The New Form of Human Civilization from the Perspective of the Marxist View of Civilization

Historical materialism, as the scientific guiding ideology for the study of social history, reveals the practical essence of human society and the objective laws of its emergence and development, and inherently contains an understanding of civilization and its laws of development. Works such as *Excerpts from Lewis Henry Morgan's "Ancient Society"*, *The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State*, and *Anti-Dühring*, with the broad vision of historical materialism, explore the connotation of civilization, its main characteristics, its basic structure, the developmental process of civilizational forms, and the laws of their succession, analyze the historical transience of capitalist civilization, demonstrate the glorious prospects of communist civilization, and provide scientific guiding ideology for the construction of a new form of human civilization.

唯物史观作为研究社会历史的科学指导思想，揭示了人类社会的实践本质和产生、发展的客观规律，内在地包含着对文明及其发展规律的认识。《摩尔根〈古代社会〉一书摘要》《家庭、私有制和国家的起源》《反杜林论》等著作，以历史唯物主义的宽广视野，探讨了文明的内涵、主要特征、基本结构、文明形态的发展过程和更替规律等问题，分析了资本主义文明的历史暂时性，论证了共产主义文明的光辉前景，为人类文明新形态的构建提供了科学的指导思想。

Human Civilization and Its Diversity

人类文明及其多样性

Regarding the concept of civilization, although Marx and Engels did not make a specific and unified definition, they revealed the origin and essence of the concept of civilization from the entire historical development of human society and the intrinsic stipulations of human practice. Civilization is a unique phenomenon of human society, a basic criterion for distinguishing humans from animals, and the development of civilization is essentially linked to the progress of productive forces. The main hallmark of civilization is that humanity uses its practice to understand and transform the world, creating certain material, spiritual, and institutional achievements, and changing its own living conditions. Through practical activities, humanity promotes social development and progress in the continuous process of transforming the world; at the same time, humanity itself is continuously transformed and developed. Civilization is a yardstick for the degree of social progress, and also the content and measure of humanity's own evolution. The creations and achievements of human practice add content and wealth to human civilization and also promote the continuous development of civilization. The various arguments on civilization made by the classical Marxist writers are permeated with a basic spirit, namely, based on the difference between humans and animals, understanding civilization as the result of humanity's active transformation of nature and society, as well as humanity's own enrichment and development in this process.

关于文明的概念，马克思恩格斯虽然没有作出具体统一的规定，却从人类社会的整个历史发展和人的实践的内在规定出发，揭示了文明概念的起源和实质。文明是人类社会的特有现象，是人与动物的基本划分依据，文明发展与生产力进步有本质联系。文明的主要标志是人类利用自己的实践来认识和改造世界，创造某些物质、精神和制度上的成就，并改变自己的生活条件。人类通过实践活动在不断改造世界的过程中推动社会发展和进步，与此同时，人类自身也不断得到改造和发展。文明是社会进步程度的标尺，亦是人类自身进化的内容和尺度，人类实践的创造和成就为人类文明增添了内容和财富，也推动了文明的不断发展。马克思主义经典作家所作的种种文明论证，贯穿着一种基本精神，即基于人与动物的差异，把文明理解为人类对自然和社会的能动改造的结果以及人类在此过程中自身的丰富和发展。

Throughout the long river of history, humanity has created and developed rich and diverse civilizations. Spengler's *The Decline of the West* once enumerated eight major civilizations in human history, Toynbee divided human history into 26 civilizations, and Jaspers proposed the theory of the "Axial Age civilization," affirming the equal status of civilizations such as those of China and India with Western civilization. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "There are more than 200 countries and regions, more than 2,500 ethnic groups, and multiple religions in the world. Different histories and national conditions, different ethnic groups and customs, have nurtured different civilizations, making the world more colorful." The history of human civilization is a history of mutual promotion among diverse civilizations; civilization is colorful and diverse, and it is also equal, open, and developing.

