Feudal system: origin and features. The feudal system is the structure of a society based mainly on agricultural production, the organizers of which are land owners (feudal lords)

During the disintegration of the Roman state, the inflow of the bulk of capital was produced through trade, navigation and manufactories. Capital was mainly invested in land ownership. When the imperial military power, administration and laws could no longer guarantee society's social stability and the reliability of its existence, people began to "attach" to large landowners. This category of Roman citizens had at their disposal armed military structures that could be used at any time to protect and restore order. In all territories of the former Western Rome, and later of Eastern Rome, new social forms of organization arose that were able to create conditions for internal and external security. This social form of organization of Roman society, called the "feudal system", was a social structure that consisted of the military power of large landowners. One of the distinguishing features of this social formation was that even production itself was concentrated in the hands of large landowners, and cities and markets came under their direct protection.

The legal roots of feudal society were related to the formation of legal concepts in the late antique era. Poor Roman citizens sought protection from large landowners. In exchange for it, they gave their small plots of land to the landowners, and then they took their own land from them. (precaria) or gave themselves under their full protection (commendatid). In the second case, it often happened that the one who sought protection from a large landowner did not lease the land from him, but gave him a written message in writing for greater persuasiveness and reliability, in which he, in particular, mentioned the promise of protection and patronage from the "owner", Such landowners were called "seniors" (senior, hence - senor, seigneur, sieur, sire u sir etc.), and those who sought their protection and patronage - vassals (vassus). If the official duty of a vassal consisted of military service with a feudal lord, then in this case he was called "precaria beneficium"(favored by the flax, that is, the vassal in this case received

"feud", a small land poured for military service). Another characteristic feature of the feudal system in the form in which it arose in the Frankish state and then spread throughout Europe (with the exception of Sweden, Norway and Finland), was the legal immunity of both the feudal lord himself and his officials. This also applied to the property of churches. Royal officials did not even have the right to step on the land of a feudal lord or his vassal. They also did not have the right to administer any kind of court or to inflict reprisals and to arrange executions on their land, that is, to fulfill their direct duties of duty and service on these lands. The lands of feudal lords and their vassals were not subject to official taxation.

As a result of the political struggle around the feudal institutions of Europe in the XVIII century. the concepts of "feudalism" and "feudal system" as a form of institutions have undergone significant changes. The term "feudalism" ("feudal system") began to designate a certain system of organizing social relations in which the privileged stratum of wealthy landowners began to "squeeze" and economically enslave their fellow citizens. This happened in Russia, whose feudal system rested on the principles of Byzantine feudalism, and this is how it happened (albeit in a less weakly expressed form) in the countries of Western Europe during the Late Middle Ages and the very beginning of the New Age. But initially, as already mentioned, this feudal system was nothing more than an instrument for organizing the social and economic protection of a society in which state power no longer functioned. This initial form of feudalism provided for the formation of rights and obligations, which both the large feudal lords and the vassals who were feeding around them had to observe in equal measure. We have already talked about the written messages of those who turned to the feudal lords with a request for protection and patronage.

We give one of these messages as an illustrative example. This epistle was contained in one of the texts of the formulary collection of a certain Tours, dating from about 750 AD. e. The text is a message from a citizen seeking protection and patronage from a wealthy landowner: "He who gives himself over to the power of another. To a noble Lord (such and such). I (such and such). Since everyone is good it is known that I do not own anything that could feed and clothe me, then I ask you to turn your mercy on me, and I, for my part, of my own free will decided to give myself under your protection and trust you. And I do it as follows : You will help me and support me in my food and clothing to the extent that I can serve

live for you as a free person and be useful to you. As long as I remain alive, I, as a free person, will serve you and render you my obedience, and I will not oppose your power and your superiority, but always, as long as I live, I will remain under your power and your protection. We agree that if any of us wants to terminate this agreement, then he will have to pay the other a fine (in such and such an amount), and the agreement will still be valid. On this basis, we agree that such an agreement is drawn up by both parties and confirmed by them as a single document having equal force. "

As can be seen from the document presented, the vassal pledged to remain in the power of the feudal lord and obey him throughout his life. This "ownership of life" was, from the outset, the natural moment of such an agreement. The feudal lord in such cases should have known exactly what kind of military, and most importantly, human resources, he had, since in such a situation he took responsibility for the life and safety of a free citizen who trusted him and his protection from outside encroachments, for maintaining internal order in their possessions and for the financial situation of their ward. However, on the other hand, the peculiarity of the situation in which a free citizen who trusted the feudal lord found himself, as well as the precariousness of this situation, in the end turned for the person who trusted that he fell into complete personal dependence on his patron, which in practice meant that he became ordinary the slave of his master and in this capacity he found himself in slavery and, thus, in his position he was equated with the class of unfree citizens, that is, with the class that at one time emerged from the depths of the slaveholding system of the ancient era. The position of this class of unfree citizens was sometimes somewhat softened or even improved by the influence of the church. Initially free, then becoming hostages of their own lives, these categories of citizens ultimately fell under the pressure of the new system of social oppression.

The birth of a new feudal system was accompanied by an intensive strengthening of the economic power of large landowners, who ensured an increase in the total volume of production in the country, and at the same time the selfish appropriation of all income. The strengthening of economic power was simultaneously accompanied by the strengthening of the political and legal positions of the landowners, who completely took possession of all structures of military power, subjugated all the executive functions of the administrative and legal authorities, and also took control of all production. Feudal system in the Middle Ages

Cove in different parts of Europe had its own distinctive features, which had different effects on different countries. Despite the fact that in the XVIII and XIX centuries. this system had already been undermined and, as such, left the historical arena of Western Europe, it, as a form of social organization of society, nevertheless, in the form of separate manifestations, continued to persist in rather large territories of Eastern Europe, among which one can name, for example, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, where it existed until 1945.But even when the feudal system in the initial period of the Late Middle Ages took on rigid frozen hierarchical forms, i.e. when vassals of the crown appeared or, in other words, vassals of the king (vassals to whom the king bestowed lands as a reward for their loyalty to the allied duty with him), even then among the obedient vassals and among the vassals of these vassals, etc., there was a strong influence on the part of pro-German views on society and its members. Citizens who were part of the structure of a richly developed feudal hierarchical system (this did not include the categories of citizens that we talked about above, that is, citizens who voluntarily entrusted their lives to the feudal lords) closely monitored the preservation of their legal status. The feudal system retained its position, on the one hand, due to strict adherence to the developing feudal legal norms, and on the other, due to loyalty to the Germanic traditions, which were its ideological core. The situation was similar in the newly revived and flourishing public urban life. It began in the last period of the Migration Period. German influence led to the formation of various, voluntarily formed and interacting with one another social structures, among which such developed and rich corporate systems as merchant structures and artisans' unions came to the fore. Even the cities themselves, as such, were founded on the basis of voluntary communities, as a rule, with their own legal status. At the same time, general legal norms were created, which were adopted by residents of cities on a voluntary basis.

The birth of a new feudal system was accompanied by an intensive increase in the economic power of large landowners, who ensured an increase in the total volume of production in the country, and at the same time selfish appropriation of all income. The strengthening of the economic power of the feudal lords was simultaneously accompanied by the strengthening of the political positions of the landowners, who subordinated the structures of the executive power, significantly influenced the determination of the state's military policy.

Realizing themselves as a class, landowners gradually created their own corporate system. Let's call it feudal law. However, in different countries it is designated by different terms. So, in Germany, the term "fief law" is used ( German"lehn" is a piece of land). In Russia, the term "local law" took root, derived from the word "estate", which was the name of a plot of state, state land, given by the sovereign to the personal possession of a servant person for his service. However, this does not mean at all that in Russia there was only this form of land tenure. No, there was also patrimonial land tenure, and after the peasant reform of 1861, peasant land tenure and others began to appear. Local land tenure, however, was the most typical for Russia.

The designation of feudal law in different terms is only the tip of the iceberg. Its underwater part, which is much more voluminous, is the different nature of feudal corporate norms in different countries. That is why an overview of feudal corporate law (as, incidentally, and other corporate estate systems) can be given only the most general and fragmentary. Let's point out some general features of the feudal corporate law that existed in any traditional society.

1. The subject of feudal law. Feudal (local) law regulated the procedure for acquiring land ownership and the relationship between land owners... Of course, the backbone of feudal law was the first group of relations.

There are many differences between the procedure for acquiring land holdings in Western Europe and in Russia. The main difference is that in Western Europe it was based on a system of patronage and the principle of subfeudalization, according to which each holder of land must have a seigneur (otherwise, on the principle "there is no land without a seigneur"), while in Russia the land was recognized as the property of the sovereign and he was free to dispose of it, giving its individual parts to "his servants", i.e. people in his service. This fundamentally affected the nature of the political system in Russia. For this reason, the development of democratic principles in comparison with Western European states in Russia has been postponed for many centuries. However, common to all countries was that feudal law secured exclusive privileges of feudal lords, nobility, and then the clergy to the land... Free peasant ownership of land, which existed at the earliest stage of the emergence of the feudal system, including during the disintegration of the Roman Empire, practically disappeared. True, the right to feudal property was combined with elements of communal peasant land use (forests, meadows).

Feudal law secured and fragmentation of land ownership... According to its norms, the land was not in the unlimited ownership of one person, but acted as the property of two or more feudal lords and / or as the property of the state (sovereign). At the same time, the seigneur, the sovereign, retained certain administrative and judicial rights and control over the disposal of the transferred plot of land. It was only later that the right to own land began to transform into ownership and inheritance. This happened when a rule appeared in feudal law establishing the prescription of the possession of land (in different countries, the statute of limitations was different - from 10 to 30 years). In a word, feudal law consolidated the hierarchical structure of feudal landed property and, accordingly, the structure of the class of feudal lords.

Relations between the feudal lords were also important, in the process of which numerous disputes arose. If in Russia all these disputes were settled by a powerful and tough tsarist hand (all feudal lords were considered servants of the sovereign!), Then in Western Europe the situation was fundamentally different. Often, disputes between feudal lords were settled by force, and the "decree" of the king was nothing for many feudal lords, since some large feudal lords were much more powerful than him.

2. The content of feudal law. Its main backbone was made up of various types of personal obligations of feudal lords to masters(to the lord, to the sovereign). Later they turned into property obligations... Thus, direct economic domination took the form of taxes, which were collected in food, furs, etc. This gave the vassals much more personal freedom and economic independence.

What personal duties should the feudal lords bear in relation to the lords?

There were many of them: the obligation to carry out military service, the right of a seigneur to marry a vassal's daughter or give her in marriage, the seigneur's right to personal assistance from a vassal in need of her, etc.

The content of feudal law was fully consistent with its main goal. The main goal of feudal (local) law was land tenure protection... So, gathering for their congresses, Western European feudal lords formulated their requirements for royal power, agreed to bear certain responsibilities to the state and stipulated, and tried to do this in writing, the obligation of the royal power not to establish new duties for them without the general consent of the feudal lords. In Russia, the nobility fought for a long time for the transformation of local land ownership into hereditary, and only in the 18th century. this rule was finally established. The regulation of 1831 gave the noble societies the right to make the higher authorities represent not only their class needs, but also about the cessation of local abuses and, in general, the elimination of inconveniences noticed in local government, and thus made the provincial noble society an intercessor for the needs of the entire province ...

3. Form of feudal law. Many feudal norms were unwritten character... And this is not surprising. Feudal law grew out of custom. An example is the establishment of fiefdoms by taking an oath. It went as follows. Hand on the Bible, the vassal swore allegiance to his liege. Often after that, the lord would give him some object, for example, a flag, a cross or a key, which was supposed to symbolize the establishment of fief in the rights, i.e. feudal award.

Also used contractual form the settlement of rights for the transfer of land ownership, which took place, as a rule, between equal feudal lords and more often meant nothing more than the purchase and sale of land. There were also agreements on the acquisition of a certain legal position (an agreement on an oath of allegiance or an agreement on an oath of faithful service without an oath of allegiance). Although it must be said that the content of the oath agreement itself, i.e. his rights and obligations were again prescribed by customary law and could not be changed at the will of the parties. Only the agreement to enter into this kind of contractual relationship was a contractual aspect here. In addition, the agreement of fidelity could not be terminated by mutual agreement of the parties, because it was based on a sacred vow of a lifelong commitment.

Subsequently, state power takes over written rules acquisition and implementation of land tenure. Later, the norms of feudal law began to be recorded in many charters, city statutes. Over time, feudal customs, both unwritten and written, came to the attention of Western legal scholars who sought to define their basic principles. So, between 1095 and 1130. The Milanese consul, Umberto de Orto, wrote a book called Feudal Customs, in which he tried to systematically outline feudal law. As an example of a written statement of the norms of feudal law, one can cite the Cathedral Code (1649), which forbade people of the non-serving classes, for example, boyar serfs, to buy and take land as mortgages.

4. Justice in feudal affairs. It wore collective, and estate character... This applies to both Western Europe and Russia.

In the West, local popular assemblies began to be replaced feudal courts, which were headed by lords or their representatives (lord courts). These courts tried dependent vassals. In practice, it looked like this: in the event of any dispute, the lord summoned all his vassals (holders). Presiding over such an assembly, the lord exercised considerable influence on all those present, and, of course, by all means tried to carry out his decision. In addition to controversial situations, other issues common to all were considered in the feudal courts. It turned out that justice was a way of managing land ownership, and the administration itself had the form of exercising jurisdiction through court hearings.

However, if a vassal disagreed, he could file a complaint with his master's court. The nascent hierarchy of judicial jurisdiction in Western Europe, it was reinforced, according to G. Berman, by a love of litigation, which was considered an indicator of valor 1. Subsequently, this played an important role in the formation of the legal consciousness of the West, which differs from the legal consciousness of many countries, and above all Russia, by its strong commitment to formal protection of rights as a way of resolving disputes.

