The social character of historical science determines the very meaning of its existence. History, like any science, is unthinkable outside of society, but society does not exist without history. In bourgeois society, there are often skeptical judgments about the role of history in society. Some bourgeois authors believe that history is at best a subjective view of the past, since the object of research has irrevocably disappeared and cannot be reconstructed with sufficient reliability. Others believe that a deep insight into the past is possible, but only if the researcher is isolated from the present, and the criteria for evaluating the material are developed independently of the scientist. Still others argue that in the era of the scientific and technological revolution, history has either outlived its social function, or it must radically change its methodology, adopt the methods of natural and exact sciences, and only after that it will be possible to talk about history as a science. All these skeptics actually deny historical science its social significance.

The experience of history shows, however, that distrust of the social possibilities of historical knowledge, doubts about the effectiveness of the methods used by him to know the past, and sometimes even in the very possibility of this knowledge, arise, as a rule, among historians belonging to the social environment that, for historical reasons, feels insecure about its own present and future. On the contrary, among the rising, progressive classes and social forces, social optimism extends not only to the present and future, but also to the possibility and reality of knowing the past.

Marxist-Leninist historical science helps not only to see the connection of times and generations, but above all to more clearly present the continuity of social tasks and the inevitability of the victory of the new over the old. On this basis, it asserts historical optimism in the human mind. A truly progressive, revolutionary class does not lose hope for the future of its movement, even in the most difficult moments

The article is based on an abridged and revised text of the main report at the XIV International Congress of Historical Sciences in San Francisco (August 1975). Authors of the report: A. I. Danilov, V. V. Ivanov, M. P. Kim, Yu.S. Kukushkin, A.M. Sakharov, N. V. Sivachev. For the discussions at the XIV Congress, see: E. Zhukov, O. Sokolov. History and society. To the results of the XIV International Congress of Historical Sciences. "Kommunist", 1976, N 2; A.M. Sakharov, S. S. Khromov. XIV International Congress of Historical Sciences. Voprosy istorii, 1976, No. 3; S. L. Tikhvinsky, V. A. Tishkov. Problems of Modern and contemporary History at the XIV International Congress of Historical Sciences. "New and recent History", 1976, N 1; Yu. S. Kukushkin. XIV International Congress of Historical Sciences. "Teaching history at school", 1976, N 2; A.M. Sakharov. On some methodological issues at the XIV International Congress of Historical Sciences (notes of a delegate). Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta, Istoriya Seriya, 1976, No. 3.

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defeats. Marxist historical science is imbued with historical optimism - a belief in the future of the socialist system.

Analysis of the relationship between history and society is the most important need for the development of historical science, which now has a particularly high social responsibility. Progressive forces in foreign historiography are well aware of the need for this. The contemporary American Marxist historian G. Apteker warns: "There is no more sensitive area of intellectual activity than historical science: a lie in interpreting the past leads to failures in the present and prepares a catastrophe in the future." 1
It is well known that each historical epoch with its definite stage of development of socio-economic relations corresponds in general to a stage of knowledge of the objective world in general, and of historical knowledge in particular. The development of society complicates the historical process, and the task of historical science is always to determine the connection between the present and the past (and vice versa), to find out the genesis and formation of new phenomena of reality, to trace the entire chain of social changes taking place. At the same time, it is not only a question of finding the germs, prerequisites, and conditions for the emergence of modern phenomena in the past, and explaining their origin. The fact is that the emergence of new phenomena and processes of modernity draws the attention of the historian to new aspects of the historical past that were not previously included in the subject of his knowledge. Scientific methodology, therefore, reflects the natural connection between the development of historical science and modernity.

Contributing to social progress, history has always received from society not only a kind of order to study the past, but also a cognitive arsenal corresponding to the era. If the development of modernity is unthinkable without historical knowledge, then historical knowledge cannot but be influenced by modernity in all aspects of its development-from generalizing philosophical theories to technical means of preserving and transmitting information.

The use of historical knowledge to justify the political goals of struggling social classes, governments, States, and other social institutions is one of the forms of social functioning of historical knowledge. Educational and moral purposes, for which historical knowledge has been and is still being used since very ancient times, are ultimately largely subordinated to the political goals of the social classes. However, it is impossible to present the matter in such a way that a political, party, or class interest in history determines only a deeply subjective approach to the past. In order to use the data of any science, the reliability of this data is necessary. This does not exclude, of course, the possibility of deliberate falsification of material in such a field of knowledge as historical science, where the object of study is the very subject of social development, humanity. But the element of approaching objective truth has always existed in historical knowledge. Without this, it could not play its role in social development, and, consequently, its existence in society would become meaningless and impossible. At the highest stage of development of social science, embodied in the theory of historical materialism, communist partisanship and scientific objectivity organically coincide with each other.

At the same time, it should be emphasized that Marxist science in all countries, fundamentally opposing all bourgeois-idealistic systems of understanding history, does not isolate itself from what has been achieved

1 H. Aptheker. The American Historical Profession. "Political Affairs", January 1972, p, 53.

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historical science along the entire path of its centuries-old development beyond the Marxist understanding of history, but critically perceives the entire wealth of world historical science, rethinking it and restoring a truly real, truly objective picture of the historical development of mankind. Marxist history does not fetishize the past, it presents the past as the past, the developing past, shows the negative aspects of the past, it does not justify it, but explains it scientifically, opening up the historical perspective of the struggle of humanity for its liberation from the exploitation of man by man and all its diverse products in all spheres of the spiritual life of society, educates humanism in its . Marxist historiography is thus an active force in the revolutionary reconstruction of the world.

*

The very emergence of historical knowledge was a response to the practical needs of people who needed to " accumulate experience in their activities. In the beginning, knowledge about the social past of people was not separated from knowledge about the experience of their interaction with nature. Over time, the social experience of people began to be isolated from the totality of developing knowledge. The appearance of religion clothed this experience in mystical and cultic shells, which, among other things, gave relative immutability to the interpretation (usually subjectivist) of the past, which was transmitted to subsequent generations in the form of oral tradition. In the later stages of the primitive communal system, when social differentiation began to develop, historical knowledge in the form of tribal and tribal traditions began to play a more significant role in social development. They began to serve to strengthen the authority of the tribal nobility, thereby contributing to the deep socio-economic processes that ultimately led to the exit of humanity from the primitive state to the stage of civilization with its classes and the state. Of course, the accumulation of historical knowledge was often accompanied by its distortion not only due to imperfect methods of recording and transmitting historical information, but also under the influence of the political interests of social classes and groups. Nevertheless, both in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, there was an active and meaningful process of accumulation and preservation of historical knowledge. The socio-political significance of history has not only not been lost, but, on the contrary, has developed even more. Historical writings were the most important ideological tool in the struggle of various slave-owning and feudal groups.

In modern times, in a developing and establishing bourgeois society, the relationship between history and society has taken on an entirely new form. As Karl Marx and Fr. According to Engels, " the first condition for the existence of all the former industrial classes was to preserve the old mode of production unchanged. The incessant revolutions in production, the incessant upheaval of all social relations, the eternal uncertainty and movement distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all others. " 3 Modern times have required historians to take a much more realistic view of society. It brought the historian out of the monastery cells and court apartments. Modernity itself pointed out to him the importance of understanding not so much traditions, but the forces that overcome them; from describing historical actions as examples for the future.

2 For more information, see: M. P. Kim. Istoriya i kommunizm [History and Communism], Moscow, 1968.

3 K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch. Vol. 4, p. 427.

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imitations she pushed to search for real causes and patterns of events.

The advent of the era of humanism and rationalism has given the profession of historian a new socio-political significance, consisting in a conscious desire to serve the spiritual emancipation of humanity. Overcoming providentialism opened up previously unseen possibilities for cognition of still separate but real aspects and connections of historical phenomena, confirmed the role of a real, earthly person in the course of events, but cognition itself was still fundamentally limited by its idealistic basis.

Historical works were intended and created now not for kings and tsars, but for society in the sense that humanists put into this word. This became especially noticeable in the XVIII century. Enlightenment ideologists finally separated civil history from ecclesiastical and religious history. They destroyed the feudal-theological schemes applied to history, enlightened society in the truest sense of the word. Voltaire and other representatives of the European Enlightenment took a deeper and broader view of the human past than anyone before them. They broadened the horizons of knowledge of history, deepened the degree of penetration into the past, and thereby strengthened the transformation of history into an independent field of scientific knowledge. It was at this time that reactionaries began to treat history as "the most dangerous product produced by the chemistry of intelligence."4
"The great men who in France enlightened their heads for the approaching revolution were themselves extremely revolutionary. They did not recognize any external authorities of any kind. Religion, the understanding of nature, society, the state system-everything was subjected to the most merciless criticism; everything had to be brought before the court of reason and either justify its existence or abandon it. The thinking mind has become the sole measure of all that exists... We now know that this realm of reason was nothing more than the idealized realm of the bourgeoisie... The great thinkers of the eighteenth century, as well as all their predecessors, could not get out of the framework that their own era set for them. " 5
The eighteenth-century rationalistic understanding of history significantly deepened our knowledge of the past. At the same time, it served the needs of public practice in a new way. If in France the enlighteners "only" prepared the revolution, in America they acted as its direct participants and leaders (B. Franklin, T. Jefferson, T. Payne). It was no accident that Europe associated the nascent republic in America primarily with the name of Franklin. With his historical and journalistic works, he created a powerful ideological arsenal, which was used by the fighters for American independence.

