Lenin refers to Mikhailovsky's reference to Engels' “Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State”, and relation to the work of Morgan, but he does not adequately deal with a rebuttal of Mikhailovsky's argument. He quotes Mikhailovsky.
“... since there was no class struggle in prehistoric times, they introduced an “amendment” to the formula of the materialist conception of history indicating that, in addition to the production of material values, a determining factor is the production of man himself, i.e., procreation, which played a primary role in the primitive era, when the productivity of labour was still very undeveloped.” (p 148)
Lenin does not adequately refute this point. Basic to The Law of Value is, of course, the point made by Marx in his Letter to Kugelmann that, in all societies, it is necessary to produce in order to consume, and thereby to live and reproduce. Historical Materialism and the Law of Value is fundamental to understanding those prehistoric communes, because it is precisely this requirement to produce use values, and to produce them as efficiently as possible, i.e. with the lowest individual value that is the basis of the primitive communism that defines them. But, it is also this, and the consequent development of the division of labour within the commune, and then the development of trade with other communes, which also explains the development of commodity production, and the gradual dissolution of the commune and rise of private property.
Lenin also refers to Mikhailovsky's discussion of Anti-Durhing, in which Engels does set out the way historical materialism can explain the development of other social formations, and does so by also setting it against other subjectivist theories of history. For example, Engels spends considerable time refuting The Force Theory of history, as put forward by Duhring. This theory attempts to explain the rule of certain classes, and imposition of economic relations by reference to the application of force by the ruling class. But, instead of dealing with Engels' rejection of this subjectivist explanation, Mikhailovsky simply skirts around it, describing Anti-Duhring as “only witty attempts made in passing”.
Lenin gives an example of the way Marx, in analysing productive relations, is able to explain the political and juridical systems that develop upon it.
“For instance, when Marx repeatedly shows how civil equality, free contract and similar principles of the law-governed state are based on relations among commodity producers—what is that?” (p 149-50)
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