imperialism, the main obstruction of historical progress,
the basic force oppressing the peoples and a
source of the threat of a nuclear war.
Progress Publishers
Moscow
[4]Translated from the Russian by DAVID FIDLON
This book has been prepared by a group of authors headed by A. N. Yakovlev and including S. I. Beglov, N. B. Bikkenin, K. N. Brutents, V. J. Kelle, A. Z. Okorokov, F. F. Petrenko, A. I. Volkov and V. V. Zagladin.
OCHOBbI nOJlHTHHECKHX 3HAHHH
Ha amAuucKOM xauiKe
__COPYRIGHT__ First printing 1975Fundamentals of Political Science is intended for those who are beginning to study Marxism-Leninism.
Whether we are considering international affairs or the economy, morality or the utilisation of science and the ethos of culture, education or ideology, the past, the present or the future, we inevitably meet with problems of politics.
What, then, is politics?
Lenin said that politics is relations between
classes, it is ``participation in the affairs of
It has become precisely that in socialist society.
But in order consciously to appraise politics, to comprehend the complex interlacing of social phenomena, and to become an active participant in the building of a new life, one must steadily _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 41, p. 382.
8 expand his knowledge of the laws of social development and the principal trends in the world historical process.This book concisely defines the basic scientific concepts of society and the laws of its development and shows what determines the social activity of people.
Nevertheless a mere knowledge of the theoretical foundations of politics is not enough, it is also important to observe politics in action, to see its objectives and results. To show all this the authors use the example of the Soviet state: they trace the historic path covered by the Soviet people since the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917, describe how Lenin's plan of socialist construction in the USSR was carried into effect, and expound the principles of the socio-economic and political structure of Soviet society, a society of developed socialism.
Inasmuch as the Leninist Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) is the tested political leader of the multinational Soviet people guiding their efforts to build communist society, the authors have set themselves the task of showing how the Party directs this enormously complicated work and carries through its policies.
The greater part of the book, therefore, deals with the present and future of the USSR.
Many fresh, creative ideas have been injected into the life of the Soviet people by the 24th CPSU Congress, the decisions adopted at the Plenary Meetings of the CPSU Central Committee, and the theoretical and political documents 9 bearing on the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution, the centenary of V. I. Lenin's birth and the 50th anniversary of the USSR. The Report of the CPSU Central Committee to the 24th Party Congress, the decisions of CC CPSU Plenary Meetings, and General Secretary of the CC CPSU Leonid Brezhnev's report ``The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" provide a profound analysis of the basic features of the present-day development of the Soviet Union, and of key international issues. In the light of this analysis the authors examine the economy of a developed socialist society, the country's socio-political development and ideological and educational work. They devote considerable attention to problems of communist education, the shaping of the ideological and moral image of the individual and the elimination of all negative aspects in human behaviour which are incompatible with the morality and mode of life of Soviet socialist society.
Communist construction in the USSR is inseparable from the development of the world revolutionary process. Special chapters deal with the experience of other socialist countries, the revolutionary struggle of the international working class and the national liberation movement of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America, the CPSU's foreign policy activities and the Programme of Peace advanced by its 24th Congress.
[10] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ CHAPTER I __ALPHA_LVL1__ HUMAN SOCIETY: ITS DEVELOPMENT __ALPHA_LVL2__ BASIC CONCEPTSMan is a social being and therefore cannot exist outside society. What is man and what is human society? What are the relations between them?
In order to exist people must eat and dress, have dwellings, and so forth. They produce their food and clothes and build dwellings with the help of instruments of labour. The production of the instruments of labour and everything else necessary for life is an eternal, natural and essential basis of man's existence.
In the process of production the human individual sets the instruments of labour, machines in motion and with their help acts upon metal, wood, soil and other objects of labour in order to obtain the necessary product. The employment of the instruments of labour to produce the required products is labour, i.e., the purposeful practical activity of a human individual. Not only man but some animals, too, possess the ability to create: birds build nests, beavers build log dams across rivers, and monkeys use sticks 11 and stones for specific purposes. But not a single animal can improve or develop its ``production''. Only the history of man and humanity is characterised by a continuous improvement of the means of labour and ways of producing them.
What distinguishes human labour from the activity of animals is its conscious, purposeful character. Karl Marx wrote that what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is that he raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality, while the bee builds its honeycombs instinctively. The bee does not have to be taught to build honeycombs. This knowledge is instinctive. All the other bees before it built exactly the same honeycombs.
Man, however, sets himself a goal, evolves a plan for achieving it and acts accordingly. This type of activity is characteristic of man only: it was inherent in him in the past, when he engaged in primitive hunting, and it is inherent today, when he controls the most sophisticated machinery.
We know that man's labour is connected with his consciousness. But consciousness in its turn is closely connected with speech, with language, by means of which man communicates with other human beings, expressing and conveying his thoughts to them. Articulate speech is characteristic of man alone, and each generation as it grows up has to learn a language in order to be able to participate in joint activity. Animals also emit sounds signalling food, danger, and so forth, but these sounds cannot be called speech. Speech 12 is connected with man's ability to generalise, to think in abstract terms, i.e., to comprehend things and phenomena.
Thus, labour, consciousness and speech are qualities which distinguish man from animals and endow him with the ability to engage in forms of joint activity inherent only in the human individual.
Insofar as people work and act jointly they enter into definite relations which are called social relations. People with their activity and mutual relations comprise a society. Since society can exist and develop only in the process of human activity, man can be only a social being. To understand a man, his way of life and thinking, it is necessary in the first place to determine the type of society in which he lives and what this society stands for. Therefore all social sciences are sciences about human beings.
Man studies life and cognises nature. Science has explored the atom, it is discovering ever new sources of energy and is studying celestial bodies. People must be armed with knowledge in order to apprehend the world in which they live and consciously to transform nature in the interests of mankind. At the same time man must possess knowledge about society, about himself. But mankind covered a long and difficult path of development before it witnessed the rise of social science giving people a true knowledge of the laws of social development.
This happened when the proletariat emerged as an active revolutionary force and placed the 13 struggle for the socialist reconstruction of life on the agenda of historical development. The brilliant creators of this science were Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and Vladimir Lenin.
The Marxist science of society is called historical materialism. A study of this science discloses the substance of the historical process and its motive forces, the structure of society at various stages of history, the role played by the masses and the individual in social development and the place of socialism in human history and prospects of its further development. This knowledge is essential to everyone who wants to comprehend the surrounding world, the meaning of events and the significance of the struggle for humanity's better future---the communist future.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ SOCIAL FORMATIONS. PRODUCTIONLiving conditions in various epochs and countries differed substantially from each other, just as they do today, when there are about 200 states with an aggregate population of 3,700 million in the world. There are even some countries with remnants of the tribal system or those with feudal relations. People live in capitalist and socialist states, i.e., at different levels of social development.
14A specific historical stage in the development of society is called a socio-economic formation. The history of mankind is not a conglomerate of incidental events, but a definite process leading from bottom to top, from the simplest to the more sophisticated types of socio-economic formations. In the course of its development from the lowest social formation, the primitive-- communal system, to the communist formation, which is the highest and whose first stage is socialism, mankind passes through the slave-owning system, feudalism and capitalism. Each nation at a given period of its existence belongs to one or another formation, depending on the level of its socioeconomic development.
However different are the history, culture and modes of life of such countries as the USA, FRG, Britain, France, Italy, Japan and Australia, all of them are capitalist countries where factories, land, roads, forests, mineral deposits, etc., are owned by the capitalists. That determines other aspects of life in capitalist society: political, for power likewise belongs to those who own the wealth, and intellectual, for science, culture and education are levers by means of which the ruling class strengthens its position.
A characteristic feature of socialist countries is the domination of public ownership of the means of production which engenders relations of co-operation between people and eliminates exploitation of man by man. Compared with capitalism, socialism is a higher stage of social development. It appeared as a result of socialist 15 revolutions and subsequent economic, socio-- political and cultural transformations.
We have already said that survivals of precapitalist formations still exist in a number of countries, including some African ones, whose development has been greatly retarded as a result of protracted colonial rule of the imperialist states. The imperialists held on to these countries as sources of raw materials and cheap manpower for the advanced capitalist states. The majority of the formerly enslaved countries have already freed themselves of colonial domination. Given the necessary conditions they will be able to take the path of non-capitalist development; whether this will happen or not will depend on the outcome of the acute struggle between progressive and reactionary forces.
The economy and politics, the state and the law, technology and science, everything is interconnected in a human society, and changes in any one sphere engender changes in another. The interaction of all aspects of social life takes place on the basis of the production of essential material wealth.
Inasmuch as the history of mankind is a succession of socio-economic formations it is very important to have a thorough knowledge of structure of each of these formations, i.e., the interaction of all the forces operating in a society in a given period of time.
16 __ALPHA_LVL3__ The StructureThe existence of any human society depends on the production of material wealth. Production is a very broad concept. As a rule people engage in specific types of production. For instance, field husbandry, gardening, orcharding and animal husbandry are types of agricultural production. The extraction of coal, oil, and ore are branches of the mining industry. The heavy industry produces machines and other means of labour, while the light and food industry turns out fabrics, shoes and foodstuffs. All these branches are closely interconnected: industry supplies agriculture with machines, and agriculture supplies industrial enterprises with raw materials.
Modern production is inconceivable without transport and communications, research and designing institutes and other branches of labour.
The chief element of any type of production is the means of labour, i.e., machines and mechanisms, fuel and other power resources, storehouses and factory buildings, everything that man uses to produce the necessary products and to act on nature. At the same time it is impossible to carry on production without people possessing adequate knowledge, experience and skill. The means of labour and people who use these means comprise society's productive forces.
In addition to making food, clothes, dwellings, means of labour and everything else that is necessary for life, people enter into what are 17 called relations of production. Without these relations they would be unable to live together. The forces of production and the relations of production together define the mode of production.
Each socio-economic formation has its own mode of production: the feudal mode of production is the basis of the feudal formation, the capitalist mode of production is the basis of the capitalist formation, and so forth.
Why is the mode of production the determinative basis of life and social development?
Labour productivity and, consequently, society's wealth depend on the level of development of the means of labour and on how successfully people learn to master them. At the dawn of the human history instruments of labour were extremely primitive. The man employed stone axes, spears, bows and arrows and wooden hoes with which he hunted, fished, gathered fruits and engaged in primitive farming. Naturally, such a production base was not conducive to the rise of a prosperous and flourishing society.
