Wang Weiguang: The Historical Materialist View of History and the Marxist Concept of Civilization
General Secretary Xi Jinping, proceeding from the overall strategic height of the development of the Party and the state's undertakings, has proposed "shouldering the cultural mission of the New Era." This represents a profound grasp of the laws governing the development of Chinese civilization and provides a theoretical guide for developing socialist culture with Chinese characteristics in the New Era. Regarding questions such as what constitutes civilization and how to develop socialist culture with Chinese characteristics in the New Era, if we do not apply the positions, viewpoints, and methods of historical materialism to our research and response—and if we do not master the Marxist view of civilization—we will remain confused. Consequently, we will be unable to understand the true connotation and significance of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important expositions on shouldering the cultural mission of the New Era.
The classical Marxist writers did not produce a specialized work to centrally expound upon the issue of social civilization. However, from their classical discourses involving social civilization, we can learn, understand, and subsequently refine and summarize the basic positions, viewpoints, and methods they upheld, thereby grasping and systematizing the Marxist view of civilization. Historical materialism is the theoretical basis of the Marxist view of civilization, and the Marxist view of civilization is a constituent part of historical materialism.
I. When classical Marxist writers used terms such as "civilization," "civilized system," "civilized land," "civilized country," "civilized society," "industrial civilized society," "modern civilization," "civilized nation," and "European civilization" within specific contexts, generally speaking, the word "civilized" specifically referred to capitalist social civilization and the capitalist "civilized system." They explicitly defined capitalist social civilization as "bourgeois civilization" and the "civilization of capital." They focused on exposing the cruel reality of the "bourgeois civilization" and the "civilization of capital" in terms of how the exploiting class oppresses and exploits the exploited classes and nations. Furthermore, they used historical materialism to conduct the most thorough critique and exposure of capitalist social civilization, in a manner most consistent with historical dialectics. They revealed the class nature of civilization in class society and elucidated that the history of human civilization's development since the advent of class society is a history of class struggle.
First, the term "civilization" used by Marx and Engels when analyzing capitalist society generally refers to capitalist social civilization and the capitalist "civilized system." In the Manifesto of the Communist Party of 1848, Marx and Engels used the term "civilization." They argued: "The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Great Walls [1], with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image." The "civilization" they speak of here is capitalist social civilization, elucidating how capitalism draws all nations into the "civilization" of capitalist society, "creating a world" of capitalist "civilization" "after its own image." In the 1880 work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Engels borrowed Charles Fourier's terminology, regarding capitalist society as a "civilized system" [2] (or "civilization"). He conducted a thorough critique of this capitalist "civilized system," pointing out the capitalist institutional attributes of this social civilization.
Second, Marx, Engels, and Lenin profoundly exposed the essence of class exploitation in capitalist social civilization, pointing out that capitalist social civilization is "bourgeois civilization," a civilization built upon the foundation of class opposition and class exploitation. In the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Marx and Engels noted: capitalist social civilization "has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilized ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West." In the 1853 article The Future Results of British Rule in India, Marx explicitly used the term "bourgeois civilization." He noted: "The profound hypocrisy and inherent barbarism of bourgeois civilization lies unveiled before our eyes, turning from its home, where it assumes respectable forms, to the colonies, where it goes naked." He pointed out that capitalist social civilization is "bourgeois civilization," a civilization built on the basis of cruel exploitation and naked plunder of colonies and semi-colonies. In the Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858 (Grundrisse), Marx noted: "the progress of civilization only increases the power of the objective body of labor." In Chapter 12 of Volume 1 of Capital (1867), Marx used the phrase "industrial civilized society." Quoting Adam Smith—"In every improved and civilized society, this is the state into which the laboring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall"—Marx pointed out that "The manufacturing division of labor... not only develops the social productive forces of labor for the capitalist rather than for the worker, but does so by crippling the individual worker. It produces new conditions for the dominion of capital over labor. If, therefore, on the one hand, it presents itself historically as a progress and as a necessary phase in the economic formation of society, on the other hand, it presents itself as a civilized and refined method of exploitation." In the "industrial civilized society" Marx discusses, "civilized" specifically refers to capitalist social civilization. He exposed how capitalism uses "civilized and refined methods of exploitation" to plunge the poor laboring masses into a state of