PROGRESS PUBLISHERS
Moscow
[1] __TRANSL__ Translated from the Russian by David SkvirskyB. A<DAHACbEB HAYHHblfl KOMMYHH3M
Ha OIWAUUCKOM xsbiKe
PUBLISHERS' NOTE
This book offers a brief systematic outline of the fundamentals of scientific communism, reviewing its emergence and development, the three cardinal tasks in the building of communism---the creation of the material and technical basis, the formation of communist social relations and the moulding of the new man--- and the present-day revolutionary process.
__COPYRIGHT__ First printing 1967CONTENTS
THE THEORY OF SCIENTIFIC COMMUNISM
9
Chapter 1
FROM A UTOPIA TO A SCIENCE
13
1. Utopian Socialism and Its Place in History.......13
Utopians of the 18th Century---15. Great Utopian Socialists of the 19th Century- 18. Russian Utopian Socialists 2.'!. The Historical Place of Utopian Socialism 25.
2. The Evolution of Socialism from a Utopia to a Science. Karl
Marx and Frederick Engels.............28
Inevitability of the Revolutionary Replacement of Capitalism by Socialism---29. Essence of Man and the Trend of His Development---31. Emancipation of the Working Man---the Historic Mission of the Working Class--34. Social Processes Can Be Guided---37. Unity of Theory and Revolutionary Action- -40.
3. The Leninist Phase of Scientific Communism.......-44
Creative Nature of Scientific Communism 44. Theoretician of Scientific Communism-, 4(». Lenin's Theory of Socialist Revolution---47. Leader of the World Communist Movement---49. Fighter for the Purity of Marxism 50. Development of Scientific Communism After Lenin 52.
Chapter 2
NATURE OF THE MODERN EPOCH. GROWTH
OF THE SOCIALIST SYSTEM INTO THE DECISIVE
FACTOR OF WORLD DEVELOPMENT
54
1. The Modern Epoch................54
Main Content of the Modern Epoch---55. October Revolution,
[3]
Beginning of the Present Epoch---57. The World Revolutionary
Process and Its Main Driving Forces---59.
2. Emergence and Development of the World Socialist System . . 61 Formation of the World System of Socialism---61. New Type of Relations Between States---61. Closer Unity---63.
3. Decisive Force of World Development..........64
Basic Contradiction of the Present Epoch---64. The Revolutionising Force of Example-67. World Socialism and the Working-Class Movement---71. World Socialism and the National Liberation Movement---72. World Socialism and the Struggle for Peace---74.
Chapter 3
CONTEMPORARY CAPITALISM AND THE REVOLUTIONARY
WORKING-CLASS MOVEMENT
1. The Crisis of World Capitalism............76
The New, Third Stage of the General Crisis---77. State-Monopoly Regulation and the Working Class---80. Capitalism Versus Man---84.
2. Principal Features of the Revolutionary Struggle of the Working Class ...................89
Scale of the Strike Struggle -89. Combining Economic and Political Forms of Struggle---91. Enlargement of the Social Basis---92. Indissoluble Bond Between Democratic and Socialist Tasks---93. Closing the Split Is a Major Task of the Working-Class Movement---95.
3. Ways and Means of Accomplishing the Socialist Revolution 96
4. Present-Day Communist Movement..........10.1
At the Head of the Forces of Revolution---101. Strategy and Tactics---103. General Line---106.
Chapter 4
NATIONAL LIBERATION REVOLUTIONS
1121. Disintegration of the Imperialist Colonial System......112
Collapse of the Colonial System---a Feature of the Contemporary Epoch---112. Significance of the National Liberation Movement--- 114. The Danger of Neo-Colonialism---115.
1182. The National Liberation Revolution and Its Driving Forces Nature of the National Liberation Revolution---118. Driving Forces of the National Liberation Revolution---120.
43. Economic Independence...............124
New Stage of the Revolution---124.
4. Two Possible Ways of Development---Capitalist and NonCapitalist ...................127
The Liberated Countries and Capitalism---128. Experience of Non-Capitalist Development---129. Substance of Non-Capitalist Development---130. Liberated Peoples Choose Socialism---132. Factors Facilitating the Transition to the Non-Capitalist Road---135.
Chapter 5
THE WORLD REVOLUTIONARY PROCESS
AND PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE
137
1. Marxism-Leninism on Just and Unjust Wars......137
Causes of War---137. Just and Unjust Wars---139.
2. Peaceful Coexistence................140
Leninist Principle of Peaceful Coexistence---140. The Class Struggle and Peaceful Coexistence---144. The Ideological Struggle and Peaceful Coexistence---145. Problem of Disarmament---
148. Guarding the Gains of Socialism---149.
Chapter 6
SOCIALISM, FIRST PHASE OF COMMUNIST SOCIETY
151Indispensability of a Period of Transition........151
1. General Laws and Diversity of the Forms of Socialist Construction ....................152
Dictatorship of the Proletariat---the Decisive Condition for Socialist Construction---153. Economic Reforms---156. Reforms in National Relations---164. Cultural Revolution---166.
2. The Transition Period and the Non-Capitalist Road of Development ....................169
3. Socialist Society..................172
Socialism and Communism---Two Phases of the New Society---
172. Economy of Socialism---174. Class Pattern of Socialist Society---178. Political Organisation---179. C.P.S.U.---Vanguard of the People---183. Spiritual Culture of Socialism---184. Socialism and the Individual---185.
4. From Socialism to Communism. The Building of Communism 189
5Chapter 7
SCIENTIFIC DIRECTION OF COMMUNIST CONSTRUCTION
1911. Socialism, a Consciously Directed Society........192
2. Principles Underlying the Scientific Direction of Communist
Construction...................195
Objectivity and the Concrete Situation---195. Efficiency and Optimality---198. People's Interests and Requirements---200. The Main Link---202. Democratic Centralism---202.
3. Subject of Administration..............204
4. Improvement of the System of Administration---on Important Condition for the Success of Communist Construction . . . 208
Chapter 8
MATERIAL AND TECHNICAL BASIS
OF COMMUNISM
2121. The Function of the Material and Technical liasis .... 212
2. Features and Ways of Building the Material and Technical
Basis of Communism...............214
Automation and Mechanisation---215. Power Engineering Industry---216. Cheinicalisation---217. Agricultural Production---218.
3. Science as a Direct Productive Force.........220
The Modern Scientific and Technical Revolution and Its Significance---220. The Future of Science Is the Future of Production---223. All the Potentialities of Science for Production---225.
4. Man and Technology...............226
Evolution of the Man-Machine System---226. Will Machines Replace Man?---229. Demands Made of Man by Machines--- 233. Technology, Man and Nature---237.
5. Communism and Labour..............237
Communist Labour---238. The Conditions for Turning Labour into a Vital Necessity---241. Communist Division of Labour--- 243. Incentives for Work---244. Developing the Personality Through Creative Work---246. Leisure Time and the Development of the Individual---249.
Chapter 9
FROM SOCIALIST TO COMMUNIST SOCIAL RELATIONS
252 61. Towards Communist Distribution..........252
Capability---252. From Each According to His Ability---254.
Needs---256. To Each According to His Needs - 258. The Road
to Economic Equality---262.
2. Towards Social Equality..............265
Towards a Single People's Ownership- 2(>,">. Surmounting
the Essential Distinctions Between Town and Country---269.
Surmounting the Essential Distinctions Between Mental and
Physical Labour---274. Development and Drawing Together of
Nations---276.
3. Towards Social Self-Administration..........280
The Ability to Administer---a Feature of the New Man---280. Extension of Socialist Democracy---282. Enhancement of the Role of Mass Organisations---284. Growth of the Role of the C.P.S.U.---287. Withering Away of the State -288.
Chapter 10
MOULDING THE NEW MAN
2921. The Need for Communist Education..........293
Fundamental Principles of Education---296. Means of Communist Education---298.
2. Spiritual Culture and the Advancement of the Individual
3003. Scientific Philosophy and the Struggle Ayainst Hostile Ideology 303 Formation of a Scientific World Outlook---304. Atheistic Education---306. Struggle Against Bourgeois Ideology---306.
4. Education Through Labour.............308
Core of Communist Education- - 308. Inculcation of Respect
for All Useful Work---308.
5. Moral Education.................310
Communist Morality- 310. Basic Moral Principles of the Builder of Communism---311. Soviet Patriotism and Proletarian Internationalism---313. Survivals of Capitalism and Ways and Means of Surmounting Them---316. Morality and Knowledge
---318. Needs as a Factor of Man's Behaviour---321. Formation of Needs as a Principal Means of Moral Education---323.
6. Aesthetic Education................326
7. Physical Improvement...............329
78. Communism nnd Freedom of tlw Individual.......331
Freedom of the Individual under Communism---332. Freedom and Responsibility of the Individual-334. CommunismEmbodiment of Humanism---.'Wo.
FOR SOCIALISM, FOR COMMUNISM
338Society of Peace-338. Society of Labour---338. Society of Freedom---339. Society of Equalitj- 340. Society of Fraternity ---341. Society ot Happiness- 342.
[8] __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE THEORY OF SCIENTIFIC COMMUNISMProduction, science and technology, which are advancing with fabulous speed, have reached a level of development which today is high enough to give mankind immense power over the forces of nature and make it possible fully to satisfy the material and spiritual requirements of the world's entire population. It has been estimated that all the people inhabiting our planet could live comfortably if production capacities and scientific and technical achievements were used to benefit the whole of mankind without exception.
What then is the hitch? Whose fault is it that in the non-socialist world only one in ten people receives adequate nourishment and the rest are undernourished; that nearly half of the world's adult population is illiterate? Whose fault is it that blood was shed and continues to be shed in senseless wars fought in the interests of an insignificant minority; that the nuclear mushroom hangs as a sinister shadow over the earth; that vast sums of money are spent on preparations for a monstrous thermonuclear war? Whose fault is it that in a considerable part of the globe, Man, that most wonderful of nature's creations, who is endowed with the most diverse creative abilities, is not only denied the opportunity to deploy these abilities but also suffers from exploitation, social injustice, hunger and disease? Whose fault is it that in some countries, which pride themselves on their civilisation, a dark skin is regarded as a badge of inferiority? Whose fault is it that a huge part of mankind was harnessed to the yoke of colonialism, 9 which continues to rule the destinies of tens of millions of people?
The blame falls squarely on capitalism, which accentuated the contrast between poverty and wealth, and raised war, colonialism and racism to the level of official policy. It expends incalculable material and labour resources to please a tiny handful of monopolists, humiliates the working man and uses many of the latest achievements of science and technology to his detriment.
Definite social conditions are required in order to make it possible to utilise the tremendous wealth available to mankind, the mighty production capacities and the remarkable achievements of modern science and technology. Capitalism must be destroyed and superseded by a new society, whose lofty and only object is to provide all people with a happy and free life worthy of human beings and deliver them from wars.
This new society is communism, and the science giving an integral picture of the laws governing its formation and development is called the theory of scientific communism.
Let us analyse this brief definition in some detail.
No class antagonistic society has ever set out to promote the all-round development of the working man. The working man has always been used as a means for achieving other objects, for example, as under capitalism, for getting superprofits. Under communism, however, the working man comes forward as the ``end in itself" of social development (Karl Marx). The theory of scientific communism discloses the economic, social and cultural conditions under which the all-round, harmonious development of man can be promoted.
However, before these conditions can be created, the old social system---capitalism---must be abolished by revolutionary means. This implies that scientific communism examines the question of the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the creation thereby of the prerequisites for the emancipation of man. It demonstrates that the downfall of capitalism is historically inevitable due to the operation of objective laws and its inner contradictions. It reveals the revolutionary forces that are undermining and destroying capitalism, and points to the socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat 10 as the indispensable means for putting an end to the old, capitalist society.
Problems linked up with the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism occupy an important place in the theory of scientific communism. Capitalism is destroyed to clear the road for the new, communist society. This poses scientific communism with yet another major problem, namely, that of bringing to light the laws of the formation of communist society and studying this society as a complex social organism. Man, with all his diverse relations and abilities, his inclinations and requirements and his creative and physical possibilities, stands in the limelight of communist society. That explains why the lofty humanitarian principle of ``everything for man, for the good of man" is the basic programme slogan of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. A science treating of a society in which prime concern is shown for man cannot help but deal with the creation of the economic, social and spiritual conditions for the moulding of fully developed people. Scientific communism studies man, generalising and synthetising all the available scientific data about him as a creative, social and intellectual being, as a link in the social system and in the system of nature.
It also studies economy---material production, exchange, distribution and consumption in communist society--- but only in the measure that this serves man as an economic condition for his all-round development. Social relations and spiritual life, too, are studied by scientific communism as a condition of man's social and cultural development, and as a manifestation of his creative activity.
Scientific communism studies the communist social and economic system, i.e. interrelation and unity of its economic, social and spiritual aspects, paying particular attention to how each of these aspects and all of them together serve man and help to achieve the highest degree of social development.
Society develops by virtue of the operation of objective laws. In the final analysis, however, this operation depends upon the people themselves, on the profundity of their knowledge of the substance of social phenomena, on their purposefulness and level of organisation, how 11 effeclively these laws are applied. The development of society is thus visualised as a complex intermingling and interrelation of objective laws and the subjective factor.
To achieve harmony between objective conditions and the subjective factor of social development, the working masses must understand objective laws and master the mechanism of their operation. They must learn to co-- ordinate their activities with the requirements of these laws M> that society can make effective use of them for the benefit of man.
This advances yet another important problem of the theory of scientific communism---that of finding the ways and means for co-ordinating the subjective activity of people with the requirements of objective laws and bringing to light the ways and means of utilising these laws in the interests of man. Scientific communism uses its knowledge of objective laws to disclose progressive trends or individual stages of social development, directs and regulates social progress in accordance with these trends, shows the obstacles impeding the attainment of one aim or another and helps people to remove these obstacles. In other words, it investigates how the conscious regulation of social processes and of communist construction operates.
Scientific communism is thus a science dealing with the ways and means of destroying capitalism, with the laws governing the creation of the new, communist society, and with the economic, social and spiritual conditions for the all-round development of man; it is a science dealing with communist society as a complex social organism; it is a science dealing with the conscious, purposeful direction of social processes in the interests of man.
This distinguishes scientific communism from the other components of Marxism-Leninism, i.e., from Marxist philosophy and Marxist political economy.
Like Marxism-Leninism as a whole, the theory of scientific communism did not emerge out of nothing. It inherited the communist ideas of the past, ideas that had been maturing for centuries in mankind's leading minds. We must, therefore, briefly review the history of communist thinking in the past and trace its growth from a utopia to a science.
12 __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 1 __ALPHA_LVL1__ FROM A UTOPIA TO A SCIENCE __ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. Utopian Socialism and Its PlaceCapitalism, which gave birth to conditions facilitating the rapid development of production, technology and natural science, replaced feudalism in a number of WestEuropean countries in the 16th-18th centuries. Factories, mills and mines dislodged the artisan workshops and the manufactories, while the energy of human muscles, of water and of wind was supplanted by the mighty energy of steam and then of electricity. Within the relatively short span of two or three centuries much more ground was covered in the development of production than in the entire preceding history of mankind. However, capitalism did not make the lot of the working man easier: exploitation remained as ruthless and inhuman as it was in slave-owning times and under feudalism, this all the more so since survivals of feudalism were still strongly entrenched and capitalist oppression was frequently supplemented with feudal oppression. This gave rise to growing dissatisfaction among the masses and the class struggle became increasingly more acute. These social changes could not but have their effect on the spiritual life of society. Socialist theories were advanced which mirrored the protest of the masses against the existing social system. Humanism---respect and concern for man---was the central idea of all these theories.
One of the first Utopian socialists was the English statesman and philosopher Thomas More (1478--1535).
Though capitalism was still in its infancy, he saw that it was a system of exploitation that was unable to ensure 13 a genuinely human life for the working people, that it was a ``...conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth''. Capitalism displayed no concern whatever for tillers of the soil, miners, day-labourers, draymen and workers, without whom, More believed, no society could exist. The rich ``invent and devise means and crafts ... to hire and abuse the work and labour of the poor for as little money as may be" and exploit them as though they were beasts of burden.
Thomas More's greatest service to progressive thinking was that in his book Utopia he drew the conclusion that equality and happiness, man's physical and intellectual development, social justice and an intelligent conduct of social affairs were inconceivable as long as private ownership existed, as long as the wealth created by the labour of the majority fell into the hands of a few, who led an idle life.
He advanced the profound and daring idea that private ownership had to be abolished and gave a picture of a single, democratically governed, organised society founded on collective ownership and collective labour.
In this society, which More sited on the imaginary Island of Utopia, people were not slaves to capital; they were not oppressed by the wealthy. They laboured collectively, engaging in both physical and mental work. They did not tolerate idlers and parasites, and delivered the fruits of their labour to public storehouses, from where they received everything they needed free of charge. More came close to understanding the communist principle of distribution according to requirements, although, as interpreted by him, these requirements were extremely limited, cover ing only bare necessities.
Due to historical reasons, his other views were similarly narrow. For instance, he made allowance for the existence of slavery---prisoners of war and criminals, who would perform the most arduous work; the Utopians had to believe in God as the creator of the world and in the immortality of the soul.
City of the Sun was the name Tommaso Campanella (1568--1639), who was prominent in the popular liberation movement in Italy, gave the future society. As on More's 14 Island of Utopia, there was no exploitation in the City of the Sun. The citizens were not slaves to capital. Everybody worked---the working day was only four hours long. The people devoted their leisure time to mental and physical development. Like More's Utopians, they delivered the fruits of their labour to public storehouses from where they received everything they needed. An extremely striking point was that Campanella sought to use science to conduct the affairs of society intelligently for the purpose of ensuring social progress. The City's ruler was a scientist with vast knowledge and long practical experience. The idea of organising society scientifically, of consciously directing social progress must be recognised as being remarkable despite its primitive nature. Like More, Campanella did not know how to set about building the new society; while turning to science he drew upon astrology.
The theories evolved by More and Campanella, who were the first to work out a system of social organisation, which excluded private property and exploitation, played a tremendous role in the criticism of feudal ideology and influenced the subsequent development of social thinking.
Gerrard Winstanley (1609-c. 1652), spokesman of the poor, chiefly of the proletarianised peasantry during the English bourgeois revolution of the 17th century, was a brilliant advocate of Utopian socialism. In his views the nascent proletariat's demand for the abolition of private property dovetailed with the demand of the peasants for equal rights to land. He believed that mankind could be delivered from poverty and exploitation and a new society built only after private property was abolished in town and countryside. His idea of this new society did not go beyond primitive, equalitarian communism. Moreover, many of his views wore the cloak of religion. Nonetheless, these were enlightened views inasmuch as they mirrored the basic demands of the poorest sections of English society.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Utopians of the 18th CenturyIn France the revolutionary trend of utopian socialism was founded by Jean Meslier (1664-- 1729), who spent most of his life in the countryside and personally witnessed the benumbing poverty and suffering of the peasants, and their back-breaking, forced labour for the feudal lords. His Testament, a passionate, 15 merciless indictment of feudal exploitation, royal power and the Church, circulated first in manuscript form, and was published many years after his death. Meslier dreamed of communism, of a society without exploiters founded on publicly-owned property and collective labour. He was well aware that the oppressors would not voluntarily surrender their privileges, wealth and dominant position, and therefore called for the revolutionary overthrow of the existing system: ``Everybody unite in unanimous determination to achieve liberation from this hated and odious yoke. . .'' he exhorted. His great contribution to the development of socialist ideas was that he sought to inject communist ideals into the popular, peasant revolution.
However, he failed to give even a rough outline of the future society. A more or less detailed blue print is to be found in Code of Nature or the True Spirit of Her Laws (1755), written by the French Utopian Morelly, who opposed private ownership, which, he said, had perverted and spoiled man's nature. He drew up draft laws of the new society. The first of these laws abolished private ownership with the exception of ownership of articles of personal use; the second guaranteed the right to work and proclaimed that it was the duty of all to work; the third required people to benefit society to the best of their ability, in accordance with their strength, talents and age. The latter law was the first document clearly defining one of the basic principles of socialism, namely, the necessity of each person working according to his ability. Morelly also advanced the idea of distribution according to needs, but this was a primitive, equalitarian distribution. He sought to adapt society to the level of the medieval peasant's requirements, to his extremely narrow world outlook.
A considerable step forward in developing the communist principle of distribution was made by the French philosopher Gabriel Bonnot de Mably (1709--1785), who advocated the building of a society that would ensure to each citizen ``the largest possible sum of delight and happiness". This society could be built only after private ownership was abolished. Mably mourned for the ``Golden Age'', when private ownership was non-existent, and considered that the division of property, which put an end to 16 that age, was the greatest evil because it perverted people, arousing in them a lust for gain. But, alone, the lust for gain could not induce people to work. The striving to promote the well-being of society as a whole, respect for one's fellow citizens and honest competition could be much more powerful stimuli for industriousness than greed and vanity.
While recognising the right of oppressed people to accomplish a revolution, Mably believed that reforms enforced by a democratic republic would deliver man from the loathsome habits of proprietorship. He regarded this republic as a phase of the transition from a society of private ownership and exploitation to communist society.
He thus posed social thinking with the immensely important and complex problem of whether the new society should be achieved by revolution or by reforms.
The French revolutionary Gracchus Babeuf (1760--1797) and his supporters, known as Babouvists, replied that the solution lay in revolution and the forcible overthrow of the existing system by a group of fearless conspirators, devoted to the people and implacably hating exploitation and wealth.
Babeuf was the leader of a revolutionary peasant movement for the establishment of a nation-wide commune---a ``republic of equals''. In the 18th century many socialists confined themselves to criticising the falsehood, the injustice and the unreasonableness of the existing system. But in the case of the Babouvists, life prompted them to adopt the doctrine of insurrection and seizure of power. They witnessed and participated in the great French bourgeois revolution of 1789--93 and soon realised that this revolution had not abolished exploitation but only changed its form. Far from contributing anything to the people's happiness, the revolution forced the people to go on sweating and shedding their blood, which ultimately turned into gold for a tiny handful of rich men. The Babouvists maintained that the bourgeois revolution would be followed by a new, people's revolution during which the people would seize power, establish a revolutionary dictatorship and organise a ``society of equals''. In that society, founded on collective ownership, there would be neither rich nor poor, nobody would appropriate property, and each would __PRINTERS_P_17_COMMENT__ 2---2775 17 work for the common weal to the best of his ability. In their Manifesto the Babouvists wrote that equality implied primarily ``that everybody would work and equally share the fruits of their work".
True, the Babouvist notions of equality were primitive. Equalitarian consumption was one of their leading theo ries. No matter what work a man did, they argued, it did not make his belly any bigger. Hence their underestimation of skilled labour, education, art and science. If necessary, they wrote, let all art perish so long as real equality was preserved. They failed to appreciate the role of cultural progress and the need for an abundance of material and cultural blessings enabling man continuously to develop his abilities.
The Babouvists' idea of communism was that of a highly organised, centralised society founded on collective ownership and united on a nation-wide scale. Their idea of a centralised administration of society was of inestimable value.
They were spokesmen of the then nascent French proletariat, but the proletariat's immaturity and lack of organisation in those days were mirrored in their crude notions of a society of the future and of the ways of building that society. Their conspiratorial tactics and their weak link with the people doomed them to defeat. Members of the ``conspiracy of equals" were arrested, and Babeuf himself was guillotined.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Great Utopian Socialists of the 19th CenturyIn the 19th century capitalism by no means wore tne festive attire in which it was clothed by bourgeois philosophers, historians and economists. It condemned the working people to appalling poverty and back-breaking toil at factories. At the same time, it produced the proletariat, which grad ually occupied an important place in society, and precipitated its dissatisfaction, initially impulsive, with the capitalist system. The resultant class struggle between labour and capital mounted and became the key driving force and content of the historical development.
The struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie and its as yet only instinctive opposition to capitalist wageslavery was reflected in the theories of great socialists of 18 the 19th century---Claude Henri Saint Simon de Rouvroy, Francois Marie Charles Fourier and Robert Owen.
Claude Henri Saint-Simon de Rouvroy (1760--1825) came from an aristocratic family, but that did not prevent him from ardently championing the humiliated and the insulted. In one of his main treatises---Literary, Philosophical and Industrial Opinions---he dismisses the existence of a Golden Age in the past. He saw the Golden Age of mankind in the future, when oppression would be abolished and people would unite to harness nature and use her for their own good.
In the future socialist society, in an organised and consciously administered society, he accorded the central place to man, to his requirements and abilities. He considered that the best social system was one that gave the majority of the people a happy life and the maximum opportunity to ``satisfy their prime needs" and ``develop all their useful abilities".
He pictured the future socialist society as a free association, a ``large workshop'', in which people would collectively influence nature in order to build up universal wellbeing and prosperity. In this society each person would work according to his ability and receive according to his work. There would be no exploitation, no domination of the majority by a minority, while the function of government would be to direct all the work of society. The treatises of Saint-Simon and, in particular, of his disciples contain the idea that the new society would have a `` centralised economy'', that economic development would be planned. Moreover, Saint-Simon was the first philosopher to expound the idea of setting up a world-wide association of people in order to make the best possible use of natural resources. In developing this idea, Saint-Simon's foremost followers came to the conclusion that this world-wide association would put an end to all social and national antagonism and thereby ensure peace and uninterrupted progress.
Some of Saint-Simon's forecasts of the society of the future were brilliant, but by and large his theories were idealistic and Utopian. He failed to see the material foundations of social development and preached peaceful cooperation between the oppressors and the oppressed. He __PRINTERS_P_20_COMMENT__ 2* 19 felt that social development depended upon ideas, on the world outlook, and in his plans lor socialism he appealed to the conscience of enlightened industrialists and monarchs. He strove to ``induce monarchs to use the power given them by the people to enforce urgent political changes''. He was afraid of the class struggle and rejected the idea of a revolution, pinning his hopes on the preaching of fraternity among peoples, on the miraculous power of reforms carried out from above.
The strongest point of another French Utopian Socialist Francois Marie Charles Fourier (1772--1837), son of a wealthy but subsequently impoverished merchant, was his brilliant criticism of the capitalist system.
Fourier considered that the natural qualities and passions of man were a major factor of social progress. However, he held that these natural qualities had been trampled and crushed by capitalism, which had brought to ruin and poverty the bulk of the people while concentrating fabulous wealth in the hands of a few.
Capitalism, he wrote, is a ``world turned upside down, a social hell''. In that hell man was a toy in the hands of the elements, a victim of anarchy, of the trend towards ``anarchic production''. In that world, wealth was being accumulated by a few, while millions were denied the means of subsistence. With deadly sarcasm he stigmatised the hypocrisy and insincerity of the bourgeois system and of those who, having sacrificed themselves to the Golden Calf, were defending and embellishing it. He exposed the economic and state mechanism of bourgeois society, which ``is, in all respects, nothing but an art of robbing the poor and putting more money in the pockets of the rich".
Fourier was aware that an exacerbation of social contradictions could lead to a people's revolution that would sweep capitalism away. However, he was afraid of revolution, of independent political action by the masses, and therefore devised a peaceful way of consolidating the new system in which ``social harmony" would reign. He pictured this harmonious society as consisting of production associations, which he named phalanges. Each phalange would have 1,600-1,700 members, all of whom would live in a huge communal building, the phalanstery. The 20 main occupation would be farming but there would be small industries, primarily artisan crafts.
He paid particular attention to the question of the work of the phalange members. He considered that work was man's most important right and duty, and he contemplated ways and means of putting an end to the capitalist division of labour, which was mutilating man, of turning labour from an enforced and arduous occupation into a pleasure, into a source of joy, and of erasing the distinction between town and country. His view was that every member of the phalange should have the opportunity to choose his vocation, that he should not be chained to one form of work but should have the possibility of changing it freely. This could be achieved by promoting man's harmonious development. Inasmuch as the choice of work conforms with man's desires unity of the personal and the social is achieved in the phalange.
However, Fourier's ideas about the new society and the ways of achieving it did not go beyond the framework of utopianism. Also Utopian was his idea of harmony between the interests of the propertied and non-propertied. He made allowance for the existence of private property and capitalists in the phalanges, considering that the product of the labour of its members should be distributed not only according to work (5/12) and talent (3/12), but also according to capital investments (4/12). This, he felt, was the only way to achieve class harmony, an alliance between capital, labour and talent. Thus, Fourier did not reject either private property or the division of society into the rich and the poor. He thereby took a step back compared with other Utopian Socialists. A step back from Saint-Simon's views was Fourier's aspiration to decentralise society, to split it up into isolated production units--- phalanges. This excluded the possibility of consciously governing society. Also Utopian are Fourier's notions about the ways of achieving the new society. He believed that it could be achieved by expounding socialist ideas, by a gradual reform of capitalist society. He took his phalanstery plans to the feudal aristocracy, capitalists and monarchs, including Napoleon I, but received neither support nor sympathy.
Robert Owen (1771--1858) was the first Utopian Socialist 21 to dedicate himself entirely to the working class. He was active in the working-class movement and made his mark as an enlightener of the workers of his country. Frederick Engels wrote: ``Every social movement, every real advance in England on behalf of the workers links itself on to the name of Robert Owen.''
As manager of the large New Lanark textile mills Owen instituted improvements in the material and everyday life of the workers: he reduced the working day to ten and a half hours instead of the 13--14 hours then prevailing in England, organised the world's first nursery and kindergarten for the children of workers, opened a model school and set up a hospital fund. Later, when he was ostracised by official society for his communist ideas, he devoted 30 years to efforts to improve the life of workers. He organised a campaign in defence of workers' rights. The adoption of the first Factory Act limiting child and female labour was due largely to his elforts.
Owen sharply criticised the capitalist system, but considered that the social contradictions of capitalism stemmed from ignorance and delusion. He believed that capitalism could be done away with by enlightening society, by giving it a plan for an intelligent social system. With the spread of enlightenment people would become ashamed of the monstrous contradictions and absurdities of the existing system and turn their gaze to a new system that would ensure the best conditions for the life and moral improvement of man.
Owen regarded private properly, which ``has been, and is at this day, the cause of endless crime and misery to man'', the main obstacle to the creation of the new society. He firmly believed that the time would come when all items of personal use would become public property, when people would appreciate the incomparable superiority of public ownership over private ownership with its attendant evils. He founded his rational society on a community of property and a community of labour.
However, he was opposed to the attainment of this society by a class struggle and revolution. He feared the class struggle, feeling that it was necessary to prevent the destruction of social life, which was a possibility in view of the growing impoverishment of the working people, and 22 advanced plans for social reforms on communist lines. He submitted these plans to the sovereigns and governments of several countries, and sought to convince society that reforms could be accomplished by setting a good example. He spent a great deal of money and energy on organising communist communities, first at New Harmony, Indiana, U.S.A., and later at Harmony Hall, Britain. These social schemes failed and consumed his entire fortune. Nonetheless, his elforts to implement socialist ideas were of fundamental importance.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Russian Utopian SocialistsThe theories of Utopian socialism made headway in Russia as well, particularly in the works of the revolutionary democrats Alexander Herzen and Nikolai Chernyshevsky.
Alexander Herzen (1812--70), a noted Russian writer and philosopher, bitterly criticised capitalism and was firmly convinced that socialism would triumph in Russia. He believed that unlike the West, Russia would achieve socialism through the village community without passing through the capitalist stage of development with its accompanying privations and sufferings. ``The community,'' he wrote, ``saved the Russian people from Mongolian barbarity and imperial civilisation, from the European hue of landowner and from German bureaucracy. Although it has been badly shaken, the communal organisation has withstood the interference of the authorities: it has safely lived to see the development of socialism in Europe.
``This is infinitely important to Russia.''
He pictured socialism as a peasant community in which people would respect one another. He failed to see that capitalism, which had destroyed patriarchal relations, had penetrated into the Russian community and had given birth to a working class, and that this class was playing a revolutionising role in society. Hence the Utopian nature of Herzen's communal socialism. However, he did not for a moment think that socialism would dawn in Russia of itself. He realised that it would be the outcome of an active political struggle. His socialist ideas were linked up with dialectical theories, which he regarded as the ``algebra of revolution".
No Utopian Socialist drew a more impressive and true 23 picture of communist society or was closer to understanding the ways and means of achieving it than the great Russian writer and philosopher Nikolai Chernyshevsky (1828--89).
He gave capitalism its due as being more progressive than serfdom and saw that it had penetrated Russia. But he believed that it would not last long, that it would be superseded by a new, communist system, in which property would be commonly owned and labour would be obligatory. ``We,'' he wrote, ``accept as an arithmetical truth the fact that with time man will gain the upper hand over external nature to the extent needed by him, that he will remake everything on earth in accordance with his needs, avert or harness all unwanted manifestations of external nature and make the utmost use of those of its forces that benefit him. With time this could lead to the eradication of the disproportion between human needs and the means of satisfying them. . .. Instead of being an onerous necessity, labour would become a light and pleasurable physiological requirement, such as enlightened people regard mental work.. ..''
He pictured the future socialist society as a federation of ``production associations" governed by the people themselves. In this federation, which would be free of exploitation, work would be obligatory. By agreement among themselves these associations would form a single political and economic complex, which would exclude overproduction and the accompanying crises, ensure the satisfaction of people's needs and promote their talents. Chernyshevsky believed that in this new society the emphasis would be on large-scale industry, technology and science in order to secure a high level of labour productivity and thereby advance the welfare of the people. As masters of their own life, the people of this society would work collectively with the aid of machines. They would remake the land, turning it into a flowering orchard in which they would enjoy all the pleasures of life.
True, even Chernyshevsky failed to go beyond the framework of Utopian socialism. He did not understand the laws of social development and could not appreciate the role of the working class as the maker of the new society. Like Herzen, he believed that in Russia socialism would 24 be achieved through the village community, whose underlying principles would spread to the towns and to industry. At the same time, he did not think the community was a finished form of socialism, and was far from the idea that socialism could be built on the basis of philanthropy, much less through voluntary agreement between the classes. Besides being a theoretician of socialism, he was a revolutionary, who linked the development of socialism up with the people's revolution. His works, which, as Lenin put it, breathe with the spirit of the class struggle, passionately call for a struggle against the tsar and the landowners, for a new social system. In his theories utopian socialism merges with revolutionary democratism.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The Historical Place of Utopian SocialismUtopian socialism underwent a considerable evolution under the impact of historical development, the aggravation of the antagonisms in exploiting society, and the class struggle of the oppressed against the oppressors. The works of the Utopians mirrored not only actual social development but also trends that, as Lenin wrote, forestalled this development.
Let us briefly analyse what the Utopian Socialists gave to human development and the place occupied in history by Utopian socialism.
First, the leading Utopian Socialists searchingly criticised the capitalist system, revealed its vices and lack of vitality and sought to prove that the downfall of capitalism and its replacement by a new, communist society were inevitable. Most of them linked the establishment of this new society up with the abolition of private ownership, which they regarded as the major cause of exploitation and other evils besetting the working man, and with the institution of collective, public ownership, which alone could serve as the foundation for genuine freedom, equality and fraternity. They raised the question of the ways and means of demolishing exploiting society. Leading exponents of Utopian socialism like Meslier, Babeuf and the Russian revolutionary democrats saw that socialism would triumph as a result of a political struggle, of a people's revolution.
Secondly, with the insight of genius, the Utopian Socialists anticipated some of the features of the society of the 25 future. Their plans for an ideal society sprang from profound humanist motives, and their main concern was to give the people of the new society the conditions for a real human existence, for developing and improving their abilities and talents. In the works of some of them we find profound ideas about man, about his abilities and the ways of improving these abilities, about labour as the principal benefit, right and duty of each person, about work according to ability, about turning work into a vital necessity and a pleasure, about abolishing the ugly distinction between mental and physical work and between town and country, and about a just distribution according to work and needs.
Thirdly, the Utopian Socialists were the first to raise the question of guiding social processes consciously and purposefully, linking up the possibility of providing this guidance with the establishment of public ownership, with the creation of a single, centralised planned economy ( Babouvists, Saint-Simon and his followers, Chernyshevsky).
They thus raised many basic problems that were later scientifically resolved by Marx, Engels and Lenin. The formulation of key problems of scientific development and the attempts of the Utopian Socialists to find an answer to them were highly appraised by the classics of scientific communism. The great Utopians brilliantly `` anticipated innumerable things, the correctness of which is now being scientifically proved by us''.^^*^^ It was, therefore, no accident that Utopian socialism, particularly the utopism of the 19th century, was one of the ideological sources of Marxism, a direct predecessor of scientific communism.
While giving a high evaluation of the works of the Utopian Socialists, the classics of scientific communism showed their historical narrowness and criticised the idealistic principles underlying their theories. They pointed to the crude equalitarianism and the universal asceticism preached by the great Utopian Socialists of the West, and to the Utopian, unrealisable nature of the ways and means suggested by them for achieving socialism. The Utopian Socialists saw the antithesis between the class interests of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, but they rejected the _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 5, p. 371.
26 idea that the proletariat could be a decisive force in history, failing to realise that this was the very force that could attain the lofty communist ideals. Many Utopian Socialists were opposed to the class struggle and the revolution, coming out against not only revolutionary but all political action.Many of them felt that society could be remade by reforms, by the preaching of abstract plans for reorganising society, by the establishment of impracticable `` communist" communes. They sought not material foundations for the emancipation of the proletariat but the creation of a social science, which, when it was assimilated by the people, would of itself bring mankind to the cherished goal. Failing to appreciate the social role of the proletariat, they appealed to the conscience of all classes, primarily of the ruling classes, and urged the achievement of a harmony of class interests.
Nothing came of their efforts because they isolated themselves from the people, from the working class, ignored the material conditions of social life, knew nothing of the laws of social development and relied solely on ideas, on enlightenment and education. The abortiveness of their ideas was due to the social and historical conditions of their day---the immaturity of social relations and the embryonic nature of the proletariat, which had not yet taken shape as a class and, therefore, could not perceive its own position and the great mission that had been charted for it by history. Engels wrote: ``To the crude conditions of capitalistic production and the crude class conditions corresponded crude theories.''
Yet time marched on. Social relations grew ever more mature, the antagonisms of capitalism became ever more obvious, and the proletariat increased numerically and became steeled in revolutionary struggle, gradually developing into the decisive force behind social progress. History set social science the tremendously important task of evolving a theory that could serve the revolutionary classes as a guide to action. This theory, the theory of scientific communism, was created by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.
27 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The Evolution of Socialism fromKarl Marx (1818--83) and Frederick Engels (1820--95) embarked upon their scientific and revolutionary activities in Germany in the 1840s. This was a period of rapid development of capitalism, which had firmly established itself in some European countries and North America, and of the growth of a new class, the industrial proletariat, and the beginning of its revolutionary struggle.
The bourgeoisie had deposed feudalism, and its optimism about its own future knew no bounds. It firmly believed that private ownership would be perpetual.
Yet in 1848, like a bolt from the blue, when it seemed that the world was destined to be ruled by the bourgeoisie for ever, came the words of the Communist Manifesto. In this Manifesto, on behalf of history, Marx and Engels passed sentence on capitalism. They showed that capitalist society with its private ownership and exploitation would give way to a society without exploitation or slavery, to a communist society, just as inevitably as it had itself replaced feudalism and that mankind was moving towards a great communist revolution. ``Let the ruling classes shudder in face of the communist revolution,'' Marx and Engels declared. The Manifesto ended the epoch of utopian socialism and ushered in the epoch of scientific socialism.
Utopian socialism, as we have seen, was founded on humanism. This inspired the Utopians to devise a society that would conform to the nature and dignity of man. But they were unable to conceive a lucid picture of the nature, of the very substance of man. They saw man abstractly, as an aggregate of thoughts and passions and, besides, they had an extremely vague idea of the source of these human passions and thoughts. The great 19th century Utopians had inherited from the Enlighteners the profound theory that man was a product of the social environment, of his surroundings, but they had no notion of this environment or its laws and driving forces. Hence, they had no idea of human development. In spite of that, they firmly believed that the capitalist system, the system of 28 oppression and private property, which was mutilating man, had to be destroyed. They imagined the evolution of environment as the evolution of human passions and ideas. This gave rise to a vicious circle: thinking man was the product of his environment, and the environment was the product of man's ideas.
This vicious circle had to be broken, for as Marx and Engels wrote: ``If man is shaped by his surroundings, his surroundings must be made human.''^^*^^ These surroundings could be made ``human'' only by laying bare the real laws governing the development of the social environment and skilfully using them for the benefit of man. But to reveal the substance of social laws meant showing the substance of man, who was the product of social relations. In other words, the abstract ideas of Utopian humanism and the ideas of creating a society worthy of man had to be transferred to the soil of reality.
The basic difference between scientific and Utopian socialism is that the former rests not on speculative ideas and good intentions but on the soil of reality, on a scientific understanding of the laws of social development and of the substance of man himself.
Counterposing a scientific, dialectical-materialist understanding of social development to the idealism of the Utopians, and showing the historical inevitability of the revolutionary replacement of capitalism by socialism, Marx and Engels turned socialism from a Utopia into a science.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Inevitability of the Revolutionary Replacement of Capitalism by SocialismCapitalism initiated a rapid growth of the productive forces, created a powerful economy in the more developed countries, swept away feudal partitions, gave rise to a world economy and spread the system of exploitation throughout the world, making it particularly onerous and ruinous to the majority of the peoples, who became colonial slaves. The productive forces grew swiftly due to capitalist relations of production, which engendered capitalist profit as an incentive for developing production. In pursuit of profit the bourgeoisie expanded production, and improved machines and technology in industry and agriculture. However, _-_-_
^^*^^K. Marx and F. Engels, The Holy Family, Moscow, 1956, p. 176.
29 these relations gave rise not only to an unprecedented growth of production but also to productive forces that threatened the capitalist system with destruction. Marx and Engels compared capitalism with a magician, whose incantations had called into action forces that had become much too powerful for him to cope with.The greatest service rendered by Marx and Engels was that they brought to light the basic contradiction of capitalism---the contradiction between the social nature of the process of production and the private capitalist method of appropriation. Under capitalism, production is of a markedly social nature; millions of people, concentrated at the large enterprises, take part in this production, but the fruit of their work is appropriated by a small group of big proprietors. This contradiction, which is a concrete expression of the antagonism between the productive forces and the relations of production, gives rise to crises and unemployment and calls forth an irreconcilable class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, a struggle which ends with the socialist revolution, with the replacement of capitalism by socialism.
The socialist revolution thus has a definite economic foundation---the contradictions in capitalist production--- and comes forward as a historical necessity. This necessity springs from the development of production, which is cramped by capitalist relations of production, and by its nature, being collective, demands the abolition of private capitalist ownership and the establishment of public, collective ownership.
A materialist understanding of history and an analysis of the objective laws of social development, of the objective dialectics of capitalism and its inner contradictions, brought Marx and Engels round to the theory that the socialist revolution was not only necessary but also the only means of replacing capitalism by socialism, a necessary prerequisite for the emancipation of man and the creation of conditions for his real development. This scattered the illusions of the great Western Utopian Socialists about turning capitalism into socialism by reforms, by achieving a ``harmony'' of class interests.
Interpreted from the materialist standpoint, history has made it possible not only to elicit the real essence of the 30 social surroundings in which man lives and develops and show the ways and means of changing these surroundings for the benefit of man, but also to reveal the essence of man himself, his place in the system of social relations, within the framework of the social whole to which he belongs. This smashed the vicious circle concerning the relations between man and his surroundings, the vicious circle that had defied pre-Marxian social thought.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Essence of Man and the TrendEvery man is a biological being, but that does not comprise his essence. Naturally, to shape man, nature uses definite biological material, but the turning of this material into a human organism is the result of social factors, primarily of labour. Labour, Engels wrote, created man. It is incarnated in the organisation of the human body. Man is man not because he consists of organs, tissues and cells, and not because he breathes with his lungs and feeds his children with milk, but because he can work, think and talk, because he can produce imple ments of labour and, with their help, influence his surroundings, nature, because in the process of labour he can enter into social relations with other men.
Marxism rejected the cult of abstract man, of man in general, regardless of time and space. Man has always been concrete, belonging to a historically definite social whole---a social system, a definite social group (class, nation, and so forth). He has always been a link in a definite system of social relations.
Marx wrote: ''. . .The human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of social relations.'' This very ensemble of social relations, the social environment in which man develops, engenders the entire diversity of manifestations of his life.
Thus, the material, production activity of society, the economic relations that form in the process of production, determine whether a man is a slave or a slave-owner, a peasant or a feudal lord, a worker or a capitalist. In other words, the economic life of a definite society engenders manifestations of the economic life of a concrete man and, therefore, his place in the system of social production. The manifestation of man's life in the economic sphere comprises the foundation of all his other manifestations, 31 features and peculiarities. A definite collective- class, nation, and so forth---gives rise to the national, class and other features of man or, in short, to manifestations oi his social life. Lastly, intrinsic in man are manifestations of spiritual life, which mirror the economic, the production relations inherent in society.
The social environment to which man belongs thus engenders in him definite ``manifestations of life"---his diversity of features, behaviour and actions, thoughts and aspirations, needs, talents and other psychical qualities (character, temperament, feelings, habits, and so forth). In their totality and interaction all these features, these manifestations of life, form concrete man as a whole. Taken separately, they are specific manifestations of a definite social relation. Together they are a manifestation of the entire diversity of relations in society. In this context, the human essence is the sum total, the qualitative knot, an aggregate of social relations.
Why, one may ask, is there such a diversity of human individualities in one and the same environment, in one and the same society? Why does one individual or another not embody all the features of the social whole, and why is there such a difference in the features that he does embody? The answer to this is that each person develops in a specific environment (``micro-environment''), i.e., his speciality, occupation, features of the production or other collective, family, ``street'', and so on.
One can easily appreciate that the ``micro-environment'' is the prism through which is refracted the influence of the general social surroundings---economic and other social relations, the spiritual life of society. Inasmuch as the factors comprising the ``micro-environment'' are extremely diverse, this diversity spreads to persons even though they live and work in one and the same society, in one and the same social environment.
Thus, the features of each concrete person are determined by the general social environment through the medium of the ``micro-environment''. This gives expression to the general law of human development, of man's mode of existence, which, Marx wrote, ``is a more particular, or more general mode of the life of the species".
The individual constantly changes, develops in 32 accordance with the changes in the social environment. In the process of development he loses some of his old features, acquires new ones, and develops and toughens still others. It should be taken into consideration that the social environment itself is not homogeneous: in it there always are foundations of the present, survivals of the past and embryos of the future. It turns out that man represents the sum total of the social manifestations of the given environment (to it belongs the decisive role in forming the features of the individual), the environment that has receded into the historical past and the environment that is superseding the present.
When we say that man is the product of his surroundings we mean that the individual does not dissolve in society. Man is not a weak-willed screw of the social mechanism but its key functional link. He is the product of society, of circumstances, but he forms society itself. One must not forget, Marx wrote, ``that circumstances are changed by men''. Man moulds society and, together with it, he moulds himself by his labour and political activity, and his influence on the environment, on society, increases with social progress.
While bringing to light the social essence of man, the founders of scientific communism also showed the main trend of his development in the process of historical progress---the growth of the range of features, of manifestations of life, and their uninterrupted enrichment and development linked up with social progress, with the improvement of social relations, and the rise of the standard of material and spiritual culture. The achievement of free development and the fullest expression of all manifestations of human life, the achievement of their absolute harmony, their best and unconstrained (natural) utilisation in the interests of society and, thereby, of man himself, is the trend of the development of human history. This trend manifests itself fully only under communism, where, as Marx wrote, ``begins that development of human energy which is an end in itself, the true realm of freedom'', and conditions are created which are most worthy of and adequate to human nature. Communism moulds a new man, for whom material wealth is not an end in itself but solely a means for the fullest manifestation and __PRINTERS_P_34_COMMENT__ 3---2775 33 development of his creative capabilities. Here man himself, all sidedly, harmoniously developed, becomes the greatest social wealth. Under communism, in contrast to capitalism with its economic wealth of the ruling classes and Ihe poverty of the working people, Marx wrote, ''. . .come the rich human being and the rich human need. The rich human being is simultaneously the human being in need of a totality of human life-activities---the man in whom his own realisation exists as an inner necessity, as need".
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Emancipation of the Working Man---the Historic Mission of the Working ClassTwo antipodal types of man--- the exploiter and the working man---form in a class-- antagonistic society on the foundation of private ownership. This antithesis becomes especially marked in capitalist society, where, in the person of the bourgeoisie, the most unambiguous expression is acquired by individualism and egoism, by the attitude to any other human being as an object for the extraction of benefit---profit or pleasure. The bourgeoisie monopolise the right to development, to the satisfaction of their requirements and whims. The case is different with the working man, whose lot is to work. The capitalist division of labour dooms the proletariat to ugly, lop-sided development. Capitalism seeks to turn him into a cog of the economic mechanism, a cog denied all rights. Under capitalism the worker is forced to perform a single, narrow production function, to which he has to sacrifice all his other abilities and talents.
Nonetheless, in capitalist society the man of labour, the worker, has achieved much. Due primarily to his efforts, nature has been conquered and mighty productive forces have been built up which have made it possible to create unprecedented material and spiritual wealth. This has given rise to the first condition for creating a society in which he himself is the aim and purpose. But the worker has to create the second condition for the emancipation of man and his labour: he has to liberate labour, the man of labour from the tenets of capitalist relations, from the relations of capitalist ownership. ``The labouring classes have conquered nature; they have now to conquer man''.^^*^^ _-_-_
^^*^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, On Britain, Moscow, 1962, p. 417.
34 The working class is the social force, engendered by capitalism, that is called upon to accomplish Ihe socialist revolution and thereby win man over, liberate him from oppression and exploitation. The great historic mission of the working class is to emancipate the working man by means of the socialist revolution, eradicate capitalism and build a genuinely human society---socialism. ``The chief thing in the doctrine of Marx,'' Lenin wrote, ``is that it brings out the historic role of the proletariat as the builder of socialist society.''The first and cardinal task of the socialist revolution is to overthrow the supremacy of the bourgeoisie, sweep away the old state machine and create a new state, the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Why had Marx and Engels come to the conclusion that the proletariat was the class with the great mission of emancipating the working man and all mankind?
First and foremost because the proletariat is the most revolutionary class of capitalist society. It is denied private ownership of the means of production and is the most exploited class of that society. Since it does not own property, it is compelled to work for the capitalists, to wear the yoke of capitalist exploitation. The worker's hands are his only wealth. Hence, his life and the life of his family, of his relatives and friends, depend upon blind destiny, on whether there is a demand for his labour, for his skill.
For that same reason, the proletariat, more than any other class, is interested in the abolition of private ownership and exploitation, and this means that it is the most revolutionary class and the most irreconcilable to capitalism. The socialist revolution, whose aim is to destroy capitalism and consolidate socialism, is the vital cause of the working class, its cherished objective and purpose. In revolution it has nothing to lose except its chains, but on the other hand it stands to win the whole world---the means of production and political power, and, together with them, the right to enjoy all the achievements of material and spiritual culture.
Another reason why the proletariat is the most revolutionary class is that it is linked up with a progressive form of economy -large-scale machine production. The 35 future belongs to this form of production and, consequently, the working class is linked up with the future of production, with the future of all mankind. The proletariat possesses the strength of the masses, the power of one of capitalist society's numerically strongest classes.
But that is not all. The very conditions in which production develops make the proletariat the most organised, the most disciplined and the most politically-conscious class. Having created a large-scale industry, the bourgeoisie has concentrated the workers in huge cities, at giant factories and mills. The workers work together, in large collectives, and, therefore, when they combat the bourgeoisie they very soon begin to perceive the need for organisation and the most rigid discipline. They see that they work and live in deplorable conditions and that everywhere they are opposed by one and the same exploiter---the capitalist. Hence the emergence and development of their class consciousness, their striving to unite not only on the basis of production but also on a national and then international basis. The working class sets up its own organisations--- co-operatives, insurance funds, trade unions and, lastly, a political party, which directs its struggle.
Due to the conditions in which it works and lives, the proletariat, more than any other class, is able to appreciate advanced revolutionary ideas and master advanced theory. True, the workers themselves have neither the time nor the means, nor sufficient knowledge to evolve this theory. This brings to the fore the task of injecting socialist consciousness into the working-class movement, to unite socialism with that movement. This important task is fulfilled by the political party of the working class.
In its struggle to achieve its ideals, the working class is not alone. Other classes and sections of the population that likewise suffer from exploitation---the working peasants, the artisans, the petty urban bourgeoisie and working intellectuals---enter into a close alliance with it in this struggle. Marx, Engels and, later, Lenin attached the utmost importance to the alliance between the working class and the peasants. They regarded this alliance as the social force called upon to accomplish the revolution and build socialism. While liberating itself from capitalist slavery, the 36 working class emancipates all other working people, the whole of society, from oppression.
It is important to note that the struggle of the working class is not confined to national boundaries. It is mternational. The nature of the working class is such that none of its interests engender hostility between peoples. It opposes the bourgeoisie, which is united on a global scale, by its internationalist unity, by the concerted struggle of peoples against the society of private ownership and exploitation.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Social ProcessesHaving formulated the concept of a socio-economic system, shown the place occupied in it by various social relations and singled out economic relations as the most important and determining relations, Marx and Engels revealed the laws of social development and, thereby, gave the key allowing social processes to be guided scientifically for the benefit of man and all mankind.
To guide the development of society, in which millions upon millions of people live and work, is an extraordinarily intricate process. Its cardinal prerequisite is a correct policy, correct strategy and tactics conforming with the progressive trends of social development, with the interests of the foremost class, of the masses, who are the makers of history.
Marx and Engels, who were the first to bring the laws of social development to light, showed that as a result of the operation of these laws capitalism must yield its place to socialism, to a society without private property and without exploitation of man by man. Moreover, they particularly emphasised that socialism docs not supersede capitalism of itself, automatically. Perceiving in the working class a social force capable of establishing the new society and liberating man, they made it plain that the proletariat could fulfil its great historic mission only in the process of the class struggle and the socialist revolution.
The collapse of capitalism and the consolidation of socialism stem not only from the operation of objective laws but also from the subjective activity of people, as a result of a conscious and purposeful remaking of society, of the guidance of social processes. By consciously 37 promoting and organising the class struggle in capitalist society, the working class and its party accomplish mainly a negative, destructive task. However, if they do not fulfil this task, if they do not destroy capitalism they cannot initiate creative work, the building of socialism.
The founders of scientific communism demonstrated that there must be a directing authority in every society engaged in more or less large-scale production. There is, therefore, a directing authority in capitalist society as well.
``All combined labour on a large scale requires, more or less, a directing authority in order to secure the harmonious working of the individual activities, and to perform the general functions that have their origin in the action of the combined organism, as distinguished from the action of its separate organs. A single violin player is his own conductor; an orchestra requires a separate one.''^^*^^
At the same time, they stressed that under capitalism the functions of the directing authority are limited to a narrow field. The bourgeoisie is capable of giving efficient and even exemplary guidance to individual or groups of enterprises and even to entire branches of economy on a nation-wide scale or on the scale of groups of countries. However, it is unable to direct socio-economic processes, the development of society as a whole, by plan. This is due to private ownership, anarchy of production, the unpredictable nature of the market and competition, which rule out the possibility of planning social development.
It becomes possible to direct social processes and society as a whole scientifically only after the socialist revolution, after the dictatorship of the proletariat is established, private ownership abolished and production in all spheres of economy socialised. Production ceases to be sporadic and planned economic development is ensured only after socialist reforms are carried out. The economic foundation of socialism, public socialist ownership, unites people, turning the masses of scattered people consumed by capitalist competition into a ``collective man'', into ``associated producers''. In Capital, Marx wrote: ``...socialised man, the associated producers, rationally regulate their _-_-_
^^*^^ K. Marx. Capital Vol. I. Moscow, 1965, pp. 330--31.
38 interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature.''Marx saw the ``real realm of freedom" of society and man in the conscious direction and regulation of production and of all spheres of social life, emphasising that this realm can flourish only on the foundation of objective laws of social development cognised by man and used for his benefit.
Marx and Engels scientifically settled the basic questions that the Utopian Socialists only raised. Firstly, rejecting speculation in favour of the real laws of social development, of an analysis of the objective dialectics of capitalism, they showed that capitalism would inevitably be superseded by socialism. Secondly, they brought to light the fact that in alliance with other working masses the proletariat had the great historic mission of destroying capitalism and establishing the new, socialist society. Thirdly, they demonstrated that capitalism would be destroyed and the new society established through the class struggle and the socialist revolution. Fourthly, they revealed the social essence of man, his place in the system of social relations, showing the trend of human development and pointing out that communist society was not an end in itself but only a means of emancipating the working man and promoting his all-round development, that man himself was the objective of communism. Fifthly, they proved that social processes could be directed, that they could be subordinated to the will of man, that the very process of the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the building of socialism and communism was a conscious, purposeful process of directing social development, a process of the advance of man and mankind towards the realm of real freedom.
It goes without saying that these are far from being all the problems raised and solved by the founders of scientific communism.
We must note yet another feature of scientific communism, namely, its organic tie and unity with revolutionary action, with practice.
39 __ALPHA_LVL3__ Unity of Theory andIn contrast to the Utopian Socialists, most of whom were theoreticians isolated from the struggle of the working masses, Marx and Engels were not only theoreticians but also the leaders of the growing revolutionary movement of the proletariat, of all working people. They devoted their brilliant intellects, mighty creative energy and outstanding abilities as organisers to the noble cause of emancipating the working people, to the cause of establishing socialism and communism. Having sided with the oppressed class, with the proletariat, they evolved a theory, which provided the working class with a spiritual weapon in its revolutionary struggle against capitalism, against social conditions that humiliate and mutilate man, with a powerful vehicle for transforming reality by man for man. The strength of scientific communism lies in its organic tie with revolutionary action, with practice, in the fact that it serves the proletariat and all working people in their struggle against capitalism, for socialism and communism.
This theory springs from a profound study and generalisation not only of science but also of socio-historic practice, of the revolutionary action of the masses in which its creators were directly and actively involved.
In 1847 Marx and Engels set up the League of Communists with the purpose of uniting the scattered communist groups, politically enlightening the workers and helping them to master communist ideas. The Communist Manifesto, drawn up by them on instructions from the League, proclaimed the birth of scientific communism. Besides its purely theoretical importance, it was the first programme of the world's first Communist Party. Explaining the substance of the new teaching in simple language, it called upon the workers to unite for the struggle to emancipate man, to destroy capitalism by revolution.
The Manifesto slated that in order to be strong enough to achieve victory at the decisive moment, the proletariat must create its own political party. As the vanguard of the working class, this party spreads communist ideas among the workers and organises and leads them in the revolutionary struggle.
Marx and Engels were leaders of the International 40 Workingmen'.s Association---the First International (1864--72). Founded by them in September 1864, it was the first organisation of the workers of several European countries. There were Russian revolutionaries in it, who in 1870 set up a Russian Section. Marx represented this section in the General Council.
The First International laid the foundation for an international organisation of the working class with the aim of preparing for the revolutionary struggle against capitalism. In the Inaugural Address of the First International it was stressed that the great mission of the working class was to seize political power, and that this could only be achieved if there was unity in its ranks, if it was organised, if in its revolutionary actions it was guided by the scientific theory of social development.
The Second International was set up in 1889 with the active participation of Engels. Initially, it too helped to unite the workers' parties and spread Marxist ideas among the masses.
Marx and Engels closely followed the revolutionary actions of the masses. After generalising the experience of the bourgeois-democratic revolutions of 1848--49 in Western Europe, they wrote that the working class should not entertain the illusion that the supremacy of capital over labour could be broken by a bourgeois republic. They maintained that a bourgeois revolution could be followed by a proletarian revolution, which would alone emancipate the working man. Their study of the experience of revolutions led them to the highly significant conclusion that the bourgeois state machine had to be smashed. This became one of the cornerstones of the theory of scientific communism.
This conclusion gave birth to another extremely important problem, namely, what would replace the bourgeois state machine after it was smashed? The solution was prompted by practice, by the revolutionary experience of the masses. In the spring of 1871 the revolutionary proletariat of Paris accomplished the world's first proletarian revolution, which established a working people's state, the famous Paris Commune. It was the prototype of the state of the future that could accomplish the transition from the old to the new society. ``Look at the Paris 41 Commune,'' Engels wrote. ``That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.''
The Paris Communards implemented the demands of the Communists. They sought to put an end to the old, rotten and outworn capitalist world and establish the rule of the working man, to do away with exploitation of man by man and make it a firm principle that work was the duty of all people. The Commune brought to life unparalleled initiative by the masses, who, to attain their lofty ideals, were, as Marx and Engels put it, prepared to storm the heavens. Marx and Engels did not hold aloof from this struggle. They offered the Communards advice and directed their activities.
The Commune came to grief for a number of reasons, primarily the organisational and theoretical immaturity of the working class, the absence of a proletarian Party and the lack of contact with the peasant masses. However, its value to the theory and practice of scientific communism is inestimable.
While evolving the theory of scientific communism and providing the working-class movement with practical leadership, Marx and Engels waged a relentless struggle against bourgeois ideology and against those who dragged at the back of the movement behind a screen of loud communist phraseology or, willynilly, brought grist to the bourgeois mill. They spoke sharply against petty-- bourgeois opportunism and sectarianism, whose aim was to tear the working class and its Party away from the broad masses. They repeatedly emphasised that in the mortal struggle against capitalism the working class could be victorious provided it rallied the masses to its banner.
