The history of socialism. Socialism is

Definition of socialism, theory and practice of socialism

Definition of socialism, theory and practice of socialism, ideology of socialism

1. The past of socialism

2. Theory and practice of socialism

3. Utopian socialism

4. Peasant socialism

5. Socialism of Karl Marx 6. Models of state socialism

7. The ideology of socialism in Russia

8. Soviet Union and socialism

9. Socialist countries 10. Criticism and defense of the ideas of socialism

Socialism -it economic, socio-political system, characterized by the fact that the process of production and distribution of income is under the control of society. The most important category that unites various directions of socialist thought is public ownership of the means of production, which replaces private property.

Socialism(from Latin socialis, that is, "social") - this, as the name suggests, is a political-economic order based on the predominance of society. Within the framework of socialism, both the individual and the state are viewed as something subordinate, designed to express only the will of the collective. This is its main difference from conservatism, which emphasizes the state, and liberalism, which puts personality at the forefront.

The past of socialism

One can hope to arrive at a correct assessment of socialism if one can find the correct scale by which to measure it. And for this it is natural to move away from, perhaps, too narrow for him the framework of modernity and consider it in a broader and historical perspective. This is what we will do in relation to both socialist states and doctrines.

Is the emergence of socialist states an exceptional feature of our century, or did this event have precedents? It is unlikely that two answers are possible here: many centuries and even millennia ago there were societies that much more fully and consistently implemented the socialist tendencies that we can observe in modern states. Here are just two examples.

1) Mesopotamia in the XXII-XXI centuries. BC Mesopotamia was one of those centers where in the IV millennium BC the first states known to historians were born. They formed on the basis of the farms of individual temples, around which significant masses of peasants and artisans gathered, and where intensive agriculture based on irrigation arose. By the middle of the 3rd millennium, Mesopotamia breaks up into small kingdoms, in which separate temples remain the main economic units. With the Akkadian king Sargon, the era of states uniting all Mesopotamia begins. Here we summarize some facts regarding the state, which in the XXII-XXI centuries. united Mesopotamia, Assyria and Elam. Its capital was the city of Ur, and this entire period is called the era of the III dynasty of Ur.

Archaeologists have discovered a huge number of cuneiform tablets reflecting the economic life of that time. From them, we know that temple farms remain the basis of the economy, but they completely lose their independence and turn into cells of a single state economy. Their managers are appointed by the king, they submit detailed reports to the capital, and are controlled by the royal auditors. Groups of workers are often transferred from one farm to another.

Agricultural workers, men, women and children, were divided into parties led by overseers. They worked all year round, moving from one field to another and receiving seeds, implements and draft animals from temple and state warehouses. Likewise, in parties led by chiefs, they came to the warehouses for food. The family was not viewed as an economic unit: food was handed out not to the head of the family, but to every worker, more often even to the head of the party. Some documents talk about men, others about women, still others about children, and still others about orphans. Apparently, for this category of workers, we can not only talk about ownership, but even about the use of certain plots of land.

Other groups of residents received crops from the plots allocated to them. So, there were fields of individuals, fields of artisans, fields of shepherds. But these fields were cultivated by the same workers as the state lands, and government officials supervised the work.

There were state craft workshops in the cities, especially large ones in the capital, Ur. The workers received from the state tools, raw materials and semi-finished products. The products of the workshops were sent to state warehouses. Craftsmen, like agricultural workers, were divided into parties led by overseers. They received food according to lists from state warehouses.

Workers in agriculture and handicrafts are reported as full strength, 2/3 strength, 1/6 strength. The norms of their contentment depended on this. There were production rates, on the fulfillment of which the size of the ration received by the worker also depended. The farms presented lists of the dead, sick, and absent from work (with an indication of the reasons for the absenteeism). Workers could move from one field to another, from workshop to workshop, sometimes to another city. Agricultural workers were sent to ancillary work in craft workshops, artisans - in agriculture or seething. The unfree position of the general population is emphasized by the large number of documents on the escape. It is reported (indicating the names of relatives) about escapes - not only of a barber or the son of a shepherd, but also of a son of a priest or priest ... One document says that 10% of the workers in the party died during the year, in another - 14%, in the third - 28%. The mortality rate was especially high among women and children who were employed in the most difficult jobs, such as seething.

2) Empire of the Incas. This grand empire, numbering several million inhabitants and covering an area from present-day Chile to Ecuador, was conquered by the Spaniards in the 16th century. The conquerors left detailed descriptions, giving vivid pictures of life, which they could observe or recognize from the stories of the natives. The nature of the social order that existed there is so clear that even in the titles of modern historical books about this state, the epithet "socialist" appears very often.

In the state of the Incas, private ownership of the means of production was completely absent. Most of the inhabitants had almost no property at all. The money was unknown. Trade did not play any significant role in the economy.

The basis of the economy - land - theoretically belonged to the head of state - Inca, that is, it was state property, and was transferred to residents only for use. Members of the ruling class - the Incas - owned some lands in the sense that they received income from them. These lands were cultivated by peasants in the order of state service and under the guidance of state officials.

The peasant received for use a plot of a certain size and cut-offs as the family grew. In the event of the death of a user, all land was returned to the state fund. There were also two more large categories of land - belonging directly to the state and temples. All the land was cultivated by peasants divided into detachments on the instructions and under the supervision of officials. Even the moment of commencement of work was determined by a signal that was given by an official, blowing a horn from a tower specially built for this.

The peasants were also engaged in handicrafts. They received raw materials from government officials and handed over products to them. The peasants also carried out construction work, for which huge labor armies were created from them, reaching up to 20,000 people. Finally, the peasants also bore military service.

The entire life of the population was regulated by the state. For the Incas, who constituted the ruling class of the country, there was only one field of activity - participation in the military or civilian bureaucracy. They were trained in closed public schools. Their private life was subject to the detailed control of the state. It was prescribed, for example, how many officials of each rank could have wives and concubines, how many gold and silver dishes, and so on.

But, of course, the life of the peasant was incomparably more severely regulated. He was prescribed what he should do at what period of his life: from 9 to 16 years old to be a shepherd, from 16 to 20 - a servant in the house of the Inca, etc. until old age. Peasant women could be sent by officials to the houses of the Incas as servants or concubines, they also supplied material for mass human sacrifice... Peasant marriages were contracted by an official once a year on the basis of prepared lists.

It was prescribed that the peasants could eat, what size the hut should have, what utensils. Special auditors traveled around the country, making sure that the peasants did not obey all these prohibitions and always worked.

The peasant received his clothes - a raincoat - from state warehouses. In each province, the cloak was of a specific color. It was forbidden to change its color and cut. These measures, as well as the character of hair cutting prescribed in each province, served to supervise the population. Peasants were forbidden to leave their village without permission from the authorities. At bridges and outposts, guards checked passers-by.

This entire way of life was supported by a system of punishments that were striking in their careful elaboration. Almost always they came down to the death penalty, carried out with an extraordinary variety: the convicts were thrown into the abyss, stoned, hung by the hair or hung by the legs, thrown into a cave with poisonous snakes, and sometimes, on top of that, they were tortured before execution, and after the execution the body was forbidden. buried, flutes were made from bones, leather was put on drums ...

The two examples given by us are not some isolated, paradoxical phenomena that could be neglected. Many others can be cited. So, 150 years after the conquest of the Inca state by the Spaniards, the Jesuits in a part of Paraguay isolated from the whole world built a society on very similar principles. There was no private ownership of land, there was no trade and money, and the life of the Indians was subject to the same strict control of the authorities.

Egypt is close both in its way of life and in time to the states of Mesopotamia. Of the ancient kingdom... Pharaoh was considered the owner of all the land and gave it only for temporary use. The peasants were considered as one of the products of the land and were transferred along with it. They were obliged to serve a duty for the state: to dig canals, build pyramids, boil over, extract and transport stone. Craftsmen and workers on state farms received tools and raw materials from the tsarist storerooms and handed over their products there. The bureaucracy of the scribes who directed this work. Gordon Child compares it to "commissars in Soviet Russia." He writes: “Thus, about 3000 years BC, the economic revolution not only provided the Egyptian artisan with a livelihood and raw materials, but also created the conditions for writing and science and gave birth to the State. But the social and economic organization created in Egypt by Manes and his successors as leaders of the revolution was centralized and totalitarian ... "(" What happened in history "). You can point to other examples of societies whose life was largely based on socialist principles. But those already cited by us clearly enough show that the emergence of socialist states is not the privilege of either any one era or any continent. It is in this form, apparently, that the state arose: "The first socialist states in the world" were the very first states in general.

Turning to socialist doctrines, we see a similar picture here. These teachings did not arise either in the 20th or in the 19th century; they have existed for more than two thousand years. Their history can be divided into 3 periods.

1) Socialist ideas were well known in antiquity. The first socialist system, the influence of which can be seen in all its countless variations, right down to the modern ones, was created by Plato. Through Platonism, socialist concepts penetrated the Gnostic sects that surrounded the newly emerging Christianity, as well as Manichaeism. During this period, the ideas of socialism spread to schools of thought and narrow mystical circles.

2) In the Middle Ages, socialist doctrines found their way into the broad masses of the people. Clothed in a religious form, they spread within heretical movements: Cathars, brothers of the free spirit, apostolic brothers, Begguards. More than once they inspired powerful popular movements: for example, the Patarens in Italy in the 14th century. or taborites in Bohemia in the 15th century. Their influence was especially strong during the era of the Reformation. Back in the English revolution of the 17th century. you can see their traces.

3) Since the XVI century. a new direction emerges in the development of socialist ideology. It rejects the mystical and religious form, is based on a materialistic and rationalistic worldview. He is characterized by a hostile, belligerent attitude towards religion. Once again, the sphere of dissemination of socialist doctrines is changing: the place of preachers who turn to artisans and peasants is taken by philosophers and writers who seek to subordinate the reading public, the upper strata of society to their influence. The heyday of this trend falls on the XVIII century. - the age of the Enlightenment. At the end of this century, a new goal is realized: to bring socialism out of the salons and offices of philosophers - to the outskirts, to the streets. The first attempt is made to again put socialist ideas at the heart of the mass movement.

We will provide several illustrations to give an idea of ​​the nature of socialist doctrines and to draw attention to some of their features that will be important for further discussion.

In the dialogue "State" Plato paints a picture of an ideal social order. Power in the state he portrays belongs to the philosophers, who, relying on warriors (also called guards), rule the country. It is the way of life of the guards that is mainly occupied by Plato, since, on the one hand, philosophers are elected from them, and on the other, they lead the rest of the population. He wants to completely subordinate their life to the interests of the state, to build in such a way as to exclude the possibility of a split, the emergence of conflicting interests.

The first remedy for this is the abolition of private property. The guards have no other property than their bodies. Anyone can always enter their home. They live in their state as mercenaries, serving only for food, not receiving any remuneration in excess of food.

For the same purpose, the individual family is abolished. All men and women in the guardian estate are each other's husbands and wives. Instead of marriage, a state-regulated short-term union of the sexes is introduced, the purpose of which is to satisfy physical needs and produce perfect offspring. To this end, philosophers grant distinguished guards the right of more frequent connection with more beautiful women.

Children from the very birth do not know not only their fathers, but also their mothers: they are in the care of all nursing women, and babies are always replaced. And further education is also in the hands of the state. A special role in this is assigned to art, which for this purpose is subjected to brutal cleansing. In this case, the work is considered the more dangerous, the higher it is from an artistic point of view. Destroyed "the fables composed by Hessiod and Homer", most of the classical literature: everything that can cause the idea of ​​injustice and imperfection of the gods, cause fear, despondency, or teach disrespect to the authorities. On the other hand, new myths are being invented that will help the guards develop the qualities necessary for the state.

In addition to such ideological guidance, the life of the guards is also under biological control. It begins with a careful selection of parents who are able to produce the best offspring, and the achievements of agriculture are taken as a model. Children from a compound not sanctioned by the state, as well as those with bodily disabilities, are destroyed. Selection among adults is entrusted to medicine: doctors treat some, let others die out, and kill others.

The worldview of medieval heretical movements was based on the opposition of the spiritual and material world as two antagonistic and mutually exclusive categories. It gave rise to a hostile attitude towards the entire material world and, in particular, towards any form of social life. All these movements denied military service, vows or going to court, personal submission to church and secular authorities, and some denied marriage and property. At the same time, some currents considered only marriage as sinful, but not fornication outside of marriage, so this requirement was not ascetic in nature, but was aimed at destroying the family. Contemporaries accused many sects of "free" or "holy" love. One contemporary asserts, for example, that heretics believed: "The marriage bond is contrary to the laws of nature, since these laws require that everything be common." In the same way, the denial of private property was associated with the abandonment of property in favor of the sect, and community of property was put forward as the ideal. "To make their teachings more attractive, they introduced a community of property," reads the protocol of one trial against heretics in the 13th century.

