The neighboring community was a more complex formation than the tribal community in the primitive social organization.
We can say that the neighborhood community is a transitional stage between a tribal society and a class society. How did the neighborhood community come about?
Reasons for the formation
There were several prerequisites for the emergence of a new social formation:
- Primitive tribes grew over time, and the blood connection between their constituent clans and individual members ceased to be realized;
- The transition from hunting and gathering to pastoralism and agriculture accelerated the division of land between parts of large tribes;
- The improvement of labor tools, in particular, the appearance of metal means of cultivating the land, made it possible for individual cultivation of a plot, as opposed to group cultivation.
Thus, the transition from the tribal system to the neighboring one was an objective consequence of human development.
Was it possible to "keep" the disintegrating community?
In many philosophical systems, the separation of mankind is called one of the main social vices. In different eras, "world religions" and cultural trends tried to find a means of uniting large masses of people separated by national, religious, property and other differences. But was it possible to preserve the primitive community?
The tribal community turned into a neighboring one slowly and gradually. Even with the advent of cattle breeding and primitive agriculture, the tribes continued to live and work together: arable land and pastures were considered common property, which was processed jointly, the crop was distributed equally among the members of the community.
Inequality between people manifested biological. For example, when migrating to other places, the weakest members of the tribe remained in the old territory or did not survive at all, and when they moved, newcomers who were not relatives to the rest of the tribe joined him. Someone died on a hunt or in a war; someone could work more than the average member of the community.
Owners of increased physical and mental strength, as well as more "tricked out" tools, were not required to share the harvest and booty obtained with the help of these advantages. In a later era, living space was distributed as follows: hunting grounds remained public property, however, each clan or family owned the cultivated plots separately.
The era of the primitive system is characterized by several forms of social organization. The period began with a tribal community, in which blood relatives united, leading a common household in the future.
The tribal community not only rallied people close to each other, but also helped them survive through joint activities.
In contact with
Classmates
Since the processes of production began to be divided among themselves, the community began to be divided into families, among which communal obligations were distributed. This led to the emergence of private property, which accelerated the decomposition of the tribal community, which was losing distant family ties. With the end of this form of social order, a neighborhood community appeared, the definition of which was based on other principles.
The concept of a neighborhood form of population organization
The meaning of the word "neighborhood community" implies a group of separate families living in a certain area and leading a common household on it. This form is called peasant, rural or territorial.
Among the main features of the neighboring community should be highlighted:
- common area;
- general use of land;
- separate families;
- subordination to the communal governing bodies of the social group.
The territory of the rural community was strictly limited, but the territory with forests, pastures, lakes and rivers was quite enough for individual cattle breeding and farming. Each family of this form social system, she owned her plot of land, arable land, tools and livestock, and also had the right to a certain share of communal property.
The organization, included in society as a subordinate element, performed only partially public functions:
- accumulated production experience;
- organized self-government;
- regulated land ownership;
- preserved traditions and cults.
Man has ceased to be a generic being, for whom connection with the community was of great importance. People are now free.
Comparison of tribal and neighboring communities
Neighborhood and tribal communities are two successive stages in the formation of society. The transformation of a form from a generic to a neighboring one is an inevitable and natural stage in the existence of ancient peoples.
One of the main reasons for the transition from one type of social organization to another was the change from a nomadic lifestyle to a settled one. Slash-and-burn agriculture became plowed. The tools needed for cultivating the land were improved, and this led to an increase in labor productivity. There was social stratification and inequality among people.
Gradually disintegrated tribal relations, which were replaced by family ones. Public property was in the background, and private property took the first place in importance. Tools, livestock, housing and a separate plot belonged to a particular family. Rivers, lakes and forests remained owned by the entire community . But each family could run its own business with which she earned her livelihood. Therefore, for the development of the peasant community, the maximum unification of people was required, since with the acquired freedom, a person lost the great support that was provided in the tribal organization of society.
From the comparison table of the tribal community with the rural one, one can single out their main differences from each other:
The neighboring form of society had more advantages than the generic form, since it served as a powerful impetus for the development of private property and the formation of economic relations.
East Slavic neighborhood community
Neighborly relations among the Eastern Slavs were formed in the 7th century. This form of organization was called "vervy". The name of the East Slavic rural neighboring community is mentioned in the collection of laws "Russian Truth", which was created by Yaroslav the Wise.
