The emergence of the family of private property and the state. Origin of the family, private property and the state
"The origin of the family, private property and state", the work of F. Engels, in which a dialectical-materialist analysis of the history of human society at the early stages of its development is given, the process of disintegration of the tribal system and the emergence of class relations based on private property is disclosed, the evolution of family forms is investigated, the origin and essence of the state as an instrument of class domination, substantiated the inevitability of the withering away of the state with the transition to a classless, communist society. Written and published in 1884; in the 2nd ed. Op. K. Marx and F. Engels was included in the 21st volume. According to the characteristics of V. I. Lenin, it is "... one of the main works of modern socialism ..." (Complete collection soch., 5th ed., Vol. 39, p. 67). In writing this work, Engels relied on a detailed summary of the book by Amer. ethnographer and historian L. Morgana "Ancient Society" (1877). Engels, following Marx, highly appreciated Morgan's discovery of the tribal organization of primitive society and made extensive use of the results of his research, especially the vast factual material he collected, to substantiate and further develop Marx's materialist concept of history and economic theory. Engels drew on a number of other sources, significantly expanding the range of issues considered by Morgan, and also used the results of his own research on the history of Greece, Rome, Ancient Ireland, and the ancient Germans. When preparing the 4th edition (1890-91), he made significant changes and additions (especially to the chapter on the family, in the revision of which the results of research by M.M. Kovalevsky ). The data of modern science allow us to present a more perfect picture of the evolution of a primitive society, based on the development of production relations of this society, and not material culture, as was the case in Morgan's studies. But clarifying the history of the primitive era, in particular some forms of the primitive family, the mechanism of the formation of classes, do not affect the main conclusions of Engels' work.
The work consists of 9 chapters. In chapters 1 and 2, Engels analyzes the living conditions of people in the most ancient period, before the birth of the tribal system, examines the development of family and marriage relations in a class society, and criticizes the bourgeois family. Just as in the previously written work "The role of labor in the process of the transformation of a monkey into a man", Engels in this work developed the main methodological provisions of the Marxist concept of the primitive stage as a special stage in human history, according to which the line separating man from animals is the first basic condition of the human life is labor that begins with the manufacture of tools.
In chapters 3-9, Engels examines the peculiarities of the tribal organization of society as the basic unit of pre-class society and gives a description of the primitive tribal "communism". After tracing the disintegration of the tribal system, Engels investigated those economic conditions that undermined the tribal organization of society at the highest stage of its development, and then, with the transition to civilization, completely eliminated it. He showed how, with the development of productive forces, the division of labor and the growth of its productivity, the possibility of appropriating the products of someone else's labor was created, the exploitation of man by man appeared and the split of society into hostile classes, as a result of which arose state as a tool of the exploiting class to suppress the oppressed class.
Examining various concrete forms of the state, Engels reveals their class nature, examines the trends in the further evolution of the bourgeois state. Noting that as long as capitalism persists, no democratic freedoms can lead to the liberation of the working people, he at the same time emphasized the objective interest of the proletariat in the preservation and maximum expansion of democratic freedoms that create favorable conditions for the struggle for the revolutionary transformation of society.
Engels in his work showed that in different natural and concrete historical conditions the process of decomposition of primitive society takes place in different forms, but its main content - the transition from a pre-class society to a class society - is the same for all countries and peoples. This analysis is a vivid confirmation of the dialectical materialist thesis about historical unity, progressive development and the regular change of forms of social life. Engels's work was an important stage in the development of the Marxist doctrine of the state (see. "Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" , "Civil War in France" , "Criticism of the Gotha Program" , "Anti-Duhring" ), which was developed in relation to the new historical conditions by V.I. Lenin, primarily in his work "State and Revolution".
Engels's book is directed against the bourges. conceptions of the state as a kind of supra-class force, supposedly designed to equally protect the interests of all citizens.
