,THE ORIGIN

OF THE FAMILYPRIVATE PROPERTYAND THE STATE'

trtr

I L ANDREYEV

ENGELSS,,THE ORIGINOF THE FAMILYPRIYATE PROPERTYAND THE STATE''

EEPROGRESS PUBLISHERS

MOSCO\V

Translated by Cynthio C,orlileDesigned by Vodim Notsikor:

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O Progress Publishers 1 985

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Contents

IntroductionI. Marx, Engels and Morgan on Ancient Society

II. The Emergence and Devdopment of Primitive-Com-munal Society ( Savagery)

III. The Transition from Tribal to Claes Society (Barbar-is-)

IY, The Social Structure of Primitive SocietyV. The Role of Kinship in Primitive Society: Group Mar-

X'ffi',r,"f the Pa-

triarchal FamilyYI. The Origin of the Monogamous Family and lnclividual

Sex foveThe Historical Evolution of Marriage and FamilyRelationsThe Problem of the Genesis of Individual SexLove and Critique of the Concepts of the 'SexualRevolution' 89

YIII. The Emergence of the State 124The Oriein ofthe State L24The Feitures of the State as a Machine of Suppre+sion 127The Dialectic of the Genesis of the State 130The Class Essence of State Power 136

IX. The Formation of Class Society: the First Social Re-volution

5

II27

J/

JJ

626270

BO

B4

B4

L42Contradictory Trehds in the Formation of a

Class Society L42The First Social Revolutions Essence and Forms I50

Conclusion f60

'I hope thot in studying thisquestion of the state You uillacquaint yourseloes uith Engels'

book 'The Or$in of the FomilY,

Pfituate PropertY ond the Stote'.This is one of the fundomentaluorlss of modern $ociolism, eoery

sentence of which aon be accePt'

ed uith confidence, in the ossur-

alce thot it has not been soid atrandom but is bosed on immense

histoical und p olitical moterial'l

INTRODUCTION

The Origin of the Fatnily, Priuate Property and the

Srare l,r Fiederick Engels occupies a special place inIlarxisfliterature on thi theory of the historical pro-cess.

Marx and Engels analissues of tJreir diy-thatist socio-economic formati

their works up to the 18vidual processes or phenotheir contemporary s

that for many yearsmajor work devoted tosociety and the rise of anta

By the end of theed a wealth of new iples who were still living at one or other stage of primi-

1 V. I. Lerrirr, 'The State', Collected Worla, Yol. 29,Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977, p. 473.

Course and Cosociologist M.Lewis Morgan,wrote some se

many, which dealt with the ancient and early medie-val periods.l

Shortly after the death of Marx, Engels used the de-

tailed noies which Marx had made on Morgan as thebasis for his work The Origin of the Family, hiuate

e Family, hiuate kopertY and theonly Engels' concern to comPleteworks which Marx had left un-

finish his desire to doall in work Marx hadolann acts Marx madet.o- d to present hisreaders with a history of primitive society, with a dia-lectical-materialist interpretation of the scientific

was of enormous significancement and theoretical substan-summation and critical inter-

1 S"" F.i"dri"h Engels, 'Zur Urgeschichte der Deutschen',in: Marx, Engels, Werke, Bd. 19, Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1962's.425-520.

6

pretation of nesociety, and aboEngels to drawclusions. In thisconcrete material, the concept of world history as

developed by himself andconvincingly than everscience, particularly thonature of the patriarchalstate power, social inequality, exploitation, oppres-

waged by Marxism against bourgeois, opportunist andanarchist ideologies. In his speeches and writings, Leninoften referred to this work by Engels.

'tribe'. Morgan revealed the significance of the gens as

the basic unit of primitive-communal societv, thuslaying the foundations for a scientific study of thehistory of primitive society. In its notes to the manu-scipt Outlines of Political Economy (Rough Draft(B57-IBSB) by Marx, the Institute of Marxism-Lenin-

ism of the CPSUterm "Stamm" had,

Committee wrote: 'Thehistorical science of the

Centualin the

branch ofperceive thement of thepeasant association at that time. Its starting pointwas the gentile or, as he called it in The Oigin of theFamily, fuh;ate hoperty and the State, the 'communisthousehold'community. It was precisely this communitywhich functioned as lhe economic unit that arose natu-rally on the basis of kinship. The gradual transforma-tion of these blood relations turned the communityinto a federation of small-scale farmers-infividualowners of land and other means of production. Thecommunity developed in the direction of parcel-communal relations. On the basis of the communiryit is possible to observethe intensive Process qf plgpeftIdiffeientiation among direct producers, and the division

g majority of newly-independentpatriarchal+ommunal relations

e of social relations for a consid-erable section of the population. This is particularlytrue of the peasanhy whose numbers, despite theaccelerating process of industrialisation and urbani-sation, are still increasing and will, according to UNestimates, reach almost three thousand million people

1 Ka.l Marx and Frederick Engels, Torlcs, Second RussianEdition, VoI. 46, Part I, p. 537.

I

by the turn of the century. Therefore, if progressive

socio-economic changes in socialiet-orientated coun-tries are to be succesoful, they must take into accountthe patterns of development of pre+apitalist forms of

"conbmy and social relations,

In Airica, for example, marital-family relations are

still often based on pre-monogamian traditions of thepairing or the large, patriarihal) family, on polygamy, e

continent private ownershiption, and, in particular, of land, has still not emerged.Political institutions, modern in form, have sometimes

Tribal relations also play a vital and varied role inot'her continents. In Asia, for example, in modern Af-

traditionalalso as thetraditionalimPortant

social issues.-All of this shows that The Origin of the Family by

Engels is still relevant today both from a methodo-log[cal point of view, and also in terms of its content.Ita basic propositions and conclusions relate to majorsocio-political issues affecting the lives of hundreds ofmillions of people. For this reason The Origin of theFamily, hiuate hoperty and the Stote should bestudied by ideological workers and activists of therevolutionary- dem ocratic parties in socialist-orientate dcountries, and by all revolutionaries in newly-independ-ent countries, The task is not an easy one, as this

I Y. I. Lenin, op. cit., p. 473.

ll

L MARX, ENGELS AND MORGANON ANCIENT SOCIETY

The founders of scientific communiEm, like the'father of ethnography', Lewis Morgan, accorded primeimportance to a study of the primitive forms of sociallife. Moreover, they began their investigations into theproblems of the development of primitive societyalmost simultaneouely: Marx and Engels first raised thequestion of ancient society in their joint manusctiptThe German ldeology, written in 1845-1846, and inIB47 Morgan began to publish articles which were tocompose his first monograph, The League of the lro-guors, published in 1851.

Howeyer, in their investigation of queetions relatingto primitive society, Morgan and the founderc of Marx-ism differed as to their methodological approach,studying that society as it were from different angles.

Much of the material which Morgan used in hisbook was collected as a result of direct contacts withthe Iroquois Indians living in hie native state of NewYork. It was only later that he undertook specialjourneys to vieit other Indian tribee. In lB40 the22-year-old Morgan founded a society whose purposewae to attract attention to the sail fate and uniqueculture of the Indians. Subsequently he exposed acompany of land speculatore who, with the support ofthe Senate, had appropriated land by trickery from theSeneca tribe. Having collected petitions in defence ofthe Indians, Morgan and his {riendg from the Grand

ethnoerapher Raoul Makariue wrote in the into-ductio"n io the firet French edition of Ancient Society:

structure.In Part I-'Growth of Intellect Through Invention

dentifiee the so<alled 'eth-ages of savagery, the threeCivilisation, which serve as

development from tribal to

the longest, consisting of 15 chapters. Here Morgan be-

1 Raoul Makarius, Guide critique d lo lecture ile la sociCtdorchotque d" i: i. Itiorgon, Editiirru Anthropos, Paris' 1971,p. xI.

l2

family: the consanguine (the theoretical model for thisstructure was consEucted by Morgan on the basis ofmaterial from Hawaii, which he ieceived from unre-liable eourcea); the punaluan: the syndyasmian (pair-ing); the patriarchal and, finally, the modern mo-nogamouB lamily,

Part IV-'Growth of the Idea of Property'-is theshortest and leaet developed section of-the'work. Itcomprises two chapters (about one-twentieth of thevolume of the whole work), and is, in effect, simply acomparison of 'three rules of inheritance': inheritince

.In contrast to Morgan, Marx and Engels investigatedprimitive society on the basis of the di-alectical-miteri-

l3

mentioned methods of investigating the progressivemovement of msnkind at the early stages of its de-

velopment. In addition, by writing this book, Engelsbrought Marx's interest in and attitude to Morgan'stheory to the attention of a new generation of Marx-ists. The overwhelming majority of those who learnedof the existence of thfu work by Morgan did so pre-

hoperty anil the State during the lifetime of itsauthor.

t4

It was just at thia time that, in Russia, N. K. Mikhai-lovsky, a representative of subjective idealism, startedhis criticism of Marxism. His criticism of the theoreti-cal legacy of the founderewith the assertion that MEuropean capitalisrq anvelopment relating'onltherefore not valid for cretained pre-capitalist forms of socio-economic rela-tions. As for the early stages of world history, heclaimed, -rt_was Morgan who had opened the eyes ofMarx and Engels to their esr and laws, and Morgan

did not share thtirm. Engels, declares Mikhai

Ie

societyinMarx,stheoryi""*"f 1"":::f tT'[-#':l:and the historicdly- transient nature of socialantagonisms.

In ^1894

Lenin, who by this time had not only madea profound study of The Origin of the Family,'PriuateProperty and the Srare but also ttanslated into Ruseianthe sections which most interested him, wrote his firstbook, What the 'Friends of the People' Are and HowThey Fight the Socinl-Democratsl in which he set forth

argued that the Marxist thehistorical validity, and revealed the erroneous and un-historical nature of beliefs in the primeval nature of thepatriarchal family and the emeigence of tribal, andeven national, relations out of family relatiorr.. Th"rich empirical material in Morgan's book confirmed theMarxist conclusion concerning the objective differen-

l5

his work The State ond Reuolution (1917), he quotedlarge exracts from it wh eristicfeatures and historically state,while in his lecture 'The S at theSverdlov Communist University, he called on his aufi-ence to make a detailed study of this book by Engels as

'one of the fundamental works of modern socialism'.1In regearch literature one often comes acrose the

'rr'rlJ:'eoreticalconomic

and political prerequisites for class antagonisms arise, a

reconstruction in his Anti-Diihing, written before he

elab orated to gether, Morgan'sas the original unit of societythis methodology in a new dits universally valid essence.

It is a well-known fact that in the period of middle,and even more so upper barbarism, the epicentre of hu-man history moved from Asia and the Middle East tosouthern and western Europe. Vestiges of the preced-ing stages of the development of ancient societSr wereto be found, in Morgan's lifetime, mainly in the conti-

1 V. I. L"oir,'The State', p. 473.

2-81 5 t7

nent of America and the South Seas Islands. This factEngels and Morganthing to be not a

and scientific clas-the socio-economic

himself.

1B

Greeks,(for ex

ut fromditina

science in England'.3 Engels' book broke throu_gh the'wall of silence' raised hy bourgeois science around the

1 Frederick Engels, 'The Origin of the Family, PrivateProperty and the State', in: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,Selected Wotks in three volumes, Vol. 3, Progress Publishers,Moscow. 1983. p. 201.

? uia., p. rgr.d Ibid.

t9

ies byvokedticism.'The

fact had adopted certain of Mor-gan's cisive influence upon the fateof hi upon the fate of anthropolo-gical wrote Raoul Makarius in the

forces which violendy resisted Darwinism and even suc-

a social evolution which could not but be that sug-

1 R. Makarius, op. cit., p. XlY.

20

gested by the theory of Marx'. Further on the Frenchethnographer states that 'the deficiencies and incon-sistencies in his [Morgan's-Ed. ] concept of evolu-tionism turned it into Marxism's Achilles' heel. Toattack it here was to attack the notion of social evo-lution in general, sriking at a vital point of Marxism,and that wlthout naming its founders'.1

The link between the attitude to Morgan and the at-titude to Engels was expressenor Leacock, who issued a neent Society in 1964. 'Sincethe basis for Engels' Origin of the Family,hiuate ho-perty and the State, arguments about Morgan are oftenveiled arguments about Marx', noted Leacock.2

Engels describes Morgan as a researcher who inde-pendently formulated the materialist conception ofhistory. However, this does not mean that Morgan is tobe seen as a consistent materialist. Engels emphasisedthat a talented and honest scientist, even though his start-ing point was the idealist postulates of the bourgeoisscience of his day, could arrive at essentially materialistconclusions. The theory of the historical process as ela-borated by Marx and Engels was convincingly confirmedin a number of points by a scientist who might haveseemed far removed in his scientific interests and theobject of his research from scientific socialism.

which he reproduced in The Origtn of the Family, Pi-xate Property and the State. Morgan wrote a number ofsections in his book on the basis of erroneous informa-tion, 'The economic arguments, sufficient for Morgan's

I Ibid., pp. xXL XV.2 Eleanor Leacock,'Morgan and Materialism'.in: Current

Anthropology, Chicago, April 1964, p. ll0.

2l

had divided ancient history.The tlrematic link between The Origin of the

substantiate his own socialist views.

Morgan and Engels pursued their analysis. of ancientsociJty from diflerent points of view, exploring diff-e-

rent aipects. Morgan approached this subject as an eth-

I F. Engels, op. cit., p. 192.

22

nographer, carrying out a detailed comparative-historicalanalysis of what was, at that time, a vast amount ofempirical data on the social structure of American In-dian tribes. Engels based himself primarily on the ge-neral principles of dialectical-materialist world oudook,

mention his various references to Divine providence, tothe intent of the Great Intellect to create the barbarianoutrevelectthel'amily' and 'Growth of t roc-laiming progress to be an oy,Morgan was at the same ti thisprogress mainly to the sphere of invention and dis-covery, visualising the development of social institu-tions and forms as a unidimensional evolutionaryprocess. However, as an analysis of his diaries and

^ r_ Lgwis H. Morgan, Ancient Society, The Belknap Press,Cambridge (Mass.), I"964, p. 133.