The appearance of improved instruments of labour stimulated the development of society. A most important development in the productive forces was the transition from handicrafts tools, which people used over many centuries, to machine production which first appeared in England in the latter half of the 18th century. The improvement in production was so significant that it came to be known as the industrial revolution. The rapid and widespread introduction of machine production gave a powerful impetus to the 18 development and consolidation of capitalist relations.
Thus each social formation rests on a definite level of development of the forces of production.
Social formations differ from one another in the first place in the relations of production. The relations of production are determined by the form of ownership of the basic means of production, i.e., the objects and means of labour. In Ancient Rome, for example, wealthy landowners possessed great landed estates (latifundia), the tools for cultivating the land and the slaves who worked on it. This form of ownership determined the relations between people in the process of production as relations between a slave and a slave-owner. The slave-owning form of ownership gave rise to the slave-owning social system.
Under capitalism ownership has a different character. The capitalist owns only the means of production, while the worker is formally free, he can be neither bought nor sold. Yet, in order to exist, a worker is compelled to sell his labour power, to get a job at a capitalist enterprise where the capitalist is the owner and the worker does what he is hired to do, where the former gets the profits and the latter a wage. As a result society's main wealth accumulates in the hands of the capitalists.
The relations of production are called the economic basis of society. In other words, the basis is the economic system of a society at a given stage of its development. A corresponding 19 superstructure arises on the basis. The conception ``superstructure'' also embraces a wide sphere of human relations. It is the political relations between various classes with their programmes of struggle for power; it is the state with all its instruments of compulsion in the form of the army, courts and prisons; it is the ideology of the various classes and social groups expressed in various forms---political, legal, moral, aesthetic, religious and philosophic. What unites all these heterogeneous phenomena?
They have at least two common features. First, they stem from the society's economic basis. Second, they serve to perpetuate, strengthen and develop the economic system on whose basis they have appeared, or to overthrow it, when they are the programmes and ideologies of the exploiting classes.
Let us examine the relation between politics and economy, for example. The politics of every class is determined chiefly by its economic interests. What is a capitalist's main interest? Since he owns property and money, he is concerned with preserving the social system which ensures his wealth and strengthening the relations which enable him to multiply his capital. It is this economic interest which above all determines the policies of the capitalist class and capitalist states, a policy of strengthening and consolidating the foundations of capitalism, a policy of fighting against the revolutionary and national liberation movement, a policy of anti-communism. This relation between politics and economy is __PRINTERS_P_19_COMMENT__ 2* 20 definitely and concisely expressed in the Marxist formula: politics is the concentrated expression and consummation of economy.
Of course, politics is relatively independent with regard to economy and can exert great influence upon it. In order to explain the policy of a state we should have to take into account not only the economic interests of the ruling class in a given state, but also the latter's position in the system of other states, its historical and national traditions, the correlation of its social forces and many other factors. Still, the politics of a state depends in the first place on its economic situation and the economic interests of its ruling class.
Other superstructural phenomena are removed from economy further than politics and are not linked directly with economy. In the final count, however, the superstructure and all its components are either engendered by the economic basis, or are determined by it either directly or indirectly. We should always bear this in mind if we wish to examine scientifically the politics of one or another state, class or party, the essence of their political programmes and declarations, the character of the ideas dominating a given society.
Politics, being a concentrated expression of economy, serves it by supporting a corresponding social system. Any state has an apparatus of coercion and an apparatus of administration with which it protects and upholds the existing order. This means that elements of the superstructure 21 engendered by economy are not passive, but forcefully act on the basis.
All the elements of the superstructure are connected by their common origin and their social function.
The basis and superstructure taken together characterises every social formation: the basis expresses its economic foundation, while the superstructure expresses its political and ideological forms. Thus, in a feudal state the nobility, landowners and feudal lords held the dominating position. As a rule feudal states were monarchies. Society was divided into estates, each with its strictly defined rights, and transition from a lower estate to a higher one was almost impossible. The bourgeois state proclaimed the formal equality of citizens before the law and abolished the estates. In this state people were distinguished by their economic status, by their wealth, in the first place. Karl Marx used to say that a bourgeois carried his power in his pocket. This power is money. All the other distinctions between people recede into the background in the face of this chief idol of capitalist society.
It follows, therefore, that every society, i.e., every social formation, differs from another not only as regards its economic, but also as regards its political system.
The appearance of a socialist society gives rise to a qualitatively new type of state---the dictatorship of the proletariat, which gradually develops into a socialist state of the entire people.
Every social formation is dominated by ideas 22 reflecting the interests of the ruling class. In the Middle Ages (6th-16th centuries), for instance, the Catholic Church was a tremendous social force in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and some other countries and the religious Catholic ideology was predominant there. The Church subjugated everything: science and art, and morality, and was a great political force at the same time. Hence, it was only natural that the first actions undertaken by the bourgeoisie against feudalism had the form of religious movements. Further on, science joined the fight against feudalism. The most consistent struggle against the ruling religious ideology was waged by 17th-18th century materialist philosophers who attuned people's mentality for the impending bourgeois revolution.
Religion has lost its leading position in a bourgeois society, although it retains considerable ideological influence. Having cast off the oppression of the Church natural sciences made great progress in their development. And an important role in bourgeois society is played by political and legal ideology.
This means that transition from one social formation to another is accompanied by important changes both in the basis and the superstructure, and these transformations attest to the birth of a new society.
As we have gathered from the above, the production of material wealth is the core of any social formation and, consequently, of all the important changes in the development of human society.
23 __ALPHA_LVL3__ Society and NatureIn the process of labour man interacts with nature, which itself is a general object of labour. The process of labour is in fact the transformation of nature, the adaptation of natural objects to man's requirements. And so it follows that natural conditions influence the process of labour and can be either propitious or unfavourable. Yet people can surmount unfavourable effects of natural conditions. For instance, the rigorous conditions of the Far North with its long cold winters, long polar nights and permafrost deprive people of the possibility of engaging in agriculture and create great difficulties for the development of industry, trade and the construction of communications. It was due to these factors that the peoples of the Far North had remained at the level of the tribal system in their social development. The October Socialist Revolution and the assistance of the other peoples of the Soviet Union opened the road to modern forms of life for the ethnic groups of north and the rise of socialist relations among them.
While in the past the peoples of the Far North engaged solely in fishing and deer-breeding, now there are towns and a developing heavy industry inside the Arctic Circle. One such town is Norilsk. It has a mining and metallurgical combine, factories turning out pre-fabricated house parts, cement and ferro-concrete items and other industrial enterprises. It also has a college of mining and metallurgy, a repertoire drama theatre, etc. The Far North's immense natural wealth 24 has promoted the rapid development of industry and construction. But in order to surmount the unfavourable influence of the natural conditions, man must have the necessary material means and a high level of production.
At the early stages of the development of human society, when the means of labour were extremely primitive, man depended to an enormous degree on nature, on the elemental forces. For example, he depended on whether his geographical environment was rich in fish, game and edible plants, inasmuch as his principal sources of livelihood were hunting, fishing and the gathering, of edible plants. Later, when people began to cultivate land, their welfare depended largely on the climate and soil fertility. With the development of heavy industry which takes in metals, mineral raw materials, coal, oil, the energy of rivers and so forth in enormous quantities, territories abounding in these natural resources acquired the utmost importance. Today people utilise the earth's natural wealth in vast and ever increasing amounts; that means that the question of its economical and rational use is a matter of the greatest significance for the further development of human society.
Consequently, natural conditions can and do influence the development of production, either favourably or unfavourably, promoting the development of a given society or retarding its progress. At the same time the character and the strength of their influence depend on the level of a nation's social development.
25Society not only experiences the influence of natural conditions, it also alters them. As the productive forces of society developed, people acquired increasingly powerful means of acting on their natural environment. They were able to transform nature to an ever greater degree and adapt it to their own requirements. Today nature in its primordial state has been preserved most probably only in the polar regions, in the impassable taiga and the ocean depths. The reason is obvious. A modern advanced state cannot exist without large towns, industrial complexes, a ramified system of railways and highways, numerous canals and man-made reservoirs, fields, orchards, and so forth.
Soviet socialist society has set itself the task of steadily transforming nature in the interests of man in order to create the most favourable conditions for his life and health.
But the relationship between man and nature is a many-sided, complicated problem, and society must foresee how its utilisation of natural resources affects nature itself. At times environmental changes favourable to man are accompanied by unexpected and harmful consequences. And the more powerful the means of man's acting on nature, the more adverse may be the impact if society fails to control its own interaction with nature.
This problem has never been as acute as it is today. Once it was generally believed that any harm which industry might cause nature was subsequently neutralised by the elements 26 themselves. Reality, however, proved that this view was not only erroneous, but also dangerous, for changes harmful to man taking place in nature may prove to be irreversible. Today the air and water pollution from industrial waste, the destruction of forests and the contamination of huge areas with various waste have acquired such enormous proportions that without the effective and systematic work by society it is practically impossible to combat the harm caused to nature. Yet, the domination of private property in capitalist society inhibits the introduction of broad measures to protect and improve the natural environment, and the monopolists' thirst for profits leads to predatory utilisation of the natural wealth.
The problem of relations between man and nature, or the ecological problem, as it is called, is becoming more and more international in character. The most favourable conditions for its solution, naturally, exist in socialist countries whose planned economy is subordinated to the interests of the people. Obviously, it is impossible to solve all problems arising there immediately, for that would have entailed vast financial outlays. But the Soviet state is using the available possibilities to build installations at industrial enterprises to protect the atmosphere and water from pollution, rehabilitate forests, prevent soil erosion, improve urban life (planting of trees in streets, combating noise, etc.), and use natural resources more rationally. The Soviet Government has promulgated the law ``On Measures of Further 27 Improving the Protection of Nature and the Rational Utilisation of the Natural Resources''. The protection of nature is not only the concern of society as a whole, but of each separate individual, too.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The Law of the Conformity of the ProductionThe productive forces determine the development of society and define society's attitude to nature. Man's power over nature corresponds to the level of development of the forces of production.
Man's first tools were made of wood, stone and bone. Then people learned to smelt metal. The appearance of iron tools was a milestone in the development of the forces of production. Today people employ not only the materials which they find in nature, but also create new, synthetic materials possessing properties which man needs.
Here is another example. At first people used their own muscular energy to set the instruments of labour in motion, then they began to use the strength of animals. Gradually mankind learned to employ new types of energy: the energy of water and wind, steam and electricity, and now it also uses the energy of the atom.