Lit .: K. Marx, Synopsis of the book by Lewis G. Morgan "Ancient Society", in the book: Archives of Marx and Engels, vol. IX, [M. - L.], 1941; Lenin V.I., On the State, Poln. collection cit., 5th ed., vol. 39; Friedrich Engels. Biography, M., 1970, p. 448-54; Engels - theorist, M., 1970, p. 219-25,253-62; F. Engels about the state and law, [M., 1970]; Problems of ethnography and anthropology in the light of the scientific heritage of F. Engels, M., 1972.
V.S. Vygodsky.
The chapters that follow represent, to a certain extent, the fulfillment of a will. None other than Karl Marx was going to present the results of Morgan's research in connection with the data of his - within certain limits, I can say ours - materialistic study of history and only in this way to elucidate all their significance. After all, Morgan in America in his own way rediscovered the materialist understanding of history, discovered by Marx forty years ago, and, guided by it, came, when comparing barbarism and civilization, on the main points to the same results as Marx. And just as the sworn economists in Germany for years wrote off Capital as hard as they stubbornly hushed it up, so did the representatives of "prehistoric" science in England with Morgan's "Ancient Society." My work can only to a small extent replace what my deceased friend was not destined to accomplish. But I have at my disposal, among his detailed extracts from Morgan, critical remarks, which I, in so far as it relates to the topic, reproduce here.
According to the materialist understanding, the defining moment in history is ultimately the production and reproduction of immediate life. But it itself, again, is of two kinds. On the one hand - the production of livelihoods: food items, clothing, housing and tools necessary for this; on the other, the production of man himself, the continuation of the race. The social order under which people of a certain historical era and a certain country live is determined by both types of production: the stage of development, on the one hand, labor, and on the other, the family. The less developed labor, the more limited the amount of its products, and, consequently, the wealth of society, the stronger the dependence of the social system on tribal ties. Meanwhile, within the framework of this structure of society, based on tribal ties, labor productivity is developing more and more, and with it - private property and exchange, property differences, the ability to use someone else's labor force and thus the basis of class contradictions: new social elements that for generations they try to adapt the old social order to new conditions, until, finally, the incompatibility of the one and the other does not lead to a complete revolution. The old society, based on generic associations, explodes as a result of the collision of the newly formed social classes; its place is being replaced by a new society, organized into a state, the lower links of which are no longer clan, but territorial associations - a society in which the family system is completely subordinate to property relations and in which class contradictions and class struggle, which constitute the content of all written history, are now freely developing right up to our time.
The great merit of Morgan is that he discovered and restored in its main features this prehistoric basis of our written history and in the ancestral ties of the North American Indians found the key to the most important, hitherto insoluble mysteries of ancient Greek, Roman and Germanic history. His composition is not one day's work. For about forty years he worked on his material until he mastered it completely. But on the other hand, his book is one of the few works of our time that make up the era.
In what follows, the reader will generally easily distinguish between what belongs to Morgan and what I have added. In the historical sections on Greece and Rome, I did not limit myself to Morgan's data and added what was at my disposal. The sections on Celts and Germans are mostly mine; Morgan had materials here almost only from second hand, and about the Germans - except for Tacitus - only the low-quality liberal falsifications of Mr. Firmann. The business case, which was sufficient for the goals set by Morgan, but completely inadequate for my purposes, have all been reworked by me. Finally, it goes without saying that I am responsible for all the conclusions drawn without direct reference to Morgan.
Printed in the book: F. Engels. Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigent-hums und des Staats. Hottingen Zurich, 1884
FOREWORD TO THE FOURTH GERMAN EDITION OF 1891 TO THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMARY FAMILY (BAHOFEN, MACLENNAN, MORGAN)
Previous editions of this book, which came out in large print runs, were sold out in full almost six months ago, and the publisher has long asked me to prepare a new one. More urgent work has prevented me from doing it so far. Seven years have passed since the publication of the first edition, and over the years great success has been achieved in the study of the primitive forms of the family. Therefore, it was necessary to make careful corrections and additions here, especially since the alleged printing of the present text from the stereotype would deprive me for some time of the opportunity to make further changes.