Verv was an ancient community organization that existed in Kievan Rus and on the territory of modern Croatia.
The neighboring organization was characterized by mutual responsibility, i.e., the entire rope had to be responsible for the misconduct committed by its participant. When a murder was committed by someone from a community organization, the viru (fine) had to be paid to the prince by the entire community group.
The convenience of such a social order was that there was no social inequality in it, since the rich had to help the poor if they had a lack of food. But, as the future shows, social stratification was inevitable.
In the period of their development, vervi were no longer rural organizations. Each of them was a union of several settlements, which included several villages. The early stage of the development of the community organization was still characterized by consanguinity, but over time this ceased to play a major role in the life of society.
The rope was subject to general military service. Each family had a household land with all household buildings, tools, various implements, livestock, and farming plots. Like any neighboring organization, the vervi had forest areas, lands, lakes, rivers and fishing grounds in the public domain.
Features of the Old Russian neighborhood community
From the annals it is known that the ancient Russian community was called "mir". It was the lowest link in the social organization of Ancient Russia. Sometimes there was an unification of the worlds into tribes, which, during periods of military threat, gathered in alliances. Tribes often fought among themselves. The wars led to the emergence of a squad - professional equestrian warriors. The squads were led by princes, each of which owned a separate world. Each squad was a personal guard of its leader.
The lands have turned into estates. Peasants or community members who used such land were obliged to pay tribute to their princes. The patrimonial lands were inherited through the male line. Peasants living in rural neighborhood organizations were called "black peasants", and their territories were called "black". The people's assembly, in which only adult men participated, resolved all issues in peasant settlements. In such a social organization, the form of government was a military democracy.
In Russia, neighborly relations existed until the 20th century, in which they were eliminated. With the increase in the importance of private property and the appearance of surplus production, society was divided into classes, and communal lands were transferred to private ownership. The same changes were taking place in Europe.. But neighboring forms of population organization exist today, for example, in the tribes of Oceania.
With all the huge variety of specific historical forms and variants of the neighboring community, it also went through certain stages, generally coinciding with the stages of social evolution. K. Marx distinguished 3 main forms (stages, stages) of the decomposition of the initial unity of the community and the separation of the family-individual economy: Asian, ancient, German. The listed stages of the community were characterized by the dualism of collective and private principles, primarily by the dualism of collective and individual agriculture, but the ratio of these principles in them was different.
The Asian stage of the community was essentially a transformed natural community that dominated the primitive stage of historical development. It was based on common ownership of land. The allotment of an individual family represented an integral part of the community. This kind of community organization relied on the large share of collective labor, the combination of crafts and agriculture within the community, the weakness or lack of division of labor between different communities.
The ancient stage, which represented the next stage in the decomposition of the initial unity of the community and the separation of family-individual economy and private property, assumed such an organization in which membership in the community continued to be a prerequisite for the appropriation of land, but each member of the community had already become a private owner of the cultivated plot. Common property used for general needs as state property is here separated from private property. The guarantee of the preservation of the ancient community was the equality of its free citizens, who independently ensured their existence.
The German community was a further step in the isolation of the families that made up the community, in strengthening the family-individual peasant economy as the main production unit. In the German community, collective property is only an addition to the property of individual householders. If in the ancient community the existence of an individual as a private owner was due to his membership in the community (polis, state), then in the Germanic form, on the contrary, the existence of the community itself is due to the needs of the family-individual economy.
Each of the stages of the neighboring community is represented by a variety of modifications. The natural-geographical and historical environment in which the community organizations were located, the nature of economic activity, as well as ethnic components left their mark on the development and specific forms of community organizations. The community of Eastern despotisms, for example, was distinguished by features generated by the need for large-scale collective work (irrigation, etc.). The dominance of common ownership of land here was realized through the property of the supreme community in the person of the state, the despot; individual communities acted only as hereditary owners of cultivated land.
The caste community represented a peculiar form of the early neighborhood community. Its specificity stemmed from a special type of social division of labor, closed within the framework of a rural community, moving not on a commodity, but on a natural exchange of products and mutual activity. Professional differences generated by this form of social division of labor are socially fixed in caste differences. Thus, the patriarchal nature and conservatism inherent in the community sharply increased, strengthening the autarkism of the community, serious obstacles were created in the way of the development of urban crafts and commodity exchange.
