Primitive society. Culture of primitive society

Public power and social regulation in a primitive community.

Mankind has gone through a number of stages in its development, each of which was distinguished by a certain level and nature of social relations: cultural, economic, religious. The largest, longest stage in the life of human society was the time when there was no state and law in the modern sense of the word. This period covers the first millennium from the appearance of man on earth, to the emergence of class societies and states. In science, the name of a primitive society or a communal-tribal system is assigned to it.

Modern anthropology has proved that a person of the modern, Cro-Magnon type has existed for about 40 thousand years. During this period, the human race was no longer predominantly biological, but social evolution. Meanwhile, the first state formations appeared only about five thousand years ago. It follows that for tens of thousands of years people of the modern type existed without knowing the state. The first cell of human self-organization was a community, or it is also called a primitive tribal community - a clan, a tribe, their associations. For most peoples of the world, the tribal system goes through two main stages - matriarchy and patriarchy.

Matriarchy is characteristic of the period of formation and initial development of the tribal system. During this period, a woman occupies a dominant position in the tribal community, since, firstly, she plays an important role in obtaining a livelihood, and secondly, kinship is determined only through the female line, and all members of the clan are considered descendants of one woman. Patriarchy becomes the main form of social organization later. It arises with the advent of social production - agriculture, animal husbandry, metal smelting. In this situation, male labor begins to prevail over female.

The maternal community, the genus gives way to the patriarchal community, where kinship is conducted through the paternal line.

The primitive tribal community is an association of people based on consanguinity, joint collective labor, common ownership of tools and products of production. Equality of social status, unity of interests and unity of members of the clan stemmed from these conditions. The common property, which did not have any legal form, of the primitive community included certain territories, tools, household utensils, housing. Industrial products, food - were distributed equally by all members of the clan, taking into account the merits of each. The clans could move from one territory to another, but their organization was preserved. To a certain extent, there was personal ownership of weapons, jewelry, and some other items. Production forces and tools were extremely primitive: hunting, gathering of natural products, fishing.

The organization of public power and the system of managing the affairs of the clan corresponded to primitive communist relations. The bodies of public power under the social system were tribal assemblies: elders, leaders, military leaders who performed their function during the war. Power was purely public in nature. Its bearer was the entire tribal community as a whole, which also directly formed self-government bodies. The highest authority was the general meeting / council / of all adult members of the clan. The council decided all the important issues of the life of the community related to production activities. religious rites, resolution of disputes between individual members of the clan, etc. There was no special apparatus that would deal only with management, the general affairs of the family. The day-to-day management of the affairs of the tribal community was carried out by an elder, elected at the meeting by all members of the clan, both men and women. The power of the elder, as well as the power of the commander and the priest, was not hereditary. They exercised authority over them to control the assembly of the clan, and at any moment they could be replaced by other members of the clan. Elders and military leaders elected for the period of hostilities - participated in the production activities of the tribal community on an equal basis with its other members.

Public power under the primitive system was effective and authoritative. It relied on the consciousness of all members of the clan and the moral authority of the elders. In this regard, we can give a description of the organization of power in the primitive system of society, which was indicated by V.I. Lenin: “We see the dominance of customs, authority, respect, the power enjoyed by the elders of the clan, we see that this power was sometimes recognized for women ... but nowhere do we see a special category of people who stand out to govern others in the interests, for the purposes of management is constantly seen as a known apparatus of coercion.

The genus was the main, independent community. Separate clans united into broader associations - fratia. Phratia was divided into several daughter genera and united them by the original clan, indicating the origin of all of them from a common ancestor. Several related factions made up a tribe. F. Engels noted that the genus, phraty and tribe were three degrees of consanguinity naturally related to each other.

Power in the phratey and the tribe was based on the same principles as in the tribal community. The council of the phraty was a general meeting of all its members and in some cases was formed from the elders of the clans that were part of the phraty. At the head of the tribe was a council, which included representatives of the frat - elders, commanders, priests.

Homer's poems show that the Greek tribes in most cases have already been united into small nationalities, within which clans, phraties and tribes have retained their independence. The organization of these tribes and small peoples was as follows:

The permanent body of power was the council, at first consisting of the elders of the clans, later - of the elective elders.

People's Assembly. It was convened to resolve important issues, every man could take the floor. The decision here was made by a show of hands or admiration. The Assembly held supreme power in the last instance.

Warlord. Among the Greeks, under the rule of paternal law, the position of basile passed to the son. Basilei, in addition to the military, also performed priestly, judicial powers.

General laws of the origin of the state and law. Forms.

The most important step in human progress was the Neolithic revolution, which took place 10-15 thousand years ago. During this period, very perfect polished stone tools appeared, cattle breeding and agriculture arose, there was a noticeable increase in labor productivity: a person finally began to produce more than he consumed, an excess product appeared, the possibility of accumulating social wealth, creating reserves. Man became less dependent on the vagaries of nature, and this led to a significant increase in the population. But at the same time, the possibility arose of exploiting man by man, appropriating accumulated wealth. Since that time, there has been an objective opportunity to provide for the maintenance of a large group of people who specialize in the performance of any socially significant functions, a group that no longer directly participates in material production.

It was during this period, in the Neolithic era, that the decomposition of the primitive communal system and the gradual transition to a state-organized society began. The progressive social division of labor is changing the content and forms of organization of social life in family and tribal communities, in phratries, curias and tribes. The tribal structure becomes more complicated, the division of social functions gradually begins to develop. At this time, along with the development of the economy, social changes also take place. Since everything produced is socialized and then redistributed, and this redistribution is carried out by the leaders and elders, it is in their hands that the public property settles and accumulates. Tribal nobility and such a social phenomenon as "power-property" arise, the essence of which is the disposal of public property by virtue of being in a certain position (leaving a position, a person loses property). In connection with the specialization of management and the increase in its role, the share of the tribal nobility in the distribution of the social product is gradually increasing. Management becomes profitable. And since, along with the dependence of everyone on the leaders and elders "by position", economic dependence also appears, the continuing existence of the "election" of these persons becomes more and more formal. This all leads to the further assignment of positions to certain persons, and then to the appearance of inheritance of positions.

Gradually, a special stage in the development of society and a form of its organization, which was called the "proto-state", arises.

This form is characterized by: a public form of ownership, a significant increase in labor productivity, the accumulation of accumulated wealth in the hands of the tribal nobility on the basis of "power-property", the rapid growth of the population, its concentration, the emergence of cities that become administrative, religious and cultural centers. And although the interests of the supreme leader and his entourage basically coincide with the interests of the whole society, however, social inequality gradually appears, leading to an ever greater divergence of interests between the rulers and the ruled.

It was during this period, which did not coincide in time with different peoples, that there was a "separation" of the ways of human development into " Oriental" And "west". The reasons for this division were that in the east, due to a number of circumstances, communities and, accordingly, public ownership of land were preserved. In the west, such work was not required, the communities broke up, and the land was in private ownership.

Eastern way of the emergence of the state.

The most ancient states arose about 5 thousand years ago in the valleys of large rivers, such as the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, Indus, Ganges, Yangtze, i.e. in the zones of irrigated agriculture, which made it possible to sharply increase labor productivity by increasing productivity. It was there that the conditions for the emergence of statehood were first created: there was a material opportunity to maintain a management apparatus that did not produce anything, but was necessary for the successful development of society. Irrigated agriculture required a huge amount of work - the construction of canals, dams, water lifts and other irrigation facilities, maintaining them in working order, expanding the irrigation network, etc. All this determined, first of all, the need to unite communities under a single command and centralized management, since the volume of public works significantly exceeded the capabilities of individual tribal formations. However, agricultural communities and, accordingly, the public form of ownership of the main means of production - the land - were preserved.

The eastern way of forming statehood was distinguished by the fact that political domination was based on the administration of some public function, position.

Within the framework of the community, the main purpose of power was the management of special reserve funds, in which most of the social surplus product was concentrated. This led to the allocation within the community of a special group of officials who perform the functions of community administrators, treasurers, controllers, etc. Deriving from their position a number of benefits and advantages, community administrators were interested in securing this status for themselves, and sought to make their positions hereditary. To the extent that they succeeded, the communal "officialdom" gradually turned into a privileged closed social stratum - the most important element of the emerging apparatus of state power. Guliyev V.E. Russian state. Status and trends // Political problems of the theory of the state. - M.: IGPRAN. 1993. Consequently, one of the main prerequisites for both state formation and the formation of classes according to the eastern type was the use by the ruling strata and groups of the existing apparatus of management, control over economic, political and military functions.