At the head of the Communist League they resolutely opposed the ``Leftists'', who demanded immediate revolutionary action without taking the trouble to analyse the real balance of class forces. They combated adventurism and conspiratorial tactics that paid no heed to the need for serious and comprehensive preparations for a revolution, for thoughtful and painstaking work among the working people.
The founders of scientific communism also opposed the successors of Utopian socialism, who clung to the obsolete theories of the Utopians, failing to see the tremendous 42 changes that had taken place in social life, particularly the growth of (he revolutionary activity of the working {•lass, and ignoring the tasks that these changes had put before the proletariat. Particularly serious harm was being inflicted on the working class by the appeals to reform capitalism without hurting its economic and political foundations.
During the initial years of the First International Marx and Engels thus waged a struggle agaist the followers of the French petty-bourgeois politician Pierre Joseph Proudlion (1809--65). Calling themselves Proudhonists, they were opposed to the political struggle and the setting up of a dictatorship of the proletariat, believing that the growth of the co-operative movement of petty proprietors would transform capitalism into socialism without a revolutionary struggle or a revolution. They could not see that under capitalism the co-operative movement did not liberate the working people from exploitation.
After they had ideologically crushed the Proudhonists, Marx and Engels levelled their criticism against a new threat to the working-class movement---against pettybourgeois revolutionism, particularly anarchism, one of whose founders and leaders was the Russian emigre Mikhail Bakunin (1814--76). Bakunin and his followers claimed they were not opposed to revolution, but in fact they inflicted enormous harm on the revolutionary movement. Their conspiracies and demands for immediate insurrection doomed the unprepared workers to defeat. They ignored the economic prerequisites for a revolution, declaring that for a revolution to be successful it was enough for the working people to believe in their rights and for a small group of leaders to display the maximum will-power. The Bakuninists held that the state and not capitalism was the chief evil, and were, therefore, opposed to the setting up of the dictatorship of the proletariat. They regarded communism as a conglomeration of unchangeable and eternal primary cells and associations that were not subject to the operation of the laws of social development. In their criticism of the Bakuninists, Marx and Engels showed that subjectivism, disregard for the laws of social development and absolutisation of the human will were incompatible with revolutionary reforms, with a conscious 43 direction of social processes. They saw that the success of a revolution depended not on the determination of a handful of conspirators nor on political fireworks, but on painstaking and persevering efforts to unite the working class, on the proletariat's revolutionary consciousness and on efficient organisation.
Thanks to their efforts, scientific, communism became predominant in the international revolutionary movement of the working class as early as the 1870s. The working class has fixed its gaze on Marxism, which has become its powerful ideological and theoretical weapon.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. The Leninist Phase of ScientificLike Marxism as a whole, the theory of scientific communism is not a collection of immutable, fossilised principles accepted as a faith. It is a developing and creative science, which mirrors objective reality, social life with all its contradictions and complexities, in its movement and development. It is not a stagnant science. It moves forward, keeping in step with constantly changing life, daily becoming enriched with the latest achievements of science and practice. It closely scrutinises life, reality, profoundly studying all aspects of the processes in the capitalist and the socialist worlds, and developing and specifying theoretical conclusions and bringing them into line with the requirements of life.
While studying and generalising the development of capitalist society, the aggravation of the contradictions in that society, and the growth of the communist and working-class movement and of the national liberation struggle and the struggle for democracy, scientific communism works out the ways and means of overthrowing capitalism with due consideration for the constantly changing conditions and the concrete situation. It studies the development of socialist society, the experience of building socialism and communism in different countries, and the role and importance of the Communist Parties in building the new society, with the purpose of working out the ways and means of building that society in conformity with 44 the concrete stage of history. In this work scientific communism rests on the achievements of other social sciences, synthesises these achievements and uses them in the revolutionary practice of reorganising the world along communist lines. This intimate unity with life, with practice determines the creative nature of scientific communism and of Marxism-Leninism as a whole.
Scientific communism emerged when capitalism was on the ascendant. Deep-going changes took place in the world at the close of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Capitalism reached its last stage of development---- imperialism. The economic and social contradictions in it became unprecedentedly acute. A period of relative peace gave way to a period of social storms, of revolutionary upheavals.
The period witnessing radical changes in social relations approximately coincided with the period when mankind embarked upon a new scientific and technical revolution sparked off' by phenomenal achievements in science and technology---the discovery and utilisation of atomic power, large-scale penetration by science, particularly chemistry, into production, the development of automation, electronics, rocketry, and so forth. These advances made it unmistakably clear that capitalism was falling behind the times, that it was becoming a growing obstacle to social, scientific and technical progress. The historical need for replacing capitalism by socialism was becoming more and more urgent. The new conditions, quite naturally, demanded a new approach to the cardinal social problems and a creative development of Marxism. The new experience of the revolutionary working-class movement, the experience of the national liberation and democratic movements and the latest scientific and technical achievements had to be generalised. This became all the more necessary in view of the fact that forces hostile to Marxism were reanimated under the new conditions, and they became particularly savage in their attacks on the theory and practice of scientific communism, which was winning the hearts and minds of more and more working people throughout the world.
At the close of the 19th century, the centre of the international revolutionary and, in particular, the working-class 45 movement began to shift to Russia, which had become the focus of the contradictions of imperialism. The socialist revolution matured in Russia, which became the home of Leninism, of Marxism enriched and developed in the new historical conditions. The further creative development of Marxism, of scientific communism is firmly linked up with Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870--1924), the great leader of the Russian and international proletariat, of all working people.
Lenin's work in scientific communism is so vast and many-faceted that it comprises an entire phase of the development of communist ideas, a phase embracing the entire period from the close of the 19th century to the present.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Theoretician of ScientificThere is every ground for saying that virtually every problem of scientific communism has been creatively dealt with by Lenin.
His great service to history is that his theoretical work was inseparably linked up with the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat and with the building of socialism in the U.S.S.R. He enriched the theory of scientific communism, raised and solved a multitude of new theoretical problems and directed the implementation of the principles of scientific communism. He drew up the programme for the building of socialism and communism in the U.S.S.R. and, to his last day, headed the people and the Party, who were carrying out this programme. The Soviet people's achievements in the building of the new society are indissolubly linked up with his name.
The new epoch posed the working class and its Marxist party with the task of remaking society by revolution, of destroying capitalism and building socialism. That made Lenin devote much of his time and energy to studying the laws of social development, particularly the essence of imperialism and its contradictions, and to working out the ways and means of resolving these contradictions by the proletarian-led revolutionary forces. He evolved the theory of socialist revolution and elaborated the theory of the modern world revolutionary process embracing not only the socialist movement of the working class but also the national liberation movement and all kinds of democratic movements spearheaded against imperialism. In keeping 46 with the features of the revolutionary movement in the new epoch, he worked out the strategy and tactics of the proletarian class struggle, of the world communist movement.
He developed the Marxist theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the forms of this dictatorship, of the tasks of the proletarian state, of the destiny of a stale under socialism and communism, and of socialist democracy. He created the teaching about the new, revolutionary type of party and showed its place and role in uprooting the old and building the new society.
Lenin always focussed his attention on the working man, on devising ways and means of emancipating him, of enabling him to develop and assert himself. In enriching and developing the Marxist theory of socialism and communism, he regarded the new society not as an end in itself but solely as a condition, as a means of emancipating and improving man. He sought to place the economy and the achievements of science and technology in the service of the working man, to improve social relations in the interests of the working people, and to organise society's spiritual life in such a way as to ensure man's intellectual blossoming and the fullest development of his boundless creative possibilities.
Lenin worked out the relation between objective conditions and subjective factors of history during the building of communist society, and formulated the principles underlying the most effective application of the objective laws of social development in the interests of the working man. While developing the Marxist theory of scientifically directing social processes, he worked out the fundamental principles for guiding communist construction.
An important place in Lenin's works is occupied by the theory of socialist revolution, which has had a tremendous impact on the further development of society, on the course of world history.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Lenin's Theory ofFirst and foremost, Lenin defined the place occupied in history by imperialism, showing that it is moribund, decaying capitalism. In the era of imperialism the basic contradiction of capitalism, that between social production and private appropriation, 47 reaches its bursting point. Imperialism, Lenin wrote, ``leads up to the most all-sided socialisation ol' production" but retains the proprietor principle ol distribution; private ownership relations form ``...a shell which no longer fits its contents, a shell which must inevitably decay . . . but which will inevitably be removed''.^^*^^ Imperialism is, thus, the eve of the socialist revolution. Under imperialism, the socialist revolution is not only possible but necessary and inevitable, becoming the direct task of the day for the working class.
A key element of the theory of socialist revolution is Lenin's brilliant thesis that socialism can triumph initially in one country taken separately. To substantiate this thesis, Lenin showed that in the capitalist countries development proceeds unevenly, sporadically. Some countries, that had formerly lagged behind, overtake and outstrip the leading countries in both the economic and political spheres. The balance of forces is thus broken, with the result that conflicts break out and the united capitalist front is shaken: the position of world capitalism grows weaker, giving rise to the possibility of breaking the chain of imperialism in its most feeble link.
``The development of capitalism,'' Lenin wrote, ``proceeds extremely unevenly in different countries. It cannot be otherwise under commodity production. From this it follows irrefutably that socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will for some time remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois.''^^**^^
Lenin regarded mankind's transition from capitalism to socialism not as a single act but as an entire epoch.
He took the extremely complex picture of the world of his day into consideration: the existence not only of bourgeois but also of pre-bourgeois countries, where the bourgeois-democratic system had not been firmly established; the existence of various classes and social groups in each country, and so forth. This led him to the conclusion that ``pure'' socialist revolutions cannot be accomplished in the epoch of imperialism. One cannot think, he _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 303.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 23, p. 79.
48 wrote, that an army assembled in one place says, ``~`We are for socialism,' and another, somewhere else says, 'We are for imperialism,' and that that will be a social revolution!... Whoever expects a 'pure' social revolution will never live to see it. Such a person pays lip-service to revolution without understanding what revolution is.'' Lenin pictured the revolutionary process as an outburst of mass struggle by all oppressed and dissatisfied people. This process embraced the working-class struggle, the peasant movement, the national liberation movement and all democratic movements against imperialism.In this connection, Lenin emphasised that there had to be a firm alliance between the working class and all revolutionary forces undermining imperialism, and emphatically opposed sectarianism, the isolation of the proletariat from other working people and democratic forces. Here he meant not an alliance in general, but an alliance in which the working class as the main revolutionary force played the role of vanguard.
He did not by any means consider that any revolutionary explosion in any country must necessarily be a socialist revolution, which would lead to the dictatorship of the proletariat, although in the case of some countries this possibility was not ruled out. On the other hand, in prebourgeois countries, in colonial countries or countries with strong survivals of feudalism, as well as in countries where bourgeois-democratic reforms have not been completed, the socialist revolution may be preceded by a bourgeois-democratic or national liberation revolution, which, given favourable conditions, develops into a socialist revolution. The question of the growth of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution was dealt with by Lenin in Two Tactics of Social-- Democracy in the Democratic Revolution. In this work he advanced the thesis that non-capitalist development was possible in pre-bourgeois countries, provided socialism triumphed in other countries.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Leader of the WorldLenin organised a new type of Party, a revolutionary Communist Party, firmly believing that when the objective prerequisites for a revolution have matured, a subjective factor of history, namely, the 49 political consciousness and organisation of the proletariat and other working people, plays the decisive role. As the vanguard of the proletariat and as its most politically conscious and organised contingent, the Party ensures the unity and organisation of the working class and arms it with advanced revolutionary theory, strategy and tactics. This proposition was borne out in Russia, where, led by the Communist Parly, the workers and peasants overthrew capitalism and created the world's first socialist state.
Lenin was the leader not only of the Russian but of the international working class, of the working people of the whole world. He dedicated himself to the modern world communist movement, which he built up and directed. He stood at the mainspring of the Third, Communist International, which replaced the Second International, whose leaders wallowed in the mire of opportunism and slid into betrayal of the working class. Exposing the treachery of social-reformism, Lenin underlined the internationalist nature of the communist movement and called for unity of the communist forces on a world scale.
The First (Inaugural) Congress of the Third International, which gave tremendous impetus to the world communist movement, was held on March 2-6, 1919, in Moscow. The Third International united the communist forces of the world on the ideological foundation of Marxism-Leninism, worked out the strategy and tactics of the working-class movement in the new conditions, helped to mould and enlarge the young Communist Parties, enriched them with revolutionary experience, and combated opportunists of all shades and hues. It influenced the national liberation movement and the struggle of the masses for democracy, and was in the centre of the struggle of the peoples for peace.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Fighfer for the PurityWhile developing the theory of scientific communism and directing the revolutionary struggle and the building of socialism, Lenin consistently upheld the purity of Marxist theory against bourgeois ideology and its accomplices, against idealism and clericalism, against opportunism, in short against all those who distorted and falsified Marxism, and those who, having distorted it, 50 attempted to use it to further the interests of the bourgeoisie.
At the outset of his political activities, Lenin denounced the ideology of the Russian liberal Narodniks of the 1880s-90s. The Narodniks refused to recognise that the emergence of capitalism in Russia was a natural process, opposed the proletarian class struggle against the bourgeoisie and rejected the idea that the working class played a revolutionary role in society. They pinned their hopes chiefly on the peasants, regarding them as the only champions of socialism, without realising that the peasants could achieve liberation from landowner oppression solely under the leadership of the proletariat. They interpreted history from an idealistic standpoint, rejecting the decisive role of economic factors in the historical process and declaring that history was made not by the people but by ``heroes'', by outstanding personalities.
Showing that Russia's capitalist development was a natural, law-governed process, Lenin revealed the social stratification of the peasantry, and worked out the tactics of the working class towards the different sections of the peasants. He saw that the peasants would be staunch allies of the proletariat against the capitalists and, later, in the building of socialist society.
Lenin's struggle against Right and Left opportunism, trends hostile to Marxism, did much to further the theory and practice of scientific communism.
He characterised Right opportunism, or revisionism, as ``petty-bourgeois reformism, i.e., servility to the bourgeoisie covered by a cloak of sentimental democratic and `Social'-- Democratic phrases and fatuous wishes''. Revisionism breaks with the economic and philosophical teaching of Marxism, removes its revolutionary substance and replaces it with bourgeois reformist theories. It rejects the Marxist theory of classes and the class struggle, of the socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and deliberately misrepresents the Marxist teaching about the Party and the ways of building socialism. It is characteristic that all this is screened by the false claim of defending Marxism, of furthering its development. The danger of revisionism was especially great early in the 20th century, when it gained momentum on a world scale, penetrating all the Socialist Workers' Parties and becoming, __PRINTERS_P_50_COMMENT__ 4* 51 practically speaking, the official ideology of the Second International.
In contrast to Right opportunism, Loll opportunism does not preach reformist ideas. On the contrary, it boasts of its revolutionism, paying no attention to historical conditions and the balance of class forces.
Despite this outward difference, there is much that Right and Left opportunism have in common: petty-bourgeois mentality and hostility to Marxism, to scientific communism, to the revolutionary working-class movement. Both trends seek to plant bourgeois influence among the working class. The reformism of the Right opportunists and the ultra-revolutionism and, essentially, adventurism of the Left opportunists, the absence in both these trends of proletarian firmness, organisation and discipline seriously harm the revolution, the cause of socialism by foredooming the working class to capitulation to the bourgeoisie, to defeat.
This conciliatory, capitulalory substance of opportunism was countered by Lenin with creative, revolutionary Marxism. He combated not only the Russian opportunists of the Right-wing (Economists, liquidators, Mensheviks) and Left-wing trends (olzovists, ``Left Communists'', Trotskyites), but also opportunism in the world workingclass movement. This struggle serves as an example of a lofty Party approach to theory and, to this day, it inspires Communists in their struggle against contemporary opportunism.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Development of ScientificAfter Lenin died the theory of scientific communism was and continues to be furthered by the C.P.S.U. and fraternal Communist and Workers Parties. A large contribution to this has been made by the decisions passed by congresses and conferences of the C.P.S.U., plenary meetings of the C.C. C.P.S.U., and of other fraternal parties, and decisions adopted at international meetings of Communists. These documents represent a skilful application of this theory's propositions and conclusions to analyses of the present world situation, to the practice of the revolutionary struggle and to the building of socialism and communism.
The Declaration of the 1957 Meeting of Communist and 52 Workers' Parties of socialist countries, the Statement of the I960 World Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, the decisions of the 20th, 22nd and 23rd congresses of the C.P.S.U., and the Party Programme adopted at the 22nd Congress of the C.P.S.U. are major milestones in the development of Marxism-Leninism, of the theory of scientific communism. These documents show a creative approach to basic problems of the world liberation movement and of the building of socialism and communism. They deal with the nature and contradictions of the present epoch, the main revolutionary forces of the modern epoch, the possibility of averting another world war, the strategy and tactics of the world communist movement, the diversity of the forms of transition from capitalism to socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, the general laws of the building of socialism, the development of socialism into communism, the scientific direction of economic and social processes, the ways and means of building the material and technical basis of communism, the formation of communist social relations, the upbringing of the new man, and so forth.
The theory of scientific communism is a Party science, which, consequently, mirrors the interests of the working class and all other working people. It develops in irreconcilable struggle against bourgeois ideology, primarily anticommunism, which has become the principal ideological and political weapon of imperialism. Anti-communism slanders socialism and misrepresents the policy and objectives of the Communist Parties and the theory of MarxismLeninism. The bourgeoisie spends enormous funds and has built up a mammoth apparatus to combat communism, but life and practice demonstrate the great vitality of communist ideas. History convincingly shows that scientific communism is triumphing. The future belongs to it,
[53] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 2 __ALPHA_LVL1__ NATURE OF THE MODERN EPOCH.Today socialism is more than a science or a theory. It has become a reality, a real society built on vast expanses of the earth. It has become established in the U.S.S.R. and a number of other countries. The transition to socialism and communism is the road of development of all mankind. Ours is an epoch of progress towards the bright communist future. Let us elucidate the nature of our epoch and examine its main revolutionary forces.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. The Modern Epoch __ALPHA_LVL3__ [introduction.]The evolution of society cannot be regarded as an instantaneous replacement of one system by another in all the countries of the world. By virtue of the fact that in each country the internal and external conditions of development are different, the transition from one socioeconomic system to another is not accomplished at one and the same time on a world-wide scale. Thus, at any given stage of its development, society, as a whole, represents a complex picture of different but interlacing socioeconomic systems and ways of life, of classes, social groups, nations and states acting on each other and often engaged in bitter struggle with each other. Take contemporary mankind. One-third of it is building socialism and communism, while the remaining two-thirds live in non-socialist countries. Among the latter are countries with developed 54 capitalism and imperialism, countries at pre-capitalist stages of development, and so forth. Moreover, millions of people, chiefly Africans, continue to languish under the colonial yoke. This state of society as a whole at a definite stage of development is expressed by the concept epoch. This concept covers a diversity of phenomena of human history and it stresses, mainly, that which is basic, general and typical in this diversity. Lenin required that we should distinguish the ``typical'' and the ``different'' in each epoch. He constantly analysed this ``typical''. To find what is typical, objectively basic in historical phenomena, i.e., to determine the predominant trend of social development at a given stage, to show which class champions this trend is a major requirement for defining a concrete epoch. ``We cannot know,'' Lenin wrote, ``how rapidly and how successfully the various historical movements in a given epoch will develop, but we can and do know which class stands at the hub of one epoch or another, determining its main content, the main direction of its development, the main characteristics of the historical situation in that epoch. ...'' In order to elucidate the nature of a given epoch we must, first and foremost, determine in what direction mankind is moving and which class personifies this movement.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Main Content ofBlinded by their class interests and lacking a scienific method of cognition, the ideologists of the bourgeoisie, which is leaving the stage of history, are unable to understand the diversity and complexity of the social development of our time. Some of them openly state that it is impossible to define the nature of our epoch or establish in what direction modern civilisation is developing because social events arc indefinite and fluid and do not lend themselves to an objective, unbiased assessment. Extremely typical in this respect is the stand of the authors of Where Are We Today?, published in the Federal Republic of Germany. One of these authors, Helmut Schelsky, maintains that to answer the question of ``Where are we today?" i.e., to define the nature of our epoch, means primarily to find that by which we must judge the historical place of mankind today. But, according to Schelsky, this ``that'' is so elusive and indefinite that it is useless to try and define it. Hence, people are unable correctly 55 to evaluate their epoch and to act in accordance with its spirit, i.e., to resolve vital contemporary problems.
Another group of bourgeois sociologists seeks to prove that the nature of the modern epoch is determined by technical discoveries, chiefly by the discovery of atomic power. No more and no less than the atom bomb is re garded as being at the hub of the modern epoch, which these sociologists call the ``technical age'', the ``nuclear age'', the ``age of the atomic bomb''. For example, the West German philosopher Karl Jaspers writes: ``A new situation has been created by the atomic bomb.'' Yet the development of society cannot be reduced to technology, to technical discoveries, despite the fact that the present scientific and technical revolution plays an immense role in social development. In order to assess the role of technology it must be remembered that it influences the historical process not by itself but through an intricate system of social relations, primarily of the relations of production, which are predominant in society. Chiefly these relations and the class forces behind them must be taken into consideration when we analyse the modern epoch.
Marxism-Leninism is the only science that reveals the nature of the modern epoch, whose content consists in the ``abolition of capitalism and its vestiges, and the establishment of the fundamentals of the communist order... .''^^*^^
As we have already pointed out, Lenin saw the revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism and communism not as a single act but as an entire epoch of struggle between the two antipodal social systems. He legitimately considered that the international working class is the standard-bearer of this new epoch, whose beginning he linked up with the Great October Socialist Revolution, that was the first to set up the dictatorship of that class. He was convinced that the dictatorship of the proletariat, which had triumphed first in only one country would grow from a national into an international organisation, that more and more peoples and countries would gradually take the road of socialist development.
Lenin's definition of the modern epoch was further developed at the Moscow Meeting of Communist and _-_-_
~^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 392.
56 Workers' Parties in November 19(50 and in the Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. ``Our epoch,'' the C.P.S.U. Programme states, ``whose main content is the transition from capitalism to socialism, is an epoch of struggle between the two opposing social systems, an epoch of socialist and national liberation revolutions, of the breakdown of imperialism and the abolition of the colonial system, an epoch of the transition of more and more peoples to the socialist path, of the triumph of socialism and communism on a world-wide scale. The central factor of the present epoch is the international working class and its main creation, the world socialist system.''This definition of the modern epoch is corroborated by the development of contemporary society and by the practice of the revolutionary liberation struggle of the peoples. It mirrors the decisive events of our times---the victory of the socialist revolution in a large group of countries and the growth of socialism into a mighty world system, the decline and crisis of imperialism and the collapse of the colonial system.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ October Revolution,November 7 (October 25 according to the Julian calendar then in use), 1917, when in alliance with the working peasants the Russian workers set up the dictatorship of the proletariat, has entered history as the dawn of the present epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism. In this connection, Lenin wrote: ``...we have a right to be and are proud that to us has fallen the good fortune to begin the building of a Soviet state, and thereby to usher in a new era in world history, the era of the rule of a new class, a class which is oppressed in every capitalist country, but which everywhere is marching forward towards a new life, towards victory over the bourgeoisie, towards the dictatorship of the proletariat, towards the emancipation of mankind from the yoke of capital, and from imperialist wars.'' The winning of the right to build the new society involves formidable difficulties. The grim struggle against the autocracy, the landowners and capitalists in the years preceding the Revolution cost the people and the Party the lives of many of their best sons. The Communist Party 57 rallied the working class and all other revolutionary forces, organised and tempered them and led them against the exploiting system. The Russian workers and peasants passed through a stern school of struggle before accomplishing the Revolution under the Party's leadership. They had to exert a still greater effort and suffer prodigious sacrifices to uphold the great gains of the October Revolution, to defend the world's first working people's state. The struggle of the Communist Party, the proletariat and other working people of Russia against the old system is, to this day, an example for all fighters for the new, socialist future.
In itself the October Revolution was a Russian revolution, a revolution that triumphed in one country, and in that context it is the internal, national affair of the peoples of Russia. At the same time, it stretched far beyond the boundaries of one country and had a tremendous impact on the entire course of world history. It raised and successfully solved a number of social problems, which are to this day being tackled by the proletariat and other working masses in the non-socialist countries. It gives practical confirmation of the reality of Marxism-Leninism and has provided the proletariat and other working people of all countries with experience of struggle against capitalism, for socialism. It opened for mankind the road to the new, socialist society, put an end to the undivided rule of capitalism in the world, and split the world into two opposing systems---the capitalist and the socialist---as a result of which the entire course of history has been changed.
The triumph of the October Revolution drove capitalism into a sustained general crisis caused by the exacerbation of all its contradictions and the narrowing down of the sphere of capitalist exploitation. Having acquired a mighty ally and a reliable assistant in the person of the first proletarian state, the working people of the whole world received greater possibilities for their revolutionary struggle.
The October Revolution powerfully stimulated the international working-class movement. Under its direct influence workers rose to the struggle against the exploiters in different parts of the world. Revolutions broke out in 58 Germany, Austria-Hungary and other countries, and revolutionary actions of the proletariat swept across Europe and America.
After the example set by the Russian Communist Party and under the influence of its victories, Marxist parties sprang up in Europe, Asia, Africa and America, and these united organisationally and ideologically in the Third, Communist International, which laid the beginning for the contemporary communist movement and was, for the Communists of the whole world, a fine school of revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie.
The October Revolution awakened the peoples of colonial and dependent countries, across which swept a mighty wave of national liberation revolutions. That sparked off the disintegration of the colonial system of imperialism and created the prerequisites for the complete liberation of the oppressed peoples.
The main revolutionary forces of the modern epoch are coming to the forefront as a result or under the direct impact of the October Revolution, and the main thing is that the Revolution laid the foundation for their unity in a single world revolutionary process that is undermining and destroying imperialism.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The World Revolutionary Process and Its MainThe modern world revolutionary process is a movement of mankind from capitalism to social ism and represents a single torrent of struggle against imperialism, a torrent into which merge:~
the efforts of the peoples of the socialist system who are building socialism and communism;~
the revolutionary movement of the working class of the capitalist countries;~
and the national liberation movement, the struggle of oppressed peoples against colonialism, for national sovereignty and economic independence.
The classes and sections of society participating in these movements tackle their own specific tasks and utilise specific methods and means to carry out these tasks; all of them undermine the foundations of imperialism. The earnest of success of the great cause of peace, progress 59 and socialism lies in the unity of the contemporary revolutionary forces.
The peoples of the socialist countries are building socialism and communism, blazing for mankind the road to the new society. They are competing with the world capitalist system in the economic field, demonstrating the advantages of the new system and securing the world's highest level of labour productivity and the highest standard of living. They embody the mighty material and spiritual forces opposing imperialist reaction and defending peace, socialism and social progress.
The working class of the capitalist countries is taking advantage of the favourable international and internal situation (the change in the balance of forces in the world in favour of socialism, the deep-rooted dissatisfaction of the masses with the reactionary policy of imperialism, and so forth) to push forward the struggle against the economic and political supremacy of the monopolies, for socialism, peace and security, for broad democratic reforms. By undermining the foundations of capitalism in, so to speak, its own house, they are preparing and accelerating the final destruction of world capitalism.
The peoples of the developing and the colonial and dependent countries are perseveringly struggling for political and economic independence, for prosperity and social progress, smashing the colonial system of imperialism, undermining its immediate rear echelons, depriving it of sources of raw material and manpower, markets, military bridgeheads and sources of cannon fodder, and thereby likewise accelerating the downfall of capitalism and mankind's progress towards socialism.
At the core of the contemporary revolutionary forces are the working class and its creation, the product of long years of struggle and labour---the world system of socialism, which is now increasingly becoming the decisive factor of world history. Let us first proceed to examine how the world socialist system emerged and developed and then show the role it plays in the settlement of international issues.
[60] __ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. Emergence and Developmeni The world's first socialist state
arose from the October
Revolution in Russia. In 1921 the
Mongolian People's Republic came into being and took the
road of non-capitalist development with the assistance of
the Soviet peoples. A number of countries of Central and
Southeast Europe and Asia, which liberated themselves
from capitalist rule by struggle and revolution and took
the road of socialist construction, broke away from the
capitalist system after the Second World War. In the
Western Hemisphere the first beacon of socialism was
lit in 1959, when heroic Cuba joined the socialist
community.
The world socialist system is young and growing rapidly. Indeed, on the eve of the Second World War it occupied 17 per cent of the earth's land surface; today it embraces nearly 26 per cent of the land surface of the world with over 35 per cent of the world's population as against only 9 per cent before the outbreak of the war. It now consists of 14 countries, big and small, in Europe, Asia and Latin America.
Today, when the socialist forces are steadily growing, the road to socialism is open to all countries regardless of their level of development, geographical location or the size of their territory or population. Some of the African and Asian countries that have shaken off colonial rule have declared their intention to follow the road of peace and progress, the road of socialism. This is striking evidence that many peoples are already on the road to socialism blazed by the Soviet people. Sooner or later this will be the road of all peoples.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ New Type of RelationsThe world socialist system is a social, economic and political commonwealth oi tree, sovereign nations building socialism and communism and united by common interests and aims, by close international socialist solidarity. These are a qualitatively new type of economic and political relations between countries that have taken shape on the basis of a profound community of economic, 61 political and ideological interests. The economic founda tion of the socialist community is public ownership of the means of production. Its political foundation comprises the power of the people headed by the working class and its Marxist parties. Ideologically it rests on MarxistLeninist philosophy.
The relations between socialist countries are founded on steadily growing economic, political and cultural cooperation and mutual assistance, which draw them ever closer together for the attainment of the common goal. The basic principles governing these relations are complete equality of big and small countries, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, respect for each other's national sovereignty, territorial integrity, fraternal economic mutual aid and close co-operation in all spheres of social life. The progressive drawing together of peoples, accomplished on the basis of these principles, is on objective law of the development of the world socialist system.
The forms by which the socialist peoples are drawn together, i.e., the forms of their co-operation and mutual aid are extremely diverse.
In the economic sphere the socialist countries render each other the utmost help in building up a modern industry, achieving a high rate of economic growth, raising the level of labour productivity and, on that foundation, boosting the people's standard of living and cultural level, and training specialists and scientists.
In recent years the socialist countries have been promoting direct production co-operation through the co-- ordination of economic development plans and the specialisation and co-operation of industries on a voluntary basis with complete equality of the partners. This direct production co-operation is effected under bilateral and multilateral agreements signed through the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), an international economic organisation of the European socialist countries set up in 1949. Economic co-operation is helping the socialist countries to make the best use of their raw material and power resources. The giant Friendship oil pipeline, stretching for 4,500 kilometres from the oilfields on the Volga to the German Democratic Republic, has been built jointly by the U.S.S.R., Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary and the 62 G.D.R. The Peace power grid, serving several European socialist countries, and a commonly-owned fleet of 100,000 railway carriages are in operation. Mineral mining and processing plants are being built jointly. Trade among the socialist countries is increasing steadily: in the period 1961--65 trade between the U.S.S.R. and CMEA members alone rose from 5,600 million to 8,500 million rubles.
Scientific and technical co-operation among the socialist countries is being furthered on a steadily growing scale through exchanges between research institutes, and the training of specialists and scientists in countries where the best facilities are available for such training. This is helping to speed up research, avoid duplication and use scientific and technical cadres and equipment most rationally.
Thanks to expanding political co-operation among them, the socialist countries are able to work out a common line of action in dealing with major international and internal social problems, jointly combat imperialist reaction, and promote peace, socialism and social progress. This is facilitated by exchanges of Government and Party delegations, friendly talks, exchanges of information, and conferences on various issues.
In face of the growing aggressiveness of imperialism, the socialist countries attach great importance to military co-operation. This finds expression in the further strengthening and improvement of the Warsaw Treaty Organisation, which is a reliable shield protecting the gains of the socialist countries. The Warsaw Treaty armies are enhancing co-ordination on land, in the air and at sea and cementing their fraternal bonds.
Cultural co-operation is enabling the socialist countries to further and reciprocally enrich their national cultures.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Closer UnityGreater unity of the socialist camp on the basis of proletarian internationalism is an indispensable condition for the further successful development of the socialist countries. This unity is incompatible with nationalism and national exclusiveness, which harm the interests of the socialist community and the world communist movement.
The need for closer unity springs from definite causes. The fact is that the objective, natural trend of socialist countries to draw closer together is not always painless 63 and smooth. Contradictions and new complex problems arising from practical reality sometimes come between them. These problems require a creative approach, an exchange of experience and views, on the tested foundation of Marxism-Leninism. The common aim of the socialist community is to combat imperialism for the triumph of socialism and communism on earth, but to reach this goal the socialist nations have to surmount difficulties and settle outstanding issues.
The formation and development of the socialist community is a protracted and complex process. The very fact that the community consists of countries with different levels of economic, social and cultural development, with different histories, customs and traditions makes this a complex process. Another reason for its complexity is that the relations that have to be built up between these countries have no precedent in history. Anything new and unexplored is always difficult and involved. Besides, in the very process of drawing closer together the peoples have to overcome survivals of the past, particularly survivals of bourgeois nationalism, which are always extremely tenacious. Hence the need to educate the people in the spirit of proletarian internationalism, of solidarity among socialist nations.
Unify and solidarity multiply the strength of socialism. Unity knits together their efforts to promote economic and cultural development and raise the standard of living, gives a sounder foundation for their political co-operation, makes the superiority of socialism over capitalism more convincing and striking and increases the influence of the socialist system over the course of world history.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. Decisive Force of World Development __ALPHA_LVL3__ Basic ContradictionThe united forces of socialism are opposed by world capitalism. The basic contradiction of the present epoch is, thus, that between these forces, between the opposing social systems.
What is the substance of this contradiction, what are its major features and what role does it play in the development of contemporary society?
First and foremost, it must be noted that the 64 contradiction between labour and capital, between the working class and the bourgeoisie has been and remains the principal class contradiction of capitalist society. The contradiction between the two opposing systems is a development of the contradiction between labour and capital, between the working class and the bourgeoisie. This is the class substance, the chief distinguishing feature of the main contradiction of the present epoch.
Today, while remaining an exploited class within the capitalist system, the working class is the dominant class in the socialist system. This dominant class, which acts in a united front with the proletariat of the non-socialist countries, is opposed by another class, the bourgeoisie, which still stands at the helm of state in the capitalist countries. Behind the international working class and the bourgeoisie are mighty communities of states with opposing social systems. One of these is the world socialist system, the creation of the international working class, the product of its dedicated struggle and labour. The other is the capitalist system, where the state administration is in the hands of the bourgeoisie, the capitalists. The basic contradiction of the present epoch is testimony that today the class struggle has reached beyond the framework of the capitalist system, that it has acquired international importance and is being waged on the level of powerful social systems.
There is yet another feature of the class substance of this contradiction, namely, its depth and sharpness. This feature mirrors the fundamental antithesis between capitalism and socialism, the antithesis between the class interests of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The parties of this contradiction personify two opposing trends of world development. One, represented by world socialism, is the trend towards progress, construction and peace. The other, represented by capitalism, is the trend of reaction, destruction and war. The relations between the parties of this contradiction are those of irreconcilable struggle. The nature of this struggle depends upon concrete historical conditions, but, essentially, it always remains a relentless class struggle. A specific form of the struggle between the two systems is the peaceful coexistence of socialist and capitalist countries, which by no means implies a __PRINTERS_P_66_COMMENT__ 5---2775 65 repudiation of the class struggle. On the contrary, this coexistence is a continuation of the class struggle under new historical conditions.
Expressing the substance of the present epoch as that of transition from capitalism to socialism, as an epoch of struggle between two opposing social systems, the contradiction between socialism and imperialism tremendously influences the course of world development. The reason for this is that it is not a side, local contradiction of some part of modern mankind, but a social contradiction of human society as a whole. The fact that besides the socialist and capitalist states there is a large group of countries that have liberated themselves from colonialism and have not yet fully determined their road of development does not make the basic contradiction of the epoch any less universal. The peoples fighting colonialism objectively come forward as a revolutionary, anti-imperialist force. Moreover, we observe a continuous differentiation and stratification of the liberated countries: some gradually go over to the building of socialism, while others take the capitalist road. The developing countries are not a third force nor some intermediate zone between socialism and capitalism. They align themselves with or are drawn to one of the parties in the basic contradiction.
This contradiction, it may be added, is mobile and dynamic, and (herein lies yet another of its major features) as it develops it changes the balance of forces in the world in favour of socialism, to the detriment of reactionary, imperialist forces. This change occurs as the result of the strengthening and development of the world socialist system and the growth of its economic and military might; the aggravation of the general crisis of world capitalism and the exacerbation of all the antagonisms in it; the upswing of the international communist and working-class movement; the growth of the national liberation movement and the disintegration of the imperialist colonial system; and the broadening out of the democratic movement, primarily of the struggle for peace. The world socialist system attracts all contemporary revolutionary forces, for it provide^ them with an immense material, political and spiritual basis facilitating the success of the struggle against imperialism, for socialism and social progress.
66The time when imperialism undividedly ruled the world has gone, never to return. Today it is not imperialism but the forces combating it, the forces working for peace, socialism and social progress, chiefly the world socialist system, that define the main direction, the principal content and the chief features of world progress. The, oncemighty capitalist system is gradually (though perhaps not as quickly as would have been desirable but, nonetheless, inexorably) crumbling and falling apart under the irresistible pressure of world socialism. The new system replacing it is bringing all peoples Peace, Labour, Freedom, Equality, Fraternity and Happiness.
Today no problem of any importance can be satisfactorily settled without the active participation of world socialism. The growth of the world socialist system into the decisive factor of mankind's development is the fundamental feature distinguishing the present epoch. As the socialist system moves from success to success it plays an ever more important role in the economic, political and ideological life of mankind.
This in no way means that the world capitalist system should be completely discounted. Imperialism possesses an enormous economic, political and military potential which allows it to interfere in the affairs of different peoples and countries, to impose reactionary regimes upon them and to suppress forces of revolution and progress. Imperialism, particularly U.S. imperialism, has become more aggressive than ever before. However, as it was pointed out at the 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U., this does not mean that the balance of world forces has changed in its favour. On the contrary, this aggressiveness shows that contemporary capitalism is encountering increasingly greater difficulties and contradictions. Developments convincingly show that no matter what methods and means imperialism resorts to, it is unable to halt progress or the growing influence of the world socialist system.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The RevolutionisingThe prime manifestation of the impact of the world socialist system on world development lies in the fact that by force of the example set by it it is revolutionising the world and helping mankind to move towards the socialist future. ``Socialism,'' Lenin said, ``has 67 the force of example. . . . We must show the significance of communism in practice, by example.''
Socialism and communism are setting the peoples of the world a magnificent example of how to abolish exploitation and all form of oppression, surmount economic and cultural backwardness, organise society along genuinely democratic lines, create the conditions for promoting the well-being of people, solve the nationalities problem, resolve the agrarian problem in favour of the working peasants, establish real friendship and comradeship among people and nations, and ensure and consolidate peace.
Socialism influences the course of world history chiefly by its successes in economic development and in economic competition with capitalism. On this score Lenin wrote: ``...We are now exercising our main influence on the international revolution through our economic policy... . The struggle in this field has now become global. Once we solve this problem, we shall have certainly and finally won on an international scale.''^^*^^
Despite the extremely unfavourable conditions under which the Soviet Union began the economic competition with capitalism (backwardness in economic development, dislocation caused by the First World War and the Civil War, the economic blockade), the economic gap between it and the developed capitalist countries was closed thanks to the titanic efforts of the Soviet people. The Soviet Union's share of the world industrial product rose from less than 3 per cent in 1917 to nearly 10 per cent as early as 1937. In the course of 15 years the Soviet Union achieved a level of economic development that had taken capitalist countries many decades to attain. It has now become a mighty industrial power with complete economic independence.
After the Second World War the Soviet Union restored its war-ravaged economy and secured fresh advances in economic development. In 1965 Soviet industry accounted for approximately 20 per cent of the world industrial output. It must be emphasised that these successes were scored not by exploitation at home and abroad, as had been the case in a number of capitalist countries, but by _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 437.
68 the dedicated labour of the people, who availed themselves of the advantages of Soviet economic management. Can there be more convincing proof of socialism's enormous vitality, of its superiority over capitalism?Far-reaching economic successes have been scored by other socialist countries as well.
In 1965, compared with the pre-war level, industrial output rose 21.6-fold in Bulgaria, more than 11-fold in Mongolia and Poland, 9.6-fold in Rumania, 6.1-fold in Hungary, 5.1-fold in Czechoslovakia and 4.2-fold in the German Democratic Republic. The socialist countries are engaged in building the material and technical basis of socialism and communism. These successes are giving them an ever greater share of the world output. In 1950 this share came to about 20 per cent, rising in 1955 to nearly 27 per cent, and in 1965 to approximately 38 per cent. A feature of economic development in the socialist countries is that it uninterruptedly raises the standard of living and the cultural level, while in the capitalist countries it benefits only a narrow circle of big capitalists.
Socialism has set the peoples of the world an example of solving social and political problems. Indeed, what other social system guarantees all members of society political equality, makes them co-owners of the means of production and accords them the right to participate in the management of social affairs and to elect and be elected to organs of stale power? What other social system can settle the eternal peasant problem so that the peasants would till the soil for the sake of their own and social interests? What other social system can solve one of mankind's most intricate and acute problems, namely, the nationalities problem in such a way as to grant equality to different peoples, big and small, coloured and white ?
Socialism has set an example in the cultural field as well. The Soviet Union, once a backward country with nearly 80 per cent of its population illiterate, has risen to the front ranks of cultural development. Socialism places the incalculable wealth of spiritual culture at the service of man. Capitalism, on the other hand, denies a huge mass of people any opportunity to receive sometimes even the most elementary education. Even in the United States of 69 America, the richest of the capitalist countries, nearly 11 million citizens are illiterate.
True, in per capita output the Soviet Union is still behind the most highly developed countries. However, this gap, too, will be closed with time. Thereby, socialism will gain the upper hand over capitalism in the key sphere of human activity, the sphere of material production. The conviction that this will be achieved is founded on the fact that socialism is outstripping capitalism in the rate of economic advance. For instance, in 1965 as compared with 1937 the industrial output of the socialist countries increased approximately 10-fold, while in the capitalist countries there was only a 3.4-fold increase. Today the Soviet Union is in the front rank of space exploration, nuclear physics, mathematics, electronics, radio engineering, metallurgy, rocketry, aircraft-building, and so forth, i.e., in fields that arc decisive today.
The five-year plan of economic development for 1966--70 marks a major step in Soviet economic and cultural progress. Fulfilment of this plan, it was pointed out at the 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U., will give the Soviet Union a still better position in the economic competition with capitalism, and this will give a further tremendous boost to the world revolutionary process.
The approaching victory in economic development will be a further triumph of socialism and communism. ``When the Soviet people will enjoy the blessings of communism,'' states the Programme of the C.P.S.U., ``new hundreds of millions of people on earth will say: 'We are for communism!' It is not through war with other countries, but by the example of a more perfect organisation of society, by rapid progress in developing the productive forces, the creation of all conditions for the happiness and well-being of man, that the ideas of communism win the minds and hearts of the masses.''
Naturally, it would be wrong to assert that in the socialist countries economic and cultural development proceeds without let or hindrance. It is an extremely complex matter to build the new society, the socialist economy, particularly in countries most of which have been backward. Besides, this building has to follow uncharted paths, and 70 therefore shortcomings, difficulties and even errors are unavoidable. In most cases these shortcomings and difficulties are due to errors of a subjective nature, whose essence lies in ignoring the objective laws of social development, in losing sight of the need for a scientific approach to guidance over social processes. However, led by Communist Parties the peoples of the socialist countries bring to light and correct errors, overcome shortcomings and difficulties and thereby bring the administration of the economy and of all social life into line with scientific requirements. They know that the strength of socialism and its influence on the course of world development depend upon the unity of the socialist countries, upon how successfully affairs proceed in these countries themselves and upon how successfully they carry out their plans of economic and cultural development.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ World Socialism and the The change in the balance of
world forces in favour of
socialism lias given rise to a situation
conducive for the advance of the revolutionary movement
of the proletariat and all working people in the capitalist
countries. By force of the example set by it the socialist
system is revolutionising the minds of the working people,
inspiring them to rise to the struggle against capitalism,
for peace and social progress, for the triumph of
democracy and socialism. The economic, political and cultural
achievements of the socialist countries and the
dissatisfaction of the broad masses with the reactionary policy
of imperialism, especially with the intensification of the
war psychosis and the arms race, the main burden of
which falls on the shoulders of the masses, enlarge the
social basis of the working-class movement. More and
more people---peasants, petty urban bourgeoisie,
progressive intellectuals---are beginning to realise that only
the working class can deliver them from imperialist
oppression and that they can find happiness only under
socialism.
Today the working class has the all-round support of the socialist countries. This moral assistance (monolithic solidarity with, approval and admiration of and alignment with their heroic struggle) and direct material assistance (financial, food and other aid to striking workers and their 71 families, and to working people suffering from the arbitrary action of the imperialists, natural catastrophes, and so forth) give the working class and their allies strength in their titanic struggle, inspire them with confidence in victory and allow them to feel that their class comrades are by their side.
The peoples of the socialist countries energetically protest against the reactionary policies of the ruling imperialist circles---against the persecution of Communist Parties and other progressive organisations, against the persecution of progressive civic leaders, against anti-labour and other anti-democratic laws, and against the brutality of the imperialists with regard to the working people. The peoples of the socialist countries were the first to denounce the fascist Franco regime in Spain, the racist Verwoerd regime in the South African Republic, the racist policy of the rulers of the southern states of the U.S.A., and so forth,
Support for the progressive forces and the condemnation of imperialist reaction by the world socialist system unquestionably promote the working-class movement in the capitalist countries. In many capitalist countries the working-class movement is headed by battle-steeled Marxist parties, which broadly apply the experience of the Communist Parties of the socialist countries and constantly exchange views with them on major problems of the revolutionary movement.
In their fight against the export of counter-revolution by world reaction, the working people of the capitalist countries can rely on the support of the world socialist system. When they triumph they can count on the wholehearted assistance and support of the socialist countries in the building of the new, socialist society. This is strikingly illustrated by the experience of the struggle and victorious revolution in Cuba.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ World SocialismThe socialist countries are the most fervent opponents of colonialism and the most consistent champions of the national liberation struggle and of the equality and national independence of the oppressed peoples. Opposing imperialist colonial rule and rendering all-out support for the struggle for 72 independence, the world socialist system is a mighty factor expediting the growth of the national liberation movement and the disintegration of the imperialist colonial system. It was no accident that under the direct impact of world socialism and with its all-sided assistance most of the formerly oppressed countries liberated themselves from the colonial yoke after the Second World War.
African, Asian and Latin American peoples have seen for themselves that they have a loyal friend and a faithful ally in the Soviet Union and the world socialist system. Formerly the imperialists could suppress the liberation movement without hindrance, but today they are compelled to take into account the increased strength of the world socialist system, which by word and action, including armed aid, is helping the peoples not only to win but also defend their independence and to move forward along the, road of peace and progress. In 1956 the Soviet Union and other socialist countries helped the United Arab Republic halt the Anglo-French-Israeli aggression. In 1961 they helped Cuba repel the piratical attack of the U.S. imperialists and their hirelings. With the active support of world socialism India liberated part of its territory (Goa, Daman and Diu) from the Portuguese colonialists, and Indonesia drove the Dutch colonialists out of Western Irian.
World socialism is helping the liberated countries to strengthen their national armed forces, who protect the peaceful endeavours of the people, their sovereignty and independence. This enables them successfully to withstand imperialist aggression.
The socialist countries are helping the young sovereign states to build up a national economy and promote science, technology, education and culture, thereby enabling them to put an end to the backwardness inherited from colonialism and finally liberate themselves from the oppression of foreign monopolies. Suffice it to say that some 600 industrial, agricultural and other projects arc at present under construction in Asian and African countries with Soviet assistance.
In addition, the socialist countries are extending financial aid to the developing countries in the form of easyterm credits and loans. The Soviet Union alone has granted these countries credits and other allocations amounting 73 to more than 3,500 million rubles. Furthermore, the socialist states are rendering the developing countries invaluable aid by training national cadres in economy, science, culture and technology. The economic development of the young sovereign countries is furthered by their mutually beneficial trade with the socialist countries. The example of the socialist countries (whose former dependent nationalities have successfully surmounted their economic and cultural backwardness through non-capitalist, socialist development) as well as their far-reaching assistance to the young sovereign states are giving further impetus to national liberation revolutions. In these new countries the consistent tackling of national tasks is resulting in the rise of a modern economy, the formation of a working class, the growth of its organisational and ideological unity, and the consolidation of the progressive forces, thereby creating the material and social prerequisites for their transition to non-capitalist development.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ World Socialism and theThe world socialist system is tremendously influencing the key problem of our day---the problem of war and peace. The struggle for peace stems from the very nature of socialist society, where private ownership---the economic foundation of war---has been abolished and no social forces desiring war or the enslavement or plunder of other nations exist. Socialism stands for constructive, creative work, but it is impossible to construct and create without fighting for peace, against the forces of destruction. That is why the socialist countries are resolutely working for peace and peaceful coexistence. Soviet foreign policy is aimed at ensuring favourable external conditions for the building of communism, facilitating the development of the world socialist system, the national liberation and working-class movements and the struggle and ultimate victory of the revolutionary forces over imperialism, and upholding world peace.
World War II ended long ago but due to the intrigues of the imperialists, hotbeds of so-called local wars, each of which harbours the threat of a global conflagration, spring up in various parts of the world. For that reason 74 the socialist countries endeavour to quench these danger spots at the embryonic stage and take steps to settle outstanding issues by negotiation. At the same time, they render the peoples every possible assistance in order to repel aggressive attacks by the imperialists. A clear illustration of this is the comprehensive support and assistance being rendered to the people of Vietnam who have been made the victims of a piratical attack by the U.S. imperialists.
The socialist countries are pressing for general and complete disarmament, regarding it as the key to lasting peace and relaxation of world tension.
Soviet initiative has been instrumental in reaching agreement on the banning of nuclear weapon tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water, and on outlawing the orbiting of vehicles with weapons of mass annihilation. These agreements have been enthusiastically welcomed and supported by the peace-loving nations.
A mighty bastion of peace and security and, therefore, the centre of attraction of all the peace-loving forces on our planet, the world socialist system mobilises and unites the forces of peace and progress against the forces of reaction and war, and is an effective obstacle to the aggressive plans of the imperialists. The emergence of socialism has given mankind its first-ever material force helping it to settle crucial, outstanding international issues peacefully.
Present world development thus convincingly demonstrates that the socialist system rallies not only all socialist but also all other progressive forces on our planet. A beacon showing all mankind the road to progress and exerting tremendous revolutionising influence on world development, it is, at the same time, a mighty material force embodying the immortal teaching of MarxismLeninism, a force that bears the brunt of the struggle against imperialism and a large portion of the responsibility for the destiny of the world.
[75] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 3 __ALPHA_LVL1__ CONTEMPORARY CAPITALISM ANDThe contemporary proletariat is heterogeneous, consisting of the working class of the socialist countries, the capitalist countries and the countries that have shaken off the yoke of colonialism. In this huge army of labour an important place is occupied by the numerically large working class of the capitalist countries, which still has to fulfil its great liberating mission. In this chapter we shall deal primarily with this contingent of workers, with its aims and tasks and with the conditions and difficulties of its selfless struggle against capitalism. Inasmuch as this struggle is being waged under conditions of contemporary capitalism, let us start with an analysis of these conditions and show the essence of contemporary capitalism.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. The Crisis of World Capitalism __ALPHA_LVL3__ [introduction.]The socialist world is opposed by the world of capitalism, in which private ownership and exploitation are predominant. The latter world has no historical prospects and is experiencing a deep general crisis caused by the objective laws and the irreconcilable contradictions of capitalist development. The general crisis of capitalism is a state of its decline and disintegration, a state embracing all capitalist countries, the entire capitalist world from top to bottom: its economy and social system, its policy, ideology and culture. Gripped by this general crisis the capitalist world is finding it increasingly more difficult
76 to retain in ils orbit individual countries that prefer to break away from it and take the road of socialist development.The beginning of this crisis, ils first stage, was sparked off by the October Socialist Revolution in Russia, as a result of which capitalism ceased to be the only and allembracing world social system. Despite all its efforts, it proved to be unable to hinder the formation of the Soviet Union. The world's first socialist state withstood the military crusades, the economic blockade, the endless slander campaigns and the ideological sabotage of the imperialists, thereby demonstrating its vitality and invincibility.
The second stage of this general crisis began during World War II and the socialist revolutions that took place in Europe and Asia. Today capitalism is no longer the only world system: socialism has stepped across the boundary of one country, and along with the world capitalist system there is now a world socialist system.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The New, Third StageThe present, third stage of the general crisis of world capitalism started in the 1950s and its main feature is that there has been a radical change in the balance of world forces in favour of socialism. More and more countries are breaking away from capitalism and the forces working for socialism and social progress are rapidly growing throughout the world. The position of imperialism in the world-wide economic competition with socialism is inexorably growing weaker. The unparalleled upsurge of the national liberation movement has brought about the downfall of the imperialist colonial system. It is important to note that the new stage of the general crisis of capitalism was brought on not by a world war but by peace, by the peaceful coexistence of states with opposing social systems.
One of the features of this new stage is that there has been an acceleration of the inner instability and decay of capitalist economy. The unsteady rates of production growth, the constant underemployment of production capacities and the economic slumps that periodically shake the capitalist world eloquently show that capitalism is steadily losing its ability to make full use of its productive 77 forces, let alone to apply the latest scientific and technical achievements in the interests of the people.
In the U.S.A., for example, there have been several economic recessions since the war. The 1957--58 slump alone cost the country 60,000--65,000 million dollars' worth of industrial output and pushed industrial production down to the 1953 level. The workers' loss in wages amounted to 19,678,000 million dollars.
At the close of 1960 only 70 per cent of Canada's and 80 per cent of Japan's industrial capacities were in operation. In 1961 industry was underemployed by 12 per cent in the Federal Republic of Germany and by a still higher percentage in Britain and Belgium. Entire industries are being curtailed: shipbuilding in Italy and France, textilemanufacturing and railway transport in Britain, and so forth.
Capitalism is unable to make full use of the main productive force---the working people---thereby dooming the working masses to unemployment, depriving them of the means of subsistence. Official bourgeois statistics indicate that 8,000,000--10,000,000 people are fully unemployed in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia. Of this number, at least half are in the United States of America. Instead of serving people, automation and mechanisation, those superb achievements of the human intellect, are used to the detriment of the working man. In the U.S.A. automation and mechanisation are making 1,800,000-2,000,000 people redundant annually.
From this one can infer that in the capitalist countries the conflict between the productive forces and the relations of production has become unprecedentedly acute, that capitalist relations of production are fettering the productive forces.
But this does not mean that the economic development of imperialism has stopped. The desire to win the economic competition with the world socialist system, the demands of contemporary scientific and technical progress and, mainly, the ruthless rivalry within the capitalist system are compelling the capitalists to improve production and utilise the latest achievements of science and technology. This and the need to replace obsolete or destroyed 78 plant as well as the influx of considerable capital from the U.S.A., the vast army of reserve workers, and so on account for the post-war relatively high rates of economic development in a number of capitalist countries. However, these rates are not stable and do not abolish the cyclic nature of the development of capitalist production, under which periods of economic booms give way to periods of decline.
In the present new stage of the general crisis, all the other contradictions of capitalism are becoming more acute than ever before. The struggle between labour and capital is gaining momentum, and the interests of nations clash with the mercenary aspirations of a handful of monopolists, who have gained control of the state machine. Due to the uneven economic and political development of the capitalist countries, the alignment of forces within the capitalist system is changing rapidly, the antagonisms between individual and blocs of capitalist countries are becoming more and more apparent and the competition in the capitalist market is intensifying.
Imperialism's internal and foreign policy is facing a growing crisis expressed in a reactionary offensive in all spheres, the repeal of bourgeois liberties, the setting up of tyrannical fascist regimes, and the loss by imperialism of its former role in international affairs.
Bourgeois ideology is likewise in the grip of a deeprooted crisis, highlighted by pessimism and fear of the future, by mysticism and a lack of faith in science and in the creative powers and potentialities of man, by denial of progress and slander campaigns against communism, and by defence of the system of hired slavery and oppression. Bourgeois ideology has long ago lost its ability to advance ideas that can attract the masses, for it is an ideology of a class that is leaving the stage of history.
The aggravation of all the contradictions of capitalism and of its general crisis is evidence that the socialist revolution, whose mission is to destroy capitalism with its reactionary policy, ideology and relations of production, is a pressing historical need.
Frequently the question asked is why capitalism still exists in many countries, particularly in highly developed countries, despite the fact that its contradictions ( 79 primarily the conflict between UK; productive forces and the relations of production) make the socialist revolution a historical need.
It should be borne in mind that the conflict in the capitalist mode of production creates the objective possibility for a revolution, but this possibility can be turned into reality only by a social force able to utilise this possibility. That force is the revolutionary alliance between the working class and the non-proletarian masses, an alliance headed by a Marxist party. Such a force has not yet matured in a number of countries due to the rift in the working class and the political resourcefulness of the bourgeoisie, which with whip and cake, a long-standing policy, stupefies part of the working people with bourgeois illusions, feeds bribes to workers' leaders and does its utmost somehow to ease the antagonism between labour and capital. An important role in preserving capitalism is also played by the bourgeois state, by its huge apparatus of physical coercion (army, police, courts, prisons) and ideological influence (schools, the church, the press, the radio, and so on).
To this it should be added that due to insufficient time, former backwardness and difficult conditions of development the socialist countries have not yet surpassed the developed capitalist countries in per capita production. Naturally, the building of socialism in these countries could not help but be accompanied by difficulties and errors, and this too delayed the drawing of a certain section of the working people of the non-socialist world into an active struggle for socialism.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ State-Monopoly RegulationAs the general crisis of capitalism deepens its ideologists and politicians make every effort to embellish capitalist society, camouflage its misanthropic nature and present the processes in it in a false light. They seek to prove that the nature of capitalism has changed, that it is synthesising with socialism into a single ``industrial society" with a high level of consumption. To back up this theory they allege that, like socialism, contemporary capitalist society has become completely governable and that the aim of 80 capitalist production is to ensure the masses the highest possible level of consumption.
Capitalism is governed by the capitalist market, by capitalist competition. Once this was the only regulator of capitalist economy. However, the growth of pre-- monopoly into monopoly capitalism, and the outbreak of the general crisis made this regulator inadequate for the functioning, let alone the further development of capitalism. The monopolies were forced to invest the bourgeois state with the function of direct intervention in the process of capitalist reproduction, in the process of social life. This is one of the cardinal reasons, dictated by economic pressure, for the rise of state-monopoly capitalism, in which the economic might of the monopolies has merged with the political power of the state. This, it goes without saying, is not the only reason, in the same way as interference in production is not the only aim behind the linking up of the power of the monopolies with that of the stale. The purpose behind this process is to enrich the monopolies, crush the working-class movement and the national liberation struggle, save the capitalist system and unleash wars of aggrandisement. However, these aims cannot be realised without preserving what is basic in capitalism---its economy, founded on private ownership.
The bourgeois state accomplishes its regulating ( programming) role chiefly in the sphere of state ownership, ``state economy'', emanating from capitalist nationalisation and representing nothing more than collective ownership by the monopolies. The state directly manages the enterprises and entire industries, transport, banks, insurance agencies and other establishments belonging to it.
However, the programming role of the bourgeois state is not confined to its property and manifests itself in one way or another in the entire economy and social life of capitalism. One of its primary concerns is at least partially to remove indications of the general crisis of capitalism, particularly the crises of overproduction. To counter crises the bourgeois state places ever larger orders, especially orders of a military nature, with the monopolies; artificially holds up the production of consumer goods and thereby reduces the supply; extends economic aid to the __PRINTERS_P_82_COMMENT__ 6---2775 81 monopolies, granting, in particular, non-repayable subsidies to monopolies finding themselves in financial difficulties; creates extra-norm state reserves by purchasing surplus goods from the monopolies, arid so forth. The brunt of this burden is borne by the working masses, through taxes from which, in the main, is formed the state budget used to finance anti-crisis measures. At the same time, the monopolies are ensured with fabulous profits.
Under capitalism, state-monopoly regulation of the economy is no longer reduced to anti-crisis measures. It is also exercised at the ascendant stage of the economic cycle with the purpose of securing economic development for a more or less long period.
The state co-ordinates the government and private investment programmes, distributes orders and critical raw materials, regulates prices (in favour of the monopolies), redistributes the national income (also in favour of the monopolies) through its tax policy, and allocates credits and subsidies for the modernisation of plant. More and more frequently, the bourgeois state plays the role of founder of new branches of production and technology, undertakes the risk of investing capital in branches which at the early stages of development hold out no promise of a profit large enough to satisfy the monopolies, and controls military production and basic scientific research.
It would be wrong, however, to regard state-monopoly programming as something artificial, as a result of the subjective desire of the monopolists. It is dictated by the course of events, by the requirements of modern production, technology and science. The contemporary scientific and technical revolution demands a greater concentration of production, greater integration of material, financial and manpower resources, and a larger scale of research and experimentation, which the monopolies frequently cannot achieve without support and aid from the state. An extremely important factor stimulating state-monopoly regulation is the economic challenge from the socialist system. In order to meet this challenge the bourgeois state seeks to activise production and increase its rate of development.