In Russia, the judiciary very late separated from the administrative power. The first such attempt was made by Peter I. Then the judiciary was returned to the governors and voivods. Only under Catherine II was the separation of the judiciary carried out and the estate courts were introduced in the lower and middle instances. In a word, in the administration of justice, the principle was carried out: only courts of equals can judge.

The tradition of collective justice was deeply rooted, while there was almost no tradition of professional legal proceedings by legally educated officials (in Western Europe until the 12th century, and much later in Russia). The feudal courts were more than just dispute resolution bodies. These were a kind of meetings that advised and made decisions on many issues of general class interest, and not just bodies that resolved specific disputes. For example, a senior court could be asked to establish the amount of payments of vassals to ensure a military campaign, or to declare the rules for the use of common fields and forests, or to agree to the provision of a new fief to the holder, or to expel another for default. The collective nature of the feudal courts was in part due to the characteristics of the evidence taken into account, such as, for example, judicial duel and trial. In the process of their implementation, controversial issues arose. For their own permission, a jury was often appointed. The procedure was oral and informal and required a sufficient crowd of people to record its results.

Thus, feudal (local) law was an independent legal system. It, of course, was of an objective nature, since it stemmed from the prevailing economic conditions in the life of society. As it gradually began to acquire a written character, and then systematized, it began to grow. The concreteness of its norms grew, the uniformity of its principles gradually absorbed local differences. And, finally, then it organically merged into the integral system of national law.

1 See: G. Berman. Western tradition of law: the era of formation. M., 1994.S. 294.

8.4. Manorial (serfdom) law

The basis of production relations of this system is the property of the feudal lords to the means of production, primarily to land (the very concept of "feudalism" comes from the Latin word "feud" - this was the name of the land distributed by the kings to their entourage, who were obliged to carry out military service for this). The peasants depended on the feudal lords, but were no longer their full property *. The feudal lords had the right to the work of the peasants, the latter were attached to the land and were obliged to serve out duties in favor of their masters.

In feudal society, there was also the property of peasants and artisans on their personal economy. V serf peasant had his own allotment of land, there was a personal farm, the products from which, after fulfilling duties in favor of the feudal lord, remained at his disposal.

This feature of production relations opened up new opportunities for the growth of productive forces. The direct producer acquired a certain material interest in the results of his labor. Therefore, he does not break, does not spoil the tools, but, on the contrary, carefully preserves and improves them. Agriculture is developing: a three-field farming system is being developed, and fertilization of fields is being used more and more widely.

Even more significant successes are achieved by the craft, which supplied agricultural implements, household items used in the life of feudal lords and merchants, various

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* In some countries, for example, in Russia, serfdom took on especially rough, close to slavery forms: the landlord could sell, buy peasants, etc.

utensils, as well as weapons and military equipment. The development of handicrafts and trade contributed to the rise of cities. Over time, the cities became large economic, political and cultural centers, the cradle of a new, capitalist mode of production.

In the era of feudalism, many outstanding discoveries were made that had a great influence on the further history of mankind: people learned to make iron from cast iron, build keel sailing ships suitable for long journeys, make the simplest optical devices (glasses, telescopes), invented a compass, gunpowder, paper , typography, mechanical watches. The muscular energy of humans and animals is more and more supplemented by the energy of the wind (windmill, sailing ships) and falling water (water mill, water wheel - the simplest engine that became widespread in the Middle Ages).

The replacement of slave-holding production relations by feudal ones entailed changes in the entire life of society.

First of all, the class structure has changed. The dominant class was the feudal lords - the owners of the land. The other main class of feudal society was the serfs. Relations between these classes are antagonistic in nature, based on the irreconcilable opposition of class interests. The forms of exploitation, although somewhat mitigated in comparison with slavery, are distinguished by great cruelty. The exploitation of the peasants continues to be based on non-economic coercion. Under the influence of economic incentives and material incentives, the serf works only in his private household. Most of the time he gives to work for the feudal lord, for which he does not receive any remuneration. Here, the main motivation for work is the fear of punishment, physical violence, as well as the threat of loss of all personal property that can be taken away by the landowner.

The class struggle in a feudal society rises to a higher level in comparison with a slave society. Peasant uprisings sometimes cover large territories. The strength of their resistance to the feudal lords is evidenced by the peasant wars that shook one country after another: the uprising of Wat Tyler in England (14th century) and Jacquerie in France (14th - 15th centuries), the peasant war in Germany (16th century), the Taiping uprising in China (19th century ), the Sikh uprising in India (17th - 18th centuries), the Bolotnikov uprising. Razin (17th century) and Pugachev (18th century) in Russia, etc.

The political and ideological superstructure of feudal society reflects the characteristics of the forms of exploitation and class

howl of struggle. To exploit and keep in check the serfs, the feudal state constantly has to resort to armed force, which is at the disposal of not only the central government, but also every feudal lord. In his domain, he is the sovereign sovereign, he personally creates judgment and reprisals.

The law consolidates the social and economic inequality of feudal society, classes and their individual strata appear in the form of estates (feudal society is divided into such estates as the nobility, clergy, peasantry, merchants, etc.). Relations between estates and within them are based on a system of strict subordination, personal dependence. The immobility of social barriers makes it difficult to move from one rung of the feudal hierarchical ladder to another. In the spiritual life of feudal society, the dominant position is won by the church and religion.

Over time, the development of the productive forces comes into collision with the relations of production prevailing in feudal society and the political and ideological superstructure determined by them. Along with small craft workshops, large manufacturing enterprises arose, based on craft techniques, but widely using the division of labor and using the labor of workers free from serfdom. When creating manufactories, the young bourgeoisie of Europe, of course, did not know and did not think about what social consequences this would lead to; it pursued only the goals of its immediate benefit. As JV Stalin correctly pointed out, the nascent bourgeoisie “did not realize and did not understand that this“ small ”innovation would lead to such a regrouping of social forces, which should end in revolution against the royal power, whose mercy it so highly valued, and against the nobles. , in the ranks of which its best representatives often dreamed of getting ... "5

Likewise, enterprising merchants who developed trade, with the help of royal troops, seized new markets in overseas countries, did not think about the social consequences of their actions. The growth of exchange, in turn, led to the rapid development of production. It was also promoted by scientific and technical discoveries made in the 16th - 17th centuries.

In the depths of the feudal system, a new, capitalist mode of production is gradually taking shape. Its further development requires the elimination of the feudal order. The bourgeoisie - the class that was the bearer of the new mode of production - needed a "free" labor market, that is, workers freed from both serfdom and property, who would be driven to factories by hunger. She needs a nationwide market, the elimination of customs

wives and any other barriers created by the feudal lords. She seeks the elimination of taxes, which went to the maintenance of the court and the numerous noble servants, and the abolition of estate privileges. She fights for the opportunity to freely manage in all areas of society.

All classes and strata dissatisfied with the feudal order rally around the bourgeoisie - from serfs and urban lower classes, enduring poverty, humiliation and oppression, to progressive scientists and writers, who, regardless of their origin, are stifled by the spiritual oppression of feudalism and the church.

The era of bourgeois revolutions begins.

K.V. Islanders
Lecture given at the Higher Party School of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), 1945

1. The emergence of the feudal system

The era of the dominance of feudalism in Western Europe covers a long period, about 13 centuries, starting from the 5th century. n. e. until the 18th century.

The first stage - the emergence of feudalism - begins in the 5th century. and ends in the middle of the 11th century.

Feudalism arose on the ruins of the Roman slave empire. Some scholars explain its origin by the fact of the conquest of the Roman Empire by the barbarians. This point of view is fundamentally wrong.

Conquest by itself cannot create a new mode of production if conditions are not ripe for it in material production and, above all, in the area of ​​productive forces.

Engels, criticizing the theory of violence, pointed out that the state of the banker, which consists in papers, cannot be completely captured if the invader does not submit to the conditions of production and circulation of the conquered country.

Concerning the reasons for the emergence of feudalism, Marx and Engels wrote:

“Feudalism was not at all transferred ready-made from Germany; its origin is rooted in the organization of military affairs among the barbarians during the conquest itself, and this organization only after the conquest, thanks to the influence of the productive forces found in the conquered countries, developed into real feudalism. "

Feudalism arose out of the interaction between new productive forces and elements of new feudal relations, which emerged as a colonial in the Roman Empire, and the military organization of the barbarian tribes that conquered it.

Slavery has outlived its usefulness, and the historical conditions for wage labor have not yet taken shape. A further step forward in the development of the productive forces could be made under these conditions only on the basis of the economy of a small dependent producer, to a certain extent interested in his work.

At the end of the existence of the Roman Empire, the process of enslavement of the columns developed at a rapid pace.

The columns were obliged to cultivate the land of the landowner, pay him a significant share of the harvest they harvested and, in addition, perform a number of duties: build and repair roads and bridges, serve the transport of both people and goods with their horses and carts, work in bakeries, etc. e. Colon became more and more attached to the earth, became, as the ancients expressed it, "the slave of the earth." It was allowed to sell and buy land only together with the columns.

At the same time, the process of enslavement and artisans took place.

With the cessation of the influx of slaves, an acute shortage of labor began to be experienced primarily by enterprises engaged in the extraction of iron ore, the production of all kinds of fabrics and luxury goods, as well as enterprises associated with work to supply the population of cities.

A number of decrees were issued prohibiting artisans from leaving enterprises and changing their profession. Even a special stamp was burned on the arm of the armourers to make it easier to catch them in case of flight.

There were other draconian measures aimed at enslaving artisans.

This is how the process of feudalization took place in the depths of the decaying Roman slave-owning empire.

The collapse of the slave system was accompanied by a tremendous destruction of the productive forces. “The last centuries of the declining Roman Empire and the very conquest of it by the barbarians,” wrote Marx and Engels in “German Ideology,” “destroyed a mass of productive forces; agriculture fell into decay, industry, due to lack of marketing, decayed, trade came to a standstill or was forcibly interrupted, the rural and urban population disappeared. "

Agriculture has become almost the only occupation of the population.

Thus, the Germanic tribes who conquered the Roman Empire found the embryos of feudal relations there. These tribes themselves had a military organization. They were going through the stage of decomposition of the primitive communal system and the development of patriarchal slavery - that stage in the development of society when, according to Engels, war and military organization become normal functions of people's life, when war begins to be waged, "for the sake of plunder it becomes a constant trade." The strengthening and development of the military organization of the barbarian tribes was facilitated by their direct neighborhood with the Romans, with whom they fought constant wars. These wars, as we know, eventually led to the conquest of the Roman Empire by the barbarians.

On the ruins of the once mighty Roman Empire, many small states arose. The very fact of the conquest greatly accelerated the disintegration of the tribal system, which was still preserved among the barbarians. The tribal system was incompatible with the new relations established as a result of the conquest of the Roman Empire by the barbarians; “… It was impossible,” says Engels, “to accept the masses of the Romans into clan associations, nor to dominate them through the latter… The organs of the clan system were therefore to become organs of the state, and moreover, under the pressure of circumstances, very quickly. But the closest representative of the conquering people was a military leader. The protection of the conquered region from internal and external threats demanded the strengthening of his power. The moment has come for the transformation of the military leader's power into royal power, and this transformation has taken place. "

The military organization of the barbarian tribes made it easier for them to assimilate the new feudal relations that were developing on the territory of the former Roman Empire.

"The existing relations and the method of carrying out the conquest determined by them," say Marx and Engels, "developed feudal property under the influence of the military system of the Germans."

The Germans, Huns and other tribes who conquered the Roman Empire appropriated and divided between themselves approximately 2/3 of the entire occupied land.

Part of the conquered lands remained in the common possession of individual tribes and clans. The kings appropriated these lands for themselves and began to distribute them to their warriors, confidants, etc.

"Thus," says Engels, "at the expense of the people the foundation of the new nobility was created."

Royal power was still weak. Each large landowner had his own army, tried to be independent from the royal power and sought to seize neighboring lands. Hence the constant wars and feuds between individual states, as well as between individual feudal lords. The free peasantry especially suffered from these feuds. By the beginning of the 9th century, free farmers were completely ruined. The feudal lords robbed them, seized their lands. Weak royalty could not protect them. On the other hand, the peasants themselves, driven to despair by robberies and extortions, were often forced to resort to the protection of noble feudal lords and the church. But this protection came to them at an extremely high price - at the cost of abandoning property rights to land and giving themselves into bondage to noble and powerful patrons.

In one of the enslaving charters relating to the history of the Frankish state of the 9th century, it is said: “My lord, brother, such and such ... Everyone knows that extreme poverty and heavy worries have befallen me, and I have absolutely no way to live and dress. Therefore, at my request, you did not refuse, in my greatest poverty, to give me so many solidi from your money, and I have absolutely nothing to pay these solidi with. And so I asked you to commit and approve the enslavement of my free personality to you, so that from now on you have complete freedom to do with me everything that you are authorized to do with your inborn slaves, namely: sell, exchange, punish. "

So the peasants gradually lost not only their land, but also their personal freedom and turned into serfs.

A huge amount of land and serfs were concentrated in the hands of churches and monasteries. The Church was an authoritative ideological and political force that each feudal lord strove to have on his side in the struggle against other feudal lords. The authority of the church was also necessary for the feudal lords in order to keep the serfs in check. Because of this, kings and large feudal lords donated lands and estates to the church.

Many peasants were also forced to go into bondage to monasteries for the same reasons that pushed them into bondage to the feudal lords, with the only difference that in this case the bondage took on a religious shell.

So, in one of the letters relating to France in the 11th century, it is said about a certain Rogers, descended from a free family, who, driven by the fear of God, having nothing more valuable for an offering to the almighty God, gave himself into the personal serfdom of St. Martin.

As a result, the church in a feudal society grew into a huge, not only ideological, but also economic and political force.

This is how the feudal mode of production took shape in Western Europe.

The process of feudalization in Russia began in the 11th century. Prior to this, the land was at the disposal of peasant agricultural communities.

