Russian text edited by F. Kalinychev, LL.D.
PROGRESS PUBLISHERS • MOSCOW [1]Translated from the Russian~
Edited by M. Saifulin~
B. EaHHOB, H. VManCKHH, M. LUatJwp~
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__COPYRIGHT__ First Printing 1968In November 1967 the Soviet Union marked its 5()th anniversary.
Historically speaking, 50 years is not a long period, but glancing back at the road covered by the U.S.S.R. we cannot but marvel at the great achievements of its people in building a new life and the socialist state.
The Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 put power in the hands of the workers and peasants, tore Russia out of the barbarous imperialist war, into which she had been plunged by the then ruling bourgeois and landowner classes, and saved her from a national catastrophe.
It swept away the hated capitalist system, wiped out national oppression and abolished all estate and class privileges.
The young Soviet state proclaimed a policy of peace and started enforcing new principles in relations between peoples and countries.
Russia, which occupies one-sixth of the land area of the globe, became the first country in the world to build socialist society.
``We have the right to be and are proud,'' Lenin wrote in the first years following the October Revolution, ``that to us has fallen the good fortune to begin the building of a Soviet state, and thereby to usher in a new era in world history, the era of the rule of a new class, a class which is oppressed in every capitalist country, but which everywhere is marching forward towards a new life....''^^*^^
_-_-_^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 430.
5The road that lay before the working people was both difficult and unexplored.
The reactionary forces repeatedly attempted to throttle Soviet rule. For this purpose they organised military campaigns, set up an economic blockade, utilised the internal economic dislocation, hatched plots and resorted to sabotage.
Moreover, the building of socialism was tremendously impeded by Russia's age-old economic and cultural backwardness.
The victorious workers and peasants did not yet have practical experience either in administering the state or in building a new society.
There was nobody from whom the Soviet people could learn. Armed with the Marxist-Leninist theory, the Communist Party knew the general road towards socialism. But it neither knew nor could know how to tackle all the problems that it would face on each sector of that road, much less did it have ready-made solutions to these problems. To use Lenin's figurative expression, while the Rus sian bourgeoisie that came to power in February 1917 received ``a well-designed and tested vehicle, a well-prepared road and well-tried appliances'', the proletariat which seized power in October 1917 had ``neither vehicle, no road, absolutely nothing that had been tested beforehand''. It was precisely the Soviet Communist Party that had to blaze the trail to socialism, to build and test the ``appliances'' of the new society in practice.
Lastly, for almost 30 years the Soviet Union was the world's only socialist state and was subjected to vicious attacks by hostile capitalist countries. But the Soviet people surmounted all the difficulties and obstacles that were put up in their way.
They have built socialist society and are confidently advancing towards communism. The Soviet Union and the entire mode of life of its people have changed beyond recognition.
Socialism, the social system whose inevitable emergence was scientifically predicted by Marx and Engels and whose plan of building was elaborated by Lenin, has become a reality in the Soviet Union and some other countries.
6At present there are other countries whose peoples have taken the socialist road of development.
A world socialist system has taken shape and become consolidated. It is a social, economic and political community of free, sovereign peoples advancing towards socialism and communism, united by common interests and objectives and cemented by close links of international socialist solidarity.
Socialism has ensured unpreccdentedly rapid economic and cultural development and a steady rise of the standard of living.
Socialist society was the first in world history to create the economic, social and political prerequisites for genuine democracy for the whole nation.
This springs from the fact that in no other society are all sections of the people welded so closely together. Moreover, all matters of state are resolved in a genuinely democratic way, without one class exercising coercion over another.
This book gives a broad idea of the reality of Soviet socialist democracy.
This subject covers a very wide field. It touches the most diverse aspects of human activity because socialist democracy is intrinsic to Soviet society and is founded on popular rule, the utmost promotion of initiative and self-- administration.
This book does not claim to offer a detailed analysis of the Soviet Union's development. The authors have concentrated only on what is basic and vital and characterises the democratic nature of the Soviet social and political system which has once and for all liberated the people from exploitation, given them broad rights and freedoms, and ensured them a life worthy of human beings and a secure future.
Particular attention has been given to the various forms in which the people administer society and the state, to the organisation and functions of the Soviets and other state organs, to the position of the individual and also to the role and place of the mass organisations in the life of the countrv.
7
__CAPTION__
The State Arms of the U.S.S.R.
[8]
__NUMERIC_LVL1__
CHAPTER I
__ALPHA_LVL1__
SOCIETY OF WORKING PEOPLE
__ALPHA_LVL2__
1. ECONOMIC FOUNDATION OF SOVIET DEMOCRACY
As a form of state system, democracy springs from the economic basis, being always dependent on society's material foundation. It may be taken as axiomatic that in the final count the nature of democracy, its social substance and forms and extent are determined by the appropriate relations of production.
The degree of the people's participation in public affairs and the enforcement of citizens' rights and freedoms as legislatively recorded in the laws of a state, depend first and foremost on the existing mode of production and on what classes own the instruments and means of production.
Hence, in order to obtain a full picture of the nature and features of Soviet socialist democracy we must first analyse the socialist social system and the class structure of Soviet society.
Socialist system of economy. The actual foundation and material guarantee ensuring genuine democracy in the U.S.S.R. are the socialist system of economy and socialist ownership of the instruments and means of production. They ensure Soviet people with freedom from exploitation, economic crises, unemployment and poverty, and guarantee them equal rights to work and to be paid for their work in accordance with their contribution to social production.
The principal purpose of socialist production is systematically to improve the welfare of the nation as a whole. Lenin had specially emphasised the fact that socialist revolution replaces private with public ownership of the means of production, and introduces planned production to ensure the welfare and all-round development of all 9 members of society, because the new society is built in the name of and for the benefit of the people.
The socialist system of economy and socialist ownership of the means of production reign supreme in Soviet economy. Many years passed before this was achieved, for when the working people seized power in October 1917 they inherited a completely wrecked economy in an extremely backward country. Moreover, they had to repel the fierce onslaught of the internal reaction and the international counter-revolution. On account of all this it took the Soviet people almost two decades to build up a socialist economy.
In the period of transition from capitalism to socialism the economy of Soviet Russia was multistructural in character, i.e., it combined features of both socialism and capitalism.
``This transition period,'' Lenin wrote, ``has to be a period of struggle between dying capitalism and nascent communism---or, in other words, between capitalism which has been defeated but not destroyed and communism which has been born but is still very feeble.''^^*^^
The economy of the transition period had three basic socio-economic sectors: socialist, small commodity and capitalist,^^**^^ which were backed by the three corresponding classes, namely, the proletariat, the peasants and the overthrown but still existing bourgeoisie.
The socialist sector promptly occupied the leading place, for it commanded the key branches of production (large industrial enterprises, banks, transport, communications, and the foreign and a considerable portion of the internal trade) that determined economic development in the country as a whole. Moreover, this was ensured by the socialist sector's tremendous advantages over the small commodity and capitalist sectors thanks to elaborate planning.
In the first years after the Revolution, however, the socialist sector was not predominant. Suffice it to say that _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 107.
^^**^^ In addition, there were a patriarchal sector embracing natural peasant households based on personal labour and practically disconnected with the market, and a state-capitalist sector, that is, enterprises leased to foreign firms in the form of concessions.
10 in 1923--24 the socialised sector accounted for only 38.5 per cent of the gross industrial output, and was almost nonexistent in agriculture. In 1924 its share of the national income added up to only 35 per cent.In order to establish a single socialist economy all sectors had to be completely socialised. This meant pushing ahead with socialist industrialisation as rapidly as possible, i.e., giving priority to the heavy industry and thus re-equipping the entire economy, helping the country achieve economic independence and defending the gains of the October Revolution. Moreover, this meant reorganising agriculture along socialist lines by gradually turning petty-peasant ownership into co-operative ownership with the object of replacing the labour of individual peasants with collective labour which excludes exploitation of man by man. Capitalist elements had to be ousted completely from all branches of the economy.
Because of the bitter class struggle and the desperate resistance of the capitalist elements, it was extremely difficult to put an end to the multisectoral structure of the economy. However, towards the mid-thirties the socialist remaking of Soviet economy was, in the main, completed. This gave undivided supremacy to the socialist sector of economy.
In the countryside, too, the economy was socialised with the establishment of collective farms and artisans' and handicraftsmen's co-operatives.
Lenin had stressed that the most important prerequisite for the co-operative plan was to build a large-scale socialist industry capable of supplying agriculture with machines, and that it was of immense importance to correctly combine the personal and public interests of the peasants. His co-operative plan substantiated the need for a gradual transition from simple to more complex forms of agricultural co-operation, and showed that co-operatives were the simplest and most accessible form of cultural and political education of the peasants.
Collectivisation worked a real revolution in the countryside. It transformed the mode of life and labour of millions of peasants along socialist lines and consolidated the alliance between the working class and the peasantry. Large-scale collective-farm production opened up broad 11 prospects for the growth of the productive forces in the rural areas and increased the output of farming and animal husbandry.
The private-capitalist sector disappeared completely with the ousting of the capitalist elements from industry, trade and agriculture. All avenues for the emergence and restoration of capitalist relations of production and exploitation were thus closed. On the other hand, socialist ownership of the implements and means of production obtained a stable basis for reproduction and development. It became the foundation of the new social relations, changed the character of work and ensured the rapid growth of the productive forces.
The principal contradiction between young and developing socialism and defeated but not destroyed capitalism was thus eliminated, and socialist economy, which knows neither crises nor unemployment and brings a prosperous and cultured life to all people, became supreme in the U.S.S.R.
As a result of the dedicated work of the Soviet people, a socialist society, whose formation Lenin had outlined, now exists in the world.
The victory of socialism was legislatively recorded in the 1936 Soviet Constitution. It states that the economic foundation of the U.S.S.R. is the socialist system of economy and the socialist ownership of the instruments and means of production, that have been firmly established as a result of the abolition of the capitalist system of economy, private ownership of the instruments and means of production, and the exploitation of man by man.^^*^^
Upon the completion of socialist reforms in town and country socialism began developing on its own foundation, on the basis of large-scale modern industry and mechanised collective agriculture.
Two forms of socialist property. In socialist society all instruments and means of production are socialised.
In other words, the means of production are collectively owned by the people using them, and this completely rules _-_-_
^^*^^ Soviet law allows individual peasants and handicraftsmen to possess small private property but categorically forbids them to exploit the labour of others. For many years already the share of these households in the country's economy has been negligible, and in 1965 comprised only a few hundredths of one per cent.
12 out the possibility of one section of society turning them into a means of exploiting another.Under socialism there are two forms of social property. It is either state property (belonging to the whole people) or co-operative property (the property of collective farms or co-operative societies). These forms arose from the different attitude of the victorious working class to largescale private capitalist property and to the small property of peasants and handicraftsmen. While expropriating private capitalist properly, which is based on exploitation, the working class permits no coercion whatever with regard to petty goods producers.
The small private property of peasants and handicraftsmen was socialised as soon as they joined the collective farms and co-operatives.
State property is the more advanced and perfect form of socialist property, and is characterised by a higher level of socialisation.
It covers all key branches of economy and therefore occupies a leading place in the country's economy. In the U.S.S.R. nearly 90 per cent of the fixed assets of production are state property.
Initially, state socialist property appeared as a result of the nationalisation of large-scale industry, transport, and the banks, and the confiscation of the landed estates.^^*^^ But what has been confiscated from the bourgeoisie and the landowners comprises an insignificant part of the means of production possessed by the Soviet state.