Gradually exercising these functions, the tribal nobility turned into a separate social group (class, estate, caste), which, becoming more and more separated from the rest of society, acquired its own interests.

The economy was based on state and public forms of ownership. There was also private property. The top of the state apparatus had palaces, jewelry, slaves, but private property did not have a significant impact on the economy: the decisive contribution to social production was made by the labor of "free" community members. In addition to everything, the "private" nature of this property was very conditional, since an official usually lost his position along with his property, and often with his head.

Gradually, as the scale of cooperation of collective labor activity grows, the “rudiments of state power” that originated in tribal collectives turn into organs of control and domination over the sums of communities, which, depending on the breadth of economic goals, are formed into micro- and macro-states, united by the power of centralized power. In these regions, it took on a despotic character. Its authority was quite high for a number of reasons: achievements in economic activity were explained solely by its ability to organize, the desire and ability to act for general social purposes; coercion was also colored ideologically: "power is from God", the ruler is the bearer and spokesman of "God's grace", an intermediary between God and people. Lazarev V.V. General theory of law and state. - 1995

As a result, a structure similar to a pyramid arises: at the top (instead of a leader) - an unlimited monarch, a despot; below (instead of the council of elders and leaders) - his closest advisers, viziers; further - officials of a lower rank, etc., and at the base of the pyramid - agricultural communities, gradually losing their tribal character. The main means of production - land - is formally owned by communities. Community members are considered free, but in fact, in reality, everything became state property, including the personality and life of all subjects who found themselves in the undivided power of the state, personified in the bureaucratic and bureaucratic apparatus headed by an absolute monarch.

Eastern states in some of their features differed significantly from each other. In some, as in China, slavery had a domestic, family character. In others - Egypt - there were many slaves who, along with community members, made a significant contribution to the economy. However, unlike European, ancient slavery, based on private property, in Egypt, most of the slaves were the property of the state (pharaoh) or temples.

Eastern states had much in common. All of them were absolute monarchies, despotisms; possessed a powerful bureaucracy; their economy was based on the state form of ownership of the main means of production (power-property), and private property was of secondary importance.

The eastern path of the emergence of the state was a smooth transition, the development of a primitive, tribal society into a state.

The main reasons for the emergence of the state here were:

the need for large-scale irrigation works in connection with the development of irrigated agriculture;

the need to unite for these purposes significant masses of people and large territories;

the need for a unified, centralized leadership of these masses.

The state apparatus arose from the apparatus for managing tribal associations. Standing out from society, the state apparatus became in many respects opposite to it in its interests, gradually became isolated from the rest of society, turned into a ruling class that exploited the labor of community members.

It should also be pointed out that the Eastern society was stagnant: for centuries, and sometimes millennia, it practically did not develop. Thus, the state in China arose several centuries earlier than in Europe (Greece, Rome). Although significant social upheavals took place there (foreign conquests, peasant uprisings, including victorious ones, etc.), they only led to a change in the reigning dynasties, and society itself until the beginning of the 20th century. remained largely unchanged.

Western (European) way of the emergence of the state.

Unlike the eastern path, which had a universal character, the western path was a kind of unique phenomenon. However, it must be borne in mind that it was precisely Western society that became the "locomotive of history", it was precisely the European states that in a short historical period overtook the Eastern ones that had arisen much earlier and to a decisive extent determined the entire course of human progress.

The leading state-forming factor in Europe was the class division of society. Here, at the stage of the proto-state, the form of which was "military democracy", there was an intensive formation of private ownership of land, as well as other means of production - livestock, slaves.

F. Engels noted that in the most "pure" form this can be observed in the example of Ancient Athens; where the state developed, partly transforming the organs of the tribal system, partly displacing them by introducing new bodies, gradually replacing them with real authorities. The place of the "armed people" is occupied by an armed "public power" no longer coinciding with society, alienated from it and ready to oppose the people. Engels F. The origin of the family, private property and the state. vol. 21, ch. 5.6, 7, 9.

Already at an early stage of the decomposition of the communal system, economic inequality is observed: aristocrats (heroes, basileus) have more land plots, slaves, livestock, tools of labor than ordinary community members. Along with slavery, which was predominantly patriarchal in nature, when slaves were used as domestic servants and were not the main productive force, hired labor, the farm work of homeless community members, appeared. As private property develops, the influence of an economically strong group grows, which seeks to weaken the role of the people's assembly, the basileus (who acted as a military leader, high priest, and supreme judge) and transfer power to their representatives.

Friction between the hereditary aristocracy and the masses, which sometimes took on very sharp forms, was aggravated by the struggle for power of another group of owners of private property acquired by maritime robbery and trade. Ultimately, the wealthiest owners began to occupy responsible government positions - the dominance of the tribal nobility was eliminated.

Consequently, the genesis of the Athenian state is characterized by the fact that it arose directly and, above all, from class antagonisms. Gradually formed private property became the basis, the foundation for establishing the economic domination of the propertied classes. In turn, this made it possible to master the institutions of public power and use them to protect their interests. In the literature, Athens is often referred to as the classical form of the emergence of statehood. Pigolkin A.S. General theory of law. - 1995

In ancient Sparta, the peculiarities of the emergence of the state were due to a number of other circumstances: the Spartan community conquered neighboring territories, the population of which turned into communal, and not personal, slaves - helots, whose number many times exceeded the number of Spartans. The need to lead them and keep them in obedience required the creation of new authorities, a new apparatus. At the same time, the desire to prevent property inequality, and, consequently, social tension among the "indigenous" Spartans, to prevent, under these conditions, private ownership of slaves and land, which, remaining state property, was divided into equal plots according to the number of full-fledged inhabitants. The constant threat of an uprising of helots and other circumstances led to the tone that Sparta became an aristocratic republic with very tough, even terrorist methods of government and significant vestiges of the primitive communal system. The cruelty of the regime, which pursued a line of equalization, contributed, as it were, to the conservation of the existing order, did not allow the emergence of that social force that could accelerate the liquidation of the remnants of the tribal organization.

In Rome, the process of formation of classes and the state was hampered for a number of reasons, and the period of transition to the state dragged on for centuries. In a 200-year struggle between two groups of free members of the Roman tribal society, the plebeians wrested one concession after another from the patricians. As a result of these victories, the public organization of Rome began to have a significant democratic character. For example, the equality of all free citizens was established, the principle according to which every citizen was both a farmer and a warrior was consolidated, and the weighty socio-political significance of communal land was also established. All this slowed down the development of property and social inequality among free citizens and the formation of private property as an important factor in class formation.

The situation changed only towards the end of the second century. BC. with the beginning of mass dispossession of communal peasants. On the other hand, as a result of incessant conquests, such a mass of slaves accumulates in cities and rural areas that the Roman family, which traditionally performed the decentralized function of suppressing, retaining and obedience to the not free, was unable to carry it out. (Between the 2nd century BC and the 2nd century AD, out of the 60-70 million population of the entire Roman Empire, there were no more than 2 million full-fledged free citizens) In the end, the need to moderate the clashes of various social groups is immense empire and keep in obedience subject and dependent exploited peoples led in the II century. BC. to the creation of a powerful state machine.

In the main and basic process of state formation in Rome was the same as in Athens. The decomposition of the tribal system followed the same path as in Greece. Just as in Greece, an economically strong group gradually seized power, forming bodies that benefited it. However, in Rome, a third group of the population, the plebeians, decisively intervened in these processes. Representatives of alien tribes, personally free, not related to the Roman family, they possessed commercial and industrial wealth. The economic power of the plebeians increased. Their long struggle against the patricians - the tribal Roman aristocracy, which unfolded in connection with the strengthening of private property and the deepening of property differentiation, was superimposed on the process of class formation in Roman society, stimulated the decomposition of the tribal system, and was a kind of catalyst for the formation of the state.

