The correct classification of the laws of social development largely depends on the application of these laws in scientific research and in life. Each of the social sciences has its own system of laws, the nature of which is determined by the subject of this science and the specifics of its method. Despite all the differences between the laws of historical materialism, political economy, aesthetics, concrete sociology, literary theory, art history, and other social sciences (in terms of the scale of phenomena covered by the laws, the level of abstraction, the degree of formalization, etc.), all of them are characterized by a certain qualitative uniformity as the laws of certain social systems, whether it is humanity as a whole, or individual socio-economic formations, stages of a particular formation (for example, the laws of imperialism) , or various relatively independent aspects of the historical process. Naturally, the different nature of these systems also implies a different level of abstraction from the concrete historical manifestations of a particular law, from its particular modifications due to various specific circumstances. At the same time, the level of abstraction in general social laws is, of course, higher than in the laws of individual formations or individual aspects of social existence.

Are there, however, in the diversity of social development such phenomena, processes, and dependencies that are generalized by laws qualitatively different from the laws of systems, characterized by a fundamentally different level of abstraction? The study of Lenin's approach to the laws of social life, the methodology of their analysis and use, as well as the study of the laws themselves formulated by V. I. Lenin, give, in our opinion, the basis for discussing the hypothesis proposed below. In addition to the laws of systems (or general laws), there is another extremely important type of laws, which can be conditionally called the laws of historical situations. This type of law corresponds to the subject of historical science and is specific to it. In other words, the laws of historical science, unlike the laws of other social sciences, are the laws of historical situations, or specifically historical laws.

Defending and developing the Marxist approach to the laws of social development, V. I. Lenin always considered general laws (laws of systems) as a scientific expression of objective trends in the history of mankind as a whole or the history of individual formations, brought to a high degree of abstraction. Revealing the deep foundations of the entire historical process, as well as its individual aspects and stages, inaccessible to simple observation and ordinary consciousness, establishing connections and relationships between various series of social phenomena, general laws reflect those existing in an objective reality.

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In reality, there are steadily recurring and necessary dependencies that make their way through the entire concrete diversity of the historical process. Science "in all areas of knowledge shows us the manifestation of basic laws in the apparent chaos of phenomena" 1 . Representing the unity of the historical and logical, general laws create a solid methodological basis for analyzing the specific course of history. "Anyone who takes up particular questions without first solving general ones will inevitably "stumble" into these general questions unconsciously at every step. " 2
Thus attaching great importance to the propositions of the general theory, which receive the most complete expression in laws, V. I. Lenin at the same time fought against the simplified, vulgar use of general laws in concrete research. This question, in addition to its purely theoretical significance, also had a purely practical significance for him, since the numerous anti-Marxist concepts of legal Marxists, economists, and Mensheviks (which had deep social and political roots) in epistemological terms often stemmed from a vicious approach to the relationship between the abstract-theoretical and concrete-historical formulation of a particular question.

Even in his polemic with P. Struve on the theory of realization, V. I. Lenin showed how necessary it is to clearly distinguish between these two approaches to the material being studied, which are determined by different research tasks. V. I. Lenin saw Struve's methodological mistake in mixing " abstract theory of realization... with the specific historical conditions of the realization of the capitalist product in a particular country in a particular epoch. " 3 Trying to refute one of the laws of Marxist political economy, Struve referred to various historical conditions that limit or modify the forms of its manifestation. Having discovered a complete lack of understanding of the meaning of general laws, he expressed doubts about the scientific value of the theory of realization. Lenin responded to this "doubt" with an argument of outstanding methodological significance: "If Struve is confused by the fact that" perfect realization is the ideal of capitalist production, but by no means its reality," then we remind him that all the other laws of capitalism discovered by Marx also represent only the ideal of capitalism, which is not the ideal of production." but not its reality. " 4 Of course, we are not talking about Weber's "ideal type", which allows arbitrary manipulation of empirical facts and the construction of" types "that are" convenient " for this study, but about a strictly scientific abstraction that expresses the essence of the process or phenomenon under study.

From Lenin's understanding of laws as high-level abstractions, it follows that the direct "superimposition" of a general law on a concrete situation inevitably leads to an error in analyzing the real course of history. "None of Struve's opponents ever said anything so absurd that the historical question could be solved by abstract constructions." 5 Thus, in the struggle against Struvist revisionism, Lenin defends, firstly, the decisive content and methodological significance of general laws, and secondly, the only scientific principle of their use in concrete research. Abstracting from the real zigzags of history, quite justified and necessary-

1 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 25, p. 46.

2 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 15, p. 368.

3 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 4, p. 68.