23

before bourgeois revolutions was not the Great Intellect,but the popular masses, the workingpopulation of theancient world. As a result, Engels was able to give a ma-terialist explanation of the link between the history ofthe ancient world and that of the modern world, andto show them as a single process-a fact which doesnot exclude but, on the contrary, presupposes profoundqualitative diffe stages.It was characte ed thetransition from rms ofthe economy, the family, government and property,but did not make any particular analysis of the emer-gence and r oriny other lassstage of w hisresearch ul the

1 Lewis H. Morgan, op. cit.,P.22I.

24

the very nature of the Marxist theory of the developmentof socio-economic formations. In that scheme, Engelsdiscemed the outline of the primitive-communal society(the period of savagery), the antagonistic-class society(civilisation based on exploitation and oppression), andthe transitional period from the first to the second, forwhich Engels retained Morgan's term of barbarism.

Whereas Morgan produced a vivid evolutionary-gene-tic picture of ancient history, Engels enriched the sche-matic periodisation of ancient history systematised byMorgan, with the ideae of class struggle and social revolu-tion. Thus Engels did not merely interpret Morgan'shypothesis from a materialistcomprehensive analysis of thehistorical development of thenot found in Morgan's work, but without which it isimpossible to form an adequate picture of socialprocesses in human pre-history, namely, the deve-Iopment of the productive forces and relations ofproduction as the basis of the development of humansociety, which led to the emergence of private proper-ty, of classes and class antagonisme and of the state.

Following Morgan, Engels yiewed the mother-rightgens as the basic forrn of self-organisation among primi-five men, as the initial 'cell' of society. Out of themother-right gens with the development of production,came all the diversity of social ingtitutions.

Sometimes Western authors unjustifiably identifymatriarchy with gynaecocracy-the absolute dominionof women over men, in the spirit of myths aboutwarlike Amazons, the forerunners of feminism. BothEngels and Morgan understood matriarchy to meannothing other than the early stage of the tribal orga-nisation, with blood descent reckoned on the femaleline. Such a-n understanding of matriarchy does notpresuppose any total dominion o{ women over men.Engels and Morgan recognise the equality of men andlvomen in the matriarchal society with greater economic

25

gan concerning ttibal society coincided in rnany waysi"ith th" ideas which Marx and Engels developed in theirworks on herd consciousness and orr simple forms oflabour, on ribal ownership and clan democracy, on theprimitive uniformity and social homogeneity of individu-als who were still bound to the umbilical cord of theprimitive community, on the self-containment and self-sufficiency of primitive communities, on the economiccauses of- the

-emergence of private property and thestate,and on exploitation and oppression of manby man.

The scientific results obtained by Morgan fell uponfertile soil. Thev were freed by Marx and Engels fromtheir idealist layers and inclusions, examined in the lightof a dialectical-materialist view of history, and supple-mented with new, generalised scientific data. Seen inthis way, the laws governing the life of tribal society,discovered by this American ethnographer, made it

clusions, increased their cognitive capacity, removedthem from the debating halls of the bourgeois scienceof the day and-thanks to The Origin of the Family,hiuate Property and the Sfare-made them availableto the Ieading workers and intellectuals and then to thewhole of progressive mankind.

II. THE EMERGENCE AND DEVELOPMENTOF PRIMITIVE.COMMUNAL SOCIETY

(SAvAGERY)

fundamental steps in the progressive development ofproductive forces. In Engels' interpretation, the veryneed for discoveries and inventions was conditionednot only by the struggle to survive, but also by th"degree of interaction men had already achieved withna[ure and amongst themsel'res, by the development of

and even earlier in one of his letters to Pyob Lavrov(1875).1 This is revealed by a passage which concludesthe description of the lower stage of savagery in TheOrigin of

-the Family, Priuate hoperty and the Stote;

1 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected llorks in threevolumes, Vol. 3, p. 479.

the animal kingdom, the acceptance of this transitional

creasingly of the opinion that the word was used as a

means "of

co-ordinating the labour process, of bringingcollective influence to bear on the surrounding world

I F. Engels, op. cit., p.204.2 Cf. B, F. Porshnev, On the Beginnings olHumonHistory,

Moscow, 1974, pp.352-60 (in Russian).

28

crudely fashioned, unpolished stone implements ofthe Palaeolithic period to the creation of the firstweapons-the club and the spear-and also the transi-tion from the use of'natural' fire to the productionof fire by friction. At the same time, Engels also

29

30

rightly commented, with 'a certain mastery of theproduction of means of subsigtence'. One of tle natural

to quoting_ Morgan's point of view on this sutrject,without defining his own attitude. All that is cleir is

same time 'removing' him from direct contact with it

no purpose. In such instances such equivalents as theboomerang, the blowpipe, the bolas, tlie lasso, the dartand the spear were used.

I F. Engels, op. cit., p. 205.

31

on.'2

1 F. Engels, oP. cit., P' 205.2 Ibid.

32

It should be pointed out that Morgan unconsciouslyintroduced into his classification ofthe stages of ancientsociety a trace of Darwin's bioevolutionism. For himthe key lay in the progression of ways of directly sa-tisfying individual biological requirements by expand-ing the natural sources of consumption, by which hemeant the hansition from 'Nafural Subsistence uponFruits and Roots in a Restricted Habitat'to 'Fish Sub-sistence',I etc. This became possible thanks to the im-proved co-ordination of joint actions, and also thanksto the use of fire and weapons. The most sophisticat-ed of the latter was the bow and arrow. Botlr N{arx,in his notes on Ancient Society, and Engels in TheOrigin of the Family, Priuate I)operty and the Stateexamine the causes of the development of primitive-communal society. As the driving force of this societythey single out not so much the 'visible', direct produc-tion of tfre means of subsistence and of man himselfas the far less striking production of primitive meansof production (prinrarily implements of labour) andthe reproduction of the forms and stereotypes ofhurnan intercourse that had naturally taken shape-production relations and other social relations thathad not yet budded off from the former. The inven-tion of the bow and arrow at the stage of savagerywas not merely a milestone in the development of pro-ductive forces, but also the 'seed' of fufure radicalchanges in production relations among primitivepeople.

In speaking of the appearance of the bow andarrow, the emphasis is usually placed either on the psy-chological-gnoseological aspect, or on the revolutionin economic activity which this invention made possi-ble. J. D. Bemal saw the bow and arrow as the firstmachine in human history, basing his view on the con-version of the potential energy in the drawn bon'string

1 Cf. L. H. N{organ, op. cit., pp.24-25.

3-875 33

er.Morsan's periodisation of ancient

g tha[ it coiresponded to the histor-at that time, Engels sirnultaneously

1 See J. D. Bernal, Scien ce inHistory, Watts, London, 1954'

34

laid the basis for its revision and correction from the

was the stage of emergent men.In his analysis of ancient history, Engels reveals

the fundamental link between man's relation to natureand the relations of men to each other. He investi-

this second link, placing the social relations betweeneconomic and psychological phenomena as the linkbetween them He also underscores the primacy of thematerial prerequisites of the development of ancientsociety over the ideal, the spiritual.

The local restriction of primitive production meantthat social relations were 'broken off' at the bordersof the uibal group, and weakly differentiated withinthe group itself. This contradiction, as Engels pointedout, also revealed itself in the social consciousness ofthe period. Marxist psychology here found an explana-tion of the extraordinarily conservative psyche of pri-mitive man, for whom memory often took the place of

omic development, Ied to changes in social conscious-t,I

I

i

l* 35

III. THE TRANSITION FROM TRIBAL TO CLASSSOCIETY (BARBARISM)

lisation'.

whims of his environment'.2Engels also goes considerably further than Morgan

in his interpretation of the stage of barbarism. Morgandefines the age of barbarism primarily in terms ofrnan's capacity to satisfy his requirements for food. Tobegin with, this was farinaceous food, obtained.bytilling the land (the lower stage of barbarism, whichcontinued for a long time in the Western hemisphere).Then came meat and milk (the middle stage of barbar-ism, which is most typical of the Eastern hemisphere),and, finally, the attainment of 'unlimited subsistencethrough field agriculture' (the upper stage of barba-

! F. Engels, op. cit., P. 209.z V. Gordon Childe, I[eu Light on the Most AncientEast,

Grove Press, Inc., New York, pp. 1-2.

3B

rism).l Engels, using the concept developed by Marxand himeelf according to which the mode o{ the

is the basie of the exis-ciety, placed the mainthe range and improve-roduction.

bour, and particularly those which were designed forthe production of otler implemente and meang of pro-duction. Nonetheless, modern science ie able to trace

of the material-techni-thereby confirming thein The Origin of the

e State.

tion as constituting a leap in the development of men'sproductive bar-barism). T thesubjective theprimitive-c re-

The inten-of labour,number of

which began in the neolithic period, S"d;firoilT"it;the creation of implement manufacture. The imple-ments concemed are narrowlv specialised and are op-erated primarily by muscle power, but they nonetheless

I L. H. Morgan, op. cil., pp. 26-30.z F. Engels, op. cit., p.207.

39

sharply increase the productivity of social labour. Theemergence of implement manufacfure was essential toensure the more productive use of natural resources.

metal, land is becom-ur as a means of pro-nd a gource of rawof flora and fauna

conditions_ necessary for the achievements of imple-ment production to be linked up with the muscle-power of domesticated animals, and with such natural

division of social labour both between communities

dawn and the zenith of barbarism. As the domestica-tion of animale and the development of new kinds ofplants come to play an increasing role in the economiclife of early man, the variationJin natural conditionsalso nequality in the level ofsoci 'Up to this point,' writesErg course of evolution as

40

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being generally valid for a definite period among allpeoples, irrespective of locality. With the advent ofbarbarism, however, we reach a stage where the dif-ference in natural endowment of the two great conti-nents begins to aseert itself. The characteristic featureof the period of barbarism is the domeetication andbreeding of animals and the cultivation of plants. Nowthe Eastern Continent, the socalled Old World, con-tained almost all the animals euitable for domesticationand all the cultivable cereals with one exception; whilethe Western, America, contained only one domestica-ble mammal, the llama, and this only in a part of thesouth; and only one cereal fit for cultivation, butthatthe best, maize. The effect of these different naturalconditions was that from now on the population ofeach hemisphere went its own special way, and thelandmarks on the border lines between the variousstaseg are different in each of the two caseg.'l

tngels agrees with Morgan's view that barbarism,as one of the necessary stages in the world-historicalprocess, included three suc;essive stages. However, hesupplemented them with certain essential factors whichwere ml

Theperiod,markedamong communities and tribes as a regult of thenatural conditions within which production is devel-oping. This stage represents the period of disintegrationof the primitive-communal formation.

The middle stage of barbarism constitutes in effect

1 ['. Engels, op. cit., p. 206.

42

marked by the first major social division of labour-theseparation of pastoral tribes from among the barbari-ans. Specific local forms of the division of labour atthis stage could in particular contain certain ele-

ds in the social divisionCertain tribes, the Nlayaknew not}ing of stock-

breeding as a distinct type of economic activity.While one group of peoples passed through the

middle stage of barbarism, another remained at thisstage. As a result of specific natural and social conditions, historical development in many barbarian so-cieties slowed down at the point when primitive-communal society- was disintegrating to give riseto class society. Dirririg the early iirg".Lf chss"society,there were contradictory trends in the formation ofclass antagonisms: the exploitation of one's own peo-ple (the ordinary members of the tribe) and of 'out-iiders' (captive slaves). These processes had not yetseparated out and each impeded to some extent thedevelopment of the other. Later these social structures

pressed in concenhated form the 'birth pangs'of theelements and social relations of the new formation onthe ruins of its predecessor.

At the upper stage of barbarism the process ofironsmelting is invented, iron implements and weapons aremade, and artisan production becomes the leadingtrend in production activity. As a result there is a sharpincrease in the exchange links both between varioustribes and communities and within them. The principalsocio-economic conten genceof antagonistic classes, state.At the same time, the egacy

43

of primitive-communal socief,v- was either discarded ormodified in accord with the new socia.l conditions, asMorgan and Engels showed by means of examples fromthe history of the Greeks, the Italian tribes on the eveof the founding of Rome, the ancient Germans as de-scribed by Tacihrs, and the Normans during the age of

of barbarism passes directlv intoistic-class societ-y. However, in thethis genetic 'bond'should, in no

way, obscure 'the shiking contrast between the two',las different socio-economic systems.

Such a detailed definition of the period of transitionfrom primitive-communal society to class society madeit possible to undertake its comprehensive investiga-tion. Engels was able not only to explain why the tran-sition from tribal society to classes and from the lowerstage of barbarism (the disintegration of the primitive-communal society) to the upper stage (the intensiveformation oftual process,the logic of ition with othfundamental laws and inter-relations, the multi-faceteddiversity of the forms of transition from primitive so-

ciety to class society, and took as his special object ofstudy the complex transitional period linking the primi-tive-communal and antagonistic-class socio+conomicformations-the first social revolution in the history ofmankind.

