About the Formative Approach to History

Now in historical science there are two main approaches to the study of history - formational and civilizational. Each of them has its own merits, as well as its shortcomings.

With the onset of perestroika, the formation approach to history, based on Marxist philosophy, began to be replaced in schools by the civilizational approach, despite the fact that the latter has a huge number of shortcomings. Not a few works of different historians have been criticized for the formative approach. This involved the periodization of history, and a revision of the approach to history in general.

Formational approach to history means the recognition of the universal laws of the historical process. For example - the regular change of socio-economic formations, the impact of socio-economic conditions on the culture of people, on their thoughts. "Life determines consciousness."

Formational approach to the study of history was developed by K. Marx and F. Engels. Under the formative approach, states are divided into types, depending on the prevailing social and economic relations and on what class dominates at this stage. So the states are slave, feudal, capitalist, socialist. The latter type of state was only in theory. The peak of progress is communism and public property. The remaining types of states, K. Marx and F. Engels derived from the history. The change of formations occurs through the social revolution. The last thesis is especially criticized. Although this criticism has some grounds, it is difficult to deny that in history, the change of formations, mainly, took place through revolutions.
Of course, the formational approach, like any other, has many shortcomings - it is an excessive absolutization of the laws of the historical process, without taking into account concrete historical conditions, and little attention to the person's personality and its influence on history. But with all this, the formational approach remains the most developed and justified. Therefore, in schools it should be applied exactly, until a more perfect theory is created that takes into account the shortcomings of both the formational and civilizational approaches.