Everything else was created by the working class and all other Soviet people in the period of socialist construction. In 1958--65 the state-owned means of production in industry have been doubled.
In the Soviet Union state property, that is, property belonging to the whole people, consists of the land, its mineral wealth, waters, forests, the factories and mines, rail, water and air transport facilities, means of communication, large state-organised agricultural establishments _-_-_
^^*^^ The establishment of slate property was initialed by the Soviet Government decrees on the nationalisation of land (November 8, 1917), banks (December 14, 1917), foreign trade (April 22, 1918) and large-scale capitalist industry (July 28, 1918).
13 (slate farms, repair and service stations, etc.), the bulk ol the housing in cities arid industrial localities.Through the appropriate agencies the state manages its enterprises on behalf of the whole people. All the means of production and Ihe output of these enterprises are the property of the people.
Every enterprise is headed by a director appointed by the state who organises its work in accordance with the oneman management system and is fully responsible for its condition and operation.
This does not imply that the workers and office personnel at factories, mines, state farms and building projects take no part in economic affairs. On the contrary, they prominently participate in managing production.
The statute on state enterprises passed in 1965 by the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R. rules that, being a key link in the country's economy, a state enterprise operates under centralised management coupled with its own independent activity and initiative and the vigorous participation of its personnel in all production matters.
A self-supporting enterprise operating in conformity with its plan has to attain the best results with the minimum expenditure of labour, materials and financial resources. Its mass organisations and entire personnel participate in discussing and implementing measures to fulfil the state plan, develop and improve production and working conditions.
In capitalist countries the entire system of managing production is built in such a way as to prevent the workers from participating in the administration of capitalist economy. There the entire development of production is geared to amassing huge profits and enriching industrialists.
Work for the benefit of others and production as a force that is opposed to the worker cannot inspire the working man with creative interest, nor fill his work with a great spiritual content.
In socialist society, where the people possess not only political power but also all public wealth, the working people themselves guide the development of the economy.
Economic life, which in bourgeois countries is the sphere of activity of private capital, becomes a sphere of intense 14 public activity of millions of working people after the socialist revolution is accomplished.
``Under the bourgeois system,'' Lenin wrote, ``business matters were managed by private owners and not by state agencies; but now, business matters are our common concern. These are the politics that interest us most.''^^*^^
Management of socialist economy rests on profoundly democratic principles and on the active participation of the personnel in solving all important matters in the work of industrial enterprises.
It is implemented not only in the interests of the people, but by the people themselves. At the same time, centralised state control is improved simultaneously with the expansion of the forms of the people's participation in the management of production.
Production conferences function at state enterprises, which also organise technical and economic conferences as well as conferences of front-rank workers in order to discuss ways and means of furthering technical progress and the economic growth of the enterprises concerned and to map out measures to eliminate shortcomings.
At every state-run enterprise general meetings of workers and other employees are convened to hear and discuss the reports of the management on draft production plans and on how these plans have been fulfilled. Great importance is attached to collective agreements and to controlling the fulfilment of the commitments made under these agreements, as well as to production problems and to problems connected with the everyday life of members of the staff and with providing them with cultural and other services. The management reports on the fulfilment of the decisions passed at previous general meetings.
In this way one-man management is combined with the active participation of the workers in promoting production.
Now let us examine collective-farm and co-operative property. Collectively-owned property came into being when peasants and artisans voluntarily set up collective farms and other co-operatives in order to work collectively.
_-_-_^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 430.
15Initially this form of property included the peasants' implements of production, which were socialised, i.e., became common property, when the peasants joined the collective farms. Later, however, this property was substantially increased thanks to the collective labour of the peasants, who received tremendous assistance from the socialist state in the form of machines, fertilisers, seeds, credits, and so forth.
All socialised enterprises of the collective farms and cooperatives with their livestock and dead stock, their output and commonly-owned structures comprise the socialist property of these collective farms and co-operatives.
No basic diii'erence exists between state and co-operative property. Both rule out exploitation and presuppose work for the benefit of all people. The socialist principle of remuneration according to the work done operates both at state enterprises and collective farms and their economy is managed according to a plan. Both forms of property open the road to a steady growth of socialist production and rise of the standard of living. Thus both are socialist forms of property.
At the same time, co-operative ownership has some features that distinguish it from state ownership.
To clarify this point let us examine what is meant by a collective farm. In the U.S.S.R. collective farms are large, highly mechanised socialist agricultural enterprises which are voluntary associations of peasants (collective farmers). In 1966 there were 37,100 collective farms in the country with over 15 million households. State enterprises hire their workers and other employees, whereas collective farmers are members of their collective farm. If a collective farmer wishes to move to another collective farm, he has to discontinue his membership at the old farm. All collective farmers work on state-owned land which is turned over to the collective farms free of charge for perpetual use. The right to perpetual use of land is set down in a deed issued to every collective farm. As regards the basic means of production and the output, they are the exclusive property of the collective farm concerned.
The collective farmers jointly own the collective farm to which they belong. The farm itself is managed by the general meeting of its members, and in the interim between 16 these meetings---by a board headed by a chairman elected at the meeting. Collective farms dispose of their produce at their own discretion. Part of this produce is sold to the stale by plan, another part is spent to enlarge the socialised economy and the rest is divided up among the collective farmers according to their work, which is measured by workday units. The collective farms and their members can market their surplus produce if they wish.
By selling their produce the collective farms replace their production outlays and receive cash which is used to purchase farm machinery, build production premises, clubs, schools, and so forth, systematically expand the economy and increase output.
In addition to its basic income from the collective farm, every member has a small plot of land, a subsidiary husbandry on this plot, a house, livestock, poultry and minor agricultural implements.
The collective farm household is a family association of persons based on the principle of labour. Its adult members contribute to the collective-farm socialised economy and in addition to this jointly conduct their small personal husbandry on a plot of land attached to their house. Naturally, the personal properly of the collective farmers cannot grow to the extent where il will hinder Ihe colleclive farmers from participation in social labour. That is why the Collective-Farm Rules slipulate the number of livestock a collective-farm family may possess. Subsidiary husbandries will outlive themselves economically and disappear on their own accord when the colleclive farms are able lo salisfy all the personal requirements of their members.
It has lo be borne in mind that as production associalions of peasants the collective farms arc components of Ihe economic structure of society and, at the same time, mass organisations that unite the peasants socially and politically. Collective farms are the principal media for politically educating the peasants and drawing them into the administration of state affairs. They are a school of communism for the peasantry. Mikhail Kalinin, who came of peasant stock and had a good knowledge of rural life, quite rightly said: ``Collective production is the foundation on which socialism is built up in the countryside. The __PRINTERS_P_17_COMMENT__ 2---3173 17 psychology of the people changes, and their outlook develops to the level of understanding first collective-farm and then state, socialist tasks.''^^*^^
The Soviet Government gives the collective farmers every incentive to increase output rapidly. The collective farms are receiving steadily increasing quantities of machinery, fertilisers and other supplies from state enterprises. More and more electric power is channelled to them from state power stations. The government is financing gigantic irrigation and reclamation projects for the collective farms.
It must be said that co-operative ownership is neither immutable nor eternal. It is gradually drawing close to stale ownership, and eventually these two forms will merge into a single communist ownership.
Furthermore, it is important to note that the transition to a single communist ownership does not mean that all collective farms will be reorganised into state farms. The gradual merging of the two forms of socialist ownership implies the all-round development of both state and collective-farm co-operative ownership. Practice shows that the latter form of ownership has not exhausted all its possibilities for further development.
The economic consolidation of the collective farms is accompanied by increased socialisation of collective-farm property and the greater supply of technical equipment to the collective farms.
Moreover, the distinctions between collective farms and state enterprises will gradually be erased in such fields as the forms of organisation, the level of payment for labour and social insurance for collective farmers. At collective farms rate setting, organisation of labour, payment for work, pensions and other benefits will approach the level of the state farms.
An important step in this respect was the establishment of guaranteed remuneration for labour at the collective farms in conformity with the wage scale operating at state farms.
All this enables the two forms of ownership existing today to draw closer to each other and subsequently to merge.
In socialist society there is personal property alongside socialised ownership of the means of production.
_-_-_^^*^^ M. I. Kalinin, Selected Works, Russ. ed., Vol. 2, 1960, p. 588.
18This property is derived from public, socialist property, for it is acquired by people through participation in social production. Thus, it is obtained through personal labour and can consist solely of items of personal use.
Planned economic development. Socialist economy is an integral organism whose development is guided by a single will. Resting on public ownership of the means of production and on Ihe underslanding of the social laws of economic development, socialist society plans the development of social production. A key objective law of socialist production is that of planned, proportionate economic development. This law is mirrored in state economic plans, whose cardinal objective is to increase the nation's wealth, steadily raise the material and cultural level of the people and strengthen the independence and defence capacity of the U.S.S.R.
In the U.S.S.R. planning is strictly scientific. Carefully assessing all available resources and potentialities and proceeding from the tasks facing the country, the planning agencies---the U.S.S.R. State Planning Committee (GOSPLAN), republican state planning commissions and the planning commissions attached to the executive committees of the local Soviets draw up long-term (five-year) and annual economic plans. GOSPLAN determines the correct proportions of economic growth in the country as a whole and indicates the reserves for rapidly boosting production and the welfare of the population. Millions of people take part in drafting and discussing these plans.
Planned economic development enables the government to manage the economy effectively on a country-wide scale, to establish optimum proportions and rationally site productive forces, and to save material, labour and financial resources.
The new system of planning and economic stimulation which is being realised in the U.S.S.R. is of great importance for its economic development plans. This system reflects the changed conditions of socialist economic management and the increased scale of modern production, qualitative changes in its pattern and the requirements of the revolution in science and technology.
Being consistently socialist by its nature, the new economic reform involves a new attitude to economic __PRINTERS_P_19_COMMENT__ 2* 19 management. Its purpose is to strengthen the role of economic methods of guidance, to improve state planning and extend the economic independence and initiative of the enterprises.
The economic reform also stimulates the activity of the masses, enhances their role in running production and con tributes to the further economic growth of the country.
Centralised planning combined with the participation of the people in managing production and in drafting and discussing economic development plans allows making the most effective use of the advantages of the socialist system of economy.
An economic development plan establishes the quantity and type of products for every industry, states what new enterprises have to be built and names the sites, and determines the number of skilled workers that have to be trained. It sets the targets for the growth of labour productivity and reduction of production costs, and outlines what has to be done in order to achieve a further rise of the living standard and cultural level of the people. It ensures the creation of state reserves of fuel, metals, machines, food, raw materials and money. These reserves are needed to offset breakdowns in the fulfilment of the plan and cover unforeseen expenditures (for instance, in case of natural calamities) and other extraordinary circumstances.
The activity of every enterprise is subordinated to the fulfilment of the state plan targets. Lately the list of planned indexes handed down to enterprises has been substantially cut, thus permitting them to show more initiative. At the same time, new indexes have been introduced in order to speed up production and improve its quality. Previously, for example, there was an index for the volume of gross output, that is, every enterprise had to turn out goods worth a definite sum. This index, however, did not orientate an enterprise towards commodities that were most needed by the national economy and the people nor towards manufacturing high-quality goods. That is why enterprises arc handed down targets defining not the volume of gross output, but the quantity of goods they have to sell. Moreover, the plan defines the type of goods to be produced, the profits and some other indexes. This provides the economic foundation for scientific and technological progress, 20 improving the quality of the output and strictly observing the policy of stringent economy.