Usually, such more radical aspects of the teaching were communicated only to the upper stratum of the sect - the "perfect", which were sharply separated from the bulk of the "believers." But in the era of social crises, the preachers and apostles of the sect carried socialist ideas into the midst of the people. As a rule, these ideas were intertwined with calls for the destruction of the entire existing system and, above all, the Catholic Church.

So, at the beginning of the XIII century. In Italy, the Pataren movement, led by the preachers of the "Apostolic Brothers" sect, led to a bloody three-year war. The "Apostolic brothers" taught: "In love, everything should be in common: property and wives." Those who joined the sect had to transfer all their property to her for common use. They considered the Catholic Church a Babylonian harlot, and the Pope the Antichrist and called for the murder of the Pope, bishops, priests, monks and all atheists. Any action directed against the enemies of the true faith was declared permissible.

A little over a hundred years later, heretical sects subordinated to their influence the movement of the Taborites, whose raids for a quarter of a century terrified all of Central Europe. A contemporary tells about them: "In the settlement or Tabor, there is nothing mine or yours, but everyone uses it in the same way: everyone should have everything in common, and no one should have anything separately, the one who has it separately sins." Their preachers taught: "Everything will be common, including wives; there will be free sons and daughters of God, and there will be no marriage as a union of two - a husband and a wife." "All institutions and human decisions must be canceled, since all of them were not created by the heavenly father." "Houses of priests, all church property must be destroyed, churches, altars and monasteries must be destroyed." "We must bend everyone, exalted and ruling, like branches of trees and cut them down, burn them in a furnace like straw, leaving neither roots nor shoots, grind them like sheaves, drain their blood from them, destroy them with scorpions, snakes and wild beasts, put them to death ".

The largest specialist in the history of heresies I. Döllinger characterizes the social principles of heretical sects as follows: social order and bring about a political and social revolution. These Gnostic sects, Cathars and Albigensians, who by their activities brought about a harsh and inexorable legislation against heresies and with whom a bloody struggle was waged, were socialists and communists. They attacked marriage, family and property. "

All these features were even more vividly manifested in the heretical movements of the Reformation era in the 16th century. We will give just one example: the teachings of Nikolai Storch, the leader of the so-called "Prophets from Zwickau" (the exposition is taken from a book that appeared in the same century). Storch's teachings included the following provisions:

"No marriage union, be it secret or overt, should be observed ...

But, on the contrary, everyone can take wives, as soon as his flesh demands it and his passion rises, and live with them at his own will in bodily intimacy.

Everything should be common, for God sent all people equally into the world. And he also gave them all the same what is on earth in their possession - and a bird in the air and a fish in the water.

Therefore, all the authorities, both secular and spiritual, must be deprived of their positions once and for all or killed with a sword, for they only live freely, drink the blood and sweat of poor subjects, devour and drink day and night ...

Therefore, everyone must rise, the sooner the better, arm themselves and attack the priests in their cozy nests, kill them and exterminate them. For if you deprive the sheep of the leader, then things will go easy with the sheep. Then you have to attack the flayers, seize their houses, plunder their property, demolish their castles to the ground. "

In 1516, a book was published that marked the beginning of a new stage in the development of socialist thought - "Utopia" by Thomas More. The form used in it: the description of an ideal state built on socialist principles, after a two-thousand-year hiatus, continues the tradition of Plato, but in completely different conditions of Western Europe in modern times. The next most significant works of this new trend were: "City of the Sun" by the Italian monk Thomas Campanella (1602) and "Law of Liberty" by Gerard Winstanley, a contemporary of the English revolution (1652).

Since the end of the 17th century and into the 18th century, socialist views are increasingly spreading among writers and philosophers, and a continuous stream of socialist literature appears. A "socialist novel" emerges, in which the description of the socialist states is intertwined with love stories, travel and adventure (for example, "The Story of the Sevarambs" by Verras, "The Republic of Philosophers" by Fontenelle, "Southern Discovery" by Retif). More and more philosophical, sociological and moral treatises preaching socialist views appear (for example, "Testament" of Mellier, "Code of Nature" by Morelli, "Reflections on the State of Nature" by Mably, "The True System" by Deschamp, places in Addendum to Bougainville's Travels "by Diderot ).

All these works agree on the proclamation of the basic principle - the community of property. Most of them supplement it with compulsory labor service and the rule of bureaucracy (More, Campanella, Winstanley, Verras, Morelli), others paint a picture of a country divided into small agricultural communities, led by their most experienced members or old people (Mellier, Deschamp). Many systems assume the existence of slavery (Moore, Winstanley, Verras, Fenelon), and Moore and Winstanley see it not only as an economic category, but also as a punishment that maintains the stability of society. There are often thoughtful descriptions of the methods by which a society subjugates the personality of its members. So, Mor talks about a system of passes necessary not only for traveling around the country, but also for walking outside the city, he prescribes the same clothes and dwellings for everyone. At Campanella, the inhabitants always go in detachments, the greatest crime for a woman is to lengthen her dress or redden her face. Morelli forbids any speculation on social and moral topics. Deschamp assumes that all culture: art, science and even writing will die out by itself.

Reflections on how the family and gender relations should be modified (Campanella, Retif, Diderot, Deschamps) play an important role. Campanella assumes absolute control of the bureaucracy in this area. Its representatives decide which man should share the bed with which woman and at what hour. The connection itself is carried out under the supervision of officials. Children are raised by the state. Deschamp believes that all the men in one village will be the husbands of all women and the children will not know their parents.

A new look at the history of mankind is being developed. Medieval mysticism considered it as a single process of revealing God, passing through three stages. This point of view is now being transformed into the concept of a historical process subordinate to immanent laws, also consisting of three eras and in the last, third epoch inevitably leading to the triumph of the socialist ideal (for example, Morelli, Deschamp).

Unlike medieval heresies, which attacked only one catholic religion, now the socialist worldview is gradually becoming hostile to any religion, there is a fusion of socialism with atheism. Mora combines freedom of conscience with the recognition of enjoyment as the highest goal of life. For Campanella, religion has the character of a pantheistic deification of the cosmos. Winstanley is already hostile to religion, his "priests" are just agitators and propagandists of the system he describes. Deschamp believes that religion will die out along with all culture. But Mellier's Testament stands out for its particular aggressiveness towards religion. In religion, he sees the root of the misfortunes of mankind, he considers it an obvious absurdity, a pernicious superstition. He especially loathes the personality of Christ, whom he pours out with streams of abuse in long tirades, blaming him even for the fact that "he was always poor" and "had no dexterity."

At the very end of the 18th century, the first attempt to implement the developed socialist ideology fell into reality. In 1796 a secret society was founded in Paris, called the Union of Equals, which aimed to prepare a coup d'etat. The conspiracy was uncovered and the participants were arrested, but their plans were preserved in detail, thanks to the papers published by the government and the memories of the surviving participants.

Among the goals set by the conspirators, the first was the abolition of individual property. It was supposed to build the economy of the whole of France on the basis of complete centralization. Trade was abolished and replaced by government supplies. All life was subordinated to the bureaucracy: "the fatherland takes possession of a person from the day of his birth and does not leave until his death." Each person, in particular, was supposed to be viewed as an official supervising himself and others. All were obliged to the state for labor service. “Those who shy away, careless, leading an unbridled lifestyle, or setting an example of a lack of a sense of citizenship” were condemned to forced labor. To this end, many islands were turned into strictly isolated places of detention.

Everyone was required to participate in joint meals. Traveling around the country without the permission of the authorities was prohibited. Entertainment that did not apply to everyone was strictly prohibited. Censorship was introduced, and the publication of essays "of a supposedly revelatory character" was prohibited.

Theory and practice of socialism

We can now return to the main issue of this work. No matter how brief and fragmentary our excursion into the history of socialism was, it hardly leaves doubts about one fundamental conclusion: socialism cannot be associated with any particular era, or with a geographical environment, or with culture. All of its features, familiar to us from our time, we met in a variety of historical, geographical and cultural conditions: in socialist states - the abolition of private ownership of the means of production, state control over life, the subordination of the individual to the power of the bureaucracy; in socialist doctrines - the destruction of private property, religion, family, marriage, community of wives.

This conclusion cannot be considered new: in many works, attention is drawn to the socialist nature of such societies as the Inca empire, the Jesuit state or the early states of Mesopotamia, and the history of socialist doctrines has been the subject of a large number of monographs (some of them were even written by socialists). Thus, in his book "Outline of the history of socialism in modern times" R. Yu. Vipper writes: "About socialism one could say that it is as old as human society itself."

But in a strange way, this observation was not applied in assessing socialism as a historical phenomenon. And its importance can hardly be overestimated. It requires a complete revision of the change in fundamental attitudes, on the basis of which one can try to understand socialism. After all, if socialism is inherent in almost all historical epochs and civilizations, then its origin cannot be explained by any reasons associated with the characteristics of a particular period or culture: neither the contradiction of productive forces and production relations under capitalism, nor the properties of the psyche of African or Arab peoples. Attempts at such an understanding hopelessly distort the perspective, squeezing this grandiose world-historical phenomenon into the unsuitable framework of private economic, historical and racial categories. We will try to approach the same issue further from the opposite point of view: recognizing that socialism is one of the main and most universal forces operating throughout the history of mankind.

This recognition, of course, still does not clarify the role of socialism in history. One can get closer to understanding this role by trying to find out what goals socialism itself sets itself. Here, however, we are faced with the fact that there seem to be two different answers to this question, depending on whether we are talking about socialism as a state structure or as a doctrine. While the socialist states (both modern and older) are all based on one principle - the destruction of private property, socialist teachings put forward other basic provisions, for example, the destruction of the family.

We meet here two systems of views, one of which characterizes "socialist theory", and the other - "socialist practice". How to harmonize them, which one is recognized as a true statement of the goals of socialism?

The following answer suggests itself (and in some particular cases was given): the slogans of the destruction of the family, marriage and, in a more radical form, the community of wives are needed only to destroy the existing social structures, stir up fanaticism and unite socialist movements. In principle, they cannot be implemented, and this is not their function - they are needed only before the seizure of power. The only life condition in all socialist doctrines is the abolition of private property. This is the true goal of the movement. Therefore, only it should be taken into account when speaking about the role of socialism in history.

This point of view seems to us to be fundamentally wrong. First of all, such an ideology as socialism, capable of inspiring grandiose popular movements, creating its own saints and martyrs, cannot be based on falsehood, it must be imbued with deep inner unity. On the contrary, history shows many examples of how strikingly frankly and, in a sense, honestly, such movements proclaim their goals. If there is deception here, then on the part of those who oppose these movements, moreover, self-deception. How often do they try to convince themselves of this point of view: to believe that the most extreme positions of the ideology of the movement are irresponsible demagogy, fanaticism. And then, with bewilderment, they discover that the actions that seemed implausible in their radicalism are the implementation of a program that has never been hidden, loudly proclaimed and expounded in all well-known works! We also note that all the basic provisions of socialist doctrines can be found in the works of such "armchair" thinkers as Plato and Campanella, who are not associated with any popular movements. Obviously, for them these principles arose due to some internal logic and the unity of socialist ideology, which, therefore, cannot be broken into two parts and one of them used to seize power, and then thrown out.

On the other hand, one can easily understand why the ideology of socialist doctrines is broader than the practice of socialist states, overtaking it. A thinker or organizer of a popular movement, on the one hand, and a leader of a socialist state, on the other, even based on a single ideology, are forced to solve different problems and work in different environments. It is important for the creator or preacher of socialist doctrine to bring his system to extreme logical conclusions: it is in this form that his ideas will be most intelligible and infectious. Being at the head of the state, one has to think first of all about how to retain power. Forces begin to act, forcing them to deviate from a straightforward adherence to ideological norms, otherwise threatening the very existence of the socialist state. After all, it is no coincidence that for many decades the same phenomenon has been repeating with such monotony: as soon as the socialist trend comes to power (or at least to participation in power), its less happy brothers anathematize it, accusing it of betraying the socialist ideal; so that soon they themselves will be subjected to the same accusations, if they will be successful.

But the line separating the slogans of the socialist movements from the practice of the socialist states does not at all lie between the economic principles of socialism and the demands for the destruction of the family and marriage. Indeed, even those provisions that relate to the economy, to changes in production relations, in different socialist states are also not implemented equally radically.

A dramatic attempt at the full implementation of these principles was the era of "War Communism" in our country. Then the goal was set to build the entire economy of Russia on the direct exchange of goods, to nullify the market and the role of money, introduce universal labor service, in the countryside - social cultivation of land, trade in agricultural products to replace them with confiscation and state distribution. The very term "war communism" is misleading, suggesting that here we have wartime measures caused only by a state of emergency during the civil war. But when this policy was carried out, such a term was not applied to it: it was introduced after the civil war, when the policy of "war communism" was abandoned, recognizing it as temporary and forced.

