Introduction
2. Development of philosophical ideas about history (from antiquity to Marxism)
3. Essence materialistic understanding stories. Patterns and driving forces historical development. Methodology of socio-historical knowledge
4. Non-classical concepts of history (O. Spengler, N. Danilevsky, K. Leontiev, D. Toynbee, K. Jaspers)
Conclusion
List of used literature
Excerpts from the text
Modern philosophy of history is a relatively independent field philosophical knowledge, which is devoted to understanding the qualitative uniqueness of the development of society in its difference from nature.
The term “philosophy of history” was introduced by Voltaire and covered the totality of philosophical reasoning about world history without a special philosophical and theoretical justification for their necessity and legitimacy.
The philosophy of history examines several important problems:
The direction and meaning of history,
Methodological approaches to the typology of society,
Criteria for the periodization of history,
Progress criteria historical process.
In the philosophy of history there is no unity of opinion on any of the above issues. The points of view are so different that they are rather opposite rather than complementary. Thus, some philosophers recognize historical laws, others deny them. A number of philosophers believe that history has meaning, while others believe that history does not and cannot have meaning.
In the first half of the twentieth century, the time of the emergence of the ideas of existentialism, the subjective-idealistic direction in philosophy, an approach appeared that sought to link the meaning of history with the purpose and meaning of human existence.
Most modern philosophers believe that the historical process does not and cannot have a goal. A person sets a goal for himself and society. In accordance with this goal, he determines the meaning of history.
1. Philosophy of history as part of philosophical knowledge
Philosophy of history is one of the thematic sections of philosophical knowledge and a certain type of philosophical reasoning.
Literature
1. Gubin V.D. Philosophy. – M., 2001. – 331 p.
2. Ermakova E.E. Philosophy. – M., 1999. – 272 p.
3. Brief philosophical encyclopedia. – M., 1994. – 317 p.
4. Marx K., Engels F. Essay. T. 42. – 334 p.
5. Toynbee A. Comprehension of history. - M., 1991. – 324 p.
6. Philosophy of history / Comp. Yu. A. Kimelev. – M., 1995. – 420 p.
7. Philosophy of history by N.Ya. Danilevsky / Bazhov S.I. - M., 1997. – 370 p.
8. Jaspers K. The meaning and purpose of history. - M., 1996. – 340 p.
9. Yakovlev V.P., Kokhanovsky V.P. History of philosophy. – Rostov n/d., 1999. – 576 p.
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Do people need a historical vision of the world? The question is not simple. Man is a socio-historical being, created in the course of history. Society has also gone through a difficult history. Therefore, history has always interested people who thought about the questions: who are we, where are we from, what are we for? At the same time, some remained at the stage of stating facts or chronology of events, others went further, trying to understand the general patterns of the historical process.
The ambiguity of such approaches is explained by the fact that the history of people is multifaceted. Firstly, history is the totality of people’s actions, the movement of society in time, a chain of interconnected and interdependent events. This is a real event story. Secondly, history is a description of socially significant events. Dispassionately fixed history interested people as a collective memory and at the same time as a school of education. In this capacity, history interests every person today. Third, from empirical analysis historical facts, as a rule, the problem of the effectiveness of the means of their generalization and interpretation eludes. An empirical researcher uses methodological tools for studying history without their direct preparation, verification and justification. The one-sided empiricism of specialists who gravitate towards facts gives rise to the illusion of immediate reality and the infallibility of controversial conclusions. The real errors of historical illusions are revealed in the scientific cooperation of scientists of different specialties and different generations. Under the pressure of new data, often in a roundabout way, historical researchers approach the understanding of the basis of the study, that is, the verification of the original methodological foundations. Therefore, to solve complex issues knowledge and assessment of the past requires the help of philosophical knowledge, in particular the philosophy of history, the central method of which is the historical method.
Unlike animals, man is a “historical being.” He lives in the flow of events and therefore it is common for a person to think about the connection of times - the connection between “today”, “yesterday” and “tomorrow”. Each of us connects our hopes with the future, memories and regrets with the past, plans and intentions with the present. That is why people are always concerned about the structure, logic and meaning of historical processes. Structure
history is revealed in a system of stages, steps and stages of development of society. There are multi-level, spheral, “box” (“matryoshka”) interpretations of the structure of history. Linear (tape, linear) and pluralistic (parallel-multiple) schemes of the historical process are known. In various periodizations, two, three, five or more stages of the historical process are distinguished. The discrepancy in the interpretation of the structure of history is determined by the choice of historical logic and the basis of periodization, the criteria for identifying historical stages.
The search for the meaning of the historical process is one of the main tasks of philosophical and historical thinking. The term “philosophy of history” was introduced into literary circulation in the 18th century by Voltaire in contrast to the medieval theological philosophy of history. The basic ideas of the philosophy of history arise, however, much earlier. The philosophy of history analyzes what history teaches humanity. It provides a philosophical understanding of history, an interpretation of the integrity and direction of the historical process both as a whole and in the connections of the present, past and future. The philosophy of history develops methods for reproducing the historical process, understanding the structure, meaning, sources and driving forces of historical development.
What unites different historical times and contributes to the understanding of their specific logic? The logic of history is clarified by the degree to which society has achieved the heights of progress and basic socio-historical values: humanity, freedom, self-awareness, happiness, social justice, spiritual harmony and well-being. She gives the meaning of the story. If the history of society loses its meaning, then the lost “connection of times (generations),” the disintegration of public life, terror, immoralism, nihilism, barbarism and anarchy, will pour into our lives in an uncontrollable stream. The very fact of the self-preservation of humanity - in history and through history - serves, perhaps, as one of the most significant examples that history has given to humanity. But what is humanity, who represents it and how does it manifest itself in history?
