Big encyclopedia of oil and gas. Main features of the slave system

The slave system replaced the primitive communal system and represented the first socio-economic formation in the history of human society based on the exploitation of man by man.

Being the first form of exploitation, slavery was an openly violent coercion of producers - slaves - who were owned by the owners of the means of production - slave owners and used on their farms to produce surplus product. Slave society was the first class society in history. With the advent of slave society, the entire history of human society became the history of classes: the birth and formation of some, the decay and death of others, the history of irreconcilable class struggle.

The main means of appropriating and concentrating the wealth and labor force of slaves were aggressive, predatory wars, which became a kind of industry that provided captives and material values. One of the important factors stimulating the process of class formation was cattle breeding, since it was easier than agriculture and provided a stable surplus product, which led to the accumulation of such a product first among the tribe as a whole, and then among individual families within the tribe (livestock was universal equivalent to exchange in ancient times). A major role in the establishment of the slave-owning mode of production was played by the development of commodity-money relations, under the conditions of the growth of which another form of enslavement took shape - debt slavery. The exploitation of man by man is taking on increasingly cruel forms. Slaves are forced to work under pain of death or physical destruction. The scale of slave-holding farms and the amount of labor used are increasing.

The slave-owning economy is gaining a dominant economic position. New forms of economy, based on the use of slave labor, defeat old forms due to higher labor productivity.

With the division of society into classes, socio-economic relations that are new in nature begin to emerge between them. Relations of cooperation and mutual assistance, typical of the primitive communal system, are replaced by relations of hostility, fierce and irreconcilable class struggle between the oppressed and the oppressors.

A policy emerges that expresses in a concentrated form the economic interests of slave owners. The slave state appears as an apparatus of violence, suppressing the resistance of the exploited and protecting the interests of slave owners.

2. Peculiarities of Eastern and ancient slavery

Historical science knows two main types of slaveholding systems: eastern, or, as they are also called, early slaveholding societies, and ancient, or late slaveholding societies.

Eastern slaveholding societies include slaveholding states in Egypt, Babylon, Persia, India, and China.

The ancient form of slavery prevailed in most Greek city-states (of which Athens was the most developed), in a number of so-called Hellenistic states, and in Rome.

Some countries of the Ancient East (for example, Egypt during the New Kingdom) developed forms of slavery approaching the ancient ones. Slavery in Greece and Rome was also patriarchal at first, but the rapid pace of development of a number of states of the ancient world contributed to its transformation from patriarchal to ancient (for example, in Athens), while in some cities it remained patriarchal for a long time (Sparta, etc.). Greece 5th-4th centuries BC e., Rome 2nd century. BC e. - 2nd century n. e. represent classic examples of the developed late slave-owning system.

2.1. Eastern slavery

Eastern slaveholding societies are characterized by the predominance (especially in the first stages of their development) of not private, but collective ownership of slave owners in land and other means of production, as well as in slaves in the form of communal, temple and state property. Slavery in these countries was of an underdeveloped nature, often approaching patriarchal slavery.

That's why relations of production Eastern slave-owning society can be defined as a kind of semi-slave, semi-patriarchal relations. The main production unit in agriculture, which dominated (especially at the beginning) over other branches of production, was the rural or neighboring community with significant vestiges of patriarchal relations. Slave-holding farms had a pronounced natural character: commodity relations had just begun to emerge and developed slowly, trade was in most cases primitive.

A special feature of the eastern slaveholding society was that, along with slaves, the free rural population, members of rural or neighboring communities were also the object of daily exploitation by the state, which acted as a centralized despotism. Often the peasants were in a position that was little different from slavery. They were dependent on the despot king and the slaveholding nobility grouped around him, and were subject to all kinds of taxes and levies. K. Marx called this situation “universal slavery.”

A characteristic feature of eastern slaveholding societies was that the process of class polarization occurred here extremely slowly. In countries where eastern slave-owning society existed, the class division was not clearly defined for a long time. Throughout the entire historical era, class relations were combined with the relations of the rural or neighboring community and the remnants of patriarchal relations.

2.2. Ancient slavery

The ancient slave-owning society differed from the eastern slave-owning society in the much greater development of private property relations. In ancient society, private ownership of slaves and the means of production, including land, prevailed over forms of collective slave ownership. Its second distinctive feature was that the labor of slaves prevailed in the system of social production over the labor of free producers. The labor of slaves became the basis of the existence of society here. Ancient slave production was characterized by a higher development of commodity relations, money circulation and trade than in eastern slave societies, while maintaining the generally natural nature of production, and higher rates of development of social production.

In ancient countries, slave relations reached their fullest development. The class structure of society was much clearer and more defined here.

Speaking about the features of the development of eastern and ancient slave societies, K. Marx pointed out that these features were largely determined by the specific development of various peoples during the era of the existence and decomposition of the primitive communal system.

No matter how significant the differences that existed between eastern slave-owning relations and ancient ones, both were essentially slave-owning relations, relations of exploitation of direct producers - slaves who were in the collective or private property of slave owners.

3. Productive forces and production relations of slave society

3.1. Productive forces

In a slave society, the main industries were agriculture, cattle breeding and crafts. Having emerged in the depths of primitive society, under the slave system, they took a certain step forward in their development. The decisive role in this forward movement was played by the improvement of tools and the emergence of some of their new types. However, the development and improvement of tools was slow.

A certain role in the development of the productive forces of slave-owning society was played by the further growth of the social division of labor and the specialization that took place within craft and agricultural production.

Despite the significant growth and certain technical progress of handicraft production, agriculture remained the main branch of social production in a slave-owning society.

Many branches of knowledge - mathematics, mechanics, astronomy, architecture and construction art, philosophy, etc. - achieved a relatively high development in slave states. Many of the monuments of art, works of fiction, sculpture and architecture that have come down to us from the ancient slave world have forever entered the treasury human culture as the greatest, sometimes unsurpassed creations of human genius. The material basis of this ancient civilization was the forced labor of many, many generations of slaves.

The main productive force under the slave-owning mode of production was the simple cooperation of slave labor. Only the exploitation of large masses of slaves was able to create such a volume of surplus product that allowed slave owners to satisfy their needs and whims, freed them from the need to work, and provided for the needs of social development.

3.2. Slave production relations

The slave-owning method of production presupposed the ownership of slave owners not only of all material conditions of production (land, tools and objects of labor), but also of the producer himself - the slave. All products produced were the property of slave owners. Of the total mass of created products, a certain portion was allocated to the share of slaves, barely sufficient for a half-starved existence. The slave labor force was quickly depleted.

The slave was considered a thing, not a person. In ancient Rome, a slave was called a “talking” tool, in contrast to “mooing” tools and inanimate tools. The slave was not at all interested in the results of his labor. He had no material incentives to work or to increase his productivity. He worked only because he was forced to do so.

A specific way of connecting the means of production with labor force in conditions of slavery - direct forced coercion of a worker to work. Slavery was the first and most brutal form of exploitation in history.

In addition to slave production, based on the labor of slaves, there was the production of free peasants and artisans, which in the first period of the existence of slave society played a large role in social production. At the same time, in ancient societies there were forms of exploitation based on economic dependence (usury, rent, hiring of workers, etc.).

As the slave-owning mode of production developed, this small-scale production of artisans and peasants grew weaker and went bankrupt. Some free peasants and artisans fell into debt bondage and turned into slaves, others joined the ranks of the mendicant strata of the urban population - the ancient lumpen proletariat.

The desire of slave owners to increase the surplus product they appropriated gave rise to cruel, barbaric methods of exploitation. Excessive intensification of labor, reducing the consumption of slaves below the level necessary to maintain their labor force in normal condition in order to appropriate not only the surplus, but also part of the necessary product, led to rapid deterioration of the slave labor force, high mortality and a short average life expectancy.

Therefore, the preservation of the slave-owning mode of production required constant mass renewal of the army of slaves at fairly short intervals. The need for a constant influx of new slaves was also determined by the fact that the increase in the mass of surplus product was carried out mainly by increasing the number of exploited.

3.3. Economic basis and content of simple cooperation of slave labor

Slave-owning production relations, which excluded producers from having material incentives to work and presupposed their direct compulsion to work, determined in the socio-economic sense the simplest, most accessible, natural form of organization of mass, united labor for the era under consideration, which was simple cooperation of slave labor.

The degree of development of the tools of labor was such that only the use of mass slave labor could ensure the production of a surplus product sufficient to satisfy the ever-increasing needs of slave owners.

Simple labor cooperation was inherited by slave society from the previous primitive communal system. However, in contrast to the primitive labor cooperation, which united people with equal rights, free from exploitation, although they were at an extremely low level of economic development, slave-owning cooperation united producers oppressed by exploiters and not interested in the results of their work. This determined the contradictory nature of slave-owning cooperation.

3.4. Natural nature of slave production

Slave production was, in its form, natural production. The naturalness of slave production was determined by the following points: 1) the insufficiently high level of productive forces of society and the relative underdevelopment of the social division of labor; 2) the predominance of agriculture over other sectors of production, although they received a certain development under slavery; 3) the closed consuming nature of each of the slaveholding farms, where most products were produced not for sale, but for domestic consumption; 4) non-economic coercion of the producer to work and the associated natural appropriation of labor power, which is not a commodity. The purchase and sale of slaves, which took place then in a number of cases, was a means of redistributing available slave power.

One of the most important manifestations of the natural nature of the slave economy is that a significant part of the surplus product was spent on unproductive costs: the creation of magnificent palaces of rulers and rich slave owners, grandiose temples for the performance of religious rites, the organization of solemn festivities in honor of the victories of slave states and commanders, various games and spectacles.

3.5. The basic economic law of a slave society

Under slavery, the surplus labor created by the forced labor of slaves was used mainly to satisfy the personal needs of the exploiters. Due to the low level of productivity of slave labor, the surplus product created by one worker was not significant. Nevertheless, the wealth of some slave states and their rulers, temples and individual slave owners reached enormous proportions. This is explained by the fact that a large number of slaves were owned by the state and individual slave owners.

As in any class society, the goal of slave production was dictated by the interests of the exploiting slave owners, since they, as owners, owned both the means of production and the producers themselves.

3.6. Economic contradictions of slave society

The forced connection of a production worker - a slave - with the means of production contained an irreconcilable internal contradiction of the slave-owning mode of production, which was expressed in the contradiction of the economic interests of slave owners and slaves. It was the main economic contradiction of the slave-owning mode of production. On the one hand, the production worker - the slave - was completely separated from the means of production and was not even the owner of his labor power, and on the other hand, being, like the means of production, owned by slave owners, he was forcibly connected with the means of production. Since the entire product of slaves' labor was appropriated by slave owners, slaves were not interested in their labor, and their labor was unproductive.

A slave-owning society is characterized by antagonism between the production worker—the slave—and the tools of labor, which were the means of his cruel exploitation. Hoping to free themselves from the burden of forced labor, slaves often rendered the tools of production unusable. Therefore, in slave-holding farms, mainly crude, hard-to-break tools were used.

One of the forms of manifestation of the main contradiction of the slave-owning mode of production was the contrast between physical and mental labor. Appearing for the first time under the slave system, the opposition between physical and mental labor would then become characteristic of all subsequent class societies.