The community was a collection of several large patriarchal families. Some families numbered 50 or more. This number of families was dictated by the low level of development of the productive forces. The system of slash and shift farming prevailed, requiring colossal labor.

Until the XV-XVI centuries. Russia was a collection of separate independent principalities. There were constant feuds and wars between the princes.

In these conditions, the life of the peasantry was extremely difficult. It was completely defenseless, subjected to numerous extortions, suffered from endless violence and wars between the princes. This forced the peasants to go under the "high hand" of some prince or monastery. As a result, the "patron" - a prince, a boyar or a monastery - took the peasant land and turned the peasants into dependent people, serfs, obliged to work for him.

Usury was also a means of enslaving the peasants.

As a result, the princes and boyars became the owners of huge estates, numbering thousands of tithes, and the monasteries turned into huge economic enterprises with colossal land wealth and owned a huge number of serfs.

In the XVI century. in many principalities of ancient Russia, from 60 to 95% of the entire territory was in the local possession of princes, boyars, monasteries.

Until the middle of the 15th century. the peasants were not yet attached to the land. They had the right to move from one landowner to another. In 1447, Ivan III issued a law by virtue of which a peasant could pass from one landowner to another only in the fall, after the end of field work, on the so-called St. George's Day. During the reign of Ivan IV, at the end of the 16th century, and this right was taken away from the peasants - they were completely attached to the land, turned into serfs.

2. A creature of feudal exploitation

Under the feudal system the basis of industrial relations is the property of the feudal lord in the means of production and incomplete ownership of the worker in production - the serf, whom the feudal lord cannot kill, but whom he can sell, buy. Along with feudal property, there is the individual ownership of the peasant and artisan on the instruments of production and on his private economy, based on personal labor.

The difference between feudal exploitation and slave-owning, therefore, consisted, firstly, in the incomplete ownership of the feudal lord to the production worker - the serf and, secondly, in the fact that the serf peasant was the sole owner of the instruments of production and his private economy based on personal labor.

Thus, the enslaved individual peasant economy was an organic part of the feudal mode of production, in contrast to the slave-owning, where it was a special way.

The main means of production under feudalism was land. The land was the property of the feudal lords. It fell into two parts: the land of the lord and the peasant. The estate of a feudal lord with all services was located on the land of the lord. Not far from the manor's estate was peasant land, that is, land that the feudal lord provided for the use of the peasants.

Gibbins in the "Industrial History of England" draws the following features of an English estate of the XI-XIII centuries.

The land around the manor-ghaus (castle) was absolutely owned by the lord and was cultivated by slaves or obliged villagers under his personal supervision or under the supervision of the headman. All other lands that were in the use of obliged settlers were called quitrent lands.

Arable land, which was in the common use of obliged villagers, was divided into many strips, located: in different fields.

The peasants used pastures together.

The forest and meadows were owned by the lord. The lord charged a special fee for using them.

In addition to strips in a common field, some peasants could use separate plots in a specially fenced field, which the manor-lord always left behind and rented out in parts for a high fee.

In the wastelands (uncultivated land), the peasants enjoyed the right to pasture, and could also dig peat and chop down bushes.

The serf village was organized like an agricultural community. The feudal lord had a decisive influence on the affairs of the community.

“When a feudal lord — spiritual or secular,” says Engels, “acquired a peasant property, he at the same time acquired the rights associated with this possession in the stamp. Thus, the new landowners became members of the mark and initially enjoyed within the mark only equal rights along with the rest of the free and dependent communes, even if they were their own serfs. But soon, despite the stubborn resistance of the peasants, they acquired privileges in the mark in many places, and often they even managed to subordinate it to their master's power. And yet the old brand community continued to exist, albeit under the patronage of the master. "

The feudal lord appropriated the surplus labor of the serf in the form of feudal rent... A distinctive feature of feudal rent is that it includes all the surplus labor of the serf, and often a significant part of the necessary labor.

Feudal rent went through three stages in its development - labor rent, product rent, and money rent. The first two forms of rent are characteristic of early feudalism; money rent becomes dominant at the stage of decomposition of feudalism. Let us dwell first of all on the labor rent.

As labor rent, or corvee, the feudal lord directly appropriated the surplus labor of the serf peasant.

A serf peasant, for example, worked half of the time for himself on allotment land, and the other half on lordly land for the benefit of the landowner. The land allotment in this case was, in the words of Lenin, a form of wages in kind. The feudal lord, providing the land allotment for the use of the serf peasant, gave him the opportunity to reproduce his labor force necessary to create a surplus product in favor of the feudal lord.

Thus, the work of the serf for the feudal lord and for himself was strictly divided in space and time.

The kind of work that the serf was supposed to do was extremely varied: plowing, harrowing and other agricultural work - transporting agricultural products, logs, firewood, hay, straw, bricks, sawing wood, clearing farmyards, repairing buildings, harvesting ice, etc.

Since the labor of the serf peasant for the landowner was forced labor, insofar as here, as in the slave-owning society, one of the acute problems was the problem of organizing the labor of the peasant.

The peasants did not have any inner motivation to increase the productivity of their labor in the cultivation of the landlord's land. Therefore, the feudal lord resorted to means based on intimidation, such as the stick of an overseer, a fine, assignment to work overtime. "The feudal organization of social labor," says Lenin, "kept on stick discipline, in the extreme darkness and downtroddenness of the working people who were robbed and mocked by a handful of landowners."

Hence, one of the central figures of the feudal estate was the clerk - the immediate superior over the courtyard people and peasants.

Work rent, or corvee, corresponds to the earliest stage in the development of feudalism. With the growth of the productive forces, the labor rent was replaced by grocery rent or rent.

What is the essence of the quitrent and how it differs from corvee?

If under corvée the landlord appropriated the surplus labor of the serf, then during the quitrent he directly appropriates the surplus product, that is, the peasant is obliged to deliver a certain amount of products in kind to the landlord every year free of charge. The corvee demanded the most vigilant supervision of the landowner or his manager over the labor of the serfs and was associated with a whole system of measures based on intimidation. Under the quitrent, the landowner demanded from the peasant the supply of a certain amount of products, leaving him to distribute his working time at his discretion. The replacement of corvee by quitrent was a progressive phenomenon for that time.

However, the quitrent reached such enormous proportions that it often absorbed not only the entire surplus product of the serf peasant, but also a significant part of the necessary product. To pay the quitrent, the peasant had to lead a half-starved existence. The landowner with the most cruel measures squeezed out the rent from the serf peasant.

Already under the corvee system, there was inequality of property between individual peasant families. It stemmed from the sole ownership of the instruments of production by the serfs. Those who had the best tools and had more workers in their families were in better financial conditions. This inequality has increased with the transition to the quitrent system.

For the more prosperous peasantry, the quitrent opened up certain possibilities for enrichment and expansion of their economy. Therefore, with the transition from corvee to quitrent in the feudal village, property stratification grows.

The development of commodity-money relations leads to the fact that corvee and quitrent are replaced cash rent... Money rent, as we will see later, already marks the period of decomposition of feudalism and the development in its depths of the capitalist mode of production.

The indicated forms of feudal rent did not exhaust the methods of appropriating the surplus product of the serf peasant by the feudal lords.

The feudal lord, taking advantage of the monopoly on certain means of production, such as mills, smithies, etc., levied additional taxes on the serfs in his favor.

He obliged the peasants dependent on him to use the services of only his enterprises, for example, to grind grain only at his mill. For grinding, he took a significant portion of the bread. In case of violation of this rule, the peasant was obliged to pay a fine to the feudal lord. The feudal lord could confiscate all the ground bread and even the horse carrying this bread.

Especially difficult and humiliating for the serfs were such privileges of the feudal lord as the right of the "first night", according to which every girl who got married had to be given first of all to the landowner; the right of the "dead hand", which provided the landowner with the right to inherit part of the property remaining after the death of the serf; the right to trial and retaliation: the imposition of fines and corporal punishment.

The serf peasant was obliged to give part of his product in favor of the church. “The whole social pyramid, princes, officials, nobility, priests, patricians and burghers, fell on the peasant,” says Engels, “as its weight. Whether he belonged to a prince, an imperial baron, a bishop, a monastery or a city, he was treated everywhere like a thing or a beast of burden, or even worse ... Most of his time he had to work on his master's estate; and from what he was able to work out for himself in a few free hours, he had to pay tithes, chinsh, levies, taxes ... local and general imperial taxes. "

Feudal exploitation, like slave-owning, rested on the relationship of immediate non-economic domination and submission.

This non-economic coercion was expressed in the fact that the serf peasant had no right to dispose of his labor force, was attached to the landlord's land and was obliged to work for the landowner. The landowner had the right to force the serf to work by violent methods, to execute judgment and reprisals against him.

Marx pointed out that under the conditions of feudalism, personal dependence characterizes the social relations of material production to the same extent as other spheres of life erected on this basis.

Feudal economy in its overwhelming part, especially in the initial period of its development, was an economy natural type... It satisfied its needs mainly by its own production.

The craft was an auxiliary production in agriculture. The estates had serf artisans: potters, coopers, turners, blacksmiths, tanners, carpenters, etc.

The few works that could not be carried out by the forces of their own serfs were carried out by itinerant artisans who passed from one feudal estate to another.

Only a small portion of the product went on sale. Trade was extremely poorly developed and was predominantly foreign. She has not yet penetrated deep into the feudal estate. The main objects of trade were luxury items: rare fabrics, weapons, jewelry, spices, etc., which were brought mainly from the East and were bought by feudal lords. The trade was carried on only by itinerant merchants. In those days, it was often fraught with enormous difficulties. The caravan had to travel with armed guards to defend against attacks from robbers and knights.

Basically, the natural economy of the feudal estate was based on low production techniques. Agricultural implements were primitive: plow, harrow, hoe, sickle, flail, etc. were the main production tools. The shifting and two-field farming systems prevailed.

Due to low farming techniques, there were constant crop failures, accompanied by hunger and epidemics, which claimed a huge number of lives.

Lenin characterized the feudal mode of production with the following features: “... first, the domination of the natural economy. The serf estate was supposed to be a self-sufficient, closed whole, which is in a very weak connection with the rest of the world ... Secondly, for such an economy it is necessary that the direct producer be endowed with the means of production in general and land in particular; not only that it should be attached to the land, since otherwise the landowner is not guaranteed working hands ... Thirdly, the condition of such a system of economy is the personal dependence of the peasant on the landowner. If the landowner did not have direct power over the personality of the peasant, then he could not force a person who is allotted with land and runs his own household to work for him. Therefore, “non-economic coercion” is necessary ... Finally, fourthly, the condition and consequence of the described economic system was an extremely low and routine state of technology, because farming was in the hands of small peasants, crushed by want, belittled by personal dependence and mental darkness ”.

The feudal mode of production was more progressive than the slave-owning and opened up more space for the development of productive forces.

The advantage of the feudal system economy before the slaveholding was that it contained a certain incentive that pushed the serf on the path of development of its production, while the slave system killed the slave from any incentive to increase the intensity and productivity of his labor.

Some interest of the serf in labor stemmed from the fact that part of the time he worked for himself and was the owner of the implements of labor and his private individual farm. That part of the time that the serf peasant worked for himself on allotment land, he tried to use with the greatest intensity and productivity.

In his Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, Radishchev cites a typical conversation with a peasant whom he met on a hot holiday in the field, plowing the land with "great care" and turning the plow with surprising ease. Radishchev immediately drew from this the conclusion that this was not the land of the master, and asked the peasant if this was how he worked for his master. The peasant answered him that it would be a sin to work for the master like that, since the landowner has “one hundred hands for one mouth” on the arable land, while he, the peasant, has “two for seven mouths”. "Yes, although you can stretch out on a lordly job," he concluded, "they won't say thank you."

This opportunity to work part of the time on allotment land in their favor was the advantage of the feudal mode of production over the slave-owning one.

Marx says: “... the productivity of the rest of the days of the week, which the direct producer himself can have, is a variable that necessarily develops with the growth of his experience - just like new needs that arise in him, just like expansion market for his product, the increasing provision for the use of this part of his labor force will encourage him to intensify the work force, and it should not be forgotten that the use of this labor force is by no means limited to agriculture, but also includes rural domestic industry. Here the possibility of a certain economic development is given, of course, depending on more or less favorable circumstances ... ”.

Economic interest forced the landlords to reckon with this factor. The landowners, like the slave owners, were guided in their economic activities by the desire to extract as much surplus product as possible from the labor of serfs. But in order to satisfy this desire, the landowners were forced to transfer the serf peasant from corvée to quitrent, from quitrent to cash rent, by the sea of ​​development of feudal economy, to use his personal interest in increasing the intensity and productivity of his labor.

The landowner appropriated the results of the more intensive and productive labor of the serf peasant for his own benefit, intensifying his exploitation in every possible way.

The feudal system of economy, in addition to some interest of the serf peasant in his work, had other advantages arising from large land ownership.

Large landed property, which is the basis for the exploitation of large masses of the serf peasantry, opened up the possibility of a significant division of labor within the feudal estate, both along the lines of agriculture and handicrafts.

This is evidenced by the instruction of the Frankish king Charles, sent by him to the manager of the royal estates.

This instruction says:

"one. We wish that our estates, which we have determined to serve our own needs, fully serve us, and not other people ...

20. Let each steward see to it that food flows in abundance to the [master's] court throughout the year ...

35. We wish that fat be made from fatty sheep, also from pigs; in addition, let them keep at least two fattened bulls in each estate, [so] either to use them on the spot for lard, or to bring them to us ...

38. To always have enough well-fed geese and fattened hens for our needs ...

44. From lean ... annually send for our table, namely: vegetables, fish, cheese, butter, honey, mustard, vinegar, millet, millet, dried and fresh greens, radish and more turnips, wax, soap and other trifles ...