The formation of the Frankish state went in a somewhat different way. Germanic tribes for a long time served as suppliers for the mighty neighbor - Rome. If the position of Greece and Rome contributed to the accelerated breaking of the patriarchal standing, then the same natural conditions in Germany up to a certain point created opportunities for some development of the productive forces within the tribal society. Slavery in the form in which it existed in the Mediterranean was not even economically profitable. The ruined community members fell into dependence on the rich, and not into slavery, which contributed to the long-term preservation of the collective form of management. Military needs, as well as semi-nomadic agriculture, contributed to the preservation of the collective form of social and economic organization, in which there simply could not be a place for slaves. Therefore, there property differentiation and social stratification gradually led to the formation of a proto-feudal society. There.

The conquest of significant territories of the Roman Empire by the Franks, on the one hand, clearly showed the inability of the tribal system to ensure domination over them, and this spurred the formation of an early feudal type state. On the other hand, this conquest destroyed the slave system and accelerated the transition to feudalism in the land of the once powerful Roman Empire.

This example of the emergence of the feudal state is not exceptional. The development of many other states on the territory of Europe, such as Ireland, Ancient Rus' and others, proceeded in the same way. Considering the process of the emergence of states in different countries and on different continents, one can notice that with all the variety of forms and ways, there are some general patterns that are characteristic of all social formations.

The main reasons for the emergence of states were the following:

The need to improve the management of society, associated with its complication. This complication, in turn, was associated with the development of production, the emergence of new industries, the division of labor, changes in the conditions for the distribution of the social product, the isolation of social structures, their enlargement, the growth of the population living in a certain territory, etc. The old administrative apparatus could not ensure the successful management of these processes.

The need to organize large-scale public works, to unite large masses of people for these purposes. This was especially evident in those regions where the basis of production was irrigated agriculture, which required the construction of canals, water lifts, maintaining them in working condition, etc.

The need to suppress the resistance of the exploited. The processes taking place during the decomposition of primitive society inevitably lead to the division of society, to the emergence of rich and poor, to the emergence of exploitation by a minority of the majority, and at the same time to the emergence of social antagonisms and resistance from that part of society that is exploited.

The need to maintain order in society that ensures the functioning of social production, the social stability of society, its stability, including in relation to external influences from neighboring states or tribes. This is ensured, in particular, by the maintenance of law and order, the use of various measures, including coercive ones, to ensure that all members of society comply with the norms of emerging law, including those that they perceive as not meeting their interests, unfair.

The necessity of waging wars, both defensive and aggressive. The accumulation of social wealth that occurs during this period leads to the fact that it becomes profitable to live by robbing neighbors, capturing valuables, livestock, slaves, taxing neighbors, enslaving them. In terms of preparing and waging wars, the state has much greater potential than primitive society. Therefore, the emergence of any state inevitably leads to the fact that its neighbors are enslaved or, in turn, organized as states.

In most cases, the above reasons acted cumulatively, in various combinations. At the same time, under various conditions (historical, social, geographical, natural, demographic, and others), various of the indicated reasons could become the main, decisive ones. Thus, for most Eastern states, the need to improve the management and organization of major public works was of greatest importance. For the emergence of the Athenian and Roman states, the processes of class formation and the need in this connection to suppress the exploited classes played a much greater role.

Law is formed simultaneously and in parallel with the state (and in a sense, even before the state). Their occurrence is interconnected and interdependent. Each new step in the development of the state leads to further development of the legal system, and vice versa.

When analyzing the originality and dynamics of the processes of state formation among different peoples, one should take into account the theoretical and methodological provisions formulated by F. Engels in the works "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State", "Anti-Dühring" and others. Engels concluded that "any political power is based initially on some economic, social function and increases as the members of society, as a result of the disintegration of primitive communities, turn into private producers and, consequently, the alienation between them and the bearers of common, social functions increases even more. In another work, he again returns to this idea: “Initially, society, through a simple division of labor, created special bodies for itself to protect its common interests. But over time, these bodies, and the main one of them - state power, serving their special interests, turned from servants of society in its overlords", and the emergence of the apparatus of state power is not the result of the efforts of the ruling class alone, it is the product of society as a whole at a certain stage of its development.

Introduction

The development of science has an internal logic. Each era puts forward its own scientific problems, among which there are private and general. Some of them run through the entire history of science, but they are also solved in a new way by each new generation of scientists. Thus, as the history of primitive society developed, it became more and more obvious that the key to understanding it could only be a deep insight into the essence of socio-economic relations. The need to identify in the structure of the primitive society its vital center, the focus of socio-economic ties, was asserting itself more and more insistently. In-depth ethnographic studies of the social organization of hunters and gatherers have shown that such an institution is the community, that it is a form of existence of a primitive pre-agricultural society. That is why in our time the study of the primitive community has become one of the most important tasks of the science of primitive society, that is what determined the goals and content of this work.

Even F. Engels, emphasizing the stadial difference between the appropriating economy and the producing economy, based on the criterion of the appropriating and producing economy, built a periodization of primitive history. But why am I talking specifically about the pre-agricultural community, why is this term for me, as it were, a synonym for the community of hunters and gatherers, a community characteristic of the stage of appropriating economy? Because it was agriculture that was the general line of development in the era, which was marked by the transition from an appropriating economy to a producing economy and the radical restructuring of the entire socio-economic structure associated with it. It was agriculture that played the leading role in this process.

The history of the primitive community of hunters and gatherers begins with the emergence of human society and ends with its transition to a productive economy and the disintegration of the primitive communal formation. During this era, a modern man was formed, people settled entire continents, the foundations were laid for the subsequent social and cultural development of mankind. This era, according to archaeological periodization, corresponds to the Paleolithic and almost the entire Mesolithic. At present, the economically most backward peoples of the globe are still (or were recently) at the stage of hunting and gathering, to whom our study is devoted.

The history of primitive society, as one of the sections of world history, stands on the verge of two historical sciences - ethnography and archeology. Two streams, pouring into its bed, mix their waters in it. History studies primitive society, regardless of time and place, because on earth there are still (or existed recently) ethnic communities living in the conditions of a primitive communal formation. This distinguishes the history of primitive society from other sections of general history and makes it, in essence, the history of a primitive communal formation, and the source base and methodology make it a complex science. Archeology and paleoethnography study the history of the primitive communal formation in antiquity, ethnography - in the modern era. Only ethnography allows us to give an in-depth socio-cultural interpretation of archaeological sites, as if saturating them with flesh and blood. Ethnography and archeology are the source study basis for this study.

In characterizing the primitive community of hunters and gatherers - one of the earliest forms of social organization that has survived to this day and is accessible to direct observation - I do not use the division of primitive pre-agricultural societies into higher and lower hunters and gatherers, which is somewhat widespread, because such a division ignores the fundamental similarity of their community organizations. Of course, not all the peoples whose communities my work is devoted to are at the same level of social and cultural development. Some, such as the Californian Indians, with the similarity of their communal structure with the structures of other peoples, have gone further in the development of other social institutions. But taken together, they are all at the earliest of the currently existing stages of the primitive communal formation. A comprehensive study of these peoples sheds light on the culture and socio-economic relations in the era of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and early, pre-agricultural Neolithic. For all these peoples, the community is a universal cell of the social structure. Archaeological materials allow us to say that in ancient times the community occupied a similar place.

What explains this?

The primitive pre-agricultural community is the earliest stage of community development known to science.. The universality of the community organization at this level of development of society is connected with its vital necessity for society as a whole (its preservation and stability in difficult natural conditions) and for each member individually. The technical equipment of society is too low, and the dependence on natural conditions is too great for a person to be able to fight for existence without uniting with other people. Moreover, people “cannot produce without uniting in a certain way for joint activity and for the mutual exchange of their activity. In order to produce, people enter into certain connections and relations, and only within the framework of these social connections and relations does their relation to nature exist, does production take place. In addition, people by their very nature were and remain social beings. The primitive community is a naturally formed collective that arose simultaneously with the emergence of human society itself, with the emergence of production, it is a form of organizing the joint economy of primitive society, the leading production team of primitive society. Therefore, the entire corresponding formation with good reason can be called primitive communal. The primitive community determines the socio-economic appearance of this formation.

A socio-economic formation is a historically defined stage of social development with its own special mode of production, its own historical type of social relations. And since the main production team, the focus of socio-economic relations of primitive society throughout its history was the community, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the main content of the development of the primitive communal formation is the development of the primitive community, and the mode of production inherent in this formation is the primitive communal mode of production.

