Formation synthesis. Revisiting the old problem

Abstract

The key problem of social development is the unity and diversity of its staged transitions. Marxist literature of the second half of the 20th century tried to solve this issue within the framework of the formation synthesis concept. A concrete embodiment of this concept was implemented in medieval studies within the feudal synthesis concept. However, historical materialism largely gravitated to the abstract universal dialectic plan of historical reality analysis in which the description and explanation of the general in development was accompanied by a diminution of attention to the specific variety of the special in it. The excessive use of abstract-universal theory created a number of significant difficulties in the concrete analysis of the historical process, including difficulties in the analysis of specific transitions to a new formation. It is noteworthy that the variety of social development stages as a whole was described to the detriment of the diversity of individual societies, and vice versa. At the same time, empirical and conceptual generalizations were made in Soviet Marxism, which made it possible to go to the level of a concrete universal dialectic analysis of the historical process. In particular, it became possible to describe the formation transition as a process of the mutual transformation of the production methods of societies at different stages of development, which in turn made it possible to reveal the unity of the staged and synchronous diversity of historical reality.