In Latin America, historiography was born along with the emergence of national states in the fire of national revolutionary wars. Here, in the 19th century, there was a tradition of active participation of professional historians in political activities. Prominent representatives of Argentine historiography D. F. Sarmiento and B. Mitre were presidents of the republic. C. Bocaiuva was the founder of the Republican movement in Brazil. M. B. Vicuna and A. Vives were not only major historians, but also influential statesmen of Chile.

In the countries of Eastern Europe, where "enlightened absolutism" was established, the rationalistic worldview in historiography served as a basis for the development of the state.

4 P. Valery. Regards sur le mond actuel. P. 1931, p. 63.

5 K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch. Vol. 20, pp. 16-17.

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to strengthen absolutism and thus meet the increasingly complex class-political interests of the ruling classes. Rationalist historians justified the historical role of the monarchy, which generally corresponded to the historical stage of development of these societies. At the same time, rationalist historiography turned historical knowledge into a science, began to develop a critique of sources, expanded the subject of history to include the history of the nobility, and created extra-religious (most often deistic) concepts of the history of their countries.

Social revolutions and national liberation movements of the 18th and 19th centuries radically expanded the scope of world history and enriched the subject of its studies. It was thanks to the socio-political perspective opened up by the French bourgeois Revolution of the late 18th century that major public achievements in historical science became possible : the discovery of classes and class struggle (in their pre-Marxist interpretation) by French historians of the Restoration period, F. Guizot, O. Thierry, and a comparative study of socio-economic and political processes in different countries.

In the first half of the 19th century, the principle of historicism spread in the knowledge of the past. The major events of the era - the French bourgeois Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, the profound changes that took place in public life before the eyes of one generation, forced us to abandon what became in the XVIII century. there are no traditional ideas about the immutability of motivational motives of people's activities. Each epoch now had to be understood not from the point of view of abstract "common sense", but as if from within, with the fullest possible consideration of its unique specifics and analysis of the processes of development, movement, the emergence of the new in the old, the struggle between the old and the new. Having become the methodological basis of the liberal-bourgeois trend in historiography in many countries, the Hegelian dialectic opened up the possibility of understanding history as an objectively occurring process, in which the actions of rulers are based not only and not so much on their own enlightened reason, but on the influence of objective conditions and laws of development of a given country. This methodology of historical knowledge allowed us to present the state as a historically emerging and developing social phenomenon, which is not at all adequate to autocratic power. Even the most prominent rulers were presented in a new light as a kind of "executor" of an objectively accomplished process, their importance was directly dependent not on their personal "wisdom" and other qualities, but on the degree to which their activities corresponded to objective conditions and the country's development needs that matured at the time of their rule.

Hegel's dialectic, which developed new principles of approach to the analysis of objective reality of the past and present, was a major achievement of historical knowledge. By presenting history as a process of development that takes place in the struggle of opposites, Hegel rejected both the modernization and idealization of the past that is characteristic of reactionary Romantics. Having made a major step forward in the development of scientific knowledge of history, he presented, however, the objective regularity of the historical process from a purely idealistic position. The result was his idealization of modernity in the face of the Prussian monarchy.

The complex processes of transition to bourgeois social order and the sharpening of national feeling led to a sharp increase in public interest in history in the first half and middle of the XIX century. Life now forced us to pay attention to economic phenomena and processes in the past and to the history of social relations, to try to connect them in a single understanding of the laws of historical development.

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explain where modern phenomena have come from, determine the objective course of events and prospects for further development. Thus, in nineteenth-century Germany, historians of the Lesser German school largely contributed to the ideological justification of the unification of Germany around Prussia. In the context of the rapid development of capitalism and the aggravation of the class struggle, the "new historical school" of German economists, headed by G. Schmoller, acted as a herald of social state reforms in the name of strengthening the bourgeois system. This has led to a change in views on the role of the state not only in the present, but also in the past. To the thesis of the Small Germans about the national mission of the Prussian monarchy, G. Schmoller, L. Brentano and their followers added the motive of the social mission of the Prussian state. Soon this concept of expanding the social role of the state was firmly embedded in historical science in all countries.

In Russia at that time, a new, liberal-bourgeois historical science was being formed in its objective political significance. "Life has the full right to ask questions of science; science has the duty to answer questions of life"-this is how the famous Russian liberal historian S. M. Solovyov formulated his understanding of the significance of historical science for modernity in 1858 .6 The historical concept developed by him was a bourgeois-liberal embodiment of the principles of Hegel's dialectic on the concrete historical material of Russia. The general character of Russian history appeared as a struggle between" tribal "and" state " principles, during which a powerful state grew up, not identical with the autocracy, but leading the country to European progress without revolutions and upheavals. Serfdom, which was an unavoidable evil in its time ("a heavy loan from the people"), has now outlived its usefulness - this was the new conclusion drawn from the standpoint of historicism by bourgeois-liberal historiography, it was its answer "to the questions of life". It opened up the possibility of understanding modernity as the eve of the inevitable fall of serfdom. In this bourgeois conception, the autocracy was deprived of its previously unshakable social positions, but the state, in accordance with Hegelian concepts, had to play a decisive role in social transformation. This conclusion had not only an anti-samoderzhavnoe, but to a greater extent anti-revolutionary content.

At the same time, the loss of their leading position in society by the old classes led to a crisis in their historical knowledge. In the first half of the nineteenth century, for example, this was clearly demonstrated by the Romantic school of historiography, which strongly opposed the idea of progress. Reactionary romantics idealized antiquity as it was before the French bourgeois Revolution of the late eighteenth century, hoping to save society from repeating its " excesses." Their view of man and humanity was imbued with a spirit of pessimism. Romanticism was a product of the pan-European reaction that followed the Napoleonic Wars. It was most fully presented in Germany and France. At the same time, of course, Romanticism is "not a desire to restore simply medieval institutions, but an attempt to measure the new society by the old patriarchal yardstick, namely, a desire to look for a model in the old orders and traditions that do not correspond to the changed economic conditions" 7 . When studying modernity, the romantic could at best point out some of its historical roots, but he was unable to explain this reality as a natural link in the historical process.

6 S. M. Solovyov. Collected Works, St. Petersburg. B / y, p. 887.

7 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 2, p. 236.

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The only theory that was alien to the extremes of Romanticism and the limitations of emerging positivism, a theory that gives a correct interpretation of the relationship between history and social practice, was the dialectical-materialist understanding of social life. Already in the German Ideology, Marx and Engels wrote: "The understanding of history consists in considering the actual process of production, starting precisely from the material production of immediate life, and understanding the form of communication associated with this mode of production and generated by it - that is, civil society at its various stages - as the basis of all history."8 The theory of historical materialism developed by Marx and Engels opened up the possibility of understanding the organic unity of the pre-capitalist past, the capitalist present, and the communist future of humanity. This theory of knowledge was further developed in Lenin's writings. In this light, its history appears as a natural-historical process of changing some socio-economic formations by others, as a process ultimately determined by the development of the productive forces and the relations of production corresponding to them. Thus, a holistic and interrelated study of the history of all aspects of social life, such as socio-economic, political, ideological, cultural, etc., became possible, as well as an understanding of the historical role of bourgeois society, the role of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

The fundamental difference between the theory of historical materialism and all previous methods of cognition of history and modernity was that it not only explained the world, but also opened up ways for its change. The study of the past from the standpoint of a materialistic understanding of history has created, on the basis of mastering the objective laws of social development, the possibility of such a knowledge of modernity, which is inextricably combined with its revolutionary transformation. At the same time, for Marxism, as Engels pointed out, its main propositions are "exact conclusions from historical facts and processes of development and have no theoretical or practical value outside of these facts and processes."9
The creation of a materialistic concept of the social process was a necessary qualitatively new stage in the development of historical science, which determined its prospects. The role of the theory of historical materialism is particularly evident against the background of the widespread positivist historiography in the 19th century.

Positivism penetrated deeply into the historiography of the second half of the XIX century. Although positivism, as a methodological and historiographical phenomenon, opposed the materialist understanding of history, it had to adapt to the recognition of the importance of the material conditions of society's life in history under the influence of modernity and the current level of scientific knowledge of the world as a whole. For a significant part of bourgeois historians, positivism has proved attractive because it is less dogmatic and pretentious than the openly speculative philosophical and historical schools, whose speculative recommendations have revealed their futility for historical knowledge. Positivism helped bourgeois historiography to put down deeper roots in society, to make a turn to socio-economic history, which previously historians, in fact, did not deal with. This has led to a broader view of historians, as they have become interested not only in what happened in the past with

8 K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch. Vol. 3, pp. 36-37.

9 K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch. Vol. 36, p. 364.

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political forms, but also what took place in the depths of social life.

