The first people on earth. Human history

INTRODUCTION

The history of mankind has largely disappeared from our memory. Only research searches bring us closer to it to some extent.

The depth of a long prehistory - the universal basis - is essentially not clarified by the dim light of our knowledge. The data of historical time - the time of written documentation - are random and incomplete, the number of sources has been growing only since the 16th century. The future is uncertain, it is an area of ​​limitless possibilities.

Between the immeasurable prehistory and the immensity of the future lie 5000 years of known history, an insignificant segment of the boundless existence of man. This story is open to the past and the future. It cannot be limited from one side or the other, in order to acquire thereby a closed picture, a complete self-contained image of it.

We and our time are in this story. It becomes meaningless if it is enclosed in the narrow framework of today, reduced to the present. The purpose of the book Jaspers wanted to contribute to the deepening of our consciousness of modernity.

The present is made on the basis of the historical past, the impact of which we feel in ourselves.

On the other hand, the fulfillment of the present is also determined by the future hidden in it, the sprouts of which we, accepting or rejecting, consider our own.

But the accomplished present makes us look into the eternal origins. Staying in history, go beyond everything historical, reach the all-encompassing; this is the last thing that is inaccessible to our thinking, but what we can still touch.

First part

WORLD HISTORY

In terms of the breadth and depth of changes in all human life, our era is of decisive importance. The history of mankind as a whole can provide a scale for understanding what is happening at the present time. That we have history at all; that history has made us what we appear to be today; that the duration of this history up to the present moment is comparatively very short - all this leads us to ask a number of questions. Where does it come from? Where does it lead? What does this mean? Man has long created a picture of the world for himself: first in the form of myths, then a kaleidoscope of divine deeds that move the political destinies of the world, and even later - a holistic understanding of history given in the revelation from the creation of the world and the fall of man to the end of the world and the Last Judgment. Historical consciousness becomes fundamentally different from the moment it begins to rely on empirical data. Today, the real horizon of history has expanded extraordinarily. The biblical time limit - the 6000-year existence of the world - has been eliminated. Researchers are looking for traces of historical events, documents and monuments of bygone times in the past. The empirical picture of history can be reduced to a simple identification of individual patterns and an endless description of a multitude of events: the same thing repeats itself, similarity is found in the different; there are various structures of political power in the typical sequence of their forms, there is also their historical intersection; in the spiritual realm there is a uniform alternation of styles and a smoothing out of irregularities in duration.

But one can also strive for the consciousness of a single generalizing picture of the world in its integrity: then the presence of various cultural spheres and their development are revealed; they are considered separately and in interaction; their commonality in the formulation of semantic problems and the possibility of their mutual understanding are comprehended; and finally, a certain semantic unity is developed, in which all this diversity finds its place (Hegel)

Jaspers believed that everyone who turns to history involuntarily comes to these universal views that turn history into a kind of unity. These views may be uncritical, moreover, unconscious and therefore untested. In historical thinking, they are usually taken for granted.

History is where people live. World history spans the entire globe in time and space. According to its spatial distribution, it is ordered geographically (Helmolt). History was everywhere. Thanks to the isolation in the history of integral cultures, attention has again been paid to the correlation of ranks and structures.

From a purely natural human existence grow like organisms, cultures are considered as independent forms of life, having a beginning and an end. Cultures are not interconnected, but sometimes they can touch and interfere with each other. Spengler has 8, Toynbee - 21 cultures. Spengler defines the time of existence of a culture as a thousand years; Toynbee does not believe that it can be accurately determined.

Alfred Weber gave an original comprehensive picture of historical development in our era. His concept of universal history, cultural sociology, remains essentially very open, despite his tendency to make culture as a whole the object of knowledge. Subtle historical intuition and an unerring instinct in determining the rank of spiritual creations allow him to depict the process of historical development, without raising the thesis of scattered, non-correlated cultural organisms, nor the unity of human history as such, as a principle. His conception presents a world-historical process, which he divides into primary cultures, secondary cultures of the first and second stages, and brings it to the history of Western European expansion, which has been going on since 1500.

Karl Jaspers is sure that humanity has a common origin and a common goal. These origins and this goal are unknown to us, at least in the form of reliable knowledge. They are perceptible only in the flickering of multi-valued symbols. Our existence is limited by them. In philosophical reflection, we are trying to get closer to both, to the origins and to the goal.

Jaspers wrote: All of us, humans, are descended from Adam, we are all related by kinship, created by God in His image and likeness. In the beginning, at the origins, the revelation of being was an immediate given. The Fall opened the way for us, in which knowledge and a finite practice directed towards temporal goals allowed us to achieve clarity. At the final stage, we enter the sphere of harmonic consonance of souls, the realm of eternal spirits, where we contemplate each other in love and in boundless understanding.”

History includes everything that, firstly, being unique, firmly takes its place in the single, single process of human history and, secondly, is real and necessary in the interconnection and sequence of human existence.

Karl Jaspers introduced the concept of axial time. The appearance of the Son of God is the axis of world history. Our reckoning serves as a daily confirmation of this Christian structure of world history. But the Christian faith is only one faith, not the faith of all mankind. Its disadvantage is that such an understanding of world history seems convincing only to a believing Christian.

The axis of world history, if it exists at all, can only be discovered empirically, as a fact significant for all people, including Christians. This axis should be sought where the prerequisites arose that allowed a person to become what he is; where, with amazing fruitfulness, such a formation of human existence took place, which, regardless of a certain religious content, could become so convincing that thereby a common framework for understanding their historical significance would be found for all peoples. This axis of world history, Jaspers, apparently, dates back to about 500 BC, to that spiritual process that took place between 800 and 200 years. BC e. Then came the most dramatic turn in history. There was a man of the type that has survived to this day. We will briefly call this time the axial time.

1. Characteristic of axial time

A lot of amazing things happen during this time. At that time Confucius and Lao Tzu lived in China, all directions of Chinese philosophy arose, Mo Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Le Tzu and countless others thought. In India, the Upanishads arose, the Buddha lived; in philosophy - in India, as in China - all the possibilities of philosophical comprehension of reality were considered, up to skepticism, to materialism, sophistry and nihilism; in Iran, Zarathusgra taught about a world where there is a struggle between good and evil; in Palestine, the prophets spoke - Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Deutero-Isaiah;

in Greece it is the time of Homer, the philosophers Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plato, the tragedians, Thucydides and Archimedes*. Everything associated with these names arose almost simultaneously within a few centuries in China, India and the West independently of each other.

The new that emerged in this era in the three cultures mentioned is that a person is aware of being as a whole, of himself and his boundaries. Before him opens the horror of the world And own helplessness. Standing over the abyss, he raises radical questions, demands liberation and salvation. Realizing his limits, he sets himself the highest goals, cognizes absoluteness in the depths of self-consciousness and in the clarity of the transcendent world.

All this happened through reflection. Consciousness became aware of consciousness, thinking made thinking its object. A spiritual struggle began, during which each tried to convince the other, telling him his ideas, justifications, his experience. The most contradictory possibilities were tested. Discussions, the formation of various parties, the splitting of the spiritual sphere, which, even in the contradictory nature of its parts, preserved their interdependence - all this gave rise to anxiety and movement, bordering on spiritual chaos.

In this era, the main categories were developed, in which we think to this day, the foundations of world religions were laid, and today they determine the life of people. In all directions there was a transition to universality.

This process has forced many to reconsider, to question, to subject to analysis all previously unconsciously accepted views, customs and conditions. All this is involved in the whirlpool. To the extent that the substance perceived in the tradition of the past was still alive and active, its manifestations were clarified and thus it was transformed.

The prehistory of mankind - at the origins of the universe

There is only a moment between the past and the future.

It is he who is called Life.

Modern hit wisdom

It is not given to a person to understand how the Universe in which he lives is arranged. For the reason that the concept of the infinite is inaccessible to his mind. This, of course, is about an ordinary person. Philosophers, mathematicians, physicists and other abstract thinkers don't count. As soon as it comes to the infinite - it doesn't matter what: queues, troubles, the Universe - an ordinary person immediately asks the question, who is the extreme, what is next, what is there, beyond infinity? Therefore, it is better not to burden it with such abstractions. How will we try not to upset him with the absurdity of immortality (physical) that is equally incomprehensible to him.

By the way, it's even good that Man does not know his Universe. It is common for a child to break a toy as soon as he figures out how to do it. It is enough that Man has already spoiled his "small universe" - the earth's surface. And here he would have prepared a grave for himself, no longer on earthly, but on cosmic scales.

Therefore, in relation to the Universe, Man has to be content with what he sees (or believes that he sees) with his own eyes. He sees not just the Universe, but three whole worlds, dissimilar to each other, like red, fast and round.

The first world underlying the other two is the world of the atom, the microworld. We encounter in life only its surface - molecules, atoms. A molecule is an ordered collection of atoms, and the atom itself is infinite, like the Universe. Its countless structures populate the rungs of the endless ladder of their structures. As soon as you stop at some step, the question immediately arises: what's next? And then - a new step, and so on without end.

For clarity, atoms are sometimes compared to the solar system. In the center is the Sun, the nucleus, in which almost the entire mass of the atom is concentrated. Elementary particles revolve around the nucleus in their orbits (of course, the similarity is purely external; we recall that this is - another world). But after all, both the nucleus and elementary particles can have their own structures, substructures, and so on, like nesting dolls - one inside the other. So physicists came up with the idea that under certain conditions, our Universe could shrink to a “point” without time and space. In what follows, we will see what this hypothesis led to.

So far, physicists have only reached elementary, subatomic particles (electrons, positrons, protons, and so on). But even these particles behave either as particles or as waves (in fact, neither one nor the other, their world is different!). They make millions of revolutions per second (which is impossible to imagine), and then they go from one state to another. In a calm state, they are alone; if you touch them, they are completely different, like an eccentric wife.

One of the physicists wittily remarked that even the nucleus of an atom (not to mention elementary particles) resembles an impregnable island surrounded by a wall. You can't break through the wall or climb it. You can only throw stones of different weights through it, with different strengths, and then wait for the response of the "islanders". By their reciprocal stones - always strictly proportionate to the strength and weight of those thrown over the wall - one can judge the habits of the inhabitants.

Physicists' research suggests that the Universe consists of elementary particles, just as the ocean consists of drops. Particles are omnipresent and continuously interact with each other. They penetrate us and under certain conditions form atoms of cosmic gases and molecules of cosmic dust. And planets, stars, galaxies are created from gas and dust nebulae.

A great achievement of scientific thought was the understanding that the Universe is heterogeneous, consists of an infinite number of regions (domains) of different quality.

So far, scientists have thought of the existence of three types of domains: the already mentioned point, dimensionless in time and space (this is exactly what is most difficult to imagine); vacuum, where elementary particles are so far from each other that they interact very weakly with each other; finally, our own domain, our mega-world, which is the process of the Big Bang of the aforementioned “point” and galaxies flying in all directions (which is recorded by telescopes). Whether our domain will expand indefinitely or to certain limits, after which it will begin to shrink again, scientists are not yet clear.

Astronomical studies have made it possible to formulate a hypothesis according to which the Big Bang began about 13 billion years ago and continues to this day. In the course of this process, as already mentioned, gas and dust nebulae are formed from the elementary particles of space, and from them - celestial bodies and their combinations - galaxies. Some "products" of the explosion - the most distant from us - are not yet understood (they are called "quasars", "pulsars", "black holes" and the like). Others have been better studied and can be judged more confidently.

So, astronomers, having studied different stars at different stages of their development, formulated the theory of the birth, life and death of a star.

Stars are formed from celestial particles of matter, "sticking" to each other according to the law of universal gravitation. If the star turns out to be "too big" - it explodes, scatters part of its matter into space and gradually, over tens of billions of years, cools down as a luminous "white dwarf". If a star turns out to be "too small" - thermonuclear processes in its depths do not have time to heat it up to glow, and it cools down as a non-luminous "black dwarf" for tens of billions of years. If the star turned out to be “medium (like our Sun), it is able to shine steadily for about ten billion years - our Sun has traveled about half of this path - and then the same slow cooling process begins.

Some stars remain “singles”, others form “pair systems”, and some, like the Sun, surround themselves with planet-stars. Due to their small size, the planets of the solar system can neither warm up nor collapse on the Sun, but begin to revolve around it in certain orbits. And in the same space around the Sun, many smaller celestial bodies rotate in the most intricate orbits. Some of them become satellites of the planets and from time to time fall to their surface along with cosmic dust.

The folding of the planets is similar to the folding of the stars - only on a smaller scale. And then it all depends on how large the planet is and at what distance it is from the Sun. There are "small planets" - those that are closer to the Sun or, conversely, very far from it: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars (we know very little about the distant ones). There are "large" ones beyond the orbit of Mars: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.

It is important for us to know one thing about the planets: all the dreams of old and recent years about “is there life on Mars” (as well as on all other planets and their satellites) are, alas, unscientific fiction. While we do not know whether there is life on the planets near the stars closest to the Sun, it is so far away that we are unlikely to ever know, and if we do find out, we are unlikely to “reach out”. But the fact that we are alone in the solar system, and we will never reach other solar systems - at least in our current state (we will have to talk about other possible states) - is for sure.

Instead of dreaming about a “distant life”, it is better to deal with two fairy tales that have long clouded your head and prevent you from soberly assessing the state of things.

Fairy tale number 1 - "contacts with extraterrestrial civilizations." There is only one reason for her justification: I really want to. All other arguments cry out against such contacts. To begin with, the cosmic distances even between nearby stars are so great that sending rockets or signals to such distances is the same as sending them “to nowhere”. But this - for us, in our current state. For a qualitatively different state, this may take a fraction of a second. In other words, it means meeting qualitatively different civilization. For example, a meeting of a man with an ant. What should these two interlocutors talk about: what is the best way to build an anthill or Moscow (although the difference, it would seem, is small)? Is it worth it to drive kefir instead of formic alcohol? That is why, even if a civilization higher in its level of development has the technical capabilities of contact with ours, it will not do this, just as a reasonable person will not stir up an anthill in vain.

Fairy tale number 2 - "life on Earth was brought from space." The primitiveness of this popular tale is revealed by a simple question: who brought life to space? (We agreed not to touch on religion in this book).

Instead of fairy tales, let's ask other questions. How could life originate on Earth? Why did life originate (even if only within the solar system) only on Earth?

Geologists did a good job and gave us a clear picture of how the planet Earth was formed.

Like all other planets of the solar system, the Earth was formed from a gas-dust cloud that revolved around the Sun. This happened approximately 4.5–4.6 billion years ago. Initially, the planets were supposed to look more or less the same. And then the unique characteristics of the Earth (mass, distance from the Sun, and so on) caused the rapid evolution of the earth's crust and atmosphere, an evolution that has not occurred on any other planet. It took 200-300 million years for the lithosphere, atmosphere and the emerging hydrosphere (also a unique property of the Earth!) to reach a state where compounds of ever more complex molecules could form. And twice as many years for molecules to appear that can reproduce themselves, that is, a qualitatively new form of the existence of matter appears - life(3.8 billion years ago).

The duration of the process of formation of the organic world from the inorganic allows us to consider this process as a complex chain of changes that eventually led to the transition of quantitative changes to qualitative ones. In order for a complex set of molecules to turn into a self-reproducing organism, apparently, it took a coordinated, synergistic action of several mechanisms giving such an effect.

Among this kind of mechanisms, the following mechanisms are distinguished by their value: protective (helping to resist destruction); processing and metabolism (helping to maintain the achieved state); reproduction of their own kind (at first - by a simple expansion of the cells of the body, then - in more and more complex ways); mutations (adaptation to a changing environment); struggle for existence (survival in deteriorating conditions), natural selection (the most viable survive); care for offspring (otherwise the process of reproduction of generations collapses); aging and death (to provide living space for the next generations and thereby increase the viability of the entire population).

For all that, the question remains about the specific impulse that transformed a complex set of molecules into an organism. Whether it was an electric discharge (lightning), a sharp change in the parameters of the environment during an underwater volcanic eruption, or some other natural disaster (most likely a combination of several such factors), we do not know. We only know that this does not require any "bringing from outer space", nor the obligatory intervention of any supernatural forces.

Instead of fortune-telling replacing the lack of scientific knowledge, I would like to once again draw attention to the uniqueness of the situation: a favorable combination of many different conditions, often even independent of each other, develops.

Earth is not too close to the Sun (like Venus) and not too far from it (like Mars). Of all the planets of the solar system, only on Earth could a stable hydrosphere - the cradle of life - be created. The volcanic activity of the Earth is great enough to raise the temperature of the bottom layers of the ocean in some places (a necessary condition for the emergence of life). But not large enough to bring the ocean to a boil, or even to temperatures at which complex molecules break down. The Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere are a good "screen" from excess solar radiation, but they still let through some of the rays - just the kind that is favorable for the emergence of life.

All this is said to emphasize once again: a unique “life-giving optimum” has been created on Earth, which is absent on other planets. Perhaps this is the rarest (though not necessarily the only) phenomenon in our entire Galaxy. And we must do everything to maintain this optimum. This is much more important than any contact with any hypothetical alien civilizations.

It is all the more necessary to do this, since this "life-giving optimum" is by no means guaranteed to us, not only for millions and billions of years, but even for the near future. The earth's crust is by no means as stable as it seems. It consists of huge tectonic plates, which for millions of years either "collide" or "spread". Large-scale human intervention can dramatically accelerate these processes, provoke an increase in volcanic activity, create a greenhouse effect on the earth's surface and raise the level of the World Ocean due to the melting of ice in the Antarctic and the Arctic. Thus change the center of gravity of the Earth's rotation around its axis and cause catastrophic climate change.

And this is not to mention the fact that the fall of a large celestial body on the Earth's surface or a sharp change in the cosmic irradiation of the planet can cause a global catastrophe (the last such catastrophe happened 70-67 million years ago). Yes, and smaller catastrophes in modern conditions can mean millions and billions of human victims.

In a word, we must not only thank God for the unique conditions for life on Earth, but we ourselves must do everything possible to maintain the “life-giving optimum”, to prevent our planet from degrading in this respect to the level of other planets in the solar system.

First, organisms of "original life" (Proterozoic, 2.6–0.57 billion years ago);

Then the organisms of "ancient life" (Phanerozoic, 570-230 million years ago);

Then the organisms of "middle life" (Paleozoic, 230-70/67 million years ago);

Finally, the organisms of the "new life" (Cenozoic, the last 70-67 million years).

If we try to present this scheme in the form of a film, where each frame is equal to a million years, then we get something like this.

... The shallow waters of the seas, where it is warmer, but not too hot, were covered with microscopic organisms (bacteria, they are also called blue-green algae), around which viruses swarmed - the smallest non-cellular particles consisting of nucleic acid and a protein shell. At first, organisms fed on these substances, and then they created a mechanism for photosynthesis - the processing of inorganic substances into organic ones using the energy of the Sun. Development went faster.