4 Ibid., p. 80.

5 Ibid., p. 82.

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It is absolutely unacceptable in the analysis of historical reality - this idea was repeatedly repeated by Lenin in the struggle against the Mensheviks during the first Russian Revolution and "during the period of reaction. Analyzing Axelrod's report at the Fourth Party Congress, Lenin spoke ironically of a speaker who was " entirely in the realm of abstractions ...suitable for all times, for all nations, for all historical moments in general - unsuitable only by virtue of their abstractness for covering the concrete features of the concrete question before us."7 Lenin maintained the same view later on. "Replacing the concrete with the abstract is one of the most important sins, the most dangerous sins in the revolution,"8 he wrote in 1917.

The frequent changes in the socio-political situation in the country during the first Russian Revolution, the need to change tactics in accordance with the new stage of the revolution, the intensified ideological and political struggle against the Menshevik perversion of Marxism put forward as one of the important problems of Marxist methodology the question of analyzing concrete historical situations. "A Marxist must never forget that the slogan of the struggle immediately to come cannot be deduced simply and directly from the general slogan of a well-known program... To do this, we must take into account the concrete historical situation... " 9. Unlike the Mensheviks, "the revolutionary social-democrats shift the center of gravity of the question precisely to careful consideration of the concrete political situation." 10 Lenin by no means confines himself to the general formula that it is necessary to study the concrete situation in solving tactical questions; he raises and resolves the question of how to analyze situations, and arrives at scientific discoveries of outstanding significance.

The question is: does the researcher of a particular situation have only general laws and concrete data at his disposal, or does he also have other tools developed by the Marxist-Leninist methodology? Can't he, in particular, take advantage of what is somewhat vaguely called in everyday speech "historical experience", that is, compare the situation under study with others that once existed? It is easy to see that the last question is related to the problem of repeatability in history. For a Marxist, it is obvious that social systems, processes, and phenomena in the history of society are quite amenable to typological generalization, since it is relatively easy to trace repeatability on the basis of historical materialism. It is, of course, not an exact reproduction in one country of a particular course of events that took place in other countries, but an essential repeatability that expresses the unity of the world-historical process. Contrasting Marxism with subjective-idealistic sociology, Lenin wrote: "This theory applied to social science that objective, general scientific criterion of repeatability, the possibility of applying it to sociology was denied by subjectivists" 11 .

But do historical situations repeat themselves, do they lend themselves to typological generalization? After all, each situation that has developed in a particular country at a particular stage of its development is purely individual, unique in its concreteness. V. I. Lenin solved this most difficult question both in theoretical and practical terms, giving classical examples of the typology of historical situations.

However different may have been the internal and external conditions of the Russian Revolution of 1917 (in the period from February to October) and the French-

7 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 13, p. 39.

8 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 34, p. 17.

9 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 13, p. 312.

10 Ibid., p. 340.

11 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 1, p. 429.

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After the Russian Revolution of 1848, Lenin considered it possible to classify the existing situations in both countries into the same type. This typological generalization was expressed even in the very form of the description, which covers exactly what is common for them: "Bourgeois Republicans are in power. They, like our cadets, want "order," which they call the restoration and consolidation of the monarchical instruments of oppression of the masses... They, like our Cadets, want to put an end to the revolution, hating the revolutionary proletariat... The other major social force was the petty bourgeoisie... In their dreamy and phraseological aspirations- "socialist", which willingly called itself "socialist democracy" (even this term is now adopted by the Social Revolutionaries together with the Mensheviks!) the petty bourgeoisie was afraid to trust itself to the leadership of the revolutionary proletariat... The third decisive class force was the proletariat, which did not strive for "reconciliation" with the bourgeoisie, but for victory over it ... " 12 Lenin here establishes the essential repeatability of situations; it is precisely from their qualitative uniformity that he comes to the conclusion that attempts by the Russian bourgeoisie to suppress the working class by force are inevitable. At the same time, Lenin is infinitely far from a fatalistic approach to the results of this attempt: "It depends solely on the steadfastness and vigilance, on the strength of the revolutionary workers of Russia, whether the Russian Cavaignacs will win or lose..."13 The fact that Cavaignac won in Paris does not give grounds for concluding that the victory of the "Russian Cavaignacs" is inevitable; but the possibility of their victory in the same situation is quite real.

In this case, what is Lenin's methodology for determining the repeatability or typological generalization of situations? The difficulty lies in the fact that not only the scale, vicissitudes, characters, and historical settings of the two historical dramas do not coincide, but also some essential features of these historical situations are fundamentally different. The revolution of 1848 took place in the conditions of the upward development of world capitalism, and the Russian revolution - in the era of imperialism. France was a centralized national state, while Russia was a multinational one. The February Revolution in France abolished the bourgeois monarchy; the February Revolution in Russia put an end to the autocratic monarchy, which was only taking the first steps towards becoming bourgeois. Lenin, in establishing the uniformity of both situations, took all this into account. He directly pointed out the essential differences between them: "There are many things in Russia today that distinguish our revolution from the French revolution of 1848: the imperialist war, the neighborhood of more advanced (and not more backward, as in France at that time) countries, the agrarian and national movement. But all this can only change the form of Cavaignac's speech, the moment, external reasons, etc. All this cannot change the essence of the matter, for the essence lies in the relationship of classes. " 14
These words contain a fundamental methodological statement that shows what features of the situation Lenin considers as the main, defining, and giving the right to assign groups of situations (in different countries, at different stages of development, etc.) to one typological series. The essence of the situation, which only lends itself to typology, lies in the alignment of class forces, in the relationship between classes .15
12 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 32, pp. 343-344.