On the basis of the state plan every enterprise draws up its own technological production and financial plan, envisaging a definite volume of output, the installation of new plant, modernisation (or renewal) of operating equipment, and an improvement of technological processes, methods of work and the quality of the output.
Collective farms likewise draw up annual and long-term plans determining the size of the crop area and the yield of every crop, the growth of the commonly-owned livestock, the productivity level of this livestock, the outlay of manpower and financial resources, the volume of building, the distribution of incomes and other indexes.
The production and financial plans of the collective farms take the unconditional fulfilment of the collective farms' commitments to the state into consideration and provide for a further expansion of their socialised economies, introduction of modern farming methods, improved labour organisation, higher labour productivity, and raising the standard of living and the cultural level of the collective farmers.
But the drafting of a plan is only the initial stage. No plan can envisage all the potentialities of the socialist system which are disclosed only in the process of work, in the course of the creative activity of the people. The creative labour of all members of society brings to light new reserves and results in the fulfilment and overfulfilment of the plannned targets.
Immense importance is also attached to regularly checking up on the fulfilment of plans and commitments. These checks, in which the public participates, prevent deviations from the plan and ensure precise, systematic and uninterrupted fulfilment of production targets and of the commitments given to the state.
Soviet achievements in fulfilling economic development plans arc widely known. The first of these was Lenin's plan, adopted in 1920, for the electrification of Russia.
The Soviet Union has been carrying out five-year plans since 1928. A little less than 40 years have passed from the time the first of these plans was adopted and the first steps were made to build the economic foundation of socialism. All told, the Soviet Union has fulfilled seven five-year plans.
21Every plan was a triumph of the Soviet people, a heroic stage in the development of Soviet society and a landmark in the building of socialism and communism.
The current (eighth) five-year plan for 1966--70 envisages large-scale economic tasks. In this period the material and technical basis of communism will be considerably enlarged, the economic and defence potential of the U.S.S.R. expanded, and Soviet society will make considerable headway in building communism.
The main economic task of the next five years is to secure a further considerable growth of industry and high stable rates of agricultural development through the utmost utilisation of scientific and technical achievements, enhance the efficiency of all social production, achieve higher labour productivity and thereby substantially raise the standard of living and more fully satisfy the material and cultural requirements of all Soviet people.
The targets of the five-year plan have not been set arbitrarily. They are based on the sum total of experience gained in building the new society, and on a profound scientific analysis of the objective trends and requirements of the social and economic development of Soviet society today.
Soviet successes in planning and promoting economic development prove that Soviet society is still better applying the law of planned, proportionate development in practice.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. CLASS STRUCTURE OF THE U.S.S.R.Society without exploiters. Soviet society provides a striking example of friendly co-operation between workers, peasants and intellectuals, and of the entire nation's sociopolitical and ideological unity.
A new class structure has taken shape in the U.S.S.R. as a result of the economic and social reforms that were carried out in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism.
The exploiter classes, i.e., landowners, capitalists and kulaks, have been abolished. In 1913, the landowners, the urban bourgeoisie and the kulaks with their families comprised 16.3 per cent of the population, but in 1928 the 22 exploiters accounted for only 4.6 per cent and consisted mainly of kulaks, whose economic and political positions began to crumble when the peasants took the path of socialist development.
In some parts of the country the kulaks fiercely resisted collectivisation and organised acts of terrorism against collective-farm activists. The Soviet Government, therefore, had to take decisive measures to crush this resistance.
Mass collectivisation completely eliminated the kulaks as a class. This, of course, does not mean that they were physically exterminated. Collectivisation did away with the social and economic conditions that had permitted them to exploit the peasant poor and farm labourers.
Thus, in the course of the struggle for socialism a great social problem was solved, namely, an end was put to the exploiter classes and to the causes breeding exploitation.
Two friendly classes, the working class and the peasantry, remained in the U.S.S.R.
These far-reaching changes in the class structure of Soviet society were legislatively embodied in the 1936 Soviet Constitution, which declares (Article 1) that the U.S.S.R. is a socialist state of workers and peasants.
In the period of socialist construction these classes, too, underwent substantial changes.
In the U.S.S.R. the working class can no longer be called a proletariat in the content given to it in capitalist countries, where it is denied the instruments and means of production and bears the yoke of capitalist exploitation.
With the abolition of private capitalist ownership and exploitation, the Soviet working class became a totally new class, in fact, the first of its kind in history.
The peasants have likewise changed radically. They were freed from exploitation by landowners and kulaks, and individual labour was replaced by collective work at modern mechanised collective farms. Thanks to a community of features, the two forms of socialist ownership have brought the working class and the collective-farm peasantry closer together, consolidated their alliance and made their friendship indestructible.
A new, people's intelligentsia, utterly loyal to socialism, has emerged.
Present-day Soviet society consists exclusively of work--
__PARAGRAPH_PAUSE__
23
THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE POPULATION BEFORE AND
AFTER THE OCTOBER REVOLUTION
(per cent)
TSARIST RUSSIA-1913
U.S.S.R.-1939
(ejicjud.ing Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia)
49,7
46 9
Individual peasants and handicraftsmen
Other sections of the population
[24]
__PARAGRAPH_CONT__
ing people engaged in various branches of economy and
culture. There is, therefore, every reason for saying that
the U.S.S.K. is a country which is ruled by the working
people.
The U.S.S.K. has completely, abolished the age old class hierarchy, i.e., the system under which one class dominated other classes.
All classes and social strata are equal in their relationship to the means of production, which no one can appropriate for the purpose of exploiting other people.
Likewise, there are no social or political privileges or restrictions for any section of the population.
Socialist society ensures the immutability of the principles of social equality and justice in all spheres of life.
In any bourgeois country it is enough for a person to be born into a banker's or an industrialist's family to occupy a high place in society without any effort on his part. On the other hand, with a few exceptions, it is almost impossible for a worker's or a small farmer's son to climb out of poverty.
Under socialism, a person's place in life is determined by his personal abilities, knowledge, industriousncss and education, and not by his social origin or standing.
Respect and fame, likewise, are not the monopoly of individual classes, for in the Soviet Union a person rises to fame only as a result of his work, his social origin or property status playing no role at all.
Soviet workers, peasants and intellectuals have the same vital interests and this is the foundation of their indestructible social, political and ideological unity.
Inasmuch as all classes and sections of the population in the U.S.S.R. consist of working people and are connected with socialist ownership of one and the same type, the relations between them arc completely free of antagonisms. Their interests coincide on all key issues. Socialist society has none of the class contrasts or antagonistic contradictions arising from the interests of exploiting and exploited classes and from the struggle between them.
The workers, peasants and intellectuals are equally interested in economic growth, consolidating the socialist system and promoting democracy and culture.
In this way, under socialism, the eternal struggle of the classes has given way to their solidarity and unity.
25The social, political and ideological unity of the whole Soviet people is one of the greatest gains of the Soviet Union.
This unity is a qualitatively new state of society in which not individuals but the whole people have set themselves a definite aim and are working to achieve it.
This aim is the building of communism.
The above, however, does not imply that all social and class distinctions have disappeared in the Soviet Union.
In order to make away with classes completely, Lenin said, it is imperative to abolish not only ``all private ownership of the means of production, it is necessary to abolish the distinctions between town and country, as well as the distinctions between manual workers and brain workers''.^^*^^
Classes---workers and collective-farm peasants---will continue to exist in the U.S.S.R. in the period of communist construction as well. These are friendly classes united by a single socialist system of economy and enjoying equal rights.
The distinctions between them are due to the existence of two forms of socialist ownership of the means of production and are manifested in the different organisation and remuneration of the labour of workers and peasants, in the different distribution and realisation of their production and in the different management of state enterprises and collective farms.
In the course of communist construction all distinctions between the working class and the peasantry, and between these two classes and the intelligentsia are being steadily erased. This is actively furthered by the policy of the socialist state.
The Soviet working class. In socialist society the leading role is played by the working class. The Soviet worker has inherited the finest qualities of the revolutionary proletariat. Profoundly devoted to the ideals of the Party, he is a politically-conscious fighter for the people's cause and the creator of the traditions in labour and life which bring us closer to communism. The workers building communism today are worthy successors of the proletarians who fought at the barricades in the Krasnaya Presnya District in _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 421.
26 Moscow and stormed the Winter Palace in Petrograd, and of the heroes of the first five-year plans from whom the present working class has taken over the baton of revolution. The Soviet working class is a new class in world history. Under capitalism the proletariat is a class of hired workers denied instruments and means of production and has to sell its labour power.In tsarist Russia the proletariat lived in particularly difficult conditions. It was mercilessly exploited and suffered life-long poverty. But as a result of the October Socialist Revolution, the working class together with the whole people became the owner of the instruments and means of production and assumed the leading role in society. This is manifested in all spheres of economic, political and cultural activity. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, whose nucleus consists of workers, is the spokesman of the working class. The vanguard of the whole people, the C.P.S.U. unites in its ranks the foremost section of the working class, the peasants and the intelligentsia. But the Party's policy and ideology continue to express the stand of the working class which is the principal force in the building of a new world.
The leading role of the working class is determined by the fact that through its labour it is connected with the most advanced form of socialist ownership, i.e., public ownership.
The working class is also the principal exponent of communist ideology. Among workers there are incomparably fewer survivals of proprietory psychology and much stronger traditions of socialist mutual assistance and comradely solidarity. It is not accidental, therefore, that the working class initiates the most advanced movements with the purpose of promoting communist forms of labour, fulfilling plans ahead of schedule and furthering economic and cultural development.
However, the fact that the working class plays the leading role does not give it any privileges or advantages over the rest of the people. This leading role does not rest on exclusive rights acquired at the expense of other classes or social strata. It is based on the high moral and political prestige enjoyed by the working class, which is the most advanced and most highly organised force of Soviet 27 society. The working class will have fulfilled its role as leader of society when communism is built and when class distinctions are completely eradicated.
The Soviet working class is growing and its professional and cultural level is rising rapidly. By I960, the number of workers increased twofold as compared with the pre-war period.
This numerical growth is due to the steady influx of new workers---young men and women just out of school, the manpower released in the countryside as a result of mechanisation in agriculture, as well as housewives, members of collective-farm families working on subsidiary plots of land, and pensioners who are drawn into social production.
Statistics attest also to its unremitting qualitative and numerical growth. The number of industrial workers has increased 2.5 times as compared with the pre-war period. At the same time there has been a considerable rise in the number of building, transport and state-farm workers. More and more people are being drawn primarily into the engineering, mctalworking, iron and steel, and chemical and other key industries. The composition of the industrial workers in the U.S.S.R. mirrors an important aspect of Soviet economy, namely, the priority development of the leading heavy industries.
Most of the new workers, particularly young people, have either an eight-year or secondary polytechnical education. This enables them to master mechanised and automated production more rapidly. At present, about 50 per cent of the workers have an incomplete or complete secondary education. This figure is higher in the metallurgical, engineering, chemical, printing and publishing and many other industries. This is a great achievement, for it will be recalled that some 42 years ago, in 1926, only 1.5 per cent of the manual workers in industry had a secondary or incomplete secondary education.
There are industrial enterprises which arc virtually technical colleges that have become centres training engineers from among the workers. At these enterprises theoretical instruction alternates with practical training: while part of the students attend theoretical studies, others are engaged in practical work. A week later they switch 28 roles and this process continues until the study course is completed.
The Likhachev Auto Works in Moscow became a factorycollege in 1960 with two departments (automobile and mechanical-technological) having 10 chairs and a staff of more than 60 instructors. Future engineers are transferred three or four times from shop to shop during the 6-year course, depending on the subject they arc studying at the time.