__FIX__ Make gender neutral.The means of labour and the productive forces reflect the level of man's knowledge of nature and embody the production experience which he 28 has accumulated. The level of development of the productive forces is a gauge of society's progress. Production is the basic form of human activity. The relations between people in the process of production do not depend on the will of the people and take shape in conformity with the character of the productive forces. The necessity that relations of production should be adapted to the productive forces arises from the very substance of production. It is just as impossible, for example, to build capitalism in the stone age, or to establish primitive-communal relations on the basis of large-scale industry, as to dress a fullgrown man in baby clothes. If the productive forces correspond to the production relations then the former develop freely and society flourishes. But this conformity does not last for ever. The productive forces are in a state of constant change, for people are continuously improving the instruments of production. The development of productive forces can be very slow, so slow, in fact, that thousands of years pass by before any noticeable changes make their appearance, as was the case during the primitive-communal system. It can also be relatively fast, even very fast, when perceptible changes in productive forces take place in the course of centuries and even decades.
__FIX__ OCR output was missing paragraph break here. Check rest of ebook.The more sophisticated the means of production, the more advanced should be the production relations. This means that these relations must change. But in a capitalist as in any other exploiting society changes in the relations of production are inhibited by classes and groups which 29 are not interested in seeing them change. The relations begin to lag behind the productive forces with the result that they not only do not promote the latter's development but, to the contrary, slow down their growth. This causes a conflict. As a result it becomes necessary to replace the outmoded production relations with more progressive ones, and this means that the old social formation has outlived itself.
In an exploiting society such a situation calls not only for a change in the economic, but also in the political system inasmuch as the latter hinders the development of new production relations. Therefore the conflict between the new productive forces and the old relations of production is the economic foundation of social revolution which is the sole form of transition from one social formation to another.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Development of Socio-Economic FormationsMan has always been a social being. In primordial times people united according to their kinship into clans and tribes. Leading a nomad way of life they gathered edible plants, hunted and fished. Inside the clan matrimonial relations were prohibited and each clan united matrilinear relatives. Work was assigned according to the physical abilities of each individual. In other words there existed a sex-age division of labour. All that people obtained through joint labour was equally divided between them and thus they were able to keep themselves alive.
30What sort of production existed in those times?
The primitive man had such primitive tools that he could not exist by himself. This weakness of the individual in the face of nature was what forced people to unite. Only by living and working together could they stand up to nature and obtain food and other necessities. Evidently the primitive collective of people using individual primitive tools was the first productive force in human history. Collective labour and collective mode of life gave rise to equal distribution of products, i.e., to such relations of production which precluded the possibility of exploitation.
Due to the extremely slow growth of the productive forces the production relations remained in conformity with the collective productive force of a primitive clan for many thousands of years. Gradually, however, some tribes, either as a result of favourable natural conditions, or for other reasons, began to attain a higher level of development of productive forces compared to the mass of humanity scattered throughout the world. Cropping and livestock breeding appeared. Stone tools gave way to bronze and then iron. People obtained more reliable sources of food, began to lay in food supplies and accumulate diverse types of material wealth, i.e., the productive forces reached a level at which it became possible to obtain surplus product. Surplus product is that part of the produced material wealth which remains after most essential requirements are satisfied. The surplus product gave rise to two important trends in social development.
31First, it became possible to accumulate this product and redistribute it. In other words, there appeared an economic basis for the rise of inequality, when some clans, tribes or individuals began to seize cattle, weapons, etc., while others lost them. Plunder and, consequently, wars for wealth became possible.
Second, exploitation came into being. Exploitation means the appropriation of the fruits of someone else's labour. So long as people produced only as much as they needed to survive, an individual could not exploit the labour of another individual. But as soon as man began to produce more than he needed to survive, he opened the road to exploitation. Thus slavery was established.
Although the instruments of labour became more productive, they remained adapted to individual use, and an individual or a family could produce all they needed for sustenance: plough the land and keep cattle. Interest in common tribal economy disappeared. On the other hand, as we have said earlier, people could now accumulate wealth. All this undermined the foundations of primitive collectivism and equality in distribution. Society split into the rich and the poor, into the slaves and the slave-owners. Classes appeared. The primitive system gave way to a class society in which the economically dominant class lived at the expense of the labour of the oppressed class, thus engendering economic and social inequality and irreconcilable class contradictions.
32The transition to a class society was a progressive phenomenon because it considerably accelerated the growth of the productive forces. The accumulation of wealth facilitated exchange and trade, and towns developed as centres of trade and crafts. Groups of people who did not produce material wealth but devoted their time to diverse intellectual activity emerged in society. In other words, the era of the rise of a class society witnessed the separation of mental and physical labour, a most important precondition for the development of man's spiritual culture. The rise of classes was accompanied by the formation of states.
Social progress has a contradictory nature. When classes came into being, mankind began to advance at the expense of ruthless exploitation of the majority of the people, at the expense of the enslavement of the working people through sanguinary wars and plunder. Everything was placed on the altar of wealth and power; the basest human vices and instincts were rampant.
Such a society is called antagonistic.
History knows three antagonistic class societies: the slave-owning, feudal and capitalist.
Pre-capitalist class societies have one common feature: they have a primitive technical basis consisting of the wooden plough, hammer, axe, potter's wheel and other instruments of labour with which people obtained food and clothes, accumulated wealth, built houses, temples and sailing ships.
33Very little could be done to improve on these tools: a hammer is a hammer and an axe is an axe whatever their shapes. With such a technical basis the labour productivity was very low and that accounted for the slow development of the slave-owning and feudal societies.
The technical basis of a developed feudal society was higher than that of the slave-owning society which existed, for example, in Ancient Greece or Rome. The status of the toiling people was also different. A slave was the chattel of the slave-owner. A slave had neither property, nor family nor a home and he was not interested in the results of his labour.
The chief productive force in a feudal society was the peasant who was personally dependent on the feudal landowner. The most brutal semislave form of this dependence was serfdom. But a peasant had a home, family, tools and a plot of land, and although he was not a free man he was interested in obtaining more means for sustaining his family and himself, he had to pay labour rent (corvee), turn over a designated part of the harvest to the church, and so forth.
In the slave-owning and feudal societies the private character of the instruments of labour corresponded to the individual nature of the activity of a peasant or craftsman. Small-scale production and natural economy were predominant in both of them. The large-scale property of the slaveowner or the feudal lord developed on the basis of non-economic coercion, since neither the one nor the other could economically force the slave __PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3---2052 34 or the serf of work for him. Such were the main features of these formations. Their antagonistic nature manifested itself in an acute class struggle which at times took the form of armed uprisings, including such major ones as the slave revolt against Rome led by Spartacus (74--71 B. C.), the revolt in England led by Wat Tyler in 1381, the peasant wars in Germany (1524--25) and in Russia led by Stepan Razin (1670--71) and Yemelyan Pugachev (1773--75).
The level of social development was not the same throughout the world, for the human society advances unevenly. In ancient times and the Middle Ages a considerable portion of people in Asia, Africa, Australia and America still lived in tribal systems. When the feudal system became established in some European countries, the decaying slave-owning system still existed in other parts of the world. This uneven development is observed throughout the history of mankind.
The next stage in the development of class antagonistic society was capitalism.
Machine production became the technical basis of capitalism, although the first signs of capitalist relations appeared long before the machine acquired a leading place in production. The qualitative leap occasioned by the emergence of machine production had far-reaching consequences. This stage of development of productive forces was characterised by the introduction of scientific achievements in production, rationalisation and improvement of machines, technology and the 35 organisation of production, and a continuous rise in the productivity of labour.
Under the system of capitalist ownership of the means of production, the owner of the capital economically forces the proletarian, a person who has no property, to work for him. Only vital necessity compels the worker to hire himself out to the capitalist.
Why does a capitalist hire workers? Not out of pity, of course, but to derive profit, for the workers create surplus value.
What is surplus value? It is the value of the product which a worker produces without compensation, since his wage is always smaller than the value of the commodity he has created. Therein lies the essence of capitalist relations of production.
It is surplus value, which the capitalist receives in the form of profit by appropriating the product of the unpaid labour of workers, that is the chief stimulus of capitalist production. In their striving for profit the interests of the capitalists clash and a struggle for still greater profits begins. This struggle is called competition, and the winner is the capitalist whose production is better organised and who equips it with more sophisticated machinery and manages to sell his commodity more profitably. The race for profits and competition compel the capitalist to improve production and technology and turn out greater quantities of commodities. The production of more goods than can be purchased on the market leads to crises of overproduction.
36These crises, however, do not in the least testify to an absolute excess of commodities. The demand for them still exists, but people cannot afford to purchase them because they do not have the money for it. Overproduction leads to the closure of factories and the dismissal of workers who swell the ranks of the unemployed. This still further narrows the demand for commodities. Crises are one of the most characteristic features of the capitalist system. Modern industrial production calls for a rational planned organisation which takes into account nation-wide demand and consumption.
Crises show that capitalism is unable to cope with this task.
The class struggle under capitalism becomes more acute. Workers unite and fight for better living and working conditions. This struggle takes the form of strikes, demonstrations and revolutionary uprisings.
Thus, ruthless competition, periodic crises and the unceasing class struggle attest to the contradictory nature of the capitalist system, the growing disparity between the productive forces and the production relations. The basic contradiction of capitalism is precisely the disparity between the nature of production and methods of appropriation of the fruits of production. The production process is social inasmuch as in present-day conditions millions of people bound by production relations jointly produce all the necessary commodities. But the product of this social production is appropriated by private owners.
37Private property, however, can be turned into public property. Then not only the necessary but also the surplus product can be distributed in the interests of the whole of society. On the basis of public property it is possible to abolish competition, and effectively plan production on a scale corresponding to the entire society and in its interests. The social nature of production should be matched by public ownership of the means of production with its specific organisation of labour and forms of distribution. This, however, is possible only under socialism.
The bourgeoisie would like to resolve or at the least to smooth over the contradictions inherent in the capitalist system. Production is becoming increasingly socialised: individual capitalists are being replaced by associations of capitalists--- firms, trusts and giant monopolies. Monopoly capitalism is developing and turning into state-- monopoly capitalism, which is an indication of the recognition of the social character of the productive forces within the framework of the capitalist system itself. But the whole point is that monopoly property remains private capitalist in character, and monopoly profits are distributed among the shareholders. Monopolies do not abolish competition because they themselves compete on a worldwide scale. And the small and medium-size private enterprises, too, are locked in a sustained and embittered struggle for raw materials and consumer markets.