Physical labor in a slave society was the lot of slaves, and mental labor was the privilege of slave owners, while representatives of mental labor - slave owners - ruthlessly and mercilessly exploited representatives of physical labor - slaves. This specifically expressed the opposition between physical and mental labor, which had a pronounced class character.

The possibility of separating mental labor from physical labor arises due to the fact that the forced, hard labour slaves provide slave owners with a surplus product, allowing them not to engage in physical labor. As slave-holding relations developed, the number of slaves working for slave owners increased, and their exploitation intensified, physical work gradually turned into an occupation unworthy of a free citizen. State affairs, politics, philosophy, literature and art are concentrated in the hands of slave owners.

The flourishing of science, art and literature of the ancient world is closely connected with the division of mental and physical labor, which had a certain progressive significance for this stage of development.

Under the conditions of the slave-owning mode of production, the separation of city and countryside also had an antagonistic character. It acted as contrast between city and country.

Cities arose in the era of the decomposition of the primitive communal system as a result of the development of the social division of labor. On the one hand, the separation of the city from the countryside played a positive role, since it contributed to the development of specialization of labor and increased productivity, and on the other hand, it had negative consequences, since the strengthening of the exploitative dominant position of the city in relation to the countryside led to the impoverishment of the countryside and the theft of the village’s labor force, and to the decline of agricultural production. In conditions when agriculture remained the most important branch of material production, its decline had a very noticeable negative impact on the state of all social production.

The peculiarity of a slave-owning society was the contradictory coexistence of two types of economy: large slaveholding farms, based on the exploitation of slave labor, and farms of free producers - peasants and artisans. Over time, the contradiction between the owners of large slaveholding farms and the owners of small farms based on personal labor became deeper and more acute.

The army of slave states during the period of establishment of the slave mode of production was formed from free citizens, that is, mainly from artisans and peasants. It was they who formed the basis of the military power of the slave states - small free producers. But as a result of the competition of large-scale production, based on the exploitation of cheap slave labor, and under the burden of ever-increasing taxes, small producers went bankrupt and turned into slaves or lumpen proletarians.

As a result of these processes, the foundations of the existence of the slave system were undermined.

3.7. Reproduction under the slave mode of production

The slave-owning mode of production was characterized by an extremely slow growth of production, so slow that it became more or less noticeable throughout the lives of not one, but many generations of people of that time.

Slave relations of production - the relationship between slave owners who own slaves and the means of production, and slaves who are their full property - were constantly reproduced.

The most important role under slavery was played by the reproduction of direct producers - slaves. Given the stagnation of slave-owning technology, an increase in, as well as the preservation of, the previous scale of production could be carried out mainly through the involvement of new masses of slaves in production.

The replenishment of slaves could not be entirely carried out within slaveholding countries. The main source of replenishment of slaves was wars; The slave trade and piracy also played a significant role.

Thus, under the slave system, the reproduction of direct producers - slaves - was organically connected with violent, non-economic measures. This is a characteristic feature of the reproduction process in a slave society.

4. Commodity-money relations in a slave society

4.1. Development of commodity-money relations

The growth of the social division of labor leads to the fact that, despite the generally natural nature of slave production, commodity production and commodity exchange, which arose in the conditions of the decomposition of the primitive communal system, receive a certain development in this society.

An important role in the development of commodity relations in the slave era was played by the growth of specialization and the increase in the volume of agricultural production.

The production of products for sale was carried out by small owners (peasants and artisans), as well as slave owners. By appropriating the surplus product created by the labor of slaves, slave owners partially put it on sale. With the development of slave production, slave owners sought to increase the volume of products sold due to increased production of surplus product. Commodity-money relations were a constant incentive to intensify the exploitation of slaves, because commodity exchange expanded the needs of slave owners and included more and more refined and expensive goods in their daily routine.

Commodity exchange under the slave system developed into a system of regular trade. Markets appeared - places where acts of purchase and sale were carried out, becoming more and more regular, and trade relations were carried out. Not only local trade has developed, covering commodity producers of a given city, region or country, but also international trade. Extensive international trade led by many slave states: Egypt, China, Babylon, Greece, Rome and others.

In connection with the growth of production and trade, money circulation developed. Metal money appears.

4.2. Trade and usury capital

Over time, money begins to be used not only as a universal equivalent and a means of exchange. In some cases, they become a means of appropriating the results of other people's work. Money used in this way is converted into capital.

Historically, the first forms of capital were commercial and usurious capital.

The owners of trade capital - merchants - acted as intermediaries in commodity exchange operations. The emergence of the merchant class was third major social division of labor.

By buying and reselling goods, using the difference in prices, and sometimes directly shortchanging and deceiving buyers and sellers of goods, merchants appropriated as profit a certain part (often quite significant) of the surplus product created by slaves, and part of the product produced by small commodity producers - peasants and artisans.

The owners of usurious capital - usurers - used their capital in the form of a loan of money (or means of production and consumer goods), subject to repayment with interest, that is, with a premium over the original amount. Usury capital, like commercial capital, made it possible to appropriate part of the surplus product created by slaves if the loan was provided to a slave owner, and part of the product of a small producer if the loan was provided to a peasant or artisan.

Commodity production and circulation and the money generated by them, commercial and usurious capital, served the essentially natural slave production. Commodity production was an appendage to natural production and was subordinate and limited in nature.

At the same time, commodity-money relations were in conflict with the natural slave-owning economy and the very essence of the slave-owning mode of production. This further complicated and aggravated the internal antagonistic contradictions that were characteristic of the slave system.

5. Superstructure of a slave society

The apparatus of state power, legal institutions, religion and other forms of ideology served the purpose of consolidating the exploitation of slaves. The specific types and forms of the slave state were very diverse. “...There is already a difference between monarchy and republic, between aristocracy and democracy. Monarchy - as the power of one, republic - as the absence of any unelected power; aristocracy - as the power of a small comparative minority, democracy - as the power of the people... Despite these differences, the state of the slave era was a slave state, no matter whether it was a monarchy or an aristocratic or democratic republic.” Athens of the 5th-4th centuries is considered a classic example of a democratic slave-owning republic. BC e.; an example of an aristocratic slave-owning republic was Rome of the republican period, a slave-owning monarchy - imperial Rome, in the Ancient East - Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Iran, etc. Despite the differences in external forms of state power, all states of antiquity were an apparatus of class rule of the slave owner not only over slaves, but also over low-income free producers.

The law that emerged under the slave-owning system aimed at turning slaves into the property of slave owners (a slave is an object, not a subject of law), protecting private property through the most brutal measures, and the political omnipotence of slave owners. In a developed slave-owning society, among the upper strata, physical labor was considered incompatible with the performance of civic duties. Confucius, Aristotle, Cicero and others considered slavery a socially necessary institution, since, as they believed, there are categories of people who are not capable of mental work and are destined by nature for slavery; citizens should be free from worries about basic necessities.

But some thinkers also expressed opposing views: for example, Dion Chrysostom (1st-2nd centuries AD) believed that all people, including slaves, have the same right to freedom. In the two largest religions that emerged at this time - Buddhism and Christianity - the idea of ​​complete human equality of both slaves and free was formulated.

A typical form of religious thinking under the slave-owning system was polytheism, which, however, did not at all exclude the historical possibility of the emergence of monotheistic views in certain historical conditions (for example, the establishment of the state cult of Aten following the reform of Akhenaten in Egypt in the 14th century BC, the cult of Yahweh in Judea in the 1st millennium BC, Christianity in the 1st century AD on the territory of the Roman Empire).

The religious worldview was dominant under the slave system, but along with it a secular worldview arose in the form of a number of philosophical teachings of an idealistic and materialist direction (in China, India, Greece and Rome): natural philosophy, stoicism, platonism, neoplatonism, the materialistic teachings of Democritus and Epicurus, etc. .

During this period of human history there arose fiction and its genres (tragedy, comedy, lyricism, epic, etc.), historical literature, theater, outstanding monuments have been created visual arts and architecture.

During the era of the slaveholding formation, the foundations of the natural sciences (mathematics, astronomy, medicine, etc.) were laid.

The opposition of two social classes, combined with observations of the simplest phenomena in nature, led to the idea of ​​opposites (in China - the doctrine of yin and yang, in Greece - the teachings of Pythagoras and Heraclitus) and the idea of ​​connection (“eight trigrams” of the I Ching, Heraclitus, the Buddhist concept of the Mahayana and etc.). Ideas also arose about the existence of the primary elements of material nature (Empedocles, Charvaka, Vedanta, “Shujing”), the cycle (Heraclitus, Charvaka, the category of “overcoming” among the Chinese), the smallest particles of matter (atom by Leucippus and Democritus, “anu” by the Indians) . Logic was also created as a doctrine of knowledge. It was developed by the Indians, Chinese, and Greeks (Akshapada, Mo Tzu, Aristotle).

6. Aggravation of contradictions and crisis of the slave-owning mode of production

The ruin of the farms of free peasants and artisans undermined the economic, political and military power of the slave states. Wars of conquest increasingly began to turn into defensive wars for developed slaveholding states, military victories were followed by defeats, and the source of continuous replenishment of cheap slaves began to dry up.

With the decrease in the influx of new cheap slaves into the large farms of slave owners, the contradictory nature of simple cooperation of slave labor began to appear with increasing force, which expressed the main contradiction of the slave-owning mode of production. The narrowing of the base of simple cooperation of slave labor led to the loss of its advantages, to a reduction in the surplus product in large slave-holding farms based on this form of organization of slave-holding production. The labor of slaves, completely uninterested in the results of production, deprived of any material and moral incentives, with the loss of the benefits of its cooperation, ceases to be effective and becomes obsolete as the labor that served as the basis for the existence of society.

The slave-owning method of connecting the producer-slave with the means of production, due to its internal inconsistency, ultimately comes to a dead end and is unable to ensure the further development of social production. This deepens and brings to the extreme the opposition between physical and mental labor, between city and countryside.

The result of the aggravation of internal economic contradictions inherent in a slave-owning society was the crisis and decomposition of the slave-owning mode of production.

The slave-owning social form of development of production has exhausted itself and turned into a brake on the further progress of production. Many production tools invented in that era (for example, a heavy plow, which made it possible to transition to a more efficient than before method of cultivating the land through deep intensive plowing, a water mill with a bottom-punching wheel) were not widely used due to the rule of slavery. The conflict between the productive forces and the production relations of slave society is growing.

There is a historical need to replace slave-owning production relations with other production relations that would change the position of the main productive force of society - the direct producers - slaves. Further development of social production was impossible without changing the method of connecting the direct producer with the means of production; the direct producer had to be interested in more efficient use and further improvement of tools.

Characterizing the situation that developed during the period of decomposition of the slave-owning mode of production, F. Engels pointed out: “Slavery ceased to pay for itself and therefore died out. But dying slavery left its poisonous sting in the form of the free's contempt for productive labor. It was a hopeless impasse in which the Roman world found itself: slavery became economically impossible, the work of the free was considered despicable from a moral point of view. The first could no longer, the second could not yet be the main form of social production. Only a radical revolution could bring us out of this state.”