A by-product of photosynthesis - oxygen began to enter the atmosphere, from which part of the hydrogen and inert gases managed to escape into space. As a result, a new - modern atmosphere rich in oxygen was formed. Oxygen began to be actively absorbed by the upper layer of the earth's crust. Soil appeared.

Primary viruses and bacteria for a billion years have settled down, established themselves, transformed the sea, air and land of the Earth, opened the way for more complex organisms - multicellular plants and animals: sponges, jellyfish, corals, worms ... The "age of algae" has come (another billion years), " the age of jellyfish” (another billion years), “the age of fish”… A massive invasion of organisms began on marshy land, well prepared for them by the vital activity of bacteria. In the plant world, the moss offensive was launched (it continues to this day). For plants - amphibians, then reptiles. The "age of reptiles" began, lasting more than one and a half million years. These then "kings of nature" became more and more gigantic. Thirty-meter dinosaurs dominated on land, fifteen-meter ichthyosaurs dominated the sea, and eight-meter pterodactyls soared into the sky.

But 200-300 million years ago, some kind of global catastrophe occurred (one can only guess which one: an asteroid, a burst of cosmic radiation or something else ...) - and luxurious coniferous-fern forests went underground, becoming deposits of coal, oil , gas.

Another catastrophe followed 70-67 million years ago - and miserable dwarfs remained from the kingdom of giant reptiles: 20 species of crocodiles, 212 species of turtles and about 5 thousand species of lizards and snakes. And in place of fern forests, deciduous ones appeared.

The keratinized scaly skin-armor and the laying of eggs in a calcareous shell at one time gave reptiles a huge advantage over amphibians. Warm-blooded animals - birds and mammals - received the same advantage. The feathers of some and the wool of others helped to keep the body warm. And mammals generally gave birth to cubs alive and fed them with mother's milk - the best remedy for pathogenic microbes. Mammals, like reptiles before them, invaded the seas (whales, dolphins, walruses, seals), flew into the air (bats).

Every day of the life of every organism is a continuous struggle for survival. Under such conditions, repeated reactions laid the foundation for a chain of instincts - innate forms of behavior typical of a given animal. Gradually, the laws of instinctive group behavior developed. From several thousand primary species of mammals, several species of so-called insectivores (more precisely, almost omnivores) emerged over time: hedgehogs, moles, desmans ... Who would have thought that our family tree would go so far!

Imagine: predators have a problem with meat and they are forced to say goodbye to life, the grass dries up - herbivores have the same tragedy. And omnivores, if they have to go badly, will not disdain anything. Huge advantage!

They especially skillfully learned to use the laws of instinctive group behavior when obtaining a variety of food and saving from enemies several dozen species of omnivorous mammals - primates (for which they received this honorary title of "first"). Among the primates stood out "primatossimus" - monkeys. They appeared no earlier than 35-30 million years ago, but according to various sources, they became especially widespread from 3.5 million to 600 thousand years ago.

The first primates were small, squirrel-like animals. One of these families - tupai - has survived to this day, and scientists argue whether to attribute them to primates or to insectivores. But another family - lemurs - clearly has many features of primates. And the third - tarsiers - surpassed even lemurs: they have the most developed hind limbs (hence the name), fingers of the forelimbs and a rounded skull - an important condition for the formation of a more perfect brain.

The lower species of lemurs are like large mice, and the lower species of monkeys are like highly developed lemurs. See what the chain is? But between the "lower lemur" and the "higher ape" there is a huge distance. In the “higher monkeys”, puberty comes later - better preparation for the reproduction of offspring, pregnancy and breastfeeding are longer - offspring are longer and better saved from pathogenic microbes, vocal cords work better - which means that you can use your voice, modulating in dozens of frets, to keep in touch on the hunt , report danger. And their facial expressions are more complicated - which means that you can tell your partner valuable information without giving yourself away with a sound. And even life expectancy is optimal (from 20 to 60 years), allowing to withstand the pace of generational change - there are always strong and experienced adults in the herd, protecting the growing cubs.

We have already said that the food of monkeys, like all primates, was very diverse. Edible fruits, leaves, stems, young shoots, flowers, tubers - a rich "groceries". Edible insects, lizards, snakes, chicks, eggs, worms, snails - no less rich "gastronomy".

It is a shame, of course, to realize that we are descended from an animal, to which it is difficult to apply the epithet "beautiful". And not, say, from a magnificent-tailed peacock or a majestic swan, like a princess from a fairy tale. But what can you do? There are many kinds of monkeys. They are divided into "lower" (less human-like) and "higher" (more similar). Moreover, the difference between the "lower" and "higher" monkeys is no more than between the "higher" monkeys and humans. Even in the smallest details! So in vain, many of us disown the pedigree that is downright striking in the eyes.

So, what is the difference between just an ape and an ape-man, and that, in turn, from an ape-man and, finally, just a man?

In short, a monkey (“higher”) can use some kind of tool only by chance and immediately forget about this gratifying episode in his life. Because her natural position is on all fours, and “to rear up” and free at least one forelimb to grab a tool (say, a stick) is a rare, extraordinary feat.

Unlike “just a monkey”, a human ape (this is no longer 30 million years ago, but an order of magnitude closer to us) is an animal, if not yet upright, then easily standing on its hind legs and using a stick, bone, stone for attack and defense. Note that the tool has not yet been processed, but a suitable object that has turned out to be at hand, but not by chance, but deliberately, with skill.

Finally, for the ape-man (Pithecanthropus) - 1.2–0.5 million years ago - a stable upright posture is characteristic, which means the systematic use of tools, not only suitable objects, but also roughly processed ones.

For all that, it's still an animal. The rudiments of reason appear - the animal becomes a man.

Note that this line is by no means a direct genealogy. There may be "branches" that have not received further development. For example, bones of creatures were found that occupy an intermediate position between Pithecanthropes and humans (dating: 200-35 thousand years ago). They were named Neanderthals after their discovery. Some scientists consider them as a special, cut off branch in human development.

Only very few species of monkeys live in families and not in trees, but where it is more convenient in terms of environment. As a rule, the monkey's place of residence is tree branches in the forest (it's safer that way). And the optimal size of the flock is not too large (not enough food) and not too small (so that the flock survives a not too deadly catastrophe). Already here we find some features of similarity with the primitive community of people - although here, of course, there is a huge difference.

Over time, the higher types of monkeys reached one and a half to two meters in height and one or two centners in weight. A sort of colossus could measure strength with a bear. In any case, she surpassed him in speed of reaction, cunning, dexterity, speed of movement.

But not meters and centners, but instincts - "automatic" reactions to this or that influence from the outside - the monkey turned out to be strong. More precisely, as already mentioned, the effectiveness of instinctive group behavior.

Instincts (reflexes), as you know, are divided into unconditional and conditional. The simplest unconditional instincts: blinking, coughing, sneezing, allowing you to automatically clear the eyes, throat, and nose of dust and pathogenic microbes. There are even more complicated instincts: the instinct of self-preservation, the instinct of nutrition (also a kind of self-preservation), the instinct of reproduction, which is divided into sexual and parental, the instinct of orientation - adaptation to the environment (remember at least intercontinental flights of birds). In this regard, the monkeys did not have any special advantages compared to other animals.

But in terms of conditional instincts (not innate, but acquired, obtained by “life experience”), the higher types of monkeys are far ahead of the rest of the animal brethren. Even the smartest animals - dogs, cats, horses. This is not a minnow who will swallow the hook again and again, even when he is convinced that his "breadwinner" is a villain. Deceive the monkey once - well, twice - and that's it: it has developed a conditioned reflex to you as an enemy. And she immediately notifies the whole flock about this. It would be bad for you if you were not separated by the bars of the zoo cage!

And then the monkey accidentally knocked down a banana with a stick. The sensation was reported to the neighbors. The group conditioned reflex worked - and there were no bananas anywhere the stick could reach. The tool can be not only a stick, but also a stone. A stone with a pointed shape that acts like an axe. It remains to rise on its hind legs, release its front legs and begin to work, repeating the disgusting: "Labor made a man out of a monkey."

And there it went and went: ape-man, ape-man, Neanderthal man ...

Sovey recently believed that instead of the ellipsis, it is necessary to complete the evolutionary series like this: “and 40 thousand years ago, Homo sapiens, Homo sapiens, appeared.”

However, recent studies have shown that the path from the ape to Homo sapiens turned out to be more difficult and took hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years.

We will not go into the details of this process. Let's take a closer look at a pack of monkeys, let's see how far a pack of apes and apes have gone from it, how many common features are there in a pack of monkeys and in a primitive community of people.

It turns out that there are many common features.

For example, both in the flock and in the community, “authority” is necessarily distinguished - the most powerful and successful getter of food. Him - the best piece. And not as a reward, but by sober calculation. He will eat more satisfyingly - he will get more for others. It is no coincidence that the instructions in case of a plane crash say: first put on an oxygen mask yourself, then put it on your child - otherwise both will die.

Both in the pack and in the community, the most attractive female (in terms of health, according to sexual maturity) again goes to the strongest and most successful, sometimes after the selection of applicants - the fight of males. There is no calculation here, but pure instinct: in this way the most healthy offspring is obtained. But if all the females go to one, incest, degeneration, and death are inevitable. And all the same instinct drives the "first lover" to the next. And his place is taken by another - and please: the desired variety. It's funny, but the remnants of this purely monkey behavior have remained in humans (mainly men) to this day. They are clearly formulated in the aphorism of the showman Fomenko: "The dream of an idiot is the wife of a neighbor."

Both in the flock and in the community, the mother will definitely share food with the cub. Maternal instinct tells her that escheatment threatens otherwise. Both in the pack and in the community, the female will never let a physically stronger male near a girl who has not reached puberty. For this, too, threatens escheat.

General conclusion from what has been said. There is no impenetrable wall between the inorganic and organic worlds (although they are different worlds). There is no impenetrable wall between flora and fauna (although they are different worlds). There is no impenetrable wall between the monkey and species of the animal world close to it. There is no impenetrable wall between ape and man (although the difference is huge). There is no impenetrable wall between the monkey pack and the primitive community (we will not understand anything about the peculiarities of the primitive community if we do not look at their "sprouts" in the monkey pack).

Paleolithic (ancient stone age) - until the 9th millennium BC;

Mesolithic (transition from the ancient to the new stone age) - IX-VII millennium BC;

Neolithic (new stone age) - VII-III millennium BC;

Copper (transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze) - IV - the end of the III millennium BC;

Bronze - the middle of the III-II millennium BC;

The beginning of the Iron Age - the beginning of the 1st millennium BC.

This is the most established scientific or official theory of historical development. There is another one, the so-called. "supra-scientific". You can read it in the "book of books of all times and peoples", i.e. in the Bible. There, the evolutionary path is indicated quite specifically: from the creation of the world to the present day, ... 6000 years have passed. And even less so from the global flood to the present day. True, many inquisitive people question the theory of the origin of mankind from the family of the legendary Noah, who settled his household around the globe with some elements of mimicry in the form of a change in skin color, body shape and the subsequent separation of languages ​​during the construction of the Tower of Babel. For sane people, this theory generally resembles the speeches of famous satirists. Nevertheless, millions of people believe in this absurdity. Despite such massive “popularity”, we will not seriously consider biblical myths, on the contrary, we will analyze real facts.

Let's get acquainted with the reasoning of Metropolitan John: “... Russian historians (and after them politicians) of the last two centuries have not been able to rise to the realization of the measure of the highest responsibility of their ministry. Their labors, alas! - have become a source of delusion for hundreds of thousands and millions of Russians who have lost their understanding of the higher meaning of Russia's existence and, accordingly, spiritual immunity against destructive social theories and alien "values" ... Now we must reverse these pernicious tendencies of our life. A necessary stage on this path will be the return of national history, its sacred meaning, its moral greatness and natural spiritual fullness.

So, back to the ancient period of history.
arctic theory

For many millennia, the Earth was periodically covered with glaciers.

The last glacier retreated from the land about 13,000 years ago. The period called the Holocene, in which we live, has begun. Basic information about this can be gleaned from the written monuments discovered by scientists and finds of material objects, that is, the remains of dwellings, utensils, decorations, etc.

But after all, writing, according to historians, appeared so late that its most ancient monuments can not be traced beyond the 4th millennium BC. (like, for example, the first Egyptian hieroglyphs), and the material things found by archaeologists are always silent, and scientists have to guess, often changing their own conclusions, by which peoples these things were created. Usually they assign to one or another group of things, on the basis of mutual similarity and territorial proximity, the name of some culture, most often choosing this name according to the place of finds (Dyakovo culture - in the village of Dyakovo or Andronovskaya - in the village of Andronovo, etc.)

“Many have written the history of Russia, but how imperfect it is! - how many unexplained events, how many distorted! For the most part, one copied from the other, no one wanted to rummage through the sources, because the search involves a great loss of time and work. The scribes tried only to show off their floridity, the boldness of lying, and even the audacity of slandering their forefathers!” This is how Zubritsky characterized the work of "scientists" in the "History of Chervona Rus" two centuries ago.

ON THE. Morozov wrote that the professor of the University of Salamanca de Arcilla back in the 19th century proved in his writings that ancient history was composed in the Middle Ages.

The Jesuit historian and archaeologist Jean Gardouin (1646-1724) considered classical literature to be the works of the monks of the previous century. The German Privatdozent Robert Baldauf wrote in 1902-1903 his book History and Criticism, where, on the basis of purely philological considerations, he argued that not only ancient, but even early medieval history was a falsification of the Renaissance.

Such criticism (very well-reasoned!) is found in the works of serious historians, in particular, Edwin Johnson (1842-1901) and many of our compatriots, starting with M.V. Lomonosov.

“The knowledge of man has increased, bookish wisdom has spread, with them the self-confidence of scientists has increased. They began to despise thoughts, traditions, "guesses of the ignorant"; they began to believe, of course, their guesses, their thoughts, their knowledge. In the endless multitude of details, all unity was lost.... Byzantium's versatility obscured ancient history, while the Germanic scribes flooded the world with false systems. In our time, facts are collected with care and conscientiousness, systems fall at the touch of analysis. But to believe the existence of antipodes or to reject the antiquity of the Old Testament books, to believe the stories about Frank and Brit or the fact that all tens of millions of Slavs came from one corner of the Danube land is equally ridiculous! So wrote Alexei Stepanovich Khomyakov (1804-1860).

In this article, we will try to find out the age, location of the ancestral lands and settlement zones of the most ancient ancestors of the Aryans and Slavs, moreover, in the period when they already existed as groups of tribes, each of which was generalized by its language or closely related dialects, its everyday culture and religion.

Here it is necessary to clarify the meaning of the word Arya (arya, aria), which has become illegal, and sometimes speculative, used in our journalism. This name conditionally refers to a group of tribes of the Indo-Iranian-European group, speaking closely related dialects and creating once similar forms of culture. The same word occurs more than 60 times in the Indian Vedas.

Of the whole vast family of Indo-European peoples, we stop here at the Slavs and Aryas in view of their two main similarities:

A) the maximum of all Indo-Europeans mutual closeness with Sanskrit;

B) the similarity of the Vedic Cult of the Slavs with Hinduism.

The famous author of "Journey Beyond the Three Seas", a Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin, not knowing the language, customs, manners, went to distant India without translators and did not use their services. He simply knew Old Church Slavonic, about the closeness of which to Sanskrit many works have been written. Where and under what conditions could such closeness take place?

The most convincing answer to this question is provided by the polar theory. It originated in the minds of researchers in the 19th century, when, one after another, connoisseurs of Sanskrit - the "language of Indian culture" - began to pay attention to the descriptions of natural phenomena contained in the oldest monuments of Indian literature, such as the Vedas and the epic, which were completely inconsistent with India. Tracing these descriptions down the steps of the epochs was, although difficult, but possible, since in the hymns of the Vedas every sound, every word was sacredly preserved for centuries. It was possible to establish the place and time of completion of the main of the Ved-Rigveda (correctly Richveda or Rekveda, literally: “Speech” - the synonymous words “rig-rek-rich” are still preserved in Old Russian in the well-known form “river, you speak” and etc.).

From the Vedas, many descriptions passed into the monuments of Vedic literature associated with them. The famous epic poem "Mahabharata", the beginning of which is lost in the darkness of centuries, contains a number of descriptions of mysterious natural phenomena that are far from the realities of India. So what's the deal? These descriptions have a significant similarity with the legends, legends, beliefs, and myths of all the Slavs that are most ancient in their origin. In what remote antiquity could such a resemblance arise? And where? Many of the descriptions contained in ancient Indian literature, which are considered to be mysterious, do not at all seem so to the Slavs, even living in our time. Their ancestors for thousands of years observed these “mysterious” natural phenomena in the far north (for example, the “northern lights”), and therefore not only Russians, but also other Slavic peoples are quite familiar with what is considered myths or poetic allegories in India.

So, in the 19th century, historians, in search of the ancestral home of the Indo-European peoples, turned their eyes to the Arctic. They were greatly influenced by the book Paradise Found, or the Cradle of Mankind at the North Pole, by the American historian Warren, which went through ten editions (the last in Boston in 1893). In the Arctic, they began to look for the ancestors of the Slavs and Aryans, also because the attention of historians was attracted by the book of the famous Indian scientist, Sanskrit connoisseur B. Tilak (1856-1920). This work "The Arctic Homeland in the Vedas" was first published in 1903, and then repeatedly reprinted in different languages ​​(unfortunately, in our country this book was first published only in 2001).

The researchers revealed the similarity of many words of the Indo-European languages, as well as a number of coincidences in their grammatical structure and some closeness of the beliefs and customs of these peoples, which absolutely did not fit into the framework of Christian ideas about history. For the first time, disputes began to arise about the origin of the word "history". Supporters of the Vedic worldview argue that "history" comes from the phrase "from-tori-ya", i.e. from oral traditions (remember to “tort” - pave the way, speak, “chatter” - speak quickly). Christian ideologists, on the other hand, assert “from-Torah-I” (where “Torah” is the Pentateuch of the Old Testament).

In search of the ways of the ancestral home and the parent language, some scientists even came to the conclusion that in ancient times there was a common Aryan race. In the 20th century, they agreed to an absurd statement about the "Aryan" of the Germans and the "non-Aryan" of other peoples, including the Slavs. Everyone knows what a tragedy this expulsion of the Slavs from the “Aryan race” ended in, what tortures and mockeries the Slavic peoples were subjected to for their “non-Aryanism”, and to what absurdity the German National Socialists brought their “Aryan virtues”. Such views belong to geopolitical speculations.