Yet, no matter how great the role state regulation plays under capitalism, it has nothing in common with scientific 82 regulation of the economy as a whole, with planning, which is incompatible with private capitalist ownership. It neither changes the essence of imperialism nor removes exploitation, chaotic market conditions, competition and anarchy of production.
An eloquent indication of this arc the post-war crises of overproduction in the U.S.A., the currency crises in Britain, the inflation in a number of capitalist countries, the unfavourable trade and payments balances, the stockmarket crashes, the numerous bankruptcies, the flow of gold from the U.S.A., and so on. Regulation has proved to be unable to eradicate the chronic idleness of part of the production capacities and unemployment or to secure stable rates of production growth.
State-monopoly capitalism supplements economic regulation with social regulation. In itself, economic regulation implies social regulation, inasmuch as its purpose is not only to ensure the monopolies with enormous profits but also to safeguard capitalism against political and social shocks, in which a far from unimportant role is played by economic crises, unemployment and other ulcers of capitalist economy. The bourgeois state attaches special significance to the regulation of relations between labour and capital, naturally, in favour of the capitalists. Here the bourgeois state seeks to reconcile something that is irreconcilable within the framework of capitalism, namely, labour and capital, and thereby preserve the capitalist system of exploitation. Now and then it is compelled somewhat to curb the excessive claims of the monopolists, forcing them to make some concession to the workers and thereby either ease or extinguish the conflicts between labour and capital. It frequently manoeuvres and resorts to social demagogy, but this does not prevent it from fleecing the working class economically and non-- economically, by sheer force.
Of course, state-monopoly capitalism complicates and impedes the revolutionary struggle of the working class, for now it has to deal with the combined power of the monopolies and the state. Yet one cannot fail to appreciate that nationalisation, the setting up of a state sector in capitalist economy, and economic and other programming reflecting the long-term interests of the monopolies, and __PRINTERS_P_83_COMMENT__ 6* 83 their economic and political strategy convincingly reveal the economic and political bankruptcy of capitalism. Socialism is insistently knocking on the door of the capitalist world; the course of events and the development of modern economy are forcing the bourgeoisie to beat a retreat from the ``sacred'' right to private ownership, to set up a programmable state economy. Although this remains a capitalist economy, the very fact of its emergence indicates that capitalists are not needed as organisers of production, that they are parasites on the body of society. Moreover, ``state economy" prepares the material soil for socialism inasmuch as it can be turned into socialist property most easily and painlessly, as a result of a socialist revolution. For that reason, while opposing the monopolies, the working class champions the nationalisation programme on a democratic foundation, seeks to secure economic regulation in the interests of the people and claims the right to direct the economic and social life of society.
Economic and social regulation does not solve the contradictions of contemporary capitalism, particularly the contradiction between labour and capital. On the contrary, these contradictions grow ever more acute.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Capitalism Versus ManBourgeois ideologists and politicians maintain that contemporary capitalism is turning into a ``people's capitalism'', that its purpose is to satisfy the needs of man, that it is moving towards a ``welfare state" and a high level of consumption. But these very same ideologists and politicians ``forget'' to specify which man and whose needs and welfare capitalism cares for, for under capitalism there is man who owns means of production (the bourgeois) and man who works (the worker and the peasant).
The big proprietors constitute a tiny minority, yet they are the real masters of the capitalist world. It is with their welfare and high living standard that bourgeois ideologists are concerned. The big proprietors hold the key positions in the economy and in political and spiritual life and they own colossal material and spiritual wealth. Thus, a small circle of rich men, comprising only a hundredth part of the population, own 60 per cent of the national wealth in the U.S.A. and more than 50 per cent in Britain. In the early 84 1960s there were in the U.S.A. at least 85 families with a private fortune exceeding 75 million dollars. Owners of capital, naturally, have unlimited possibilities for satisfying their needs, which frequently acquire the nature of unbridled whims. The millionaires of present-day America are more extravagant than the monarchs and princes of the past have ever been. They spend enormous sums of money to build and run their residences, on luxury yachts, private railways, trains, aircraft, cars, and so forth. Many of them have turned their wives into walking fortunes: at a ball in Washington, one of the ladies wore jewels valued at several million dollars and was protected by 15 private detectives and a squad of police.
These huge assets cannot be earned by honest work. To build up a fortune rivalling that of the Rockefellers, the Mellons or the Du Fonts, a well-paid worker would have to save his pay for nearly a million years! The only source of the fortunes of the monopolists is the exploitation of the working people which is, essentially, misanthropic and incompatible with the nature of man, with his lofty calling and place in life.
State-monopoly capitalism is intensifying the exploitation of workers. Witness the fact that during the first years after the Second World War the norm of surplus value in the U.S. processing industry reached 260--300 per cent, as against 203.3 per cent in 1939, 186.2 per cent in 1929 and 122.2 per cent in 1889.
To characterise the position of the working class under capitalism we have to take the operation of two antipodal trends into consideration. One of these is the uninterrupted trend towards a worsening of the position of the working class, while the second opposes the first and is linked up mainly with the struggle of the working class, which seeks to contain the capitalist offensive against labour. In some of the developed capitalist countries the working class has bettered its position precisely as a result of a dogged and persevering struggle against the capitalists.
Reactionary bourgeois economists claim that there is no impoverishment of the working class in capitalist society. Facts give the lie to this assertion. In capitalist society we observe absolute impoverishment (growth of poverty among the workers in countries that were 85 exploited by the colonialists for many years; of workers in declining industries, coal mining, for example, in developed countries; the unemployed, the disabled, immigrants, and so on) and relative impoverishment of the working class (a steady deterioration of the position of the workers as compared with that of the bourgeoisie, which is growing ever wealthier).
One of the manifestations of relative impoverishment is that the profits of the monopolies increase while the proletariat's share of the national income steadily grows smaller. For example in the period 1924--52 the profits of the U.S. monopolies rose 7.7-fold, while the working people's share of the total social product dropped from 59.7 per cent in 1900 to 45.9 per cent in 1956. In terms of the absolute, i.e., the material, this share is sufficiently high in some developed capitalist countries (U.S.A., the Federal Republic of Germany, Britain, Italy, France and other countries) to ensure a certain section of the working people with a high standard of living. But it should be borne in mind that this high living standard exists side by side with the poverty of another, considerably larger section of the working people of these countries as well as with the appalling poverty, undernourishment and illiteracy of the bulk of the population of countries that have, for one reason or another, lagged behind in economic development. Even in one of the richest of the capitalist countries, the U.S.A., the government has itself admitted that 32 million people are poverty-stricken. What about the standard of living in the undeveloped countries, whose per capita national income is many times smaller than in the U.S.A.? In Latin America 5,500 people daily die of starvation, disease or premature old age. Yet in that area of the world some 5,000,000 dollars daily go into the pockets of the U.S. monopolists.
In the U.S.A., bastion of capitalism, millions of Negroes are exploited and politically and spiritually oppressed. According to rough estimates, the U.S. monopolies received 4,000 million dollars annually in the 1940s from the superexploitation of Negroes.
An existence as miserable as that of the Negroes in the U.S.A. is eked out in some of the developed West European countries by millions of worker immigrants who left their 86 homeland, in many cases without their families and relatives, in search of a livelihood. In these countries they are subjected to exploitation and racial discrimination and denied political rights. Employed on the most arduous and hazardous jobs, they receive less for the same work than local workers and live in poverty, squalor and ignorance.
The millions of unemployed, whom imperialism has ousted from the sphere of production and thereby deprived of the possibility to display their ability to work, which is the most important and profound manifestation of humanity, can only dream of living like real human beings. These outcasts of ``affluent'' society see nothing before them but hopeless penury, the shrivelling up of their physical strength, and spiritual emptiness.
Driving for maximum profits, the monopolists are intensifying labour, speeding it up. This, too, is adversely affecting the working man---the organism wears out and ages prematurely, the accident and the occupational disease rates grow, and mental diseases have become a social calamity. In the U.S.A., for instance, nearly 2,000,000 industrial accidents, including 14,000--15,000 fatal cases, are reported annually. Half of the patients in the hospitals are mental cases: only 56 per cent of the people falling ill receive medical attention.
Capitalism pays inadequate attention to people's health. Medical assistance is usually rendered for payment, and the doctor's fees are extremely high. The average American family annually spends nearly half of a month's income on medical assistance. In many capitalist countries there is an acute housing shortage and the old-age pension scheme leaves much to be desired.
Through their monopoly of mental work, the ruling classes spiritually enslave the working man, placing education, science and culture out of his reach. They ensure the spiritual development of the working people only to the extent that it dovetails with their own interests, striving to reduce the education of the children of workers and peasants to vocational training so as to make them qualified solely as hired workers.
The misanthropy of imperialism is particularly striking in such an extremely ugly phenomenon of contemporary 87 capitalism as the militarisation of the economy. Enormous assets created by the hands and intellect of the working man are spent not on projects to improve the life of the people but on the production of monstrous weapons of mass annihilation and destruction. In the U.S.A. during 20 post-war years 48 times more money was spent for military purposes than during the 20 years immediately preceding the Second World War. Altogether the capitalist world annually spends more than 100,000 million dollars for military purposes. It is easy to imagine what drastic changes might have taken place in the economic development of the undeveloped countries and in the standard of living of their people if this money had been spent for peaceful purposes. But this can hardly take place under imperialism, where war is the most profitable business of the monopolies.
Modern scientific and technical achievements are opening breath-taking prospects for boosting the living standard and the intellectual level of the working man. Yet, in addition to hindering the utilisation of these achievements in the interests of man, the monopolies frequently turn them against him, converting them into ghastly means of annihilation and destruction.
Most of the complex and expensive research is in the hands of the monopolies, which, naturally, appropriate the results of this research and use them to make certain of monopoly profits and to capture markets. The secrecy surrounding research, due to economic rivalry, creates difficulties in exchanging scientific information and gives rise to duplication in research with the result that money and effort are wasted. The monopolies store away many thousands of important inventions and discoveries until their ``commercial value" rises. Take the case of nylon. Its industrial production was started only in 1946--47, i.e., 14 years after it was developed (in 1932).
A particular menace to humanity is the utilisation of science and technology for military purposes. More than two-thirds of the U.S. scientists and nearly threefifths of the scientists in Britain are working on military projects. Of the funds allocated in the U.S.A. for scientific development, 70 per cent are used for research of a military nature.
88Contemporary capitalism is thus a misanthropic force. The working people, naturally, cannot reconcile themselves to encroachments on their human rights and dignity. They are doggedly struggling for liberation from imperialism, and this struggle is headed by the working class.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. Principal FeaturesDespite the assurances of the advocates of capitalism that ``classes are disappearing'', that a process of ``social harmonisation" is taking place in capitalist society, a gigantic struggle is raging in the capitalist world between labour and capital, and the revolutionary working-class movement has reached vast proportions.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Scale of theEpic social changes, the growth of production and the deep-going transformations brought about by science and technology have affected the position, numerical strength and composition of the working class in the capitalist countries and influenced the conditions and aims of its struggle. First and foremost, there has been an immense numerical increase. In the mid-19th century there were 9,000,000 workers. Today the number of factory, office and other workers in the capitalist world has risen to 350 million, of whom about 200 million are in the developed capitalist countries.
The structure of the working class has also changed. There has been, particularly in recent years, a considerable increase in the number of managerial, technical and office personnel engaged in material production. True, these people are sooner semi-proletarians, but their position and role in production are drawing ever closer to the position and role of workers engaged in direct productive work.
In the leadership of the working-class struggle, the Communist Parties are playing an increasingly more important role. Millions of men and women workers belong to trade unions, and youth, women's and other democratic organisations; the World Federation of Trade Unions 89 alone has nearly 140 million members. This makes it obvious that the working class is growing not only numerically but also organisationally.
As a result of the general crisis of capitalism, the strengthening of the socialist forces in the world and, in particular, of the revolutionising impact of the world socialist system and the enlargement of the social basis for the revolutionary movement in the capitalist countries themselves, the present situation in those countries has now become more favourable for the struggle of the working class. Moreover, the working-class movement has accumulated vast experience in combating capitalism and its stooges in the ranks of the working class. It has become more mature ideologically and has grown more organised and militant. The Communist Parties enjoy increasing prestige among the working people, and the power of the trade unions is growing. Led by its organisations, the working class is resolutely opposing coercion on the part of the bourgeoisie, and displaying courage, staunchness, ever greater discipline and unity of action in the revolutionary struggle.
The working class is using strikes, demonstrations, rallies, conferences, parliamentary debates, the press, the radio and diverse other means to achieve its ends.
The fact that in the past decade the number of strikers has doubled to reach the annual figure of 55--57 millions shows that the strike movement, an old and tested means of struggle against the capitalists, is growing in scale and that its organisation is improving.
Today strikes are not only bigger but also more flexible and varied. Besides general strikes, workers stage warning strikes; strikes in which mounting pressure is brought to bear by bringing in other contingents of workers; strikes at key enterprises of the various industries; strikes varying in time (every other day, every few hours of the day, and so on); strikes that hop from one enterprise to another, and so forth. These tactics enable the workers to avoid considerable material losses and, at the same time, enormously pressure employers and secure the satisfaction of their demands. The trend towards greater unity of action is becoming ever more clear-cut in the strike movement.
90Thus, the huge scale, the high level of organisation and the flexibility of the strike struggle are a vital feature of the contemporary working-class movement.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Combining EconomicA central feature of the contemporary working-class movement is that it combines economic and political forms of struggle. More and more frequently the demands of the workers go beyond the framework of economic terms to include political elements. The number of strikers involved in political strikes has risen from about 44 per cent in 1958 to 64 per cent in 1962.
Today even the struggle for purely economic demands usually brings the working class round to the realisation that a political struggle is necessary. In many countries the bourgeois state, it will be remembered, is a big proprietor serving the interests of the monopolies and itself directly exploiting a large section of the working class--- the section employed at state-run enterprises. The working people come up against the bourgeois state in social insurance, taxation, trade union activities and other spheres. They see for themselves that wherever it can this state protects the interests of the monopolies. During strikes, demonstrations or rallies there are clashes with the police and, in some cases, with the troops of the bourgeois state. A result of the development of stale-monopoly capitalism is that now; class contradictions manifest themselves as contradictions between the working people and the united forces of the monopolies and the state, thus spurring on the class struggle and enlarging the circle of problems around which the struggle is raging.
Formerly strikers demanded primarily an eight-hour working day, the recognition of the most elementary rights of the trade union organisations, the introduction of social insurance, the granting of suffrage to all citizens, and so forth. Today in addition to these demands, the working class seeks the realisation of demands that hit capitalism much more painfully. It wants broader political rights and democratic liberties for all people, the cessation of the arms race and the consolidation of peace and social progress. It crusades for the nationalisation of key branches of the economy and for the democratisation of the 91 management of these branches. The working class and its revolutionary vanguard, the Marxist parties, aim their main blow at the capitalist monopolies, which are the mainstay of reaction and aggression and bear the responsibility for the arms race and the difficult position of the working people.
The struggle for economic demands thus intertwines more and more closely with the struggle for fundamental social and political changes, for the uprooting of the capitalist way of life.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Enlargement of the Another important feature of the contemporary
revolutionary movement of the working
class is that its social basis is
expanding with the trend
towards setting up a united front of progressive forces
against the capitalist monopolies.
The monopolies ruthlessly exploit not only workers but also the bulk of the peasants, artisans, small shopkeepers, and the lower and middle echelons of office workers and working intellectuals. For a long time capitalist propagandists had been spreading the legend that the small peasant economy was stable. But now the monopolies have captured this field as well. In the U.S.A., for instance, the number of farms dropped by 2,030,000 in the period 1935--54 and by another 1,078,000 or by 23 per cent in the period 1954--59. In other words, every fourth farmer has been ruined. The situation is the same in the other capitalist countries. The peasants are leaving the villages en masse and joining the army of urban paupers. As for the surviving small farms, they are run at the cost of incredible privation, undernourishment and back-breaking labour.
Monopoly oppression is forcing the peasants to unite for the struggle for land and civil rights. In recent years there has been audible unrest among the peasants in France, Italy, Greece, the Federal Republic of Germany and other countries. In their actions they make wide use of proletarian means of struggle (strikes, marches, demonstrations, and so on), of the experience of foremost contingents of the working class. The workers give the peasants all-out support and, frequently, workers' and peasants' organisations act shoulder to shoulder and help each other. 92 Along with the peasants, the workers demand basic agrarian reforms and the realisation of the slogan: ``Land to those who till it!''
The monopolies are ruining small urban proprietors, destroying handicrafts industries, and absorbing or gaining control of small and medium industrial enterprises. In almost every capitalist country the lower and middle echelons of office workers, teachers, doctors, scientists, writers and artists are being stirred to action by the policies pursued by the monopolies and the bourgeois administration, which is closely linked up with them.
The overthrow of monopoly rule is thus wanted not only by the proletariat but also by the peasants and a considerable section of the intelligentsia as well as the petty and middle urban bourgeoisie. This is considerably enlarging the social basis of the working-class movement and making it possible to unite all progressive forces into a single mighty anti-monopoly front. The working class is called upon to head this front as its vanguard, to mobilise all the anti-imperialist forces for action against the monopolies. It teaches all working and exploited people to take revolutionary action by setting them an example of ``mass revolutionary action combining political and economic demands''.^^*^^
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Indissoluble Bond The founders of scientific
communism conclusively showed
tne narrowness and tentative
nature of bourgeois democracy.
They proved that, in fact, bourgeois democracy is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, a dictatorship of the rich minority over the majority of the working people. Moreover, they demonstrated that the working class cannot remain indifferent to democracy, which is, at the same time, ``a weapon in the hands of the proletariat''.^^**^^ Democracy, even if it is curtailed and bourgeois, provides the working class with the possibility of extending its revolutionary struggle. Take the bourgeois parliament, for example. Unquestionably it serves the bourgeoisie, but, at the same time, the working class is using it more and more _-_-_
~^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 223.
~^^**^^ Marx/Engels, Werke, lid. 16, S. 76. Diet/ Verlag Berlin, 1962.
93 frequently in its struggle against the reactionary policies of the imperialists.Under anti-democratic conditions---reign of terror, repressive laws, regime of personal power, and so on---it is incomparably easier for the monopolies to exploit the people, combat the revolutionary actions of the masses and implement their reactionary policies. Today there is a mounting reactionary political trend on the part of capitalism to abolish democratic liberties, to move from parliamentarianism to an undisguised terrorist dictatorship of the monopolies. In West Germany, for example, the Communist Party was outlawed in 1956. On the other hand, all sorts of nco-nazi, revenge-seeking organisations are flourishing. The number of these organisations has increased from 86 in 1961 to 123 in 1964. In 1963 alone there were 10,000 court actions against progressive organisations in the Federal Republic of Germany. In the U.S.A., not only the Communist Party but all other progressive organisations have virtually been banned, and a whole series of anti-labour laws has been passed. Yet, with the connivance and, frequently, the patronage of the authorities reactionary organisations like the Ku Klux Klan operate freely.
Political reaction and the absence of democracy not only hinder the revolutionary movement but also infringe upon the human dignity of the working people, upon elementary liberties and rights. For that reason the working class, together with other sections of the people, is resolutely struggling for democracy. It is stirring the masses to rise against the attempts of the monopolies to abolish democratic freedoms and against the revival of any variety of fascism. The combining of the struggle of the working class for socialism with the general democratic movement for peace, national independence and democracy is an important feature of the present-day working-class movement.
The democratic demands of the working class of the capitalist countries include: general democratisation of economic and public life, of all administrative, political and cultural institutions; nationalisation of major branches of the economy and the democratisation of the management of these branches; a higher living standard for the 94 working people; defence of the interests of the peasants and of the petty and middle bourgeoisie against the arbitrary rule of the monopolies; national independence; peace and the utilisation of the economy and of science and technology for peaceful purposes, in the interests of the people.
This programme does not abolish private ownership or exploitation, it does not call for the overthrow of capitalism as a whole and does not signify a reformist growth of capitalism into socialism. Many of its points are important not only in themselves but as milestones of the workingclass struggle, as footholds for the onward movement of the working class towards its principal objective---- socialism. The struggle for democracy undermines the influence of the forces of reaction, particularly of the monopolies, and thereby clears the road for the socialist revolution In the course of this struggle the working class becomes more organised, acquires experience and rallies the majority of the people round itself, thus forming the political army of the socialist revolution. Thus, far from retarding the socialist revolution, the general democratic struggle against monopoly rule brings it nearer and, therefore, the struggle for democracy is a component of the struggle for socialism.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Closing the SplitThe contemporary working-class movement is gaining momenum, but at the same time one cannot tail to see that in the struggle against capitalism the workers of various countries meet with failures as well, that the reactionary forces get the better of the class struggle now in one sphere now in another. The formidable difficulties which the working class has to face in the capitalist countries are one of the reasons for these setbacks. The bourgeoisie, the adversary of the working class, is rich and well organised and, in addition, possesses a powerful state apparatus---an apparatus of coercion and ideological indoctrination. But the principal reason is that there is a split in the working-class movement caused by opportunists. The bourgeoisie, naturally, does its utmost to preserve and widen this split in order to weaken the working class and paralyse its revolutionary activity. In these circumstances it is extremely important to 95 close the split and achieve the unity of the working class, the unity of all anti-imperialist forces in the general struggle against capitalist rule. The Communist Parties of Great Britain, France, Italy and other capitalist countries regard this as the cardinal task of the day. In pressing for unity, the Communists are motivated not by narrow Party interests, as the leaders of the Social-- Democrats would like people to believe, but by the interests of the working class itself, of the working people, including those who belong to the Social-Democratic and other parties and organisations. These are common interests of the struggle against monopoly domination, for democratic reforms, peace, social progress and socialism.
The struggle for the unity of the working-class movement, for the creation of a united anti-imperialist front is a fundamental component of the struggle against imperialism.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. Ways and Means of AccomplishingIn the present epoch, which witnesses mankind's movement towards socialism, tremendous importance attaches to the question of the concrete ways and means of effecting the transition to socialism in different countries.
Past experience teaches us that the ruling classes never voluntarily renounce their power, their numerous privileges or private ownership of the means of production, which enables them to exploit the working people. For that reason the socialist revolution is necessarily linked up with revolutionary violence, with the forcible overthrow of the capitalist system.
However, there are different kinds of violence. One is linked up with the use of weapons, with civil war, with foreign intervention. Another is, so to speak, of a peaceful nature: expropriation or restriction of private ownership, deprivation or restriction of the political rights of the exploiting classes, the drawing of these classes into labour by compulsion, and so on. This second kind of violence (peaceful violence) is inevitable in a socialist revolution, for the triumph of socialism is inconceivable 96 without violence, without compulsion (economic and political). As regards armed force, the problem of whether to apply it cannot be settled without analysing the specific conditions, the alignment of class forces in the country concerned, and the international situation.
Aiming to discredit the lofty ideals of scientific communism and breed distrust for it, its opponents maintain that everywhere and under all conditions the triumph of socialism is linked up with armed force, with war. Yet scientific communism proceeds from the thesis that wars are not necessary for the victory of socialism. Socialism triumphs by virtue of the operation of objective laws of social development, which are studied and applied by the foremost class of modern times---the working class and its Marxist party. These laws operate inexorably, and by virtue of their operation socialism will ultimately triumph throughout the world just as it has triumphed in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.
Scientific communism has always been and remains firmly opposed to all theories about ``exporting revolution'', about ``pushing'' the revolution by armed force. Denouncing the ``Left'' adventurists, who call for a `` revolutionary war" against world imperialism, Lenin declared that perhaps the authors of these calls ``believe that the interests of the world revolution require that it should be given a push, and that such a push can be given only by war, never by peace, which might give the people the impression that imperialism was being 'legitimised'? Such a 'theory' would be completely at variance with Marxism, for Marxism has always been opposed to 'pushing' revolutions, which develop with the growing acuteness of the class antagonisms that engender revolutions''.^^*^^
The proletariat is the most humane class of our times. It seeks to preserve and multiply the achievements of human culture, raise the level of the productive forces, and protect people, working people, who are the principal wealth of our planet. For that reason it wants to seize power by peaceful means, to accomplish a peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism. More than a century ago, in reply to the question whether it was possible to _-_-_
~^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, pp. 71--72.
__PRINTERS_P_97_COMMENT__ 7---2775 97 abolish private ownership by peaceful means Engels replied: ``One would desire that this should be so, and Communists would be the last to object to it.'' A peaceful transition safeguards huge material values and the lives of great numbers of people and, Lenin wrote, it ``would have been the least painful" and the ``easiest and most advantageous course for the people".However, the choice of the road to socialism depends not on the desire of individuals or classes but primarily on the objective alignment of class forces in the country concerned. If the forces of the working class, of the working people predominate overwhelmingly over the forces of the bourgeoisie, and the latter, realising that resistance is useless, prefer to save their heads by conceding power to the proletariat, a peaceful transition to socialism is possible.
Historical experience, however, shows that the bourgeoisie, like any other class doomed by history, is unable to evaluate the balance of forces soberly. With the desperation of the doomed, it is doing everything in its power to preserve or recover its lost supremacy, to prolong its existence. Its principal means are weapons, which it always brings into play when its rule is menaced, when the oppressed threaten its supremacy and its privileges. The Paris Commune was drowned in torrents of blood. The Russian landowners and capitalists did not reconcile themselves to the victory of the working people in October 1917. They started a civil war and called in the assistance of the capitalists of foreign countries, who attempted to restore capitalist rule in Russia by sword and fire. But, led by its Party, the working class together with other working masses repulsed the attack of the bourgeoisie and upheld proletarian rule.
Experience has shown that it is an indispensable condition for the triumph of the socialist revolution that the working class masters the methods of armed struggle. It is quite another matter whether there will be a need to use weapons against the bourgeoisie. At a time when the bourgeoisie held undivided sway over the whole world, when it knew its strength and could unite to fight the oppressed who rose in revolt, weapons were, essentially, 98 the proletariat's only means of winning power. It was not fortuitous that Lenin did not rule out, in principle, the possibility of the proletariat winning power by peaceful means but considered this possibility unlikely and extremely rare.
Today the situation is different. The new balance of forces between capitalism and socialism that took shape in the world after the Second World War has appreciably advanced the possibilities for a peaceful transition to socialism. It will be recalled that in a number of European and Asian countries the transition from the bourgeoisdemocratic to the socialist revolution was accomplished by peaceful means.
As for the capitalist countries, the possibility of them accomplishing the transition to socialism peacefully is looming ever larger, thanks to the growth of the forces of democracy and socialism within these countries and to the mounting influence of the working class and its Marxist party over the broadest sections of the people. In this situation, by relying on the popular movement against imperialism, the working class of some countries has, as never before, the possibility of taking power into its own hands without bloodshed, without civil war. On this point the Declaration of the 1957 Moscow Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties of the socialist countries states: ``Today in a number of capitalist countries the working class headed by its vanguard has the opportunity, given a united working-class and popular front or other workable forms of agreement and political co-operation between the different parties and public organisations, to unite a majority of the people, win state power without civil war and ensure the transfer of the basic means of production to the hands of the people.''
Provided the conditions fit the situation, the parliament may be a means of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat peacefully. By relying on a majority of the people and resolutely counteracting opportunists, the working class in a number of capitalist countries can turn the parliament into a weapon serving the working people, and, breaking the resistance of the reactionary forces, create the conditions for the transition to socialism.
99 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1967/SC342/20070314/199.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.03.21) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ nilThough a possible way of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat, this is by no means a reformist way.
Lenin noted that there are different forms of parliamentarianism. Some people use parliaments to preach reforms to suit the bourgeoisie, to curry favour with their governments, others---to remain revolutionaries to the end. Lenin always emphasised that the parliament should be used not for reformist aims, i.e., to champion reforms that would please the bourgeoisie and yet be powerless to alleviate the lot of the people, but for propaganda purposes and the organisation of socialist reforms. The achievement of socialism with the utilisation of the parliament signifies basic revolutionary reforms supported by a nation-wide class struggle. Naturally, the opportunity for attaining this objective becomes all the greater when the strength of the working class and its allies becomes increasingly tangible and it has an ever bigger arsenal of means of struggle. It would be naive to expect that the working class can take and hold power only by winning parliamentary elections. Only when the victory in parliament is backed up by a real class force prepared to defend this victory, by armed strength if necessary, will there be a guarantee that the results of the vote are not trampled by the bourgeoisie, that they will be preserved, consolidated and developed with the purpose of carrying out socialist reforms in all spheres of social life.
The possibility of the socialist revolution triumphing by peaceful means should not be absolutised, its recognition should not be taken to mean that the proletariat has rejected armed force as a means of seizing political power. It should not be forgotten that the bourgeoisie is still supreme in a large part of the world, and that it has weapons which it can use and frequently does use against the proletariat, against the working people. For that reason the working class must be vigilant and prepared to utilise the most diverse forms of struggle, non-peaceful and peaceful. In order to accomplish the socialist revolution victoriously, the working class must master all forms of struggle, skilfully apply forms that satisfy the concrete situation and be prepared quickly and abruptly to go over from one form of struggle to another.
100 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. Present-Day Communist Movement __ALPHA_LVL3__ At the Head of the ForcesThe international communist movement, the most powerful and numerically largest movement of our times, is the leading force of the revolutionary struggle of the working class.
The strength of the Communists lies, first and foremost, in the objective course of history itself, in the inevitable progress of mankind towards the socialist future, of the progress which they champion and lead. Armed with Marxist-Leninist theory, they are the spokesmen of social development, whole-heartedly serving the most advanced class, the proletariat, and, in return, enjoy its trust and support. During stern trials and grim battles, in defeat and in victory, the Communists remain true sons of their class, of their people, of the whole of progressive mankind. Being people in the loftiest and noblest sense of the word, they live, work, struggle and, when necessary, die for the sake of the working people.
No political movement in history has had to experience so many stern trials as the communist movement. Neither tsarist exile and prison, nor nazi torture-chambers and concentration camps, nor brutal murder could break the will of the Communists, their indomitable belief in the righteousness of their cause and their unflinching determination to fight for this cause. At the same time, no political movement in history has grown, broadened out and gone from one superb victory to another so doggedly as the communist movement.
A little more than a century ago, the founders of scientific communism set up the world's first organisation of Communists. It consisted of a small group of people. Today the Communist Parties, of which there are 88, unite nearly 50,000,000 of the best, most courageous and finest sons and daughters of the working people. The world communist movement Has become the most influential force of modern times, and its influence continues to grow in length and breadth.
Communist Parties operate in the most diverse conditions and are faced with the most diverse tasks.
In the socialist countries the Communist Parties are at 101 the helm of state, conducting extensive creative work, tackling challenging problems connected with economic development, the establishment of new, socialist relations and the communist education of the people, ensuring the defence of socialism's gains and thereby helping the peoples of the non-socialist world in their revolutionary struggle. Under their leadership, the people have put an end to capitalist oppression and today are engaged in building socialism and communism. The creative work of the Communists of the socialist countries is of historic significance: it strengthens the international position of socialism and enhances the attractive force of its ideas throughout the world.
In the capitalist countries the Communist Parties operate in face of enormous difficulties created by the imperialist regimes. Many of them have been forced underground. They are persecuted, terrorised and, frequently, physically decimated by bourgeois reaction. They have still to lead the peoples of their countries to victory over capitalism, to the socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Heading the struggle of the masses against the monopolies, they are forming the political army of the revolution in fierce class battles, working to extend their influence over the masses, for the interests of the proletariat and all working people. The Communists are the most active fighters for the unity of the working class. They come out against the treacherous policies of the Rightist leaders of the Social-Democratic Parties aimed at upholding capitalism and preserving the split in the working-class movement.
In Asia, Africa and Latin America the Communist Parties, born in the fire of the national liberation revolutions, are gaining strength, winning increasing influence and actively participating in the struggle against colonialism and neo-colonialism. Their principal goal is successfully to complete the national liberation revolutions, consolidate national independence and lead their peoples towards progress, socialism and peace.
Despite the diversity of specific aims and tasks, the Communist Parties are promoting a single cause, directing the development of modern mankind from capitalism to socialism.
102 __ALPHA_LVL3__ Strategy and TacticsMarxism-Leninism, which studies general laws without which it is impossible to accomplish the socialist revolution and build socialist society, provides the theoretical foundation for the policy pursued by the Communist Parties. It adopts a specific historical approach to reality, underscoring the fact that the general laws of the building of socialism manifest themselves in their own way in each given country. An indispensable prerequisite of the success of the cause of communism throughout the world is that these specific conditions must be taken into consideration.
In the struggle against capitalism, for socialism and communism, the Communist Parties frame a definite political line, which finds concrete expression in strategy and tactics.
It will be remembered that in the pre-October period of the communist movement, the concept strategy was, practically speaking, never used, while tactics were taken to mean the entire Party policy. For example, in Two Tactics of the Social-Democratic Party in the Democratic Revolution, Lenin speaks of tactics as of the Party's political line for the entire period of the preparations for and the actual consummation of the democratic revolution. He used the concept strategy to denote the Party's political line only in some of his post-October works, but even then he did not strictly distinguish it from the concept tactics.
The contemporary communist movement takes strategy to mean the main direction or objective of the workingclass movement in a definite epoch of social development or, to use Lenin's words, ``the general and basic tasks" of the working class, of its Party. To define strategy means to define the principal goal of the movement, to distinguish the main class enemy against whom revolutionary efforts must be directed and win allies in the struggle against this enemy. As regards tactics, they are the totality of forms, methods and means of attaining the main goal in concrete circumstances. Tactics embrace a large variety of issues: the forms of struggle (economic, political, ideological; non-peaceful or peaceful); combinations of various forms of struggle; offensive, defence or retreat; compromise and agreements on the utilisation of 103 antagonisms, conflicts and friction in the enemy's camp; a united front with non-proletarian masses, and so on; and the ``routine'', day-to-day activities of the Party in educating and organising the proletariat and other working people with the purpose of leading them to a revolutionary offensive, to the achievement of the main goal of the workingclass movement. ``Marxist tactics consist in combining the different forms of struggle, in the skilful transition from one form to another, in steadily enhancing the consciousness of the masses and extending the area of their collective actions.''^^*^^
Communists underscore the unity between strategy and tactics, the need to subordinate tactical tasks to strategic objectives, and require that a change in tactics should not denude them of their revolutionary content or distort the historic aim of the proletariat. They emphatically oppose the Right opportunists, who bury the revolutionary objectives of the struggle in oblivion, and the Left opportunists, who lump strategic and tactical tasks together, absolutising one or another form of struggle that has become obsolete by virtue of changes in the concrete situation.
Strategy is relatively permanent and stable, the changes in it depending upon the stage of development of one contingent of the world communist movement or another or of one country or another. As a rule, new strategic tasks are formulated when the preceding tasks have been carried out and the country has entered a new stage of development. For instance, when the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution are carried out, the Communist Party advances a new strategy, that of preparing for and accomplishing the socialist revolution. Tactics, on the other hand, are more mobile and dynamic: the forms and methods of struggle change with changes in the balance of class forces, in the conditions obtaining in the country concerned, and in the international situation. An important aim of working-class revolutionary tactics is, as Lenin put it, to ``study, detect and predict" the features of the objective movement to communism by various countries and different contingents of Communists.
The policy of the Marxist party, its strategic and _-_-_
~^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 20, p. 210.
104 tactical leadership is a science and art. Politics is a science, for it rests on a profound scientific analysis of reality, of the alignment of class forces in a concrete situation. However, it is important not only to work out a correct policy but also successfully to implement it. This requires consummate skill. Without this skill any policy, even the most correct, will remain an empty declaration. For that reason politics is also an art.The art of implementing policy is learned, first and foremost, in the course of the class struggle. Without passing through this practical school of struggle with its contradictions and difficulties, without experiencing the bitterness of setbacks and defeat and the joy of success and victory, it is impossible to master the art of strategic and tactical leadership. But this in no way means that every party must base itself solely on its own experience or go through the entire gamut of setbacks, errors and defeats. In mastering the art of political leadership it is important to study the experience of other parties, of the entire world communist movement.
Political art embraces the ability to work among the masses; to pool the efforts of different parties and groups, including those with whom there are acute divergences; to choose forms of struggle and opportunely apply them in conformity with a change in the concrete situation; to take the offensive when conditions allow it; and, correctly, tactically to retreat; and of numerous tasks to select the basic one and concentrate the Party's efforts on it, and so forth.
One of the most important problems of strategy and tactics under capitalist conditions is that of forming and strengthening the alliance of the working class with the non-proletarian working masses, chiefly with the peasants*
The position and the aims and tasks of the workers and peasants have much in common. Both classes are exploited by the capitalists and, naturally, seek to liberate themselves from bourgeois economic and political rule. This community of aims creates th'e objective foundation for a firm alliance between these classes. However this alliance does not form of itself, spontaneously. It is created by the Communist Parties in the course of the struggle against capitalism, for a new social system.
105The idea of this alliance is one of the corner-stones of Marxism-Leninism, of scientific communism. Underlying it is the teaching that only the working class can settle the eternal agrarian problem in favour of the peasants, give them the possibility of tilling for their own benefit land belonging either to them or to society as a whole. On the other hand, the working class can destroy capitalism and build socialist society only with the support and active participation of the peasant masses in the revolution.
The alliance of the working class with the peasants and other non-proletarian masses constitutes the social and political force of the revolution and, therefore, the setting up and consolidation of this alliance is one of the cardinal aims of the Communist Parties.
Lenin regarded revolution as the result of active creative work by the broad masses. But in order to convince the masses of the need for a revolution, of the need for their active participation in it, the Party must be able to work among the masses. The ability to work among and with the masses is the main feature in the Party's political art. This applies not only to the ability to conduct agitation and propaganda but also the ability to make the masses see the need for carrying out the tasks set by the Party.
Lenin formulated the basic principles underlying the art of leading the masses, principles by which Communists are guided in pursuing their policy. They are:
``Link with the masses.
``Live in the thick of the masses.
``Know their mood.
``Know everything.
``Understand the masses.
``Know how to approach them.
``Win their absolute trust.
``Leaders must not isolate themselves from the masses whom they lead, the vanguard must not isolate itself from the army of labour.''
__ALPHA_LVL3__ General LineDrawing upon Marxism-- Leninism and generalising the more than century-long experience of the proletarian class struggle, the Communist Parties have, at their 106 international Meetings in Moscow in 1957 and 1960, collectively charted the general line of the world communist and working-class movement.
This general line proceeds from an analysis of the nature of the present epoch, from the fact that the world working class and its principal creation, the world socialist system, stand at the hub of this epoch, whose content is the transition from capitalism to socialism. The socialist system is increasingly becoming the decisive factor of human development. Together with the revolutionary working-class movement of the capitalist countries, the national liberation movement and various democratic movements, the peoples building socialism and communism form a single, anti-imperialist revolutionary torrent that is undermining capitalism and establishing the new, socialist and communist society in the world.
The general line of the world communist movement is that of class struggle and socialist revolution. Communists believe that the revolutionary destruction of capitalism and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat are the means for transition to socialism, and that this transition can, as we have already pointed out, be accomplished in diverse forms.
The Communist Parties have always been and remain opposed to colonialism. They unconditionally support the national liberation movement, and press for the completion of the democratic, anti-imperialist revolution, the winning of genuine national independence and noncapitalist development.
Everywhere Communists are active fighters against imperialist reaction, for the democratic liberties and rights of the working people. They regard every anti-imperialist, democratic movement as an ally in the common struggle against capitalism, for socialism and social progress.
The communist movement is the most humane movement of the present epoch. It regards the struggle for peace and peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems, for the preservation of the lives of millions of people, for the preservation of the material and spiritual values created by working people as one of its paramount tasks. In order to carry out this task the Communists unite the efforts of all peace-loving, anti-imperialist forces.
107Such is the general line of the present world communist movement. In short, it is a line of revolutionary struggle against capitalism, for the complete triumph of socialism and communism throughout the world, a line of struggle for national independence and democracy, to avert another world war. This line accords with the most cherished aspirations of the working people, with the loftiest human ideals.
It would be a grave delusion to think that the communist movement develops without contradictions and difficulties. Today, in the same way as decades ago, the Communists have to wage a Herculean struggle not only against the bourgeoisie, against the theoreticians and champions of the bourgeoisie, but also against opportunist trends within their own ranks, against revisionism and dogmatism.
Just as they used to do before, the revisionists, like the Social-Democratic leaders, renounce the socialist revolution and the proletarian dictatorship, the building of socialism and communism, and slur over the antagonisms of capitalism.
Arguing that Marxism arose in the 19th century and that we live in the 20th, the modern revisionists say that Marxism has become obsolete, that it must be ``specified'' and ``corrected'', and in so doing they strip Marxism of its revolutionary essence. They claim that the new phenomena of modern capitalist reality, linked up with the growth of state-monopoly capitalism, with capitalist nationalisation and the attempts of the bourgeois state to regulate economic development, are indications that the very foundations of capitalism are changing, that capitalism is drawing ever closer to socialism, that it is `` crawling" into socialism.
The arguments that present-day capitalism is automatically developing into socialism obviously imply a renunciation of the class struggle, of the socialist revolution, of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of socialism. It is no secret that all the above-mentioned new developments in modern capitalism do not affect the foundations of capitalism---private ownership and exploitation. Capitalism has remained unchanged and it can be transformed into 108 socialism only by a socialist revolution and the proletarian dictatorship.
Subjectively speaking, the dogmatists and sectarians are for revolution. Moreover, they regard themselves as genuine revolutionaries and press for the immediate destruction of capitalism by a ``revolutionary war''. They seek to push the development of the world revolution by force of arms, to impose socialism on nations from without, caring nothing whether the conditions for socialism are ripe in the given country or whether the people of a given country are prepared to accept socialism. They turn a blind eye to the fact that today, when monstrous weapons of destruction are available, a ``revolutionary war" against world capitalism will inevitably become a world thermonuclear catastrophe. This war would claim hundreds of millions of lives, wipe entire nations and countries off the face of the earth and civilisation would be thrust far back.
In spreading views that are incompatible with the spirit of Marxism-Leninism, the dogmatists usually allude to quotations, in particular, from the works of Lenin, who, some half a century ago, wrote that wars are the inescapable fellow-traveller of imperialism. True, the aggressive nature of imperialism has not changed, and it is, therefore, quite possible that the reactionary imperialist forces will try to start another war. But, as nobody can fail to see, this would be much more difficult to do today than before. World peace is guarded by the mighty socialist system, many non-socialist countries and the broad masses. And this has enabled Marxists-Leninists to draw the conclusion that world wars are not inevitable in the present epoch.
Dogmatism, as we can see, consists of inability and unwillingness to take into account the concrete situation, the changes that have taken place in the world, of blind devotion to obsolete and outworn quotations. Is this not also the substance of revisionism, whose adherents have likewise failed or refused to understand the changes in modern capitalism? The inability to analyse and assess the new situation and to formulate tactics in accordance with this situation is a feature of all kinds of opportunism, from revisionism to dogmatism. The revisionists are 109 against the socialist revolution. The dogmatists clamour for an immediate ``world revolution'', which, whether they want it or not, will damage the revolution irreparably. Both the dogmatists and the revisionists thereby bring grist to the mill of the bourgeoisie, and it turns out that revisionism and dogmatism are the two sides of one and the same coin.
As was noted in the decisions passed by the 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U., ``deviations to the `left' or right of the Marxist-Leninist line are doubly dangerous when associated with nationalism and hegemonistic ambition".
Differences among Communists are a serious matter, but it does not mean that they are insuperable. They can and must be overcome, because the cohesion of the world communist movement is a key condition for the success of the struggle against capitalism, for socialism and communism.
Differences among Communists in theoretical and political issues can be settled only on the principled foundation of Marxism-Leninism, of proletarian internationalism. The basis of this unity, which the Communists of the Soviet Union and all other real Marxists-Leninists work with such perseverance to attain, is fidelity to MarxismLeninism, to the cause of the world socialist revolution, the cause of the working class and all other working people.
Practice, the development of political life itself is an important means of settling differences. These differences, Lenin wrote, are frequently resolved ``by those with incorrect opinions going over in fact to the correct path of struggle, under pressure of the course of developments that simply brush aside erroneous opinions, making them pointless and devoid of any interest''. He said that decisions should be verified as frequently as possible in the light of new political developments.^^*^^
Inasmuch as the world communist movement embraces equal and independent parties and, inasmuch as in this movement no party can be predominant or subordinated to the domination of another party, the only possible way _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 9, p. 146.
110 of resolving outstanding issues is by joint, collective discussion.This implies debating the issues, stating and listening to opinions, finding the view of the majority, expressing this majority view in a decision and conscientiously abiding by the decision. That is the road chosen by the international conferences of Communists, at which pressing problems of the day are discussed and agreed decisions are taken on major problems of the revolutionary struggle.
Naturally, differences between Communist Parties cannot be settled at once. Time and patience are required. Moreover, as was noted at the Consultative Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow in March 1965, it is important to accentuate not differences but points of agreement, to focus attention on finding ways and means enabling all fraternal parties to take joint, co-ordinated action against the common enemy, for the earliest attainment of the common goal.
[111] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 4 __ALPHA_LVL1__ NATIONAL LIBERATION REVOLUTIONS __ALPHA_LVL2__ [introduction.]Socialism abolishes exploitation of man by man and all, including national and colonial, oppression. The struggle against the supremacy of world capitalism, for the new, socialist system necessarily presupposes the eradication of colonialism, a struggle for independence, for the rejuvenation and burgeoning of peoples formerly oppressed by imperialism. In this chapter we shall deal with the nature, main objectives and significance of the national liberation revolutions.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. DisintegrationIn addition to exploiting their own peoples the imperialists of a small number of developed countries enslaved many peoples of other countries. By armed force, deceit, blackmail, bribery and treachery they seized entire continents---Africa, Latin America and a considerable slice of Asia---creating giant colonial empires, which only recently ruled the destinies of more than half of mankind.
The imperialist colonial system is one of the unhappiest pages of human history. It brought death to a countless number of people, inhuman exploitation, starvation, disease and ignorance. Suffice it to say that more than a hundred million people were taken from Africa alone and sold into slavery or put to death.
112To this day the imperialists and their ideologists speak of their humanity, of their civilising mission, claiming that they bring backward peoples civilisation, modern technology, culture, a new way of life, and so on. But this empty prattle deceives nobody. The peoples know what colonialism really stands for. They know that for the imperialists the colonies are a sphere for the profitable investment of capital, sources of cheap raw material and manpower, markets and huge military bridgeheads. They exploit enslaved nations for one and only one purpose---maximum capitalist profit.
Naturally, the peoples concerned could not reconcile themselves to colonial rule. They waged and continue to wage an unremitting struggle against the imperialist vultures, for freedom and national independence.
The national liberation movement received a mighty impetus from the Great October Socialist Revolution, which awakened the oppressed peoples, stirred them to rise and fight and drew them into the single torrent of the world revolutionary movement. For the oppressed peoples, the Soviet Union, the world's first socialist country, has become an inexhaustible source of political and moral support.
The triumph of socialism in the U.S.S.R. which brought freedom from social and colonial oppression to more than a hundred nationalities and nations, the defeat of German nazism and Japanese imperialism, the new balance of forces on the international scene after the Second World War, the formation of the world socialist system, the growth of the revolutionary working-class movement and the broadening influence of the Communist Parties have created extremely favourable soil for the success of the national liberation struggle. Imperialism had strangled the national independence and freedom of the majority of peoples and put them in the irons of ruthless colonial slavery. Socialism, on the other hand, ushers in the era of the liberation of oppressed nations. The mammoth wave of national liberation movements is sweeping colonialism out of existence and shaking the foundations of imperialism. New sovereign states have emerged and continue to emerge in place of former colonies and semi-colonies.
Fundamental changes have taken place in Asia, where China, India, Indonesia and other countries have liberated themselves from colonial or semi-colonial dependence. The 113 colonial system is falling apart in Africa, where many countries have raised the flag of sovereignty. The period that has elapsed since the Second World War has witnessed the formation of nearly 60 independent countries, most of whom had won their freedom in the past 10--15 years. Latin America, where the U.S. imperialists have held undivided sway for long decades, is rising against imperialism and colonialism. For the Latin American peoples, heroic Cuba, where the people's revolution has triumphed, has become a beacon in their just struggle for national liberation and social progress.
The time is not far distant when colonialism will receive the final coup de grace. This is inevitable, for it clashes with the objective course of history, with the requirements of social progress, with the interests of the masses. The oppressed peoples and all nations will not know rest until the last bastions of colonialism are levelled to the ground.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Significance of theThe national liberation movement is of tremendous importance to the development of modern history and a crucial factor of social progress. It is a component of the single world revolutionary process of our day.
The peoples of the new sovereign states, which have risen on the ruins of the colonial empires, come forward as builders of a new life, as active participants in world politics. They play an immense role in resolving the main problem of modern times, that of averting another world war, of preserving and consolidating peace. With the peoples of the socialist countries they form two-thirds of mankind, a powerful force that can curb the imperialist aggressors.
The significance of the national liberation movement is that it deals the political, economic and military-strategic positions of imperialism crushing blows.
The disintegration of the colonial system is sapping the economic strength^^*^^ of the imperialist countries inasmuch as it has perceptibly narrowed down the sphere of profitable investment, the relatively stable and, mainly, vast markets, and sources of cheap raw material and manpower.
_-_-_^^*^^ We feel that this (economic) aspect of the crumbling of colonialism should not be overestimated, firstly, because in many countries, which have won political independence, imperialism has __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 115. 114
Moreover, the liberated countries themselves are reaping benefits from the collapse of colonialism. Having won political independence, they are able to promote their economy and culture, and choose the road of social development. Some of them have given indications of an aspiration to make a clean break with capitalism and follow the noncapitalist road.
Thus, the main significance of the national liberation movement is that it undermines imperialism, destroying its immediate reserves and helping mankind to move from capitalism to socialism. For that reason the Communist and Workers' Parties have assessed the disintegration of colonialism as ``second in historic importance only to the formation of the world socialist system".
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The Danger ofAlthough most of the colonial and dependent countries have won political independence, the liberated peoples cannot feel secure. The imperialists are attempting to rejuvenate the colonial system, seeking not only to preserve but also to intensify their exploitation of the new sovereign states. Tens of millions of people (in South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Southern Rhodesia and elsewhere) still languish under the yoke of colonial oppression. Imperialism remains enemy No. 1 of the national liberation movement, and the world's freedom-loving nations are therefore fully determined to fight for genuine freedom and independence against imperialism. One of the cardinal tasks of the African, Asian and Latin American peoples is to combat new forms of colonial oppression which come under the heading of neo-colonialism.
Neo-colonialism is an economic, political, military and ideological programme designed to preserve imperialist domination and ensure maximum political control and economic exploitation of the developing countries. In other words, neo-colonialism is a synonym for imperialist economic, military, political and ideological expansion against peoples who have liberated themselves from colonial rule or are fighting for liberation.
_-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 114. retained its economic position; secondly, the economic losses of the imperialist countries, due to the disintegration of the colonial system, are largely compensated by the achievements of modern science and technology. __PRINTERS_P_115_COMMENT__ 8* 115Through this expansion the imperialist powers retain control of the economy of various countries and intensify the economic exploitation of these countries. Although most of the Asian, African and Latin American countries have won political independence, many of them remain economically dependent upon the imperialist powers. A considerable number of the industrial enterprises and the bulk of the natural resources in these countries are in the hands of foreign monopolies, thus allowing them to continue reaping staggering profits. The annual cash profits alone now amount to nearly 6,000 million dollars. It is not difficult to picture the changes that could be wrought in the national economy and in the standard of living in these countries if this money were at their own disposal.
Neo-colonialism also finds expression in the economic ``aid'' extended by the imperialists to the undeveloped countries. This ``aid'' is far from being disinterested as the ideologists and politicians of neo-colonialism would have people believe. It has a definite purpose, that of imposing economic agreements, which would allow foreign monopolies to preserve and consolidate their economic position and thereby subordinate the economic and political development of these countries to their own mercenary objectives. As a rule, this ``aid'' is granted on terms infringing upon the national dignity of the recipient countries, denying them the possibility of choosing their own road of development and serving as a means of bringing pressure to bear upon their internal and foreign policy. Many of the agreements under which this ``aid'' is granted envisage the employment by the recipient countries of a large number of economic and financial ``advisers'', who propound imperialism's neocolonialist policies. While feigning to champion the economic growth of the newly liberated countries, the imperialists force them to take the capitalist road of development, for this alone allows them to keep these countries in bondage to imperialism.
CENTO, SEATO and other military and political blocs, into which the imperialists have drawn some of the Asian and African countries, are another vehicle of enslavement, of colonial exploitation.
In combating the liberated nations, the imperialists do not 116 stop before exporting counter-revolution, before direct military intervention in their internal affairs. In 1956 the Anglo-French-Israeli imperialists tried to bring Egypt (now the United Arab Republic) to her knees by force of arms, and in 1961 the U.S. imperialists launched aggression against Cuba, and today are fighting a criminal war against the Vietnamese people.
The neo-colonialists attach considerable importance to their ideological aggression against the forces of progress, socialism and peace. To further this aggression, they have enlisted the services of reactionary bourgeois ideology, which is doing its utmost to halt the growth of the spiritual consciousness of nations, obstruct the stream of advanced ideas and thereby ideologically disarm the national liberation movement. They whitewash colonialism, present history in a rosy light and embellish and camouflage the exploiting nature of their relations with the undeveloped countries, thereby trying to prevent the peoples of these countries from finally and completely liberating themselves from colonialism. They argue that the Asian, African and Latin American peoples are unable to resolve their destinies independently, and speak of the civilising mission of imperialism, of economic and political unity between the former colonies and their erstwhile imperialist masters.
In order to disunite the peoples, shake the unity of the forces of democracy and progress and thus safeguard their domination, the imperialists use a tested weapon of the reactionaries like nationalism. Marxism-Leninism is intolerant of all manifestations of bourgeois nationalism and requires that a distinction should be made between the nationalism of ruling nations (dominant-nation chauvinism and racism) and the nationalism of oppressed nations. The unquestionably reactionary ideology of dominant-nation chauvinism and racism, which justifies the domination of one nation by another, is flatly rejected by scientific communism. On the other hand, the nationalism of oppressed nations is directed against imperialism and contains elements of struggle for independence and is, therefore, progressive and supported by the proletariat. On this score Lenin wrote: ``The bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation has a general democratic content that is directed against oppression, and it is this content that we unconditionally 117 support.'' Such, for example, is the nationalism of some of the present-day African and Asian countries. The progressive trends of this nationalism manifest themselves in struggle against imperialism, colonialism, feudal reaction and backwardness, in the course of which are awakened the political consciousness of the people, primarily of the peasant masses.
At the same time, nationalism always harbours the threat of being stripped of its democratic content and turned into dominant-nation chauvinism and racism. For that reason, while supporting the liberation trend in the nationalism of oppressed peoples, Communists consistently champion proletarian internationalism, which consolidates the international solidarity and friendship of the working people of all races and nationalities. By demonstrating that the class struggle plays the decisive role in any social movement, including the national movement, and calling for unity among the working people of all countries, Marxists-- Leninists combat the ideology of bourgeois nationalism and win the masses over to proletarian internationalism.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The National Liberation RevolutionThe national liberation revolution is the highest stage of the struggle for national liberation.
The central problem of every revolution, including national liberation, is that of state power, and the chief indication of a national liberation revolution is the transfer of state power from foreign monopolies or their puppets to the patriotic, national forces of a formerly oppressed people.
As any other revolution, the national liberation revolution breaks out and develops on definite social and economic soil, resolves specific problems and is moved forward by definite driving forces, i.e., by the classes, social strata that actively participate in it.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Nature of the NationalForeign imperialism, which supnressed everv manifestation of P .... , *" mamrestauon OI political and economic independence, held undivided sway in the economic and political life of the colonial countries. The foreign monopolies saw to it that the economy of these countries remained lop-sided 118 and used them as sources of agricultural and mineral raw materials and cheap manpower and as extremely profitable markets.
These countries played the role of the immediate strategic reserve of imperialism, and many of them were bastions of aggressive imperialist designs against the growing forces of world socialism.
In the political life of these countries, too, the imperialist monopolies were the supreme masters. They arbitrarily appointed and deposed rulers, dictated laws and ruthlessly crushed every attempt of the oppressed peoples to resist. There could be no question at all of the people enjoying even the most elementary of democratic rights.
While oppressing the people, throttling all expressions of economic and political independence, imperialism is the mainstay of the internal reactionary forces, primarily of the forces clinging to feudal and pre-feudal relations, namely, the big landowners and the tribal chiefs.
Thus, imperialism is the principal enemy of the oppressed peoples, and the national liberation revolution is a clearcut anti-imperialist movement.
Its main objectives are to uproot foreign imperialist political and economic domination, win political and economic independence and set up a sovereign national state.
•However, monopoly rule cannot be ended without eradicating survivals of feudalism and tribal, pre-feudal relations, which give imperialism its largest foothold in colonial and dependent countries. The national liberation revolution is, therefore, anti-feudal as well, and the eradication of survivals of pre-bourgeois relations, which hinder economic and political development, is another of its prime objectives.
These objectives cannot be achieved without the support of the broad masses, who are the real makers of history. The uprooting of survivals of colonial rule in political life and the democratisation of social life are the third cardinal objective of the national liberation revolution, which is thus a democratic movement.
Hence, the national liberation movement is anti-- imperialist, anti-feudal and democratic. It accomplishes ``democratic tasks, the tasks of overthrowing foreign oppression".^^*^^
_-_-_~^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 59.
119The general democratic, anti-imperialist and anti-feudal nature of the national liberation revolution stems not only from its objectives but also from the social forces called upon to achieve these objectives, i.e., the driving forces of the revolution.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Driving Forces ofBefore proceeding to review these forces it is nprpssarv to point out that the colonial and dependent countries were at different stages of economic and political development. Some were agrarian-industrial countries; others were backward agrarian countries with embryonic industries; and still others (the majority) were extremely backward agrarian countries with deeply entrenched survivals of feudal and pre-feudal (patriarchal) relations. The social composition of the population was correspondingly extremely diverse.
Nonetheless, all these countries have (true, at different levels of development) a working class, a peasantry, a national and an urban petty bourgeoisie, a national intelligentsia (civil, military, students), feudal lords, and a proimperialist (compradore) bourgeoisie. With the exception of the pro-imperialist bourgeoisie and the feudal lords, all these classes and social forces are oppressed by the foreign monopolies and, therefore, in varying measure, take part in the national liberation revolution. Each class and social group, naturally, has its own ideas about the revolution's objectives and, therefore, in addition to general national objectives they pursue their own social goals.
The working class, which is steadily growing, is one of the basic driving forces of the revolution. It should be borne in mind that with regard to its numerical strength, organisational unity and level of political consciousness, the working class is at different stages of development in the different countries. Hence its dissimilar role and significance in the national liberation revolutions. In some countries the proletariat has not only taken shape as a class, but has also achieved organisational and ideological unity and, led by Marxist-Leninist parties, it plays the leading role in the national liberation revolution and ensures its growth into a socialist revolution (the socialist countries in Asia). In other countries the proletariat is the principal driving force of the revolution, uniting all progressive sections of the nations, 120 chiefly the peasants. In still others, although a proletariat exists, it has not yet risen to a leading position and rallied the nation's progressive forces around itself. Lastly, there is a group of countries (mostly in Africa) in which the proletariat is only consolidating and organising as a class, and its numerical, organisational and ideological weakness prevents it from decisively influencing the course and outcome of the national liberation struggle.
However, in all dependent countries, by virtue of its objective position in society the proletariat is the most revolutionary social force, which, more than any other, is interested in carrying through the national liberation revolution. This is understandable, because liberation from foreign monopoly oppression and the democratisation of social and political life create favourable opportunities for achieving socialism, which is the historic objective of the proletariat.
In the course of the national liberation struggle the working class grows numerically stronger and more organised and acquires political experience. Its class consciousness grows and it forms and strengthens its alliance with the non-proletarian sections of the working people. Its trade unions and youth and other organisations grow and become stronger. In short, the national liberation revolution trains the working class for the impending social battles for socialism.
In some countries, the peasants are the largest and principal driving force of the national liberation revolution.
In the colonial and dependent countries they are in desperate straits. Deprived of land, they are compelled to rent it on onerous terms (from 40 to 80 per cent of the harvest) from the big feudal landowners.
In addition, they are oppressed by the foreign monopolies, who own huge estates and, working hand in glove with the local feudal lords, ruin them, pocketing enormous profits. The destitute, ruined peasants, deprived of their tiny patches of land, constantly swell the already huge army of rural paupers.
This, therefore, is the most acute social problem. The peasants are vitally interested in abolishing monopoly, 121 feudal and tribal nobility ownership of the land, and obtaining the possibility of working that land and enjoying the fruits of their labour. This, naturally, makes them an anti-- imperialist and anti-feudal force interested in destroying the political and economic supremacy of foreign capital and the rule of the feudal landowner class and tribal nobility, in the carrying out of deep-going agrarian changes.
Let us now turn to the bourgeoisie. Its position in these countries is extremely contradictory.
In view of the fact that the foreign monopolies and local feudal lords hinder economic development in every way they can, that part of the bourgeoisie which is interested in economic progress is active in the national liberation revolution, particularly in the struggle for political independence. It is called the national bourgeoisie to distinguish it from the pro-imperialist, anti-national bourgeoisie, which, being closely linked up with the foreign monopolies, betrays the national interests.
