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p Under capitalism individuals are divided into exploiters and working people. The working individual is denied the possibility of enjoying all the blessings of life, all the achievements of material and spiritual culture, and has limited opportunities for development and improvement. At the same time, in work and in struggle against exploitation he acquires genuine human qualities: a collectivist spirit, organisation, discipline, courage, staunchness, and contempt for everything that humiliates and oppresses man. In other words, capitalism gives rise to the prerequisites for shaping the new, socialist individual and also moulds some of the features of this new individual.

p The contradiction between the individual and society caused by the division of society into classes becomes extremely acute under capitalism. This contradiction is ended only by the socialist revolution and the building of socialism, which creates the prerequisites for man’s all-round 186 development, for giving expression to the entire range of his activities.

p By abolishing private ownership and exploitation and giving all citizens equal political and legal rights and duties, socialism creates the political conditions for man’s development. Here sex and age distinctions, origin, occupation, nationality and religion are no obstacle to active, creative work by every citizen in any sphere of social life. Having liberated the working man and made it possible for him to work not for the exploiter but for himself and society, socialism has turned labour—its quantity and quality—into the only criterion of man’s value to society, thus defining his place in the social system. Liberated labour, stimulated materially and morally, has become the basis for man’s development and the only sphere recognised by society in which he can show his worth. Qualitatively new, socialist production aims to meet the requirements and interests of the people. This, too, gives rise to the prerequisites for man’s development. The working man’s confidence that he will always find application for his capabilities and that while utilising his abilities society and social production bend every effort to satisfy his requirements, making the measure of their satisfaction dependent upon the quantity and quality of his work, gives him the incentive to improve his professional qualifications and raise his general education and cultural level. Having created a new spiritual culture and placed it in the service of the people side by side with material culture, socialism thus provides the most favourable conditions for man’s intellectual development.

p The far-reaching changes in economy, social relations and spiritual culture raise to a new qualitative level the human features engendered in the individual under capitalism and create new features which are not to be found in the individual of the old society. In other words, the new socialist individual is shaped as a result of the triumph of socialism.

p The moulding of the new man—of the real maker of history, the genuine master of society, the only proprietor and creator of material and spiritual values, and the conscious spokesman and creator of the new, truly human social relations—is socialism’s greatest achievement, which has no parallel in human history.

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p Under socialism the individual is primarily a worker in socialist production, which is founded on public ownership of the means of production. lie is distinguished by his work, his aspiration to preserve and increase social wealth, by a new labour discipline and new attitude to work, and by his friendship and co operation with his fellow workers, lie is, furthermore, characterised by his lofty morals, his unswerving devotion to communist ideals, his internationalism, his political consciousness, his high sense of responsibility before society, and social work. The principles underlying communist morality are firmly rooted in his life and work. He has a rich spiritual life, a high cultural level, manifold spiritual requirements, a profound interest in science and art and an aspiration for all-round development and improvement.

p It would be wrong to expect that every member of socialist society possesses all the above-mentioned features. There are, of course, some who shirk socially useful work, are passive to social life and intellectually inert, but on the whole the features mentioned above are typical of the individual of socialist society. Firstly, because socialism makes it possible to mould these features in every person; secondly, because these features are inherent in the vast majority of the members of socialist society.

p The relationship between society and the individual changes radically with the triumph of socialism and the emergence of the socialist individual. The antithesis between the individual and society inherent in a social system with antagonistic classes gives way to increasing unity between the individual and society. This unity has a firm objective foundation, namely, public ownership, which ensures a community of social and personal interests. The aspiration of the individual to improve his position under conditions where exploitation is non-existent and work is a duty is implemented through labour for the benefit of the whole of society.

p Much can characterise the attitude of the individual to society and social interests. But perhaps the most striking manifestation of this attitude lies in the motives for the attitude to work. A group of sociologists in Leningrad undertook to elucidate the social significance of work to young workers and requested them to point out which of 188 the following arguments expressed their opinion of the value of work.

p Positive reply

p 1. A good job is where vou are mosl useful
and needed . . . "........617 persons (23.2%)

p 2. One must not leave the pay out of consideration, but the main thing is in the purport of the work, in its use to
society .............830 persons (31.1%)

p 3. The pay is the main thing, but one must
also think of the purport of the work . . 819 persons (30.7%)

p 4. Any work is good so long as it is well paid 399 persons (lfi.0%)

p In one way or another, 85 per cent of the persons questioned linked up their work with its use to society. Is this not an indication of unity between society and the individual under socialism? Does this not show that an achievement by an individual is an achievement of society as a whole, whose only purpose is to serve the individual, satisfy his many requirements and enable him to develop his talents?

The growing unity between the individual and society is an objective trend or, to put it in another way, it is a law of the development of socialism, but it is not free of contradictions. These contradictions are that as long as society is unable fully to satisfy the individual’s requirements it partially restricts consumption, making the measure of satisfaction dependent on the quantity and quality of work, and the fact that as yet society does not ensure people with complete economic equality, with equal conditions for development and for displaying creative activity. Moreover, not all individuals appreciate the need for conforming their own interests with those of society and sometimes make egoistically unreasonable demands of society with the result that contradictions ilare up between society, between the majority of its members, and a certain section of backward people. These contradictions are eradicated with progress in the building of communism, and unity between the individual and society is achieved together with the attainment of harmonious relations between them. Both society and the individual change in the course of the movement towards this harmony, and the development of the individual rests on the remaking of society.