exploitation and oppression. In the Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), Marx used the term "civilized countries." He explicitly stated: "'Modern society' is capitalist society, which exists in all civilized countries, more or less free from medieval admixture, more or less modified by the particular historical development of each country, more or less developed. On the other hand, the 'modern state' changes with a country's frontier. It is different in the Prusso-German Empire from what it is in Switzerland, and different in England from what it is in the United States." However, "the different states of the different civilized countries, in spite of their motley diversity of form, all have this in common, that they are based on modern bourgeois society, only one more or less capitalistically developed." The "civilized countries" Marx uses here refers to civilized states built on the foundation of modern bourgeois society; he clearly points out that all "civilized countries" in modern society are "based on modern bourgeois society." In the 1885 Preface to Volume 2 of Capital, Engels noted: "Why Marx's theory of surplus value struck all civilized countries like a bolt from the blue." The "civilized countries" Engels refers to here clearly carries the same meaning as "civilized lands," where civilization still refers to capitalist social civilization. In the 1892 Preface to the second German edition of The Condition of the Working Class in England, while elaborating on the theory of surplus value, Engels used the term "civilized society." He said: "The value which the worker produces during these additional hours of surplus labor is the surplus value... This surplus value costs the capitalist nothing, but it goes into his pocket just the same. This is the basis of the system which increasingly splits civilized society into a small number of Rothschilds and Vanderbilts, the owners of all the means of production and subsistence, on the one hand, and an immense number of wage-workers, who own nothing but their labor-power, on the other." He believed that capitalist civilized society is a "civilized society" built on the basis of bourgeois exploitation of the working class and the opposition between the two great classes; its civilization is built on the foundation of a social system that exploits the surplus value of the working class. In the 1920 Theses on the Fundamental Tasks of the Second Congress of the Communist International, Lenin exposed that capitalist countries, claiming to be the most civilized, pursue "militarism and imperialism" and oppress "colonies and weak nations." In his 1918 Report on the Current Situation, Lenin pointed out that those capitalist countries styling themselves as "civilized society," "civilized nations," and the "civilized world" were merely boasting: "the 'civilized' and 'educated' capitalist world is heading for an unprecedented collapse." Lenin revealed the nature of class exploitation, the hypocrisy, and the inevitable trend toward demise inherent in capitalist social civilization.
Third, Marx and Engels elucidated that the history of human civilization’s development since the advent of class society is a history of class struggle. It is precisely class struggle that drives the development and progress of human civilization in class society, revealing the objective laws of human civilization’s progress. In The Poverty of Philosophy (1847), Marx noted: "From the very moment that civilization begins, production begins to be founded on the antagonism of orders, estates, and classes, and finally on the antagonism of accumulated labor and direct labor. No antagonism, no progress. This is the law that civilization has followed up to our days." In the same work, Marx noted: "Since it is of the highest importance not to be deprived of the fruits of civilization—the acquired productive forces—the traditional forms in which they were produced must be smashed. From this moment, the formerly revolutionary class becomes conservative." In an 1846 letter to P.V. Annenkov, Marx wrote: "To avoid being deprived of the fruits of civilization, men are forced, from the moment when their mode of intercourse [commerce] no longer corresponds to the productive forces acquired, to change all their inherited social forms." He believed that the class struggle determined by the contradictory movement between the productive forces and the relations of production drives the development of civilization in class society. In the Principles of Communism (1847), Engels pointed out that capitalism's periodic economic crises are "a threat to the whole of civilization; it not only casts the proletarians into the abyss of poverty but also ruins many bourgeois." Furthermore, "big industry has brought the social development of all civilized countries to such a similar level that in all of them the bourgeoisie and the proletariat have become the two decisive classes of society and the struggle between them has become the main struggle of the day," which necessarily demands the establishment of an entirely new social formation. In the 1884 work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Engels noted: "Since the foundation of civilization is the exploitation of one class by another, its whole development moves in a continuous contradiction." He used the term "civilization" (or "the age of civilization") here to mean an era of class differentiation and class opposition—an era where class struggle drives civilized progress. Marx and Engels believed that class struggle is the driving force for the development of civilized society. Capitalist social civilization created the contradiction, opposition, and struggle between the two great classes: the bourgeoisie and the working class. The struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie will inevitably lead to the birth of a new social formation—that is, the birth of a new and progressive civilization.
