Driving Forces of Development of Society

Forces that promote the development of the history of society.

Historical materialism and historical idealism have given different answers to the question of the driving forces of development of society. Historical idealism resolved the driving forces of development of society into an intellectual force, holding that the development of history is pushed forward by the subjective will of men, especially by the will of a few heroes, or determined by God or the “objective spirit”. Old materialism came to a halt when it saw that people’s activities in society have their ideological motives. “It takes the ideal driving forces which operate [in history] as ultimate causes, instead of investigating what is behind them, what are the driving forces of these the driving forces”, thus old materialism relapsed into the idealist conception of history. The classical German philosopher Hegel saw that the motives of historical figures are not the ultimate cause of historical events, holding that there are also other driving forces behind such motives, but he imported this driving force into history from the philosophical ideology, holding that the absolute Idea is the only true being and the driving force of development of history.

According to historical materialism, the determining factor that pushes forward the development of the history of society is, in the last instance, the production and reproduction of actual life. Marx said: “The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life.” The contradictoriness within things is the fundamental cause of the development of things. Changes in society are chiefly due to the development of the internal contradictions in society. The contradictions between the productive forces and the relations of production and between the economic foundation and the superstructure, are the fundamental contradictions of society. The fundamental contradictions of society are the driving force of social development. In the movement of the fundamental contradictions of society, the productive forces determine the relations of production; the economic foundation determines the superstructure, which means the productive forces ultimately play the decisive part. When the productive forces develop to a certain stage and the relations of production turn from a form of development of productive forces into their fetters, an era of social revolution begins, with the changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. Social transformations are also caused by the movement of fundamental contradictions of society. As the self-improvement and self-development of the socialist system, reform is a powerful driving force of the development of socialist society.

The movement of the fundamental contradictions of society is a process of interaction among various factors. The relations of production have a reaction upon the productive forces and the superstructure has a reaction upon the economic foundation. Speaking of the economy as the only decisive element is a distortion of historical materialism. Productive forces and economic conditions are the foundation, but there are also various factors that influences the historical process, such as political superstructure and ideology. Engels said: “The whole great course of development takes place in form of interaction.” Interaction does not mean that the forces acting on both sides are equal, the economic movement being the strongest, most primeval, most decisive. Engels pointed out: “There is, rather, interaction on the basis of the economic necessity, which ultimately always asserts itself.”

Class struggle is the immediate driving force of the development of class society. In class society, the contradictions between the productive forces and the relations of production and between economic foundation and superstructure inevitably manifest themselves as class struggle. The emergence and existence of classes are connected with particular historical phases in the development of production. Class struggles turn, in the last instance, on economic interests. Class struggle inevitably develops into political struggle centered on state power. The development of class struggle inevitably leads to social revolution. Social revolution is that the advanced class overthrows the rule of the reactionary class, effects a revolution in the social formation from lower to higher, liberates the productive forces and pushes forward the development of society. Revolutions are the locomotives of history. Engels pointed out: “The ultimate cause and great driving force of all important historical events are the economic development of society, the change of mode of production and mode of exchange, the division of the resulting society into different classes, and the struggle between these classes.”

The masses are the driving force that push forward the development of the history of society. One of the chief defects of historical idealism is that it does not see the part played by the masses of people in the development of history and regards them as a passive historical factor. Historical materialism holds that historical action is the action of the masses. The masses are the subject of material productive activity, they are the creators of the material wealth of society as well as the spiritual wealth of society and the masses are the decisive driving force of social revolutions. The role played by the masses in social revolution as the main force has highlighted their great power to push history forward. Engels pointed out: when it is a question of investigating the driving powers which lie behind the motives of men who act in history and which constitute the real ultimate driving forces of history, then it is a question of those motives which set in motion great masses, whole people, and again whole classes of the people in each people, as a lasting action resulting in a great historical transformation. Mao Zedong said: “People, and the people alone, are the driving force of world history”.

Social Formation

Category of historical materialism that marks the concrete forms of existence of the history of society. The organic unity of the economic foundation and superstructure of society corresponding to a certain stage of the development of productive forces. Social formation is the general term for the economic, political and cultural system and formation at a certain stage of development of human society. Any social formation is concrete and historical. In a concrete social formation, the productive forces determine the relations of production, and the relations of production react upon the productive forces. The economic foundation, which is determined, in the last instance, by the productive forces, determines the superstructure, and the superstructure reacts upon the economic foundation. The interaction between the productive forces and the relations of production, between the economic foundation and the superstructure, forms the contradictory movement of social formations.