13 Ibid., p. 346.

14 Ibid.

15 Of course, this definition applies to class societies. The concept of the historical situation as applied to classless societies requires special elaboration and is not considered in this article.

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The level of development of a class and its other specific historical features leave an imprint on the situation in which this class finds itself and, moreover, affects the formation of a particular situation. The situation arises in the course of the class struggle; their mutual relations constitute its essence and determine the most important features of the historical stage. That is why Lenin classifies the situations in France in 1848 and in Russia in the summer of 1917 as the same type, despite the fact that all the main classes are identical only in the most general generic characteristics. To establish a typological similarity of situations, it is sufficient for the main classes to take basically the same position in relation to other classes (the bourgeoisie is in power and strives for "order", the proletariat is fighting for power, that is, for the development of the revolution, the petty bourgeoisie, because of its fluctuations, actually helps the reaction).

The analysis of Lenin's approach to the repeatability of situations allows us to draw at least three conclusions. First, in addition to the repeatability of systems, processes, and phenomena, there is another type in history - the repeatability of historical situations, which, therefore, lend themselves to typological generalization. Secondly, the repeatability of situations is essential. Just as the statement of the repeatability of systems requires abstracting from specific features of the system in a particular country (for example, the features of capitalism in Russia and in England), the statement of typological generality of situations involves abstracting from certain features of this particular situation. However, the principle of abstraction and the level of abstraction here is completely different: in the first case, the researcher is generally distracted from historical concreteness, from the situation, in the second-he studies the situation, but is limited only to those features in which its essence is expressed. Third, the essence of the historical situation is the relationship of classes, the alignment of class forces. A qualitative and significant change in the alignment of class forces leads to a change in the historical situation. Historical situations can be assigned to the same type if the class relationships are basically the same.

At the beginning of the first Russian revolution, V. I. Lenin spoke about two possible outcomes of it, starting primarily from general theoretical considerations, from the general law on the inevitability of bourgeois-democratic transformations in the course of the development of capitalism: "The transformation of the economic and political system of Russia in a bourgeois-democratic direction is inevitable and unavoidable." But the form of transformation is not determined by general laws, it will depend on how the revolution ends. Proceeding from this, Lenin characterizes the situations that may develop after the revolution, that is, in essence, defines their types: "(1) either the matter will end in a "decisive victory of the revolution over tsarism", or (2) there will not be enough forces for a decisive victory, and the matter will end in a deal between tsarism and the most "inconsistent" and most powerful forces. "self-serving" elements of the bourgeoisie." The fact that we are talking about exactly the types of situations is indicated by the phrase that concludes this scientific forecast: "All the infinite variety of details and combinations that no one can foresee, comes down, in general, to one or the other of these two outcomes"16 .

Thus, the first outcome is a democratic republic, bourgeois-democratic transformations carried out in a "Jacobin" way, a sharp weakening of the positions of the landlords and the reactionary bourgeoisie associated with them, a direct confrontation between the working class and the bourgeoisie, and an intensification of the struggle between them, in particular for influence over the state.

16 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 11, p. 43.

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the petty bourgeoisie. This is the "general" class relationship that is the essence of this type of situation.

There is no need to describe the correlation of class forces in the second outcome: this is exactly the situation in Russia, and Lenin's assessment of it is widely known. Considering this option, Lenin placed it in the already established typological series: "Such an outcome would be more or less similar to the outcome of all the almost democratic revolutions in Europe during the nineteenth century ..." 17 .

Lenin attached considerable importance to the knowledge of the repeatability of historical situations. As is well known, the Mensheviks in the years of the first Russian Revolution, in defending their line of alliance with the bourgeoisie, referred to the general position of Marxism on the progressiveness of the big bourgeoisie in the period of the upward development of capitalism. "The argumentation of such people," Lenin wrote, " rests on an unfortunate choice of quotations: they take the general propositions about supporting the big bourgeoisie against the reactionary petty bourgeoisie and apply them without criticism to the Russian Cadets, to the Russian revolution. " 18 Without in the least detracting from the fundamental importance of general laws, Lenin, however, recommends a different method: "Anyone who wants to consult Marx about the tasks of the proletariat in the bourgeois revolution must take Marx's opinions, which relate precisely to the epoch of the German bourgeois revolution." 19 The position taken by Marx and Engels in the revolution of 1848-1849 could be used by the Russian social-Democrats as a model, since the situation then developed was similar in type to that in Russia in 1905-1907: power was in the hands of the monarchy, which relied primarily on semi-feudal landowners, the bourgeoisie sought to come to an agreement with reaction, the working class The class struggled to bring the revolution to an end, while the petty bourgeoisie hesitated.