Fourth, when discussing the civilization of capitalist society, Marx and Engels affirmed the progressive aspect of capitalist civilization from the perspective of historical dialectics, emphasizing the "great civilizing influence of capital" and clearly pointing out that the civilization of capitalist society was more advanced than previous social civilizations. In his 1844 work The Condition of England: The Eighteenth Century, Engels argued that capitalist industrial production itself was an "increase in civilization," capable of generating new needs, new branches of production, and new improvements. In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx utilized the term "civilization of capital." He pointed out that "civilization’s victory for capital consists precisely in the fact that it discovered and promoted human labor as the source of wealth in place of dead things." In the 1847 Principles of Communism, Engels emphasized the historical role of capitalist civilization, noting: "Big industry has brought all the peoples of the Earth into contact with each other, has merged all local markets into one world market, has prepared the ground for civilization and progress everywhere and thus ensured that whatever happens in civilized countries will have repercussions in all other countries." In the Grundrisse (Manuscripts of 1857–1858), Marx affirmed various phenomena of civilizational progress under capitalism: "All progress of civilization, or in other words every increase in the powers of social production, if you like, in the productive powers of labor itself—such as result from science, inventions, division and combination of labor, improved means of communication, creation of the world market, machinery, etc."—are all fruits of capitalist social civilization. Based on this, Marx explicitly stated that the progress of capitalist society demonstrates "the great civilizing influence of capital." "Hence the great civilizing influence of capital; its production of a stage of society in comparison to which all earlier ones appear as mere local developments of humanity and as nature-idolatry." In Volume 3 of Capital (1894), Marx noted: "It is one of the civilizing aspects of capital that it extorts this surplus labor in a manner and under conditions that are more advantageous to the development of the productive forces, to social relations, and to the creation of the elements of a new and higher form than under the preceding forms of slavery, serfdom, etc." In the preface to the fourth edition of The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884), Engels used the term "civilized nations." He noted: "The rediscovery of the original matriarchal gens as the stage preliminary to the patriarchal gens of civilized nations has the same significance for the history of primitive society as Darwin’s theory of evolution has for biology and Marx’s theory of surplus value has for political economy." The "civilized nations" Engels spoke of here specifically referred to capitalist social civilization, and he likewise affirmed its historical progressiveness. The above summary demonstrates that when the Marxist classics used the word "civilization" to discuss capitalist society, they were referring to capitalist civilization. While affirming its historical progressiveness and the "great civilizing influence of capital," they proceeded from the fact that class struggle—determined by the basic contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production—is the cause of civilizational development in class societies. They profoundly exposed the class-exploitative essence and hypocrisy of capitalist civilization, arguing that the extraction of surplus value causes capitalist society to become increasingly fractured into owners of capital and wage laborers who possess nothing but their labor power, creating two fundamentally opposed classes: the "bourgeoisie" and the "proletariat." The class basis of capitalist civilization is the class division and antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the working class built upon the exploitation of surplus value; the capitalist exploitation of the working class’s surplus value is the foundation of the capitalist "civilized system." This is the most fundamental characteristic of capitalist civilization. They explicitly revealed that capitalist civilization possesses a "bourgeois civilization" class nature, arguing that the capitalist "civilized system" serves the interests of the bourgeoisie, oppressing the working class and the broad masses of laboring people internally while carrying out imperialist aggression externally.
II. In analyzing the defects and developmental trends of capitalist civilization, the Marxist classics profoundly recognized that capitalist civilization inevitably leads to the proletarian revolution and the birth of a higher communist civilization. They pointed out that capitalist civilization forged the proletariat as the great force for human liberation, and that the outcome of capitalist civilizational development must be the eruption of the socialist proletarian revolution. Through the transition of a socialist society under the dictatorship of the proletariat, communist civilization will inevitably replace capitalist civilization, foreshadowing the historical developmental trend of future social civilization.
First, Marx and Engels pointed out that the "old civilization" of capitalism is a "guilty civilization" [3] and that capitalist civilization is the "last stage of the old civilization." In a letter to Ludwig Feuerbach dated August 11, 1844, Marx wrote: "But in any case, history is turning these 'barbarians' of our civilized society into the practical element of the emancipation of mankind." He clearly identified the proletariat within capitalist civilized society as the great practical force for human liberation. In a letter to Marx in early October 1844, Engels noted that capitalist civilization is the "last stage of the old civilization": "In recent years the workers have reached the last stage of the old civilization; their opposition to the old social system is taking the form of a rapidly increasing number of crimes, robberies, and murders." In The Civil War in France (1871), Marx pointed out: "This guilty civilization, based upon the enslavement of labor, whenever its bloodhounds are won over by the champions of a better and newer society, attempts to drown the groans of its victims in a hue and cry of calumny, reverberating worldwide." He continued: "Yes, the civilization and justice of bourgeois order comes out in its lurid light whenever the slaves and oppressors of that order rise against their masters. Then this civilization and justice stand forth as undisguised savagery and lawless revenge. Each new crisis in the class struggle between the appropriator and the producer brings out this fact more glaringly." In summarizing the lessons of the Paris Commune uprising, Marx indignantly condemned the bloody repression of the Communards by the bourgeoisie: "The bourgeoisie and its army in June 1848 revived a custom which had long disappeared from the practice of war—the shooting of defenseless prisoners. Since then, it has been more or less strictly adhered to by the suppressors of popular risings in Europe and India; thus proving that it constitutes a real 'step in civilization'!"