The nomadic community actually does not go beyond the initial stage of the decomposition of primitive collectivism and the transformation of the neighboring community. The nature of production (the need for collective grazing and protection of herds, seasonal redistribution of pastures, tribal mutual assistance in case of loss of livestock and other natural disasters) here is such that it determines the functioning of each individual or family (large or small) only as a member of the collective (usually military organized). The nomadic area occupied by a separate economic unit is an integral part of the common land ownership of the tribe
The communal organizations of the Germanic tribes approached the initial stage of the formation of the neighboring community by the time they conquered the Western Roman Empire (this stage of the evolution of the community is often referred to by the term "agricultural" and is considered as one of the types of community). According to many researchers, the East Slavic verv belonged to the same stage on the eve of the formation of Kievan Rus and at the initial stage of its existence (sometimes the verv is identified either with a large family or with a rural community like the German mark).
The last stage of the neighborhood community falls on the period of domination of feudal relations. With the triumph of large-scale agriculture, the commune turned from a free to an organization of direct producers, dependent on the ruling class and its state, used for the purpose of their exploitation. However, its rules and institutions continued to operate within the feudal estate as a necessary addition to the peasants' small-scale economy, ensuring its normal functioning. Even the feudal lord's own household was forced to obey the routine of the village community. With the help of the community as a community of small producers, virgin soil was raised, forests were cleared, roads were laid, irrigation and reclamation facilities were erected, bridges, mills, military fortifications, castles, religious buildings, etc. were built.
The community played a positive role in the transition to the three-field system and the regulation of this farming system. . The existence of the community as an organization of direct producers - the peasants - was enshrined in customary (sometimes written) law. Despite the progressive development of private property relations and property inequality, the neighboring community retained its democratic nature. She played a big role in protecting her members from the onslaught of the feudal lords. The community persisted throughout the Middle Ages in a heavy continuous struggle with the landowning nobility.
One of the variants of the neighboring community was the Russian medieval community. The relative abundance of land did not require the introduction of such numerous servitudes that limited the individual land use of peasant families. This was facilitated by the small size of the settlements. For the same reasons, the almenda (very vast in territory) was used collectively to a much lesser extent. But in the field of self-government, the community-volost had much greater rights. The distribution of land and the regulation of their use, the layout, the election of rural authorities (headmen, and later volost elders), the collection of funds for worldly expenses, the organization of mutual assistance, the resolution of civil and petty criminal cases were the competence of peasant communities. The volost, along with the feudal estate and patrimony, was a territorial-administrative cell, part of the state organism. The elected volost authorities simultaneously acted as representatives of the state administration in its lower level.
cattle breeders
The tribal community is gradually being replaced by a new type of community - the primitive neighboring community of farmers and pastoralists. It happens at different times for different peoples:
In Egypt and Mesopotamia - at the beginning of I - V you with. BC. In China - in I V you with. BC. In northern Korea and southern Manchuria - in the 2nd millennium BC. In Japan - in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. The ancestors of the Slavs and Germans - approximately in the second half of the 1st millennium BC.
The neighboring community was a collective consisting of individual families leading independent households, individual households, united with each other by territorial-neighborly ties. The neighboring community was united not by consanguinity, but by territorial connection. If the tribal community is primarily an organization of relatives, then the neighboring community is an organization of neighbors who have a common territory.
The neighborhood community is characterized by the following features:
1. The community is still based on a productive economy - agriculture and cattle breeding.
2. The number of the team is increasing. The neighborhood community starts with 200 - 300 people. In the future, its team grows to 1000 people. As a result, the population density increases.
3. The rights of the neighboring community to land can be described as supreme collective own. The rights of the whole community stand above the rights ("above") of each individual household. Hence the name - supreme. The community is everything team community members in general. When community members gather for popular meetings, they must now take into account the interests not only of the entire community, but also the interests of each individual household. In primitive neighborhood community at supreme collective property separate rights of the community members to a part of the land and a part of the produced product arise.
The neighboring community now divides the land into allotments, usually by lot. Each community member receives his share of the land. Therefore, the only sign of a person entering the community now becomes the possession of a land plot in the community fund of lands. The neighboring community, as the supreme collective owner, did not allow a non-community member to access the land. Outside the community, outside the community collective, it was impossible to obtain the right to own land. If a person is a member of a communal collective, he has land. If a person who was not a relative was accepted into the community, he was given an allotment, and he becomes a member of the community. When a community member committed any grave misconduct, he was expelled from the community. In this regard, the term "outcast" appears - literally "expelled from life." The outcast had relatives in the community. But now he was not considered a member of the community and was deprived of his land. In fact, it doomed him to death.
