p As materialist dialecticians, Marx and Engels criticised previous abstract notions of society as something which had remained qualitatively unchanged throughout human history. They stressed the need for a specific historical approach to the study of society, i. e., for singling out the successive qualitatively distinct’ stages of its development. This is not to say, however, that Marxism rejects the idea of society as such.

p Human society is the highest stage in the evolution of the material world, the highest form of the motion of matter. Engels thus classified the forms of the motion of 59 matter: 1) mechanical; 2) physical; 3) chemical; 4) biological; 5) social. Thus, the life of society is the highest, social form of the motion of matter and takes shape on the basis of all the previous forms.

p Societ. is part of the material world which branched off from nature and is a historically developing form of human life.

p Societ. is a system, the main elements of which are people. Man is the subject of the historical process. Without man, there is no society. The emergence of society is, above all, the emergence of man. But society should not be understood as a mere conglomerate of people. The various processes within social life, in which man’s activity is embodied, such as material production, class struggle, etc., are also an integral part of society. In the course of their activity people are involved in various social relations (material and ideological), which are also an important component of society.

And finally, a major element of social life is the material and cultural values man has created in the course of history, such as technology, art, etc. When analysing society as a system, its basic spheres stand out as relatively independent structural formations: 1) economic; 2) social; 3) political, and 4) intellectual. The economic sphere (the process of material production, the system of economic relations, etc.) has already been consid- 60 ered in the preceding chapter; the social, political and intellectual spheres will be dealt with below.