Just when the civil war had already been virtually won and plans for governing the country in peacetime were being worked out, Trotsky, on behalf of the Central Committee, presented a program for the "militarization" of the economy to the Ninth Party Congress. It was proposed to put peasants and workers in the position of mobilized soldiers, to form from them "labor units approaching military units", to supply them with commanders. Everyone had to feel like "a soldier of labor who cannot freely dispose of himself; if an order is given to throw it over, he must fulfill it; if he does not fulfill it, he will be a deserter who is punished!"

To substantiate these plans, Trotsky develops the following theory: “If we take at face value the old bourgeois prejudice, or not the old bourgeois prejudice, but the old bourgeois axiom, which has become a prejudice, that forced labor is not productive, then this applies not only to the labor army, but also to labor service in general, to the basis of our economic construction, to socialist organization in general. " But it turns out that the "bourgeois axiom" is true only when applied to the feudal and capitalist system and is not applicable to the socialist system: "We say it is not true that forced labor is unproductive under any circumstances and under any conditions."

A year later, "war communism" and "militarization" were replaced by NEP - under the influence of devastation, famine and uprisings in the countryside. But the previous views were not debunked; on the contrary, NEP was declared only a temporary retreat. Indeed, the same ideas all the time showed through both in the activities of Stalin, and in the speeches of the opposition, with which he fought. They were also expressed in the last work of Stalin, "The Economic Problems of Socialism," where he called for a reduction in the sphere of action of trade and money circulation, their replacement with a system of "product exchange" ...

We will see a similar picture if we look at how another basic feature of socialism manifested itself in our country - its hostility to religion. In 1932, a "godless five-year plan" was announced, it was planned to close the last church by 1936, and by 1937 to ensure that the name of God was not pronounced in our country. Despite the unheard-of dimensions that the persecution of religion assumed then, the "godless five-year plan" was not fulfilled. A number of factors - the unforeseen readiness of believers to go to any pains, the emergence of the catacomb Orthodox Church and the resilience of believers of other faiths, the war, the rapid revival of religious life in the territories occupied by the Germans - all this forced Stalin to abandon the plan to destroy religion and recognize its right to exist. But the fundamental hostility towards religion remained and found a way out in the persecutions of the Khrushchev era ...

Let's try from this point of view to consider those principles of socialism that relate to family and marriage. The first post-revolutionary years in our country (20s) can again serve as an example of how they tried to implement these provisions.

The general Marxist views on the development of the family, on which the practice of those years was based, are detailed in Engels' work "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State." They boil down to the fact that the family is one of the "superstructures" over the economic base. In particular, "monogamy arose as a result of the concentration of great wealth in one hand — moreover, in the hands of a man — and from the need to pass on this wealth by inheritance to the children of this man, and not someone else." In a socialist society, "the private household will become a social branch of labor. The care and upbringing of children will become a public matter." Thus, the family will be deprived of all social functions, which, from the Marxist point of view, entails its withering away. The "Communist Manifesto" proclaims the withering away of the "bourgeois family." But in the 1920s, they already did without this prefix. So, in the extensive work "The Sociology of Marriage and Family", published in 1929, prof. S. Ya. Wolfson foresees that the family will lose such features: production function (already taking place under capitalism), joint household (food will become public), raising children (they will be brought up in state nurseries and orphanages), caring for the elderly, living together parents with children and spouses with each other. "The family will emasculate its social content, it will die out ..."

Practical measures were consistent with these ideological provisions. For example, in his note "Ten Theses on Soviet Power," Lenin proposed: "Steadfast, systematic measures to replace the individual management of individual families with common feeding of large groups of families." And even decades later, many toiled in houses built in the 1920s, where residents were offered communal apartments without kitchens - counting on the giant "kitchen factories" of the future. The legislation simplified both the conclusion and dissolution of marriage as much as possible, so registration turned into only one of the ways to confirm a marriage (along with, for example, its judicial confirmation), and divorce was carried out at the first application of one of the parties. "In other cases, it is easier to divorce with us than to register as dropped out according to the house register," one lawyer wrote at the time. The family was considered by prominent figures of that time as an institution opposed to society and the state. For example, in the article "Relations between the sexes and class morality" Kollontai wrote: "For the working class, greater" fluidity ", less fixed communication between the sexes completely coincides and even follows directly from the main tasks of this class." A woman, in her opinion, should be regarded as a representative of a revolutionary class "must first of all serve the interests of the class, and not a separate isolated cell."

All these actions found such a response in life that Lenin not only did not welcome the destruction of the "bourgeois family," predicted by the Communist Manifesto, but said: as simple and insignificant as drinking a glass of water. From this theory of a "glass of water" our youth went berserk, straight outraged. She became the evil fate of many young men and women. Her adherents claim that this is a Marxist theory. Thank you for such Marxism. " (Clara Zetkin. "About Lenin.") Indeed, for example, in the questionnaire conducted at the Communist Institute. Sverdlov (famous "Sverdlovka"), only 3.7% indicated love as the reason for the first connection. As a result, in the European part of the USSR from 1924 to 1925 the percentage of divorces (the ratio of the number of divorces to the number of marriages) increased 1.3 times. In 1924, there were 1000 divorces with a marriage duration of less than a year - in Minsk - 260, Kharkov - 197, Leningrad - 159 (for comparison: in Tokyo - 80, New York - 14, Berlin - 11). A society "Down with Shame" arose, and the "hikes of the nude" were half a century ahead of modern hippies.

This legal precedent shows, as it seems to us, under more favorable circumstances, the socialist principle of the destruction of the family, depriving marriage of all functions, except for communication (whether spiritual or physical) of its participants, could be fully implemented. Such an outcome in the near future seems realistic, especially due to the fact that government intervention in this sphere of human relations is becoming more and more likely. "We will interfere in private relations between a man and a woman only insofar as they will violate our social order," Marx wrote. But who will determine what violates "our system"? In the already cited composition of prof. Wolfson writes: "... we have every reason to believe that by the time of socialism, childbirth will have already been removed from the power of the elements ...", "but this, I repeat, is the only aspect of marriage that, in our opinion, can touch control of a socialist society. " This type of measure was actually applied in National Socialist Germany, both in relation to the prevention of the appearance of offspring, undesirable from the point of view of the state, and to obtain the desired offspring; for example, the organization "Lebensborn", created by the SS, selected Aryan producers for unmarried women, and the institution of marital wives for racial men was promoted. Or when the norm of family life was proclaimed in China at one time: "one child is necessary, two are desirable, three are unacceptable," then one might think that the term "unacceptable" was clothed in some kind of organizational form.

It has now become generally accepted that the overpopulation crisis is one of the main dangers (and perhaps the most terrible) that threaten humanity. Under these conditions, attempts by the state to bring family relations under its control may well be successful. For example, Arnold Toynbee believes that in the near future, government intervention in these most delicate human relations is inevitable, as a result of which the world totalitarian empires will severely restrict human freedom in family life as well as in economics and politics (see his book "An historians approach to religion "). In such a situation, especially when the spiritual values ​​on which humanity could rely are increasingly shaken, the coming century brings with it very real prospects for socialist transformations of the family and marriage, the spirit of which Plato and Campanella guessed.

These and other examples lead to the conclusion that socialist ideology contains a single complex of ideas, welded together by internal logic. Of course, in different historical conditions, socialism takes on various forms, it cannot but mix with other views. There is nothing surprising here, we would have encountered the same thing when analyzing any phenomenon of such a historical scale - for example, religion. However, a very clear core can be identified, a "socialist ideal" can be formulated, fully or partially, with more or less impurities, manifested in various situations.

Socialist theories proclaimed this ideal in the most consistent, radical form. The history of the socialist states shows a chain of attempts to approach a certain ideal, which has never been fully realized, but according to these approximate realizations it can be reconstructed. This reconstructed ideal of socialist states coincides with the ideal of socialist doctrines, in which we can see a single "socialist ideal."

Utopian socialism

Utopian socialism, dreams, projects and teachings about the radical transformation of society on socialist principles, not based on knowledge of the laws of social development and its driving forces. The concept "Utopian socialism" comes from the title of T. More's work "Utopia" (1516). “... Initial socialism was utopian socialism. He criticized capitalist society, condemned, cursed it, dreamed of destroying it, fantasized about a better system, convinced the rich of the immorality of exploitation. But utopian socialism could not indicate a real way out. He could neither explain the essence of wage slavery under capitalism, nor discover the laws of its development, nor find a social force capable of becoming the creator of a new society ”(V. I. Lenin, Poln. Sobr. Soch., 5th ed., Vol. 23 , p. 46).

The emergence of dreams containing the embryonic elements of socialist ideas expressed the reaction of the working people to the emergence of private property, class inequality and exploitation, their aspirations for liberation and, at the same time, ideological and political weakness. In giving the vague aspirations of the exploited classes more conscious forms, the most important role was played by the intelligentsia, whose progressive representatives for many centuries substantiated the ideals of a just society without class oppression and exploitation, but proceeded from idealistic, moralistic, voluntaristic, religious, sometimes messianic views.

The embryonic form of the ideas of Utopian socialism among all peoples was the legend of the past "golden age", which depicted in an idealized form the communal system and the social equality of people that prevailed in it. Similar fantastic images are found in folklore and in societies. thoughts of the peoples of Ancient Egypt, Western Asia, India, China and Southeast Asia. V antique greece the legend of the "golden age" developed in the discussions of thinkers about social inequality and the "natural" state of society, the leveling system of Sparta, the social reforms of Solon in Athens, in the Platonic utopia of caste "communism", as well as in fairy tales about the countries of the "golden age" found by travelers on the islands in the Indian Ocean (Eugemer, Yambul).

Great importance for the formation of Utopian socialism had the social doctrine of early Christianity, preaching universal human equality and brotherhood of people, the evangelical ideal of the communal patriarchal system with consumer communism in everyday life. However, more and more imbued with the preaching of reconciliation with earthly evil and the promise of compensation for social injustice in the other world, Christianity directed utopian thought into the mainstream of religious utopia, thereby slowing down the development of socialist ideas.

In the Middle Ages, the chiliastic hopes of religious heretical sects (Waldensians, Cathars, Lollards, Taborites, Anabaptists, etc.), which declared the source of oppression and social inequality, were the apostasy of the Church and the ruling classes from the ideals of primitive Christianity, became the ideological shell of the struggle of the lower strata against exploitation. Even as this religious sectarian communism merged into a stream of antifeudal uprisings of peasants, urban poor and workers late middle ages The communist ideal put forward by its ideologists (T. Münzer and others) remained meager, backward and cut off from the real historical process.

In the ideas of Utopian socialism of the 16th century. contained the first elements of deep criticism of the emerging bourgeois society and the consciousness that the realization of humanistic ideals requires a truly humane, communist society. In the communist utopias of T. Mora and T. Campanella, Utopian socialism made crucial step moving forward from the idea of ​​a community of consumption to the idea of ​​social property and the organization of the economic life of society as a whole; from the ideal of a closed patriarchal community to the ideal of a large political entity in the form of a city or a federation of cities, to the recognition of the most important role of state power in establishing the foundations of a reasonable social system.

In the Utopian socialism of the early capitalist period, the original rationalistic elements were strengthened. Franz. Utopian socialism of the Enlightenment, based on the requirements of reason and "natural law", criticized bourgeois society and affirmed the necessity of a communist society as the only rational one and corresponding to the equal right of all people to freedom and enjoyment of life. This version of the "golden age", which was preached in utopian travel novels that told about the societies of "good savages" with a natural system of "community of property", received a clearer justification in the communist treatises of the 18th century. Materialistic and atheistic "Testament" French. the utopian communist J. Mellier called on the peasants for the revolutionary overthrow of feudalism, royal power, nobles and churchmen, and for the reorganization of society. In the middle of the 18th century. G. Mably and Morelli came up with rationalist projects of a communist society, realizing the principles of "perfect equality" of all people, the right to work and the obligation to work for all members of society.

In the egalitarian ideology of "socialism of equality" of small toilers-proprietors, in the petty-bourgeois constructions of J.J. Rousseau and his followers, a stream of "workers' egalitarianism" emerged, fed by the illusions of those strata of rural and urban pre-proletariat, which still relied on the possibility of eliminating the exploitative system of wage labor through equalizing redistribution of land.

The Great French Revolution brought with it the revolutionization of the ideas of Utopian socialism, which merged with the struggles of the lower strata of the city and the countryside. The ideologues of mass egalitarian movements moved to the demand for a general equalizing redistribution of land and also approached the program of equalizing restrictions on commercial and industrial property, universal restriction of property rights and subordination to their interests and strict control of society (Social Circle, Rabid, Left Jacobins).

