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The fundamental principle of historical materialism, expressing in short the essence of the materialist view of history, states that the people’s social being determines their social consciousness. This formula contains an answer to the basic question of philosophy with respect to society. As is well

47 known, the great, fundamental question of any philosophy is that of the relationship between being and thinking. What should be considered as primary, as the world’s basis-the spirit or matter, being or consciousness? The answer to this question divides the philosophers of all times into two large opposing camps-materialists and idealists. "Since materialism in general explains consciousness as the outcome of being, and not conversely, then materialism as applied to the social life of mankind has to explain socia. consciousness as the outcome of socia. being.”   [47•1 

p Social being is the material relations of people to nature and to one another which emerge together with the establishment of human society and exist independently of consciousness. "The fact that you live and conduct your business, beget children, produce products and exchange them, gives rise to an objectively necessary chain of events, a chain of development, which is independent of your socia. consciousness, and is never grasped by the latter completely.”   [47•2 

p Social consciousness is the views, ideas and theories (political, legal, philosophical, religious, etc.), and the social psychology of classes, nations 48 and other historically formed groups of people.

p Social being determines people’s social consciousness. This means that new social ideas do not emerge in society by accident, but are a reflection of those changes that occur in society’s material life: aggravated socio-economic contradictions, vital material needs, etc. Thus the materialist view of history itself did not come into being just because Marx and Engels were born, but because capitalism’s contradictions became more acute and the working class needed a revolutionary theory. Radical changes in social being, in people’s material life cause corresponding changes in their social consciousness. Thus, in socialist countries the socialist transformation of small-scale peasant economy farming is implemented on co-operative principles. The life and work of the peasantry in production work collectives (formerly everybody worked on individual farms) bring about radical changes in their views and psychology: they become collectivist, internationalist, and socialist.

p The relation between social being and social consciousness represents a natural law.

p Recognition that society’s development is governed by laws is an essential aspect of the materialist conception of history. Philosophers before Marx held that objective laws operate only in nature. In their opinion, society has no laws but is ruled by chaos and arbitrariness. Everything 49 takes place by the will of God or great persons such as tsars, generals, etc. Marx and Engels proved that social development is a natural historical process, i. e., a process operating in accordance with certain objective laws.

p The laws of social development are existing, necessary, stable and recurrent links between the phenomena of social life. One such law is the dependence of social consciousness upon social being. There are other social laws, such as the law of the determining role of the mode of production of material benefits in the life of sosiety, the law of the correspondence of production relations to the level and character of the productive forces and the law of the class struggle as the motive force of social development in antagonistic formations.

p The objective nature of the laws of social development is based on the fact that they operate independently of the will and wishes of people, independently of whether or not people are aware of them.

p However, the laws of history are different from those of nature, above all in the way they operate. Natural laws are manifested in the action of blind, spontaneous forces, while in history one is talking of people who possess a will and consciousness and who set themselves certain consciously determined objectives. The laws of history are therefore the laws of human activity.

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50 People create their own history, hut not arbitrarily, or at their own whim. Their activities are limited by specific conditions and opportunities. Each new generation inherits the achieved level of production development and prevailing social relations. People have to fulfil the tasks set them by the objective course of social development, relying on the means they have at their disposal. For example, the people of a certain country have thrown off colonial oppression and started building a new life. However, they cannot ignore the objective level of the development of production (often quite low), inherited from the past, and a great many other factors and specific conditions which are not dependent on them. The political consciousness, determination and revolutionary ardour of people have a great role to play in the historical process. Yet, in the final analysis, the material factor, i. e., the material conditions of the life of society, is decisive in the course of social development.