Monopoly capital is the source and the perpetrator of fearful crimes against humanity. It was 38 responsible for the outbreak of two world wars which took a toll of dozens of millions of human lives. And it was monopoly capitalism that fathered fascism which is ever pregnant with the threat of reaction and violence.
Apologists of capitalism assert that the position which the working class in the advanced capitalist countries holds today does not permit the capitalists to cut wages impunely and compels them to pay fairly high wages to the workers, and therefore the class struggle is petering out. This is an illusion, an attempt at wishful thinking. The working people are winning their rights in the course of long years of fierce class struggle, at the cost of incalculable sacrifices. This struggle is not only continuing, it is becoming ever more acute.
Certainly, in developed capitalist countries such as the USA, the FRG, France and Britain a qualified worker receives a relatively high wage. He has also won other social rights, especially in the period following the Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917. However, this does not mean that injustice, inequality and oppression have been wiped out in these countries. In capitalist society a person who works remains oppressed and is constantly aware of his dependence on the capitalist who can fire him at any moment and thus deprive him of shelter and food. Moreover, even in advanced capitalist countries the incomes of very many people are lower than the subsistence minimum.
For a long time capitalism exploited hundreds 39 of millions of people in colonial countries. The colonial system collapsed but backwardness and poverty weigh heavily on the shoulders of toiling people in many African, Asian and Latin American countries. The peoples of the developing states are faced with the difficult problems of further development which are solved in the course of the struggle against imperialism and bitter social conflicts.
The development of state-monopoly capitalism did not smooth out, but exacerbated the internal contradictions of the capitalist system, and the scientific and technological revolution, that qualitatively new phase in the development of the modern forces of production, aggravated them to a still greater extent.
What is a scientific and technological revolution?
One of its features is that it radically alters the already developed industrial production, opening qualitatively new prospects before it. The chief trend in the transformation of technology is the creation of automated production, first partially and then fully. The prerequisites for such automation lie in the development of cybernetics and electronic computers with the help of which machines are able to control technological processes.
Another feature of the scientific and technological revolution is the growing implementation of scientific achievements in production, the transformation of science into an actual productive force, when modern equipment appears as 40 the direct result of the development and application of science. The organic fusion of science and production as we are witnessing today has no precedent in history. And indeed, atomic energy, space flights, the production of synthetic materials with set properties, electronics, lasers, these and many other achievements arise from science and not merely as a result of the accumulated experience, as was the case in the past. The organic connection between scientific and technological progress is the distinguishing feature of the scientific and technological revolution.
Sophisticated technology makes it possible considerably to raise labour productivity and introduces serious changes in the very structure and organisation of production. But the most important result and the distinctive feature of the scientific and technological revolution is that it modifies man's role in production. On the basis of automated technology and the application of scientific methods, serial production will be increasingly guided by machines which do not require the direct participation of man in the technological process. His job will be controlling the operation of machines, handling repairs, designing and building new machines and performing other creative functions connected with production.
The craftsman set in motion his instruments of production chiefly by his own muscle energy, and in machine production, too, the worker became an appendage to the machine, but the machines created by the modern scientific and 41 technological revolution will make man the master of the self-regulating (automatic) production process. Such is the prospect opened by the scientific and technological revolution. Today we are witnessing the beginning of this process, for automated shops even in advanced countries have so far accounted for an insignificant part of the entire production.
The scientific and technological revolution will raise production to such a level that it will be possible to create the material and technical basis for the achievement of the maximum material wealth, reduce the working day and employ people's strength and abilities primarily in the field of creative work. But whether the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution will be employed to the benefit of the working man depends on the social system where it is developing---within the capitalist framework or in socialist society.
Capitalism takes advantage of the growth of the productive forces and the scientific and technological progress to intensify the exploitation of the working people and strengthen its system of domination and oppression. In capitalist conditions the scientific and technological revolution further strengthens the state-monopoly organisation which turns the working man into a particle, a tiny screw in the powerful capitalist machine.
As it promotes industrial development the scientific and technological revolution undermines capitalism, exacerbates its contradictions and increases the incompatibility of the growing 42 productive forces with the narrow framework of the capitalist economy, with the character of the production relations, and engenders class conflicts.
The socio-economic system that corresponds to the modern character and prospects of further development of productive forces is socialist society. Socialism is the highest stage that mankind has so far achieved in its progress. And it is socialism that can make the best of the scientific and technological revolution and, most important, employ it in the interests of man.
Let us sum up all that has been said in this section.
Human history is movement from the lower to higher forms of social life and its leading force is the development of the productive forces. We have examined only the general aspects of the main line, the basic trend of social development. The knowledge of the stages of social development furnished by Marxist theory makes it possible to comprehend historical phenomena in their entire diversity, to analyse the past, assess the present and foresee the future.
At the same time the materialist theory of social development is not a fixed scheme; it calls for a concrete analysis of concrete historical phenomena. Historical progress is uneven and the rise of a new formation does not immediately cause the disappearance of the preceding one. Survivals of primitive-communal relations, for example, continue to exist for a long time in a class society. Survivals of feudalism are still found in some backward countries. Whole 43 peopies, states and cultures perished in wars or disappeared due to other reasons. Many of the peoples which exist today passed over the above stages of social development. The Slav peoples, for instance, moved from primitive-communal relations directly into feudalism, bypassing the slave-owning formation. Many peoples living in the Soviet Union stepped from patriarchal, feudal relations into socialism, without passing through the capitalist stage of development. There are many similar examples.
The general theoretical principles, Lenin noted, are creatively applied to different countries inasmuch as each one has its historic, national, cultural and other features influencing its development. At the same time these general principles mirror the general laws of social development which determine the course of world history and which force their way through the numerous varieties of the concrete historical process. In our time it was the operation of these general laws that launched the capitalist social formation towards its inevitable end. A new, communist social formation is beginning to take shape and develop. This being the case, the contemporary epoch taken on the world historic scale is an epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism. The countries of the world socialist system are standing at the initial stage of the communist social formation.
What are the main features of a communist social formation?
44 __ALPHA_LVL3__ The CommunistThe economic basis of this formation is public ownership of the means of production. At the present stage public property has two forms: state property and co-operative and collectivefarm property. It is this form of property that corresponds to the social nature of the production process and creates infinite opportunities for the growth of the productive forces.
The construction of communist society, as any other stage of historical development, is characterised by contradictions between the productive forces and the production relations. In this case, however, their solution is not attended by social conflicts and political revolutions and is achieved as a result of conscious and planned improvement of the production relations. This is possible, first, because public property does away with exploitation of man by man, abolishes the exploiting classes, and the life of the entire society is guided by common interests; and, second, because the tasks and problems facing society can be resolved consciously and in a planned way. In a communist formation production, culture and social relations advance and improve at an especially rapid pace. Proof of this is the fact that the USSR developed into a mighty power with a highly advanced economy and culture in a mere 58 years.
The rise and development of the communist formation is a natural process. The material 45 prerequisites for the transition to this formation are created in the depths of the capitalist system. The most important of them is modern production which unites the entire mass of the working people. The working class is the leading social force which consummates the socialist revolution in alliance with the working peasantry and lays the foundation of the communist social formation.
As it develops the communist social formation passes through several stages. The first is the transition period which begins with socialist revolution. In this period survivals of the overthrown classes (landowners and the bourgeoisie) are abolished and small peasant farms are transformed into large collective farms through cooperation and the development of the industrial base of the new society. In the sphere of social thinking the scientific ideology of MarxismLeninism gains the dominating position, and the masses begin acquiring socialist consciousness.
Politically, the transition period is one of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the state power of the proletariat established after the bourgeois government is deposed.
After carrying through the socialist revolution the proletariat inevitably encounters the resistance of the overthrown classes which can be suppressed by force only. Therefore the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat is the main content of socialist revolution.
At the same time the dictatorship of the proletariat has an important creative mission. It is 46 the chief instrument in the building of socialism. The dictatorship of the proletariat is a form of the political guidance of all sections of the working people by the working class. Its purpose is to win over the mass of working people and draw them into construction of the new society. In contrast to bourgeois rule, the dictatorship of the proletariat does not stand in opposition to the mass of people, but expresses their fundamental interests.
The dictatorship of the proletariat can be effected in various political forms depending on the specific conditions of the development of socialist revolution. One form of the dictatorship of the proletariat was the Paris Commune (March 18 to May 28, 1871). Though short-lived, it was of great significance for it was the first time in history that the proletariat had come to power. The Soviets, a new form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, appeared in the course of the revolution in Russia. Building upon the teaching of Marx and Engels about the dictatorship of the proletariat, Lenin substantiated the historical significance of the Republic of Soviets, a state of a new type, of consistent and real democracy. People's Democracy, which appeared in the countries that took the road of socialist development after the Second World War, became another form of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The transition period ends with the establishment of socialist social relations. Socialism, the first phase of the communist formation, fully 47 abolishes private ownership of the means of production and the exploiting classes. Socialism stands for the complete socio-political and ideological unity of society, of all its classes, strata and social groups; it abolishes national oppression and establishes relations of friendship between peoples based on the principle of socialist internationalism.
Once socialism has won, the dictatorship of the proletariat develops into a state of the entire people. It performs a number of important and essential functions, economic and organisational in the first place. The state expresses the fundamental interests of the people, of the whole of society in the economic sphere; it plans and manages the national economy; it serves as the organising authority in the solution of the tasks facing society, protects public and personal interests of the working people and upholds socialist law and order. Relying on the support of all working people, the state of the entire people enforces measures of compulsion with regard to people violating the laws and principles of socialist society. The socialist state puts in a vast amount of work to promote public education, raise the cultural level of the working people, foster communist consciousness and create conditions for a continuous development of culture and science. The socialist state carries out the crucial function of protecting the country, defending the socialist gains of the working people and promoting friendship and co-operation between socialist countries; it supports the 48 international revolutionary liberation movement and upholds the cause of peace and international security.
The victory of socialism, the first phase of communism, in the USSR was reflected in the new Constitution adopted in 1936. After that the socialist society developed on its own foundation. The growth of the socialist economy and culture was accompanied by consolidation of socialism and the further strengthening of the socialist state. As a result the Soviet people achieved the complete and final victory of socialism and the country entered a period of a developed socialist society.
As it continues to advance, the socialist system more fully discloses its advantages over the capitalist system. One of its most important advantages is the steadily increasing role of the people in the building of the new society. The 24th CPSU Congress (1971) set the people and the Party the task of using the advantages of socialism, combining them with the scientific and technological revolution and further improving the entire system of management in order to gain more efficacy of production and accelerate the growth of the material welfare and cultural level of the people.