The national bourgeoisie participates in the national liberation movement in order to advance its own class interests, promote economic development along capitalist lines and secure political supremacy. At the same time, it champions certain general national interests, because it can achieve its class aims only by getting rid of foreign imperialism and local feudalism. The anti-imperialist, anti-feudal aspirations of the national bourgeoisie thus coincide with the interests of the entire nation.
Here we must take the contradictions, the duality of the national bourgeoisie into consideration. In the struggle against foreign imperialism and the internal forces supporting it, primarily the feudal and tribal nobility, the national bourgeoisie aligns itself with the working masses, relies upon them and uses their revolutionary energy to achieve its own ends. On the other hand, it fears the revolutionary working class and peasants, regarding them as a threat to its exploiter interests, and therefore seeks to confine the revolution to the narrow framework of its own interests, to hold up its development and direct it along the capitalist road.
In colonial and dependent countries, particularly in Africa, there is an extremely numerous and influential 122 intermediate (petty-bourgeois) section, consisting of artisans, handicraftsmen, small shopkeepers, and so forth. Due to these countries' economic backwardness, these intermediate sections occupy a fairly prominent place in the economy because at their small enterprises they produce much of the goods required by the population. They control the everyday services, the retail trade and other spheres, and their influence on political life corresponds to the role they play in the economy. To a certain extent, the destiny of the national liberation revolution therefore depends on the stand taken by the intermediate sections, on whether they support the progressive or the reactionary forces.
Due to their social position these sections are extremely contradictory. On the one hand, they own property (usually not very considerable) and this, to some degree, gives them a bourgeois orientation. On the other hand, they have to work, to earn a livelihood with their hands, and this brings them closer to the workers, to say nothing of the peasants. Moreover, like the other working people, the intermediate sections are brutally exploited by the foreign imperialists and the local rich. The overwhelming majority of this intermediate section are, naturally, inclined to favour radical changes and therefore participate in the national liberation revolution.
A prominent and sometimes leading role is played in the national liberation revolution by the national-democratic intelligentsia: scientists, cultural workers, part of the civil employees, progressive army officers, students, office workers, and so on. This intelligentsia plays a particularly important role in countries where the working class has not taken shape as an independent force and the national bourgeoisie is either weak or pursues a pro-imperialist policy, as in the case of most of the African countries. Under these conditions, intellectuals frequently head the revolution and the state, as in the United Arab Republic, Mali, Guinea and some other countries.
Such, in brief outline, are the driving forces behind the national liberation revolution. The alignment and role of these forces is different in each country due to historical conditions and the level of social and economic development. This balance changes in each country as the revolution 123 develops, and, therefore, when we analyse the driving forces of the revolution in one country or another we must take the internal and international situation into account.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. Economic Independence __ALPHA_LVL3__ [introduction.]The winning of political independence, liberation from political dependence upon imperialism, comprises the content of the first, initial stage of the national liberation revolution. This stage, which has been completed in some of the developing countries, witnesses the transfer of state power from the foreign imperialist bourgeoisie and the local feudal or clan and tribal ruling clique to the patriotic forces of the nation. The attainment of political independence and the formation of national states in Asia, Africa and Latin America are one of the crowning results of the disintegration of the imperialist colonial system.
But it is not the only objective of the national liberation revolution, for without economic independence it is impossible to consolidate the gains achieved by the revolution and put an end once and for all to dependence upon foreign monopolies. The ideologists of imperialism, Lenin wrote, usually talk ``of national liberation .. . leaving out economic liberation. Yet in reality it is the latter that is the chief thing''.^^*^^
__ALPHA_LVL3__ New Stage ofThe imperialists made every effort to perpetuate their rule in the colonial and dependent countries, and to tie these countries permanently to their own economic and political system they crushed every attempt of the oppressed people to develop a national economy, particularly, in the industrial field.
Imperialism has retarded the development of tens of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, whose economic level is, with rare exceptions, extremely low. These countries, which have more than two-thirds of the population of the non-socialist world, account for only 20 per cent of the manufactured goods, about 3 per cent of the machines and equipment and 5 per cent of the metal produced in the _-_-_
~^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 244.
124 capitalist world, while a considerable number of the industrial enterprises in them belong to foreign imperialists.The peoples of these countries can utilise the enormous natural resources in their own interests and work for themselves only by freeing their economy from foreign monopoly domination. The only way to achieve this is to develop their own national economy. By remaining economically dependent upon imperialism the newly liberated countries cannot promote their own social and economic progress. Moreover, economic dependence constantly threatens their political independence.
The achievement of economic independence is thus the content of the new, second stage of the national liberation revolution.
One of the most radical ways of winning liberation from economic dependence is nationalisation, i.e., the transfer of factories, transport, means of communication, banks, trade and communal enterprises, and schools and other educational institutions to state ownership. Nationalisation gives rise to a state sector in the economy.
The United Arab Republic, Algeria, Burma, Mali, Guinea and other liberated countries have made great progress in nationalisation, which embraces primarily the property of foreign monopolies and of the pro-imperialist section of the local bourgeoisie. Nationalisation and the accompanying setting up of a state sector in the economy have enabled the liberated countries independently to resolve some economic problems, influence economic development and embark upon economic planning. This has effectively hit colonial exploitation and substantially curbed the possibility of foreign capital decisively influencing economic development.
Insofar as conditions frequently do not permit one developing state or another immediately to nationalise all or most of the property of the foreign monopolies, nationalisation is accompanied by temporary control of this property, and the state restricts monopoly exploitation of the people and the country's natural wealth. In many cases mixed enterprises, owned jointly by the state and private, including foreign, capitalists, are set up.
The social content of the state sector is not the same in the different countries, for it depends on the balance of class forces and on what social forces are at the helm of 125 state. The state sector can serve as the foundation for economic development and a major factor for abolishing dependence upon foreign monopolies only when state power is in the hands of patriotic, democratic forces, when nationalisation is pursued in the interests of the nation.
Economic independence can only be achieved by building up a highly developed economy, through industrialisation.
Industrialisation ensures the reorganisation of all branches of the economy, including agriculture, on the foundation of modern technology and thus raises labour productivity to a high level. It serves as a means of strengthening a country's defence capacity and as the basis of its scientific, technical and cultural progress. For the developing countries, industrialisation is the key to surmounting backwardness, relinquishing their unenviable role of agrarian and raw material reservoirs of the imperialist states, acquiring genuine independence and raising their people's standard of living.
Many of these countries have already taken the first steps along the road of industrialisation. By utilising their domestic resources and aid from other, particularly socialist, countries, they are building power-generating capacities and modern industries, concentrating on branches that are of special significance to them and helping them achieve economic independence.
Thorough-going agrarian reforms in favour of the people are an important element of the programme for achieving economic independence in the newly liberated countries. In most of these countries the best land belonged and, in many cases, still belongs to foreign monopolies and local feudal lords and the tribal nobility. Monopoly domination and feudal and pre-feudal relations seriously impede economic development because the lop-sided, mono-plant agriculture is unable to keep industry and the population supplied with raw materials and food.
As a result, the objective of agrarian reforms in the newly liberated countries is to put an end to feudal and pre-feudal relations in agriculture in order to abolish pre-feudal, feudal and foreign ownership of land, and give the peasants the possibility and the assistance to work this land.
Experience shows that there are various ways of carrying out agrarian reforms. In Burma, the United Arab 126 Republic and some other countries the object of the agrarian reforms is sharply to restrict the size of the land that may be owned and to transfer the land confiscated from the big landowners and foreign capitalists to the peasants. The most radical reform is to set up agricultural co-operatives, a movement that has begun in some of the new countries.
In many of the liberated countries the agrarian problem is still far from having been resolved and therefore remains an important task of the national liberation revolution.
Economic development is inconceivable without the broad democratisation of social and political life, without drawing the masses into construction and raising their level of education and culture.
The social and economic objectives of the national liberation revolution are achieved in sharp struggle between social forces. While political independence, which comprised the content of the first stage of the revolution, was achieved through the concerted efforts of all the nation's patriotic forces in struggle against foreign imperialism, economic independence, which is the content of the second stage of the revolution, is attained not only in struggle against imperialism but also in struggle between different classes and social strata within the country. Essentially, this is a struggle for the ways and means of achieving economic liberation, the ways and means of further promoting social development.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. Two Possible WaysThe choice of the road of development for the liberated peoples is an important and acute problem linked up with clashes between social forces, because the different classes and parties offer their own solution to this problem. The reactionary forces, chiefly the big bourgeoisie and landowners, relying on the economic, financial and military support of the imperialist powers, seek to channel the nation's development along capitalist lines.
The progressive forces, mainly the proletariat and the working peasants, seek to protect the nation against the 127 intrigues of the imperialists and direct the country to the path of genuine independence, prosperity and progress.
The peoples of these countries are becoming more and more convinced that national rejuvenation and social progress can be ensured only through non-capitalist development.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The Liberated CountriesThe newly liberated peoples know what capitalism stands for. The charms of colonialism are stm fresh in their minds and their freedom. The history of capitalism and imperialism is one of devastating wars, colonial plunder, exploitation, unemployment, starvation and privation. Capitalism is the enemy of democracy and progress, and peoples are therefore emphatically rejecting capitalism no matter how attractively it is attired by its ideologists and no matter how aluringly it is described (``people's capitalism'', ``welfare state'', and so on) . Capitalism is so unpopular that this is admitted even by official imperialist sources. A survey compiled by a U.S. news agency and carried by The New York Times notes with regret that the more the merits of capitalism are advertised and the more socialism is attacked by it, the less is it liked by the world. Analysing the comments of the agency's correspondents, who conducted opinion polls in both Hemispheres, the survey states that ``capitalism is evil. The United States is the leading capitalist country. Therefore the United States is evil. Capitalism is a dirty word to millions of non-Marxists. ... To them it means little concern for the poor, unfair distribution of wealth and undue influence of the rich".
An indication of the unacceptability of capitalist development to the peoples is the grave crisis in a number of the newly liberated countries, which have chosen the capitalist road, the road that accords with the interests of the imperialists and their supporters and brings the people nothing but poverty and exploitation.
Take Morocco. The government's capitalist policy led to a severe crisis in the country's economic, financial and socio-political life, with the result that the position of the working masses sharply deteriorated. The cost of living rose 40 per cent in the period 1958--63 and wages remained virtually frozen. Unemployment grew catastrophically. Every 128 fifth man and every second woman in a country with a population of 13,000,000 lost their jobs. The situation is no better in some of the other countries that have chosen the capitalist road.
The people, naturally, are opposed to capitalism, to capitalist development. But there is another, non-- capitalist, road of development.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Experience of Non--Lenin showed that with the rise and development of socialism in other, more advanced countries it was possible for economically undeveloped countries to start building socialism without passing through the capitalist stage of development. His words were: ''. .. With the aid of the proletariat of the advanced countries, backward countries can go over to the Soviet system and, through certain stages of development, to communism, without having to pass through the capitalist stage.''^^*^^
He thereby applied the Marxist theory of the socialist revolution to countries which had not reached the capitalist level of development, giving expression to the specific conditions and forms of the transition of these countries to socialism.
This proposition has now been carried into effect. Of the 65 million-strong non-Russian population of Russia in 1917, 25 million inhabited the former Central Asian colonial outskirts and were at pre-capitalist stages of development, preserving not only feudal and semi-patriarchal modes of production but also the clan way of life. In the course of only half a century these regions, aided by fraternal nations, primarily by the Russian people, have become flourishing socialist republics with a high level of industrial, agricultural and cultural development. They have built metallurgical, automobile, electrical engineering and other modern industries. Their agriculture has also changed, consisting of highly mechanised collective farms. They have overcome their cultural backwardness and trained skilled national cadres, attaining a higher cultural level than any Eastern capitalist country and even some of the leading capitalist countries of the West. Mongolia, which was a semi-colonial country, has travelled _-_-_
~^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 244.
129 the entire road from feudal backwardness to socialism. Today, relying on aid from the Soviet Union and other socialist countries she is planning to become a developed industrial-agrarian state in the immediate future.The experience of the Soviet Central Asian republics and Mongolia demonstrates what can be attained with the assistance of fraternal nations by peoples who liberate themselves from colonialism and exploitation. This experience is now showing the liberated peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America how to by-pass capitalist development, proving to them that the non-capitalist road allows them to achieve genuine independence and progress.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Substance of Non-- Capitalist DevelopmentNon-capitalist development is the road to socialism for countries that have not reached the capitalist stage. It is the road to socialism by-passing capitalism generally or some stage of developed capitalism provided socialism has triumphed or there is a proletarian dictatorship in other countries.
The transition to socialism is accomplished as a result of a socialist revolution springing from definite material and class prerequisites (the required level of economic development, the existence of a developed and politically active proletariat led by a Marxist party, and so forth). These prerequisites usually mature at the capitalist stage of development, which means that a direct transition to socialism is possible in developed capitalist countries.
It is different in the case of pre-bourgeois countries, such as are most of the new sovereign states. They lack the prerequisites for a socialist revolution and, therefore, require a certain period of preparation for the transition to socialism, a period in which the material and class conditions for this transition are created. This period, during which countries approach socialist reforms, is an indispensable element of non-capitalist development.
The social and economic processes of this initial period (economic development and the accompanying regrouping of class forces in favour of the working masses, primarily of the proletariat) are in some measure analogous to the processes witnessed during capitalist development. However, non-capitalist development greatly accelerates these processes, and the most important thing is that it delivers 130 the masses from much of the sufferings and hardships of capitalist development. Side by side with bourgeois-- democratic reforms, the initial stage of non-capitalist development witnesses reforms of a socialist nature (restriction of private capitalist ownership and exploitation, the transfer of part of the means of production to public control and management, economic planning, and so forth). However, at this stage the latter reforms are not decisive and do not determine the social and economic character of society as a whole.
At this initial stage the correlation of bourgeois-- democratic and socialist reforms and their influence and significance are not the same in different countries, for this depends on the level of the given country's economic and social development, on the balance of class forces in it. At the same time, regardless of their depth and form, socialist reforms are an unmistakable indication of the non-capitalist road. Where reforms of this type are absent it is a sign that society is following the road of usual capitalist development.
The initial stage, during which bourgeois-democratic reforms predominate, is followed by a stage of definitely socialist reforms in all spheres of social life, a stage of direct transition to socialism.
At this new stage, socialist reforms become predominant, non-capitalist development is consolidated, society finally embarks upon the socialist road and the national liberation revolution grows into a socialist revolution.
How quickly this new stage is reached depends upon how actively the masses participate in the revolution, how deeply the democratic reforms become rooted in social and political life, how quickly the role of the working class grows and its alliance with the peasants strengthens, and on how speedily the leading core of the revolution becomes the spokesman of the masses.
The social and economic objectives of the non-capitalist road as a whole are, thus, to complete the national liberation revolution, create the material and class prerequisites for socialism and then promote the growth of the national liberation revolution into a socialist revolution.
It must be emphasised that non-capitalist development is possible only in the present epoch of mankind's transition from capitalism to socialism, when countries taking the __PRINTERS_P_131_COMMENT__ 9* 131 non-capitalist road can count on the disinterested assistance of the world socialist system. The backward countries can emerge from their present stage of development, Lenin wrote, ``when the victorious proletariat of the Soviet Republic extends a helping hand to these masses and is in a position to give them support''.^^*^^
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Liberated PeoplesThat capitalist development is a road of suffering is becoming eyer clearer tQ the working masses of the newly liberated countries, and they are beginning to realise that only socialism can bring them freedom and happiness. Socialism is the only socio-political system that can put an end to the age-old backwardness of these countries, ensure a rapid upswing of their economy and culture, satisfy the people's material and spiritual requirements and for ever eradicate exploitation, poverty, starvation and the threat of another world war.
With the spread of the revolution, the bourgeoisie, which advocates the capitalist road, becomes more and more unfit to head the struggle against imperialism, for social progress, while in some countries it has proved to be unable to preserve political independence. In the sphere of social and economic reforms the bourgeoisie has displayed its complete incapacity. An exploiting class, it is afraid to lose its property and privileges and fears the revolutionary people. It opposes nationalisation and is reluctant to take determined steps to solve the agrarian problem, make a clean break with the colonial pattern of economy and social life and effect sweeping democratic reforms. This breeds disappointment and distrust, and stirs the masses to resolute action not only against foreign imperialism but also against their own bourgeoisie.
In the resolutions adopted by the 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U. it was noted that in countries liberated from colonialism a new life is bursting forth in grim clashes with the perfidious imperialist enemy and internal reaction which, with the support of imperialism, are striving to direct the new states towards the capitalist road. However, the new nations are growing more and more intent on linking up the complete triumph of the national liberation movement, the _-_-_
~^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 244.
132 abolition of their long-standing backwardness and the attainment of a higher standard of living with non-capitalist development.Expressing the will of the people, their gravitation towards socialism, their aspiration to build a new, happy life, the leaders of some liberated countries---Algeria, Burma, Guinea, Congo (Brazzaville), Mali, the United Arab Republic---have proclaimed the intention of their nations to follow the non-capitalist road of development. Reforms of an anti-capitalist, socialist nature are being carried out in these countries. A state sector is being established as a result of nationalisation and the planning of economic development has been instituted. They are ousting foreign capital from their economy, restricting exploitation, narrowing down the economic potential of the local bourgeoisie, depriving the exploiting classes of influence over political life, building up a national economy through industrialisation, carrying out agrarian reforms (in particular, setting up peasant co-operatives), pursuing an independent, antiimperialist foreign policy, establishing friendly relations and co-operation with socialist countries, and so on.
Much attention is given to raising the people's standard of living and cultural level, promoting education and public health and training technical and scientific cadres.
The building up of a national economy, particularly industry, gives rise to the material prerequisites of socialism---a modern material and technical basis. The creation of these material prerequisites is accompanied by the maturing of the social prerequisites of socialism: the working class grows numerically side by side with industrial expansion, with the result that its role in society is enhanced; moreover, its alliance with the non-proletarian strata, especially with the peasants, takes shape and grows stronger.
The fact that the working class begins to play a bigger role does not imply that it is the leading force of society everywhere and at all stages of non-capitalist progress. In most of the developing countries the working class is numerically small, organisationally and ideologically weak or only just entering the arena of active politics, and for that reason non-capitalist development, especially at its initial stage, may be guided by revolutionary-democratic forces.
In the new countries the choice of the road of 133 development is linked up with a sharp ideological struggle, which finds expression, in particular, in the fact that the various classes have a different picture of socialism and of the ways and means of achieving it. Sometimes these views are far removed from scientific socialism or serve as a screen to hide the efforts of the bourgeoisie to channel development along capitalist lines. However, this by no means implies that Communists brush non-Marxist notions about socialism completely aside. These notions contain a progressive aspiration to put an end to capitalism and exploitation and build a society founded on collective ownership. Communists unconditionally support this progressive content, this anti-imperialist, anti-colonial orientation of various socialist theories. At the same time, they do not become dissolved in various social forces championing socialism but strive to inject the theory and practice of genuinely scientific socialism into all socialist movements.
It must be noted that in the course of the national liberation revolution, the socialist views of the leaders of some developing countries underwent perceptible changes. At the initial stage these views were, as a rule, a curious mixture of elements of scientific socialism and Utopian, religious notions, but today these leaders are gradually going over to scientific, Marxist-Leninist socialism.
This evolution towards Marxism-Leninism is a natural process dictated by the course of the national liberation revolution, by the objective requirements of the developing countries. A genuinely popular revolution, whose purpose is to bring a country independence and prosperity, and freedom and happiness to the people, can triumph only on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, of scientific socialism. ``Our revolution,'' said Fidel Castro, national hero and head of the Government of Cuba, ``has made Marxism-Leninism its banner. Nobody forced us and nobody guided us from some other continent. Life showed us the road and we took that road without hesitation or fear. Every genuine revolution must inexorably march towards Marxism-Leninism as the only unadulterated revolutionary truth which rejects colonial slavery, imperialist vassalage and exploitation of man by man.''
It would be vulgar simplification to assert that in all countries and under all conditions revolutionary democrats, 134 the national-democratic intelligentsia in particular, will necessarily and inevitably go over to Marxism-Leninism. There is only the possibility that this will happen, and this possibility becomes reality only when the balance of forces in the country concerned favours the forces of progress, when the proletariat plays a progressively more prominent role in the revolution, when the revolutionary democrats consistently champion the interests of the masses. Besides, there are many contradictions and difficulties in the very process of transition. It would be naive to expect that the foremost section of the revolutionary democrats in power should suddenly and at once master Marxism-Leninism. They first master only individual aspects of Marxism and the process involves difficulties, retreats and vacillation. These difficulties are successfully overcome when the revolutionary process grows in depth and breadth, when its objective logic has placed a certain section of the revolutionary democrats in power and when this objective development of the revolution is correctly assessed by these revolutionary democrats.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Factors FacilitatingProgress along the non-- capital ist road is facilitated both by internal and external factors. The former include:~
the objective need for social progress in the liberated countries, in particular the need for a national economy resting on present-day scientific and technological achievements;~
the weakening of the positions of imperialism and internal reaction, the strengthening of the anti-capitalist, progressive social forces, chiefly of the entire working class, and the growing influence of the Marxist parties;~
the formation and consolidation of the alliance between the working class and the peasantry, the growth of the political activity and class and national consciousness of the working people, the spread of socialist ideas among them;~
the development of democracy in social and political life, in particular in the trade unions and other democratic organisations;~
the inability of the bourgeoisie to head radical social and economic reforms or to ensure political and economic independence;~
135the possibility of the leaders of the liberated countries adopting radical views and of their evolution towards scientific socialism.
The external factors helping the liberated countries to advance towards socialism include:~
the noticeable weakening of international imperialism and the mounting strength of world socialism;~
the successes of the socialist system in economic development, in boosting the standard of living and cultural level of the people;~
the extensive experience of socialist construction, especially the experience of non-capitalist development of formerly backward countries;~
the increasingly stronger unity of the liberated countries with the world socialist system and the international communist and working-class movement, as well as of the unity among the developing countries themselves in the common struggle against imperialism;~
the all-sided and disinterested aid rendered to the formerly oppressed peoples by the socialist countries;~
the contemporary scientific and technical revolution, which is expediting the movement of the liberated countries from backwardness to progress.
The existence of these favourable factors does not mean that the transition to non-capitalist development takes place of itself, automatically. It requires tremendous effort and dedication on the part of the patriotic forces.
[136] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 5 __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE WORLD REVOLUTIONARY PROCESSIn the preceding chapters we have shown that in the present epoch the revolutionary struggle for socialism is indivisibly linked up and closely intertwines with democratic movements, with the struggle of the peoples against imperialism, for democracy and social progress, for liberation from colonial rule. One of the greatest democratic movements of the day is the struggle against the threat of another world war, for the preservation and consolidation of peace.
Seeking to destroy socialism, crush the world workingclass and communist movement and smash the national liberation movement, reactionary imperialist circles are preparing to unleash another world war. That makes the struggle for peace, for peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems a struggle against imperialism.
In this chapter we shall speak of peaceful coexistence and of the struggle for peace, and of the place this struggle occupies in the world revolutionary process.
To get a better understanding of this important question let us briefly dwell on the Marxist-Leninist theory of wars.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. Marxism-Leninism on JustThe ideologists of the exploiting classes have been trying to make people believe that the causes of war lie in the very nature of man, who, they say, has been bellicose ever since time 137 immemorial. In proposing this preposterous idea they endeavoured and continue to endeavour to absolve themselves of the responsibility for wars, for the sufferings and horror experienced by nations plunged into the bloody abyss of war by the reckless policy of the ruling classes.
Marxism-Leninism has been the only social science that revealed the real causes and essence of wars. War is not eternal. It is a historical phenomenon engendered by the appropriate social and economic factors. In primitive times, when neither classes nor states existed, when production was at such a low level as to rule out the possibility of private appropriation, there were no wars. The further development of production led to the emergence of private ownership and classes. The causes of war are rooted in the nature of a society with antagonistic classes, in the economic foundation of this society---private ownership and the unresolvable contradictions inherent in it. ``War,'' Lenin wrote, ``does not contradict the fundamentals of private property---on the contrary, it is a direct and inevitable outcome of those fundamentals.''^^*^^
Wars are engendered only by a society with antagonistic classes, only by the interests of the exploiting classes. Wars are a continuation of the policy of the ruling classes. Exploiters oppress the working masses, frequently using weapons to enforce this oppression. In their drive for profits they conquer and enslave the peoples of other, particularly backward, countries and continuously fight among themselves. As long as society is ruled by exploiters, as long as they hold the destiny of world politics in their hands, sanguinary tragedies will be the unavoidable companions of mankind.
This is proved by facts. Jean Jacques Babel, the Swiss researcher, has calculated that in the course of 5,559 years there were 14,513 wars, which cost the lives of 3,640 million people, which is more than the world's entire present population.
Mankind moved forward in its development, and weapons became more formidable and devastating. Wars became more and more expensive, costing more and more human _-_-_
~^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 341.
138 lives and destroying more and more material values. Recall the enormous loss of life and material wealth in only the two world wars. If world thermonuclear war is not averted, its consequences will be even more appalling. __ALPHA_LVL3__ Just and Unjust WarsWars have their roots in classes. Society, as we know, consists of different, frequently opposing classes. Wars are therefore different, too, as are their objectives, causes and motives.
There are two categories of wars: just, revolutionary wars and unjust, predatory wars.
The first category includes wars fought by working people who have risen to accomplish a socialist revolution against exploiters, if the latter take recourse to weapons against the oppressed; wars of national liberation, which nations wage against colonial rule; wars whose objective is to protect one country or another from foreign aggression. With the emergence of socialism, vital importance was acquired by just wars in defence of socialist states and the world socialist system.
Just wars are progressive and revolutionary. They facilitate social development because they are waged in defence of the gains of socialism against outworn social systems, against exploitation and colonial oppression, and help to consolidate new, progressive social systems.
Had not the victory of the Soviet people over German nazism and the national liberation wars of recent years facilitated social progress? They undoubtedly had because they were a struggle for social progress and socialism and were spearheaded against imperialism. Communists, who are the most consistent champions of social progress, have always supported and continue to support just, revolutionary wars.
The second category are wars against socialist countries; wars waged by exploiters against the working people, against revolutionary and democratic movements; colonial wars waged by the imperialists with the aim of enslaving peoples of economically backward countries; wars which exploiters wage among themselves for economic and political influence in the world.
These are reactionary wars. They are a continuation of the reactionary policies of the exploiting classes and, as such, clash with social development and hinder social 139 progress. They are fought by reactionary classes, which arc departing from the stage of history, against the new, rising, revolutionary forces. These wars are started to defend the old and outworn, to preserve and intensify social and national oppression. One of them was the war launched by 14 imperialist powers against the then young Soviet Republic. Numerous colonial wars started by the imperialists continue to rage to this day.
Communists are emphatically opposed to unjust, predatory wars. On the other hand, they link the struggle against wars of aggrandisement up with the social struggle, with the struggle against exploitation, for the triumph of socialism. They are convinced that only the establishment of socialism in the world will for ever deliver mankind from wars, from annihilation and from the destruction of incalculable material resources created by the labour and intelligence of man. Hostile relations among nations will disappear along with class antagonisms, Marx and Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto. The old, capitalist society with its political insanity will be superseded by a new society, ``whose international rule will be Peace, because its national ruler will be everywhere the same---Labour!"^^*^^
The policy of peace, of peaceful coexistence has been raised to the level of state policy initially by the world's first state of working people, the U.S.S.R., then, with the formation of the world socialist system, by other socialist countries.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. Peaceful Coexistence __ALPHA_LVL3__ Leninist PrincipleThe principle of peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems was propounded and comprehensively substantiated by Lenin. At the 2nd Congress of Soviets, convened a few hours after Soviet rule was established, he declared: ``We reject all clauses on plunder and violence, but we shall welcome all clauses containing provisions for good-neighbourly relations and all economic agreements; we cannot reject these.''^^**^^
_-_-_~^^*^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. 1, p. 44,5.
~^^**^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 255.
140He profoundly believed that sooner or later socialism would triumph throughout the world. But this victory, he wrote, could not be achieved at one and the same time in all countries. Depending on their economic level, the acuteness of the class struggle, the balance of forces between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie and other factors, some countries would attain socialism sooner than others. For a certain period, in addition to socialist states, there would be capitalist countries. Lenin was a partisan of peaceful coexistence, and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Government have always been guided by this principle in their foreign policy.
The peaceful coexistence of socialist and capitalist countries is an objective necessity of human development. Today when countries possess weapons of mass annihilation and means of delivering them to any part of the world, when a world war would involve colossal sacrifice and destruction, war and peace have become one of the central problems. The task of all peace-loving forces is to avert a thermonuclear war, to prevent it from breaking out.
Peaceful coexistence presupposes the renunciation of war as a means of settling outstanding issues between nations, the settlement of these issues by negotiation; equality, understanding and trust between countries with due account for each other's interests; non-interference in internal affairs; the recognition of the right of every nation to resolve its own problems independently; punctilious respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries; the promotion of economic and cultural co-operation founded on complete equality and reciprocal benefit. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union and all other Marxist parties devote much of their attention and energy to these tasks.
The peaceful coexistence policy is founded on a sober, scientific analysis of the driving forces behind the development of contemporary society. General, world-wide economic relations are stronger than the desire, will and decisions of any hostile government or class. That is what compels them to have peaceful relations with the socialist countries. As for the nations building socialism, peace is a vital need. In socialist society the economic foundation of wars--- 141 private ownership---has been abolished and none of the social forces in it are interested in wars, plunder or the enslavement of other nations and states. Socialism implies the building of the new, and it is impossible to build and create without struggling for peace, against war. Peace and socialism are therefore inseparable. The struggle for peace is a struggle for socialism, and the achievements of socialism, in their turn, strengthen peace and peaceful coexistence.
The main concern of socialist society is to promote man's welfare, to satisfy his material and cultural requirements as fully as possible, to provide him with facilities for spiritual and physical development. This activity may be pursued only when there is peace. For Soviet people every day of peace is a day of creative labour and heroic feats, bringing their country many tons of metal and fuel, grain and milk, many metres of fabrics and many pairs of footwear, and new schools and hospitals. Every day of peace sees the nuclear-powered ice-breaker cutting through unexplored expanses, spaceships hurtling through outer space, the birth of thousands of new citizens and the building of thousands of new homes.
The Marxist parties consistently adhere to their policy of peaceful coexistence in the knowledge that there are mighty forces capable of defending peace. These forces are:
Firstly, the world socialist system whose economic and military might is growing steadily; this system has now become the centre of attraction for all peace-loving forces in the world.
Secondly, a large group of peace-loving non-socialist countries, most of which are countries newly liberated from colonial rule; a growing number of countries are seeking to avert the threat harboured by participation in military blocs and pursue a policy of non-alignment.
Thirdly, the international working class, which is struggling for socialism and social progress against imperialism and its policy of aggression.
Fourthly, the world-wide anti-war movement which is growing ever more active in deciding the problem of war and peace.
The existence of these influential peace-loving forces has 142 enabled the C.P.S.U. and other Marxist parties to suggest the theory that today mankind is in a position to renounce war as a means of settling international issues. The Programme of the C.P.S.U. states: ``It is possible to avert a world war by the combined efforts of the mighty socialist camp, the peace-loving non-socialist countries, the international working class and all the forces championing peace.''
The fact that the peace-loving forces can avert another world war does not mean that the possibility of war breaking out is completely ruled out. This possibility will remain as long as capitalism exists. Lasting peace will be established only by communism. Today the persevering and consistent struggle of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries and all other progressive forces for world peace and security is violently resisted by the forces of aggression headed by the U.S. military, who make every effort to aggravate the international situation, openly threaten the U.S.S.R. and other socialist countries, intensify the arms race and do not stop short of armed aggression. In face of the threat of another world war, the Soviet Union is forced to take steps to strengthen its defences in order to protect itself and the entire socialist community.
Peaceful coexistence does not imply the relinquishment of armed struggle in the event the imperialists violate peace by force of arms in an attempt to impose their rule on one nation or another. Coexistence is inapplicable to relations between oppressors and the oppressed, between the colonialists and the victims of colonial exploitation. Every nation has the sacred right of defending its independence and freedom, of fighting aggression or imperialist oppression.
The imperialists have not given up their predatory plans and this means that the peaceful coexistence of countries with different social systems can be ensured only through the dedicated struggle of all nations against the aggressive aspirations of the imperialists.
The Communist and Workers' Parties are in the forefront of this struggle. They expose all the manipulations and intrigues of the imperialists, keep the peoples vigilant and firmly and consistently implement the Leninist line of peaceful coexistence.
143 __ALPHA_LVL3__ The Class StruggleSometimes one hears people say that peaceful coexistence means the reconciliation of the antagonisms between socialism and capitalism, between labour and capital, and the rejection of the class struggle and the socialist revolution.
While championing peace and friendship, Communists energetically promote the revolutionary and national liberation struggle. The revolutionary and national liberation struggle cannot be counterposed to the struggle for peace. All forms of struggle are interrelated.
Peaceful coexistence does not smooth over the antagonisms between socialism and capitalism, nor does it rule out the class struggle. Marxists-Leninists have always championed the class struggle, the struggle of the proletariat and all working people against the bourgeoisie, holding that only the class struggle and the socialist revolution, which is the highest form of this struggle, are the means of destroying capitalism and establishing the new, socialist society. They have no doubt whatever that peaceful coexistence facilitates the struggle of the international working class against the bourgeoisie, furthers the world socialist revolution and helps mankind to accomplish the transition from capitalism to socialism. The Statement of the 1960 Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties declares: ``The coexistence of states with different social systems is a form of class struggle between socialism and capitalism.''
One of the most acute antagonisms of capitalism is that between labour and capital, and it manifests itself in a class struggle, in a struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. This struggle has traversed the long and arduous road from scattered and unorganised actions by small groups of workers at the dawn of the socialist movement to action on an international scale. Moreover, with the formation of the world socialist system it has become a struggle between the capitalist and socialist systems and embraces all spheres of human activity---economic, political and ideological.
The struggle between the two systems centres round the peaceful economic competition between capitalism and socialism on a world-wide scale. This is a competition for the highest rates and scale of industrial and cultural 144 development. As this struggle proceeds it shows all nations that socialism is capable of satisfying people's material and cultural requirements more and more fully and wins them over to the cause of the new society.
Under peaceful coexistence the political struggle between the two systems is expressed in the all-out support of the socialist countries of all forms of struggle for social and national liberation, for democracy and socialism. It clears the way for the struggle of the working people of the capitalist countries against exploitation. This is shown by the scale of the strike movement in the capitalist countries and by the growth of the international communist and workingclass movement.
Peaceful coexistence sustains the national liberation struggle. Under conditions of peace many Asian and African countries have won liberation from colonial dependence, the people's revolution triumphed in Cuba, and the liberated peoples acquired the possibility of expediting their national rejuvenation and advancing along the non-capitalist road of development.
In the same proportion that peaceful coexistence creates favourable soil for the class struggle in the capitalist countries and for the national liberation movement in colonial and dependent countries, the gains of the class struggle and the national liberation movement help to consolidate peaceful coexistence.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The IdeologicalPeaceful coexistence does not spread to ideology because the ideology of communism cannot be reconciled with that of capitalism. The former is the ideology of the proletariat, of the working people, and its purpose is to show that the triumph of socialism and communism is inevitable, indicate the ways and means of achieving this triumph, reveal the essence of the new society and demonstrate its advantages and potentialities. For its part bourgeois ideology strives to prove that private ownership and exploitation are perpetual and immutable.
In spite of what bourgeois ideologists say, the ideological struggle is no invention of the Communists. It has been waged ever since the birth of private ownership and classes, and will be waged as long as antagonistic classes exist.
__PRINTERS_P_146_COMMENT__ 10---2775 145Socialism is gaining the upper hand against capitalism, and the clash between communist and bourgeois ideology mirrors this struggle in people's minds.
Communists firmly believe that their ideology will ultimately triumph, for the course of present-day developments demonstrates its strength and vitality.
The attractive force of communist ideas in all parts of our planet is due to the fact that they conform with the requirements of mankind's development and with the most urgent interests of people. This is now admitted even by non-Marxists. ``Marxism,'' writes the noted French philosopher and author Jean-Paul Sartre, ``is the only ideology that fits in with our times and with the development of present-day history.'' This upsets the assertions of imperialist ideologists that communist ideas are instilled from without.
In the capitalist world one frequently hears that the opposing ideologies should be reconciled and the ideological struggle stopped. The argument of these ``peace-makers'' is that since countries with different social systems can coexist peacefully, this coexistence could be spread to the ideological sphere as well. From their point of view the ideological struggle is incompatible with peaceful coexistence and therefore it should be cut short.
In reality, however, the ideological struggle does not in any way clash with peaceful coexistence. The peaceful relations between the Soviet Union and Finland, Afghanistan, India and other capitalist countries, founded on mutual respect and friendship, eloquently demonstrate that ideological differences are no hindrance to peace and peaceful coexistence.
Peaceful coexistence is the most profoundly humane and the most reasonable principle of relations between countries. Communists regard the defence of this principle against the adversaries of peace and peaceful coexistence, against the advocates of the cold war and international tension as one of their most pressing tasks.
The attempts to halt the ideological struggle are doomed to failure. There can be no peace between communist and bourgeois ideas in the same way as there can be no peace between the classes whose interests are mirrored by these ideas. For Communists peace in the ideological sphere 146 would amount to renunciation of the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism, of the fundamental interests of the proletariat and all working people. This is absolutely inconceivable. Neither are the bourgeois ideologists, despite their talk about ideological peace, inclined to give up their ideological principles. This is seen from their efforts to obstruct the spread of communist ideas and counteract the influence of these ideas over the masses. Their appeals for ideological peace should, therefore, not be taken seriously. They are really appeals for capitulation to their own ideology, to which Marxists, naturally, will never agree.
Another reason why any attempt to hinder the ideological struggle, let alone halt it, is pointless is that ideas influence people in their own way and there are laws governing their dissemination. State frontiers do not exist for them and they are not deterred by military bases or nuclear submarines. If they are sincere and fit in with the vital interests of people they imperceptibly capture their minds and hearts.
The ideological struggle has nothing in common with ``psychological warfare'', whose purpose is to stir people's emotions, to awaken ugly feelings of desperation, fear, egoism, distrust and hatred. The proponents of `` psychological warfare" concentrate on intimidating people with the imaginary threat of attack by socialist countries and fanning military psychosis and nuclear hysteria. The ideological struggle, on the other hand, implies explanation and persuasion, an appeal to human intelligence. This appeal must be free of twisted facts, of distortions of the adversary's policies and objectives, of slander and mutual calumny, of the fanning of pernicious aspirations, passions and emotions. This is a struggle for the minds and hearts of people, a struggle without the use of any force at all, let alone arms. For this struggle there is no need either for an arms race or for tension between states.
The ideological struggle fully harmonises with peaceful coexistence and does not hinder the economic competition between socialist and capitalist countries or scientific and technical exchanges and cultural relations between them. Firmly convinced of the advantages of the socialist system and of its ultimate triumph, Communists do not conceal their shortcomings, which they persevere in rectifying. They 147 support the ideological struggle, for they believe in the righteousness of their cause, of their ideological principles.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Problem of DisarmamentThe history of the Soviet initiative in pressing tor general and complete disarmament goes back to the days when Soviet rule was set up. Aiming at satisfying the people's needs to the fullest possible extent, socialist society has always been opposed to the useless, unproductive expenditure of resources on armaments which deprive the working people of the opportunity to use all the material values produced by them for their own welfare. ``Disarmament is the ideal of socialism. There will be no wars in socialist society; consequently, disarmament will be achieved.''^^*^^
The Soviet Union redoubled its efforts to bring about general and complete disarmament after the Second World War, when the threat of a world thermonuclear war loomed large. The Soviet Union initiated a series of important steps aimed at disarmament and relaxing world tension.
This initiative is enthusiastically welcomed by the peaceloving nations and by broad sections of progressive people throughout the world. A growing number of people is beginning to appreciate the senselessness and overwhelming danger of the arms race, into which the world has been drawn.
In addition to the Soviet Union and other socialist states, the advocates of general and complete disarmament include the Marxists-Leninists of other countries. This problem is dealt with in the Statement of the 1960 Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, which declares: ``The Meeting considers that the implementation of the programme for general and complete disarmament put forward by the Soviet Union would be of historic importance for the destinies of mankind." Fulfilment of this programme would mean abolishing the very possibility of wars between countries.
Broad sections of people throughout the world are demanding a halt to the arms race, for the main burden of this race falls squarely on the shoulders of the working people. They are well aware that an intelligent use of the _-_-_
~^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 95.
148 money now being spent on armaments would considerably improve their standard of living. Enormous sums of money are indeed spent on arms. In only the period 1900--53 wars and the preparations for them cost the astronomical sum of over 4,000,000 million dollars. This is approximately 12--13 times the size of the national income of all the countries of the world in that period. On this money all mankind could have lived without financial worry for more than a decade.The newly liberated countries advocate a world without wars and weapons. It has been estimated that only onetenth of the present expenditures on armaments would suffice to raise all the undeveloped regions of the world to a level where they would be self-sufficient.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Guarding the GainsThe fact that the socialist, progressive forces want general and complete disarmament does not mean that they are capitulating to imperialism. Theirs is a drive for the simultaneous disarmament of socialist and capitalist countries. In the present situation, where the imperialists oppose disarmament, the socialist countries constantly strengthen their defence capacity and equip their armed forces with the latest types of weapons to enable them, in the event of attack, to repel imperialist aggressors.
The armies of the capitalist countries guard the interests of the bourgeoisie and are an instrument of the aspirations of the reactionary imperialist forces, a means for throttling the revolutionary movement of the working people. By contrast, the armed forces of the socialist countries are a weapon for the defence of socialist gains, for the defence of peace.
In order to counteract imperialist aggression more effectively, particularly the aggressive NATO bloc, the armies of the European socialist countries have united on the basis of the Warsaw Treaty. These armies are the mainstay of the developing countries in their struggle against the export of counter-revolution and colonialism, a mighty factor restraining the aggressive designs of the imperialists and a powerful bastion of all revolutionary and peace-loving forces.
The Soviet Armed Forces have all they need to carry out their mission. They are equipped with strategic and tactical nuclear rockets that can destroy any land, air and naval 149 targets. Missiles with nuclear warheads form the basis of the Soviet Army's and Navy's fire power. The Air Force has the latest types of supersonic, powerfully-armed aircraft. The Navy has nuclear submarines armed with nuclear rockets and torpedoes that, fired from under water, can reach targets hundreds and thousands of kilometres away. Modern means of automation and mechanisation make it possible effectively to direct and co-ordinate the actions of land, air and naval forces.
This powerful equipment is in the hands of highly trained troops, who are devoted to their people and Party and prepared to defend the great gains of socialism at any time.
It may confidently be said that the gains of socialism are in reliable hands and that if the imperialists start another world war it will end with the destruction of capitalism.
[150] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 6 __ALPHA_LVL1__ SOCIALISM, FIRST PHASEIn the same way as a house or some other structure can be built of the material available to builders, so socialism, this new social edifice, is created from the material inherited by people from capitalism. It is built on the basis of the achievements of capitalist production, technology, science and culture, by people, who have, in the main, reached adulthood and been brought up under capitalism. For all that socialism is a qualitatively new society. Founded on private ownership and exploitation, the economy, social relations and spiritual culture of capitalism serve the interests of an insignificant minority, of the owners of the means of production, while socialism, which rests on public ownership, co-operation and mutual assistance, is a society of working people for working people. Capitalism is a sporadically developing society, while socialism is a consciously guided society. Naturally, socialism cannot be built without radical qualitative changes in all spheres of social life. At this point it would be well to emphasise that these changes are violently resisted by the deposed exploiting classes, chiefly by the bourgeoisie.
A period of transition from capitalism to socialism is necessary in order to break the resistance of the exploiters and carry out fundamental socialist reforms in economy, social relations and spiritual life with the purpose of placing them in the service of the working man and build a society which is consciously guided by man in the interests of the working people.
151This is a period when the bourgeoisie is already deposed but capitalism has not been completely uprooted and the exploiting classes, though no longer in power, have not ceased their struggle against the victorious working class, a period when fundamental socialist changes are being put into effect but socialism has not yet been built.
This, Lenin wrote, is ``a state of transition---of transition from the old to the new---a state of growth of what is new''.^^*^^ In other words, the period of transition is a period of the shaping and growth of socialist society, a period of struggle between dying capitalism and incipient socialism.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. General Laws and DiversifyThe experience that has been gained in building socialism in the U.S.S.R. and other countries makes it possible to assert that the basic ways and means of building the new society are intransient. They have repeated and will continue to repeat themselves under conformable conditions in countries that have embarked upon socialist construction. They thereby acquire the significance of general laws governing the transition from capitalism to socialism.
Yet these general laws do not by any means operate identically in different countries. Each country building socialism has its own level of economic and cultural development, history, natural conditions and reserves of natural wealth, the balance of class forces, national peculiarities, way of thinking and traditions, and so forth. Besides, the international conditions under which the various countries build socialism likewise differ. Hence, in each country the transition from capitalism to socialism has features of its own. ``All nations,'' Lenin wrote, ``will arrive at socialism--- this is inevitable, but all will do so in not exactly the same way, each will contribute something of its own to some form of democracy, to some variety of the dictatorship of the proletariat, to the varying rate of socialist transformations in the different aspects of social life.''^^**^^ In the different _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 209.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 23, pp. 69--70.
152 countries, the features of socialist construction concern not the essence but the forms, methods, rates and intensity of socialist transformations. This does not in the least abrogate the general laws.Let us now dwell in greater detail on the unity between the general laws and the diverse forms of socialist construction in different countries.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Dictatorship of theThe dictatorship of the proletariat emerges as the result of a successful socialist revolution, which smashes the bourgeois state machine. It is a qualitatively new type of state, fundamentally differing from all former states by its class character, the forms of political organisation and the role it is called upon to play.
All former types of states were weapons of the exploiting classes, weapons for the suppression of the working people, and their purpose was to consolidate the exploiting system and perpetuate the division of society into oppressors and the oppressed. The proletarian dictatorship signifies the power of the working class, which together with all other working people, destroys capitalism and builds a new society, a society without hostile classes and without exploitation.
What are the basic tasks of this dictatorship?
The class struggle does not cease during the period of transition. Deprived of political supremacy, the exploiting classes, primarily the bourgeoisie, cannot reconcile themselves to their defeat, to the loss of power and privileges, and therefore savagely resist the new power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is needed chiefly to smash the resistance of the deposed exploiting classes, transfer the means of production to the people and defend and consolidate the revolutionary gains against encroachment by internal and external enemies.
This is the task of the proletarian dictatorship linked up with violence with regard to the exploiters.
But, for the proletariat, the suppression of the bourgeoisie is not an end in itself. The principal task is to build a socialist society and, mainly, a socialist economy. Here the difficulty is that when the socialist revolution begins there is no ready-made pattern of the socialist way of life. The 153 proletarian dictatorship is therefore called upon to direct economic development and create a new type of economy--- a socialist economy founded on social ownership---build up a new type of social relations and educate the people in the spirit of socialism. In addition, it has to administer the new society according to a plan and defend its achievements against reactionary elements within the country and, in particular, against international imperialism.
Such is the creative, administrative function of the proletarian dictatorship.
Along with these, so to speak, national functions, the proletarian dictatorship carries out an important internationalist function: it does its utmost, mainly by the example of successful economic development, to facilitate the revolutionary struggle of the working people of the capitalist countries, rendering them political, material and moral support. Thereby it helps to further the world revolutionary process, destroy capitalism and firmly establish socialism throughout the world.
The dictatorship of the proletariat is a qualitatively new and higher type of democracy. In other words, it brings democracy to the overwhelming majority of the people and denies it to exploiters and oppressors. Under this dictatorship, the qualitatively new type of democracy issues from the very nature of the proletarian state, from its objectives and tasks. The proletariat can break the resistance of the exploiting classes, retain power, build socialism and thereby bring a happy life to the whole people only on the basis of a firm alliance with all working people, with all democratic forces. The alliance between the working class and the semi-proletarian sections of town and country, mainly the peasants, with the proletariat playing the leading role in this alliance, is thus the foundation of the proletarian dictatorship and most fully and accurately mirrors the genuinely democratic nature of the proletarian state.
The proletarian dictatorship consists of a system of state and non-state (Party and mass) organisations. The pivot of this system is the Communist Party, which directs the building of socialism. Resting on its knowledge of the laws of social development and acting through state and mass organisations, the Party heads the struggle of the people 154 against the exploiting classes during the period of transition and carries out socialist reforms. The Party's links with the masses, formed during the struggle against capitalism, develop into unity between it and the people. This unity is the main earnest of success in the building of socialist society.
The establishment of the proletarian dictatorship and the leading role played by the Marxist party in the administration of the state are, as we have just shown, the key law of the transition from capitalism to socialism. However, the form of this dictatorship depends upon the concrete situation obtaining in the different countries. In the Soviet Union it took the form of Soviets of Working People's Deputies, and in other countries the form of a People's Democracy. As distinct from the one-party system in the Soviet Union, the political system in the People's Democracies consists of several parties, which co-operate with the ruling, Communist Party in the building of socialism. In the Soviet Union the factors giving rise to the one-party system were the difficulties accruing from the existence of a proletarian dictatorship in only one country in the world, the hostile capitalist encirclement and the refusal of the pettybourgeois parties (the Menshevik and Socialist-- Revolutionary parties) to co-operate with the Communists in building the new society and their defection to the counter-- revolutionary forces.
These distinctions between the Soviets and the People's Democracy do not alter the substance of the political power, inasmuch as in both cases the power is in the hands of the working class. In future the transition period will unquestionably take other forms. The ways and means of establishing the proletarian dictatorship may likewise be different, i.e., they may be peaceful or non-peaceful. In the Soviet Union it was instituted in a non-peaceful manner. A civil war had to be fought because the deposed bourgeoisie, physically aided by the foreign imperialists, took up arms against the new government. In this situation the working people had no alternative but to fight in order to uphold the Revolution.
A different situation obtained in the European socialist countries. The main counter-revolutionary forces (the fascists and elements allied with them) were smashed 155 during the Second World War and that left the deposed bourgeoisie without the machinery to put up serious armed resistance to the new power. The foreign imperialists were deferred from armed intervention by the powerful Soviet Army. That made it possible to install the proletarian dictatorship without civil war.
A unique form of the proletarian dictatorship arose in Cuba. No general elections, in the usual meaning of the word, have yet taken place in that country and there are no elective organs of state power such as Soviets of Working People's Deputies or organs of a People's Democracy. Socialist reforms are carried out by the revolutionary government headed by the Communist Party. This system of state power was fashioned under the influence of the situation in which the Cuban revolution developed, a situation where the country had to be defended against U.S. aggression.
In the Republic of Cuba basic laws and political decisions are passed after nation-wide discussions and, frequently, voting by the people at mass rallies. The President, Prime Minister and Ministers keep in constant touch with the people and all more or less important issues are discussed in the press and over the radio and TV networks.
The example of Cuba convincingly shows that there are no hard and fast patterns for revolution.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Economic Reforms Economy is the backbone of social life, and economic reforms, primarily the abolition of private ownership and the establishment of common ownership are of decisive importance in the transition period. Socialist nationalisation is the fundamental means of establishing public ownership. When we speak of socialist nationalisation we mean the expropriation of the factories, marine and railway transport, power stations, large agricultural and trade enterprises and other basic means of production from the bourgeoisie and their transfer to the ownership of the proletarian state. Thus big capitalist ownership is abolished in a revolutionary way and superseded by socialist public ownership. The nationalisation of large-scale industries, foreign trade and the banks is of particular importance because it gives the state the levers enabling it to promote economic development for the benefit of the people, organise the management of the economy and control other social 156 processes, plan production, accounting and distribution and ensure economic independence.Nationalisation gives rise to a socialist system of economy founded on public ownership with co-operation and mutual assistance underlying the relations of production and with social forms of distribution according to work. This system puts an end to exploitation, to the antagonisms between the social nature of production and the private form of appropriation inherent in capitalist society, and to sporadic development, which gradually gives way to planning. Nationalised enterprises give the proletarian state a firm economic foundation, which expands and grows stronger with progress towards socialism.
Depending upon the situation, nationalisation is implemented directly or indirectly, i.e., by a series of intermediate phases.
One of these phases is state capitalism, which takes the form of concessions, the lease of enterprises to private employers, mixed state-private enterprises, and so forth. However, the socio-economic character of all these forms is the same: all these enterprises function with the aid of private capital but are controlled by the proletarian state; they fulfil the demands of the proletarian state and are, in the final analysis, used by it to further the building of socialism.
Another form of transition to nationalisation is control of capitalist enterprises by the workers employed in them. This control covers the organisation and management of production, the hire and discharge of workers and office employees, the quality of the output and its distribution, the system of payment, and so forth. In the process of this control the working people acquire experience of managing production, distribution, financing, accounting and other aspects of industry.
Various forms of workers' control of capitalist enterprises were in operation in Russia and the accumulated experience was used and enriched in other socialist countries. The workers' councils, factory production commissions and factory committees set up in these countries were an important step towards nationalisation.
Land belonging to big landowners is also nationalised (completely or partly) during the period of transition. In 157 the Soviet Union, for example, all the land was nationalised and a large portion of it was turned over to the peasants for their free use in perpetuity. Another portion was used by the state for the setting up of state farms. In other countries part of the land has been nationalised and part given to the peasants.
The complete triumph of the socialist system of economy necessarily presupposes the reorganisation of the small peasant farms in order to establish socialist ownership in agriculture.
It would seem that nothing would be simpler than to nationalise the small farms and thus make them the property of the state. But this is something that cannot be done under any circumstances, for although the peasant owns property he is not an exploiter. He wins his livelihood by his own labour and, naturally, his property cannot be expropriated in the same way as that of the big capitalist or landowner. Besides, the psychology of the peasant, who is attached to his tiny plot of land, must be taken into consideration.
Land-hungry and landless peasants and farm labourers actively participate in the revolution in the hope of receiving land and thus being assured of a livelihood. The victorious revolution must not disappoint them. In the course of the revolution a considerable portion of the land, belonging to big landowners and capitalists is usually turned over to those who till it, i.e., the farm labourers and the poor and the middle peasants, with the result that far from being amalgamated agriculture becomes still more scattered because the number of small producers increases.
In this situation the only possible way to reorganise agriculture along socialist lines is to set up agricultural co-- operatives. The small private farms voluntarily unite to form large co-operatives.
In these co-operatives labour and the basic means of production are socialised. The type of co-operative depends upon the extent to which socialisation is put into effect. In the U.S.S.R. and other socialist countries there were three main types of co-operatives:
1. Associations for the joint cultivation of the land. These are the lowest, initial type of co-operatives, where 158 socialisation covers only labour: the peasants pool their labour for various jobs.
2. Co-operatives where the means of production and labour are socialised and the land remains the property of the peasants. Incomes are distributed correspondingly: the larger portion according to work, and a smaller portion according to the size of the plot of land.
3. The agricultural artel. Here socialisation embraces the land, labour and the means of production, and the entire income is distributed according to work. This is a higher type of co-operative. In the Soviet Union it is called a collective farm.
The setting up of co-operatives gradually abolishes smallscale private ownership in favour of socialist public ownership. Essentially, this is identical with state socialist ownership, inasmuch as it rules out exploitation and establishes the principle of distribution according to work. However, unlike state property, co-operative property belongs not to the whole people but to a group of people, to the members of the co-operative. This may be defined as group socialist ownership.
The socialisation of labour and the means of production at the co-operatives does not imply the abolition of personal husbandries. A member of a co-operative owns a house, items of household use, productive livestock, and certain implements allowing him to cultivate a subsidiary plot of land turned over to his possession (or ownership).
In the U.S.S.R. the plan for organising agricultural cooperatives was drawn up by Lenin. Its basic principle is that peasants should join co-operatives voluntarily. The Communist Party, opposing the forcible planting of cooperatives against the wishes of the peasants, emphasised that peasants should be drawn into co-operatives by persuasion, by a concrete demonstration of the advantages of the co-operatives over the small goods private economy.
Lenin's socialist co-operative plan envisages gradual socialist reforms in the countryside, a transition from the lowest to the highest type of co-operative with due account of geographical, economical, national and other concrete conditions. It presupposes consistent democracy in the management of the co-operatives and the coupling of personal with social interests.
159Lenin attached special importance to aid to the co-- operatives from the proletarian state and to strengthening and developing the alliance between the working class and the peasants. By supplying the co-operatives with machinery, helping them to apply the achievements of agricultural science, improve and irrigate land, and promoting state and co-operative trade between town and country, the proletarian state facilitates the growth of farm production and of the peasants' standard of living. On their part, the peasants respect and trust the working class and become active in building socialism when they see that the proletarian state renders them day-to-day assistance and support.
Thanks to the co-operatives agricultural production makes rapid headway. Being large production units they give scope for the utilisation of modern machines and scientific advances and make it possible to use manpower and socialised means of production more rationally. Moreover, socialist ownership makes it possible to direct agriculture as well, to draw it into the sphere of state planning and administration. Small, individual farms developing in a haphazard fashion cannot be directed and their output cannot be planned. On the other hand, with the setting up of co-operatives farm output begins to rise. If we take the total agricultural output of Russia in 1913 as our initial index (100), we shall find that in 1940 (when collectivisation was completed) farm production rose 41 per cent. At the same time, due to rapid industrialisation there has been a considerable decrease of the rural population.
In addition to co-operatives (collective farms) there are large state farms that belong to the whole people.
Collectivisation and the organisation of state farms put an end to the social stratification of peasants into poor and middle peasants and kulaks and rule out the possibility of private capitalist elements---kulaks and private traders--- existing, let alone arising in the countryside. Socialism is thereby consolidated in agriculture as well. The socialist mode of production ceases to be one of several systems, becoming the only system in all branches of economy and marking the complete economic triumph of socialism.
Socialist industrialisation, i.e., the building up of a modern, large-scale industry founded on the latest scientific and technical achievements, is an indispensable condition 160 of socialism, particularly in countries with a small or undeveloped industry.
Heavy industry, the foundation of foundations of socialist society, is built up in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism. ``A large-scale machine industry capable of reorganising agriculture is the only material basis that is possible for socialism,'' Lenin wrote.^^*^^
Socialist industrialisation ensures uninterrupted scientific and technical progress in the economy, enhances labour productivity, increases the machine-to-worker ratio and improves working conditions. It provides a modern technical basis for all branches of the economy, opens the road to scientific, technical and cultural progress, and facilitates the achievement and consolidation of a country's economic and political independence and the strengthening of its defence capacity in face of reactionary imperialist forces.
Its impact on a country's inner political life is likewise tremendous. The growth of large-scale industry is accompanied by the numerical growth of the working class and a steady enhancement of its role and importance in society, of its influence over other classes and social strata. In other words, industrialisation enlarges and strengthens both the economic and the political foundation of the proletarian state, i.e., it strengthens the position of the socialist social forces.
It is important to note that there is a radical difference between socialist and capitalist industrialisation. Capitalist industrialisation is attended by the exploitation of the working people, the plundering of less developed countries or the receipt of military tribute from defeated nations. Socialist industrialisation proceeds primarily at the expense of inner accumulations obtained by boosting labour productivity, planning economic development, strict economy and the rational utilisation of material, manpower and financial resources.
The aims pursued by socialist industrialisation are likewise radically different. Capitalist industrialisation seeks to ensure the capitalists with the largest possible profits, while socialist industrialisation is subordinated to the humane _-_-_
~^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 459.
__PRINTERS_P_161_COMMENT__ 11---2725 161 objective of serving the working people, satisfying their requirements and promoting their all-round development.Industrialisation is not an easy task. It requires a vast labour effort on the part of the people, huge financial investments and, frequently, sacrifice. The difficulties encountered by the Soviet people were exceptionally formidable because they pioneered the building of socialism. The country was backward and the economy was dislocated by the First World War and then the Civil War. The then young Soviet Republic was surrounded by enemies who did their utmost to halt the building of socialism, resorting to all means ranging from an economic blockade to armed intervention. Soviet Russia was deprived of the possibility of obtaining loans: the imperialists gave a country credit in return for some inroad into its political independence, and this, naturally, was something the workers and peasants were not prepared to grant. They had not driven out their own capitalists only to become bondsmen to foreign capitalists.
There was only one way out: to depend upon the will, energy and labour of the revolutionary people. In face of difficulties and hardship, the Soviet people built a firstclass industry, which they are now enlarging and improving.
Industrialisation changed the Soviet Union beyond recognition. New industries and numerous large factories and power stations sprang up. Compared with 1913, total industrial output increased 750 per cent in 1940, while the output of large-scale industry rose nearly 12-fold and the power output increased 225-fold. Thanks to industrialisation, the Soviet Union, which had had to import machines, began not only to manufacture but also to export modern machinery and equipment. It became possible to promote collective farming on a large scale and supply it with the latest types of machines, raise the standard of living and increase the country's defence capacity.
Industrialisation has been markedly successful in other socialist countries as well. Their industrial product is steadily growing, and a particularly rapid expansion is registered by power engineering, heavy engineering, chemical and other industries forming the basis of the economy and ensuring technical progress. The share of these industries in the total industrial output increased in the period 1951-- 65: in Bulgaria from 13.7 to 22.3 per cent, in Hungary from 162 32.5 to 38.3 per cent, in the German Democratic Republic from 38.3 to 51.2 per cent, in Mongolia from 4.6 to 11.7 per cent, in Poland from 14.4 to 35.9 per cent, in Rumania from 18.6 to 40.8 per cent, and in Czechoslovakia from 23.2 to 41.1 per cent.