In answering these questions, we turn to the concept of subjects and driving forces of history.
ARCHITECTURE
V.G. Popov
PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
Makeevka - 2004
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF UKRAINE
DONBASS STATE ACADEMY OF CONSTRUCTION AND
ARCHITECTURE
DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY AND ECONOMIC THEORY
V.G. Popov
PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
Makeevka - 2004
UDC : 316. 43
Popov V.G.
PhilosophyHistory . Educational and methodological manual. - Makeevka: DonGASA, 2004. - 33 p.
The key problems of the philosophy of history are highlighted, which form the ideological basis of the disciplines of the humanitarian and socio-economic cycle: history of Ukraine, economic theory, political science, cultural studies, sociology, religious studies and law.
For students, postgraduates and master's students of technical universities.
Reviewer: Doctor of Philosophy, Professor of the Department of Philosophy, Donetsk National Technical University R.A. DODONOV.
Approved at a meeting of the Department of Philosophy and Economic Theory of the Donbass State Academy of Construction and Architecture on April 26, 2004. Protocol No. 10.
© V.G.Popov, 2004
Introduction………………………………………………………… 4
§ 1. Philosophical understanding of history……………………………. 4
§ 2. The problem of the unity of the historical process…………………… 9
§ 3. The problem of the diversity of world history…………………15
§ 5. Criteria for historical progress……. ……………………… 27
Instead of a conclusion …………………………………………………… 30
Literature….……………………………………………………………………………….33
Introduction
The term " philosophy of history"Introduced into literary circulation in the 18th century by Voltaire. However, the basic ideas of the philosophy of history arose much earlier. The philosophy of history has explored and is exploring what and how history teaches humanity. It gives an interpretation of the direction of the historical process as a whole and in the connections of the present, past and future.
An adequate understanding of history is important for each of us. Unlike an animal, a person lives in a stream of multidirectional and rapidly changing events. And therefore he tends to think about the connection of times - the connection between “today”, “yesterday” and “tomorrow”. Each of us connects our hopes with the future, memories and regrets with the past, plans and intentions with the present. Therefore, as a rule, people are concerned about questions of logic and meaning of historical processes.
The philosophy of history analyzes the features and methods of reproducing the historical process, the structure, meaning and driving forces of history. History tells humanity about its genealogy, about bright events captured in the memory of people. It accumulates the experience gained by previous generations. Therefore, history is sometimes called humanity's account of its deeds. In this regard, the history of society is akin to a biography individual person. However, a biography is not an autobiography; others can write it about a person. The history of society has no external observer. On behalf of humanity, it is written by specialists of many profiles. Including amateur and professional historians, empirical historians and theoretical historians, collectors of historical facts and seekers of the meaning of world history. To solve complex issues of cooperation of their efforts in the process of cognition, explanation and assessment of the past, the help of philosophical knowledge is required, one of the sections of which is the philosophy and methodology of history.
Philosophical understanding of history
And yet, do we, people, need a historical vision of the social world? The question is not simple. Man is a historical being, created in the course of history. Society has also gone through a difficult history. But it has always been a history of people and human deeds. Therefore, history has always interested people who wondered who we are, where we come from, what we are for? The erudites stopped at stating facts or the chronology of events, the sages went further, trying to understand the general patterns of the historical process. The ambiguity of approaches to history is explained by the complexity and multifaceted nature of real story and the difficulties of historical knowledge.
Firstly, history is the totality of people’s actions, the movement of society in time, a chain of interconnected and interdependent events. This is a real event story. Secondly, history is a description historical events. Thirdly, history is called comprehension the course of real history, this or that understanding of the logic of event history. History was understood by the Hellenes as a meaningful story about the events and deeds of people, in whose language the word “history” itself arose. But what kind of history interests humanity? - History-truth or history-lie, history-self-report or history-denunciation (remember the monk-chronicler from “Boris Godunov” by A.S. Pushkin), history-entertainment or history as a vital necessity? In his treatise “How History Should Be Written,” Lucian of Samosata wrote: “The historian’s only job is to tell everything as it happened.” This formula has been repeated many times by other historians. Write such a story, what she really is(wie es eigentlich gewesen war) demanded the German historian of the 19th century Leopold von Ranke. An impartially recorded history interested people as a collective memory of their own past. In this capacity, history interests every person today. However, along this path there are cognitive difficulties and pitfalls. First of all, there is the problem of choosing adequate tools and methods of historical research.
As a rule, the problem of the effectiveness of its premises and means of generalizing and interpreting facts is hidden from the empirical analysis of historical facts. - An empirical researcher uses methodological tools for studying history without their direct preparation, verification and justification. The one-sided empiricism of specialists who gravitate towards facts gives rise to the illusion of immediate reality and the infallibility of controversial conclusions. Moreover, the rejection of theoretical analysis brings the practice of historical research to the situation of a “null hypothesis”, making it a victim of a precondition-free interval - “wild” methodology applied from case to case. Such ignorance of the worldview in the course of interpreting factual material punishes, first of all, the researcher himself, and through him, the society that entrusted him with solving the cognitive problem. The destruction of historical logic leads to theoretical and practical nihilism and deprives society of reliable guidelines and unifying ideas. The real errors of historical illusions are revealed in the scientific cooperation of scientists of different specialties and different generations. Under the pressure of new data, historical researchers often take a roundabout approach to understanding the philosophy of research, that is, to testing the original methodological foundations. Therefore, in order to solve complex issues of knowledge and assessment of the past, the help of philosophical knowledge is required, one of the sections of which is the philosophy of history, the central method of which is historical method.
