p Every pre-socialist, class-antagonistic society emerged spontaneously, i.e., without involving the will and consciousness of people, from the society preceding it. Capitalism stemmed from feudalism, first in the shape of simple capitalist co-operation and manufacture and then large-scale machine production. The task of the bourgeois revolution was, therefore, to bring the political power into line with the new capitalist economy, i.e., to transfer power from the feudal lords to the bourgeoisie. The spontaneous formation of a new society within the framework of the old was possible because every society with antagonistic classes is founded on private ownership of the means of production and on exploitation of man by man. The forms of private ownership and of exploitation changed as history moved forward, but in themselves they remained inviolable.

Socialism makes a clean break with private ownership and exploitation. It establishes public ownership and, on its basis, relations of fraternal co-operation and mutual assistance. Public ownership cannot of itself appear from private ownership in the same way as socialist society as a whole cannot grow out of capitalism. Socialism and communism are built through the conscious and purposeful activity of the masses led by the Marxist party and the socialist state, through the conscious direction of social processes.