Primitive hunters and gatherers still live in different socio-historical and natural-geographical conditions, in accordance with which they are forced to build, and, if necessary, rebuild their social life and culture. Their social organization is characterized by flexibility, mobility, adaptability, no matter how it contradicts the widespread ideas of primitiveness. Otherwise, primitive society would not have been able to survive the sharp changes in climatic conditions in the Pleistocene and Holocene, to populate new continents. All this was further complicated by the extreme disunity of the population.

The model of the community proposed in this book as a relatively stable social institution and as a set of mobile economic groups that change their composition and size is the optimal form of social adaptation; the latter allowed human society to survive and develop almost all ecological zones of the globe. It was created by society at its very beginning, and then changed and improved throughout the history of primitiveness. Calling the community the optimal form of social adaptation, I have in mind only the leading trend. The opportunities for adaptation inherent in the community cannot be realized in each individual case.

The primitive community is a form of social adaptation to environmental conditions, both natural and social. This is the most dynamic organization of the most primitive society. The plasticity and mobility of the primitive pre-agricultural community - that is the reason for the extraordinary stability of this institution. It is thanks to these properties that the community gave the primitive society the opportunity to survive in the most unfavorable environmental conditions, in demographic crisis situations, to survive wars, epidemics, famine and other shocks, these properties made the community the leading social form of the primitive communal system.

Making the assumption that the community arose simultaneously with the emergence of human society itself, that the primitive community was the first and main form of human community, I am guided by the principle of historical and materialistic monism, which affirms the genetic primacy of material production activity and, accordingly, those structural units of society, those social institutions in which this activity was carried out. After all, the community as a “primitive type of cooperative or collective production”, as an expression of the low level of development of the productive forces and, as a result, the weakness of the individual, was the most natural form of social life of people at the dawn of their history. Moreover, it was the only possible form of their existence.

At the same time, an economy based on hunting and gathering set ecologically determined limits to the numerical growth of primitive collectives. The community is a form of social adaptation of the primitive collective not only to the environment, but also to the conditions of activity, primarily hunting, associated with obtaining food. An analysis of modern primitive social structures shows that the community is their key socio-economic institution, and we have no reason - either factual or theoretical - to assume that it has ever been otherwise. Only the forms of the community changed, but the community itself as a social institution retained its significance throughout the history of primitive society, its leading socio-economic role. The community is, as it were, an elementary cell of a primitive social organism; other elements of the social structure are formed from it. Just as a single-celled organism is the basis of more complex biological forms, the community is the basis for the development of more complex (and sometimes simpler, such as a simple family) social forms.

In whatever conditions primitive pre-agricultural societies may develop, the principles of their organization are universal.

They are characterized, firstly, by adaptability and plasticity, as evidenced by their adaptability to changing conditions, and secondly, by the presence of a primary, universal, adaptive dynamic system, the main, initial link of which is the community (the dynamism of this system is expressed in the ability to develop and transformation, on its basis the transition to higher levels of socio-economic development is carried out), thirdly, basic and superstructural phenomena that apply to all social institutions, but not evenly: basic, socio-economic phenomena are characteristic of the community to the greatest extent.

The components of primitive cultures form two large blocks. The first is characterized by the infinite variability of the elements of material and spiritual culture, the second, on the contrary, by uniformity. It is characterized by basic, socio-economic features. In other words, there is an unlimited number of cultures and a limited number of socio-economic structures. In the dialectical combination of these two blocks - the unity and at the same time the diversity of primitive society as a socio-cultural whole. Traditional societies of hunters and gatherers, which developed in different geographic and ethnic environments, are the same in almost everything that concerns the socio-economic foundations of their existence, and sometimes deeply different in many other respects. One can imagine primitive societies in which certain socio-ideological institutions, certain components of material or spiritual culture take on the most varied appearance, and sometimes are completely absent (and such societies do exist), but there is no and cannot be a primitive society without a community of the same type in its main features as a leading socio-economic institution.

If we consider the modern pre-agricultural community as a social institution that has gone through a long path of development, then it turns out that the lower levels are integrated by it; their genesis is, as it were, hidden in a higher type of organization and can be "extracted" from it. This methodological principle was formulated by K. Marx: “Categories expressing it (bourgeois society. - VC.) relations, an understanding of its organization, at the same time make it possible to penetrate into the organization and production relations of all obsolete social forms, from the fragments and elements of which it is built, partly continuing to drag behind it still unsurmounted remnants, partly developing to its full value what was previously there only in the form of a hint ... Human anatomy is the key to the anatomy of a monkey ... Hints of a higher one in lower animal species can only be understood if this higher one is already known. These words contain the essence of the retrospective method of social cognition, through which the unknown past is known through the known present, the cause - by its effect. This method makes it possible to judge the socio-economic structures of bygone historical epochs by their elements, preserved and developed by modern societies. It should not, K. Marx warns, discredit this method, leveling historical differences, identifying past forms with existing ones. Nor should the retrospective method be confused with the evolutionary survival method.

So, knowledge of the essence and origin of an object must begin with an analysis of the phase in which its potential capabilities and leading features are most fully manifested. The study of an already formed object clarifies its past, which is preserved, as it were, in a latent state. “Ignorance of the past inevitably leads to a misunderstanding of the present. But, perhaps, attempts to understand the past are just as futile if you do not imagine the present. This principle can also be used as the basis for the study of the origin and history of the primitive community, and the analysis should begin with the pre-agricultural community as it has come down to us and is attested by ethnography, that is, with the primitive pre-agricultural community in its most mature form.

The primitive community is based on collective ownership of land, which acts as the main condition and means of production, the source of all material resources, which are the basis for the existence of the community. Members of the primitive community treat the land “as the property of a collective, moreover, a collective that produces and reproduces itself in living labor. Each individual person is the owner or possessor only as a link in this collective, as its member. Public ownership of land and natural resources is the result of the natural unity of the producer and the conditions of production. There is also personal ownership of the objects in which the labor of the individual is invested, and hence also of the instruments of labor made by him. Communal ownership of land should not be absolutized, since in fact communities often earn their livelihood in other parts of the tribal territory. Communities sometimes do not have a fixed connection with a certain territory, but even in these cases they treat the land as their own property - after all, it is not the land that is appropriated, but the natural products of the land. “The attitude to land as property is always mediated by the seizure (peaceful or violent) of land by a tribe, a community that has a more or less naturally formed or already historically developed form.” The community, as a naturally formed form in which society arises, mediates the relation of the individual to the earth. It transforms the appropriation of land as a prerequisite for production into communal ownership of the land.

The first, earliest form of property is the relation of the emerging society to the natural condition of production, to the land. And if society arose in the form of a community, then it can be argued that collective production, even at this initial stage of its development, was based on ownership of the natural resources of the territory that the community developed, on communal property.

The study of the primitive community is connected with the study of the primitive economy. Without studying economics, it is impossible to understand the formation and development of the primitive communal formation itself. This study is complicated by the inseparability of basic and superstructural phenomena, which is characteristic of all pre-capitalist formations, but especially primitive communal ones. This is due to the specifics of industrial relations, the predominance of personal relations. And yet, despite the peculiarity of economic relations in the era of primitiveness, its inherent syncretism, which closely links both in real life and in the perception of people the sphere of production with non-economic forms of activity, the most general categories of economic science are abstract labor and working time, production and consumption, division of labor and exchange of activity - remain the instrument of scientific knowledge and primitive economy. These objective economic categories and concepts retain their methodological significance for the analysis of the primitive economy, despite the fact that, for example, working time, and the entire production process, is estimated by primitive man differently than people at higher levels of socio-economic development do. and the expenditure of labor in a product is measured not by socially necessary average labor, as under the operation of the law of value, but by the direct labor expended on it. All of the above applies to the category of property. The primitive community, which is characterized by a natural unity with objective, naturally formed conditions of production, acts, according to Marx, as "the first great productive force", and this unity itself - as a "special form of property".