One of the main tasks of the philosophy of history is to clarify structures historical process. The structure of history is revealed in a system of stages, stages and phases of the development of society. There are multi-level, spheral, “box” (or “matryoshka”) interpretations of the structure of history. Linear (tape, linear) and pluralistic (parallel-multiple) schemes of the historical process are known. In various periodizations, two, three, five or more stages of the historical process are distinguished. The utopian socialist of the 19th century, C. Fourier, and the futurologist of the second half of the 20th century, G. Kahn, counted more than 30 eras and stages in the history of the past, present and future. Such disparity in the periodization structure of history is determined by the choice of different bases for periodization and criteria for identifying historical stages.
Search sense the historical process constitutes another task of philosophical-historical knowledge. There are, of course, statements that “history has no meaning,” since humanity does not have a single history. And where history, as they say, grabs a person “by the soul” - for example, in the political sphere - there we find a history of “international crimes and massacres.” This is what K. Popper writes in his work “The Open Society and Its Enemies.” More profound, however, is the idea that “the philosophy of history is a judgment on history: it is not enough to say that its course was such and such, that its constituent processes are governed by such and such laws, we also need to find the meaning of all changes , make an assessment of them, analyze the results of history and evaluate them as well.” So wrote the Russian historian N.I. Kareev. And although he later abandoned this approach, this does not change the essence of the problem. The nature of the events through which the contemporaries of the “judges of history” pass leaves an optimistic, pessimistic or indifferent imprint on the clarification of the meaning of history, on the general assessment of the half-forgotten past, the problematic present and the expected future. We don’t want to be mankurts - people without historical memory, even if it is difficult to maintain a fairly complete understanding of history: “ time sweeps away even names - centuries go by, the grave is waiting for the grave", wrote the English romantic poet J.G. Byron, struck by the inglorious end of the Napoleonic epic. Explaining the reason for his “cosmic pessimism,” he argued: “ Everything perishes blindly and fatally - Achilles is buried and Troy is burned, and the new heroes of the future will forget Rome, just as we forgot Troy" However, socio-historical pessimism is unproductive. It disarms the participant in the historical process both psychologically and ideologically. Scientists and philosophers are expected to make real predictions about ways to modernize our society, critical analysis changes taking place in the world at the turn of the second and third millennia, searching for a way out of the crisis faced by humanity. This issue poses new historical and educational tasks for science, which lead to a revaluation of a number of previous postulates of philosophical and historical knowledge, including in clarifying the meaning of the historical process.
The meaning of history is clarified by the degree to which society has achieved basic socio-historical values: humanity, freedom, self-awareness, happiness, social justice, spiritual harmony and well-being. If the history of society is devoid of meaning, then historical chaos will pour into our lives in an uncontrollable stream: a broken “connection of times (generations),” disintegration of public life, terror, immoralism, nihilism, barbarism and anarchy.
But what is humanity, who represents it and how does it manifest itself in history? In answering these questions, let us dwell on the sources of historical changes and driving forces stories. The sources of historical changes are the fundamental contradictions of social life, the activity of social groups - subjects of historical changes, the clash of their interests, the conditions and incentives of human activity, contradictions in the system of determining historical changes, forms of continuity of historical activity and experience of people. The unifying basis of the historical process at all times has been the continuity of generations. Having understood what and how the generation of “fathers” passes on to the generation of “children”, how, why and in what sequence the actions of people and the events of history take place, thinkers reflect on the nature of their relationship, the unity and diversity of the historical process, on the forms, stages and level of universality, achieved by humanity, about the direction of history itself. It is important to take into account the characteristics of the environment in which history takes place at each of its stages. A person is like his parents, but people are even more like their time, says an Eastern proverb. Understanding this is ensured by solving complex problems of historical knowledge. Among them is the understanding that history develops as dramatic rather than pastorally varnished action. It takes place in a “corridor” of restrictions, one of which is the threat of the general destruction of humanity by the maniacal “makers” of history, the other is the sweet idiocy of dependency, the problem-free life of millions excluded from active participation in the historical process for the “bribe” of stall contents by post-industrial, post-economic, information and any other so-called “welfare” society. In this regard, the twentieth century was revealingly turbulent and especially tragic: “ An eyelid falls on your shoulders-wolfhound“O. Mandelstam wrote about him. However, the 19th century that preceded it was not the best: “ Nineteenth century, iron. // Truly a cruel age, ... - stated A. Blok. - The Age of Bourgeois Wealth, (growing invisible evil!) // Under the sign of equality and brotherhood, dark deeds were brewing here...". The past “Iron” centuries are only part of many that humanity has experienced. And their characterization is not the exception, but rather the rule in history.
What unites such different historical times and what contributes to the understanding of their specific logic? The logic of history is clarified by the degree to which society has achieved the heights of progress and basic socio-historical values. The degree of their achievement and implementation determines the meaning of history. The very fact of the self-preservation of humanity in history and through history serves, perhaps, as one of the most significant examples that history has given to humanity.