So, I carefully revised the entire text and made a number of additions, which, I hope, sufficiently take into account the current state of science. Later in this introduction, I give a brief overview of the development of views on family history from Bachofen to Morgan; I do this mainly because the chauvinistic English school of primitive history is still doing everything possible to silence the upheaval in views of primitive history produced by Morgan's discoveries, while not at all embarrassed, however, at the same time to appropriate the results obtained by Morgan. And in other countries, too, in some places they follow this English example too zealously.
My work has been translated into various foreign languages. First of all into Italian: "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State", in the translated by the author Pasquale Martignetti, Benevento, 1885. Then into Romanian: "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State", translated by Ion Nadezhde; published in the Yass journal "Contemporanul" from September 1885 to May 1886. Further into Danish: The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, a publication prepared by Gerson Trier. Copenhagen, 1888; a French translation by Henri Ravet from this German edition is in print.
Until the early sixties, family history was out of the question. Historical science in this area was still entirely under the influence of the Pentateuch of Moses. The patriarchal form of the family, depicted there in more detail than anywhere else, was not only unconditionally considered the most ancient form, but also identified - with the exception of polygamy - with the modern bourgeois family, so that the family, in fact, did not experience any historical development; at the most it was assumed that in primitive times there could have been a period of disordered sexual relations. - True, apart from monogamy, Eastern polygamy and Indian-Tibetan polyandry were also known; but these three forms could not be placed in a historical sequence, and they figured next to each other without any mutual connection. That among certain peoples of the ancient world, as among some still existing savages, the origin was considered not according to the father, but according to the mother, so that the female line was recognized as the only one of significance; that many modern peoples prohibit marriages within certain, more or less large, groups, at that time not yet thoroughly studied, and that this custom occurs in all parts of the world - these facts were, however, known, and such examples accumulated all more. But how to approach them, no one knew, and even even in "Studies of the primitive history of mankind, etc." E.B. Taylor (1865), they figure simply as "strange customs" along with the prohibition of touching a burning tree with an iron tool and similar religious trifles in force among some savages.
Chapter 2
The basis of my work is an analysis of Friedrich Engels' work "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State", in which he outlined the results of Lewis G. Morgan's research on the materialistic understanding of history, Karl Marx's comments, as well as his criticisms of this work.
Morgan revises history into three main eras - savagery, barbarism and civilization, he divides the first two epochs into a lower, middle and higher stage in accordance with the process in the production of livelihoods.
Analyzing Morgan, Engels identifies several stages in the development of society: clan, frantia, tribe, union of tribes, state. The clan arose at the middle stage of savagery and reached its dawn at the lowest stage of barbarism. Each gens has its own customs, such as the election of a sachem (an elder for peacetime) as a leader, the removal of a sachem and a leader, and the prohibition of marriage within the gens. Many Native American families united and formed frants (fraternities), administering the court, dividing the costs of the funeral of "prominent persons", choosing together a sachem for one of the families. As several clans form a frantia, so several frantias form a tribe characterized by their own territory and name, dialect, the right to solemnly inaugurate sachems and military leaders elected by clans, the right to remove them, by general religious beliefs, by the tribal council, and in some tribes we can even see the supreme leader, "the prototype of the official" , mostly not further developed. Sometimes tribes united in unions, a prominent representative of which is the Iroquois union, characterized by a union council, voting, meetings held in the presence of the people. Engels admires the tribal organization: “And what a wonderful organization is this tribal structure in all its naivety and simplicity? Household management is carried out together on a communist basis. This is what people and human society looked like before the division into different classes took place. "
In his book, Friedrich Engels traced the disintegration of the tribal system in three of the most studied examples - the Greeks, Romans and Germans. Let's highlight the main conditions for the emergence of the state, which were created by economic reasons.
In the tribal system, there is no domination and enslavement, there is no difference between rights and obligations among people, the stratification of the tribe and the clan into classes is not possible. What led to the creation of the state?