Being general laws of socialist construction, nationalisation, the co-operation of agriculture and industrialisation were implemented in different ways by countries building socialism. In the Soviet Union nationalisation was achieved rapidly, in a matter of a few months (December 1917 to June 1918). Transitional forms, state capitalism particularly, did not become widespread for the sole reason that the bourgeoisie refused to accept them and engaged in sabotage wherever possible. In the People's Democracies nationalisation took several years. First the enterprises belonging to nazi collaborators were confiscated and then other enterprises were nationalised gradually. Various forms of state capitalism, especially mixed enterprises, were widespread. In some countries the former owners were paid compensation for the confiscated enterprises. No compensation was paid out in the Soviet Union.
The forms of the socialist changes in agriculture were likewise dissimilar in different countries. In Czechoslovakia, for instance, four different types of agricultural co-- operatives have taken shape. The difference between them is in the extent to which the means of production and labour are socialised. In Cuba with its huge sugar and other plantations there are large people's estates, which now account for more than three-fourth's of the sugar-cane output, the entire output of industrial crops and half of all the cattle.
The conditions under which socialism was built in the U.S.S.R., particularly the fact that this building proceeded in only one country, which, in addition, was encircled by hostile imperialist powers, made it imperative to speed up industrialisation, especially the development of the basic industries. The Soviet Union could confidently hold its own against the aggressive forces of imperialism only after it had surmounted its backwardness, built up a modern industry and, on that basis, strengthened its defences. In this connection, as we have already pointed out, the people had to face serious difficulties and hardships. As regards the People's Democracies, they were delivered from many of __PRINTERS_P_163_COMMENT__ 11* 163 these difficulties. They did not have to speed up industrialisation and develop all branches of industries because they had the possibility of taking advantage of the benefits of the socialist division of labour, the experience and help of the U.S.S.R. and the assistance of other socialist countries.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Reforms inOne of the cardinal tasks of the period of transition is to effect socialist changes in the sphere of relations between nationalities. This is a particularly pressing task in a multinational country, where in addition to the ruling nation there were subject, oppressed nations. This was the case with old Russia, which had scores of big and small nations.
Capitalism is a society in which national oppression is rife, in which some nations enslave others. This gives the socialist revolution the task of abolishing not only social, class oppression but also its inescapable fellow travellernational oppression.
In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels wrote: ``In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another is put to an end, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put to an end. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end.''
A programme for settling the nationalities problem, drawing nations together and giving them equal opportunities for progress was drawn up by Lenin. The principles underlying it were: comprehensive democratisation of social life, genuine equality for all races and nations, the right of nations to self-determination up to the formation of independent states, and the internationalist solidarity of the working class of all nationalities in the country. Permeated with profound respect for big and small nations and with concern for their most cherished needs and aspirations, this programme united the workers and peasants of the numerous nationalities of Russia into an unbreakable alliance headed by the working class, an alliance which was a key factor of the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution.
The Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, adopted by the Soviet Government on November 15, 1917, proclaimed the abolition of national oppression and the 164 establishment of political and juridical equality for all the numerous nations and nationalities inhabiting the country. However, the emancipation of nations could not be confined to the abolition of oppression and the granting of political and juridical equality. The main thing was to surmount the age-old economic and cultural backwardness inherited from the Russian autocracy. The Soviet socialist state successfully resolved this problem as well, not only granting the formerly oppressed nations the right to free development but also helping them to end their backwardness and achieve a high level of economic and cultural development.
After restoring the national economy, which had been dislocated by the First World War and the Civil War, the Communist Party and the Soviet Government initiated the industrialisation of the non-Russian republics. Thanks to the constant concern displayed by the Party and the government and the disinterested aid rendered by other nations, chiefly the Russian, new industries which ensured unprecedented rates of development mushroomed in the formerly undeveloped republics. Agriculture was completely reorganised. Today it consists entirely of highly mechanised collective and state farms.
Economic development has given all the Soviet republics well-trained national cadres and a huge army of intellectuals. Cultural backwardness has become a thing of the past. It may be stated that the peoples of the Soviet Union have accomplished not only a sweeping economic but also a thorough-going cultural revolution.
Illiteracy has been wiped out and today all the Soviet republics have large networks of schools, institutions of higher learning and research and cultural establishments. A new culture that is socialist in content and national in form has blossomed forth. In cultural development the nonRussian Soviet republics have outstripped not only the Eastern capitalist countries but also some of the capitalist countries of the West.
Socialist construction thus changed the non-Russian regions of the Soviet Union from economically and culturally backward sources of agrarian and other raw materials into advanced, sovereign socialist states each with a versatile industry, a productive agriculture, a working class and a large army of intellectuals. The formerly backward peoples 165 have become qualitatively new, socialist nations united by a community of economic, political and spiritual interests in a single Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Proletarian internationalism has become firmly entrenched in the ideology of these nations.
The settlement of the nationalities problem in the U.S.S.R., one of the most acute and complicated problems of mankind's development ? becomes all the more significant in view of the fact that many of the peoples inhabiting the Soviet Union had by-passed the capitalist stage when they embarked upon socialist development. The proletarian dictatorship made it possible for them to travel all the way from feudal and even pre-feudal relations to socialism in the life-time of a single generation.
This is striking proof of the triumph of scientific socialism, the triumph of proletarian internationalism.
The Soviet experience has convincingly shown that only the socialist revolution creates the conditions for the complete eradication of national oppression, for the voluntary integration of free and equal peoples in a single state and for drawing nations ever closer together and promoting their prosperity. Today this experience is used and enriched by the socialist countries in the settlement of the nationalities problem within each country separately and in the socialist community of nations as a whole. This problem has been successfully settled in nationally heterogeneous countries like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, where socialist construction is drawing together nations and nationalities, who are creating a new society and furthering its economy and culture. This experience is also valuable for the peoples of the new sovereign national states that have shaken off the colonial yoke and for peoples who are fighting for liberation from colonialism. For these peoples the successes of the Soviet Union are a source of inspiration and strength in their bitter struggle against imperialism and colonialism. They see their future in the present of the socialist nations.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Cultural RevolutionIn the cultural revolution, which is a component of the transition from capitalism to socialism, the proletariat creates its class, socialist culture to replace the old, bourgeois culture. In the process of creating this new culture the proletariat does 166 not reject bourgeois culture in toto. It accepts the best achievements of that culture, critically recasts them and places them in the service of the people. The new, socialist culture can be created only by mastering and critically processing the cultural heritage of the past. That is exactly what the working class does and, in addition, it raises the achievements of the past to a new level.
The central task of the cultural revolution is to mould a truly people's culture. This is attained, first and foremost, by making all spiritual wealth, all the achievements of science and art the property of the people and, secondly, by vigorously raising the level of education and culture, giving broad scope for talent, for the full development of the people's creative powers.
A cultural revolution is indispensable in both culturally developed and backward countries. Even in the most highly developed capitalist country a considerable section of the population---working people, as a rule---is denied the possibility of enjoying the benefits of culture. Spiritual activities and mental work are monopolised by the ruling classes, who in most cases restrict the working people's cultural development to the minimum needed by them to fulfil their functions in production. The need for a cultural revolution is all the more glaring in backward countries.
The cultural revolution is not a sudden, transient act but a gradual process requiring a more or less prolonged span of time, painstaking and persevering work and skilful organisation. Its problems cannot be resolved by decrees, with a stroke of the pen. In order to channel the people's natural thirst for knowledge and culture in the required direction they must be made to appreciate the need for cultural growth. A large material basis is necessary as the foundation for the new, socialist culture. This basis emerges in the process of socialist economic reforms, in the process of nationalisation, industrialisation and collectivisation.
The proletarian state nationalises and places at the disposal of the people all cultural institutions and all means of spiritual influence---theatres, museums, cinemas, radio stations, the press, and so forth---and builds new cultural centres. It undertakes the training and education of the working people and fundamentally reorganises the system of general and special education in the interests of the 167 people, thereby giving them hitherto unparalleled opportunities to master the achievements of human culture and raise the level of their general and special education.
The opportunist theoreticians of the Second International maintained that the working class should make no attempt to seize power until it had reached a certain cultural level and had an adequate number of intellectuals. Their argument was that the ``uncouth'' masses were unable to administer a country and build a socialist society.
Lenin exposed the hollowness of these arguments and proved that if the prerequisites are at hand the proletariat must forthwith seize power and then tirelessly work to raise the people's cultural level, all the more so that the conditions for this are created by the proletarian dictatorship.
That is exactly how the proletariat of Russia and a number of other countries acted. They did not wait for the cultural level to rise to that unknown standard prescribed by the opportunists, for if they had they would have had to wait endlessly---the capitalists were doing everything in their power to keep the people in darkness and ignorance: it is easier to exploit illiterate, downtrodden people with impunity.
In alliance with other working people, the Russian proletariat seized power in a culturally backward country, a country where the bulk of the population was illiterate and where enlightenment and education were in a state of decline. After taking over power it cleared the road for a cultural revival. Illiteracy was, in the main, wiped out by 1937, i.e., by the time the period of transition came to an end. By that year there were general education and special secondary and higher schools, libraries, reading-rooms, museums, clubs and other cultural institutions in every part of the country. In that period the number of pupils in general education schools alone increased nearly 3.5-fold. Striking advances have been made in enlightenment and education in the non-Russian Soviet republics.
The cultural revolution has made immense headway in other socialist countries as well.
For example, the percentage of illiteracy among the population was 23 in old Poland, 43 in Rumanian and 27 in Bulgaria. Today illiteracy is practically non-existent in all the socialist countries. A system of general and special 168 education has been set up and much else has been done to place culture within reach of all the people. This has given rise to a genuinely people's intelligentsia. Many of the socialist countries have more students at institutions of higher education than developed capitalist countries. For instance, in terms of per 10,000 of population the number of students averages 24 in the Federal Republic of Germany, 34 in France and 43 in Poland.
Socialist cultures are rapidly drawing closer together and there is a distinct trend towards the spiritual cohesion of the peoples of the socialist commonwealth on the foundation of Marxism-Leninism. In the sphere of creative endeavour and ideas the socialist system is moving from victory to victory over the capitalist system.
__*_*_*__The general laws of socialist construction thus manifest themselves in their own way in different countries. This conclusion is borne out by the practice of building socialism in the U.S.S.R. and other socialist countries. In a number of European and Asian countries and in Cuba the socialist revolutions were a specific repetition of the fundamental laws, which first came to the fore in the socialist revolution in Russia. In order to further the building of socialism successfully these general laws must be developed, enriched and skilfully applied in the various countries, and dogmatism, revisionism and the absolutisation of general laws and specific conditions must be resolutely opposed.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The Transition PeriodA distinction must be drawn between the period of transition from capitalism to socialism and non-capitalist development, which likewise represents progress towards socialism directly from pre-capitalist (feudal and patriarchal) social systems.
The transition from capitalism to socialism is effected when the material (sufficiently high level of economic development) and social (the existence of a working class and 169 its Marxist party) factors have matured. On the other hand, these factors are non-existent or only nascent when society moves towards socialism from pre-capitalist relations and, therefore, the general laws governing the building of socialism in the transition period are, naturally, inapplicable in their, so to speak, classical form.
This requires a closer examination.
Inasmuch as in some countries that have embarked upon non-capitalist development there is hardly any class differentiation and the working class is only in its embryonic stage, socialist reforms can be started without a proletarian dictatorship, provided, say, there is a revolutionarydemocratic government. There the prerequisites of the new society are created by the revolutionary-democratic government. In protecting the country against the export of counter-revolution, building up an economy, developing culture, and so forth it is helped by the proletarian dictatorship that has triumphed in other countries. By drawing upon the assistance and support of socialist countries, a developing country can start building the material and social basis of socialism.
The abolition of private ownership is indispensable on the non-capitalist road as well. However, this process, too, may acquire specific forms. In most of the developing countries the economy is dependent upon foreign monopolies and there is no possibility of nationalising it swiftly, in a single act so to speak. There nationalisation is a gradual process and in many cases it is to the advantage of the government to pay compensation to the bourgeoisie which has been loyal to the new power. But this does not mean that in this case nationalisation loses its anti-capitalist tenor.
The methods of industrialisation and of agricultural cooperation are also extremely varied in countries developing along non-capitalist lines. The finding of local resources and the receipt of assistance from the socialist countries do not exclude the possibility of attracting foreign investments in order to win economic independence. This policy is pursued by some African countries.
Communal forms of ownership or survivals of these forms left over from pre-colonial times, from the period before the appearance of commodity production and the 170 entrenchment of imperialist exploitation, are to be found in many of the liberated countries. The thing that these forms have in common with socialism is that the means of production are not private property. But that is all that they have in common with socialism, and this single feature does not allow this ancient mode of production to ring in the future socialist society.
The clan community possesses only primitive means of production. Simple reproduction proceeds laboriously, labour productivity is extremely low, and economic activity and the entire life of the community bears the stamp of seclusion. This distinguishes the ancient communal system from socialist society with its powerful productive forces and close co-operation among industrial and other enterprises on the basis of socialist public ownership. History has not given us an example of communal forms of ownership, which are a survival of the clan system, being able to engender a socialist society. In no country have these forms been strong enough to withstand the corrupting influence of commodity production and the world market. Many of these communities witnessed the appearance of private proprietors, who seized commonly-owned possessions and exploited their fellow tribesmen.
However, this does not mean that ancient forms of collective ownership and labour cannot play any role in building a new society, particularly in the setting up of agricultural co-operatives. A people's government can breathe new life into the peasant community and help the farmers to turn it into a co-operative. The experience of Mali and some other African countries testifies that the anti-- imperialist forces can awaken initiative in these communities and direct their enthusiasm towards the building of a new life.
As regards the other laws of socialist construction (planned economic development with the purpose of building the new society and raising the standard of living, the cultural revolution, the creation of a people's intelligentsia, the abolition of national oppression and the establishment of equality and friendship among nations and solidarity among the working people of the whole world), they can, in principle, be applied also in a society developing along non-capitalist lines.
171 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. Socialist Society __ALPHA_LVL3__ [introduction.]Socialism, the first, lower phase of communism, has its own specific features, but before going on to speak of these features it would be well to give at least an outline picture of the two phases of the new society.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Socialism and CommunismSocialism and communism, the lower and higher phases of the new, communist society, rest on a highly developed material and technical basis, and their immutable economic foundation is social ownership of the means of production and the absence of exploitation of man by man.
Since private ownership, exploiting classes and oppression of man by man are non-existent under socialism or communism, the relations of production of the two systems are those of fraternal co-operation and mutual assistance.
The law of planned, proportionate economic development operates under both socialism and communism. The purpose of social production (the fullest possible satisfaction of the people's material and spiritual requirements) and the means of achieving this purpose (uninterrupted development and improvement of production through the application of the latest technical advances) are likewise similar under socialism and communism.
Both socialism and communism are characterised by friendship and co-operation among nations, while the preservation and consolidation of peace are the bedrock of the relations between all countries, big and small; in both socialist and communist society all citizens enjoy the right to work according to their ability; under both these systems there is harmony between the individual and society, and communist ideology holds complete sway.
In view of the community of basic features of socialism and communism, the classics of Marxism-Leninism regarded them as two phases (stages of development) of one and the same communist society. ``Insofar as the means of production become common property,'' Lenin wrote, ``the word `communism' is also applicable here, provided we do not forget that this is not complete communism.''^^*^^
_-_-_^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 471.
172Socialism is incomplete, undeveloped communism because it grows directly from capitalism, is built on material inherited from the capitalist system and, naturally, retains traces, ``birth marks" of this old society. Such, for example, are the survivals of the old division of labour, the lack of complete economic equality, survivals of the past in the minds and behaviour of people, and so forth.
Under communism, the higher phase of the new system, mechanisation and automation reach unprecedented proportions in production, and the level of labour productivity and output is so high that society can go over from the socialist principle of distribution---``From each according to his ability, to each according to his work"---to the qualitatively new, communist principle---``From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs''. Labour itself changes considerably. All citizens will have an inner urge to work for the benefit of society voluntarily and according to their inclinations.
Marked qualitative changes will take place not only in economy but also in social relations, in people's thinking and the way of life. The essential distinctions between town and country and then between mental and physical labour will disappear and all citizens will be workers of a communist society. The state will wither away and socialist statehood will develop into communist social self-- government.
``Communism," states the Programme of the C.P.S.U., ``is a classless social system with one form of public ownership of the means of production and full social equality of all members of society; under it, the all-round development of people will be accompanied by the growth of the productive forces through continuous progress in science and technology; all the springs of co-operative wealth will flow more abundantly, and the great principle 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' will be implemented. Communism is a highly organised society of free, socially conscious working people in which public self-government will be established, a society in which labour for the good of society will become the prime vital requirement of everyone, a necessity recognised by one and 173 all, and the ability of each person will be employed to the greatest benefit of the people."
To carry out these fundamental qualitative transformations society needs time and the corresponding material, social and spiritual prerequisites: a large material and technical basis, improved social relations that will be free of exploitation of man by man, a rich spiritual culture, and a high level of political consciousness among the people. Insofar as all these prerequisites are created only under socialism it is impossible to by-pass the socialist stage of development, to accomplish a leap directly from capitalism to the higher stage of communism. ``From capitalism,'' Lenin wrote, ``mankind can pass directly only to socialism, i.e., to the social ownership of the means of production and the distribution of products according to the amount of work performed by each individual.''^^*^^
Being a special stage of social development, socialism is, therefore, inevitable. In the same way as the stem and not the ear grows directly from a grain seed, only socialism springs directly from capitalism.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Economy of SocialismSocialist public ownership, which concurs with the social nature of production, is the foundation of socialist economy. In the U.S.S.R. and most of the other socialist countries there are two forms of social property: public and co-- operative. The first takes shape as a result of socialist nationalisation and belongs to the entire people, and the second appears as a result of the setting up of production co-- operatives and belongs to the group of people who have founded the given co-operative. Public ownership occupies the dominant position in socialist economy because, firstly, it embraces the key industries (heavy engineering, power engineering, transport, and so on) and, secondly, there is greater socialisation of the means of production than in cooperative ownership.
In line with these two forms of social property there are two types of socialist economy: state-owned enterprises (factories, state farms, and so on) and co-operatives ( collective farms and artisan and handicrafts artels). Both these types as well as the economies within each type are _-_-_
~^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 24, pp. 84--85.
174 economically interlocked through socialist commodity-monetary relations, which are typical of the socialist system.In socialist society social ownership removes the division of people into rulers and ruled, excludes exploitation of man by man and institutes production relations highlighting friendly co-operation and mutual assistance among the people.
The humanist objective of socialist production, that of satisfying the steadily growing material and cultural requirements of the people as fully as possible, issues from the supremacy of socialist ownership, from the fact that the means of production and, therefore, its products and all material and cultural values belong to the people. This is the very antithesis of the purpose of capitalist production, namely that of extracting the maximum profit. The capitalist does not care what he produces---atomic bombs or foodstuffs---so long as he receives a large profit. On the other hand, the purpose of socialist production is not to enrich a handful of privileged individuals but to satisfy the requirements of all people.
In the U.S.S.R. Soviet rule has been in existence for only half a century, but in that time it has done a tremendous amount for the people. In 1963 as compared with the prewar level, the real incomes of the workers increased 5.9-- fold, while the incomes of the peasants rose more than 7-- fold. Housing construction is proceeding on an unparalleled scale: 10,500,000 people were rehoused in 1965 alone.
True, for the time being socialist production is unable to ensure an abundance of the means of life and fully satisfy the requirements of all citizens. Socialist ownership and the level of production that has been reached have made it possible to apply the socialist principle of distribution: ``From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.'' The unalterable law of socialism is that he who does not work (if, naturally, he is capable of work), neither shall he eat.
All members of society have the equal duty to work and enjoy an equal right to receive from society in accordance with the quantity and quality of their work. The socialist principle of distribution eliminates the division, inherent in exploiting society, of people into a minority that do not work and yet enjoy all the blessings of life, and the 175 overwhelming majority that are doomed to exhausting labour which frequently does not ensure them with a tolerable existence.
Distribution according to work is natural and it is vital to socialism, for it provides people with a material incentive which is one of the most powerful stimuli of socialist production. Under socialism he who works more and better receives more. This system of remuneration for labour gives people the material incentive to enhance their skills, actively participate in production and increase output and improve its quality.
Although under socialism all citizens have the equal duty to work and the equal right to be paid in accordance with their work, socialist society as yet does not ensure them with full economic equality.
Save for a deduction that goes to the social fund, every individual producer receives from society as much as he gives it. There is no class inequality, but there still is inequality in the share of products received by each individual member of society. Thus, under socialism, the principle of equal pay for equal work signifies the application of one and the same yardstick to different people. Inasmuch as people have different qualifications, varying talents and numerically different families, payment according to work means that actually they receive unequal incomes. This is unavoidable during the first phase of the new society, for it is a phase when society has yet to achieve an abundance of consumer goods and a uniformly high level of political consciousness. The earnings of all people cannot be levelled out in socialist society because that would violate the principle of socialist distribution and lessen the material incentive to work.
It would be wrong to think that the economic organisation of socialist society is ideal, that its formation and development is smooth and painless. There are many difficulties and contradictions, chiefly of an objective nature. It must not be forgotten that when the U.S.S.R. (and most of the other socialist countries) started building socialism their level of production was low, and that the people spent much of their energy and time on an armed struggle against external enemies and on the restoration of their warravaged economy. Another factor was the shortage of 176 material and financial resources and skilled personnel and the lack of experience in socialist construction. There were serious errors and miscalculations of a subjective nature, linked up, in particular, with the personality cult, which adversely affected economic development and all social relations.
Truth, it is said, is arrived at by comparison. Generally speaking, that is quite true. However, the trouble is that sometimes only bare figures are taken into account when a comparison is made between the economic achievements of socialism and capitalism, say of the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. On the basis solely of figures showing that the level of production, labour productivity and standard of living is higher in the U.S.A. than in the U.S.S.R., a conclusion unfavourable to socialism may be drawn. But can one discount the fact that in the U.S.A. capitalism has been developing without hindrance for nearly two centuries, in the course of which not a single enemy soldier stepped on North American soil and not a single structure was destroyed by enemy bombs or shells? Moreover, the U.S. capitalists thrived on war.
Therefore, when we compare socialist and capitalist economy the factors we must take into consideration are: what socialism began from, under what conditions it was built, how long it has been in existence, and what its prospects are. If all these factors are taken into account, the comparison will by no means favour capitalism.
In 1913 Russia's industrial product was only 12.5 per cent of that of the U.S.A. Moreover, Russia's industries were almost completely destroyed during the First World War and the Civil War. In 1965 Soviet industry reached beyond 62 per cent of the considerably expanded industrial output in the U.S.A. This impressive advance was made in a little over 30 years of peaceful construction.
Socialism has turned a backward and mostly agrarian country into the world's second industrial power with a high level of scientific, technical and cultural development, into a country with the most advanced social relations. It was no accident that the world's first socialist country launched the world's first man-made Earth satellite, placed the first manned spaceship in orbit, accomplished the first space-walk, soft-landed the first automatic station on the __PRINTERS_P_177_COMMENT__ 12---2775 177 Moon and created the first Moon satellite. When these achievements are taken into consideration, it must be borne in mind that though the Soviet Union has built socialism, it is only on the threshold of communism.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Class Pattern ofThe class pattern of society undergoes profound changes with the building of socialism. The exploiting classes are removed in both town and country. The contrast between town and country is abolished inasmuch as the working people of town and country are liberated from exploitation, work for themselves and society, and enjoy equal rights to receive for their work in accordance with its quantity and quality. The distinction between mental and physical work is surmounted because people engaged in mental work serve the common cause of socialism side by side with the workers and peasants.
In the Soviet Union the exploiting classes were extirpated as far back as 1937, when the building of socialism was, in the main, completed. In that year 36.2 per cent of the population were industrial or office workers, 57.9 per cent were collective farmers or co-operated artisans, and 5.9 per cent were individual farmers and non-co-operated artisans. By 1963 the latter figure dropped to 0.1 per cent. Thus in the Soviet Union there are two friendly classes: the proletariat and the collective-farm peasantry, as well as a working intelligentsia, which has changed fundamentally during Soviet years.
The Soviet working class is no longer the exploited and oppressed proletariat of capitalist days. Along with the entire people it owns the means of production and is a genuine master of its country. Remaining the most organised and politically conscious class and championing comradely co-operation and mutual assistance, the working class plays the leading role in socialist society.
In agriculture collectivisation and the cultural revolution have completely remoulded the Soviet peasantry. Once dismembered, downtrodden and exploited by the landowners and the kulaks, the peasants have become a free class working at large-scale, mechanised farms.
Collective work for the good of the country has broken down the peasant's age-old reserve, helped him to overcome his private proprietorship psychology and infused 178 him with a spirit of collectivism, friendship and comradeship. His cultural level is rising steadily. The widespread use of the latest types of machines has given the countryside its own skilled machine operators, whose work hardly differs from that of industrial workers.
The Soviet intelligentsia has likewise undergone drastic changes. Today it is a genuine people's intelligentsia with its roots in the working class and the peasantry. Having come from the people it serves them with devotion and dedication. The number of intellectuals has increased considerably during Soviet years: at the beginning of 1966 more than 25 million people or over one-fifth of the entire population were engaged in mental work. Today the Soviet Union has millions of teachers, scientific workers, doctors, engineers, technicians, lawyers, financial experts and other specialists.
Socialism destroys class domination and subordination. In socialist society no class or group of people enjoy special privileges. The relation of all members of society to the means of production is identical and this rules out the possibility of anybody exploiting other people and appropriating the fruits of their work. Since socialist society is free of exploiters and the exploited, having only working classes and social groups, class struggles are non-existent in it.
An unbreakable social, political and ideological unity consisting of a community of basic economic and political objectives of the working class, the peasants and the intelligentsia, of their unanimous desire to rise to a still higher stage of social development and build communism, takes shape in socialist society. This identity of objectives induces all members of socialist society to act together, to pool their efforts in order to surmount difficulties and carry out epoch-making tasks.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Political OrganisationIn the period of transition from capitalism to socialism, proletarian democracy gives way to socialist democracy, which is a new and higher form of people's government. The principal feature distinguishing the political organisation of socialism is that it extends the people's democratic rights, turning democracy for the majority into democracy for everybody, for the entire people.
Socialist society does not simply proclaim the rights of 179 its citizens; it ensures these rights. All citizens, regardless of origin, occupation, sex, nationality or religion, enjoy the right to work, education, rest and leisure, medical attention, and maintenance in old age arid in case of sickness or disability. The implementation of these rights is guaranteed by law and assured by the steady growth of the country's economic might. Socialist society grants its citizens freedom of speech, of the press and of assembly, including the holding of mass meetings and demonstrations, and the right to unite in public organisations. Moreover, citizens are guaranteed inviolability of the person, the inviolability of their homes and privacy of correspondence. Women are accorded equal rights with men in all spheres of economic, government, cultural, political and other social activity. They are accorded the same rights as men to work, payment for work, education and rest and leisure. The state protects the interests of mother and child, renders material aid to mothers of large families and to unmarried mothers, and grants women a long maternity leave with full pay.
The development of socialist society is accompanied by the extension of socialist democracy, this finding expression in the growing importance of the elective representative organs of people's power and in the importance also of the trade unions and of youth, co-operative, cultural, educational and other organisations. The gradual evolution of state administration into public self-government has started.
An important manifestation of this process, which mirrors the development of socialist democracy, is the extension and consolidation of the social basis of the proletarian dictatorship and the gradual crystallisation of the proletarian dictatorship into a government of workers, peasants and intellectuals.
During the transition period the proletariat was both the ruling and the leading class. Under socialism and during the building of communism it retains its leading role in society.
Why does the working class remain the leading force of socialist society?
Because it works in industry, which is the basis of the entire national economy, and because its labour is founded on the leading and most developed form of socialist ownership---state, public ownership. Thanks to its glorious revolutionary traditions and its experience of bitter 180 battles against capitalism, it is the most consistent proponent of socialist ideology. Being the most numerous class, it is well organised and disciplined, and is, therefore, the foremost social force of Soviet society. Its mission of leading society is considered fulfilled only when communism is built, when all vestiges of class distinction disappear.
The fact thai the working class plays the leading role in socialist society does not in the least belittle the part played by other social forces---the peasants and the intelligentsia. This can well be appreciated, for the working class neither has nor can have egoistical objectives or mercenary interests. Being part and parcel of the people, the working class expresses the people's interests and pursues popular objectives.
The heroic struggle of the working class against the exploiters and its dedicated labour in building socialism have won for it tremendous prestige and the deep respect of the entire people, and it continues to fulfil the lofty role of the most consistent and most organised champion of the people's cause in the building of communism as well.
No sharp distinctions exist between the proletarian dictatorship and a people's state because they are, essentially, states of one and the same socialist type, and forms or stages of the development of the socialist state. The socialist nature of the slate does not change with the growth of the proletarian dictatorship into a state of the whole people. It only develops and improves as a result of communist construction. Its social basis---the alliance between the working class and the peasantry---grows stronger, the role of the working class is enhanced and proletarian socialist democracy blossoms forth. A people's government is the natural continuation of broad democracy for the working people, which is inherent in the proletarian dictatorship from the very outset.
Under socialism the government directs social processes ---economic, political and cultural activities---by consistently democratic methods. Naturally, in the case of people breaking socialist laws, of anti-social elements (who are still to be found in socialist society) the state applies definite measures of compulsion. However, these measures are directed not against hostile classes but against the most backward workers, peasants and intellectuals still 181 conlaminated with survivals of the past, and should not be identified with the functions of suppressing exploiters exercised by the proletarian dictatorship. Essentially, the people's government fulfils, develops and improves the basic functions of the proletarian dictatorship with the exception of the suppression of the exploiting classes, a function that dies away with the abolition of these classes and the victory of socialism.
The inner-political functions of the government as an organ of administration are to organise the building of the material and technical basis of communism, reform socialist into communist relations, control the measure of labour and of consumption, raise the standard of living, maintain law and order, protect socialist property, and educate the people in the spirit of conscious discipline and a communist attitude to work.
In foreign policy the government strengthens unity and solidarity with the socialist countries and develops fraternal co-operation with them. It fulfils its sacred internationalist duty to the world working class and the peoples of all countries by supporting the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat in the developed capitalist states in every possible way and by giving its utmost assistance to the peoples of countries that have liberated themselves from colonialism and to the peoples fighting for national liberation. It upholds peace and maintains normal relations with all countries, and, at the same time, in face of the threat of imperialist attack, it strengthens the defence capacity of its own country and of the socialist system as a whole.
The development of socialist democracy in the U.S.S.R. was not devoid of grave difficulties and contradictions. This was linked up, in particular, with the Stalin personality cult, when democracy was restricted and socialist legality violated.
Bourgeois ideologists and politicians attempt to prove that the very substance of socialist society gives rise to personality cults. This is at variance with the facts. Naturally, there are reasons why the personality cult becomes possible. Centralisation of the economy and of all social activities from top to bottom creates the possibility for concentrating power, and certain conditions clear the path for abusing power, which is but a step to the cult of the 182 individual. However, these conditions are not created by socialism. They are precipitated by the features of a given country's development and by the personal qualities of the leader. Stalin's incivility, lack of toleration for people, fickleness and other characteristics (which, incidentally, made Lenin apprehensive that if Stalin concentrated enormous power in his own hands he would be unable to use it properly) were some of the factors that led to the personality cult. Lenin gave a lot of thought to the problem of how to combine centralism with democracy, and how to prevent power from being concentrated in the hands of one person, let alone being abused. He found the solution in democratic centralism, collective leadership and public control.
The hostile capitalist encirclement, the war against the nazi invaders and other difficulties in the building of socialism in the U.S.S.R. were another factor that gave rise to the cult of the individual.
The personality cult thus does not necessarily spring from the nature of socialism. It clashes with MarxismLeninism, with the theory of scientific communism, and the objective laws of socialist development, a feature of which is government by the people and uninterrupted development of socialist democracy. That was why at its 20th Congress the C.P.S.U. denounced the personality cult and took steps to uproot its consequences, thereby clearing the way for the further democratisation of the socialist system.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ C.P.S.U.---VanguardIn the period of communist construction the political organisation is inseparably linked up with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which leads and directs Soviet society.
The C.P.S.U., the Party Rules declare, is the militant, tested vanguard of the Soviet people, which, on a voluntary basis, unites the advanced and most politically conscious section of the working class, collective farmers and intellectuals. In the period since it was founded by Lenin, the Communist Party has travelled a glorious road of struggle and victory. It led the Russian proletariat and working peasants to the triumph of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship, and ensured the complete and final victory of 183 socialism. The social, political and ideological unity of the Soviet people was moulded and grew strong under the Party's tested leadership. This brought the Party prestige and the unbounded trust of the people.
Today the Party has nearly 12,500,000 members. Most of them are workers or collective farmers. In the Party's social composition the working class occupies and shall continue to occupy the leading position. With practically all the peoples inhabiting the Soviet Union represented in its ranks, the Party is an internationalist political organisation embodying the deep friendship and fraternity among the peoples of the U.S.S.R.
The Party's entire policy and all its activities at home and abroad are subordinated to the interests of the people, to their most cherished thoughts and aspirations. ``The Party," states the Programme of the C.P.S.U., ``exists for the people, and it is in serving the people that it sees the purpose of its activity." That is why its ideals have become the ideals of the whole nation---of workers, collective farmers and intellectuals, of people of different ages, professions and nationalities. The Party is the brain, and conscience of our epoch, and of the Soviet people.
While leading society and directing the great creative work of the people, the Party vigilantly surveys the future, shows the people the road forward and stimulates their creative initiative. The socialist system draws its unconquerable strength from the unity between the Party and the people, from the leadership and organisation provided by the Party.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Spiritual CultureThe cultural revolution consummated on the basis of socialist economic, social and political reforms, gives birth to a qualitatively new, socialist culture. This new culture rests on the achievements of socialist society in science, art, literature, education, moral development, and so forth. Farther on we shall deal with these elements of culture, with their place in the developing socialist society and with their role in moulding the fully developed man. At this point we shall only note that socialism puts an end to the division whereby there is one culture for the ruling classes and another for the oppressed classes, which is inherent in a class-antagonistic, 184 particularly capitalist, society. It creates a single, people's culture. Socialist culture, which is internationalist in content, aims to strengthen and promote socialism, and friendship and co-operation between different nationalities. It is a culture that is national in form (language and other means of expressing content), and this makes it particularly close and understandable to every nation, big and small, gives it access to and facilitates the enrichment of other national cultures and promotes an internationalist culture, which is common to all nations. Marxism-Leninism, the only scientific philosophy that advances the florescence of culture, is the ideological foundation of socialist culture and harnesses it to the great cause of socialism.
In capitalist society cultural achievements are the property of the privileged few. Under socialism these achievements belong to the whole people. Each member of socialist society has every possibility of receiving an education, working creatively in production, science or art and improving himself morally. In capitalist society creative work is monopolised by the ruling classes with the result that these possibilities are denied to many people. The essence or inner nature of socialist culture is profoundly humanist. It is created for the working man as a vehicle for his intellectual improvement and serves lofty, truly human ideals.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Socialism andUnder capitalism individuals are divided into exploiters and working people. The working individual is denied the possibility of enjoying all the blessings of life, all the achievements of material and spiritual culture, and has limited opportunities for development and improvement. At the same time, in work and in struggle against exploitation he acquires genuine human qualities: a collectivist spirit, organisation, discipline, courage, staunchness, and contempt for everything that humiliates and oppresses man. In other words, capitalism gives rise to the prerequisites for shaping the new, socialist individual and also moulds some of the features of this new individual.
The contradiction between the individual and society caused by the division of society into classes becomes extremely acute under capitalism. This contradiction is ended only by the socialist revolution and the building of socialism, which creates the prerequisites for man's all-round 185 development, for giving expression to the entire range of his activities.
By abolishing private ownership and exploitation and giving all citizens equal political and legal rights and duties, socialism creates the political conditions for man's development. Here sex and age distinctions, origin, occupation, nationality and religion are no obstacle to active, creative work by every citizen in any sphere of social life. Having liberated the working man and made it possible for him to work not for the exploiter but for himself and society, socialism has turned labour---its quantity and quality---into the only criterion of man's value to society, thus defining his place in the social system. Liberated labour, stimulated materially and morally, has become the basis for man's development and the only sphere recognised by society in which he can show his worth. Qualitatively new, socialist production aims to meet the requirements and interests of the people. This, too, gives rise to the prerequisites for man's development. The working man's confidence that he will always find application for his capabilities and that while utilising his abilities society and social production bend every effort to satisfy his requirements, making the measure of their satisfaction dependent upon the quantity and quality of his work, gives him the incentive to improve his professional qualifications and raise his general education and cultural level. Having created a new spiritual culture and placed it in the service of the people side by side with material culture, socialism thus provides the most favourable conditions for man's intellectual development.
The far-reaching changes in economy, social relations and spiritual culture raise to a new qualitative level the human features engendered in the individual under capitalism and create new features which are not to be found in the individual of the old society. In other words, the new socialist individual is shaped as a result of the triumph of socialism.
The moulding of the new man---of the real maker of history, the genuine master of society, the only proprietor and creator of material and spiritual values, and the conscious spokesman and creator of the new, truly human social relations---is socialism's greatest achievement, which has no parallel in human history.
186Under socialism the individual is primarily a worker in socialist production, which is founded on public ownership of the means of production. lie is distinguished by his work, his aspiration to preserve and increase social wealth, by a new labour discipline and new attitude to work, and by his friendship and co operation with his fellow workers, lie is, furthermore, characterised by his lofty morals, his unswerving devotion to communist ideals, his internationalism, his political consciousness, his high sense of responsibility before society, and social work. The principles underlying communist morality are firmly rooted in his life and work. He has a rich spiritual life, a high cultural level, manifold spiritual requirements, a profound interest in science and art and an aspiration for all-round development and improvement.
It would be wrong to expect that every member of socialist society possesses all the above-mentioned features. There are, of course, some who shirk socially useful work, are passive to social life and intellectually inert, but on the whole the features mentioned above are typical of the individual of socialist society. Firstly, because socialism makes it possible to mould these features in every person; secondly, because these features are inherent in the vast majority of the members of socialist society.
The relationship between society and the individual changes radically with the triumph of socialism and the emergence of the socialist individual. The antithesis between the individual and society inherent in a social system with antagonistic classes gives way to increasing unity between the individual and society. This unity has a firm objective foundation, namely, public ownership, which ensures a community of social and personal interests. The aspiration of the individual to improve his position under conditions where exploitation is non-existent and work is a duty is implemented through labour for the benefit of the whole of society.
Much can characterise the attitude of the individual to society and social interests. But perhaps the most striking manifestation of this attitude lies in the motives for the attitude to work. A group of sociologists in Leningrad undertook to elucidate the social significance of work to young workers and requested them to point out which of 187 the following arguments expressed their opinion of the value of work.
Positive reply
1. A good job is where vou are mosl useful
and needed . . . "........617 persons (23.2%)
2. One must not leave the pay out of
consideration, but the main thing is in
the purport of the work, in its use to
society .............830 persons (31.1%)
3. The pay is the main thing, but one must
also think of the purport of the work . . 819 persons (30.7%)
4. Any work is good so long as it is well paid 399 persons (lfi.0%)
In one way or another, 85 per cent of the persons questioned linked up their work with its use to society. Is this not an indication of unity between society and the individual under socialism? Does this not show that an achievement by an individual is an achievement of society as a whole, whose only purpose is to serve the individual, satisfy his many requirements and enable him to develop his talents?
The growing unity between the individual and society is an objective trend or, to put it in another way, it is a law of the development of socialism, but it is not free of contradictions. These contradictions are that as long as society is unable fully to satisfy the individual's requirements it partially restricts consumption, making the measure of satisfaction dependent on the quantity and quality of work, and the fact that as yet society does not ensure people with complete economic equality, with equal conditions for development and for displaying creative activity. Moreover, not all individuals appreciate the need for conforming their own interests with those of society and sometimes make egoistically unreasonable demands of society with the result that contradictions ilare up between society, between the majority of its members, and a certain section of backward people. These contradictions are eradicated with progress in the building of communism, and unity between the individual and society is achieved together with the attainment of harmonious relations between them. Both society and the individual change in the course of the movement towards this harmony, and the development of the individual rests on the remaking of society.
188 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. From Socialism to Communism.From socialism society moves towards communism, which has a number of basic features.
The first of these is that as distinct from socialism, which emerges on the basis of capitalism and bears some of capitalism's birthmarks, communism rises on its own foundation, on the foundation of consolidated and developing socialism. As a result, the ways and means of establishing socialism and communism differ fundamentally. Socialism is established as a result of the socialist revolution, of a radical breaking down of the economic, political and spiritual foundations of capitalism. A revolution is not needed to establish communism, which grows directly out of socialism through the development and improvement of socialist economy, social relations and spiritual culture.
The material and technical basis of communism is built through the planned development and improvement of socialist production. The single communist ownership results from the development and gradual merging of the two forms of socialist ownership---state and co-operative. The seed of communist self-administration lies in the socialist people's government, and so on.
Insofar as there are appreciable qualitative differences between socialism and communism, some of the features of socialist society will, naturally, wither away in the process of communist construction, becoming replaced by new, communist features. However, the superseding of socialist by communist features takes place only through the strengthening and comprehensive application of socialist principles, through the all-sided utilisation of all the potentialities of these principles. For example, society can go over to the communist principle of distribution according to needs only through the utmost development and application of the socialist principle of distribution according to work, only when the potentialities of the latter principle are completely exhausted and it outwears itself.
Many tangible, unmistakable features of communism exist in socialist society. These include communist forms of organising labour and production and social forms of satisfying people's material and spiritual requirements. These features 189 of the new become more prominent in proportion to the advance towards communism and they oust everything that hinders society's onward movement.
The second basic feature of communist construction is that the transition to the second phase of the new society is accomplished gradually, step by step. Socialism grows into communism slowly, by stages: elements of socialism gradually wither away and their place is taken by elements of communist society---the communist principle of distribution according to needs, public self-administration, the transition to a classless society, and so forth. The transition to communism rules out haste in the introduction of communist principles. In other words, the new economy, social system and way of life are established by plan with the maturing of the material and spiritual prerequisites.
This gradual transition is due to the very nature of the socialist system, which is devoid of classes opposed to the movement towards communism. It enables the Party and the government to bring to light and opportunely settle any contradictions that may arise in the course of this onward movement, thereby precluding social clashes, sudden twists and turns in the life of society, and the interruptions and recessions that are so typical of capitalism.
However, the fact that the transition is effected gradually does not imply that development proceeds slowly. On the contrary, the transition to communism presupposes swift economic and cultural development which is linked up with successes in communist construction and with the participation of more and more people in this construction.
Three fundamental tasks have to be carried out in the building of communism: first, the creation of the material and technical basis of communism; second, the formation of communist social relations; and third, the moulding of the politically conscious builder and citizen of communist society. These three tasks are closely interrelated and mirror different aspects of the single process of transforming socialism into communism.
Before we deal with these tasks and the ways of carrying them out, we must analyse the scientific principles underlying the direction of communist construction and of social processes.
190 __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 7 __ALPHA_LVL1__ SCIENTIFIC DIRECTION OF COMMUNISTEvery pre-socialist, class-antagonistic society emerged spontaneously, i.e., without involving the will and consciousness of people, from the society preceding it. Capitalism stemmed from feudalism, first in the shape of simple capitalist co-operation and manufacture and then large-scale machine production. The task of the bourgeois revolution was, therefore, to bring the political power into line with the new capitalist economy, i.e., to transfer power from the feudal lords to the bourgeoisie. The spontaneous formation of a new society within the framework of the old was possible because every society with antagonistic classes is founded on private ownership of the means of production and on exploitation of man by man. The forms of private ownership and of exploitation changed as history moved forward, but in themselves they remained inviolable.
Socialism makes a clean break with private ownership and exploitation. It establishes public ownership and, on its basis, relations of fraternal co-operation and mutual assistance. Public ownership cannot of itself appear from private ownership in the same way as socialist society as a whole cannot grow out of capitalism. Socialism and communism are built through the conscious and purposeful activity of the masses led by the Marxist party and the socialist state, through the conscious direction of social processes.
191 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. Socialism,Socialist society, as we have seen, is a complex social organism, a mobile, dynamic system with a multitude of various elements. It embraces a versatile economy (industry, agriculture, transport, communications, and so on) and a host of enterprises (factories, mills, collective and state farms, and so forth); people united in classes and social groups and in labour and other collectives; economic, class, ethical and other relations among people; and spiritual life with its diverse manifestations. All these elements are closely interrelated, and in their unity and interaction they form socialist society as an object of direction. In its turn, each individual element of society is likewise an integral system that lends itself to guidance. Every factory, office, institute, school and other establishment consists of subdivisions in which people are united.
Thus, guidance over society is guidance over people, things, relations and spiritual life, but mainly over people. This can well be appreciated because by their labour people create values, which they use in their work and life; people have different relations with each other; they possess intelligence and ideas and, in addition to material values, they create cultural values. Naturally, guidance over things, relations and ideas largely depends upon how correctly and how scientifically the guidance over people is organised. Essentially, social development is shaped from the activities, of millions upon millions of people; hence the extraordinary complexity and responsibility involved in directing their affairs and, through this, social processes as a whole.
It should be emphasised that in socialist society guidance over people is not the function of exploiter supervision over the people as is the case in capitalist society. Under socialism, direction is primarily a function of organising the people's economic life, their social activities, and their upbringing in the spirit of communist ideals. Naturally, administration is preserved as a specific variety of work, but it is exercised by the people themselves through elective organs of power and also directly through a system of mass organisations. This is a democratic administration because being the solo owners of the means of production and the 192 sovereign custodians of political power, the people play the decisive role in directing the economy and all social processes.
The fundamental reason that socialism makes it possible to govern such a huge number of people and direct such a diversity of social processes and society as a whole is that its economy is founded on public ownership, which unites people and rules out anarchy, competition and chaotic markets. The law of planned, proportionate development, which operates on the basis of public ownership, opens the road to planned, centralised direction of the economy and all social processes and creates the possibility for co-- ordinating the diverse links of the social system and directing their movement towards a single, planned objective.
When people speak of scientific direction they frequently have the direction of society's economic life in mind. Nobody will deny that the economy plays the determining role in social development. The nature of socialist society is such that it allows not only the economy but all the other spheres of social life to be directed consciously and scientifically.
This is easily seen if we turn to the history of the Soviet Union and of the Communist Party, and to the milestones of the Party's conscious direction of the development of Soviet society. Lenin's plan for the country's electrification (1920), for example, was not only and not simply an economic plan but a programme of far-reaching qualitative changes of the whole of society, of the entire system of social relations. Being a plan for the creation of the material and technical basis of socialism on the foundation of electrification, it was designed to strengthen the leading role played by the working class in society, consolidate the alliance between it and the peasants and promote proletarian democracy. ``Electrification as the basis of democracy,'' Lenin noted down in his draft for a report to the 8th AllRussia Congress of Soviets. Calling the electrification plan the second Party Programme, Lenin made it plain that the Party had to direct all social processes. His formula that communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country speaks of the intrinsic unity between the direction of economy and the direction of social life.
The New Economic Policy, industrialisation and __PRINTERS_P_193_COMMENT__ 13---2775 193 collectivisation were likewise designed to effect radical changes in social relations. The forecasting and direction of the process of building up the economy, shaping communist social relations and bringing up the new man comprise the substance of the Party Programme adopted at the 22nd Congress of the C.P.S.U.
Thus, the scientific direction and the planned, proportionate development of socialist society embrace the sum total of social processes. In this connection, planned, proportionate development is not only an economic but also a sociological law operating in all spheres of socialist social life.
Socialist society is governed by objective laws, which can be cognised and utilised in the interests of the people. The fact that these laws do not automatically ensure society's development in the direction required by man makes it all the more important to know and utilise them. Take, for example, the law of planned, proportionate development. By itself this law does not remove elements of spontaneity in development and does not ensure harmony and planned proportion between the different links of the social system. It only creates the possibility for this, and in order to turn this possibility into reality the law must be understood and skilfully utilised. This is where subjective factors come in, namely, the purposeful, conscious activity of people led by the Party and the government. The development of socialist society is thus an intricate intermingling and interaction of objective laws and subjective factors, with the latter playing a steadily bigger role in proportion to society's onward movement thanks to an ever deeper knowledge of objective laws.
In socialist society subjective factors play an incomparably bigger role than in other social systems. Socialism successfully advances only when people have mastered objective laws and skilfully applied them to regulate social processes. Moreover, the people aspire to know and apply these laws because they fully conform with their vital interests.
In directing social processes scientifically, the main task is to bring the subjective activities of the people into line with the requirements of objective laws. To direct society scientifically means to use cognised objective laws, bring to 194 light the progressive trends in social development or in individual links of this development, guide and regulate society's advance in accordance with these trends, show what obstacles hinder the achievement of one goal or another and opportunely remove these obstacles. In other words, this means to pursue a correct, realistic policy, which takes objective potentialities and the correlation of social forces into account, a policy intimately bound up with the economy, with economic development.
The practical work of directing social processes necessarily presupposes a theoretical elaboration of problems of administration. This is one of the principal tasks of the theory of scientific communism.
It goes without saying that the problems linked up with directing society scientifically cannot be resolved solely by representatives of scientific communism. They have to be resolved by the collective effort of philosophers, sociologists, economists, statisticians, cyberneticists, mathematicians, jurists, psychologists, engineers, executives and the broad masses. A scientific system of directing society can be evolved, and successfully applied in specific spheres of social life, and concrete forms, ways and means of administration conforming to present-day requirements worked out only through the joint efforts of specialists in the most diverse fields. A solid foundation for resolving these problems is provided by Marxism-Leninism, by Leninist principles of directing social processes and the building of communism.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. Principles UnderlyingSocial processes are governed by objective laws characterising what is most essential in the life and development of society. In giving practical leadership to the world's first socialist state and to the building of socialism, Lenin's point of departure was that administration was inconceivable without knowledge and skilful utilisation of objective laws. The paramount principle underlying scientific direction is that of objectivity, i.e., __PRINTERS_P_195_COMMENT__ 13* 195 strict adherence to the requirements of objective laws and due account for realistic potentialities and the actual state of society.
While emphasising that direction can be provided only on the basis of objective laws, Lenin at the same time made it clear that this direction should not be confined to general formulation of laws or to the drawing up of abstract patterns applicable to all cases in life. He said that it was necessary to study the concrete content of processes, as well as of the laws which mirror them, to see how laws operate and manifest themselves in specific circumstances and to draw correct conclusions from practical experience.
Any law and any formula (even the most precise and attractive) does not contain ``indications'' of the manifestation of its own substance in specific circumstances. A formula may be drawn only from experience, and experience alone takes it from realm of formulas into the realm of reality, endowing it with flesh and blood, making it concrete, and thereby modifying it.
It is extremely important to take this into account today when social life has become incomparably more complex, when laws as the predominant trend force a road for themselves through a mass of concrete and frequently contradictory phenomena that modify the operation of these laws and must be taken into consideration in the practice of applying them. For example, the law of planned development operates in the complex conditions of commoditymonetary relations, and therefore the economy cannot be scientifically directed if these relations are not taken into consideration. The task before Soviet economists, sociologists and organisers is to study the relationship between the law of planned development and the law of commoditymonetary relations, and the ways and means of directing them into a planned channel and thereby bringing them under the control of organs of administration.
From this proceeds the principle of the concrete situation, which is of the utmost importance to the science of administration. A concrete analysis of the concrete situation makes it possible to avoid subjectivism, harebrained schemes and arbitrariness in administration. To administer concretely means to administer on the basis of trustworthy and scientifically processed information on the inner state 196 of the object as well as on the external conditions in which it functions. Errors and obstacles on the way to the goal may be noted and removed in good time, and the administration corrected and brought into line with objective changes only when trustworthy information is available, in other words, only when there is knowledge of the real, concrete processes taking place in society.
An important role in making trustworthy information available to organs of administration, studying the channels for receiving such information and evolving methods of scientifically processing the received information is played by statistics and concrete social research.
Naturally, the organs of administration may use solitary facts, but this is possible only when these facts are typical and mirror the substance of social processes. As a rule, however, administration is implemented on the basis of a generalisation of a host of facts and figures; it is therefore impossible to do without statistics and without concrete social research. Lenin made it a requirement that statisticians should not simply register facts, collecting information without a rigid system, but that they should scientifically analyse and compare information, draw practical conclusions and offer practical recommendations. ``Statisticians,'' he wrote, ``must be our practical assistants, not engage in scholastics.''^^*^^
The importance of concrete social research to the administration of society is that it helps to lay bare social processes in all their complexity, multiformity and concreteness and provides organs of administration with trustworthy information, thus enabling them to assess the efficacy of one system of administration or another and, when necessary, to choose the right method of changing it so that it conforms with new facts, phenomena and emergent trends. This research, like statistics, provides data for generalising and studying new laws, which, in their turn, may be utilised to improve the system of administration.
Lenin paid special heed to the working masses, who are the most trustworthy and direct sources of information. We know how attentive he was to envoys from workers, peasants and soldiers, who came to him from all parts of the _-_-_
~^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 35, p. 498.
197 country, and how frequently and gladly he visited factories and offices in order to see and hear for himself, to get to the heart of things. Constant contact with the people and reliance on the masses are an indispensable condition for concrete, correct and effective scientific administration. In this connection Lenin wrote: ``We can administer only when we express correctly what the people are conscious of.''^^*^^Difficult as it is to organise, an information service is particularly important today when by virtue of the extraordinary complexity and diversity of social life and the huge scale of creative activity the volume of information has grown to gigantic proportions. This enormous volume of information can be processed only with the aid of the latest scientific and technological achievements, particularly modern mathematical methods and electronic computers.
The setting up of an efficient information service is linked up with the training of specialists in economics and mathematics and in the handling of modern electronic computers.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ EfficiencyAdministration presupposes a definite objective and the finding Qf the materiali manpower and financial resources for attaining that objective. These are an important aspect of administration. An objective may not be attained on schedule or it may never be reached at all even when there are sufficient materials and manpower and plenty of time. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance for the administration to ensure the most efficient and rational utilisation of material, manpower and financial resources. Efficiency therefore allows the objective to be reached within the shortest possible time and with the least outlay of material means and manpower. The administration, Lenin wrote, must secure the ``greatest economy of forces and the most productive utilisation of manpower''.^^**^^ Exemplary organisation on scientific lines, i.e., the creation of the most rational and expedient relations between the different links of the social system (between territorial administrative units, spheres of social activities, branches of the economy, individual enterprises, and so on) is vital if the leadership of society is to be effective. Of fundamental _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 304.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 28, p. 351.
198 importance in the socialist revolution is ``the positive or constructive work of setting up an extremely intricate and delicate system of new organisational relationships extending to the planned production and distribution of goods....''^^*^^This brings to the fore the task of creating the most favourable conditions for human endeavour. Labour is the foundation of the life and development of man and society, the source of material and spiritual wealth; therefore, the success of communist construction depends chiefly on how labour is organised and how efficient and productive it is. Lenin regarded the scientific organisation of labour as indispensable for the building of the new society. His formula for this scientific organisation of labour was ``organisation of labour in socialist fashion (agriculture+industry)''.^^**^^
He advised drawing upon the capitalist experience of organising labour and was interested in, for example, the Taylor system and recommended that its positive and negative aspects should be taken into consideration. He was interested in the relationship between man and machines in the production process, in man's place and role in the process of production or, as he put it, the physiological credit and debit in the human machine. He considered that methods of organising labour scientifically had to be mastered not only by leaders but also by the masses and suggested a contest for textbooks on labour organisation in general and on management in particular.
Ever conscious of the time factor, he was always careful not to waste other people's time. He was a principled opponent of endless meetings, especially of ostentatious meetings into which a large number of people, let alone people who had nothing to do with the problem under discussion, were drawn. He did not allow people to spend their time uselessly at conferences, in waiting-rooms, in purposeless running around and in unnecessary paperwork. For efficient management the time factor must be taken into account in all matters, big and small. Deadlines must therefore be based on a sober account of the available forces.
_-_-_^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 241.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 35, p. 430.
199 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1967/SC342/20070314/299.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.03.21) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ nilThe problems that Lenin worked out theoretically and resolved in practice with the purpose of ensuring efficient management of socialist construction included the planning of the economy as a whole and its individual branches, current and long-term planning, rigid dovetailing of different plans, rational distribution of productive forces and their uninterrupted improvement, scientific and technical progress, effective accounting and control, general principles of remuneration for labour and for stimulating labour, running enterprises on a self-supporting basis, profits and the monetary system.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ People's InterestsThe task of administration is primarily that of directing peopie and organising their labour scientifically. But people are living, thinking and active beings. They have definite interests, aspirations and material and spiritual requirements. They work and participate in social, political and cultural activities under the influence of definite factors, which must be taken into consideration when these people are provided with leadership and organised for one task or another. Requirements are the most important factor stimulating people's actions and creative work. ``No one,'' Marx wrote, ``can do anything without at the same time doing it for the sake of one or other of his needs and for the sake of the organ of this need.''^^*^^
Under socialism the measure of satisfying requirements is the quantity and quality of labour. In organising scientific administration, it is therefore extremely important to adjust the measure of the satisfaction of the requirements of each person to the degree of his labour activity, to the quantity and quality of the labour expended by him, to the size of his contribution to the social wealth. If he works well his requirements are satisfied more than those of the person who works poorly. If he has harmed the state he has to bear material responsibility and the satisfaction of his requirements is restricted. Under socialism that is the substance of personal material incentive dictated by the law of distribution according to work.
In socialist society, however, man works not alone but in _-_-_
^^*^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, The German Ideology, Moscow, 1964, p. 276.
200 a collective (factory, collective or slate farm, or other enterprise), and, therefore, the measure of his labour contribution and, correspondingly, the measure of the satisfaction of his requirements largely depend upon the labour contribution of the production collective as a whole. Consequently, personal material incentive is part and parcel of the collective material incentive. In its turn, an individual enterprise is only a link in the country's economic system, and the welfare of the entire personnel of that enterprise and of each of its employees individually depends on the successes of the entire economy.Far from belittling the role of moral incentives for work, Lenin insisted that material and moral incentives should be intelligently combined, and attached particularly great significance to material incentives. He wrote that the transition to communism can be effected not directly by enthusiasm but, ``aided by the enthusiasm engendered by the great revolution, on the basis of personal interest, personal incentive and business principles''.^^*^^ Economic incentives, i.e., an account of the interests and requirements of people, derive from the requirements of objective laws and come forward as a major principle of the scientific management of production and administration of society as a whole. Scientific administration presupposes not only efficient planning founded on accurate computations but also improved economic incentives, the achievement of harmonious unity of the economic interests of society and of each individual enterprise and individual worker. These incentives take the economic interests of people into account, facilitate an increasingly fuller satisfaction of their material and spiritual requirements, and induce individuals and entire collectives to raise their labour productivity, introduce more efficiency in their organisation, spend material and financial resources rationally, improve qualifications and achieve a higher cultural level. This helps to expand and improve production, boost the national income and increase the share of the national income used for the people's consumption. Moreover, the growth of production is accompanied by an improvement of all other aspects of social activity.
_-_-_~^^*^^ Lenin. Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 58.
201 __ALPHA_LVL3__ The Main LinkAdministration necessarily pre supposes the solution of numerous interrelated problems. These problems are dissimilar with regard to their significance, place in the general chain of developments and the means and time of finding a solution for them. Lenin considered that the main link, the principal problem, whose solution provides the key to all other problems, should be pinpointed in this chain of developments. ``It is not enough,'' he wrote, ``to be a revolutionary and an adherent of socialism or a Communist in general. You must be able at each particular moment to find the particular link in the chain which you must grasp with all your might in order to hold the whole chain and to prepare firmly for the transition to the next link; the order of the links, their form, the manner in which they are linked together, the way they differ from each other in the historical chain of events, are not as simple and not as meaningless as those in an ordinary chain made by a smith.''^^*^^ He had the gift of determining the main link and concentrating the efforts of the Party and the people on it. The development of trade, industrialisation and collectivisation were the main links of Lenin's plan of building socialism at the different stages of the implementation of that plan.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Democratic CentralismIn order to ensure the unity and integrity of socialist society and conscious, purposeful direction of socialist economy and social affairs as a whole there must be exemplary, scientifically organised administration of the individual links of the social system and social production---individual districts, enterprises, and so forth.
It is here, at the factories and collective and state farms that the means of existence are created, that the plans of socialist construction are carried out, that people show creative inspiration and initiative in their work, and that the practical experience of millions upon millions of people is accumulated.
How then is the administration of society as a whole combined with the administration of its individual links? What principle underlying administration most fully conforms to the nature of socialist society? This principle is _-_-_
~^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 274.
202 democratic centralism, which Lenin comprehensively elaborated and scientifically substantiated. He wrote: ``Neither railways nor transport, nor large-scale machinery and enterprises in general can function correctly without a single will linking the entire working personnel into an economic organ operating with the precision of clockwork.''^^^^*^^^^As the fundamental principle underlying the direction of communist construction, democratic centralism issues from the very substance, the objective nature of socialism. Public ownership gives life to unity, integrity, centralisation and planning, on the one hand, and broad initiative and relative independence to the individual links of the social system, and the creative activity of millions of people, on the other.