Property is the appropriation by people of objects of nature or products of culture within and through a certain social form. Relations between people in the process of this appropriation constitute the content of the concept of "property". Primitive communal property is an objective relationship that develops within a primitive community. But it is perceived by people subjectively; with the formation of a tribal organization, they view it through the prism of the latter. This is one of the reasons why communal property sometimes appears in people's minds as tribal property. Such a subjective perception of property relations does not exclude, of course, that as the genus develops, it, in the person of some of its members, may become the actual subject of property, but this process is not necessary, moreover, it leads to a violation of economic and social equality within the primitive communities - one of its most important principles

Objective economic relations within the community find a diverse, often contradictory, normative expression. It is necessary, however, to distinguish between the economic relations of property and their ideological expression.

Formal tribal ownership of land does not yet testify to the actual economic ownership of the clan to land and natural resources. Nor does it indicate that in the past the clan was an economic institution.

When they talk about a primitive or tribal community, they often confuse it with a clan, identifying the concepts of "clan" and "community", and this is a mistake. In order to correctly understand the problem of the relationship between the primitive community (Greek demos) and the clan (Greek genos), it is necessary to understand the essence of both forms of social organization. The most important features of the genus are descent from a common ancestor, or consanguinity, and exogamy, that is, the prohibition to marry within the genus. The genus, therefore, does not and cannot consist of families. The discovery of this property of the genus belongs to L. G. Morgan. According to F. Engels, Morgan thus revealed the essence of the family. Meanwhile, the community in its historically attested forms always consists of families and for this reason alone cannot be identified with the clan. All types of primitive communities known to science are constituted on relations of consanguinity and property, that is, kinship by marriage, and also, as numerous facts show, on relations that are not at all based on kinship ties. Members of the community, husbands and their wives, are not blood relatives, they are descended from different ancestors and belong to different clans. True, exogamy can also be characteristic of a community; moreover, historically communal exogamy preceded clan exogamy, just as the community preceded the clan. Communal exogamy appeared before the emergence of generic exogamy and probably served as the basis for the latter. But communal exogamy is not absolute and is not an obligatory sign of a community. The peculiarity of communal exogamy lies in the fact that it prohibits marriage within the community, despite the fact that the latter consists not only of blood relatives, but also of strangers. In this, communal exogamy differs from tribal exogamy, which, according to Engels, is "a negative expression of that very definite blood relationship, by virtue of which the individuals united by it only become a clan." The emergence of the institute of exogamy is due not only to the desire to avoid the biologically harmful consequences of incest, as is sometimes thought, but also to non-biological, social goals - primarily the need to strengthen intercommunal ties.

Genus is an exogamous group of persons united by consanguineous, socially institutionalized ties; the community in its historically attested forms is a relatively stable association of families, representatives of at least two genera. The community primarily pursues economic goals, the genus as a whole does not, in different eras and under different conditions, its members could perform only certain economic functions. Part of the clan - all married women or all married men - leaves by virtue of the law of exogamy to other tribal communities, joins other clans and thus ceases to directly participate in the economic activity of their own clan; a community consisting of families, unlike a clan, is a single socio-economic collective. The significance of the genus, especially in the comparatively late stages of its development, is great. Formed on the basis of the community, the genus then itself acts as a socially organizing and regulating institution. But the origin and place of this and that form of social organization are different, and their functions are also different in many respects.

What is meant by the institutionalization of family ties? Objective consanguinity, by virtue of which an exogamous group becomes a genus, must pass through the collective consciousness and be embodied in social institutions (the prohibition of marriage between members of the genus, tribal mutual assistance, tribal rites and cults, including the cult of ancestors, mythical or real, the idea of ​​a mystical , totemic or other connection between members of the genus), in the concept of the genus as a social community of a special type, in the appropriate term, in the custom of adoption, that is, acceptance into the genus, etc. It can find expression in the connection of the genus with a certain territory, with tribal sanctuaries on it, in the idea of ​​special beings-patrons of the clan who lived on this territory, etc. Of course, not all of these institutions and ideas exist simultaneously, but in some form the institutionalization and ideologization of the clan always exist, and this makes it a social institution. It is necessary to distinguish between objective connections and their subjective refraction in people's minds. Blood relations exist objectively, social relations are constructed by society itself on the basis of blood relations or even independently of them.

Why is the genus, not being an economic community, nevertheless sometimes considered the owner of the communal land? The answer to this question is contained in the institutionalization of the genus. Having arisen and taking shape as a social institution, the genus, as noted above, itself acts as a socially organizing and regulating mechanism. In the person of its localized part, it assumes some of the functions of the community, including economic ones. This, however, is not a necessary condition for the idea of ​​tribal ownership of land to appear. I have already said that the objective, real-life communal ownership of land with the advent of a tribal organization can be subjectively perceived by people as tribal property. Social psychology generally tends to perceive objective, real relations through the prism of ideological and institutionalized layers. And in this case, it is necessary to distinguish between objective connections and their subjective refraction in the public consciousness. The idea of ​​the clan as the owner of the land is not a relic of the time when the clan was allegedly the actual owner of the land, but a new formation, a product of the development and strengthening of the clan as a social institution. It could arise only after the tribal organization had already stabilized, that is, relatively late. Not every phenomenon that seems to contradict the logical system of other phenomena is a relic of past eras. On the contrary, it may arise in the process of formalizing a new system of relations.

Researchers often confuse the ideological attitude of the clan to the territory where totemic sanctuaries are located, the mythical patrons of the clan live, with land ownership in the economic sense, the subject of which the clan as a whole never acts and never acted in the past. This happens, perhaps, because the members of the tribal community themselves often do not distinguish between the ideological attitude to the land and the economic content of ownership of the land. To the question: “Whose land is this?” they answer: “So-and-so.” An inaccurate question is followed by an inaccurate answer. However, these phenomena are different in origin and in essence.

In local tribal communities, all members of which, with the exception of wives or husbands who came from other tribal communities, belong to the same genus (I call such a genus localized), relatives make up the majority.

This circumstance could also give rise to the idea of ​​tribal ownership of the land of the community. But this is an illusory representation, since the community as a whole remains the real subject of economic relations, including property relations. One cannot exclude people who have joined it from other communities, but do not belong to a localized genus, because these people take an active and equal part in the production and appropriation of the social product. How else is the ownership of the fishing territory and its resources expressed in the primitive community? If people who joined the community were deprived of the right, on an equal basis with other members of the community, to economically develop the land of the community and its resources, this would mean, as mentioned above, a violation of economic and social equality within the community, the existence of an economically privileged group within it. In the era of the flourishing of the communal-tribal system, such relations have not yet become widespread. It must be said that local tribal communities are by no means the only type of communities characteristic of this era. Along with them, there are heterogeneous communities consisting of representatives of several clans (in addition to wives and husbands), and all these people, like members of local tribal communities (including wives and husbands who came from other clans), are fully integrated by their communities. This indicates that not the genus and not the localized part of the genus, but the community as a whole is a single socio-economic collective and, therefore, the leading socio-economic unit of primitive society.

What should be understood by the economic unity of the primitive society? First, joint labor, joint management of the economy, some form of division of labor and exchange of activities. Secondly, common ownership of the main means of production - the land. Thirdly, the collective distribution of the products of labor. But is it possible to speak of the economic unity of the genus?

For example, due to tribal exogamy, part of the members of clan A goes to clan B, where she lives and works. As a rule, it is not necessary to talk about a joint pile, joint housekeeping of all representatives of the genus. True, one can recall the custom of tribal mutual assistance, when relatives belonging to different communities help each other in everyday affairs, participate in joint work, rituals, etc. But, as a rule, members of the same clan who have gone to other communities by marriage working in different communities. Does a member of genus A who has gone to genus B retain ownership of the means of production of his genus, say land? Nominally yes. Returning to his family, he can again claim his land. After all, the genus often makes claims to a certain territory - the only question is whether this phenomenon can be considered as economic in its content. After all, even if the clan is the nominal owner of the land, its actual owner is the clan community, which includes people from other clans and other communities. A member of clan A has the same economic right to the hunting-gathering grounds, to the land of the community into which he has merged, and to its products, as those who belong to this community by birth and work on this land. And what other property right - in the economic sense of the word - can we talk about in a primitive society?

In fact, a member of the clan loses this right if he does not work on the land of his own clan, because, according to F. Engels, “property obtained by one’s own labor” is characteristic of a clan society, and only such property is recognized by society.