The division of labor is a natural phenomenon that only existed between the sexes. So, a woman works around the house, and a man protects the birthplace and provides food. Each of them owns the things they have made and shares them on a communist basis among several families. What is produced and used together is a common property: a hut, a vegetable garden, a boat.
For many of the developed tribes (Aryans, Semites), the domestication and breeding of livestock became the main branch of labor. "The pastoral tribes separated from the rest of the barbarians - this was the first major social division of labor." . The cattle gave its owner wool, milk, meat, leather and much more, which led to the emergence of a regular exchange, and the cattle acquired the function of money. Achievements in the field of industrial activity appeared: the loom, the smelting of metal ores and the processing of metal, which led to an increase in productivity and the improvement of weapons. Also, now an individual could act as the owner of the land and have certain rights and obligations to it, which also increased the income of this land. The increase in production made the human labor force capable of producing more products than was necessary to sustain it. At the same time, it increased the daily amount of labor for each member of the clan, which entailed the emergence of the need to attract new labor, that is, slaves provided by wars. Thus, society was divided into two large classes - masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited. The herds and land from the common possession of a tribe or clan passed into the ownership of the heads of separate lands, private property appeared, which led to the second division of society into rich and poor.
The increasing density of the population is forcing closer cohesion, the creation of alliances of kindred tribes, and as a result, the military leader, military leader, council, and national assembly form the organs of a clan society, developing into a military democracy. Military protection becomes necessary because “the wealth of the neighbors arouses the greed of the peoples. The right to be a warlord gradually becomes hereditary and lays the foundation for hereditary royalty.
Thus, the greedy pursuit of wealth, which led to a split of society into rich and poor, and if "as a result of the spread of slavery, earning a livelihood by one's own labor did not already begin to be recognized as a deed worthy only of a slave, more shameful than robbery."
What happened to the tribal system during such large-scale changes? The births were mixed, thanks to the frequent change of residence due to the development of trade, unions and councils lost their role, people demanded more advanced government bodies that could provide their new interests that arose due to the division of labor. The clan system was alien to internal contradictions, which now appeared in the form of slaves and free, exploiters and exploited. “Such a society could exist only in an incessant open struggle between these classes or under the domination of a third force, which, supposedly standing above the mutually fighting classes, suppressed their open conflicts and allowed class struggle at most in the economic field, in the so-called legal form. The clan system has outlived its time and was replaced by the state " . So, the state is not a compulsory manifestation imposed on society, but only "a product of society at a certain stage of development", with the need to "keep the opposition of classes in check"
Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881) - an outstanding American ethnographer and archaeologist, sociologist, historian of primitive society, progressive public figure, one of the founders of social anthropology.
Engels F. The origin of the family, private property and the state: trans. with him. - M ..: Publishing house of political literature, 1985 p. 150
Ibid, p. 166
Ibid. P. 172
Ibid, p. 187
Ibid. P. 270
In 1884. It reveals the patterns of development of the primitive communal system, the main stages of its development and the reasons for its inevitable death. Here, in a dialectical connection, the processes of development and the emergence of the family, private property and the state are shown, which led to the emergence of a class society.
The work of F. Engels has not lost its significance at the present time. She convincingly exposes the myths of modern nationalists about the chosenness of some peoples and the inferiority of others.
The first preface, written by F. Engels in 1844, notes: “According to the materialist understanding, the defining moment in history is ultimately the production and reproduction of life itself. But it itself, again, is of two kinds. On the one hand - the production of means of subsistence, food items, clothing, housing, tools necessary for this; and on the other - the production of man himself, the continuation of the race. "
The first section of the work is titled “ Prehistoric stages of culture". Of the three main epochs of the existence of mankind, F. Engels singles out three: savagery, barbarism and civilization. The work focuses on the second era and the process of transition to civilization. Savagery and barbarism are divided into three stages and a brief description is given. The final part of the first section states:
“Wildness is a period of predominantly appropriation of finished products of nature; man-made works mainly serve as auxiliary instruments for such appropriation.