Under developed socialism people are in a position to solve tasks which society was unable to fulfil in the past. As a result of the tremendous growth of industrial and agricultural production the Soviet Union can speed up the rates of growth of consumer goods production and 49 increase investments into agriculture without lowering the rates of heavy industry development. Thanks to their dedicated labour in the socialist industry and agriculture the Soviet people fulfil the main task of the five-year plan, that of securing a considerable rise in the standard of living and the cultural level of the people. Today the Soviet state is in a position to channel increasing efforts and means into the development of public education, literature, and art and thus promote the growth of the intellectual wealth of society.
The further prospects for the development of socialist society are connected with the transition from socialism, the lowest stage in the development of the communist formation, to complete communism, its highest stage.
Wherein lies the distinction between socialism and communism? The chief distinction is society's level of economic and spiritual maturity.
One of the most important directions in the growth of the productive forces is that of intensifying production and raising the level of its socialisation. Production is being enlarged and links between factories, and the various branches of production are becoming more and more intricate and diverse. The employment of new materials, the automation of production, and broad introduction of scientific methods and technical means of organisation and management will eventually do away with heavy and monotonous work and as a result the majority of people will work in various fields of creative labour. All this __PRINTERS_P_49_COMMENT__ 4---8052 50 is bound to cause enormous changes in their mode of life.
Under socialism material wealth is distributed among the members of society chiefly according to the quality and quantity of the work they perform for society, i.e., in line with the principle ``From each according to his ability, to each according to his work''.
Society takes care that people develop their abilities and for this purpose improves the system of education. The introduction of universal secondary education is a matter of very great significance for the intellectual development of all working people and their increasing participation in creative labour.
It is the concern of socialist society that each individual should work in a field where he can make full use of his abilities and thus be of the greatest service to society. This problem, naturally, still requires its ultimate solution, but socialist society considers it one of the most important.
The socialist principle of distribution according to the work done is embodied in the existing system of wages. A large and steadily increasing part of the material wealth and services in the USSR is distributed among people through public consumption funds regardless of the quantity and quality of work contributed by an individual. These funds account for free education and medical treatment, grants to mothers of large families, state-owned housing, numerous holiday facilities, and so on and so forth.
51Under communism the level of development of productive forces and labour productivity must be high enough to ensure an abundance of consumer goods. A new principle of distribution, ``From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs'', will become effective in communist society. But before this happens society will have to attain a new level of development of production which will become the material and technical basis of communism. Man himself will rise to a higher stage in the new conditions. In socialist society distinctions still exist between urban and rural labour, between mental and physical labour, and unskilled manual labour is still needed. The survivals of the old division of labour and non-creative labour which restricts man's intellectual growth can be abolished only through a high level of technological development, introduction of science into all branches of production, the latter's complex mechanisation and automation and high productivity of labour. These are enormous and complicated tasks, but their solution will create the necessary material basis for man's all-round progress, for the burgeoning of his abilities in all spheres of creative labour.
Gradually labour will cease to be an obligation and a means of subsistence; it will become a prime necessity of life and the interest of the individual in the very process of labour will become predominant. Naturally, elements of such an attitude exist in socialist society and more appear with each passing year. For instance, the underlying 52 principle of the movement for a communist attitude to labour, which has attained broad scope at Soviet industrial enterprises and offices, is ``to learn to live and work the communist way''. But only under communism, when society enters the highest stage of its economic and spiritual maturity, when all substantial distinctions between town and country and between mental and physical labour have been abolished, will the all-round development of the individual be accompanied by the consolidation of a communist attitude to labour in the whole of society.
Distinctions between the classes of workers and peasants and the intelligentsia continue to exist under socialism, but they will gradually disappear as society advances towards communism. The distinctions between workers and peasants will be gradually obliterated as agricultural labour develops into a variety of industrial labour. The introduction of the achievements of science into production and the growth of its machine-to-man ratio call for greater knowledge on the part of the worker so that the gap between physical and mental labour will gradually narrow. This will result in the formation of a socially homogeneous society, a classless society, not only because there will be no exploitation of man by man (this is achieved under socialism), but also in the sense that there will be no distinctions between the working classes.
The eradication of distinctions between classes and social groups does not mean levelling people and abolishing individual distinctions. On the 53 contrary, the abolition of classes will offer every member of society equal opportunities and create all the essential conditions for the development of the individual and the formation of a harmoniously developed man.
Great changes will take place in the organisation and management of the economy and in the sphere of social relations. The working class is the one and only class known to history which takes power into its hands not in order to perpetuate its domination but so as to abolish classes in general.
As society advances towards communism moral principles will play an increasing role in guiding the behaviour of people, and each individual will voluntarily and consciously perform his duties in society. This will accelerate the development of communist social self-government and the withering away of the state. But the question of the withering away of the state has an external aspect as well as an internal one. The historical necessity of the existence of the state will disappear only when the threat of war and the social antagonisms existing in the world have been fully eliminated. These conditions will be created when the communist social formation is established throughout the world, or at least in the majority of countries.
The building of a communist society is the immediate practical task of the Soviet people. A developed socialist society is a society which is building communism. Its purpose is defined in the CPSU Programme: ``Communism is a 54 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 in 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. Communism is a highly organised society of free, socially conscious working people in which public self-government will be established, a society in which labour for the good of society will become the prime vital requirement of everyone, a necessity recognised by one and all, and the ability of each person will be employed to the greatest benefit of the people."
The history of mankind knows no greater or more noble aim than that of building communism. The opponents of Marxism, the enemies of communism, are endeavouring to portray it as wild fantasy. But reality has proved the untenability of their arguments.
The idea of socialism and communism was advanced and scientifically substantiated by the founders of Marxism in the 19th century. Today socialism is an historical reality which undeniably confirms the correctness of the scientific prediction of the proletariat's great teachers.
The ideas of communism do not clash with the objective trends of development of the contemporary forces of production, the prospects of the 55 scientific and technological revolution; on the contrary, they fully correspond to them, which also confirms the viability of these ideas.
Communism stands not only for the comprehensive development of production, science and culture, but also for their utilisation in the interests of man, their subordination to the tasks of serving man. This cannot be attained under capitalism, which places science and technology in opposition to man. But this target becomes absolutely realistic under socialism and communism, for the communist formation erases social antagonisms and places all the achievements of the human genius at the service of man to promote his all-round development. It follows, therefore, that the communist ideal can be fully translated into reality.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ THE ACTIVITY OF PEOPLE IN HISTORY __ALPHA_LVL3__ Factors Determining the Activity of PeopleHistory is made by people. But when we say that history is a consistent process we simultaneously assert that people cannot make history arbitrarily, according to their will and contrary to the requirements of social development. For example, the Soviet Union cannot at present effect distribution according to needs, for so far its economic and cultural development has not attained the level which would make it possible to implement this principle. Therefore distribution is effected according to the quantity and 56 quality of the work done. This is in keeping with the level of economic development of the Soviet state and is one of the principles of socialism.
It is material conditions that determine the activity of people.
Does this, however, imply that man does nothing more than passively fulfil objective demands, that he automatically obeys the dictate of objective laws? Such understanding of the role played by people in history would be erroneous, one-sided, in other words, it would be fatalistic. The fact of the matter is that objective conditions and laws determine only the limits of the possible and the impossible in the given circumstances, and allow very considerable latitude for diverse activity. At the same time this latitude also depends on concrete circumstances.
The activity of people may differ in identical conditions, for it depends on their mentality and also on their desires, emotions and those intellectual and social values on which they rely and numerous other subjective factors.
Inasmuch as the actual course of history depends not only on objective conditions and the laws of development but also on the way of acting which is selected by people themselves and, therefore, is not predestined by fate, people create history in the true meaning of the word, and history is created in struggle, in collision of various social forces.
For instance, in present-day conditions there exists the possibility of an outbreak of a world nuclear conflict, for there are nuclear weapons, 57 antagonistic contradictions and the aggressive forces of imperialism capable of precipitating it. On the other hand, the majority of people realise that a nuclear war, if it does break out, will bring inestimable disaster to humanity. And since they do not want the war, there also exists the possibility of averting it. It is common knowledge that the Soviet Union is doing everything in its power to avert such a war and inhibit political adventurism.
In all historical conditions there are diverse possibilities that may determine the further course of developments. Which of these possibilities will gain the upper hand depends on the people themselves, on their activity and the balance of the opposing forces. Historical laws are enacted in the activity of the people and in no other way.
Marxism-Leninism gives people knowledge of the objective laws and motive forces of society, it explains the processes occurring in society and provides methods of analysing them. Obviously, the success of the activities of people depends on the degree of their congruity with specific conditions and their expediency within a definite period of time. In planning production, for instance, it is important to take account of internal production links, level of technology, scientific achievements, organisation of labour, system of management and a diversity of other factors which have a direct bearing on the rates of its development and determine its results. But first of all it is necessary to have a thorough knowledge of society's requirements. The compilation 58 of such an optimal plan, especially for a large country, is a very difficult problem which cannot be solved without the help of science.
Marxist social science is revolutionary because it serves the achievement of a great aim---the creation of a new society, because it promotes the success of the revolutionary struggle of the working class and all working people for the emancipation of humanity from all forms of social, national and spiritual oppression.
Marxism-Leninism plays an enormous role in the life of people by making their activity more purposeful and reasonable, thus helping them to make full use of the opportunities for promoting historical progress that are inherent in the existing conditions.
The already cognised laws of historical development are not always capable of showing man correct line of action in any given circumstances. The laws deal with objective trends and processes, whereas man operates in a concrete situation. Therefore when he reaches a decision he is largely guided by his experience, abilities, cultural level and moral qualities. The moral aspect is most important, for in identical circumstances a person can act either honestly or basely, do good or evil, be brave or cowardly, and so forth. Since this applies not only to individuals, but also to the activity of groups of people, it is necessary to take the psychology of these groups into account.
Politics, for example, cannot be only a science; it will always be an art, too. The adoption and 59 implementation of political decisions depend to an enormous degree on the personal qualities of people, their abilities, experience, authority, character, and so forth.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Classes and Social Groups.Human activity has a great diversity of forms. People work in industry and agriculture. They produce material values.
People work at research institutes. They study nature and society, investigate their laws and furnish society with knowledge. This is scientific activity.
People create new machines, mechanisms, instruments, etc. This is engineering, designing activity.
People work at state institutions. This is administrative activity.