We remind you that the word "Arya" (ar "ya, aria) referred to a large group of tribes related in language and culture. In the ancient Aryan "Ar" - the Earth, the surface of the earth, the hill, the mountain - was preserved in the Indo-European languages ​​​​as a measure of the surface (area "Ar-i-ya" - means one basic concept - "Earthlings", although sometimes there is also a derivative concept of "farmers".

Slavs are not a nationality, but a religion, a way of life. Slav - literally - Glorifying "Yan", i.e. The paternal aspect of the Most High and "In", i.e. His Mother aspect. Our Ancestors glorified the Most High Ancestor, His incarnations, glorified the divine world of Rule, hence the Slavs and the Orthodox. These words sounded in everyday life when it became necessary to distinguish their own kind from foreigners, gentiles, foreigners and schismatics, mainly in connection with the forced arrival of Christianity in Rus'.

Slovenes - this concept speaks of a common language (they used the same words, in contrast to those who were “not us” or “dumb”, i.e. “Germans”).

Nation - a community of peoples (Aryev - Earthlings), who considered themselves Bozhichs-Svarozhichs, i.e. children of the Heavenly Father of the Genus-Progenitor (in the material hypostasis - Svarog) and Mother Earth. In ancient Slovenian (ancient Aryan, Sanskrit, which is the same) Tsy (Qi) meant God the Father, the Source of Sources, the masculine principle, i.e. in ancient times, men were called "those coming from Tsy", abbreviated as "fathers". Now the meaning of “on-Qi-ya” is clearer, i.e. at the Source of Sources, the Primordial people, the Pranarod. Germans (mute from Tsy), i.e. those who never understood us.

People, Na - Rod, where Rod is in the meaning of "earth" (that's why today it sounds that the earth will give birth). During the growth and settlement of individual tribes of the nation, people appeared on new lands living on this land, hence Rod-and-on, i.e. the earth and those living on it, as well as the very concept of a clan, as a separate tribe.

2.1. Primitive world and the birth of civilization. Sources of information about primitiveness

The primitive history of mankind is reconstructed from a whole range of sources, since not a single source alone is able to provide us with a complete and reliable picture of this era. The most important group of sources - archaeological sources - allow the use of
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follow the material foundations of human life. Objects made by a person carry information about himself, about his occupations and the society in which he lived. According to the material remains of a person, you can get information about his spiritual world. The complexity of working with this type of sources lies in the fact that far from all objects related to man and his activities have come down to us. Items made of organic materials (wood, bone, horn, clothing) are usually not preserved. Therefore, historians build their concepts of the development of the human community in the primitive era on the basis of materials that have survived to this day (flint tools, pottery, dwellings, etc.). Archaeological excavations contribute to the acquisition of knowledge about the very beginning of human existence, because the tools made by man were one of the main signs that separated him from the animal world. Ethnographic sources make it possible, with the help of a comparative historical method, to reconstruct the culture, way of life, and social relations of the people of the past. Ethnography explores the life of relic (backward) tribes and nationalities, as well as remnants of the past in modern societies. For this, such scientific methods are used as direct observations of specialists, analysis of the records of ancient and medieval authors, which contribute to the acquisition of some ideas about the societies and people of the past. There is one serious difficulty here - one way or another, all the tribes and peoples of the earth were influenced by civilized societies, and researchers should remember this. We also have no right to talk about the complete identity of the most backward societies - the tribes of the aborigines of Australia and the primitive bearers of similar cultures. Ethnographic sources also include folklore monuments, which are used to study oral folk art.
Anthropology studies the bones of primitive people, restoring their physical appearance. Based on the bone remains, we can judge the volume of the brain of a primitive person, his gait, body structure, diseases and injuries. Anthropologists can reconstruct the entire skeleton and appearance of a person
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on a small fragment of bone and, thus, to restore the process of anthropogenesis - the origin of man.
Linguistics deals with the study of language And revealing within its framework the most ancient layers that were formed in the distant past. Using these layers, one can not only restore the ancient forms of the language, but also learn a lot about the life of the past - material culture, social structure, way of thinking. Reconstructions of linguists are difficult to date and they are always distinguished by a certain hypothetical character.
There are, in addition to the main ones listed above, many other auxiliary sources. These are paleobotany - the science of ancient plants, paleozoology - the science of ancient animals, paleoclimatology, geology and others. The researcher of primitiveness must use the data of all sciences, studying them comprehensively And offering your own interpretation.
Periodization and chronology of primitive history. Periodization is a conditional division of the history of mankind into time stages in accordance with certain criteria. Chronology is a science that allows you to identify the time of existence of an object or phenomenon. There are two types of chronology: absolute and relative. Absolute chronology accurately determines the time of the event (at such and such a time: year, month, day). Relative chronology only establishes the sequence of events, noting that one of them happened before the other. This chronology is widely used by archaeologists in the study of various archaeological cultures.
To establish the exact date, scientists use methods such as radiocarbon (according to the content of the carbon isotope in organic residues), dendrochronological (according to tree rings), archeomagnetic (baked clay items are dated) and others. All these methods are still far from the desired accuracy and allow us to date events only approximately.
There are several types of periodization of primitive history. Archaeological periodization as the main criterion uses a consistent change of tools. Main stages:
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1. Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) - is divided into lower (earliest in time), middle and upper (late). The Paleolithic began more than 2 million years ago, ended around the 8th millennium BC. e.;
2. Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) - VIII-V millennium BC. e.;
3. Neolithic (New Stone Age) — V— III thousand BC e.;
4. Eneolithic (Copper Stone Age) - a transitional stage between the Stone and Metal periods;
5. bronze age - III— II thousand BC e.;
6. Iron Age - begins in the 1st millennium BC. e.