Engels' more detailed definition of the tripartitedivision of barbarism into the lower, middle and upperstages is important not only for the general periodisa-tion of the process of transition from primitive to clarcsociety, but also for an analysis of the laws of de-velopment of various aspects of social life, of the trans-

1 F. Engels, op. cit., p. 209.

44

formation of former social institutions. Thus, in termsof the determining form of economic activity, the fol-lowing structures correspond to the three stages ofbarbarism: 1) archaic economy; 2) agriculture andstock-breedingi 3) arrisan production'1

The archaic economy of the lower stage of barbar-ism consists of an undifferentiated whole comprisingspecialised gathering a 'proto-agriculture' and the firstattempts to domesticate animals-'proto-slock-breed-ing'-together with hunting, fishing, etc. Within thisarchaic economy, within the framework of this undif-ferentiated multiple economic activity, there graduallyemerged those forms of economic activity which mostreliably secured the survival of a given social commun-ity in concrete natural and dernoEaphic conditions.Under the archaic economic system, certain tribesalready had a surplus of products. This created theneed to coordinate economic activity-the objectivebasis for a specific type of labour intended to regulateand organise production. Here lies the origin of thedivision between physical and intellectual labour,whose significance in the disintegration of primitivesociety and the emergence of class society was notedby Marx and Engels in their German ldeology. Such a

situation sees the beginning of a specific 'production ofideas', which Morgan was unable to understand from a

materialist point of view.The first major social division of labour, the dif-

ferentiation of pastoral tribes frorn the general mass ofbarbarians, led to the subsequent development of farm-ing and stock-breeding into independent forms of eeo-nomic activity. Engels was of the opinion that, at themiddle stage of barbarisq there exists a surplusover and above one's needs and two differing levels

1 See V. M. Masson, 'The Emergence of Early Class Soci-etyinthe Ancient East', in: Vopisy utorii, No.5,1967,pp. B7-BB.

45

:.1 sether

ed thethe regular exchange of ats. The separation o"f stock-as relatively independent

forms of economic activity made it possible, to agreater degree than had previously been the case, to

above not only those ethnic groups which were stjllliving in the age of savagery, but also above thosetribes which had lived through the neolithic revolutionand had attained the early stage of a productioneconomy.'The comments bybreeding and agrioultutein the form of suppositithe then dominant beliof Sout}-West Asia and the Mediterranean were theresult of the adoption of agriculture by former pastoraltribes of Semites and Aryans. It was still not knownthat these nomadic tribes had, in fact, setded on the

ancestors of these nomadic tribes had been familiarts of hoe-based agriculture.emphasis on the role of the

the first major social division

I F. Engels, op. cit., p. 322.z Ibid., pp. 206-207.

46

of labour, leaving the role of agriculture in the periodof middle barbarism somewhat in the shade.

However, this cannot serve as Eounrls for conclud-

tion {rom the middle to the upper stage of barbarism.Indeed, the period of stock-breeding was an objectivelynecessary condition for the subsequent emergence anddevelopment of i.,tillage, as Engels ani-mals. l[ is quite a odeof life itself pre tive

isolation from each other, the middle stage of bar-barism continued for a long time. Furthermore, theabove-mentioned form of land cultivation may ariseindependendy of stock-breeding and, in certain specificforms, lead to the disintegration of the primitive orderand the beginning of the emergence of classes and thestate.

Sometimes the view is expressed that Engels under-estimated the role of land cultivation in the processof class formation. The text of The Origin of theFamily, Priuate Property and. the Sfare reveals theopposite. Engels considered plough farming as theproduction base of the upper stage of barbarism andthe potential source of consiclerable surplus productionopening up the way to the emergence of classes.'Alove all,'he wrote, 'we here encounter for the firsttime the iron ploughshare drawn by cattle, making

47

possibl ge-and,in t}e unlimit-ed inc As fornomadic stock-breeding, Engels correctly saw it asflouridhing at an earlier peiod and deicribed it indifferent terms: 'In the middle stage of barbarism wefind that the pastoral peoples had in their cattle a formof property large herds andflocks, regul over and abovetheir needs.. tative differencebetween 'a p ase in the meansof subsistence' and 'a surplus over and above theirneeds'? In a number of regions at the middle stage ofbarbarisrq 'pastoral tribes not only produced morearticles of food, but also a greater variety than the restof the barbarians'.3 However, Engels also writes in

of labour? Under the archaic economy, surplus hadonly just appeared and was, inevitably, small andunstable. It was no accident that hoe-based aericulturebecame the economic foundation of the moit ancientcivilisations of the world.

Palaeo-economic investigations, which base theiranalysis of the extensive economy of the ancient worldon 'biological need for vegetable and meat food, trans-lated into the harvest potential of the fields',4 haveconfirmed that the hoe-based lantl cultivation of the

I F. Engels, op. cit., p. 208.2 lbid., p.322.

ic Complex of the Devel-the Results of an Inves-S ou e t skoy a ark h e ol o giy o,

4B

eable, played a moreof trade and private

o note the significancethe proiluctive assimi-

lation by man of large areas of steppe and plateau, itsrole as a stable source of meat and as one of the major

area is also the objective basis for the diversified assi-

ny between two vital branches of the economy.

4-875

1 L. H. Morgan, op. cit., p. 43.

50

economic and social development among differentgroups of men is to some extent mitigated by theexchange of goods, ideas, production skills and socialinstitutions.

The peoples of the age of savagery and of the age ofbarbarism now exist in direct contact one with theother. Metallurgy leads to the separation of weaponsfrom implements of labour and makes it possible forthose people who have learned how to produce metalto acquire military Bupremacy over the others. Inthe words of the famous English archeologist Gordon

captured in war, and therefore some of the clvilisationsof the Ancient East who had defeated neighbouring

I F. Engels. op. cit., p. 320.z lbid.. p. 206.3 v. Goidon Childe, op. cit., p. 244.

4* 5l

stone age tribes on the battlefield slaughtered the menand enslaved only the women.

The transition of first sections of mankind tothe bronze age aggravated both regional wars and in-ternal social processes. It is no accident that some au-thors associate the bronze age with frequent wars andthe development of eastern despotism as the first crudeform of the state. The iron age made it possible for thetribes who possessed iron to predominate over thecivilisations of the middle stage of barbarism with theirbronze weapons.

In those regions where iron production developedic age (Afri-'iron gave a

as El Zouhriilluminating

comment-over stone and bone and wood-using neigh-boun',l The transition to iron appeared somewhatdifferent in the regions living in the bronze age. Therivalry between cheap, mass-produced iron weapons,and the handsome, but far less effective bronze wea-pons explains the outcome of many events at theborderline between the middle and upper stages ofbarbarism. In particular, one can detect here the basiccause of the devastating defeat of Egypt by fusyria,and the replacement of the Mycean by the Doric stageof Greek history, within which the classical slave-own-ing mode of production was to take shape.

The development of a production economy led toincreased settlemenf and a growth in the population.There are now permanent settlements within whichthe community, in the course of the development ofexchange and the social differentiation that followstherefrorq gradually becomes a village of small peasantlandowners. At the middle stage of barbarism, these

1 Basil Davidson, Old Africo Reiliscooered, Yictor GolanczLtd., London, 1960, p. 83.

52

settlements are sumounded by defensive walls. Some oftherq situated on convenient trading routes, becomecentreg of crafts and artisan production and of ad-ministration, developing into towns. 'The town, en-closing houses of stone or brick within its turretedand crenellated stone walls, became the central seatof the tribe or confederacy of ribes,'notes Engels,who believed that this 'was also a symptom of in-creased danger and need for protection'l-a situationparticularly characteristic of upper barbarism.- The emergence of towns led to the concentrationof artisans of various crafts in one place (a precondi-tion of future manufactory), and, moreover, unitedthem on a far larger scale than that of tribal organisa-tion. This led to increased demand, and to a growingrange of products for exchange, to the intensificationof social links. The town was also the location ofpublic organs and their officials, of the tribal andcommunity leaders .who were developing into a rulingclass. The agricultural area around thi town became asource of agricultural products and raw materials for

1 F. Engels, op. cit., p.320.z lbid., p. 208.

53

'Savagery-the period in which the appropriation ofnatural products, ready for use, predominated; thethings produced by man were, in the main, instru-ments that facilitated this appropriation. Barbarism-the period in which ng andland cultivation was s of in-creasing the produc humanactivity were learnt. whichknowledge of the further working up of natural pro-ducts, of industry proper, and of art was acquired.'I

I Ibid., p. 209

55

IY. THE SOCIAL STRUCTUREOF PRIMITIVE SOCIETY

Engels did not limit himself to merely reworkingthe enormous wealth of empirical data collected byMorgan from a materialist point of view. In contrastto the author of Ancient Society, Engels divided(as he and Marx had once done before, in The GermanIdeology) the process of the li{e activity of primitivesociety into two basic types of production: the produc-tion of the means of subsistence, and the productionof man himself. 'According to the materialistic concep-tion, the determining factor in history is, in the lastresort, the production and reproduction of immediatelife. But this itself is of a twofold character. On the onehand, the production of the rneans of subsistence, offood, clothing and shelter and the tools requisite there-fore; on the other, the reproduction of human beingsthemselves, the propagation of the species.'1

Engels saw material production of the means ofsubsistence, and abbve all implements of labour, asthe social basis of the historical evolution of the other

1 bid., p. t9l.

provided a logical explanation of the processes refer-ied to in the-tide-the genesis of the familv, privatenrooertv and the state.' th" first of these Engels describes as follows: 'Thesocial institutions under-which men of a definite his-

and, therefore, the wealth of society, the more_prepon-deratingly does the social order appear to be dominat-

more and morel with it, private property and exchange,differences in wealth, the possibility of utilising thedifferences in wealth, the possidilt-erences rn wealth, the pos$billty oI ufilrslng _tnelabour power of others, and thereby the basis of class

lation and coercion, instifutionalises a certain type offamily, and also class, social antagonisms. 'The old

1 Ibid., pp. L9l-92.2 lbid., p. tgz.

56

society, built on groups based on ties of sex, burstsasunder in the collision of the newly-developed socialclasses; in its place a new societv appears, constitutedin a state, tlie lower units of which are no longer

served as the foundation for all the remaining aspectsof progress, even at the primitive stage, Engels concen-trates his attention on the production of instrumentsof labour.

The basic methodological positions from whichMorgan and Engels approached the study of ancientsociety had, despite certain similarities, a fundamentaldifference.

f,ygn sarlier, in The German ldeology, Marx andEngels had divided production into: 1) the produc-tion of the means of subsistence, and 2) the pro-duction of man himself, this division being linkedto the difference in the social and natural relationsbetween men, and between man and the environ-ment. The first is dominated by the satisfaction (usu-ally mediated) of collective needs, not characteristicof animals, while the second is dominated by thesatisfaction of individual, mainly biological, needs(Diagram II).

1 lbid.

57

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oth these basiceach other. Y

egetable food contains fewer calories and

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ore easily preserved and can be obtained with-

out particular risk, etc. Anim

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nourishing, but can only be obtained by mobility, con-

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what w

as the object of labour-flora or fauna-therew

as a basic difference in the role of natural and artifi-cial im

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and hunting).T

he production of man him

self presupposes the na-

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the participationof the individual in social activity, w

hich is the basicelem

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elations between the

sexes include the birth of children as the natural sa-tisfaction of the need to continue the species, and alsosexual intercourse

a6 the direct, socially regulated sa-

tisfaction of individual natural needs.W

ithin the process of socialisation, the individualundergoes a socially regulated preparation, by m

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ork and the fulfil-m

ent of other social functions. Play, tradition and ri-

tual also fulfil specific functions. Play functions (boths9

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The productiovegetable and mepoies the divisionBoth these basiceach other. Yegetable food contains fewer calories andis more dependent upcn seasonal climatic factors,but is more easily preserved and can be obtained with-out particular risk, etc. Animal food is far morenourishing, but can only be obtained by mobility, con-centrated effort and considerable risk. In addition, itis more difficult to preserve (and will remain so up tothe discovery of thermal processing). Depending onwhat was the object of labour-flora or fauna-therewas a basic difference in the role of natural and artifi-cial implements in the production of the means of sub-sistence (gathering and hunting).

The production of man himself presupposes the na-tural relationship between the sexes and social rela-tions between people, resulting from the participationof the individual in social activity, which is the basicelement in the social system. Relations between thesexes include the birth of children as the natural sa-

tisfaction of the need to continue the species, and alsosexual intercourse a6 the direct, socially regulated sa-tisfaction of individual natural needs.

Within the process of socialisation, the individualundergoes a socially regulated preparation, by meansof upbringing and education, for work and the fulfil-ment of other social functions. Play, tradition and ri-tual also fulfil specific functions. Play functions (both

s9

in adults and children) -as a_ specific mode of prepara-

tion for work. It includes the mental playing -thrbugh

of work situations, physic I training and e-otional pr""-paration. ?lay is used as a means of educating indtraining the younger generation, of transmitting tothem the experience gained in social relations and"theknowledge of certain natural la*.s.

_ The production of the instruments of labour, andthe production -of the members of society, bothessentially social activities, together compose thatwhich Marx and Engels defined is 'the materialist con-nection of men with one another', as 'co-operation ofseveralto sevely remiof the means of consurrpttions, these may be desiribed as the materialist linkbetween men and nature.

Attempts are sometimes made to explain the his-torical evolution of relations between the sexes in menon the basis of a direct analogl- between primitive menand anthropoid apes. Howev"er, this hislorical evolu-

cies and in the nature ofthe sexes are increasingly

determined by socialisation.The acquisition by men oI meat food, which manv

researchers associate with the reflex-instinctive ,co_

operation' of group predators, cannot be adequatelyexplained if divorced from the production and'rs. o'fimplements of labour and from the initial forms of

. 1_t<g.! _[4arx and Frcde-rick_Engels, ,The German Ideology,,in: Ka{_Marx, . Fre derick Engelq i oll e c te a W

", i r, i it. 5, M;._

cow, 1976, p. 43.

60

In.,the primitive period,. the previouslv undivided,multifunctional structure of sociil relarions in the tri-bal community gradually differentiated out under thepressure of the development of productive forces andchanges in the relations of men to each other and tonature.

V. THE ROLE OF KINSHIP IN PRIMITIVESOCIETY: GROUP MARRIAGE AND

MATRIARCHY

Systems of Kinship and Their Evolution

Engels placed great value on Morgun's discovery ofthe cointradiction ihat existed betweEn the traditional-

his sisters, however, -were his nephews and nieces, and

he was to them their uncle_. Thi Iroquois woman, bycontrast, referred to the children of h'er sisters as sonsand daughters, and they called her mother. while shewas aunt for the children of her brothers.

62

1 F. Engels, 'The Origir, of the !'amily...', p. 210.

63

afterwards .,. (as far as our present sources of informa-tion go)'. r

But how did the gens emerge? What was its origin,and what were the prerequisites of its subsequent evo-lution?