历史长河中，人类创造和发展了丰富多彩的文明。斯宾格勒《西方的没落》一书曾列举人类历史上的八大文明，汤因比把人类历史划分为26种文明，雅思贝尔斯提出“轴心期文明论”，确认了中国与印度等文明与西方文明的平等地位。习近平总书记指出：“世界上有200多个国家和地区、2500多个民族、多种宗教。不同历史和国情，不同民族和习俗，孕育了不同文明，使世界更加丰富多彩。”人类文明史是多元文明相互促进的历史，文明是多彩多样的，也是平等、开放和发展的。

On the whole, human civilization is in continuous development and progress, and within this general trend are contained the differences and diversity of civilizations of different regions or peoples, as well as the interaction and fusion among diverse civilizations. Although the civilizations of various regions and peoples all have special forms of existence, they can all transcend the limits of time and space to be understood and cherished by all humanity and gathered together to constitute the unified civilization of all mankind. From the perspective of combining internal and external, warp and weft, understanding the commonality and particularity of various civilizations, promoting material and cultural openness and information exchange among countries and peoples of the world, seeking the best basis for their fusion, consciously advancing the historical process of civilizational evolution, breaking the prophecy of the "clash of civilizations" with the strong inclusiveness of Chinese civilization; taking the development of all human civilization as the highest interest, promoting social progress and human liberation, consolidating and developing the all-human factors of social civilization, advancing the harmony and consistency of human civilization in the practice of social development, and even achieving a vibrant internal unity of diversity on a worldwide scale—this is a major strategic task that all people of insight and progressive social forces in the world must face and jointly solve.

从总体上讲，人类文明是不断发展进步的，在这个总趋势中包含着不同地域或民族文明的差异性和多样性，以及多样文明间的交往和融合。各个地区、民族的文明虽然都有特殊的存在形态，但都能超越时空限制为全人类所理解和珍惜并汇集起来，构成全人类统一的文明。从内外结合、经纬交织的视角理解各种文明的共同性和特殊性，促进世界各国、各民族物质和文化开放与信息交流，寻求他们之间融合的最佳基点，自觉推进文明演进的历史过程，以中华文明的强大包容性打破“文明冲突论”的预言；以全人类文明发展为最高利益，促进社会进步和人类解放，巩固和发展社会文明的全人类因素，推进人类文明在社会实践发展中的融洽和一致，乃至在全世界范围内达到生机勃勃的多样性内在统一，是全人类一切有识之士和社会进步力量必须面对和共同解决的重大战略任务。

The Historical Evolution of Human Civilization

人类文明的历史演进

Marx and Engels understood civilization from the practical activities by which humanity actively transforms the world, and necessarily understood civilization as a historical category developing in tandem with human society, manifesting as a process of evolution from nothing to something, from poverty to richness, from low to high levels. Broadly speaking, the evolution of civilization can be divided into three stages: the emergence of civilization (i.e., the "age of savagery" and the "age of barbarism"), entry into the age of civilization (i.e., slave society, feudal society, capitalist society), and the stage of highly developed civilization (i.e., communist society).

马克思恩格斯从人类能动地改造世界的实践活动出发来理解文明，必然把文明理解为与人类社会同步发展的历史范畴，并且表现为从无到有、由贫乏到丰富、由低级到高级的发展演进过程。大体说来，文明的演进可分为三个阶段：文明产生（即“蒙昧时代”与“野蛮时代”）、进入文明时代（即奴隶社会、封建社会、资本主义社会）、文明高度发展阶段（即共产主义社会）。

In the stage of the emergence of civilization, humanity had just separated from the animal kingdom, and human labor manifested as the collection of existing natural objects, failing to create anything that did not previously exist in nature. Therefore, Marx agreed with Morgan's opinion and called this period the "age of savagery" and the "age of barbarism." From the perspective of the development of human civilization, the ancient period was the childhood of human civilization. In terms of the level of productive forces, human needs, and ways of life at that time, humans were still natural beings, still reduced to natural subjects. But it was precisely in this period that humanity, in its arduous struggle for survival, had already begun to explore the external mysterious world and to reflect on itself, accumulating experiential knowledge of production and life, and the material and spiritual wealth created laid the foundation of human civilization.