When Vyacheslav Vclovin came lo the Likhachev Works he was given the opportunity to study and became first a foundryman and then a moulder-experimenter. After that he was promoted to foreman, and in 1966 he became a fullfledged research engineer.
The technical college at the Auto Works has more than 2,100 students. All of them receive 50 per cent of their monthly wages and 50 per cent of a scholarship grant, which is 15 per cent higher than the grants received by students at conventional institutions of higher learning.
S. I. Vorotnikov, leader of a composite team of miners in Lugansk, spoke of the rising cultural and technical level of the Soviet working class at the 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U. He said:
``The life of the working man has become interesting and purposeful. More than ever before people have become eager to improve their knowledge and cultural level. In my team the average age is 36 and almost all of us are studying. Three of my comrades and I, for example, are second-course students at the evening department of a mining and metallurgical institute, ten others are studying at a mining technical school, and 45 at a school for young workers. Besides giving them a broader mental outlook and enabling them lo provide technically sound solutions to many production problems, this completely changes their way of life, gives them a greater sense of responsibility and makes them more exacting towards themselves.''
A characteristic feature of the Soviet working class is the constant growth of skilled workers and the gradual disappearance of unskilled and unmcchanised labour. By 1959, as compared with 1926, the number of instrument makers, moulders and mechanics increased 21--23 limes, while the total number of metalworkers 29 increased 9 times. In this period the number of lathe and automatic line operators and electricians rose almost 65 times. At the same time, many trades connected with unskilled labour have disappeared altogether. For instance, excavating machines have completely replaced navvies who had previously dug canals, foundation pits for buildings, and so forth.
Significant changes have also taken place in the territorial distribution of the working class. The Leninist nationalities policy has stimulated the rapid economic development of the backward non-Russian regions, which have built new factories, electric power stations, roads and railways, and new industries and are industrially exploiting their mineral wealth. All this, naturally, promoted the formation of the working class in these areas. By 1959, the total number of workers in the U.S.S.R. increased 81 per cent as compared with 1940, while in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Moldavia the corresponding increases were 200 per cent, 100 per cent and over 200 per cent respectively.
As a result, all the nationalities of the U.S.S.R. are broadly represented in the working class.
The changes in the numerical and professional composition of the working class, in its educational and cultural training as well as in its territorial distribution are greatly helping it to fulfil its role as the leading class of society and the decisive force in the building of communism.
Soviet peasantry. In pre-Revolution Russia the word village was a synonym of stagnation, ignorance and poverty. Russian literature vividly portrayed the bitter and hopeless lot of the peasants in the long years of tsarist autocracy and the rule of the landowners and capitalists. Being a class of small producers loosely connected with one another, the peasants dragged out a miserable existence on their tiny plots of land. Rural life bred extreme cultural backwardness.
Under Soviet rule, as a result of collectivisation and the cultural revolution, the countryside has changed beyond recognition and the peasants have become a totally new class, qualitatively differing from the pre-revolutionary peasantry.
For the first time in world practice the peasants in the U.S.S.R. broke with private property and bound up their 30 labour with public socialist property, with the collectivefarm system. The bulk of the peasants are farmers working collectively and employing large numbers of machines. Together with the working class and the working intelligentsia they are vigorously building communism.
In the Soviet Union the words ``collective farmer" are pronounced with deep respect. Solidly united with the working class, the collective farmers are a considerable political force in Soviet society.
Thanks to the advantages of the collective-farm system, the peasants' way of life has completely changed.
The traditional Russian thatched hut is now a thing of the past. Comfortable houses with modern conveniences, including electricity and running water, are built in all villages. Most families own radio receivers and TV sets. For collective farms architects have designed standard villages with large social centres, secondary schools, shops, cafes, and the like. Illiteracy has been wiped out in the countryside and the peasants' cultural level has risen tremendously.
In pre-Revolution Russia only three persons per 1,000 of the rural population had an education above the elementary school level. In 1965, the corresponding figure was 300. At present 31 per cent of the collective farmers have a secondary education. Previously there was one teacher in a rural district consisting of several villages. In the countryside today there are 400,000 specialists, including agronomists, veterinary surgeons, zootechnicians, engineers, bookkeepers, teachers and doctors.
Books and newspapers have become part and parcel of the life of the peasants, and the development of the TV system has brought Moscow with its theatres, picture galleries and other cultural facilities to many remote farming areas.
There is yet another factor of no small importance. Before collectivisation smiths were the only representatives of industrial labour in the countryside, and even they were artisans. The peasant had to perform all jobs himself. Now, every collective farm has dozens of its own specialists, and the important thing is that many of them have industrial trades.
31Many collective farmers have become tractor drivers and combine operators, mechanics, drivers and electricians and have mastered numerous industrial trades.
Sociological investigations conducted in a Stavropol Region collective farm disclosed that it had specialists in 60 fields. Moreover, of its 202 machine operators, 117 were experts in two or three allied trades, and 35 had four and even five trades.
The collective-farm system led to a rapid rise of the peasants' cultural level and considerably broadened their mental outlook. It drew them into active public life and gave them an incentive to work efficiently for the benefit of their own collective farm and the country as a whole.
Collectivisation helped the individual peasant to overcome his egoism and seclusiveness. These were the features that the literature of the past often described as being intrinsic in peasants.
The advantages of the collective-farm system may be illustrated on the example of the work and standard of living of the members of the Novy Shlyakh Collective Farm, Chernigov Region. Before the Revolution the peasants of a village aptly named Peski (Sands) situated in a wooded district lived in dire poverty. The sandy podzol soil, cultivated with primitive implements, yielded not more than three or four hundred kilograms of grain and 5 tons of potatoes per hectare.
After setting up a collective farm, the peasants of that village received farm machines and fertilisers which permitted them to go over to advanced farming methods. Today they can boast of rich harvests. In 1965, the per hectare yield at the collective farm was 2.87 tons of grain, 22.8 tons of potatoes and 0.6 tons of flax. The monthly income of the members averages 70 rubles, while the earnings of livestock-breeders average 140--150 rubles a month.
The collective farmers are well oil' and their cultural level has risen immeasurably. Before the Revolution the only literate person here was the village priest. Today it would be hard to find an illiterate person in the village, while 30 people have a higher education. The village itself has changed: 80 per cent of the farm members live in new houses and there are a palace of culture seating 500 and a museum of local lore.
32This village is by no means an exception. The Now Shlyakh Collective Farm is one of many prosperous collective farms in Chernigov Region. In other regions there arc many bigger and richer collective farms.
As we have already mentioned, industrial development in the U.S.S.R. leads to a rapid growth of the working class. In agriculture, however, the opposite is taking place. Although gross agricultural output is rising, the number of agricultural workers (particularly collective farmers) among the gainfully employed population of the country is diminishing.
The Soviet peasants master the latest machinery, raise labour productivity and improve their living and cultural standards. This is due primarily to the large-scale use of machines in agriculture and the employment of improved methods of work. Mechanisation makes it possible substantially to reduce the number of people engaged in farming, whose services are required in other branches of the economy.
People who are released from work in agriculture quickly find employment in industrial enterprises, building projects, and so forth. The working peasantry is a true and tested ally of the working class. With the completion of socialist construction this alliance, in which the leading role is played by the working class, has become still stronger. It has developed into a lasting friendship, for the relationship between these classes is founded on socialist production. The alliance of the working class and collective-farm peasantry, forged in their joint effort in the building of a new life, is a mighty force stimulating social progress.
The further development of Soviet society presupposes the all-round consolidation of this alliance which is of decisive political, social and economic importance for Unbuilding of communism in the U.S.S.R.
Soviet intellifjenlsia. The intelligentsia comprises a large section of socialist society.
It is neither part of the working class nor of the peasantry. Nor is it a special class, for it does not occupy an independent position in social production.
The Soviet intelligentsia is not a closed social stratum. It is a genuinely people's intelligentsia, flesh of the flesh of the workers and peasants. It serves the people and thus __PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3---3173 33 not only raises the cultural standard of society as a whole but also spiritually enriches the work of the intellectuals themselves.
As soon as Soviet rule was established, a new intelligentsia began to be moulded by re-educating the old intellectuals and training new ones from among workers and peasants.
In 1926, when socialist industrialisation was starled, the Soviet Union had slightly more than 2,500,000 mental workers. In 1961 their number exceeded 27,000,000, i.e., more than 20 per cent of the gainfully employed population.
In contrast to capitalist countries, where intellectuals are primarily people from the privileged classes, such as the bourgeoisie, landowners, merchants, and so forth, the vast majority of the Soviet intelligentsia are people who have come from workers or collective farmers. Typical in this respect are the replies to the questionnaire circulated among the engineering and technical personnel at the Pervouralsk Tube Factory in 1966. They showed that 44.4 per cent of those questioned had come from workers' families, 25.6 per cent were of peasant stock, 24.3 per cent from families of non-specialist office employees and 5.7 per cent from the families of specialists.
A questionnaire conducted in the spring of 1966 among 100 leading members of the staff at the Urals Shoe Factory disclosed that 49 had come from workers' families, 41 from peasant families and 10 from the families of office employees.
The intelligentsia is growing faster than any other section of Soviet society due to the rapid technical progress and the rising cultural and technical level of the working people. In 1966 alone, the Soviet economy received over a million specialists, of whom 432,900 were university or college graduates and 685,000 had finished special secondary schools.
Today the Soviet Union trains more engineering and technical personnel than any other country in the world.
A huge number of young people are trained for scientific and cultural work, particularly for schools, medical institutions, libraries, children's institutions, and so on.
34Special mention should be made of the growth of scientific personnel. In 1914, tsarist Russia had a little more than 10,000 scientific workers, whereas today there are more than 712,000. Of course, the level of science in the U.S.S.R. cannot be measured exclusively by the number of scientists and scientific institutions in the country. It is determined primarily by the achievements of Soviet scientists, which are great indeed. The fact that Soviet science had ushered in a new epoch in the development of world civilisation, inaugurated the exploration of outer space, and vividly demonstrated the economic and technical might of the U.S.S.R., is common knowledge.
The 1966--70 five-year plan provides for a further growth of scientific and cultural personnel, particularly in the previously less developed regions---Siberia, the Soviet Far East, Kazakhstan and the Central Asian republics. Siberia is becoming major scientific centre and the Siberian Division of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences is functioning successfully in Novosibirsk.
The improvement of the territorial distribution of scientific institutions and higher educational establishments has further boosted scientific and technical development in all the Union Republics. Soviet scientists are concentrating on vital scientific problems, accelerating to the maximum scientific and technical progress, speeding up the introduction of scientific achievements into national economy and ensuring high rates of growth of labour productivity.
Communist construction gives the intellectuals wider scope for applying their knowledge and skill in designing new machines, the managing production, education and bringing up young builders of communist society, and promoting of culture, science, literature and art.
Growth of Soviet society's social homogeneity. All classes that had come to power at one time or another had tried to perpetuate their rule. The working class is the only class which does not pursue this goal. After winning power it guides the development of society towards the eradication of all class distinctions.
At a congress of transport workers in 1921, Lenin spoke of a poster with the words ``The workers and peasants will reign for ever''. The designers of the poster wanted to underline that the rule of workers and peasants was durable __PRINTERS_P_35_COMMENT__ 3* 35 and stable. But evidently they did not slop to think whether there would always be the classes of workers and peasants. Lenin explained that communism is a society which will have no classes or class distinctions and, consequently, it will have no working class.