Morgan was of the opinion, Engels writes, that thereexisted 'a primitive stage at which promiscuous in-tercourse prevailed within a tribe, so that every womanbelonged equally to every man and, similarly, every

oman'. rgan's view..ss refu cial-Darwin-teTp.ts ay) to, traceorigin sexual rela-

tions to primitive society prior to the emergence ofmarriage and the family. He r,r,'rote that 'the animalfamily and primitive human society are incompatiblethings',3 that primitive men, having emerged from theanimal stage, either knew no family whatsoever, or, atmost, knew a family which is never found amonganimals. Summarising the scientific literature on thispoint which had been published after Morgan's book,FJngels bases his arguments on the thesis put forn'ardby the author o[ Des soci€tis animales (Paris, lB?7),the French philosopher and sociologist Alfred Espinas,a proponent of the theory of evolution, who wrotethat 'among the higher animals the horde and thefamily ate not complementary, but antagonistic toeach other', for ojealousy amongst the males at matingtime loosens, or temporarily dissolves, every gregarioushorde'.4

Biological egoism (as regards sex and food), and iso-lation hindered the formation of a new type of hordecapable of evolving into the forerunner of the social

l,i;, F:-r'i:' ;ri.i'i:' ro" 25s's6'

3 Ibid.. o. 213.c hia.,'p. zra.

64 j-875

I Ibid., p. 251.

5* 67

(of course, not the physio-logical sense thetic individualmembers or

:"*:_!t "ry i,i"f{"'il,}tl'-1;within the group. However, anuch sexual relations was that the

man and woman concerned not be related by blood.The problem of exogamy, r'hich excludes marriage

within one social group (gens, phratry)-requires spe-cial examination. For primitive men, the main crite-rion of social relations and behaviour was based on thekinship system of sexual and feefing prohibitions andpreferences. In the Iiterature on this subject it is theprohibitions that are emphasised, as they are the moststriking. Moreover, these are usually sexual prohibi-tions-exogamy-which have long been known. Recent-ly-, however, Laura and Raoul Makarius have put for-ward the idea that a similar social role was played byfood prohibitions which related to the sphere of theproduction of the means of subsistence.

How is this to be explained from a materialist pointof view? Possibly by the fact that sexual relatione havesuch a yisible 'result' as children, although the linkbetween sexual relations and pregnancy was, accordingto a number of scholars, unknown to certain recentlydiscovered tribes. The scrupulous identification of thedegree ind nature of kinship and of sibling brother-hood, ancestor worship, etc., could lead, and indeedsometimes do lead, to the impression that in primitive society the production of the means of subsistencewas secondary, and merely 'seryed' production ofman. If, furthermore, in looking at the structure ofproduction, the emphasis is placed not on the socialbut merely on the physiological (biological) aspect,one might conclude that primitive men were some kindof palaeolithic sex maniacs, and even that it was notlabour, but sex which, contrary to the views of Engels,created man, separated him from the animal world

6B

and became the initial basis of social life.Primitive society differed from the three antagonis-

tic class formations that followed it far more radicallythan the latter did amongst themselves. The ideaewhich Engels expressed on this subject in The Originof the Family, Priuate hoperty and the State havefound wide support among scholars of various coun-tries. As Raoul Makarius rightly commented, 'as the

ference not to the individual, but the group. It is notthe individual (nor even a male with hii wife and theirchildren), who has to conduct the battle to survive,but a more numerous groupr whose relations are notstrictly biological, and within which the individual isseen as a particle of the whole'.2 Tribal relations, in-fluencing as they did the entire way of life of primi-tive society, could not but be reflected in human conci-

functional interdependence V,social cohesion is mainta' trB:which, at this stage, determ Asthe productive forces develop, bringing with them agreater division of labour, the produition relations

1 R. Makarius, op. cit., p. X.z Ibid., p. XXXI.

69

ever more apparent.

Group Marriage: Origin, Evolution, Basic Forms

1 Ibid., pp. x-XI.

70

t,

{

i

sexual morality and marriage was often seen aB repre-senting the original and inherent qualities of theprimitive men.1 In his preface to the first Frenchedition of Ancient Society, Makarius explained thesimilar reaction of bourgeois circles in much the sameterms: 'The idea that human beings could have unre-stricted sexual relations, even if this happened severalthousand years before Christ, aroused scandal becauseit contradicted the sexual ethic and the concept ofmarriage professed and traditionally accepted by theChristian nations of Europe'.2

In The Origtn of the Family, hiuate hoperty andthe State, Engels was bitterly sarcastic about the bour-geois' inabilitv to see Morgan's reconstruction of thesexual life of a mankind only just emerged from theanimal kingdom in any way other than 0... throughbrothel spectacles'.3 Engels emphasised that promis-cuity at this transitional stage (i.e. strictly speakingat a stage preceding 'completelv' human society)was, in the first place, purely hypothetical, and second-ly, meant only the absence of customs regulatingsexual relations.4

The first st to mono-gamy (that is, there is astable union woman)and to gelectiv view, theconsanguine and punaluan families. In the first, sexualrelations between parents and children, i.e. betweendifferent generations, were excluded, while in thegecond such relations were prohibited between thesons and daughters of one mother. Engels cited thesespeculative deductions drawn by Morgan with a certainamount of circumspection. As regards the consanguine

- 1 Robeft Briffault, The Mothers, Vol. 2, George Allen& U_nwin Ltd., London, 1927. pp. I-19.

I R. Makarius, op. cit., p. XIX.I F. Engels, op. cit., p. 216.* lbid., pp. 215-16.

7L

family, for example, he wrote that 'even the rawest

^l lbid., p. 2I7.

2 lbid., p.22I.

a)

tJ

customs as punalua anything other than mere'abomina-tion'has proved to be correct

back to Engels'view of the e of these 'transitio-How and why did group marriage arise? If.we come:k to Engels''view of the lifestyle of these 'transitio-

1 F. Engels, op. cit., p. 218'

73

x

I

i

iI

l

I

preeupposed, on the contrary, the unity of the twoiexual halves of these emergent human collectives.Such, in effect, was the opinion expressed by Engelsconcerning the emergence of the gens in the middlestage of savagery, its developmeut in the upper stage ofsavagery, and its prime in the lower stage of barbarism.

of subeistence was

sh f the acquisition offo f labour implementeaa . Technical improve-

The production of man himself was based on thebiological inertia of the process of propagation (rela-tions between the sexes), but was radically modifiedby social factors. The cognition of group, collective

tinctive cognition of the unity and cohesion of the col-lective whole was the concept of the totem and itsrelated community. Animals, plants and other naturalphenomena were attributed human qualities, and theancestor-protector of the gens was usually an animalor, more rarely, a bird, a fish or an insect.

Taboo, and the customs which developed out of itand regulated behaviour, played in the sphere of so-

cial intercourse a role -which, in the methodological

ly produced implements of labour. In relation to in-dividuals endowed with consciousness and will, thisrole of mediator was played by custom of behaviour,

76

which was orally fixed and therefore stood'above the

individual and outlived him.

man was regulatedtaken shape) but bExogamy involved,rv -kind

of sexualootosition to exogilnous Pr(r-ril'es restrictit g "th" choice of sexual partner-laterspouse-to another exogam'

Engels enthusiasticallYthe diilectic combination

t at the time when grouPin all probability it existedother-the tribe consisted

y blo.od on the moth-marriage was strictlYmen of a gens could,

ir wives from within their

sland bY t}e well-known Russian

ethnologist L. Ya. Sternbeig, who had - been exiled

there bf the Tsarist government. It is worth noting that,

1 F. Engels, op. cit., P. 201.

77

I

of all the European scholars of the day, Engels was tlreonly one to show any interest in the modest essay pub-lished in Russian on this question. Noting its importance,Engels wrole a short article entitled 'Another Case ofCroup llarriage is Discovered'.1

Among the Gilyakhi, the marriage system linkednot two but three gentes. This three-gentes struchrrewas also typical of ancient Rome. Alongside the 'ego'gens there also existed among the Gilyakhi the 'father-in-law' gens, from which the wives were taken, andthe 'son-in-law' gens, to which the daughters went inmarriage. The link among these gentes was based noton the prohitrition of marriage within the gens, but onan unequivocal demand that marriage be entered intowith representatives of a strictly defined gens, on theprinciple that 'the men must mary the daughters oftheir mother's brother or, in other words, the daugh-ters .in each family belong from birth to the sons-oftheir father's sister'.2 Here, clearly, we are talking notof families but of whole gentes. The prominent Sovietethnologist, D. A. Oldhas investigated similarthat such structures be ttes or the three-gentes feconsidered them to be lestwogentes organisation. At a meeting of the UnitedScientific Council of the Ingtitutes of the USSRAcademy of Sciences, held in besieged Leningrad inMay, 1942, Olderogge read a report entitled 'Epigamyand Exogamy'in which he suggested that 'exogamy isthe consequence of a more general principle of epi-gamy, if this last is understood to mean that the

1 See Marx, Engels, Werlre, Bd.. 22, Dietz Verlag, Berlin,1963. S. 351-54.

2 L. Ya. Sternberg, Fomily and Cens omong the Peoplesin North-eastern ,4sra, Leningrad, 1933, p. 100 (in Russian).

3 D. A. Olderogge, Epigamy, Selected Articles, Moscow,I 983, pp. I 79, I B I (in Russian).

7B

systerns collapsed, this obligation disappeared, andwhat remained was a prohibition on marriage within

ethnography is developing in accord with the ideas andmethodological principles of the study of primitivesociety put forward by Engels in The Origin of theFamily, Priuate hoperty and the State .

Group marriage, as modern science has confirmed,was not esented one ofthe most the unified pri-mitive co of manhimself

1 nia., p. zo.'thid.3 tbid., p. 23.

79

or one's sister's widower. It would seem that both

The Discovery of the Mother-Right Gens andthe End of the Belief in the Primeval Nature

of the Patriarchal Family

According to the views which prevailed in themid-I9th century, the original form of social organi-

er-right gens. Moreover, in contrast to gynaecocracy,which was first discussed theoretically by the famous

BO

gels as the basis for The Ortgin of the Family, Pi-uate Property and the Sfofe, agrees wholehearledlywith Morgan's uncompromising criticism of the viewthat the gens came after monogamy and was to be seenas an entity composed of families that had united to-gether. Such a view was sqggested by the Englishlawyer and historian H. S. Maine, who was activelyinvolved in drawing up colonial legislation for Iadia.Bourgeois scholars who supported such theories easilybecame apologists of racism and colonialism and pro-ponents of the unscientific pseudotheory of the mentalunderdevelopment of peoples at the pre-capitalist, and

of society ... and with this is linked the hypothesis onlhe degeneration of mankind, which is supposed toexplain the existence of Barbarinns and Sauages.'

lr The Origin of the Family, hiuate Property andthe energetically sup-port eceded the family,and rchy. The gens, inthe 'a rigidly limitedcircle of blood relatives in the female line, who are notallowed to marry one anotherl {rom now on it increas-

In his Preface to the iourth German edition ofThe Origin of the Family, hiuate hoperty and the

1 F. Engels, op. cit., p. 221.

il

,l

I

I

6-875

I tbid.. p. I9z.z 6i6., ir. 20r.

B2

Tylor drew attention to the fact that science knew ofthousands of indisputable examples of the transitionfrom a halwas not ofindeed, ionto.a ma thehas been found to this day!

VI. THE ORIGIN OF THE MONOGAMOUS FAMILYAND INDIVIDUAL SEX LOVE

The Historical Evolution of Marriage and FamilyRelations

stage of savagery, that is, undersvsaem to social organisafionsuperstructure, whicf, he iden-

In the very title of his book,

children-are seen in this case as something secondary'

B4

The concept of 'family'is usually connected to thatof rnarriage and is derived from it, but canndt be di-n:ctly restricted to it. In contrast to marriage thetr:rm 'family' presupposes the interaction of individ-

rically speaking, the family 'inherits' the functions ofthe gentile community as the basic unit of the produc-tion of the means of subsistence.

In this sense, the family is, if one mav put it thisway) more 'social' than marriage, while the latter, inits turn, is more biological. The historical dynamic ofthe correlation of marital and family relations withinthe framework of the direct propagation of the spe-

impor-ance ofevelopsof mar-

^ .1. 9f. lVlilan Bosanac, The Extro-lllari,al Fomilv, ProgressPub^lishers, Moscow, Ig8l (in Russian).

2 F. Engels, op. cit., pp.'218,22?.'

B5

transition to monoga-

' ooinion. that the roleod marital-familY and

reversed. It was Pre-

later to burst agunder the tribal struchrre first accumu-

lated and manifeste'l them

withoutfirsteliminatingsocialantagonisms'propertytftffiirfiJii," ".pt&tadon and 6pptession of man

bv man."' rtliiia-i"mily r sphere of in-

timate intercourse "r:JJSi?f:sex, who as a familY con - 9 'il'd;; or-ttt" lp""i"s' As a family they also rep-

1 lbid., pp. 230,240,248.

B6

group, pairing and monogamian- were determined bythe socio-economic relations operating at that time,

but strictly definedhey lived apart, eachpart primarily in the(anil not the other)

gens.The group marri he

sphere o-f scxua.l rel ed

parenthood, and the as

the basic economic, as

a result of the inheritance of property and social priv-ilege. This historical path was not a straight one, how-ever, but acquired many twists and turns due to theinertia of archaic forms of regulating sexual relations,and the effect of contradictions in the socio-economicstructures which replaced the gens and the community.Thus the relations between men and women, parentsand children in the monogamous family are shaped bysocio-historical rather than biological factors. Engels

B7

the pairing familY

forces, which gives rise toih" diui.iott of hborr.. In - articular, the development

"i"rt""[-f."efing and the-intensification of relations

.i "*"t rrn" und"erlay the patriarchal gens and the pa-

I.iut.t "t fimily. The'development of crafts and regular

trade led to the emergence of small, individual, monog-'

amous families.-" t" tlr. patriarchal family we can trace the link be-

tween-the'development olsocial antagonisms and the

"*Lin""." of mo^oga-v' Thc slave labour of war

"rotii"s (and, also of

*ittin ttri family. Enge

Rome the tetm familia iniof all the slaves in the fathat familv. Subsequently s

irrn.f"t..i to the sphere"of production, and the-family

became the sum tLtal of dornestic slaves under the

nate.r familias. The family reflects, as iI were, the domi-

"rnt i"tt"* of state power relations, and th.erefore the

Roman family is, to i certain degree, a miniature copy

of the Roman emPire.In antagonistic society, Engels argues, the relations

b"t*"*, ,ri"r, urd *o*", ariclosel-y bou.nd up 'wi.tlr

;;;t or with any other m"ar,s oi social power"l

1 F. Engets, op. cit., P. 255

BB

Monogamy he described as 'the first form of thelamily based not on natura] but on economic condi-tions', and therefore 'the first class antagonism whichappears in history coincides with the development ofthe antagonism between man and woman in monog-amian marriage, and the first class oppression withthat of the female sex by the male'.l This explains,according to Engels, the fact that in bourgeois society'rnonogamy and prostitution ... although opposites, arenevertheless inseparable opposites, poles of the samesocial conditions'.2 Genuine sex love and genuinemonogamv require, in Engels' opinion, completelydifferent social conditions which bourgeois societyis fundamentally incapable of providing.