However, positivist historiography increasingly fell into agnosticism and empiricism, declaring the causes of major historical phenomena unknowable and even nonexistent; and this at a time when the ideologists of the revolutionary working class had already scientifically proved the regularity of the revolutionary transformation of the world and the inevitability of a socialist revolution. Positivists, instead of the previously recognized thesis about the regularity of history, spread the ideas of flat evolutionism, absolute gradual changes, which testified to the internal inconsistency and crisis of their methodological credo, based on the subjective-idealistic theory of knowledge.

The knowledge of the past itself did not stop at that time, there was not only an active accumulation of historical material, but also an improvement in the technique of historical research, and its problems were further expanded. But the expansion of the field of view of historians in the conditions of the dominance of positivist views could not be accompanied by the development of generalizing theoretical thought. With all the attention paid to the source and fact, to identifying the concrete circumstances of any historical action, positivism, and then neo-Kantianism, in practice deprived historical science of the possibility of knowing true objective laws, so knowledge of the past became increasingly unsuitable for understanding modernity. For example, in Russia, bourgeois historians (A. S. Lappo-Danilevsky, V. M. Khvostov, N. I. Kareev, etc.) intensively searched for a new methodology of historical knowledge, with the help of which it was possible to comprehend the rapidly becoming more complex nature of social development. Of course, these works cannot be considered as a locally "Russian" phenomenon; they were part of the general development of philosophy, sociology, and historiography of bourgeois society. These were attempts to oppose Marxism with a methodology of cognition that would correspond to the idea of the inviolability of capitalism as a system of social structure.

The most extreme position of the opponents of revolutionary coups was turned to religious schemes, with the help of which it was possible to connect the present with the past only through irrational abstraction. Delving into the biological and psychological factors that determine history gave again only the appearance of a connection between the past and the present, understood as "biographies of peoples and all mankind"10 . But all these and similar schemes were completely unsuitable for any real knowledge of the complex phenomena of social and economic development of modern times. Equally far from knowing the real laws underlying the connection between the past and the present, were the supporters of the vulgar - economic trend with their narrow ideas about the change in the forms of natural and monetary economy as a determining factor in the history of the past. The representative of the German "new historical school" K. Bucher, for example, left out of the mechanism of historical action the most complex processes of the superstructural, spiritual life of society in general, the material about which was already well known to the science of that time.

The search for new means of understanding the connection between the past and the present brought bourgeois ideologists to the position of agnosticism, non-recognition of objective laws in general, or in any case the possibility of knowing them, to the very desire to "spit on all generalizations"11 , which Lenin spoke about. In the course of this search, the tendency to "rise above" idealism and materialism became widespread

10 N. I. Kareev. Teoriya istoricheskogo znaniya [Theory of Historical Knowledge], St. Petersburg, 1913, p. 224.

11 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 25, p. 44.

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to create a new methodology of cognition, P. N. Milyukov declared both the idealistic and materialistic interpretation of history to be "one-sided" 12 . Lenin described a similar position of R. Y. Wipper as "a downright ridiculous and reactionary claim to rise above both 'extremes': both idealistic and materialistic. " 13 Assessing the state of bourgeois social science at the beginning of the twentieth century (in connection with the criticism of P. B. Struve's book "Economy and Price"), V. I. Lenin wrote in 1914:: "Despair of being able to make a scientific analysis of the present, renunciation of science, the desire to ignore all generalizations, to hide from all" laws "of historical development, to block the forest with trees-this is the class meaning of that fashionable bourgeois skepticism, that dead and deadening scholasticism that we see in Mr. Struve." 14 It is important to note that Lenin associated the impossibility of "analyzing the present" with the refusal to know historical laws. This was what he saw as a " rejection of science." An example of this is, in particular, the historical concept of P. N. Milyukov. The attempt to support the political program of the cadet party with an appropriate interpretation of Russian history led to a profound distortion of the laws of the country's historical development in the concept of this liberal author.

Despite all the diversity and often even opposition of the concepts of the past that were developed in the historical science of Russia in the late XIX-early XX centuries, all of them, including the noble-monarchist trend, "legal Marxism", and other trends, are united in a common position that did not correspond to reality, denying the historical prerequisites of the socialist (and often bourgeois) political system.democratic) revolution in Russia 15 . But the victory of the socialist revolution, which was very poorly "foreseen" by bourgeois historiography at the beginning of the twentieth century, was not only perfectly "foreseen", but also justified by a materialist understanding of history, which, naturally, could not find a place in university departments and other educational institutions of bourgeois - landowner Russia.

The spread of the historical-materialist understanding of history in Russia was a great achievement of G. V. Plekhanov. In Lenin's writings, this understanding was further developed theoretically and embodied in the general concept of Russian history. Let us recall that Lenin never fundamentally separated the knowledge of modernity from the knowledge of the past, but, on the contrary, it was precisely in the unity of such knowledge that he saw the guarantee of scientific orientation in the actual problems of our time. He pointed out that only "a theory based on a detailed and detailed study of Russian history and reality should answer the demands of the proletariat", and, of course, this theory should "meet scientific requirements" 16. Refuting the accusations of narodnik ideologists that Russian Marxists assess the nature of the country's development as if on the basis of some "abstract schemes", without taking into account the specifics of the country, Lenin emphasized that Russian Marxists ' criteria for their assessment of social relations in Russia "do not see at all in abstract schemes and other nonsense, but in the fidelity and conformity of its with reality "17, that" Marxism is not based on anything other than the facts of Russian history and reality " 18 .

12 P. N. Milyukov. Essays on the History of Russian Culture, Part 1, St. Petersburg, 1896, p. 3.

13 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 45, p. 27.

14 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 25, p. 44.

15 For recognition of the fallacy of bourgeois historians ' forecasts, see, for example, R. Y. Wipper. The crisis of historical science. Kazan. 1921, p. 30.

16 V. I. Lenin. PSS, Vol. 1, p. 307.

17 Ibid., p. 197.

18 Ibid., p. 411.

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The idea of the impossibility of scientific knowledge of the present without knowledge of the past runs through Lenin's writings like a red thread. In 1916, he stated:: "The whole spirit of Marxism, its whole system, demands that each proposition be considered only (a) historically; (b) only in relation to others; (c) only in relation to specific historical experience"19 . Lenin also considered history and modernity to be the criterion for the correctness of political views, when he wrote that "history itself stands up for our views, reality stands up at every step."20 The lecture "On the State" (1919) contains Lenin's famous description of the methodology of studying social phenomena, in which the idea of an indissoluble connection between the knowledge of the present and the knowledge of the past runs through the red thread: "The most reliable thing in the question of social science and necessary in order to really acquire the skill to approach this question correctly and not let it the most important thing to approach this question from a scientific point of view is not to forget the main historical connection, to look at each question from the point of view of how a certain phenomenon in history arose, what main stages in its development this phenomenon went through, and from the point of view of how it was created. after its development, look at what this thing has become now. " 21
A. M. Gorky accurately captured the very essence of Lenin's historical thinking, writing that V. I. Lenin "knew the history of the past so well that he could and could look at the present from the future." 22 To look at the present from the future means to see in the present the processes leading to the future, and it is the knowledge of history that makes it possible to see such processes. This is how Lenin saw the historical process leading to the victory of the socialist revolution in contemporary Russia. He gave high examples of the revolutionary application of the achievements of historical science in the interests of society. He used the experience of the past not only for a theoretical understanding of the current events, but also as a necessary basis for practical activities.

*

An important function of historical science is connected with scientific foresight. After the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the Soviet government and the Communist Party had the opportunity, based on their knowledge of the past, to actively influence the present and ideologically prepare the future. History was becoming a powerful tool for transforming society. The works of M. N. Pokrovsky, N. M. Lukin, V. P. Volgin and other Marxist historians played an important role in the formation of Marxist historical science in the USSR.

The development of Soviet historical science went through several stages. The establishment of the Marxist-Leninist worldview in historical science took place in an environment of acute class struggle, and was accompanied by the restructuring of the system of scientific institutions. The State created new conditions and opportunities for training qualified Marxist historians. By the mid-1930s, the process of establishing the Marxist-Leninist methodology was largely completed, young cadres of Marxist historians grew up, B. D. Grekov, E. V. Tarle, V. V. Struve, A. I. Tyumenev, and E. A. Kosminsky, whose scientific career began even before the October Revolution, took the position of Marxism-Leninism. based on the old methodology of learning history. The construction of a socialist society in the USSR has radically changed the way the Soviet economy has evolved.-

19 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 49, p. 329.

20 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 12, p. 65.

21 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 39, p. 67.

22 M. Gorky. Collected Works in 30 volumes, vol. 24, Moscow, 1953, p. 377.

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the social structure of society, the exploiting classes disappeared in the country. All these circumstances had a decisive influence on the state and development of historical science in the Soviet Union. The mastery of Marxist-Leninist theory acquired a greater depth and began to be embodied not only in general, principled constructions, but first of all in the research works that had developed by that time.