Having left his tribal community, a member of the clan, as a rule, ceases to participate in the distribution of products created by members of his clan. Thus, the economic unity of the whole species does not really exist. All those signs that allow us to talk about the economic unity of the primitive society are characteristic not of the clan, but of the community.

Is there any reason to consider as an exception to the rule such forms of joining a wife or husband to the clan of a marriage partner, as a result of which both of them are considered by society as members of the same clan? Some peoples have these comparatively late forms of tribal organization. But we should not forget that although the husband and wife are in the eyes of society representatives of the same clan, in reality they come from different clans and are not related by blood. Scientific accuracy and objectivity require us to consider them as representatives of different genera. The belonging of a husband and wife to the same clan is conditional, subjective, because the society in which the spouses live, and they themselves, think so. Science is guided by other criteria.

Based on the fact that exogamy is a sign that expresses the essence of the clan, that families in the presence of a clan organization unite representatives of different clans, it can be concluded that the leading function of the clan, no matter how the forms of clan organization develop and change, is the regulation of family and marriage relations. This most important function, apparently, was the root cause of the formation of the genus. This social institution in the process of development of the tribal organization can perform other functions, but they are secondary and derivative. Both in terms of its functions and its structure, the primitive community is ideally adapted to obtaining means of subsistence in a changing ecological environment, to interacting with this environment, to reproducing itself in this environment. Tribal and communal structures are fundamentally different forms of social organization.

Ethnographers are familiar with primitive pre-agricultural societies where there is no tribal organization at all - it has either disappeared or has not yet taken shape. The fact that such societies are also characterized by a communal organization indicates the primacy of this institution and its significance in the life of primitive mankind. After all, before a clan organization arose, a community must already have existed - such a form of organization of primitive society, without which its very existence is unthinkable. The formation of a clan is possible only on the basis of a community as the initial form of organization of a primitive society, moreover, a community that has entered into regular marital relations with another or other communities.

Recognition of the community as the main socio-economic unit of primitive society, the institution within which the tribal organization functions, of course, does not detract from the importance of the latter. It is only necessary to find out the true relationship between these institutions, to understand their social functions, their role and place in the life of the social whole.

The community is a microcosm of primitive man. It mediates his attitude not only to the earth, to nature in general, but also to social and ideological institutions. In the community or through the community passes the whole life of primitive man. Being a collection of families, it performs the functions of not only the production of means of subsistence, but also reproduction, the continuation of life itself. The latter should not be understood in a purely biological sense - the community "produces" a person not only as a biological, but also as a social being, his socialization takes place in the community. All this makes it the center of social life, the main spheres of life of primitive society are concentrated in it.

In primitive society, material production and the reproduction of society itself are two sides of a single process, and the latter is in close, dialectical connection with the development of the productive forces. When the biologically determined ties that still dominate society cease to give sufficient scope for the development of productive forces, they more and more adapt to the needs of developing production, which begins to dominate more and more clearly. And this process, of course, is outlined very early, simultaneously with the emergence of social production itself.

So, clan and community never completely coincide, only their convergence of varying degrees is observed. In the presence of a tribal organization, the community consists of representatives of different (at least two) clans, interconnected by family and marriage relations. These relationships can be built in different ways. As a rule, the husband goes to the wife's community (uxoriolocal marriage) or the wife goes to the husband's community (virilocal marriage). Marriage can also be avunculo-local (settlement of a married couple in the community of the husband's mother's brother), ambilocal (settlement of a married couple in the community of either the wife or husband), or neo-local (foundation of a new community). Dislocal marriage, in which the husband and wife remain in their own communities, is very rare and completely uncharacteristic of hunter-gatherers.

The community is in a complex dialectical unity with such forms of social organization as clan, family, economic group, tribe, with various social and industrial groupings inside and outside the community, but it is not identical to them. This is evidenced by ethnography dealing with the primitive pre-agricultural community in its developed state, and we have no reason to believe that anything fundamentally changed in this respect in the past, despite the evolution of the communal organization itself.

The principle of historicism, one of the most important methodological principles in the study of the history of social forms, underlies this work. The primitive communal formation, like other eras in the history of human society, was characterized by its own internal dynamics. With the development of society, the forms of community organization also changed. The idea that the community organization developed historically and that this development reflected the internal logic of the development of the corresponding social formations is one of the fundamental ideas of this study.

Despite the fact that world ethnographic literature has accumulated extensive specific material characterizing the pre-agricultural community among various peoples of the world, this most important institution of primitive society for a very long time fell out of sight of the authors of general theoretical works. It began to attract special attention only in recent decades in connection with an ever deeper study of the foundations of the social life of primitive peoples, with an ever-increasing interest in the study of socio-economic relations, although even now this leading socio-economic unit of primitiveness has been studied worse than other social institutions of the era.

A historiographical review of the literature on the community is beyond the scope of this study. On the pages of this book, the reader will find references to specific and generalizing theoretical works, and, where necessary, their critical analysis. However, the contribution of American scientists to the study of the primitive community must be specially mentioned. Their research marked the beginning of one of the modern trends in the development of American and then world ethnography. Let us dwell in more detail on the works of J. Steward, the author of the concept of cultural ecology and the theory of multilinear evolution. In his opinion, hunters and gatherers build their social institutions in accordance with the characteristics of the means of subsistence they obtain. Thus, hunting animals that move in large herds, such as bison or caribou, forces people to maintain large, strong associations throughout the year. But if the animals do not migrate and are scattered in small packs, people prefer to hunt in small groups or alone. Accordingly, the structure of communities also changes: in the first case, these are mobile multi-family associations, typical, for example, for the Athabaskans and Algonquins of Canada, in the second, small localized patrilineal communities. The structure of the latter is the same, despite the differences in the natural environment: the Bushmen, Australians and Indians of Southern California live in deserts and semi-deserts, the pygmies of Central Africa live in tropical forests, and the Indians of Tierra del Fuego live on mountainous, forested islands with a cold and rainy climate. According to J. Steward, the whole point is that they have to adapt their social institutions to the characteristics of the food they get. So, the Eskimos are forced to settle in separate families, because the collective obtaining of food in such conditions is ineffective. But the same character of settlement is also characteristic of the Shoshone of Nevada, who live in a completely different ecological environment: here this is due to the fact that hunting prey is rare and plant products predominate in the diet. However, if in his early works, J. Steward considered the Shoshone family as a self-sustaining and autonomous unity, then in later works he recognized that among hunters and gatherers, individual families tend to unite into permanent communities - communities.

Without going into a discussion of Steward's theoretical views as a whole, I will only note the one-sidedness and narrowness of such a factor as the characteristics of food obtained by hunters and gatherers. This factor really plays an important role, but, as will be shown below, it is not the only factor that determines the structure of primitive communities. The typology of hunter-gatherer communities is characterized by limitation and schematism: multi-family and strong, but mobile in some cases, localized, but tending to break up into separate families - in others. According to Steward, the technological equipment of primitive societies is the same, while their social structures are diverse due to ecological differences. In my opinion, on the contrary, the cultures of primitive pre-agricultural societies living in different ecological and historical conditions reflect these differences, while their socio-economic structures are basically the same, and this fundamental unity is a natural expression of their stadial closeness.

At the same time, one should pay tribute to Steward, who pointed out the structural similarity of many, although by no means all, pre-agricultural societies living in different natural and ethnic environments, although the totality of the socio-economic conditions underlying the unity and diversity of hunting-gathering communities, remained unidentified. Many of Steward's views were revised and rejected in the light of later studies, but in their time they had a great stimulating effect on the study of the primitive community.

Primitive society has a large reserve of internal opportunities for development; despite its apparent conservatism and stagnation, it actively adapts to changing conditions, giving rise to a variety of social forms, which is the key to its progress. Some of these forms, characteristic of certain groups of primitive mankind, probably did not survive to our days at all, and we can judge them only from indirect archaeological data.