In" consulting with Marx, " Lenin, of course, did not lose sight of the concrete differences in the situation and course of the Russian and German revolutions, in particular in the level of organization and consciousness of the working class. In the same paper, from which the above argument is quoted, he quotes F. Mehring: "History does not like repetition" 20 . But the uniformity in the main thing - the alignment of class forces-gives grounds for drawing out general principles of tactics, although they, of course, are implemented differently in different situations, even in a single typological series.

Defending and recommending the comparison of historical situations as one of the methods of cognition of social phenomena, Lenin repeatedly warned that it can be fruitful only if it is carried out on a strictly scientific basis, that is, after preliminary verification of the conditions for comparability of situations, their belonging to the same type. Otherwise, any comparison only obscures the truth, turns into an arbitrary juggling of historical analogies, which are really dangerous if they are not based on typological generalization. Already in his early writings, Lenin urged not to forget the "basic rule of comparison: that the phenomena being compared should be homogeneous"21 . At the beginning of the first Russian Revolution, Lenin exposed the perversity of the popular liberal press comparison of the Duma with the Prussian Landtag during the period of constitutional conflict. "In fact, if we compare it, we should take as an example not the constitutional era, but the era of the struggle for the constitution, the era of the beginning of the revolution... The State Duma resembles prus-

17 Ibid., p. 46.

18 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 15, p. 264. .

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid., p. 261

21 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 1, p. 25.

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the United Landtag (Sejm), established on February 3, 1847, a year before the revolution. " 22 Although formally it is a question of comparing institutions and not situations, in fact Lenin approaches the question precisely from the point of view of the situation, he generalizes historical periods that are similar in type to the alignment of class forces.

Consequently, it is methodologically flawed not only to directly "impose" a general law on a specific situation, but also to neglect scientific methods of typology of situations. Considerations on this issue are repeatedly found in the writings of Lenin, who castigated his ideological opponents for using the method of "sophists at all times: to take examples that obviously relate to fundamentally different cases" 23 . "Both Martov and Trotsky lump together heterogeneous historical periods..." 24 . "The good Larin forgot to transfer industrial conditions and the history of Belgium to Russia" 25 . Even those who were sincerely devoted to the cause of communism sometimes made this methodological mistake: "Comrade B. K. (we are talking about Bela Kun - L. K. ) criticizes on the basis of quotations from Marx relating to a situation that does not resemble this one..."26 .

If we recognize the essential repeatability of historical situations and the resulting possibility of attributing situations to a particular typological series, if, further, we recognize the expediency and scientific validity of the concept of "type of situation", then it already follows that certain laws must correspond to each type of situation, which can be called laws of historical situations. This conclusion is fully confirmed by an analysis of the laws of situations already discovered and formulated by Lenin. Their analysis should be based on Lenin's definition of the law of the revolutionary situation, which is a classic example in this case. As is well known, Lenin repeatedly returned to the analysis of the objective conditions under which a victorious revolution is possible. During the first Russian Revolution, he concluded that an insurrection should be raised "at the moment of the greatest governmental despair, at the moment of the greatest popular excitement." 27 In 1913 and 1915, he defined the signs of a revolutionary situation. In 1920, a coined formulation of the "basic law of the revolution" was created: "It is not enough for the revolution that the exploited and oppressed masses realize the impossibility of living in the old way and demand changes; for the revolution, it is necessary that the exploiters cannot live and govern in the old way. Only when the " lower classes "do not want the old ways and when the" upper classes"cannot go on in the old way, only then can the revolution win." 28 Only after being tested by the experience of the February and October Revolutions in Russia, the November Revolution in Germany, and a number of other revolutions of 1918-1919. Lenin applied to this generalization the concept of "law", which was absent in earlier formulations. Lenin himself emphasized that the law was confirmed "by all revolutions, and in particular by all three Russian revolutions." 29
A comparison of the law of the revolutionary situation, for example, with the law of uneven development of capitalism reveals qualitative differences between them. In the first case, the dependence of a certain consequence (the possibility of a victorious revolution)is established

22 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 11, p. 187.

23 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 26, p. 225.

24 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 19, p. 363.

25 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 14, p. 165.

26 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 41, p. 136.

27 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 9, p. 134.

28 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 41, pp. 69-70. For an analysis of the history of the discovery of this law, see G. P. Frantsov. Istoricheskie puti sotsial'noi mysli [Historical Paths of Social Thought], Moscow, 1965, pp. 356-370.