With the development of theoretical and concrete research, the shortcomings of a number of constructions characteristic of the initial stage of the establishment of Marxist-Leninist science became obvious, including a number of aspects of M. N. Pokrovsky's concept, which was criticized by Marxist historians already in the late 1920s, mainly for the still imperfect understanding of the materialistic foundations of historical science, primarily - in relation to the formation and development of socio-economic formations, for revaluing the role of commercial capital in history, and on a number of other issues. This was a great effort aimed at a decisive increase in the theoretical and research level of Soviet historical science. The thirties were marked by a transition to deep research work in the field of national and world history.

The entry of Soviet, Marxist-Leninist historiography into a new, more mature stage of its development was prepared by the internal processes of the science movement and strongly stimulated by the well-known decisions of the party and government on historical science and historical education. The teaching of civil history in schools was radically restructured, the training of professional historians in higher educational institutions was expanded, and the activities of research institutes were intensified. History took a prominent place in the spiritual life of the country in the second half of the 1930s. The results of historical research have become important not only in planning major problems of economic and social development, but also, first of all, in the ideological and political life of the country, in educating the younger generation and the entire nation. The measures taken by the Communist Party and the Soviet Government played a huge role in the moral and political unity of the Soviet people in the face of the impending threat of fascist aggression. During the Great Patriotic War, Soviet historians made a great ideological contribution to ensuring victory over the enemy. At that time, the tasks of studying and propagating the history of the struggle of the peoples of the USSR for national independence, the tasks of showing the anti-human nature of fascism, and exposing the fascist falsification of history were brought to the fore.

A characteristic feature of modern Soviet historical science is the ever-deepening connection with modernity, with the needs of society's development. In a socialist society, historical science, along with other social sciences, forms the " scientific basis for guiding the development of society." Historical science is actively involved in social transformation. As stated in the CPSU Program, " the study of the problems of world history and modern world development should reveal the natural process of humanity's movement towards communism, the change in the balance of forces in favor of socialism, the aggravation of the general crisis of capitalism, the collapse of the colonial system of imperialism and its consequences, and the rise of the national liberation movement of peoples."23
In its activities, the CPSU proceeds from the recognition of the internal unity of the past, present and future. Describing the path taken almost 60 years after the Great October Socialist Revolution, L. I. Brezhnev said in the Report of the Central Committee to the XXV Congress

23 "Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union", Moscow, 1971, p. 128.

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The CPSU believes that the results of the ninth five-year plan should be viewed from a historical perspective, in order to approach "everything that has been done, everything that we are going to do, with a broader historical measure." He noted that in this perspective, our society "has unlimited opportunities for further comprehensive progress." 24
The close connection between historical science and the solution of major socio - political problems, which is characteristic of socialist countries, not only makes historical science a powerful tool for the progressive development of society, but is also of paramount importance for it itself, for the deepening of knowledge of the entire historical process as a whole. In order to fulfill its function as a fundamental basis for scientific management of the development of society, historical science must reveal the deep laws of social processes, show the actual place and significance of the current stage of human history, which is possible only if the fundamental problems of the history of all countries and peoples are studied in a frontal and fundamental way throughout its Historical science has always sought to approach the fulfillment of just such a function in the life of society, but the opportunities created for science by a materialistic understanding of history and its participation in solving actual problems of communist construction are unparalleled in the history of past societies. The tasks of the socialist reconstruction of society have brought to the fore in Marxist historical science such problems that were either secondary in pre-Marxist and non-Marxist historiography, or are completely new in general.

Marxist historians have successfully coped with the complex tasks of studying social history, the problems of the origin and historical significance of revolutions, their relationship to reforms, and finally the fundamental question of the role of the masses in the historical process. One of the central problems raised and solved by Marxist-Leninist historical science was the question of the world-historical mission of the working class - the proletariat. The world-historical process appeared in Marxist historiography as a natural change of socio-economic formations, taking place in the course of an acute class struggle. Thus, the question of the progress of social development was interpreted in full accordance with the objective course of history. The depth of the theoretical approach to historical material and the improvement of historical research methods inextricably linked with it made it possible to develop many specific problems of the history of the peoples of the USSR and world history. Let us recall the great achievements of Soviet archaeologists (A.V. Artsikhovsky, V. A. Gorodtsov, A. P. Okladnikov, B. A. Rybakov, B. B. Piotrovsky), on fundamental research in the field of the formation of class societies and the state among the peoples of the USSR, including the nature of the social system and the reasons for the emergence of the state in Kievan Rus (B. D. Grekov, M. N. Tikhomirov, B. A. Rybakov), on the culture of medieval Rus (B. A. Rybakov), on significant works in the field of the history of the medieval Russian state (M. N. Tikhomirov, L. V. Cherepnin), its socio-economic, political and cultural development, on research in the field of the genesis of capitalist relations and their development (N. M. Druzhinin), the history of the revolutionary liberation movement (M. V. Nechkina), the history of foreign policy and international relations relations (V. M. Khvostov, A. L. Narochnitsky), history of the peoples of the USSR (B. G. Gafurov).

A significant factor in the influence of socialist society on the development of historical science was its rapid rise in the Union and Soviet republics.-

24 L. I. Brezhnev. Lenin's Course, vol. 5, Moscow, 1976, p. 548.

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in the autonomous Soviet Socialist republics, where numerous national cadres of historians grew up and where not only research on particular issues was created, but also generalizing fundamental works on the history of these republics.

Fundamentally new problems successfully developed by Marxist historians are the history of the masses of the people, the history of the working class and peasantry, the history of the revolutionary struggle of the working people, the history of the Communist Party's activities for the revolutionary transformation of society, the history of the construction of socialism and communism in all their aspects (I. I. Mints, A.M. Pankratova, B. N. Ponomarev, P. N. Pospelov). Soviet scientists have created and continue to create such large generalizing works as" History of the USSR from ancient times to the present day"," History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union"," History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union"," History of the Second World War " and others. In generalizing works of this kind, the indissoluble connection between history and modernity is particularly clearly traced.

A completely new type of work in the field of history, characteristic of the society of developed socialism, was the 26-volume "History of Cities and villages of the Ukrainian SSR", which was created by about 100 thousand authors - scientists, workers, party and public workers, teachers, collective farmers, local historians, memoirists and others. The people-the creator of history as a process of development of society-is now also the creator of history as a process of cognition of this development.

The work of Soviet historians in the field of foreign history, which is carried out on all fronts - from ancient times to the modern world, including the history of the countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the history of the world communist and labor movement, is highly active. These relatively new fields of science have been particularly developed in the Soviet Union in recent years. In the USSR, the first Marxist "World History" and the world's first special historical encyclopedia were created (headed by E. M. Zhukov).

The teaching of history in the USSR - both in secondary schools and in the history departments of higher educational institutions - is based on the concept of the unity of the world. It is world history that is being studied - the history of all times and peoples. This principle is also applied to the teaching of historiography as one of the most important subjects for all students specializing in history. The publication of fundamental works on the historiography of modern and contemporary history of European and American countries, prepared at Moscow University by a team of Soviet and foreign historians headed by I. S. Galkin, greatly contributed to the improvement of historiographic research and teaching of the historiography of world history .25
In the 30 years that have passed since the Second World War, significant progress in the field of historical science has taken place in countries that have taken the path of socialism. Carrying out scientific research in the conditions of a socialist society, based on the Marxist-Leninist theory, historians of the countries of the socialist community have achieved outstanding success. Their voice is heard today at international congresses and symposia, their works are authoritative and well-known in wide scientific circles. As an example of the successful solution of a complex and important historical problem, one can point to the "History of the German Labor Movement" created by historians of the GDR. 26 The experience of the development of historical science in socialist countries testifies to the closest connection between social and economic development of the world.-

25 "Historiography of the New Time of the countries of Europe and America", Moscow, 1967; "Historiography of the new and modern history of the countries of Europe and America", Moscow, 1968.

26 "Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung". 1-8 Banden. V. 1966.

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In this article, the author states that a socialist society, guided by the theory of Marxism-Leninism, creates the most favorable conditions for improving historical knowledge, for the optimal solution of the problem of relations between historical science and society.

Marxist historical thought develops in capitalist countries under much more difficult conditions. Its existence and the growth of its influence are objectively conditioned by the socio-economic conditions of modern capitalist society, and are inextricably linked to the class struggle of the working class for democracy and socialism.

While the Marxist understanding of history, brilliantly confirmed by the practice of the socialist revolution in Russia, gave completely new opportunities for understanding the past and its connection with modernity, bourgeois historiography in foreign countries in the second half of the XIX - first half of the XX century. invariably kept pace with the interests of their class as a whole, reflecting their evolution in the forms of interpretation of the past. Since the end of the 19th century, for example, historians from all the leading countries of the world have actively participated in the development of imperialist ideology, contributing to the preparation of the First World War. Expansionism, nationalism, and racism largely shaped the official historiography of the late 19th and early 20th centuries .27
A number of representatives of historiography in Western Europe and North America made a significant contribution to the formation of the psychology of conservatism and the Cold War, the influence of which is still felt today. In 1954, the American Social Science Research Council's Committee on Historiography published a special report, "Social Sciences in Historical Research." 28 In the section on the latest trends in the historiography of that time, among other phenomena, the strengthening of conservatism and respect for big business is noted, and the emphasis is placed on the conservative element in American traditions and on conservative leadership.