45. So that each manager has in his jurisdiction good masters, namely: blacksmiths, silversmiths and goldsmiths ... birders, soap-makers, brewers ... bakers ... people who are good at weaving snares for hunting and nets for fishing and catching birds, as well as other employees ... ".

The instructions show what a ramified system of various specialties was in the estates of Karl. This system pursued the task of versatile satisfaction of the needs of the feudal lord. The possibility of the division of labor within the feudal estate was the advantage of the feudal system of economy over the individual peasant economy.

Such were the possibilities for the development of the productive forces inherent in the feudal mode of production.

At the same time, feudalism, which replaced the slave system, could not immediately develop its advantages over the slave system and, consequently, the possibilities for the development of the productive forces that were inherent in it.

This is due to the fact that feudalism was based on non-economic coercion, on a small enslaved peasant economy with its extremely low technology.

Nevertheless, although slowly, the growth of the productive forces nevertheless took place under the influence of feudal relations of production. The advantages of feudalism over slavery were gradually revealed.

On the basis of those stimuli for the development of productive forces that were laid down in the feudal mode of production, by about the 8th and 9th centuries, in the so-called Carolingian era, a significant step forward was already made in the development of agriculture.

If before that the prevailing systems of agriculture were shifting and two-field, now it is outlined in many places transition to three fields... Changes are also taking place in production techniques. Among these changes, the appearance of a plow with iron shares and knives and a harrow with iron teeth instead of wooden ones was especially important. Wheat, all kinds of horticultural crops and viticulture are spreading. Livestock breeding is developing, and in particular horse breeding, which was associated with the military service of the feudal lords. The development of animal husbandry leads to the expansion of meadow farming. At the same time, sheep breeding is developing in a number of areas in connection with the growth of woolen production. All these are indicators of the growth of productive forces in the field of agriculture.

Marx, speaking of the possibilities for the development of the productive forces inherent in the feudal mode of production, pointed out that the peasant had the opportunity to engage in domestic industry in the form of various crafts. Indeed, the growth of the productive forces of feudal society in the countryside took place not only along the line of raising the level of technology and the development of the division of labor between various branches of agriculture, but also along the line of developing a whole range of crafts.

The development of the productive forces of feudal society took place in an antagonistic form. The feudal lord, as we have seen, used some interest of the serf peasant in his work to intensify his exploitation. This led to more and more exacerbation of the contradictions between landlords and serfs, to numerous peasant uprisings, which were full of the history of feudalism. With the development of feudalism, the contradiction between feudal property and craft also became more and more acute. This contradiction is approximately in the X and XI centuries. grows into the opposition between town and country, and all further development of feudalism proceeds on the basis of this opposition.

Marx pointed out that in the Middle Ages the village is the starting point of history, the further development of which then proceeds in the form of the opposite of town and village.

3. The growth of the social division of labor, the development of trade, the formation of cities

In the XI century. completed in the main process of formation of the feudal mode of production in the most important countries of Western Europe. Feudalism entered its peak. This period stretches from the 11th to the 15th centuries. The development of the productive forces both in the field of agriculture and handicrafts, achieved at the previous stage, created the preconditions for the growth of the social division of labor and the formation of an internal market.

The process of separating handicrafts from agriculture and the formation of cities began, which played a huge role in the development and decomposition of feudalism.

For the time being, the craft could develop within the boundaries of the feudal estate. Then the moment came when it outgrew the framework of a feudal estate. This framework became too tight for him. Further development of the craft required the distribution of its products outside the feudal estate, the development of the internal market.

It began with the fact that part of the artisans, with the permission of the feudal lord, went to the latrine trade. Moving from one estate to another, artisans rolled felt boots on the spot, painted canvases, etc., and after a while they returned to their landowner and paid him a certain amount of money. The further growth of the productive forces led to the emergence of a craft that works for the market. Markets formed around the estates of the largest feudal lords and monasteries. Here cities began to be created. Old cities, which had fallen into complete decay and desolation after the collapse of the Roman Empire, also began to revive. The medieval city was a fortified place with a fortress wall, rampart and moat. Usually, during hostilities, the surrounding population found refuge behind the fortress walls. On the other hand, the city was a craft and trade center. Artisans and merchants flocked here. The cities willingly received fugitive serf artisans. No wonder in the Middle Ages they said that "the city air makes people free."

Engels says: “... new cities were created; always surrounded by defensive walls and ditches, they were much more powerful fortresses than noble castles, since they could only be taken with the help of a significant army. Behind these walls and ditches, a medieval craft developed, albeit sufficiently saturated with a burgher-guild spirit and narrow-mindedness, - the first capitals were accumulated, a need arose for trade relations between cities with each other and with the rest of the world ... ".

The population of medieval cities was dominated by artisans and merchants.

The economic basis of the medieval city was craft and trade.

However, the urban population did not completely sever ties with agriculture. Within the city there were fields and vegetable gardens, cattle were kept, etc. The internal organization of the craft bore a feudal imprint.

The industrial population of the cities was organized into workshops. The workshop was a union that included all the artisans of one or more close crafts living in the same city. Persons outside the workshop could not engage in this craft. Each shop had its own elected board and its own charter.

The workshop regulated handicraft production in the most detailed way: it established the number of workers in each workshop, the price and quality of goods, wages and working hours.

To illustrate, we present excerpts from the French statute of wool weavers dating back to the 13th-14th centuries:

"one. No one can be a wool weaver in Paris unless he buys a craft from the king ...,

8. Each wool weaver can have no more than one apprentice in his house, but he cannot have one less than 4 years of service and 4 Parisian livres ...

32. All cloths must be entirely of wool and are as good at the beginning as in the middle, if they are, the one to whom they belong is subject to 5 sous fine for each piece of cloth ...

35. No weaver, no dyer, no felter can set prices in their workshops thanks to any community. ..

47. ... None of the aforementioned workshop should start work before sunrise under threat of a fine ...

51. Apprentice-weavers must leave work as soon as the first bell rings for Vespers ... ”.

The shop took upon itself the supply of raw materials for craft enterprises, organized common warehouses.

The city administrations granted the guilds a monopoly on the production of trade in the cities.

An unusually developed regulation of production and monopoly - these are the main features of the urban handicraft system in the Middle Ages. In addition, the workshop was a self-help organization and a religious corporation.

During the war, each workshop was a separate combat detachment.

The structure of the urban artisan class bore the imprint of the feudal hierarchy.

Within this class, a system of apprentices and apprentices developed, creating a hierarchy in cities similar to that of the rural population.

The members of the workshop were divided into categories: foremen, apprentices, apprentices. The workshop foreman had his own workshop and worked mainly on order for a certain small circle of buyers or for the local market. He was the owner of the means of production: a workshop, handicraft tools, raw materials, as well as the owner of the products of handicraft production. This stemmed from the nature of the craft tools, which were designed for individual use.

“The means of labor - land, agricultural tools, workshops, handicraft tools - were the means of labor of individuals, calculated only for individual use, and, therefore, but the necessities remained small, dwarf, limited. But that's why they, as a rule, belonged to the manufacturer himself. "

The nature of the instruments of labor also determined the very size of the craft enterprise. It included from two to five workers: family members of the master, apprentices and apprentices. Due to the small size of the production, the master was forced to participate in production by personal labor.

Thus, his ownership of handicraft products was based on personal labor. True, the master made a certain income from the labor of apprentices and apprentices.

As a rule, he gave his apprentice a table and an apartment in his house and also paid a little money. The labor of apprentices and apprentices created more value than the cost of their maintenance to the master.

However, the highest position of the master in relation to the apprentices and apprentices was based not so much on the ownership of the means of production as on his skill.

Marx notes that the attitude of the craftsman towards the apprentices and apprentices is not the attitude of the capitalist, but the attitude of the master of the craft. His highest position in the corporation, and at the same time in relation to the apprentices and apprentices, rests on his own skill in the craft.

This, again, was due to the nature of the craft technique. Manual labor prevailed. The division of labor within the workshop was extremely weak due to the small scale of production. The artisan typically produced the entire product from start to finish. Hence, the personal art of the craftsman, the ability to use an instrument, and professional training were of particular importance.

The artisan, as Lafargue put it, “had his craft in his fingers and his brain”; "... every craft was a mystery, the secrets of which were revealed to initiates only gradually." The artisan was a true master of his craft. Many works of artisans are still remarkable examples of genuine folk art.

Therefore, the craft required a long apprenticeship.

Thus, although the exploitation of apprentices and apprentices took place in medieval craft, it played a relatively minor role.

The goal of handicraft production, the goal of the master's economic activity was not so much the pursuit of money, enrichment, but "existence, decent to his position."

"The limitation of production within the framework of a given consumption as a whole," says Marx, "is a law here."

For apprentices and apprentices, the work of the master was a temporary state. After working for several years with some master, the apprentice passed the apprentice exam. Then, as an apprentice, he was obliged to serve for the hire of a master for a certain number of years. After that, the apprentice passed the exam for the master and received the right to independently conduct business. Thus, every apprentice and apprentice expected to become a master later.

Therefore, at the first stages of the development of guild craft, despite the exploitation of apprentices and apprentices by the craftsmen, the contradiction between their interests did not develop much. However, with the growth of commodity production, apprentices and apprentices more and more turned into workers, and the contradictions between foremen, on the one hand, apprentices and apprentices, on the other, became more and more aggravated.

What caused the guild organization of urban handicrafts?

On the one hand, the guild structure, corporate property in the cities reflected the influence of the feudal structure of land ownership.

Marx and Engels in "German Ideology" write that "... the feudal structure of land tenure in the cities corresponded to corporate property, the feudal organization of handicrafts."

On the other hand, the guild organization of handicrafts was caused by the development of commodity production in the bowels of feudalism.

The development of a commodity economy gave rise to competition between artisans. Creating guild organizations, the artisans of the city primarily sought in this way to protect themselves from the competition of their fellow craftsmen, as well as from the competition of serfs who fled from their masters and sought refuge in the cities. This competition was especially strongly felt due to the limited trade relations, the narrowness of the market.

By this, the guilds actually tried to prevent the process of differentiation of artisans, inevitably generated by the development of commodity production, competition between artisans. In the context of a relatively weak development of the commodity economy, the narrowness of the local market, the shops managed for the time being to restrict competition. But as soon as the development of commodity production moved beyond the local market and began to work on a wider market, a wider field for competition opened up and a process of increased differentiation among artisans began, despite the guild restrictions.

Thus, we can come to the conclusion that one of the reasons that gave rise to workshops was the development of commodity production, but, on the other hand, they could exist and limit competition due to the insufficient development of commodity production.

A number of other additional reasons also pushed the artisans to the path of organizing workshops, such as: general conditions for the production and exchange of goods produced, the need for common warehouses, commercial buildings, joint protection of the interests of this craft from the encroachments of other crafts.

Among the factors that contributed to the organization of workshops, a significant role was played by the continuous wars that the cities had to wage with the feudal lords.

In the future, one of the most important tasks of the shops was the struggle of craftsmen against apprentices and apprentices.

Marx and Engels in "German Ideology" give the following explanation of the reasons that gave rise to the guild organization of handicrafts in a medieval city. “Competition of fugitive serfs constantly arriving in the city; the continuous war of the village against the city, and, consequently, the need to organize the city's military force; bonds of common ownership of a certain specialty; the need for common buildings to sell their goods - artisans were at that time both traders - and the associated exclusion of outsiders into these buildings; the opposition of the interests of individual crafts to each other; the need to protect with such hard work a craft; the feudal organization of the whole country - these were the reasons for the unification of workers of each individual craft in workshops. "

In conditions of limited production relations - the domination of handicraft technology, a poorly developed division of labor and a narrow market - workshops played a progressive role.

By protecting guild crafts from the competition of fugitive serfs, organizing the supply of raw materials to artisans, taking care of the production of good-quality products, guilds thereby contributed to the strengthening and development of urban handicrafts and raising its technology.

The situation changed sharply as soon as the development of commodity production put on the order of the day the question of the transition from craft, first to manufacture, and then to a factory. The workshops then turned into a brake on the development of productive forces.

The cities were not only handicraft but also trade centers. The merchant population was grouped in guilds like artisan workshops.

Thus, Engels writes about the Venetian and Genoese merchants that they were organized into trading communities. They agreed among themselves on the prices of goods, on the quality of goods, which was certified by the imposition of a stamp. For those merchants who violated the established prices, fines were imposed, or a boycott was announced to them, which, in those conditions, threatened with complete ruin.

In foreign harbors, for example, in Alexandria, Constantinople and others, the trading community had its own seating area, consisting of living quarters, restaurants, a warehouse, an exhibition space and a shop.

Under the conditions of feudalism, commercial capital acted as an intermediary in the exchange of the surplus product appropriated by the feudal lord for all kinds of luxury goods exported largely from the Eastern countries; on the other hand, it was an intermediary in the exchange of products of the feudal peasant and the guild craftsman.

Trade profit was obtained through non-equivalent exchange, that is, buying goods below value or selling at prices above value, or both at the same time.

“A prima facie net independent commercial profit seems impossible,” says Marx, “if the products are sold at their cost. It is cheap to buy in order to sell dear - that is the law of commerce. "

Since feudalism was mainly a natural type of economy, the sale of products at their cost was of secondary importance.

Ultimately, the source of commercial profit was the labor of a small producer - artisan and peasant.

Merchants, usurers, wealthy homeowners and owners of urban land, the most prosperous craftsmen were the urban elite, the so-called patriciate. Their strength lay in wealth. Even the richest master represented only small handicraft production, where the possibilities of accumulating wealth were very limited due to the small scale of production. On the contrary, merchant capital, being an intermediary in exchange between town and country, was able to accumulate large amounts of money through the exploitation of the mass of small producers, both town and country. The same applies to usurious capital.

The accumulation of wealth among merchants and usurers in the medieval cities of Germany and Switzerland can be illustrated by the following data relating to the XIV-XV centuries:

These data show that merchants and usurers, constituting a relatively very small percentage of the urban population, concentrated in their hands from 50 to 75% of all city property.