7. The fall of the slave mode of production

In the context of the emerging crisis of slave production, when large farms, based on the cooperation of labor of a significant mass of slaves, turned into increasingly less profitable enterprises, there is a tendency to fragment these large farms.

A certain part of the large slave owners begins to divide their land holdings into small plots (parcels), leased to colons. The colonate system emerges (I-II centuries AD). Colonists became, firstly, free peasants who received land on the basis of a lease agreement and at first remained personally free. Gradually, the long-term debt of the colones to the owners of the land and violent acts on the part of slave owners and the slave state lead to the fact that these formerly free people find themselves virtually attached to the land. Later, the sale of colones along with the parcel is included in the system. The colons were not slaves in the full sense of the word, but they were not considered absolutely free either.

Secondly, a significant part of the slaves are transferred to the position of colons. In an effort to find ways to encourage slaves to work, slave owners begin to practice releasing particularly distinguished slaves so that the remaining slaves are encouraged to work better not only by the overseer's stick, but also by the hope of gaining freedom. Slave owners provide small plots of land to some of the slaves so that they have the opportunity to run their own farms; they are provided with the so-called peculium, that is, a certain amount of inventory and other property; Most of the income of such farms goes to the slave owner. Gradually, the position of slaves, endowed with land by slave owners and leading independent farming, is approaching the position of colons, who were previously free peasants.

In the process of transition to new forms of economy in a number of regions of the Roman Empire, instead of latifundia, where slave labor was used on a large scale, so-called saltus arose, i.e., vast estates leased to large intermediaries, who divided them into small plots and rented them out to rental of columns.

Thus, in the conditions of aggravated contradictions and the decomposition of the slave-owning mode of production, a new class of producers dependent on the land owners was created - the colons.

Being a transitional form from slavery to serfdom, the colonat has similarities with both. Attaching colonies to the land, having their own farm, small-scale land use, calculating rent from a share of the harvest, and minimal connections with the market bring colonate relations closer to serfdom. In its legal status, the colon was close to a slave.

7.1. Intensification of the class struggle. Slave revolts. Fall of slavery

The aggravation of economic contradictions led to the aggravation of class social contradictions and the intensification of class struggle.

The class struggle between slaves and slave owners was especially fierce. Slaves ran away from their masters, engaged in sabotage, and damaged tools. The most important form of struggle of slaves against slave owners was armed uprisings.

The most significant were two major uprisings on the island of Sicily (137-132 BC and 104-100 BC), the uprising of Aristonicus in Asia Minor (133-129 BC) , the uprising of Savmak in the Bosporus (108-107 BC), the uprising of Spartacus in Italy (73-71 BC), the uprising of slaves and the peasant poor in Henan, Sichuan and Shandong (China, 22 -13 BC) and others.

Despite the fact that the slave revolts suffered defeats, they had a huge impact historical meaning, as they undermined the foundations of slavery and contributed to the transition to a new, more progressive socio-economic system.

The class struggle between small owners (peasants and artisans) and large owners - rich slave owners - reached wide scope. In the last centuries of the Roman Empire, grandiose popular uprisings took place in its various regions, in which not only slaves, but also colons, free peasants and artisans took part. These popular uprisings often coincided with powerful armed invasions of the territory of the Roman Empire by Germanic, Gallic, Slavic and other tribes. All this ultimately led to the collapse of the Roman state and the fall of the slave system. In 476 AD e. The Western Roman Empire, deeply shaken and weakened by the uprisings of the exploited masses (primarily slaves), finally collapsed under the blows of the so-called barbarian tribes. The states formed on the territory of the former Western Roman Empire, as well as the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), which existed for a long time, had as their economic basis new feudal relations that replaced slavery.

7.2. Remnants of slave-owning relations

The slave-owning mode of production has long since disappeared from the historical arena, but the remnants of slave-owning relations persisted for a long time to varying degrees in subsequent historical eras in various countries. They took place both under feudalism and capitalism. Under capitalism, especially in the era of the so-called primitive accumulation of capital, slavery in one form or another was revived more than once. So, in the XVII-XIX centuries. on the islands of the West Indies and in a number of other areas Latin America The plantation economy, which produced tobacco, sugar, cocoa and other agricultural products for sale on the world capitalist market, was based on the exploitation of the labor of Negro slaves. Widely used in the 18th-19th centuries. the labor of black slaves on the cotton plantations of the US South. The impetus for this was the growth of the capitalist cotton industry, which needed a significant increase in cotton production. The use of slave labor in the plantation economy and the slave trade were widespread in the colonies of England, Holland, Spain, Portugal and France until the second half of the 19th century. The use of slave labor in the plantation economy acted as a kind of plantation slavery. Having arisen during the period of the birth and development of the capitalist mode of production, plantation slavery then began to slow down the development of productive forces and gradually lost its former significance.

However, even after the formal abolition of slavery and the ban on the slave trade, remnants of slave relations actually remained in the colonial and dependent countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. They still exist today. In the United States, slavery was abolished as a result of the Civil War of 1861-1864, although some remnants of slavery remain in the American South to this day.

The German fascists intended to establish essentially slave-owning orders in Europe, and then throughout the world, during the Second World War through conquest and subjugation of entire countries and peoples. In the territories temporarily captured by the German fascists, slave-owning orders were forcibly imposed; huge masses of the population of these territories were driven to Hitler's Germany and turned into slaves. Heroic struggle Soviet people and him armed forces, which dealt the main blow to Nazi Germany, saved the world from fascist enslavement.

The slave trade was officially prohibited by the UN only in 1948. Remnants of plantation slavery and patriarchal-slave relations exist in some countries that are colonial or semi-colonial dependent on imperialist powers.

The strongest relic of slavery is, for example, peonage - a system of semi-slave bonded dependence of peasants and farm laborers on large landowners, landowners. Peonage is still found in a number of countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, as well as in the South of the United States (despite the fact that US law makes it a crime to turn a person into a peonage or keep a person in a state of peonage, it is widespread among illegal workers).

A decisive struggle against the remnants of slave exploitation, in whatever forms they persist, is one of the most important tasks of the peoples of countries that have embarked on the path of independent development. It forms an integral part of their national liberation struggle.

8. Historical place of the slave mode of production

The slave-owning method of production was a natural stage in the development of human society. The place it occupies in the history of the material and spiritual culture of mankind is clearly expressed in the following words of F. Engels: “Only slavery made possible on a larger scale the division of labor between agriculture and industry and thus created the conditions for the flourishing of the culture of the ancient world... Without slavery there would be no Greek state, Greek art and Greek science; Without slavery there would have been no Roman Empire. And without the foundation that was laid by Greece and Rome, there would be no modern Europe.”

Having exhausted its possibilities, the slave-owning mode of production perishes as a result of the exacerbation of its inherent contradictions. It is being replaced by a more progressive one as a result of the law of production relations corresponding to the nature of the productive forces.

When organizing such a division, hard and uninteresting (primarily physical) labor is naturally the most unattractive. At a certain stage in the development of society, it became possible to deprive some people of their freedom, force them to do the most unattractive work and appropriate the results of this work. This was the beginning of slavery. People deprived of freedom and forced to work for the owner are called slaves.

Slave position

The living conditions of a slave are determined only by humanity or the benefit of the slave owner. The first was and remains rare; the second forces them to act differently depending on how difficult it is to get new slaves. The process of raising slaves from childhood is slow, expensive, requiring a fairly large contingent of slaves-"producers", so even an absolutely inhumane slave owner is forced to provide slaves with a standard of living sufficient to maintain working capacity and general health; but in places where it is easy to obtain adult and healthy slaves, their lives are not valued and they are exhausted by work.

A slave is not a subject of law. A slave does not enjoy any legal protection either in relation to his master or in relation to third parties. The master can treat the slaves as he pleases. The killing of a slave by a master is the latter’s legal right, but by someone else, it is considered an attempt on the master’s property, and not as a crime against the person. In many cases, the slave's owner is also liable for damage caused by the slave to the interests of third parties. Only in the later stages of the existence of slave society did slaves receive some rights, but very minor ones.

Sources of slaves

In the first stages of development, the only, and later very significant, supplier of slaves for all nations was war, accompanied by the capture of enemy soldiers and the kidnapping of people living on its territory. When the institution of slavery became stronger and became the basis of the economic system, others were added to this source, primarily the natural increase in the slave population. In addition, laws appeared according to which a debtor, unable to pay his debt, became a slave of the creditor, some crimes were punishable by slavery, and finally, broad paternal power allowed the sale of his children and wife into slavery. There was (and continues to exist) the practice of enslaving free people through direct, groundless coercion. Whatever the source of slavery, however, the basic idea that a slave is a prisoner of war was always and everywhere preserved - and this view was reflected not only in the fate of individual slaves, but also in the entire history of the development of the institution.

History of slavery

Primitive society

By modern ideas, in the era of primitive society, slavery was at first completely absent, then it appeared, but did not have a mass character. The reason for this was the low level of organization of production (and initially, procurement) of food and items necessary for life, in which a person could not produce more than was necessary to maintain his life. In such conditions, turning anyone into slavery was pointless, since the slave did not bring any benefit to the owner. During this period, in fact, there were no slaves as such, but only prisoners taken in war. Since ancient times, a captive was considered the property of the one who captured him. This practice, which developed in primitive society, was the foundation for the emergence of slavery, since it consolidated the idea of ​​​​the possibility of owning another person.

In intertribal wars, male prisoners, as a rule, were either not taken at all, or killed (in places where cannibalism was common, they were eaten), or accepted into the victorious tribe. Of course, there were exceptions when captured men were left alive and forced to work, or used as barter, but this was not the general practice. A few exceptions were male slaves, who were especially valuable because of some of their personal qualities, abilities, and skills. Among the masses, captured women were of greater interest, both for the birth of children and for household work; especially since it was much easier to guarantee the subordination of women.

The Rise of Slavery

Slavery emerged and spread in societies that transitioned to agricultural production. On the one hand, this production, especially with primitive technology, requires very significant labor costs, on the other hand, a worker can produce significantly more than is necessary to maintain his life. The use of slave labor became economically justified and, naturally, became widespread. Then the slave system arose, which lasted for many centuries - at least from ancient times to the 18th century, and in some places longer.

In this system, slaves constituted a special class, from which the category of personal or household slaves was usually distinguished. Household slaves were always around the house, while others worked outside of it: in the field, on construction, tending livestock, and so on. The position of house slaves was noticeably better: they were personally known to the master, lived with him more or less common life, to a certain extent, were part of his family. The position of other slaves, personally little known to the master, was often almost no different from the position of domestic animals, and sometimes it was even worse. The need to keep large numbers of slaves in subjection led to the emergence of appropriate legal support for the right to own slaves. In addition to the fact that the owner himself usually had workers whose task was to supervise the slaves, the laws severely prosecuted slaves who tried to escape from the owner or rebel. To pacify such slaves, the most brutal measures were widely used. Despite this, escapes and slave uprisings were not uncommon.

As culture and education of society grew, another privileged class emerged among domestic slaves - slaves, whose value was determined by their knowledge and abilities in the sciences and arts. There were slave actors, slave teachers and educators, translators, and scribes. The level of education and abilities of such slaves often significantly exceeded the level of their owners, which, however, did not always make their life easier.