This emphasis was strongly supported by S. E. Morison in his presidential address to the American Historical Association (AIA) in 1950,29 This speech - "The Historian's Faith" - can be considered the credo of conservatism in American historiography of the 40s and 50s. Referring to C. Beard, S. Morison called studying history "an act of faith." "It goes without saying, "he declared," that complete, 'scientific' objectivity is not available to historians... History methodology courses are not worth the time spent on them. ... Historical methodology, as I understand it, is the product of common sense applied to circumstances... The historian decides what is important and what is unimportant, " continued S. Morison. Paying tribute to the permanent commitment of bourgeois historians of the 20th century to skepticism, S. Morison at the same time qualified it as a "double-edged weapon". This ambivalence in the assessment of the sceptical fad that is consistently fashionable in bourgeois historiography reflected the paranoid optimism of American conservative and reactionary historians of the heyday of McCarthyism and the Cold War: everything was "clear"to them. They believed that they could find the answer to any question given the seemingly limitless spread of US imperialist influence in the bourgeois world and the socio-economic stability of business. The main call is from. Morison's goal was to write a history of the United States "from the point of view of sound conservatism."

27 J. Burgess. Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law. Vol. J. Boston-L. 1890 - 1891, p. 47.

28 "Social Sciences in Historical Study". A Report of the Comittee on Historiography. N. Y. 1954.

29 Ibid., p. 15.

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He emphasized that "glory and success await those who undertake a fresh revision of our entire history, considering the conservative tradition to act as a ferment." 30
Ideologically and politically, this was the program of neoconservatism, that is, a state-monopoly conservative ideology, different from both state-monopoly neoliberalism, which was formed in the 1930s, and from traditional individualism, which was at the forefront of the ideological views of the American bourgeoisie before the crisis of 1929-1933 and the "new deal" of F. Roosevelt.31 S. Morison's neoconservative position was not just a manifestation of his personal views. This was the banner of the time. A year earlier, something consonant with S. Morison was expressed by his predecessor as president of the AIA, K. Morison. In his speech "Social Responsibility of the Historian", K. Reed attacked the "neutrality" in thought that is supposedly characteristic of neoliberals, and called on historians to take social responsibility and even discipline prescribed by a"democratically controlled state". "A liberal neutral position, an approach to social development with the standards of unbiased behaviorism, no longer works. Evasive answers cannot meet our need for positive guarantees. All-out war, hot or cold, mobilizes everyone and requires everyone to contribute. The historian is no more free from this obligation than the physicist." Reed's political arguments about the "social responsibility of the historian" followed the general trend of neoconservatism, which in the early 1950s became the dominant ideology with a clearly militaristic connotation. Conservative-militaristic in its ideological and political orientation, the platform of the official leaders of American historiography in the 1940s and 1950s was methodologically thoroughly relativistic, pragmatic, and presentist. "We need an act of faith," Reed said, claiming that the historian "finds in the past what he seeks in it." 32 And in the past, the official American historians of the McCarthyist era were looking for nothing more than the non-conflict, "greatness" of successful businessmen, "destiny" in the form of the American "leadership of the world", they were looking for everything except the true, dialectically contradictory, objective reality, everything except for regularity, revolutionism and progress. In other words, official American historiography marched in its own reactionary-bourgeois way: away from and away from social progress.

The evolution of the views of a group of West German historians is also very significant. It is known that German historiography up to the defeat of fascism was, among other things, imbued with the ideas of Prussianism, militant nationalism, and the opposition of the "heroic" German to the "merchant" Anglo-Saxon. After 1945, the West German official ideology had to develop a modus vivendi acceptable to the Anglo-Saxons. The revision of traditional ideas about history has begun. The same F. Meinecke, who had done much to justify the ideology of Prussianism and the discovery of "high" moral values in it, began to review his historiographical heritage with the aim of revising it later in his long life with H. Ritter.,

30 S. Morison. Faith of a Historian. "American Historical Review", January 1951, pp. 261, 263, 264, 268, 273.

In the light of what has been said, the objection of the American historian Fr. The author of this report, J. Stern, who spoke at the XIV Congress of Historians as one of the experts on this report, opposed the characterization of S. Morison's speech analyzed above as a call for a conservative interpretation of US history.

31 For more information, see N. V. Sivachev. Ideological and political background of the post-war reaction in the United States. "New and recent history", 1972, N 2.

32 C. Read. The Social Responsibilities of the Historian. "American Historical Review", January 1950, pp. 283, 284 - 285.

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so that it does not interfere with the inclusion of Germans in the community of the Atlantic West.?

A well-defined fact is the shift of post-war bourgeois historiography to the right in the interpretation of social progress. Not agreeing with the historical regularity of the profound revolutionary transformations that took place in the world after the defeat of fascism, bourgeois historiography has brought to the fore the ideas of "consensus" (coherence of interests) and "continuity" (continuity), which lie outside the plane of class relations, class struggle. The concepts of political history have also changed. Thus, in West German historiography, the traditional small-German and Prussian approach to the interpretation of European and especially world history has failed. For example, G. Rotfels and a younger generation of West German historians began to raise conservative opposition to the leaders of the Reich on the shield .33 Its meaning is interpreted as a manifestation of the idea of "Europeanism". This "European" view also extended to the past of Germany, as a result of which M. Luther, Friedrich II, O. Bismarck, G. Stresemann, and not to mention Karl Marx became the bearers of the "European" idea. Adenauer. Later, however, when the position of West Germany in the" Atlantic community " was strengthened (in the 60s), there was a tendency to turn Bismarck again from a "great European" to a "great German". This is how history is "modernized" 34 .

However, more attention should be paid to other processes in modern bourgeois historiography that reflect the influence of Marxism, the influence of the developing mass movement. In Italy, the "ethical - political" approach of B. Croce has lost its former positions. According to Italian historians, they overcome "the predominantly humanistic and philological character of Italian historiography" .35 At the same time, there was an increased interest in the history of twentieth-century Italy, especially in the problems of anti-fascist Resistance, as well as in socio-economic issues. The liberation struggle of the masses and Marxist historiography undoubtedly had a decisive influence here. The thesis of the Marxist historian and leader of the Italian Communists A. Gramsci about the Risorgimento as an incomplete social revolution contributed to the establishment in Italian historiography of the idea of the development in Italian history of the tradition of revolutionary-democratic transformations going from the XVIII century to the Resistance. As M. Borengo writes, "scientists gradually realized the importance of advancing research in new directions in the field of social history; this demand was especially insistently put forward by Marxist historians of Southern Italy." He emphasizes that in the last decade, the need to provide an economic and sociological basis for historical works has become universally recognized. 36
Directly related to the changes in the modern world is the promotion in historiography of such an important question as the history of the working class and the working-class movement. The real priority in the study of the working question belongs to Marxism. The first major scientific work on the working class was Engels 'famous book" The Situation of the Working Class in England", published in 1845. The subject of bourgeois historians 'studies became the workers' question only when and in so far as it was necessary for the development of the BUR-

33 N. Rothfels. Die deutsche Opposition gegen Hitler. Frankfurt/M. - Hamburg. 1960.

34 G. A. Vorontsov. Some recent trends in the bourgeois historiography of Germany. Voprosy Istorii, 1974, No. 9, pp. 69-70.

35 M. Borengo. Italian Historical Scholarship since the Fascist Era. "Daedalus", Spring 1971, p. 480.

36 Ibid., pp. 475, 480,

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a bourgeois policy towards the working class, to "prevent" the proletarian revolution and to direct the working-class movement in the direction of reformism. The real leaders in the study of the workers ' question everywhere are Marxist historians. It is enough to point out the fundamental "History of the Labor Movement in the USA" by F. Foner, and the works of French and Italian communist historians.

Under the influence of the growing labor movement and Marxist historiography, interest in the labor question in bourgeois historiography has also increased significantly in our time, although the conceptual formulation of the problem of the working class in bourgeois historiography has very different shades. In Italy, where the problems of the working-class movement were not fully developed in historiography before the Second World War, a representative school of the history of the working-class and socialist movement has now been established, not without the influence of Communists and socialists. In West Germany, as G. Mommsen notes, "the history of the working classes, especially in the early period of industrialization, has long been the subject of historical research, although it is not conducted as intensively as in the German Democratic Republic"37 . A major center for the study of the German labor movement is the Heidelberg Circle, headed by the prominent historian V. Konets, who holds a neoliberal view of the labor movement as part of the "national movement" 38. V. Konets writes about the" liberal " labor movement in Germany, integrated into the structure of bourgeois law and order and bourgeois values39. ignoring the fact that Germany was the cradle of Marxism and the most important center of the world revolutionary proletarian movement. In Japan, after World War II, the labor question also became the subject of much attention by historians. Special institutes and scientific associations have been established for its study, and courses on the history and contemporary problems of the labor movement developed by representatives of various political trends and parties are taught in training centers.

