i,n]i. M., IlojniTH3/(aT, 1975.

M. A. Kapji MapKC. McKyccruo u ofJinccTBCiinwii n/i,eaji. 2-o HSR. M., «Xy«o>KocTBoi£iiaH jiHTCparypa*, 1979. JIoTiuan K). M., ycneiiCKHii B. A. MH$---HMH---KyjibTypa. Tpy«w no 3HaKOBi>iM eHCTCMaM, VI. V'lCHbio aaimcKii TaprycKoro yiiiiBcpciiieTa. Bun. 308. Tapxy, 1973.

Meatyea B. M. KyjibTypa u ncTopmi. llpo6jio.Mi,i Kyjib-rypw n (^luiocoij)-

CKO-HCTOpllHOCKOii TCOplIH MapKCM3Ma. M., I lOJIMTlWJUlT, 1978.

MeJieTHHCKHH E. M. IIormiKa MH$a. M., «llayKa», 1976. MexaHHKa H u,HBHJiH3an,nn XVII-XIX nn. HOJI, pp,n,. rpiiropi>nna A. T.

H KyaHCUOBa C. r. M., «Hayi;a», 1979.

MoTpouiH.ioBa H. B. HayKa u yqenwc B ycjionmix coBpcMomioro KaiinM., «HayKa», 1976.

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REQUEST TO READERS

Progress Publishers would bo glad to bave your opinion of this book, its translation and design and any suggestions you may have for future publications.

Please send all your comments to 17 Zubovsky Boulevard, Moscow, USSR.

1972.

II. H.

coBpoMoimoii :MIOXM. H3«. 3-e. M.,

«HayKa», 1978.

B. F. KpwTHKa cou,HOKyjibTypnux opHCiiTannii B coBpoMOHHoii 6ypwya3Hoii fyiuiocofyvm: CHHOHTH.IM H aiiTncnuciiTH3M. M., «HayKa», 1981.

Xopoc B. P. liAeiini.ic Teieiinn iiapOAUH'iccKoro nina B p crpanax. M., «HayKa», 1980.