p The freedom of the individual depends upon the nature of the social relations, on the conditions created by society for man’s development, for the satisfaction of his needs and for the application of his capabilities and talents. Thus, this freedom is inseparable from society. “One cannot live in society and be free from society,” Lenin wrote.  [331•* 

p Bourgeois ideologists and their reformist servitors refuse to recognise this. “Freedom,” writes the West German Social-Democrat Carlo Schmid, “is above all social structures and is binding upon all who grasp it.” The sole purport of arguments of this kind, in which freedom of the individual is taken to mean freedom from society, is to justify and give grounds for bourgeois individualism, and freedom for private ownership and exploitation. Indeed, who can grasp freedom in capitalist society? Only those who have money and property. There money is the highest measure of freedom. There money allows the man freely to exploit another, to thrive in the world of “free” enterprise. Money enables its owners to satisfy every whim, to control social affairs, to dictate laws and, when necessary, freely to break these laws.

p The bourgeois ideologists call their beloved system a “free world" and give bourgeois individualism and freedom of private ownership and enterprise out as real freedom of the individual. They argue that collectivism and social ownership are incompatible with freedom.

p In spite of all their arguments, the abolition of private ownership and exploitation and the establishment of public ownership are the indispensable condition and foundation for the freedom of the individual. Indeed, how can a person be free in a society where the status and very life of the overwhelming majority of the people depend on the egoistical interests of a minority, of the exploiters, where anarchy, competition, periodic crises and unemployment make the working people dependent upon chance, depriving them of confidence in the future, where not all citizens have the opportunity to display their principal quality, namely, their ability to work? The conditions for genuine freedom of the individual obtain only when all people are 332 equal with regard to the means of production, enjoy equal rights to administer the state and equal rights to work, study and rest and leisure, when they are united by a community of purposes, and when the cares and affairs of society become the cares and affairs of every citizen.

p These conditions are created by socialism. It abolishes private ownership and exploitation and thereby frees the individual economically, making him free of economic fluctuation, crises, unemployment, poverty and fear of the future. Socialism frees the labour of man and is the first political system in human history to give man the opportunity of working not for exploiters but for himself and society and through labour and on its foundation to satisfy his material and spiritual needs. Socialism gives the individual broad social freedoms: the right to elect and be elected to organs of state power and to participate in the administration of social affairs, the right to education, rest and leisure, social security in old age and in the event of illness, and the possibility to work creatively in all spheres of material and spiritual production. Socialism liberates the individual spiritually. It enables the individual to shed all idealist and religious prejudices, gives him the opportunity to enjoy all the benefits of spiritual culture and actively participate in scientific and artistic work, and frees him from the fetters of bourgeois morality. In socialist society the individual cannot conceive of life outside society, feeling a pressing “need for other people, who are the greatest of wealth”.  [332•*  Conditions are created to enable the individual to assert himself, to display his abilities and talents.

Thus, under socialism freedom signifies the individual’s freedom to participate creatively in social production, the creation of material and spiritual values and the formation of new social relations, his freedom to participate in the administration of social affairs and to develop and improve culturally and morally.