A decisive turning point in the development of communist ideas was carried out by G. Babeuf, who developed the program "Conspiracy for Equality" with the practical task of accomplishing the communist revolution and for the first time substantiated the need for a revolutionary dictatorship. Representing the ideology of mainly the pre-industrial proletariat, Babuvism built the ideal of a communist society as an agrarian and craft society, with small-scale production on the basis of manual labor, and preached gross equalization, universal asceticism, and a negative attitude towards mental labor and its representatives.

At the same time, critical-utopian socialism, in its arbitrary, fantastic historical constructions, affirmed an understanding of the laws governing the change in the forms of property and the forms of production based on them in the progressive development of mankind; he saw the primary task of social transformation in the creation of large-scale social production based on free labor and systematically applying the achievements of science and technology. Overcoming the idea of ​​universal asceticism and equalization under the socialist system, critical-utopian socialism put forward the socialist principle of distribution "according to ability" and portrayed the future society as a society of abundance, ensuring the satisfaction of human needs and the flourishing of the individual.

Having expressed a number of ingenious guesses and embryonic concepts of materialist historicism, Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen and their students still did not leave the soil of the idealistic worldview. They considered the ultimate driving force of social historical development change of religious and moral ideas of society, did not understand the most important historical role of the class struggle of the masses and saw in the proletariat only a suffering class. To strengthen cooperation between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, critical-utopian socialism revived religious ideas. “The meaning of critical-utopian socialism and communism,” wrote K. Marx and F. Engels, “stands in the opposite relation to historical development. As the class struggle develops and takes on more and more definite forms, this fantastic striving to rise above it, this fantastic overcoming of it loses all practical meaning and any theoretical justification. Therefore, if the founders of these systems were revolutionary in many ways, then their students always form reactionary sects. " Sensimonism (B.P. Anfantin, S.-A. Bazar, and others), Fourierism (V. Considerant) and Owenism became such sects.

The ideas of critical-utopian socialism were adopted by subsequent currents of Utopian socialism, within which the differentiation of the bourgeois and proletarian trends intensified. In France in the 30s and 40s. 19th century along with epigonese sensimonism and fourierism, numerous related currents of bourgeois and petty bourgeois socialism were formed. These schools of reactionary and conservative Utopian socialism criticized capitalism and put forward utopian projects to restore pre-capitalist forms of economy or to unite smallholders against big capital. By defending the working class from a petty-bourgeois position and promoting it as a means of gradual peaceful reconstruction, creation produces. associations (B. Buchet, L. Blanc, P. Leroux, C. Pecker) or associations of "fair" equivalent exchange (J. Gray, P. J. Proudhon), they received a response in the petty bourgeois strata of the working class. On the contrary, the advanced elements of the labor movement found expression of their revolutionary aspirations in utopian communism, which proclaimed the need for an immediate radical reorganization of the entire society on the basis of a "community of property." In the depths of the revolutionary secret organizations of the 30-40s. 19th century crystallized the teachings of neobuvist communism, which revived the idea of ​​a "global" communist reorganization of society through a revolutionary coup and a revolutionary dictatorship (T. Dezami, L.O. Blanqui, V. Veitling, etc.). E. Kabet's propaganda of the peaceful communist reorganization of society also gained great popularity among the workers. Theorists of utopian communism in the 1930s – 1940s. formulated the most important principle of communist distribution: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." However, utopian communism, like the utopian socialism of this period, as a whole could not overcome the religious heritage of social thought, often referred to the traditions of evangelical communism (Cabet, Weitling, Eskiros) and sometimes resulted in the struggle of rival sects. Higher development materialistic tendencies Utopian socialism reached only in Russia, in the views of A. I. Herzen and N. G. Chernyshevsky.

Utopian socialism sought to build a perfect social system, proceeding from the abstract principles of reason, justice, freedom, equality and fraternity, "... instead of making the source of science the critical knowledge of the historical movement, the movement that itself creates the material conditions of liberation."

A revolutionary upheaval in socialist and communist ideas was carried out by Marx and Engels. Marxism transformed socialism from a utopia into a science, proving that socialism is not the realization of abstract principles of justice and reason, but the natural result of the historical development of society and the class struggle of the proletariat, which unites all working people around itself. Overcome in scientific communism, Utopian socialism as a great achievement of social thought was one of its most important ideological sources.

After the emergence of scientific communism, Utopian socialism lost its former historical meaning... However, the process of the subsequent formation of the working class and the drawing of its new strata into the revolutionary movement was accompanied by the revival in new forms of the ideology of Utopian socialism and the repetition of its illusions and mistakes. Along with this, under conditions of mature capitalism, the further ruin of the non-proletarian strata of the working people and the emergence of new middle strata of the population of the capitalist countries inevitably lead to the revival of various backward and reactionary ideas of utopian petty-bourgeois socialism. Modern ideologists of the bourgeoisie often come out with a direct apologetics of pre-Marxian Utopian socialism, trying to undermine the attractive force of Marxism-Leninism and turn the development of socialism from science to utopia. Finally, in the modern era in the developing countries, the ideas of Utopian Socialism also arise, which reflect the mentality of the petty-bourgeois and semi-proletarian population and their anti-imperialist and national liberation aspirations. These ideas eclectically combine elements of scientific socialism, Utopian socialism, nationalism and religious beliefs... In many cases, these constructions reflect the revolutionary sentiments of the masses and the advanced intelligentsia, their striving for a decisive struggle against imperialism, for a non-capitalist path of development. Such a Utopian socialism is able to perceive the ideas of scientific communism and develop along the path of rapprochement with it and a gradual transition to its position.

Peasant socialism

Utopian socialism of the 40-50s could only have a peasant basis and a peasant coloration. The development of this socialism is determined by the fact that it was a revolutionary expression of the demands of the serf peasantry.

As it developed, Russian socialism became more and more closely associated with the political and economic struggle against serfdom, reflecting in this struggle the interests of the peasantry.

On the whole, this direction of Russian socio-economic thought is directly connected with the ideas of the Decembrists and Radishchev, but the transition from noble revolutionary to peasant revolution was embodied in Alexander Ivanovich Herzen. It was he who gave Russian socialism a quite definite peasant character.

Herzen acted as the founder of the theory of "Russian peasant socialism". It was shared by Ogarev. They proceeded from the erroneous idea that after the fall of serfdom, Russia will follow the socialist path. Socialism became their ideal, and the struggle against serfdom acquired a socialist coloration. Herzen saw the embryo of socialism in the peasant community. Having lost faith in the victory of the revolution in Western Europe after the defeat of the 1848 revolution, he pinned his hopes on Russia. In 1851, in his article "The Russian People and Socialism," Herzen argued that it was the Russian people that harbored the foundations of socialism. In his opinion, Russia with its peasant community is closer to socialism than the countries of Western Europe. By socialism, Herzen meant: 1) the peasants' right to land, 2) communal land tenure, 3) secular self-government. He outlined the creation of such a society through the use of ready-made particles of the embryos of socialism, which, in his opinion, were contained by the peasant community. In reality, there was nothing socialist in Herzen's views. He created and developed one of the utopian theories. The Decembrist uprising had a decisive influence on the formation of Herzen's worldview. Soon after December 14, 1825 and the cruel reprisal of tsarism against the Decembrists, A.I. Herzen wrote: "December 14, indeed, opened a new phase in our political education ... these people awakened the soul of a new generation - the bandage was removed from its eyes."

In his agrarian program, Chernyshevsky proceeded from the need for the complete elimination of landlord ownership of land, landlord ownership. The land was to become state property with the transfer of it to the use of peasant communities. The demand for the nationalization of the land was the most important point of his agrarian program. Landlord economies were liquidated and replaced by peasant farms. But such farms represented only the first step towards the creation of a new economic system. In the future, a transition to large collective farms was envisaged, which are able to ensure the progress of production based on the widespread use of the achievements of science and technology. Chernyshevsky linked the implementation of such a program with the people's revolution. In solving the agrarian problem, a significant place was assigned to the peasant community. Chernyshevsky's attitude to it is stated in a number of works, in particular, in the articles "On land property", "Criticism of philosophical warnings against communal ownership", "Superstition and the rules of logic", etc. Considering the preservation of the peasant community in Russia, Chernyshevsky considered it necessary to use it in socio-economic transformations, assigned it an important place in the structure of the agrarian system, which was to establish itself after the elimination of serfdom. Speaking for the complete destruction of the landlord class, the nationalization of the land, he believed that a system of land tenure and land use should be built on the basis of the community.

Chernyshevsky's socialism did not go beyond the utopian framework. “Chernyshevsky,” wrote V. I. Lenin, “was a utopian socialist who dreamed of the transition to socialism through the old, semi-feudal peasant community, who did not and could not see in the 60s of the last century that only the development of capitalism was capable of to create material conditions and social strength for the implementation of socialism. "

Chernyshevsky gave a description of capitalist competition, economic crises and some other issues. He proceeded from the premise that socialism will be free from competition and anarchy of production, which will be replaced by planning and competition. Socialist production should, in his opinion, be guided by a rational calculation of social needs and the real possibilities of meeting them at each specific stage in the development of the productive forces of society.

Peasant socialism, according to Herzen, took shape in the 50s, when a person whose thoughts were directed towards Russia could not see in the life of this country those social forces that had developed several decades later. The development of capitalist relations in industry and agriculture in Russia already in the 40s raised the question of the nature of Russia's economic development after the abolition of serfdom.

Herzen came out with the substantiation of a special - non-capitalist way of development of Russia. This idea of ​​the ways of Russia's economic development was favored by the socio-economic situation during the period of the fall of serfdom. Before the reform, the rural population accounted for more than 90% of the total population of the country. Despite the process of decay that was observed among the landowners and especially the state peasants, the domination of serfdom delayed the split in the countryside. The proletariat has not yet distinguished itself from the general mass of the working people. The peasantry independently opposed serfdom and landlord power. Nor was his movement led by the bourgeoisie, which was looking for ways to reach an agreement with the landlords.

Herzen saw in the emancipation of the peasants with the land not only the abolition of serf relations, but also the beginning of the subsequent socialist transformation of Russia.

How did it happen that he began to associate the existence of a society of true equality with a country that lagged behind the leading countries of Europe, which contributed to the suppression of the revolutionary movements of the late 1940s.

Recognizing that his homeland acted in those years in the role of "the first gendarme of the universe," Herzen argued that as there are two Europeans - a Europe of the bourgeoisie and a Europe of workers - there are also two Russia - government, imperial, noble, soldafon and Russia " black people ”, poor, arable, peasant. The people are not responsible for the actions of the government.

Bending down under history, crushed and downtrodden, the Russian people retained their mighty soul, their great national character.

Now it is clear to us that the capitalist development of Russia under the concrete conditions of that time was inevitable, natural and progressive. This was the only possible path to socialism. But it would be absurd to demand that Herzen look at the case in this way in an era when serfdom was still a terrible reality, and the working class in any "European" sense did not exist at all. A humanist and a lover of the people, Herzen was looking for some third way for Russia that would allow her to free herself from serfdom and at the same time avoid capitalism and the rule of the bourgeoisie. In the ideological disputes of the 1940s, Herzen acted as one of the leaders of the Westernizers who, in contrast to the Slavophiles, defended the progressiveness of Russia's entry into the "European world." In the 1950s, Herzen seemed to change the front: he spoke of a special path and a special mission for Russia. His journalism, as it were, echoes the famous lines of Tyutchev! “You cannot understand Russia with your mind, you cannot measure with a common yardstick! She has a special become. You can only believe in Russia ”. But in the main, Herzen was far from Tyutchev's poetic Slavophiles and even further from the glorification of antiquity and backwardness, which was what the official monarchist Slavophiles were doing. He saw the special vocation of Russia in combining the Western ideas of socialism with the popular foundations of the Russian peasant community and showing the world the possibility of a new social system without the exploitation of man by man. The idea of ​​a social revolution is a European idea. It does not follow from this that it is the Western peoples who are more capable of implementing it. This is what Herzen wrote in 1854. He considered the peasant community, the absence of developed private ownership of peasants to land, the traditions of collectivism, mutual assistance, and artisanalism among the Russian people as the pledge of the Russian social revolution. He saw these national features in workers and craft artels. Psychologically, he considered Russian workers to be the same peasants and believed that they were fundamentally different from Western Europeans. Herzen pinned his hopes on spontaneous communal socialism (in other places he uses the term "communism"), opposing it to both serfdom and capitalism. From time immemorial, the community existed in the Russian village, but until the 40s of the XIX century. somewhat mysteriously, almost did not attract the attention of scientists and writers. Maybe because she was something completely organic, obvious and therefore imperceptible. “The community saved the Russian people from Mongol barbarism and from the imperial civilization, from landowners painted in European style and from the German bureaucracy. The community organization, albeit badly battered, withstood the intervention of the authorities ”

How did it happen that the centuries-old institution of popular life - a community that organically fits into the feudal life of the Russian countryside, which served as a protective principle for the autocracy, became the main argument in the theory of the Russian liberation movement?