Second, Marx, Engels, and Lenin believed that in nearly all countries of capitalist civilization, the development of big industry and the forceful suppression of the working class by the bourgeoisie would inevitably lead the proletariat to unite in a socialist revolution, creating the prerequisites for the realization of communist civilization. In The Communists and Karl Heinzen (1847), Engels pointed out: "In all civilized countries, the necessary result of democracy is the political rule of the proletariat, and the political rule of the proletariat is the first prerequisite for all communist measures." In the Principles of Communism (1847), he further noted: "But they also see that the development of the proletariat in nearly all civilized countries has been violently suppressed, and that in this way the opponents of communism have been working toward a revolution with all their might." He added: "By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civilized peoples, into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others... the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries—that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany. It will develop in each of these countries more or less rapidly, according as one country or the other has a more developed industry, greater wealth, a more important mass of productive forces. Hence, it will go slowest and will meet most obstacles in Germany, most rapidly and with most ease in England. It will have a powerful impact on the other countries of the world, and will radically alter the course of development which they have followed up to now, while greatly stepping up its pace. It is a worldwide revolution and will therefore be played out on a worldwide terrain." In the Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), Marx noted: "‘The working class works for its emancipation first of all within the framework of the present-day national states, being conscious that the necessary result of its efforts, which are common to the laborers of all civilized countries, will be the international brotherhood of peoples.’" In On the Emancipation of the Serfs in Russia (1858), Marx referred to the civilization of exploitative societies as "sham civilization" and called the future civilization that would replace it "true universal civilization"—that is, communist civilization. "True universal civilization" will replace the "sham civilization" promoted by the exploitative classes in history. The discourses of Marx and Engels show that capitalist civilization, marked by big industry, created the necessary prerequisites for the socialist proletarian revolution and opened the historical inevitability of communist civilization replacing capitalist civilization. Lenin inherited the thoughts of Marx and Engels. In On the Eve of Bloody Sunday (1905), he pointed out: "The proletariat shows by its deeds that it, and it alone, is the pillar of modern civilization." In International Working Women's Day (1920), he noted: "Only the dictatorship of the proletariat, only the socialist state can reach, and has reached, a high level of civilization." In Our Revolution (1923), he further noted: "Moving toward socialism" is the prerequisite for civilization. In summary, it can be seen that the Marxist classics, standing on the position of the proletariat, strongly condemned capitalist civilization as a "guilty civilization" and a "sham civilization" used to suppress the proletariat. They clearly pointed out that whenever the proletariat rises to resist the bourgeoisie, the "civilization and justice of this order shows its ferocious face," thoroughly exposing the ferocious class nature, hypocrisy, and deceitfulness of capitalist civilization. They explicitly stated that capitalist civilization is the "last stage of the old civilization" and that this "old civilization" must be replaced by "true universal civilization," namely communist civilization. They clearly believed that capitalist civilization created the social conditions for the workers of the world to unite, achieve a socialist proletarian revolution, and establish proletarian political rule to overthrow capitalist society; the proletariat is the material force for creating communist civilization, and only the dictatorship of the proletariat and only the socialist state can achieve a "high level of civilization."
III. Referencing Lewis H. Morgan’s periodization of the developmental history of human society, the Marxist classics used the term "the age of civilization" (文明时代), dividing it into "ancient civilization" and "modern civilization." The "ancient civilization" they spoke of refers to the civilizations of social formations prior to capitalist society, while "modern civilization" refers to capitalist civilization. They criticized the historical idealist view of civilization held by some Western bourgeois politicians and scholars, who viewed social civilization as the result of purely spiritual movements. Instead, they clearly pointed out that the formation and progress of social civilization are results of the development of social productive forces. They summarized the different stages and forms of the evolution of human civilization, revealing the objective laws governing the historical development of human civilization.
First, when Marx and Engels used terms such as "ancient civilization," "Indian civilization," "semi-civilized system," and "old civilized countries," "civilization" specifically referred to the social civilizations existing prior to the civilization of capitalist society. In The Peasant War in Germany (1850), Engels pointed out: "The Middle Ages had developed out of raw Stevenson-like barbarism. It had wiped the slate clean of ancient civilization, ancient philosophy, politics and jurisprudence, in order to begin everything anew." Here, the "ancient civilization" mentioned by Engels should be understood as the social civilization prior to capitalist social civilization. In The Future Results of British Rule in India (1853), Marx remarked: "The Arabs, Turks, Tartars, Moguls, who had successively conquered India, soon became Hindooized, the barbarian conquerors being, by an eternal law of history, conquered themselves by the superior civilization of their subjects. The British were the first conquerors superior, and therefore, inaccessible to Hindoo civilization. They destroyed it by breaking up the native communities, by uprooting the native industry, and by levelling all that was great and elevated in the native society." The "Hindoo civilization" (Indian civilization) he refers to here is slave-society civilization and even feudal-society civilization; the "civilization" of the "British" is capitalist social civilization, which possessed a higher degree of civilization than Romanized "Indian civilization." In Persia and China (1857), Engels pointed out: "In China, the rotting semi-civilized system [4] of the oldest country in the world is struggling against the Europeans with its own particular means." The Chinese "semi-civilized system" he refers to here is relative to the "civilized system" of European capitalism; it actually refers to the civilization of Chinese feudal society. In the 1872 article The Housing Question, Engels pointed out: "Such a transition from manufacture and small-scale production to large-scale industry in an old civilized country, and more especially when this transition is accelerated by such favorable circumstances, is mostly a time of 'housing shortage.'" The "civilization" of the "old civilized country" here clearly also refers to the social civilization prior to capitalist social civilization.