The position of slaves gradually, through a very long evolution, changed for the better. A reasonable view of their own economic benefit forced the masters to take a thrifty attitude towards slaves and mitigate their fate; this was also caused by security considerations, especially when slaves outnumbered the free classes of the population. The change in attitude towards slaves was first reflected in religious precepts and customs, and then in written laws (although it can be noted that the law first took domestic animals under protection, and only then slaves). Of course, there was no talk of any equalization of rights between slaves and free people: for the same offense, a slave was punished incomparably more severely than a free person; he could not complain to the court about the offender, could not own property, or marry; As before, the master could sell him, give him away, tyrannize him, etc. However, it was no longer possible to kill or mutilate a slave with impunity. Rules appeared regulating the emancipation of a slave, the position of a slave who became pregnant by her master, and the position of her child; in some cases, custom or law gave the slave the right to change his master. Nevertheless, the slave still remained a thing; the measures that were taken to protect the slave from the arbitrariness of the master were purely police in nature and stemmed from considerations that had nothing to do with the recognition of the slave’s personal rights.

The transition from slavery to serfdom, the rudiments of slavery in medieval Europe

The institution of slavery could only be destroyed by a radical change in economic conditions, which was facilitated by slavery itself, influencing social organization in a progressive sense. The very appearance of slavery in primitive society was already a well-known progress, consisting at least in the fact that the killing of all the conquered stopped. With the increase in the number of slaves, specialization increases, new economic functions appear, and the technology for obtaining and processing raw materials improves significantly. While the population, compared with the area of ​​land suitable for cultivation, is insignificant, the labor of slaves produces much more than is needed for their maintenance. Moreover, the need for careful supervision of the labor of slaves forces them to be kept together in large numbers, and concentration brings even greater benefits.

However, this profitability decreased over time. The moment inevitably came when, with slave labor, production ceased to increase, despite the fact that the maintenance of a slave was constantly becoming more expensive. The technique of extraction and processing, due to mental dullness, which is inevitable for slaves, cannot be developed beyond certain limits. Labor forced by fear of punishment is in itself unsuccessful and unproductive: slaves do not even apply half their physical strength to the work. All this undermined the institution of slavery. New economic relations, which in different states were determined by various reasons, created a new institution of serfdom, giving rise to a new state of unfree peasants attached to the land and placed under the power of the landowner, who, however, despite all the limitations of their rights, are no longer the property of the owner. The scale of the use of slave labor narrowed, the class of slave farmers disappeared. In Europe, slavery remained primarily domestic, but existed throughout the Middle Ages. The Scandinavian Vikings were involved in the capture of slaves and the slave trade. Italian merchants (Genoese and Venetians), who owned trading posts on the Black and Azov Seas, bought slaves (Slavs, Turks, Circassians) from the Tatar-Mongols and sold them to the countries of the Mediterranean basin, both Muslim and Christian. (See also Genoese colonies in the Northern Black Sea region). Slaves of Slavic origin are noted in the 14th century in the notarial deeds of some Italian and southern French cities (Roussillon).

Slavery in the medieval states of Western Asia

The economy of southern Iraq was based on African slave labor until the Zinj uprising. In Lower Iraq, the labor of East African slaves, known as "zinj", was used on a massive scale for the extremely labor-intensive work of maintaining and developing the southern Mesopotamian land reclamation network, which ensured the high productivity of agriculture in this region. The high concentration of East African slaves and the extremely poor conditions of their existence allowed the Kharijites to turn the Zinj into the striking force of the uprising they organized, known as the Zinj Revolt (869–883). As a result of the uprising, the Zinj managed to establish their control over the entire Lower Iraq and even create their own polity. As a result of a colossal effort, the Abbasid caliphs still managed to suppress this uprising (Popovic, A. 1999. The Revolt of African Slaves in Iraq in the 3rd/9th Century. Princeton: Markus Wiener). However, after this, the Iraqis began to consistently avoid the massive importation of slaves from East Africa into the country. Note that at the same time, the Iraqis failed to find an effective alternative to the Zinj, as a result of which the complex reclamation network of Lower Mesopotamia fell into complete disrepair, which led to a complete socio-ecological disaster in the region. "The total inhabited area has decreased to 6%" of its previous level. The population fell to its lowest point in the previous 5,000 years. Lower Mesopotamia, which was the granary of the caliphate under the Umayyads, turned into swamps surrounded by deserts.

Slave labor and the slave trade were an important part of the extensive economies of medieval Asian states created by nomads, such as the Golden Horde, the Crimean Khanate and early Ottoman Turkey (see also Raid economy). The Mongol-Tatars, who converted huge masses of the conquered population into slavery, sold slaves to both Muslim merchants and Italian traders, who owned colonies in the northern Black Sea region from the mid-13th century (Kaffa from 1266, Chembalo, Soldaya, Tana, etc.). One of the busiest slave trade routes led from Tana in Azov to Damietta, located at the mouth of the Nile. The Mameluk guards of the Abbasid and Ayubid dynasties were replenished with slaves taken from the Black Sea region. The Crimean Khanate, which replaced the Mongol-Tatars in the northern Black Sea region, was also actively involved in the slave trade. The main slave market was in the city of Kefa (Kaffa). Slaves captured by Crimean detachments in the Polish-Lithuanian state, Muscovite Rus', and the North Caucasus were sold mainly to the countries of Western Asia. For example, as a result of such large raids on Rus' as in 1521 or 1571, up to 100 thousand captives were sold into slavery. The total number of slaves who passed through the Crimean markets is estimated at three million. In the Christian areas conquered by Turkey, every fourth boy was taken from his family, forced to convert to Islam and became a slave of the Sultan. The Janissary Guard and the Sultan's administration were replenished from slaves. The harems of the Sultan and Turkish dignitaries consisted of slaves.

Slavery in modern times

Slavery, replaced almost everywhere in Europe by serfdom, was restored on a huge scale in the 17th century, after the beginning of the Age of Discovery. In the territories colonized by Europeans, agricultural production developed everywhere, on a large scale, and required a large number of workers. At the same time, the conditions of life and production in the colonies were extremely close to those that existed in ancient times: large expanses of uncultivated land, low population density, the possibility of farming using extensive methods, using the simplest tools and basic technologies. In many places, especially in America, there was simply nowhere to get workers: the local population had no desire to work for the newcomers, and free settlers also had no intention of working on the plantations. At the same time, during the exploration of Africa by white Europeans, it became possible to quite easily obtain an almost unlimited number of workers by capturing and enslaving indigenous Africans. African peoples, for the most part, were at the stage of the tribal system or the initial stages of state construction, their technological level did not make it possible to resist the Europeans who had technology and firearms. In addition, some (though by no means all) African tribes, who from time immemorial lived in conditions of natural abundance and therefore did not have reasons for inter-tribal wars, simply did not have a sufficient degree of psychological resistance to engage in an organized war with the colonialists.

In Europe, the use of slave labor resumed and a massive slave trade began, which flourished until the 19th century. Africans were captured in their native lands (usually by Africans themselves), loaded onto ships and sent to their destinations. Some of the slaves ended up in the metropolis, while the majority were sent to the colonies, mainly American, where they were used for agricultural work, mainly on plantations. At the same time in Europe, criminals sentenced to hard labor also began to be sent to the colonies and sold there into slavery. Among the “white slaves” were the Irish captured by the British during the conquest of Ireland 1649-1651.

In Asia, African slaves were used little, since in this region it was much more profitable to use the large local population for work.

The use of African slaves was very profitable for the planters. First, blacks were, on average, better suited for backbreaking physical labor in hot climates than white Europeans or Indians; secondly, taken far from the habitats of their own tribes, having no idea how to return home, they were less prone to escape. When selling slaves, an adult healthy black man was worth one and a half to two times more expensive than a healthy adult white man. The scale of the use of slave labor in the colonies was very large. Even after the slave trade was widely outlawed for a long time existed illegally. Almost the entire black population of the American continent in the middle of the 20th century were descendants of slaves once taken from Africa. Total was imported into the British North America, and later in the United States, about 13 million African slaves. For every living slave brought to the plantation, several more died during capture and transportation. Researchers estimate that Africa lost up to 80 million lives as a result of the slave trade.

The abandonment of the use of slave labor on the American continent mainly occurred in the 19th century, and not at all smoothly. American black slaves, despite gaining freedom, continued to remain “second-class people” who had significantly fewer rights than whites. Today's Americans don't really like to remember this, but back in the 1980s in the United States, even on buses there were separate seats for blacks (they were forbidden to sit in other seats), and in parks there were benches with signs “for whites only.” The liberation of the slaves brought social problems: For the most part, freed blacks had no motivation at all to be included on equal terms in the society of free people. Considering work to be the exclusive domain of slaves, freed blacks often simply parasitized, earning a living through begging, odd jobs, and various criminal ways. The black rights movement, which achieved significant success in the second half of the 20th century, actually only exacerbated the problem by encouraging social dependency: a significant portion of “African Americans,” as they are now called, live on welfare, without bringing any benefit to society.

Current state

Prevalence of slavery at the beginning of the 21st century

Currently, slavery is officially prohibited in all countries of the world. The most recent ban on the ownership of slaves and the use of slave labor was introduced in Mauritania, in the year. However, in modern conditions, slavery not only exists, but also flourishes, including in states considered free and democratic. Since there is currently no legal right to own slaves, other criteria are used to determine a person's status as a slave. A person is considered to be in the position of a slave if three conditions are met in his regard:

1. Its activities are controlled by other persons using violence or the threat of its use.
2. He is in this place and is engaged in this type of activity not of his own free will, and is deprived of the physical ability to change the situation of his own free will.
3. For his work, he either receives no payment at all or receives minimal payment.

Prisoners who have been sentenced by a court by law to a sentence of imprisonment are not considered slaves, even if such prisoners are forced to work while serving their sentence. This fact gives grounds for the assertion that modern states, while officially prohibiting slavery, themselves continue to use it. Due to the need to separate the punishment of imprisonment from slavery, the use of prisoners in forced labor is strictly prohibited in many countries.

According to international human rights organizations, there are now up to 30 million people in the world as slaves. According to UN estimates, revenues from the resale of slaves in the world amount to $7 billion a year. In Europe there are constantly, according to various estimates, from 400 thousand to 1 million slaves. In Russia, according to human rights activists, up to 600 thousand people are engaged in forced labor, of which several tens of thousands are constantly in the complete position of slaves, that is, deprived of freedom and physically unable to free themselves without outside help.

It is noted that after the slave trade became completely illegal, the income from it not only did not decrease, but even increased. The value of a slave, when compared with 19th-century prices, has fallen, while the income he can generate has increased.

In classic forms

In forms typical of a classical slave society, slavery continues to exist in the states of Africa and Asia, where its formal prohibition occurred relatively recently. In such states, slaves are engaged, as many centuries ago, in agricultural work, construction, mining, and crafts. According to the UN and human rights organizations, the most difficult situation remains in countries such as Sudan, Mauritania, Somalia, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Burma, Angola. The official ban on slavery in these states either exists only on paper, or is not supported by any serious punitive measures against slave owners.