The Problem of the Genesis of Individual Sex Loveand Critigue of the Conceptsof the'Sexual Revolution'

In his explanation of the forms of the rnodern fam-ilv, Engels pavs particular attention to love as one ofits most important socio-psychological components.In his book he talks about individual sex love, refut-ing as unscientific the biblical version of the primitivernan as based on eterna-l love (in which the sexual com-ponent was veiled behind abstract-elevated feeling)and the patriarchal-monogamous family as pnmeval.lingels showed that, at the dawn of history, man knewnothing of family nor of love. That is if we understandlove to mean something more than a simple prefer-cnce of one individual for another in the sphere ofinti-rrrate relations, a preference based on personal quali-ties and tastes. 'That personal beauty, intimate asso-r:iation, similarity in inclinations, etc., aroused desirelor sexual intercourse among people of opposite sexes,that men as well as women were not totally indiffer-r:nt to the question of with whom they entered into

I tlia., pp. 2Js-40.z lbid., p.249.

B9

1 F. Engels, op. cit., p. 249.

90

sexual intercourse. The question asked is not onlywhether such intercourse was legitimate or illicit, butalso whether it arose from mutual love or not'.1

tale of romance with a married wom:ur as the belovedof the knight was a historically new form of the de-

mass composed solely of individual families as itsmolecules,

-Today, in the great majority of cases, the

I Ibid., p. 2so.! Ibid., pp. 243'44.r lbid.. P. 250.

9t

man has to be the earner, the bread-winner of the

the existing production relations. As for the moralaspcct of such marital-family relations, based on pure

,

calculation, Engels described them O, ."1..Til,*"::t.,}:

s of rnarriage,

within bour-geois society the prerequisites for its impending over-throw were taking shape, and the proletariat-the classdestined to overthrow it-was emerging. In proletarianfamilies, unlike bourgeois families, formal monogamyis acquiring for the first time the features of genuineequality and reciprocity between the sexes, based onlove. Insofar as sex love, by its nature, is exclusive,'marriage based on sex love is bf its very nature mo-nogamy'.3 The great theoretician of the proletariatwas able to detect the features of this cognised monog-amy, underpinned by the emerging new moralirv-,in the Eirny and over-populated factory housing ofManchester, despite the healy and seemingly crushinglayer of poverty, drunkenness and vulgarity, the low cul-tural level of the working people of the 'workshopof the world'. There, in 1844, the young Engelsworked on his first book, The Condition of the Work-ing-Class in Enghnd.

In The Origin of the Family, Priuate Property and

a rbid.,p.z4z.2 Ibid.. D. 245.a ruia.,'p. zs+.

o,

the State, the question of marital-family relationsbasedon love among the proletariat is treated with partic-ular force and optimism. Here we find the proto-typeof a love that elevates man and is elevated by him, alove freed from bourgeois cynicism and hypocrisy,from the ugly perversions caused bv the distortedrelations of property which 'materialise' everything,including even intimate relations. Typically, this themeis treated pessimistically today even by many talentedWestern writers and joumalists. Such a situation alsoexists in other areas oflife in bourgeois Eociety. People'use' one another as if they were disposable consumergoods. Moreover, this process is accelerating. Whatawaits man, if tl-re humaneness of men's relations toeach other is soon to be exhausted? Such is the subject,for example, of the book Future Shock, a bestseller

whose structure would be totally opposed to philistinemonogamy imbued with the spirit of gain. It was theproletariat which Engels saw as the potential source ofnew relations between men and women, 'Sex love,'hewrote in his book, 'in the relation of husband and wifeis and can become the rule only among the oppressedclasses, that is, at the present day, among the proleta-riat, no matter whether this relationship is officiallysanctioned or not But here a]l the foundations ofclassical monogamy are removed. Here, there is acomplete absence of all property, for the safeguard-ing and inheritance of which monogamy and male do-rnination were established. Therefore, there is no sti-mulus whatever here to assert male domination. Whatis_ more, the means, too, are absent; bourgeois law,which protects this domination, exists only for the pro-pertied classes and their dealings with thJ proletariins.

g3

larse-scale industry has transferred the woman fromthJ house to the iabour market and the factory, and

1 F. Engels, op. cit., p. 245'2 Cf. Geoffrey Gorer, Ser and Marriage in England Todoy,

Nelson, London, 1971.

94

prefer to part. In short, proletarian marriage is monog-amian in the etymological sense of the word, but byno means in the histori"cal sense.'l

Such was Engels' vision of the dawn of a new erain relations between men and women in the society

the economic prerequisites for freedom of divorce-were the subject of a special analysis by Engels in hisbook. Pondering on the society- of the future he wrote!'What will most definitely disappear from monogamy,trowever, are aII the characteristics stamped on it inconsequence of its having arisen out of property re-lationships. These are, first, the dominance of the rnan,and secondly, the indissolubitiqv of marriage. The pre-dominance of the man in marriage is simply a conse-quence of his economic predominance and will vanishwith it automatically. The indissolubility of marriageis partly the result of the economic conditions underwhich monogamy arose, and partly a tradition fromthe time when the connection between these economicconditions and monogamy was not yet correctly under-stood and was exaggerated by religion. Today it hasbeen breached a thousandfold. If only rnarriagesthat are based on love are moral, then, also, only thoseare moral in which love continues. The duration ofthe urge of individual sex love differs very much ac-

cording to the individual, particularly among men, anda definite cessation of affecfion, or its displacementl,v a new passionate love, makes separation a blessingf<-,r both parties as well as for societv. People willonly be spared the experience of wading through therrseless mire of divorce proceedings.'2

] F. Engels. op. cit.. p. 245.z lhid., p. 254.

95

ciety. Private housekeeping is transformed into a socialindustry. The care and education of the children

problem 'from within' bourgeois society. He was of theopinion that _the cre_ation of new forms of marital-familyrelations and standards of sexual behaviour was thetask of the people of the socialist and communist

new generation has grown up: a generation of men whonever in all their lives have had occasion to purchase a

r Ibid., p. za9.

96

lvornan's surrender either with money or with anyother rneans of social power, and of women who havenever been okrligcd to surrender to any man out of anyconsideration other than that ofreal love, or to refrainfrorn giving themselves to their beloved for fear of thecconornic consequences. Once such people appear,they will not careshould do. Theytheir own public opractice of each i

The crisis of y makes it fashion-ahle to criticise ira 1i.e. bourgeois)rnarital-family r k aboutunreitrict-ed freedom of sexual relations. In the 60s and ZOs

pias of sexual revolution" At the same time, it is iliffi-cuXt to agree with the overall assessment of the entire

One must also not overlook the fact that relationsbctween the sexes have been changed by the cultof consumption and the standards of mass-culture in-r:ulcated by bourgeois society, tle tendency to con-

1 F. Engels, op. cit., p. 25S.

97

vert intimate relations into a specific form of escape

say,' commented the Soviet philosopher I. S. Andreyeva,'that in the USA and certain West European countries,the disruption of traditional norms of marriage hasgone very far indeed. The move towards economic in-dependence, the nuclear family, the drop in the birthrate, have all created a new background for the sexualactivity of women, The weakening of social control as a

cohsequence of urbanisation and the anonymity of cityIife have brought into question traditional forms ofsexual morality. There has been a change in the role ofwomen in sexual life, and in the role of sexual life forwomen. It is precisely these phenomena that inaugurat-ed a new era in the sexual behaviour of men and women,an era which has been termed the sexual revolution.'1

In principle, the development of capitalism, whichis inevitably accompanied by periofic economic crises,must, as Engels foresaw, also affect relations betweenthe sexes. In his talk with Clara Zetktn Lenin expres,sed views on this question which corresponded to whatEngels had said in The Origin of the Family, Priuate

being torn asunder, when a whole social world is be-of individual nran un-stimulating thirst foruires irresistible force.

_ 1 L S. Andreyeva, 'Socio-philosophical Problems of Sex,Marriage and the Family', in:. Voproiy filosofii. No. f , 1980,p. 138.

9B

b1 il113 JJn:*'i'*"*:;;*::tolu4on is approaching in keepingevolution.a

The atternpt to replace a social with a sexual revo-lution is typical not only of bourgeois but also of an-archist ideologists. It is important to note that such'theoretical' models are often reminiscent of formerstages in the development of human sexual and mari-tal-family relations long since left behind. Thus,for example, the glorification of sexual anarchy as thenorm of relations between men and women is charac-

the decay of All of this isnothing other caricaturisedforn\ in the e by the scien-tific and technological revolution, of thernrmsof primi-tive group marriage prior to the neolit}ic revolirtion.

.1 Clara Zetkin, My Recollections of Lenin, Moscow, I956,r,.63.

99

r00

lili:,' he declared, 'is, of course, presumably based, "asir utatter of principle", on theory. Many call their posi-liorr "revolutionary" and "communist". They sincere-ly lrclieve that this is so. I, an old man, arn not im-prt:ssed by this. Although I am anything trut a moroselscctic, yet quite frequently this so-called "new sexlifc" of theloo-seems togood old bour:st resemblanstand it. You of course have heard about the famoustheory that in communist society satisfying one'ssexual desire and craving for love is as simple and triv-

man's natural instincts, but also what has been derivedfrom culture, be it on a high level or low. Engels point-ed out n Ltts Origin of tlie Family how im"port'ant itis for simple sexual inclination to develop into individ-ual sex love and become refined... Laxity in sexualrnatters is bourgeois;it is a sign of degeneration.'1

The essence of man as a species cannot be reducedto the relationship between the two sexes. Man cannotsatisfy all his requirements, aspirations and ideals inthe intimate sphere alone, although this sphere is aninseparable element in his harmonious self-expression.

The important conclusions which Engels arrived atre ture of proletarian marriage based onre t labour and equality ofthe spousesar sistently implemented in the courseof the development of socialistof course, in this very delicate areathe inertia of past traditions is pa

1 Clara Zetkin, op. cit., pp. 64-66.

VII. THE EMERGENCE OF PRIVATE PBOPERTY

Property as a Social Relationship in the Worksof Morgan and Engels

One of the main themes in The Origin of the Fom.ily, Priuate hoperty and the Sfore is a dialectical-materialist explanation of the inevitable transition ofman from initial collective (gentile-tribal) to privateownership of the means of production, which becamethe foundation of the exploitation and oppression ofman by man,

Engels saw thevelopment of thedivision of social I

economic unit serving as the focal point of productionand consumption (i. e., maintenance of life), and this,in its turn, tended to isolate the property of variousproduction units, giving rise to the co-existence oftraditional inert collective property, and dynamicprivate property as opposing types ofsocial productionrelations.

102

It should be noted that the met}odological posi-

of a consistent dialectical concept' Morgan was unable

to perceive the conhafictions characteristic of social

1 Jean Suret-Canale, 'Lewis H. M9rgln ct l'anthropologi-errrodeine', La Pens6e, num,lro special, 'Ethnologie', No- 171(octobre),1973.

r03

Gemtile-Tribal Property

Primitive goclety- is characteriscd by the fusion of,or, in fa_ct, la-ck of division between ownership andlabour, the relationship between mcn and theii rela-

104

and the hunting and fishing tagkle, the women, thehousehold goodJ and utensils".. Whatever was producedand used

"it co**on was common property: the

1 F'. , p.317.2 Pa a'propri6t.6. Arigine et 6oolution,l,ibra'

irie Ch. s,1895, P.344.

105

of production and the subject of consumption (thatis, of course, within the context of a division of labourbased on sex and age) ensured the control of the pro-ducer over the product he had produced, and controlover its fate. 'Production at all former stages of socie-ty,' Engels wrote, 'was essentially collective and, like-wise, consumption took place by the direct distribu-tion of the products within larger or smaller commu-nistic communities. This production in common wascarried on within the narrowest limits, but concomi-tantly the producers were masters of their process ofproduction and of their product. They knew whatbecame of the product; they consumed it, it did notleave their hands; and as long as production was car-ried on on this basis, it could not grow beyond the con-trol of the producers, and it could not raise anystrange, phantom powers agednst them, as is the caseregularly and inevitably under civilisation.'1

Separate Ownership of Animal Stock andthe Development of Exchange

ln defining the transitional nature of property' re-lations in the stage of barbarism, Engels proposes theterm 'separate property'.2 In his opinion, this separateproperty occupies an intermediary position betweencommunal and private forms of property. He links theappearance of this form of property relations amongmen to the existence of surplus products, and in partic-ular, animal stock. It was precisely the existence ofa stable supply of surplus products that paved the wayfor regular exchange as an increasingly necessary ele-ment in the ever more complex cycle of productionand consumption. Exchange made it possible to con-vert the surplus in one type of production into pro-

1 F. Engels. op. cit., p.330.2 lbid., pp. 231, 3lB.

106

1 tbid., p. tl8.z 'cf

ii.'g. Piotrorsky, 'Pages from the History- of Northern

N ubii. in",a " "

iii i N "

air', Moicow -Lenin gra d', | 9 64, pp' I 2-1 4

(in Russian).