Second, although Marx and Engels sometimes borrowed the term "barbarism" as used by Westerners to substitute for the state of social civilization prior to capitalist society, their view was fundamentally different from the narrow Western bourgeois historical perspective; they highly affirmed the "ancient civilizations" that preceded capitalist social civilization. Certain Western bourgeois politicians and scholars regard the "ancient civilizations" of human society, especially the "ancient civilizations" of Eastern nations, as "barbarism," promoting the "Western-civilization-centrism" [5] and other narrow bourgeois idealist historical views. By calling "ancient civilization" "barbarous," they disparage it, particularly the "ancient civilizations" created by Eastern nations. This is fundamentally different from the Marxist view of civilization, which highly affirms "ancient civilization," especially those created by Eastern nations. As Comrade Mao Zedong pointed out in 1959 during his Talk with Leaders of Communist Parties from Some Latin American Countries, it is necessary to eliminate the absurd claims and superstitious concepts used by Western bourgeois politicians—such as "Americans are civilized" and "we are more barbarian than they are"—to disparage Eastern civilization. He resolutely opposed the view of certain Western bourgeois politicians and scholars who "say we are barbarian and uncivilized," arguing that "this must be overturned." In his 1958 Talk with the Youth Delegation from Black Africa, he pointed out: because "we in China have not occupied other countries in the past or present, nor will we occupy the United States or Britain as colonies in the future, we have always been a civilized country." Truly barbarian countries are the imperialist brigands who cruelly oppress, exploit, and slaughter the people of colonies and semi-colonies, whereas the Eastern nations are civilized countries because they never occupy or colonize other nations.
Third, Engels applied the standpoint, viewpoints, and methods of historical materialism to analyze the Enlightenment-era doctrine of "five social forms" [6]. He argued that the entire "era of civilization" of humanity is divided into two major stages: "ancient civilization" and "modern civilization." "Ancient civilization" refers to the civilizations of several social forms preceding capitalist society, while "modern civilization" refers to capitalist society itself. In this way, he clearly delineated the historical developmental process of humanity's social-civilizational forms. In his 1880 work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Engels borrowed Charles Fourier’s historical periodization, noting: "He [Fourier] divides the whole course of social history up to the present into four stages of development: savagery, barbarism, the patriarchate, and civilization. This last is identical with the so-called bourgeois society of today—i.e., with the social order that has come in since the 16th century." He pointed out: "this civilization plays every vice which in the age of barbarism is committed in a simple way, into a complex, ambiguous, double-faced, hypocritical form of existence"; civilization moves in a "vicious circle," in contradictions which it is constantly reproducing without being able to overcome them; hence it always arrives at the opposite of what it wants to achieve or pretends to want to achieve. By leveraging Fourier’s critique and exposure of capitalist society, Engels profoundly revealed that the "era of civilization" moves within the "vicious circle" of class struggle, explicitly pointing out the hypocrisy of the capitalist "civilized system" and the historical necessity of its eventually turning into its own opposite. In the 1884 The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Engels stated: "We can now summarize Morgan's periodization as follows: Savagery—the period in which the appropriation of natural products, ready for use, predominated; the products of human art are chiefly instruments that facilitate this appropriation. Barbarism—the period in which knowledge of cattle breeding and agriculture was acquired, in which methods of increasing the productivity of nature through human activity were learnt. Civilization—the period in which knowledge of the further processing of nature’s products, of industry proper, and of art was acquired." Here, Engels borrowed Lewis H. Morgan's phrasing that "civilization is the period in which knowledge of the further processing of nature's products, of industry proper, and of art was acquired." In the author's view, the so-called "further processing of nature's products" is most representatively seen when primitive humans processed natural stones into labor tools or daily utensils, such as fishing tools, bows and arrows, or even pottery. This should be regarded as the beginning and germ of human civilization—the germination and origin of "ancient civilization" within primitive society. Of course, the definition of the "civilization era" as the period of "industry proper and art" refers to the civilizational periods of slave society, feudal society, and especially the "modern civilization" of capitalist society. This represents the historical process of the mature development of social civilization. In the same work, Engels pointed out: "Civilization is that stage of development of society at which the division of labor, the resulting exchange between individuals, and the commodity production which combines the two, reach their full development and revolutionize the whole before-existing society." Engels argued here that the division of labor, commodity exchange arising from it, and the full development of production are what allowed human society to truly enter the "era of civilization." Continuing in the same work, he noted: "According to our investigations of the most civilized and developed peoples of antiquity, such was the origin of monogamy." By "most civilized and developed peoples of antiquity," his reference to civilization clearly points to the dissolution of primitive society—the period when patriarchal systems and monogamy appeared, and when private property and class differentiation began to emerge. He then noted: "Above we stood at the cradle of ancient Greek and Roman civilization. Here we stand at its coffin." The Greek and Roman civilization mentioned here is the civilization of slave society. "The social classes of the ninth century were formed, not in the decline of a dying civilization, but in the birth-pangs of a new civilization." Here, the "dying civilization" is slave society, and the "new civilization" is feudal society. The above analysis shows that although Engels borrowed Morgan’s term "era of civilization," he did not follow Morgan's entire periodization of placing "savagery" and "barbarism" before civilization. Instead, he clearly divided the "era of civilization" into two major stages: "ancient civilization" and "modern civilization." Together, these two constitute the entire "era of civilization" of human society. From the entirety of Engels's discourse on civilization, it can be seen that the "origin of civilization" and the "onset of the era of civilization" do not mean the same thing, nor do they refer to the same historical stage of social-civilizational development. "Ancient civilization" should include the originating civilization of primitive society, as well as slave society and feudal society; "modern civilization" is capitalist society. The "era of civilization" refers specifically to the slave society, feudal society, and capitalist society that have existed since primitive society split into class societies. The developmental trajectory from the "ancient civilization" of slave and feudal societies to "modern civilization" is the history of humanity's "era of civilization." The "era of civilization" evidently does not include the originating civilization of primitive society.
