The Historical Process and Its Features

Historical Law and Historical Regularity

First and foremost, it is essential to note the existence of two diametrically opposed views regarding historical laws and historical regularities, which are clearly delineated in the scientific literature. Advocates of the first perspective base their stance on the acknowledgment of the law-like nature of societal development, while proponents of the second perspective outright deny this, claiming that “there are no universal laws in history.”

Clarifying the legitimacy of one view or the other necessitates a precise definition of the concept of “law.” The need for this clarification arises from the fact that some researchers tend to equate the notions of “law” and “regularity,” treating them as synonyms. Such an approach is exemplified by R. M. Andreeva, who considers the concepts of “social regularity” and “social law” as interchangeable. However, the matter is, to put it mildly, not quite so straightforward. The notion of “law” denotes a substantial, stable, and recurrent internal connection between objects and phenomena in all their diverse manifestations. This concept encompasses both specific laws, which express relationships among particular properties of objects or processes within certain forms of movement (for instance, the law of half-life, which applies only within the realm of radioactive substances), as well as general laws that encompass a wide array of objects (such as the laws of conservation of mass, energy, charge, and momentum in physics, or the law of natural selection), as well as universal laws that express dialectical relationships among all existing phenomena, their properties, and tendencies of material change. Each of these is referred to as a law, implying that a significant, stable, and recurrent internal, objective, and necessary connection indeed exists. Yet, it becomes evident that this connection always manifests under specific conditions, characterized by its uniqueness, thereby appearing as regularity. Each law thus emerges as a certain essence, which reveals itself in corresponding regularities. Conversely, any regularity is a concrete manifestation of a specific essence, that is, a law.

In other words, law and regularity represent dialectical opposites that not only mutually exclude one another but also condition and complement each other. Like other pairs of dialectical opposites, law and regularity possess the property of mutual transition and transformation.

The laws of unity and the struggle of opposites, the mutual transition of quantitative and qualitative changes, and the negation of the negation, as universal laws that encompass all realms of being and thought, are specified, firstly, in pairs of categories—individual and universal, phenomenon and essence, form and content, cause and effect, necessity and contingency, possibility and actuality—that capture the universal connections of being, and secondly, in substantial, stable, recurrent, internal, objective connections characteristic of various forms of material movement—physical and chemical—characterizing the inanimate nature, and biological and social forms of material movement, characterizing living nature and society, respectively.

These latter connections, which are inherent to various forms of material movement, while serving as regularities in relation to the universal laws, simultaneously represent general laws of specific forms of material movement and are uniquely manifested in a vast array of regularities.

In light of the aforementioned, we believe it is not possible to agree with authors who deny the existence of specific historical laws. For instance, Y. V. Petrov substantiates this viewpoint by stating: “Historical activity is a specific social activity composed of such concrete types as economic, socio-political, and spiritual. Each of these is governed by both general and specific laws. Thus, there can be no special historical laws, as there is no distinct area upon which they could arise.”

As we can see, the principal argument here is the assertion regarding the absence of a concrete area in which historical laws might originate. Indeed, historical activity is social in nature. However, as noted, not all social activity is historical activity, which represents a specific manifestation of the former—an assertion that Y. V. Petrov does not contest. This circumstance is determined by the phenomenon of historical being, which we understand as the social heritage resulting from the material and spiritual endeavors of previous generations of people, which, when integrated into the lives of subsequent generations, exerts a decisive influence on shaping the essential characteristics of the social organism at a specific stage of its development. Thus, we are referring to a genuinely existing phenomenon whose development, like that of any other, is characterized by the operation of both general and specific laws, unique to it.

We cannot help but concur with the opinion of B. G. Mogilnytsky, who, in his previously mentioned work, states: “Being abstractly general by its nature, sociological laws indicate the general direction of the historical process, revealing its necessary and irreversible character, thereby diverting attention from the countless concrete forms associated primarily with the influence of the subjective factor. In contrast, historical laws are concretely general, individualizing-generalizing, and conditional (probabilistic). This means, firstly, that they explain the specific course of the historical process as a product of multifaceted human activity. Secondly, they form certain generalizations that express the essential, recurrent connections of phenomena, yet these phenomena themselves are endowed with concrete-historical determinations and consequently bear the imprint of individuality. Finally, thirdly, historical laws require specific conditions for their realization, ensuring the emergence of a particular historical situation and the preceding sequence of events.”

Consider, for instance, the unity and struggle of opposites as a universal law of nature, society, and thought. One of its concrete manifestations in society is the correspondence of production relations to the level of development of productive forces, which, appearing as a regularity in relation to the aforementioned law, simultaneously constitutes one of the general sociological laws governing the optimal development of any society. The mentioned correspondence of production relations to the level of development of productive forces is not achieved automatically. It is attained through activities directed, firstly, at the development of productive forces and, secondly, at the improvement of production relations. Being substantial, stable, recurrent from generation to generation, internal, objective, and necessary, these types of activities emerge, on one hand, as concrete manifestations of a general sociological law—that is, regularity—while on the other hand, they appear as historical laws, which manifest differently in specific societies at various stages of their development under certain conditions and are recognized as distinct historical regularities.

One such regularity is the interconnection of the past, present, and future, which is inherent to every social organism in development. It is to the examination of this relationship that we now turn.