29 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 41, p. 69.

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depending on the current situation. In the presence of these typological features of the situation (whatever specific forms they may take), a revolution is possible; in the absence of at least one of these features (since then the situation will also change), a revolution is impossible. In the second case, the consequence (uneven development) depends on the system (capitalism). Under capitalism, and especially in its last stage, countries develop unevenly. As long as the capitalist system exists, the countries that are part of it develop in accordance with this law. In other words, the part of the formulation of the law that defines the scope of its operation, beyond which this dependence disappears, is reduced in the first case to a description of the type of situation, and in the second case-to an indication of the system. This is the difference between the laws of systems and the laws of situations in the nature of the objects they generalize.

To establish the inevitable unevenness of development for a certain group of countries, it is enough to make sure that these countries are capitalist. But to find out whether a victorious revolution is possible in a given country at this stage, it is necessary to check whether the situation that has developed in it belongs to the type of revolutionary situations. To do this, it is necessary to conduct a concrete historical study of the relationship between classes. This is the case with the methodology of using two types of laws - laws of systems and laws of situations. Therefore, the laws of historical situations are concrete historical laws.

The law of uneven development of capitalism, the law of relative and absolute impoverishment of the working class, the law of changing socio-economic formations, the law of the inevitability of the dictatorship of the proletariat as a state in transition, and other general laws (laws of systems) are unconditional. The circumstances of the place and time can only affect the form and intensity of their manifestation. Lenin uses the term "unconditional law "to mean the inevitability and necessity of a particular phenomenon under a given system:" Uneven economic and political development is an unconditional law of capitalism. " 30
Unlike laws of this type, the laws of situations are, so to speak, of an eventual nature; they do not establish the inevitability of a given consequence, but its possibility. In other words, the consequence itself has a specific character here: it is expressed in the possibility (or impossibility) of the development of events indicated in the law, a specific course of history. The law of the revolutionary situation does not state, as is well known, that a victorious revolution is inevitable in this type of situation; it can only "win." This also shows the concrete historical nature of the laws of situations: in every historical situation there is an alternative, events can turn out one way or another, depending on a variety of circumstances that are not included in the typological characteristics of the situation. From this follows the enormous role of purposeful activity of people, parties, classes, the activity of a person who is the creator of history, the role of revolutionary energy, courage, and tactical art. But the creative application of both general and specific historical laws ensures the most favorable outcome of historical battles. Thus, the considered type of laws, like all laws of nature and society, expresses the objective, stable repeatability of dependencies, but peculiar dependencies, since the laws of situations more directly reflect historical reality than the laws of systems.

30 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 26, p. 354.

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All the above-mentioned features of the laws of situations are fully manifested in other laws of this type discovered by Lenin, regardless of the scale and significance of the phenomena and dependencies covered by them. The law of the revolutionary situation, that indispensable condition of every revolution, naturally covers the widest range of phenomena, and accordingly its scope is wide. The scope of application of the laws of bourgeois revolutions is more limited. Here is one of these laws: "A bourgeois revolution under the leadership of the bourgeoisie can only be an incomplete revolution... It can be a real revolution only under the leadership of the proletariat and the peasantry."31 . In the above formulation, Lenin speaks of the proletariat, but where we are talking about the period of "classical" bourgeois revolutions, when the proletariat did not yet represent an independent force, he uses a different terminology. In the fate of a nation, Lenin wrote, much depends on "the extent to which hegemony passes at crucial moments in national history not to the bourgeoisie, but to the 'lower classes', to the 'plebeian class' of the eighteenth century, to the proletariat of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. "32 Consequently, since the generalization under consideration applies to bourgeois revolutions in general, it can be formulated as follows: a bourgeois revolution can be completed only under the leadership of the "lower classes" - the urban plebeians, the proletariat, and the peasantry.

First of all, it is necessary to determine whether there is any reason to consider this statement as a law, and not as a generalization of a lower order. First, there is a steadily recurring relationship between the completeness of the bourgeois revolution and the leadership of the "lower classes". Secondly, this dependence is necessary, it is determined by the peculiarities of the bourgeoisie as a class that inevitably comes into conflict not only with feudal reaction, but - at a certain stage of the revolution - also with the "fourth estate", with the urban plebeian class and the proletariat. So here is a law, but a specific law, since it is not a question of the dependence inherent in the bourgeois revolution as a definite system. The general laws of bourgeois revolutions do not depend on situations, they only manifest themselves in different ways depending on them. In the example under consideration, the dependence of the consequence (completeness of the revolution) on the situation that develops during the revolution is established. In other words, this law is based on a typological generalization of situations, not systems. In fact, a bourgeois revolution under the leadership of the" lower classes "is a certain type of situation; its essence lies in the relationship of classes in which the" lower classes " manage to seize the leadership of the revolutionary process. Like the law of the revolutionary situation, the law in question (which might be called the law of the completeness of bourgeois revolutions) speaks only of the possibility of a given consequence in a given situation, and not of the fact that the leadership on the part of the" lower classes " guarantees the completeness of the revolution. It depends on many other circumstances. Lenin writes that the revolution "may be" and not "will inevitably be completed."