Large families of community members were given land according to the number of eaters in the family, according to the number of family members. All thus were in equal conditions. And now each community member received food from his allotment - everything that he produced with his labor on his land. As a result, there was a transition from collective farming to individual farming.
From a legal point of view, the rights of these individual farms(big families) to the ground represent possession land, that is, the actual possession of the thing, combined with the intention to treat the thing as one's own. A new form of ownership emerges labor(personal) own meant - ownership of everything that is connected with personal labor: while the community worker works on this land, he has the right to this land and to everything that he produces with his labor on this allotment - this is his property. neighborly community as supreme the collective owner periodically conducted redistribution earth. Families were allocated land according to the number of eaters.
So, for example, part of the family members died in the war, there were fewer people in the family, and part of the land was abandoned due to a lack of workers and because there was no need to cultivate such an amount of land. The neighboring community, then as the supreme collective owner, seized this vacant land and gave it to another individual farm. After all, children grew up in it and there was a need to expand the land allotment in order to feed more people in the family, and which could cultivate the land. In other words, while you are working, while you are growing something on the land, the land and the products produced on it are yours. When you stop cultivating the land yourself and growing something on it, you lose the right to the land and the product produced on it. The land belonged only to those who could cultivate it. This is the principle of labor ownership.
Neighborhood community and tribal community Neighborhood community - these are several tribal communities (families) that lived in the same area. Each of these families has its own head. And each family manages its own economy, uses the produced product at its own discretion. Sometimes the neighboring community is also called rural, territorial. The fact is that its members usually lived in the same village. The tribal community and the neighboring community are two successive stages in the development of society. The transition from a tribal community to a neighboring one became an inevitable and natural stage in the life of ancient peoples. And there were reasons for this: The nomadic way of life began to change to a sedentary one. Agriculture became not slash-and-burn, but arable. The tools for cultivating the land became more sophisticated, and this, in turn, dramatically increased labor productivity. The emergence of social stratification and inequality among the population. Thus, there was a gradual disintegration of tribal relations, which was replaced by family ones. Common property began to fade into the background, and private property came to the fore. However, for a long time they continued to exist in parallel: forests and reservoirs were common, and cattle, dwellings, tools, plots of land were individual goods. Now every person began to strive to do his own thing, earning them a living. This, of course, required the maximum unification of people so that the neighboring community continued to exist. Differences between a neighboring community and a tribal community What is the difference between a tribal community and a neighboring one? Firstly, the fact that in the first a prerequisite was the existence of family (blood) ties between people. This was not the case in the neighboring community. Secondly, the neighboring community consisted of several families. Moreover, each of the families owned their own property. Thirdly, the joint work that existed in the tribal community was forgotten. Now each family took care of its own plot. Fourthly, the so-called social stratification appeared in the neighboring community. More influential people stood out, classes were formed. The person in the neighboring community became freer and more independent. But, on the other hand, he lost the powerful support that was in the tribal community. When we talk about how the neighboring community differs from the tribal one, one very important fact should be noted. The neighboring community had a great advantage over the tribal community: it became a type of not just a social, but a socio-economic organization. It gave a powerful impetus to the development of private property and economic relations. Neighborhood community among the Eastern Slavs Among the Eastern Slavs, the final transition to the neighborhood community occurred in the seventh century (in some sources it is called "Verv"). Moreover, this type of social organization has existed for a long time. The neighboring community did not allow the peasants to go bankrupt, mutual responsibility reigned in it: the richer rescued the poor. Also in such a community, the wealthy peasants always had to be guided by their neighbors. That is, social inequality was still somehow restrained, although it naturally progressed. A characteristic feature for the neighboring community of the Slavs was the circular responsibility for committed offenses and crimes. This also applied to military service. In conclusion, the Neighborhood community and the tribal community are varieties of social structure that existed at one time in every nation. Over time, there was a gradual transition to a class system, to private property, to social stratification. These events were inevitable. Therefore, communities have gone down in history and today are found only in some remote regions.