These dates are very approximate. And different researchers offer their options. In addition, these stages occurred at different times in different regions.
Geological periodization.
The history of the Earth is divided into four eras. The last era is the Cenozoic. It is divided into Tertiary (began 69 million years ago), Quaternary (began 1 million years ago) and Modern (began 14,000 years ago) periods. The Quaternary period is divided into the Pleistocene (preglacial and glacial epochs) and Holocene (postglacial epoch).
Periodization of the history of primitive society. There is no unity among researchers on the issue of periodization of the history of the most ancient society. The most common is the following: 1) the primitive human herd; 2) tribal community (this stage is divided into the early tribal community of hunters, gatherers And fishermen and a developed community of farmers And pastoralists); 3) primitive neighbor (proto-peasant) community. The era of primitive society ends with the appearance of the first civilizations.
The origin of man (anthropogenesis). IN Modern science has several theories of the origin of man. The most reasoned is the labor theory of the origin of man, formulated by F. Engels. Labor theory emphasizes the role of labor in the formation of teams of the first people, their rallying and the formation of new ties between them. According to this concept, labor activity influenced the development of a human hand, and the need for new means of communication led to the development of language. The appearance of man is thus associated with the beginning of the production of tools.
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The process of anthropogenesis (human origin) went through three stages in its development: 1) the appearance of human anthropoid ancestors; 2) the appearance of ancient and ancient people; 3) the emergence of a modern type of man. Anthropogenesis was preceded by intensive evolution of higher apes in different directions. As a result of evolution, several new species of monkeys arose, including driopithecus. Dryopithecines are descended from Australopithecus, whose remains are found in Africa.
Australopithecus was distinguished by a relatively large brain volume (550-600 cc), walking on its hind limbs, and using natural objects as tools. Their fangs and jaws were less developed than those of other monkeys. Australopithecus were omnivores and hunted small animals. Like other anthropomorphic monkeys, they united in herds. Australopithecus lived 4 - 2 million years ago.
The second stage of anthropogenesis is associated with the Pithecanthropus ("monkey-man") and related Atlanthropus and Sinanthropus. Pithecanthropes can already be called the most ancient people, since they, unlike Australopithecus, made stone tools. The volume of the brain in Pithecanthropus was about 900 cubic meters. cm, and in Sinanthropus - a late form of Pithecanthropus - 1050 cubic meters. see Pithecanthropes retained some of the features of monkeys - a low vault of the skull, a sloping forehead, and the absence of a chin protrusion. The remains of pithecanthropes are found in Africa, Asia and Europe. It is possible that the ancestral home of man was in Africa and Southeast Asia. The oldest people lived 750-200 thousand years ago.
The Neanderthal was the next step in anthropogenesis. They call him ancient man. The volume of the brain of a Neanderthal is from 1200 to 1600 cubic meters. cm - approaches the volume of the brain of a modern person. But in the Neanderthal, unlike modern man, the structure of the brain was primitive, the frontal lobes of the brain were not developed. The hand was coarse and massive, which limited the Neanderthal's ability to use tools. Neanderthals spread widely across the Earth, inhabiting different climatic zones. They lived 250-40 thousand years ago. Scientists believe that the ancestors of modern man were not all
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Neanderthals; part of the Neanderthals represented a dead end branch of development.
The man of the modern physical type - the Cro-Magnon man - appeared at the third stage of anthropogenesis. These are people of high stature, with a straight gait, with a sharply protruding chin. The volume of the Cro-Magnon brain was equal to 1400 - 1500 cubic meters. see Cro-Magnons appeared about 100 thousand years ago. Probably, their homeland was Western Asia and adjacent areas.
At the last stage of anthropogenesis, racegenesis occurs - the formation of three human races. Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid races can serve as an example of people's adaptation to the natural environment. Races differ in skin color, hair, eyes, features of the structure of the face and physique, and other features. All three races developed in the Late Paleolithic, but the process of race formation continued in the future.-
Origins of language and thought. Thinking and speech are interconnected, so they cannot be considered separately from each other. These two things happened at the same time. Their development was demanded by the labor process, during which human thinking was constantly developing, and the need to transfer the acquired experience contributed to the emergence of the speech system. The sound signals of monkeys served as the basis for the development of speech. On the surface of the casts of the inner cavity of the skulls of Sinanthropes, an increase in the parts of the brain responsible for speech was found, which makes it possible to speak with confidence about the presence of developed articulate speech and thinking in Sinanthropes. This is quite consistent with the fact that the Sinanthropes practiced developed collective forms of labor (driven hunting) and successfully used fire.
In Neanderthals, the size of the brain sometimes exceeded the corresponding parameters in a modern person, but poorly developed frontal lobes of the brain, which are responsible for associative, abstract thinking, appeared only in Cro-Magnons. Therefore, the system of language and thinking, most likely, finally took shape in the Late Paleolithic era simultaneously with the appearance of the Cro-Magnons and the beginning of their labor activity.
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appropriating economy. The appropriating economy, in which people exist by appropriating the products of nature, is the oldest type of economy. Hunting and gathering can be distinguished as the two main occupations of people of antiquity. Their ratio was not the same at different stages of the development of human society and in different natural and climatic conditions. Gradually, a person masters new complex forms of hunting - driven hunting, traps and others. For hunting, butchering carcasses, gathering, stone tools (made of flint and obsidian) were used - axes, side-scrapers, pointed-points. Wooden tools were also used - digging sticks, clubs and spears.
During the early tribal community, the number of tools increases. New stone processing technologies are emerging, marking the transition to the Upper Paleolithic. Now man has learned to chip off thin and light plates, which are then brought to the desired shape with the help of chips and squeezing retouching - a method of secondary stone processing. New technologies required less flint, which facilitated the advance into previously uninhabited areas poor in flint.
In addition, new technologies have led to the creation of a number of specialized tools - scrapers, knives, chisels, small javelin tips. Bone and horn are widely used. Spears, darts, stone axes, spears appear. Fishing plays an important role. The productivity of hunting has increased dramatically as a result of the invention of the spear thrower - a plank with an emphasis that allows you to throw a spear at a speed comparable to the speed of an arrow from a bow. The spear thrower was the first mechanical tool that supplemented the muscular strength of a person. The first so-called gender and age division of labor takes place: men are mainly engaged in hunting and fishing, and women are engaged in gathering and housekeeping. The children helped the women.
At the end of the Late Paleolithic, the era of glaciation began. During the glaciation, wild horses and reindeer become the main prey. For hunting these animals, driven methods were widely used, allowing for
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a short time to kill a large number of beasts. They provided the ancient hunters with food, skins for clothes and dwellings, horn and bone for tools. Reindeer make seasonal migrations - in summer they move to the tundra, closer to the glacier, in winter - to the forest zone. While hunting deer, people simultaneously explored new lands.
With the retreat of the glacier, living conditions have changed. The deer hunters followed them following the receding glacier, the rest were forced to adapt to hunting small animals. The Mesolithic era has begun. During this period, a new microlithic technique appears. Microliths are small flint objects that were inserted into wooden or bone tools and formed the cutting edge. Such a tool was more versatile than solid flint items, and in terms of sharpness it was not inferior to metal items.
A huge human achievement was the invention of the bow and arrow, a powerful, rapid-fire ranged weapon. Takeke boomerang was invented - a curved throwing club. In the Mesolithic era, man tamed the first animal - a dog, which became a faithful assistant in hunting. Fishing methods are being improved, nets, a boat with oars, and a fishing hook appear. In many places, fishing is becoming the main branch of the economy. The retreat of the glacier and the warming of the climate lead to an increase in the role of gathering.
A man of the Mesolithic era had to unite in small groups that did not stay in one place for a long time, wandering in search of food. Dwellings were built temporary and small. In the Mesolithic, people move far to the north and east; having crossed the land isthmus, the place of which is currently occupied by the Bering Strait, they populate America.
Manufacturing economy. The manufacturing economy arose in the Neolithic era. The last stage of the Stone Age is characterized by the appearance of a new technique of the stone industry - grinding, sawing and drilling of stone. Tools were made from new types of stone. During this period, such a tool as an ax was widely distributed.
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One of the most important inventions of the Neolithic was ceramics. The manufacture and subsequent firing of pottery allowed a person to facilitate the preparation and storage of food. Man has learned to produce a material that is not found in nature - baked clay. The invention of spinning and weaving was also of great importance. Fiber for spinning was produced from wild plants, later from sheep wool.
In the Neolithic era, one of the most significant events in the history of mankind takes place - the emergence of animal husbandry and agriculture. The transition from an appropriating to a producing economy was called the Neolithic revolution. The relationship between man and nature becomes fundamentally different. Now man could independently produce everything necessary for life and became less dependent on the environment.
Agriculture arose from highly organized gathering, in the course of which man learned to care for wild plants in order to obtain a larger harvest. Collectors used sickles with flint inserts, grain grinders, and hoes. Gathering was a woman's occupation, so agriculture was probably invented by a woman. Regarding the place of origin of agriculture, scientists come to the conclusion that it arose in several centers at once: in Western Asia, Southeast Asia and South America.
Animal husbandry began to take shape as early as the Mesolithic era, but constant movement prevented hunting tribes from breeding any animals other than dogs. Agriculture contributed to a greater sedentary population of the human population, thereby facilitating the process of domestication of animals. At first they tamed young animals caught during the hunt. Among the first animals to suffer this fate were goats, pigs, sheep and cows. Hunting was a male occupation, so cattle breeding also became a male prerogative. Cattle breeding arose somewhat later than agriculture, since the maintenance of animals required a solid forage base; it also appeared in several foci, independent of each other.
Animal husbandry and agriculture at first could not compete with highly specialized hunting.
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whose And fishing industry, but gradually the production economy comes to the fore in a number of regions (primarily in Western Asia).
Public relations in primitive times. Developmentfamilies. Primitive herd.
Ancient people, who appeared at the dawn of the human era, were forced to unite in herds in order to survive. These herds could not be large - no more than 20-40 people - because otherwise they would not be able to feed themselves. The leader of the primitive herd was the leader, who advanced due to personal qualities. Separate herds were scattered over vast territories and had almost no contact with each other. Archaeologically, the primitive herd corresponds to the Lower and Middle Paleolithic.
Sexual relations in the primitive herd, according to a number of scientists, were disordered. Such relationships are called promiscuity. According to other scientists, a harem family existed within the framework of the primitive herd, and only the leader participated in the process of reproduction. The herd, as a rule, consisted of several harem families.
Early tribal community. The process of transformation of the primitive herd into a tribal community is associated with the growth of the productive forces that rallied the ancient collectives, as well as with the appearance of exogamy. Exogamy is the prohibition against marrying within one's own group. Gradually, an exogamous dual-clan group marriage took shape, in which members of one clan could only marry members of another clan. At the same time, from the very birth, men of one kind were considered husbands of women of another kind, And vice versa. At the same time, men had the right to have sexual intercourse with all women of a different kind. In such a relationship, the danger of incest And conflicts between men of the same kind was eliminated.
In order to finally avoid the possibility of incest (for example, a father could have an affair with his daughter), people resorted to dividing the genus into classes. One class included men (women) of one generation, and they could only have relations with the same class of another kind. The set of marriage classes included usually four or eight classes. With such a system
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kinship was kept on the maternal line, and the children remained in the mother's family. Gradually, more and more restrictions were established in group marriage, as a result of which it became impossible. As a result, a pair marriage is formed, which was very often fragile and easily dissolved.
The dual-tribal organization of two clans formed the basis of the tribal community. The clan community was united not only by marriage relations between clans, but also by production relations. After all, due to the custom of exogamy, a situation developed when part of the relatives went to another clan and was included here in production relations. In the early tribal community, management was carried out by a meeting of all adult relatives, who decided all the main issues. The leaders of the clan were chosen at a meeting of the whole clan. The most experienced people, who were the keepers of customs, enjoyed great authority, and they were, as a rule, elected leaders. Power was based on the strength of personal authority.
In the early tribal community, all products obtained by members of the community were considered the property of the clan and were distributed among all its members. This was a necessary condition for the survival of ancient societies. The collective property of the community was the land, most of the tools. It is known that in the tribes at this level of development, it was allowed to take without asking and use other people's tools and things.
All people in the community were divided into three gender and age groups: adult men, women, and children. The transition to a group of adults was considered a very important milestone in a person's life and was called initiation ("initiation"). The meaning of the initiation rite is to introduce the teenager to the economic, social and ideological life of the community. Here is the scheme of initiation, the same for all peoples: the removal of initiates from the collective and their training; trials of the initiates (hunger, humiliation, beatings, infliction of wounds) and their ritual death; return to the team in a new status. Upon completion of the initiation rite, the "initiate" received the right to enter into marriage.
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Late tribal community. The transition to the appropriating economy led to the replacement of the early tribal community by the late community of farmers-pastoralists. Within the framework of the late tribal community, tribal ownership of land was preserved. However, the increase in labor productivity gradually led to the appearance of a regular surplus product that the community member could keep for himself. This trend contributed to the formation of a prestigious economy. The prestige economy arose from the emergence of a surplus product that was used V gift exchange system. This practice increased the social prestige of the donor, and he, as a rule, did not incur losses, since there was a custom of obligatory return. The exchange of gifts strengthened the relationship between members of both the same and different communities, strengthened the position of the leader and family ties.
Due to the high productivity of labor, the communities, growing, were divided into groups of relatives on the maternal side - the so-called maternal families. But tribal unity has not yet disintegrated, since, if necessary, families united back into the clan. Women, who play the main role in agriculture and in the home, strongly pressed men in the maternal family.
The paired family gradually strengthened its position in society (although there are known cases of the existence of "additional" wives or husbands). The appearance of an excess product made it possible to take care of the children financially. But the paired family did not have a property separate from the clan property, which hindered its development.
Late tribal communities united in phratries, phratries - in tribes. A phratry is the original genus, divided into several daughter gentes. The tribe consisted of two phratries, which were exogamous marriage halves of the tribe. In the late tribal community, economic and social equality was maintained. The clan was ruled by a council, which included all members of the tribe and an elder chosen by the clan. For the duration of the hostilities, a military leader was elected. If necessary, a tribal council was assembled, consisting of the elders of the tribal clans and military leaders. The head of the tribe was elected one of the elders, who had not very much power. The women were in
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to the clan council, and in the early stages of development of the late clan community, they could become heads of clans.
Decomposition of the tribal community. The appearance of a neighborcommunities. The Neolithic revolution contributed to a radical change in the way of life of a person, sharply accelerating the pace of development of the human community. People have moved to the purposeful production of basic foodstuffs on the basis of an integrated economy. In this economy, cattle breeding and agriculture complemented each other. The development of an integrated economy and natural and climatic conditions inevitably led to the specialization of communities - in some they switched to cattle breeding, in others to agriculture. This is how the first major social division of labor took place - the separation of agriculture and animal husbandry into separate economic complexes.
The development of agriculture led to settled life, and the increase in labor productivity in areas favorable for agriculture contributed to the fact that the community gradually grew. In Western Asia and the Middle East, the first large settlements appeared, and then cities. The cities had residential buildings, religious buildings, and workshops. Later cities appear in other places. The population in the first cities reached several thousand people.
A truly revolutionary change occurred due to the appearance of metals. First, people mastered the metals that can be found in the form of nuggets - copper and gold. Then they learned to smelt metals on their own. The first alloy of copper and tin known to people appeared and began to be widely used - bronze, which surpasses copper in hardness.
Metals were slowly replacing stone. The Stone Age was replaced by the Eneolithic - the Copper-Stone Age, and the Eneolithic - the Bronze Age. But tools made of copper and bronze could not completely replace stone ones. First, the sources of raw materials for bronze were only in a few places, and deposits of stone were everywhere. Secondly, in some qualities, stone tools were superior to copper and even bronze ones.
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Only when man learned to smelt iron did the era of stone tools finally become a thing of the past. Iron deposits are found everywhere, but iron is not found in its pure form and is rather difficult to process. Therefore, mankind learned to smelt iron after a relatively long period of time - in the II millennium BC. e. The new metal, in terms of availability and working qualities, surpassed all materials known then, opening a new era in the history of mankind - the Iron Age.
Metallurgical production required knowledge, skills and experience. For the manufacture of new, difficult to manufacture metal tools, skilled labor was required - the labor of artisans. Artisans-blacksmiths appeared, passing their knowledge and skills from generation to generation. The introduction of metal tools caused an acceleration in the development of agriculture, animal husbandry and an increase in labor productivity. So, after the invention of the plow with metal working parts, arable farming appeared, based on the use of the draft power of livestock.
In the Eneolithic, the potter's wheel was invented, which contributed to the development of pottery. With the invention of the loom, the weaving industry developed. Society, having acquired sustainable sources of subsistence, was able to carry out the second major social division of labor - the separation of handicrafts from agriculture and cattle breeding.
The social division of labor was accompanied by the development of exchange. In contrast to the previously sporadically occurring exchange of wealth from the natural environment, this exchange was already of an economic nature. Farmers and pastoralists exchanged the products of their labor, artisans exchanged their products. The need for an ongoing exchange even led to the development of a number of public institutions, primarily the institution of hospitality. Gradually, societies develop means of exchange and measures of their value.
In the course of these changes, the matriarchal (maternal) clan is replaced by the patriarchal one. It was due to the displacement of women from the most important spheres of production. Hoe farming is being replaced by plow farming, only a man could handle the meadow. Sco-
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Farming, like commercial hunting, is also a typically male occupation. In the course of the development of a productive economy, a man acquires significant power, both in society and in the family. Now upon entry V marriage, a woman passed into the family of her husband. The kinship account was carried out through the male line, and the children inherited the property of the family. A large patriarchal family appears - a family of several generations of paternal relatives, headed by the oldest man. The introduction of iron tools led to the fact that a small family could feed itself. A large patriarchal family breaks up into small families.
The formation of a surplus product and the development of exchange were an incentive for the individualization of production and the emergence of private property. Large and economically strong families sought to stand out from the clan. This trend led to the replacement of the tribal community by the neighboring one, where tribal ties gave way to territorial ones. The primitive neighborhood community was characterized by a combination of private ownership of the yard (house and outbuildings) and tools and collective ownership of the main means of production - land. Families were forced to unite, since an individual family was unable to cope with many operations: land reclamation, irrigation and slash-and-burn agriculture.
The neighborhood community was a universal stage for all the peoples of the world at the pre-class and class stage of development, playing the role of the main economic unit of society until the era of the industrial revolution.
Politogenesis (formation of the state). It should be noted that there are different concepts of the origin of the state. Marxists believe that it was created as an apparatus for the violence and exploitation of one class by another. Another theory is the “theory of violence”, whose representatives believe that classes and the state arose as a result of wars and conquests, during which the conquerors created the institution of the state in order to maintain their dominance. If we consider the problem in all its complexity, it becomes clear that the war required powerful organizations.
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structural structures, and was rather a consequence of politogenesis than its cause. However, the Marxist scheme also needs to be corrected, because the striving to fit all processes into one scheme inevitably runs into material resistance.
The growth in labor productivity led to the emergence of surpluses of products that could be alienated from producers. Some families accumulated these surpluses (food, handicrafts, livestock). The accumulation of wealth took place, first of all, in the families of the leaders, since the leaders had great opportunities, participating in the distribution of products.
Initially, this property was destroyed after the death of the owner or used in rituals, such as, for example, “potlatch”, when all these surpluses were distributed to all those present at some festival. With these distributions, the organizer gained authority in society. In addition, he became a participant in reciprocal potlatch, in which part of the gift was returned to him. The principle of giving and giving, characteristic of a prestigious economy, placed ordinary community members and their wealthy neighbors in unequal conditions. Ordinary members of the community became dependent on the person arranging the potlatch.
The leaders are gradually seizing power into their own hands, while the importance of popular assemblies is declining. The society is gradually being structured - the top is allocated from among the community members. A strong, rich and generous, and, consequently, an authoritative leader subjugated weak rivals, spreading his influence to neighboring communities. The first supra-communal structures arise, within which the authorities are separated from the tribal organization. Thus, the first pro-state formations appear.
The appearance of such formations was accompanied by a fierce struggle between them. War is gradually becoming one of the most important industries. In connection with the wide spread of wars, military equipment and organization are developing. Military leaders play an important role. A squad is formed around them, which included warriors who have proven themselves in the best possible way.
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in battles. During the campaigns, booty was captured, which was distributed among all the soldiers.
The head of the proto-state simultaneously became the chief priest, since the power of the leader in the community remained elective. The acquisition of the functions of a priest made the leader a bearer of divine grace and an intermediary between people and supernatural forces. The sacralization of the ruler was an important step towards his depersonalization, turning into a kind of symbol. The power of authority is replaced by the authority of power.
Gradually, power became lifelong. After the death of the leader, the members of his family had the greatest chance of success. As a result, the power of the leader became hereditary within his family. Thus, the pro-state is finally formed - the political structure of society with social and property inequality, a developed division of labor and exchange, headed by a priest-ruler who had hereditary power.
Over time, the proto-state expands through conquest, complicates its structure and turns into a state. The state differs from the proto-state in its large size and the presence of developed institutions of governance. The main features of the state are territorial (rather than tribal-clan) division of the population, army, court, law, taxes. With the advent of the state, the primitive neighborhood community becomes a neighborhood community, which, unlike the primitive one, loses its independence.
The state is characterized by the phenomenon of urbanization, which includes an increase in the number of urban population, monumental construction, the construction of temples, irrigation facilities and roads. Urbanization is one of the main signs of the formation of civilization.
Another important sign of civilization is the invention of writing. The state needed to streamline economic activity, write down laws, rituals, deeds of rulers, and much more. It is possible that writing was created with the participation of priests. In contrast to the pictographic or rope cism, characteristic of undeveloped societies, for the development of hieroglyphic
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writing required a long study. Writing was the privilege of the priests and the nobility, and only with the advent of alphabetic writing became publicly available. The development of writing was the most important stage in the development of culture, since writing serves as the main means of accumulating and transmitting knowledge.
With the advent of the state, writing, the first civilizations arise. Characteristic features of civilization: a high level of development of the productive economy, the presence of political structures, the introduction of metal, the use of writing and monumental structures.
agricultural and pastoral civilizations. Agriculture developed most intensively in the river valleys, especially in countries stretching from the Mediterranean in the west to China in the east. The development of agriculture eventually led to the emergence of the ancient eastern centers of civilization.
Cattle breeding developed in the steppes and semi-deserts of Eurasia and Africa, as well as in the highlands, where cattle were kept on mountain pastures in summer and in valleys in winter. The term "civilization" can be used in relation to a pastoral society with certain reservations, since pastoralism did not provide such economic development as agriculture. An economy based on cattle breeding provided a less stable surplus product. Also very important was the factor that pastoralism requires large areas, and the concentration of the population in societies of this type, as a rule, does not occur. The cities of pastoralists are much smaller than in agricultural civilizations, so one cannot speak of any large-scale urbanization.
With the domestication of the horse and the invention of the wheel, significant changes took place in the economy of pastoralists - nomadic pastoralism appeared. The nomads moved across the steppes and semi-deserts on their carts, accompanying herds of animals. The emergence of a nomadic economy in the steppes of Eurasia should be attributed to the end of the 2nd millennium BC. Only with the advent of nomadic pastoralism does a pastoral economy finally take shape that does not use agriculture (although many nomadic societies were engaged in processing
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which land). Among the nomads, in conditions of an economy isolated from agriculture, exclusively proto-state associations, tribal proto-states, arise. While in an agricultural society the neighboring community becomes the basic unit, in a pastoral society tribal relations are still very strong and the tribal community retains its position.
For militancy is characteristic of nomadic societies, since their members did not have reliable sources of livelihood. Therefore, nomads constantly invaded the areas of farmers and robbed or subjugated them. The entire male population of the nomads usually participated in the war, and their cavalry was very maneuverable. And could travel long distances. Appearing quickly and disappearing just as quickly, the nomads achieved significant success in their unexpected raids. In the case of the subjugation of agricultural societies, nomads, as a rule, settled on the ground themselves.
But one should not exaggerate the fact of confrontation between settled and nomadic societies and talk about the presence of a constant war between them. There have always been stable economic relations between farmers and pastoralists, since both of them needed a constant exchange of the products of their labor.
traditional society. Traditional society appears simultaneously with the emergence of the state. This social development model is very sustainable And characteristic of all societies except European. In Europe, a different model has developed, based on private property. The basic principles of traditional society were in effect until the era of the industrial revolution, and in many states they still exist today.
The main structural unit of a traditional society is the neighborhood community. Agriculture with elements of cattle breeding prevails in the neighboring community. Community peasants are usually conservative in their way of life due to the natural, climatic and economic cycles that repeat from year to year and the monotony of life. In this situation, the peasants demanded from the state, first of all, stability, which could only be provided by a strong state.
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stvo. The weakening of the state has always been accompanied by turmoil, arbitrariness of officials, invasions of enemies, and a breakdown in the economy, which is especially disastrous in the conditions of irrigated agriculture. As a result - crop failure, famine, epidemics, a sharp drop in population. Therefore, society has always preferred a strong state, transferring most of its powers to it.
Within a traditional society, the state is the highest value. It usually operates in a clear hierarchy. At the head of the state was the ruler, who enjoys almost unlimited power and is the deputy of God on earth. Below was a powerful administrative apparatus. The position and authority of a person in a traditional society is determined not by his wealth, but, above all, by participation in public administration, which automatically ensures high prestige.
Culture of primitive society. In the course of his development and in the process of labor activity, a person mastered new knowledge. In the primitive era, knowledge was exclusively applied in nature. Man knew the natural world around him very well, since he himself was a part of it. The main areas of activity determined the areas of knowledge of ancient man. Thanks to hunting, he knew the habits of animals, the properties of plants, and much more. The level of knowledge of an ancient person is reflected in his language. So, in the language of the Australian aborigines there are 10,000 words, among which there are almost no abstract and generalizing concepts, but only specific terms denoting animals, plants, natural phenomena.
The man knew how to treat diseases, wounds, apply splints for fractures. Ancient people used for medicinal purposes procedures such as bloodletting, massage, compresses. Since the Mesolithic era, amputation of limbs, trepanation of the skull, and a little later, filling of teeth have been known.
The account of primitive people was primitive - they usually counted with the help of fingers and various objects. Distances were measured by body parts (palm, elbow, finger), travel days, arrow flight. Time was calculated in days, months, seasons.
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The question of the origin of art is still accompanied by controversy among researchers. Among scientists, the prevailing point of view is that art arose as a new effective means of knowing and understanding the world around us. The beginnings of art appear as early as the Lower Paleolithic. Notches, ornaments, drawings were found on the surface of stone and bone products.
In the Upper Paleolithic, a person creates painting, engraving, sculpture, uses music and dance. Drawings of animals (mammoths, deer, horses) made in color using black, white, red and yellow paints were found in the caves. Caves with drawings are known in Spain, France, Russia, Mongolia. Also found are graphic drawings of animals carved or carved on bone and stone.
In the Upper Paleolithic, figurines of women with pronounced sexual characteristics appear. The appearance of the figurines is connected, possibly, with the cult of the foremother and the establishment of the maternal tribal community. Songs and dances played an important role in the life of primitive people. Dance and music are based on rhythm, songs also originated as rhythmic speech.

2.2. Civilizations of the ancient world

Civilizations of the Ancient East. The ancient East became the cradle of modern civilization. Here the first states, the first cities, writing, stone architecture, world religions and much more appear, without which it is impossible to imagine the current human community. The first states arise in the valleys of large rivers. Agriculture in these areas was very productive, but this required irrigation work - to drain, irrigate, build dams and maintain the entire irrigation system in order. One community couldn't handle it. There was a need to unite all communities under the control of a single state.
For the first time, this happens in two places at once, independently of each other - in Mesopotamia (the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers) and Egypt at the end of the 4th-3rd millennium BC. e. Later, the state
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niketsya in India, in the valley of the Indus River, and at the turn of III - II millennium BC. e. - in China. These civilizations received in science the name river civilizations.
The most important center of ancient statehood was the region Mesopotamia. Unlike other civilizations, Mesopotamia was open to all migrations and trends. Trade routes opened from here and innovations spread to other lands. The civilization of Mesopotamia continuously expanded and involved new peoples, while other civilizations were more closed. Thanks to this, Western Asia is gradually becoming a flagship in socio-economic development. Here appear the potter's wheel and wheel, the metallurgy of bronze and iron, the war chariot and new forms of writing. Scientists trace the influence of Mesopotamia on Egypt and the civilization of ancient India.
Farmers settled Mesopotamia in the 8th millennium BC. e. Gradually, they learned to drain wetlands. In the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates there are no stones, forests, metals, but they are very rich in grain. Residents of Mesopotamia exchanged grain for missing household items in the process of trading with neighbors. Stone and wood were replaced with clay. They built houses from clay, made various household items, and wrote on clay tablets.
At the end of IV millennium BC. e. in the Southern Mesopotamia, several political centers arose, which united in the state of Sumer. Throughout its ancient history, the region of Mesopotamia was the scene of a fierce struggle, during which power was seized by a city or conquerors who came from outside. From the II millennium BC. e. The city of Babylon begins to play a leading role in the region, becoming a mighty power under King Hammurabi. Then Assyria is strengthened, which from the XIV to VII centuries. BC e. was one of the leading states of Mesopotamia. After the fall of the Assyrian state, Babylon is strengthened again - the Neo-Babylonian kingdom arises. The Persians - immigrants from the territory of modern Iran - managed to conquer Babylonia and in the VI century. BC e. establish a huge Persian kingdom.
Civilization of the ancient Egypt owes its appearance to the world's largest river Nile and its annual floods.
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Egypt was divided into Upper (Nile Valley) and Lower (Nile Delta). Along the Nile, the first state associations arose - nomes, the center of which became temples. As a result of a long struggle, the nomes of Upper Egypt united and annexed Lower Egypt.
China how the state was formed in the Yellow River valley. Another great Chinese river - the Yangtze, flowing to the south, was developed later. The Yellow River very often changed its course, flooding vast areas. To curb the river required hard work on the construction of dams and dams.
Egypt and China, despite their remoteness from each other, have a number of common features, which can be explained by several reasons. These countries initially had an ethnically homogeneous population, the state apparatus was very stable; at the head of the state was a deified ruler. In Egypt, this is the pharaoh - the son of the Sun, in China - van, the son of Heaven. Within the framework of both civilizations, there was total control over the population, which was involved in the performance of heavy duties. The basis of the population of Egypt were community members, who were called "servants of the king" and were obliged to hand over the entire crop to the state, receiving food for this or allotment of land for cultivation. A similar system operated in China.
A huge role in the state of this type was played by priests-officials who controlled the apparatus and distributed food among the entire population. In Egypt, it was the priests who played the main role in the distribution of wealth. The Temples wielded considerable power, allowing them to successfully oppose the Center. Unlike Egypt, in China the religious component of the power of the state apparatus faded into the background.
IN India, in the valley of the Indus River, a proto-Indian civilization developed. Large irrigation systems were created here and large cities were built. The ruins of two cities were found near the modern settlements of Haralpa and Mohen-jo-Daro and. bear these names. Civilization has reached a high level of development here. This is evidenced by the presence of crafts, a sewer system, and writing. However, the writing of the proto-Indian civilization, in contrast to the hieroglyphic
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bodices of Egypt and the cuneiform writing of Mesopotamia, has not yet been unraveled by scientists, and this civilization continues to remain a mystery to us. The reasons for the death of the civilization of Ancient India, which existed for several centuries, are also unknown,
In the second half of the II millennium BC. e. The Aryans invaded India. The Aryan language belongs to the Indo-European language family and is close to the Slavic languages. The Aryans settled in the Ganges River valley, subjugating the local population. The Aryans who came lived mainly in a tribal system. At the head of the tribes were leaders - rajas, who relied on a layer of Kshatriya warriors. The Brahmin priests fought with the Kshatriyas for the first place in society and the state.
The Aryans, not wanting to dissolve among the large local population, were forced to establish a system of varnas. According to this system, the population was divided into four varnas - Brahmin priests, Kshatriya warriors, Vaishya producers, and also Shudra - the conquered local population. Belonging to the varna was inherited, and it was impossible to change it. Marriages always took place between members of the same varna.
The varna system contributed to the conservation of Indian society. Since the Varnas took over part of the functions of the state, the state apparatus in India did not become as strong and influential as in other civilizations of the Ancient East.
IN Eastern Mediterranean a new form of civilizations arises, different from the classical river states. The most ancient centers of agriculture and cattle breeding existed here, and the first urban centers appeared here. The city of Jericho in Palestine is known as the oldest city in the world (VIII millennium BC). The Eastern Mediterranean is a region located at the crossroads of major trade routes linking Asia, Europe and Africa.
From III thousand BC e. the cities of the Eastern Mediterranean are becoming important centers of transit trade. The rich cities and fertile lands of this region constantly served as the object of claims of large powers - Egypt, Assyria, the Hittite kingdom (on the territory of Asia Minor). The Eastern Mediterranean is divided into three parts - in the north

re Syria, in the south of Palestine, in the center - Phoenicia. The Phoenicians managed to become experienced sailors, engaged in transit trade, founded their colonies throughout the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians invented an alphabetic script to help them process trade transactions. This alphabet formed the basis of all modern alphabets.
Phoenicia turned out to be a transitional form of civilization close to the ancient model.