10?

tive-cornmunal socio-economic forrnation, relations that

trons gave way to the new relations ofseparate proper_ty and power emerging from the once integrai tribalty and power emerging from the once inteqrai tribalorganisation. A basis and superstructure of a transi-o.rganisation. A basis and superstructure of ational Wpe sraduallv crvstaliised out from Itiond type gradually crystaliised out from the ori-ginally all-emb Moreover, inmany respects tions were nowconditioned by cial control and

1 F. Engcls, op. cit., p.311.

108

from the com s intothe property es wcdo not know musthave occurred herds

1 !'. Hngr:ls, op. cit., p. 318.

109

yet it now put t-he former domestic relationshiptopsy-turvy simply because the division of labouroutside the family had changed.'l Social productionwas increasingfy orientated towards the rnarket ratherthan towards consumption.The increase potential hadfundamental the words of

archate.

a conseryative, yet nonetheless historically dynamicsocial shucture forming a transitional link betwlen theprimitive-communal order and antasonistic-class soci-primitive-communal and antagonistic-class soci-ety.

Thus the ernergence of the institution of privateproperty is linked to the development of the communi-

i lbid., p. 319.z Ibid., p. 320.

110

conditions.Within the communitv, new, antagonistic produc-

tion relations matured which were direcdy opposed

property existed wasf land (in connectionand waste land) and

then less and communalland farmed large and

small. Irr his andowner'

1 lbid., pp. 2tB, 3l I and othr:rs.

llt

prior to leaving it is cvitlcnce o-[ the fact that this formof landownership ceased to correspond to the new so-

cio-cconornic relations.l

Tlue Genesis of Frivate Pnoperty in Lavrd"Money arad Mortgage

Utthat, in his stu

of land, Engels loat of labour and

iing, that basis of dl personal freedom, was transfer-,"J jlo,r, tl.re caravan of the nomadic train to the loghouse of the stationary peasant, and gradually was

1 Marx, lingels, tr/erAe, Bd. 22, Dictz Vcrlag, Berlin, 1953,s.3st-54.

LL2

l'or farming led necessarily to a situation in which thei,,tr".iied ,i"g[,t "f po.."..ion was accorded exclusivelyt,r individual farnilies.

The last bulwark of the Mark community (as of any

Drosperous on the one hand, and the landless poor onit. ttlr... The once free Mark communities become

"villages with peasant proprietors"2

1 iUarx, Iingels, Pre-Ca pitrtlist So.cio-Ec^olt9ytjc I'orma'rions, Progress Prilrlisher", l\ilosco*' I ()79. pp. 27i-78'

2 lbid., p. 277.

rr3

from their om state, the German barbarians appro-nriated two-thirds of the entire land and divided itl-org themselves.'l This division, Engels notes, was

carriei out according to the rules of [he gentile sys-

tern. 'In eachrng to [ne rures or tne gcrlure sys-fields and pastures were distributedtern. 'In each gens nelds ancl pilstures were orsl

arnong the individual households in equal shares byl^+ W" .ln not know whether reneated redivisions tooklot Wl do not know whether repeated redivisionsplace at that time; at all events, this practice was soondiscarded in the Roman provinces, and the individualallotment became alienable private propertv, allodium.Forests and pastures remained undivided for commonuse; this use and the mode of cultivating the dividedland were regulated by ancient custom and the willof the entire community.'2

In principle, the transformation of communal proP-erty in land into separate propertt'could occur'fromabove' and 'from below'. It could develop, as Engelsremarked, along two lines. It would seem that, in his-torical terms, the earlier form was that of its transfor-mation into state .property. as was the case with theRciman ager publ[cu.s 'around which', in tJre words

conserved the structure of the communitv. Privateproperty, on the other hand, was the product and themeins of the disintegration of the community. Thisstruggle between private propert-v and the peasant com-

] lt. F.ngels. op. cit., p.3II." Ibid.3 ttid., p. zs6.

114

munitY, was, towhich-the wholethe Reforrn Tonurnler of couregions of the d"Th. ...,,r,",, s the rightto dispose of d the P1o-tlucts irf laborr took the

forrrr oI r'xt'ltitttgt:, which gradually divided into two ac-

tiorrs scgritnrtt' in tirne and space-alienation and appro-

lrriutiorr, t,tk' and purchase.l,)rrg,,ls vir:wcd- metal money, and particularly the

rrrirrlcil rr.itt, as 'a new means by which the non-produc-

ophants'2 -the merchants,Together with the far-reaching changes in social re-

lations, there also occurred major changes in the sphereof trade itself and in all property relations. 'The com-modity of commodities, which conceals within itselfall other commodities, was discovered,' declares En-

landowner could only use the land if he paid a consid-erable rent or bound himself to personal service.'As long as the land belonged to the gens,'wrote En-

! Ibid., p. 323.2 lbid.3 Ibid.

8* 115

g('ls, 'thcre \\as r() su,'h possilrility. But c\v

landowner shook off thc chains of the ri-

iand, Iivestock, slaves, luxury goods, buildings, uloneJ-,etc., to heirs named irr his own lifetime, usuali.v hischildren aard wife. Gradually, anong the (jerrnans, one

Thus the relations of use, ownership and disposaltool< shape historicallt' as lhe prereguisi.te-" for theemergence of private property, 'I.lse'refers to the us<r

of the prerequisites of prorluction. Possessic,n Prcsup-poses tover a

ownersobjecttion"

pri-a thet "l'l I r.r

cultivated land,' wrote Engels, 'stiltr remained rribalproperty and was assigned first to the gens, ',vhich,Iater, in its turn, distributed it to the hotrschold corn-munities for to indiviihrals: thesenuy have h possession, irrrt n<r

more.'3 Only skrip of land irrrPlicdnot onl,v- the ctetl antl r.rncrrrtailcri

I Ibid.. o. 324.

I tua., i,. rrz." lbid., p. 318.

r16

lrrrr,f :r'ri'.rn, h-uI lt[:;,, tlr,' po:rliiriliLr' <lf alienating it'.1''1r,,Ioiicalli. Ilt.nr'l'orr', i'.it:alc pIopcrt., rlr.v.l-o;.,cd oilt oI tht' r:orrr rrrrrrral (irrsuurrlcc, religious, etc.)lrrnri, irrr:irr,liirpl rvlrr booil', as excha.nge and tradettrr,vt,i,rr1x'tl. 'l'lrr: Iirsi ohir';'1 sf tiris nen' irlpr, of ownor-,,ltipr rv:r', rttot,,rtltlt' pro;rr:rtv, casilS.' transportcd and:,iicrr;ittrl: to lr,'y1irr rvitlr livcstock, then weapons amdi i r l rl(.rr {.: r t.i o l llr lrorlr, l ux ur.l., items arrr} siaves. Suhsr:-!Jurrt{!\ llr ltousc arrtl {;rrlril.and also b,ecanre ohjccts,rl 1',i';iti ,\\\r('i.ilirr. 'l'he dualitr. of ownership duringtlrr i, rrrr:iior;ll [r:ri,r-rd cousistcd in the fact that rnovc-,rl,l,,"r,irr'r,r ll;rcl alread), becolne private propert-,,.,,1 l;1f r irrrrrrov, alr[c propertl,. (ahovc all, lanrl)

-was still

,r /;:i,, , r,rur!r()lt propcrtl-. 'L'hc orncrgence of itdvater,r,i)r'i t) irr l;ind nrarkcd the hcginrring of i.ha[ agr:rr r', lrit he d,eLcl', lr' ,ir per[\/ ;r(

r r irr iitr he.a,etrr1,I]itr'il

i'lrr stagcs i;r thc ernergr:nc,,r o{ privaLe proi}er-ty, hricf.;y or.ri!in,:d Iry lingcls, reflrcslrnt Lile sy.sternai:ic tr)rocoss;l' ihi: lTpaiaiior of thc proXlrrty of imdividual coilrnnu-, lii::; vrir-l'iill the trihe, and therr thc scp;alation otr the pro-'r ,ir oi: trhe lrcatls o.[ lanr:c tarnilir,s rvithin lfic L]ornrfl{-!-rL, r' iii,il, Iina]ly, thc cor-ucilntration of tlee disgrcsal of t]rc,,, .rrr {)f pr;ioducl-ion .wi[.[iin srnall, indivitlud [,:rrnilics.

:l,t mrilitnly;ir:i'rui:sthoocl, allci

;l::i,:;ill"fl:i lhi.i., r.,.:]2r1.

nl-

of antasonistic class socictr-.- i" *'t ut did the dialectic of the forrnation of private

1 Cf. Robert Ardrel', Adam kam aus Africa, Heyne Verlag,Miinchen, 1969.

118

bv fudrey is entitled The Territorial Imperatiue. APbrsonal Inquiry into the Animal Origins of Propertyand Nations.r This work is based on an extremelycrude and inappropriate analogy which, in additionto bcing unacceptable in terms of the present level ofscientific knowledge, also contains a reactionary po-litical undertone. To quote the words of the AustrianMarxist scholar, Walter Hollitscher, Ardrey is 'project-ing' the vices of imperialism 'onto the innocent animalworltl'.2

l'rivate property has a far deeper cause. The veryn:lalionship of man to the land, to livestock, to the im-plr:rncrrts of labour and other prerequisites of produc-tion, due to its social nature, itself mediated by theal"titude of man to man. This relationship is visible to agrcater or lesser degree in the various components ofprivate property-it is most evident in the relations ofdisposal, and least evident in the relations of use.

nians to money-lenders and bought back Athenianssold abroad by their creditors, Engels emphasised spe-, ilicnlly this aspect. 'Thus, an entirely new elementwiw introduced into the constitutionl private owner-slrilr.'3 It is precisely with the help of private propertytlrat the parasitic ruling class, formed of merchants,rrron,rv-lenders and members of the gentile aristocra-cy, 'oaptures the management of production as a wholeand cconomically subjugates the producers to its

1 *obcrt Ardrey, The Tenitoria, ,^O"roluff"Al:^::r;:":

chenbild. Y crlagI 38-

I]9

rule; a class that rnakcs itself the indispensable inter-mediary between any two producers and exploitsthem troth'. 1

Thc appearance o{ such an institution as pril,atepropertv in tioned by a parti-cular level productive forcesand of the s hus the emergcnceof private property is not the fruit of the intellr:ct,and'not the realisation of the abstract goals of ccr-tain social groups. The emergence of privatc propcrtvis explained by the growing need for a radicaih.- newmethod of socially regulating production and consump-tion which opened up for rnankind the possibili-ty of further developing productive forces and culture.

The gcnetic 'ladder' of transitional stagcs whichonce led man fr:om primitive gentile-tribal properfito private property of the bourgeois type can be tnacedon the basis of -A.frican rnaterial. Moreover, in ,Af-rica, these ancicnt (that is, in comparison with thepresont stage in hurnan history) processes today opr:-rate sidt: by sidc, interact and occasionallv rningle inthe most curious fashion with modcrn econornic trendsin the regulation of human relations in terrns of land,livestocli, implement^s and oth er objcctive prcrequisi{ rsof socinl production, hends $picafl of cotrntrics ofdifferin g social orientation.

In a large part of Tropical Afnica land harl not, un-til very rcccntly, becomc ara object of privatc prclper-ty and a means of the exploitation of man by rnaruThe collective ownership of land does, it is true, in thevast majority of cases, co-exist with a farnily-individ-ual rnode of using it. Tho existence of unuscd, uncul-tivated land made collectivc labour necossarv itr orrlerto hring such land under cultivation (the struggle withthe jungle, hoe farming where thc tsetse ftry rnartre theuse of, draught anirnals antl thr: plough ,impossible,

I lbid., p.323.

120

r.t,'")".'l he cornrnunal p,.abr.lil.I thar Iht land 'bci

the useit betronAfricalrcam lie

flowever, dre evolutiopr()prrty discover,,d by Elicrc, dso. [i was stirmrjat

? "r[rip o{ catrlc,t orrrr:non is alsoIp'

.tt.lt I r-, qt f,it,n.rb t I oc r. irl,, "t t ub "" l-ans, I939, p^ 4J [

"tt'ne qui meurtr, Marcel FIa.

dlrrc, Prt:sscs univi,rsitaircs de

I

I

12i

in socialist-orientated countries to use communal forms

of ownership anonc.e typical ofsoclo-economrchistoricd fate

I

I

I

I

1 I. L Potekh'n, Africa Looks to the Fulure, Moscow,1960- o. 44 (in Russian).--"'il"r.

ivoaai., Africa. The wav Aheod, Lawrence &Wishait. l,ondon. 1963, PP. 3I-32.

t22

Vtrnii" TIIXI Iir.liil .G],i.{CI 0"..' T.fXii STA.[fi

The 0r.igim r.rf ,,;l:,; St.i,le

upon gentes, plrratries, a

ir::i. ;s [he oIr.ir.r,Iivr. l.r'sul([ was tlris llrat r:nabl"d l,iur [o l,;rr1.!qf. ;t i.rr! ! 1., ..

lilatr.nir.lisl exp!anatiun oflVtrt-,rql,r vir rverl Iirc ir,sti{,'xpioir,'r suc;,/-i1 Llrrorrgll iri,"tr"cta-rtr tlrc r-1,.':,,.nIr .rf iltive r:on t,r:rdic'cioms rnarl.;innation of gcntile rclationsl

t:tween thc gcn;st&'ie iis tlte: negation of the gcns

trini;cls rcn',,.i*cin15ly riunonstrratcC [.trat i.hr,tirrr-61n,ovrth' o{ stats: por,^,,cr fror;t vit[.iL]us L:rrlrlrili [)1 tir(] tjrirg

1211

rnras oniy 6v1s,

frorn tire gcntileOf particular irrof the procrss

incrt,asimglr-of llrc,lirin-nce. of new

of populationr,v sizt on grew, and.,el nal procoss thatw int The indiscri-rmin*ite mingling nf the gcrrtiles antl phnators,' corn-mcnted hlngels, 'thnoughout the rvirole of -A.ttica, andespecially in the city of Athens, increased frorrr gene-ration to generation.". TIac population was now dividednccorrling to occupation into rather rqell-dcfinedflroups, each of nhicfir had a nurnbcr of ncw, conlrnoninterests that found no place in thc gcns or phratry'and, thcrefore, necessitated the creation of ne-w o{fi-

c h regulated everything'"zo ecrl for. progressive cconornic rlcvcl-

o i ever broader integration of the

-l' li" i"nlel:. ()l!. cil., l'. 2;rl.z lbirl.. p. ?6r.r.