Of course, the erasure of class and social distinctions is a gradual and long process though an inevitable one. Characteristic of Soviet society in present-day conditions is its growing social homogeneity. Indeed, in contrast to the capitalist countries, where the rift between the ruling circles and the rest of the people is deepening, the distinctions between the Soviet working class, the collective-farm peasantry and the intelligentsia are gradually being obliterated. In the U.S.S.R. the obliteration of class and social distinctions is proceeding along two principal lines. One is connected with the development and the drawing together of collective-farm and state property, with the changing character of agricultural work which is now highly mechanised and with the eradication of the distinctions between the living standard and working conditions of the collective-farm peasantry and industrial workers.
In this connection immense significance is attached to the gradual introduction of guaranteed monthly remuneration for labour at the collective farms and giving collective farmers equal pension rights with factory and office workers. The measures planned for 1966--70 will make it possible lo bring the standard of living of the rural and urban population closer to each other and at the same time to raise the general standard of living Ihroughout the country. The accent in this field is on housing programmes, town planning, the building of cultural establishments, the developmenl of public ulilities and large-scale electrification of the countryside.
Another contributing factor is the gradual obliteration of the distinctions between manual and menial labour. In olher words, as regards the nature of their labour, industrial workers and collective farmers are drawing closer to specialists and office workers. The chief aspect of this process is that industrial workers and collective farmers are rising lo Ihe level of engineers, economists, scientists, cultural workers and other intellectuals.
36Today there are many young workers in the Soviet Union who have fully mastered complex production techniques and, while continuing their studies, have reached the level of qualified engineers and technicians. The further growth of industrial efficiency, the introduction of comprehensive mechanisation and the installation of automatic lines and compulors will increase the number of young workers whose educational level is very close to that of engineers and technicians.
When we speak of the obliteration of social distinctions, we cannot by-pass the fact that in the Soviet Union very many working people are moving from one social stratum to another. It has become commonplace for the children of industrial workers and collective farmers to become scientists or specialists in various fields of knowledge.
To illustrate this point let us compare the social composition of students at institutions of higher learning in the U.S.S.R. and some capitalist countries.
In the U.S.S.R. 58 per cent of the university and college students are children of industrial workers or peasants, while in the U.S.A., the Federal Republic of Germany and France the corresponding figures are f> per cent, 5.1 per cent and 5.2 per cent respectively.
These figures describe the situation so eloquently that no special comment is required. Moreover, they convincingly show that Soviet society neither has nor can have a privileged section. Afler graduating from an institute of higher learning children of industrial workers and peasants occupy leading posts in the state apparatus and in the economy.
It is easy for a Soviet citizen to change his social status, lie may be a rank-and-file worker or peasant today, and, after completing his education, an engineer, agronomist or scientist tomorrow.
Many families provide striking examples of Ihe growing social homogeneity of Soviet society. Quite often a family consists of working people of various social groups, including manual and mental workers.
The closer the workers, peasants, office workers and specialists draw together as regards the standard of living, education, way of life and public activity, the easier and more naturally they move from one social group to another.
37Progress and the drawing together of the material and cultural standards of the working people lead to a further merging of all social groups.
The consolidation of the political and ideological unity and social homogeneity of Soviet society is an essential and law-governed process.
Communism will be a classless society. The social, economic and cultural distinctions between town and country will disappear. Mental and manual labour will merge organically.
The intelligentsia will cease to be a special stratum and the cultural and professional level of the manual workers will rise to that of mental workers. All this will make it possible to put an end to the division of society into classes and secure complete social equality for all citizens.
``Communism,'' the Programme of the C.P.S.U. says, ``is a classless social system with one form of public ownership of the means of production and full social equality of all members of society; under it, the all-round development of people will be accompanied by the growth of the productive forces through continuous progress of science and technology; all the springs of co-operative wealth will flow more abundantly, and the great principle 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' will be implemented.''^^*^^
Communist construction raises the co-operation of the classes and social groups of Soviet society to a new level. Working shoulder to shoulder they create the material basis of communism, improve social relations and consolidate the moral, political and ideological unity of the people.
_-_-_^^*^^ The Road to Communism, p. 509.
[38] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ CHAPTER II __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE NATIONAL STATE SYSTEM AS A FORMSocialist democracy has been most strikingly embodied in the solution of the national question, which is one of the most complex problems of social development.
In the Soviet Union there are more than 130 nations and nationalities, or more than in any other country, and, naturally, it was vital to find the correct solution to the national question.
On the eve of the Great October Socialist Revolution tsarist Russia had a population of a little over 159 million, of whom 43 per cent were Russians.
The peoples of Russia had reached different levels of development. The regions inhabited by non-Russian peoples were virtually colonies or semi-colonies. With the help of the army and the reactionary elements, particularly the feudal and tribal nobility, comprising the upper strata of the backward peoples, tsarism deliberately preserved patriarchal and feudal relations in these regions. For example, the Kirghiz, Kalmyks, Turkmen, the northern nationalities and many other peoples lived in patriarchally ruled clans and had no written language of their own. Forced to live in the steppes, tundra, forests and mountains far away from towns, many of these peoples were ruthlessly oppressed by traders, priests and tsarist officials, and were doomed to hunger, poverty, disease and gradual extinction.
The tsarist government stirred national strife, encouraging certain nations to enslave others. It forcibly Russified 39 the non-Russian peoples and smashed all rudiments of national statehood, crushing everything that was progressive and keeping the people in darkness and ignorance. Tsarist Russia i'ully deserved the name of the ``prison of peoples''.
Led by the Communist Party the working class denounced the tsarist autocracy's home policy of disuniting peoples and allowing one nation to oppress another, and raised the question of emancipating the non-Russian peoples and granting them equal rights.
The Party consistently upheld the well-known Marxist tenet that ``no nation can be free when it oppresses other nations''.^^*^^
On the national question, the demands of the proletariat and other working people were:
(1) the granting to all nations the right to self-- determination and independent state existence;
(2) abolition of all forms of coercion with regard to nationalities;
(3) recognition of the equality and sovereignly of the peoples in deciding their own future;
(4) recognition of the proposition that a stable union of peoples can be achieved only through co-operation and on a voluntary basis;
(5) proclamation of the fact that such a union can be achieved only through the overthrow of capitalist rule.
These demands played a revolutionising role as a factor leading to the establishment of a firm alliance between the workers and peasants of all nationalities for the overthrow of tsarism and capitalism.
On the question of the national states for the peoples of Russia, Leninism holds that every nation has to decide the question of its state existence in conformity with its specific tasks and interests and has the right to self-determination up to and including secession and the formation of an independent state.
This solution fully conformed to the principles of proletarian internationalism and international solidarity of the working people, for, as Lenin said, without freedom of secession there can be no freedom of accession, nor genuine unity between nations.
_-_-_^^*^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2nd Russ. ed., Vol. 18, p. 509.
40Nations can exercise their right to self-determination in one or another way at any lime with due account for Ihe concrete conditions. Every nation itself has to decide its own destiny and choose its own stale system. Absolute freedom in making this choice underlies the principle of respect for the national independence and sovereignty of ever}' nation.
A nation has the right to become autonomous and thereby exercise state power within the framework of a given state and within the limits determined by that state; it has the right to establish its own national state and, preserving certain sovereign rights, enter into federal relations with other nations; finally, it has the right to secede and set up its own national sovereign state.
At the same lime Marxists have always clearly distinguished between the right of nations to self-determination and the advisability of secession at one time or another. The right to secession does not, of course, envisage that a nation must necessarily exercise this right and that secession is always advisable.
Lenin believed that the more democratic a republic is the mightier will be the force attracting other nations to join such a republic voluntarily, and that the more democracy a country enjoys the greater will be the freedom of the nationalities inhabiting il and the less will be Ihe danger of such a country disintegrating.^^*^^ To offset nationalism, which was sowing discord among nations, the proletariat guided by the Communist Party worked for self-determination for all nations in order to fuse the working people of those nations in the struggle against their common class enemy.
The October Revolution uprooted all forms of social and national oppression in Russia. It opened the road for the political and economic development of all nationalities and made the formerly downtrodden peoples genuinely free and equal.
Lenin's nationalities programme began to be implemented as soon as the October Revolution triumphed.
In its first acts---the Appeal to Workers, Soldiers and Peasants, and the Decree on Peace---adopted at the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets on November 7 and 8, 1917, _-_-_
^^*^^ See Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 146; Vol. 24, p. 73.
41 the Soviet Government declared that it was imperative for all the belligerents to conclude peace forthwith without the seizure of foreign land or forcible incorporation of foreign nations, and that it guaranteed ``all the nations inhabiting Russia the genuine right to self-determination''.^^*^^On December 19, 1917, the Council of People's Commissars issued a decree announcing its recognition of the state sovereignty of the Ukraine and on December 25, 1917, the All-Ukraine Congress of Soviets proclaimed the Ukraine a Soviet Socialist Republic. The Congress expressed the will of all workers and peasants in their republic by establishing a close union with Soviet Russia.
The independence of the Finnish Republic, which was part of tsarist Russia, and the free self-determination of Turkish Armenia, were proclaimed soon afterwards.
A week after the October armed uprising and the seizure of power by the Soviets, the first Soviet Government headed by Lenin published its Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, which proclaimed the basic principles of the Soviet nationalities policy, namely, equality and sovereignty of the peoples of Russia; the right of the peoples of Russia to free self-determination, up to and including secession and the formation of independent states; the abolition of all forms of national and national-religious privileges and restrictions; and the free development of the national minorities and ethnic groups inhabiting Russia.
The Third All-Russia Congress of Soviets (January 23--31, 1918) summed up the initial results of the extensive work that had been carried out to form the Soviet state and passed the Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People, which was drawn up by Lenin. This Declaration pointed out that the Soviet Russian Republic was being founded on the basis of a free union of free nations, as a federation of Soviet national republics.
In an inspired speech at the Congress Lenin uttered the following prophetic words: ``I am profoundly convinced that more and more diverse federations of free nations will group themselves around revolutionary Russia. This _-_-_
^^*^^ Decrees of Soviet Government, Russ. eel., Moscow, 1957, Vol. 1, p. 8.
42 federation is invincible and will grow quite freely, without the help of lies or bayonets.''^^*^^But many factors prevented the immediate establishment of a federation of Soviet peoples.
With the victory of the October Revolution, Soviet power fulfilled the primary task of its nationalities policy by emancipating the peoples that had been oppressed by tsarism. Soon afterwards the Soviet republics were attacked by foreign interventionists and their whiteguard henchmen. But in hard-fought battles the Soviet state upheld the gains of the Revolution.
It also required time for the liberated nations, who were establishing independent states, to become convinced by their own experience of the necessity of forming such a political alliance within the framework of a single federal state, the first of its kind in history. Moreover, the working people of the different nationalities had to be educated in a spirit of friendship and fraternity. It was also essential to study and generalise the experience of state construction in all the national republics. That was why Lenin warned that it was impossible immediately to set up a federal state which would rest on a voluntary union and on complete trust of the peoples. Its formation has to be preceded by thorough and all-round preparations conducted with the greatest of patience and care.
As a result, five years, during which the necessary preparations were made, separate the establishment of Soviet rule from the formation of the U.S.S.R.
The world's first Soviet republic was the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Its establishment became a powerful factor stimulating the formation of other Soviet republics. After the R.S.F.S.R. there appeared the Ukrainian and Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republics and then the Soviet socialist republics in the Transcaucasus.