文明产生阶段，人类刚刚从动物界分离出来，人类劳动表现为对现成自然物的收集，未能创造出自然界前所未有的东西。因此，马克思赞成摩尔根的意见，把这一时期称为“蒙昧时代”与“野蛮时代”。从人类文明发展的角度来看，远古时期，是人类文明发展的童年时期，从当时的生产力水平、人的需要、生活方式来看，人还是一种自然生物，仍被贬低为一个自然主体。但正是在这一时期，人类在为自己生存进行的艰苦斗争中，已经开始对于外部神秘世界的探索和对于自身的反思，积累着生产和生活的经验知识，创造的物质和精神财富奠定着人类文明的基础。

Entering the age of civilization, that is, the period from slave society to capitalist society. In slave society, the separation of town and country and the separation of mental and manual labor appeared, which was conducive to the development of production and cultural prosperity, proclaimed humanity's separation from the animal kingdom, and was also the first class-exploitative society in human history. Due to the revolutionary role of the development of productive forces, the once-flourishing slave civilization was eventually declared uncivilized and became a thing of the past, replaced by feudal civilization. In feudal society, iron tools were widely used, farmland cultivation and water conservancy developed, and material civilization and spiritual civilization entered a new period of development. Capitalist civilization began with the Western European literary and artistic movement [1]1 The Western European literary and artistic movement refers to the Renaissance, which began in Italy in the 14th century and spread across Europe, promoting humanist values and the rise of bourgeois culture., whose basic purpose was to reflect the aspirations of the emerging bourgeoisie for economic and political freedom and to confirm the capitalist material civilization and spiritual civilization that had matured within feudal society. On the basis of criticizing the civilization of private ownership, especially capitalist civilization, Marx and Engels looked forward to the dawn of communist civilization.

进入文明时代，即从奴隶社会到资本主义社会的时期。奴隶社会出现城乡分离和脑体分离，有助于生产发展和文化繁荣，宣告了人类同动物界的分离，也是人类历史上第一个阶级剥削的社会。由于生产力发展的革命作用，曾经盛极一时的奴隶制文明终被宣布为不文明而成为过去，封建制文明取而代之。封建社会铁器得到广泛使用，农田耕作和水利事业得到发展，物质文明、精神文明发展进入一个新的时期。资本主义文明从西欧文艺运动开始，其基本宗旨是反映新兴资产阶级经济和政治自由的愿望，确定在封建社会中孕育成熟的资本主义物质文明和精神文明。马克思恩格斯在批判私有制文明特别是资本主义文明的基础上，展望了共产主义文明的曙光。

In the period of highly developed civilization, a new civilization of a higher form was born, namely communist civilization, of which socialist civilization is its primary form. The form of socialist civilization did not emerge abruptly in a ruptured manner, but is the result of humanity's long-term efforts and struggles, including the "age of savagery" and the "age of barbarism"; outstanding figures of all countries and all periods have made immortal creative efforts for its gestation and accumulation. Although the formation of socialist civilization still has a process of continuous perfection, in terms of its nature, it has already completed a qualitative leap in the history of human development, bringing human civilization into a period of full development. Its notable hallmarks are: the establishment of public ownership of the means of production, the elimination of class oppression and exploitation in the political sphere, the realization of conscious control and management of social production in the economic sphere, and the adherence in the ideological sphere to a communist worldview that conforms to the laws of social development, thereby throwing off the domination of alien forces in social relations and realizing humanity's second elevation from the animal kingdom [2]2 "The second elevation from the animal kingdom" refers to Engels's idea in *The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State* that the first elevation was the emergence of humanity through labor, while the second will be the establishment of a communist society that ends class domination and alien social forces..

文明高度发展的时期，诞生了更高形态的全新文明，即共产主义文明，社会主义文明是其初级形态。社会主义文明的形式，不是断裂式的突然发生，而是包含“蒙昧时代”“野蛮时代”在内的人类长期努力奋斗的结果，世界各国、各个时期的杰出人物，都为它的孕育、积聚作出了永垂青史的创造性努力。社会主义文明的形成，虽然还有一个不断完备的过程，但从性质上说，已完成了人类发展史上的质的飞跃，使人类文明进入充分发展的时期。其显著标志是，生产资料公有制的建立，政治领域消灭了阶级压迫和剥削，经济领域实现了对社会生产的自觉控制与管理，思想领域坚持以符合社会发展规律的共产主义世界观为指导，从而在社会关系方面摆脱了异己力量的支配，实现了人从动物界的第二次提升。