A phenomenon of the same order, although on an incomparably smaller scale, is labor slavery in the territories of the countries of the former USSR that are weakly controlled by governments, in particular in the Russian North Caucasus, in Kazakhstan and democratically, sexual slavery is most characteristic. It also makes up a significant share in other industrialized countries, primarily in the USA. Women and young girls are deprived of their freedom and forced into prostitution for the benefit of the owner. Minors are often bought from slave traders or even directly from their parents; adults are lured through modeling, advertising, travel and recruiting agencies, or abducted by force. According to the International Organization for Migration, 120 thousand women from post-Soviet states were trafficked to European countries this year. In Belgium and Germany, according to the results of a UN study, from Russia a month brings her owner $7.5 thousand, of which she herself receives no more than $500.

Those deported have their documents confiscated, their freedom of movement is restricted, they are beaten, and they are forced to work for meager pay or even for free. The situation of such workers is aggravated by the fact that they, as a rule, reside in the country where they are located illegally, which is why they do not want to contact the authorities (even if they have such an opportunity), for fear of imprisonment. In addition, the authorities are not always able to provide assistance and suppress the actions of slave owners; It can be quite difficult to prove such a crime as slavery: slave owners simply refuse workers, or refer to supposedly existing labor agreements and debts of workers, admitting only violations in the preparation of documents. Even a freed person does not have the means to live or return home.

1. Trafficking in persons must be officially prohibited and punishable.
2. Punishments for human trafficking should be commensurate with those for serious crimes such as rape, that is, severe enough to deter the activity and adequately reflect the heinous nature of the crime.
3. The government of the country must make serious and unremitting efforts to eliminate human trafficking.

Government and public organizations Those involved in human rights issues constantly monitor the development of the situation with slavery in the world. But their activities are limited to stating facts. The real fight against the slave trade and the use of forced labor is hampered by the fact that the use of slave labor has again become economically profitable.

The influence of slavery on the culture of society

In the moral life of mankind, slavery, of course, had and has extremely harmful consequences. On the one hand, it leads to the moral degradation of slaves, destroying their sense of human dignity and the desire to work for the benefit of oneself and society, on the other hand, reflects unfavorably on slave owners. It has long been known that the dependence of those under control on their whim and arbitrariness is extremely harmful to the human psyche; the master inevitably gets used to fulfilling all his whims and ceases to control his passions. Promiscuity becomes an essential feature of his character.

During the times of widespread, widespread slavery, slavery had a corrupting effect on the family: quite often slaves, barely out of childhood, were forced to satisfy the sexual needs of the master, which was far from conducive to good marital relationships. The master's children, being in constant contact with slaves, easily adopted the vices of their parents; cruelty and disdain for slaves were instilled in them from childhood. Of course, there were individual exceptions, but they were too rare and did not soften the general tone in the least. From family life, debauchery easily passes into public life, as the ancient world shows especially clearly.

The displacement of free labor by slave labor leads to the fact that society is divided into two groups: on one side - slaves, the “rabble”, largely consisting of ignorant, corrupt people, imbued with petty, selfish ambition and constantly ready to stir up civil unrest; on the other - “nobles” - a bunch of rich people, perhaps educated, but at the same time idle and depraved. There is a whole abyss between these classes, which is another additional reason for the decomposition of society.

Another harmful consequence of slavery is the dishonor of labor. Occupations given to slaves are considered disgraceful for a free person. With the increase in the scale of the use of slaves, the number of such occupations increases, in the end all work is recognized as shameful and dishonorable, and the most significant sign of a free person is considered to be idleness and contempt for any kind of work. This view, being a product of slavery, in turn supports the institution of slavery, and even after the abolition of slavery remains in the public consciousness. Labor rehabilitation then requires a lot of time; Until now, this view has been preserved in the aversion of some sections of society to any economic activity.

Historically, the first form of exploitation of man by man was slavery, and the first form of class society was the slave system, which arose as a result of the decomposition of the primitive communal system. V.I. Lenin noted that after primitive society comes in world history “... a society based on slavery, a slave-owning society.”

Having first appeared in the form of separate centers in the valleys of the great rivers of South Asia and the Nile, over the centuries slavery spread over a vast territory from the Pyrenees to the Yellow Sea and from the mouth of the Rhine, the Azov and Aral Seas to the Middle Nile, Ceylon, and Indochina. Within the slave world in Imillennium BC e. - at first Imillennium AD e. The southern regions of our country also turned out to be: Transcaucasia, the Northern Black Sea region and Central Asia.

The slave system lasted about three and a half thousand years from the endIVmillennium BC e. before III- Vcenturies n. e. During this time, it went through a number of stages in its development and gave rise to a wide variety of forms, depending on specific historical conditions. In science, all this diversity of forms of slave-holding societies is usually reduced to two main types: ancient Eastern and ancient (Greco-Roman).

In all slaveholding states of antiquity, in addition to slaves, there were communal peasants who owned their own farms. However, the ratio specific gravity these two types of direct producers in different states were not the same. ForThe countries of the Ancient East are characterized by great stability of the peasant community; the bulk of the population were communal peasants. Private slavery was not widely developed. Slave labor was used in the palace economy of rulers, temples, priests, and in government work. The characteristic political form of ancient Eastern societies was despotism, that is, a monarchy with unlimited power of the monarch. All these features of the socio-political system of the countries of the Ancient East determined their relatively slow development.

In Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, slave relations developed at a faster pace and reached their maximum level. Private slavery became widespread. The number of slaves in ancient societies was extremely large. The slave was the main producer of material goods, although other types of labor were also widely used.

The indicated features in the development of ancient Eastern and ancient societies do not mean, however, that there were fundamental differences between them. These are just two varieties of one formation, the main feature of which is the division of society into slaves and slave owners, free and powerless.

Slavery is the crudest and most cruel of all forms of exploitation. In developed slave-holding countries, slaves had no legal rights. Despite all the cruelty of slave-owning relations, the transition to the slave-owning mode of production meant a step forward in the progressive development of society. The slave-owning method of production created opportunities for a more complete use of productive forces, since it ensured the division of social labor on a larger scale and the running of a large economy using a large mass of slaves.

The slave system, unlike the primitive communal system, was not an obligatory stage in the development of all mankind. The transition from the primitive communal system to a class society could be carried out both in the form of slavery and in the form of feudalism, depending on specific historical conditions. Within our country, the slave system took place only in Transcaucasia, Central Asia and Northern

Black Sea region. At the same time, in the Northern Black Sea region, historically associated with Ancient Greece and then with Ancient Rome, forms of ancient slavery developed. In Transcaucasia and Central Asia, the slave system was characterized mainly by features characteristic of the socio-political system of the countries of the Ancient East. The rest of the population of our country, like many other peoples of Europe, moved from the primitive communal system directly to the feudal one.

Slave system

the first class socio-economic formation in human history based on the oppression of man by man. The main antagonistic classes in R. s. there were slave owners and slaves; slave owners and slaves - the first major division into classes (see V.I. Lenin, Complete collection of works, 5th ed., vol. 39, p. 68). The ongoing class struggle between slave owners and slaves was the driving force behind the history of slave-owning society; it was this struggle that ultimately determined the face of society in all its aspects (economics, legal norms, everyday life, morals, the level of technology and scientific knowledge, ethics, religion, philosophy, etc.) i.e. the whole ideology). Arose as a result of the decomposition of the primitive communal system (See Primitive communal system), R. s. was the same stage in the world history of mankind as the pre-class formation that preceded it and as Feudalism that followed it. The most ancient slave states arose at the turn of the 4th and 3rd millennia BC. e. (Mesopotamia, Egypt). R.s. existed in the advanced countries of Asia, Europe and Africa for that time until the 3rd-5th centuries. n. e.; reached its highest development in Ancient Greece and Rome. During the so-called period ancient history (that is, from the decomposition of primitive communal relations to the emergence of feudalism) R. s. was the only form of class relations, however, slave-owning societies coexisted with many societies that had not yet emerged from the primitive communal system, and had a strong influence on them, helping to transform them into class slave-owning societies. This process is characteristic of all ancient history; it culminated in the formation of the huge Roman Empire - the largest slave state. A number of peoples (Germans, Slavs, etc.) entered the historical arena after the fall of the Russian Empire. (after the 5th century AD), bypassed this formation, moving from the primitive communal system directly to the feudal one.

Slavery arose at a late stage of development of pre-class society, when property inequality and private property relations became the most effective incentive for class formation. “Until that time, they did not know what to do with prisoners of war, and therefore they were simply killed, and even earlier they were eaten. But at the stage of “economic status” that had now been reached, prisoners of war acquired a certain value; Therefore, they began to leave them alive and began to take advantage of their labor... Slavery was open. It soon became the dominant form of production among all peoples who in their development went further than the ancient community...” (F. Engels, see K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2nd ed., vol. 20, p. 185). One of important factors stimulating the process of class formation was cattle breeding, because it was easier than agriculture and produced a stable surplus product, which led to the accumulation of such a product first among the tribe as a whole, and then among individual families within the tribe (cattle was the general equivalent of exchange in ancient times). The development of slavery, combined with the aggravation of contradictions between the propertied tribal elite and the mass of ordinary community members, naturally led to the emergence of a class slave-owning state. History presents an almost endless spectrum of different forms of slavery and types of slave dependence, outwardly very different from each other in different societies and at different times. Nevertheless, among these features the main organic features of slavery can be identified: 1) the slave is the property of one owner or a collective owner (community, temple, state); he is an animated instrument of his master’s labor and the results of his labor, like himself, are the property of the owner; 2) a slave does not own the means of production; 3) a slave is exploited through non-economic coercion. Thus, a slave imprisoned on a peculium (See Peculium) and even the one who processes it through the exploitation of other slaves remains a slave, for both the peculium, and all the means of production, and the slave’s slaves are the property of the slave owner, who disposes finally and categorically of both the slave himself and everything that he owns. Along with these main signs of slavery, there are additional signs characteristic of a particular period and society, disappearing or appearing, sometimes very bright and obvious. For example, the legal status of a slave in society, or rather, the degree of his lack of rights according to legal status or customary law; the slave’s everyday situation (presence or absence of a family, etc., its rights, if any); profession and occupation of the slave (slave in the ergasterium, slave in the peculium, etc.). Often one of these additional features is taken as the main one, and then the concept of “slave” changes significantly, resulting in many divergent and sometimes contradictory definitions of the concept of “slave”. The set of main, or basic, characteristics that always remain unchanged, combined with additional characteristics that change depending on place and time, forms a sliding scale of signs of slavery.

In the variety of forms of slave dependence, two main types of slavery are distinguished: 1) early, or patriarchal, slavery associated with a subsistence economy: 2) ancient slavery, characteristic of societies with developed commodity-money relations. Patriarchal slavery includes the so-called. domestic slavery (which is often defined as services in a state of slavery and for which economic significance is not recognized; however, as the Soviet historian G. F. Ilyin correctly pointed out, this incorrect conclusion is based on the modernization of the concept of “household”). In ancient times, “household” included many (with the exception of field work) production processes (threshing, grinding grain, caring for livestock, making dairy and flour products, delivering water, storing fuel, making ceramics, etc.). Therefore, the use of slave labor in the “household” does not indicate a narrowed use of slave labor in a primitive economy, but, on the contrary, its wide distribution. One of the characteristic features of patriarchal slavery was the joint participation of the slave owner and his slave (or slaves) in the labor process. Ancient slavery differs from patriarchal slavery in that it more legally secured the expropriation of the slave’s personality, as is clear from a comparison of Roman legislation with ancient Eastern legal codes (Laws of Hammurabi, Hittite laws, Deuteronomy). Both types of slavery (patriarchal and ancient) were not homogeneous. In the West and the East, slavery developed according to the same laws, and the most diverse forms of slavery are found in both the West and the East. In the same country at the same time, different forms of slave exploitation usually coexisted. Both at the first and second stages of R.'s development. the main basic features of slavery are the same, only their external forms are different.

