p The formation of a scientific outlook, like communist education generally necessarily presupposes a struggle against bourgeois ideology.

p Having suffered crushing defeats in the political and military arenas and meeting with one setback after another in the economic competition with socialism, imperialism now counts mainly on a struggle in ideology and attacks 307 the ideological positions of socialism. In the ideological war the imperialist bourgeoisie seeks to defend the capitalist system, embellish the facade of its ramshackle edifice, keep the working masses in the grip of bourgeois ideas and, at the same time, discredit the socialist system, demolish Marxism-Leninism and sow distrust for the ideas of communism and the policies of the socialist countries.

p The theoreticians of imperialism are doing their utmost to revitalise their senile ideological weapon, somehow to camouflage the fact that the imperialist bourgeoisie has no ideas that can attract the masses and thereby offset the influence of communist ideas. Today not many people believe the tales that capitalism is changing into a “people’s capitalism”, into a “welfare state”. This is giving birth to new concepts, the most important of which is the bourgeois theory of a “united industrial community”. According to this theory, capitalism, as such, has disappeared, having been superseded by an “industrial community" with no class contradictions and whose laws are determined solely by technological progress and not by social relations or by the forms of ownership. Technical progress, the utilisation of technology and the extent to which it serves people are, as we know, determined by the nature of the social system. Hence, in capitalist society, technical progress is a source of further super-profits for a handful of monopolists, and of hardship and suffering for millions of working people.

p The main goal of the imperialist politicians and theoreticians is to move the ideological struggle directly into the territory of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, influence the minds of Soviet people, and, with the aid of the backward section of Soviet society, plant ideas and principles that are alien to the socialist system and way of life. They believe that this can be achieved in the socialist countries by utilising survivals of the past—nationalist and religious prejudices, individualism and money-grubbing. They hope to resurrect these survivals by cultivating weaknesses, still inherent in a section of Soviet society, such as an aspiration for luxury, vanity, envy, selfinterest, worship for money and goods, and so forth.

p Communist education therefore necessarily presupposes a relentless struggle against reactionary imperialist ideology. Any belittlement of this struggle implies a weakening of 308 the position of socialist ideology and damages the work of communist construction, and of moulding the new man.

By combating bourgeois ideology, the Communist Party liberates the masses from the influence of all kinds of bourgeois ideas, manners and customs and disseminates the advanced ideas of Marxism-Leninism, of scientific communism.