People work in the spheres of health service, education, culture and so forth.
All these types of activity are essential for society and they determine the division of people according to their occupations and specialities.
There are many other distinctions, too, including age, educational standard, wages, etc.
But the most important distinction between groups of people is the one between classes.
Class distinctions arise in the economic sphere. Classes are large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in the system of production, by their relation to the means of 60 production, by their role in the social organisation of labour and by the mode of acquiring income and its dimensions.
Every exploiting social formation known to history had its specific classes. Moreover, society developed in the course of the class struggle.
The interests of the individual, his mode of life and thinking essentially depend on the class to which he belongs.
The theory of classes and class struggle provides an understanding of the sources of the contradictory strivings of individuals and the causes for their thinking and acting differently.
What is the science of classes and class struggle all about in contemporary conditions?
In advanced capitalist countries the basic classes are the monopoly bourgeoisie and the proletariat. In addition, bourgeois countries have the peasantry (farmers), petty bourgeoisie (owners of small enterprises, shops and workshops). The intelligentsia, i.e., engineers, scientists, writers, men of arts and letters, and other mental workers, holds an important place in the class structure of the capitalist society. The intelligentsia is heterogeneous. It has absorbed representatives of various classes and forms a special social stratum.
Insofar as class interests are contradictory, their contradictions are manifested in the struggle of classes. For instance, workers organise strikes as they fight for higher wages. This is an economic form of struggle. But the actions of the workers, the intelligentsia and young people against aggressive wars, against militarism, are 61 a political struggle because their purpose is to achieve definite political objectives. Both the economic and political struggle is reflected in the collision of ideologies. Some theoreticians justify the actions of the bourgeoisie and the imperialist forces, others uphold the interests of the working class. The collision of opposing ideas also expresses antagonism between classes. Therefore, the ideological struggle is a form of class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between socialism and capitalism.
The political struggle is the main form of class struggle, because what class will gain political ascendancy and stand at the head of society depends on its outcome. Of course, the question of power is far from always posed directly, since various classes can put forward political demands which do not affect the political mainstays of a given society. The problem of power is of paramount importance in politics. When the bourgeoisie employs police to disperse a demonstration of working people, to smash organisations upholding the interests of the working class or to suppress strikes, it does so to assert its rule. Of course, besides direct political violence, the bourgeoisie resorts to economic, ideological and other methods. However, usually methods of political violence are widely employed in periods of the exacerbation of the class struggle. So, in order to wrest power from the bourgeoisie, the oppressed classes must also resort to violence.
An analysis of class struggle makes it possible to explain the existence of political parties in a 62 modern society: in a political struggle each class defends its own interests. Therefore it is natural that there should be groups of people and organisations representing the interests of a given class and guiding its activity. These organisations are political parties. In bourgeois-- democratic states there are various parties representing the interests of the basic classes and social groups, and representatives of various parties are elected to parliament. But this is merely formal democracy because the bourgeoisie with power and wealth concentrated in its hands always finds the ways and means of securing the parliamentary majority to support the policy advantageous to the ruling class.
Marxist-Leninist parties of the working class in bourgeois-democratic countries also participate in the political struggle by representing the workers in bourgeois parliaments. But their main mission is to uphold the interests of the working people, educate the working class in a revolutionary spirit and guide its activity against bourgeoisie and the capitalist system.
The political struggle has a variety of forms and methods. The reformists, Right opportunists, or simply conciliators and time-servers, deny the necessity of revolutionary struggle on the grounds that the working class should act in a ``purely democratic" manner and achieve reforms by co-- operating with the ruling class. There are also ``Left''-- wing opportunists, the extremists (champions of extreme measures), who believe that the working class will be able to attain its goals only through 63 violence, and therefore reject peaceful forms of class struggle.
The correct standpoint is that a party of the working class should be prepared to employ all forms, legal and illegal, violent and non-violent, depending on the concrete situation and the resistance of the class adversary.
In its struggle each class seeks to win allies and enters in various blocs and agreements with other classes. These are questions of the strategy and tactics of the class struggle.
In the final count the objective of this strategy and tactics is to prepare the masses for revolution and secure victory over the forces of the old system.
What is revolution? Let us take a deeper look into this question. We have already said that social revolutions are a natural form of the transition from one socio-economic formation to another in the course of the progressive development of society; that their economic foundation is the deep conflict between the productive forces and the relations of production, when the latter begin to impede the development of the former; that this conflict assumes the form of a forcible political revolution because the ruling classes of the old society resist revolutionary changes, so that a revolution will be victorious only if the revolutionary forces seize power and employ it to suppress the resisting forces of the old society. This being the case, the question of power becomes the main issue of the revolution which itself becomes a political act. Such are the basic 64 principles of the Marxist-Leninist theory of revolution.
The nature of the revolution depends on the type of production relations which it abolishes and the type of system for which it paves the way. There is a qualitative distinction between the bourgeois revolutions paving the way for the capitalist system, and the proletarian, socialist revolutions aimed at abolishing capitalism and all forms of exploitation and consolidating socialist relations. The motive forces of revolution are the classes and social groups which bring it to conclusion. The basic motive forces of socialist revolution are the working class and the peasantry. The working class is winning more and more allies and there is mounting protest against imperialist system, the oppressor of the broad masses.
If the peoples hate imperialism so intensely, why, then, have there been no revolutions in many capitalist countries? The main reason is that general economic prerequisites alone cannot bring about a revolutionary explosion; the presence of a revolutionary situation is also essential.
A revolution matures only when society becomes entangled in economic contradictions and the situation of the masses drastically deteriorates. In some cases revolutionary situations were created by war. For instance, the 1905 Revolution in Russia was a result of the crisis caused by the Russo-Japanese War. The February 1917 Revolution took place as a result of 65 the sharp aggravation of social contradictions, discontent, poverty and hunger provoked by the First World War. In principle, however, a revolutionary situation does not necessarily develop as a result of war. It can be engendered by the exacerbation of society's internal contradictions.
Revolutions are not accidental phenomena, and neither are they made to order. Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, these great thinkers who dedicated their lives to the proletarian cause, always opposed those who believed a handful of conspirators detached from the movement of masses could consummate revolution and make people ``happy''. Such actions result only in defeat and always play into the hands of the reaction. Revolution cannot be exported to another country and imposed on another nation. It has to be prepared by the entire course of internal development of a country.
Building upon the Marxist theory of revolution Lenin showed that in imperialist conditions a socialist revolution could win first in one country. This idea was confirmed by the victory of the October Revolution in Russia. Later a number of other European and Asian countries and also Cuba took the road of socialist development. A world system of socialism, the chief revolutionary force of our time, came into being. Intricate processes are taking place in capitalist and Third World countries where new revolutionary forces are maturing.
The Communists are now striving to unite and
rally all the forces capable of fighting
__PRINTERS_P_65_COMMENT__
5--2052
66
imperialism, the main obstruction of historical progress,
the basic force oppressing the peoples and a
source of the threat of a nuclear war.
The problem of consolidating anti-imperialist forces---the working class, the peasantry, intelligentsia and various social strata---was raised as a most important political issue of the day at the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow in 1969.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Classes Under SocialismUnder socialism there are no antagonistic classes because the industry and the land belong to the socialist state and the exploiting classes have been eliminated. The building of socialist society is accompanied by the co-operation, or collectivisation of small peasant holdings. In other words, small private holdings of the peasants are united into the collective property of the collective-farm members, and the state turns over the land to the collective farms for permanent use.
Collectivisation gives rise to large-scale agricultural production employing modern machines and scientific achievements. The social character of the peasantry also changes.
The distinctions between the working classes--- the workers and peasants---and between them and the intelligentsia---mental workers---continue to exist in socialist society, but they are not antagonistic because the basic interests of all social groups coincide: the entire nation is interested in strengthening and developing the socialist 67 systern, promoting society's economic and cultural growth and building communism.
The distinctions between classes will gradually disappear as socialist society continues to advance. Already today the scientific and technological revolution in agriculture is transforming it into a variety of industrial labour. Both in the way of life and culturally the countryside is approaching the urban level.
The present scientific and technological revolution makes for changes in society's social structure. The steady improvement of technology, the increasing application of science in production, the growth of automation and mechanisation and the mounting demand for highly qualified labour dwindle the gap between mental and physical labour. The educational level of the entire people rises steadily. This means that distinctions between the intelligentsia and the rest of the working people are gradually being obliterated.
The Soviet people are building socially homogeneous classless society. Classless society is the ultimate objective of the communist movement, for this society will be free from economic inequality and will provide for the all-round development of every individual. The only distinctions which will remain between people under communism will be talent, abilities, interests, level of knowledge and the like.
But so long as classes exist the working class, the most united and best organised class and the leading vehicle of the communist ideas, will play the principal role in society. «*
68In socialist society the relations between classes and social groups are qualified as relations of socio-political and ideological unity. This unity is one of the greatest assets of socialism. It brings together the efforts of the whole nation in building communist society. In this sense the socio-political unity of society is one of the motive forces of the development of socialism.
Nevertheless, this does not mean that there are no contradictions in Soviet society. The building of a new society is invariably attended by unexpected developments and obsoletion of things. Some contradictions disappear, while new contradictions associated with the development of society may emerge. But these contradictions are not antagonistic; the development and strengthening of the socialist society and the increasing social wealth create ever more favourable conditions for resolving contradictions.
Thus, socialism, being the initial phase of the communist social formation, is a society which has done away with exploiting classes and whose main objective is to create and develop conditions for surmounting the vestiges of class distinctions between the working classes and social groups and to create and develop conditions for the transition to communism.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Society, the Individual and the CollectiveAlthough the course of history is set by the activity of large masses of people, and by classes when we refer to a class society, it does not mean 69 that separate individuals play no part in it. History traces the activity of classes, states, nations and peoples, but it also records the feats of national heroes, the activity of heads of states and military commanders and discoveries made by great scientists and it brings to us the names of leaders of people's uprisings, and prominent figures in education, culture and art.
Historical science is interested in people who have left their imprint on human memory, whose personality influenced the course of developments, either by accelerating or retarding them. Who are these people? Socio-political developments are seriously influenced by people standing at the head of states, parties, movements, armies, etc. Indeed, an army which defeats another army owes its victory to many factors, not the least important the personality of its commander. A commander's abilities and personal qualities are a weighty factor in each concrete case.
The same applies to political leaders who have the backing of powerful parties or powerful states, and whose decisions can have a substantial impact on the course of history.