Slavery is characterized by the dual nature of slavish dependence and the dual nature of exploitation. Moreover, “... this duality is due... to the presence of two economic sectors in society” (Dyakonov I.M., Slaves, helots and serfs in early antiquity, see “Bulletin of Ancient History”, 1973, No. 4, p. 9 , note). By different sectors we mean the private sector [within different community structures - from the tribal community to the city-state (polis) and even to a larger state, such as Egypt] and the public sector (palace, temple). At the same time, at the stage of patriarchal slavery, the public sector had a greater share, and at the stage of ancient slavery, the private sector. In both sectors, slaves were used in all types of production - agriculture, crafts, construction, etc. Among this mass of slaves, two types are distinguished: slaves of the 1st type, whose work was strictly regulated and controlled by the administration, which deprived them of the opportunity to show any initiative, and who were not at all economically interested, because the labor products they created were completely appropriated by the owner, and type 2 slaves, who were used mainly in agriculture, were given a certain amount of independence and even economic interest, which created an economic incentive for them. Slaves of the 2nd type were slaves in the peculium (sometimes with workers), as well as Helots in Sparta, Penestes in Thessaly, Corinephores in Sikyon, Gymnesia in Argos, Leleges in Karin, etc. (regarding the helots, in particular, there is another opinion: some scholars believe that the helots were not slaves). The method of exploitation of type 2 slaves to a certain extent anticipated the forms of feudal exploitation of peasants.

The sources of slavery were prisoners of war, free people who were enslaved for debts, and born slaves. For the late Roman Republic and partly for the Roman Empire, prisoners of war were one of the main sources of slavery.

The peoples of the Ancient East were the first to enter the stage of Russian history; in the countries of the Ancient East, the slaveholding formation began with early, or patriarchal, slavery (the emergence of a commodity economy was still far away). Some countries of the Ancient East (for example, Egypt during the New Kingdom, Mesopotamia during the Third Dynasty of Ur and the Old Babylonian Kingdom) developed forms of slavery approaching the ancient ones. In India, the rise of R. s. falls on the 5th-1st centuries. BC e., in China in the 5th century. BC e. - 1st century n. e., and here, too, patriarchal forms of slavery coexisted with ancient ones. Slavery in Greece and Rome was also patriarchal at first, but the rapid pace of development of a number of states of the ancient world contributed to its transformation from patriarchal to ancient (for example, in Athens), while in some cities it remained patriarchal for a long time (Sparta, etc.). Greece 5th-4th centuries BC e., Rome 2nd century. BC e. - 2nd century n. e. represent classic examples of developed R. s.

Regarding the spread of R. s. There are other points of view: some limit the spread of R. s. exclusively the territories of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome; others talk about the parallel existence of the slave formation in the West and the Asian mode of production in the East; some argue that the Asian mode of production was widespread; others revive the concept of “eternal feudalism” in the East, put forward in the 20-30s. 20th century, etc. These points of view were formulated during the discussion in the 60s, but did not find sufficient justification in the historical literature.

With R. s. the development of productive forces occurred mainly not due to the improvement of the instruments of production, but due to the people (free or slaves) employed in the production process (the specialization of workers employed in agriculture and crafts, both free and slaves, increased, and their qualifications increased). Low level techniques for R. s. This is explained, firstly, by the fact that the source of energy - the muscular power of animals and mainly slaves - was free for the slave owner, and secondly, by the lack of interest of slaves in the development and growth of production. Therefore, slave-owning production relations, instead of a force that actively promoted the development of productive forces, relatively soon turned into a brake on their development. The tools with which slave owners supplied slaves were, as a rule, of low quality and primitive type, because slaves, out of hatred for slave owners, destroyed, spoiled or lost them, and the share of free labor constantly decreased as a result of its displacement by free slave labor. The slave-owning method of production became economically unprofitable and therefore eventually had to give way to another method of production.

The slave-owning class and the slave class were not homogeneous; Slave-owner households differed both in the size of real estate and in the number of slaves. Among slaves, the vast majority were used as a source of muscular energy needed in various industries economic life(farming, cattle breeding, construction and transport work, etc.). The lack of statistics in ancient times does not allow us to accurately determine the number of slaves; it is known that in Greece and especially Rome the number of slaves was large, for example the Greek author Athenaeus (2nd century AD), referring to a writer of the 3rd century. BC e. Ctesicles reports that, according to the census of 309 BC. e., in Athens there were 400 thousand slaves for 21 thousand citizens and 100 thousand metics. According to the general opinion of scientists, this figure is greatly exaggerated; it is assumed that rich Athenians apparently had on average up to 50 slaves as domestic servants, while poorer ones had several. The large number of slaves is evidenced by the message of Thucydides, according to which the flight of 20 thousand slaves from Athens to Sparta during the Peloponnesian War (5th century BC) paralyzed almost all Athenian craft production. After the conquest of Epirus by Rome in 168 BC. e. 150 thousand Epirotes were sold into slavery; The conquest of Gaul (1st century BC) by Yu. Caesar was accompanied by the sale into slavery of about 1 million Gauls. According to Pliny the Elder, the freedman Caecilius [during the reign of Augustus (1st century BC - 1st century AD)] had, according to his will, 4116 slaves. In addition to slaves used in various branches of economic life, there was also, mainly in Rome, a layer of slaves engaged in mental labor (slave intelligentsia - artists, writers, performers, educators, etc.) - these were previously free and turned into slaves during Roman wars in Greece. This layer to a certain extent contributed to the penetration of Hellenistic culture into Roman society.

There were markets for the sale of slaves (in Aquileia, Italy; Tanais, the mouth of the Don; on the island of Delos); on Delos, over 10 thousand slaves were sold per day. Tens of thousands of slaves took part in slave uprisings (Sicilian slave uprisings, 2nd century BC; the uprising of Spartacus, 1st century BC, etc.). Along with slave uprisings, an important place in the period of antiquity was occupied by the struggle among the free - between rich and poor (for example, in Rome, the struggle of plebeians with patricians for civil rights, the Gracchi movement (See Gracchi) - the struggle of small landowners with large ones, etc.); Moreover, both streams of this class struggle rarely merged with each other. Among the free, intermediate classes and social strata, which were part of the social structure R.s. - numerous free peasants who were full members of the community, artisans, etc. Getting rich or going broke, they moved into the class of slave owners or the class of slaves. In most Greek and Italian policies, the peasants were free; in many cases, their enslavement was prevented by legislation. The crisis of the polis and the concentration of real estate and numerous slaves in the hands of a few slave owners led to a worsening of the situation of small free producers, placing them in various kinds dependence on slave owners. Slave owners economically and non-economically sought to subjugate and exploit these small producers. In fact, the position of “free peasants” (for example, in India, Ptolemaic Egypt, etc.) was not much different from the position of type 2 slaves. During the period of the spread of Colonat, the differences between the free poor and the slaves began to be smoothed out, and at the later stage of the R. s. (during the transition to feudalism) the masses acted more unitedly against the slave owners.

The apparatus of state power, legal institutions, religion and other forms of ideology served the purpose of consolidating the exploitation of slaves. The specific types and forms of the slave state are very diverse. “... There is already a difference between monarchy and republic, between aristocracy and democracy. Monarchy - as the power of one, republic - as the absence of any unelected power; aristocracy - as the power of a small comparative minority, democracy - as the power of the people... Despite these differences, the state of the slave era was a slave state, no matter whether it was a monarchy or an aristocratic or democratic republic" (Lenin V.I., Complete collected works, 5th ed., vol. 39, p. 74). Athens of the 5th-4th centuries is considered a classic example of a democratic slave-owning republic. BC e.; an example of an aristocratic slave-owning republic was Rome of the republican period, a slave-owning monarchy - imperial Rome, in the Ancient East - Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Iran, etc. Ancient authors (Polybnya, Sima Qian, etc.) characterize the main forms of state power. Despite the differences in external forms of state power, all states of antiquity were an apparatus of class rule of the slave owner not only over slaves, but also over poor free producers.

The situation that developed under R. s. law set as its goal the transformation of slaves into the property of slave owners (a slave is an object, not a subject of law), the protection of private property through the most brutal measures, and the political omnipotence of slave owners. In a developed slave-owning society, among the upper strata, physical labor was considered incompatible with the performance of civic duties. Confucius, Aristotle, Cicero and others considered slavery a socially necessary institution, since, as they believed, there are categories of people who are not capable of mental work and are destined by nature for slavery; citizens should be free from worries about basic necessities. Aristotle wrote: “... If the weaving shuttles themselves wove, and the plectrums themselves played the cithara, then architects, when building a house, would not need workers, and masters would not need slaves” (“Politics”, 1 , 2, 5; Russian lane, St. Petersburg, 1911, p. 11). But some thinkers also expressed opposing views: for example, Dion Chrysostom (1st-2nd centuries AD) believed that all people, including slaves, have the same right to freedom.

The typical form of religious thinking under R. s. there was polytheism, which, however, did not at all exclude the historical possibility of the emergence of monotheistic views in certain historical conditions (for example, the establishment of the state cult of Aten following the reform of Akhenaten in Egypt in the 14th century BC, the cult of Yahweh in Judea in the 1st millennium BC, Christianity in the 1st century AD on the territory of the Roman Empire). Religious worldview under R. s. was dominant, but along with it a secular worldview arose in the form of a number of philosophical teachings of an idealistic and materialistic direction (in China, India, Greece and Rome): natural philosophy, stoicism, Platonism, Neoplatonism, the materialistic teachings of Democritus and Epicurus, etc.

During this period of human history, fiction and its genres (tragedy, comedy, lyrics, epic, etc.), historical literature, theater arose, the foundations of the natural sciences (mathematics, astronomy, medicine, etc.) were created. such outstanding monuments of fine art and architecture as the Athenian Acropolis (Greece), the pyramids in Giza (Egypt), the Roman Pantheon (Rome), the palace of Sargon II in Dur-Sharrukin (Babylonia), the stupa in Sanchi (India), the Great Wall of China, temple complexes in Karnak and Luxor (Egypt), the Pergamon Altar (Pergamon), “Aphrodite of Melos” and “Apollo Belvedere” (Greece), etc. The process of repressing R. s. From the world historical arena, feudal formation was a long, complex and painful process, replete with many different bloody conflicts. It was not a peaceful evolution or a smooth transition from R. s. to feudalism. By its nature, this is a revolutionary process, but it cannot in any way be considered a “revolution of slaves.” Class struggle under R. s. reached great tension, evidence of this is information about mass escapes of slaves and slave uprisings (Spartacus, etc.). The death of the slave-owning method of production was ultimately due to its economic futility, because the direct producers - slaves - were not interested in increasing production. “Ancient slavery has outlived itself. Neither in large-scale agriculture, nor in urban manufacturing, it no longer brought income that justified the labor expended. ... Slavery ceased to pay for itself and therefore died out” (F. Engels, see K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2nd ed., vol. 21, pp. 148, 149). The degeneration of the slave-owning form of exploitation into colonat, caused by economic reasons and representing a long process, also led to the degeneration of slave owners into feudal lords, and some slaves into feudal peasants. “The change in the form of exploitation transformed slave-owning domination into serfdom” (V.I. Lenin, Complete collection of works, 5th ed., vol. 39, p. 75). This change on a worldwide scale occurred approximately in the 4th-6th centuries. n. e.

