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p Needs are a condition requiring satisfaction. They are felt by the individual (individual needs), a group of people (as in a factory), a family, and so on (collective needs), and also society (social, historic needs).

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p Individual needs, with which we shall deal here, are, in their turn, subdivided into material (food, clothes, housing) and spiritual needs (education, entertainment, art, and so forth). Moreover, man experiences the need for sleep, rest, amusement, movement, exercise, companionship, and so on. It should be noted that the satisfaction of material needs is the prerequisite for the satisfaction of spiritual needs.

p Needs spring from the sum total of the social conditions of the development of a given society—from the level of development of the productive forces, the predominant relations of production, the stale of science, technology and culture, family relations, relations at the place of work, and so forth. Apart from objective conditions, the needs of each individual are dependent, in some measure, on his subjective qualities—the anatomic-physiological gifts and mental features that he has inherited from his ancestors, and on his capabilities, age, and level of physical and intellectual development. However, material production is the decisive factor determining needs. “The reason production creates consumption,” Marx wrote, “is that 1) it produces material for it, 2) determines the mode of consumption and 3) stimulates in the consumer the need for the object produced by it.” This, it goes without saying, concerns chiefly material needs, which are determined by production more or less directly. As regards spiritual needs, they are determined by production indirectly through an intricate system of social relations, mainly relations of production.

p While being determined by production, needs, in their turn, actively influence the development of production, and the course of the social process as a whole. This is logical because, essentially, production is furthered not for its own sake but in order to satisfy requirements. In this sense “without requirements”, Marx wrote, “there will not be production".

p Needs are an important factor not only in the development of production but also in the formation and development of social relations, and in the formation and development of man himself. They form a link between people, facilitate intercourse between them and unite them, because in order to satisfy his own needs every person 258 requires the assistance of other people, who produce or possess the means for satisfying these needs. With the growth and development of production and needs, man develops both physically and mentally. Man’s life and advancement are inconceivable without the satisfaction of his needs. The greater the range and diversity of these needs and the more they are satisfied the more perfect does man and society to which he belongs become.

p People’s needs are inseparably bound up with their abilities, for in order to satisfy needs it is necessary to create the corresponding material and cultural values, and that is where man must display and apply his abilities, primarily his ability to work creatively. It is not fortuitous, therefore, that the basic principle of communism regards the realisation of abilities as an indispensable prerequisite for the satisfaction of needs.

p Needs are not stagnant. They develop side by side with human progress, with the development of material production, with the improvement of social (particularly, production) relations. Primitive man, for example, required very little—coarse food, an animal’s skin for clothing, a roof over his head and a fire. Today man’s needs are extremely diversified. The law of “increasing requirements,” Lenin wrote, operates in society.  [258•*  A revolution in social relations is accompanied by far-reaching changes in requirements, in the extent to which they are satisfied, in the mode by which they are satisfied and in their nature and pattern.

By abolishing private ownership and exploitation, socialism precludes all possibility of satisfying the requirements of some people at the expense of the labour of others. It opens the possibility of satisfying the needs of every citizen in accordance with the quantity and quality of his work.