Democratic centralism, Lenin wrote, ensures ``absolute harmony and unity" in the function of different spheres of social life, of the different districts and regions of the country, but at the same time it ``presupposes the possibility, created for the first time in history, of a full and unhampered development not only of specific local features, but also of local inventiveness, local initiative, of diverse ways, methods and means of progress to the common goal''.^^**^^
This principle has nothing in common with stereotyped patterns, regimentation or anarchy. Unity in the main and in the essential should not violate but, on the contrary, secure multiformity in details, in local features, in the approach to work, in concrete methods of carrying out common tasks. At the same time, the relative independence of local authorities should not develop into efforts to be original or overstep the bounds of common purposes, the interests of communist construction, otherwise violations of relationships, disproportion in development and a sliding into anarchist separatism and parochialism are inevitable.
Lenin categorically opposed all manifestations of anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism, whose representatives regarded socialist society as a conglomerate of autonomous production communes. Under the spurious ``banner'' of defending independence and freedom, they came out against centralised administration and the planning of economic _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 27, p. 212.
^^**^^ Ibid., p. 208.
203 development, demanding complete autonomy for local government and economic organs, their independence from the centre, and thereby seeking to reverse social progress, to take it back to the workshop system, to feudal dismemberment and insulation. Lenin also combated the ``Left Communists'', emphasising that the working people were called on to administer society in all its links and control the work of these links, and not lock themselves up in the narrow boundaries of their professions, their ``own'' branch of the economy, their individual factory or mill.At the same time, Lenin did not tolerate contempt for ``outlying districts" and the ignoring of local experience or of the creative initiative of the people. Coming out against the abundance of ``general arguments" and ``political fireworks'', he called for more concreteness in the study and dissemination of advanced local experience, for a more profound study of reality in the localities. The deeper we delve into living practice and distract our attention from bureaucratic instructions, the more successfully will the work proceed. The task is ``to teach the people the art of administration, not from books, not from lectures or meetings, but from practical experience''.^^*^^
In working out and introducing democratic centralism into practice, Lenin attached great importance to combining this principle with collective leadership and one-man administration of communist construction. He underscored the importance of collective leadership and demanded that there should be individual responsibility. He wrote: ``There must be collective discussion, but individual responsibility.''^^**^^
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. Subject of AdministrationThe administration of social processes presupposes the existence not only of the object (society and its individual links) but also of the subject of administration---the centre, which unites all the links of the administration, co-ordinates their functions and corrects them, depending on changes in the external and domestic situation. On the scale of socialist _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 427.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 33, p. 70.
204 society the subject of administration, the uniting centre, is the socialist state, which interacts with the complex system of mass organisations and non-state enterprises.Lenin placed the Marxist party, the militant vanguard of the people, without which scientific leadership of communist construction is inconceivable, at the head of this aggregate of state organs and non-state organisations. ``To govern,'' he said, ``you need an army of steeled revolutionary Communists. We have it, and it is called the Party.''^^*^^ Drawing upon its knowledge of objective laws and generalising and relying on the experience of the masses, the Party directs society's economic, political and spiritual activities. It draws up a single line in all spheres of life and conducts organisational and ideological work to implement this line. The Party fulfils its leading role through a system of organs of state power, the trade unions, the co-operatives and youth, creative and sports organisations. Of the mass organisations, Lenin attached special importance to the trade unions, regarding them as a school of economic management, administration and communism.
The Party unites the activities of these organisations, directing them towards a single objective. Far from substituting for state and other organs, it does everything in its power to promote their initiative and secure the greatest possible democracy in their work. Through these organs it is linked up with the masses, teaches and educates them and learns from them. Together with the people, with the people's state, the Party carries out the function of directing communist construction.
An important role in directing social processes is played by the state apparatus with its numerous economic, planning, cultural, educational and other institutions. Constant attention, Lenin stressed, had to be given to organising and improving this apparatus. He made high demands of employees of the state apparatus. The main demands were devotion to communism, a lofty sense of responsibility to the people, a principled approach to the work, and knowledge. In order to administer, he wrote, one must know one's job. It is impossible to administer without competence, _-_-_
~^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 62.
205 without skill in the art of administration. He demanded that employees of the state apparatus know the theory of Marxism and had special training, expert knowledge of modern methods of production, and ability. He considered that practical know-how, efficiency and organisation were the main thing in the work of the state apparatus.The state apparatus has to operate according to a definite system. This means that its work must consist not of casual, unrelated measures but of a profoundly reasoned out totality of strictly regulated and interconnected measures drawn up on the basis of a careful analysis of concrete conditions, the situation and the tasks confronting society as a whole and its individual links. This presupposes specialisation of the functions of each organ of administration, co-ordination among them and the exclusion of duplication and unnecessary intermediate links. Absence of co-ordination in the work of local departments is one of the great evils hindering economic development.^^*^^
Lenin paid special attention to the relationship between the administrative and scientific aspects of the work of the state apparatus. By scientific aspect we mean that organs of administration and leaders must master the foremost achievements of science and technology in the sphere under their jurisdiction, while the administrative aspect presupposes the ability to lead people, to draw and organise them for the achievement of the set goal.
However, the significance of the administrative aspect should not be exaggerated or substituted for the scientific aspect. Every organ of administration must combine these two aspects. As regards the head of an enterprise, he must possess the ability to attract people and have sufficient scientific and technical training to organise the work and verify its fulfilment by his subordinates. The scientific aspect of administration must be considered as basic because work cannot be correctly organised without science. At the same time, it is extremely important for the head of an enterprise to be skilled as an organiser.
Lenin could not stand the ``communist'' conceit of dabblers and bureaucrats and demanded that they ``learn to put a value on science'', ``learn to work systematically" and _-_-_
~^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 386.
206 make use of experience and practice. ``The nerve of their trying, offhand, to pick holes in something it took an army of first-class specialists to produce! Isn't it a shame to try to shrug it off with trite little jokes, and to put on airs about one's right 'to withhold approval'?... We need more practical studies ... in place of the Tit Titych type of tactics ('I might give my approval, if I feel like it').''^^*^^The Leninist requirement that managerial personnel be carefully selected is of paramount importance. His criterion for promotion to administrative and executive posts was not staid age, past services, high title or connections, but devotion to socialism combined with a sober and keen mind, considerable scientific and technological knowledge, organisational talent and the ability to run large enterprises smoothly without fuss. He considered only people of this calibre fit for promotion to ``responsible posts of leaders of the people's labour, leaders of administration''.^^**^^
Administration is a sphere of subjective activity where it is not always possible immediately to take into account the constant changes in objective reality, in the object of administration and its surroundings. Organs of administration are called upon to note and rectify mistakes as quickly as possible, to bring the administration into line with the requirements of objective development. Haste, rashness and subjectivism must be avoided in the taking of decisions; in other words, organs of administration must painstakingly study practical experience, carefully, efficiently and perseveringly check what has been done and still more carefully and in a businesslike way rectify mistakes, ``taking a step forward only when there is ample proof of the usefulness of a given method, system of management, proportion, selection of men, etc''.^^***^^
Successful administration thus lies in the proper selection of personnel and executive control, collective leadership combined with personal responsibility, broad democracy and publicity, exacting criticism and self-criticism, and electivity and removability of officials of elective organs.
_-_-_^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, pp. 141--42, 145.
^^**^^ Ibid., Vol. 27, p. 263.
^^***^^ Ibid., Vol. 32, p. 90.
207 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. Improvement of the SystemThe Soviet Union has extensive experience of planning social reforms and scientifically directing social processes. The content and organisational forms of administration are constantly improved in the process of building socialism and communism, this being accompanied by changes in society's class pattern and the growth of the economy and the cultural level of the people.
Guided by the Marxist-Leninist teaching on society and by Leninist principles of administration, and led by the Communist Party the Soviet people have scored outstanding achievements in the most diverse fields of social development. The Soviet Union is the first country in the world to have completed the building of socialism, a highly organised society with a modern economy, developed social relations and rich spiritual life.
The building of this new society was not devoid of difficulties, shortcomings and errors in leadership, particularly errors and distortions of a subjective nature. The Communist Party brought to light and rectified mistakes, surmounted difficulties and shortcomings and thereby adapted the direction of social processes to the requirements of life, to the objective course of development.
Lenin regarded scientific direction of social processes as one of the basic tasks of communist construction. He not only worked out the principles for giving scientific direction to these processes, but also consistently implemented them. He was convinced that socialism would triumph over capitalism in methods of administration as well.
At the present stage of communist construction---due to the growth of socialist economy, the improvement of social relations, the development of culture and the country's colossal achievements and plans---administration has become an extremely complex matter. Today, as never before, there is a need for a searching and comprehensive analysis of the trends of social development, of the intricate intertwining and interaction of the various aspects of social life, and for paying scrupulous attention to the requirements of 208 objective laws and their operation under concrete conditions and in concrete sectors of construction. That is why the Communist Party attaches such tremendous importance to the problems involved in scientifically administering society and gives these problems its closest attention.
The Party is determined to develop and improve the Leninist principles of administration in line with presentday requirements. This is testified to by its latest decisions on economic, political and inner-Party problems, and by the fact that scientific and realistic direction of social processes is becoming firmly rooted in the practice of the Party and the government.
In this respect, the decisions of the October 1964 and later plenary meetings of the C.C. C.P.S.U. are of fundamental importance. The measures decided upon at these plenary meetings to improve the leadership of the country's political, economic and cultural life mark, as has been noted at the 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U., the advent of a new stage of development of socialist society. The Leninist principles of administration have been further developed in these decisions. For example, further elaboration was given to the principle of objectivity and concreteness insofar as the new steps to improve the management of industry and agriculture not only conform with the requirements of objective laws but also take into account the intricate circumstances in which these laws operate and the specific manifestation of these laws under concrete conditions and in definite spheres of the economy. In implementing these measures meticulous attention is paid to the social laws of socialist development, particularly the laws and categories linked up with commodity-monetary relations, which are an objectively necessary accessory of socialist society. Emphasising that commodity-monetary relations can be directed under socialism, the Party demands that use should be made of the accompanying mighty economic levers (profit, credit, wages and salaries, and so forth) to secure the optimal management of individual enterprises and of the whole economy. In addition to improving planning, serious attention is given to economic incentives, to taking the interests of people into consideration, to harmoniously combining the interests of society, the staffs of enterprises and each individual citizen. Economic incentives induce every person and __PRINTERS_P_209_COMMENT__ 14---2775 209 every enterprise to use the latest machines with the purpose of boosting labour productivity, improving the quality of the output and enhancing efficiency.
The measures charted by the Party further develop the principle of democratic centralism. The ramified, strictly centralised management of industry founded on a single state plan is combined with broader operational and economic independence of the individual enterprises, with greater local initiative, with the extension of the democratic foundations of management and with the creation of conditions enabling the people to participate more actively in economic management and to exert a greater influence on social processes.
At the 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U. the bettering of economic management and of the administration of social life as a whole through the steady improvement of planning, the provision of incentives for economic growth and the correct combination of centralised planned leadership with greater economic initiative and independence of industrial enterprises was characterised as one of the major tasks of economic development for 1966--70. It was stressed at the Congress that present-day conditions make it binding upon executive personnel to be proficient in economic leadership, uproot formal, armchair management, apply the latest scientific methods of management involving the use of modern computer technology, and secure a reduction of the managerial apparatus. The Congress paid special attention to the need for greater efficiency in production, pointing out that this could be achieved on the basis of technical progress, by improving the organisation of labour and production, making more rational use of basic assets and investments, bettering the quality of output and enforcing strict economy.
The Leninist, efficient and scientific method of directing communist construction is gaining a firm foothold in all spheres of social activities, ensuring fresh achievements and the elimination of errors and shortcomings. While improving the forms and methods of directing communist construction, the Party is steadfastly cleansing these forms and methods of elements of voluntarism, subjectivism, harebrained schemes, ostentation and political fireworks. It is giving them a solid, strictly scientific foundation and 210 bringing them into line with the requirements of the objective laws of socialism.
The Party is activating the role played by the Soviets of Working People's Deputies and mass organisations in the promotion of economic, political and cultural development and taking steps to improve the organs of administration and consistently apply democratic principles in their work, and further encourage the people's initiative. The consistent implementation of Leninist principles of administration, the steady improvement and development of these principles and the working out of new forms and methods of administration in conformity with the present-day level of social development and the achievements of science and technology are the earnest of the success of communist construction.
Let us now turn to the concrete tasks of the building of communism and to the ways and means of carrying them out.
[211] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 8 __ALPHA_LVL1__ MATERIAL AND TECHNICAL BASISThe material and technical basis is the sum total of the implements and means of labour which man uses to produce the necessities of life. Moreover, it is an important index of the level of development reached by society.
When we speak of the progress of society we mean, primarily, the progress made in the building of its material and technical basis. Therefore, when we set forth the tasks involved in building the most progressive society on earth--- communist society---we must begin with the ways and means of building its material and technical basis.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. The Function of the MaterialModern machine production is the material and technical basis of socialism, the first phase of communism. However, socialist production has as yet not reached the state and level enabling it abundantly to satisfy the people's steadily growing material and spiritual requirements. Without having reached that level society cannot enter communism, whose basic dictum is: ``From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.'' The cup of communism is a cup of abundance, which must be constantly filled to the brim, because only in that case is it possible to provide each person with everything he needs.
No principles are finer, loftier or more attractive than those of communism. But in order to implement these 212 principles there must be abundance. There is only one way to accomplish this, and it is to secure the development of the productive forces on a mammoth scale; in other words, to build the material and technical basis of communism. When this basis is built and abundance is achieved, and when every member of society learns to apply his capabilities to the utmost it will be easy to go over to communist distribution according to needs.
The function of the material and technical basis of communism is thus primarily to provide an abundance of material and spiritual values and thereby create the conditions for the implementation of the communist principle of distribution and the achievement of complete economic equality for all people. This is the sole foundation for securing the highest possible labour productivity, putting an end to the old division of labour and reforming its very process, turning it into a vital need and a source of joy, inspiration and desire to create.
The material and technical basis of communism is the only foundation on which it is possible to transform socialist into communist social relations, and erase the essential distinctions between the working class and the peasants, between town and country and between mental and physical work.
Only with the existence of this basis is it possible to bring up the new man, a man with a rich intellect, lofty moral principles and magnificent physical development. This can well be appreciated, because to have the opportunity to develop fully man must be absolutely secure materially, his spiritual requirements must be fully satisfied and he must have plenty of leisure time, after work, in order to participate actively in the administration of society and improve himself physically and culturally. The amount of free time a person has depends on the productivity of his labour, in other words, on the quantity of products he can produce within the shortest possible working time. This is achieved only with the existence and skilful utilisation of the most perfect implements and means of labour designed in accordance with the latest scientific and technical advances. The material and technical basis of communism is thus the economic prerequisite for the moulding of the fully developed man, which is the goal of social development.
213Communism is an efficiently organised society with an extremely mobile and rationally marshalled industry that can effectually readjust itself in order speedily to satisfy constantly growing social and personal requirements. But efficiency in administration and management likewise rests on modern technology, on the latest means of control, information and communication.
Another vital function of the material and technical basis of communism is that it allows winning the economic competition with capitalism, increasing the impact of the new society on international affairs, and strengthening the country's defence capacity, thereby giving Soviet people the possibility of working in peace without fear of aggressive encroachment by the imperialists.
Thus, the building of this basis is the main objective of communist construction.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. Features and Ways of Building the Material andIn speaking of the features of the material and technical basis of communism, we must note that the building of this basis is not reduced simply to a quantitative growth or simple increase of production capacities. First and foremost, it presupposes deep-going qualitative changes of the very process of production. Its qualitative features are: the country's complete electrification and, on that foundation, improved technology and organisation of social production in all spheres of the economy; comprehensive mechanisation of production and an ever-growing scale of automation; broad application of chemistry in the economy; the utmost promotion of new, economically effective branches of production, and the development of new forms of energy and materials; comprehensive and efficient utilisation of natural, material and manpower resources; the closest possible link between science and production, and a rapid rate of scientific and technical progress; a high level of culture and technical know-how among the people; a substantially higher labour productivity than in the leading capitalist countries.
214 __ALPHA_LVL3__ Automation andAutomation is the truest sign of our times. Without automation modern production would never have achieved its present level. Automation has made possible the launching of spaceships, the operation of the giant nuclear-powered ice-breaker, the mass production of diverse machines, and the attainment by atom particles of incredible velocities in accelerators.
There could be no question of the technology of communism without automation. In order to get a picture of this technology, of the industry of the future, let us glance into the workshop of a large factory.
It is a spacious and bright building with rows of busy machines, a large quantity of various equipment and numerous devices. Only a few people operate all this machinery. One of them is on duty at the control panel with its multitude of switches, push-buttons and gauges.
Is this huge workshop operated by only one person? Indeed, there is only one person, but he has numerous assistants in the form of his all-seeing, all-knowing and versatile machines and instruments. They feed the workblanks, process them and pass them on in the required sequence. As though at the wave of a magic wand, the finished parts move from the different departments to the assembly workshop, where they are put together to form the finished article.
This then is an automated plant, where all the technological and transport operations are accomplished without man's direct participation. Man only controls the automated machines and instruments, adjusts them and programmes the technological process.
The Soviet Union has many automated production lines and workshops, but their number is still far too few and they do not characterise industry as a whole. Under socialism far from all labour processes are mechanised, let alone automated. In particular, this is true of auxiliary, loading and unloading operations. In communist society automation, to say nothing of mechanisation, will become widespread. Machines will operate not only workshops and factories but also huge power stations, entire power grids, oilfields, mines and air, sea and railway transport.
Comprehensive mechanisation and automation are the 215 key trend of technical progress and a feature of the material and technical basis of communism. They effectively boost labour productivity, thus helping to step up output, improve its quality and reduce production costs, deliver man from arduous physical effort and change and creatively enrich the very nature of labour.
Soviet industry is confronted with the task of supplying the economy with all types of modern machines and mechanisms, particularly with means of automation, remote control and electronics. This is stressed in the Programme of the C.P.S.U., which envisages an unparalleled rapid growth of the output of the most diverse means of automation and electronics.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Power EngineeringEvery branch of the economy rests on power engineering, because production is always linked up with power consumption.
Electric energy is the key requirement of modern scientific and technical progress, and for that reason the Programme of the C.P.S.U. regards electrification as the pivot of economic development.
The most universal form of power, electricity, is becoming ever more widespread, changing all branches of production and technological processes. Automation, electronics, cybernetics, chemistry, electrometallurgy, the electric working of metals, electrothermy and other spheres are founded on electricity.
A higher power-to-man ratio is vital to the growth of labour productivity and in making labour easier. The Programme of the C.P.S.U. calls for a sharp increase of the power-to-man ratio through the priority development of the power engineering industry. The generation of huge quantities of electric power will signify the implementation of Lenin's formula that communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.
Power engineering is linked up with the fuel industry because oil, gas, coal and other fuels are the basic sources of power. At present about 1,000 million tons of conventional fuel (in terms of fuel with a heat combustion of 7,000 kilocalories per kilo) are consumed annually in the U.S.S.R. One-third of the investments for the development of industry and transport is spent on fuel and electric power~
216Electric power is produced chiefly through the combustion of fuel and from the energy of water. However, no matter how great the reserves of fuel and water resources are, they are not limitless. It has been estimated, for instance, that the explored reserves of conventional fossil fuel will be exhausted within the next 100 years. Mankind is, naturally, looking for ways of producing and utilising new forms of energy.
Nuclear power engineering is being intensively developed. The U.S.S.R. already has several large atomic power stations. Atomic energy is propelling ships, converting sea water into fresh water, driving machines at factories, helping medical research, and so forth. Much progress has been achieved in turning atomic energy into electric power, in controlling thermonuclear reactions and in utilising solar energy.
Experts tell us that if throughout the world power engineering expands at the Soviet rate, the power output will increase approximately 10,000-fold within the next 100 years. This will not only help to multiply labour productivity many times over but also give man unheard-of power over nature. He will be able to control the climate---regulate temperature and precipitation, and heat the soil, turning the globe into a flowering orchard and freeing crops from the whims of nature. Man's transforming activities will thereby range beyond our planet.
Complete electrification will give tremendous impetus to the engineering, metallurgical, metalworking, fuel and other heavy industries, which will remain the foundation of economy under communism as well. In its turn, the swift development of the heavy industries will make it possible to raise all other branches of the economy---the light and food industries, agriculture, building, transport, and communications, as well as trade, public catering, public health, housing, the municipal economy and other everyday services--- to a higher level.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ ChemicalisationOne of the highlights of the material and technical basis of communism is the chemicalization of industry. Modern production with its incredible speeds, enormous pressures and super-high temperatures is inconceivable without new manmade raw materials, and fuels. In close alliance with 217 production, science has therefore joined nature in a competition ``for quality" and, more often than not, it gains the upper hand. Science has already developed plastics, artificial rubber, fibres and other products of the present-day chemistry of polymers, most of which are tougher, cheaper and more attractive than natural materials.
Chemical products and synthetic materials are effecting profound qualitative changes in key industries, allowing them to put out more and better products, ensuring accumulations for further industrial development and raising the standard of living. Chemistry is enlarging the raw material resources, producing new materials for industry and effective means (fertilisers, for example) of stepping up agricultural output and turning out more and better consumer goods.
Chemicalisation is making work easier, increasing labour productivity and helping to cut down labour outlays. For instance, 200 man-days are required for the production of a ton of raw cotton. The output of a ton of wool takes 350--400 man-days. But it takes only 50 man-days to produce a ton of viscose fabric. Chemicalisation saves huge quantities of foodstuffs ordinarily used for industrial purposes. Progress in Chemicalisation creates favourable conditions for the development of atomic power engineering, reactive technology, radio electronics and other important industries.
Polymers adorn the life of man. Warm, inexpensive and smart clothes, hygienic and attractive floor and wall coverings, washable furniture and unbreakable utensils are just a few of the articles made from plastics that are carving a niche for themselves in everyday life.
Keeping in step with life, the Programme of the C.P.S.U. calls for a huge growth of the chemical industry, particularly of the output of plastics.
Practice shows that in the chemical industry investments are repaid rapidly. In the six-year period from 1958 to 1964 the state invested 8,200 million rubles in this industry and the returns in that same period totalled 14,000 million rubles.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Agricultural ProductionWe have reviewed the role of electricity, chemistry and automation in the building of communism's material and technical basis. But they are not the only instruments for building that basis.
218Many industries, particularly the consumer goods industry, require raw materials produced in agriculture, which, in addition, provides people with food. The standard of living and society's progress towards communist abundance depend, in substantial measure, on the level of agricultural development, and, therefore, one of the most urgent and difficult tasks of communist construction is to achieve an upswing of agricultural output.
In the U.S.S.R. agriculture has made considerable headway during Soviet years. There has been a marked increase in the output of grain and other products. At the same time, the level of agricultural production is still not high enough to ensure the abundant satisfaction of the rapidly growing food requirements of the population. This is due chiefly to the population increment and the rise of real incomes. The outlook, therefore, is that requirements will grow even more rapidly than before.
Moreover, shortcomings and errors arising from subjectivism and the ignoring of the objective laws of economic development have been brought to light in agriculture in recent years. These shortcomings and errors, which affected planning, financing, crediting and the price policy, slowed down the growth of agricultural production, causing a certain disproportion in the country's economy as a whole. The Party has launched urgent measures to promote agriculture, strengthen the collective and state farms and increase the profitability of agricultural production.
Agricultural output, it was pointed out at the 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U., is to be boosted chiefly by intensified farming through mechanisation, electrification and chemicalisation as well as large-scale land improvement in zones with unfavourable natural conditions. However, intensification yields results only when it is rational, i.e., founded on a comprehensive account of natural and economic conditions and real land, material and manpower resources. The choice of the ways and means of intensification has to be economically substantiated with expert computations.
Such are the basic features of the material and technical basis of communism and the ways of building it as charted in the Programme of the C.P.S.U.
A large contribution towards creating this basis is being made by the five-year plan of economic development of 219 the U.S.S.R. for 1966--70. Fulfilment of this plan will ensure considerable progress in communist construction and the further strengthening of the Soviet Union's economic and defence potential. The principal objective of this five-year plan is to make the utmost use of scientific and technical progress, promote the growth of all branches of social production, enhance production efficiency and raise labour productivity in order to achieve a further considerable expansion of industry and consistently high rates of agricultural development, thereby securing a substantial rise of the standard of living and a fuller satisfaction of the material and cultural requirements of all Soviet people. The plan envisages a growth of approximately 50 per cent in the industrial output and a marked increase (25 per cent on the average) in agricultural output.
A point we must make here is that on the basis of economic development the plan provides for the solution of important social problems: accelerated rate of growth of national prosperity, which creates the material prerequisites for the all-round development of man; further progress in erasing the essential distinctions between town and country and between mental and physical work; the strengthening of the fraternal alliance of the peoples of the U.S.S.R.; and a still further consolidation of the political and material foundations of the alliance between the working class and the peasants.
When the material and technical basis of communism is built, the U.S.S.R. will have an abundance of material and spiritual values for the entire population, and this will enable it to go over to communist distribution according to needs.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. Science as a Direct Productive Force __ALPHA_LVL3__ The Modern ScientificToday we are witnessing a new scientific and technical revolution sparked off by stirring achievements in automation, radio electronics, telemechanics, the harnessing of atomic power, space exploration, cybernetics, chemistry and biology.
This revolution is being accomplished in both the socialist and the capitalist systems. Inasmuch as the laws of 220 social development and the objective of social production differ fundamentally in these systems, the motives behind scientific and technical progress as well as the social and economic consequences and prospects of this progress are likewise different.
The threat of being crushed and ruined in the life-- anddeath competition with his rivals forces the capitalist to improve production on the basis of the latest scientific and technical advances. Thus, scientific and technical progress is objectively vital in capitalist society as well. In the more developed countries the capitalists skilfully use modern science and technology to increase production capacities, raise labour productivity, improve the quality of output, and so forth.
At the same time, there are deep-rooted contradictions in scientific and technical progress under capitalism. By virtue of this progress production shows a trend towards unlimited expansion. On the other hand, the population's purchasing power is limited and competition creates difficulties in the sale of products abroad. The narrowness of the market restricts production, while automation and other scientific and technical achievements, especially those that cut the demand for manpower, increase unemployment and thereby still further reduce the people's purchasing power. In capitalist society the development of the scientific and technical revolution is thus seriously hindered by chaotic market conditions, anarchy of production, and competition, which give rise to commercial secrets in science and technology, thereby impeding scientific and technical co-- operation. The reason behind all this is that production, science and technology are furthered with an eye to profit. Hence the deterioration of the position of large groups of working people, unemployment, the ousting of man from the sphere of labour and the attendant curb on opportunities for the development of man's capabilities.
Capital, Marx wrote, ``exploits science and appropriates it in the process of production''. Under capitalism the scientist is usually a slave to the moneybag and has no freedom for creative work. In order to engage in creative research he has to sacrifice his convictions, conscience and common sense. Like Goethe's Faust he sells his soul to the devil, and with it his talent, convictions and conscience.
221The capitalists and their theoreticians offer many recipes for ending the contradictions inherent in scientific and technical progress. Some of them go so far as to demand the banning of science and technology, calling upon mankind to return to the primitive herd. One of them declared that unemployment could be ended by banning the wheel, arguing that if people carried everything on their backs there would be work for all. But the wheel cannot be banned any more than the wheel of history can be stopped.
The more far-sighted minds in the capitalist world are beginning to understand this and are coming round to the view that the solution lies in a fundamental reform of the capitalist system itself. S. Lilley, the English scientist, wrote: ``There is no ultimate escape from the fact that capitalism, well though it worked in its time, is not a suitable economic structure for making beneficial use of the advanced techniques of today.. .. Turn and twist as we may, there is no ultimate way forward except that of changing the whole economic system into a socialist one.''
In socialist society, the purpose and prospects of production and of the scientific and technical revolution are completely different. Social production is organised by plan to ensure the welfare and all-round development of all members of society, and therefore only socialism and communism give scope to the new scientific and technical revolution and use scientific achievements and production not to the detriment of man, as under imperialism, but for his benefit.
Naturally, this does not mean that under socialism automation does not engender serious social problems. One of these is the problem of creating the facilities for retraining and correctly utilising manpower made redundant by technical progress.
In the process of communist construction science draws ever closer to production which, in its turn, makes ever broader use of scientific achievements. Science is increasingly growing into a direct productive force, while production is gradually becoming the technological embodiment of science.
To a large extent, the rate of the Soviet Union's progress depends on scientific achievements because they help society not only to resolve present-day problems but also to 222 peep into the future. They enable man to harness natural wealth and know and apply the laws of nature and the laws of social development. Marx's prophetic words that with the development of large-scale industry the creation of real material and spiritual wealth will depend ``upon the general level of science and technology or on the employment of this science in industry" are coming true.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The Future of ScienceThe turning of science into a direct productive force does not mean that it is becoming some third, relatively independent element of the productive forces side by side with the means of production and with people, who produce material values. Science acquires the role of a productive force through implements of production, in which it finds its material embodiment, and through people who master science and utilise its achievements in production.
The fact that science is increasingly becoming a direct productive force is due primarily to the development of modern production, which is inconceivable without science. Today entire branches of production and technology ( chemistry of polymers, nuclear power engineering, electronics, and so forth) are technological applications of science. Moreover, this trend issues from the development of science itself. Only some fifty years ago, scientists worked alone in the quiet of laboratories and used apparatuses made by themselves from glass, tin and wood. The situation is altogether different today.
For modern science it is imperative to have close links with production which supplies it with equipment, ensures it with the engineers, technicians and workers for the building and operation of equipment and provides it with broad facilities for experimentation. The secrets of the atomic nucleus, for instance, cannot be studied without super-powerful accelerators and other modern instruments and apparatuses produced by industry. The magnet of one of the world's largest nuclear particle accelerators---the 10,000 million electron-volt proton phasotron installed at Dubna in 1957---has a diameter of nearly 60 metres and weighs 36 tons. Energy equal to nearly one-fourth of the capacity of the huge Dnieper Hydropower Station is required to start this accelerator, in whose building hundreds 223 of factories and research institutions throughout the Soviet Union co-operated. Today one cannot visualise science without electronic microscopes, space vehicles, radio telescopes and countless other simple and intricate mean-s of knowledge. All these means are the products of co-operation between science and production.
When \ve speak of science turning into a direct productive force we mean mainly mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology and other natural and technical sciences. The achievements of these sciences are being embodied in implements of production and in the production experience of people. At the same time, communist construction presupposes the steady improvement of the running of social processes, particularly the whole of material production. To this end it is necessary to promote scientific administration, which is studied by social sciences. Economic science, which improves methods of planning and management, is becoming increasingly important in the organisation and direction of production. A new science, economic cybernetics, which, strictly speaking, is not a purely natural science, is emerging virtually before our eyes. This science utilises mathematical methods and modern computers to indicate how best to utilise material, manpower and financial resources and distribute industries and material and technical supplies. It estimates expenditures and forecasts the results of investments in the economy. Thus, social sciences, too, play an important role in resolving production problems.
New industries are springing up and ``old'', traditional branches of production are being completely recast under the revolutionising influence of science. Take the iron and steel industry. Formerly the word metallurgy was associated only with the process of extracting metals from ores. Today it is a science in its own right and the modern iron and steel industry cannot do without it. Iron, steel, pig iron and non-ferrous metals continue to comprise the bulk of the metals used in industry, but other metals--- uranium, thorium, beryllium and cesium---are beginning to play an important role. Although their total volume used in industry is only a drop in the ocean they are vital to nuclear power engineering, radio electronics and rocketry. Incidentally, these metals are effective only when 224 they are super-pure, i.e., almost completely devoid of admixtures.
When we speak of the link between science and production, we must not regard this link as being completely utilitarian and demand instant production returns from scientists. Science must see not only the present but also the future, create a reserve for that future by working on theoretical problems that open new roads in science and technology. It does not matter if some of this work does not yield tangible results as quickly as we would have liked. Tangible results will be forthcoming where really new and important paths of science are concerned. It will be remembered that that is what happened in the case of atomic power, \vhich man learned to apply in practice half a century after it was discovered. It took long decades for Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's breath-taking ideas about space travel, which he worked on in the small and sleepy town of Kaluga, to be embodied in artificial Earth satellites and spaceships.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ All the PotentialitiesThe future of science may confidently be said to be the future of production.
Soviet science is making steady headway. The range of problems studied by natural and social sciences is continuously growing and the material and technical facilities of science are expanding. In the period 1958--64 the number of scientific institutions increased by 50 per cent and the number of problem and branch laboratories at institutions of higher learning was more than doubled. In the same period the number of scientific workers increased more than twofold to reach the impressive total of over 666,200.
Large scientific centres are appearing all over the Soviet Union. The need to study Siberia's natural wealth and develop her productive forces has called to life the Siberian Division of the Academy of Sciences. This Division consists of a large number of research institutes. Academies of Sciences have been set up in all the Union republics.
At the 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U. it was noted that one of the central tasks of the current five-year plan of economic development is to substantially enhance the effectiveness of scientific research and accelerate the __PRINTERS_P_225_COMMENT__ 15---2775 225 introduction of its results in industry. To this end provision has been made to concentrate scientists and material resources on basic problems that hold out the promise of yielding the greatest economic benefits, enlarge the experimental and production facilities of research and design organisations and institutions and supply them with the latest scientific and laboratory equipment.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. Man and Technology __ALPHA_LVL3__ [introduction.]Material production is the foundation of human civilisation. In order to further production man must have machinery, i.e., the man-made means that enable him to remake and harness nature. As the living and thinking element of the productive forces, man is inseparably bound up with machinery, with the other practical element of the productive forces. Together they comprise the man-machine system.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Evolution of theA special relationship exists between man and the machine. This relationship always bears the stamp of its times and is, essentially, a manifestation of a definite system of labour organisation which, in its turn, depends on the relations of production predominating in society. Man is not an abstract being. He is a social product and is linked up with an intricate network of social relations, which, in the final analysis, determine the nature of his relationship with machines. His role in this relationship is not confined to the physical manipulation of switches. This manipulation necessarily acquires a social hue.
From the purely technical aspect, there is no difference between the machines used in capitalist and socialist production, but the social role played by machines in these societies is different. The reason for this is that under capitalism machines are privately owned, while in socialist society they are public property. In capitalist society, machines come first in the man-machine system, and man is, more often than not, turned into an accessory of the machine. The capitalist's principal objective is to preserve and speed up the rate of production in order to beat 226 competitors and obtain the highest possible profits. To this end the capitalist improves technology and machines and is least of all concerned with man.
In socialist society man is the prime element in the manmachine system. He not only operates the machine but owns it together with his fellow workers. Hence the concern to promote technical progress and increase labour productivity goes hand in hand with concern for the welfare of man, with the aim of furthering his intellectual and physical advancement. Under socialism there is a marked trend to design machines in such a way as to make them conform to man's mental and physical potentialities and ensure conditions for normal work and periodic rest during work.
The man-machine system develops side by side with the growth of production with emphasis on freeing this system from man's physical limitations. Man's physical possibilities are limited and the general trend of technological development is therefore to surmount this limitation by gradually transferring more of man's production functions to machines. This is giving man a new role in production. At the pre-automation phase of technological progress man's role is chiefly that of a physical subject fulfilling definite physical functions. At that stage, by virtue of the inadequate level of technical development, these functions cannot be turned over to machines. But with the advent of automation, which converts production into a continuous process, man's physical functions gradually give way to social functions such as adjustment, control and regulation.
The replacement of man's physical functions by social ones is made possible by automation, by the creation of systems of automatic regulation. Here man ceases to be a mechanical component of the man-machine system in which he directly fulfils those production functions that the machine cannot fulfil. ``The worker,'' Marx wrote, characterising automated production, ``is no longer what he used to be when he wedged a changed object of nature between himself and the object of labour; now between himself and inorganic nature, which he is harnessing, he is wedging a natural process that he is transforming into an industrial process. He is taking his place beside the __PRINTERS_P_227_COMMENT__ 15* 227 process of production instead of being its principal agent.'' The machine is becoming the chief element of the manmachine system (in the sense of the fulfilment of the production function proper), while man, Marx wrote, ``with regard to the very process of production is its overseer and regulator".
Here it is not a question of man's complete and absolute liberation from participation in production but of his gradual liberation from participation in production as a physical being and thereby of the liberation of technical progress from man's restraining physical limitations. This is a process of man's self-liberation and does not in any way imply a belittlement of his role in production or of his complete replacement by machines. The machines created by man free him from excessive physical strain, from fatiguing and monotonous mental work, but no machine can free him from his social functions, from his duties, acts and activities as a member of society. Even when comprehensive automation will have been achieved under communism, man will continue to participate in production and retain his decisive role in it precisely as a member of society, as a social being although this participation will be effected indirectly, through a system of signals and control.
It is of tremendous theoretical and, more especially, practical importance to study the principles underlying the designing and creation of integral systems of the manmachine type.
On the one hand, the freeing of machinery from the restraining influence of man as a result of the latter's emancipation from physical participation in the production process makes it possible to design fundamentally new types of machines and mechanisms to meet the requirements solely of the objective course of the production process itself, of the laws governing this process.
On the other hand, these machines and mechanisms will ensure man's active but indirect participation in this process, facilitate the development of his talents, embody his social experience and create the possibility for the comprehensive employment of this experience to achieve the greatest production efficiency. Machines and mechanisms must be designed in such a way as to make the most 228 of man's creative abilities, the flexibility of his thinking and experience, and his ability to take his bearings in diverse and frequently unforeseen circumstances, i.e., to utilise human qualities.
The combining of human and machine components in production and the establishment of the most effective and expedient relationship between man and machines is a complicated and difficult task which can be carried out only by pooling the efforts of engineers, psychologists, mathematicians, philosophers and other specialists.
With the growth of automation man becomes a link in extremely intricate production systems. Under these conditions the task is not to free him from participation in production and completely replace him by machines (which cannot be done), but to find the most expedient forms of relationship between him and machines, a relationship that conforms to his intellectual and physical possibilities and to his sociological experience. Inasmuch as in automated production man influences production indirectly, through a system of signals and control mechanisms, it is of particularly great importance to work out the most rational forms of relationship between him and these mechanisms. In this sphere machine designers are rendered invaluable assistance by cybernetics, which not only creates the most efficient systems of machines but also works out methods of operating intricate automatic installations and designs systems of regulation that conform to man's possibilities and capabilities.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Will MachinesAs we have just noted, presentday technical progress is characterised by the shifting of more and more functions to machines and gradually releasing man from direct participation in production. An interesting point is that with the advance in automation and cybernetics, machines are taking over not only man's physical functions but some of his mental functions as well. We already have machines that carry out a number of logical operations. There are machines that produce computations, operate mechanisms, control technological processes, make translations, play chess and draughts and even write poetry and compose music. Naturally these machine translations, poems and music are a far cry from 229 those that are created by man, but there are some things in which machines surpass man's thinking ability. Machines produce computations incomparably faster than man can make them (tens, hundreds and thousands of times faster). They are much faster in producing generalisations, in statistically analysing such a huge number of variants as to defy the greatest intellects. Machines can operate in places that are either hazardous (say, the study of atomic and many chemical processes) or inaccessible to man (exploration of distant outer space).
Moreover, there already are self-teaching automats, which produce solutions to problems, operate without man's direct assistance, and formulate expedient responses to action from without. In other words, they react to their perception of the external world. There have been marked advances in the creation of self-reproducing automats as well as automats that effect repairs on themselves and replace damaged parts. It must be noted that cybernetics is, essentially, only taking its first steps, but its possibilities of reproducing the functions of human thinking are truly staggering.
The successes of cybernetics in building machines capable of accomplishing logical operations are grounds for characterising them as thinking machines. Having attributed to machines the ability to think, some cyberneticists, sociologists and, in particular, writers and journalists have now begun to speculate on the possibility of building a thinking machine that would surpass man's thinking abilities in all respects, undertake all his mental functions and ultimately replace man himself. It is asserted that the era of man would give way to an era of robots. This assertion is to be found, for instance in The Robot Era, a book by the English sociologist P. E. Cleator, who maintains that with the improvement of robots, the society of these robots would ``without force or bloodshed" gradually replace human society and forever wipe people off the face of the earth.
We do not share this dreary outlook.
Firstly, there are no grounds whatever for attributing the specifically human property of thinking to robots. Machines cannot think. They only imitate or model individual logical functions, and even then only those functions 230 that submit to formally logical processes. The fact that the range of these functions is steadily growing does not change matters. Thinking has been and remains a substratum of the brain, a living product of biological and social evolution. It has been and remains social by nature. Even the most perfect machine has been and remains an inert physical and chemical product created and operated by man.
Man thinks without the aid of machines, but without the aid of man a machine cannot fulfil even purely mechanical functions, let alone logical ones. A machine ``thinks'' in accordance with a programme given it by man and carries out those operations prescribed for it by man. The self-teaching and self-improving automats are not exceptions to this rule. The only difference is that their programme is more general than that of ordinary automats; all they contain are the basic laws which govern the link between stimulation from without and responding operations, thereby giving them certain freedom in these operations.
While surpassing man in some fields, machines can in no way match him in qualitative analysis, in the ability to change reality, in creative work, to say nothing of man's deep and diverse range of feelings, thoughts, experiences, interests and requirements; in short, in all manifestations of life which are the realm of man. Man can rejoice and mourn, revel in pleasure and suffer, love and hate. He can create according to the laws of real beauty. The machine, on the other hand, is denied all this. It is created by man and blindly carries out his will.
In the same way as ordinary mechanisms have tremendously increased the power of man's hands and muscles, thinking machines enhance the potentialities and capabilities of human intelligence. But they cannot replace the human brain, just as an excavator, which imitates human hands, has not replaced man's hands proper.
This does not mean that there are some fundamental limitations to the improvement of thinking machines or that it is impossible to build a robot to imitate (we repeat, imitate) the human brain. To maintain this would mean adopting an agnostic stand and showing no confidence in the power of human intelligence. However, an electronic 231 brain, if and when it is created, would be created not to replace man but in order to free him from monotonous and fatiguing mental functions.
Moreover, it should be borne in mind that it is one thing to create an electronic brain in principle, but quite another matter to make it. Between the possibility of modelling the human brain and the actual building of such a model there is a huge and formidable chasm.
In Design for a Brain, W. R. Ashby, one of the founders of cybernetics, says that it is possible to model any mental process and, at the same time, calculated that man would need several thousand million years to mode] even a simple adaptative act of the living organism. Note, a single adaptative act! How long would it then take to model the entire diversity of the thinking processes of the human brain? This problem has been dealt with by Academician A. N. Kolmogorov of the Soviet Union. Writing that in principle it was possible to create an automat that would, say, write poetry on the level of the great poets, he emphasised that to build such a machine would be tantamount to ``modelling the entire development of culture of the society in which poets actually develop''. This is practically impossible to do.
Attention must be focussed on this aspect of the problem, on the enormous abyss between the possibility and reality of creating a model of the human brain, otherwise the daring hypotheses of cybernetics would become the most commonplace Utopias.
Mankind is not threatened by machines and will not yield its place on earth to clever and formidable mechanisms. The threat to people comes from another quarter, from the capitalist system, which subordinates them to machines and uses scientific and technical achievements against them.
In capitalist society, as we have already said, technical progress is full of contradictions. On the one hand, machines make man's work lighter, increase the productivity of labour and give man power over the elemental forces of nature. On the other hand, they worsen the position of the working people, causing unemployment, intensifying labour and draining man's physical and spiritual strength. Moreover, the most reactionary imperialist circles have 232 accorded science and technology the monstrous role of a means of mass extermination of people and unprecedented destruction of the fruits of their many centuries of labour. The ideologists of the old world cannot help but see the contradictions of capitalist technical development or its pernicious influence on the masses. In spite of that, some of them seek the reason for these contradictions not in the capitalist system but in technology itself, anathematising technology and regarding it as a threat to the human race. Others, on the contrary, regard technology as a means of succour from the evils inherent in capitalism. They maintain that machinery will resolve all contradictions and, therefore, ``down with the class struggle and revolution, down with the ideological struggle, and down with the accusations that capitalism is inhuman and amoral".
Socialism offers tremendous possibilities for utilising all the potentialities of technology. In socialist society technology is a friend of man. Freeing him from heavy physical work and from brain exhausting mental effort in fields that bring no creative joy, machinery and modern automation enable him to apply his talents in the loftiest spheres of spiritual creative endeavour. ``Isn't it possible,'' writes the Soviet scientist V. Parin, ``that from among the millions of people released from such work by electronics and cybernetics there will emerge scores and perhaps hundreds of poets, writers, sculptors and other creative workers? This will be the result of emancipation from the labour that can and must be turned over to machines.''
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Demands Made ofModern technology gives much to the citizens of socialist society but it also makes high demands of them. While creating the conditions for man's harmonious development, automation demands this development of him. It demands that he should have extraordinary erudition and extensive knowledge and that he should engage in day-to-day creative quests. Under socialism scientific progress is indissolubly linked up with the progress of each individual.
Man is the end aim of communism. It is important to note that this aim coincides not only with the interests of individuals but also with the objective development of 233 technology. The highly developed and highly organised automated production of communism is incompatible with narrow specialisation of workers, with bondage to one profession, with lop-sided development, when all other human talents are sacrificed for the sake of narrow professionalism. This production, Engels wrote, presupposes ``people with widely developed talents, people who can take their bearings in the entire system of production".
The requirements of modern, let alone communist, production can be satisfied only by comprehensively educated people.
But who can be considered an educated person in our time, and what will such a person be like in the future?
To be educated in our day means to master the fundamentals of science, to know its major achievements, to have the skill to apply these achievements in production and to know machinery and the technology of key forms of production. ``Such a person,'' A. V. Lunacharsky wrote, ``hears the entire concert played around him, he distinguishes all the notes in it, notes that merge into a single harmony that we call culture.'' Universal learning is the ideal of education, for it enables man to surmount the survivals of the old division of labour and lop-sided and restricted development, and gives him the ability to move from one field of endeavour to another. Such a person is no dilettante with superficial knowledge, a person who knows a little of everything but nothing thoroughly. He is a person who has completely mastered his basic profession and has the knowledge to engage in an allied range of work. While hearing the notes of the entire orchestra, an educated person plays one instrument with skill, giving it his heart and soul. ``It is absolutely imperative,'' A. V. Lunacharsky wrote, ``that man should work creatively in some field, that he should delve deeply into this field, and that with all the strength and blood of his heart and the juice of his brain he should produce really vital inventions for humanity. If this is absent in a person, he is only a dilettante and cannot be acknowledged as being educated.''
The harmonious combining of versatile education and specialisation is a major requirement of modern technology.
234The moulding of the highly trained specialist is a task of our days. Today when science and technology are developing swiftly, when science is unravelling the mysteries of the atomic nucleus and outer space and penetrating into social life and economic management, the mastering of the fundamentals of both natural and social sciences has become an absolute necessity.
The development of science and technology and science's penetration into production and life are uneven processes. What only yesterday was moving to the forefront has today become secondary, and what is in the limelight today may yield its place to something more important tomorrow. This underscores the fact that the training of specialists must keep abreast of the times. A specialist has to be mobile, to be always prepared to tackle new and more important problems of science, technology and production. He can do this only if he has had universal training, not in the sense of enabling him to change his profession at any time but of giving him an ``extended'' speciality which would represent not a mechanical sum of old or existing specialities but the organic unity of these specialities. This unity is founded on a community of theoretical and special training. Greater physical and mathematical theoretical knowledge and the mastering of technological processes based on general theory are the road to training ``extended'' specialists, the demand for whom is steadily increasing due to scientific and technical progress. This road has been taken by leading Soviet institutions of higher learning.
Modern production is enhancing the role of natural and technical sciences in industry and, correspondingly, in the training of specialists. However, intoxication with the achievements of natural sciences and technology sometimes leads technicians and naturalists to narrow technicism, to, in the words of Academician V.~Shuleikin, `` physical and technical conceit'', to the belittlement of general education and, in particular, the social and humanitarian sciences.
Modern science and technology confer immense responsibility on man, and in order to control science and technology or place them in the service of the working people 235 he must have not only technical, but also philosophical, emotional and moral training. To achieve this one needs, first and foremost, to be a human being in the loftiest sense of the word, a fighter for the new, communist ideals. The human in a person is created not only by technology and the natural sciences. One cannot become a person in the real sense, let alone a person of the future if one disregards ideology, morality, literature and art; yet this is where we would be led by narrow technicism, by blind faith in the omnipotence of the natural sciences and technology.
It is quite easy to identify oneself with the magnificent machines of our day, and care nothing for the profound social and psychological problems worrying contemporary mankind. It is not at all difficult to picture the world in both its material and spiritual aspects as some soulless dynamic system consisting of nothing but rigid columns of figures and formulas.
In order to prepare a person for work under conditions of a scientific and technical revolution, he must be given philosophical and lofty moral training; his mental and physiological qualities must be improved; the finest chords of his soul must be given sound, and the most diverse creative potentials must be awakened in him. Although the social and humanitarian sciences do not yield direct economic benefits, they serve the above noble purpose. They help to shape the new man and his spiritual world and his attitude to other people, to society as a whole. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that by nature man is a creator, a researcher, an intellectual, and that he lives not by bread alone.
``The ideal,'' A. V. Lunacharsky wrote, ``is not to train a person in one speciality or another, but to make him a fighter for humanity, and this is achieved only when that person knows the world from where he comes, how it tore away from the capitalist system, what scientific, artistic and technical tasks have to do with this, what his place is in this world and what he has to do. Give him the ability to do what he must do in the epoch of the world's greatest revolution!" These words, written nearly fifty years ago, have not lost an iota of their significance.
236 __ALPHA_LVL3__ Technology, ManProduction techniques and society are developing under conditions created by nature. Nature is the primary supplier of the incalculable wealth that is created by human labour. Man has achieved a great deal and has taken much from nature, and he shall take much more in the future. Nature's reserves are truly inexhaustible. Take, for example, the world ocean, which is a vast reservoir of additional food, feed, fuel, mineral and chemical resources. Its food resources consist of fish, whales, numerous mollusks, Crustacea and other invertebrates and colossal reserves of feeds. The wealth of the sea floor includes oil, gas, iron, manganese, cobalt, nickel, copper, and radioactive, scattered and rare elements. There are practically limitless chemical resources in sea water, which contains various salts, bromine and rare and scattered elements. The tides are sources of cheap power. The task is to exploit the wealth of the ocean, and the depths of the earth, solar energy and many other gifts of nature. Nature is a friend of man, but it does not tolerate vandalism. Intelligent and economical utilisation of natural resources and an attentive and---let us use the word boldly ---friendly approach to nature are an indispensable condition of scientific and technical progress, and of the progress of society as a whole. Yet in evolving new production techniques and building factories, roads, bridges and dwellings we frequently forget that nature belongs not only to us but also to future generations. Nature has given the world us human beings and in turn it has given us and continues to give us everything we need. Nature comprises enchanting forests and mountains, boundless fields, transparent seas and lakes and limpid streams and rivers, which are both the bread and material of industry and, at the same time, places where man can relax after his day's work. Nature elevates man, awakens his thoughts and is his source of creative inspiration.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 5. Communism and Labour __ALPHA_LVL3__ [introduction.]Nothing is more desired by man than the joy of labour. Yet labour has not always been joyful. Could it bring joy to the slave or the serf who was driven to work by fear 237 of death or the whip of the overseer? Is there much joy in the labour of the hired worker, whom fear of hunger forces to toil for the capitalist? Forced labour cannot be attractive and it cannot be a source of freedom and happiness.
Socialism is the only political system that has made labour really free. Having put an end to exploitation, it has given the working man his first ever opportunity of working not for the landowner or the capitalist but for himself, for his people, for society. This is bringing about a profound change in people's attitude to labour which is becoming a matter of glory, honour, valour and heroism.
The dedicated labour of workers, peasants and intellectuals lies at the back of the monumental achievements of socialism in the Soviet Union. Labour will play an even larger role in people's lives in communist society. Communism is not a society of idlers. Distribution according to needs does not mean that without any effort at all man will receive everything he wants. Distribution according to needs is possible when there is an abundance of social wealth. Abundance does not appear of itself. It is created by persevering and conscientious labour.
Communism and labour are inseparable. In communist society labour will continue to be the source of all values, the father of all of mankind's wealth. Every person capable of work will do his bit and ensure the continuous growth of material and cultural values. Like socialism, communism liberates people not from labour but from the exploitation of their labour. That is why in the basic principle of communism---``From each according to his ability to each according to his needs"---the allocation to man of all the blessings of life is indissolubly linked up with dedicated social labour.
At the same time, under communism labour itself, its conditions and the attitude of people to it will change. It will become communist labour.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Communist LabourUnder communism labour is universal, voluntary, free from exploitation and founded on social ownership and the highest possible level of technical development; it is highlyproductive and organised scientifically; it is creative, organically combining physical and mental efforts; it has 238 no quota; it is unpaid and man devotes all his ability to it; and, lastly, it is a vital need. Communist labour, Lenin wrote, ``is labour performed gratis for the benefit of society, labour performed not as a definite duty, not for the purpose of obtaining a right to certain products, not according to previously established and legally fixed quotas, but voluntary labour, irrespective of quotas; it is labour performed without expectation of reward, without reward as a condition, labour performed because it has become a habit to work for the common good, and because of a conscious realisation (that has become a habit) of the necessity of working for the common good---labour as the requirement of a healthy organism''.^^*^^
Elements of communist labour are to be found in socialist society. During the early years of Soviet power the people organised what have become known as communist subbotniks.^^**^^ Lenin highly appraised this voluntary work, regarding it as the embryo of the new, communist attitude to labour. The subbotniks laid the beginning for the socialist emulation movement, which acquired new forms at the different phases of social development. In the Soviet Union the present movement of communist shock workers and communist work teams embraces millions of people who are learning to work and live in a communist way.
True, in this movement cases now and then crop up of elements of formalism, of a desire to draw in as many people as possible with the result that the much-coveted title of communist shock worker is conferred upon people who do not deserve it. Despite these shortcomings, one cannot fail to see the mighty spirit of socialist emulation and the striving to work to the best of one's ability, that have embraced broad sections of Soviet workers, collective farmers and intellectuals.
The sacred rule of socialist society that he who does not work neither shall he eat has long ago become a law of life for the majority of Soviet citizens. Many of them put their hearts into their work and cannot imagine life without their chosen profession, without labour, which is for _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 30, p. 517.
^^**^^ Subbotniks---voluntary labour performed after working hours without remuneration.
239 them a source of joy and happiness and a vital need. Yet under socialism labour is not a need of all members of society. There still are idlers, people who shirk socially useful work and seek to enrich themselves at the expense of society. Moreover, there are people who perform their duties unconscientiously. Neglect of one's duties will be ended when communism is built.Talent and vocation, sincere enthusiasm and love of one's profession are indispensable for fruitful work and for a genuinely innovatory attitude to work. Most Soviet people have that attitude to their work. At the same time, in socialist society the choice of a profession and place of work are sometimes determined by other, particularly material, considerations. If it is not turned into moneyhunting the desire to receive more for one's work is quite natural, for under socialism the material incentive stimulates the development of production and, when applied correctly, coincides with social interests. However, if a person is spurred on solely by the desire to earn more and if he does not like his work he will never be able to give of his best to society no matter how conscientiously he works. To some extent, even though it be inconsiderable, he will remain in debt to society, for he will be giving it less than if he had been doing work that he liked.
In communist society people will have every opportunity to take up work in which they can display all their talents and in which, consequently, they can be of the greatest use to society. Resting on the highest possible level of automation in production and on a high level of social consciousness, communist society not only gives people equal opportunities to develop their talents but also creates the most favourable conditions for the fullest and most expedient utilisation of the capabilities of each person. It is a society in which all people will always work according to their abilities. There can be no other attitude to work under communism, for while remaining man's prime faculty labour will become a vital need. ``It is impossible,'' states the Programme of the C.P.S.U., ``for a man in communist society not to work, for neither his social consciousness nor public opinion would permit it. Work according to one's ability will become a habit, a prime necessity of life for every member of society.''
240 __ALPHA_LVL3__ The Conditions forThe necessity for work may be described as man's labour activity that has become a habit.
The possibility of turning labour into a vital necessity lies in labour itself. Indeed, labour has always been the basic natural condition for man's existence, a major outlet for his vital activity. Man's capabilities and his human qualities are shaped in labour. Inasmuch as any work is a play of physical and mental powers, it also contains elements of creative effort. Moreover, it is the most important source for satisfying man's varied requirements. Physiological prerequisites are also involved, because man constantly feels the need to expend the energy which he has naturally accumulated, and labour is the key outlet for this energy.
At the same time, in order to make this possibility a reality, the nature of labour must be changed by putting an end to survivals of the old division of labour and turning it into a source of joy and delight. All the dark aspects of labour, aspects which clash with the nature of man, must be eliminated, and the bright, attractive aspects developed to the utmost.
Heavy physical labour and filthy and monotonous work must be abolished, and conditions must be created to enable people engaged in this labour to change their professions.
These problems are resolved by building the material and technical basis of communism, mainly through the electrification, comprehensive mechanisation and the ever fuller automation of production processes.
Rapid technical progress linked up with the building of the material and technical basis of communism demands greater efficiency in industry and higher standards of special training and general education. The development and improvement of techniques are accompanied by a growth of the level of the people's culture and technical knowledge, with the result that the distinction between mental and physical work is erased. This accentuates the intellectual, spiritual side of labour and gradually moves its creative aspect to the forefront. Eloquent testimony of this is the huge number of inventors and production rationalisers in the Soviet Union. In 1965 alone more than __PRINTERS_P_241_COMMENT__ 16--2775 241 four million inventions and technical improvements were suggested and of these over 2,800,000 were introduced in the economy.
Technical progress eradicates the one-sided nature of physical or intellectual work and gives rise to a qualitatively new kind of labour, in which physical and mental efforts are integrated. The basic forms of labour are turned into creative activity.
Another outcome of technical progress is that the intellectual side of labour becomes more pronounced thus making labour more attractive. Working conditions steadily improve and harmonious labour relations become more firmly rooted. The absence of noise, the abundance of light and verdure, the attractive colour of implements of labour and of work premises and ideal cleanliness and order will turn factories into ``bright laboratories worthy of human beings''.^^*^^
Thus, powerful machines incorporating the latest achievements of science and man's wide knowledge will fundamentally change the nature and conditions of work under communism.
One may ask whether the automated industries of communism will not leave people with nothing to do except press the push-buttons on the control panels? There are no grounds whatever for apprehensions of this kind. Automated machines will abolish heavy back-breaking labour but they will never release man from the necessity for applying a certain amount of physical and mental effort to work and will never turn labour into an amusement, into a senseless pressing of push-buttons.
In a reply to Charles Fourier, who believed that under communism labour would be an amusement, Marx wrote: ``Genuinely free labour, for instance the labour of a composer, is devilishly serious and requires tremendous strain.'' Under communism labour is a joy and delight because its creative aspect eclipses the strain and the fatigue. However, this does not imply that labour will not require people to surmount obstacles and difficulties. For example, will not space exploration, that has already been started, require an immense intellectual and _-_-_
~^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 62.
242 physical effort? Wherever there is work to be done there always will be difficulties which will require man's mental and physical strength. __ALPHA_LVL3__ Communist DivisionHaving put an end to private ownership and exploitation, socialism thereby abolished the foundations of the capitalist division of labour and set about eradicating the distinction between town and country and between mental and physical labour. The new division of labour takes the form of co-operation and mutual assistance among people who are free of exploitation. This division of labour is planned and organised. At the same time, survivals of the old division of labour persist in socialist society, namely, the essential distinction between industrial and farm labour and between mental and physical work. These distinctions are gradually expunged in the course of communist construction.
There will be a certain division of labour under communism as well. Generally speaking, a division of labour will be necessary as long as material production exists. Marx wrote: ``That this necessity of distributing social labour in definite proportion cannot be done away with by the particular form of social production, but can only change the form it assumes, is self-evident.''
The division of labour between workers and collective farmers will disappear because farming will become a form of industrial labour, and there will be no distinction between mental and physical work. However, the division of labour between different branches of industry and between different industrial enterprises will remain, as will the territorial division of labour.
The change effected in the nature of work as a result of technical progress, polytechnical training and the higher level of culture (stemming from more leisure time) will change the worker himself. People will not be confined to a single narrow profession. They will be able to choose their occupation or go over from one profession to another. The ``partial'' worker, who at present performs a definite production function, will become a versatile individual, the director of intricate production processes and the creator of cultural values. This is dealt with by the Programme of the G.P.S.U., which states: ``Each is guaranteed __PRINTERS_P_243_COMMENT__ 16* 243 an equal and free choice of occupation and profession 'with due regard for the interests of society.'' At the same time, this docs not exclude the division of labour between professions, between specialisation of the members of society. The citizen of communist society should not, however, be pictured as a person who can engage in any production or cultural activity, who may be a doctor today, a teacher tomorrow, and then a scientist, an engineer, an artist, and so forth. Communist production requires a high level of organisation, efficiency and discipline, and therefore every person will perform a definite function in a definite time. However, narrow, one-sided specialisation that chains a person to one form of activity will gradually disappear. Within the framework of occupations allied or close to their main profession people will have the possibility of freely changing and varying their work.
A certain division of labour between individual members of society will thus remain under communism, but it will lose its class social nature. It will acquire a purely professional character and ensure the people concerned with the possibility of varying their work in the sphere of material production.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Incentives for WorkIn the arsenal of means of promoting communist work and the attainment of the highest possible level of labour productivity immense importance attaches to a correct combination of material and moral incentives for work.