The statement of another American theorist, E. Service, that some types of communities among modern hunters and gatherers - patrilocal, or virilocal, strictly exogamous - existed from the deepest antiquity, while others, in which the listed signs are absent, appeared only under the influence of European colonization, is of little evidence. . Of course, when faced with colonization, primitive society sometimes undergoes far-reaching changes, but in each case they must be the object of careful and comprehensive study. It is impossible to attribute only to the influence of colonization or neighboring, higher civilizations the emergence of social forms that do not fit into the a priori schemes of social development. The views of Service, as well as other theorists prone to abstract schematism, are negatively affected, in particular, by inattention to environmental and demographic factors that directly affect primitive society and model its structure. The more complex ecological situation a society finds itself in, the more freedom it needs from the restrictions imposed by the customs and traditions of locality, land ownership, etc., the more mobility and dynamism it needs. Under favorable conditions, society forms relatively more stable social forms. The model of the community as a relatively stable community, which at the same time has internal dynamics, which manifests itself in the course of the development of the territory and active adaptation to environmental conditions, in the diverse recombinations of economic groups, is, as will be shown below, the most capacious and corresponds to the largest number of specific cases. By virtue of its universality, it is original and organically characteristic of primitive society.

More and more researchers differentiate tribal and communal structures, closely related, but different in their origin and functions, single out the community as an independent socio-economic community that deserves special study.

Paying tribute to the merits of foreign researchers in studying the economy of primitive society and the primitive community, I would like to specifically mention the Russian scientist N. I. Ziber, whose book “Essays on primitive economic culture”, published in 1899, made a great contribution to the study of production relations in society. With amazing insight, Sieber was able to discern the economic foundations of the communal-tribal organization: “The communal-tribal organization has its own economic raison d" etre, even more, it is primarily an economic, and then a tribal organization. Without separating labor and consumption of individual groups of the population associated for this goal by well-known collective works, no tribal system would be possible ... It is not the clan that creates the community, but the community creates the clan ". Sieber, perhaps, was the first to raise the problem of the priority of the communal organization, the emergence of the clan on the basis of the community. Another pre-revolutionary researcher - A. N. Maksimov Based on the analysis of ethnographic materials from all parts of the world, he concluded that the tribal organization arose from the territorial organization (by the latter Maksimov understood the community organization) and on its basis.

In this book, the primitive pre-agricultural community is studied in connection with other social institutions of primitive society among peoples in whom it is still preserved and accessible to comparative analysis. The study is based on the comparative ethnographic method, which makes it possible to identify similar social phenomena and forms in an endless variety of ethnographic facts, to compare and typify them. I am not trying to cover all the specific material, but limit myself to only a number of local ethnographic types that characterize the traditional community of hunters and gatherers among peoples with different historical fates, living on different continents, in different natural geographic environments and in different social and ethnic environments. These peoples, due to certain historical conditions, managed to preserve the traditional foundations of social life to a large extent. Therefore, the types of communities considered in the book are representative as local variants of the primitive pre-agricultural community, which is confirmed by a historical analysis of the conditions of their existence and their inherent universal features. In addition, the peoples in question, for the most part, are quite well studied. This explains the choice of certain ethnographic types. The work analyzes the communal structures of only foreign peoples, the size of the community, its functions, property relations and territoriality, the annual cycle, the system of internal relations, etc.

Generalization and theoretical understanding of the materials involved make it possible to see deep, natural connections behind the external diversity of social and cultural phenomena, to identify the universal features inherent in the primitive pre-agricultural community, no matter in what specific spatio-temporal conditions it may be. This makes it possible, to some extent, to characterize the stages of development of the pre-agricultural community, which are known only from archaeological sites. I also tried to trace how an appropriating economy turns into a productive one, and a primitive pre-agricultural community into an early agricultural one. The analysis of this process naturally completes the work.

The diversity of historical development is associated with the peculiarities and differences in the emergence of social life in various regions of the Earth. Its occurrence was influenced by climatic and geographical conditions, the position of the regions. The different speed of social development led to the uneven pace of the historical formation of different peoples. All peoples had common starting point of development - primitive, or primitive, society . But even at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, peoples reached its different levels, which was due to various reasons.

In any case, even today our planet is inhabited by tribes living in the conditions of a primitive society. Many peoples have achieved significant progress in economic, socio-political and cultural development and live in a civilized society. However, the development of mankind "from barbarism to civilization," believes B. Tylor, "left behind many such qualities of a barbaric character, which educated people of modern times remember with regret and which they strive to achieve again with their helpless attempts to stop the course of history and restore the past in modern times. environment".

Primitive society - the first form of being of human society and correspondingly, - the first stage of its historical development . Apparently, this form of human activity was characterized by collectivism in the name of ensuring living conditions and the relative social equality of members of society.

The question of the time of the formation of the first or the first primitive human society remains debatable. If we leave aside the theory of the divine or cosmic origin of man, then at least one thing remains indisputable - earliest period in human history lasting several million years has begun from the transition from the biological form of the development of matter to the social, that is from the period of formation of distant ancestors of man . forming people, which include archanthropes and paleanthropes, lived in a society that is commonly called the primitive human herd, or pra-society (proto-community). According to archaeological periodization - This is the early Paleolithic . On the verge of the early and late Paleolithic, approximately 40-35 thousand years ago, anthropogenesis ends , A pra-society through evolution is transformed into human society .

There is no single point of view about the place of the pra-society in primitive society. Some scientists include pra-society in the primitive one as the first stage of its development. Others consider this approach unjustified and understand the period from the end of anthropogenesis to the beginning of the formation of classes (estates) and the state as a primitive society. According to archaeological periodization, this is the late Paleolithic, Mesolithic and partly Neolithic.

In the development of primitive society, two stages (periods) are quite clearly traced:

1) stage early primitive community or, as it is sometimes called in literature, the primitive commune;

2) stage late primitive community .

At the primitive stage of development, people created tools from stone, bone, horn, wood, and possibly other natural materials, but they still did not know how to produce food. Gathering and hunting, and later fishing, were the main ways of obtaining funds to ensure life. The excess product was either extremely small, or it was not possible to extract it. Most likely, the community of people created no more product, or not much more, than it was required for the physical existence of all its members. This type (or method) of farming is often referred to as appropriating .

Under the conditions of appropriating economy, there most likely existed common ownership of the means of production and consumer goods, especially food, which was distributed among members of society, regardless of participation or non-participation in its production. This distribution is usually called egalitarian . Its essence lies in the fact that a member of the team had the right to a part of the product received solely by virtue of belonging to this community. However, the size of the share apparently depended on the volume of the product received or extracted and on the needs of the community members.

It can be assumed that the distribution of the product was carried out differentially (the main recipients of the product are hunters, gatherers of fruits and other edible products, women, children, and the elderly) and taking into account needs. Although the need in the conditions of primitive society, obviously, was purely conditional. Sometimes the distribution method is called distribution method "according to needs" , and the primitive social organism - "commune" .

Having begun to work consciously, a person was forced to keep records of production, the results of labor, and the creation of "warehouse stocks". As man developed, the process of accumulating knowledge went on - he began to take into account time, the change of seasons, the movement of the nearest celestial bodies (Sun, Moon, stars). In all likelihood, members of the society (community) began to appear who were able to keep records and conditions were created for them for such activities, since accounting helped maintain order and made it possible to survive.

Based on the accumulated knowledge, in all likelihood, it was already possible to make the first primitive but necessary forecasts for survival: when to start making supplies, how and how long to store them, when to start using them, when and where you can and should migrate, etc. d. At the same time, probably, accounting for real perceived objects, planning and organization of labor activity, distribution of products and tools of labor appeared. The appearance of surplus products could lead to an exchange, which could be carried out either as an exchange of a natural product for a natural product, or with the use of an exchange equivalent (decorations, shells, tools - of natural origin and man-made).

Accounting required record keeping. They could be notches, notches discovered by archaeologists. The primitive "documents" that record the score suggest that the marks left have a certain significance, since there are different styles of them - lines (straight, wavy, arcuate), dots. Ancient carriers of information received from archaeologists the generalized name of the tag. The appearance of accounting options can be attributed to the prehistoric period, in which color, the shape of the sign, and its length mattered. The Incas used a system of multi-colored cords for this (simple cords were connected into more complex ones), the Chinese used knots.

This is how the economy developed in primitive societies. There was no system for collecting, processing, analyzing accounting yet. They will appear later - in ancient Eastern civilizations.

