p Communist morals, which spring from the best achievements of human moral progress, mirror the interests and ideals not of a handful of exploiters but of the vast majority of mankind.

p They have absorbed simple human moral norms that mankind has evolved in a struggle against moral vices and handed down from one generation to another. Since time immemorial it has been considered moral to maintain law and order, protect the life and health of people against criminals, show respect for aged people and consideration to women, help the sick or victims of elemental calamities, and so forth. Without these elementary standards society could not have existed, let alone developed, for it would not have differed from a herd of animals.

p Under capitalism these elementary standards of human association have been transgressed, twisted and adapted by 311 the exploiters to suit their own interests. In socialist society they are the code of behaviour of the bulk of the people, and when communism is built they will become second nature to every citizen.

p Communist morality has also absorbed the people’s diligent attitude to work and their intolerance of idlers and parasites, their fraternal solidarity, mutual assistance, straightforwardness, honesty, will-power and courage. It has enriched these qualities, raised them to a higher level and given them a different social content.

p The communist code of morals is that of the working class, the most advanced revolutionary class of modern times. This code emerged in capitalist society where the proletariat had to evolve definite standards of behaviour in its struggle against capitalism, for socialism and social progress.

p Brought into existence under capitalism as an expression of the proletariat’s protest against exploitation and inequality and its desire to establish rules of human association founded on relations of friendship, comradeship, co-operation and mutual assistance among people freed from exploitation, the communist code of morals becomes predominant with the destruction of capitalism and the triumph of socialism. When communism becomes supreme in the world, when people are forever delivered from exploitation and the ethical burden of the past, it will be the one and only code of human association.

The fact that it serves the class interests of the proletariat, which is the most progressive class, and the struggle for the establishment of the most advanced society, makes it the most progressive code of morals, and it may be described as the greatest achievement of human ethical thinking. Communist morals thus mirror the objective laws of progress, of man’s inevitable advance to the new, communist future.