Material stimuli acquire the form of personal, collective (group) and social interest in receiving remuneration for work. As distinct from collective and social interest, which is linked up with the material interests of the entire personnel of a factory or collective farm, or of society as a whole, personal material interest expresses the striving of each individual to receive a definite share of means of subsistence for his work. This striving, it should be emphasised, springs from the knowledge that the share received for work depends upon the quantity and quality of this work and on its productivity.
The need for providing material incentives during the entire period of communist construction is due to the fact that society has not yet reached the level where it can produce an abundance of consumer goods and also to the 244 fact that a distinction still exists between mental and physical work and between skilled and unskilled labour. In this situation, renunciation of material incentives and transition to equalitarian payment for work would deal social production an irreparable blow and give rein to idleness and parasitical sentiments.
Some people hold the view that material incentives run counter to communist principles, that they foster bourgeois habits, lead to a race for personal benefit, moneygrubbing and a drive for gain. This view is quite wrong, because material incentives are an indispensable condition of the success of communist construction. These incentives and the desire to have their requirements satisfied as fully as possible spur people on to improve their production know-how, enhance efficiency, perfect implements of labour and technologies and steadily raise the productivity of labour. Material incentives have opened broad vistas for honest and dedicated work and for cultivating the great force of example by labour.
Under socialism personal incentives objectively do not clash with the interests of society because labour is founded on public ownership and its products go to ensure the welfare and free, all-round advancement of all people. Thanks precisely to material remuneration for work each person receives direct social recognition. At the same time, it is extremely important that the objective harmony between what is personal and what is social should be realised by every member of society and that every person should clearly understand that by working for himself he works for society, and that the welfare of society is his own welfare.
Experience has shown that relinquishment of material incentives lead to difficulties and disproportions in building up production, which in their turn negatively affect the welfare of the people. Difficulties of this nature were experienced for a long time, for example in Soviet agriculture. The principle of material incentives was violated in industry as well. The restoration and development of this principle make it possible to expand the economy swiftly and raise the standard of living.
Material incentives are an extremely important, but not the only spur for work. In socialist society the working 245 person is the master of his country, building a new society. For him moral encouragement and moral satisfaction are just as important as material encouragement. That explains why with progress in building communism more and more importance is attached to moral incentives for work---moral recognition of work, respect of fellow workers and of society as a whole, duty and responsibility to the people, satisfaction with the results of one's work, pride in one's work, honour, conscience and zeal, the joy of creative work, and the quest for the new, emotional upsurge and aesthetic delight in the work itself and in its results. ``In the course of the advance to communism,'' declares the Programme of the C.P.S.U., ``the importance of moral labour incentives, public recognition of achieved results and the sense of responsibility of each for the common cause will become continuously greater.''
Moral incentives play an ever larger role not through a reduction but, on the contrary, an improvement of material incentives. The main thing in stimulating labour is to achieve a synthesis of material and moral incentives. Only when they harmonise and intertwine, material and moral incentives are, on the one hand, a source for steadily boosting people's labour activity and the growth of labour productivity and social wealth and, on the other, a source for the growth of the national wealth and for the development of the working person, for the moulding of lofty moral and spiritual features in him.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Developing theWhen we speak of a fully developed person we mean primanly a person who is cultured and educated, i.e., a person possessing considerable spiritual wealth. However, Lenin wrote, ``to be cultured we must achieve a certain development of the material means of production''.^^*^^
Material production is the foundation of social life, while the ability to produce the means of life, to work, is the principal and decisive ability of man. This ability to work underlies the formation and the development of all of his capabilities without exception. One can well appreciate that, for labour created man. Thanks to labour, _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 475.
246 our distant ancestor, the savage, became a human being. Labour gave man food, clothes and a roof over his head. It not only protected him against the elements but also enabled him to conquer and harness nature. In work man has changed beyond recognition and has also changed the planet he lives on. Man's hand, that remarkable implement of creative work, took shape in the process of work. ``Thanks to work,'' Engels wrote, ``the human hand attained the high degree of perfection that has enabled it to conjure into being the paintings of a Raphael, the statues of a Thorwaldsen, the music of a Paganini.''^^*^^ Man's musical ear, his eye which registers the superb loveliness of nature, his subtle taste and other sense organs emerged and developed in work. In the process of work man acquired an amazing gift, the ability to think and speak.Work is man's greatest wealth. It is a vital condition for his life and all-round development. The joy of existence is the aim of man's life. This joy is born only in work, and only in work does it find its full manifestation and development. Only in work does a person feel the fullness and diversity of life, acquire the dignity of a man and citizen and feel the friendship of his fellow men and the unity of his people and country. The purport of a person's life is to work for the welfare of society, and therein lies genuine human happiness.
``Cherish labour,'' Maxim Gorky wrote. ``Nothing makes man greater and wiser than work---collective, friendly and free work....
``Man is great in work and only in work, and the more passionately he loves his work the more majestic he becomes himself and the more productive and beautiful becomes his work.''
Labour is the most intricate complex of physical and mental efforts and of deep mental and aesthetic experiences; a person who does not work loses his best human qualities and, essentially, ceases to be himself. Disdain for work, and idleness corrupt man, enfeeble his mind and body and cause him to lose his sense of human dignity and civic duty.
_-_-_^^*^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, in two vols., Vol. II, p. 82.
247Work has always been a factor of man's development. However, the influence of work as a factor forming the qualities of a personality depend on social and economic conditions, on the division of labour in society and on labour's technical equipment and organisation. In capitalist society, for instance, the chaining of people to one profession frequently leads to a lop-sided, ugly development of man who is then unable to engage in activities of any real diversity. ``In the division of labour,'' Engels wrote, ``man is also divided. All other physical and mental faculties are sacrificed to the development of one single activity.''^^*^^
Socialism has emancipated labour from exploitation and created the social, technical and organisational prerequisites for the all-round development of the individual.
The role of labour in the moulding of the new man increases in proportion to the progress achieved in building communism, the shaping of a communist attitude to work, the growth of the technical equipment and efficiency of labour and the improvement of the system of labour organisation. The formation of a communist attitude to work is the foundation for moulding the all-- sidedly developed individual. Communist labour, which is highly productive and creative, facilitates the development of the talents and capabilities of the individual.
Let us see why.
First. Communist labour is founded on the latest scientific and technical achievements, which require a creative attitude to work, erudition and a high cultural and technical level. Inasmuch as under communism there are no bounds to technical and scientific progress, the possibilities for developing man's intellectual qualities and for his special and general educational training are likewise boundless.
Secondly. The absence of a permanent attachment to some one profession creates for man the possibility of changing his occupation, of selecting his occupation according to his interests. This is a powerful incentive for improving the personality, for raising the level of the individual's special and general knowledge.
_-_-_^^*^^ Frederick Engels, Anti-Duhring. Herr Eugen Duhring's Revolution in Science, 2nd ed., p. 403.
248Thirdly. The high level of organisation of communist labour, the collectivist nature of labour relations, and the harmony of personal and social interests are an important factor forming lofty moral qualities, chiefly collectivism and comradely mutual assistance, a lofty sense of civic duty and concern for multiplying social wealth. Real friendship and comradeship, sincerity and the sharing of production know-how cannot help but enrich the spiritual life of the citizens of communist society.
Fourthly. The aesthetical attractiveness of the process, conditions and results of labour and its lofty creative spirit help to form in man lofty aesthetical feelings and thoughts.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Leisure Time andComprehensively mechanised and automated communist labour will be distinguished for its extremely high productivity. The attainment of a productivity level higher than in any capitalist country is the prime condition for the triumph of communism, and not only because this high level will make it possible rapidly to create and constantly maintain an abundance of material blessings and thereby satisfy the requirements of all citizens. Highly productive labour will give the people the maximum free time, which is so necessary for the development of all their intellectual and physical capabilities.
A large measure of leisure time is that priceless wealth that the working man could not even dream of in an exploiting society. ``Then,'' Marx wrote, ``the criterion of wealth will no longer be working time but leisure time.''
Leisure time should not be confused with non-working time, i.e., time free from work directly in production. In one way or another, part of a person's non-working time is linked up with production, for example, the time spent in going to and from work, the time needed to turn the work over to the new shift, and so on. Another part of this non-working time is spent on matters concerning dayto-day life and on the care for children. Yet another portion is spent on satisfying the organism's natural requirements (eating, sleep, toilet, and so forth). The time left over after the discharge of production and family duties and the satisfaction of physiological requirements is leisure lime proper.
249When we speak of leisure time we must, first and foremost, note its influence on labour productivity and, correspondingly, on the formation of an individual's personal qualities. The quantity of leisure time depends on the productivity of labour. In its turn, labour productivity depends to a certain extent on the quantity of leisure time, because part of this time is spent by people on improving their production skills, their intellectual and physical development and their cultural level, which unquestionably help to boost labour productivity and stress its creative, intellectual aspect.
Moreover, leisure time enables people to engage in social activities and thereby learn to direct social affairs, which is extremely important in communist society, and also to follow interests in science, technology or art, or take up physical culture and sport, and so on, thus improving themselves culturally and physically. Leisure time opens the door to science, art and sports. ``As less and less time is spent on material production,'' states the Programme of the C.P.S.U., ``the individual is afforded ever greater opportunities to develop his abilities, gifts and talents in the fields of production, science, engineering, literature and the arts. People will increasingly devote their leisure to public pursuits, cultural intercourse, intellectual and physical development, scientific, technical and artistic endeavour. Physical training and sports will become part and parcel of the everyday life of people.''
The Communist Party and the socialist state are steadily increasing people's leisure time by shortening the working day and helping them to use their non-working time more rationally. However, many of the potentialities for increasing leisure time and, consequently, developing the personality are not used. These include reducing the time needed to travel to and from work by sensibly siting places of work and residential districts and improving the transport system; mechanising and more efficiently organising household work, which is unproductive and extremely arduous; reducing the time spent on everyday service establishments, shopping and meals by opening more service centres, shops and restaurants and introducing greater efficiency in their work; reducing the time spent on caring for children by opening more children's institutions. 250 Particularly great reserves of leisure time are to be found in household work, which on a nation-wide scale annually consumes nearly 100,000 million man-hours or the equivalent of a year in the lives of 12 million people.
By itself leisure time only provides the possibility for the individual's all-round development. Therefore, the main thing is to make the best use of this time. In the old days it used to be said that time was money. Today we can say that time, particularly leisure time, is dearer than money, for by wasting his leisure time man robs himself, impoverishing himself intellectually and physically.
The profitable use of leisure time is thus an important condition for moulding the all-sicledly developed individual.
[251] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 9 __ALPHA_LVL1__ FROM SOCIALIST TO COMMUNISTThe building of the material and technical basis of communism is accompanied by a gradual change from socialist to communist social relations. The formation of communist social relations is a many-faceted process embracing the most diverse aspects of the life of society. The basic aspects are the transition to communist distribution and the attainment thereby of complete economic equality, the erasure of social distinctions and the achievement of complete social equality, the evolution of the state into public self-administration and the impact of these processes on man himself.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. Towards Communist Distribution __ALPHA_LVL3__ [introduction.]Under communism the key principle is, ``From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs''. The switch-over to this principle presupposes the creation of an abundance of material blessings as well as the transformation of labour into a vital requirement of all citizens. = __ALPHA_LVL3__ Capability Can a Person who has no technical sense become a designer? Can one become an artist if one does not possess a vision of colour and light, or a musician if one does not have a musical ear, and so on. Definitely not. A technical sense is an essential attribute of a designer, as a vision of colour and light is an essential attribute of an artist. These and 252 other mental properties of man. which are a condition for the successful fulfilment of one kind of work or another, are what we call human capabilities.
How does man acquire capabilities'.-^^1^^ Is lie endowed with them by nature or do they form in the process of the development of man himself? On what does the formation of capabilities depend?
From scientific research and practice we know that, as a rule, inborn capabilities do not exist. Nature has endowed man solely with so-called inclinations, i.e., with certain anatomical and physiological features, primarily the senses and the brain. These inclinations play an important role in the formation of capabilities, but by themselves they do not form these capabilities. ``Man's biologically inherited properties,'' writes A. N. Lconlyev, the eminent Soviet psychologist, ``do not determine his mental capabilities. ... The brain harbours not various specifically human capabilities but solely the ability to form these capabilities." The stamp of human activity is borne in man's environment, for he is surrounded by a world of objects and phenomena created by countless generations of people in labour and struggle.
Some people may take exception to this because there have been many cases where the outstanding capabilities of great scientists, writers and artists manifested themselves in early childhood. Mozart, for instance, began composing at the age of five. At eight he wrote a symphony and at eleven an opera. Rembrandt was only twenty-two when he already had his own pupils. However, it should not be forgotten that this early manifestation of capabilities was due to certain conditions and that the scientists, writers and artists in question created their best work only after they had reached a mature age, having gone through a stern school of study, labour and life. Mozart composed his famous Requiem during the last year of his life, while Rembrandt painted his masterpiece, The Return of the Prodigal Son, when he was sixty-three.
Thus, the main thing is not in natural endowments (which all people possess in varying degree) but in the timely spotting of these endowments and developing them. ``Without obviously persevering industriousness there can be neither talent nor genius,'' wrote Dmitry Mendeleyev. 253 Nature endows every person with certain gifts, but whether these gilts will serve as a condition, as the foundation for the development of capabilities, and whether the miraculous power of the builder and creator will awaken in a person in the long run depends on Hie conditions surrounding him and on the forms and methods of his upbringing. Every person is a potential builder and creator; what he needs is that he should be taught, that he should be given work he likes, that his interest should be awakened.
This is fostered primarily by work, which the person concerned finds attractive and interesting, for only through work can a person develop his capabilities and become skilled in his chosen field. Without driving a tractor a person cannot become a skilled tractor driver, and without playing on a violin he cannot become a good violinist.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ From Each AccordingMan's capabilities and the form in which they develop are, in the final analysis, determined by social conditions---the social system, the level of development reached by industry, science, technology and culture. With the improvement and development of production and technology increasing demands are made of man and, at the same time, this affords more possibilities and gives rise to the need for promoting new capabilities. The socialist system provides particularly favourable conditions for developing people's capabilities. In exposing slander by the opponents of socialism, who claimed that socialism humiliates man, limits his capabilities and deprives him of individuality, Lenin showed that socialism makes it possible ``to draw the real majority of people into work where they can show themselves, give rein to their capabilities and display talents, of which there is an inexhaustible fountain in the people and which capitalism trampled, choked and strangled by the thousands and millions''.^^*^^
The socialist system has drawn millions upon millions of people into active creative work and they have achieved impressive successes in the most diverse spheres of economic, political and cultural activity. Does this not provide striking proof that socialism creates the most favourable _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 404.
254 conditions for the development of human capabilities and talents?Having created these conditions, socialism demands that people should place their capabilities in the service of society, and the satisfaction of each person's requirements depends on the extent to which he fulfils this demand, on the measure of his labour contribution. Therein lies the essence of the socialist principle ''From each according to his ability, to each according to his work".
The demand ``From each according to his ability" remains in communist society as well. However, it undergoes profound changes, becoming considerably richer and more versatile. Under communism as well labour remains the basic feature of this demand, but it will not be labour arising from duty, as the means of earning a livelihood, but labour as a habit, as a vital necessity, in which man will display his capabilities to the utmost. In communist society man will work creatively and with enthusiasm in fields where he can make the most of his talents and bring society the greatest benefit.
In the process of communist construction capabilities likewise change, becoming more diversified and pronounced.
As yet socialism is unable to provide all people with equal conditions for development, training and the application of their talents; it has brought people political equality and is working its way towards economic and social equality. A person who is secure materially has more opportunities to devote himself to his development ( particularly cultural) than a person whose material position is not as good. A person living in a town is likewise at an advantage in this respect over a rural inhabitant due to the distinction between work and cultural services in towns and in the countryside. WTomen who spend a great deal of time housekeeping and looking after children have much fewer opportunities for forming and developing their capabilities than men. Far from all citizens of socialist society have the possibility of working in science or art.
Thus, on account of society's inadequate economic and social maturity and due to the lack of complete economic and social equality, socialism is as yet unable to provide 255 all people with equal opportunities and conditions for fully developing their capabilities and applying these capabilities to their utmost for the benefit of society. Only communism gives all people not only equal opportunities for the formation of their capabilities but also conditions for the most effective utilisation of these capabilities in both production and in the different spheres of creative activity.
Under communism ``From each according to his ability" implies not only voluntary work performed to the best of one's ability without remuneration but also active participation in social activities, in the administration of social affairs. Although socialism has drawn a huge number of people into social activity, far from every citizen is active in the administration of social affairs. Some do not have the time, others have not acquired the necessary knowledge, and still others have not attained the necessary level of social consciousness and live according to the philistine principle: ``Perhaps they'll manage without us.'' Under communism all citizens will be active in administering the country. It cannot be otherwise because with the advent of communism, as we shall see below, the state will wither away and its place will be taken by public selfadministration.
Lastly, under communism ``From each according to his ability" means that all citizens will abide by the rules of the communist way of life.
The content of this communist principle thus consists of highly productive labour (as the prime requirement of life), persevering study, a steady rise of the level of special, general and cultural education, the participation of all citizens in the administration of social affairs, and the voluntary observance of the standards of communist morality. Labour is the great magician, who, having created the communist cup of abundance, will constantly keep that cup filled to the brim and enable all citizens to draw material and spiritual benefits from it according to their needs.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ NeedsNeeds 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).
256Individual 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.
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.
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".
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 __PRINTERS_P_257_COMMENT__ 17---2775 257 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.
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.
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.^^*^^ 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.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ To Each AccordingSeeking to discredit the principle of ``From each according to his ability to each according to his needs'', the adversaries of scientific communism argue that this principle is incompatible with the all-- sidedly and harmoniously developed individual, that it is at _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 1, p. 100.
258 variance with the full satisfaction of his material and cultural requirements. They persist in speaking of some ascetic socialism in which, they allege, the person is divested of individuality and the main concern is not for man but for production and machines. Moreover, they hold that the rising standard of living leads to individualism and is therefore incompatible with communism. The fact of the matter is that a high and ever growing standard of living does not run counter to communist construction, let alone the interests of the individual. On the contrary, distribution according to needs, Engels wrote, ``allows all members of society to develop to the utmost and sustain and display their talents''. Communist society will be rich enough not only to give people an abundance of food, clothes and housing but also to enable them to live a full-blooded life worthy of human beings. Man will be delivered from considerations of income and personal material benefit. His mind will thus be unburdened of worry and anxiety and he will be able to devote himself to serving the interests of society, of the whole of working mankind. As regards crude, levelling communism, founded on egalitarian consumption, on the concept of some minimum consumption, Marx wrote that it strips man of his individuality. This communism is based on ``the abstract negation of the entire world of culture and civilisation, the regression to the unnatural simplicity of the poor and undemanding man" and therefore cannot be accepted by the working class.Communism has nothing to do with asceticism, with the levelling of people's requirements and vital interests. It brings not equality of requirements but equality in the possibility and conditions of satisfying requirements. This means that in accordance with their tastes, and physiological and mental peculiarities all citizens will fully satisfy their growing material requirements, which cannot be identical because tastes and peculiarities differ.
All citizens will have equal opportunities to study, to master science and culture and to pursue creative activities, i.e., to satisfy their spiritual needs as well. Inasmuch as the capabilities, interests and aspirations of people differ, their spiritual needs will likewise be dissimilar; nobody will deny that every capability develops and manifests __PRINTERS_P_259_COMMENT__ 17* 259 itself in specific needs. If to this we add that these will be people of different professions, age and sex, that they will live in different climates, il will become plain that their needs cannot be identical.
Communist equality is thus not an equality among people lacking individuality but an equality among active and different people. Each person will have his own personality, capabilities, level of knowledge, needs, interests, tastes and passions.
This equality is achieved gradually, step by step, in proportion to the creation and development of the material and technical basis of communism, the formation of communist social relations and the moulding of the new man.
A far cry from petty-bourgeois notions of communism, of crude egalitarianism, scientific communism at the same time rejects the other extreme---the idea that the future society is one of idleness and leisure, an Aladdin's lamp that brings man anything his heart desires.
The communist principle ``to each according to his needs" does not mean that without doing anything a person will receive anything he wants.
In The State and Revolution Lenin ridiculed the notion that in communist society people would ``receive from society, without any control over the labour of the individual citizen, any quantity of truffles, cars, pianos, etc.''^^*^^ Along with a high level of labour productivity, communist society presupposes a new type of man unlike the ``ordinary run of people who, like the seminary students in Pomyalovsky's stories, are capable of damaging the stocks of public wealth 'just for fun', and of demanding the impossible''.^^**^^ In the process of building communism it is necessary to cultivate people's tastes, to teach them to be economical, to look after the national wealth and use it for the benefit of society. ``Until the `higher' phase of communism arrives,'' Lenin wrote, ``the socialists demand the strictest control by society and by the state over the measure of labour and the measure of consumption.''^^***^^
Idleness and extravagance are features of the exploiting _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 469.
^^**^^ Ibid., pp. 469--70.
^^***^^ Ibid., p. 470.
260 classes, who amass fabulous wealth from the labour of millions of ordinary people. Perverted needs and tastes do not dovetail with the interests of the people who know the cost of labour and of the means of subsistence won by labour, value and treasure material blessings and expend them intelligently and with the greatest benefit. Healthy thrift and the intelligent use of social wealth will be features of the citizens of communist society.In the building of communism, people's requirements will, naturally, change. They will become broader and more diversified. If we closely study the development of needs in the Soviet Union in the past two or three decades we shall see that they have grown in breadth. It will be naive to try and guess what exactly will be the material and spiritual requirements of the man of the future.
We can speak more or less definitely of the satisfaction of material requirements, particularly food requirements which know bounds. Although the food norms will not change markedly in the future, it may be asserted that the quality and choice of food will not remain unchanged.
With all its diversity and breadth, consumption in communist society will be free of excesses and whims. ``For all their diversity,'' declares the Programme of the C.P.S.U., ``the requirements of people will express the sound, reasonable requirements of the fully developed person.''
Reasonable requirements will be those that conform with the achieved level of production and whose satisfaction will facilitate the development of the individual and the improvement of his physical and intellectual qualities. This includes the requirement for food, clothes and footwear, for articles of cultural and household use, for education and medical service, and so on.
The adversaries of communism maintain that no strict line of demarcation can be drawn between reasonable and unreasonable requirements. It is useless to argue about what are reasonable requirements, and that, it is said, is one of the reasons that distribution according to needs cannot be introduced. This theory is expounded, for example, by the bourgeois sociologist Peter Wiles in a paper entitled Economy of Abundance and Complete Communism. Man, he says, naturally has unlimited capacities with regard to requirements. At first he wants to have an 261 ICBM in his garden, then he will want to take a trip to the Moon and various planets of the solar system and, finally, having reached the Moon he will demand that the state opera should perform for him there. Hence, Wiles concludes, regardless of the relations of ownership or the system of economic control the real satisfaction of reasonable consumer requirements will always be a Utopia.
Indeed, man's requirements constantly grow but it should not be forgotten that the means of satisfying them likewise grow and improve. Communist society, Engels wrote, ``will bring to life new requirements and, at the same time, create the means for satisfying them''. Besides, communism presupposes not only the satisfaction of each person's requirements but also those of the qualitatively new consumer who will also be the maker of material and cultural values, a consumer who has learned to conform his requirements to the existing social wealth, to society's potentialities, to the level of its material and cultural development. This new consumer is formed in the process of socialist and communist construction, under conditions where the principle of distribution according to work and of control over the measure of labour and the measure of consumption are implemented. His reasonable and healthy requirements do not take shape by themselves but are brought into life, into his consciousness, by socialist reality, by labour and study, by his family, friends and fellow workers.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The Road ToThe socialist principle of distribution according to work will operate througlfout the period of communist construction. Payment according to work, states the Programme of the C.P.S.U., ``will remain the principal source for satisfying the material and cultural needs of the working people''. From this it follows that the principal way to secure a high standard of living and economic equality is to increase individual payment according to the quantity and quality of work, reduce retail prices and abolish income taxes.
Until 1955 the Soviet standard of living was raised chiefly by reducing retail prices, and there was only a slight increase in wages and salaries. This did not abolish economic inequality because the price reduction mostly 262 benefitted persons in the higher paid brackets who were enabled to satisfy more of their requirements than those in the lower paid brackets.
In recent years the Communist Parly and the Soviet Government have taken steps to raise the pay of lower paid categories of workers and employees in order to shorten the gap between higher and lower wages and salaries. Some 4,000 million rubles were spent for this purpose in only the five-year period 1956--61. In 1964--65 wages and salaries were raised in public education, public health, trade and everyday services with the result that a pay increase was received by 20 million people. In 1965 alone cash incomes rose by more than 10 per cent.
Along with increasing wages and salaries, the government abolished or reduced income taxes in the lower paid groups of working people. On a national scale this gave the people an annual addition of 760 million rubles to their pay. Higher labour productivity and lower production costs are making it possible to cut prices on consumer goods and thus boost the standard of living.
Side by side with distribution according to work, more and more of the people's requirements are being satisfied at the expense of the social consumption funds. These funds are set up to meet people's requirements free of charge regardless of the quantity and quality of work. Distribution from these funds leads directly to communist distribution, to economic equality.
The social funds, which are a new, socialist form of satisfying the people's requirements, arc used to pay for the upkeep of kindergartens and nursery schools, boarding schools, and health and holiday homes, for education, for medical and cultural services, for pensions, scholarships, allowances and grants, for housing and communal services, and so forth. It is characteristic that these funds grow along with the growth of individual payments. The total sum paid out to the population from these funds has increased from 4.200 million rubles in 1940 to 41,500 million rubles in 1965. In other words, in 1965 the amount paid out was nearly 400 rubles per working person. The government allocates huge sums of money for the building, upkeep and repair of housing. Nearly half of the 263 population in the Soviet Union has been rehoused during the past ten years.
The growth of the social funds tends to level out the incomes of the people and help to achieve economic equality because large families and lower paid workers receive considerably larger incomes from these funds than higher paid people.
The satisfaction of requirements through social funds is in line with the collectivist nature of the Soviet system, makes it possible rationally to organise public education, the medical services, social insurance and other important social spheres, helps to free women from exhausting household chores, instils people with lofty morals, and gradually delivers people from anxiety linked up with personal ownership and attachment to items of prolonged use. Under communism it is hardly possible that anyone would think, for example, of having a country house (dacha) or car of his own, because facilities for rest in suburban areas and means of transport will be provided by society.
The growth of social funds does not clash with the interests of the individual and does not reduce consumption. On the contrary, requirements are met more fully and, moreover, inasmuch as the concern for satisfying requirements is shifting more and more to the shoulders of society, people will get additional time for study, entertainment and rest.
The decisions passed at the March and September 1965 plenary meetings of the C.C. C.P.S.U. and, in particular, by the 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U. dealt at length with the ways and means of improving the socialist principle of distribution and raising real incomes. The Congress Directives on the 1966--70 Plan for Economic Development envisage an increase of approximately 30 per cent in real incomes in terms of per head of population. This will be achieved by raising the pay of industrial, office and other workers, increasing the incomes of the collective farmers in cash and in kind, reducing stale and co-operative retail prices as well as prices in the collective-farm markets and meeting more requirements at the expense of social funds. Under the 1966--70 plan the wages and salaries of industrial, office and other workers are to be raised by an average of not less than 20 per cent, while the increase of the 264 collective farmers' incomes in cash and in kind from the socialised economy will average 35--40 per cent. This will narrow down the gap between the incomes of the collective farmers on the one hand and industrial, office and other workers on the other. In addition, cash allowances and grants paid out from social consumption funds will rise by at least 40 per cent.
A steady improvement of the socialist principle of distribution according to work combined with the continued growth of social funds and the gradual closing of the gap between the income levels of different categories of working people are thus the concrete way to recast the socialist into the communist principle of distribution, attain economic equality and thereby create identical economic conditions for the advancement of all citizens. The faster the productive forces and labour productivity grow the sooner will this equality be achieved.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. Towards Social Equality __ALPHA_LVL3__ [introduction.]Communism is a classless society of social equality. This equality is achieved gradually by erasing the essential distinctions between the workers and the collective farmers, and also between the two latter classes and the intelligentsia.
Let us first deal with the eradication of class distinctions. Insofar as the basic indication of a class is its attitude to ownership, a necessary condition for erasing the distinction between the workers and the collective farmers is the elimination of the distinction between state or public ownership, with which the working class is linked up, and co-operative-collective-farm ownership, with which the collective farmers are associated, and the merging of these two forms of ownership into a single people's ownership.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Towards a SingleThe possibility of bringing together and then merging state and co-operalive-collective-tarm ownership into a single people's ownership lies in these forms of ownership themselves, in their socialist social nature. Insofar as state ownership is more socialised than co-opcrative-collcctive-i'arm ownership and inasmuch as it 265 creates more possibilities for stale planning, the task is gradually to raise the socialisation level of co-- operativecollective-farm ownership to that of state ownership. This is the only possible way to merge these two forms of ownership into a single people's ownership.
The drawing together of these two forms of socialist ownership is already taking place in the U.S.S.R., an expression of which is, primarily, the steady growth of the non-distributable assets of the collective farms. For example, in 1958, these assets were valued at 24,200 million rubles, and in 1965 at 35,000 million rubles. They form the foundation of collective-farm production, consisting of machines and equipment, production premises, draught and productive livestock, and so forth. Essentially, they come close to state ownership, especially as their principal portion---tractors and other farm machinery---are created not by the collective farmers but by workers. With the growth of these funds an increasing place in them will be occupied by tractors and other farm machinery.
The rise of the socialisation level of co-- operativecollective-farm ownership is also expressed in the enlargement of the collective farms, which is taking place through the growth of collective farms and the amalgamation of small collective farms into large units. In 1940 there were 235,500 collective farms in the Soviet Union; by 1964 their number dropped to only 37,600. Naturally, the bigger units have larger non-distributable assets than the small economies. These funds increase as a result of the growth of collective-farm cash incomes, from which they are deducted, and of greater assistance to the collective farmers by the socialist state.
Inter-collective-farm relations and co-operation are expanding. Co-operation takes the shape of joint building and operation of power stations, irrigation projects, roads, enterprises processing, storing and transporting farm produce, and building materials plants. At the close of 1963 there were 569 associations engaged in building and assembly work, 501 associations for the production of building materials and hundreds of other inter-collective-farm enterprises. The development of inter-collective-farm relations shows the rise in the socialisation level of cooperative-collective-farm ownership and, thereby, its 266 steady approach to the point of integration with public ownership.
The expanding relations between the collective farms and the state are another indication that the two forms of ownership are merging. These relations are promoted in the most diverse spheres: electric power supply to the collective farms from state-owrned power stations, the joint building of factories, roads and irrigation works, the planting of forest shelter belts, and so on. The expansion of intercollective-farm relations and also of the relations between the collective farms and the state is an objective process issuing from the growth of agricultural production, and the appearance of problems which the collective farms cannot tackle by themselves.
The drawing together of the two forms of ownership does not mean that co-operative-collective-farm ownership has outlived its day and should be at once abolished. On the contrary, it provides scope for increasing agricultural output, and the Party and the government are therefore taking steps to make the utmost, effective use of the possibilities offered by this form of ownership.
State ownership expands still further in the process of building communism. This is mirrored by the growth of the basic production assets of the economy, the further concentration and specialisation of industries, the development of the division of labour, and so on.
The drawing together of state and co-operative-- collective-farm ownership and the erasure of the distinctions between them are removing the essential distinctions between the working class and the collective farmers in spheres such as the role played by them in the social organisation of labour and also the size of the share of the social wealth possessed by them, and the mode of receiving it. Indeed, in proportion to the development of socialist society, farm labour gradually becomes a variety of industrial labour, which means that the essential distinctions between the nature of the production functions and labour of the worker and the collective farmer are disappearing. Correspondingly, the collective farmer is changing spiritually; he is becoming more organised and plays a steadily increasing role in social and political affairs. At the collective farms the forms of distribution 267 arc improving, and guaranteed payment for labour, modelled on the wage system at state enterprises, is being introduced for collective farmers. Along with payment in cash and in kind, social forms of satisfying people's requirements---upkeep of children at kindergartens and nursery schools, tuition at schools, and health and cultural services---are becoming more and more widespread at the collective farms. A considerable portion of these expenses is borne by the state. A pension scheme has been started for collective farmers.
When we speak of the eradication of the essential distinctions between the working class and the collective farmers, we must bear in mind that the internal structure of both these classes is heterogeneous. Among the workers, as among collective farmers, there are skilled and unskilled workers, people with a high level and people with an inadequate level of political consciousness, highly educated, cultured people, and people with less education and inadequate culture. There is a marked difference between the collective farms themselves in the level of socialisation, technical equipment and efficiency: there are advanced, economically strong collective farms, and lagging, weak ones in the same way as there are advanced and lagging industrial enterprises. The surmounting of the essential distinctions between the working class and the collective farmers is thus also linked up with the surmounting of the distinctions within these classes, with the achievement of inner-class homogeneity and with the evening out of the level of development and efficiency in the work of different state and co-operative enterprises, with the turning of all of them into highly efficient, advanced enterprises. Class and inner-class distinctions are eradicated on the basis of the growth of production and social ownership and scientific and technical progress.
Thus, one of the principal ways of surmounting the essential distinctions between the working class and the collective farmers is to bring together and then integrate state and co-operative-collective-farm oxvnership.
It should not be imagined that the merging of these two forms of ownership is a simple and rapid progress requiring solely administrative interference, say the 268 promulgation of a decree changing collective farms into state farms and, as though by the wave of a magic wand, turning the collective farmer into a worker. As was noted at the 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U., there had been cases of collective farms unjustifiably turned into state farms. Those responsible for this ignored, firstly, the fact that co-- operative-collective-farm ownership had not by a long shot exhausted all its possibilities and that it fully conformed with the present requirements of agricultural development and, secondly, that before collective-farm ownership could be turned into public ownership there had to be a real rise of the level of socialisation of production, a growth of the material and technical basis of the collective farms, higher labour productivity and improved labour organisation, large-scale application of science to farming, and so forth. All this requires time, investments and dedicated labour. The prerequisites are created in the course of the growth of collective-farm output.
Moreover, the simple act of turning the collective farmer into a state-farm employee does not make him a worker. For a long time to come he will remain a collective farmer by his mental outlook, organisation, culture, way of life, and so forth. Time, effort and education arc needed to remake the collective farmers' way of life and thinking.
The erasure of class distinctions will not mean that all social distinctions will have disappeared or that complete social equality will have been attained. Within the system of state and co-operative-collective-farm ownership there live and work intellectuals, who, due to their position, differ substantially from people engaged in physical work. For that reason the abolition of class distinctions is linked up not only with the erasure of the distinctions between the forms of ownership but also with the eradication of the distinctions between town and country and between physical and mental work.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Surmounting the EssentialSocialism has abolished the age-old antithesis between town and country, and the exploitation of the peasant masses by urban capitalists. It put an end to the backwardness of the countryside, to the hopeless poverty of the peasants and to their lack of rights, which fettered the progressive 269 development of society as a whole and of the peasant in particular.
Socialism has instituted social ownership in the countryside, transformed the small, scattered husbandries into large collective farms and supplied these farms with modern machinery. After wiping out the exploiting classes socialism changed the social structure of the countryside: all the peasants became toilers in socialist production. The town, which had been the adversary and exploiter of the countryside, became its true friend and ally. The alliance between the workers and the peasantry, which is the foundation of the socialist system, grew stronger, and the working class became the recognised leader of the peasants and the organiser of their new life in a new, socialist society.
The abolition of the antithesis between town and country is a law of socialism, a law that has been confirmed by practice in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.
However, the surmounting of this antithesis does not signify the abolition of the essential distinctions between town and country. These distinctions manifest themselves in the fact that state ownership is supreme in towns and in industry, while in the countryside, in addition to state ownership (state farms and other enterprises) there is co-operative-collective-farm ownership. The town differs from the countryside and outstrips it in the level of the productive forces, technical equipment, the character and division of labour, the standard of living, the cultural level, the communal services, level of transport and communications, and so on.
Naturally, these distinctions leave their mark on the development of the individual, and place the rural inhabitant at a disadvantage with regard to facilities for enhancing his qualifications and cultural level and improving intellectually and physically, especially as the main achievements of material and spiritual culture are concentrated in the towns. The objective process of the erasure of the essential distinctions between town and country is, therefore, not an end in itself but a means of achieving a higher objective, namely, the creation of equal social conditions for the development of the individual, for turning him into an all-sidedly developed citizen of the new society.
270The gradual disappearance of these distinctions in the course of communist construction is mirrored in the change in the character of farm labour; the improvement of social relations and, in particular, of the relations of production, and their gradual growth into communist relations; the rise of the cultural level of the countryside and the recasting of its way of life. All these processes are founded 011 the promotion of the productive forces through the utilisation of the latest scientific and technological achievements and on the boosting of labour productivity.
Comprehensive electrification and chemicalisation, allembracing mechanisation and automation in production, and scientific and technological progress will gradually turn farm labour into a variety of industrial labour. Moreover, the growth of the machine-worker ratio will necessarily bring about a rise of the cultural and technical level and lead to peasants receiving special training. In the long run this will enable the peasant to take his place beside the urban worker in the united ranks of citizens engaged in communist production.
The old division of labour in the countryside is being surmounted. Formerly the peasant was a jack of all farm trades, and his work was seasonal. Essentially workers' trades have now appeared in the countryside. The machine operator has become an important figure at the collective farms. In 1963 there were nearly twice as many machine operators at the collective and state farms as in 1940. Many of them have received training in allied trades, and this enables them to change their occupation.
Specialists trained at institutions of higher learning are playing an increasing role in organising agricultural production. In 1964, for example, agriculture employed 583,000 agronomists, zootechnicians, engineers and other specialists, while two-thirds of the collective-farm chairmen and nearly all the state-farm managers had a higher or secondary education.
Despite substantial successes there are serious difficulties in agriculture. When we consider these difficulties we must take into account the fact that from tsarist times the Soviet Union inherited an extremely backward, scattered agriculture in which the main implements were the wooden plough and the harrow. Enormous damage was inflicted 271 on agriculture by the nazis, who destroyed or pillaged 98,000 collective farms, 1,876 state farms and 2.890 machine-and-tractor stations, and slaughtered or drove away to Germany tens of millions of head of livestock. Besides these objective reasons, agriculture was adversely affected by subjectivism, by errors in planning, financing and crediting, and by the price policy.
Much remains to be done to overcome these difficulties and ensure the further upsurge of the collective and state farms. The countryside is still inadequately supplied with machinery. The shortage of tractors, harvester-combines and other machines, including cultivators, harrows and seeders, delays field work and holds up the growth of crop yields. The repair facilities have to be improved and more specialists trained for agriculture. To meet this situation, the March 1965 Plenary Meeting of the C.C. C.P.S.U. and the 23rd Party Congress adopted decisions to expand the material and technical basis of the collective and state farms. Suffice it to say that the plan for 1966--70 calls for the supply to agriculture of 1,790,000 tractors and 1,100,000 lorries. These are truly impressive figures, especially in view of the fact that at the close of 1964 there was a total of 1,565,000 tractors and 956,000 lorries in agriculture.
The growth of the productive forces is reshaping the relations of production in the countryside---the socialisation level of co-operative-collective-farm ownership is rising and drawing ever closer to state ownership, economic relations are improving both within agriculture itself and between agriculture and industry, and the form of distribution is changing at the collective farms.
The eradication of the distinctions between town and country and, thereby, between the working class and the collective farmers is giving rise to a population movement from town to country and back. Migration to towns is linked up chiefly with the growth of labour productivity in agriculture. During Soviet years the number of rural workers (annual average) dropped by more than half while agricultural production rose 130 per cent.
The migration to towns is natural and will continue, but it is not due only to the growth of the machine-man ratio or of labour productivity in the towns. Many rural 272 inhabitants, particularly young people, aspire to move to towns because of the better facilities there for creative work, for obtaining an education, for cultural growth and for recreation.
This makes the surmounting of the cultural and livingstandard lag in the countryside an important social problem, which must be resolved before social equality can be achieved.
Socialism has brought a new culture to the countryside, changed its way of life and opened for the peasant the road to education and culture. The general education and technical level of the rural population has grown noticeably. The collective farmers are spending considerably more money on books, magazines and newspapers and on items of cultural use. Many general education schools, clubs and public libraries have been opened in the countryside. For example, the number of clubs in the countryside has increased from 100 in 1913 to 112,300 in 1962, and of cinema installations from 100 in 1914 to 122,300 in 1965. Amateur art activity and sports have become widespread.
The rural way of life is gradually changing. Town-type houses with modern conveniences and paved streets are no longer rare in the villages. The number of shops is increasing rapidly and there are public catering establishments, children's institutions, cultural centres and sports facilities. However, much still remains to be done in the way of raising the cultural level, and, in particular, organising everyday life in order to create the conditions for moulding the erudite, politically conscious and all-sidedly developed agricultural worker.
The five-year economic development plan for 1966--70 marks a major step towards further progress in surmounting the essential distinctions between town and country and consistently raising the material and cultural level of the rural population to that of the towns. The approximate doubling of the basic production assets in agriculture and their substantial renewal will bring the production and technical potentialities of agriculture to the level achieved in industry. A large housing and everyday service programme has been started, and there is to be a considerable rise of the collective farmers' incomes in cash and kind from the socialised economy.
__PRINTERS_P_273_COMMENT__ 18---2775 273The decisions passed by the 23rd Party Congress call for a creative approach to key social problems, particularly the relationship between town and country and between the working class and the collective farmers. Today it is not only a question of strengthening and enlarging the economic and political foundation of the alliance between the working class and the peasants, but also of promoting cultural co-operation between them, of furthering the cultural growth of the countryside and introducing urban culture into rural life.
When we speak of erasing the essential distinctions between town and country, we must bear in mind the fact that in both town and country the population is heterogeneous. One section of the rural population is linked up with state ownership (workers of slate farms and other state enterprises) and the other is linked up with cooperative-collective-farm ownership (collective farmers). In both these sections there are brain and manual workers. Then again they may be subdivided into specialists and unskilled workers (rank-and-file collective farmers and state-farm workers, the lower echelons of office workers, clerical workers, and so forth). Hence the distinctions among the rural population as regards material security, cultural level and organisation of life must be taken into consideration when the problem of surmounting the essential distinctions between town and country is tackled. Moreover, this problem is closely connected with the problem of surmounting the essential distinctions between mental and physical labour in both town and country.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Surmounting theSocialism has abolished the antithesis between mental and physical labour which exists in capitalist society, where the ruling classes monopolise the management of production and mental occupations and use intellectuals to further their mercenary interests and squeeze sweat out of manual workers. Under capitalism most of the mental workers---scientific and technical intelligentsia, executives, workers in art and literature---are in one camp with the exploiters, with the capitalists, which opposes the people engaged in physical labour (workers and peasants).
274The wiping out of the exploiting classes broke their monopoly over intellectual occupations and gave the broad masses access to education, science and culture. There emerged a huge army of intellectuals, who come from the people and serve the people in various spheres of social activity: industry, the administration of society, education, public health, science, art and literature.
On November 15, 1965, the Soviet economy employed 4,891,000 persons with a higher education and 7,175,000 people with a secondary special education as against 136,000 and 54,000 respectively in 1913.
Technical progress in industry and agriculture is bringing more and more elements of mental labour into physical work. Already today a considerable number of workers and collective farmers can no longer be described as purely manual workers; they are people engaged primarily in physical work, especially in view of the fact that at the beginning of 1966 over 54.2 per cent of the working population had either a higher or secondary (ten- or seven-year) education.
There are neither antitheses nor absolute lines of demarcation between brain and manual workers, but there are considerable differences in their cultural and technical level. These differences are not accidental. They issue from the achieved level of the productive forces and the technical equipment of the economy. The present state of the economy is such that it requires both skilled and unskilled labour, i.e., the labour of workers and peasants and of intellectuals. This is due to the dissimilar levels of mechanisation, let alone of automation. The surmounting of the essential distinctions between mental and physical labour is an indispensable condition for achieving social equality, which will give all citizens equal opportunities for all-round development.
This task will be considered as having been carried out when all people become cultured and educated, i.e., when the cultural and technical level of the workers and collective farmers reaches that of the intellectuals. Naturally, the cultural and technical level of intellectuals will not remain at a standstill; technical, scientific and cultural progress makes it necessary for them constantly to improve and __PRINTERS_P_275_COMMENT__ 18* 275 augment their knowledge and experience and raise their general cultural level.
The prime factor helping to erase the distinctions between mental and physical labour is scientific and technical progress, which, as we know, changes the nature of labour, making it intellectual and creative. The change embraces not only physical but also mental work, because monotonous and fatiguing operations (computation, collection and analysis of data, and so on) will be gradually taken over by machines.
However, this does not mean that scientific and technical progress will automatically raise the cultural and technical level of workers and collective farmers. In order to reach this goal it is necessary to open more general education, special and higher schools, improve the system of vocational and technical education and production apprenticeship and raise the political consciousness of the people.
With scientific and technical progress socialist labour will give way to communist labour, which will be neither narrow, specialised mental labour, nor purely physical labour, but a qualitatively new labour combining mental and physical effort. This will lead to the disappearance of the intelligentsia as a special social section, for all citizens will become intellectual workers of communist industry and culture. ``In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.''^^*^^
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Development and DrawingIn the Soviet Union nations developed not through a growth of national partitions national narrowness and egoism, as in capitalist society, but through a continuous drawing together, through increasing reciprocal assistance and friendship. The two interrelated progressive trends of the national question operating under socialism and during the building of communism are, on the one hand, the all-round advancement of each nation, the further growth of its economy and culture and the improvement of its social relations, and, on the other, the _-_-_
^^*^^ K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 54.
276 ever closer drawing together of socialist nations on the basis of proletarian internationalism and Soviet patriotism.A new community of people, the Soviet people, has taken shape in the Soviet Union as a result of the operation of these trends. This community of socialist nations is free from social and national antagonisms, hostility and distrust. It has a single economic foundation: socialist ownership and a single Marxist-Leninist philosophy. Welded together economically, socially, politically and ideologically and united round the Communist Party and the socialist state this great community is today a close-knit family bent upon achieving one goal, namely, communism. The state form of this community is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The formation of this community by no means implies the levelling of nations, the repudiation of national entities, and national languages and cultures. National entities are preserved and developed. They are an inalienable part of the Soviet people as a whole, who form a new entity, which embraces all that is general, stable and important in the economic, political and cultural life of each socialist nation. Complete equality of nations and the combining of the interests of the U.S.S.R. with those of each national republic are a major element of the nationalities policy of the C.P.S.U. and the Soviet Government. ``The Party,'' states the Programme of the C.P.S.U., ``will continue its policy ensuring the actual equality of all nations and nationalities with full consideration for their interests and devoting special attention to those areas of the country which are in need of more rapid development.''
Fraternal co-operation and reciprocal assistance, which are unprecedented in world history, have taken shape on the basis of the undivided predominance of socialist relations of production in the Soviet Union. Born during the joint struggle against tsarism, withstanding the stern test of time and becoming fully formed as a result of the triumph of socialism, the friendship among the Soviet peoples has become the mighty driving force of socialist society and one of the greatest sources of its power and strength.
The building of communist society has ushered in a new phase in the development of national relations in the U.S.S.R., a phase characterised by the further development and drawing together of nations and the achievement of 277 harmonious unity among them. The building of the material and technical basis of communism, the development and improvement of socialist social relations and the upsurge of socialist culture are leading to closer unity among the Soviet peoples.
The creation of the material and technical basis of communism furthers the all-round economic development of the Union republics, improves the division of labour between them, extends existing and forms new economic relations. The communist economy now being built up requires the closest possible relations between the Soviet republics. In proportion to the advance towards communism, each of them will be making an increasing contribution towards the development of the country's productive forces, the promotion of scientific and technical progress and raising the standard of living, with the result that there will be a further economic drawing together of the socialist nations. This drawing together is facilitated by the building of new industrial centres, the discovery and tapping of natural wealth, the development of virgin land and remote areas and the expansion of all means of transport and communications.
As the Soviet socialist nations draw closer together, the boundaries between the Union republics within the U.S.S.R. lose their former significance. Frontiers between socialist republics are not those of national insulation, economic rivalry and political strife as under capitalism. They are open to intercourse, economic co-operation, political unity and cultural exchanges between nations. One can appreciate that because in the Soviet Union all nations enjoy equal rights, their life is built up on a single socialist foundation and their material and spiritual requirements are satisfied equally. Common interests unite them into a single family and, together, shoulder to shoulder, they advance towards a common goal.
For its national composition every Soviet republic is becoming more and more multinational and this is another factor testifying to the steady drawing together of the peoples of the U.S.S.R. In every republic people of different nationalities work and live side by side as brothers. The personnel of socialist enterprises is likewise multinational.
The social homogeneity of nations is becoming more and 278 more pronounced as a result of communist construction, the removal of class boundaries and the development of communist social relations. Under socialism the class composition of nations consists of workers, collective farmers and intellectuals, and as progress is made in building communism the social distinctions between these groups are erased in all the republics without exception, and the new type of communist worker, the new, all-sidedly developed individual is moulded.
The culture, morality and way of life of the socialist nations acquire more and more common features and this ensures the further strengthening of trust and friendship among them. The spiritual unity of nations grows ever more firm. The socialist culture of the Soviet peoples flourishes, and the national cultures draw closer and become mutually enriched. International culture, which embraces all the best achievements of human culture, develops. The culture of every nation is enriched by creations that acquire a general, international character, and this marks the beginning of the formation of the future single culture of communist society.
The drawing together of nations plays an immense part in achieving the goal of communist society, namely, the moulding of the new man, because when, as a result of this drawing together, the economic and cultural development of the different republics reaches the same level equal conditions arise for the development and application of the capabilities of each and every person regardless of where he lives and works. People of all nationalities will get ever broader possibilities of mastering and utilising the achievements of the material and spiritual culture of other nations and thereby enriching their own production experience and raising their cultural level.
Survivals of national narrow-mindedness and exclusiveness, as well as outworn national customs that seriously hamper the moulding of the new man, are surmounted in the process of the drawing together of nations. In particular, this will put an end to remaining survivals (in individual republics) of inequality of women and remnants of the old, feudal attitude to them in the family and in everyday life.
The triumph of communism in the U.S.S.R. will witness 279 a greater community of economic and ideological interests. Economy and culture will reach an unprecedented level of development, and communist features will become predominant.
The drawing together of nations will culminate in the merging of nations. However, this merging, i.e., the surmounting of national distinctions, is a much longer process than the erasure of the distinctions between classes. With the triumph of communism, class distinctions will disappear, but national and, particularly, language distinctions will remain for a considerable period of time.
In the course of communist construction, the drawing together of nations is an objective, law-governed process. But this does not mean that it is a spontaneous, unhindered process. The economic and cultural advancement of the socialist nations and their gradual drawing together are the result of the scientific guidance given to the development of national relations by the Communist Party and the socialist state. By directing and organising the economic, social, political and cultural relations of the different nations, combining the centralisation of the activities of all the republics within the U.S.S.R. with the promotion of national statehood, the granting of extensive rights to the republics and the furthering of local initiative, the Party and the government help the nations to achieve prosperity and draw closer together. At the same time, the Party combats all manifestations of parochialism and survivals of nationalism and chauvinism.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. Towards Social Self-Administration __ALPHA_LVL3__ [introduction.]The administration of social affairs likewise undergoes profound changes during the building of communism. State administration gradually gives way to social self-administration.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ The Ability toThe communist requirement of ``from each according to his ability signifies not only work to the utmost of one's ability but also active, habitual participation by every citizen in the administration of social affairs. In communist society 280 this important assertion of the individual will be a feature of every citizen, for social self-administration will be a reality. The formation of the new, all-sidedly developed individual necessarily presupposes the formation of the ability to administer social affairs. ``The Socialist Soviet Republic,'' Lenin wrote, ``is faced with a task which may be briefly formulated as follows ... six hours of physical work for every adult citizen daily and four hours of work in administering the state.'' Of course, the number of hours mentioned here is relative, but the very fact that Lenin placed work in production on the same plane as the administration of the state shows the tremendous importance that he attached to teaching every person to be a civic worker, a citizen and an administrator.
In order to make every citizen a capable administrator there must be the corresponding facilities, of which the principal are the material and technical basis of communism and a high level of labour productivity, which gives people free time for non-production (including administrative) activities. In addition, the level of political consciousness must be considerably enhanced so that people would feel the need to administer, to emerge from the shell of their own personal interests. Lastly, every person must be taught to administer social affairs.
To teach a person to administer social affairs means primarily to raise his cultural level, for administration is creative, intellectual work which requires a knowledge of the intricate mechanism of social relations in society as a whole and in its separate links, and a knowledge of the laws and trends of social development, of the operation of objective laws and potentialities and of the limits within which they can be applied. Before one can administer one must know production, the rudiments of science and technology, spiritual culture and people themselves, as well as their relationship to each other in different spheres of social life. In short, in order to administer, one must know the object of administration and have a thorough knowledge of the methods and means of administration. The best way to learn to administer is through practical participation in administration. The vanguard of the oppressed classes, Lenin wrote, ``must educate every member of the working 281 population for independent participation in the administration of the state not theoretically but practically".
The working people learn the art of administration during the building of communism. On the one hand, the building of communism cannot proceed without drawing the masses into administration and, on the other, the learning of the methods of administration facilitate the success of communist construction.
A necessary condition for the participation of more and more people in the administration of society and the acquiring by them of the art of administration is that socialist democracy must be extended. During the period of communist construction, the development of the socialist state pursues the line of further extending democracy and improving the work of all links of the state machine. In this connection, the Programme of the C.P.S.U. declares: `` Allround extension and perfection of socialist democracy, active participation of all citizens in the administration of the state, in the management of economic and cultural development, improvement of the government apparatus, and increased control over its activity by the people constitute the main direction in which socialist statehood develops in the period of the building of communism."
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Extension of SocialistThe building of communist society is characterised by the further development and extension of Soviet democracy. It witnesses the further development of democratic centralism, which ensures the correct combination of central leadership with the utmost promotion of local initiative and an extension of the rights of the Union republics, of local authorities and individual enterprises. Legislation in law, administrative and territorial matters and a number of other economic, political and cultural spheres has been turned over to the jurisdiction of the Union republics. The Rules of the Socialist State Enterprise, adopted in October 1965, envisage a considerable extension of the rights and economic independence of enterprises in utilising funds, regulating the size of the staff, adopting a system of wages, planning, sales, establishing economic relations with other production and trade enterprises, and so forth. There can be no doubt that these Rules 282 will help to encourage the people to display initiative and learn to manage production.
The extension of democracy is strikingly manifested in the growing role of the Soviets of Working People's Deputies in the life of society. It is characteristic that by their nature the Soviets have been and remain not only government but also public institutions, and with the development of socialism more and more stress is laid on their social side. ``The Soviets,'' the Programme of the C.P.S.U. notes, ``which combine the features of a government body and a mass organisation of the people, operate more and more like social organisations, with the masses participating extensively and directly in their work.''
Today with a total of nearly 2,000,000 deputies the Soviets are among the most representative organisations of the people. Most of the deputies are not career politicians but people working at factories, collective or state farms, and scientific and cultural institutions. They fulfil their duties as deputies in their spare time and receive no remuneration. For instance, over 46 per cent of the deputies in the present Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. are workers or collective farmers directly engaged in material production, and they perform their functions as deputies not as a profession but as a civic duty. In the local (regional, district, town and rural) Soviets more than 70 per cent of the deputies are engaged in material production.
The Communist Party regards the Soviets as a school of social administration and seeks to draw as many people as possible into their work. To this end the number of deputies in the local Soviets was increased in 1959 by 350,000. As a result, a new, large contingent of workers, collective farmers and intellectuals obtained the possibility of taking part in the work of the Soviets and thereby acquiring experience in the administration of the state. The renewal of the Soviets by not less than one-third at every election ensures an influx of new blood and affords more and more people the opportunity of learning the art of administration. At the March 1965 elections, 55.6 per cent of the composition of the local Soviets was renewed.
In order to administer society more successfully, the Soviets draw a large number of activists into their work. At the Soviets there are standing commissions consisting, 283 in addition to deputies, of nearly 2,500,000 activists. For example, the Supreme Soviets of the Union republics have standing credentials, legislative, foreign affairs, industry and transport, agriculture, public education, public health and social security, trade and public catering and other commissions. These commissions study the state of affairs in one or another sphere of economy or culture, and submit recommendations to the Soviets, which at their sessions pass decisions on these recommendations and take steps to ensure the fulfilment of these decisions.
There are other forms of mass participation in state administration, and they include supernumarary departments of the Executive Committees of the Soviets (which enjoy the same rights as regular departments), people's inspection departments, non-staff instructors, and so forth. Altogether more than 23 million people, or 11 times more than the total number of deputies, participate in the work of the Soviets on a voluntary basis.
Thus, one of the ways to enable the people to learn the art of administration is to encourage their participation on a voluntary basis in the work of the Soviets.
People's control over the work of organs of administration is steadily expanding. This control is becoming widespread as is shown by the fact that at every factory and office groups have been elected to control the activities of the factory or office concerned, the quality of the output and the safeguarding of socialist property. Reports by these groups appear regularly in the press.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Enhancement of the RoleAnother important means of extending socialist democracy, of drawing the people into the administration of the state, is to enhance the role played by mass organisations by giving them a steadily larger share of some of the functions of the government.
The largest of these organisations are the trade unions, which have an aggregate membership of 80 millions. They are a school of administration and economic management.
The trade unions are playing an ever larger role in helping to promote the economy, draw up state plans of economic development and manage production. They make sure that safety rules and labour legislation are observed, see to the fulfilment of housing programmes and 284 allocate housing, and enforce efficiency in trade and public catering. They run numerous cultural centres, health and holiday homes, holiday resorts, summer and winter recreation camps for children, sports centres, and so forth.
A large network of public organisations and associations helping the state to administer the country's economic, social and cultural life operate under their direction. These organisations include standing production conferences at industrial, transport and building enterprises which enable millions of people to participate directly in the management of production. Workers, employees, engineers, technicians, managerial staffs, Party and Y.C.L organisations and scientific and technical societies are represented in these standing conferences, of which 1,126,000 were in operation in the U.S.S.R. in 1962.
Moreover, the trade unions operate public designing bureaus, public economic analysis groups, public technical rate setting bureaus, councils of innovators and other bodies that play an important role in organising and managing industry. The councils of innovators have public instructors, who demonstrate advanced methods of work directly at the work-benches.
In the U.S.S.R. the mass organisations and institutions are a kind of school enabling people to learn to manage the economy.
More and more of the social and cultural functions of state bodies are being transferred to mass organisations. For example, the Young Communist League, which has a membership of nearly 23 millions, is active in bringing up and educating young people. Physical culture and sports, holiday services (health and holiday homes) and the sponsoring of lectures are completely in the hands of mass organisations. People's universities of culture,^^*^^ opened throughout the country, are making a large contribution towards raising the people's cultural level and drawing them into production and social activity.
The people are also active in maintaining law and order. Voluntary law maintenance detachments have been set up at factories, building sites, offices and collective farms and _-_-_
^^*^^ These are institutions providing facilities for cultural improvement.---Ed.
285 these actively assist the militia, the courts and the procurator's office.The government supports the various mass associations and organisations which facilitate the operation of state bodies or undertake (fully or partially) the functions of these bodies. The government gives these mass organisations a legal standing and renders them material, technical and organisational assistance.
It must be noted that the forms and rates of the transfer of the functions of state organs to mass organisations are different in the various spheres. They depend chiefly on the maturity of the mass organisations and their preparedness to take over the various functions, on the availability of activists able and willing to carry out these functions. The transfer of one function or another to the public is expedient only if it can be fulfilled by the people in their spare time without remuneration. Otherwise it would mean transferring work from one paid staff to another.
The enhancement of the role played by the public is a natural and objectively necessary process, which develops in proportion to the maturing of the corresponding conditions. This process should be neither forced nor accelerated. As in any other sphere the forestalling of developments can bring nothing but harm.
The extension of socialist democracy does not mean giving rein to pointless talking-shops, anarchy, insubordination and indifference. It is indivisibly linked up with the strengthening and development of socialist organisation and discipline. Socialist organisation and discipline are inconceivable without broad democracy, because organisation is efficient and discipline is firm only when they are not imposed from above but spring from the people's experience of struggle and work and are accepted by them as their own discipline and their own organisation.
Moreover, in promoting democracy it should not be forgotten that this process is directly linked up with the strengthening of the socialist state and socialist legality. The breaking of laws under the screen of democracy and the use of the prestige of the public for covering anti-social acts should not be tolerated. The forms and methods of public self-administration can be worked out only by promoting and strengthening state forms of administration and 286 extending democracy within the framework of these forms. Nobody is more qualified to teach the people to administer social affairs than the C.P.S.U. and the Soviet Government, which have accumulated vast and invaluable experience in administration.
Sweeping measures to further extend socialist democracy are envisaged in the new Programme of the C.P.S.U. These measures, which are designed to draw virtually all citizens into the administration of social affairs, include: improvement of the forms of public representation and of the democratic principles of the Soviet electoral system; promotion of the practice of nation-wide discussions of major problems of communist construction and of draft laws; the utmost extension of public control over the activities of organs of power and administration and enhancing the effectiveness of this control; systematic renewal of the personnel of leading bodies and consistent implementation of the principle of electivity and accountability of leaders and the gradual spread of this principle to all leading officials of state organs, mass organisations and cultural institutions.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Growth of the RoleCommunist construction is characterised by the further growth of the role and importance of the Communist Party as the leading and directing force of Soviet society. This is a law-governed process springing from the objective development of Soviet society, from the massive growth of the scale and complexity of the tasks involved in the building of communism, the unprecedented upswing of creative activity by the masses, the drawing of millions upon millions of people into the management of production and the administration of the state, the further extension of socialist democracy, the mounting role of the theory of Marxism-Leninism in the life and development of society, and the communist education of the people.