It is not surprising that this wealthy elite also possessed political power. In her hands were city government, finance, court, military force. This gave her the opportunity to shift the entire burden of the tax burden and other duties onto artisans.

So, the growth of the productive forces, the growth of the social division of labor led to the fact that the feudal world split into an agricultural serf village and a handicraft and commercial city.

With the formation of cities in feudal society, a new economic force arose, the power commodity production... The cities assumed the leading role in the development of the productive forces of the feudal mode of production. The relatively rapid development of cities, the growth of handicrafts and trade were in contrast to the immobility and routine that prevailed in the feudal village.

The urban population grew relatively quickly at the expense of the rural population. Thus, in England, the urban population increased from 75,000 in 1086 to 168,720 in 1377, and the percentage of the urban population in the total population of England during the same period increased from 5 to 12. Nevertheless, even by the end of the Middle Ages, urban residents made up a relatively small percentage of the total population.

4. The opposition between town and country in the conditions of feudalism

The peculiarity of the relationship between town and country under feudalism lies in the fact that politically the village dominates the town, and economically the town exploits the village in the face of the mass of the serf peasantry. “If in the Middle Ages,” says Marx, “the countryside exploits the city politically wherever feudalism was not broken by the exceptional development of cities, as in Italy, then the city everywhere and without exception exploits the countryside economically with its monopoly prices, its tax system, its guild system. , by his direct merchant deception and his usury. "

What is the political domination of the countryside over the city under the conditions of feudalism?

First of all, cities arise on the land of the feudal lord and at first are his property. The feudal lord levies taxes from the population of the city, obliges him to bear all kinds of duties, to do justice and punishment over him. Moreover, the feudal lord has the right to inherit, sell and mortgage the city that belonged to him.

So, for example, the city of Arles in the XII century. was divided into four parts, separated by a fence and belonging to four owners: one part belonged to the local archbishop, the other part belonged to the same archbishop, together with the Count of Provence. The city market belonged to the Viscount of Marseilles, part of the city belonged to the city judges. You can imagine what a complex relationship was in this city, which in parts belonged to different owners.

Cities arise and develop in a fierce struggle against the feudal lords. The power of the feudal lords hindered the development of crafts and trade in the cities. The cities tried in every possible way to free themselves from this heavy feudal dependence. They fought to provide them self-government rights- for the right to court, minting coins, for exemption from numerous taxes, customs duties, etc. In a number of feudal states (France, Italy), cities that acquired independence from feudal lords or a certain autonomy were then called communes.

“It's funny,” writes Marx in a letter to Engels, “that the word“ communio ”often provoked the same abuse as communism today. For example, priest Guibert Nozhaisky writes: "The commune is a new and disgusting word."

From time to time bloody wars were fought between the city and the feudal lords. Quite often the cities were bought off from the feudal lords with money and in this way acquired independence. As the economic and military power of the cities grew, they more and more threw off the burden of heavy political dependence on the feudal lords and became independent. At the same time, the struggle of the cities against the feudal lords increasingly turned into a struggle against the feudal mode of production itself.

Thus, the opposition between town and country was primarily expressed in the antagonism between the feudal lords, who sought to maintain their political dominance over the city and use it for all sorts of extortions, and cities that sought to achieve independence from the feudal lords.

The scattered feudal peasantry in the market was opposed by merchants and artisans, organized in merchant guilds and craft workshops.

Thanks to the union in the workshop, artisans had the opportunity to act in the city market as a united front against the fragmented and unorganized village and to raise the prices of handicraft products.

At the same time, in order to strengthen their monopoly position, the guilds fought in every possible way against the development of handicrafts in the countryside, sometimes not stopping before the violent destruction of village handicraft workshops. To an even greater extent than the guilds, the representatives of the commercial capital had the opportunity to put chains on the objects of urban production. Commercial capital developed primarily on the cruel exploitation of the small producer — the feudal peasant. The merchant bought products from the peasant at low prices, and sold him handicraft products at high prices.

In this way, commercial capital appropriated a significant part of the peasant's labor, taking advantage of his economic dependence, ignorance of the market, and the impossibility of directly dealing with the consumers of his products. But this is not enough, the merchant capital supplied the feudal lords mainly with luxury goods, which the feudal lords had to pay at a very high price. In this way, merchant capital appropriated a significant share of their rent, which ultimately led to increased exploitation of the serfs.

The medieval town also exploited the village through usury.

“... There were two characteristic forms of the existence of usurious capital in the times preceding the capitalist mode of production,” says Marx. ... These two forms are as follows: Firstly, usury by providing cash loans to wasteful nobility, mainly landowners; Secondly, usury through the provision of cash loans to small producers who own the conditions of their labor, which include an artisan, but especially a peasant ... ".

The more the village was drawn into commodity-money relations, the more the peasant fell into the net of the usurer, who sucked out all the life's juices from him.

The commercial and usurious capital also exploited the rural handicrafts.

Medium and small feudal lords and knights also fell into the network of usurious capital. However, in this case, the same serfs had to pay for their debts.

The usurious interest reached monstrous proportions.

The cities were the centers of feudal power and, moreover, not only secular, but also spiritual. As centers of concentration of the apparatus of secular and spiritual power, the cities exploited the countryside with the help of innumerable taxes, duties and all other extortions paid by peasants in favor of secular and spiritual feudal lords.

Such were the forms of economic exploitation of the countryside by the city under the conditions of the feudal system.

The development trend was that the cities, as their economic and military power grew and became more powerful, freed themselves from feudal dependence and subjugated the countryside.

“The struggle of the bourgeoisie against the feudal nobility,” says Engels, “is the struggle of the city against the countryside, industry against land ownership, money economy against natural resources, and the decisive weapon of the bourgeoisie in this struggle was the means at its disposal economic strength, which continuously increased due to the development of industry, first handicraft, and then turned into manufacture, and due to the expansion of trade. "

5. Further growth of trade in a feudal society. Crusades and their impact on the development of the economy of feudalism

The separation of the city from the countryside, as an expression of the growth of the productive forces, leads to a significant development of both domestic and foreign trade in a feudal society.

Internal trade was conducted between urban artisans, on the one hand, and peasants and feudal lords, on the other. The centers of this trade were the cities. Craftsmen brought their industrial products there, and feudal lords and serfs - agricultural products. This internal local market encompassed exchanges of estates and villages, which were located approximately at such a distance that if you left them in the morning for the city, you could return in the evening.

The further growth of the productive forces and the social division of labor also caused a revival of foreign trade. This revival of trade begins primarily on the old routes of exchange, which were laid back in the era of the domination of the slave system. Italy lay on a large trade route from East to West. Therefore, cities such as Venice and Genoa became the largest centers of trade.

Until the XI century. an active role in foreign trade belonged mainly to the Arabs and Byzantine merchants, who brought eastern spices and luxury goods to Western Europe, and took away raw materials, bread, and slaves from there.

In the XI century. the situation in the field of foreign trade has changed dramatically. An active role in foreign trade more and more began to pass to European merchants. In this regard, interest in eastern countries has greatly increased. Travels to the East began.

These journeys to the East, which are based on economic and commercial interests, are at the same time covered by religious motives - a pilgrimage to the "Holy Sepulcher", which, according to legend, was supposedly in Palestine.

Thus, the growth of productive forces, the development of handicrafts and agriculture made it necessary to revive trade relations between Western Europe and the East. Meanwhile, a very serious obstacle arose in the path of the development of these relations.

The Turks captured the Baghdad Caliphate and a significant part of the Byzantine possessions. This seizure slowed down trade between East and West and greatly hampered the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which served as an external reason for the emergence of the idea of ​​the Crusades.

Western European commercial capital was primarily interested in the Crusades, and in particular the cities of Venice and Genoa, through which trade with the East was conducted.

In addition, large feudal lords and numerous chivalry associated with the crusades their hope of seizing new lands. An important role was played by the so-called entitlement, that is, such an order of inheritance in which property passes after the death of the feudal lord to the eldest son, and the rest of the children are deprived of the right of inheritance. Thanks to this, a layer of knights is created, deprived of land, belligerent, eager to seize lands, greedy for all sorts of adventures.

The Catholic Church has given this entire movement a religious shell, proclaiming its goal to fight the infidels for the liberation of the "Holy Sepulcher."

As the ideological leader, the ruler of the souls of the feudal world, the Catholic Church sought to expand its spiritual power, subjecting the Mohammedan world to its influence. As a major landowner, she hoped to expand her land holdings with the help of the Crusades, and as a major merchant she was interested in developing trade with the East.

The growth of the domestic and foreign market and in other respects contributed to the popularity of the idea of ​​the Crusades. The development of commodity relations, the growing possibilities of selling the surplus product on the market led to the intensification of the exploitation of the peasantry by the feudal lords. If we add to this the constant hunger strikes and epidemics, which were the result of low technology and the inhuman exploitation of the peasantry, then the desire of the peasants to take part in the crusades in order to break out of the intolerable grip of feudal exploitation becomes understandable.

All these reasons, ultimately rooted in the economy of the feudal society of that era, and led to the crusades.

The crusades began in 1096 and ended in 1270. There were eight crusades in all. In 1099, the crusaders captured Jerusalem and a significant territory belonging to the Turks. On the occupied territory, they founded a number of cities and principalities. A rather lively trade began between Western Europe and the East, from which Genoa and Venice, who allocated large funds for the Crusades, benefited first of all.

However, soon the crusaders' happiness changed. They began to fail. The last, eighth campaign, which took place in 1270, ended in the defeat and death of the crusaders.

The Crusades had a huge impact on the further economic development of Western Europe. First, the crusaders got acquainted with the achievements of eastern technology, borrowed a lot from the eastern peoples and thereby contributed to the more rapid development of the productive forces.

Secondly, acquaintance with Eastern culture contributed to the expansion of the demands and needs of the ruling classes of feudal society. And this growth in needs, in turn, gave impetus to the development of the corresponding branches of production and trade.

Thirdly, the Crusades caused a revival of trade with the countries of the East, from where spices, dyes, all kinds of incense, medicines, etc. were brought. The centers of this trade in the Mediterranean were Venice, Genoa, Florence and other cities. Other centers of foreign trade were the cities of Hamburg, Lubeck, Bremen, Cologne, Magdeburg, Frankfurt and others. Trade in the Baltic and North Seas was concentrated in these cities. They formed the so-called Hanseatic League.

Hanseatic-Venetian companies at the end of the XIV century. and at the beginning of the 15th century. on the spice trade, the following percentages of profit to the purchase price were made: pepper - 70-100, ginger - 25-237, cinnamon - 87-287, cloves - 100, nutmeg - 87-237, etc. Robbery of foreign countries and a huge trade profits also led to the expansion of the domestic market. In particular, trade in textiles and metal goods has revived.

Usurious capital and credit have achieved significant development. At first, merchants were engaged in lending and usurious operations, later bankers emerged from among them.

The growth of commodity-money relations caused profound changes in the feudal village. The transfer of obligations in kind into monetary ones began. The exploitation of the peasantry by the landlords intensified. The process of differentiation of the peasantry, the process of the emergence of capitalist relations in the bowels of feudalism, began to develop much faster.

6. The political system of feudalism. The role of the church

The feudal system had hierarchical structure, which was based on the hierarchy of land ownership. Those with the most land were at the top of the hierarchy. Its top was occupied by the king - the largest landowner-feudal lord.

Larger feudal lords - seniors made dependent on themselves the smaller feudal lords, who were called vassals. The foundation of this entire hierarchical ladder was the exploitation of the serfs.

The political system of feudalism was characterized by extreme fragmentation. All of Europe was divided into many small and large estates - states. At the head of each estate was a large feudal lord - at the same time the sovereign. Within the limits of his possessions, he possessed full power, maintained his own army and minted coins.

Petty feudal lords, as we have already indicated, were usually under the patronage and protection of more powerful feudal lords - the suzerain. For this protection, they were obliged to pay tribute and help their patrons in the war. But overlords who had vassals, in turn, could be vassals of even larger feudal lords. The largest overlord was the king.

Feudal lords had the right to independently conclude treaties among themselves, wage wars, etc.

This political fragmentation of the feudal world was determined by the economy of feudalism, the weak development of the social division of labor, and, consequently, commodity production and exchange. Under the dominance of natural economy, economic ties between individual feudal estates were very limited. Each feudal estate was basically a closed subsistence economy, existing mainly with the products of its own production.

In conditions of economic and political fragmentation of feudal society, the Catholic Church played an important role. It was essentially a political organization that united the fragmented feudal world. The Catholic Church itself was built on the same hierarchical type that underpinned feudal society. At its head was the pope, who had unlimited sole power. Such an organization of the Catholic Church was most adapted both for the struggle against the feudal lords and the subordination of their spiritual power, and for the enslavement of the serf peasantry.

At least one third of the entire land was concentrated in the hands of the church. All this made her the most powerful of the feudal lords. The influence of the church was based, therefore, not only on religious intoxication, but also on its enormous economic strength.

The huge church estates provided large quantities of food that the clergy could not consume. Under the conditions of the dominance of natural economy, the surplus of production could not be completely converted into money. On this basis, the charitable activities of the church arose, which helped her to strengthen her ideological power over the working masses. In turn, ideological power was used to further increase the economic strength and wealth of the church. The Church established in its favor a kind of tax on land tenure in the form of church tithes and organized many different extortions for pious purposes.

The further growth of the productive forces, the separation of the city from the countryside, and the development of trade relations lead to the strengthening of economic ties between individual regions and states. The need arises to destroy the political fragmentation of the feudal world. The formation of large national states in the form of absolute monarchies begins.

The centralization of state power was carried out by the royal power in the struggle against the feudal lords, who did not want to give up their independence. In this struggle, royal power relied on the growing urban bourgeoisie. This was the period when, according to Engels, "... the royal power in its struggle against the nobility used the bourgeoisie to restrain one estate with the help of another ...".