Let us ask ourselves the question: does humanity justify the judgment of history? Who will judge history and modern humanity? What are the “lessons” of the court of history? The questions posed are among those that are very useful to ask, but which are very dangerous to answer. For the historian himself, with all the virtues and weaknesses of his soul, and his orientation towards a critical or apologetic reflection of the history of his time, comes under judgment. Let's start with the obvious. History is not only “the affairs of bygone days, the traditions of deep antiquity.” In various forms it is present in our “today”, determines the life of modern humanity, and prepares the historical “tomorrow” with our activities. The past teaches us the experience of past history. It is a certain given that the historian is no longer able to change, but which he can reinterpret (reinterpret) in the system of his own values, ideals and methodology. Similar - rethought picture of history has a mobilizing or demoralizing effect on the consciousness and behavior of millions of people. Thus, the “pictures” of history, like the fragments of social structures, the psychological inertia and value orientations of bygone eras, will dominate the lives and worldview of new generations for a long time.
Society is characterized by a tendency towards forward movement, which subordinates moments of cyclicality and regression , also characteristic of historical development. At the same time, not only social regression, but also technological progress has not for the first time put humanity on the brink of urban, demographic, nuclear missile, resource-ecological, medical-anthropological and other catastrophes. And if history continues and humanity has not perished, then it is not meaningless, and the main meaning of the existence of humanity in time is the absence of historical collapse - the presence of history itself. History, as it were, justifies humanity, peeling off everything fictitious, artificial, superficial in its actions. She says to a man who has fallen into despair: “ erase random features - and you will see: the world is beautiful..." (A. Blok). The world of history is beautiful even in the most tragic moments of social progress. For there is no evil without good - good is overcoming evil. Without the fight against evil, there would be no history. We always have to fight for the future. However - for what kind of future, than are some ideas and judgments about it preferable to others? Where are the objective grounds for our historical assessments? Here the opinions of historians diverged, sometimes to the point of mutually exclusive. Time, however, will judge everything, says popular wisdom. Each era judges, criticizes or justifies the past. And passing judgment (taking into account the experience accumulated by generations), new era becomes wiser, and humanity becomes more mature. No matter how absurd another verdict of the era may seem, this verdict is ultimately true, because it is confirmed by the experience of what has happened, and not by the conjectures of a utopian-illusory or far-fetched armchair history.
F.M. Dostoevsky once said: if humanity comes to Last Judgment with the volume of Don Quixote, it will be justified. The guarantee of History’s acquittal is in humanity’s suffering through the lessons of its history. . Humanity collectivizes , is socialized. Its history is becoming more and more universal. Microflows of the history of individual countries, peoples and civilizations flow into it. And although a normal person remains attached to his “small homeland,” today he lives primarily not in biographical, but also in historical time and environment. Therefore, the place, time and everyday biography of everyone are woven into universal processes of varying degrees of generality and duration. Attempts at an “isolationist”, separate, home-grown history are now completely compromised and are not subject to discussion. Scientific and technological progress and the international division of labor intensify and make this experience common to all countries and peoples.
Of course, from time to time, individual eras and “provinces” (regions) of world history are shaken by technical revolutions, economic, political and cultural-civilizational crises, ideological revolutions, the waves of which flood the entire planet. But they only emphasize, but do not cancel, the lessons taught by history to humanity.
§ 2. The problem of the unity of the historical process
The philosophy of history distinguishes between world history and the history of individual countries and peoples. World history is the systemic unity of the histories of various countries and ethnic groups.
What determines the systemic unity of the historical process, which manifests itself primarily in events of universal human significance? At first glance, this unity is determined by the eventual and chronological continuity of history and the irreversibility of the historical process. However, in the course of continuous history, for example, China and ancient world, huge states disappeared, ancient civilizations collapsed, entire nations perished, turning into the “manure” of history. This is evidenced, for example, by the historian Sima Qian and Plutarch’s Comparative Lives. In the tragic elements of life, if the unity of history was preserved, it took a peculiar form of “unity” of the victim and the predator in the stomach of the latter. So, although the eventfulness and chronology of history require consideration, they cannot be the final foundations of the general meaning of history. It is sought in phenomena that go beyond specific events and times. In search of a source of commonality in history, idealists, for example, appeal to the spiritual unity of people, but at the same time stumble over the diversity of human cultures and civilizations. The materialist understanding of history, opposite to historical idealism (in the concept of K. Marx), reduces the unity of the historical process to objective logic economic development, in the course of which a unified history of humanity is formed, and history itself takes the form of emergence, development, flourishing and death social formations, the successive change of which forms the highway or axis of the preservation and development of history.
K. Marx explained the sequence of stages in world history objective logic And natural unity economic development of the world. In particular, the development of productive forces and production relations in the economic regions of the world, the formation of the world market and the international division of labor, which ultimately determine the convergence of social structures, socio-political forms and forms of cultural communication different nations and regions of the world at similar stages of development.
K. Marx defined social formation as form And type society, which is located at a certain steps historical development and has peculiar distinctive characteristics. He interpreted history as a process of movement along the steps of world-historical progress. The stages of formational development are determined by the passage by society of the stages of economic formation of world history, such as primitiveness, the Asian mode of production, the ancient slave economy, the feudal and bourgeois economic systems. The formational “coordinates” or stage position of each specific historical society determines the type and level of development of its economic organization, and in it the mode of production material goods(leading - if a particular society is multi-structured). Concept with production method and its inherent relations of production are used by K. Marx as a criterion for classifying a particular society as a particular social formation. The contradictions of the mode of production reveal the mechanisms and sources of development and change of formations. “Not a single social formation dies before all the productive forces for which it provides sufficient scope have developed, and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence in the depths of the old society have matured,” emphasizes K. Marx. Thus, they are given the factors of the axis of continuity (the development of productive forces) and the discontinuity of the stages of formational history (according to the type of production relations).