What socialist did Herzen find in the community?

First, democratism, or “communism” (that is, collectivity) in managing the life of the village: the peasants at their gatherings, “in peace” decide the common affairs of the village, elect local judges, the headman, who cannot go against the will “ the world ”. This general management of everyday life is due to the fact - and this is the second point that characterizes, according to Herzen, the community as the embryo of socialism - that people own the land together. He believed that, on the basis of communal land tenure, agriculture could be improved; if the landlord power and the bureaucracy are eliminated, public education can be developed.

This communal property seemed to Herzen the embryo of socialist collective property. Finally, Herzen also saw an element of socialism in the peasant's right to land, i.e. in the right of every peasant to an allotment of land, which the community must grant him for use. “This basic, natural, innate recognition of the right to land puts the Russian people on a completely different foot than the one on which all the peoples of the West stand” (vol. 18, p. 355). He considered this right a sufficient condition for the viability of the community. It ruled out, in his opinion, the emergence of a landless proletariat. "The man of the future in Russia is a man, just like a worker in France."

Herzen believed, however, that the community itself does not represent any socialism. For many centuries, the communal system has put people to sleep with its patriarchal nature. The individual in the community is belittled, her outlook is limited to the life of the family and the village. In order to develop a community along the path of socialism, it is necessary to apply Western European science to it. With its help, it will be possible to eliminate the negative, patriarchal aspects of the community. Herzen believes that having mastered science, the Russian people will go through all the stages of difficult historical development that Western Europe has gone through, but this path will be much shorter. “The task of the new era, into which we are entering,” wrote Herzen, “is to consciously develop an element of our communal self-government on the basis of science to complete freedom of the individual, bypassing those intermediate forms by which ... the development of the West proceeded by necessity. New life ours should so weave these two inheritances into one cloth, so that the free person has the earth under his feet and so that the community member has a completely free face ”.

Thus, Herzen did not regard Russia's path to socialism through the community as an exception to global development.

NG Chernyshevsky Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky was the son of a priest in Saratov. His father intended him for a spiritual career, but, seeing the exceptional abilities of his son, he gave him a home (very careful) upbringing, and only when he turned 16 did he send him straight to the senior class of the theological seminary. Chernyshevsky amazed both teachers and comrades with his enormous knowledge - he knew very well all new languages, as well as Latin, Greek and Hebrew. His readability was absolutely exceptional and sharply distinguished him from among his comrades. Already in his student years, the philosophical and "socio-political beliefs of Chernyshevsky were formed; especially noteworthy is his entry into the circle of Irinarch Vvedensky (1815-1855), who was then called the" founder of nihilism. " themes - and Chernyshevsky already at that time clearly defined his sympathies for socialism. Chernyshevsky followed very closely, mainly, French socialist thought. Already in 1848 he wrote in his diary that he had become "a decisive partisan of the socialists and communists." The revolutionary mood of Chernyshevsky, growing from the study of socialist utopias, threw him away from Hegel But in the same year 1849 Chernyshevsky read Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity; a staunch admirer of his anthropologism and materialistic t trends). It must be admitted that the sources of Chernyshevsky's views lay in the general scientific and philosophical literature of his time, and above all, in that cult of scientificness ("scientism"), which was generally characteristic of the 19th century. Chernyshevsky (as partly Herzen) was under the influence of French spiritual life - from here came those socialist - trends that captured Chernyshevsky's mind and heart entirely. Of course, the socio-economic ideas of Chernyshevsky had a clearly expressed ethical root; the primacy of ethics over "pure" scientificity extremely significantly determined the spiritual attitude of Chernyshevsky. It was a real faith in science, in its unlimited possibilities, its cognitive power; this was also supported by that realism, which in general began to manifest itself very clearly in Russian literature since the mid-1940s, in contrast to the "romanticism" of the fathers.

Socialism of Karl Marx

The stages of development of society (according to K. Marx)

Primitive communism

Asian way of production

Slave system

Feudal system

Capitalism

Socialism

Communism

In the theory of Marxism, socialism was called a society that is on the path of development from capitalism to communism, that is, it is no longer a society of social justice, but only a preparatory stage to it.

The socialist society emerges from the capitalist one and therefore "in all respects, in economic, moral and mental, still retains the birthmarks of the old society, from the depths of which it emerged" K. Marx, critic of the Gotha program.

The result of labor is distributed according to how much each individual producer invests (labor share), workdays. He receives a receipt for what he has contributed, and receives such a quantity of commodities from the public stock on which a given quantity of labor has been expended. The principle of equivalence prevails: an equal amount of labor is exchanged for an equal one. But, since different individuals have different abilities, they receive an unequal share of consumer goods. Principle: "From each according to his ability - to each according to his work."

Nothing can pass into the ownership of persons, except for individual consumer goods. Unlike capitalism, private enterprise (a criminal offense) is prohibited.

The state is the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.

The Communist Manifesto defines the following features of socialism:

Expropriation of land ownership and circulation of land rent to cover public expenditures.

High progressive tax.

Cancellation of the right of inheritance.

Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

Centralization of credit in the hands of the state through a national bank with state capital and state monopoly.

Centralization, monopoly of all transport in the hands of the state.

An increase in the number of state factories, implements of production, clearing for arable land and land improvement according to a general plan.

Equal obligation to work for all, the establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

Combining agriculture with industry, promoting the gradual elimination of the distinction between town and country.

Public and free upbringing of all children. Elimination of the factory labor of children in its modern form. Combining education with material production

Models of state socialism

There are two main models of socialism:

Socialism based on complete state control over the economy (planned economy, command-administrative system).

Market socialism is an economic system in which the state form of ownership dominates, but the laws of a market economy operate. Market socialism often involves self-government in manufacturing enterprises. In this case, the thesis is defended that self-government both in production and in society is the first attribute of socialism. A. Buzgalin points out that this requires, first of all, "the development of forms of free self-organization of citizens - from nationwide accounting and control to self-government and democratic planning." The negative side of market socialism is that it reproduces many of the "diseases" of capitalism, including social inequality, macroinstability, environmental destruction, although these negative aspects are supposed to be eliminated through active government intervention and planning.

Sometimes socialism is a combination of a welfare state and a capitalist economy. So, for example, they talk about the "Swedish model of socialism"

The idea of ​​a “people's home” - a society without the poor, adopted by the Swedish Social Democrats back in the 1930s, is still alive and well. And all because, in building their socialism, the Swedes decided not to completely renounce capitalism, but to put it in the service of society. Therefore, large private companies are now the economic foundation of Swedish socialism. At the same time, small business is flourishing in the country. So, in Sweden, with a population of about 9 million people, about 700 thousand companies are registered, and two-thirds of them consist of one person. In addition, according to statistics, 8 out of 10 Swedes own equity capital, which in itself is a kind of world record. Taxes are also record-breaking in Sweden: all income received from share capital or, say, a bank deposit is taxed at 30%. In addition to it, there are also taxes on real estate, property, inheritance, gift and personal transport. The local income tax rate, depending on the municipality, ranges from 32 to 35%.

Despite such high taxes, not a single Swede, according to opinion polls, has the desire to avoid paying them. Perhaps the reason is the complete trust between society and the state. After all, taxpayer money is an almost sacred concept in Sweden, and control over the spending of these funds is very serious. They go primarily to the maintenance of the social protection system. Free education, including for adults, subsidized by regional authorities, medical care, unemployment insurance, paid leave in case of birth or illness of a child, housing allowance, a pension that reaches 70-75% of the salary - this is not a complete list of guarantees. provided to the Swedish population. At the same time, all residents of the "Swedish House", regardless of their income level, have access to an equal set of social services of the same quality.

Another characteristic feature of Swedish socialism is the equalization of incomes between different groups of the population. So, if a cleaning lady without education in Sweden earns about $ 1,700 a month, then a certified sales manager in a large company - $ 5100, which is less than in many other Western European countries.

A particular challenge for Sweden in last years there was an increase in sick citizens. There is a sorely lack of money for all patients, so the government is going to develop a special provision according to which the benefit can be reduced or completely withdrawn if the patient strenuously resists rehabilitation and return to the workplace.

The ideology of socialism in Russia

In practice, the implementation of socialism led either to an exaggerated strengthening of the state (communists), or to a certain softening of the individualism of the liberal system (social democrats). This is due to the fact that socialism sets itself purely utopian goals. A huge mass of people cannot manage social development, only leaders can do this, as well as groups that either specialize in management (bureaucracy) or have an elite status, which gives them a great material condition and high education (aristocracy, bourgeoisie). Therefore, these groups inevitably intercept the slogans and technologies of the socialists, using them for their own purposes. The utopia of socialism presupposes either the withering away of the state (Marxists), or its abolition (anarchism). In the system of Marxism, socialism is declared to be only the first phase of communism, which must inevitably lead to the withering away of states, nations and families.

It is quite obvious that this provision makes socialism unacceptable from the point of view of conservatism. At the same time, the socialists put forward a position that is attractive to conservatism, naturally, subject to its appropriate reinterpretation. We are talking about the demand to end the exploitation of man by man, rallying society in solving the most important tasks of a spiritual, political and economic nature. Indeed, according to conservatism, contradictions within a nation (state, empire) should be minimal, which is impossible without significant restrictions on the exploitation that generates these contradictions. Therefore, this demand for socialism is often adopted by various trends in conservatism. This is how the theories of "religious", "national", "state", "feudal", etc., of socialism are born.

In Russia, the development of socialism was a rather complex and specific process. Socialist ideas began to penetrate into our country in the 30s of the 19th century from the West. The educated Russian public got acquainted with the works of the famous utopian socialists - C. Fourier, R. Owen, C. Saint-Simon. This prompted her to rather radical demands. In 1845, MV Butashevich-Petrashevsky, a petty official of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, organized a circle, whose members held positions close to socialism. At the beginning, the activities of the circle were of a purely educational nature. Then the Petrashevites came to the idea of ​​the need for an armed uprising and began to conduct appropriate organizational work in the troops. As a result, the circle was destroyed by the police. Thus, almost from the very beginning of its existence, Russian socialism has shown itself to be an enemy of the Russian tradition.

Meanwhile, at first, it still retained many traditional and national features. One of the leading theorists of the so-called. "Revolutionary democracy" A. I. Herzen, created the theory of "Russian socialism". According to it, Russia had to come to the realization of the socialist utopia through the community. The preservation of communal institutions was seen as a blessing that sharply distinguishes our country from the bourgeois-individualist West. It is Russia, according to Herzen, that will become the first country where socialism will triumph. While recognizing the originality of Russia, Herzen at the same time gave it some kind of primitive character: “In the moral sense, we are freer than the Europeans, and this is not only because we are spared the great trials through which the development of the West passes, but also because that we do not have a past that would dominate us. Our history is poor ... ". He considered communal life primitive and devoid of any structural diversity. This "circumstance" should have made it easier for the whole of Russia to transition to equalizing distribution.

Herzen's ideas formed the basis of the ideological and political movement of populism, which was able to create strong organizational structures - "Land and Freedom", "Narodnaya Volya", "Black Redistribution" and others. The Narodniks believed that Russia could come to socialism bypassing capitalism, because it has preserved socialist, by their nature, institutions - the community and the artel. It is curious that their views on the fate of Russian socialism coincided with those of Marx, which he developed in his later period. Marx was convinced that socialism cannot be achieved without a long period of development of capitalism. The result will be the emergence of a powerful working class that socializes property. But for Russia, Marx made an exception, due to the presence of a community, a ready-made socialist institution. He expressed these thoughts in his letter to V. Zasulich.

The Narodniks sometimes put forward demands of an original and traditionalist character (for example, the convocation of a Zemsky Sobor). They often called themselves Russian patriots, but they often reduced all their patriotism to criticism of the allegedly German bureaucracy and the demand to grant freedom to "oppressed" minorities, primarily the Poles. The monarchy was declared by them as an entity alien to the Russian people and grew out of "Byzantism", "Tatarism" or "Germanism". In fact, their "patriotism" turned into a denial of the need for a strong national statehood. It is characteristic that the influence of the ideas of anarchism was very strong among the Narodniks, and some leaders of Narodism were outspoken anarchists (such as M. A. Bakunin).

