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p The present, third stage of the general crisis of world capitalism started in the 1950s and its main feature is that there has been a radical change in the balance of world forces in favour of socialism. More and more countries are breaking away from capitalism and the forces working for socialism and social progress are rapidly growing throughout the world. The position of imperialism in the world-wide economic competition with socialism is inexorably growing weaker. The unparalleled upsurge of the national liberation movement has brought about the downfall of the imperialist colonial system. It is important to note that the new stage of the general crisis of capitalism was brought on not by a world war but by peace, by the peaceful coexistence of states with opposing social systems.

p One of the features of this new stage is that there has been an acceleration of the inner instability and decay of capitalist economy. The unsteady rates of production growth, the constant underemployment of production capacities and the economic slumps that periodically shake the capitalist world eloquently show that capitalism is steadily losing its ability to make full use of its productive 78 forces, let alone to apply the latest scientific and technical achievements in the interests of the people.

p In the U.S.A., for example, there have been several economic recessions since the war. The 1957-58 slump alone cost the country 60,000-65,000 million dollars’ worth of industrial output and pushed industrial production down to the 1953 level. The workers’ loss in wages amounted to 19,678,000 million dollars.

p At the close of 1960 only 70 per cent of Canada’s and 80 per cent of Japan’s industrial capacities were in operation. In 1961 industry was underemployed by 12 per cent in the Federal Republic of Germany and by a still higher percentage in Britain and Belgium. Entire industries are being curtailed: shipbuilding in Italy and France, textilemanufacturing and railway transport in Britain, and so forth.

p Capitalism is unable to make full use of the main productive force—the working people—thereby dooming the working masses to unemployment, depriving them of the means of subsistence. Official bourgeois statistics indicate that 8,000,000-10,000,000 people are fully unemployed in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia. Of this number, at least half are in the United States of America. Instead of serving people, automation and mechanisation, those superb achievements of the human intellect, are used to the detriment of the working man. In the U.S.A. automation and mechanisation are making 1,800,000-2,000,000 people redundant annually.

p From this one can infer that in the capitalist countries the conflict between the productive forces and the relations of production has become unprecedentedly acute, that capitalist relations of production are fettering the productive forces.

p But this does not mean that the economic development of imperialism has stopped. The desire to win the economic competition with the world socialist system, the demands of contemporary scientific and technical progress and, mainly, the ruthless rivalry within the capitalist system are compelling the capitalists to improve production and utilise the latest achievements of science and technology. This and the need to replace obsolete or destroyed 79 plant as well as the influx of considerable capital from the U.S.A., the vast army of reserve workers, and so on account for the post-war relatively high rates of economic development in a number of capitalist countries. However, these rates are not stable and do not abolish the cyclic nature of the development of capitalist production, under which periods of economic booms give way to periods of decline.

p In the present new stage of the general crisis, all the other contradictions of capitalism are becoming more acute than ever before. The struggle between labour and capital is gaining momentum, and the interests of nations clash with the mercenary aspirations of a handful of monopolists, who have gained control of the state machine. Due to the uneven economic and political development of the capitalist countries, the alignment of forces within the capitalist system is changing rapidly, the antagonisms between individual and blocs of capitalist countries are becoming more and more apparent and the competition in the capitalist market is intensifying.

p Imperialism’s internal and foreign policy is facing a growing crisis expressed in a reactionary offensive in all spheres, the repeal of bourgeois liberties, the setting up of tyrannical fascist regimes, and the loss by imperialism of its former role in international affairs.

p Bourgeois ideology is likewise in the grip of a deeprooted crisis, highlighted by pessimism and fear of the future, by mysticism and a lack of faith in science and in the creative powers and potentialities of man, by denial of progress and slander campaigns against communism, and by defence of the system of hired slavery and oppression. Bourgeois ideology has long ago lost its ability to advance ideas that can attract the masses, for it is an ideology of a class that is leaving the stage of history.

p The aggravation of all the contradictions of capitalism and of its general crisis is evidence that the socialist revolution, whose mission is to destroy capitalism with its reactionary policy, ideology and relations of production, is a pressing historical need.

p Frequently the question asked is why capitalism still exists in many countries, particularly in highly developed countries, despite the fact that its contradictions ( 80 primarily the conflict between UK; productive forces and the relations of production) make the socialist revolution a historical need.

p It should be borne in mind that the conflict in the capitalist mode of production creates the objective possibility for a revolution, but this possibility can be turned into reality only by a social force able to utilise this possibility. That force is the revolutionary alliance between the working class and the non-proletarian masses, an alliance headed by a Marxist party. Such a force has not yet matured in a number of countries due to the rift in the working class and the political resourcefulness of the bourgeoisie, which with whip and cake, a long-standing policy, stupefies part of the working people with bourgeois illusions, feeds bribes to workers’ leaders and does its utmost somehow to ease the antagonism between labour and capital. An important role in preserving capitalism is also played by the bourgeois state, by its huge apparatus of physical coercion (army, police, courts, prisons) and ideological influence (schools, the church, the press, the radio, and so on).

To this it should be added that due to insufficient time, former backwardness and difficult conditions of development the socialist countries have not yet surpassed the developed capitalist countries in per capita production. Naturally, the building of socialism in these countries could not help but be accompanied by difficulties and errors, and this too delayed the drawing of a certain section of the working people of the non-socialist world into an active struggle for socialism.