Taking into account the production and economic specifics of the formational stages of history makes it possible to detect the objective structure of history. Each system public relations is born, develops and leaves the historical arena, naturally giving way to a new, more developed formation. The sequence of changes in formations is objective and historically justified. History appears to be a natural process of a particular country going through a formational state of a given type, which is a necessary consequence of economic development. Among countries of the same level of economic development, as a rule, there are no formational exceptions - “centaurs” or formational “freaks”, “werewolves” (“Werwölfe” is K. Marx’s term). Primitiveness cannot replace an entrepreneurial society. A peasant country, of course, can be conditionally called “socialist,” but such a country will not have a direct relationship to post-capitalist socialism and communism of the formation scheme of K. Marx.
Societies of the same type, similar in forms of economic development, seem to repeat the historical experience of another country, more advanced in its formational development. Thus, the process of development and change of social formations is consistent with laws, although it does not express a rigid sequence in the passage of all formations by each country, but only the tendency of the formational development of certain specific societies.
The place of each formation in a number of other social forms is revealed thanks to clearly fixed objective characteristics associated with the type of production relations. At the same time, the concrete formational flows of world history are characterized by variability in gradations and variations of social and regional forms. In the model historical type formations reproduce the collective features of society at the historically most mature level. The real prototype of such a model is a country, a group of countries or a historical region in which the formational type of production relations has reached a classically developed level of maturity. “German-Iroquois” primitiveness, “pre-Mogul” India, ancient Greece and Rome, the Western European Middle Ages (France) and bourgeois Britain of the 19th century served as concrete historical prototypes of the stages of formational history and became guidelines in diagnosing the formational state of other societies.
Formational diagnostics of history is extremely important. In the case of “advanced” and “lagging” development of countries, its guidelines warn the forces personifying social progress (or regression) from ignoring the sequence of stages of progress - the utopian-adventurous decree of new social relations, as well as from reactionary attempts at forceful conservation and restoration of orders, historically outdated.
So, some countries represent a certain formation in a classically approximate version of its development. In the development of other countries, their formational type (model) is averaged - less pronounced. Still others, due to certain significant specific circumstances, go through this formational stage of development as if in a “collapsed” form, bypassing it. Circumstances that correct the formational logic can be:
1) organization of the international division of labor (for example, African countries in their absence from developed feudalism);
2) the threat of national catastrophe (China in its relation to the world capitalist system);
3) economic (raw materials or human resources) insufficiency or redundancy of those agents of production that are key in the economic organization of a given formation: land on newly developed continents, slavery in the barbaric society of Scandinavia and Iceland, new technologies in the era of international confrontation.
Taking into account this kind of historical circumstances indicates that the evolution of social forms after the discovery of K. Marx ceased to be a subject of arbitrariness and guesswork. As well as a demonstration of a certain flat historical monotony of societies that remain “the same face” in all centuries: societies of “eternal slavery” (from Abraham to Auschwitz), “eternal feudalism” (from Babylon to Napoleon) or “eternal capitalism” (from Hammurabi to Rockefeller). In the list of formational methods of production [recall that in class phase of the history of formations (occupying a central place in the historical ideology of the proletariat) K. Marx identifies Asian, ancient, feudal and bourgeois modes of production] the contours of the Hegelian scheme of movement towards the awareness of the freedom of stage-regional “worlds” are illuminated: the patriarchal-despotic “East”, the ancient “world” free and slaves, the feudal-bourgeois “world” of Western (“Christian-German”) Europe.
It is worth noting that both philosophers placed the prehistory (primitiveness) of society in the zero phase of history. - Compare the “prehistory”, which, according to Hegel, was still flowing in his time on the African continent, and the “natural society” of the pre-economic scheme of the history of the young K. Marx. The enlighteners of the 18th century, utopian socialists and L. Feuerbach formulated a forecast about the future “truly human” society - the “naturally humane” end of world history. Both the first hypothesis (about a “natural” society) and the second forecast (about a truly human, humane society of the future) left a deep mark in Marx’s typology of formations - in the hypothesis about a society that will arise on the basis of a higher - communist mode of production (socialist at the first stage development of this society), and in the collectivist model of the primitive communal system. Later, K. Marx gave an economic justification for the formational model of unity and stage-by-stage integrity of history.
Violation of the logic of the materialistic understanding of history, attempts to jump over through the stage social development and implementing the model of communist formation in a society of the antediluvian peasant type led the peoples of our country to gigantic human casualties, to the waste of the productive resources of the population, nature and history, to the loss of the formational development potential and, as a result, to the inhibition of the natural-historical process of changing social formations countries of Eurasia and to compromising the idea of socialism.