Ancient civilization.

Greece. The oldest civilization in Europe arose on the islands of the Aegean Sea and on the Balkan Peninsula And known as the Crete-Mycenaean civilization (by the name of the centers - the islands of Crete and Mycenae, cities in southern Greece). The Cretan-Mycenaean civilization was a typical ancient Eastern civilization that existed in the 2nd millennium BC. e. Crete, like Phoenicia, became famous as a maritime power with a mighty fleet. The death of the Crete-Mycenaean civilization is associated with a number of natural disasters and the invasion of Greece and the islands of the Aegean Sea by northern tribes. This invasion led to the establishment of more backward tribal relations on the ruins of civilization. XII - IX centuries. BC e. known in Greece as the Dark Ages.
In the VIII-VI centuries. BC e. Ancient civilization begins to form in Greece. The emergence of iron and related tools played a major role in its development. In Greece, there is not enough land for cultivation, so cattle breeding was widely developed here, and then handicrafts. The Greeks, familiar with maritime affairs, were actively engaged in trade, which gradually led to the development of the surrounding territories located along the coast. Due to the catastrophic lack of land resources, the Greeks were forced to establish colonies in Italy, Asia Minor, and the Black Sea region.
With the division of labor and the appearance of a surplus product, the tribal community is replaced by a neighboring community, but not a rural one, but an urban one. The Greeks called this community a polis. Gradually, the policy was formalized into a city-state. There were hundreds of policies in Greece. Colonies were also created according to this pattern. Within the framework of the policy, a fierce struggle took place between the tribal nobility, who did not want to
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blunt their power, and demos - ignoble members of the community.
The Greeks were aware of their unity - they called their homeland Hellas, and themselves - Hellenes. They had a single pantheon of Olympian gods and pan-Hellenic sports competitions. However, all this did not prevent them from regularly fighting among themselves.
One of the main features of the Hellenic culture is the principle of competitiveness and the desire for superiority, which is not typical for the civilizations of the East. A situation arose in the policy when its power depended on the citizens, who, in turn, were subject to certain duties, but at the same time significant rights.
Greece was not united by one policy - this was prevented by their fragmentation and disunity. As a result, Greece was conquered first by Macedonia and then by Rome. But the Roman state, which conquered Greece, experienced the strongest influence of Greek culture. The achievements of Greek culture eventually formed the basis of all European culture and civilization.
Ancient Rome. Rome was founded in 753 BC. e. in the region of Latium in the center of Italy. In the course of its development, Rome borrowed the culture and achievements of its neighbors. The Etruscans, the northern neighbors of Rome, had a particularly significant influence on Rome. According to legend, the Etruscans were immigrants from Asia Minor.
In the process of a long and stubborn struggle, Rome first conquered Latium, then the neighboring regions. Rome managed to win victories thanks to an effective state and military organization. Using its location in the center of the Apennine Peninsula, Rome managed to separate the forces of its enemies and conquer the Etruscans, the Celts of Italy, Magna Graecia (as the Greek colonies in Italy were called) and other tribes in turn.
In the III century. BC e. Rome, subjugated all of Italy, faced Carthage, a Phoenician colony in northern Africa. In the course of three fierce wars, Rome defeated its rival and became the most powerful power in the Mediterranean. Lacking the culture of their rivals,

Rome resorted to borrowing it, introducing its own state order and structure to the conquered lands.
In II - I centuries. n. e. Rome experienced a serious crisis. The Roman state was organized in the likeness of a polis. However, it is obvious that if the polis device can be effective for the city and its environs, then it is absolutely not suitable for a huge power. After a difficult and lengthy civil war, imperial power is established in Rome. In the era of the empire, Rome reaches its greatest power, uniting under its rule the lands of Western and Southern Europe, North Africa and Western Asia. A large role in this period of the history of Ancient Rome begins to play_slave-owning way of life.
VIII century. n. e. The Roman Empire experienced a severe upheaval that engulfed all spheres of life of Roman society. The onslaught of barbarians on the borders of the empire, associated with the Great Migration of Nations, and profound changes in the life of the empire led to a deep and irreversible crisis of ancient civilization. As a result, the Roman Empire split into two parts - Western and Eastern, and in the 5th century. n. e. The Western Roman Empire fell. 476 - the year when the last Roman emperor was overthrown - is considered to be the landmark year between antiquity and the Middle Ages. The successor of Rome was the Eastern Roman Empire with its center in Constantinople.

Economy of the Ancient World.

Economics of the Ancient East. In the first states of the Ancient East, the state sector of the economy prevailed, which existed simultaneously with the communal form of farming. The community members had a hereditary right to cultivate the land and use the necessary resources (forests, pastures, water). The land and other resources were managed by the apparatus of power - the state or the temple, which existed at the expense of the surplus product obtained from direct producers. The obligations of community producers took on various forms - the most common was the practice of the community allocating part of the crop to the state, working in the fields of the temple, working off in the form of labor service. So, based on redi-
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intributive (distributive) relations created the material basis for the functioning of the state and its institutions.
In the future, the process of privatization is developing, accompanied by the emergence of private property and market relations. There are new phenomena in the economy - land rent, hired labor, the orientation of producers to the market and usury. If earlier society was more homogeneous, now it is differentiated on the basis of property. Rich community members began to use the labor of the poor, and debt slavery appeared. This new type of economic relations has not received further distribution. The state held back its development, since these processes contributed to the violation of the stability of society and the weakening of the influence of the state.
Basically, the excess product went to the cities, where handicraft and trade were concentrated. Transit trade prevailed in the Ancient East, because in a society of this type, the internal market and market relations could not be highly developed. The state and society, interested in the stability of existence, held back the development of the city artificially. Therefore, the city, like the whole society, focused not on development, but on the conservation of existing relations.
Another situation arose in the cities of the Eastern Mediterranean, where there was no such strong state institution. This is especially true of Phoenician cities focused on transit trade. The Phoenicians anticipated and in many ways contributed to the formation of ancient civilization, which was formed in Greek society.
Economics of Ancient Greece and Rome. In ancient Greece, favorable conditions developed for the formation of an economy based on private property. In I millennium BC. e. iron is distributed, which increased labor productivity. On the territory of Greece there are few fields suitable for grain crops, so horticulture, cultivation of olives and grapes mainly developed here. The Greeks were in dire need of the export of bread. In the course of colonization, they settled in countries favorable for agriculture - Italy,
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Black Sea coast, Egypt. In Greece itself, a craft developed, the products of which were exchanged for bread during trade.
The development of trade was facilitated by the emergence of money - the generally accepted unit of exchange. The first money appeared in Asia Minor and was immediately borrowed by the Greeks. In the ancient Greek city-states, commodity-money relations develop, and a market is formed. The favorable geographical location of Greece at the crossroads of trade routes gave the Greeks great advantages. Greece consisted of many policies that were not united into a single state. Between these policies, a competitive struggle developed, developing entrepreneurship and initiative among the Greeks. The Greeks have private property, so uncharacteristic of the East.
At the center of the economy was the city-state (polis). Cities, as a rule, were located near the sea. Merchants, artisans lived here, peasants came here to exchange the fruits of their labor - cattle, olives, grapes - for grain and handicraft products. With all this, one should not exaggerate the role of commodity-money relations in antiquity - the economy was mainly natural in nature, and the degree of development of policies varied greatly.
Among the Romans, commodity-money relations began to develop only as a result of the conquest of vast territories by the empire. Constant wars contributed to the enrichment of the Roman nobility and the ruin of ordinary citizens. The plunder of the conquered territories allowed Rome to maintain a huge professional army, which contributed to the social order in society. Many impoverished citizens went to serve in the army. At the same time, citizens who did not want to work and serve lived in Rome. Funds flowing from all over the empire made it possible to support them with the help of distributions of bread and money.
Of great importance for the economy of Greece and Rome was the institution of slavery. Slavery also existed in the states of the Ancient East, being patriarchal. Under patriarchal slavery, a slave performs the function of a servant or helps his master in the household (there were relatively few such slaves and they did not play a significant role in the economy). In antiquity, classical slavery developed, within the framework of
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which the number of slaves is significantly increasing, their exploitation is intensifying, and the products of slave labor are often oriented to the market. Slaves were preferred to be used in artisan workshops and mines. In agriculture, their supervision was difficult and slaves were not used as often.
A constant source of replenishment of the number of slaves were wars, continuously waged between policies. Debt slavery was practiced by the Greeks for a short time - the awareness of the unity of the citizens of one policy led to the destruction of this institution.
In Rome, the number of slaves was even greater than in the Greek cities, since the Roman Empire continuously, for several centuries, waged successful wars of conquest. The enslavement of foreigners allowed the Romans to use massive slave labor in crafts and agriculture. Latifundia appear - large land holdings, in which, under the leadership of overseers, only slave labor was used. In some places, slaves became the main producers, which led to the ruin of ordinary community members.
It should be noted that slavery brought the ancient economy to a standstill. The use of slavery did not allow to intensify production. An extensive path of development aimed at expanding production and increasing the number of slaves ended in a deep crisis after the end of the wars of conquest. As a result, new, proto-feudal economic relations gradually begin to mature in the depths of antiquity.

The social structure of the societies of the ancient world.

The social structure of the Ancient East. Eastern society was strictly hierarchical and organized like a pyramid. The top of the pyramid was occupied by the ruler, who had the power consecrated by the gods. Below him were the nobility, the priests, the higher officials. Numerous apparatus of officials monitored the administration and functioning of the state. Warriors serving as part of a standing army ensured internal order in the tyusudardom and its protection from external enemies.
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The main part of society was made up of communal peasants. The rural community was the main production unit of society, and the main cell of the community was a large patriarchal family. In the course of the privatization process, property inequality appears and, as a result, dependent categories of the population. Dependence could take the form of debt bondage or land leases.
Merchants and artisans lived in the cities. Craftsmen often fell into dependence, being part of the state or temple economy. Among the merchants, a privileged stratum of merchants stands out, engaged in transit trade with other countries.
At the very bottom of society were the slaves. The source of obtaining slaves was, first of all, the capture of prisoners of war and only later debt slavery. As already mentioned, slavery was patriarchal, the slave was part of a large patriarchal family.
In the East, a system of corporations has developed as a structure organizing society. In part, these corporations became already known social institutions (families, clans, communities), in part - new ones (castes, sects, workshops). Corporations in the East were close-knit and organized groups of the population, having their own charter and their own rules of conduct that distinguish them from other corporations. The corporation provided its member with certain guarantees of protection from the arbitrariness common in Eastern society. The person was closely involved in the life of the corporation. The reverse side of this involvement was a kind of dissolution of a person in a team. A person realized himself, first of all, as part of a team, and not as a separate person independent of others.
Through corporations, it was easier for the state to control society. It was enough for state officials to turn to the head of the corporation in order to achieve what they wanted.
IN India there was a structure of society, different from other ancient Eastern societies. Indian society consisted of varnas and castes. The four varnas have been mentioned above.
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Over time, the fourth, lower varna, the Shudras, began to increase their status, drawing closer in their position to the Vaishyas, who, accordingly, lost some of their positions.
The varnas of the Kshatriyas and Brahmins were at the very top of Indian society. Between them there was a constant struggle for power. The Brahmins relied on unquestioned religious authority. According to Brahmanism, the oldest Indian religion, Brahmins occupy a higher social position than Kshatriyas. As a result, this confrontation ended in favor of the Brahmins. The attempt of the Kshatriyas to replace Brahmanism with Buddhism and Jainism ended in failure. Up to the present time, Hinduism, which developed from Brahmanism, dominates in India.
According to the ideas of the inhabitants of Ancient India, a person during his earthly life could not leave his varna. But, according to the law of karma, good and bad deeds were summed up, and as a result, a person in a future life could change varna to a better one. If bad deeds prevailed, the person was reborn as a sudra or an animal. The law of karma led to the passivity of Indians in social life, contributing to their concentration on moral improvement.
Over time, the system of varnas only became more rigid and branched out. Varnas were divided into subcategories - castes. The whole society has become a strict system of castes. The invaders who invaded India found a certain place in this structure and poured into it as a new caste. Below the caste system were the untouchables, who were outside society and the law, any contact with them was forbidden.
The social structure of ancient Greece. The Greek polis functioned as a state-community. The support of the policy were citizens - full members of the policy. Citizens had rights and obligations in accordance with the laws of the policy, participated in its management and protection. All citizens, depending on their wealth, were divided into categories, according to which they were subject to the corresponding property obligations. The policy guaranteed the citizen rights, including, very importantly, the right to private property.
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Incomplete members of the policy included dependent peasants who had lost their land, and foreigners. Both those and others did not have the right to participate in the management of the policy, since they did not own the land. Foreigners, who were called meteks, could be rich people, but they did not have political rights.
If the citizen of the policy enjoyed more freedom than the representative of the ancient Eastern society, then the slaves in Greece and Rome were in a worse position than in the East. A stable Eastern society, by and large, did not seek to increase the exploitation of slaves. Under patriarchal slavery, the slave was considered the youngest member of the family.
In Greece, and then in Rome, commodity-money relations and a market-oriented economy led to increased exploitation of slaves. Slaves began to be seen not as people with any rights, but as a means of making a profit. The master treated the slave as his property and could do with him what he wanted. The usual situation was when a slave was sent to the mines, where he quickly died, and he was replaced by a new slave bought on the market. In the Roman Empire, a special category of slaves appeared who fought among themselves for the entertainment of citizens - gladiators.
In Greece, there was no powerful priestly stratum. The Greeks treated their gods differently than in the East. The Greek gods were similar to people, had advantages and disadvantages, and there was not such a huge distance between gods and people as in the East.
The social structure of ancient Rome. In Rome, in contrast to the Greek policies, tribal remnants existed longer and had a stronger impact on public life. The Roman family is a classic example of a large patriarchal family. The head of the family was in full control of his house, he could execute, sell into slavery or punish his relatives. He also performed priestly functions in his house.
Roman citizens were called quirites. Initially, only patricians, descendants of the first inhabitants of Rome, had citizenship rights. Plebeians - descendants of late settlers - did not participate in the political, social
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noah and religious life of the community, despite the fact that they were more numerous. After a long struggle, the plebeians forced the patricians to cede some of their rights to them. As a result, Roman society was divided into three estates: the nobility (to know); riders (representatives of this class at one time served in the cavalry); plebeians. The nobility occupied government positions, the horsemen were merchants and financiers, the plebeians were direct producers. Plebeians could not qualify for election to public office.
The main occupation of citizens in Rome, unlike in Greece, was agriculture, not market-oriented. Citizen farmers formed the basis of the Roman army, being called up for service V case of war. Later, when the Romans were no longer able to simultaneously wage wars throughout the Mediterranean and manage their economy, the Roman army becomes professional. The impoverished peasants became professional soldiers.
The number of Roman citizens was small in comparison with the number of inhabitants of the lands conquered by Rome. Gradually, the Romans were forced to divide the conquered lands into several categories (provinces), imposing various taxes on them. The inhabitants of the provinces aspired to become Roman citizens. As a rule, Roman citizenship was acquired through service in the Roman army. Over time, the provincial nobility gained great influence and began to nominate Roman emperors from their representatives. Finally, in 212 AD. e. all inhabitants of the Roman Empire received Roman citizenship.

States of the Ancient World.