Cooperation among the Soviet socialist republics developed and grew stronger in the first years following the establishment of Soviet rule. During the Civil War and the foreign intervention they were united by the common cause of self-defence and under these circumstances their union took the form of a military alliance. In the period of _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 481.
43 peace that followed the rout of (he interventionists and internal counter-revolutionaries, their primary task hecame to rchahilitate the economy and proceed with peaceful construction. The military alliance was supplemented by an economic alliance. Not only the military forces of the republics, but also their industrial, foreign trade, supply, transport, communications, financial and other bodies became united. This was a new step in the development of the relations between the republics, and it showed that they were drawing closer to each other.The union treaties that were concluded between them provided lor the complete equality of their peoples, the independence and sovereignly of all the republics concerned and the unification of their military and economic activity under the guidance of the higher organs of state power of the R.S.F.S.R. which included representatives from every republic. All the independent socialist republics had their representatives on the All-Russia Central Executive Committee of the R.S.F.S.R. and took part in the All-Russia Congresses of Soviets.
The Russian Federation became the guiding centre rallying and uniting all the equal Soviet socialist republics. This characterised the genuinely socialist nature of the emerging federative relations between the fraternal republics and disclosed the internationalist essence of Soviet rule.
But in the new conditions of the development of the Soviet republics, treaty relations proved to be inadequate. The people themselves took the initiative in raising the question of uniting their republics into a single federal state.
What made the Soviet republics take this step and what did the five-year existence of the Soviet state leach in this respect?
Firstly, that their union was dictated by economic considerations. It would have been impossible to rehabilitate the dislocated economy and ensure the welfare of the people without the formation of a close economic alliance of all the Soviet republics, the pooling of all economic resources, and the consolidation and development of the economic relations that had been established in the past between the different regions of the country.
Secondly, the Soviet republics had to form a close-knit 44 union in order to strengthen their defences against the hostile capitalist world. Singly, no Soviet republic would have been able to safeguard its independence and repel the armed attacks of the imperialist powers.
Thirdly, the very structure and Ihe class nature of the Soviet system also prompted the Soviet republics to unite. It is internationalist in substance and this draws nations together and serves as a foundation for their co-operation and mutual assistance.
Lenin played the leading role in theoretically substantiating the idea of a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, in evolving the principles underlying this union, and also in translating these principles inlo life.
The central idea, which became the cornerstone of the union of Soviet republics, was formulated by Lenin in the following words: ``We want a voluntary union of nations--- a union which precludes any coercion of one nation by another---a union founded on complete confidence, on a clear recognition of brotherly unity, on absolutely voluntary consent.''^^*^^
This idea, taken up by the whole population, was mirrored in the decisions taken in the second half of 1922 in accordance with the free will expressed by the peoples of all these republics.
The Soviet socialist republics, including the R.S.F.S.R., Ihe Ukrainian S.S.R., Ihe Byelorussian S.S.R. and the Transcaucasian Soviet Federation, uniled into a single multinalional Soviet state---the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics---on December 30, 1922, at the First Congress of Soviets of the U.S.S.R., which unanimously endorsed the Declaration and the Union Treaty on the Formation of the U.S.S.R. and elected the Central Executive Committee of the U.S.S.R.
The formation of a single federal stale was an event of world-wide significance. It was a great victory for the nationalilies policy of Ihe Communist Party and a triumph of Lenin's ideas; it enormously facilitated the solulion of problems of economic and cultural development in the individual republics and in the country as a whole. It created the prerequisites for the economic and cultural _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 293.
45 upswing and the all-round growth of the creative abilities of each nation, and ensured the successful building of socialism.The Soviet Union continued to expand as new Soviet republics were established.
In May 1925, the Third Congress of Soviets of the U.S.S.R. legalised the accession of the Uzbek S.S.R. and the Turkmen S.S.R. to the U.S.S.R.
In December 1929, the Tajik Autonomous Republic became a Union Republic. In 1936, five more Union Republics were formed. They were the Georgian, Azerbaijan and Armenian republics, which had comprised the Transcaucasian Federation, and the Kazakh and Kirghiz Autonomous Republics, which became Union Republics.
When the new Constitution was adopted in 1936 the Soviet Union was a fully formed and consolidated multinational socialist state.
The freely expressed will of the peoples of Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia to reunite with the Ukrainian and Byelorussian peoples was a fresh victory of the Soviet nationalities policy. In conformity with the law passed on November 1, 1939, by the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., the Western Ukraine was incorporated in the Soviet Union and reunited with the Ukrainian S.S.R. On November 2, 1939, the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. passed a law admitting Western Byelorussia into the Soviet Union and reuniting it with the Byelorussian S.S.R.
Bessarabia forcibly severed from the Soviet Union in 1918 and Northern Bukovina inhabited by Ukrainians, were likewise reunited with the U.S.S.R. in 1940 as a result of the peaceful settlement of the conflict with the then boyarruled Rumania. Northern Bukovina and areas of Bessarabia, inhabited by Ukrainians, became part of the Ukrainian Republic. The greater part of Bessarabia, which was inhabited by Moldavians, was reunited with the Moldavian Autonomous Republic which was part of the Ukrainian S.S.R. In accordance with the law passed on August 2, 1940, the Moldavian Autonomous Republic became the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic.
In July 1940, the democratically elected Lithuanian and Latvian sejms and the Estonian State Duma expressing the __PARAGRAPH_PAUSE__ 46 CHANGES IN THE COMPOSITION OF THE U.S.S.R. Karelo-Finnish S.S.R.*' Estonian S.S.R. Lithuanian S.S.R. Latvian S.S.R. Estonian S.S.R. Lithuanian S.S.R. Latvian S.S.R. Moldavian S.S.R. Moldavian S.S.R. Kirghiz S.S.R. Kirghiz S.S.R. Kirghiz S.S.R. Kaiakh S.S.R. Kazakh S.S.R. Kazakh S.S.R. Tajik S.S.R. Tajik S.S.R. Tajik S.S.R. Uzbek S.S.R. Uzbek S.S.R. Uzbek S.S.R. Tajik S.S.R. Turkmen S.S. R. Turkmen S.S.R. Turkmen S.S.R. Uzbek S.S.R. Uzbek S.S.R. Armenian S.S.R. Armenian S.S.R. Armenian S.S.R. Turkmen S.S.R. Turkmen S.S.R. Georgian S.S.R. Georgian S.S.R. Georgian S.S.R. Transcaucasian S.F.S.R. Transcaucasian S.F.S.R. Transcaucasian S.F.S.R Azerbaijan S.S.R. Azerbaijan S.S.R. Azerbaijan S.S.R. Byelorussian S.S.R. Byelorussian S.S.R. Byelorussian S.S.R. Byelorussian S.S.R. Byelorussian S.S.R. Byelorussian S.S.R. Ukrainian S. S. R. R.S. F.S. R. Ukrainian S.S.R. R.S.F.S.R. Ukrainian S.'S.R. R.S.F.S.R. Ukrainian S.S.R. RSFSR Ukrainian S.S.R. R.S.F.S.R. Ukrainian S.S.R. R.S.F.S.R. 1922 1925 1929 1936 1940 1967 * In 1965 in accordance with the wishes of the working people and because of the national composition of the population and the close economic and cultural ties between the Karelo-Finnish S.S.R. and the R.S.F.S.R it was decided that the Karelo-Finnish S.S.R. should be made part of the R.S.F.S.R. thus becoming the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. 47 __PARAGRAPH_CONT__ free will of their peoples proclaimed these countries Soviet republic's and requested Ihe Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.K. to admit them into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
In August 1940, this request was granted and the new Soviet Socialist Republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were admitted into the U.S.S.R.
The growth of the number of Union Republics strikingly showed the viability and attractive force of the great principles underlying the structure of Ihe multinational socialist state.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. THE U.S.S.R.---A FEDERAL STATEThe first multinational socialist slate in the world, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, is a federation of 15 sovereign Soviet republics: namely, the Russian Federation, the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, Kirghizia, Tajikistan, Armenia, Turkmenia and Estonia.
Every Union Republic is a socialist stale, which means that the class structure and the political and economic foundations are identical in all the Union Republics. This is the source of the Soviet Union's inexhaustible strength and stability. The U.S.S.R. is also an integral federal state as regards its social and political structure.
The Leninist principles underlying the unity of the Soviet republics in a federal state were legislatively recorded first in the 1924 and then in the 1936 Constitution of the U.S.S.R.
Article 13 of the 1936 Constitution declares that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a federal stale, formed on the basis of voluntary union of equal Soviet socialist republics.
The Union Republics have entered this union on Ihcir own accord as a result of the free expression of the will of their people, the right to freely secede from Ihe U.S.S.R. being reserved to every Union Republic.
The equality of the Union Republics is manifested in the fact that all sovereign slales possess equal rights in all spheres of state activity. Irrespective of the size of its territory, the size of its population, its economic potential or the nationality of the people that had established it, 48 every Union Republic has equal rights with all the other Union Republics.
Take the Russian Federation and Estonia. They have identical rights in all spheres of life in spite of the fact that the population in the Russian Federation is nearly 100 times larger than in Estonia and territorially it is almost 400 times bigger.
Another manifestation of the equality of the Union Republics is that all of them enjoy equal jurisdiction, have their own republican citizenship and elect an equal number of deputies to the Soviet of Nationalities, one of the two chambers of the Soviet Parliament. All of them retain their sovereign rights and in equal measure limit them in favour of the U.S.S.R.; while exercising equal rights all fulfil the corresponding obligations as members of the Soviet Union.
The genuinely voluntary union of the Soviet republics and the equal rights enjoyed by them are the result of the Communist Party's consistent enforcement of the policy of equality of all peoples, their friendship and mutual respect and the free development of the nationalities inhabiting the Soviet Union.
As a federal state, the Soviet Union is, as represented by its higher organs of state power and state administration, a sovereign state, independent and full-fledged subject of international law.
The sovereignty of the U.S.S.R. embraces the territories of all states in it and extends to all Soviet citizens. The U.S.S.R. has its own Constitution, which expresses the will of the entire nation. The Constitution is adopted and amended by the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., the highest organ of state power in the country. The U.S.S.R. has single all-Union organs of state power and state administration, all-Union legislation, a single economy, a single monetary system, a single system of taxes, a single army and a single Union citizenship.
As a federal state, it determines the extent of its jurisdiction and the fundamentals of the jurisdiction of the Union Republics, defines the competence of state organs and thus guides the functions of all the state organs in the U.S.S.R. towards the fulfilment of its goals.
The Soviet Union's state independence is vividly seen in its foreign policy. Charted by the Communist Party this __PRINTERS_P_49_COMMENT__ 4---3173 49 foreign policy immensely influences international affairs and enjoys unquestionable prestige in progressive democraticquarters of all countries. All the freedom-loving peoples justifiably regard the Soviet Union as the standard-bearer of the most advanced ideas and a mighty citadel in the struggle for democracy and socialism, for world peace and security.
The Soviet Union recognises the equality of all countries, big and small, and their right to self-determination, independent state existence and sovereignty, and consistently upholds this principle in all its international relations.
The sovereignty of the U.S.S.R., its paramountcy and independence within the country and outside it is expressed in its jurisdiction in accordance with Article 14 of the Constitution.
Under the Soviet federal system, jurisdiction is divided between the U.S.S.R. and the Union Republics in such a way as to guarantee the interests of the Soviet Union as a whole and all its components.
Accordingly, the U.S.S.R., as represented by its higher organs of state power and state administration, exercises the rights ensuring the unity of state administration in all key branches of economic, government, cultural, social and political activity, and the establishment of a single legislation founded on socialist democracy and the defence of the Soviet Union against imperialist aggression.
The jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R. is determined by the very nature of the socialist economy and the nature of the socialist relations of production which rest on public ownership of the instruments and means of production. The objective economic laws of socialism make it absolutely essential to plan the economy of the whole country. Socialism is inconceivable without centralised planned management, without strict discipline and subordination of local organs to the decisions handed down by the supreme authority in accordance with the principles of democratic centralism. Lenin said that the building of socialism ``means the building of a centralised economic system, an economic system directed from the centre''.^^*^^ This acquires still greater significance in the period of communist construction.
_-_-_^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 400.
50Centralised management requires the enforcement of a uniform technical policy in the national economy, a uniform policy in economic planning, technical progress, capital investments, prices, finances and remuneration of labour.
All these requirements of the country's economic growth logically determine the need for a definite measure of centralisation of state power.
Specifically, centralised planned leadership means that the general problems of economic development connected with production, distribution, circulation and consumption are handled by the Union government. This ensures a single direction for the whole country, co-ordinates different branches of economy and determines its scope and rates of growth.
These factors predetermined the right of the U.S.S.R. to draw up the country's economic plans; approve the single state budget of the U.S.S.R. and report on its implementation; manage ail-Union banks, industrial, agricultural and trading institutions and enterprises; provide overall direction to industry and building under Union-republican jurisdiction; manage all-Union transport and means of communications; direct the monetary and credit system; contract and grant loans, and so forth.
Centralisation is also predetermined by the need to strengthen the unity of the U.S.S.R. as a state which is a subject of law, safeguard the gains of socialism and constantly enhance the country's defence capacity. Only a strong centralised state can successfully cope with political tasks of this magnitude. Therefore, the jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R., as represented by its higher organs of state power and state administration, also covers representation of the U.S.S.R. in international relations; the conclusion, ratification and denunciation of treaties signed by the U.S.S.R. with other countries; the establishment of general procedure governing relations of the Union Republics with foreign states; questions of war and peace; organisation of the defence of the U.S.S.R.; direction of all the Armed Forces of the U.S.S.R.; the establishment of the leading principles underlying the organisation of military formations in the Union Republics; foreign trade on the basis of state monopoly; and safeguarding state security.
Moreover, the jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R. stems from its __PRINTERS_P_50_COMMENT__ 4* 51 internal unity. Accordingly, it has the right, for example, to control the observance of the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. and to ensure conformity of the constitutions of the Union Republics with the Constitution of the U.S.S.R.; accept new republics into the U.S.S.R. and approve changes of boundaries between the Union Republics, and so forth.
All-Union principles of legislation that correspond to the uniform tasks of socialist democracy and the building of communism operate throughout the territory of the U.S.S.R. This fully conforms to Lenin's dictum that ``the law must he unified'', that it is absolutely imperative to have ``laws uniformly established for the whole Federation....''^^*^^
This is essential and indispensable for the consistent observance of socialist law throughout the territory of the Soviet Union. In view of the fact that the entire system of laws of the U.S.S.R. has to rest on uniform principles permeated by a single idea and subordinated to the tasks of communist construction, the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. places within the province of the U.S.S.R. the definition of the fundamentals of legislation on the judicial system and procedure and the fundamentals of criminal and civil legislation; definition of the basic principles of land tenure and the use of mineral wealth, forests and waters; definition of the basic principles in the spheres of education and public health; definition of the fundamentals of legislation on labour, marriage and the family; legislation on Union citizenship and legislation on the rights of foreigners, and the promulgation of all-Union acts of amnesty.
All these rights show that the jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R. covers matters that concern the U.S.S.R. as a whole and cannot be decided by any single Union Republic.
The priority that the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. gives to all-Union laws over the laws of the individual Union Republics is a direct manifestation of the sovereignty of the U.S.S.R. in domestic affairs. The laws of the U.S.S.R. have the same force in every Union Republic (Article 19 of the Constitution of the U.S.S.R.), but in the event of a discrepancy between a law of a Union Republic and a law of the Union, the Union law prevails (Article 20 of the Constitution of the U.S.S.R.). These constitutional principles _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 364.
52 show that a Union Republic is a component of the U.S.S.R. and that an all-Union law expresses the will of all the peoples inhabiting the Soviet Union.Thus, the jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R. embraces diverse spheres of stale, economic and cultural life. This ensures the interests of the U.S.S.R. and of every Union Republic and creates the conditions for combining centralised administration with socialist democracy and for the sue cessful building of communism.
The sovereignty of the U.S.S.R. is based on its economic and political might and its Armed Forces.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. A UNION REPUBLICOne of the most important features of Soviet federalism is that all the Union Republics are likewise sovereign.
The U.S.S.R. is a multinational state whose policy takes national distinctions and features into consideration and ensures the all-round economic and cultural development of all nations and nationalities in conformity with their inherent features. Hence, alongside the sovereign rights of the U.S.S.R. every Union Republic naturally retains the sovereign rights of an independent national socialist state. As part of the U.S.S.R. it contributes its share to the building of communism.
The constitutions of the Union Republics state that the given republic has united with equal Soviet socialist republics in the U.S.S.R. with the purpose of extending mutual economic, political and military assistance. Accordingly, the Union Republics ensure the sovereignty of the U.S.S.R. in the spheres defined in Article 14 of the Constitution. Outside these spheres, however, they exercise their state authority independently.
In furtherance of their own vital interests, the Union Republics have transferred part of their rights in the sphere of state administration to the U.S.S.R., but at the same time they have acquired rights guaranteeing them a decisive role in important matters connected with the entire state activity of the U.S.S.R. The fact that the Union Republics themselves approve the transfer of certain rights to the U.S.S.R. is yet another manifestation of the sovereignty of these republics.
53The strengthening of socialist centralism and the growing role of all-Union planning presuppose the increasing participation of the Union Republics and an extension of their rights in planning and financing economic development, in matters concerning labour, wages, and the like.
The sovereignty of the U.S.S.R. and that of the Union Republics are inseparable and make up an organic whole.
A Union Republic voluntarily accedes to the U.S.S.R. and has the right unilaterally to renounce its federal ties with the U.S.S.R.
The right freely to secede from the U.S.S.R. is guaranteed by Article 17 of the Constitution of the U.S.S.R.
In accordance with Article 15 of its Constitution, the U.S.S.R. protects the sovereign rights of the Union Republics. Their sovereignty is ensured by the entire economic, political and military might of the Soviet Union.
How the Soviet Union protects the sovereignty of the Union Republics was shown with particular force in the Second World War. It was obvious that singly none of the Soviet republics would have withstood the onslaught of the nazi invaders, but as members of the U.S.S.R. and backed by its economic, political and military might they held their own in the life-and-death struggle against nazi Germany and emerged victors. Today, too, during peaceful construction, the U.S.S.R. protects the sovereignty of the Union Republics just as effectively. As members of the U.S.S.R., they are ensured not only external security but also internal economic progress, freedom and national development.
Article 18 of the Constitution of the U.S.S.R., which states that the territory of a Union Republic may not be altered without its consent, guarantees the sovereignty of a Union Republic over its territory. The Union Republics independently decide all questions of their administrative and territorial structure.
Uniform Union citizenship is established throughout the U.S.S.R. Every citizen of the U.S.S.R. is at the same time a citizen of the Union Republic in which he resides (Article 21 of the Constitution of the U.S.S.R.). The law on Soviet citizenship grants the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of every Union Republic the right to admit a person to citizenship of a given republic and thus to citizenship of the U.S.S.R.
54A Union Republic has the right to enter into direct relations with foreign states and to conclude agreements and exchange diplomatic and consular representatives with them (Article 18a of the Constitution of the U.S.S.R.). In accordance with this right, two Union Republics, the Ukraine and Byelorussia, are members of the United Nations. All other republics participate in U.N. activities through their representatives in the U.S.S.R. delegation, annually appointed to the U.N. General Assembly. But this is not the limit of foreign policy activity of the Union Republics. They broadly implement their right to conclude agreements with foreign states. These agreements embrace such spheres as economic and cultural relations, communications, the International Labour Organisation and UNESCO.
A Union Republic has the right to set up its own military formations (Article 18b of the Constitution of the U.S.S.R.).
A Union Republic enacts legislation within the limits determined by the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. and its own Constitution.
The sovereignty of a Union Republic as a member of the federation is also seen in its equal representation in the higher organs of state power and state administration of the U.S.S.R., namely, in the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. (the citizens of each Union Republic elect 32 deputies to the Soviet of Nationalities), the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. (there are 15 Vice-Presidents of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., that is, as many as there are Union Republics), in the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R., which includes the Chairmen of the Councils of Ministers of the Union Republics by virtue of their office, and in the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R., which includes the Chairmen of the Supreme Courts of the Union Republics by virtue of their office.
An extraordinary session of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. may be convened at any time upon the demand of a Union Republic (Article 46 of the Constitution of the U.S.S.R.). This right is of great importance insofar as it makes it possible for any Union Republic to submit for discussion to the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. any question within its jurisdiction.
55The Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. conducts a nationwide poll (referendum) upon the demand of one of the Union Republics (Article 49e of the Constitution of the U.S.S.R.).
Laws passed by the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. are published in the languages of the Union Republics.
Membership in the U.S.S.R. has enabled the Union Republics jointly and singly not only to put an end to the economic and cultural inequality inherited from the old system, but also to build up modern industries, a working class and an intelligentsia, and to promote their own culture which is national in form and socialist in content.
If we take the 1913 industrial output figure as equal to one, we shall find that in 1966 it reached 67 in the Russian Federation, 44 in the Ukraine, 64 in Byelorussia, 32 in Uzbekistan, 101 in Kazakhstan, 62 in Georgia, 25 in Azerbaijan, 51 in Lithuania, 99 in Moldavia, 18 in Latvia, 117 in Kirghizia, 63 in Tajikistan, 119 in Armenia, 33 in Turkmenia and 25 in Estonia.
The Eastern republics of the Soviet Union were ruled arbitrarily by feudal exploiters, their people were denied political rights and lived in ignorance and there were no industrial or cultural centres to speak of.
Pre-Revolution Uzbekistan, for example, had almost no industry with the exception of several dozen small factories. Even its cotton was processed thousands of kilometres away in Central Russia. Today Uzbekistan has over a hundred industries and more than 1,000 big plants. Its chemical, engineering, iron and steel, non-ferrous metallurgical, building materials and building industries are expanding rapidly and it has a substantial electric power base. Its exports go to 58 countries.
Old Tajikistan had only a few semi-primitive factories. Now the Tajik Republic has hundreds of large modern plants. The total volume of industrial output in the republic has increased almost 50-fold over the 1928 figure, and the per capita output of electricity is 1.5 times greater than in Greece, 11 times more than in Iran and 22.5 times as much as in Pakistan. With the completion of the 2,700,000 kw Nurek Hydropower Station, Tajikistan will be generating several times more electricity than was produced in the whole of tsarist Russia in 1913.
__MISSING__ Fold-out chart, STATE STRUCTURE OF THE U.S.S.R. 56There was virtually no industry in pre-Revolution Turkmenia, whereas today she has oil refineries, chemical, gas, building materials and other modern industries.
The material and technical basis of agriculture in the Central Asian republics has also expanded tremendously. Primitive ploughs and seeders have been replaced with tens of thousands of tractors, cotton-pickers and grain combines, lorries and other farm machines.