Barbarism is the period of introduction of animal husbandry and agriculture, the period of assimilation of methods for increasing the production of natural products with the help of human activity.
Civilization is a period of assimilation of further processing of products of nature, a period of industry in the proper sense of the word and art. "
The second section is titled "A family».
Here, based on the analysis of a large amount of factual material, it is concluded that in primitive human society there was such a state when every woman belonged to every man and in the same way every man belonged to every woman. This was the period of the so-called group marriage.
From this primitive state of disordered intercourse gradually developed:
A. Consanguineous family, - the first step of the family. Here marriage groups are divided by generations: all grandparents within the family are husbands and wives for each other, as well as their children, i.e. fathers and mothers; likewise, the children of the latter form the third circle of common spouses, and their children, the great-grandchildren of the former, form the fourth circle.
B. Punaluan family. It excludes parents and children from sexual intercourse, as well as brothers and sisters. From the Punaluan family, the institution of the gens arose. Genus is understood as a community of relatives who have one woman - an ancestor. In group marriage, naturally, kinship could only be established along the female line.
V. Couple family. In it, a man lives with one woman, but polygamy takes place, albeit rarely. The strictest fidelity is required from a woman for the entire time of cohabitation. The prohibition of marriage between relatives leads to the strengthening of resilience and the development of the mental abilities of people.
“A woman among all savages and among all tribes standing on the lower, middle, and partly even the highest level of barbarism, not only enjoys freedom, but also occupies a very honorable position.” The era of barbarism is distinguished by the presence of matriarchy. This is because women in communist households are of the same genus, while men are different.
At the stage of savagery, wealth consists of dwellings, rough decorations, clothes, boats, and household utensils of the simplest kind.
In the era of barbarism, herds of horses, camels, donkeys, cattle, sheep, goats and pigs appeared. This property multiplied and provided abundant milk and meat food. The hunt receded into the background. Slaves appeared. The emergence of slavery is due to the fact that human labor began to provide a significant income, prevailing over the cost of its maintenance. At the same time, the husband became the owner of livestock and slaves.
Gradually, ancestral wealth passes into the ownership of the heads of families (herds, metal utensils, luxury goods and slaves). "Thus, as wealth grew, it gave the husband a more powerful position in the family than the wife, and generated, on the one hand, the desire to use this entrenched position in order to change the normal order of inheritance in favor of children." But this could not be, while the origin was considered by maternal law. It should have been canceled, and it was canceled. At the same time, the origin was determined not by the maternal, but by the male line, the right of inheritance through the father was introduced.
“The overthrow of maternal rights was a world-wide historical defeat of the female sex. The husband seized the reins of government in the house, and the woman lost her honorable position, was turned into a servant, into a slave to his lust, into a simple instrument of childbearing. "
G. Monogamous family.“It arises from a paired family, as explained above, at the borderline between the middle and the highest stage of barbarism; its final victory is one of the signs of the beginning of civilization. It is based on the domination of the husband with the express purpose of having children whose descent from the father is beyond doubt, and this indisputable origin is necessary because the children must eventually take over the father's property as direct heirs. It differs from a pair marriage by the much greater strength of the marriage bond, which is now no longer divorced at the request of either party.
The emerging monogamy is nothing more than the enslavement of one sex to the other. F. Engels writes: "the first antagonism of classes that appears in history coincides with the development of antagonism between husband and wife during monogamy, and the first class oppression coincides with the enslavement of the female sex by the male."
“So, we have three main forms of marriage, in general, corresponding to the three main stages of human development. Wildness corresponds to group marriage, barbarism to pair marriage, civilization to monogamy. " "Monogamy arose as a result of the concentration of great wealth in one hands, namely, in the hands of a man and from the need to inherit these wealth by inheritance to the children of this man, and not another."