Many populists directly denied the need for patriotism. MV Butashevich-Petrashevsky asserted: "Socialism is a cosmopolitan doctrine that stands above nationalities: for a socialist, the difference between nationalities disappears, there are only people." He believed that in the future all differences between peoples will disappear. The populist P. L. Lavrov wrote: nationality in itself “is not an enemy of socialism as a modern state; it is nothing more than an accidental benefit or an accidental hindrance to the activities of socialism. " Sometimes a socialist may even present himself as a "zealous nationalist" in order to attract his fellow tribesmen to the ideas of socialism. But as a result of the implementation of these ideas, national differences will be overcome, they will become just "a pale legend of history, without practical meaning." But the opinion of the populist LN Tkachev - a socialist “on the one hand ... should contribute to everything that is conducive to the elimination of the barriers separating peoples, everything that smooths out and weakens national characteristics; on the other, he must most energetically oppose everything that enhances and develops these features. And he cannot do otherwise. "

Cosmopolitanism developed within the framework of socialism (both foreign and domestic) not by accident. It was conditioned by the idea of ​​the predominance of the social principle. Different social groups in different countries and among different peoples are the same. Everywhere there is its own aristocracy, its own merchants, its own hired workers, etc. The differences between them are determined by the national specifics, which are protected by the state. It is the state, rising above social groups with their narrow interests, that is able to see and express that common that is inherent in an aristocrat, an entrepreneur and a worker. This in common distinguishes them from aristocrats, entrepreneurs and workers who belong to a different people. If either society (socialism) or the groups of its individuals (liberalism) rises above the state, then the peoples cease to notice the difference between social groups in their own country and abroad. They will inevitably strive for cosmopolitan amalgamation. And parties that put forward the idea of ​​the predominance of a social or personal principle will inevitably act as cosmopolitan parties.

In the 80s of the XIX, the formation of the Marxist wing in Russian socialism began. The Emancipation of Labor group emerged, headed by the former populist GV Plekhanov. Finally, in 1898, the 1st Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) was held. Russian Marxists believed that the victory of the socialist revolution is possible only after capitalism has completely exhausted its potential and turned the majority into a proletariat. Then the proletarian majority will quite easily overthrow the bourgeoisie. This was the general scheme, which, however, was interpreted in different ways by different Marxists. "Right" wing of the RSDLP, the so-called. The "Mensheviks" (G.V. Plekhanov, P. B. Akselrod, Yu. O. Martov, and others) believed that the period of development of capitalism should be quite long. For a long time, power should belong to the bourgeoisie, which will overthrow the autocracy with the help of the working class (the Mensheviks did not consider the peasantry a revolutionary force) and carry out the necessary liberal-democratic reforms.

The left wing ("Bolsheviks") headed by V. I. Lenin believed that Russia had already followed the path of capitalism enough. It is possible and necessary to fight both against autocracy and against capitalism. But this is possible only on condition of an alliance between the working class and the peasantry.

And the "centrist" L. D. Trotsky did not rely on either the bourgeoisie or the peasantry. He pinned his hopes only on the Western proletariat.

Capitalism was characteristic of the Marxists, which was much more radical for them. Thus, Lenin wrote: "The proletarian party is striving for rapprochement and further merging of nations." According to him, "national movements are reactionary, for the history of mankind is the history of the class struggle, while nations are an invention of the bourgeoisie."

At the beginning of the 20th century, populism was reviving in Russia, which was defeated by the police. In 1901-1906. the Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries was formed (AKP, leaders - V. M. Chernov, N. D. Avksentyev, etc.). Unlike the old populists, the Social Revolutionaries recognized that Russia had nevertheless entered the capitalist period of its development. But at the same time, they believed that capitalism itself affected Russian society very superficially. This especially applies to villages where the community and small peasant farming, for the most part, labor are preserved. It is in the agrarian sphere that the birth of new socialist relations will take place, which will become possible thanks to the nationalization of the land, its equalizing distribution and subsequent cooperation. Throughout their existence, various left and "right" groups (Maximalists, Socialist-Revolutionaries-internationalists, People's Socialists) split off from the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

In 1917, after the February coup, the Social Revolutionaries turned into the most massive and influential party - thanks to their reliance on the peasantry. In the summer of 1917, it consisted of about a million people. Nevertheless, its leadership did not manage to develop its own, original view of the fate of socialism and Russia. The Socialist-Revolutionaries followed the much weaker, organizationally, Mensheviks. The latter convinced of the need for a long stage in the development of capitalism (in the presence of the broadest and most socially oriented democracy). But the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries did not take into account the polarization of Russian society. It was divided into those who were ready to accept the radical program of the Bolsheviks, and those who were ready for radical opposition to the Soviets - in the ranks of the national-liberal White movement.

Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks tried to become a "third force" offering a democratic way out of the systemic crisis. At the same time, they advocated weakening the state in favor of public structures. In this they were much more to the left of the Bolsheviks, who, in order to maintain their power, were forced to strengthen the influence of state mechanisms. At the same time, the Socialist-Revolutionary Mensheviks reproached the Bolsheviks for the revival of autocracy and national isolationism (according to them, the movement towards socialism was possible only as a movement of the entire world proletariat, which had yet to be fully formed).

Their particular rage was caused by the use of military specialists in the Red Army, who began their careers in tsarist times. In this, they "perverted" Trotsky himself, who (for reasons of pragmatism) was a supporter of the active involvement of specialists. At a meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on April 22, 1918, Trotsky's proposal to use officers and generals of the old army was met with criticism from both the "left communists" and the "right" Mensheviks. The leaders of the latter, F. Dan and Martov, accused the Bolsheviks of almost being in a bloc with the "counter-revolutionary military clique." And Martov generally suspected Trotsky of clearing the way for Kornilov.

In April 1918, the Menshevik newspaper Vperyod openly united with the "left communists" protesting against the strengthening of labor discipline at enterprises that were not subject to nationalization: Soviet power v Lately more and more openly embarks on the path of agreement with the bourgeoisie and takes on a clearly anti-worker character ... This policy threatens to deprive the proletariat of its main achievements in the economic field and make it a victim of unlimited exploitation by the bourgeoisie. " The Mensheviks met with hostility the announcement of a new economic policy, regarding this perfectly timely and pragmatic measure as capitulation to the bourgeoisie.

The masses did not accept the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik "third way" and Russia followed the path proposed by the Bolshevik party. In the 1930s, JV Stalin (in a fierce struggle against Trotskyism and other ultra-left currents) significantly corrected the direction of this path, using socialism as a powerful lever to create a strong state. After his death, the development of socialist theory in the USSR was practically completed, which plunged the country into a state of stagnation. In the 80s and 90s, it naturally ended with the collapse of Soviet socialism.

Soviet Union and socialism

In the Soviet Union, socialism existed, built in full accordance with dogmas. At the same time, it is pointed out that socialism was a "bad" system. The reasons are seen in the fact that Marxism is either "bad" or beautiful, but utopian, and the experience of Soviet socialism showed all its utopianism and led to the natural collapse of this entire system.

There was socialism in the USSR, but in its original, undeveloped form (deformed socialism, mutant socialism, feudal socialism, etc.). This also includes the concept of a transitional stage from capitalism to socialism, "hybridity" as the most important feature of the Soviet social order.

The socialism that existed in the USSR was generally a good social order, with some exceptions (for example, unreasonable or excessive repression). This socialism, almost completely consistent with the classical teaching of Marxism-Leninism, met the vital interests of the nation, the state, and at the same time preserved and developed the historical Russian traditions. Socialist society allowed the people to live comfortably as a whole, and the state to become powerful.

The system built in the USSR had nothing in common with the Marxist understanding of socialism, since under it there was neither self-government of the working people, nor the "withering away" of the state, nor public (and not state) ownership of the means of production; the alienation, which, according to Marx, must be overcome under socialism, has reached dimensions that exceed capitalist societies.

The Soviet system was a state-monopoly capitalism (most of the means of production belong to one monopoly owner - the state), which was the result of a fairly accurate embodiment of the erroneous idea of ​​classical Marxism about socialism as a society existing on the same material foundations (means of production) as capitalism. but with different production relations. Despite the problems associated with this, Soviet "socialism" significantly raised industry, culture and quality of life in Russia / USSR, however, due to the authoritarian system of government and the ossification of ideology, it could not withstand competition with the system of market capitalism.

There was no socialism in the USSR as such. There was an administrative command system in the USSR. The collapse of the system is nothing more than a confluence of circumstances.

Apologetics for the Soviet Union and an attempt to hide the real situation were expressed, among other things, in the distortion of Marxist ideas about socialism. So, gradually it became more and more generally accepted thesis that under socialism the operation of the law of value, the presence of profit, etc. are normal phenomena that do not contradict Marxist concept... Such a situation was called the creative development of the Marxist-Leninist theory (the postulate of the existence of the law of value under socialism was put forward by JV Stalin in his work "Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR" (1952)), although in fact it contradicted Marx's understanding:

Profits as an exclusively capitalist category (a converted form of surplus value, and surplus value exists only in capitalism)

Moreover, before that, in 1943, an article appeared in the journal "Under the Banner of Marxism", which states that oh with the cost of a commodity in a socialist society is determined not by the number of units of labor actually expended on production, but by the amount of labor socially necessary for its production and reproduction.

Thus, we can say that the idea of ​​socialism, faced with realities, gradually departed from the Marxist-Leninist concept.

Socialist countries By the mid-1980s, 15 countries were considered socialist states: - People's Socialist Republic of Albania (NSRA), - People's Republic of Bulgaria (NRB), - People's Republic of Hungary (Hungary) - Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), - German Democratic Republic (GDR), - People's Republic of China (PRC), - Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), - Republic of Cuba - Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), - Mongolian People's Republic (MPR), - People's Republic of Poland (Poland) - The Socialist Republic of Romania (SRR) - The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) - The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (Czechoslovakia) - The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). In the USSR, developing countries with Marxist-Leninist regimes were not considered socialist: Afghanistan, People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, Kampuchea, Angola, People's Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Somalia (until 1977), Ethiopia, Nicaragua. They were called "countries of socialist orientation." In the West, the socialist countries and the aforementioned "socialist-oriented countries" were usually referred to as "Communist countries". For countries adhering to non-Marxist theories of socialism, the USSR also used (provided good relations with the USSR) the term "socialist-oriented countries", which aroused the discontent of a number of Third World Communist Parties, who suggested calling them "countries following the path of social progress." Among such countries are Burma (Myanmar), Libya, Syria, Iraq, Guinea, Egypt (under Nasser and early Sadat), Benin, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Tanzania, Sao Tome and Principe, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Seychelles islands. Countries such as the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, Israel or Tunisia, which proclaimed national models of socialism, but oriented towards the West, were never ranked among the countries of socialist orientation in the USSR. At present, only North Korea and Cuba can be classified as socialist countries (from a Marxist point of view). Also, with reservations, Venezuela and Bolivia can be considered "countries of socialist orientation." In all the other countries listed above, including the "socialist-oriented countries", in the early 1990s, there was a transition to capitalism

Criticism and defense of the ideas of socialism

Already in the XX century, an example of criticism of the ideas of socialism was provided by L. F. Mises in his work "Socialism"

Mises is one of the most prominent representatives of neoliberalism - a supporter of non-interference of the state in the economy. In 1922, the book Socialism was published, in which the author criticized the ideas of socialism and for the first time tried to prove the impossibility of the existence of socialism for many reasons - in particular, because of the impossibility of correct economic calculation.

Hayek was the successor of the ideas of Ludwig Mises and throughout his life criticized the idea of ​​socialism, meaning by it the introduction of planning into the economy as opposed to the "market", as well as the primacy of society over the individual. Thus, the leitmotif of his work entitled "The Road to Slavery" is the assertion that planning directly entails the slavish subordination of individuals to the state machine. One way or another, almost all of the main criticism boils down to criticism of state planning.

Among the elements of criticism of socialism, the following can be distinguished:

External suppression of personal freedom, compulsion to a certain type of activity, certain goods that should be bought;

Inflexibility, ineffectiveness of planning, inability to effectively allocate limited resources and meet the needs of society;

Conformism generated by the stifling of initiative;

Discrimination (the state decides how to allocate resources, independently putting forward the criteria of justice), which gives rise to a system of privileges.

In addition, the author criticizes the attempt to deliberately create a social system, its "design", in contrast to evolutionism - the way in which all types of social structure arose.

For their part, the ideas of Ludwig Mises and Friedrich Hayek were and are constantly being met a large number of criticism.

In response to criticism of socialism, its supporters put forward the following interpretation of its elements:

Planned development provides the opportunity for the most efficient allocation of resources, while capitalism wastes resources (this ensures the self-growth of capital - the thesis of Istvan Meszaros), in addition, the well-known economist Paul Samuelson points out that manufacturers in the market are not always able to accurately determine how the needs of buyers are changing ... The negative aspects of the planning process are compensated by the counter-planning mechanisms. Ernest Mandel comments on one of Mises's fundamental theses about the impossibility of correct planning:

... all economic calculations - with the exception of the calculation of the equivalent of ex officio working hours (by position (lat.)) In conditions of universal abundance - are imperfect and inaccurate. … The function of the market is precisely to give signals to the business, to provide it with information so that it can accordingly modify its calculations and projects. and further: ... both systems, proceeding from the impossibility of making accurate calculations and projects, in practice apply a flexible method of successive approximation. Ernest Mandel, Belgian economist, representative of neo-Marxism.