7. Decay and death of feudalism. Simple commodity economy as the basis for the development of capitalist relations

Feudalism pushed forward the development of the productive forces. This found its expression in the strengthening of the social division of labor within the feudal village, in the improvement of agricultural technology, in the emergence of new branches both in the field of field cultivation and horticultural crops. More progress has been made in the area of ​​handicraft production.

Progress in the field of productive forces was especially strong in the second half of the Middle Ages. A significant role, as we have already indicated, in this respect was played by the Crusades. The Crusades made it possible for Europeans to get acquainted with a number of technical improvements in the field of horticulture, truck farming, engineering art, and in the field of technical chemistry.

At the end of the Middle Ages, the progress of labor productivity proceeds at an accelerated pace and is manifested in a multitude of inventions and discoveries of great practical importance: new industries are created that have a huge impact on further economic life, blast furnaces appear and iron foundry; the technique of navigation is being improved, especially thanks to the invention of the compass; paper, gunpowder, watches are invented.

The growth of the productive forces was accompanied by the expansion of the market.

The expanding market presented an ever-increasing demand for handicraft products, and small handicraft production was less and less able to satisfy it. The need is ripe for a transition from small-scale handicraft production to large-scale capitalist production, to manufacturing, and then to machine production.

The production relations of feudal society with their serf labor, guild isolation and limitedness became a brake on the further growth of productive forces.

Feudalism entered the stage of its decomposition and the development of capitalist relations. This stage covered the period from the 16th to the 18th century.

The basis for the development of capitalist relations, the capitalist way of life in the bowels of feudalism, was a simple commodity economy in the form of guild crafts in the city and the peasant economy in the countryside, which was increasingly drawn into exchange.

A simple commodity economy produces products for the purpose of selling on the market. This is how it radically differs from the subsistence economy.

The peasant, who lived in a subsistence economy, ate his own produce, burned a splinter in the evenings, wore clothes made of canvas woven from his own linen and hemp, in winter he wore a sheepskin coat and sheepskin coat made from sheepskins from his sheep, etc. The craft was connected with agriculture. The social division of labor was not developed.

Different in the conditions of a commodity economy. The basis of a commodity economy is the social division of labor. By virtue of this, any commodity producer produces only one commodity and, selling this commodity on the market, buys the commodities necessary for him, produced by other commodity producers.

The peasant, drawn into exchange, has to buy a significant and ever-increasing part of the goods on the market: sew clothes from calico made at a factory, illuminate a hut in the evenings with a kerosene lamp bought in a store, wear shoes made at a tannery, etc. ...

Nevertheless, peasant farming, even in the period of developed commodity relations, to a very large extent retains its natural character.

The most typical representative of a simple commodity economy is an artisan who produces products for sale and consumes only an insignificant part of his own production.

The second main feature of the commodity economy is the private property of the commodity producer in the means of production, based on personal labor. This follows from the nature of the handicraft tools.

Simple commodity economy is based on primitive manual techniques. A self-spinning wheel, a hand-held loom, a hammer, a plow, etc. — such are the tools of labor characteristic of this economy. These tools are designed for individual use, which leads to the fact that in a simple commodity economy, small artisan workshops or small agricultural farms prevail, scattered on miserable plots of land.

As the owner of the means of production and personally working on his small farm, the small commodity producer is naturally the owner of the products of his labor. The appropriation of manufactured products by a small commodity producer is based in this way: 1) on his personal labor and 2) on private ownership of the means of production.

A simple commodity economy is fraught with a deep internal contradiction. On the one hand, it is based on the social division of labor. Thanks to the social division of labor, small commodity producers find themselves connected with each other and work for each other. Consequently, their labor is of a social nature, although the latter is not directly manifested in the production process, it remains hidden.

On the other hand, the basis of a simple commodity economy is the private ownership of the commodity producer on the means of production. Thanks to private ownership of the means of production, small commodity producers find themselves fragmented, working in isolation from each other, outside of any general plan, each solely at his own peril and risk. Thanks to this, the labor of the commodity producer is directly private labor. Consequently, the labor of a commodity producer at the same time is public and private.

This contradiction between public and private labor is the main contradiction simple commodity economy. It gives rise to anarchy commodity production and fierce competition between producers.

And this, in turn, leads to the disintegration of a simple commodity economy and to the development of capitalist relations. "No," Lenin wrote, "not a single economic phenomenon in the peasantry ... which would not express the struggle and discord of interests, did not mean a plus for some and a minus for others." Because of this, a simple commodity economy, according to Lenin, "... gives birth to capitalism and the bourgeoisie constantly, daily, hourly, spontaneously and on a mass scale."

What are the internal laws underlying the development of capitalist relations on the basis of commodity production?

To answer this, we must consider the relationship behind the exchange of goods.

A product manufactured for the purpose of sale is commodity... Every commodity has, first of all, a use-value.

Use value product consists in its ability to satisfy any human need. A product that has no use-value cannot become a commodity, since no one will buy it.

In exchange, one product is equated to another product. Let's say 1 ax is equal to 50 kg of bread.

The question arises: what is the basis of the equality of two goods?

This equality cannot be based on the use value of the commodity, since the condition of exchange is difference the use values ​​of the two exchanged goods. No one would exchange an ax for an ax and bread for bread.

Obviously, the equality of two goods is based on their value.

Goods are exchanged that have the same value. By exchanging 1 ax for 50 kg of bread, we thereby say that one ax costs the same as 50 kg of bread. Consequently, in addition to the use value, the commodity must have value.

What determines the value of a product?

Cost of goods determined by the labor expended in its production.

Indeed, small commodity producers - artisans and peasants - exchange the products of their labor. “What did they spend in making these items? Labor — and only labor: they spent only their own labor power on replacing the instruments of labor, on the production of raw materials, on their processing; could they therefore exchange these products of theirs for the products of other manufacturers otherwise than in proportion to the labor expended? The working time spent on these products was not only the only suitable measure for them to quantify the quantities to be exchanged, by any other measure it was completely unthinkable. "

If in this way exchange was carried out according to the amount of labor expended, then how was the amount of labor itself determined?

“Obviously, only through a long process of approaching in zigzags, often in the dark, groping, and, as always, only bitter experience taught people. The need for everyone in general to reimburse their costs helped in each individual case to find the right path, while the limited number of types of objects that came in exchange along with the unchanging - often over many centuries - nature of their production facilitated this task.

Consequently, it is only in the process of exchange that such exchange relations between commodities develop spontaneously, which in general correspond to their value, determined by the amount of labor expended on them.

The amount of labor expended is measured by time. The more labor time spent on the production of a commodity, the higher its value, and vice versa.

But the fact is that there are large differences between individual producers in terms of the amount of time spent on producing a product. Some work with good tools, others with bad ones, some work with good raw materials, others with bad raw materials, some more intensively, others less intensively, some are more skillful in their craft, others less skillful.

Consequently, the individual amounts of labor time spent by individual commodity producers on the production of goods are extremely diverse. How long will the cost of the goods be determined?

The value of the goods will be determined not by the individual time spent on the production of goods by an individual producer, but socially necessary time, spent by the majority of producers. "The socially necessary labor time," says Marx, "is that labor time that is required for the production of any use value under the available socially normal conditions of production and with the average level of skill and intensity of labor in a given society."

Producers who work under better conditions than the average, with the help of better tools, with greater skill and intensity, spend less individual labor time on the production of a given product, and on the market they sell this product at a price determined not by the individual, but by the socially necessary time. Consequently, they are in more favorable conditions than other producers.

On the contrary, those commodity producers who work in conditions below average, with worse means of production, with less skill and intensity, are in less favorable conditions compared to others.

Thus, at the heart of the differentiation of small commodity producers and the development of capitalist relations is the contradiction between private and public labor, between individual and socially necessary time. Due to this contradiction, the competition between commodity producers leads to the enrichment of some and the ruin of others, to the development of capitalist relations.

8. Decomposition of guild craft

The emergence of shop organizations in the city was the result of the development of commodity production. But at the same time, guilds could hold out and limit competition only as long as commodity production was still underdeveloped, while the craft worked for the local narrow market, when the artisan was at the same time the seller of his goods.

The growth of commodity relations radically changed the situation. If earlier the artisan worked to order or for the local market and dealt directly with the consumer, now he was forced to go to work on a wider, unknown market.

This caused the need for an intermediary - a buyer-seller. The buyer grows up from among the artisans themselves. At first, he combines trading operations with a craft, and then completely devotes himself to trade.

This process of allocation and growth of commercial capital took place intensively in the guild craft at the end of the Middle Ages.

On the other hand, the expanding market made more and more demands on handicraft products.

The growth of the productive forces became in irreconcilable contradiction with the guild system, with its isolation, routine, hostility to all technical innovations, and demanded its elimination.

Suffice it to refer to the fact that the workshops did not allow the use of a self-spinning wheel, prohibited the use of a felt mill in cloth production, etc.

The guild spirit, the desire to hide technical inventions from their competitors also could not help hindering the further growth of productive forces.

Lenin in his work "The Development of Capitalism in Russia" gives a vivid example of the secrecy of production by artisans-handicraftsmen.

“The founders of a new craft or persons who have introduced any improvements to the old craft,” says Lenin, “do their best to hide profitable occupations from their fellow villagers, use various tricks for this (for example, they keep old devices in the establishment to divert their eyes), do not let no one goes to their workshops, they work on the ceiling, they do not inform even their own children about the production ... We read about the Bezvodnoye village of the Nizhny Novgorod province, famous for its metalworking industry: “It is wonderful that the inhabitants of Bezvodnoye still ... carefully hide their skills from neighboring peasants ... they do not give off their daughters to the suitors of neighboring villages and, as far as possible, do not take girls from there for marriage. "

The petty regulation that existed in guild craft production, the prohibition to have apprentices and apprentices in excess of a certain number - all this contradicted the needs of economic development, the needs of the growing capitalist order. Therefore, in spite of all the slingshots that the guild system put on the development of competition, it penetrated the limits of the guild production. Differentiation began among the shop masters. More prosperous craftsmen began to stand out, who expanded production, regardless of the rules of the shop.

To avoid guild slingshots and restrictions, some more prosperous craftsmen and merchants moved the organization of production to the village, distributed orders for the house there.

This undermined the monopoly position of the workshops.

Commercial capital infiltrated shop organizations. More prosperous craftsmen became buyers and usurers. The thirst for accumulation prompted such masters to bypass and violate those rules of the statutes that prevented them from expanding their own production and finally subjugating the farms of poorer masters. So, in production for export, for the craftsmen who had a direct connection with the market, those decisions of the shops that set the price of products and prevented them from buying them cheaply were embarrassing. The articles of the statutes that limited the number of hired workers for an individual foreman and, therefore, did not allow the expansion of enterprises were often not implemented in practice.

The process of differentiation among artisans began, the process of decomposition of the guild craft.

Along with this, the contradictions between the masters, on the one hand, and apprentices and apprentices, on the other, are aggravated.

Craftsmen, who became more and more dependent on merchant capital in order to somehow maintain their vacillating position, intensified the exploitation of apprentices and apprentices, demanded from them longer and more intensive work, paid them less, and provided worse support.

Guild organizations increasingly turned into organizations of the struggle of craftsmen against apprentices. The most energetic measures were taken to make it difficult for apprentices to move into the ranks of masters, because the increase in the number of masters intensified competition. Longer terms of apprenticeship and apprenticeship were established. When an apprentice passed the master exam, particularly strict requirements were imposed. They demanded the presentation of "exemplary works" in which the apprentice had to discover his art, for example, to make a shoe without any measurement, by eye, for a horse galloping past, etc. High pledges were set upon joining the shop.

So, in France, persons applying for the title of guild master had to pay in the first half of the XIV century. 20 solidi, in the second half of the XIV century. - 40-50 solidi, in the 15th century. - 200 solidi.

In addition, an apprentice who wanted to become a foreman had to give gifts to the foremen of the workshop. According to the charter of the Lübeck goldsmiths dating back to 1492: “whoever wants to assume the position of an independent craftsman in the workshop must (in addition to fulfilling many other requirements) make the following items: a gold ring of openwork work, an English wrist, given at betrothal, engraved and blackened, and ring for the handle of the dagger. He must present these jewels to the foremen and the oldest members of the workshop. "

Changes in the guild structure took place at a considerable speed starting from the XIV century.

The new shop rules were enforced with extreme passion. For the sons of craftsmen, all kinds of exceptions were made, thanks to which all trials and difficulties often turned into an empty formality, while for people of other origins, joining the workshop became almost impossible. Guild privileges acquired a narrow class character, they were associated not so much with art and knowledge as with origin.

All these innovations provoked vigorous resistance from apprentices who began to create their own organizations - at first, simply religious corporations or mutual material aid unions, which then turned into associations to fight for common interests against the masters.

Apprentices often managed to force the craftsmen to make various concessions. The craftsmen tried in every possible way to destroy the unions of apprentices and often sought laws prohibiting these unions. But this achieved only that the unions of apprentices turned into secret, but did not cease to exist. Strikes and a boycott of entrepreneurs were the main weapons in the struggle of apprentices against foremen.

Thus, under the influence of the growth of commodity-capitalist relations, the process of decomposition of the guild craft took place.

9. Decomposition of the feudal village. Uprising of the serfs.The death of feudalism

The same process of disintegration of feudal and development of capitalist relations took place in the countryside.

When the feudal lord's economy began to turn from a natural one into an exchange one, the nature of his relationship with the serf peasant began to change rapidly. Previously, with subsistence farming, the size of the corvee and the quitrent found their limit in the size of the needs of the feudal lord; now this border has disappeared. If under the conditions of a subsistence economy it did not make sense to accumulate too large reserves of grain, then under a money economy their value could be saved in the form of money. The consequence of this was the transition from corvee and quitrent to monetary rent. In need of money, the feudal lord demanded that his peasants pay the quitrent in cash. Numerous in-kind obligations were converted into monetary ones. Now the serf peasant had to not only create a surplus product with his own labor, but also sell it on the market in order to then pay the money rent to the feudal lord.