Let's say more. Removing ideological layers from the socio-historical picture of the social system of the former USSR shows that such a society neither factually nor conceptually corresponded to the model of a society that had outgrown and surpassed the bourgeois stage of formational development. To the society of “real socialism” attributed to someone else's (!) place in the formational scheme of world history developed by Karl Marx. In material and technical terms, the so-called “socialist” countries are behind the developed capitalist countries by an entire technological era. The only area where comparison with the productive forces of Western countries was still possible was the sphere of military production, and not the normal “civilian” economy that ensures the life of a huge country. The USSR was dominated not by the public, but by the state. - corporate property, crushing the frail collective farm-cooperative and personal property of citizens. The worker could not independently dispose of even his own labor force. Powerful departments, essentially numerous clans of officials, turned into the real owners of the “social” means of production, and through the system of centralized bureaucratic distribution - also the means of consumption, which were created by the labor of millions of Soviet workers. The post-perestroika plunder by the class of officials of the national property, created by the blood and sweat of many generations, was a legal confirmation of those actual property relations that formed in our country in the period 1917–1990s.
Citizens of the USSR were turned from formal masters into actual hired workers of the bureaucratic apparatus. This fettered the production initiative and social creativity of millions and brought the country's population into poverty as a result of the mediocre management of production and society by the bureaucracy. Soviet society lost the impulse for self-development, became subjectless and lost the competition with Western countries in the scientific, technical and social fields. The principles proclaimed as socialist were deformed beyond recognition. Selfishness, hypocrisy, double standards, barbaric methods of influencing people have become the cultural norm of life, imposed by the “top” on millions of citizens. The sincere desire of people who believed in socialism to better life was shamelessly exploited by the apparatus elite of society for the purposes of corporate and personal enrichment. Monstrous forms of violence and totalitarian control over individuals and large and small social groups have taken root. Social protection of the population has turned into equality in poverty , because, in terms of the level of social security - in comparison with the practice of Western countries - the overwhelming number of citizens of the USSR found themselves in a worse situation. “Real socialism” has in fact become a demagogic formational sham, an ideological “Potemkin village.” This threw the country to the margins of social, economic and cultural progress.
What was built? in USSR In fact? What real structures arose in our country during the Bolshevik experiment? What do they have to do with the formational unity of history? - For a long time, an explanation for these issues was sought in Lenin’s idea of a mixed economy and the transformation of a transitional economy into a system of state-collective farm socialism. However, the Soviet economy never outgrew the level objectively set by the potential of the first industrial revolution - the level of mechanization and mechanization (“industrialization”) of the technical basis. In the USSR, unique socio-economic formations or “new structures” arose. Among these “new” ways of life, the leading one was the way of military-industrial complex ( Military industrial complex ). Within its framework, imported advanced (for its time) equipment, technology and the most trained personnel were concentrated. In fact, there was no enterprise in the USSR that did not directly or indirectly serve the military-industrial complex. The country produced, for example, more armored vehicles than all other countries in the world combined, although in terms of efficiency it lagged behind the anti-tank systems of Western countries. The requests of the military-industrial complex were considered priority, and the waste of resources practiced by them assumed gigantic proportions. The military-industrial department began to dictate the country's domestic and foreign policy, an example of which is the Afghan adventure.
The military complex’s pushing of civilian industries to the margins of the Union economy and the ignoring of the everyday needs of the population by such an “economy” gave rise to the so-called “ shadow economy“or the way of illegal business, which grew out of the use of opportunities that were not realized by the militarized economy of the USSR. It covered various types of illegal economic activities and gave rise to a symbiosis of commodity-money and planning-administrative relations. Illegal (at that time) business served, as a rule, the normal needs of the population, but not satisfied by the state economy. “Shadow workers” have penetrated into the sphere of paid household services, subsidiary farming, construction, repairs, transportation, car repair services, medicine, pedagogy, and personal safety. The shadow economy also specialized in the “industry of vice.” By the beginning of perestroika, “shadow” structures created their own armed formations and lobby groups in many centers of power: state and legislative bodies in the center and locally. The interests of society were served by a corresponding ideological superstructure that justified and mythologized the activities and interests of the “shadow people.” This way of life has become a criminal form of revival, strengthening and subsequent legalization of the entrepreneurial (capitalist, bourgeois) sector of activity with all the “birthmarks” characteristic of the period of initial accumulation of capital.
The process of the “shadow” degeneration of the declarative socialism of society was accompanied by the creation of a special structure of violence - penitentiary-force relations focused on the exploitation of forced labor of millions of people. The structure of the camp economy became the implementation of the model of “barracks socialism” and an objective response of history to the attempt to build a new world in a society with predominantly pre-capitalist forms of labor and social organization. The camp way of life turned out to be inevitable, since 40–70% of labor in Soviet society was non-mechanized, manual, “antediluvian” labor. For decades, millions of often completely innocent people were held in concentration camps and prisons. Under the guise of fighting crime, defamed people were removed from almost every family to work for free for the nomenklatura “for the rest of their lives.” Labor in concentration camps was essentially slavish. As part of the forced labor system, up to a third of the national product was created. Camp labor was ineffective and wasteful, since it knew no other incentives other than the fear of death and punishment by hunger. The freedom of citizens living on “this” side of the barbed wire was relative: they did not have the right to leave (without the permission of an official) an enterprise, a collective farm, or their place of residence at their place of registration. The Gulag became a practically realized model of totalitarian “socialism.”
To summarize, it should be remembered that the history of “real socialism” provides extensive material for answering the question about the typological specifics of the society that developed in the USSR. And this answer is this: Soviet society does not correspond to the formational typology of K. Marx. Such a society turned out to be a sham “under socialism (communism)” with forced and bloody totalitarian content. In terms of formation, behind the façade of bureaucratic-Gulag socialism was hidden a world-historical dead end.
