The class division of society is significant not only from the point of view of social science, but also from a historical standpoint. Social science and history are partly united by the object of study - human society at all stages of its development. And in any era there was inequality among people. And on the basis of this, unequal rights and obligations appear.
The first manifestations of social inequality
A class is a certain social group that has a set of inherited duties and rights. It is formally fixed by custom or law. Classes are formed according to property, religious, military, professional grounds, and within their framework their own way of life and moral standards are formed.
Class division arose in ancient Rome. The entire population was divided into free and dependent. The free, in turn, consisted of Roman (freeborn and freedmen) and non-Roman (Latins and Peregrines) citizens. The dependent class included slaves.
Classic concept. Class division of society in the Middle Ages
In the Middle Ages, the class division of society partly reflects the occupationof people. France of the 14th-15th centuries is a classic example of a class structure. Each estate is the clergy, the nobility and the third estate.
The first two estates constituted a class of feudal lords, who had a large number of special privileges: they did not pay taxes, they had advantages when filling a public position. The third estate, which paid taxes, included all other groups of people. The bourgeoisie, which accumulated strength in the heyday of the division of estates during the Great French Revolution, as a result, destroys the estate system and proclaims the formal equality of citizens. The hierarchy of we alth comes to the fore.
Estates in the Russian state under Ivan the Great
The Russian state is a territorial formation in the late 15th - early 18th centuries, existing in Russia, under the rule of Ivan the Great.
During this period, the following classes were distinguished in the Russian state - taxable and service. The first category of people was subject to a system of not only monetary, but also natural state duties. Only after the abolition of serfdom in 1861 did the tax disappear in our state. Servicemen had to carry out military or administrative service for the benefit of the state. They were divided into servicemen according to the fatherland, instrument and conscription. In the Russian state, the class division of society also reflects its privileged division. The highest class is the aristocracy and the boyars, the lowestprivileged class - nobles and boyar children. Separately stood out the class of archers. The lowest class are serfs.
Estates in the Russian Empire
The second half of the 18th century went down in history by the fact that in the Russian Empire the population began to be divided into as many as 9 estates.
The class division of society reflects the social structure of the Russian population of Russia at that time. It is interesting that it has developed completely organically. So, the class division of society was presented as follows. The class of the nobility was distinguished. It was hereditary or personal. The other strata of the population were the clergy, honorary citizens, merchants, philistines, army inhabitants, Cossacks, and peasants. The latter were divided into free odnodvortsev, chernososhnye, specific dependents, serfs. A group of commoners also stood out.
Introduction of the Table of Ranks
The Table of Ranks is a documented table that reflects a list of correspondences between military, court, civil ranks, ranked by 14 classes.
After the appearance of the Table of Ranks of Peter the Great, non-nobles got a chance to become nobles. For this to happen, it was necessary to obtain a rank from the lower class. But in order to minimize the flow of non-nobles, over time, the entry bar rises and it becomes more difficult to become a noble.
Other Russian estates
The class division of society reflects the type of government. This iswrong statement. The class division of society reflects the type of social stratification.
The peasants were a detailed class division. Among them, there were such categories as state (free, but attached to the land), monastic (depended on the Russian Orthodox Church), landowners (they were the property of noble landowners), specific (lived on specific lands, belonged to the royal family, paid dues and were responsible according to duties), ascribed (in order not to pay a poll tax, they were "assigned" to factories and factories), one-dvortsy (former military men turned into peasants on the borders of Russia), white pashtsy (owned their land, were not anyone's property, but paid taxes).
November 11, 1917 was the day of the issuance of the Decree on the destruction of estates and civil ranks. It was approved by the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and approved by the Council of People's Commissars. Newspaper of the Provisional Worker and Peasant Government and Izvestia published news about the decree. The class division of society in Russia has been eliminated from that moment. The abolition of estates and estate legal instruments (ranks, titles and ranks) formally led to the legal civil equality of the inhabitants of the newly created state.
Modern division of Russian society
The class division of society based on stratification has replaced estates. The division into classes occurs according to the economic criterion based on the level of income, ownershipproperty. The ideal structure is the lowest, middle and highest layer. The middle class must make up at least 50% of the population for a society to be considered economically developed and stable. A large number of middle class people speaks of the high standard of living of the population and care for the population. There is a large stratum of entrepreneurs who make up the economic elite. In the 21st century, the professional stratification of society has changed with the emergence of new professions and jobs. The financial, legal, commercial spheres of activity come to the fore. People in these professions most often currently occupy higher social positions than workers in other areas. The basis of modern society is the middle class, which ensures the stability of development. Russia belongs to the transitional countries in this regard, as the citizens of the middle class make up only about 20% of the total population. In the perspective of the development of democracy and the economy, this number should increase. More and more social elevators are being developed, along which you can move from one class to another, which contributes to the development of our society. For Russia, everything is just beginning, and gradually our country will come to the economic level of reference countries with a developed middle class.