In conclusion of the second section, F. Engels makes a forecast: “since the monogamous family has noticeably improved since the beginning of civilization, and especially noticeably in modern times, it can at least be assumed that it is capable of further improvement until it is achieved gender equality. If a monogamous family in the distant future turns out to be incapable of fulfilling the demands of society, then it is impossible to predict in advance what character its successor will have. "
In sections 3 to 8 in the work of F. Engels, the tribal structure of the Iroquois, Greeks, Romans, Germans is considered. Using a large amount of factual material, he analyzes the features, decomposition and emergence of the state. Naturally, each of the societies under consideration has its own specifics, characterized by a number of deviations due to many subjective and objective factors. It is indicated that the Greek is the classic example of the generic structure.
In the 5th section, "The emergence of the Athenian state, F. Engels draws attention to the following circumstances:" The emergence of the state among the Athenians is a highly typical example of the formation of a state in general, because, on the one hand, it took place in its pure form ... - on the other hand, because that in this case a very developed form of the state, the democratic republic, arises directly from the tribal society and, finally, because we are sufficiently aware of all the essential details of the formation of this state.
Summing up, F. Engels writes:
“Above we examined separately the three main forms in which the state rises on the ruins of the tribal system. Athens represents the purest, most classical form: here the state arises directly and predominantly from class antagonisms developing within the tribal society itself. In Rome, the tribal society turns into a closed aristocracy among the numerous, standing outside of it, powerless, but bearing the duties of the plebs; the victory of the plebs explodes the old tribal system and erects a state on its ruins, in which the tribal aristocracy and the plebs will soon disappear. Finally, among the German victors of the Roman Empire, the state arises as a direct product of the conquest of vast foreign territories, for domination over which the clan system does not provide any means.
The 9th section is called "Barbarism and civilization ». This final section is a generalization of the above, and is devoted to the general economic conditions that undermined the generic organization of society and, with the advent of civilization, completely eliminated it. Here we cannot do without extensive quotations from the work of F. Engels, since they summarize the results of what is stated in the work in a generalized form.
The genus, notes F. Engels, "reaches its heyday at the lowest stage of barbarism." “The greatness of the tribal system, but at the same time its limitations, are manifested in the fact that there is no place for domination and enslavement. Within the tribal system, there is still no distinction between rights and obligations ... ”.
In the future, for a number of advanced tribes, the main branch of labor was not hunting and fishing, but domestication, and then cattle breeding. "…It was the first major division of labor. " An exchange of livestock began between the tribes. Cattle became a commodity by which all commodities were valued, ”he acquired the functions of money. The loom was invented and the smelting of metals began. The tools of production and weapons were rapidly improved.
The first major division of labor, together with an increase in labor productivity, and hence in wealth, and with an expansion of the field of productive activity, given the totality of given historical conditions, inevitably entailed slavery. From the first large social division of labor arose the first major division of society into two classes - masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited. "
The "wild" warrior and hunter was content in the house with the second place after the woman, the "more meek" shepherd, proud of his wealth, moved to the first place, and the woman was pushed aside to the second. And she couldn't complain. The division of labor in the family served as the basis for the distribution of property between a man and a woman ... ".
Wealth grew rapidly; it was the wealth of individuals. The production activities of people have expanded and become differentiated. “... A second major division of labor took place: the craft was separated from agriculture. "With the division of production into two main branches, agriculture and handicrafts, there is production directly for exchange, - commodity production, and with it trade not only within the tribe and on its borders, but also overseas."
"The difference between the rich and the poor appears along with the difference between free and slaves, with a new division of labor - a new division of society into classes." Exchange between individual producers becomes a vital necessity for society. Is happening the third most important division of labor- there is a "class that is no longer engaged in production, but only in the exchange of products." The class is created merchants.
Along with the emergence of merchants appeared and metallic money. This was a new means of domination, the commodity of commodities was discovered, which in a hidden form contains all other commodities. “Following the purchase of goods for money, there was a money loan, and with it - interest and usury.” In the same period, new land relations emerged. Previously, the land was the property of the clan. Now it began to belong to individuals with the right of inheritance, that is, private property. The land was sold and mortgaged.