Lit.: Marx K., Towards a critique of political economy. Preface, K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2nd ed., vol. 13; Engels F., Anti-Dühring, ibid., t, 20; his, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, ibid., vol. 21; Marx K., Forms preceding capitalist production, M., 1940; Marx K. and Engels F., On Antiquity, Leningrad, 1932; Lenin V.I., Philosophical notebooks, Complete collection of works, 5th ed., vol. 29; his, State and Revolution, ibid., vol. 33; him, On the State, ibid., vol. 39; General and special in the historical development of the countries of the East, M., 1966; Laws of history and specific forms of world-historical progress, book 1 - Problems of the history of pre-capitalist societies, M., 1968; Problems of pre-capitalist societies in the countries of the East, M., 1971; Kachanovsky Yu. V., Slavery, feudalism or the Asian mode of production?, M., 1971; Struve V.V., The problem of the origin, development and decomposition of slave-holding societies of the Ancient East, “Izv. State Academy of the History of Material Culture", V. 77, M. - L., 1934; him, Some aspects of the social development of the Ancient East, “Questions of History”, 1965, No. 5; Tyumenev A.I., The Near East and Antiquity, ibid., 1957, No. 6; Konrad N.I., On the slave-owning formation, in his book: West and East, M., 1966; Dyakonov I.M., Social and state structure of ancient Mesopotamia. Sumer, M., 1959; his, Problems of Property, “Bulletin of Ancient History”, 1967, No. 4; his, Problems of Economics. On the structure of society in the Middle East until the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e., in the same place, 1968, No. 3, 4; him, Slaves, helots and serfs in early antiquity, “Bulletin of Ancient History”, 1973, No. 4; Utchenko S. L., Dyakonov I. M., Social stratification of ancient society, M., 1971; Dandamaev M. A., Slavery in Babylonia, VII-IV centuries. BC e., M. - L., 1974; Stepugina T.V., On the methods of enslavement in ancient China during the Qin Empire and early Han, in the collection: Collection of articles on the history of the countries of the Far East, M., 1952; Ilyin G.F., The main problems of slavery in Ancient India, in the collection: History and culture of ancient India, M., 1963; Korostovtsev M.A., Experience in using system analysis in the study of early class societies (Principles of constructing a model of “early slavery”), “Peoples of Asia and Africa”, 1973, No. 6; Utchenko S. L., Shtaerman E. M., On some issues in the history of slavery, “Bulletin of Ancient History”, 1960, No. 4; Zelin K.K., Research on the history of land relations in Hellenistic Egypt II-I centuries. BC e., M. , 1960; Zelin K., Trofimova M.K., Forms of dependence in the Eastern Mediterranean of the Hellenistic period, M., 1969; Lenzman Ya. A., Slavery in Mycenaean and Homeric Greece, M., 1963; Shtaerman E.M., The flourishing of slave relations in the Roman Republic, M., 1964; hers. The crisis of the slave system in the western provinces of the Roman Empire, M., 1957; Utchenko S. L., Crisis and fall of the Roman Republic, M., 1965; Slavery on the periphery of the ancient world, L., 1968: Blavatskaya T.V., Golubtsova E.S., Pavlovskaya A.I., Slavery in the Hellenistic states in the III-I centuries. BC e., M., 1969; Shtaerman E. M., Trofimova M. K., Slave relations in the early Roman Empire (Italy), M., 1971; Kuzishchin V.I., The concept of socio-economic formation and periodization of the history of slave society, “Bulletin of Ancient History”, 1974, No. 3; Slavery in classical antiquity. Views and controversies, ed. by M. l. Finley, Camb., 1960; Westermann W. Z., The slave systems of Greek and Roman antiquity, Phil., 1955; Gelb J. J., From freedom to slavery, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Münch., 1972.

M. A. Korostovtsev.

Big Soviet encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. 1969-1978 .

See what “slave system” is in other dictionaries:

See SLAVE OWNING SOCIETY. Antinazi. Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2009 ... Encyclopedia of Sociology

At the stage of the late primitive community, the foundations of the slave-owning mode of production were formed. However, it has been established that some countries immediately move to feudalism, bypassing slavery, while others first move to a slave society, then to feudalism. Chronologically it looks like this: Europe from the end of the 3rd millennium BC. until the end of the 4th century. AD, countries of the East - from the end of the 17th millennium BC. until the end of the 6th century. AD (Asia and Africa)

The Eastern Slavs, Germanic tribes, pastoral tribes of Asia and Arabs immediately move from a primitive communal society to a feudal one. Ancient Egypt, the countries of Western Asia and Asia Minor, passed from a primitive communal society to a slave society and from it to a feudal one. Ancient India, Ancient China, Ancient Greece; Ancient Italy.

Usually, Asian and ancient methods of production are distinguished. The Asian method of production develops in Sumer, Assyria, Babylon, Ancient Egypt, Ancient India and Ancient China, the ancient method of production - in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The main features of a slave society are the following:

Production of products based on slave labor and non-economic forms of its appropriation and distribution.

The slave owner's ownership of the slave, the instruments of production and the product of the slave is not limited by anyone.

Primitive tools of production.

4. Subsistence farming and the consumer nature of the domestic market. As for the Asian mode of production, represented by the ancient Eastern

civilizations, then it has a number of common features. Among them are the following.

A combination of elements of a primitive communal economy with an early class economy.

Community sustainability due to the need to create artificial irrigation and drainage systems.

Transformation into the economic center of a temple or royal economy.

Weak development of private land ownership.

Use of patriarchal slave labor. This pile was characterized by the following:

maintaining a connection between the direct producer and his plot of land;

relatively small share of exploitation;

production for the livelihood of slave owners and slaves;

Some degree of independence for slaves and guarantees against changes in their legal status.

The emergence of large urban settlements and cities.

Craft specialization of the population and social differentiation.

The stability of the state, which took on the functions of distributor of irrigation systems and monopolized the right to public works.

The first state formations on the territory of the Ancient East appeared around the middle of the 4th millennium BC. (Mesopotamia, Egypt, and later India, China). A special place among the states in Mesopotamia is occupied by the Sumerian states (XXVIII-XXIV centuries BC)

The rapid growth of agriculture in them was facilitated by the presence of fertile lands along the rivers, favorable climate, ease of tillage, possibility of annual irrigation. Before the settlement of the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates, there were dead deserts, starting almost from their banks in the north of the country, and treeless steppes, scorched by the sun. There was practically no wood, no metal, no minerals, no building stone. Primitive communities were content with the gifts of nature. However, the Sumerians could not come to terms with this and created fabulous abundance with a superbly organized economy for that time. They drained swamps and swamps, created a network of irrigation canals, the largest of which were used for navigation. Thanks to their “agricultural talent,” they turned dead lands into a blooming garden and created a diversified economy, the main industry of which was agriculture.

The land was royal, temple and the property of the territorial community. At first, the palace did not occupy a leading economic position. By the middle of the 3rd millennium, it became a competing and then an equal force with the temple, later dominating the country’s economy. Temple land was divided into three categories: temple land itself; land distributed to temple personnel for service for hereditary use, and land leased with payment of a certain portion of the harvest. Typically this share was 1/3. As the economy developed, this form began to be used more often. Both the palace and wealthy landowners began to rent out the land.

Land was transferred to individual ownership of large families, some of whom later became wealthy landowners.

The main agricultural crops were wheat and barley. Horticulture and gardening were developed. The Sumerians developed plantations date palms, grew beans and onions. The land was worked mainly by the “temple people” (agricultural workers). It is very difficult to find information about the standard of living of farmers. Nevertheless, we were able to discover the following data. At work in the royal garden, in a group of eight people, the leader received 31.5 liters of grain daily, 3 gardeners - 25.2 liters, 2 “waterers” - 21 liters, 1st assistant - 16 liters, and 2nd - 3. 4 l. The latter's ration was considered starvation. For comparison: oxen received 2.52 liters of barley daily and an additional amount of beans. There were plots “for feeding”, which were allocated to certain groups of agricultural workers. The lowest rung of the hierarchical ladder was occupied by slaves who belonged to the palace, temple and free landowners.

Agriculture, like the entire economy, was planned (in modern terms). There were certain norms in agriculture. The temple essentially turned into a center that directed the country's economy. They worked in the field in groups under the supervision of an overseer, a representative of the temple administration vested with certain powers, or an experienced supervisor. The entire harvest was taken to the temple granaries. Then, from it and from the corresponding warehouses, farmers received food, clothing and other means of subsistence.

At first, agriculture was based on manual labor using a single tool - a hoe. Then the farmers switched to cultivating the land with a plow pulled by oxen and donkeys. There was a temple warehouse for agricultural implements, which received 8 -

the title "house of plows". From it farmers obtained plows, hoes, seeds and feed for oxen and donkeys.

Along with agriculture, cattle breeding also became the basis of the Sumerians' well-being. They bred sheep, cows (for milk, meat, wool), pigs, bulls, donkeys as draft animals, and poultry. The herds of the god (temple) and the herds of the king (palace) were entrusted to the care of the herders. In addition, they also kept their own livestock. They also received food rations for their pile. For example, in temple farms special plots of land were allocated, the harvest from which was intended to feed the shepherds: “cattle people”, “sheep people”, “goat people”, etc.

Crafts are intensively developing: stone-cutting, blacksmithing, carpentry, jewelry, pottery. Baking bread, brewing beer, and building houses are being improved. Shipbuilding occupies a special place in the economy. Narrower professions appeared: stone and metal carvers, engravers, weavers, etc. The Sumerians actively used copper and mastered the methods of casting, riveting and soldering. Moreover, many workshops were created right next to the temple. Strict records were kept of everything. Everything that was produced and issued from warehouses and granaries was carefully recorded. Even waste records were kept.

Raw materials for some types of crafts were delivered from other countries. Local raw materials included clay, reed, wool, and leather. Craftsmen made wickerwork from reeds, which were in great demand. By the way, they stored bread, flour, grain and even documents in special wicker baskets.

As for weaving, it began to develop only in the second half of the 3rd millennium. At first, very simple and modest clothes were made from wool. From time immemorial, women, primarily slaves, were engaged in spinning in temples. They were also the main labor force in weaving workshops. At the end of the 2nd millennium, weavers of various qualifications appeared, and clothing became more intricate.

The tanneries produced shoes (sandals), chairs, upholstery for carts, harnesses, bags, etc.

The creation of a powerful system of irrigation canals contributed to the development of shipbuilding, which in turn led to the development of foreign trade. In this regard, a huge number of ships for all kinds of purposes were built in Sumer.