In all these cases, of course, there is a bourgeois-liberal and reformist interpretation of the working-class movement. However, the very fact of increased interest in this problem is significant - one of the many manifestations of the influence of modernity on the knowledge of history. The relevant issues are constantly covered on the pages of various publications of universities, research centers, and public organizations. All these phenomena are developing under the direct influence of the increased activity of the working class - the main transformative force of the modern world.

In the 60s and 70s, a group of bourgeois-radical historians brought a fresh stream to the study of the history of the US working class. In their works, an attempt is made to find ways to overcome bureaucratic institutionalism and move to the living history of the working masses. One of the authors of the journal "Labor History" in 1967 wrote:: "The October Revolution of 1917 opened not only a new chapter in European and world history, but also in the writing of the history of the working class. It gave a powerful stimulus to the study of the labor movement and its ideas. " 40 In the 60s and 70s, along with the rise of the radical student movement in the United States, a group of "new left" historians appeared. They criticized the consensual historical thinking that prevailed in ofi-

37 H. Mommsen. Historical Scholarship in Transition: The Situation in the Federal Republic of Germany. "Deadalus", Spring 1971, pp. 493 - 494.

38 W. Conze, D. Groh. Die Arbeiterbewegung in der nationalen Bewegung. Stuttgart. 1966.

39 W. Conze. Moglichkeiten und Grenzen der liberalen Arbeiterbewegung in Deutschland. Das Beispiel Schulze-Delitzschs. Heidelberg. 1965.

40 "Labor History", Spring 1967, pp. 183, 185.

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social bourgeois historiography after the Second World War, and came to the conclusion that social conflict constantly accompanied the history of class society. In their analysis of international relations, the thesis appeared that the culprits for unleashing the cold war should be sought in the militaristic circles of the West. The new left pays great attention to the issues of social revolution, although they are not able to interpret them correctly. Their worldview is eclectic at its very core, it tends towards petty-bourgeois radicalism and remains far from Marxism.

In connection with the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois interpretation of social revolutions, it should be emphasized that if the 19th century was influenced by the French bourgeois Revolution of the 18th century, the main historical event of the 20th century was the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia, which opened the era of the revolutionary transformation of capitalist society into a socialist and communist society. The historical practice of the twentieth century convincingly demonstrated the absolute truth of the cornerstone of Marxist theory, that social revolutions are the "locomotives of history". Marxism-Leninism sees the essence of the socialist revolution in the elimination of capitalist relations and their replacement by socialist social relations, considering the working class as the main driving force of this revolutionary process and assigning the leading role to the party of the working class based on the principles of scientific communism. At the same time, Marxists point out a variety of forms and methods of revolutionary transformation of society, including peaceful and non-peaceful ways of establishing socialist relations of production, which, in any case, is a revolutionary action in its content.

In bourgeois and revisionist literature, much is now written about revolutions, but the regularity and historical progressiveness of the socialist revolution and its class character are usually overlooked or even challenged in one form or another. There is no lack of attempts to deny the political character of the class struggle. "The transfer of state power from one class to another is the first, main, and fundamental sign of revolution, both in the strictly scientific and practically political meaning of this concept," Lenin wrote. There can be no socialist revolution without a class struggle, without the coming to power of the working class. "The most important question of any revolution is the question of State power. In the hands of which class the power is, it decides everything. " 41 Attempts to distort the class character of the socialist revolution grossly contradict real, objective facts and processes.

Equally speculative is the desire to question the historical progressiveness of revolutions by putting forward the criterion of the "price" of revolution, the "losses" that society supposedly suffers as a result of the violent seizure of power. But the history of the bourgeois-democratic revolutions in the nineteenth century and the socialist revolutions in the twentieth century clearly demonstrates the profound progressiveness of revolutions not only in the general historical perspective, but also directly for the political and material situation of the masses of the people, although the latter point is limited in bourgeois revolutions due to the establishment of a new system of domination and subordination. The criterion of the "price" of revolution is anti-historical and conservative, it is fundamentally anti-revolutionary. Rather, we can talk about the "price" of counter-revolution, if only for the example of recent events in Chile.

Anti-socialist views on the revolution are organically linked

41 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 31, p. 133; vol. 34, p. 200.

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not only with the political, but also with the theoretical and methodological positions of modern "critics" of revolutions and the teachings of Marxism-Leninism. With the help of positivist methods that reveal "small truths", such a gigantic problem of world history as revolutions are is dissected and fragmented. The narrowness and inaccuracy of the initial positions gave rise to the remark of Ch. Johnson's view that revolutions justify the" worst fears " of sociologists. This assessment, which is, of course, related to bourgeois sociology, surprisingly coincides with the recognition of one of the Russian bourgeois historians (R. Y. Wipper) about the "unexpected", "unforeseen" nature of the Great October Socialist Revolution .42 Nor can the widespread theories of "continuity", which exclude the revolutionary nature of the transition of society from one type of social relations to another and have nothing in common with genuine historicism, help in assessing the revolutionary perspective.

All these phenomena in the historiography of capitalist countries are directly and directly connected with modernity, with the increased activity of the working class, the intensification of the class struggle, and are an attempt to give an answer to the questions of modernity that would help strengthen the existing system, while the objective logic of the development of society inexorably leads to its destruction, in which the revolutionary role belongs to to the class. Bourgeois historical science is thus becoming less and less able to give a realistic answer to the most pressing questions of our time. But this means that there is a decline in the social role of historical science in bourgeois society, a decrease in its authority and influence on people.

In the course of the struggle against colonialism, historical science developed in the countries of Asia and Africa, becoming an important tool for national revival and social transformation. The primary factor in the progressive development of national historiography in the countries of Asia and Africa is the increasing spread of the ideas of scientific socialism here. Thanks to the efforts of historians who strive to be guided by the Marxist-Leninist theory of knowledge of the past, national historiography is becoming an effective tool for understanding social development in the interests of the struggle of Asian and African peoples for social progress.

The development of historiography in the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America shows that wherever historical science is placed in the service of social progress and national liberation, it receives rapid development and recognition, and its social function increases immeasurably.

*

In our time, the question of the method of historical cognition corresponding to the stage of development of science determined by the current stage of socio-economic development is of particular importance. Like all science, historical science is distinguished from other forms of knowledge of reality by theoretical thinking. Historical science interprets and generalizes the past from the point of view of the emergence, operation and modification of certain laws of social development. The process of cognition of the past is therefore primarily a process of cognition of the objective laws of the development of society in all the diversity and variability of their manifestation.

The diversity of historical development and cause-and-effect relationships gave rise in due time to the idealistic understanding of history.-

42 Ch. Johnson. Revolutionary Change, L. 1968, p. 13. See also R. Y. Wipper. Edict op.

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consider the theory of many or" equal " factors. In fact, this meant a lack of effort in determining the fundamental driving forces of the historical process, the inability to identify the real connection of all historical phenomena and processes on the basis of the idealistic method.

But idealism has long lost the historical battle against materialism, and this victory is best confirmed by public practice. Today, in their search for a "compromise", idealists are ready to recognize a kaleidoscope of substantial principles and thus "rise" above idealism and materialism, just as they tried to do at the beginning of the twentieth century. Today, the pluralistic approach to objective reality has once again become widespread in various branches of bourgeois historiography. In practice, pluralism does not go beyond eclecticism. At best, pluralists can create some small-scale "models" of the historical process, but in reality their position is imbued with agnosticism. As soon as the objective logic of research leads the historian to the need to formulate general laws of the phenomena and processes under study and put them at the service of transforming the world, pluralism reveals its limitations, inertia and, ultimately, bias. The external unpretentiousness of the epistemological system of pluralism, the opposition to "eternal truths" and "final decisions" in historical knowledge, the demonstrative relativism of conclusions in relation to social practice mean a disguised defense of the existing system, resistance to the development of a program for the progressive development of society, the fundamental basis of which is social revolutions.

Pluralism, of course, does not save bourgeois methodology from the internal contradictions of the idealistic method and creates instability in the theoretical positions of bourgeois historians. The American historian C. Beard, for example, strongly condemned relativism, of which he himself was a proponent, and then again began to express relativistic views .43 The same impermanence, reflecting dissatisfaction with the method and at the same time the search for a different, more solid methodological basis, was shown by K. Becker 44 . In the end, Becker was forced to adopt the relativistic position of subjectivist, presentist knowledge, which is reduced to the "interpretation" of history, and not to the knowledge of objective truth. Throughout his life, Becker has asked the question, "What is the use of history? "without ever giving a convincing answer. 45
The problem of the correlation of historical knowledge with the solution of problems of social development is now occupying an increasingly important place in modern bourgeois historiography. From a methodological point of view, there is a noticeable increase in skepticism about the very problem of "the historian and the past". The creative activity of a historian when referring to the past is often interpreted in Western literature as a predetermined distortion of history, and passivity in working on the material is assessed as a condition of "objectivity". "The creative historian lives a double life, answering, on the one hand, the questions of his era, while, on the other hand, being faithful to the sanctity of bygone times. Too little involvement in the present leads to a toothless and routine approach to the past. But engaging in the problems of the present, if it is too narrow, limits our imagination instead of stimulating it.