Fourth, Engels pointed out that since the dissolution of primitive communal ownership, all "old civilizations" of class-exploitation societies have been built on the foundation of class exploitation and antagonism. The emergence of classes and the state are the vital markers of human society entering the "era of civilization." In the 1884 work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Engels further noted: "The stage of commodity production, with which civilization begins, is marked economically by the introduction of: (1) metal money, and, thus, of money capital, interest and usury; (2) the merchants as the intermediary class between producers; (3) private ownership of land and mortgage; (4) slave labor as the prevailing form of production. The form of the family corresponding to civilization and becoming definitely established through it is monogamy, the supremacy of the man over the woman, and the individual family as the economic unit of society. The cohesive force of civilized society is the state, which in all typical periods is, without exception, the state of the ruling class, and in all cases remains essentially a machine for keeping down the oppressed, exploited class. Other marks of civilization are: on the one hand, the fixation of the antithesis between town and country as the basis of the entire social division of labor; on the other hand, the introduction of wills, whereby the owner of property was able to dispose of it even after his death. This institution, which was a direct blow at the old gentile constitution [7], was unknown in Athens until the time of Solon; in Rome it was introduced very early, but we do not know when; among the Germans it was introduced by the priests in order that the honest German might bequeath his property to the church without let or hindrance." "Civilization has accomplished things with these basic institutions of which the old gentile society was not even remotely capable," but "since the civilization is founded upon the exploitation of one class by another, its whole development proceeds in a constant contradiction." Here, we can clearly trace how Engels used historical materialism to analyze the developmental process of human civilization. In the same work, he pointed out: "With the appearance of slavery, which attained its fullest development in civilization, came the first great cleavage of society into an exploiting and an exploited class. This cleavage has continued during the whole period of civilization. Slavery was the first form of exploitation, peculiar to the world of antiquity; it was followed by serfdom in the Middle Ages, and by wage labor in modern times. These are the three great forms of servitude, characteristic of the three great epochs of civilization; open, and in recent times disguised, slavery always accompanies the period of civilization." His statement regarding "slavery, which attained its fullest development in civilization" explicitly indicates that the first great cleavage into exploiting and exploited classes occurred in slave society. From then on, class differentiation and antagonism "continued during the whole period of civilization." He believed that the division of labor, commodity exchange and production arising from it, and private property with its resulting class differentiation and antagonism, are the essential markers of humanity entering the "era of civilization." He pointed out that "slavery," "medieval serfdom," and "modern wage labor" are the three institutional forms of private ownership of the means of production for slave, feudal, and capitalist societies respectively—the "three great forms of servitude" unique to the three epochs of the "era of civilization." He referred to "modern wage labor," namely capitalist wage labor, as "disguised slavery." Engels’s elaboration demonstrates that the so-called "era of civilization" encompasses slave society, feudal society, and capitalist society. He believed that the "era of civilization" since slave society began with the division of labor and the exchange and production of commodities it induced. Economically, it has four characteristics: the emergence of money capital, interest, and usury; the emergence of a merchant class; the emergence of private land ownership and mortgages; and the emergence of slave labor. In terms of family form, the individual family emerged, characterized by monogamy and male dominance over women. Politically, the characteristic is the emergence of the state—"the state is the summary of civilized society" and is "essentially a machine for keeping down the oppressed, exploited class." He also noted other characteristics of the "era of civilization," namely the emergence of the old-style division of labor between town and country and the system of inheriting private property. Through this analysis, Engels demonstrated that the "era of civilization"—whether "ancient civilization" (slave and feudal societies) or "modern civilization" (capitalist society)—is characterized by class exploitation, class oppression, class contradiction, the town-country antithesis, and the old-style division of labor. He exposed the essence of all previous class societies as "forms of servitude" based on class exploitation and revealed the history of the "era of civilization" from "ancient" to "modern" forms. It must be noted here that the "ancient civilization" Engels speaks of should also include the initial, germinating, originating civilization of primitive society. Because Engels borrowed Morgan’s idea of "learning to further process natural products," this discourse implies that civilization began when humans learned to process natural products, starting first with processing natural objects into tools. In fact, in primitive society, humans learned to process natural objects into tools of production and daily necessities; thus began "ancient civilization." Of course, his identification of the division of labor, commodity exchange/production, private property, and the emergence of classes and the state as vital markers of the formation of social civilization and humanity’s entry into the "era of civilization" does not conflict with his assessment that civilization originated from tool-making. Rather, it means that slave society, following the dissolution of primitive communal ownership, entered the "era of civilization" proper. The "ancient civilization" within the "era of civilization" refers specifically to slave and feudal civilizations.