Marx dealt with the theory of social formations in many works such as The German Ideology, The Poverty of Philosophy, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858), Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Capital, and Letter to the Editorial Board of Otechestvenniye Zapiski [Notes on the Fatherland], Reply to V.I. Zasulich as well as the Anthropological Notebooks in his later years. In the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy Marx made an incisive exposition of the social structure and the movement of the fundamental contradictions of society, and further pointed out that, in broad outline, the Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in the economic development of society. In The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Engels elaborated the history of the newly-discovered primitive communal society in the early period of mankind, and summarized the “three great forms of servitude, characteristic of the three great epochs of civilization” after the dissolution of the primitive community: Slavery is the first form of exploitation, the form peculiar to the ancient world; it is succeeded by serfdom in the middle ages, and wage-labor in the more recent period. Engels also predicted that we would inevitably move towards a society, which will reorganize production on the basis of a free and equal association of the producers. In this way, Engels has clearly put forth the theory of five stages of development of human society. In The State, Lenin quoted and further elaborated Engels’ views in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, pointing out that there is “a general conformity to law, a regularity and consistency” that “the development of all human societies for thousands of years, in all countries without exception” has shown us. In Dialectical and Historical Materialism, Stalin outlined that there are five main types of relations of production in history: primitive communal, slave, feudal, capitalist, and socialist. Deng Xiaoping said: Feudal society replaced slave society, capitalism supplanted feudalism, and, after a long time, socialism will necessarily supersede capitalism. This is an irreversible general trend of historical development, but the road has many twists and turns. There have been five basic social formations in human society: primitive society, slave society, feudal society, capitalist society and socialist society, each of which has its own specific economic foundation and superstructure, and each of which has to undergo a historical process of emergence, development and fall. Different social formations embody different natures of society. The supersession of social formations is the result of the movement of the internal contradictions of society. The law that the relations of production must be appropriate to the state of development of the productive forces and that the superstructure must be appropriate to the state of development of the economic foundation is running through the contradictory movement of social formation There is no such thing as “society in general” and “eternal social system” as advocated by the bourgeois doctrines of the history of society. The essence of the theory of the “society in general” is to maintain of the dominance of the bourgeoisie.

The category of social formation is a generalization of the universality in concrete societies, but these concrete societies have their own particularities. A social formation has different concrete manifestations in different countries, and a concrete society belonging to the same social formation has its own characteristics. In each concrete society, in addition to the dominant economic foundation and superstructure, there are often remnants of the economic foundation and superstructure of the old social formation and the germs of the economic foundation and superstructure of the new society. When expounding the capitalist society, Lenin pointed out there is no “pure” capitalism in the world, nor can there be; what we always find is admixtures either of feudalism, philistinism, or of something else. The process of development of social formations has both unity and diversity. The development of social formations from lower to higher is the general trend of human history. However, due to the different historical and actual conditions of different nations in the world, the supersession of social formations does not undergo the same stages of development without exception. Lenin pointed out that that while the development of world history as a whole follows general laws it is by no means precluded, but, on the contrary, presumed, that certain periods of development may display peculiarities in either the form or the sequence of this development. To grasp the historical development of social formations, it is necessary to combine their universality and particularity, and the unity and diversity of the process of development.

Marx also put forth the theory of three economic formations. In A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (Manuscripts of 1857–1858), Marx divided human history into three successive economic formations of society according to the state of development man as the subject of society: society of dependence of man on man, society of objective dependence, and society of full development of man. He said that “relations of personal dependence (entirely spontaneously at the outset) are the first social forms”, “personal independence founded on dependence upon things is the second major form”, “free individuality, based on the universal development of individuals and on the subordination of their communal, social productivity as their social wealth, is the third stage”. The theory of three economic formations and the theory of five social formations distinguish social formations from different angles, and they are unified rather than opposed to each other.

Social formation is a category unique to Marxism. The theory of social formation is the core idea of historical materialism, which provides us with scientific theory and method for examining and analyzing the historical development of human society.