L25

producers a necessitv. At this stage, an increase inthe efficiency of production was achieved mainlyby an increase in its scale, The new social relationsand links extended further and further bel,ond the

tile-the

+iThe association of communities increased the needto regulate production. Outside the gentile struc-tures, by the fusion of the leadership of various corn-munities, a special stratum took shape which distanced

came to the fore.

The Features of the State as a Machine of Suppression

basic trends in the development of the system of self-governmen-t into the political organisation of society,the core of which is the state.

.Elgglg show-ed that the authority of the gentile-tribal elders and the force of custom initiatlv re-flectedthe interests of the whole of society, a society whichknew nothing of the developed diviiion of labour andsocio-proprietary differentiati on between families and

itself from direct participation in production arsimply regulated it 'from above'. Their new, proprielry-economic interests went beyond the ties of kinship.Noble and wealthy families, wrote Engels, 'began tounite outside of their qentes into a privileged class...'2unite outside of their gentes into a privileged cliss...'2For the time beins this class also dealt with publicFgr. thq time.being, this. clgfs also dealt^with publicaffairs, but objectively it had its own specific economicinterests distinct from public interests.

Such, historicallv, was the first separation of a rul-ing class. This class had nt ed of the state. The objec-tive identity of the economic conditions of life of thisgroup of people, ever rnore sharply divided off fromthe rest of the population, served as the basis for anassociation of the representatives of differe,nt, at timestraditionally hostile gentes in an extra-gentile stand-ing both above and against the gens community. Atthe other end of the social scale, at the very bottomof the social structure, were people who had no gens,no material wealth, people, whom the twists of fatehad expelled from their kinship communities.

As mankind enters the upper stage of barbarism andthe iron age, and as social differentiation intensifies,public power (in the form of a military democracy)

I lbid., p. 267.z lbid., p.277.

L26

ction andieta-

L2?

and pslchological rcpression. Public po\{,er, born ofthc nced for 'the perforrnance of common actir-i-tics arising from the nature of all communities'.1arrd preserving a numher of these functions, separatesoff ftorn the mass o{ the peoplc antl increasinglv be-conre€ an instrunrent of coercion in the hands of theprivileged 6lite nhich dcvelops into thc ruling class. a

rncans of cnforcing its \{,-iil anri certain stereotypes ofsocial behaviorrr on the nrajority of the peoplc. Thestate becomes a machine for the reprcssion and oppres-sion of disuclvantaged social strata and groups br' theexploiting elitc of society. It is this rvhich constitutesthe essence of the state as an institution of antagonis-tic class societ1,.

llngels' definition of fhe exploiter state as an 'in-strulnent of exploitation' and 'a machine' for the re-pression and coercion of the exploited into forcedlabour was trater repcated time and again hy l,enin inhis worl< Thc State and Retolution. Usingvividmetaph-ors he depi(rted 1) the ol-rjective growth in th,, cornplex-itv of the state sl.ructure, 2) the trernendous growthof theof the political power and ideological opportunitiesof the class which has seized state power in ordcr toof the class which has seized state pcsecure its own basic economic interests.

in check... This pttlic power exists in et'ery state:it consists not merely of armed men, but also of ma-terial adjuncts. prisons and institutions of coercion ofall kinds, of which gentile [clan] society knew noth-rng.''

ththcoabas land, buildings, etc.

gels as public taxation and the existence of state debts.

The establishment of a special public power direct-etl against the mass of the population proved cssentialhecause 'a self-acting armetl <,rrganisation of tlrc popu-lation has bccome irnpossible since the split intoclasses'.2 What, in fact, replaced it? Engels. thinking ofancient Greece, as a classic example of the operationof this particular law, rvrote: "I'he people's army of theAthenian democracv was an aristocratic public poweragainst the slaves, ivhom it kept in check:however, a

gendarrnerie also became necessarr to kcep the citizens

1 Karl Marx, Copitut, \'ol. lil, Progress Publishcrs, l\{oscow,1{)77, p.384.

2 h-. Lngels, op. cit., p. 327.

128

I tbid.2 Ibtd., p. zB2.

I 87s r29

The significance of this feature of the state is underestimated in literature on this topic. Taxes are a parti-cular source of funds to maintain the machine thatrepresses the working people at the cost of the exploit-ed working people themselves. Moreover, it is an addi-tional (in relation to ex-ploitation), extra-prod thesurplus and partly the ex-ploited classes. (raised fromother states an e), graduallydeveloped into stem of tax-ation, In effect, autonomoussystem for securing the economic viability ofthe state,a system increasingly independent of the will of indi-vidual citizens, and which served to widen still furtherthe gulf between the state and the working people.In order to maintain the public power, which hadraised itself above and stood over against the mass of thepopulation, Engels writes, 'contributions from thecitizens become necessary-tdres. These were absolute-ly' unknown in gentile society...'. And he continues:'fu civilisation advances, these taxes become inade-quate; the state makes drafts on the fuhrre, contractsloans, public debts.'r

The Dialectic of the Genesis of the State

t lbid., p. 328.

r30

fence of the members of the gens against a hostilenatural environment Property differentiation and thesocial antagonisms it gave rise to led to its disruptionand its division into an elite that usurped social privi-leges, and a mass of ordinary gentiles who sufferedfrom discrimination.

In these changed social conditions, the gentile sys-

tem lost its vitality. '... It was powerless to check orallay even the most distressing evils that were arisingurder its very. eyes,' noted fngels. However, insofaias it 'could not come to the assistance of the exploit-ed people, they could look only to the rising state'.lThe wbrking people of ancient civilisations foundthemselves, io to speak, between the devil and thedcep. On the one hand they were threatened with thearbinary rule of a tribal elite that had separated offfrom its fellows, while on the other thev faced the pri-

on of moneyJending, whichframework of the gens. Thethe power of wealth, the tri-nouueau)c riches-the money-

Ienders-together marked out the channel of socialdevelopment during the concluding stages of the prim-itive-communal formation. In these confitions, theemergent state became the 'binding force of civi-lised-society'. It replaced the now defunct bondsof kinship, which had been narrowly local by theirnature. With the help of the state, owners of themeans of production and non-owners are integratedinto. one socio-economic system and the inevitablecompetition among the property-owners themselvesis regulated.

Another aspect of the dialectic of the genesis of thestate is that, in contrast to the genesis of private pro-perty, it is the power-regulatory relations between in-dividuals and between social groups, which appear

1 Ibid., p. 2Bo.

r31

production.Engels

lic power,as a formtain socialfollows that the state emerges as an organisation ofpropertv owners directed against those who own noproperty, as an organisation for the defence of the priv-ileges of the former against potential and actual cliimsby the latter.

This interpretation of t}e essence of the statemakes it an argued criticismof the th s schohrs who speakof the wer relations fromthose of theories of 'mana-

t32

vier,vs-ignore th_e class essence of the state as the oppos-ite of the social selof tJre social self-government of gentile society.

Even lhose scholars who base. themselves- rupon

that the state arose first, and then classes emirged.Others believe that classes preceded the state, w-hilestill others point out that initially these institutionalisedforms were not differentiated within the frameworkof the class state.

that of the state.To this day the debate continues on the essence of

to easterntion of the, H;'H:

the class essence of the state are led, by the compleiityof its genesis, to elaboiate various points of viei. Th'edebate centres on the question of the temporal cor-relation of the processes-involved in the emergence ofclasses and the emergence of the state. Some of theclasses and the emergence of the state. Som6 of theresearchers studvins this ouestion are of the oninionresearchers studying this question are of the opinion

t)rtgyn o,f the Family, Lliuate lloperty and the State.T .ryrr.6!n oj lne .pamtty, rTtuate rToperty and the State.f1^fh_q prSface to the second edition of Anti-Diihing(1885), Engels wrote that he would have liked toelucidate more preciselv the section on ancient history,

1 Rogcr Pinto, Madeleine Grawitz, Mithodes des scit:ncessocides, t. I, Pr6cis Dalloz, Paris, 1964, pp. 136, 150.

133

but that the publication oI The Origin of the Family,Piuate Property and the State fueed, him from such anecessity. This statement is incorrectly understood bysome modern scholars to mean Engels' virtual rejec-tion of the conclusions he came to in his Anti-Diihr-ing on the basis of material on the ancient East.

Engels saw the military democracy as a form of thetransifron from the gentile organisation of public self-govemment to state power, a transition taking placein the typical conditions of military operations under-taken as a particular means of securing basic neces-sities for whole peooles at the stase of barbarism. Apeoples at the stage of barbarism. Atotally ite form of the emergence of the func-totally opposrte torm of the emergence of the tunc-tions and apparatus of state power could have beenthe hypertrophied intensification of executive poweron the basis of the common economic requirements ofon the basis of the common economic requirements oIa large number of communities in specific ecologicalconditions which demanded regular irrigatior orconditions which demanded regular irrigatior orother forms of centralised activit! by largd numbersof people. Placing, as Morgan had done, the empha-sis on military democracl', Engels saw it as the dialec-tical opposite of eastern despotism, which he anal-

gradrral rise of public authority out of and side byside with the original constitutions of the Marks,village, manors and towns',1 which is not directlylinked to taking war prisoners and military conquests.In this book Engels looks at the various ways in whichthe state emerges from the point of view of the relativeimportance of internal and external factors, and notfrom the point of view of economico-organisational ormilitary-organisational tasks, as he did in ,4nri-Diihing.

1 F. Iingels, op. t'it., p. 265.

134

Characteristic features of the dialectic of the emer-gence -of t\e sta-te can_ be identified in the superstruc-

e of newly-independent African states.The nationalJiberation struggle swt

ture of newly-independentstruggle swept away the

of colonial administration,fiscal-repressive apparatus ofwhich was replaced by a new

administration,fiscal-repressivewhich was replaced by a new type of superstructurewhose nature was determined by social-socialist orc apitalist-orientation of the n ewly-independent c oun-tries. These countries, whichever their orientation, mustc apitalist-orientation of the n ewly-independent c oun-tries. These countries, whichever their orientation, musttake into account the local conditions. Colonialism hadpreserved (albeit in a radically distorted form) thetraditional gentile-tribal system of social regulationof the behaviour of various sex-age groups, a systemwhich had sunk into age-old lethargy and which neededeither to be aroused or removed.

In capitalist-orientated newly-in depen dent countries,the process of 'adapting'the lower links in the super-structure to the pro-bourgeois model of the state as

formulated 'in the upper circles' objectively involvesthe forcible destruction of all vestiges of the gentile sys-tem. As for socialist-orientated African states, the ideaof Morgan of the future return of mankind, within the{ramework of a higher social order', to a specific formof the 'freedom, equality and brotherhood of the anci-ent gentes', albeit expressed in an abstract-naive form,is of increasing relevance. This idea, essentially compa-tible with the whole of Marxist doctrine, drew theclose attention of Marx and Engels. Today we can see

in this idea a spontaneous approach, not perceived byMorgan himself, to the idea of 'straightening out' thehistorical trajectory of the development of nationswho have preserved the traditional gentile-tribal andcommunal forms of social life. Morgan himself, as a

result of his adhgrence to the evolutionist principle of a

smooth, harmonious, gradual and consistent sequenceof historically inevitable stages, did not formulate suchan approach, although all the prerequisites for itexist in his work.

135

The Class Essence of State Power

136

a power seemingly standing above societv that wouldalleviate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of"order"; and this power, arisen out of society but plac-ing itself above it, and alienating itself more and morefrom it, is the state.'1

The essence of all variants of the exploiter state re-sides in the fact that 'it is, as a rule, the state of themost powerful, economicallv dominant class, which,through the medium of the state, becomes also the po-

termined a corresponding type of state. 'Thus, the stateof antiquity was above all the state of the slave ownersfor the purpose of holding down the slaves, as thefeudal state was the organ of the nobilitv for holdingdown the peasant serfs and bondsmen, and the modemrepresentative state is an instrument of the exploitationof wage labour by capital.'a It is not difficult to seethat the historical types of the exploiter state corre-spond to the 'three great forms of servitude, characte-ristic of the three great epochs of civilisation',4 slavery,feudalism and capitalism.

Finally, concluding The Origin of the Family,

and the development of socialist society towards com-munisrn 'Along with them [classes-Ed.] the state will

1 F. Engels, op. cit., pp.326-27.z lbid., p. 3zB.3 Ibid.a Ibid., p. 332.

137

popular of Engels' works,2 ^and himself relied heavilyon Engels' interpretation of the origin and essence ofthe state. This is shown in Lenin's -The

State and Re-uolution, which was written in August, 1917, on theeve of the Great October Socialist Revolution.

'The state is a product and a manifestation of the

it'.4

world as- The Origin of the Family, Priuate Propertyand the State. Lenin skilfully reveals the link befween

1 Ibid., p.330._. | SCC Y.-! L"4rt, 'The State and Revolution,, Coilet:t,edWorks,Yol.25, p. 399.

3 lbid.. o. 392.+ ruia., b. sg+.

138

this book and the most urgent problems of his dav.'Like all geat revolutionan' thinkers, Engels tries todraw the attention of the class-conscious workers towhat prevailing philistinisof attention, as the mostpre.judices that are notmight say, petrified. A s

the chief ln.tr1lmsnts ofbe otherwise?'l asks the author of The State andRet:olution.