The opportunity to rise above production is formed due to the disappearance of the market, a person gets the opportunity to get rid of the constant preoccupation with the material side of life. The "disease" of capitalism - commodity fetishism - disappears;

The ability to actively participate in production for the whole of society, participation in the distribution of the products of one's labor is opposed to "impersonal" consumption;

Eliminating inequality by eliminating the hierarchical structure of capitalist society (Istvan Mesaros).

The ability to consciously create one's own history is contrasted with blind submission to circumstances. People jointly create their own history, and individuality does not suffer at all, but on the contrary, wins when people move together towards some goal.

Thus, a very sharp controversy is currently underway around the concept of "socialism", and the spectrum of convictions is extremely wide: from complete denial of the possibility of transition to such a society and to complete confidence in the inevitability of the victory of socialism.

Sources of

http://ru.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia

http://www.vehi.net/ Library of Russian religious-philosophical and fiction literature

http://www.leviy.ru/ Information center for left-leaning parties http://bse.sci-lib.com Great Soviet Encyclopedia http://www.rustrana.ru Russian civilization

Socialism (socialism) is an economic system and a social system, where the idea of ​​universal equality and justice is brought to the fore, there is no class division of society, and where the main features are public property, collective labor and planning.

The history of mankind is not only a history of victories and achievements, but it is also a history of disasters, suffering, cruelty, savagery, hunger, etc. So, according to A. Maddison, in Europe for a thousand years, from 500 to 1500, there was practically no increase in average per capita consumption. The food well-being of the nobility presupposed the half-starved existence of the mob. Therefore, even in ancient times, a dream arose about an ideal, perfect society, where justice, equality, happiness, freedom would reign. Scientific socialism and communism were thought of as antipodes to the market, capitalism. The market system "encourages" hard work, thrift, initiative, honesty, knowledge and "punishes" laziness, passivity, illiteracy, carelessness, that is, it presupposes economic coercion through competition. F. Hayek, one of the greatest economists of the 20th century, wrote: " One of the most important reasons for hostility to competition, of course, is that competition shows not only how to efficiently produce goods, but also puts those economic agents whose incomes depend on market conditions, with a choice: either to imitate those who have achieved great success, or partially or completely lose your income". Such an economic system is fair for society as a whole, since it provides an increase in the efficiency of the economy, the welfare of the majority, but it is perceived unfair by those who have lost in the competition. The seller considers it unfair to reduce prices, and the buyer to increase them; those whose incomes are small, consider high incomes to be unfair and suspicious. Much less often people envy intelligence, talent, hard work, knowledge, experience. But the market system is characterized by injustice of another kind: one inherits from his parents and wealth, and intelligence, and beauty, while others - poverty, It is impossible to eliminate such injustice completely, but it is possible to reduce it, to help everyone develop and realize their abilities, but this is not the task of the market, but of the state.

The main features of socialist society were formulated by the founders of utopian socialism of the late 18th - early 19th centuries A. Saint-Simon, C. Fourier, R. Owen. Their views were clearly anti-capitalist, anti-market orientation. The society, which, in their opinion, will replace capitalism, will have such features as social property, collective labor, planning. This is a classless society, where science and art will be encouraged, philanthropy will prevail, labor will become a natural human need, pleasure. Fourier comes across the idea of ​​competition between people in the labor process. The product will be distributed, according to Fourier, according to labor, capital and talent. R. Owen put forward the principle: from each according to his ability, to each according to his work. They developed a doctrine about socio-economic formations, about the role of the class struggle in the development of society, etc.

The theory of scientific socialism by K. Marx and F. Engels did not go beyond utopias. But they pointed to the force that will lead to socialism - the proletariat, and to the path of reorganizing society - the proletarian socialist revolution. At the same time, the solution to the problem posed by T. More was seen in the high consciousness of the proletariat, which, as a class, was idealized by the Marxists. Therefore, we can say that no scientific theory of socialism, that is, the theory of society, the possibility of the existence of which has been scientifically proven, has never existed. On this occasion, Yu. Burtin wrote in 1989 in the magazine Oktyabr, which cost Marx and Engels to bring criticism of capitalism to the idea of ​​a proletarian revolution and to attempt to draw the outlines of society that should arise on this basis, as they began to speak without the usual chased clarity and firmness in his voice, somehow more fragmentary and contradictory, indistinct. " Instead of the always sober realists, we suddenly see before us utopians, whose revolutionary romanticism ... involuntarily and imperceptibly turns into its reactionary opposite".

The theory of "scientific" socialism appeals to feelings, but not to reason, and therefore was perceived by those strata of the population who are more inclined to rely on a leader, a leader, a messiah, and not on themselves. In this theory, the messianic element dominates. " The idea of ​​socialism,- wrote L. Mises seventy years ago, - both grand and simple at the same time. Indeed, we can say that the idea of ​​socialism is one of the most ambitious creations of the human spirit ... It is so magnificent and audacious that it caused the greatest delusion in society. We do not have the right to casually cast aside and forget socialism, but must refute it if we want to save the world from barbarism. ".

From the economic point of view, and therefore from any other point of view, socialism is unrealizable, and therefore utopian and reactionary, because it leads society not to progress, but to chaos, destruction, regression. Back in the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" Marx and Engels formulated the main condition social progress: the free development of everyone is a condition for the free development of all. They believed that under socialism this principle would be implemented. On this basis, in the opinion of the Marxists, a kind of intellectual explosion will occur, the development of productive forces will accelerate enormously and the highest, against capitalism, labor productivity, the highest level of well-being of the people will be achieved (all wealth will flow in full flow). " People,- wrote F. Engels, - who finally became the masters of their own social being, as a result of this become the masters of nature, the masters of themselves - free ".

It is obvious that not a single country that has embarked on the socialist path of development has confirmed these forecasts. On the contrary, after a certain leap forward, they lagged more and more behind the capitalist countries. And the point here is neither the lack of time, nor the ineptitude of the leaders, nor the unpreparedness of the people for a new way of life, but the unattainability of the goals set by the classics with the help of the proposed means. This is the main contradiction of socialist theory. The economy of socialism is based on three principles: public property, planned economy, and distribution according to work.

Public property cannot but be the property of the state. With her, the owner disappears. Everything is common and everything is nobody's. Its trait is no manhood. Everything is controlled by an official who is not the owner either. Therefore, bureaucracy, incompetence, wastefulness are the features of this property. All this does not lead to progress, but to regression. " There is good reason to be afraid- wrote A. Marshall, - that collective ownership of the means of production will kill the energy of humanity and stop economic development ..."

Plannedness is nothing more than an illusion. After all, planning is possible when solving three problems: 1) measurability of needs; 2) accurate knowledge of the future; 3) the ability in a short time to link all manufacturers with each other, to calculate all the connections between them in kind, assortment, in real time. It is easy to prove that all these three problems have no solution. A planned economy kills initiative. This is a barracks economy, an economy of scarcity, this is production for production, not for humans.

Distribution according to work it is possible only if it is possible to measure not the cost of labor or labor time, but the labor contribution, which is impossible in principle, since it is assumed that the labor of everyone from the very beginning until the sale of products is directly universal labor. The classics of Marxism, having formulated the principle, when trying to translate it into the language of practice, substituted equalization for distribution according to work. So, polemicizing with E. Dühring, F. Engels in the sixth chapter of the second section of Anti-Dühring comes to the conclusion that the problem of remuneration will be removed by his change (that is, the builder will work alternately as an architect and then as a wheelbarrow driver) and the fact that the costs of education will be borne by society, and therefore the more qualified worker himself "does not have the right to claim additional pay."

Thus, the socialist theory is internally contradictory and practically impracticable. In practice, in all "socialist" countries there has been a restoration of the Asian form of society, but in a socialist verbal shell, which presupposes dictatorship, violence, lack of rights of the masses, stagnation, and laziness.

For its peoples, socialism turned into socio-cultural backwardness, poverty, the destruction of the productive forces, the environment, and the person himself. Social development, as our historian and political scientist Aleksey Kiva has aptly defined, went a different way, not as predicted by Marx, Engels, Lenin. Not through the proletarian revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism, but through the self-development of capitalism, a society based on private property. Not by denying the market, entrepreneurship, but by developing it by transforming an industrial society into a post-industrial one. Of course, this society has a lot of problems: here labor has not turned, as the classics thought, into pleasure; here everyone is not equal, rich and happy. But they have significantly surpassed the former socialist countries in the level of development of science and technology, in the level of well-being, health, life expectancy, in the level of freedom, democracy, and in the field of human rights. " Society,- writes M. Friedman, - putting equality (i.e., equality of results) above freedom will ultimately lose both equality and freedom. But, if in order to achieve this equality, society resorts to force, then all this will destroy freedom, and the force that was used for the most beneficial purposes will be in the hands of those people who use it in their own interests. ".

So, the reason for the destruction of socialism is the lack of viability, the inefficiency of this economic system. It was an experiment doomed to failure. " Lenin directs Russian history down a false, dead-end path", - wrote G.V. Plekhanov in his political testament, first published on November 30, 1999 by Nezavisimaya Gazeta." Under Lenin's socialism, workers from a hired capitalist can turn into a hired feudal lord, and peasants. .. - in his serfs", - this was dictated at the beginning of 1918" Bolshevism is the ideology of the lumpen"- dictated the dying" pioneer of Marxism "in Russia. The return to the global channel of economic development could not be easy, painless: the decline in production exceeded all forecasts. The scale of inflation is enormous, the problem of employment has become extremely acute, and income differentiation has increased.

Basics of economic theory. Lecture course. Edited by A.S. Baskin, O.I. Botkin, M.S. Ishmanova Izhevsk: Publishing House "Udmurt University", 2000.

The term "socialism" was first used in 1834 in Pierre Leroux's article "De l" individualisme et du socialisme ", published in the" Revue Encyclop é dique ". True, there is still no strict definition of the concept expressed by this word, but in general it should have meant something diametrically opposite to individualism in all its manifestations in the moral and social life of a person. About the same time (1835), a new social term began to be used in England among the followers of Owen. In 1836, the French publicist Louis Reibaud already considered the new word so understandable that he put it in the heading of his "Etudes sur les r é formateurs on socialistes modernes" and being the first literary work in which the teachings of the then social reformers were set forth in a number.

Monument to Pierre Leroux

SOCIALISM- designation of teachings in which the implementation of the principles of social justice, freedom and equality, as well as the social system that embodies these principles, is put forward as the goal and ideal. The term "socialism" appeared in the second half of the nineteenth century (P. Leroux), however, ideas about the structure of social justice go back to the ancient ideas about the "golden age", they develop in various religions, and then in many varieties of utopian socialism. T. n. the theory of scientific socialism, developed by K. Marx and F. Engels, viewed socialism as the lowest phase (stage) of communism, replacing capitalism as a result of the proletarian revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Karl Marx

After the October Revolution of 1917, which proclaimed its goal to translate into practice the ideas of scientific socialism, socialism developed in two channels into which the international socialist movement split - communist and social democratic. An orientation toward reforming capitalism, based on the ideas of E. Bernstein (see Reformism), was established in the social democratic trend. Having undergone significant evolution, abandoning Marxism as the only ideological basis, social democracy has developed a modern concept of democratic socialism, according to which socialism can be implemented in the long process of reforming capitalism, establishing political, economic and social democracy and the values ​​of freedom, justice, solidarity and equality. The policy of social democracy had an impact on the democratization of relations between power and property, on the growth of the level and quality of life of hired workers and, together with other factors, led to a significant transformation of capitalist society.

Edward Bernstein

In the communist movement, ideas about socialism, associated with the establishment of the totalitarian system in the USSR in the late 1920s and early 1930s, became widespread. The characteristic features of such a system, which was declared socialist (real socialism, mature, developed socialism), are the monopoly of state property, directive centralized planning, the dictatorship of the upper layer of the party-state apparatus, relying on the apparatus of violence and mass repression, imposing arbitrariness, lawlessness, intolerance to dissent.

DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM- a concept that proclaims the possibility of building (in conditions of domination of state / collective ownership of the means of production) a non-totalitarian society through the comprehensive use of the procedures of direct democracy and democratic social control. (For example, according to I. Howe, USA, 1979: “Socialism must be entirely ... socialism without democracy is impossible - no compromise with any kind of apologists for dictatorship or authoritarianism is permissible ... collective property and controlled by democratic methods ... ").