43 I. Meiland. The Historical Relativism of Charles A. Beard. "History and Theory", 1973, N 4.

44 "What is the Good of History?". Selected Letters of Carl Becker. 1900 - 1945. Ed. by M. Kamen. Ithaca. 1973.

45 M. Klein. Progressive History's Curmudgeon: The Enigmatical Carl Becker. "Reviews in American History", June 1974.

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his. At one extreme, historical thinking is sterile; at the other, it is biased. How can historians rise by the strength of their detachment above the tense present and by the strength of their commitment to partake of the living past? " 46 asks the famous American historian D. Higham, significantly departing from the formulation of a similar problem proposed by K. Kropotkin. Reed and S. Morison twenty years earlier. The presentist "interpretation" of history is still widespread in bourgeois science. Its organic vice consists in the fact that it detaches the explanation and interpretation of historical reality from its cognition, is a clear manifestation of subjectivism hostile to science, and opens the way for any falsification.

Any theoretical method can be embodied in a historical work only if it is inextricably linked with the knowledge of objective reality, with accurately researched historical material.

For Marxism, there is no doubt that history is a concrete science. It is based primarily on strictly established facts of objective reality. In the light of scientific and theoretical analysis, these facts reveal their internal interrelation and interdependence. Proof of conclusions is a specific feature of scientific knowledge. For historical science, hypothetical constructions based on already known laws of the historical process are possible, as in any other science. But, of course, they acquire evidentiary power only when they are based on firmly established and scientifically researched facts.

In this regard, it is necessary to emphasize the importance of the source and fact in historical research. Historical science cannot, as a rule, establish the truth of the past by experience. But it can and should, based on a well-developed methodology for studying materials, find a reflection of objective historical reality in the source. Respect for the fact and the source, the desire to obtain from the source the maximum possible objective knowledge about the phenomenon or process under study is a specific and fundamentally important aspect of scientific historical knowledge.

Modern neo-positivists also talk a lot about respect for fact and source. However, neo-positivism fetishizes the fact and source in historical knowledge, it fundamentally rejects generalizing theories, and this circumstance leads to the fact that facts in positivist, pluralist, presentist and similar interpretations do not acquire evidence-based significance, do not give much for the knowledge of general regularity and, consequently, lead to a sharp decrease in the social function of historical science.

For the historian, facts are of primary importance primarily as a manifestation of general and specific patterns of development. But, in addition, the historian has another social task, addressed not only to the present, but also to the future. This task consists in identifying, accumulating and preserving historical facts not only as material for the development of scientific knowledge of the past, but also for the development of other forms of social consciousness. In particular, we are talking about the importance of historical material for the education and upbringing of modern and future generations, for the development of civic consciousness in society, social ideals, conviction of the correctness of the chosen path and readiness to give all their strength to achieve high social goals. A historical fact gains scientific significance when it is evaluated from the standpoint of the theory of formations, when its place in the process of development and change of formations is revealed, and this place, in turn, is determined by its class nature. Identify in the interests of which

46 J. Higham. Writing American History. Bloomington - L. 1970, p. 139.

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how objectively this process takes place, what class "manages" this process, means to know the real, objective reality of this process, to make the fact a phenomenon of scientific knowledge.

If in the past, before the emergence of Marxism, bourgeois philosophy and historiography created general concepts of the historical process that played a role in the development of scientific knowledge, now such attempts are less and less common, yielding to subjectivism and positivism in all their various varieties.

A serious methodological crisis is experienced by the now popular "theory of civilizations", which emerged as an antithesis to the Marxist doctrine of formations. In a review published in 1971 of one of the newest books on the "nature of civilizations", 47 A. Toynbee made a symptomatic statement that "we construct models at our own risk. We are always in danger of taking our theoretical constructions seriously. Even worse, we are tempted to adapt the facts to our theory. " 48 Here we meet with an open recognition of the subjectivist principle in the construction of generalizing constructions of historical development by the proponents of the"theory of civilizations". Even more striking is the attitude to the theory, which, as it turns out, cannot be taken "seriously". This is evidence of a deep contradiction between the accepted method of cognition and the objective reality of the source.

Today, the crisis phenomena of all methods of historical research that deny the historical-materialistic, monistic foundations of knowledge of the past are obvious. D. Higham writes that "the general concept of American history is collapsing", that "all forms of general interpretation are insufficient". "How and where we should look for new coordinates to determine the direction is completely unclear," 49 he concludes pessimistically.

The crisis of methodological principles pushes bourgeois historians to search for new methods, to put forward pretentious claims for "revolutions" in historical science. There are widespread calls for structural analysis in history, for the use of methods of the sociological sciences, and for the use of quantitative methods .50 At the same time, some bourgeois historians advocated a rapprochement with sociology and other applied sciences without regard to quantitative methods, while others demanded a "mathematization" of history, believing that only in this case it would finally become a "true science".

Let us recall that it was Marx who put forward the thesis about the development of society as a natural-historical process51 . It is not a question of the permissibility of applying the achievements of other sciences, but of what method and theory of historical knowledge these achievements serve. The degree of applicability of the knowledge obtained by science to social practice varies depending on many circumstances, including the subject of knowledge itself, but the requirement to serve public practice and verify the latter's scientific conclusions is an absolute principle of the existence of history as a science and the fulfillment of its social function.

Meanwhile, the hopes of many proponents of" merging " history with the natural sciences are associated with the "de-ideologization" of science, with its transformation into a kind of "pure" science and, thus, with the rejection of its social function. This path leads to the rejection of the theory of historical knowledge as such, to an even greater deepening of the methodological approach.

47 M. Melko. The Nature of Civilizations. Boston. 1969.

48 "History and Theory", 1971, N 2, p. 249.

49 J. Higham. Op. cit., p. 173.

50 I. D. Kovalchenko, N. V. Sivachev. Structuralism and structural-quantitative methods in modern historical science. "History of the USSR", 1976, N 5.

51 K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch. Vol. 23, p. 10.

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the crisis has led to the destruction of historical science as a special form of public consciousness.

It should be noted, however, that the time of illusions about the methods of natural sciences, including quantitative methods, is clearly passing in bourgeois historiography. The experience of the development of science convinces us of the inconsistency of the ideas that with the help of these methods it is possible to bring historical science out of the state of theoretical and methodological crisis. "New" methods do not remove the problem of the crisis of epistemology and methodology of bourgeois historiography. On the contrary, they make this crisis even more acute, making the antagonism between the cognitive capabilities of the historian and the philosophical dogma of the bourgeois worldview even more obvious. In the absence of a truly scientific methodology, "new" methods lead to a further strengthening of positivism. The West German bourgeois historian G. Mommsen writes: "Many authors, although they question the methodological criteria still used to present complex historical questions, nevertheless fall into the error of simply accumulating facts in a positivist manner, as a result of which the problem posed at the time of the beginning of the study and the positivist collection of facts often turn out to be a very difficult task. in contradiction " 52 .

An unscientific attitude to the methods of related disciplines contributes to the artificial fragmentation of history, threatens historians with a real danger of getting bogged down in the minutiae of utilitarianism and thereby creates a favorable ground for the penetration of various variants of neo-positivism into historiography, for refusing to search for and reveal the laws of the historical process, for returning to the borders of the late XIX century. "History risks falling into a new positivism," 53 the Canadian historian A. Dubuc warned at the XIII International Congress of Historical Sciences in Moscow. At the same time, he pointed out what exactly pulls history back to positivism: this is an excessive and, most importantly, uncritical fascination with "models", an illusory attitude to the formalization of the method of cognition, the possibilities of which in historical science are limited. Enriching and improving particular methods of historical research is very promising and important for historical knowledge in modern conditions, but they have nothing to do with denying the right to independent existence of history as a science .54
Only in Marxist historiography do the methods of the natural sciences find a definite place in the general methodological system and actually enrich a science that develops on the solid foundation of historical materialism. In Marxist historical science, the method acts as a concretization and application of the general worldview method in the field of historical knowledge. Engels noted: "Marx's entire worldview is not a doctrine, but a method. It does not provide ready-made dogmas, but rather starting points for further research and a method for this research. " 55 Historiographical experience shows that on the basis of dialectical - materialistic worldview principles, one can realize the contradictory process of complicating the cognitive tasks of historical science at all stages of its development. In this sense, in the historical method, along with the general ideological categories, special methods and techniques of research are differentiated. It cannot be considered accidental that the historical method, having a rather significant

52 H. Momtnsen. Op. cit., p. 499.

53 A. Dubuc (Canada). History at the Crossroads of Humanities, Moscow, 1970, p. 5.

54 Even stronger concerns were expressed about the loss of historical specificity in the controversy between the Italian historians E. Sestan and P. Brezdi at the XIV International Congress of Historical Sciences in San Francisco. For more information, see A.M. Sakharov. Op. ed., pp. 13-17.

55 K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch. Vol. 39, p. 352.

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background, it became an effective means of cognition much later. This is largely due to materialist dialectics. The historical method is organically connected with the content of historical knowledge, the logic of its development, reflecting the continuity of the entire variety of research methods 56 .