So, the real society of the USSR relied on a multi-structured economy, but it was not a classical economy, but a transformed, or rather perverted, type. The appearance of such a form was the result of the voluntaristic and unnatural evolution of feudal structures into industrial-bourgeois forms of life in conditions of selfish reproduction of the nomenklatura class of officials. It is clear that such a society is not described by the logical apparatus of the formational typology of history and, being a formational “werewolf,” is aptly characterized as “Upper Volta with rockets.” The Soviet seventy-year socio-historical experiment, thus, does not refute, but confirms (“in reverse”) the correctness of the formational understanding of the unity of world history.
The Eurasian concept of culture formed the basis for the development of the philosophy of history. In many ways, it is similar to the concept of culture and history of O. Spengler. Eurasians did not share the Hegelian and then the Marxist theory of linear progress and the atomistic understanding of society, people, and state existing within the framework of these concepts as a simple sum of individuals. “...there cannot and is not a general upward movement, there is no steady general improvement: this or that cultural environment and a number of them, improving in one and from one point of view, often falls in another and from another point of view.” For Eurasians, history represents the implementation of contacts between different cultural circles, as a result of which the formation of new peoples and global values occurs. P. Savitsky, for example, sees the essence of the Eurasian doctrine in “the denial of the “absoluteness” of the newest “European” culture, its quality of being the “completion” of the entire process of cultural evolution of the world that has taken place so far.” He proceeds from the relativity of many, especially “ideological” (that is, spiritual) and moral achievements and attitudes of European consciousness. Savitsky noted that if a European calls any society, people or way of life “backward,” he does this not on the basis of some criteria that do not exist, but only because they are different from his own society, people or way of life life. If the superiority of Western Europe in some branches of the latest science and technology can be proven objectively, then such proof in the field of “ideology” and morality would be simply impossible. On the contrary, in the spiritual and moral sphere, the West could be defeated by other, supposedly savage and backward peoples. At the same time, a correct assessment and subordination of the cultural achievements of peoples is required, which is possible only with the help of a “divided examination of culture into sectors.” Of course, the ancient inhabitants of Easter Island were backward compared to today's English in the field of empirical knowledge, writes Savitsky, but hardly in the field of sculpture. In many respects, Muscovite Rus' appears to be more backward than Western Europe, but in the field of “artistic construction” it was more developed than most Western European countries of that period. In knowledge of nature, some savages surpass European natural scientists. In other words: “The Eurasian concept marks a decisive rejection of cultural and historical “Eurocentrism”; a rejection stemming not from any emotional experiences, but from certain scientific and philosophical premises. .. One of the latter is the denial of the universalist perception of culture, which dominates in the latest “European concepts...”.
This is the general basis of the philosophical understanding of history, its originality and meaning, which the Eurasians expressed. Within the framework of this approach, the history of Russia is also considered.
Questions of Russian history
The main thesis of Eurasianism was expressed as follows: “Russia is Eurasia, the third middle continent, along with Europe and Asia, on the continent of the Old World.” The thesis immediately determined the special place of Russia in human history and the special mission of the Russian state.
The idea of Russian exclusivity was also developed by Slavophiles in the 19th century. The Eurasians, recognizing them as their ideological predecessors, in many ways, however, dissociated themselves from them. Thus, the Eurasians believed that Russian nationality cannot be reduced to the Slavic ethnic group. The concept of “Slavism,” according to Savitsky, is of little use for understanding the cultural uniqueness of Russia, since, for example, the Poles and Czechs belong to Western culture. Russian culture is defined not only by Slavism, but also by Byzantium. Both European and “Asian-Asian elements” are baked into the image of Russia. In its formation, a huge role was played by the Turkic and Ugoro-Finnish tribes, who inhabited the same place with the Eastern Slavs (White Sea-Caucasian, West Siberian and Turkestan plains) and constantly interacted with them. It is precisely the presence of all these peoples and their cultures that constitutes the strong side of Russian culture, making it unlike either the East or the West. The national substratum of the Russian state is the entire totality of the peoples inhabiting it, representing a single multinational nation. This nation, called Eurasian, is united not only by a common “place of development”, but also by a common Eurasian national identity. From these positions, the Eurasians dissociated themselves from both the Slavophiles and the Westerners.
The criticism that Prince N.S. subjects to is indicative. Trubetskoy and those and others. From his point of view, the Slavophiles (or, as he calls them, “reactionaries”) strived for a powerful state comparable to Europe - even at the cost of abandoning the enlightenment and humanistic European traditions. “Progressives” (Westerners), on the contrary, sought to realize Western European values (democracy and socialism), even if this meant abandoning Russian statehood). Each of these movements clearly saw the weaknesses of the other. Thus, the “reactionaries” rightly pointed out that the liberation of the dark masses demanded by the “progressives” would ultimately lead to the collapse of “Europeanization.” On the other hand, the “progressives” reasonably noted that the place and role great power for Russia are impossible without a deep spiritual Europeanization of the country. But neither one nor the other could discern their own internal inconsistency. Both were in the power of Europe: the “reactionaries” understood Europe as “strength” and “power”, and the “progressives” - as a “humane civilization”, but both of them deified it. Both of these ideas were a product of Peter's reforms and, accordingly, a reaction to them. The tsar carried out his reforms artificially, by force, without caring about the people’s attitude towards them, so both of these ideas turned out to be alien to the people.