Since the first socialist writings of Marx and Engels in the middle of the 19th century, the differences between socialists have boiled down, firstly, whether it is possible to transform and change capitalism in such a way as to implement most of these ideas within a given structure (see also Revisionism; "Fabian Society" and Fabianism), secondly, on whether capitalism should be overthrown.

Today, those who defend social democracy argue that capitalism is reformable. Achieving the goals of socialism allows a certain combination of state supervision of the market and state ownership or regulation of selected sectors of the economy, together with measures of social security and socialization in altruistic, rather than selfish, motivations. This form is more democratic than the forms of a state socialist society, because political power will not be so centralized, and people will be able to control more areas of their lives. This can be achieved within the framework of the electoral policy and parliamentary and legislative procedures established in Western democracies, in the creation of which the socialists played a major role. A recent version of one of these provisions exists in contemporary Eurocommunism. According to him, gradual changes in the direction of socialism can be defended by the working class within the framework of capitalism, and the replacement of one formation by another will be gradual, evolutionary, and not revolutionary.

Outside Europe, socialist ideas were adopted and modified. One of the important examples is African socialism, which developed during the struggle for independence in the 1950s on the basis of the idea that cooperative and communal forms of organization already existed in African societies on a small scale and on them it is possible to build socialism, since capitalism in Africa underdeveloped and lacks strong local interests.

Signs of socialism.

1) The impossibility of appropriating the results of someone else's labor by the owners of the means of production
- Public (public) ownership of the means of production, that is, when the circle of owners (all citizens) is determined without allocating the shares of each of them.

2) Democracy - the adoption of laws by popular vote.

3) Executive responsibility
- the top leaders of the executive branch bear material, and if provided by law, criminal responsibility for the results of their activities.
- the efficiency of the executive branch is assessed directly by the people.

(This feature limits the possibilities of exploitation due to the position of power)

4) Equal opportunities for information exchange
- citizens wishing to speak for the first time in the funds mass media have an equal chance of doing so.
- the ability to continue using the media depends only on the wishes of the audience.

5) People's justice
- Decisions in court cases are taken by a majority of the people's assessors (jury), and the role of a professional court president is to conduct the court session in accordance with the procedure established by law.

6) People's Army
- general conscription with the possibility of alternative service.

Note. Varieties of socialism that are in circulation in journalism.

Socialism Socialism, according to Karl Marx, is the first phase of communism; the social system that replaces capitalism and is based: - on public ownership of the instruments and means of production; - on the power of the working people, led by the working class led by the Communist Party.

Socialism Socialism is a doctrine that puts forward as a goal and ideal the establishment of a society in which: - there is no exploitation of man by man and social oppression; - social equality and justice are affirmed.

Socialism Socialism - in economic theory - an economic system in which material resources are state property, and markets and prices are used to guide and coordinate economic activity.

State socialism State socialism — in socialist countries — is a type of social structure characterized by: - ​​state ownership of the means of production; and - centralized political power exercised by the party-state apparatus.

Democratic socialism Democratic socialism is the concept of combining the socialist structure of society with democratic forms of political life. Democratic socialism proclaims freedom, equality, social justice and solidarity.

Cathedral "s socialism Kateder socialism - the interpretation of socialism as the realization of the idea of ​​reason, justice through enlightenment and social legislation without class struggle.

Communism From the Latin Communis - general Communism - in Marxism - an ideal society, characterized by public ownership of the means of production, corresponding to highly developed productive forces and ensuring: - the all-round development of the individual; - the elimination of classes; - public self-government; - implementation of the principle: from each according to his abilities - to each according to his needs.

Utopian socialism Utopian socialism - concepts of social structure based on the utopia of an ideal classless society.

Feudal socialism Feudal socialism is a kind of socialism, whose representatives, criticizing capitalism, saw a way out of its contradictions in a return to feudal-patriarchal relations.

Christian socialism Christian socialism is a direction of social thought that seeks to combine the provisions of Christianity with the ideas of socialism. Christian socialism deduces socialist ideas from the worldview of early Christians.

Economic romanticism Economic romanticism is a trend in economic science that laid the foundation for the theory of petty-bourgeois socialism.

Ethic socialism Ethical socialism is a theory: - which substantiates the socialist ideal, proceeding from moral principles; and - asserting that the transition to socialism can be carried out through the moral evolution of mankind, achieved as a result of the identification of the "idea of ​​socialism" inherent in people, regardless of their social affiliation.

Olga Nagornyuk

Socialism is a utopia realized in practice

People of the older generation have experienced firsthand what socialism is. The social system, presented by the classics of Marxism-Leninism as the only possible way of realizing equal rights and freedoms of citizens, turned out to be unviable in practice. Why this happened, we decided to find out in our article.

What is socialism and how it differs from other teachings

Socialism was called a doctrine, and later a social system, which was based on the principles of freedom, equality and social justice. It would seem that by proclaiming freedom, socialism duplicates liberalism. However, these two currents differ in the main - in relation to private property, which the socialist doctrine completely denies, or rather, considers the cause of social inequality.

Among the main features of socialism are the following:

• lack of private ownership of the means of production. The land, factories and plants belong to the state, and for the socialists it is the embodiment of the people's power;

• no human exploitation. There is no division into the poor and the rich, respectively, there is no social oppression and confrontation;

• the advanced class of society is the proletariat. The existence of the intelligentsia is acknowledged, but its importance is far behind the working class;

• collectivist values ​​prevail over individual ones. Social life comes first, and personal life comes second;

• the proclamation of the equality of all cultures and nations on the basis of friendship of peoples, which, in the opinion of the socialists, is a manifestation of proletarian internationalism.

Socialism arose in opposition to capitalism, and denied practically everything on which capitalism was based: free trade, private property and the principle of capital accumulation.

Utopian socialism

Despite the fact that some scholars find the beginnings of socialist ideas in the writings of ancient greek philosopher Plato, most researchers believe: the first to describe socialism were Thomas More and Tommaso Campanella. The English humanist writer Thomas More, who lived in the 16th century, described in his novel Utopia a fictional island state with an ideal system of social structure.

All its citizens are equal in their rights and are obliged to work. The income goes to the state, which distributes products to each member of society, depending on his needs. All positions in the utopian country of Mora are elective, and women have equal rights with men.

Such a teaching for Europe at that time was progressive. In fact, Mohr was the first to attempt to portray a democratic system with socialist foundations.

Socialism according to Karl Marx

Karl Marx, who was the first to introduce a scientific basis for the ideas of socialism, departed from utopian ideas about this social system. For him, socialism was a period of transition from capitalism to communism. Marx believed: socialism and private property are incompatible. A person can only own items of personal use, and the means of production must be in the hands of the state, otherwise the emergence of private property, and with it social inequality, cannot be avoided.

In other words, clothes, furniture, household items can belong to a citizen of a socialist society, but enterprises and land cannot.

Marx, explaining in his writings what socialism is, insisted on the necessity of expropriation in favor of the state of the property of those who had emigrated, who opposed the rule of the proletariat and who were engaged in speculation of citizens. He argued: under socialism, the right to inheritance should be abolished, the state should be made a monopoly in all spheres - from transport to trade, as well as child labor in production should be eliminated and a free school education should be introduced.

Criticism of the ideas of socialism

Socialism, based on the principles of freedom and equality, in fact turned out to be unviable. The clearest example of this is the collapse of the USSR and the disappearance of the countries of the socialist camp from the world map. Why did it happen?

1. Socialism, indeed, does not accept the exploitation of man by man, but at the same time it replaces it with the exploitation of man by the state. True, capitalism also has this component.
2. The inability to engage in commercial activities suppresses the desire of people to work harder, because the size of the salary does not change from this.
3. The planned economy turned out to be clumsy: it did not take into account the rapidly changing needs of members of society and could not respond quickly to them, reducing the production of little-demanded goods and increasing the production of those that were in high demand. Hence the deficit.
4. Enterprises financed from the state budget were not interested in selling their products, so its quality left much to be desired, and the quantity often exceeded demand.
5. Financing factories and plants at the expense of the state excludes competition, as a result of which the strongest survive, and therefore produce better quality goods. Self-cleaning of the economy does not take place, ballast enterprises, whose products are not in demand, continue to exist, consuming resources and weakening the economy of the state.
6. Since the state received a complete monopoly in all spheres, totalitarianism intensified, giving rise to a hierarchy in society based on the principle of participation in those in power.

Socialism, in contrast to the formations that preceded it, was created artificially. At first, it was described in detail in their writings by Marx, Engels and Lenin, and then, using the example of the Russian Empire and its closest neighbors, an attempt was made to put this experiment into practice. But the human brain, no matter how ingenious it may be, cannot calculate all the consequences. Everything artificial takes root badly, the system invented by three great thinkers was no exception.

Now, answering the question of what socialism is, we can say: it is a utopia, the unreality of which has been confirmed in practice.

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What is Socialism

Socialism is an economic and social concept that aims to protect the rights of the population in relation to the ownership of public property and natural resources. In a broader sense, this concept presupposes a system of government in which all citizens will have equal opportunities and resources will be distributed according to the needs of each member of society.

What is SOCIALISM - definition in simple words.

In simple words, Socialism is an alternative and model of economic development of the state, in which the production and distribution of resources is controlled directly by society or the government. In other words, we can say this: socialism is an option in which all people work and contribute their share to a common cause, after which the benefits obtained are distributed among all citizens. It goes without saying that those whose labor is more difficult and significant will receive more benefits, but this should not cause class imbalance in economic terms.

It should be noted that socialism in its pure form, or the so-called "socialism" does not exist in nature, since this concept, like communism, is based on the existence of a utopian ideal society. In modern realities, many socialist ideas really work effectively, but all this works in conjunction with a free market economy and other social and economic concepts.

The essence, ideas, concept and ideology of socialism.

The main mantra of the adherents of this socio-economic direction can act as the basis of socialism as a concept. It sounds like this: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." This means that the essence of socialism lies in the assumption that all people by their nature are tuned in to cooperative work, for which they will receive their share of the common good. It should also be noted that the ideology of socialism also includes concern for those who are not able to work for any reason. These can be children, disabled people, retirees, and so on. The financial burden of providing these strata of the population is evenly distributed among all able-bodied citizens.

As a result, we can say that the idea of ​​socialism is the creation of a society in which there will be no class inequality, all segments of the population will be protected and provided with everything necessary. Ideally, virtually all of the basic needs of citizens should be free or virtually free. These are: education, medicine, transport, cultural recreation, etc.

Having got acquainted with the essence of the concept, we can safely say that the very idea of ​​creating such a society is, of course, very attractive, but alas, it cannot fully and effectively work in a complex. The fact is that, as mentioned earlier, the calculation is made on the already existing ideal society in moral and social terms. In fact, things are a little different. People, by their nature, are not ready to be content with what they have, and always strive to have more. They need self-realization and recognition.

Another factor not in favor of pure socialism is competitiveness. The fact is that it is the competition inherent in the free market that spurs the development of scientific progress.

Nevertheless, despite the impossibility of building a utopian socialism, many principles were adopted and successfully used in developed and developing countries. So, for example, in many countries you can get free: first aid, primary education, social payments unemployment, and other services. It should be noted that some prosperous countries that trade in natural resources are introducing unconditional income systems for their citizens, which implies constant financial payments as a share of the sale of these resources.

Forms of socialism.

Since socialism is a fairly global, but completely unattainable concept, it is a lot of different branches or forms. Among the main ones are the following:

• Democratic socialism;
• Revolutionary socialism;
• Market socialism;
• Libertarian socialism;
• Green socialism;
• Christian socialism;
• Utopian socialism.

Democratic socialism. In this development model, it is assumed that the main factors of production will be under the control of the government in the chosen way. The government distributes general strategic goods and services such as public transportation, housing, and energy. It is allowed to distribute consumer goods on the free market.

Revolutionary socialism. This form presupposes the complete destruction of any manifestation of capitalism. All production belongs to the workers (the state) and is controlled through central planning.

Market socialism. V this case, production belongs to workers who distribute profits among themselves. The products are sold on the free market.

socialism. The essence of this concept lies in the belief that over time, capitalism will evolve into socialism based on the desire of society for unity and concern for all.

Green socialism. It is a socialist economy that values ​​the maintenance of natural resources. In theory, this could be possible thanks to the state ownership of large corporations. Production will focus on ensuring that everyone has only enough of what they really need.

Christian socialism. This concept is built on the Christian belief in brotherhood and common values, which is in some way similar to the idea of ​​socialism.

Utopian socialism. This is more a dream of equality than a concrete plan. Similar ideas emerged as early as the early 19th century before the era of industrialization. In theory, an ideal society should have been created through a series of social experiments, but alas, no comforting results yet exist.