Contrary to the current tendency to classify history as an idiographic science, the Marxist methodology of history proceeds from the recognition of the objective nature of the laws of social development and their cognizability. The object of knowledge of the historian - social life, the historical development of society-determines the specifics of the methods of knowledge. Of course, historical science always, and especially in our time, tends to use not only data, but also methods of other sciences to improve methods and methods of studying the past. But it is important to emphasize that historical science cannot and should not be dissolved in other sciences and their methods of cognition, nor should it be abstracted from them.

The progress of historical science in modern society can be achieved only by developing and improving those methods of historical knowledge that were created by historical science in the past and tested by public practice. Speculative accusations of "traditionalism" and "deafness" to "modern" and "up-to-date" methods should not be taken seriously. Historical science is called upon to perceive everything new and modern in the methods of cognition, but it integrates them to enrich and develop its own method, while remaining a specific form of public consciousness. Only in this way can it maintain and multiply its enormous significance in the modern world, which, contrary to the sometimes loudly proclaimed statements of 57, has not lost its organic connection with the previous history and has not become "free" from the general laws of the historical process.

Generalization and processing of accumulated social experience-this was, is, and will continue to be the primary task of historical knowledge. This is precisely the deepest roots of the existence of historical science, the objective necessity of its development. But history shows that both progressive and reactionary forces are trying to appeal to social experience. The possibility for this is created by the fact that the latter is complex, contradictory, and not just the experience of a single class. This is what determines the intense struggle that takes place in historical knowledge between the bearers of different class ideologies and different political views.

In the modern world, in the context of accelerating social and scientific and technological progress, the role of history is especially great. The dynamism of our life imposes ever more serious demands on history. Without it, a deep understanding of trends, patterns and prospects for social development is unthinkable. But without knowledge of the laws of social development, there is no history as a science. Hence the interrelation of historical science with scientific theory. Life shows that there can be no history that is neutral to the modern social struggle, to the worldview. The juxtaposition of history and scientific theory contradicts the modern scientific method. The argument that history is made up of empirical facts rather than regularities cannot be considered correct, nor can the notion that scientific theory is a natural science.

56 See A. I. Danilov. Marxist-Leninist theory of reflection and historical science. "The Middle Ages". Issue No. 24. Moscow, 1963; V. Ivanov. Marxist-Leninist Historicism and the study of modernity. Kommunist Publ., 1976, No. 9.

57 I. Ritter. Die Aufgabe der Geisteswissenschaften in der modernen Gesellschalt. "Jahresschrift 1961 der Gesellschaft zur Forschung der Wilhelmsuniversitat an Munster"; H. Sсhelsky. Einsamheit und Freiheit. Hamburg. 1963; I. Haberrnas. Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften. Frankfurt am Main. 1971.

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history does not go beyond the theory of historical development. The unity of fact and generalization is the core of scientific understanding and historical explanation.

In historical concepts, if they claim to be scientific, there can be no nihilistic denial of all the previous thought material. They should always take into account the conclusions that precede this research, they should contain an analysis of the previous state of historiography, methods of studying certain aspects of a particular problem, and the source base. Consequently, historical analysis always includes both the study of the fact itself and the process of studying this fact or event. Therefore, there is no reason to talk about the mechanical impact of modernity on historical science and to share the views of presentists and pragmatists in this regard. Scientific concepts that reflect new, modern stages of the social process, of course, have a complex genetic connection with previous historical interpretations. New conditions of social practice give rise to new historical concepts. In this case, continuity in knowledge is valid insofar as these new concepts are included in the general logic of the development of historical science with its struggle of opposing concepts and the emergence of qualitatively new phenomena.

When analyzing certain historical concepts, it is necessary to keep in mind that modernity is nothing more than a developing historical reality. Studying the historical past from the perspective of modernity makes knowledge about the past more concentrated and complete in the sense that it also includes knowledge about the long-term consequences of events and excludes the possibility of an arbitrary approach to the invariance of the historical process. In turn, knowledge of the history of the past contributes to a deeper understanding of the trends of modern social development .58
Historical science develops in close connection with politics and ideology, although it is not identical to them, but is a special form of public consciousness. The study of modern socio-economic conditions has a great impact on the entire historical science. In theoretical terms, ignoring the influence of modernity on historical knowledge is tantamount to belittling the scientific significance of history. Such disregard is especially conservative in our time, in an era of unprecedented social, scientific and technological transformations.

According to the Marxist-Leninist methodology, the relationship between history and politics cannot be presented in a straightforward way. The latter is far from unambiguously connected with various fields of historical science. These connections are not always visible on the surface. The main thing is to recognize the fundamental role of history for modern social practice, which limits voluntarism and subjectivism in politics. Accurately representing this relationship, its essential foundations, Marxists consider the criterion of correctness of a political line to be the latter's compliance with the objective course of history, with advanced social needs.

For the modern world, the most important social need is the preservation of peace on earth, the expansion and strengthening of mutual understanding between peoples. Historians are facing a major challenge today:

58 See for more information: V. V. Ivanov. Correlation of history and modernity as a methodological problem (Essays on the Marxist-Leninist methodology of historical research), Moscow, 1973.

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to help society solve the problem of peaceful coexistence of states with different socio-economic systems. The authority of historical science in modern society is largely determined by the extent to which it helps to achieve this particular task, on the correct solution of which not only the present, but also the future of the entire human society depends.

From the very beginning, the policy of peaceful coexistence was understood by Marxism-Leninism as a form of class struggle, excluding any compromise in matters of worldview and ideology, any ambiguity in the main socio-political issue of modern times: socialism or capitalism? Marxism-Leninism proceeds from an optimistic assessment of the revolutionary potentials of the working people, led by the working class, who, in conditions of peaceful development, will necessarily lead their countries along the path of socialism. Marxist historians oppose theoretical and ideological convergence, rejecting all attempts by bourgeois historical theorists to use the principles of peaceful coexistence for their class - political purposes, their desire to weaken the impact of the revolutionary theory of Marxism and clear the way for the spread of bourgeois ideology in the countries of socialism - in this case, through historical science, to "adapt" Marxism to the interests of the bourgeois world. worldviews.

However, this does not mean that a dialogue with non-Marxists on the theory and methodology of history is useless. Soviet historians are ready for an open and serious dialogue with historians of other fields, because, while remaining absolutely faithful to the principles of historical materialism, they cannot, firstly, refuse to critically discuss the methodological search for non-Marxist science, and secondly, to explain the provisions of Marxist theory. The development of science raises new questions, including methodological ones, which is caused by the expansion of the subject of historical knowledge, the emergence of new historical sources, and the emergence of new methods for extracting information from them. Marxist science must give its own answer to all this, and its elaboration is impossible without open and serious discussions with historians of non-Marxist trends.

The theory and methodology of history are not considered by Marxist-Leninists as something imported from outside and given once and for all. They are constantly improving the method and methods of research, making them more flexible, but they are resolutely expelling everything anti-scientific, anti-dialectical, and anti-communist, which is being forcefully and often disguised dragged into historical science in conditions of detente under the banner of "improving" historical materialism and "overcoming" its "dogmatism."

At the XXV Congress of the CPSU, it was once again emphasized that "the criterion for the truth of any theory is practice. The revolutionary struggle of the working class and all working people, and all the practical activities of the Communists, have clearly demonstrated the inviolability of the theoretical propositions and principles that express the essence of Marxism-Leninism."59 . It is from these positions that Marxist historians conduct a creative dialogue with bourgeois historians, sparing no effort to explain to those who really want to understand Marxist epistemology and the methodology of historical research that scientific principles and dogmatism have nothing in common.

The role of the social sciences, including history, is constantly increasing as a result of the increasing demands of social revolutionary practice on them. "The importance of scientific research on the cardinal problems of world development and international relations, the revolutionary process, interaction and unity is growing more and more.-

59 L. I. Brezhnev. Lenin's Course, vol. 5, pp. 530-531.

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the question of the struggle for democracy and the struggle for socialism, the confrontation of forces in the main question of our time - the question of war and peace.

It is obvious that the problems facing our social science can be solved only if it is most closely connected with life. Scholastic theorizing can only hinder our progress. Only the connection with practice can increase the effectiveness of science, and this is one of the central problems today. " 60
In the modern world, history plays a crucial role in determining the prospects for the development of mankind in the critical historical era of the movement towards liberation from all types and forms of oppression and exploitation. The role of the historian in the modern world, contrary to the opinions of skeptics, is not lost, but immeasurably increases in comparison with all past epochs. This means that the historian's responsibility to society also increases. Only on the path of open service to advanced, progressive forces does historical science achieve the most profound knowledge of the past and present of human society as "a single, natural process in all its enormous versatility and inconsistency"61 . Historians do not deal with the past in order to escape from the present. On the contrary, all their activities serve the present, society, today's and future generations. Historians are citizens of society and constitute one of the major ideological forces of its development. Therefore, they must do everything possible to be worthy of the truly historic responsibility that lies on their shoulders today.

60 Ibid., p. 532.

61 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 26, p. 58.

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