In ancient Sumer there was practically no internal market. The population within individual city-states received everything they needed through issuance, without any exchange transactions. As for foreign trade, merchants contributed to its increased growth. At first, they exported surplus production to other cities and countries and imported raw materials. Then a law came into force, according to which merchants began to pay tax on transactions concluded. Moreover, the temples carefully ensured that each transaction was documented in written documents. Each act of purchase and sale was recorded on clay tablets, certified by the seals of both parties, as well as the seal of the official. The documents were kept in the temple.

Transactions were made in the bazaars. Starting from the second half of the 3rd millennium, food, clothing, and household utensils were bought here. A scribe was invited to draw up documents. Wholesale trade was carried out directly at the piers, where goods were stored on ships. They exported grain, wool, and dates. They imported gold, stones, silver, etc. Trade was carried out briskly with many distant countries.

The Babylonian state was formed in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. It reached its greatest prosperity under King Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC)

The economy of this period was characterized by the following features:

The combination of royal-temple land with the communal-private sector.

The presence of a centralized bureaucratic apparatus that operated effectively through a large layer of professional specialists.

The royal temple land (up to 30...40%) was distributed to the royal people of the first and second categories. In the first case, the land acted as a salary in the form of an official allotment, in

the second - in the form of inalienable compulsory allotments. A certain share of the harvest was paid for the use of these plots.

Community lands were divided into plots of the majority of community members, who made ends meet with great difficulty, and plots of the poorest community members.

Gradually, along with the royal-temple lands and inalienable collective lands, the privately owned sector appeared, first represented in the form of a small part of the land, hired labor and part of the lease, which was actively involved in the economic life of the country.

As for the second feature, the legal support for the economic and social spheres of activity of the population with a fairly strict system of punishments was brought to the fore. This was due to the fact that the private sector led to the rapid ruin of community members and the enrichment of private owners at their expense. All these ideas were reflected in the laws of Hammurabi - the first most complete and comprehensive set in history legal norms and administrative regulations that very clearly defined the rights and responsibilities of the population. The laws of Hammurabi, immortalized on a large black basalt pillar, consist of an introduction, a conclusion and 282 articles (there is no numbering of articles in the text itself) (see appendix 1).

The laws of Hammurabi, first of all, were a guarantor of the inviolability of person and property. If a Babylonian warrior was captured, he had to be ransomed. In case of lack of funds, the necessary amount had to be given by the temple of the village where he lived, or by the palace household, i.e. coffers.

Warriors received land plots from the state and were obliged to go on a campaign at first request. These plots were inherited through the male line and were inalienable. In case of debt, the creditor could only take the property acquired by the warrior himself, but not the allotment granted by the king.

Although the laws of Hammurabi do not have separate sections, experts note the following groups:

General principles of the functioning of justice.

Protection of the property of the king, the temple and the population.

Status of property received from the king.

Operations with real estate and trade.

Family law.

Penalties for bodily injury.

According to legal capacity, the laws distinguish the following groups: full-fledged; mush-kenums and slaves. Each of these groups was responsible for their actions in different ways. For damage caused to a full-fledged person, the fine was greater than for damage to a muskenum. The slave “cost” even less. Private slaves were considered the property of their owners, runaways were caught, and their concealers were severely punished. At the same time, slaves had certain rights to family, property and household.

Mushkenums are dependent royal people. They could have a position, a fairly high administrative status, a household and slaves.

Many articles relate to issues of property, in which property is established as an institution. However, the main purpose of laws is to regulate and limit it. For example, alienation in any form of land granted by the king is prohibited. The articles regulate the terms of employment and the amount of payment for hired labor, consider all cases of lease and the norm of rent, as well as the conditions for pledging property.

In order to limit the arbitrariness of lenders and create optimal conditions for debtors, the articles stipulate all the conditions of credit and usury. Thus, in the event of a bad harvest, the debt was postponed. If a person was forced into debt slavery for a debt, then the creditor was responsible for his life. If he died as a result of mistreatment, the creditor was severely punished. The term of debt slavery was limited to three years. After

After this, the debtor was released, and the debt was considered repaid.

The amount of debt interest should not exceed 20% for a cash loan and 30% for a natural loan.

Punishments for serious crimes were severe. Often the offender was punished by death. The basic principle of punishment was carried out according to the principle of “an eye for an eye”, “hand for hand”, “son for son”, “slave for slave”.

Agriculture developed successfully in Babylon, which was explained by the expansion and improvement of the irrigation system. Domestic and foreign trade was active. Timber, stone, and metals were imported, and grain, dates, wool, and numerous handicrafts were exported. Residents of Ancient Mesopotamia contributed to world culture. They invented hieroglyphic writing, which in the mass documentation of the royal-temple households turned into simplified cuneiform, which played decisive role in the emergence of the alphabetic system.

To this should be added a system of calendar calculation, closely related to astronomical observations and constantly developed thanks to the efforts of the priests. The decimal system of ancient counting became the basis of elementary mathematics.

The economy of Ancient Egypt was influenced by its favorable geographical location and the presence of minerals. The Mediterranean Sea connected Ancient Egypt with Western Asia, Cyprus, the islands of the Aegean Sea and Greece. The Nile, being an important shipping route, connected Upper and Lower Egypt. It became a source of inexhaustible fertility and the basis of all economic activities of the country.

The minerals included many different types of stone. Granite, diorite, basalt, alabaster, limestone, and sandstone were mined in the country. There were no metals in Egypt itself, however, they were found in the adjacent areas: copper on the Sinai Peninsula, zinc and lead on the Red Sea coast, silver and iron in Asia Minor, gold in the desert between the Nile and the Red Sea.

Ancient Egypt was characterized by centralization of power, which sometimes acquired the features of state despotism. This is the earliest example of a command and distribution system.

The state in its activities relied on a developed bureaucratic apparatus. The main person in the state was the king-pharaoh. One of its functions was the supreme right to the land fund. He was also the organizer and manager of irrigation systems. The king disposed of them through the royal and temple households. Peasant communities had inheritance rights for payment in kind. Its size was determined not by the barn, but by the biological harvest, i.e. it was determined before the harvest by officials.

Later, around the 1st millennium BC, a state monopoly appeared in some sectors of the economy. In particular, its availability has been established for the production and sale of vegetable oil. The entire mass of the produced product was distributed centrally. The direct producer of material goods was the legally free but hard-working peasant. Officials carefully recorded the harvest and the number of livestock. Community members who worked on irrigation and construction sites received necessary tools and provisions from government storage facilities.

It was established that the entire population, including the poorest strata and high-ranking officials, paid taxes. Peasants and landowners contributed part of the harvest, livestock and clothing as taxes. High-ranking officials paid taxes on all their property, which overwhelmingly came to them as salaries for services rendered to the king. For their position they received lands, beautiful “villas”, elegant carts, luxurious boats, many slaves, livestock, food, wine and clothing. All these gifts were recorded in their name and were taken into account by tax collectors when determining their value.

The first person in the state after the king was the supreme dignitary. He served as the chief judge, managed many sectors of the economy and combined a number of

positions.

Being a large centralized state, Ancient Egypt in the XXVIII-XXIII centuries. BC. extended its influence to the regions of the Sinai Peninsula, Southern Palestine and Nubia. It has been established that during this period of time he became the owner of a region of copper mines on the Sinai Peninsula.

The land in the country belonged to the pharaoh, the temple and the nobles. It was divided into two parts. One was their property, and the other was given for the position and was a conditional possession. The lands were cultivated by “work squads”. They received everything they needed from the farm: seeds, draft animals, clothing. The harvest belonged to the owner. Later, the land began to be leased to the “servants of the king,” who cultivated it with their own tools and at their own expense. They paid rent to the king, the temple or the nobles. Then, along with the “servants of the king,” a class began to emerge, connected to one degree or another with the market and the emerging private property. There is a separation of officials, warriors and artisans. During the era of the Middle Kingdom (XXII-XVIII centuries BC), some of them owned lands that could be rented to the poor or indigent. The rent could be in kind and partially sold on the market.

The community in Egypt disappeared early and without a trace, along with the traditions of collective land use. During the period of the Old Kingdom, all lands were absorbed by the state economy. It is known that work detachments led by officials moved from place to place as needed and without any restrictions. Some changes in the land issue occurred during the Middle Kingdom, when land began to become private property. Irrigated agriculture, which was distinguished by its high productivity, became the main branch of the country's economy. Upper Egypt becomes its center. Horticulture, horticulture and cattle breeding are mainly developed in Lower Egypt.

The main agricultural crops are barley and emulsified wheat. The development of productive agriculture was greatly facilitated by irrigation structures. During the Middle Kingdom, a huge reservoir was created, connected by a canal to the Nile, and an extensive network of irrigation systems in the Fayum oasis. The construction of irrigation systems was a labor-intensive process, labor costs amounted to 120...130 thousand people/hour per 1 km of canal. Irrigation work contributed significantly to the development of cooperation among a group of community members who carried out a whole range of work to maintain irrigation systems in proper order: strengthening dams, restoring and constructing dams, cleaning and deepening large and small canals. According to the Russian traveler A. Rafalovich, even in the first half of the 19th century. Only, 31 thousand fellahs were simultaneously occupied in clearing the channel of a canal 100 versts (107 km) long, 50 feet (15.3 m) wide and 7 feet (2.1 m) deep. And such work was carried out every three years.

The hydraulic engineering of that time was above average. An ancient Egyptian crane could lift almost two tons of water in one hour. For this era, in the absence of pumping technology, the effect was very significant. For Egypt. as well as for other eastern civilizations, high productivity was typical. Its level was so high that neither the ancient world nor medieval Europe could achieve it. It should be added that productivity was achieved not so much through the improvement of tools, but through the cooperation of labor aimed at maintaining high natural fertility of the land. Subsequently, the sown area expands, and some fields are sown twice a year.

During the period of the New Kingdom, the plow and harness were improved in agriculture, and a number of new tools and devices appeared (for example, special hammers for crushing clods of earth, water-lifting structures, etc.).

Along with agriculture, vegetable gardening and horticulture are successfully developing. A new, hitherto unknown branch of the economy is also emerging in Egypt - beekeeping.

Grapes occupy a special place among fruit crops. Numerous excavations

testify to the flourishing art of grape cultivation.

Egypt is becoming a country of highly developed cattle breeding. Moreover, horse breeding appears here. During the New Kingdom period, short-haired sheep were replaced by a new breed suitable for shearing. A feature of Egyptian cattle breeding was the keeping of fully domesticated or semi-domesticated desert animals in herds together with domestic animals: antelopes, ibex, gazelles.

Various types of crafts, and above all, construction, are becoming an important branch of the economy. Its level was so high that it required the development of new types of stone.

The Egyptian pyramids of the III-VI dynasties (2800-2400 BC) were especially grandiose. The volume of construction work associated with them during this time amounted to 13 million m 3. The tallest building in the world before the Eiffel Tower was the Pyramid of Cheops. Its construction lasted 20 years. According to the calculations of modern experts, the construction of such a pyramid in the second half of the 20th century. (in 1970 there was only one crane of this height) would have taken at least 40 years)