Immediately adjacent to this law is another extremely important law, the existence of which was already pointed out by Engels: "In order for the bourgeoisie to get even those fruits of victory that were then fully ripe for harvesting, it was necessary to bring the revolution much further than this goal... It seems that this is in fact one of the laws governing the development of bourgeois society. " 33 By quoting this quotation, Lenin verifies the formula expressed in

31 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 15, p. 228.

32 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 20, p. 283.

33 K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch. Vol. 22, pp. 308-309.

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her hypothesis ("apparently") the experience of the first Russian revolution: "It has also been confirmed that the revolution must be carried much further than its immediate, immediate, and already fully matured bourgeois goals, in order to actually achieve these goals, in order to irrevocably consolidate its minimal bourgeois gains."34 In other words, the gains of the bourgeois revolution can be irrevocably consolidated only in a certain type of situation - when the revolution has gone beyond these goals. The consequence (consolidation of bourgeois gains) depends on the type of situation.

The situation law under consideration, like other laws of this type, is not unconditional. Even if the bourgeois revolution goes beyond its fully matured goals, its gains may be partially lost-due to counter-revolutionary intervention or other reasons not covered by the typical features of the situation. But the possibility of consolidating these gains is only available in this type of situation. It is obvious that the methodology of studying this law does not involve a systematic, but a specific historical analysis. In order to establish the relationship expressed in it, it is not enough to make sure that the events under consideration represent a bourgeois revolution. It is necessary to study exactly how this revolution is developing, what is the correlation of class forces, whether the revolution has gone beyond the minimum bourgeois goals, that is, to conduct a concrete historical study.

The laws of situations deal with historical reality. In the actual course of events, it is extremely difficult to determine to what extent certain typological features of the situation have matured and developed. The "upper classes" cannot manage in the old way, but maybe the degree of their inability will increase tomorrow? The "lower classes" do not want to live in the old way, but even here there are different levels of this"unwillingness". No matter how formalized historical dependencies may be, they are by their very nature not amenable to precise mathematical expression. That is why another property of the laws of situations becomes of considerable importance: their ability to transform, without losing their typical features, into laws that express the relationship between the degree of maturation of a given situation and the possibility of an effect.

In fact, the deeper the crisis of the "upper classes"and the unwillingness of the masses to live in the old way, the more likely a successful revolution is. In one of his definitions, Lenin also builds the formulation itself on this principle :" In the epochs of bourgeois transformations (or rather, bourgeois revolutions), bourgeois democracy in each country is formed in one way or another, takes on one form or another, is brought up in one tradition or another, and recognizes one or another minimum of democracy, depending on the degree to which At crucial moments in national history, hegemony passes not to the bourgeoisie, but to the "lower classes."35 Lenin here speaks of the degree of hegemony ("how far"), its duration, strength, and so on. The laws of systems, such as the law of uneven development, cannot be transformed into laws of the "what... what..." type. Only the laws of situations express such dependencies that can be presented both in the usual, traditional form and in the form that reflects the degree of influence of cause on effect.

Thus, the laws of historical situations are a special type of laws of social development, characterized by the following features:: 1) they are based on a typological generalization of situations, not systems, and the situation is understood as the relationship of classes that developed in a given country during a certain period

34 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 17, p. 47.

35 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 20, p. 283.

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its history; 2) they do not establish the inevitability of the consequence, but its possibility (or impossibility) in a given type of situation; 3) the laws of situations express not only the dependence of the possibility of the consequence on the situation, but also the degree of this possibility due to the maturity of the situation of this type; 4) the use of laws of this type is of a specific historical nature.

This also implies the definition of the laws of situations: the laws of historical situations are concrete historical laws that establish a stable and necessary repeatability of dependencies between the type of situation and the possibility of a certain consequence.

Analysis of the laws of historical situations shows their close proximity to the real course of history. They are derived on the basis of an abstraction of a fundamentally different (lower) level than the laws of systems: the latter are abstracted from specific circumstances in general, and the laws of situations are abstracted only from secondary circumstances that are not covered by typical features. This feature gives grounds to consider the laws of situations as specific laws of historical science, which it is called upon to discover, analyze, and investigate. This is confirmed by other properties of the laws of situations discussed above. However, there are other considerations that lead to the same conclusion.