"So along with the expansion of trade, along with money and monetary usury, land ownership and mortgages, the concentration and centralization of wealth in the hands of a small class rapidly took place, and along with this the impoverishment of the masses grew and the mass of the poor grew." The clan system turned out to be powerless in the face of the new elements that had grown up without its assistance. “The clan system has outlived its time. It was blown up by the division of labor and its consequence - the division of society into classes. It has been replaced the state.
Thus, “the state is a product of society at a certain stage of development; the state is the recognition that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, split into irreconcilable opposites, which it is powerless to get rid of. And so that these opposites, classes with conflicting economic interests, do not devour each other and society in a fruitless struggle, this requires a force that would moderate the collision, keep it within the boundaries of "order." This power is the state.
Distinctive features of the state - territorial division of subjects and public authority /
Making a forecast for the future, in conclusion, F. Engels writes the following.
“So, the state does not exist forever. There were societies that did without it, that had no idea about the state and state power. At a certain stage of economic development, which was necessarily associated with the split of society into classes, the state became, by virtue of this split, a necessity. We are now approaching with rapid strides to a stage in the development of production at which the existence of these classes not only ceases to be a necessity, but becomes a direct obstacle to production.
Classes will disappear just as inevitably as they inevitably arose in the past. With the disappearance of classes, the state will inevitably disappear. A society that organizes production in a new way on the basis of a free and equal association of producers will send the entire state machine where it will be then: to the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze ax. "
manuf. Engels, written in 1884. Based on the material of Morgan's book "Ancient Society", as well as on other scientific data, Engels in his work investigates the main. features of the development of the primitive communal system. He traces the change in the forms of marriage and family in connection with the economic progress of the society, analyzes the process of disintegration of the tribal system (using the example of three peoples: the ancient Greeks, Romans and Germans) and its economic reasons. Shows that the growth of labor productivity and the division of labor led to the emergence of exchange, private property, to the destruction of the tribal system and to the formation of classes, that the emergence of class contradictions gave rise to the state as an instrument to protect the interests of the ruling class. Main the conclusions to which Engels comes: 1) private property, classes and the state did not always exist, but arose at a certain stage of economic development; 2) the state in the hands of the exploiting classes is always only an instrument of violence and oppression of the broad masses of the people; 3) classes will disappear as inevitably as they inevitably appeared in the past. With the disappearance of classes, the state will inevitably disappear. Engels's book, despite the In. outdated provisions and factual data, to this day serves as a tool for studying the issues of historical materialism.
Excellent definition
Incomplete definition ↓
"ORIGIN OF FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY AND STATE"
Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigentums und des Staats, Gotiingen. Zuerich, 1884) - the work of F. Engels.
It was obvious to Marx and Engels that class society, with all its institutions, arose historically. But to characterize the pre-class society, the process of its disintegration and the transition to a class society, they lacked scientific data, which were still very fragmented. Much was clarified in this regard by L. Morgan's book "Ancient Society", published in London in 1877, in which the tribal system of the American Indians was essentially considered from a materialistic standpoint in the context of the evolution of primitive society. After the death of Marx, Engels discovered a synopsis (with comments) of this book compiled by him and, using it, as well as his own research on the history of antiquity, the ancient Germans, Celts, etc., in the spring of 1884 he wrote this work, which filled a significant gap in the socio-historical the concept of Marxism.