State in the societies of the Ancient East. Several types of government have developed in the East.
Within a despotism, there is a strong state power necessary to maintain irrigation systems. Characterized by the unlimited power of the ruler and a branched state apparatus, consisting of officials and soldiers. These are Egypt, China, the states of Mesopotamia.
In a military monarchy, the corresponding predatory function of the state came first. Wars of conquest and robbery were constantly carried out here.
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skye trips to neighboring lands. This type of government was the most common in the East (the Hittite kingdom, Assyria).
The city-state arose, as a rule, by the sea, where there were no large states. The economy of such a state was closely connected with transit trade (the states of the Eastern Mediterranean - Tyre, Sidon, Ugarit).
The military-administrative state differed from the military monarchy in that a single system of administrative control was established in all the conquered countries (the military monarchy retained the old system of government in the conquered country, limited to the collection of tribute). This type of state is characteristic of world powers - the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian and Persian kingdoms.
State in Ancient Greece. At first, royal power was widespread in Greece, but later the Greek kings - the basileus - were removed from government. The monarchy was replaced by the aristocracy - "the power of the best", that is, the nobility came to power. But the demos fought against the aristocrats, and as a result, tyrants seized power. The word "tyrant" originally had no negative connotations. So called the person who illegally seized power. At the same time, tyrants used their power for the benefit of the people, weakening the positions of the aristocracy. The tyrant could enjoy great prestige. His reign usually came to naught only in the second generation, when the sons of the tyrant, who did not have his experience and authority, came to power.
In Athens, a new type of state developed and flourished - democracy - "the power of the people." Within the framework of Athenian democracy, the supreme power belonged to the popular assembly. Every year in Athens, nine archons were elected to govern the policy. Applicants for many government positions were chosen by lot, which did not allow the richest and most influential to usurp power. For public positions, payment was due, which favored the participation in the management of the poor citizens of the policy. Classical democracy emerged in Athens as an example of a new state structure. However, the Athenian democracy granted democratic rights only to citizens.
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In the Spartan state there was an aristocratic form of government. The popular assembly of Sparta could only reject or approve proposals put forward by the council of elders. At the head of the Spartan government were two kings, whose power was elective. Between Sparta and Athens there was a constant struggle for dominance in Hellas. Despite the fact that Sparta won this war, not a single policy had sufficient strength to unite the whole of Hellas. Other conquerors were able to do this - first Macedonia, then Rome.
The Macedonian king Philip managed to subjugate all of Greece to his power. His son Alexander the Great became famous as the greatest conqueror of antiquity. Having crushed the Persian kingdom at the head of his small army, he founded a power that stretched from the Mediterranean to India. After the death of Alexander, the state broke up into several states, headed by Alexander's associates. These states are called Hellenistic. The Hellenistic period lasted from the end of the 4th century BC. BC e. according to the 1st century BC e. Hellenism combined the features of the Eastern and Greek civilizations.
State in Ancient Rome. Rome was originally ruled by kings. But their power was gradually overthrown. As a result, a republican structure was formed in Rome (the republic is a “common cause”). Within the framework of the republic, only the nobility had power, since the kvirites holding certain positions did not receive any payment for this, but, on the contrary, were obliged to organize holidays at their own expense.
The main body of the republic was the Senate, which included only the nobility. Each year, two consuls were elected to govern Rome. The interests of the plebeians were protected by the people's tribunes, elected from among them.
Republican governments could not provide effective government when Rome began to turn into the largest Mediterranean power. As a result of civil wars that took place in the II - I centuries. BC e., Octavian Augustus established himself in power in Rome, establishing his sole rule. Rome became an empire. At the same time, republican institutions were preserved, and Rome formally remained a republic.
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The crisis that erupted in III V. n. e., led to a further transformation of the Roman state. Rome became an empire of the eastern type - a dominant. In an effort to strengthen the influence of the empire in the conquered territories, Emperor Constantine accepts the Eastern religion - Christianity - and moves the capital to the East - to Constantinople (modern Istanbul). But these measures allowed only for a while to prolong the existence of the Roman Empire. Barbarian invasions and a deep internal crisis led to the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. n. e.

Picture of the world of ancient people.

Each era in the history of mankind is distinguished by its special, unique rhythm of life, its values, norms and ideas about the world. All this is in close relationship with the economic activity of a person, the level of development of his knowledge, methods of providing a variety of needs, known as a way of doing business. The above in a complex forms the worldview of a person of a certain era, forming a special picture of the world.
What is "painting peace"? How can this concept be defined? Scientists usually distinguish three of its components:

1. a person's sense of self;
2. their idea of ​​space, its vision;
3. sense of time.

These three general categories fully characterize the changing structure of the world and man's place in it. Thus, the picture of the world is a person's self-perception, based on ideas about space and time. It should be noted that "space" and "time" here are not only and not so much absolute physical quantities, but rather subjective forms of their perception in individual epochs. The space in this case acts as a real world space with all the variety of its constituent objects and phenomena, characterized by different properties, origin and purpose. The concept of time is also specific and includes both astronomical time and biological time.
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skoe (time of successive generations), individual (stages of human development from birth to death), social (development of society, individual people, state).
The picture of the world, of course, is reflected in the monuments of material culture, but due to the complexity and ambiguity of their deciphering, as well as their very incomplete (fragmentary) reflection of the period under study, they are not able to recreate the picture of the world of ancient man in full scale.
The most vivid and complete picture of the world is presented in spiritual culture, especially within the framework of religious beliefs of representatives of the primitive era.
For a person of the period of the appropriating economy and tribal organization, primitive religious beliefs are characteristic - fetishism, magic and divination, animism, totemism, the cult of the mother goddess, etc. With the transition to the appropriating economy and the creation of states and a slave-owning society, mythology and mythological consciousness are formed. (Myth is a special way of reflecting the world in the mind of a person, characterized by sensory-figurative ideas about unprecedented beings, phenomena, processes.) The emergence of feudal relations and the system of moral norms associated with them was embodied in new, more complex religious teachings. Ancient civilizations on this path gave rise to Confucianism and Buddhism, still closely associated with the former, mythological worldview. A new stage in the development of mankind is the emergence of monotheism, which preceded the emergence of world religions - Christianity and Islam. Christianity, in particular, put a line under the previous spiritual experience of mankind, creating on its basis a fundamentally new system of worldview built on other values.
Primitive cults of the pre-civilization period are a kind of illustration of the process of formation of human self-consciousness. A person has not yet felt himself as a person, presenting himself as an integral part of a tribe or clan. This is evidenced by rock carvings, depicted on which people are devoid of individual characteristics: features are not drawn
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faces, figures are very schematic. Only dark silhouettes predominate. In addition, people were mostly depicted in groups performing some action together (hunting, ritual, etc.).
The world seemed to be one and whole, and man was only a part of this huge organism. Man was not yet able to influence the ongoing processes, his life depended entirely on the world around him. He experienced a strong attachment, interconnection and close kinship with this world. This is how totemism appears - a system of beliefs, according to which a separate clan, tribe originated from a common ancestor - some animal or plant. The tribe, clan bore the name of their totem, which seemed to be a kind and caring patron.
Rigid dependence on the surrounding world, the inability to understand the causes and essence of the phenomena occurring in it contributed to the emergence of magic and divination. Magic was a more active form of expression, suggesting the possibility of somehow influencing the world through appeal to its individual forces. Not only animals and plants were spiritualized, but also the inanimate world, natural phenomena (rain, wind, storm, etc.). Addressing them, speaking their language, sharing with them something vitally important and acquired at the cost of great efforts, a person tried to change the world around him in a favorable direction for himself.
Fortune-telling was a consequence of a person's guess 6 patterns and interconnections of phenomena occurring in the world. Having no idea about the systemic nature of the world, a person could discover for himself only individual chains of this system. Starting from the idea of ​​the universal interdependence of natural and social phenomena, a person began to guess by the cracks in the bones and shards, by the flight of an eagle. Then the first rudiments of abstract and mathematical thinking began to penetrate into the process of divination. A classic example is the Chinese Book of Changes.
Man - a representative of the primitive era - saw life in everything, all objects and phenomena of the world were spiritualized by him. This is how animism developed - the belief in the existence of spirits, the spiritualization of the forces of nature, animals, plants and inanimate objects, attributing to them reason, capacity and supernatural power.
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Over time, the abilities and capabilities of mankind grow, the economic structure changes: from an appropriating person passes to a producing economy. The first states appear. A civilization is being born. The picture of the world is also changing. It acquires a greater system and orderliness, a sense of time, a mythological consciousness is being formed. During this period, the mythology of the Ancient East and the states of antiquity was formed.
Mythology of the Ancient East well known from the ideas of the societies of Ancient Egypt and Sumer. Here there was a whole pantheon of gods, each of which was "responsible" for a certain area, category of natural phenomena or human activity. Among them, one gradually stands out, with outstanding abilities and qualities. At certain points in history, he begins to claim absolute supremacy among other deities. The emergence of a pantheon of gods, the formation of certain relations between them, a hierarchy, often interpreted as relations of domination and subordination, reflected changes in the structure of society and ideas about the world. From now on, relations within the community are extrapolated to the natural world, and not vice versa, as it was before. Man, finally, highlights his active transformative role, which is expressed in the anthropomorphization of religious ideas. Egyptian gods, for example, were depicted with a human body and the heads of various animals. The latter can be considered not only an echo of previous beliefs, but simply a way of illustrating the character, individual features of a particular deity.
The ideas about the otherworldly existence of the soul are becoming more complicated, as a result of which the understanding of space and time has expanded in the human mind. The ordering, hierarchization of the sometimes extremely swollen (as in Sumer) pantheon of gods, the gradual schematization of their image, abstract reflections on extra-experimental phenomena (the afterlife, the world of the gods) speak of the development of abstract thinking. Thus, the categories of space and time in the human mind are expanding, acquiring versatility.
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In Eastern mythology, the idea of ​​​​evil and its struggle with good appears, while ancient mythology postulated the principle of harmony and completeness of the world. Of great importance is the word, which is understood both as a designation of a phenomenon, and as knowledge, and as a process of cognition, and as a specific form of the existence of a phenomenon. At the same time, the idea of ​​space as a structured, ordered world is limited to the boundaries of the community. Beyond these limits, the world turns into nothing, that is, into chaos. A textbook example is the idea of ​​the ancient Greeks that the ship, having gone into the sea beyond the limits of visibility, will disappear altogether.
The space in mythological thinking becomes wider and more multifaceted, time acquires a more complex rhythm, returning to the source and becoming cyclical. The world is therefore thought to be infinite. From the separation of parts of the world during the period of primitive cults, humanity moved on to the synthesis of these parts and the creation of an integral, harmonious and complete picture of the world. In the previous era, man mastered space, now he began to master time.
Mythology is being replaced by more complex religious teachings. So, in the VI - V centuries. BC in India originates Buddhism. According to this teaching, human life invariably presents suffering. Suffering is the result of man's never-ending and ever-increasing desires, which cannot be satisfied. Ultimate and infinite bliss comes only with the attainment of nirvana (enlightenment). Nirvana was understood as liberation from the endless chain of rebirths and dissolution in space. Rebirths occur as a result of a constant flow of elementary particles of matter and consciousness — dharmas — merging into different forms. The present life of a person is conditioned by the whole complex of his previous existence, or karma. Everything in this world is doomed to an endless and meaningless chain of rebirths (samsara). The Buddha proclaimed the "middle way" to achieve nirvana - the rejection of both the extremes of asceticism and self-deception by the charms of this world, which was considered illusory. The space in Buddhism has expanded even more, covering the world of elementary invisible particles, but this reality
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became shaky. Time has kept cyclicity and infinity.
Confucianism It is difficult to call religion in the full sense of the word. Originating as a complex of moral and ethical ideas, it was subsequently sacralized and received the status of an official ideology. This teaching has a very real founder - this is Kung Tzu, or Confucius (551 - 479 BC). Confucius created the concept of jen, philanthropy. It was expressed through devotion to the sovereign - "zhong", fidelity to duty - "i", filial piety - "xiao", generosity - "kuan" and a number of other positive characteristics. The ideal of Confucius was "jun-tzu" - "noble man". The highest power in Confucianism was Heaven, which determines the fate of man. Confucianism preached a strict hierarchical order consecrated by tradition, according to which the younger in age and position should obey the older, and the older, in turn, should take care of the younger.
An unusual, very interesting phenomenon in the history of mankind is Judaism. The emergence of this religion is associated with a radical restructuring of man's ideas about the world and his place in it. From now on, a direct and directly connecting vertical was built between a person and a higher power, God. The fate of the whole world became subject only to him, and man found himself in second place in the world after God. The world is changing its structure. From the limited, it becomes infinite, in accordance with the all-encompassing power of God. From relatively amorphous and spherical to clearly aligned vertically. From subject to the desires of a person through magic - subject only to God and favorable to a person in accordance with the measure of his faith in God and his deeds pleasing to God.
The next stage in the development of the human worldview was Christianity. It symbolized the crisis of ancient ideas about the world, asserting a new understanding of the world order. What is the difference between Christianity and previous religions? First, in Christianity there is only one God, as opposed to poly-
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theism of the ancient world. Secondly, he appears as the absolute ruler and creator of the world, in contrast to the Olympic gods, who personified individual natural forces and are subject to the absolute harmony of the Cosmos. God in Christianity is separated from the world, which is only his creation, and endowed with supernatural powers. And, finally, the same God created man himself as the pinnacle of his creation, created him in his own image, placing man above the rest of the world, endowing him with a unique ability for creativity.
The appearance of such ideas meant the final separation of man from nature, as well as the isolation of the individual from the collective. Personality enters the arena of world history.
But the world itself is changing. Time ceases to be cyclical. According to the norms of Christianity, everything has its beginning from the moment of creation by God and the end, foreseeable in the future as the Last Judgment. Man has become truly a grain of sand in this world, but at the same time the most significant and "outstanding" grain of sand.
Cultural heritage of ancient civilizations.
One of the oldest on earth is Egyptiancivilization. Within the framework of this civilization, during the three thousand years of its existence, many outstanding cultural monuments were created, many of which have survived to our time.
“By the beginning of the era of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, a written language appeared, which was called hieroglyphic (from the Greek hieros - “sacred”). At the same time, shorthand and italic (demotic) writing existed in Egypt. All three types of writing were used for different purposes. They wrote on stone and papyrus. In the writing system, there were both ideograms that conveyed individual concepts, and phonograms that conveyed sounds. Writing was valued as an art, and the position of a scribe was considered one of the most honorable.
Egypt is always associated primarily with the pyramids, which are one of the most grandiose creations of mankind in its entire history. erected in
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In the era of Ancient Egypt, the pyramids served as tombs for kings, reflecting the boundless faith in the power of the gods and the kings (pharaohs) representing them on earth. First, stepped pyramids were erected (the pyramid of Djoser, XXVIII century BC), then pyramids with broken edges appear. However, for the most part, these are structures with even, smooth edges and a square base. In Giza, near Cairo, there are three of the greatest pyramids built by the pharaohs of the TV dynasty. All three have the same direction of the axes and the same orientation. The height of the largest is 147 m, it is known as the Pyramid of Cheops. The mass of each block in it is approximately 2.5 tons. The pyramids are the only one of the seven wonders of the world that has survived to this day. Giza was a whole architectural complex, which also included pyramid-tombs of nobles and mortuary temples, attached to the pyramid from the east side. In addition to the pyramids, there were rock tombs characteristic of the New Kingdom. In the era of the Middle and New Kingdoms, majestic temples were also created in honor of the gods and pharaohs, the palaces of the rulers. Temple architecture is distinguished by its monumentality and extraordinary richness of decoration.
The sculpture of Ancient Egypt was also closely associated with the funeral cult. Figurines were considered as the place of residence of one of the souls of the deceased, and they were placed in temples and tombs. The pharaoh was always portrayed in the prime of his life with an impassive and stately expression and posture. In the genre of sculpture, there were certain canonical requirements. Standing statues are always strictly frontal, their figures are tensely straightened, their heads are set straight, their arms are lowered and tightly pressed to the body, the left leg is slightly advanced forward. The statues were made of wood, granite, basalt and other rocks, they were usually painted: male figures in brick red, and female figures in yellow. On the bas-reliefs, the head and legs were depicted in profile, shoulders and chest - in front. Egyptian sculpture reached its peak in the era of the New Kingdom.
characteristic feature Sumero-Akkadian culture is the creation of a kind of writing system - cuneiform, which was not a sound letter, but contained the idea
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Ograms denoting whole words, vowels or syllables. There were about 600 characters in total. A special genre in literature is made up of laments - works about the death of Sumerian cities due to the raids of neighbors. The most common were the etiological (explaining) myths about the creation of the world and man, the Great Flood, the death and resurrection of the gods of fertility.
The temple architecture of Sumer was peculiar, distinguished by the use of high platforms. Temple towers - ziggurats - following the Sumerians, the Akkadians and Babylonians began to build. Ziggurats consisted of three steps, built in accordance with the divine triad, and were built of raw brick.
One of the most magnificent cities of ancient Mesopotamia was Babylon. Protected by a double wall, it had eight gates, the most famous being the gate of the goddess Ishtar, 12 meters high. Lined with turquoise glazed bricks and decorated with ornaments of sculptures of lions, dragons and bulls, they made a stunning impression. Located on both banks of the Euphrates, the city was connected by a stone bridge - one of the first in the world.

The specificity of the literature of ancient Babylon consisted in the initial presentation of the plot and its subsequent development. Babylonian literature is largely borrowed from Sumerian sources, most of the works are written in verse form. One of the main themes was the problem of undeserved human suffering and the inevitability of death.

Much more dynamic Greek culture. An outstanding monument of Crete-Mycenaean (III - II millennium BC) architecture was the Palace of Knossos of King Minos. The main attraction of this palace was fresco painting. The ancient Greeks created the greatest epic works - the Iliad and the Odyssey. A significant discovery of the Greeks was the creation of their own writing system. Having borrowed the alphabet from the Phoenicians, they greatly improved it by adding vowels. Ancient Greek architecture is characterized by the presence of two directions, or styles - Doric and Ionic. Doric style - strict, solemn and massive. Before-
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The Greek column did not have a base, growing directly from the base of the temple. The Ionic order was distinguished by lighter proportions, elegance and extensive use of decorative elements. The Ionic column always had a base, was lighter and thinner than the Doric.
The Greek temple was considered the dwelling of a god; as a rule, there was a statue of the god in whose honor it was erected. The ensemble of the Athenian Acropolis occupies a special place in the history of architecture. The largest building here is the Temple of Athena the Virgin, the Parthenon.
Sculpture, striking in its craftsmanship, was devoid of individual and psychological traits, depicting people according to ancient ideas about beauty.
The outstanding achievement of the Greeks was the art of making ceramics and vase painting. It featured black-figure and red-figure styles. Greek theater and Attic tragedy are of great importance. Some works created by ancient Greek playwrights still occupy an important place in the repertoire of modern theaters. Antique culture showed an amazing wealth of forms, images and ways of expression, laying the foundations of aesthetics, ideas about harmony and thus expressing its attitude to the world.

Questions for Section 2

1. What types of periodization of the history of primitive society
used in science? What are their main criteria?
2. Name the main stages of anthropogenesis.
3. How does a proto-state differ from a state?
4. What is the "Neolithic Revolution"? What are its consequences?
5. List the main forms of primitive religion.
6. What is the difference between a pastoral civilization and an agricultural one?
7. What are the consequences of introducing metal into production?
8. What is a prestige economy?
9. Why did the head of the proto-state need to concentrate priestly power in his hands?

10. Follow the evolution of the human community from the primitive herd to the rural neighborhood community.
11. What forms of states of the Ancient World do you know?
12. What is the reason for the huge role that the state played in the life of Eastern society?
13. How do ancient civilizations differ from ancient Eastern ones?
14. What are the characteristic features of the policy?

15. What forms of slavery do you know and how do they differ from each other?
16. Tell us about the structure of Eastern society. What is the specificity of Indian society?

17. Why is Eastern society so stable?
18. What role did the sea play in the economy of ancient states?
19. How was time represented in mythological consciousness and why?
20. How did the crisis of the ancient worldview manifest itself?
21. Describe the dynamics of ideas about space
and time through three eras: the time of primitive cults,
the time of mythological consciousness, the time of monotheism.
22. What is the significance of the canon in Egyptian culture?
23. Describe the similarities and differences in the culture of Egypt and Mesopotamia.
24. What achievements can be considered the most significant contribution of the Greeks to the treasury of world culture?