Fifth, Marx and Engels profoundly criticized the idealist conception of history regarding civilization, using historical materialism to elucidate the true causes of the generation, formation, and development of civilization. In the 1844 work The Condition of England: The Eighteenth Century, Engels pointed out that according to historical materialism, "civilization is a matter of practice, a quality of society." In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx noted that civilization is the "object created by the worker." In the Grundrisse (1857–1858 Manuscripts), he further pointed out that "all progress in civilization, or in other words," is "every increase in social productive forces." In the article The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man published in 1896, Engels pointed out that the bourgeoisie attributes "rapidly advancing civilization" entirely "to the head, to the development and activity of the brain," thereby criticizing the idealist conception of history that reduces civilization to a product of the spirit. Marx and Engels emphasized that civilization is the result of "every increase in social productive forces," a "matter of practice," and the "object created by the worker." They utilized historical materialism to fully explain the real causes and the true driving forces behind the emergence of social civilization.
IV. Through the above synthesis of the classical expositions by Marxist authors regarding social civilization, one can comprehend their fundamental views and perspectives on the civilization of human society. It becomes clear how they applied the basic principles and methods of historical materialism to analyze and understand the issue of social civilization, thereby elucidating the Marxist view of civilization. In its broadest sense, the term "civilization" can be employed in many different ways, such as Eastern vs. Western civilization; ancient vs. modern civilization; industrial, agricultural, or nomadic civilizations; and the civilizations of slave, feudal, capitalist, or socialist societies. It can be utilized across various disciplines—such as history, ethnology, anthropology, sociology, and archaeology—and can possess different referents and connotations. When Marxist authors used the word "civilization," they applied strict limitations; specifically, they endowed the concept with a definition rooted in historical materialism. In using the terminology of "civilization" to explain social civilization issues, they consistently applied the standpoint, viewpoint, and method of historical materialism, embodying the Marxist view of civilization. By systematically sorting through the classical discourses, arguments, and viewpoints of Marxism regarding social civilization, I believe the Marxist view of civilization primarily consists of the following important perspectives:
First, the nature, state, and level of social productive forces constitute the fundamental criteria for understanding the emergence, development, nature, state, and level of human social civilization. Marxist authors believed that productive forces are the ultimate driver of progress in human social civilization, the masses of the people are the creators of social civilization, and the contradictory movement between the productive forces and the relations of production, and between the economic base and the superstructure, is the true cause of progress in human social civilization. For example, Marx pointed out that "every progress in civilization, or in other words," is "every increase in social productive forces." Civilization is the "object created by the worker"; and "in order that they may not be deprived of the result attained, and forfeit the fruits of civilization, men are compelled, from the moment when their mode of commerce [N] no longer corresponds to the productive forces acquired, to change all their traditional social forms."
Second, in judging the nature, state, and level of a social civilization, the primary basis should be the nature, state, and level of the social formation to which that civilization belongs. Starting from the fundamental cause of the development and change of human society—the basic contradiction between productive forces and relations of production, and between the economic base and the superstructure—Marxist authors followed the principle of the general laws governing the evolution of human social formations. Based on the "five social formations" [N] theory, which posits that human development moves from primitive society, through slave society, feudal society, and capitalist society, and ultimately through a socialist transition toward communist society (with socialist society being the first stage of communist society), they viewed human social civilization as a developmental process of "five social-civilizational formations": the originating civilization of primitive society, slave-system civilization, feudal-system civilization, capitalist wage-labor civilization, and communist public-ownership civilization (of which socialist-ownership civilization is the first stage). This reveals the law by which human social civilization continuously develops from lower to higher stages.
Third, civilization is a historical category; one cannot use an abstract, eternal, or trans-historical "universal civilization" to measure specific social-civilizational formations of different classes, countries, and nations under different historical conditions. Marxist authors began from the relations of production determined by the productive forces—the sum total of these relations, i.e., the superstructure determined by the economic base—and from the nature and state of the ownership of the means of production, as well as the nature and state of the political superstructure, to scientifically classify and define the specific forms of social civilization at different stages of human development. They viewed human social civilization as historical, concrete, and constantly evolving, maintaining that there has never been such a thing as an abstract, trans-historical, or "universal" social civilization. They regarded social civilization as a social phenomenon possessing a social character.