A new critical assessment of the “Europeanization” of Russia accomplished by Peter the Great constitutes the main pathos of the “Eurasian idea.” “Proclaiming national Russian culture as its slogan, Eurasianism ideologically starts from the entire post-Petrine St. Petersburg, imperial-chief-prosecutor period of Russian history.”
Categorically rejecting Westernism and Slavophilism, the Eurasians constantly emphasized their middle position. “The culture of Russia is neither a European culture, nor one of the Asian ones, nor a sum or mechanical combination of elements of both... It must be contrasted with the cultures of Europe and Asia as the middle Eurasian culture.”
Thus, geographical factors became leading in the concept of Eurasianism. They determined the historical path of Russia and its features: it has no natural borders and experiences constant cultural pressure from both the East and the West. According to N.S. Trubetskoy, Eurasia, this supercontinent is simply doomed to conditions of a lower standard of living compared to other regions. Transport costs are too high in Russia, so industry will be forced to focus on the domestic rather than the foreign market. In addition, due to differences in living standards, there will always be a tendency for the most creatively active members of society to flee. And in order to keep them, it is necessary to create Central European living conditions for them, which means creating an overly tense social structure. In these conditions, Russia will be able to survive only by constantly exploring the ocean as a cheaper route of transportation, developing its borders and ports, even at the cost of the interests of individual social groups.
The solution of these problems is facilitated at first by the strength of the Orthodox faith and the cultural unity of the people within the framework of a strongly centralized state. As Trubetskoy wrote, “the national substratum of the state that was formerly called the Russian Empire, and is now called the USSR, can only be the entire set of peoples inhabiting Eurasia, considered as a special multifaceted nation.” Russia never truly belonged to the West; there are exceptional periods in its history that prove its involvement in Eastern, Turanian influences. Eurasians focused attention on the role of the “Asian element” in the destinies of Russia and its cultural and historical development - the “steppe element”, which gives the worldview of the “ocean continent”.
As part of the research of Eurasians devoted to the history of Russia, a very popular concept of Mongolophilism emerged. Its essence is as follows.
1) The dominance of the Tatars was not a negative, but a positive factor in Russian history. The Mongol-Tatars not only did not destroy the forms of Russian life, but also supplemented them, giving Russia a school of administration, a financial system, a postal organization, etc.
2) The Tatar-Mongolian (Turanian) element has entered the Russian ethnos to such an extent that we cannot be considered Slavs. “We are not Slavs or Turanians, but a special ethnic type.”
3) The Mongol-Tatars had a huge influence on the type of Russian state and Russian state consciousness. “Tatarism has not muddied the purity of national creativity. Great is the happiness of Rus',” wrote P.N. Savitsky, that at the moment when, due to its internal decay, it had to fall, it went to the Tatars, and not to anyone else.” The Tatars united the disintegrating state into a huge centralized empire and thereby preserved the Russian ethnicity.
Sharing this position N.S. Trubetskoy believed that the founders of the Russian state were not the Kyiv princes, but the Moscow kings, who became the successors of the Mongol khans.
4) The Turanian legacy should determine the modern strategy and policy of Russia - the choice of goals, allies, etc.
The Mongolophile concept of Eurasianism does not stand up to serious criticism. Firstly, while proclaiming the principle of the middle ground of Russian culture, it nevertheless accepts “light from the East” and is aggressive towards the West. In their admiration for the Asian, Tatar-Mongol origin, Eurasians contradict historical facts, generalized and comprehended by Russian historians, S.M. Solovyov and V.O. Klyuchevsky first of all. According to their research, there is no doubt that Russian civilization has a European cultural and historical genotype, due to the commonality of Christian culture, economic, political and cultural ties with the West. Eurasians tried to illuminate the history of Russia while ignoring many significant factors in the creation of this great power. As S. Soloviev wrote, the Russian empire was created during the colonization of the vast Eurasian spaces. This process began in the 15th century and ended by the beginning of the 20th century. For centuries, Russia carried the foundations of European Christian civilization to the East and South to the peoples of the Volga region, Transcaucasia, and Central Asia, who were already heirs of great ancient cultures. As a result, a huge civilized space became Europeanized. Many tribes inhabiting Russia came into contact not only with a different culture, but also formed a national identity in a European manner.
Russia's colonial policy was accompanied by military, political, and cultural conflicts, as was the case during the creation of any other empires, for example, the British or Spanish. But the acquisition of foreign territories did not take place far from the metropolis, not across the seas, but nearby. The border between Russia and its adjacent territories remained open. The open land border created completely different patterns of relations between the mother country and the colonies than those that arose when the colonies were located overseas. This circumstance was correctly noted by the Eurasians, but was not properly understood.
The presence of an open border in the south and east made it possible to significantly mutually enrich cultures, but from this circumstance it does not at all follow that there was some special path of development of Russia, that Russian history is fundamentally different from Western European history. When Eurasians wrote about the Byzantine and Horde traditions of the Russian people, they took little account of historical realities. Coming into contact with historical facts, Eurasianism becomes a very vulnerable concept, despite all its internal consistency. Facts indicate that those periods and structures that Eurasians consider invulnerable in their concepts were in fact prone to disasters - the Muscovite kingdom, the regimes of Nicholas I and Nicholas II, etc. The legend of the Eurasians about the harmony of peoples in Tsarist Russia can be refuted by a conscientious study of the economics and politics of that time.