In the sphere of cultural development the achievements of the Union Republics are just as striking. The bulk of the population of tsarist Russia was illiterate, particularly in the border areas where only two per cent of the people could read and write. Today all Union Republics have their own universities and other institutions of higher learning training engineers, agronomists, teachers and other specialists.
Since the Revolution about 50 nations and nationalities have evolved written languages. By offering people education in all fields, the Union Republics have accomplished a gigantic leap forward and not only caught up with but in many respects surpassed the capitalist countries. Suffice it to say that the number of students per 1,000 of population in Soviet Kirghizia, whose people had no written language, is larger than in France, Belgium or Italy. As regards the achievements of Soviet Turkmenia in this sphere, she has overtaken not only the countries of the Middle East, but also Britain, France and the Federal Republic of Germany.
All the Union Republics have their own Academies of Sciences, hundreds of scientific and cultural institutions, and a large number of scientific and cultural workers; they have their own theatres and a broadly developed local language press.
Reporting to the 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U., Leonid Brezhnev said: ``In recent years the political equality of the Union Republics and the friendship of the peoples of the U.S.S.R., achieved and steeled in the course of socialist construction, have been strengthened by economic equality. ... This is a vivid demonstration of the vitality of Lenin's nationalities policy which has shown the whole world that socialism opens up before the peoples reliable ways of overcoming economic and other backwardness and 57 of becoming advanced, highly industrial socialist nations.''^^*^^
Further all-round economic development in the Union Republics and the flexible combination of their interests with the interests of the Soviet Union as a whole form the cornerstone of the Soviet nationalities policy and underlie the main targets of the new five-year economic development plan. Under this plan the Russian Federation and Azerbaijan, for example, have to produce a large portion of the Soviet Union's oil, the Central Asian and Transcaucasian republics almost all the cotton, the Russian Federation, the Ukraine and Kazakhstan the bread, and so on. Each republic will develop industries for which it has the best raw material, technical and power resources. By boosting its economy and culture, each republic will make the maximum contribution towards the fulfilment of countrywide tasks.
The new five-year economic development plan envisages a further significant rise of the economy and culture of all the Union Republics. Thus, the Russian Federation, the Ukraine, Latvia and Estonia will increase industrial production by about 50 per cent, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kirghizia and Turkmenia by 60 per cent, Byelorussia, Kazakhstan, Lithuania and Moldavia by 70 per cent and Tajikistan and Armenia by 80 per cent.
The plan also calls for a further improvement in the siting of the productive forces, the comprehensive development and specialisation of the Union Republics and of the economic areas, fuller involvement of the able-bodied population in production, and the correct co-ordination of planning for each territorial division with the branch principle of managing the economy. It is planned to improve economic relations between areas and republics. For this purpose some sections of the trunk railways are to be extended, the Central Siberian Railway is to be completed and new lines are to be built to link Central Asia up with the European part of the Soviet Union. The Central Asia---Centre and Western Siberia---European part of the U.S.S.R. gas pipelines are to be built.
_-_-_^^*^^ 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U., p. 67.
58All these facts mirror the Soviet peoples' community of vital interests which spring from the unity of the economic, political and ideological principles of the Soviet system.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. SOVIET AUTONOMYIn some Union Republics alongside the nation that forms the bulk of the population and from whom the republic concerned derives its name, there are other, less numerous peoples. Each of these peoples has its own specific features, such as way of life, culture and level of economic development.
In consistently implementing the idea of self-- determination, the government has granted these peoples the right to establish their own statehood systems in forms corresponding to their national and historical features. It was this policy that made autonomy vitally necessary in the Soviet Union and determined its purpose and tasks.
Soviet autonomy is called upon to promote and strengthen Soviet statehood in conformity with the national features and the way of life of the peoples concerned, to promote and consolidate their administration (which functions in the native language), their economic organisations and organs of state power, which consist mainly of people well acquainted with the life and psychology of the local population, to stimulate the development of the press, schools, theatres and cultural and educational institutions that function in the native language.
The Communist Party has always attached great significance to the creation of national states for the oppressed peoples of the old Russian empire.
There are two forms of autonomy in the U.S.S.R., namely: state-political and administrative-political. The first is an Autonomous Republic, the second is either an Autonomous Region or a National Area.
An Autonomous Republic is a Soviet socialist state incorporated in a Union Republic.
Each Autonomous Republic has its own Constitution which takes specific features into account and is drawn up in conformity with the constitutions of the U.S.S.R. and of the Union Republic to which it belongs. The Constitution of an Autonomous Republic is adopted by its Supreme Soviet 59 and approved by the Supreme Soviet of the Union Republic concerned. An Autonomous Republic has its own higher organs of state power and state administration, and its territory may not be altered without its consent.
It has its own citizenship. A citizen of an Autonomous Republic is a citizen of the Union Republic concerned and of the U.S.S.R. All citizens of the U.S.S.R. enjoy equal rights on the territory of an Autonomous Republic as do the citizens of the Autonomous Republic concerned. The Supreme Soviet of an Autonomous Republic exercises legislative power within the confines of its territory.
Irrespective of the size of its population every Autonomous Republic has 11 deputies in the Soviet of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.
The population of an Autonomous Republic elects its representatives to the Soviet of the Union of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. and to the Supreme Soviet of a Union Republic on the same footing as all citizens of the U.S.S.R., while in the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of a Union Republic an Autonomous Republic has one representative, who is a Vice-President of the Presidium. An Autonomous Republic thus has all the features of a state.
The jurisdiction of an Autonomous Republic is defined in its Constitution.
Altogether there are 20 Autonomous Republics in the U.S.S.R.
The Russian Federation includes the Rashkirian, Buryat, Daghestan, Kabardinian-Balkar, Kalmyk, Karelian, Komi, Mari, Mordovian, North Ossetian, Tatar, Tuva, Udmurt, Checheno-Ingush, Chuvash and Yakut Autonomous Republics; Georgia includes the Abkhazian and Ajarian Autonomous Republics; Azerbaijan includes the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic; and Uzbekistan includes the Karakalpak Autonomous Republic.
An Autonomous Region has a distinct national composition and its own way of life. It has a certain measure of economic integrity and forms part of a Union Republic or a territory as an autonomous administrative unit.
As a rule, it is named after the nationality which had elected to become autonomous. Irrespective of the size of its population it elects five representatives to the Soviet of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.
60Its organs of state power, slate administration and courts function in the native language.
The boundaries of an Autonomous Region may not be altered by higher organs without its consent.
The legal status of an Autonomous Region is defined by a corresponding statute which takes into account its national features. The Statute of an Autonomous Region is adopted by its Soviet of Working People's Deputies and approved by the Supreme Soviet of the Union Republic to which it belongs.
In the Russian Federation the Autonomous Regions are included in the composition of territories. But this in no way curtails their rights because as part of territories they receive all-round assistance from the administrativeterritorial divisions which are more advanced economically and culturally.
There are eight Autonomous Regions in the U.S.S.R.
The Adygei (Krasnodar Territory), Gorny Altai (Altai Territory), Jewish (Khabarovsk Territory), Karachai-- Cherkess (Stavropol Territory) and Khakass (Krasnoyarsk Territory) Autonomous Regions are in the Russian Federation; the South Ossetian Autonomous Region is in Georgia; the Nagorny Karabakh Autonomous Region is in Azerbaijan; and Gorny Badakhshan Autonomous Region is in Tajikistan.
A National Area is a form of national statehood formed by numerically small, formerly extremely backward nationalities living in the extreme North of the U.S.S.R. This form has the purpose of drawing these nationalities in socialist construction.
In tsarist Russia these were culturally backward and politically oppressed tribes who were split up into separate clans and patriarchal families. They were almost totally illiterate. They had no written language nor schools. There were no hospitals and even the most elementary medical assistance was lacking. As a result, the Northern peoples were gradually dying out.
National Areas were formed on territories inhabited by these peoples. This was further proof of the Soviet Government's concern for every, even the smallest nationality.
In the fraternal family of Soviet peoples the small Northern nationalities passed from the clan system and nomadic way of life to socialism and to advanced socialist culture.
61By their substance and the tasks which they are successfully carrying out, the National Areas fully conform to their historical role as a subject of Soviet autonomy, which is a form of resolving the national question. This is borne out by their state and legal institutions.
A National Area is a state formation within a region or territory and uniting one or several numerically small and historically and culturally kindred peoples. Its organ of state power is the Area Soviet of Working People's Deputies.
The organs of state power, state administration, schools, and public, political and educational institutions function in the language of the indigenous population.
A National Area elects one deputy to the Soviet of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.
There are 10 National Areas in the U.S.S.R. and all of them are in the R.S.F.S.R. They are the Agin Buryat (Chita Region), Komi-Permyak (Perm Region), Koryak ( Kamchatka Region), Chukotka (Magadan Region), Nenets (Archangelsk Region), Taimyr and Evenki (Krasnoyarsk Territory), Ust-Ordyn Buryat (Irkutsk Region), KhantyMansy and Yamalo-Nenets (Tyumen Region) Areas.
The rights and the interests of all nationalities, including small national groups, inhabiting the U.S.S.R. are thus fully ensured.
All the Autonomous Republics expanded their industries at a rapid pace. Thus, between 1913 and 1966 industrial output in Bashkiria rose 352 times, in Udmurtia 313 times, in Tataria 258 times, in the Chuvash Republic 192 times and in the Komi Republic 159 times.
As regards the scale of the changes in other Autonomous Republics, the years that have passed since the establishment of Soviet rule are equal to centuries. For instance, pre-Revolution Karakalpakia did not go beyond the level of feudal development; today the Karakalpak Autonomous Republic is building communism together with all the other peoples of the U.S.S.R. Any one of its modern plants turns out much more produce than was manufactured by all the semi-primitive factories that had functioned on its territory in 1913. In 1963, Karakalpakia's total industrial output was 150 times greater than in 1913. Cotton-growing, the principal branch of agriculture, has made gigantic headway. The economic growth of the republic is accompanied 62 by the growth of local personnel. Before the Revolution the population of Karakalpakia was almost 100 per cent illiterate. In 1964, it had 605 general education schools, six secondary special schools, a teacher's training institute and a branch of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences.
Once a poverty-stricken province of tsarist Russia, Bashkiria has become an important economic area and a major centre of the oil, chemical and engineering industries.
Like the other fraternal peoples, the people of North Ossetia was oppressed by tsarist rule and exploited by landowners and capitalists. Since the Revolution North Ossetia has made great strides in economic and cultural development. Today it has over 100 large modern plants and several branches of modern industry, including engineering, electrical engineering and instrument-making and electronics industries. Its Electrozinc Plant is one of the biggest non-ferrous metallurgical enterprises in the Soviet Union, and it has a number of electronic industries. The Beslan maize processing complex is the largest of its kind in Europe. North Ossetian goods are shipped to all parts of the U.S.S.R. and exported to 27 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The culture of the Ossetian people has come into full bloom since the establishment of Soviet rule. Illiteracy has been completely wiped out here. One in every three persons employed in the economy has either a secondary or a higher education. There are 269 students per 10,000 of population, which is twice as many as there are in the U.S.A., six times more than in Britain and 24 times more than in Iran.
These changes in the material and cultural life of formerly backward and oppressed peoples demonstrate the progressive role played by the Soviet autonomy as a powerful state and legal means of uniting the Soviet peoples.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 5. THE NATIONAL FACTOR IN THE PERIODThe establishment of national statehood in the postRevolution period has helped to bring about fundamental changes in the economic, political and cultural life of the peoples and to eradicate age-old antagonisms and mutual distrust.
63Having built soci