The New Form of Human Civilization Created by Socialism with Chinese Characteristics

中国特色社会主义创造的人类文明新形态

Human civilization has been continuously progressing and accelerating its iteration. The civilization of each social formation has made indelible contributions in the history of the development of human civilization; it both historically inherits the essence of previous civilizations and is the starting point for the development of new civilizations, and is absorbed and accommodated by new civilizations, becoming a part of the new civilization. China, as a traditional ancient civilization, has, in the long river of history, developed a new type of civilization through the collision and fusion of Chinese civilization with foreign civilizations and has continued to this day. Today, socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a New Era, opening the exploration of a new stage and new form of human civilization.

人类文明一直在进步和加速迭代，每一社会形态的文明在人类文明发展史上，都有着不可磨灭的贡献，它既历史地继承了以往文明的精华，又是新的文明发展的起点，并且被新的文明所吸取和容纳，成为新的文明的一部分。中国作为传统的文明古国，在漫长的历史长河中，中华文明在与外来文明的碰撞与融合中发展出新型文明并绵延至今。时至今日，中国特色社会主义进入新时代，开启了人类文明新阶段、新形态的探索征程。

The new form of human civilization is a transcendence of the Western capitalist form of civilization. Although the bourgeoisie has correspondingly created new civilizations at each of its stages, as a civilization of an exploiting class society, it has been fraught with contradictions and crises from the very outset. It is achieved at the expense of the interests of the majority, premised on social opposition, conflict, and rupture, as well as on national expansion and hegemonism. The new form of human civilization upholds the guidance of historical materialism and the Marxist view of civilization, defends the fundamental principles of socialist civilization, explores the universal laws of civilizational rejuvenation for developing countries and latecomer nations, breaks the myth of "modernization = Westernization," preserves the direction and nature of socialist civilization construction, and creates a new form of human civilization different from the "Western-centric view of civilization." It represents the type of civilization embodied by the practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics in development, presenting a new pattern of socialist civilization.

人类文明新形态，是对西方资本主义文明形态的超越。资产阶级虽然在自己的每个阶段都相应地创造出新的文明，但作为剥削阶级社会的文明，自始便充满矛盾与危机，它以牺牲多数人利益为代价，以社会的对立、冲突、撕裂，国家的扩张、霸权主义为前提。人类文明新形态，坚持了唯物史观与马克思主义文明观的指导，捍卫了社会主义文明的基本原则，探寻着发展中国家和后发国家文明复兴的普遍规律，打破了“现代化=西方化”的迷思，保持了社会主义文明建设的方向与性质，创造了不同于“西方文明中心论”的人类文明新形态，是发展中的中国特色社会主义实践所代表的文明类型，呈现出社会主义文明新样态。

The new form of human civilization absorbs the beneficial achievements of world civilizations. Modernization, which originated in the developed countries of Europe and America, has greatly promoted the development of productive forces and social progress. Chinese-path modernization, while fully leveraging the superiority of the socialist system, rationally absorbs and utilizes scientific and technological developments that have already been achieved or are about to be achieved worldwide to develop the productive forces, and unifies scientific and technological development with human development and moral progress, enabling human development to transcend the narrow sphere of economic production and move comprehensively toward social life, thereby promoting the development of socialist civilization.

人类文明新形态，吸纳了世界文明的有益成果。发端于欧美发达国家的现代化，极大地促进了生产力的发展和社会进步。中国式现代化，充分发挥社会主义制度优越性的同时，合理吸收和利用世界范围内已经突破和将要突破的科学技术发展社会生产力，并把科学技术发展和人的发展、道德进步统一起来，使人的发展超出于狭隘经济生产的领域，全面地走向社会生活，促进社会主义文明的发展。

(The author is a researcher at the Innovation and Development Center for Ideological and Political Work in Higher Education Institutions of the Ministry of Education (Zhejiang Shuren University) and an associate professor at the School of Marxism, Zhejiang Shuren University)

（作者系教育部高校思想政治工作创新发展中心（浙江树人学院）研究员、浙江树人学院马克思主义学院副教授）

Online editor: Tongxin

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