Developing this idea further, l,enin praises the rele-vance of Engels'practical tasks ofthe above argumetically the very same guestlution raises before us inis more, on a scale of mass action, namely the questionof the relationship between "special" bodies of arrrred

men and the "sell-acting armed organisation of the po-pulation". We shall see-how this question is speciallyillustrated by the experience of the European and Rus-

sian revolutions.'2At the same time Lenin, revealing extraordinary-

insight and looking in[o th a precise

epis"temological prognosis o and pos'

ribl" frtrte speculative dist rxist the-ory oD the essence and his the statein opportunist-revisionist and nihilist-anarchist con-

of the Marxist theory of thethe state, based on material

ancient history, could not butattract the close attention of Lenin on the eve of thevictorious socialist revolution in Russia' It is equallvclear that the ideas on the correlation of direct collec-

I lbid.2 lbid., p. 395.

I :lg

140

cratic discussion of common affairs is being used toawaken the socio-class and political consciousnessof the people, particularly the peasants. Thus in Ethi-

assemblies of alt the inhabitants of the village or towndistrict, or of all the workers at an enterprise, is alsoreminiscent of the traditional palabre, as are certainfeatures of the lvork of local popular assemblies inAngola.

The strategy of deliberately 'adopting' collectivisL-democratic customs, procedures and instifutions thathave been cleansed of the grime of cenfuries of op-pression and exploitation, is intended to help the broadworking population to become involved in the stmc-ture of the emerging revolutionary-democratic state.The opportunity to take an active part in new socialrelations leads the working people beyond the narrowconfines of direct gentile-tribal intercourse, and thispromotes the formation and expansion of their poli-tical views. Where this aim is either not pursued (incapitalist-orientated countries), or it is not properlysolved for a considerable period of timc, the psycho-logical replacement for this (formerly) customarymethod of securing emotional expression and reassu-rance is found in religious belief, whose message ofeguality, brotherhood, muhral aid and concem forone's neighbour corresponds to the moral norms oftribal society.

IX. THE FORMATION OF CLASS SOCIETY:THE FIRST SOCIAL REVOLT]TION

Contradictory Trends in the Formation of aClass Society

rich and poor was added to that between freemen andslaves...'1 In other words-, surplus labour and surplusproduct can be alienated both-from members of o'ne,s

1 F. Engels, op. cit., p. 321.

L42

own oommunity or tribe (by the usurpation of'thecommunal fund and collective works by the tribalelite) and from people belonging to other tribes.

There is also a manifest tendency for the socialstafus of these groups to converge; the adoption of'aliens'into one's own community and the enslavementof members of one's own community for debt andtheir sale abroad. This was the situation, for example,in ancient Greece just before the reform of Solon:'They arose in two ways,'1 wrote Engels about therelationships based on domination and subjection.First, they arose because the 'independence of socialfunctions in relation to society increased with tinreuntil it developed into domination over socieq''...'2This trend is often referred to in modern literature onthe subject as proto-feudal. It reproduces the generalcharacteristics of tJre social relations of feudalism,based on the exploitation and oppression of one's ownpeople. This type of class formation initially existed inlhe civilisations of t}e ancient East, which were basedupon the universal slavery of the direct producers,grouped together in monolithic communities.-

Second, at the earlier stage of barbarisrn, membersof other tribes wh<l had either been captured or whohad arrived in the community by some ot}er meansand who were then adopted into the community,brought their labour power into the 'common labourpool'. The simple increase of the number of those in-volved in the unified production process brought itsbenefit without the need for discrimination or oppres-sion. This phenomenon was simply 'forcible incorpora-

soeial organisation. with equalre there is no use of the surplusut only the common advantage

1 F. Engels, Anti-Diihring, Progress Publishers, Moscow,1978, p. 279.

2 lbid., p.220-

143

The inter-relationship and mutual determinationo{ the trends describei above in the formation ofclasses is confirmed by contemporary historical ma_terial.

, 1 Gerrrgi. Plckhanov. Selected phitosophicol Works in five

"'"iii'i:,\ ;ii.l 1,1"..,6il;.iJ tl

:

.l; t'

r\rosio *' t q7 6, p. 1 4 4 -

t44

whe_n Russia emerged onto the international grainmarket.

Thirdly, both trends (the exploitation of one's ownpeople, and the exploitation of 'aliens') have one com-mon ancestor-the social forms of the period of transi-tion from the primitive order to the class society. Thisperiod i^s characterised by the simultaneous co-exig-tence of both forms of oppression, due to under-development.

The society of ancient Egypt and other similar so-cial organisations never made the transition to theslave-owning mode of production which found its

Irrigation demanded the efforte of sldlled men whohad a vital interest in the result of labour, with centu-ries of accumulated experience behind therru There-fore the 'living implement'-the ancient glave- did notplay a significant role in vitally important branches ofthe economic systenL At the same time, the level ofarmamente was not yet sufficient to make possible theregular capture and'exploitation of huge numbers ofslaveg.

I'he logic of the historical process is not to beiden-tified with either one of these two trentls cither inspace or time.

145

form the tendency in ancient Easteru civilisations

. When M-organ and Engels investigated this problem,it was still not known -with

anv iertaintv ihat the'Greek miracle' arose upon the foundation of centu-ries-old layers of transitional historical local forms

and Rome with which he was acquainted were theresult not only of contemporary social conditions, butalso .of .'the preeeding history, of which we knownothrng'.

Feudalism was neither a dircct heir to the classicalIt grew obetween,of the tenornic m

L46

shape not in the bog of a declining civilisation, but inthe- travail of a new,' cornmented Engels. 'Betu'eenthe Roman colonus and the new serf there had beenthe free Frankish peasant.'1

In historical science prior to Marx prevailed anidealistic evaluation of slavery as 'a source of shame'and 'an error of history', and of feudalism as 'a thou-sand-year period of lethargy in Europe', 'a hiatusin history', 'a historical vacuum'. Engels refuted suchviews and showed, on the basis of concrete historicalmaterial, that these two stages in social developmentwere objectivel-v* inevitable and dialectically inter-re-Iated.

Engels explicitly stated (and historical data con-firms this) that precisely 'with slavery, which reachedits fullest development in civilisation, came the firstgreat cleavage of society into an exploiting and anexploited class... Slavery was the first form of exploi-tation, peculiar to the world of antitluit;-...'2 At thesame time, however, he recognises the possibilitt ofthe completion of class formation directly in the formof feudalisrq for example, in the history of the ancientGermans. Engels believed that an important material

theofno

gariae lost their former advantage loth or", .rrr"rfi-scale farming, which 'again became the only profit-able form',4 and over handicrafts, and therefore slaveswere either emancipated or fumed into coloni. Power-ful barbarian military chiefs and, following theirexample, the church, began to take under their protec-

] F. Engels, 'The Origin of the l'amily...', p. 31d.i lbid., pp. 331-32.I [bid., p. 310.* lbid., p. 309.

0+ r47

new age.

r lbid., p. tto.

I48

the worst disorder, and the barbarians, against whomthe state pretended to protect its citizensiwere hailedby them as saviours.'l These words by Engels aboutthe world dominion of the Roman Empire are morethan a mere metaphor. They reflect the influence ofthe slave-orvning mode of production, which had herereached its apogee, not only on the exteneive barbarianperiphery, but on the entire course of the historicaldevelopment of mankind at that time. Thus the denialof the historical inevitabilityobjectively necessary modecan sometimes be found in schfied. The view that the classic

are quite strictly localised is nompts to find developed slaverynation that has entered class

society.Within the slave-owning mode of production,

civilisation embraced mainly handicrafts an-d the towns

of the latter rural periphery.Thus the be not a hiatus inhisto-ry, but s in its gradualdevelopment of the -former

mode of production.

1 Ibid., pp. 307-08.

t49

The First Social Revolution:Essence and Forms

The object of the social struggle which first beganin the ancient world were the tiiditions of collecfivelabour, equal distribution and the democratic resolu-

150

force) against the rvilfully desobedient and poor but

PS,oftu-ve-

communal sociew* within which thel' had been gradual-

tagonisms which had developed in -{rabia (among theBeldouin tribes. in the tor,r-ns based on trade and han-dicrafts, and in the oasis-based farrning communities)outside, onto the non-Arab, non-Muslim peoples who,

r F. Engels, 'The Origin of the Famil-v...', p. 280.

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assessing it, describes it as a 'revolution'.This"revolution was a slave-owning revolution. It

occurred in a society standing on the threshold ofclass:ntasonisms. Bv this time. the enslavement of fellow-antagonisms. BY this time,Greeks was proceeding apa,Greeks was proceeding apace, while, at the same time'strenuous eif orts *"fo_ l:Tq,i:11"*:: ^:"l_Tf::

g:single' Greek nation against

-the barbarian tribes -andallia"nces that surrounaia lt. 'fhe economic possibility

slaves and freemen, dependents and citizens.'2This revolution in property relations affected all

other social ties. One can irnagine the enthusiasm of

reform, made several attempts to mount a counter-at-tack and to restore the former order of thinp, so advan-

ver this law tontinuedd another revolutiona-er to consolidate it. Arnmcnt of the popula-

r F. Engels, 'The Origin of the Family.. -', p. 282.2 Ibid., p. 284.

153

tion was introduced with the aim of undermining the1ig!t of thc elite, who drew their strength Tromkinship fies. The whole of Attica was dividejinto onehundred self-governing townships or demes, the citi-zens of which elected from among their own number

thirty judges and alsoAnd once again we find

ose adoption is linked tols uses the term 'revolu-

- writes, 'tried to regain itsformer privileges and for a short time recovEred itss_upremacy, _until the revolution of Cleisthenes (509B. C.) brought about its final downfall; and with tiremfell the last remnants of the gentile constitution.,l

As for the emergence of the class society and thestate in ancient Rome, the measures adopted by Ser-vius Tullius were in many respects similai to those ofSolon. While refraining fiom commenting on the cir-cumstances and details of this process dr]e to the un-reliability

^of informaqion, _ Engels nonetheless quite

clearly defines it as a 'revoluti6n that put ,., "rrd

tuthe old gentile constitution', to which he added that'its causes lay in the conflicts between the plebs andthe populus'.2

Tht: Rornan world found itself in an impasse as aresult of thc declirring '

labour,and . th.e . yrofou-n!, againstph1'sical labour felt .O"nlv

acomplete revolution '3 *-t"Engels.. Marx and Engels viewed the anti-slave-owningrevolutjon as a factoi of world-historical imporlanee.However, they fid not identify such a revoluion withslave rebellions for their liberation, with 'slave revolu-tion'. Moreover, Engels wrote that the ancient worltl

r lbid., p. 282.? lbid.,-p. 2e2.r lbid., p. 310.

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He linked the overthrort of the slave-owning system

slowed down and diverted from its main course.

I Ihid.. o.315.2 F. Engels, Anti Diihing, p.422.

15s

urgent necessity. The state, emerging as a maehineot oppression, rested on the discharqetf a number offunctions which derive 'from the nature of all corrrmun-

n of lhe social producrion of thee and of the pioduction of manese new conditions, with the firstuman historv.

Basingformationfurther acreatively

1 Cf. K. Marx,Capital, Vol. lII, p. 384.

r56

ment of ancient history fundamentallv determined

ical progress.Witni" the framework of the first social revolution,

one of the two dialectically opposed trends of deve-lopment came to predominate. I'rom the pointof vie* of its socio-economic prerequisites, the replace-

interest in the ancient Eastwith Morgan's book which

rticularly on identifying that'unit' of society within which the radical change insocial relations caused by the development of theproductive forces actually took place. In the ant:ient

r57

East, the basis of this development was the organisa-tion of centralised social labour, primarily in irriga-tion (called by economists the effect of scale). In theMediterranean, increase in labour productivity was

turbed but not destroyed, were quite literallv 'com-oressed' into the loundation of the socio-economicItructures and crushed by the weight of the despotic

the state, but, on the contrary, was swept up onto thesurface, sharply outlined against the traditions of prim-itive democracy. Clearly, therefore, it is not srrrpris-ing that the author of The Origin of the Family, hiuatePr-operty and the Srare uses the term 'revolution' forthe first time in relation to the sphere of family rela-tions, to the patriarchal familv. Where this revolutionin tribal and family relations did not oc:crrr or was

incomplete gentile-tribal and cornmunal-caste rela-tions ossified in their initial primitive form. Over thecourse of thousands of years, these relations formed, inthe words of EngeJs, invariable basis of ancient Easterncivilisations. It 6ould not be shaken even by the mostrutJrless despotisrq nor by the storms in the sphere ofpolitics, nor by the catacll,sms like the destructive in-vasions of nomads. Thus the development of ancientEastern societies towards class antagonisms stag'nated.

Nonetheless, not only in its ancient eastern, buteven in its Greco-Romanand German-Barbaric variantsthe first social revolution was an extremely longdrawn-out process.

158

to antagonistic class socictY -

CONCLUSION

The book The Origin of the Family,Priuate Proper-ty and the State provides a reasoned and convincingconfirmation of the basic tenets of the dialectical ma-terialism as applied to the pre-capitalist stage of humanhistory. Engels was the first to show that ancient so-ciety was governed bv the same laws of development asthe other formations preceding communism. In partic-ular, ancient history and pre-bourgcois social struc-tures are characterised bv sharp contradictions betweenthe productivc forces and production relations, and astruggle between strata and groups whose fundamentalmaterial interests come into conflict, Finally, socialrevolution became the means of replacing the primitivesocio-economic formation with one or other form of

ofcoof

lltrg.rri.ti" class formations. l'his theory 'makes itand specify thelaws of historl.peoples.legacy of En-

gels retains its full rclevancc, whilc his book ?heOrigin of the Family, Piuate Property and the Statescrves as a classic examplc of a genuincly dialectic anal-ysis of the major problems of ancicnt histor,v.

t$

In addition to publishing the works ofMarx, Engels and I*nin, progress publish-ers also issues pamphlets on individualworks of Marxism-Leninism for thosestudying Mamist-Leninist theory.

In the present pamplrlet, the Sovietscholar Igor Andreyev examines some ofthe key questions discussed in Engels,The Orisin of the Family, Private hoper-ty and the State. He concentrates in par-ticular on the stages in the developmentof primitive society and the transition toantagonistic class formations, on the his-

and familyo te propertyh also touch

briefly upon modern inys5figation intothe issues raised by Engels.