p Physical improvement is essential in the moulding of the new man. First and foremost, this concerns people’s health. Physical and mental health, as everybody knows, is the chief prerequisite for production and social activity. A person is capable of working productively and creatively, 330 enjoying the beauty of nature and taking an active part in social life only when he is healthy, physically and mentally.

p A physically perfect person is more than a healthy person. He is a person who has complete control over his body, hrims with strength and energy and can endure great physical stress.

p The trend of modern technological development is such that in production the share of physical labour is dropping. Scientists note that in the past century, due to technological progress, the requirement for man’s muscle power has dropped from 15 to 3 per cent. This means that man’s need for physical movement is satisfied less and less in the process of work and this gives rise to the threat of a higher sick rate and earlier senility. This threat should not be overexaggerated as is being done by some bourgeois scientists, who maintain that the gradual reduction of physical effort leads to man’s physical degeneration. At the same time, one should not ignore it because the simple physical effort expended in the process of work is not sufficient for men’s physical development.

p The solution lies in promoting mass physical culture and sports. The example of celebrated athletes draws great numbers of young people into sports. In the U.S.S.R. the main goal of physical culture and sports is not to break records but to draw millions of people and ultimately all citizens into the physical culture movement.

p Special importance is attached to the physical education of children, for a person’s body is formed when he is young and at that age it is possible to correct natural defects. The Programme of the C.P.S.U. states that “it is a most important task to ensure the education from early childhood of a sound young generation harmoniously developed physically and spiritually".

Man’s all-round development is advanced solely through comprehensive physical, spiritual and moral education. In a conversation with Clara Zetkin, Lenin touched upon this point when he said: “People should engage in healthy sports—gymnastics, swimming, walking, and physical exercises of all kinds—and many-sided intellectual pursuits, reading, analysing and investigating as far as possible in common.”