The serf village was thus more and more drawn into exchange. A rapid process of stratification within the serf peasantry began. On the one hand, a kulak grew, which gradually bought off serfdom and, along with the feudal lord, became the exploiter of the peasantry.

Among the serfs of Count Sheremetev (village Ivanovo, Vladimir province):

a) there were merchants, manufacturers, owners of huge capital, whose daughters, when they married, did not pay a ransom to the count's peasants of 10 thousand rubles. and more;

b) 50 Ivanovo peasants were bought out before the reform of 1861. The average buyout price was 20 thousand rubles.

On the other hand, the exploitation of the peasantry by the feudal lords intensified and the ruin of the bulk of the peasantry proceeded at a rapid pace.

Under the influence of the growth of market relations, the feudal lord tried in every possible way to increase the amount of money rent collected from the peasantry. Thus, monetary payments from peasants in France, according to one estate in Brittany, increased from 200 livres in 1778 to 400 livres in 1786. common use with peasants. Enterprises that were the monopoly of the feudal lord, such as mills, bakeries, bridges, now became a means of increased extortion and extortion.

Along with the intensification of economic oppression, legal forms of dependence also became more difficult. “The robbery of the peasants by the nobility,” says Engels, “became more and more sophisticated every year. The last drop of blood was sucked out of the serfs, the dependent people were levied with new taxes and duties under all sorts of pretexts and names. Corvee, chinshi, levies, duties upon change of ownership, posthumous levies, security money, etc., were arbitrarily increased, in spite of all the old treaties. "

Under the influence of the same growth in commodity production and exchange, the exploitation of the peasants by the clergy intensified. It is not content with church tithes and is looking for new sources of income, arranges a trade in indulgences ("absolution"), organizes new armies of mendicant monks. With their own serfs, the clergy behave no better than other feudal lords.

The unbearable living conditions of the serfs caused peasant outrage and revolts. At first, while the social division of labor was poorly developed, while exchange relations remained relatively narrow and each region lived its own separate life, peasant uprisings were of a local character and were suppressed relatively easily. The development of commodity relations paved the way for wider peasant uprisings, encompassing entire countries. On the other hand, the sharp increase in the exploitation of the serf peasantry by the feudal lords gave these uprisings a particularly deep and stubborn character. In Italy in the 13th century, in England and France at the end of the 14th century, in Bohemia in the 15th century, in Germany at the beginning of the 16th century. real peasant wars took place, for the suppression of which a tremendous exertion of forces was needed on the part of state bodies.

So, in 1358, an uprising of the French peasants, known as the Jacquerie, broke out. This uprising was the result of an extraordinary increase in the exploitation of the peasantry, ravaged by wars and numerous extortions. The uprising was suppressed with unprecedented brutality. Over 20 thousand rebellious serfs were physically destroyed. Whole villages were destroyed and demolished and a lot of land and property confiscated.

In England in 1381 an uprising of English peasants broke out, led by Wat Tyler. It was preceded by an epidemic of plague, from which a large number of people died. As a result, the landlords experienced an especially acute need for labor and intensified the exploitation of the surviving serfs. The peasantry responded with an uprising. Apprentices and apprentices joined the rebels. The rebels argued that the nobility is a temporary phenomenon and should disappear. Therefore, sermons on the theme: "When Adam plowed and Eve spun, who was a nobleman then?" Were especially popular among the peasants.

The peasants demanded liberation from all kinds of personal dependence and slavery. The rebellious peasants and artisans headed to London, burning landlord estates along the way, destroying the castles of the higher nobility. The frightened king agreed to meet the demands of the rebels. The peasants, reassured by his promise, went home. Then the 40-thousand-strong army of the king easily destroyed the remnants of the armed forces of the rebels. Nevertheless, as a result of the uprising, the emancipation of the peasantry intensified, and in the 15th century. serfdom was abolished in England.

In Spain, after a series of uprisings of the serfs, which were also joined by the most exploited elements of the urban population, serfdom was swept away in 1486.

In 1525 an uprising of serfs broke out in Germany, which turned into a real war of the peasants against the feudal lords.

The history of pre-revolutionary Russia also provides us with vivid examples of grandiose peasant uprisings that shook the foundations of the tsarist empire and made the ruling classes tremble. The most famous of them are the uprisings of Stepan Razin and Emelyan Pugachev.

The tremendous revolutionary significance of these uprisings lay in the fact that they shook the foundations of feudalism and were the decisive force that ultimately led to the abolition of serfdom, to the downfall of the feudal system of exploitation.

The disintegration of feudalism and the development of capitalist relations were accompanied, on the one hand, by the growth of the bourgeoisie, and on the other, by the formation of the proletariat from among the ruining small producers - peasants and artisans. It is appropriate here to compare the historical fate of the feudal mode of production with the slave-owning one. In both cases, the process of ruining small producers took place. However, under the conditions of the slave system, the ruining small producer could not find a productive occupation for himself. The slave-owning system was unable to embark on the path of development of technology, since slavery, as it spread, increasingly turned labor into a shameful deed unworthy of a free man. Therefore, the ruining small producers in the conditions of the slave system awaited the fate of the lumpen proletarians.

On the contrary, feudalism, based on the small-scale production of serfs and urban artisans, as it developed, created conditions for the growth of productive forces, the rise of technology on the basis of the development of the capitalist system, which originated in its depths. Under these conditions, the ruinous artisans and peasants made up the cadres of the proletarians, which the developing large-scale capitalist industry needed.

The capitalist mode of production originated in the form of a structure in the bowels of feudal society. But his birth cost his mother's life. The development of the capitalist system in the bowels of feudal society proceeded with such speed and intensity that a complete discrepancy, on the one hand, between the new productive forces and, on the other, the economic and political system of feudalism, was soon revealed.

Marx and Engels wrote in the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" that the conditions "... in which the production and exchange of feudal society, the feudal organization of agriculture and industry, in a word, feudal property relations, already ceased to correspond to the developed productive forces. They slowed down production instead of developing it. They became his fetters. They had to be defeated, and they were defeated.

Their place was taken by free competition, with a corresponding social and political system ... "

This coup was carried out by the bourgeoisie through a revolution in which the peasants were given the role of rank-and-file fighters against feudalism. The bourgeoisie took advantage of the fruits of the revolutionary struggle of the peasantry. The working class was still weak and disorganized. He could not yet lead the peasantry. As a result, one system of exploitation was replaced by another. Feudal exploitation gave way to capitalist exploitation.

While in England and other European countries the development of capitalism led to the rapid elimination of feudal relations, they still existed in Germany, Romania, and Russia. For a number of reasons, and primarily because of the economic backwardness of these countries, they experienced a "relapse" of feudal exploitation in its most cruel form. The open world market for agricultural products pushed the landowners to expand their own production of these products, which was based even on feudal exploitation, on serf labor. Under these conditions, the expansion of landlord agriculture meant the expansion of the use of serf labor and the intensification of the exploitation of serfs. The landowners, who needed labor, began to switch to corvee and natural quitrent and finally enslave the peasants in order to squeeze out as much surplus product as possible to sell it on the market. The exploitation of the serf peasantry assumed monstrous proportions bordering on slavery.

Marx says: “... as soon as the peoples for whom production is still carried out in relatively low forms of slave labor, corvée labor, etc., are drawn into the world market, dominated by the capitalist mode of production and which makes the sale of the products of this production abroad a predominant interest so the civilized horror of excessive labor is added to the barbaric horrors of slavery, serfdom, etc. "

Serfdom is not some special method of exploitation that is fundamentally different from feudalism. The essence of exploitation is the same here. Serfdom- This is a stage in the development of feudalism, associated with the aggravation and intensification of the exploitation of peasants by landowners in backward countries that are being drawn into the world market.

For example, after the peasant uprising, Germany had to endure, as Engels put it, the "second edition" of serfdom in its most cruel form. Only the revolution of 1848 destroyed serfdom in Germany. However, its remnants remained after that.

They left a huge imprint on the subsequent development of Germany, which Lenin characterized as the Prussian path of development of capitalism. Remnants of feudal relations also took place in Germany during the period of developed capitalism. The coming of the fascists to power led to a sharp increase in reactionary, feudal-serf tendencies in Germany. The Nazis, trying to turn back the wheel of history, strenuously imposed a slave-serf system throughout the territory temporarily occupied by them, and forcibly drove huge masses of the population to Germany and turned them in fact into slaves and serfs.

In Russia in the XVII, XVIII and partly in the XIX centuries. serfdom took on the most gross forms of violence and personal dependence. It was not for nothing that Lenin called him "serf slavery."

Landowners, like slave owners, sold serfs, exchanged them for dogs, women were often forced to breastfeed puppies, they lost to serfs at cards, etc.

In the newspapers of that time, one could often find advertisements for the sale, along with diamonds, race cars, cows and dogs of courtyard girls, tailors, watchmakers, etc.

The best progressive Russian people - Radishchev, the Decembrists, Herzen and Chernyshevsky waged an irreconcilable struggle against serfdom.

The Russian people, primarily represented by the multimillion peasantry, fought for their liberation with the help of revolutionary uprisings. This revolutionary struggle was the decisive factor that led to the abolition of serfdom in 1861. However, survivals of serfdom existed even after the abolition of serfdom and were finally swept away by the Great October Socialist Revolution, which destroyed landlord landownership with all its enslaving feudal-serf methods of exploitation with one blow ...

10. Economic views of the era of feudalism

The tremendous power and strength of the church both in the field of economics and politics, and ideology was expressed in the fact that the literature of that time, disputes, discussions, argumentation were of a theological nature. The most compelling argument was that of divine scripture.

The only thing that the Middle Ages “... borrowed from the lost ancient world was Christianity ... As a result, as is the case at all early stages of development, the monopoly on intellectual education went to the priests, and education itself thus assumed a predominantly theological character ... And this supreme domination of theology in all areas of mental activity was at the same time a necessary consequence of the position that the church occupied as the most general synthesis and the most general sanction of the existing feudal system. "

Therefore, the economic views of that time were reflected mainly in religious and philosophical works. Among these works, the works of Thomas Aquinas dating back to the 13th century deserve to be noted. They are of interest to us insofar as they reflect the economy of feudal society, just as the statements about the labor of philosophers, historians and writers of the ancient world reflected the position of labor in a slave society.

The basis of the slave system was the exploitation of slave labor. Hence the view of labor as a shameful occupation, unworthy of a free man. The feudal system was based on small-scale production of serfs in the countryside and guild small-scale handicraft production in the city, based on private property and the personal labor of the manufacturer. Moreover, the ruling class - the feudal lords, striving to extract the maximum surplus product, were forced in order to stimulate the labor of the serf peasant to switch to such forms of rent that gave the latter greater economic independence, developed his initiative, and aroused the interest of the private owner in him. Hence, a different view of labor in a feudal society in comparison with the view of slave owners.

Thomas Aquinas considers labor to be the only legitimate source of wealth and income. Only labor, in his opinion, imparts value to other objects.

However, the views of Thomas Aquinas differ to some extent from those of the early Christians. If Augustine considered any work worthy of respect, then Thomas Aquinas approached this issue differently. He distinguishes between physical and spiritual labor. He considers physical labor as simple labor, black labor, mental labor - as noble labor.

In this division of labor, Thomas Aquinas sees the basis for the class division of society, which is a characteristic feature of the feudal system.

Just as bees build wax cells and collect honey, and their queens are freed from this labor, so in human society, some must engage in physical labor, others - spiritual.

Thomas Aquinas has a different attitude to wealth than the ancient Christians. The early Christians condemned private property and wealth.

Thomas Aquinas has a different attitude to private property and wealth. He considers private property to be as necessary an institution of human life as clothing.

In Thomas Aquinas' views on wealth, the same feudal-estate approach prevails. Each person should have wealth in accordance with the position that he occupies on the feudal hierarchical ladder.

The teaching of Thomas Aquinas about the "fair price" is of great interest.

A "fair price" should reflect two factors: 1) the amount of labor expended on the production of the goods, and 2) the estate status of the producer - it should provide the producer with a “decent existence for his position”.

Thomas Aquinas and other medieval writers, while condemning the profits from trade, nevertheless admitted the receipt of commercial profits, since they reward the labor of transportation and provide the merchant with a decent existence for his position.

With even greater condemnation, medieval Christian writers viewed usury. This attitude towards trade and usury reflects the fact that the ideologues of feudalism viewed wealth from a consumer point of view.

However, with the development of commodity production and exchange, the attitude towards trade and usury became more and more tolerant.

The revolutionary struggle of the serfs against feudal exploitation, as well as the struggle between cities and feudal lords, runs like a red thread throughout the history of feudalism. This revolutionary struggle against feudalism was reflected in the field of ideology, taking on a religious form. Revolutionary economic and political teachings took the form of theological heresies.

“The revolutionary opposition to feudalism runs through all the Middle Ages. It appears, according to the conditions of the time, now in the form of mysticism, now in the form of open heresy, now in the form of an armed uprising. "

Since the struggle against the domination of the feudal lords hid various class groupings, in so far as it was waged under different slogans. The programs put forward in this struggle reflected the interests of these groups.

The peasant and plebeian movement represented the most radical, most revolutionary wing of the feudal opposition.

The peasant-plebeian movement against feudalism also took the form of church heresy. The peasants and plebeians, as well as the burghers and the lower nobility, demanded a return to the early Christian church system. This did not exhaust their programs.

They wanted the equality that existed in the early Christian communities. They substantiated this demand by the equality of all people as sons of God. Proceeding from this, they demanded the abolition of serfdom, taxes and privileges, and the equalization of the nobles with the peasants.