World history is a single process that follows objective laws, that is, existing and acting independently of the consciousness and will of people. In this sense, it is an objective and predetermined process. But this is such an objective predetermination, which not only does not exclude, but, on the contrary, presupposes accidents. The historical process is predetermined only in the main and fundamental, but not in the details. That which cannot not be manifests itself in what may or may not be. Necessity always manifests itself and exists only in accidents. Therefore, in history there have always been and there are different possibilities for future development. But if the future in history is always alternative, polyfurcative (within certain objective limits, of course), then the past is unalternative and irreversible. In order to understand history, one must abstract oneself from particulars, open up the path of objective necessity, predestination, forcing its way through all accidents.

World history is such a single process, which is an ascent from the lowest to the highest. Therefore, there are stages in the progressive development of mankind, and consequently, world-historical epochs. This understanding of history is called unitary-stage. Of all the conceptions of history of this kind that have existed and still exist, I consider the Marxist theory of socio-economic formations to be the best. Formations are stadial types of society, singled out on the basis of socio-economic structure.

Marxism, as is well known, believes that the development of society is based on the development of production. The productive forces of society are growing, which leads to a change in the systems of socio-economic relations, the types of social production are changing - the methods of production, which entails a change in the types of society: one socio-economic formation is replaced by another, more progressive one. But the formations are not counted from the very beginning of human history.

Its entire history is quite distinctly subdivided into two qualitatively different periods, to the first of which the concept of a socio-economic formation is inapplicable. It represents the period of transformation of human animal ancestors into humans and zoological unification into human society, the period of anthroposociogenesis. The basis of this process was the formation of social production. The emergence of a completely new social quality necessarily presupposed and made necessary the curbing of animal individualism, the suppression and introduction of zoological instincts into the social framework. The most important means of curbing animal egoism were the first norms of human behavior - taboos. On the basis of taboo, morality subsequently arose. Unlike an animal, whose actions are determined by biological instincts, a person is guided by feelings of duty, honor and conscience.

The food instinct was curbed first. Distribution relations arose as a social framework for him - the initial and most important form of socio-economic relations. The first socio-economic ties were communist. Animal egoism could only be curbed by human collectivism. With the advent of the first form of marriage - dual-tribal, group marriage - the sexual instinct was curbed. With the introduction into the social framework, first of the food, and then of the sexual instincts, the process of the formation of man and society was completed. Forming people have turned into people already formed, ready. The period of the formation of society ended, and the history of a ready-made, truly human society began. This happened quite recently, literally "the other day". The period of anthroposociogenesis that began 1.9–1.8 million years ago ended about 40 thousand years ago. And socio-economic formations are the stages of development of a ready-made, formed society.

It is customary to call the first form of existence of a ready-made society among us a primitive society, in Western literature - a primitive, or egalitarian, society. It was the only one that existed in the era from 40 thousand to 5 thousand years ago. This time is the era of primitive society. At the earliest stage of its development, it was communist (primitive communist). At the stage when the entire social product was life-supporting, no other form of distribution could exist than distribution according to needs.

With the development of productive forces and the appearance of a regular surplus product, communist relations became an obstacle to the development of society. As a result, distribution according to work began to arise, and with it the property of individuals, exchange and property inequality. All this prepared and made inevitable the emergence of private property, the exploitation of man by man, thereby splitting society into social classes and the emergence of the state.

The first class, or, as they are usually called, civilized societies arose in the XXXI century. BC e., that is, about 5 thousand years ago. At that time, one of the features of the world-historical process was more than clearly manifested - the uneven development of human society as a whole. Some specific individual societies - sociohistorical organisms (shortly - sociors) - went ahead, others lagged behind them in their development. With the advent of such unevenness, human society as a whole began to consist of several historical worlds. One such historical world was made up of the most advanced sociohistorical organisms for a given era, which can be called superior (from lat. super- over, over), another or other worlds - lagging behind in development - inferior (from lat. infra- under).

The first class societies arose as solitary islands in a sea of ​​primitive society. One such class historical nest appeared in the interfluve of the Tigris and Euphrates, the other in the Nile Valley. The Egyptian civilization at its origin was a single sociohistorical organism, the Sumerian civilization was a system of small sociohistorical organisms, city-states.

Further development followed two paths. The first is the emergence of new historical nests that existed as islands in the sea of ​​primitive society. One of them appeared in the Indus Valley - the civilization of Harappa, the other - in the Huang He Valley - the civilization of Yin, or Shang. The second way is the emergence of many class sociohistorical organisms in the space between Egypt and Mesopotamia and in their neighborhood. All of them, together with Egypt and Mesopotamia, formed a huge system of class sociohistorical organisms that covered the entire Middle East. This Middle Eastern historical arena, having arisen, became the center of world-historical development and, in this sense, a world system.

All sociohistorical organisms that found themselves outside the historical center constituted the world periphery. Some of these sociors were class, others were primitive. With the advent of the first class sociors, and especially with the emergence of their Middle Eastern world system, the second era of the development of a ready-made human and the first era of the history of a civilized society began - the era of the Ancient East.

The basis of the original class societies was that antagonistic mode of production, which most often, following K. Marx, is called Asian. Its peculiarity lies in the fact that it was based on general class private property and on the means of production, and on the personality of the producers of material goods. In this case, only the exploiting class as a whole, and not one of its members taken separately, was a private owner. General class private property acted in the form of state property, which led to the coincidence of the ruling class with the composition of the state apparatus. Therefore, this method of production is best called polytar (from the Greek. polity- state). All politarists constituted a corporation - a political system headed by a politarch, who was both the supreme manager of the surplus product and the ruler of the state. The politarch had the right to life and death of all his subjects, including the politarists.

An indicator of the level of development of productive forces is the volume of product created in society, per capita of its population. This indicator - the productivity of social production - can be increased in different ways.

In a political society, the growth of the productivity of social production and thus the productive forces was achieved mainly by increasing working time - the number of working days in a year and working hours per day. This temporal (from lat. tempus- time) the way to increase the productivity of social production was limited. Sooner or later, a limit was reached, beyond which an increase in working time led to the physical degradation of the main productive force - the human worker. There was a rollback. All this has been repeated many times in the history of political sociohistorical organisms.

First of all, the cyclical nature of the development of the societies of the Ancient East is connected with this: they arose, flourished, and then entered an era of decline and even death. The political, socio-economic formation was a dead end. She was not able to turn into another, more progressive one.

The way out of the impasse became possible because, in addition to political societies, primitive ones continued to exist, including the latest of them - pre-class ones, and of various socio-economic types. The pre-class societies that were in the neighborhood of the Middle Eastern world system were subjected to powerful cultural, political and economic influence from its side. As a result, they learned all the main achievements of political societies, which significantly affected their entire development.

It became other than the evolution of the proto-political (emerging political) pre-class societies from which the first political societies arose. The pre-class societies, exposed to the influence of the world political system, eventually also turned into class societies, but only of a completely different type than the ancient Eastern ones. Ultimately, they established not a political, but a qualitatively different mode of production, namely the one that is usually called the slave-owning, or ancient.

In the 8th century BC e. a Greek historical nest arose, then the Etruscan, Latin, Carthaginian nests joined it. All of them, taken together, formed a new historical arena - the Mediterranean, which has since become the center of world historical development. Thus, on the scale of mankind, in the form of a change in the world systems of sociologists of two different socio-economic types, there was a change in the political formation by the ancient formation. The handover of the historic baton from the political Middle East to the ancient Mediterranean has taken place. With the shift of the historical center to the emerging new ancient arena, the Middle Eastern political historical arena ceased to be a world system. It has become part of the world periphery. With the transformation of the Mediterranean historical arena into a world system, the second era of world history, the era of the Ancient East, ended, and the third, the era of antiquity, began.

If in the era of the Ancient East, outside the world system, there were only many primitive sociohistorical organisms and a few isolated political historical nests, then in ancient times the class historical periphery began to consist of many political historical arenas. They filled most of the Old World, and by the 1st millennium BC. e. two political historical arenas - Mesoamerican and Andean - arose in the New World.

It is generally accepted that the ancient world was based on slavery. But slavery is different from slavery. Slavery in itself is not yet a mode of production. It is an economic and legal state in which one person is the complete property of another. But a slave does not necessarily have to be used in the production of material wealth. He may be a valet, a nanny, a teacher, an official, and so on. Even when a slave is used in production, his labor may play a purely auxiliary role. In this case, one speaks of domestic, or patriarchal, slavery.

The labor of slaves becomes the basis of society only when special economic cells of production arise, in which the main force is slaves. And this necessarily presupposes the systematic importation of slaves from outside society. This is what ancient slavery was like. Slavery also existed in ancient Eastern society. But only in the ancient world did a special mode of production arise, based on the labor of slaves - servar (from lat. servus slave) mode of production.

An increase in the productivity of social production was based in the ancient world on an increase in the share of workers in the population of society due to the import of additional labor from outside the sociohistorical organism. And this meant tearing out this labor force from the surrounding sociologists. The main source of slaves was the historical periphery, primarily the late primitive - pre-class, or barbarian, periphery.

Thus, the ancient world lived largely at the expense of the barbarian periphery. The method of increasing the productivity of social production, characteristic of ancient society, can be called demographic. Its possibilities, as well as those of the temporal mode, were limited.

The normal functioning of ancient society assumed continuous external expansion. But this attack on the historical periphery was bound to bog down sooner or later. When this happened, there was a general decline, the degradation of the ancient world. The ancient (servar) socio-economic formation, like the political one, turned out to be a dead end. It, like the political one, could not turn into a more progressive formation.

With the decline of the ancient world, the barbarian periphery went on the counteroffensive. At the end of the 5th century already n. e. the ancient world system came to an end. The ancient world collapsed under the blows of the barbarians. The entire territory of the last great ancient power - the Western Roman Empire - was conquered by the Germanic tribes. And this opened up the possibility of a way out of the historical impasse in which humanity found itself again.

On the territory of Western Europe (the former Western Roman Empire), an organic merger took place, a combination of Roman (class) and German (pre-class) socio-economic structures (Romano-Germanic synthesis), as a result of which socio-economic relations of a qualitatively new type arose - feudal.

Feudal sociohistorical organisms, taken together, formed a new historical arena, which became the center of world-historical development and thus the world system. The ancient socio-economic formation was replaced by the feudal one. The change of the ancient formation to the feudal one took place, as earlier the change of the political formation of the ancient one, within the framework of not individual sociohistorical organisms, but human society as a whole, and had the character of a historical relay race. It, like the change of the political formation of the ancient one, took place in the form of a change in the world systems of sociohistorical organisms of different types and was accompanied by a territorial shift of the center of world-historical development. With the beginning of the formation of the feudal Western European world system, the ancient era was replaced by the fourth era of world history - the era of the Middle Ages.

Outside the world system, many primitive sociohistorical organisms and a large number of political historical arenas continued to exist. In Northern, Central and Eastern Europe there was a process of transformation of pre-class societies into class societies. But neither ancient socio-economic structures, nor their fragments were there. Therefore, the Romano-barbarian synthesis could not take place there, and, accordingly, feudalism could not arise there.

But these societies were in the zone of powerful influence of existing class societies - Western European, on the one hand, Byzantine, on the other. As a result, they took a step forward and at the same time to the side, sideways. There arose class societies of several special socio-economic types, different from the political, and from the ancient, and from the feudal. These minor socio-economic types can be called socio-economic paraformations.

Thus, along with the main line of human history, several side historical paths arose. One historical world was formed in Northern Europe, the other - in Central and Eastern Europe. From the latter, in the further development, another new historical world separated - the Russian one.

A characteristic feature of the late Middle Ages was the closest symbiosis of feudal and commercial-burgher modes of production. It was the development of cities with their commercial and burgher system of economy that prepared and made possible, and then necessary, the appearance in the 16th century. new mode of production - capitalist. Capitalism independently, spontaneously arose in only one place on the globe - in Western Europe. With the transformation of feudal burgher sociohistorical organisms into capitalist sociors, the world Western European feudal system was replaced by a Western European, but already a capitalist system. It immediately became the center of world-historical development and thus the world system. With the change of world systems, there was a transition from the era of the Middle Ages to the fifth era of world history - the era of the New Age.

The development of capitalism took place in two directions: in depth and in breadth. Development in depth is the formation and maturation of capitalism in the countries of Western Europe. Bourgeois revolutions thundered there, as a result of which power passed into the hands of the capitalist class, an industrial revolution unfolded - the replacement of manual production by machine. With the advent of machines, an adequate technical base was brought under capitalism, and as a result, the steady progress of the productive forces of society began. The technical method of increasing the productivity of social production, which came to the fore under capitalism, in contrast to the temporal and demographic methods, seemed to have no limits.

Along with the development of capitalism, it also developed in depth and in breadth. In the course of the evolution of class society, the world systems that existed in certain epochs have always had a great impact on the historical periphery. But this influence in previous epochs affected only a greater or lesser part of the peripheral sociors, which formed the nearest, or inner, periphery. These sociohistorical organisms fell into dependence on the center, in particular, they were exploited by it. The outer periphery continued to lead a completely independent existence.

With the advent of the world Western European capitalist system, the situation changed. For several centuries, the world capitalist system has drawn almost the entire periphery into its sphere of influence. For the first time, all sociohistorical organisms that existed on the globe formed one system. The world historical space that emerged as a result of the unfolding process of internationalization was clearly divided into two main parts.

The first part is the world capitalist system, which has been the center of historical development. She didn't stay the same. If initially it included only the states of Western Europe, then later it included the countries of Northern Europe and sociohistorical organisms that arose in other parts of the world by spinning off from Western European societies (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand). The Western European world system then became simply a Western one.

The second part is all other socio-historical organisms that continued to constitute the historical periphery, which in the end, with the rarest exception, became, firstly, internal, and secondly, dependent on the historical center. The dependence of the periphery on the center meant the dominance of the center over the periphery. This dependence of the societies of the periphery on the countries of the center (and, accordingly, the domination of the latter over the former) was expressed in the fact that the center exploited the periphery in various forms, appropriated part of the product created in the societies of the periphery free of charge. This exploitation is not intra-socior (endo-socior), but extra-socior (exo-socior), inter-socior (inter-socior). There is no term for this type of exploitation. I will call it international slave bondage, international slavery.

There are two main forms of this exploitation. One assumes the transformation of the country into a subjugated colony. This is colonial exploitation, colonial slavery. Another form is exploitation of a country that formally remains a sovereign and, in this sense, politically independent state. Such sociohistorical organisms can be called dependetions (from lat. dependetio- dependence), and the form of their exploitation - dependent slavery.

The involvement of peripheral countries in the sphere of dependence on the center entailed the penetration and development of capitalist relations in them. The countries of the periphery, which were previously dominated by various kinds of pre-capitalist socio-economic relations, including ancient political ones, began to transform and eventually turned into capitalist socio-historical organisms.

Here, one of the important features of world-historical development was more than clearly manifested. As can be seen from all that has been said above, world history is not a process of the simultaneous rise of all sociohistorical organisms from one stage to another, higher one. There have never been and never could be socio-historical organisms that would pass through the stages of historical development. One of the reasons is that there have never been sociohistorical organisms that would have existed throughout the history of mankind. In history, not only stages changed, but also sociohistorical organisms. They appeared and then disappeared. They were replaced by others.

Therefore, socio-economic formations have always been primarily stages in the development of human society as a whole. Only human society as a whole could go through all the formations without exception, but in no case not any one sociohistorical organism, taken separately. Formations could be stages in the development of individual societies, but this was not at all necessary. Some socio-economic formations could be embodied in some sociohistorical organisms, others in completely different ones. Only such an interpretation of the theory of socio-economic formations, which has been called global-stage, global-formational, corresponds to historical reality.

As we have already seen, starting from the emergence of the first class societies, the change in socio-economic formations took the form of a change in world systems of superior sociohistorical organisms, which entailed a change in world-historical epochs. Each such world system of superior sociohistorical organisms prepared and made possible the emergence of another, more advanced one. The replacement of the Middle Eastern political world system by the Mediterranean ancient world system, the ancient - the Western European feudal, and the last - the Western capitalist world system - this is the highway of world history.

With the advent of each new world system, the nature of the historical development of inferior sociohistorical organisms that found themselves in the zone of its influence changed. They could no longer develop in the same way as organisms that had become superior developed, pass through those stages that the last passed through. The stages traversed by superior sociohistorical organisms often became traversed by inferior sociors, who never reached them.

This regularity became especially obvious with the advent of the world capitalist system, in whose sphere of influence the entire historical periphery was drawn. Since then, for all societies, at whatever stage of historical development they may be, the transition to capitalism and only capitalism has become inevitable. Historians sometimes say that certain societies can and do pass by, skip one or another stage of historical development. In fact, under the conditions that had been created, they could not avoid them. When the advanced part of humanity reached the stage of capitalism, then for all the inferior societies without exception, all the stages of development that they themselves did not go through, turned out to be already passed for them.

From this, it would seem, the conclusion followed that as soon as all inferior sociohistorical organisms become capitalist, the division of human society as a whole into historical worlds and, thereby, into the historical center and historical periphery will disappear. But the real historical development turned out to be more complicated.

The capitalism that arose in the peripheral countries, due to their dependence on the world center, turned out to be qualitatively different from what existed in the states of the latter. In science, he received the name dependent, or peripheral, capitalism. For brevity, I will call it paracapitalism (from the Greek. rarA- near, about), and the capitalism of the center - ortho-capitalism (from the Greek. orthos- straight, correct).

If the countries of the center belonged to the capitalist socio-economic formation and thus to one historical world, then the societies of the periphery belonged to the para-capitalist socio-economic paraformation and thus to another historical world. At the end of the XIX century. tsarist Russia also entered the number of dependent para-capitalist countries.

The capitalist world system was not politically unified for a long time. Between the states that were part of it, there was rivalry over colonies, over spheres of influence. The split of the center into groups that fought for the division and redivision of the peripheral world led to two world wars (1914-1915 and 1939-1945).

Peripheral capitalism, born of dependence on the West, doomed these countries to backwardness, and their populations to utter poverty. Therefore, revolutions began to ripen in them, with the aim of eliminating paracapitalism and liberating the country from exploitation by the West - socio-liberation (national liberation) revolutions.

The first wave of these revolutions unfolded in the first two decades of the 20th century: Russia, Persia, Turkey, China, Mexico, and again Russia. One of these revolutions, the Great October Workers' and Peasants' Revolution of 1917 in Russia, ended in victory. It marched under the banner of socialism, but it did not and could not lead to a classless society. The productive forces of Russia are not ripe for this.

Therefore, the revival of private property and class society in the country was inevitable. And it was revived, but in a new form. In Russia, a new kind of politarism arose - neopolitarism. But the liberation of the country from semi-colonial dependence on the West made possible its powerful leap forward. From a backward, mostly agrarian country, Russia, becoming the Soviet Union, in a matter of years turned into the world's second industrial power, and then became one of the two superpowers.