The historical process as an object of knowledge is extremely complex. It is impossible to know it without first dividing the subject of research into separate sides, parts, and systems; this is how separate social sciences and the laws of these sciences emerged, expressing dependencies within relatively independent systems. The great discovery of Marxism, which for the first time put the study of social phenomena on a scientific basis, was the identification of the leading, defining sphere of social life - the basis. Economic laws, the laws of the basis, are crucial, they are more important than the laws of any other individual system (since they ultimately determine them), but they are still the laws of one system, and not the laws of the historical process as a whole. "The economic situation is the basis," Engels wrote, "but the course of the historical struggle is also influenced and in many cases mainly determined by the form of its various moments of superstructure ..." 36
The division of an object (economic history, history of state and law, history of culture, etc.) necessary for the purpose of cognition is a scientific technique, a method of research that reflects the real aspects of social development, but the object itself - the development of human society - exists only in the unity of all its aspects. Real history is the constant unity and interaction of various aspects of the historical process. "There is an interaction of all these aspects, in which economic movement as a necessary one ultimately makes its way..." 37 . History goes, so to speak, from situation to situation, and the situation itself is the result and concrete manifestation of this interaction.

In general terms, apart from historical concreteness, from the situation, the laws of interaction of various aspects of the development of society are studied by Marxist-Leninist sociology - historical materialism. But both the laws of historical materialism and the laws of individual systems operate at any given moment and manifest themselves in a particular situation.

The laws of situations are therefore of a concrete historical nature, because situations are formed as a result of the coincidence of processes that lead to the creation of a new world.-

36 K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch. Vol. 37, p. 394.

37 Ibid., p. 395.

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They can be found in various aspects of social life, their synchronization, interaction, and interweaving. "The coincidence of this impossibility for the 'upper classes' to conduct state affairs in the old way and this acute unwillingness of the 'lower classes' to put up with such conduct is precisely what is called (somewhat inaccurately, let's say) a political crisis on a national scale. "38 Each of the aspects of social life that form the situation develops according to general sociological laws and the laws of its own system. The mechanism of these laws, therefore, lies precisely in the fact that it, manifesting itself in the actions of people and interacting with other laws, forms the situation. At the same time, they "enter" the situation not in pure form, but in specific forms peculiar to a given country, this stage. This means, for example, that the law of relative and absolute impoverishment of the working class does not enter the situation in its abstract expression, but takes into account the resistance of the working class, the tactics of the bourgeoisie, and other factors that limit the operation of this law or, conversely, give full scope to its manifestation. Laws of historical situations, therefore, are laws of interaction between different sides of the historical process, expressing the mechanism of action of general laws.

In relation to the law of the revolutionary situation, a similar idea was expressed by G. P. Frantsov: "The general sociological law on the conflict between the productive forces and the relations of production must be concretized by the law on the maturation of a national crisis in a given country."39 Although the author of these lines does not speak of the law of the revolutionary situation as a fundamentally different type of law than general sociological laws, the very idea of its greater concreteness, of its proximity to historical reality, is quite obvious. At the same time, one cannot agree that a concrete historical law is the law of the situation, it is a concretization of one general law, no matter how important it may be. It is well known that a revolutionary situation often does not arise where the conflict between the productive forces and the relations of production has reached its greatest acuteness. This is explained by the fact that other laws also apply at the same time: economic (for example, the law of relative and absolute impoverishment of the working class, which leads to a deterioration of the situation of the masses), political, and finally, the laws of social psychology (the position " the lower classes do not want..."expresses a certain level of consciousness and mood of the masses).

No matter which of the above laws of situations is considered from this point of view, it will be found that all sides of the historical process always participate in the formation of the situation, and therefore, directly or indirectly, the laws inherent in them. This is natural, since the essence of the situation is in the relationship of classes, whose positions are always, at any moment in history, in one way or another influenced by all aspects of society - economy, politics, ideology. Based on this, we can develop the definition of the laws of situations proposed above, and in the final version it will take the following form: the laws of historical situations are specific laws of historical science that express the mechanism of operation of general laws and establish the relationship between the type of situations and the possibility of consequences from this situation.

Scientific discussions related to the problem of specific laws of historical science are currently proceeding along several lines: 1) whether the task of historical science is to discover laws; 2) if so, what laws are sociological or specific, specifically historical; 3) if specific, in what way: on the scale of the phenomena covered, or in a qualitatively different type of generalization; 4) finally, if at the same time-

38 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 23, p. 329.

39 G. P. Frantsov. Edict op. p. 364.

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to know that specific historical laws differ qualitatively from sociological ones, then what is the difference? On the last question, it is suggested that the specific laws of historical science reflect the interaction of various aspects of the historical process. They are also fruitful (and taken into account by us when developing the proposed hypothesis) considerations on "historical possibility", on the meaning of the categories "possibility and reality in social development", on the probabilistic interpretation of historical regularity 40, on typological generalizations in the works of V. I. Lenin 41 .