The primitive association of people initially completely coincided with the maternal clan. Due to the exogamy characteristic of the communal-tribal system, the genus could not exist without connection with another genus, which led to the emergence of a pair marriage and a paired family, but still unstable. The joint settlement of the spouses led to the fact that the new association of people ceased to coincide with the genus.

Pair marriage, apparently, began to form among the oldest fossil people . Kinship begins to take shape along a certain line, incest (incest, i.e. marriages between parents and children) is prohibited, which ultimately leads to the social regulation of marriage, the emergence of a clan and a family.

Now the community began to include people belonging to a different genus. Nevertheless, the determining role in each community was played by one specific genus, and in this sense the community continued to remain tribal, for the most part maternal. As for modern man, he is the result of the transition from the communal community to the dual organization of the community. The tribe consisted of two clans, and marriages were made between women and men who belonged to different clans.

The appearance of the dual organization of the tribe, apparently, was associated with matriarchy, which was characterized by the dominant position of a woman. In the public consciousness and ritual rites, matriarchy was reflected in the cult of the mother goddess and other female deities. The woman became a symbol of procreation and fertility. The assertion of a woman at the head of the clan and the priority of women's types of labor led to a change in worldview. The dualism of the tribe was reflected in the dual perception of the world - the dualism of heaven and earth. Moreover, mother earth was a priority.

During the Late Paleolithic, a kind of social innovation – exclusion from marriage of close relatives . All the changes that take place can be described as Paleolithic revolution (although in nature and timing, it was certainly an evolutionary leap that took a long period of time, and the concept of "revolution" is used as a term denoting a fundamental qualitative change).

The development of agriculture led society to another important phenomenon - the Neolithic revolution. From about the 9th millennium BC. in the Middle East begins transition to a productive economy, which can be called the Neolithic revolution . On the European continent, the first traces of a producing economy date back to the turn of the 7th-6th millennium BC. (in the south of the Balkan Peninsula). In the VI-III millennium BC. the appropriating economy was replaced by the producing one .

The first division of labor was outlined - agriculture and cattle breeding; crafts appear (spinning, weaving, pottery). The development of cattle breeding, plow farming, metalworking, crafts raised the role of men in economic activity, in society and in the family. As a result of the increasing role of men, transition from matriarchal to patriarchal relationships . The transition from matriarchy to patriarchy entailed a reorganization of the way of life, the emergence of new traditions, norms, values ​​and value orientations. The era of patriarchy is the time of the decomposition of primitive society.

The community is gradually transforming into a system of farms that are becoming more and more isolated from each other, that is, it is turning from a primitive into a rural, neighboring one. The paired family is replaced by a monogamous one. The division of labor contributed to the development of commodity exchange, property inequality and the emergence of private property. With the emergence of the last form of property ownership and property inequality, there are opportunities to use hired and slave labor, that is, forms of exploitation and appropriation of surplus product, stratification of society, the emergence of classes (estates), which, apparently, initially differed in property, and then in social status. .

In the IV-III millennium BC. there is a transition from the Stone Age to the Eneolithic (Copper Age). Stone tools are being replaced with copper ones. Hoe farming, cattle breeding and hunting remain the main occupations. In the era of the Eneolithic in the 4th millennium BC. in the valley of the Nile River, in the interfluve of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, new forms of unification of people appear - the ancient Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations, and later, during the Bronze Age (III-II millennium BC), they arise in the valleys of the Indus and Huang He rivers Thus, in the Ancient East, so-called river civilizations appear.

The primitive communal system is the longest period in the history of human development. This is the beginning of the history of the development of social society - from the emergence of Homo sapiens (about 2 million years ago) and to the emergence of states and civilizations.

The most ancient settlements

The oldest finds of the ancestors of Homo Sapiens confirm the fact that a continuous process of human evolution took place on the lands of Eastern and Central Europe. One of the ancient burials was discovered in the Czech Republic (Przezletice). The remains of hominids found there are dated to a period of about 800 thousand years BC. e. These and other interesting finds support the hypothesis that in the Lower Paleolithic certain areas of Europe were inhabited by the ancestors of modern people.

During the Middle Paleolithic period, the birth rate of hominids increased sharply, which is consistent with a large number archaeological finds the remains of humanoid creatures that lived 150-40 thousand years ago. The excavations of this time are associated with the emergence of a new type of people - the so-called Neanderthals.

Neanderthals

Neanderthals inhabited almost the entire continental part of Europe (without northern England), the north of Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. The primitive society of those times was a small group of Neanderthals living in a large family, engaged in hunting and gathering. The ancestors of modern people used various tools, both stone and made from other natural materials, such as wood or bones of large animals.

The history of primitive society in the ice age

The last ice age began a little over 70 thousand years ago. The life of the ancestors of people has become much more complicated. The onset of cold weather completely changed the primitive society, its foundations and customs. Climate change has increased the importance of fire as a source of heat for ancient people. Some animal species have disappeared or migrated to warmer climes. This led to the fact that people needed to unite to hunt large game.

At this time, there is a driven hunt, in which a large number of people take part. In this way, Neanderthals hunted deer, cave bear, bison, mammoth and other large animals common in those days. At the same time, the development of primitive society extends to the first reproductive methods of economic activity - agriculture and animal husbandry.

Cro-Magnons

The process of anthropogenesis ended approximately 40 thousand years ago. A man of the modern type was formed and a tribal community was organized. The type of person who replaced the Neanderthals was called the Cro-Magnon. He differed from the Neanderthals in growth, and a large brain volume. The main occupation is hunting.

The Cro-Magnons lived in small caves, grottoes, structures built from the bones of mammoths. The high level of social organization of these people is proved by numerous cave and rock paintings, sculptures for religious purposes, ornaments on tools of labor and hunting.

In the era of the Upper Paleolithic in the center and in the east of Europe, tools were constantly improved. Some archaeological cultures that exist simultaneously for a long time are isolated. During this period, a person invents arrows and a bow.

tribal community

In the era of the Upper and Middle Paleolithic, a new type of organization of people appears - the tribal community. Its essential features are ritual forms of self-government and common ownership of tools.

Basically, the tribal community consisted of hunter-gatherers who united in associations of families connected by living conditions, family kinship, and common hunting grounds.

spiritual culture primitive society in this era represented the beginnings of animism and totemism associated with the cult of fertility and the magic of hunting. Preserved drawings carved on stone or painted in caves. The primitive society left to the descendants a legacy of talented nameless artists, whose drawings we can observe in Kapova cave in the Urals or in the Altamira cave in Spain. These primitive paintings laid the foundation for the development of art in later eras.

Mesolithic era

The history of primitive society changes with the end of the ice age (10-7 thousand years ago). This event led to a forced change in the social development of the primitive community. It began to number about a hundred people; covered a certain territory, which was engaged in fishing, hunting, gathering.

In the same era, primitive society gives birth to a tribe - an ethnic community of people with the same linguistic and cultural traditions. In the middle of such communities, the first governing bodies are formed. Power in a primitive society passes into the hands of the elders, who make decisions about resettlement, the construction of huts, the organization of collective hunting, and so on.

In wartime, power could pass to the shaman chiefs, who played the role of the formal leaders of the tribe. The system of socialization and transfer of knowledge, skills and experience to the younger generation has become more complex. The specifics of housekeeping and new social roles led to the emergence of a paired family as the smallest unit of primitive society.

Naturally, the norms of primitive society do not allow us to talk about family relations in the modern sense of the word. Such families were of a temporary nature, their role was to perform certain collective actions or rituals. The culture of primitive society became more complex, ritualism appeared, which became the prototype of the emergence of religion. The first burials associated with the emerging belief in the afterlife date back to the same time.

The emergence of the concept of ownership

The improvement of farming and hunting tools led to a change in the worldview and social behavior of people. The nature of labor changed - specialization became possible, that is, certain people were engaged in their own areas of work. The division of labor in the community has become a necessary condition for its existence. Primitive society discovered inter-communal exchange. Pastoral tribes exchanged products with agricultural or hunting communities.

All of the above has led to a modification of the concept of "property". There is an understanding of the personal right to household items and tools. Later, the concept of ownership was transferred to land plots. The strengthening of the role of men in agriculture, the structure of communal ownership of land led to the strengthening of the power of men - patriarchy. Patriarchal relations in conjunction with the definition private property These are the first steps towards the emergence of statehood and civilization.