So, during the period of Wat Tyler's uprising in 1381 in England, among the peasants, the speech of the famous preacher John Ball on the topic "When Adam plowed, Eve spun, who was then a nobleman?" John Ball sought to emphasize the original natural equality of people who did not know the division into estates.

The leader of the rebellious peasants in Russia, Pugachev put forward the idea of ​​abolishing the rule of the nobles, eliminating serfdom and demanded the allotment of land to all peasants, as well as the release of the peasants from taxes, taxes and bribe-taking judges.

Along with the equalization of the nobles with the peasants, the peasant-plebeian movement put forward the demand for the equalization of the privileged townspeople with the plebeians.

In the peasant-plebeian movement, in its slogans and programs, the tendency towards the elimination of inequality in property, towards the establishment of consumer communism of the first Christian communities was quite clearly expressed.

The most radical part of the peasantry in Bohemia during the uprising of 1419, represented by the Taborites, demanded a return to original Christianity: the elimination of private property, the introduction of community property and equality of all before the law. The Taborites tried to put their ideals into practice. So, they organized, following the example of the first Christians, communities that had a common treasury, where surpluses from earnings were brought in.

The leader of the revolutionary uprising of peasants and plebeians in Germany, Thomas Münzer, promoted the idea of ​​the millennial kingdom of Christ, in which there will be neither rich nor poor, universal equality and blissful life will reign, and property will belong to the entire society. Here we see how the movement of the most oppressed strata of feudal society sought to go beyond the struggle against feudalism and privileged townspeople, beyond the boundaries of the bourgeois society that was emerging at that time in the bowels of feudalism.

However, under the conditions of feudalism, there was no real ground for the realization of such dreams, for the economic need for the transition from feudal to capitalist society was only brewing.

Therefore, “... the desire to go beyond the limits of not only the present, but also the future,” says Engels, “could only be fantastic, only violence against reality, and the very first attempt to put it into practice should have thrown the movement back into those narrow frames that only allowed by the conditions of that time. Attacks on private property, the demand for community of property inevitably had to degenerate into a primitive organization of charity; indefinite Christian equality could, at the most, result in bourgeois "equality before the law"; the abolition of all authorities eventually turned into the establishment of republican governments, elected by the people. The anticipation of communism in fantasy became in reality the anticipation of modern bourgeois relations. "

The revolutionary, progressive role of peasant uprisings was to demand the elimination of serfdom, which became a brake on social development, in real revolutionary actions aimed at its destruction. The revolution of the serfs, being the decisive factor in the overthrow of feudalism, thereby cleared the way for a more advanced, capitalist mode of production.

11. Falsification of the history of the feudal system by the fascists

Fascists explain the fall of the slave system by the decline of the Aryan race, which began to interbreed with the "lower races." As a result of this loss of purity of the northern race, the Roman Empire perished.

The world was saved, according to the fascist falsifiers, by the Germans, who kept the purity of Aryan blood intact and who conquered the Roman Empire.

The fascists claim that the ancient Germans sacredly maintained the purity of their Nordic race, as evidenced by the custom of killing weak children.

Thanks to the purity of the race, the Germans allegedly created a truly Nordic medieval culture.

Thus, the fascists explain the emergence of medieval culture, as well as of ancient culture, by the same invariable all-saving factor - the factor of the Aryan life-giving blood.

It is not clear why in some cases the same unchanging Aryan blood leads to a slave system, and in other cases to a feudal one. The fascist obscurantists are powerless to give any intelligible answer to this question.

The Germanic tribes, which at that time passed the highest stage of barbarism, undoubtedly played a certain role in the replacement of the slave system by the feudal one. But this role has nothing to do with their Aryan blood.

Feudalism arose as a result of the fact that slavery has outlived its usefulness, and the historical conditions for hired labor have not yet taken shape. Under these conditions, a further step forward in the development of productive forces could be made only on the basis of the economy of a small dependent producer, to a certain extent interested in his work.

Contrary to the assurances of the Nazis, the ancient Germans were barbarians at a lower level of cultural development.

The collapse of the Roman Empire was accompanied by a huge destruction of the productive forces. In this destruction of the productive forces, a significant role belongs to the Germans who conquered the Roman Empire.

It took a long time for feudalism to prove its superiority over slavery and to push forward the development of the productive forces. But this happened not due to some miraculous properties of the Aryan blood, but due to the greater interest of the serf in his work in comparison with the slave.

Finally, among the Germans themselves - this, according to the fascists, the race of masters - in the process of feudalization, feudal lords and subordinate serfs arise. Thus, the majority of carriers of Aryan blood becomes serfs, which, according to the Nazis, is the lot of the "lower races".

Consequently, the conquerors themselves are subject to the same economic laws of development as the allegedly subjugated "lower races". All this suggests that there is not a grain of science in the racial theory of the fascists.

The fascists glorify the class organization of feudal society. The closed nature of the estates contributes, in the opinion of the fascists, to the preservation of the purity of the Aryan race.

The fascists attribute the dominance of the Aryan race in Europe to the 5th-6th centuries, and in Germany - to the 10th-11th centuries. And then there is decline. This decline, according to the fascists, is again explained by the loss of the purity of the Aryan race. The brave and enterprising Germans seem to be dying in the crusades, the isolation of the upper classes is diminishing. Chivalry mingles with people of "lower races." In fact, the loss of the purity of Aryan blood had nothing to do with the death of feudalism, as well as its preservation to the emergence of feudalism.

The productive forces of feudal society have outgrown the framework of feudal production relations. As a result of this, feudalism entered the stage of its decomposition, which was at the same time the stage of development of capitalist relations.

The decisive role in the elimination of serfdom belongs to the revolution of the serfs.

Fascist falsifiers, in the interests of their insane policy of conquering the world and enslaving the working people, falsify the history of pre-capitalist formations. They dream of returning the world to the worst times of slavery and serfdom. But slavery and serfdom, which in their time were the necessary stages of social development, have become a thing of the past forever.

A policy based on a return to long-gone stages of historical development is in blatant contradiction with economic laws and the needs of the development of society and is doomed to inevitable failure, which is clearly and convincingly evidenced by the brilliant victories of the Red Army.

K. Marx and F. Engels. Works, vol. 25, part II, p. 143.

Feudalism was an integral part of the European Middle Ages. In this socio-political system, large landowners enjoyed enormous powers and influence. The backbone of their power was the enslaved and powerless peasantry.

The origin of feudalism

In Europe, the feudal system arose after at the end of the 5th century AD. e. Along with the disappearance of the former ancient civilization, the era of classical slavery was left behind. On the territory of the young barbarian kingdoms that arose on the site of the empire, new social relations began to take shape.

The feudal system appeared due to the formation of large landed property. Influential and wealthy aristocrats, close to royal power, received allotments, which only multiplied with each generation. At the same time, the bulk of the Western European population (peasants) lived in the community. By the 7th century, significant property stratification had occurred within them. The communal land passed into private hands. Those peasants who did not have enough allotments became poor, dependent on their employer.

Strengthening the peasantry

The independent peasant farms of the early Middle Ages were called allods. At the same time, conditions of unequal competition developed, when large landowners oppressed their opponents in the market. As a result, the peasants went bankrupt and voluntarily passed under the auspices of aristocrats. So the feudal system gradually arose.

It is curious that this term did not appear in but much later. At the end of the 18th century in revolutionary France, feudalism was called the "old order" - the period of existence of the absolute monarchy and the nobility. Later, the term became popular with scientists. For example, Karl Marx used it. In his book Capital, he called the feudal system the predecessor of modern capitalism and market relations.

Benefits

The Frankish state was the first to show signs of feudalism. In this monarchy, the formation of new social relations was accelerated thanks to benefits. This was the name of the land salaries from the state to service people - officials or the military. At first, it was assumed that these allotments would belong to a person for life, and after his death, the power would again be able to dispose of the property at its own discretion (for example, transfer it to the next applicant).

However, in the IX-X centuries. the free land fund has ended. Because of this, property gradually ceased to be sole proprietorship and became hereditary. That is, the owner could now transfer the flax (land allotment) to his children. These changes, firstly, increased the dependence of the peasantry on their overlords. Second, the reform strengthened the importance of medium and small feudal lords. They became the backbone of the Western European army for a long time.

The peasants, who were deprived of their own allod, took land from the feudal lord in exchange for the obligation to perform regular work on his plots. Such a temporary use in the jurisdiction was called a precary. Large owners were not interested in finally driving the peasants from the land. The established order provided them with a noticeable income and became the basis of the well-being of the aristocracy and nobility for several centuries.

Strengthening the power of the feudal lords

In Europe, the peculiarities of the feudal system were also in the fact that the large landowners eventually received not only large lands, but also real power. The state delegated various functions to them, including judicial, police, administrative and tax functions. Such royal charters became a sign that land magnates received immunity from any interference with their powers.

Peasants against their background were helpless and powerless. Landowners could abuse their power without fear of government intervention. This is how the feudal-serf system actually appeared, when the peasants were forced to labor obligations without regard to the law and previous agreements.

Corvee and rent

Over time, the responsibilities of the dependent poor have changed. There were three types of feudal rent - corvee, natural rent, and monetary rent. Free and forced labor was especially widespread in the early Middle Ages. In the XI century, the process of economic growth of cities and the development of trade began. This led to the proliferation of monetary relations. Before that, the same natural products could have been in place of the currency. This economic order was called barter. When money spread throughout Western Europe, the feudal lords switched to monetary quitrent.

But even in spite of this, the large estates of the aristocrats participated in the trade rather sluggishly. Most of the products and other goods produced on their territory were consumed within the economy. It is important to note that the aristocrats used not only the labor of the peasantry, but also the labor of artisans. Gradually, the share of the feudal lord's land in his own economy decreased. The barons preferred to give land to dependent peasants and live off their rent and corvee.

Regional features

In most countries, feudalism was finally formed by the 11th century. Somewhere this process ended earlier (in France and Italy), somewhere later (in England and Germany). In all these countries, feudalism was practically the same. The relationship between large landowners and peasants in Scandinavia and Byzantium was somewhat different.

It had its own characteristics and social hierarchy in medieval Asian countries. For example, the feudal system in India was characterized by a great influence of the state on large landowners and peasants. In addition, there was no classical European serfdom. The feudal system in Japan was distinguished by a de facto dual power. Under the shogunate, the shogun had even more influence than the emperor. This one kept on a layer of professional warriors who received small allotments of land - samurai.

Increasing production

All historical socio-political systems (slaveholding system, feudal system, etc.) changed gradually. Thus, at the end of the 11th century, slow production growth began in Europe. It was associated with the improvement of working tools. At the same time, there is a division of the specializations of workers. It was then that the artisans finally separated from the peasants. This social class began to settle in cities that grew along with the increase in European production.

The increase in the number of goods led to the expansion of trade. A market economy began to take shape. An influential merchant class appeared. Merchants began to unite in guilds in order to protect their interests. In the same way, artisans formed city guilds. Until the XIV century, these enterprises were leading in Western Europe. They allowed artisans to remain independent of the feudal lords. However, with the beginning of accelerated scientific progress at the end of the Middle Ages, workshops became a relic of the past.

Peasant uprisings

Of course, the feudal social system could not but change under the influence of all these factors. The boom of cities, the growth of money and commodity relations - all this happened against the background of the intensification of the popular struggle against the oppression of the large landowners.

Peasant uprisings became commonplace. All of them were brutally suppressed by the feudal lords and the state. The instigators were executed, and ordinary participants were punished with additional duties or torture. Nevertheless, gradually, thanks to the uprisings, the personal dependence of the peasants began to decrease, and the cities turned into strongholds of the free population.

The struggle between feudal lords and monarchs

The slave-owning, feudal, capitalist system - all of them, in one way or another, influenced the state power and its place in society. In the Middle Ages, the growing large landowners (barons, earls, dukes) practically ignored their monarchs. Feudal wars took place regularly, in which the aristocrats sorted out relations among themselves. At the same time, the royal power did not intervene in these conflicts, and if it did, because of its weakness, it could not stop the bloodshed.

The feudal system (which flourished in the XII century) led to the fact that, for example, in France the monarch was considered only "the first among equals." The state of affairs began to change along with the increase in production, popular uprisings, etc. Gradually, national states with solid royal power, which acquired more and more signs of absolutism, took shape in Western European countries. Centralization became one of the reasons why the feudal system remained in the past.

Development of capitalism

Capitalism became the gravedigger of feudalism. In the 16th century, rapid scientific progress began in Europe. It led to the modernization of work equipment and the entire industry. Thanks to the Great Geographical Discoveries in the Old World, they learned about new lands lying across the ocean. The emergence of the new fleet led to the development of trade relations. Hitherto unseen goods appeared on the market.

At this time, the Netherlands and England became the leaders in industrial production. In these countries, manufactories arose - enterprises of a new type. They used hired labor, which was also divided. That is, trained specialists worked at manufactories - first of all, artisans. These people were independent from the feudal lords. This is how new types of production appeared - cloth, cast iron, printing, etc.

Decomposition of feudalism

Together with manufactories, the bourgeoisie arose. This social class consisted of property owners who owned the means of production and big capital. At first, this stratum of the population was small. Its share in the economy was tiny. At the end of the Middle Ages, the bulk of the goods produced appeared on peasant farms dependent on the feudal lords.

However, gradually the bourgeoisie gained momentum and became richer and more influential. This process could not but lead to a conflict with the old elite. This is how social bourgeois revolutions began in Europe in the 17th century. The new class wanted to consolidate its own influence in society. This was done with the help of representation in the highest state bodies, Parliament), etc.

The first was the Dutch Revolution, which ended with the Thirty Years' War. This uprising was also of a national character. The inhabitants of the Netherlands got rid of the power of the powerful dynasty of the Spanish Habsburgs. The next revolution took place in England. It is also called the Civil War. The result of all these and subsequent similar coups was the rejection of feudalism, the emancipation of the peasantry and the triumph of a free market economy.