Within the framework of this article, it is not necessary to analyze in detail the state of bourgeois philosophy and methodology of history, especially since it is covered in our literature .42 However, it seems appropriate to point out the approach of bourgeois historians to the issues raised above and their significance for the modern ideological struggle in world historiography. When discussing the methodological topic "The Historian and Social Sciences" at the XIII International Congress of Historical Sciences, it would seem that the question of specific laws of historical science should have occupied a significant place. Leaving aside the inaccuracy of the wording both in the title of the topic and in the texts of reports (history in this terminology seems to be taken out of the concept of "social sciences"), it should be recognized that the topic primarily assumed clarification of the difference in the subject of historical science and other social sciences, and the subject of science finds expression in the nature of a set of laws.

In reality, the peculiar laws of historical science were hardly touched upon in the reports of bourgeois scientists. This is due to the following reasons. Bourgeois historiography still does not completely overcome the idea of history as an ideographic science or even as a form of literary creativity. Historians who hold this point of view, of course, deny the existence of laws of the historical process, and the question of the specifics of the laws of historical science cannot be raised before them. However, the overwhelming majority of bourgeois historians do not belong to this archaic trend. In principle, while acknowledging the existence of patterns of historical development, these historians are fighting Marxism on the question of their character, denying the great discoveries of historical materialism. It is not without the influence of neo-positivist agnosticism that they actually ignore the philosophy of history, which is designed to illuminate the most general laws of human development, when discussing the relationship between history and other social sciences. Without a scientific theory of the historical process, without recognizing general social laws, bourgeois historians, as a rule, cannot scientifically raise the question of the classification of the social sciences and the system of laws inherent in each of them.

But when the question of the possibility of discovering laws is raised, bourgeois scientists are rendered helpless precisely because of their philosophical and methodological inadequacy. An example is the reasoning of the West German historian T. Schieder. In a report submitted to Congress, he writes:: "Any image of historical events... First of all, there is an image of concrete, historical interrelations of actions and influences. WTO-

40 "Historical science and some problems of modernity", Moscow, 1969, p. 362.

41 See M. S. Persov. Generalizations of historical experience in the works of V. I. Lenin (pre-October period). "V. I. Lenin and Historical Science", Moscow, 1968.

42 See, for example, A. I. Danilov. Theoretical and methodological problems of historical science in the bourgeois historiography of Germany. "The Middle Ages". Issue 15; I. S. Kon. Philosophical idealism and the crisis of bourgeois Historical Science. Voprosy Istorii, 1963, No. 9.

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the first step of the subsequent method of study could lead to drawing more general rules based on one or more important relationships of historical actions... However, this is where the real difficulties in the historian's logical argumentation begin. Is it possible to generalize historical conditions, even if they are carefully selected and supported by a comparison of a number of examples?" Responding negatively to this question, Schieder justifies his point of view by saying that the historian can only draw conclusions that are tautological in nature, for example, the formula" Louis XIV died unpopular because he pursued a policy contrary to the national interests of France", the historian can transform into a thesis: "Any ruler who pursues the policy of Louis XIV under exactly the same conditions as the latter loses his popularity." At the same time, Shider concludes, "the conditions for the formulation of the law are no longer met, but, on the contrary, the general is deduced on the basis of the particular."43 It is easy to see that, borrowing this example from W. Dreya, Shider, like him, denies the repeatability in history and, therefore, the possibility of deducing the law. Thus, the question of specific laws of historical science is absorbed by the more general and unsolvable problem of the laws of social development as a whole within the framework of an idealistic worldview. This question can be solved only on the basis of the Marxist-Leninist methodology.

There was, however, a significant flaw in the exchange of views that took place in Soviet historiography on the issue under study: the conversation was conducted exclusively in an abstract - logical plan, judgments were expressed that were more or less justified and supported by appropriate quotations, but there was no attempt to refer to the laws of social development themselves, to investigate their signs, structure, and features. The latter seems to us to be the most fruitful way, and it seems that this way can lead to a solution of the problem rather than a continuation of a purely theoretical discussion. It is this path that led the author to propose the above hypothesis. In this article, an attempt is made to analyze one of the types of laws of social development - laws of historical situations and to show that laws of this type are of a concrete historical nature, that they are specific laws of historical science.

Marxist-Leninist historical science has a specific system of its own laws-a system that is open and developing, like all natural and humanitarian sciences. The peculiarity of historical science is not that it does not have its own laws (as some claim), but that these laws themselves are purely specific. Attacks on the scientific nature of historical knowledge do not stop, and the development of a coherent system of laws of historical science contributes to the struggle against idealistic historiography. It seems that this will also affect the further growth of Soviet historical science.

43 T. Shider. The difference between the historical method and the method of social sciences, Moscow, 1970, p. 19.

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