Why do certain individuals leave an imprint in history? Undoubtedly due to their outstanding intellect, talent and abilities and to the fact that their particular qualities fit in the particular period. The leaders of the popular movements of the past were people who had been singled out by the masses and enjoyed great authority. There can be no doubt that Stepan Razin and Yemelyan Pugachev, leaders of the peasant movements in 70 Russia, were outstanding personalities who most fully expressed the interests and the characteristic features of the peasants of the period, their hatred for the oppression of the landowners, their love for freedom and their prejudices, such as their belief in a ``benevolent'' tsar.
Each class moulds its leaders in its own image. The revolutionary movement of the proletariat produced leaders of a qualitatively new type, welleducated people with outstanding personal qualities and a thorough knowledge of the interests and needs of the working class. The great leaders of the working class Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and Vladimir Lenin not only enormously influenced the course of history, but by their ideas and activity ushered in a new epoch in the struggle of the working class for socialism.
In the spheres of culture, science and arts, the life and consciousness of the masses are influenced by people whose discoveries enrich human knowledge, and who produce outstanding works of art and technical inventions.
Based as it is on the laws of historical development, social science seeks to explain the past and the present activity of the people and scientifically forecast the future. But the course of history depends not only on the operation of objective laws, but also on the activity of the makers of history themselves---the masses, classes and personalities standing at the head of various movements, and especially on those who by virtue of their qualities and position are able to influence developments.
71What about the personality of an ``ordinary'' person? Man, his development in history, his activity, have always been in the centre of social sciences. Marxist social science regards man as a social being in the first place. And man's biological nature is subordinated to this social beginning. At the same time man's social nature is not immutable. Man is both a social and historic being. His nature is determined by society in which he develops, lives and acts. Proceeding from this concept it is easy to understand why Marx defined the essence of man as ``the ensemble of the social relations''. In other words, in order to understand man it is necessary to study the society that produced him.
In primitive society man was a member of a clan, community or tribe and his consciousness was wholly determined by the conceptions prevailing in the clan. As the class society developed so did the class personality. It was the personality of a slave or a slave-owner, a feudal lord or a serf. In bourgeois society, where all people are formally equal, they are divided according to their wealth and property status. People are genuinely equal only under socialism and communism, since this society abolishes all privileges associated with the origin of a person and wealth. The communist society creates equal and favourable conditions for the all-round development of the individual. It will be a qualitatively new stage in the relations between society and the individual, where the individuality of a person will develop to a still greater extent. The greater the 72 diversity of social life and the more abundant the cultural wealth of the people, the richer becomes the spiritual world of the individual and the more vivid his personality. In the past this process was extremely controversial because the exploiting classes appropriated the fruits of social and cultural progress, relegating the toiling masses to poverty and ignorance. Today workers in capitalist countries are subject to such forms of influence which are designed to educate submissive, socially passive people. Such achievements of human culture as the cinema, radio, television and the press are brought into play to divert the attention of the people from problems of reality, from the struggle for a better future. This is also the purpose of the developing ``mass culture" which levels off or standardises human interests and consequently downgrades and coarsens the personality of man depriving it of genuine spiritual values.
Under socialism cultural development has the sole objective of moulding a vivid human personality. In this connection we should examine another important circumstance.
It is a fact that man is connected not only with the activity of society, of large social groups, but also with that of small groups which he is directly attached to, namely the body of his fellow workers and his family which greatly influence the formation of the personality.
A small group, or a collective, is a link between man and society. For instance, in the USSR man is connected with society in the production sphere 73 through the collective in which he works, and his prestige in society depends on his prestige in the factory shop, collective farm, office or other place where he works. In a collective where man is in direct contact with other people there are specific relations and moral atmosphere which strongly influence labour productivity and the entire life and activity of the given group. Soviet society is interested in maintaining healthy relations among people, which would stimulate their labour and the intellectual development of the members of the collective body and improve them ideologically and morally.
Under socialism workers' collectives are the main cells of society and their further development is becoming an increasingly important factor of social progress. The combination of individual, collective and social interests, when the interests of the individual and the group are not opposed to each other and to the interests of society, encourages the progressive development of the entire country.
It is most important to promote the development of the human personality, for the richer the inner world of each person, the more diversified is the life of society.
Individuality should not be confused with individualism. Individualism is a bourgeois ideological and moral principle which sets the individual in opposition to society, to the collective, and puts personal interests and the striving for personal advantages in the forefront. This basically vicious principle does not reflect the interests of the 74 individual in general, but the concrete interests of the bourgeoisie, whose property and power is defended by the bourgeois system. The principle of individualism is alien to the working class because it disunites people. In contrast to bourgeois individualism, the proletarian outlook and communist morality assert the principle of collectivism making it incumbent on the individual to concert his interests and behaviour with the interests of his collective, class and society.
Does socialist collectivism run counter to the moulding of the individuality and freedom of the individual? Not at all. A person finds the necessary means for development only in a collective. Therefore the emancipation of the collective is a factor of the emancipation of the individual. This task, i.e., the emancipation of the collective, is fulfilled by socialist revolution. Under socialism, which promotes the rapid growth of education, culture and welfare, the collective and society acquire truly limitless opportunities for progress. It can be confidently stated that no other society in the world has done so much for the promotion of the spiritual development of the masses as has socialism. Socialist collectivism brings to the surface the most realistic ways for the development of the individual and individuality when ``the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all".^^*^^
Of course, socialist society cannot immediately _-_-_
^^*^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, Moscow, 1969, p. 127,
75 offer such an opportunity. At first it is necessary to raise sufficiently production and culture, surmount the survivals of the old social division of labour and eliminate the demand for unskilled and semi-skilled labour. The creation of conditions for the all-round development of the individual is an historical process which socialism is carrying out at present. This process shows that only socialist society is directing all its material and spiritual means to mould a harmoniously developed man. __ALPHA_LVL3__ Spiritual Life of SocietyIn everyday life we easily distinguish existing objects from their ideal images, from what takes place only in our mind. For instance, a person recalls his home and dreams and thinks of visiting it. All this takes place in the mind. It is a totally different thing when this takes place in reality, when a person has come home, met his near and dear ones, and so forth.
Materialist philosophy has proved that the material, i.e., real, existence of things does not depend on consciousness and that sensations, concepts, notions, all that we call consciousness, are a reflection of the material and secondary to consciousness.
The line between the material and the ideal (mental) is present in society, too. When people produce the necessary material values and use them, i.e., when they interact with nature and with each other, this is their social being.
76Social being is the material life of society. But public life is not the same thing as social being. People are conscious beings and when they work they do not act like automatons but consciously set themselves specific aims and seek to attain them. This means that the mental element, the aim, is always present even in the simplest of jobs. The aim is determined by man's requirements, his interests, the specific conditions of his activity, etc. It follows, therefore, that the aim is secondary to the conditions of activity, it derives from them. Furthermore, people, once they have set themselves a specific aim, consciously select the means with which to attain it. In other words, the purposeful character of human activity is connected with the consciousness which enables man to understand the surrounding world and act accordingly.
In order to work together people must develop patterns of behaviour to regulate their relations. These patterns are also factors of social consciousness.
Finally, the birth of consciousness in people is accompanied by the rise of their spiritual requirements which, just as material requirements, have to be satisfied, for as the saying goes: ``Man shall not live by bread alone.'' The level of these spiritual requirements differs in various periods and depends on the level of the spiritual development of society or its individual sections. And yet spiritual requirements have always existed and this is proved by primitive paintings, or the history of the development of poetic folklore.
77Thus, spiritual life is correlated with material life, and social consciousness with social being. The material, or in this case social being determines the ideal, or social consciousness. The latter is a reflection of the people's social being and as such is secondary to it. Their interaction, however, does not end there. Social consciousness, its various forms such as science, art, morality, accumulate a certain amount of ideas and concepts with which each new step in the development of social consciousness is connected. In other words, the relation of social consciousness to social being is always seen in the light of concepts and ideas already formed earlier. Social consciousness is relatively independent of social being. It can either lag behind social being or, on the contrary, overtake it, reflect it correctly or distort, create a scientific concept of reality or all sorts of illusions. What imprint, and why precisely this particular one reality leaves on social consciousness, are questions which require scientific study.
Social consciousness is influenced not simply by the interests of separate individuals but the interests of large social groups, or classes. The systems of ideas expressing the interests of classes and reflecting reality and social relations in the light of these interests constitute ideologies. Ideology is an element of social consciousness which in a class society is most directly and intrinsically linked with classes, their interests and struggle.
Ideologies play a major role in the life of society, guiding parties and classes that defend their interests in confrontations with other classes. In 78 our day the main ideologies are the communist, Marxist-Leninist ideology of the working class, and the reactionary bourgeois ideology with all its variations (liberal, fascist and others).
Why is bourgeois ideology reactionary? In the first place because it reflects the interests of the reactionary exploiting class. History does not stand still, and the assertion and development of socialist relations correspond to its objective laws and demands. But the bourgeoisie wants to thwart the victory of socialism, preserve the bourgeois system under which it holds the leading position, and retain its power and wealth. Hence, the interests of the bourgeoisie contradict historical progress and inhibit it, and bourgeois ideology sanctifies these interests. Hence its reactionary nature.
Unlike bourgeois ideology, Marxist-Leninist proletarian ideology is progressive and revolutionary because it serves the demands of historical development, the revolutionary transformation of capitalist relations into socialist. It is a scientific ideology that correctly reflects reality and its laws; it expresses the interests of the progressive class, the interests of the working people for whom a correct understanding of reality, and a sober, realistic, scientifically-based approach to social problems and contradictions and to prospects of social development are questions of especial importance. Marxist-Leninist ideology is winning its difficult struggle against world imperialism because it is genuinely scientific.
Besides ideology, which is a system of political and legal concepts, moral ideals and principles, 79 artistic trends, religious dogmas and philosophical ideas, there are other systems of knowledge and ideas whose direct and main purpose is to satisfy the requirements of the developing productive forces. In the first place these systems are natural, precise and technical sciences. The laws of nature which they study do not depend on society, on the activity of people and can be cognised either approximately or more precisely. Science is committed to the truth, it discovers the truth and employs objective knowledge to improve production, and society's practical activity.
The attitude to any science, including sciences studying nature, depends on class interests. The bourgeoisie seeks to place science at its service, for without science modern production cannot develop. Moreover, the ruling circles in capitalist countries use scientific achievements to step up exploitation, intensify labour and strengthen their own military-political domination.