The book develops the position that the production and reproduction of immediate life are twofold: the production of the means of subsistence and the production of man himself. And the less developed the first, the more influence the second has on the lives of people. Following Morgan, Engels singled out periods of savagery and barbarism in the prehistory of mankind, each of which includes a lower, middle and higher stage. The transition from one stage to another is due to the development of tools of labor. He especially noted that it was the discovery of the use of fire that allowed humanity to escape from the animal state. Making primitive stone tools, people subsisted on gathering, hunting, and fishing. During the period of barbarism, there was a transition to the production of means of subsistence - agriculture and cattle breeding arose (later this transition was called the Neolithic revolution). The development of the productive forces on this basis prepared the material prerequisites for the emergence of civilization. Thus, the change in the stages of primitive society is determined by the development of material production. But the forms of social organization also turn out to be dependent on the production of the person himself, giving rise to various forms of the family, the system of kinship. These latter characterize the relations of people of that time. Historically, they arose on the basis of prohibitions on sexual relations, first between generations, between parents and children, then between brothers and sisters. The result is a genus consisting of maternal relatives. Several closely related clans constituted the tribe. Family marriages were prohibited. But there were various forms of group marriage between men and women from different clans of a given tribe. During the transition to barbarism, relatively stable married couples began to form, and group marriage began to develop into pair marriage. Gradually, the family also acquires the function of an economic unit, which leads to its isolation within the genus. With the growth of wealth, the problem of inheritance from father to son also arises. A patriarchal family is created, which included paternal relatives, which destroyed the maternal family. It affirmed the inequality of men and women, the dominant position of men and was a form of transition to a monogamous family, characteristic of civilization. This inequality persists in the bourgeois family as well. In the future society, the economic function of the family will die out, and with it the economic calculation in relations between a man and a woman will disappear. These relationships will be built only on individual love, and the people of the future will determine their forms themselves. For Engels, it was of fundamental importance that there were common features between the genus of American Indians and that of the ancient peoples of Europe, the establishment of the fact that they were different stages of the same generic organization of society. This meant that the form of social structure of the prehistoric period of human existence was discovered. This form corresponded to a low level of development of productive forces, a rare population, almost complete subordination of man to nature, and the individual to the community to which he belonged. Common property, natural gender and age division of labor, joint farming united the clan, and this made it possible for people to survive in those conditions. It was impossible to survive alone. Not an isolated individual, but a primitive collective - clan, tribe, community - were at the beginning of human history. The development of the productive forces began to undermine the foundations of the tribal organization, since a surplus product appeared and the possibility of its accumulation, redistribution, etc., which was incompatible with primitive equality. The process of disintegration of the tribal system coincided with the genesis of private property, social inequality, classes and the state. Thus, the starting positions were determined for the scientific formulation of the question of the origin of class society and its institutions, or, as it is indicated in the book, of the emergence of civilization. Here the growth of labor productivity, associated with the appearance of iron tools and the social division of labor, was of decisive importance. Engels named three major stages in the division of social labor, which formed the path to civilization: the separation of shepherd tribes, which made it necessary to systematically exchange products, the emergence of money; the separation of crafts from agriculture, which led to the widespread use of slave labor, the emergence of commodity production and trade, property inequality, private property and the division of society into classes; the separation of trade into an independent type of activity: merchants could no longer do without metal money. The development of crafts and trade, the growth of wealth, the rupture of previous tribal ties, the emergence of property inequality and social classes paved the way for the formation of the state.
In a class society with its antagonisms, according to Engels, an organized political force is needed to preserve the existing order and protect the interests of the ruling class. It is the state. Based on extensive material, the book provides a description and analysis of the formation of state institutions among the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Germans. For different peoples, this process had its own characteristics. But its common features were the emergence of public power (army, officials), taxes and division of the population, not by gentile, but by territorial principle. The state performs some of the functions necessary for society, but unlike the tribal organization, it places itself above society. The history of civilization knows three great forms of exploitation of one class by another: slavery, serfdom, and wage labor. In every era, the state, as the organ of the most economically powerful class, has consolidated these forms of enslavement. Such is the democratic republic in bourgeois society, where capital dominates indirectly, but all the more surely. The state arose together with classes, bears a class character and with the abolition of classes must die out.
The book reflects the level of science end. 19th century Since then, both science and history have gone far ahead, and many of the issues discussed in the book are now interpreted differently. Many new problems have arisen as well. But the work, having played an important role in the history of Marxism and world outlook in general, retains its significance as an expression of fundamental positions on a number of fundamental problems of Marxist socio-historical theory.
Excellent definition
Incomplete definition ↓