Fourth, the viewpoint and method of class and class struggle must be used to analyze and understand the phenomena of social civilization in class societies. Marxist authors used the viewpoint of class struggle and the method of class analysis to examine the social civilization of class societies. They profoundly revealed that the civilization of class-exploitative societies is built upon the foundation of class antagonism and class exploitation, arguing that class struggle has been the motive force of progress for human social civilization since the dawn of class society. History since the dissolution of the communal ownership of primitive society is a history of class struggle. In class societies, social civilization possesses a distinct class character; there is no such thing as a "supra-class" social civilization. Therefore, a class analysis of the social civilization of class societies is essential. Marx and Engels regarded the emergence of classes and the state as the fundamental and primary hallmark of human society entering "civilized times." Marx noted that civilization "is a social quality." Sociality is the developmental characteristic of human civilization, and class character is the concentrated expression of that sociality within class societies. Marx and Engels believed that from the "ancient civilization" of the slave societies following the dissolution of primitive communal ownership, through the "ancient civilization" of feudal societies, and up to the "modern civilization" of capitalism, all have been social civilizations of class exploitation and antagonism. Their foundation has consistently been "the exploitation of one class by another." "Every step forward in civilization is at the same time a step forward in inequality." "The state is the summary of civilized society" and "in all cases is essentially a machine for the suppression of the oppressed and exploited class." The antagonism and struggle between classes is the objective law followed by the development of civilization. As Comrade Mao Zedong stated in 1949 in Cast Away Illusions, Prepare for Struggle: "Class struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history, such is the history of civilization for thousands of years."
Fifth, any social civilization possesses historical progressiveness relative to the one preceding it, and any social-civilizational formation will inevitably be replaced by a new one. Applying the most thorough historical dialectics, Marxist authors elucidated that the social civilization of any given social formation is historically progressive compared to its predecessor and contributes to the development of human social civilization. For instance, Marx and Engels gave a dialectical evaluation of the progressiveness of capitalist social civilization: they affirmed the "great civilizing influence of capital," yet argued that capitalist social civilization, built on the antagonism and struggle between the two great classes of capitalist society, is an "old civilization" that will inevitably trigger a proletarian socialist revolution. Through the dictatorship of the proletariat (the political rule of the proletariat), it will be replaced by a new civilizational formation—a "true universal civilization"—the civilization of communist society. They pointed out that the proletariat is the material force for burying the old class-society civilization and creating a new social civilization, scientifically predicting the historical necessity of the future new civilization of human society (communist social civilization) replacing capitalist social civilization.
Sixth, the historical-idealist view of civilization must be thoroughly critiqued. Standing on the ground of historical materialism, Marxist authors thoroughly critiqued certain Western bourgeois politicians and scholars who argued that human social civilization is a product of pure spirit. They critiqued those who advocated the binary "barbarism-civilization" division of history, who clamored that eras prior to capitalist society were "barbaric conditions" while "capitalist society is the end of civilization," and who propagated the "Western-centrism of civilization" and other narrow, bourgeois, historical-idealist views of civilization. For example, in the essay "The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man," published in 1896, Engels critiqued the erroneous view of certain bourgeois scholars who believed that human reason and spirit were the ultimate drivers of human civilization. He critiqued the historical-idealist view that attributed "rapidly advancing civilization" entirely "to the head, to the development and activity of the brain," pointing out that historical activities driving the progress of civilization should be based on the "needs" of real material production and life, rather than the thinking of a few individuals. Productive practice is the foundation of progress in human civilization; productive forces are the fundamental motive force driving the progress of human social civilization. Civilization is an important category of historical materialism that marks, embodies, and summarizes the nature, state, and level of social progress. The "clash of civilizations" theory advocated today by [Samuel] Huntington is a contemporary variant of the historical-idealist view of civilization criticized by Marxist authors. The trans-historical, abstract "clash of civilizations" theory strikes out the fact that the history of human civilization since the advent of class society has been a history of class struggle, in an attempt to substitute the theory of class struggle. From the discourses of Marxist authors, one can clearly delineate the basic content and viewpoints of the Marxist view of civilization—that is, the total outlook and basic principles of Marxism regarding social civilization. Although they did not provide a single explicit definition of civilization, it can be seen from their discussions that civilization should be the hallmark, embodiment, and summary of the state, nature, and degree of human social progress. We must learn to use the standpoint, viewpoint, and method of historical materialism to conduct historical, concrete, dialectical, and class-based analysis and understanding of the issue of social civilization.
Source: Philosophical Research (哲学研究), Issue 1, 2025. Internet Editor: Jing Mu.