Natural science cannot be disconnected from ideology, from the ideological struggle. Bourgeois ideologists are endeavouring to interpret science in a way that would preclude any materialistic conclusions and make it impossible to employ it in the struggle against religion. They portray science not as objective knowledge of the laws of nature, but as a man-created system of views and ideas devoid of the objective truth.
If science does not convey the objective truth then it is impossible to distinguish the real from the false, scientific knowledge from religious or any other dogma.
80Thus, while being interested in implementing science in industry, the bourgeoisie fights the system of views which is based on science.
Under socialism science serves the whole of society, the working people, and there are all conditions for promoting science and its all-round application in the interests of historic progress.
The fusion of science, of scientific and technological progress with the gains and advantages of the socialist system of economy is one of the primary sources of society's progressive development.
Social consciousness is a complicated manifold phenomenon. We have seen that it includes both ideology, with all its diverse forms, and non-- ideological forms of consciousness. Besides, the psychology of society, class or social group, i.e., social psychology constitutes a distinctive part of social consciousness. We often hear about `` pettybourgeois psychology'', ``proletarian psychology'', etc.
Social psychology is moulded under the impact of the direct living conditions of people and their everyday activity. For instance, petty-- bourgeois psychology is a term describing the qualities characteristic of a petty proprietor, a moneygrubber, a person whose interests are concentrated only on his property and the narrow world in which he exists.
In this case it is not a question of a particular person, but rather of a definite social type, of the psychology of a certain type of individual, of attitudes, traditions and sentiments prevailing in a specific social milieu, all the things which are 81 specifically refracted in the psychology of individuals.
In What Is To Be Done? Lenin wrote that the immediate living conditions of the working class under capitalism give rise to a specific psychology, specific consciousness. On the one hand, living and working conditions develop in the workers a sense of solidarity, firmness, stamina, discipline and organisation.
On the other hand, life in a bourgeois society instils in them what is called trade union mentality, awareness of the need to wage an economic struggle to improve their material conditions within the capitalist framework. Such is the psychology of a worker which is moulded by the conditions of his life in bourgeois society.
It expresses the class interest of the worker, but in a very narrow and restricted form: the worker is unaware of the antithesis of his interests and those of the bourgeoisie.
This awareness is cultivated in the proletariat by an ideology built by the theoreticians of working class on the achievements of science and social thinking. It is introduced into the ranks of the working class by its conscious vanguard---the party.
This comparison of the psychology and ideology of the proletariat also discloses the significance and the poverty of psychology. It is significant because it is fertile soil for the assimilation of the scientific revolutionary ideology, and its poverty lies in that it does not give the worker the understanding of his general class interests.
__PRINTERS_P_81_COMMENT__ 6---2052 82It can be said, therefore, that psychology pertains to the sphere of ordinary consciousness which guides people in their everyday activity. Ideology, on its part, comes to the forefront when it is necessary to solve crucial social problems in the course of the class struggle.
Each new generation finds that it has at its disposal the productive forces and relations of production created by the preceding generations. This makes for continuity in the sphere of society's production activity and social being. At the same time each new generation assimilates and further improves the system of knowledge and ideas of the world and society, the patterns and rules of behaviour, or, in other words, the spiritual culture it has inherited. Otherwise there can be no progress.
Not only material wealth but intellectual as well is unequally distributed in all antagonistic societies. The rich have every opportunity to raise their cultural level, while the mass of the working people oppressed by poverty and constant fear of the future, and due to their inferior education or complete illiteracy, find it difficult to do so.
Prior to the socialist revolution the vast majority of the population in Russia could neither read nor write. The abolition of illiteracy became one of the most important objectives of the socialist revolution. With this aim in view Lenin set the task of carrying through a cultural revolution which included a broad programme for surmounting the cultural backwardness of the masses and moulding a new, people's intelligentsia.
83The cultural revolution was essential for the construction of socialist society.
The building and development of socialism goes hand in hand with rapid industrial progress, the introduction of new, more sophisticated equipment, and consequently with a vast growth in the demand for highly qualified specialists.
In the course of socialist construction socialist democracy develops further on, and an increasing number of people are drawn into the administration of state affairs. But to be able to do so a person has constantly to raise his level of political knowledge and culture.
Finally, as we have already said, the ideal of socialism and communism is an individual with an all-round development who participates in creative activity.
This, however, is impossible without a high level of culture of the masses. Consequently, the solution of all problems of the building and the further development of socialism is inseparable from the continuous growth of the cultural level of the masses and the shaping of the communist world outlook in all people.
[84] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ CHAPTER II __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE COMMUNIST PARTY---The great revolutionary changes of the 20th century were not spontaneous. To carry them out the working class, millions of working people not only acted with supreme dedication and determination and made great sacrifices, but also displayed a high level of organisation and mastered the science and art of waging a class struggle.
Since the middle of the 19th century the proletariat continuously increased its pressure against the oppressors and exploiters. The revolutionary actions of the working class in a number of European countries in 1848, the heroic uprising of the Paris proletariat and the establishment of the Paris Commune on March 18, 1871, the Revolution of 1905 in Russia were milestones in the courageous struggle of the working masses for their emancipation.
So long as the working class did not have its own revolutionary party and lacked close unity and a high level of organisation, all its numerous efforts to alter the existing situation were of no 85 avail. Politically and ideologically the bourgeoisie was more experienced and stronger; it relied on its economic power and on the strength of the capitalist state with its army, police, courts and prisons, and the proletariat was unable to defeat it. While scientifically predicting capitalism's inevitable doom, the leaders of the working class and the founders of its revolutionary theory Marx and Engels took into account that the old system would not fall all by itself and that the bourgeoisie would not voluntarily surrender its positions. They realised that the working class would have to wage an uncompromising struggle against the exploiting classes and that it would be able to liberate itself only if it surpassed the enemy by its superior proletarian consciousness and organisation
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The Role of Organisation in the Class StruggleThe founders of the communist teaching opened a great historical truth: in order to help the proletariat become aware of its class interests, to arm it ideologically and organise its struggle for the overthrow of capitalism and the building of a new, communist society, it was necessary to form a militant, staunch vanguard capable of raising the broad masses of the working people for a decisive fight against the exploiting classes. What is necessary is the ``organisation of the proletarians into a class, and consequently into a political party'', Marx and Engels proclaimed in their 86 outstanding work Manifesto of the Communist Party^^*^^ This conclusion of the founders of scientific communism armed the working class with an invincible weapon.
Marx and Engels and later Lenin proved that of all the organisations established by the proletariat only a political party adhering to the revolutionary positions of scientific socialism could correctly express the fundamental interests of the working class and guide it to victory. The workers would be unable to put an end to capitalism and build socialist society if they relied solely on trade unions, mutual insurance funds and similar organisations. To achieve this aim they had to have a proletarian organisation of the highest type which would not rest content with fighting for the current economic needs of the working people, but which would set itself the target of bringing the working class to power and carrying through the revolutionary transformation of the old system.
The revolutionary party of the Communists was to become such an organisation.
In the first place the proletariat needs a party so as not to grope its way in the revolutionary struggle but to be equipped with such an understanding of the conditions, the course and the general results of the proletarian movement which would give it an absolutely clear idea of the aims of this struggle and ways of attaining them.
In view of its oppressed position which deprived _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 5, p. 369.
87 it of the opportunity to engage in scientific and political activity, the proletariat was unable to develop on its own a scientific system of concepts giving a correct idea of the development of nature and society. Such a system, Marxism-Leninism, was evolved by the great representatives of the revolutionary intelligentsia Marx, Engels and Lenin who studied and critically reappraised advanced philosophical, political and economic views and generalised the experience of the workingclass movement.As a science Marxism-Leninism has provided an integrated and harmonious system of views about the objective laws of the development of nature and society, about the revolutions of oppressed and exploited masses, the winning of political power by the proletariat (dictatorship of the proletariat), and about the building of socialism and communism the world over.
It was the mission of the Communist Party to arm the working class with this scientific knowledge and revolutionary political views, and promote its socialist consciousness. In order to do this it had to fuse scientific socialism with the working-class movement, to arm the movement ideologically and theoretically and help it stand up to and overcome the bourgeois ideology. Attaching the utmost importance to this task Lenin emphasised: ``Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement."^^*^^
Marx, Engels and Lenin also proved that the _-_-_
^^*^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. 1 p. 117.
88 working class needed the party in order to wage a successful economic struggle against the bourgeoisie, for better living conditions.Finally, and this is most important, the working class needed the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Party to guide its struggle for the overthrow of the capitalist system, the assumption of power and the building of socialist society. The embodiment of the Marxist-Leninist teaching about the Party in revolutionary practice opened a new phase in the history of mankind.
The establishment of a revolutionary party of the working class was not only a brilliant idea of the foremost representatives of revolutionary thought. It became an objective historical necessity at the stage when the proletariat started to develop into a class and grew aware of its class interests. The conditions of the mounting struggle against the bourgeoisie urgently demanded its unification into a political organisation.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The Birth of a RevolutionaryDue to historical circumstances the world's first Marxist-Leninist Party, a party of a new type, was founded in Russia. At the turn of the 20th century the centre of the revolutionary movement shifted to Russia. A popular revolution against tsarism, which was destined to develop into a socialist revolution, was in the making.
The proletariat of Russia needed a party to guide its revolutionary movement, unite all 89 genuinely revolutionary forces and indicate the ways and means of solving the problems facing the proletariat.
Lenin realised better than anyone else what splendid opportunities would present themselves for the victory of the revolution in Russia if the working-class movement would be led by a militant and well-organised vanguard of the proletariat adhering to the positions of scientific socialism. Addressing the revolutionary workers, Lenin wrote in the newspaper Iskra: ``Before us, in all its strength, towers the enemy fortress which is raining shot and shell upon us, mowing down our best fighters. We must capture this fortress, and we will capture it, if we unite all the forces of the awakening proletariat with all the forces of the Russian revolutionaries into one party which will attract all that is vital and honest in Russia."^^*^^ And Lenin and his associates working in the difficult conditions of the underground built a party of a new type which became the militant political vanguard of the proletariat of Russia. It was called the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which was later renamed the Communist Party.
The embryo of the revolutionary proletarian party in Russia was the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. Founded by Lenin in St. Petersburg in 1895 the League played an important role in uniting social-democratic organisations in a number of industrial centres. The _-_-_
^^*^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 4, p. 371.
90 First Congress of social-democratic organisations, which took place in 1898, proclaimed the formation of the RSDLP. But it was held in the absence of Lenin and his closest associates, who were in exile at the