The October Revolution, having pulled Russia out of the peripheral world, laid the foundation for a new world system - a neo-political one, which finally took shape after the second wave of socio-liberation revolutions that swept in the 1940s and 1950s. 20th century for the countries of Central Europe and East and Southeast Asia. As a result, the territory of the paracapitalist periphery was sharply reduced and two world systems, two world centers emerged on the globe. This configuration of the world historical space was expressed in the public consciousness in the thesis of the existence of three worlds: the first, which was understood as the ortho-capitalist center, the second, the world neo-political system, which was commonly called socialist, and the third, which continued to depend on the ortho-capitalist center of the paracapitalist periphery.

But by the end of the 20th century neopolitarism in the USSR and the countries of Central Europe has exhausted its progressive possibilities. A new, this time really socialist, revolution was needed, but in reality a counter-revolution took place. In the new states that emerged after the collapse of the USSR, including its largest “stump” - the Russian Federation, but excluding Belarus, and in most neopolitical countries of Europe, the restoration of peripheral capitalism took place. They again became the dependencies of the West.

As a result, there was a change in the configuration of the world historical space. All countries of the world were divided into four groups: (1) the ortho-capitalist world center; (2) old dependent periphery; (3) new dependent periphery and (4) independent periphery (North Korea, China, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, Iran, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Belarus, Cuba).

This configuration was superimposed by a new process that began in the last quarter of the 20th century - globalization. If it began at the turn of the XV-XVI centuries. internationalization consisted in the connection of all sociors into a single world system, while globalization consisted in the unification of all sociors into one world (global) sociohistorical organism.

The world system by this time included two large groups of sociors, one of which exploited the other. As a result, the global socior began to take shape as a class socior, as split into two global classes. The world ortho-capitalist system began to turn into a global exploiting class, the countries of the dependent para-capitalist periphery into a global exploited class. And where there are classes, the class struggle is inevitable. Humanity has entered an era of global class struggle.

The attacking side was the ortho-capitalist center. The most favorable conditions were created for him. If in the past it was split into warring factions, after the end of the Second World War it became basically united. He had one leader - the United States. He rallied organizationally: a significant part of his sociologists joined the common military union - NATO and the common economic union - the EU. Imperialism has grown into ultra-imperialism.

However, until the early 1990s the possibilities of action of the ortho-capitalist center were very limited. The ultra-imperialist beast was muzzled in the face of a powerful neo-political world system. The ortho-capitalist center was forced to come to terms with the loss of a large number of countries from the paracapitalist periphery, and with the disappearance of the colonial system, after which all the surviving paracapitalist sociors became dependetions.

With the collapse of the USSR and the disappearance of the world neo-political system, it seemed that the time had come for revenge.

Even earlier, it became clear to the countries of the center that the dependencies were more difficult to exploit than the colonies. Therefore, the Western center was faced with the task of once again establishing its complete and undivided dominance over the peripheral world, colonizing it again.

But a return to the colonies of the former type under the new conditions was impossible. The way out was found in the planting in the peripheral countries of such regimes under which their governments would forever turn into puppets of the West, primarily the United States. In order to make it easy to keep the leaders of these countries in line and easily change them, these regimes had to be outwardly democratic. A. A. Zinoviev proposed to call such countries “democratic colonies”. I will call them satellites. The US and its allies began to fight for world domination under the slogan of democratization of all countries of the world.

The greatest danger to the West was, of course, the countries of the independent periphery. He started with them. But China was clearly too tough for him. Yugoslavia was the first victim. Parts that "fell away" from it - Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina - immediately turned into satellites. The West carried out a bandit attack on Yugoslavia, which remained part of Serbia and Montenegro. Kosovo was separated from Serbia. As a result of the “color” revolution organized primarily by the United States, Russia itself became a satellite of the West. The final chord is the separation of Montenegro, which even earlier became a satellite.

Under the flag of combating international terrorism, NATO troops entered Afghanistan. The US and UK attacked Iraq. The country was occupied by foreign troops. A "color" revolution was made in Ukraine, an attempt was made of a similar kind of coup d'état in Belarus, which ended in complete failure. Every now and then there is a leak of information about the impending missile and bomb attack on Iran.

Along with the military and political offensive, there is an ideological and cultural expansion of the center. But now the West is spreading outwards not at all by its great culture, which was created in the Renaissance and the New Age, but by the current commercial culture, which has nothing in common with genuine art. A wave of propaganda of violence, cruelty, immorality, debauchery, homosexuality, etc. is pouring from the West in a muddy, stinking stream.

This Western pseudo-culture, of course, is immeasurably lower than the local aboriginal culture of the peoples of the periphery. The majority of the population of peripheral countries meets it with hostility. As a result, in their eyes, resistance to the West appears primarily as a struggle to preserve their traditional cultural values. As a result, a significant number of Western and not only Western political scientists perceived the global class struggle as a clash of civilizations: Western, on the one hand, non-Western, on the other.

The pressure of the West meets not only ideological protest, but also other forms of resistance. A manifestation of the global class struggle is the powerful anti-globalization movement that has unfolded in recent decades, as well as international terrorism under the banner of radical Islamism.

But the main actors in the global class struggle are still not individuals or even large groups of them, but socio-historical organisms. The world that emerged after the disappearance of the world neo-political system is usually characterized as unipolar. This is both true and false. Wrong, because the world is split into two groups of countries with opposing interests. It is true, because of these two groups of sociohistorical organisms, not only a system, but also a powerful organized economic, political and military force is only the center, which allows it to dominate and trample on all the principles of international law, to act according to the principle of the landowner from the well-known Nekrasov poem:

None of the contradictions

Whom I want– have mercy

Whom I want– execution.

Law– my desire!

Fist– my police!

sparkling blow,

The blow is crushing.

Blow cheekbones!

As for the countries of the periphery, they never formed a single system. They were united only by dependence on common owners. These countries were divided, there were and still are many contradictions between them. Therefore, they did not represent a force. The center took advantage of this disunity. He was always guided by the long-known rule - "divide and rule." To do this, he used both the stick and the carrot. Part of the countries of the periphery, on the one hand, because of fear, on the other hand, out of a desire to receive handouts from the master's table, became satellites of the center. Thus, a servile, servile, lackey periphery was formed, which in its attitude towards other peripheral countries in terms of arrogance surpassed even the owners.

Practically all countries of Central and Southern Europe (Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, etc.), as well as Georgia, became such voluntary satellites of the West. For the most part, they were included in organizations that initially united mainly only the countries of the center - NATO and the EU. It is precisely the countries of the center and the countries of the lackey periphery that they usually mean when they talk about the international, or world, community, refer to its opinions, its assessments of current events.

The countries of the rest of the periphery are not taken into account: they do not seem to exist. And it is clear why: in any class society, not excluding the global one, the dominant ideology is always the ideology of the ruling class.

The creation of the Kholuy periphery was largely initiated by the United States. The countries of the center make up one bandit gang. But this does not mean that there is complete unity between them. There are contradictions both between individual ordinary members, and between the latter and the "ataman". The ringleader often puts pressure on the rank and file, trying to turn them from albeit junior, but still partners, into servants. They offer strong resistance.

Sometimes the rank and file will try to rein in the ringleader when he overburdens himself. For example, France and Germany opposed the US-developed plan to attack Iraq. And the United States, having achieved the admission of the countries of the lackey periphery to NATO and the European Union, uses them to put pressure on its not always sufficiently submissive ortho-capitalist partners.

If the Kholuy periphery as a whole agrees to support the existing state of affairs, then the rest of the periphery as a whole is dissatisfied with it. But many of these dissatisfied are forced to put up with the existing order. And even those who are his opponents do not dare to enter into open conflict with the countries of the center.

But now, in addition to the hidden opponents of the "new order", more and more direct and open ones are beginning to appear. These are, first of all, the countries of the independent periphery, in particular Iran and Belarus. The third wave of socio-liberation revolutions is now taking place before our very eyes. They originate in Latin America. The countries in which these revolutions are unfolding rise from their knees and challenge, first of all, the leader of the center - the United States. These are Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua.

The struggle against the West requires the unification of the countries of the periphery for its success. And this objective necessity is increasingly beginning to make its way, often regardless of the subjective intentions of the ruling elites of the peripheral countries. In Eurasia, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) emerged, which includes Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. Mongolia, Iran, India, Pakistan take part in its work as observers. All of them want to join it, Iran even submitted an official application.

Although the leaders of the SCO countries emphasize in every possible way that this organization was not created with the aim of confronting any other countries, its anti-American and, more broadly, anti-Western orientation is obvious. No wonder the United States was denied the right to participate in its activities as even an observer. Many political scientists see the SCO as a kind of anti-NATO. Within the framework of the SCO, joint Russian-Chinese military exercises were held. Within the framework of the CIS, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) was created.

In Latin America, an organization called the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin American countries was created, consisting of Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia, characterized by a sharp anti-American orientation. Honduras has recently joined. The creation in 2008 of the South American Union of Nations (UNASUR) consisting of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Uruguay, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela is connected with the desire to jointly resist the United States. US military bases are being liquidated in Ecuador and Paraguay. The Caracas-Minsk-Tehran triangle emerged. The abbreviation BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) arose to denote a kind of informal union of the four largest countries of the peripheral world that is gradually becoming more and more distinct. Thus, the first steps towards the unification of the peripheral world have been taken.

Of great importance for the fate of the peripheral world is the position of Russia, which is the largest power in the world in terms of territory, occupying more than half of Europe and a significant part of Asia. The ruling elite of the Russian Federation, which took shape after the collapse of the USSR as an independent state, immediately embarked on the path of pleasing the West and especially the United States in every possible way. The leadership of Russia, neglecting the interests of its own country, diligently carried out all the instructions of the "Washington Regional Committee".

This continued even after B. N. Yeltsin was replaced as president by V. V. Putin. The Americans ordered the Mir to be drowned - drowned, ordered to close the tracking station in Cuba - closed, demanded to leave the base in Cam Ranh (Vietnam) - left, etc. The number of concessions was endless. But in response to them, Russia received demands for more and more concessions and spitting in the face.

Russia was pulled into the periphery of the lackey, but at the same time they were denied handouts that other voluntary lackeys of the West received. In response to the desire of the Russian leadership to please the United States and the West, they diligently engaged in throwing a noose around her neck. The goal is to lead Russia behind him as a slave under the threat of strangulation. This was expressed both in the constant approach of NATO to the borders of Russia, and in the creation of military bases, radars and missile systems on the territory of the new members of this alliance.

Sooner or later, the complete disregard of the Russian leadership for national interests began to threaten the very existence of the country. A change of policy became more and more imperative. And the changes began. But they marched with a constant eye on the West, with constant retreats, endless vacillations and hesitation. Russia spoke out, for example, against tough sanctions against Iran, but, however, not against sanctions in general. On this occasion, one involuntarily recalls the well-known Russian proverb about something dangling in the hole.

But Georgian President M. Saakashvili threw his army, armed to the teeth by the United States and a number of other states and trained by American instructors, against tiny South Ossetia in order to exterminate or expel the Ossetian population. If successful, he was going to do the same with Abkhazia.

M. Saakashvili hoped that Russia, despite all the warnings that had been expressed, would not dare to stand up for the Ossetians, fearing the inevitable sharp condemnation of these actions by the United States and the West in general. But the Russian leadership, knowing full well what would follow, decided on a conflict with the West. The Rubicon has been crossed.

In just five days, parts of the Russian army utterly defeated the Georgian troops, destroyed the air and naval forces of Georgia and liquidated almost all of its military infrastructure (bases, radar stations, etc.). Georgian soldiers fled in panic, which gave observers reason to caustically note that the Georgian army was apparently being trained by American running instructors. The road to Tbilisi was open, but the Russian troops, having forced Georgia to peace, stopped.

The world community mentioned above burst into a storm of indignation. People who pretended to be implacable champions of human rights rushed together to protect Saakashvili and his accomplices, in fact, thereby fully approving the genocide they had undertaken. But Russia, despite all these hysterical cries, continued the work it had begun: it recognized and reliably guaranteed the independence of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Of all the Western countries, the United States was especially excited. From the lips of their leaders, after the end of hostilities, threats and urgent demands for the most severe punishment of Russia rained down. The most servile satellites of the West (Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) came up with proposals for the introduction of the most severe sanctions against Russia. Some Western European countries were also talking about sanctions. But, having calculated their possible consequences, they fell silent. It became clear that they would turn like a boomerang against themselves.

The US and NATO were about to send their warships to the shores of Georgia, completely forgetting that the time for "gunboat diplomacy" was over, and it had never been used against countries like Russia. The presence of this fleet in the Black Sea turned out to be completely pointless. This was understood even by the leaders of the European Union, who expressed fear that this would only lead to an aggravation of tension, while it needed to be removed. Convinced that there was no use and would not be from the presence of military ships in the Black Sea, the United States was forced to withdraw them. It all came down to wasting fuel that is so expensive now. It did not bring any benefit to the United States, nor did it add glory. As a result, the US and the West as a whole have been unable to take any real action against Russia. Thus, they clearly demonstrated their impotence.

As a result of these events, a serious blow was dealt to the prestige, primarily of the United States, which was unable to protect its most devoted lackey, which was a harsh lesson for all other American lackeys.

Russia won a huge military and political victory. The main thing was her victory over herself. Russia has become convinced that it can defend its interests without fear of the West and regardless of it. It was a lesson for the whole world: both for the center and for the periphery. It turned out that even one country, however, such as Russia, can successfully resist the West. It became clear that in the event of its unification, the periphery could well completely put an end to its dominance over the world.

Ridiculous were the US and Western threats to put Russia in a position of isolation from the whole world. As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad noted on this occasion, NATO and the EU are not the whole world. In the peripheral world, excluding the lackey periphery, Russia's actions have everywhere aroused understanding and approval. The President of Iran immediately said this. The same was said by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Nicaragua announced the recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as sovereign states. The SCO, which together with observers represents half of the population of our planet, expressed its approval of Russia's active actions in the Caucasus. They unanimously condemned the aggression of Georgia and expressed their agreement with the actions of Russia and the CSTO countries. But it failed to isolate Russia not only from the whole world, but even from Western Europe. The European Union, while condemning Russia, at the same time several times stressed the need for further close cooperation with it.

In general, the events of August 2008 were a turning point in the history of the modern world. As French President Nicolas Sarkozy acknowledged, from that moment on, the unipolar world came to an end. It became quite clear that in addition to the world community to which Western politicians and publicists, as well as their henchmen, belong and talk endlessly, outside of it, in part, another, second community, which has more reason to call itself world, because it represents 5/6 of the world's population.

The struggle between the center and the periphery will be long. But its outcome as a whole is already predetermined: the defeat of the West is inevitable. And his economic power will not help him. China, the largest of the independent periphery countries, is becoming a powerful economic force. In 2007, it already controlled 13.2% of world industrial production, catching up with the leader of the center - the United States, whose share was approximately 20%. According to the forecast of the research center "Global Insight", already in 2009 these countries will change places: the share of China will be 17%, the US - 16%.

But the main thing, of course, is the rallying of the countries of the periphery. By uniting, the periphery will put an end to the dominance of the West, with dependence on it. The abolition of the exploitation of the countries of the periphery by the states of the West will mean the elimination of paracapitalism and thus of capitalism in these countries in general. Having done away with exploitation by the West, the periphery will thereby cease to be a periphery. She will become the center.

As for the ortho-capitalist center, having lost the influx of surplus product from outside, it will be doomed to fundamental changes in its social system. Now in the West there is a mass of literature in which scenarios for the future of mankind are discussed. And in most of these works, there is invariably a statement of the long-begun and steadily continuing decline of the West. Almost all of these works draw an analogy of the current situation in the West with the last centuries of the existence of the Roman Empire, when it was heading towards its inevitable death as a result of complete internal decay and the pressure of external enemies - the barbarians.

This is written by authors who adhere to a wide variety of beliefs: from extreme left radicals to liberals and even extreme right. In this regard, the title of the book Death of the West (2002) by the American arch-reactionary P.J. Buchanan sounds more than eloquent.

The essence of the matter lies in the fact that by now capitalism has exhausted all its former progressive possibilities. He became a brake on the path of human development. It turned out that the use of the technical method of developing the productive forces so characteristic of capitalism in the conditions of this society was approaching the limit. In the pursuit of profit, capitalism has developed technology to such an extent that it now endangers the nature of the planet and thus the existence of mankind.

Capitalism on a new level and in a new form revives the individualism that dominates the animal world, unbridles zoological instincts, destroys morality, deprives people of their sense of duty, honor and conscience, and thereby turns them into a special kind of animals - animals with thinking and technology. Its preservation dooms humanity to degradation, ostracization and, ultimately, to death. To survive, humanity must end capitalism.

When the countries of the West lose the opportunity to exploit the rest of the world, the only way out for them will be the elimination of capitalism. When it is destroyed throughout the world in both its forms (both paracapitalist and orthocapitalist), the era of transition to a society of a fundamentally different type will begin - a society without private property and exploitation of man by man. The division of human society as a whole into the historical center and the historical periphery will disappear. Humanity will merge into a single society.

But, unfortunately, another development option is not completely excluded. The rulers of the ortho-capitalist West, sensing the approach of imminent defeat, may decide to use nuclear weapons. Then both humanity and its history will come to an end. In the third orbit from the Sun, a dead, deserted planet will circle.

The obsolescence of capitalism and the danger posed to mankind by the continued existence of this economic system is more than clearly demonstrated by the grandiose financial crisis that erupted in 2008, and then a comprehensive economic crisis. It forced many of its hardened defenders to think about the future of capitalism, and the governments of the capitalist countries to take measures that run counter to the basic principles of the functioning of the capitalist economy. The head of the American Chamber of Commerce, E. Somers, said that the era of the free market has ended and the era of state regulation of the economy has begun, which does not exclude the nationalization of banks and enterprises. Former head of the US Federal Reserve System A. Greenspan spoke directly about the usefulness of the nationalization of the country's banks in a severe crisis. In the US, this process has already begun, which prompted one of our publicists to publish a condemning article entitled "The Socialist States." The German government also plans to nationalize troubled banks. The representative of the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Maria de Belem Rozeira, described as a deep mistake the prevailing opinion that market mechanisms can provide a solution to social problems. In fact, they cannot be solved without infringing on the "free" economy. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that the current economic crisis is caused by the "bad" capitalism that has existed so far, it must be abolished and replaced by another capitalism, this time - "good". Existing capitalism really needs to be destroyed. But it can be replaced not by some other - better capitalism, because there is no such thing and cannot be, but only by a society based on public ownership of the means of production - communist.