The Party provides society with scientific leadership on the basis of a realistic assessment of potentialities and reserves, of a sober evaluation of the trends and laws of social development and a close study of its own experience and the experience of other socialist countries. The Party unswervingly applies the Leninist standards 287 and principles of Party and state activity. The most important of these principles, which may be described as the Party's tested instrument and greatest possession, is that of collective leadership, whose immutability is confirmed in the Party Programme and Rules.
Only by resting on this principle is it possible correctly to direct and promote the constantly growing creative energy and activity of the Party and the people, correctly analyse and soberly evaluate the objective situation and achieved successes, and opportunely bring to light and completely eradicate shortcomings. The Party therefore makes it obligatory that the principle of collective leadership is rigidly observed in all its organisations, from primary cells to the Central Committee.
In the resolution passed by the 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U. it is pointed out that a scientific approach, teamwork and efficiency in the leadership of communist construction and in pursuing the domestic and foreign policy of the Soviet state should continue to be the cornerstone of all the activities of the Central Committee.
Constant contact with the masses is the fundamental law guiding the life and work of the Party. The Party not only teaches and educates the masses, but also learns from them and generalises their enormous experience. Together with the people and together with the socialist government, in which the people are broadly represented, the Party resolves the major tasks of communist construction. Unity between the Party and the people is the guarantee of the successful building of communism.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Withering AwayThe state appeared with the rise of classes; with the disappearance of classes it will necessarily wither away. The time will come, Engels wrote, when society will send the state to where it belongs---the museum of antiquities, alongside the spinning wheel and the bronze axe.
When will the process of the withering away of the state begin? In the period of the proletarian dictatorship or during the gradual transition to communism?
It is a fact that the proletarian dictatorship contains some of the prerequisites for the withering away of the state. In societies with antagonistic classes the state has 288 always been a weapon of politics, of the political supremacy of the minority over the majority, but the proletarian dictatorship, on the other hand, gives rise to the first state in which tremendous importance is attached to economic development, to economic policy. ``Usually,'' Lenin wrote, ``the word 'administration' is associated primarily with activities which are mainly or even exclusively political. Yet the very foundation and the very essence of Soviet power as well as the essence of the transition from capitalist to socialist society is that political tasks are subordinated to economic tasks.''
It was not accidental that Marx, Engels and Lenin characterised the socialist state from its very beginning as a ``semi-state'', as a transitional form from the state in the proper meaning of the term to a ``non-state''.
Naturally, this does not mean that the state of the proletarian dictatorship is a withering state. In addition to the seizure of political power, the working class is confronted with the immensely important and difficult task of building a socialist society. This task cannot be carried out without statehood, without the political suppression of the deposed exploiting classes, without a state organisation and administration of economic, political and cultural affairs.
Still more difficult and diverse tasks arise in the period of communist construction. Communism, as we have already said, is the result of conscious creative work by the people, of their dedicated labour and selfless struggle. But the creative efforts of the people must be united, organised and directed towards the attainment of a single goal. The socialist state led by the Communist Party is the force organising the building of the new society. Hence the need for the socialist state throughout the period of communist construction and the need for its steady development and improvement. The state, Lenin wrote, will be needed ``until victorious socialism develops into full communism''.^^*^^
However, in the period of communist construction the state is more of a ``semi-state'' than a state of the transition period. No longer a weapon for the political suppression of the exploiters, it is a political organisation called upon to _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 323.
__PRINTERS_P_289_COMMENT__ 19---2775 289 direct economic, social and cultural affairs in a society building communism. The socialist state takes an important step from stale administration to public sell-- administration. As is stated in the Programme of the C.P.S.U., as socialist statehood develops, it will gradually become communist self-government.Will the absence of a state in developed communist society not lead to disorder, disorganisation and anarchy?
No, there will not be anarchy or disorganisation in communist society. It will be founded on discipline and organisation. But this will not be discipline and organisation by compulsion. It will be conscious discipline resting on a lofty sense of dignity in every citizen, on his consciousness of his place and purpose in society, on his habit to work for the benefit of society and abide by the rules of communist human association.
Under communism versatile production and social life will go hand in hand with strict order and a unity of will directing the efforts of millions of people towards a single objective. It is difficult to say how society will be administered in the future, but if we take into consideration the fact that this will be administration by polilically conscious, disciplined people, one can expect that it will be ``like the mild leadership of a conductor''.^^*^^
The function of administration of society, like the function of leadership of the country's economic, social and cultural life, which is at present fulfilled by the state, will remain under communism as well. Moreover, it develops and improves with the development of society. However, the nature and methods of the administration of society will be different in communist society than under socialism. With the eradication of class distinctions in the process of the movement towards communism, organs of state administration gradually lose their political class character. With the disappearance of classes in communist society, they will, in the long run, merge with mass organisations and become organs of public self-administration, through which all citizens will participate in the administration of social affairs. The state will wither away and with it the specific apparatus of administration and the profession of _-_-_
~^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Workx, Vol. 27, p. 269.
290 civil servant will disappear and every citizen will devote part of his time to directing social affairs.Of course, the wilhering away of the state must not be taken to mean a simple, sudden act. It is a gradual, prolonged process embracing an entire epoch. Throughout a certain span of time state administration and public selfadministration will coexist and intertwine, and the need for the state will fall away only when society is fully mature for self-administration, i.e., under conditions of complete communism. ``The slate,'' Lenin wrote, ``will be able to wither away completely when society adopts the rule: 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs', i.e., when people have become so accustomed to observing the fundamental rules of social intercourse and when their labour has become so productive that they will voluntarily work according to their ability."^^*^^
Completion of the building of communism is the inner condition for the withering away of the state. However, external conditions are also needed, namely, the victory and consolidation of socialism on the international scene. When we speak of the withering away of the state, we must take the international situation into consideration. If communism triumphs in one or another country or in one group of countries or another and armed capitalist vultures remain in the world, the state function of defending the country will be preserved. This function will die away only when the threat of attack by reactionary imperialist powers ceases to exist. This will be achieved only with the complete abolition of capitalism on a world-wide scale.
Thus, the building of communism witnesses a gradual transformation of state administration into public selfadministration, a process directly linked up with the further improvement of the state apparatus and with the unswerving extension and improvement of socialist democracy.
_-_-_~^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 25, p. 469.
[291] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter 10 __ALPHA_LVL1__ MOULDING THE NEW MAN __ALPHA_LVL2__ [introduction.]The objective of communist society is to mould the harmoniously developed man. He will be, first and foremost, a highly educated worker in communist production, a person possessing knowledge of the fundamentals of science, a maker of material values and a creator of communist abundance. He will be an active social administrator, a person with a scientific philosophy, a patriot and an internationalist who knows the fundamentals of art and is capable of creating not only material but also spiritual values, a man with high moral principles and all-round physical development.
In short, he will be an integral man with a knowledge of all the diverse manifestations of life and possessing not only inexhaustible creative talents but also the ability to apply these talents for the benefit of society and, thereby, of himself. This man is the wealth that will supersede material wealth, which is the foundation and objective of capitalism. ``What is wealth,'' Marx wrote, ``if not the absolute bringing to light of man's creative talents without any prerequisites except preceding historical development, i.e., the development of all human powers as such.''
The lofty qualities of the man of the future will not emerge of themselves. They must be cultivated. In this chapter we shall deal with the upbringing and the communist consciousness of the new man.
292 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. The Need for CommunistThe adversaries of scientific communism are bent on proving that communism and the development of the individual personality are mutually exclusive, that only private ownership and free enterprise are a reliable foundation for man's development. However, the practice of capitalism has shown the absurdity of arguments of this kind, and this has forced the theoreticians of capitalism to go to the other extreme: they maintain that it is senseless to speak of man's perfection in this technical age of ours because man is slowly and surely dying, crushed by powerful machines.
For example, the bourgeois sociologist Erich Fromm writes: ``In our day ... not only has 'God died', as Nietzsche asserted in the 19th century, but man, too, is dead. Only organisation and machines live: instead of becoming their master, man has been turned into their slave.''
``Man is dead"---how strangely these words fall on our ears. Ours is a century of the greatest scientific discoveries, a century of far-reaching social changes which have opened unparalleled prospects for man's improvement and for unbounded freedom. It is capitalism that has crushed the working man by social injustice, turned him into, essentially, a slave of powerful machines, and pushed millions of people out of their usual way of life, out of the very process of production.
Through exploitation, violence and pillage capitalism has accumulated incalculable wealth, but it neither knows nor can know what to do with man. Having divested man of his birthright, capitalism is mortally afraid of the social, socialist renewal of man and mankind. The crisis of man in capitalist society is a crisis of capitalism itself but not of man or mankind as such, as the bourgeois falsifiers of present-day social development would have us believe. Feeling that capitalism must inevitably collapse, they are trying to bury man alive and endeavouring to impress on people that there is no sense in dreaming of a happy future, much less of fighting for it, because mankind will perish all the same---if not in the all-engulfing conflagration of a nuclear war then from the oppression of new technology.
293What is the purpose of this strange concern of the spiritual pastors of capitalism for man, and why are they sounding the death knell for mankind?
The answer is quite obvious: they seek to poison the minds of the working people, destroy the human, social element in them and, primarily, their hopes for the future, to strangle their desire to fight for and build a new life, to cast aspersions on the citizen of socialist society, on the socialist and communist system, and prove that that system cannot create a man free of the prejudices of the old society. The opponents of communism admit that communism can create powerful technologies and an abundance of material blessings but argue that it is unable to change the vicious nature of man and free him from individualism, self-interest, superstition and fear.
The spiritual fathers of capitalism close their eyes to Soviet socialist reality in which the features of the new man are coming to the fore more and more distinctly. In proportion to the progress of socialist economy and the improvement of social relations people are growing intellectually, improving themselves morally and physically, and, step by step, freeing themselves from the spiritual heritage of the past. Much, very much, has been accomplished for the people by socialism. It has inspired them with an unquenchable thirst for life, given them confidence in the future and fired them with the aspiration to make their contribution towards the building of that future. There is a great deal of work waiting to be done and its difficulty is that it is being undertaken for the first time in mankind's long history. Moreover, it is complicated because human nature is complicated, and will take a long time because no monumental work can be accomplished quickly. ``Education,'' Lenin wrote, ``is a long and difficult business.'' Age-old customs and survivals, the tenacity of old habits and the influence of hostile ideology make this business all the more difficult.
Communist consciousness is formed by the Soviet social system, in the course of the people's participation in the building of communism, in joint, planned and organised work, in the process of the development of new social relations in production and everyday life.
294Planned, purposeful education is possible only on the basis of economic successes, of successes in changing social relations. While changing and remaking the economy and social relations, people themselves change intellectually and morally. In other words, the establishment of the communist way of life determines the formation of the corresponding communist consciousness.
Being an element of communist construction, communist consciousness in its turn influences the formation of the communist way of life and the solution of economic, social and political problems. The reason for this is obvious: communist society is built not spontaneously but as a result of the conscious, purposeful activity of the people and, naturally, the higher the level of the people's communist consciousness the more successfully and the quicker will communist construction proceed. Any underestimation, even if it is insignificant, of the role of communist consciousness can become a serious impediment to the onward movement of society.
Economic development, the framing of a communist attitude to work and the formation of communist social relations and culture are the objective foundation for the moulding of the new man, for cultivating a communist consciousness in him. However, by themselves these conditions will not ensure the triumph of communist principles and ideas in the mind of every person. Therefore, the Party regards the communist upbringing of the people and its ideological work in this sphere as an indispensable condition for the building of communism.
In addition to pointing to the need for communist education, the Party has shown the content and basic direction for this education. On this question, the Programme of the C.P.S.U. states that communist education means ``to educate all working people in a spirit of ideological integrity and devotion to communism, and cultivate in them a communist attitude to labour and the socialised economy; to eliminate completely the survivals of bourgeois views and morals; to ensure the all-round, harmonious development of the individual; to create a truly rich spiritual culture. Special importance is attached by the Party lo the mould ing of the rising generation.''
295 __ALPHA_LVL3__ Fundamental PrinciplesThe requirement that educational work must be linked up with life, with the Party's policies and with definite tasks of communist construction has been and remains fundamental in education. Education yields positive results and helps to form the new, active participant in the immense task of building communism only when it is intrinsically bound up with life, production and the practical experience of the people.
Communist education is incompatible with subjectivism, vainglory and ostentation. ``Less political fireworks,'' Lenin said, ``and more attention to the simplest but living facts of communist construction---taken from and tested by actual life---this is the slogan which all of us, our writers, agitators, propagandists, organisers, etc., should repeat unceasingly.''
Realistic and scientific direction of the economy and of all social life, scientific organisation of social relations in all links of the social system and scientific organisation of education itself are the key condition for successful communist upbringing.
Concreteness, a profound scientific approach, objectivity and truthfulness, accuracy and organisation are the important principles underlying communist education.
Efficiency in the work of the Party and the uprooting of subjectivism and ostentation created extremely favourable conditions for promoting the social activity of the people and thereby for education itself. At the same time, particularly high demands are made of ideological work under these conditions. The principal demand is that there should be frankness when dealing with the people and that difficulties and shortcomings should be neither concealed nor slurred over. ``I must say at this point,'' Lenin wrote, ``that our propaganda and agitation must be open and above-board.''^^*^^
People do not always accept the ready-made recipes of educators and, therefore, the task of educators is not to profer ready-made recipes for all occasions in life but to bring the people round to accepting these conclusions painstakingly and with perseverance, but never obtrusively.
_-_-_^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 32, p. 215.
296One of the major tasks of communist education is to instil pride for one's country and people and a readiness selflessly to defend the gains of socialism against imperialist vultures.
In our day there is mounting interest in man's inner world, in his inclinations, way of thinking and feelings. This is only natural, because the new society creates not an abstract but a living, concrete man in all the diversity of his vital manifestations. In this connection, the task is carefully and considerately to enrich this inner world without driving it into isolation by crude contact. Formalism, callousness, peremptory shouting and the tagging of labels are impermissible in education. The duty of the propagandist and the educator is to know the interests of the people and the problems that worry them.
Upbringing implies the formation not only of a person's intellect but also his feelings and emotions, for man is an extremely sensitive and emotional creature, who can love and hate, rejoice and grieve, take delight, suffer, and so forth. The sensitive, emotional side of the individual plays an important part in his perception of social ideas. Lenin wrote: ``...There has never been, nor can there be, any human search for truth without 'human emotions'.'' It is therefore important to teach a person to control his feelings, to cultivate positive emotions and direct them for his own and society's benefit.
However, people differ from each other by occupation, level of education, way of thinking, character, the content and volume of the tasks confronting them and many other indications. This means that education must be geared to different needs. The task is to educate not man in general, not an abstract man, but a concrete man with all his merits and demerits.
Thus, attention for man and for his inner world and a selective approach to his upbringing are indispensable principles of educational work.
Warmth and sincerity in ideological work have nothing in common with forgiveness and slurring over of an individual's weak points and shortcomings. A principled approach and implacability are requisites of communist education. It is important not only to educate a person but to teach him to educate and improve himself, and this 297 necessarily presupposes a critical attitude to oneself, a frank admission of one's shortcomings and errors and unfailing correction of these shortcomings and errors.
Care for man is all the more incompatible with manifestations of alien, bourgeois ideology, and with the customs, manners and actions inherent in capitalist society. Partisanship and non-reconciliation to all forms of bourgeois ideology have been and remain a major principle of educational work.
Enemies attack the Communist Party for having monopolised education, alleging that it fetters man's spiritual freedom. The Party directs ideological activities, this being its right and duty. The C.P.S.U. is the ruling party and, therefore, is called upon to provide scientific direction to all spheres of the life of socialist society, including its spiritual life. It has won this right by persevering struggle and dedicated labour together with and at the head of the people. Marxism-Leninism, which is the Party's ideology, has absorbed profound wisdom and extensive experience of struggle and work, and it has been accepted by the people voluntarily and consciously. Therefore, partisanship, the safeguarding of the Party's ideology means safeguarding the people's most cherished ideals, protecting their present and their future. As regards the freedom of man's spiritual life, the Party places no restriction whatever on it. On the contrary, it teaches man to think and create freely in the interests of the people and of communism.
Lastly, system, consistency, and intrinsic unity and interaction of all forms and means of education are likewise important principles underlying communist upbringing.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Means of CommunistAn efficient system of education, which embraces the family, secondary special schools, institutions of higher learning, political education, the press, radio, TV programmes, and so forth has been built up in the Soviet Union.
Take the family. It fulfils an important social function by not only reproducing the human race but also bringing up the rising generation. In the family a child's organism, spiritual world, attitude to its environment, behaviour, deeds and actions are formed. In the family a child learns the elementary principles of human life, begins to differentiate 298 between good and bad, and learns to do good and steer clear of the bad.
The school is one of the key links of communist education. It gives man a knowledge of the rudiments of science, enables him to penetrate the secrets of nature and society, forms his outlook and morals, and gives him a broad polytechnical education, thereby preparing him for socially useful work and making it possible for him to continue his education. With the family the school brings to light and encourages young people's talents and inclinations, develops their senses and thinking and helps them choose their road in life.
The Soviet higher school is of inestimable value in promoting communist education. It has acquired extensive experience in training specialists and giving them not only knowledge but also a scientific, Marxist-Leninist outlook, in educating people who are not only well brought up themselves but are able to engage successfully in the bringing up of the new man.
The system of Party education has become a genuine Marxist-Leninist university for millions of people. More than 26 million people attended various forms of political schools during the 1964/65 school year alone.
In the system of Party education, Communists and nonParty people study the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin, the Programme of the C.P.S.U., the decisions of Party congresses and the most important Party documents. The mastering of theory is combined with the study of problems connected with the economy and industry and is closely tied up with the specific tasks confronting factories and collective and state farms. This brings political study close to life, makes it purposeful and enhances its educational value.
The factory, collective or state farm, team, workshop, office or other place of work is man's best teacher. In the Soviet Union every able-bodied person is obliged to work and he therefore belongs to a definite collective. Through this collective man is linked up materially and spiritually with the whole of society.
In the collective he comes into contact with other people, with the result that he develops both as a specialist and a toiler. Here his spiritual world is enriched and his morals 299 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1967/SC342/20070314/342.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.03.21) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ nil ---collectivism, comradeship, discipline, exactness and lofty sense of responsibility for the work assigned to him---are shaped.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. Spiritual Culture and the AdvancementMaterial factors, i.e., economic progress, are of decisive significance in the moulding of the new man. Along with material factors, the social environment under whose influence man is formed embraces spiritual factors, which, despite being of a secondary nature with regard to the former, play an important role in the upbringing of man. These factors include science, education, art, literature and the moral code of society---in short, society's spiritual culture.
Socialist culture is one of the major vehicles making it possible to surmount the' age-old antithesis between mental and physical labour and to form a new type of intellectual, who comes from and is devoted to the people. To mould the man of the new system, an intellectual with a high cultural and technical level, it is necessary to promote communist culture.
In order to utilise cultural achievements for the development of the individual, it is necessary to make culture accessible to the masses. Socialism has resolved this epic problem. In socialist society culture---education, science, art and literature---serves the people with the object of improving them and developing their capabilities and talents. In proportion to the progress made by socialist culture towards the formation of communist culture, its ennobling influence on man becomes more and more tangible.
Labour is the foundation of man's all-round development. But in order to work fruitfully and creatively and thereby remake the world, man requires knowledge. Knowledge of the laws of development of nature and society and skilled application of these laws for the benefit of man constitute the foundation of his freedom, of his ability to act expertly, and make him ^ creative personality. The key to the blossoming of the individual lies in unity between his cognitive and practical, transforming activity. The individual develops all-sidedly not 300 by performing any kind of work, but by working freely, by absorbing knowledge and culture. This unity is achieved in the period of communist construction, when communist work and communist culture take final shape and become integrated in everyday life. By mastering new achievements of spiritual culture, the individual becomes enriched intellectually and this, in its turn, has a positive effect on his labour activities.
Scientific progress in socialist society, where it has become the affair of the whole people, creates the most favourable conditions for the development of the individual. In order to keep pace with the requirements of modern production, Soviet people, primarily young people, constantly improve their knowledge, mastering the latest achievements of science and technology and advanced experience and raising the level of their professional and general education. Knowledge is strength. Never before has this time-honoured aphorism been so urgent and never before has it served as a guide to action for such a huge number of people as it does today.
The mastering of science and knowledge is facilitated under socialism by an expanding system of education. This system is characterised chiefly by its mass nature, by the fact that it embraces the entire people, and therefore it shapes a h|igh intellect not in individuals or groups of people but virtually in millions upon millions of people. Suffice it to say that the number of people studying in Russia during the 1914/15 school year was 10,588,000, while in the U.S.S.R. some 72 million people studied during the 1965/66 school year. As a result of the institution of compulsory eight-year education, study in school has become not only a right but also a duty dictated by the economic and cultural progress of socialist society. The transition to universal ten-year education is to be, in the main, completed during the present (1966--70) five-year plan. A specific feature of the socialist system of education is that it is indissolubly linked up with life, with practical activities, and this means that unity between cognitive and practical activity, which is the only foundation for the moulding of the harmoniously developed individual, is achieved in the process of education.
The number of evening and extra-mural secondary 301 schools for young workers and collective farmers as well as of secondary special schools and institutions of higher learning is steadily growing in the U.S.S.R. More facilities are being opened to enable people to learn a new trade or improve their qualifications directly at factories.
Art, which promotes the advancement of the individual, is an important element of spiritual culture. Having made art the property of the people, socialism has turned it into a vehicle for the self-assertion of the individual, for his all-round development. Maxim Gorky called literature and art a science of the study of man, and always believed that it was the duty of writers and artists to educate people in the spirit of socialism.
Because of its great cognitive value science enriches man's spiritual world and affords him incomparable aesthetic pleasure. The lofty ideals and morality of socialist art and its genuine humanism enable it to shape the individual's political, philosophical and moral outlook, expounding lofty ideological and moral principles not in the dry language of placards, slogans, figures or moral admonition, but by means of positive examples which it presents in stirring artistic form and by the powerful language of feelings, which all people understand. Without superfluous clamour and without obtrusiveness, a real work of art holds a person's attention without his noticing it and makes him think of the purpose of life, of the great accomplishments of people of the new society and of his own part in these accomplishments. It inculcates lofty humanism, stirs the individual to the performance of feats that bring glory to his people and country and infuses him with devotion to the ideals of communism and with unrelenting hate for its enemies.
Real art lauds industrial labour, the working environment and modern technology. It glorifies the land and the poetry of farming. It extols science, the human mind and the poetry of scientific quests. Works of art, states the Programme of the C.P.S.U., ``are great factors in ideological education and cultivate in Soviet people the qualities of builders of a new world. They must be a source of joy and inspiration to millions of people, express their will, their sentiments and ideas, enrich them ideologically and educate them morally".
302Partisanship, revolutionary ideals, implacability to evil and admiration of the working man are what distinguish socialist art. It combines solicitude for the best traditions of world culture with quests for new ways and means of showing revolutionary reality, with unvarnished truth and optimism.
Socialist art mirrors life in all its fullness, complexity and diversity, its difficulties and contradictions, its sharp conflicts and dramatic situations. It shows the joy of victory and the misery of error and miscalculation. The life of the Soviet Union in its advance towards the new society is joyful bul there are thorns, too. Bright hues predominate but their brightness does not rule out dark spots. Socialist art seeks to present this life truthfully and does not allow adversity and setbacks to obscure historical prospects or confidence in the triumph of the great cause. On this road it attains its most brilliant successes. The grandeur of the work of building the new society and the heroism of contemporary man have been and remain the principal theme of Soviet art.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. Scientific PhilosophyMarxist-Leninist philosophy is a harmonious and integral system of views about the world---nature and society, the laws of their development, the ways and means of knowing these laws and using them to remake nature and society. It is a special form of spiritual activity, a special form of reflecting reality, a form which expresses man's attitude to nature and his social environment. Underlying this philosophy is man's vital need to get his bearings in the reality around him, his need to know this reality and change it in his own interests.
Inasmuch as it stems from recognition of the material world and from the recognition that this world is continuously changing and developing, it is a dialectical materialist outlook. In addition, it is a communist outlook because it is indissolubly linked up with the struggle for the lofty ideals of communism; more than that, it issues from 303 the struggle of the proletariat and all other working people for socialism and communism. Providing the theoretical basis for the struggle of the working people, this scientific outlook is, at the same time, a compass showing the road to deliverance from exploitation and oppression of every kind, the road to complete economic and social equality, to a really happy future.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Formation of a ScientificWith the establishment of soeialism the scientific outlook becomes the predominant philosophy; in other words, it is accepted by a considerable number of people who form the advanced and most conscious section of society. The building of communism makes it objectively necessary for all its members without exception to master the fundamentals of this philosophy.
This is understandable, because the complex problems involved in communist construction can be resolved only by highly conscious people who know the laws of social development, understand the domestic and international situation, have a precise idea of the tasks confronting the country and are active in carrying out these tasks. Modern scientific and technical progress, particularly the rapid development of natural science, whose achievements require of natural scientists not only profound comprehension but also a sound philosophical training, is another factor making it imperative for people to master the scientific outlook. Lastly, the scientific outlook is the sharpest ideological weapon in the struggle against idealist and religious philosophies, in the struggle against ideological adversaries.
Communist construction not only makes it absolutely necessary, but also provides real possibilities for every member of society to acquire a scientific view of reality. The far-reaching social, economic and cultural changes that have followed in the wake of the triumph of socialism in the Soviet Union, the abolition of social and national oppression, the broad development of socialist democracy and the tremendous achievements in education, science and culture form that realistic foundation, which jnakes it possible to educate all people in the spirit of the scientific outlook.
The scientific outlook takes shape on the foundation of 304 Marxism-Leninism as a harmonious system of philosophical, economic, social and political views. Therefore, in order to master the scientific outlook one must first master the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism and learn to apply them creatively to practical affairs.
Insofar as the scientific outlook is a dialectical materialist philosophy, the decisive role in its formation is played by Marxist-Leninist philosophy, by dialectical and historical materialism. Marxist philosophy provides man with a scientific method and means of explaining the diverse phenomena of nature and social life. It thereby enables man to arrive at a correct and principled assessment of the developments around him, understand his place in life and in the fulfilment of the tasks facing society and to behave accordingly. By forming man's attitude to the world, philosophy teaches him how to act and makes him confident that he can know and change the world.
To master the scientific outlook-, also means to master Marxist-Leninist economic theory. By revealing the laws governing the decisive sphere of human activity, namely, the sphere of material production, this theory enables man to organise economic life and, on that foundation, change all the diverse social relations for his own benefit. In his practical work he is rendered invaluable assistance by the theory of scientific communism, which not only gives a picture of the bright future of society but also shows concretely how to build it.
The key achievements of natural science are a vital element of the scientific outlook. These achievements provide the natural scientific foundation of philosophy, for they reveal the laws of natural development and allow man to harness natural processes and tap fabulous wealth. Therefore, to master the scientific outlook means to master the fundamentals not only of Marxist-Leninist theory but also of natural sciences. Marxism-Leninism and natural sciences give a scientific outlook on reality only when they are inseverably united.
The formation of a scientific outlook in the course of communist construction is a natural process that takes place thanks to the building of the material and technical basis of communism and the fashioning of communist social relations. It is framed by a system of ideological __PRINTERS_P_304_COMMENT__ 20---2775 305 organisations and educational institutions (general education and special secondary schools, institutions of higher learning, political education, people's universities of culture, and so forth).
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Atheistic EducationAn essential feature of the scientiflc outlook is its atheism. The formation of the scientific, communist outlook is. therefore directly linked up with atheistic education.
The Soviet Union is the first country in the world where atheism has been accepted by the bulk of the population. Most of the people have released themselves from the fetters of religion. But in Soviet society religion still lives in the minds of a section of the people.
Belief in God, in an after-life, distracts religious people from vital terrestrial problems and prevents them from actively participating in the life of society. Some religious rites are harmful to health. Religious morality with its doctrine of non-resistance blunts the class feeling of religious people.
With regard to the attitude to religion the Constitution of the U.S.S.R. guarantees freedom of conscience.
Soviet society's natural advance towards communism serves as the objective foundation for surmounting religious views. Life itself, the practice of active construction, the colossal changes, the breath-taking plans, the fructifying spirit of creative work and the successes of science, technology and culture force many believers to modify their views.
The content and purpose of atheistic education is to disseminate scientific, materialist knowledge and free believers from the influence of religion, of all superstitions and prejudices. The main feature of scientific atheistic propaganda is that it presents well-argued facts in a manner that can be understood by all people.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Struggle AgainstThe formation of a scientific outlook, like communist education generally necessarily presupposes a struggle against bourgeois ideology.
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 306 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.
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.
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.
Communist education therefore necessarily presupposes a relentless struggle against reactionary imperialist ideology. Any belittlement of this struggle implies a weakening of __PRINTERS_P_309_COMMENT__ 20* 307 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.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. Education Through Labour __ALPHA_LVL3__ Core of CommunistThe communist, scientific outlook means not only knowledge of the laws of social development but also the ability to apply these laws in the practical work of remaking nature and society, of securing uninterrupted social progress. Reality can be changed and the new, communist society built only through the labour of man, only through the establishment of a communist approach to labour and, therefore, through labour education, which is a vital component in the moulding of a new man. Moreover, education through labour is the core of communist education, because all of a man's intellectual, moral and aesthetic qualities are developed in the course of labour. Creative labour is indispensable for industrial, technological and cultural progress and for the development of man himself. ``The grooming of man for labour activity and the inculcation of love and respect for work,'' states one of the resolutions passed by the 22nd Congress of the C.P.S.U., ``form the substance and the core of communist education.''
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Inculcation of Respect for All Useful WorkThe prime objective of education through labour is to inculcate respect for all forms of socially useful work, both physical and intellectual, to surmount the scornful attitude to physical work and also the philistine attitude that mental work is easy and useless. The fusing of mental and physical work in production is the goal of the Party's general line aimed at changing the nature of work, teaching people to take a communist approach to labour and moulding the new man.
The distinction between mental and physical work is 308 being erased in the Soviet Union, but, regretfully, there still are people who think that mental work is easy and clean while physical work is thankless and dirty and inferior. These people forget that mental and physical work are themselves heterogeneous.
We talk a lot about the atomic age and sometimes lay much too much stress on the industry of the future in the belief that man's role will be reduced to the pressing of buttons. Yet all of us know that no robot can replace professions in which the human heart, kindness, cordiality, attention and artistic taste find expression. Of course, in the not too distant future, man will be delivered from arduous labour. This is something we are still looking forward to. Socialism has opened broad highways and the most diverse possibilities for man. There are so many of these highways and these possibilities are so great that they dazzle some people. In particular, this applies to young people lacking experience. Society has therefore to help people, especially young people, to choose their road in life in accordance with their personal qualities and talents.
Many factors influence the choice of a profession: the working conditions, the wage or salary, the popularity and importance of the profession, personal inclinations, and the advice of other people. Society creates opinion about each profession, attracting people's attention to those which are the most important at the given stage of social development.
Every profession has its good and bad workers. In popularising a profession, attention should be drawn not to the profession generally but to its leading representatives. There is hardly a profession that does not afford the opportunity for creative work, contemplation and improvement. The task, therefore, is not simply to teach a profession---that is not difficult---but to make certain that the person concerned completely masters this profession so that he can work creatively.
Respect for thinking, for the 15,000 million neurons ``eager for work'', as was noted by a reader of Komsomolskaya Pravda, signifies respect for one's profession and opens the door to limitless professional and general improvement. There is room for creative work and thinking in all fields of endeavour: a machine-tool means as much 309 to a good, thinking worker as an instrument does to a scientist or a music score to a conductor.
Every person must study his profession and analyse its potentialities and prospects. This will help not only to get rid more quickly of professions that are noncreative and without prospects but also to bring to light the creative potentialities of other professions. This is the only way to attract people to professions required by society and make people feel satisfied with their work.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 5. Moral Education __ALPHA_LVL3__ [introduction.]The inculcation of communist morality is a process in which the people perceive the basic requirements and principles of the communist code of morals, a process in which man's behaviour and his character are shaped in accordance with these principles. Moral upbringing is a major component of communist education, and the consolidation of the principles of communist morality and the voluntary observance of the rules of communist human association are one of the cardinal tasks in the moulding of the new man. Before dealing with ways and means of inculcating communist morality we must examine its principles and requirements.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Communist MoralityCommunist 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.
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.
Under capitalism these elementary standards of human association have been transgressed, twisted and adapted by 310 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.
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.
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.
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.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Basic Moral PrinciplesCommunist morality is reflected in the moral code of the builder of communism formulated in the Programme of the C.P.S.U.
Serving the proletarian class struggle, communist morality pursues the goal of facilitating the completion of communist construction. Its point of departure is that a 311 person is virtuous if he contributes to society's progress towards communism and immoral if he hinders this onward movement. The struggle for the new society is not only the fundamental goal of communist morality but also the criterion, a scientific criterion at that, of moral behaviour. Another indication of the scientific nature of communist morality is that Marxism-Leninism, the only really scientific world outlook, forms its theoretical foundation. Showing the content of communist morality and generalising mankind's ethical progress and, in particular, the best features of people's behaviour in the building of socialism and communism, the moral code embraces the following main principles:~
dedication to communism and devotion to the socialist motherland and other socialist countries;~
conscientious work for the benefit of society; he who does not work, neither shall he eat;~
concern for safeguarding and multiplying social wealth; a lofty sense of civic duty and intolerance of infringements of social interests;~
collectivism and comradely mutual assistance; one for all and all for one;~
humane relations and mutual respect between people; man is to man a friend, comrade and brother;~
honesty and integrity, moral purity, simplicity and modesty in social and private life;~
mutual respect in the family, concern for the upbringing of children;~
intolerance of injustice, parasitism, dishonesty, careerism and money-grubbing;~
friendship and fraternity among all the peoples of the U.S.S.R., intolerance of national and racial hatred;~
intolerance of the enemies of communism, peace and freedom;~
fraternal solidarity with the working people of all countries, with all nations.
It goes without saying that each of the principles of the moral code has a significance of its own in the life and development of society and in the behaviour of individuals. The most important of these principles are devotion to communism and intolerance of its enemies, a communist attitude to work and social property, honesty and 312 truthfulness, collectivism and humanism, socialist patriotism, the readiness to sacrifice one's life in Defending the gains of socialism, and internationalism. These cardinal principles determine the rules of behaviour in society and people's concept of good and evil, honour and dishonour, justice and injustice.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Soviet PatriotismPatriotism, i.e., love for one's country, must be considered from the historical aspect. It changes together with a change in the class nature of society. The labouring classes, which have always been champions of their country's interests and independence, display real patriotism. Loss of independence spells oppression not only by local but also by foreign exploiters and this, naturally, is something to which the people cannot reconcile themselves. The patriotism of the working masses merges with hatred for the exploiting classes. One of the salient features of the working people's patriotism in a society with antagonistic classes is their desire to get rid of exploiters and acquire their own motherland.
As regards the exploiting classes, the bourgeoisie in particular, they are quite willing to make a display of patriotic slogans but theirs is mostly a sham patriotism. They utilise patriotic slogans in order to divert the working people from the class struggle and, speculating on their patriotic feelings, make them accomplices in their predatory practices. When matters boil down to profits, Lenin wrote, ``the bourgeoisie will sell their country and strike a bargain with any foreigner against their own people''.^^*^^
The Soviet Union's time-honoured patriotic traditions were shaped in the course of many centuries of struggle against foreign enslavers. Soviet socialist patriotism, which has inherited the best patriotic traditions of the past, enriches these traditions with the gains of the revolution and of socialism. The revolution and socialism have given the working people a genuinely free motherland, and in Soviet patriotism, therefore, devotion to the motherland organically merges with fidelity to the Soviet socialist system.
_-_-_^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 28, p. 27.
313An important feature of Soviet patriotism is that national pride, i..e, devotion to one's national culture, traditions and language, intertwines with devotion and loyalty to the multinational state---the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Naturally, Russia with her vast expanses and numerous physical features of great beauty and charm is closer to the heart of the Russian, as Georgia, cradle of one of the most ancient civilisations, with her mountains, swift rivers and warm sea is to the Georgian, and the boundless steppes of the Ukraine to the Ukrainian, and so on. But the Soviet motherland with her bright present and still brighter future is dearest and closest to the heart of the Russian, the Georgian, the Ukrainian or any other individual from the scores of other nationalities inhabiting the U.S.S.R. That is what made them rise as one man to fight back the invasion of 14 imperialist powers and the internal reaction during the Civil War, build mammoth projects during the years of the early five-year plans of economic development and heroically fight the nazi hordes during the Second World War.
This brings us to yet another important feature of Soviet patriotism, namely, its intrinsic bond with proletarian internationalism. National and racial prejudices, bourgeois nationalism and dominant-nation chauvinism are alien to Soviet patriotism. It combines devotion to the motherland with devotion to all socialist countries, with respect for other peoples, big and small, with a sense of fraternal class solidarity with the working people of other countries. ``In fostering the Soviet people's love of their country,'' states the Programme of the C.P.S.U., ``the Party maintains that with the emergence of the world socialist system the patriotism of the members of socialist society is expressed in devotion and loyalty to their own country and to the entire community of socialist countries. Socialist patriotism and socialist internationalism necessarily imply proletarian solidarity with the working class and all working people of all countries.''
The unity of Soviet patriotism and proletarian internationalism lies in the fact that they serve the single purpose of combating capitalism and establishing the new, communist societij in the world. The building of communism in the U.S.S.R. is the supreme patriotic and internationalist 314 duty of Soviet people because successful communist construction in one country or another is a tangible contribution towards the world-wide struggle for the triumph of communism. This makes the strengthening of international unity of the working people of the socialist countries a vital task.
This unity is all the more essential in vievC of the fact that serious divergences, expressed in the activation of nationalist and chauvinist sentiments in some Communist Parties, have come to light in the world communist movement and the socialist system.
Soviet patriotism and internationalism are awakened by day-to-day education and self-education, in struggle against cosmopolitanism (indifference to the motherland, to its history, traditions and national culture), and nationalism (the preaching of national exclusiveness, the fostering of scorn and hate for other peoples).
Nationalism has neither economic nor class roots in socialist society, but some of its manifestations have survived. This is mirrored in the embellishment and idealisation of the past of one nation or another, in the slurring over of social antagonisms in world history, in the placing of local interests above the interests of the state, in trends towards national conceit and exclusiveness and in outworn manners and customs.
These hang-overs of the past are gradually overcome and each member of society becomes profoundly conscious of his internationalist duty in the process of communist construction, through the further blossoming and drawing together of nations, the expansion of economic, political and cultural intercourse between them, joint labour for the benefit of the socialist motherland, the influence of socialist reality and the educational activities of the Party and the government.
Devotion to the motherland is kindled in the heart of each person when he knows his country's history and culture, the traditions of his people and their labour and military feats. To inculcate patriotism means to inculcate a sense of duty to one's country, the desire to make one's utmost contribution in order to strengthen one's country's economic and military might. It means inculcating the 315 consciousness that socialism is superior to capitalism, the confidence that there are unbounded potentialities in the new system.
The threat that imperialist reaction may start another world war has brought military-patriotic education into the limelight. Soviet people are brought up in a spirit of attachment to the Armed Forces, in a spirit of respect for the soldier, who guards their peaceful work and the great gains of socialism against encroachment by enemies and is prepared to sacrifice his life for his motherland and the other socialist countries. The people's agelong struggle against invaders has given the Soviet Union rich military-patriotic traditions, which communist education safeguards and fosters.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Survivals of CapitalismThe principles of communist morality have become firmly established in the life of most Soviet people as a result of the triumph of socialism and the extensive educational work conducted by the Communist Party. However, survivals of capitalism still exist in the minds of a section of the people---idlers who avoid socially useful work, moneygrubbers, egoists, bureaucrats who ignore social interests and hold their own interests above all else, embezzlers and other criminals, and violators of labour discipline.
The existence of anti-social views and actions is usually explained by the fact that socialism emerges from capitalism, which carries over its traditions and customs into the new society; inasmuch as consciousness usually lags behind life, old traditions and customs naturally rule the minds and actions of people of the new society for a long time. Reference is also made to the impact of bourgeois ideology, which energetically seeks to influence the minds of Soviet people and revive bourgeois customs and prejudices and inject philistine, utilitarian views of life, and the standards prevailing in the bourgeois world.
This is, of course, quite correct. But one cannot accept the view that the influence of bourgeois ideology is responsible for amoral phenomena in society. Explanations of this sort willynilly disarm people in the struggle against anti-social phenomena. Therefore, when we analyse antisocial views and actions we must thoroughly study all the 316 reasons for their existence, for this is the only way we can find effective means of surmounting them.
There is no doubt that along with survivals of capitalist mentality, there are, as the author G. Medinsky so truly noted, ``our own survivals'', whose roots lie in the certain immaturity of socialist economy, in distortions and violations of the laws of social development, in shortcomings in the organisation of people's work, recreation and daily life, and so forth. Does not, for instance, a relaxation of control over the measure of labour and consumption lead to misdemeanour or even crime? Sometimes the fault lies with shortcomings in the education of the rising generation, particularly in the family and at school. One still comes across cases when violations of Soviet laws and moral standards are not condemned by the broad public. Without such condemnation it is impossible to combat backward views and behaviour successfully.
Survivals of capitalism seriously hinder communist construction. Individuals infected by these survivals impede the normal work and recreation of Soviet people, infringe upon public property and the property of individual citizens, bring discord into family life, and so on. Besides, survivals of the past are tenacious. They do not die of themselves and prevail over the minds of people for a long time after the disappearance of the social factors engendering them. That explains why the Communist Party regards the struggle against survivals of the past, manifestations of bourgeois morals and survivals of the proprietorship mentality as part and parcel of communist education.
A resolution adopted by the 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U. states: ``A consistent struggle must be waged against indifference to politics, survivals of the proprietorship mentality, philistine sentiments and nihilistic attitudes to the ideals and gains of socialism.''
Compulsion is sometimes necessary, especially in the case of persistent breakers or violators of law and order, but measures of compulsion alone do not solve the problem. Here the main thing is to analyse what causes the various negative phenomena, to eliminate these causes and conduct purposeful and systematic educational work. Creative work, active participation of all citizens in the building of communism, persevering study and the steadfast promotion 317 of the general educational and cultural level are the decisive means for surmounting survivals of the past.
To a large extent success in surmounting these survivals depends on Party, Komsomol and trade union organisations and on every Soviet citizen individually. Public opinion, criticism and self-criticism and the condemnation of anti-social behaviour gradually become the principal means for uprooting bourgeois views, morals and manners.
Human relations are extremely complex and diversified. Although in socialist society these are mainly relations of unity, this unity does not rule out contradictions. Relations between people sometimes take a dramatic and even tragic turn and are caused by quite tangible factors: material difficulties, love and hate, indifference and crassness, personal grief, trouble and, sometimes, even the consciousness of one's own failings. Communist education therefore takes the complexity of human relations and the diversity of human characters and destinies into account, relentlessly uproots all that has become obsolete and prevents man from improving, developing and moving forward, that prevents people from working creatively and showing initiative, fighting for truth and justice, combating dishonesty and evil, and finding the goodness in man and the way to his heart.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Morality and KnowledgeThe link between morality and knowledge was brought to light long ago by bourgeois ethical thinking. However, bourgeois ethical thinking failed to show the nature of this link and whether all knowledge leads to moral improvement and whether every moral advance consolidates the strength of the intellect.
One of the most important and difficult tasks of the socialist revolution is to turn knowledge into a means of achieving moral improvement, to link knowledge up with morality and subordinate them to the purpose of promoting man's harmonious development. This unity is attained through work, through practical activity in building the new society. Work alone can form a bridge between knowledge and morality and create the possibility of utilising scientific knowledge to consolidate lofty communist ideals.
Knowledge serves as a compass for man's behaviour in his day-to-day life. At the same time, the lofty principles 318 of communist morality demand that man should acquire the knowledge that enables mankind to move forward and teach him how to use this knowledge in order to benefit and not harm people. This is precisely where the unity between knowledge and morality manifests itself.
The striving to perform an exploit and do everything possible for the triumph of the new cause is firmly becoming part of the day-to-day life of Soviet people. This is seen in the achievements of Soviet space explorers, builders, scientists, workers and collective farmers.
Naturally, substantial knowledge was needed to arrive at these achievements. However, knowledge alone is not enough. An exploit is a practical matter and involves labour, which in its turn, presupposes not only knowledge but also the ability to apply this knowledge. An exploit may thus be described as being an alloy consisting of labour, knowledge and morals.
Some people hold that there are no grounds for speaking of unity between knowledge and morality. Indeed, these people argue, is there a scientific criterion of the morality of an action?
Outwardly, progress in morals may, naturally, be not as striking and effective as progress in science. But does this detract from the ``might and merit" of the simple principles of lofty morality that working people had evolved in the course of centuries of struggle against oppression and moral vices? Has socialism, which has absorbed these simple moral standards, not established new principles of morality, which underlie the life and dignity of Soviet people? Has Marxism not formulated the objective, scientific criterion that makes it possible to weigh people's actions and distinguish between good and evil? `` Communist morality,'' Lenin wrote, ``is based on the struggle for the consolidation and completion of communism.''^^*^^ Good is what helps mankind to move forward to the new society. Communist morality is indissolubly linked up with and forms the basis of education. Lenin exhorted young people to acquire knowledge not as a result of boredom, not for their own satisfaction but for the sake of the new society and the consolidation of the principles of communist _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 295.
319 morality. A genuine Communist is a highly educated person with lofty morals. Lenin wrote: ``The entire purpose of training, educating and teaching the youth of today should be to imbue them with communist ethics.''^^*^^While underestimating morality, some people overestimate knowledge, particularly knowledge of mathematics. ``Mathematics,'' they write, ``imbues man with honesty more than ethics does.'' Or: ``Hard and fast conclusions about the behaviour of people issue from contemporary views about the organisation of the Universe and about the nature of man.'' Yet it is well known that people holding the same views about the Universe and nature often follow antipodal moral principles. The reason for this is that the force of the impact of science (we have in mind the natural sciences which do not directly influence morals) on morality depends on the class affiliation of the person concerned on his world outlook. Marxist science is precisely the world outlook that shows man how to use knowledge: for evil or for the good of men.
Overestimation of knowledge to the detriment of morality inflicts grave harm on education. However, similar harm is caused by underestimating the role of knowledge in man's ethical improvement, i.e., by the belief that if man is immoral knowledge will not help him to improve. One of the personalities in Anton Chekhov's play Ivanov argued that if a mediocre rascal is armed with culture and science he will become a brilliant rascal. There is a black sheep in every flock, and in Soviet society, too, there are people who do not profit by education. Essentially these black sheep are well-educated but they isolate themselves from their surroundings and wish to see nothing except their own knowledge. These people consider that society's ethical demands of them are unfounded. They feel that if they have mastered say, physics, chemistry or mathematics and, on top of that, love music, the theatre and literature, society must remain satisfied with their erudition and make no moral demands of them. Knowledge, it must be emphasised, does not release a person from moral responsibility.
One of the great objectives of communist education is to achieve unity between knowledge and morality.
_-_-_^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 31, p. 291.
320 __ALPHA_LVL3__ Needs As a FactorTo educate a person in the spirit of communist morality means to teach him to behave in accordance with the principles underlying this morality. On what does the behaviour of a person depend? Man is a thinking being and his behaviour and actions are conscious and purposeful. Before undertaking any action, a person creates in his mind an ideal image of this action. However, his needs are the direct source of this ideal action and, in the long run, of his practical behaviour. Conscious needs turn into a conscious objective resting on knowledge, interests, desire and so forth, which directly govern man's behaviour.
The fact that needs are regarded as the main factor governing a person's behaviour by no means belittles the significance of psychical acts. However, these acts become a stimulant of behaviour only because they are founded on one need or another. Needs are the inner foundation of all motives behind human actions.
The circumstance that inducements play a considerable role in man's behaviour is definitely not denied by the founders of Marxism. On the contrary, they considered that ideas acquire tremendous material force when they capture the minds of the masses. However, this happens only when these ideas and theories express the needs of the masses. ``In every people theory is implemented only to the extent it represents the implementation of this people's needs.. .. Will theoretical needs become direct practical needs?''
Marx and Engels criticised the protagonists of the materialist theories preceding them for regarding ideal motives in the behaviour of people as the end and only causes of social developments instead of investigating what lay behind these motives and analysing what induced these ideal inducements. Pre-Marxian materialist philosophers failed to understand that socio-historical practice for the sake of satisfying needs was the foundation of human activity. Engels wrote: ``Men became accustomed to explaining their actions from their thoughts instead of from their needs (which in any case are reflected in their thoughts, come to consciousness in the mind).''
__PRINTERS_P_321_COMMENT__ 21---2775 321The assertion that needs are the key factor governing man's behaviour does not in the least belittle the determining role played by the social environment and, in particular, material production in man's development, including the growth of his needs. Production and social conditions comprise the prime cause and end foundation of man's behaviour. However, production cannot influence man and his behaviour except through his needs. Production creates the material for the satisfaction of needs as well as the forms of their satisfaction and thereby (through needs and the satisfaction of these needs) determines man's behaviour and actions. Production awakens needs in the consumer and thereby stimulates (through needs) his labour, political and spiritual activity aimed at creating the means for satisfying these needs.
Hence, the system of factors stimulating man's behaviour may be described as follows: natural and social surroundings (production, class and other social relations, ideology and the corresponding institutions and organisations, system of education, culture, and so forth), needs (material, spiritual, and so forth), the consciousness of needs (in the shape of interests, desires, aspirations, objectives, and so on), motivation for action, decision to act, and action.
In this system of factors the primary, decisive role is played by the social environment, which not only gives rise to needs but also to the conditions for satisfying them. Needs arise as a result of man's interaction with his surroundings and are the outcome of the influence of these surroundings on him. The last link in the system of stimuli consists of action (behaviour), in which decision is realised and which is likewise directed towards the surroundings with the purpose of satisfying needs.
All the links in the system of factors governing jman's behaviour are interrelated and interacting. The environment engenders needs; needs, in their turn, give rise to individual consciousness in the form of definite interests, aspirations, inclinations, purposes, and so on. Consciousness gives birth to motivation; motivation leads to decision. Decision is followed by action. For its part, being directed at the environment, action changes it. At the same time, this changes the personality itself, inasmuch as the changed environment engenders new needs, which in their turn 322 give rise to a new consciousness. Every link of this system not only acts on the next link but also influences the inducement giving rise to that link. For example, springing from a need, consciousness itself influences the formation of that need. Through the above-mentioned links, a need governs action, which in turn ensures the satisfaction of that need, and the latter leads to other needs, and so on.
In organising man's moral education, it is important to take into account the interaction of all the factors governing his behaviour and not solely the factor stimulating consciousness as is frequently done. For instance, in teaching people to take a communist approach to their work it is not enough to make them aware only of the fact that work is an objective need, a sacred duty and a matter of honour and heroism. Had this been the sole requirement, it would have been possible to consider that already today every Soviet citizen had adopted a communist attitude to his work because he knows these general principles. The principal and ultimate goal of labour education is to turn labour into a habit so that the need to work for the benefit of society is the motive behind labour activity. The same may be said of the objective of moral education, namely, that the standards of communist morality, which are at present followed out of a sense of duty and, sometimes, by compulsion, should become an inner inducement, i.e., that they would be fulfilled as an inner need.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Formation of NeedsInsofar as needs govern (man's behaviour, the formation of reasonable and healthy needs is indispensable for the moulding of communist morality. Morality, as we all know, characterises the standards and rules of behaviour in society and people's relations to one another and to society.
The formation of needs is not a single act but a long and complex process embracing virtually man's entire lifespan from birth to death, because as man grows and develops his place in society and his goals and aspirations change, and this is inconceivable without the formation of corresponding needs, the correction of these needs and the rejection of some and the acquiring of others.
The formation of not just any needs but only reasonable 323 and healthy needs is the basis of moral education because these are the only needs that can make man behave in accordance with the lofty principles of communist morality.
Inasmuch as needs as well as the form of human intercourse and activity are stimulated only through objects or phenomena (material or spiritual), it is important to create objects that cultivate in man the needs and interests which 'conform Avith lofty communist ideals. One of the cardinal conditions for shaping needs is to place the cor responding material values as well as objects of spiritual production at man's disposal. Moreover, it is important to teach every person not only rationally to utilise social values but also to create these values, i.e., to engage in socially useful work to the best of his ability.
In socialist society there is no place for plunderers of public property, for those whose needs are not commensurate with their own contribution to social wealth, for those who seek to satisfy their needs at the expense of the people around them. He who does not work has no right to the satisfaction of his requirements.
In the process of imbuing people with the need for work, which is the foundation for the satisfaction of all other needs, the latter, acquire the nature of a lofty moral aspiration which is the sole vehicle for the improvement of all of man's physical and spiritual qualities. The profound meaning underlying all educational work, A.. S. Makarenko wrote, lies ``in the selection and formation of human needs, in raising them to the moral summit that can only be attained in a classless society and which alone can stir man to aspire to further improvement".
It goes without saying that in socialist society not all citizens have learned to harmonise their needs with their duties, with socially useful activity. The inability or lack of desire to adjust needs to one's labour contribution is one of the main direct reasons for immorality and, frequently, for crime. Indeed, can one deny that excessive needs give rise to immoral features such as money-grubbing, greed, an unhealthy lust for luxury, dishonesty, careerism, pgoism, disregard for the interests of other people, theft, bribery, and so forth?
The formation of needs is the business of Ihe family, the school, the place of work and the whole of society.
324The foundations of genuinely human needs are laid in the family when a person is very young. Therefore, jointly with the school, the place of work and society as a whole, the family must shape in people the need for work and knowledge, for intercourse with other people and for noble actions, without which lofty moral qualities cannot be moulded. We all know, for example, that knowledge ennobles man, raises his level of culture, and imbues him with love for nature and respect for other people and nations. Thus, the formation and satisfaction of aesthetic needs likewise play an important role in moral education. A person who feels an inner need to build life according to the laws of beauty mixes well with other people and is conscious of and appreciates the beauty of human labour and of harmonious, truly human relations between people. Also important in the moral upbringing of a person is the formation of the need for movement, for physical improvement. Physical culture and sports train people to be persevering and courageous, and to surmount difficulties, and steel their will-power.
In the shaping of man's behaviour a prominent role is played by the sphere of services which embraces various fields of economy and culture. One group of these fields (trade, public catering, communal services, and so forth) ensures the satisfaction primarily of material needs. Another group (education, public health, culture, art, and so on) specialises in the satisfaction mainly of spiritual and other non-material needs.
Efficient services, aesthetic attractiveness and smooth organisation, attention, politeness and competence on the part of the services personnel, the swift and qualitative fulfilment of orders, and so on help to foster good tastes and habits in consumers, make it possible to organise everyday life rationally, preserve people's health, keep them in good spirits and give them additional leisure time which they can use for the satisfaction of other, chiefly spiritual needs, for the upbringing of children.
The formation of healthy and reasonable needs presupposes a struggle against pernicious needs, whose satisfaction frequently leads to misdemeanours that clash with the standards of communist morality. Take drunkenness, for example. It is a dreadful social evil, to say nothing of the 325 fact that it is immoral, that it leads to violations of production discipline, poisons people's lives, breaks up families and, lastly, leads to crime.
The socialist system has every possibility for stamping out this and any other evil. But it would be wrong to think that this pernicious need will disappear by itself. Neither can it be uprooted by measures of compulsion, although such measures are necessary. The main thing is that really human needs should be set off against this and other unhealthy needs, that the former should be fostered and conditions created for their satisfaction. In moral education it is important to form lofty spiritual needs and to teach people to utilise their leisure time rationally with the purpose of satisfying these needs.
Communist society, which the close-knit family of Soviet peoples is building, will ensure complete harmony between needs and people's behaviour. The needs of every person will be truly human and behaviour in the spirit of the lofty principles of communist morality will itself be an inner need. Man's majesty and beauty will be expressed in the wealth of his capabilities and needs and in his resultant gracious behaviour.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 6. Aesthetic EducationAesthetic qualities, tastes, the ability to appreciate and create artistic values and build life according to the laws of beauty are part and parcel of the all-sidedly developed individual.
Man is born with definite aesthetic feelings and a predisposition for art, but these qualities do not come forward by themselves, they have to be cultivated and trained. ``The aesthetic feeling that ni(an receives from nature,'' wrote V. G. Belinsky, ``must be raised to the level of aesthetic taste, which is acquired by study and development.'' The task of aesthetic education is, therefore, to give shape to man's aesthetic capabilities, tastes and habits.
When we speak of aesthetic education we mean chiefly the training of man's artistic feelings and emotions. But this does not mean that aesthetics are free of the intellectual factor. Aesthetics are always intellectual, but the 326 significance of the emotional side is particularly great in art: the emotional appeal makes the profound intellectual content of genuine works of art attractive and understandable. Thus aesthetic education implies training the mind and emotions, and the mind through emotions. Aesthetics play a particularly great role in socialist society, which gives its citizens every opportunity to engage in the creation of artistic values and to enjoy these values. This role, the role of art and literature, grows in proportion to the successes of communist construction, and this explains the great significance that the Communist Party attaches to aesthetic education. Today, the Programme of the C.P.S.U. declares, the Party is seeing to it ``that the people are educated aesthetically and develop a fine artistic taste and cultural habits. The artistic element will ennoble labour still more, making living conditions more attractive, and lift man up spiritually.''
Aesthetic tastes and habits founded on a scientific philosophy and permeated with lofty ideals ennoble man, enrich him, make his life more interesting and purposeful and precondition his emotional attitude to reality. They enable man to distinguish the beautiful from the ugly, establish the beautiful in work and life, and to understand the real purpose of artistic values and create them. Aesthetic principles are being firmly established in the work and life of Soviet people. By making higher aesthetic demands of the products of labour, people have to satisfy, these demands in their own work, and this cannot be done without developed aesthetic habits and tastes. These habits and tastes are needed not only by the artist, who creates works of art, but also by every person who creates material values.
Art is a major vehicle of aesthetic education. It mirrors the beauty of nature, the rhythm and harmony of the processes taking place in it and the abundance of colours and sounds. It lauds the beauty of man and human relations, the beauty of human labour. Its aesthetic impact on man is particularly great when works of art are strikingly fascinating and combine an ideological content with flawless artistic form. On the other hand, formalist and naturalist art, which is devoid of ideals and principles, destroys the aesthetic appeal. The most precious 327 achievement of man's artistic genius is realism, particularly socialist realism, which is the only reliable medium of aesthetic education and making creative art understandable to the masses. The value of socialist art is judged on the basis of its fidelity to Leninist principles of its folk character, Party partisanship, and link with life, of how truthfully and artistically it reflects the wealth and diversity of socialist reality from the standpoint of communist views, and its opposition to all manifestations of hostile bourgeois ideology, formalism and aestheticism. An artist can help to cultivate artistic tastes only if he combats works which display a lack of principles and ideals, indifference to politics, drabness and hack-work, schematism and poverty of images and an absence of vivid folk language.
Amateur art, through which broad sections of the people learn to appreciate and create artistic values, is becoming increasingly more important as a means of aesthetic education.
Art does not tolerate looseness, slovenliness, or coarseness and its irresistible power as a means of education is such that the unwritten laws of human behaviour and the neatness, beauty and harmony it brings to people gradually become the rules of behaviour in work and everyday life.
The acquisition by every member of society of the ability to create works of art does not signify the abolition of art or its dissolution in other forms of human activity. It will continue to exist as a specific form of activity and as an important means of aesthetic education in communist society as well. In one form or another art will evidently remain a profession. This implies that not every citizen will be a Raphael, Chaikovsky or Pushkin, but, as Marx wrote, ``every person in whom there is a Raphael must have the opportunity to develop without hindrance''. Under communism art will cease to be the realm of the professional, for every person will have the possibility to develop all his talents, including his aesthetic talents.
Soviet art, which has won the recognition and respect of the people, has played and will continue to play an important role in aesthetic education.
A theory underlying idealist aesthetics is that labour cannot be a partner of beauty, that man can acquire 328 beauty only outside the sphere of production, only in art, in fantasy, in dreams.
Yet labour is not only the means of man's existence but also the foundation on which he forms and develops all his capabilities and qualities, including his aesthetic tastes. Moreover, labour contains the possibility of material creative work according to the laws of beauty, which is close to art proper, while the enjoyment of the beauty of labour and of its products is kindred to aesthetic enjoyment of a work of art. At the same time, this possibility is turned into reality only under certain social conditions, only when productive labour itself becomes free and creative.
By liberating labour, socialism has turned it into a sphere in which people can display creative energy and initiative in all fields, including aesthetics. ``For them,'' Maxim Gorky said, ``labour is becoming an art, and already now they see that the art of their labour is changing and remaking their country.''
The aesthetic side of labour becomes more and more clear-cut with progress in communist construction, and this is markedly advancing the aesthetic education of the masses. Under communism, when labour becomes a vital inner need it will be a source not only of a livelihood but also of genuine aesthetic pleasure.
A steadily growing role is played by technical aesthetics, the science of the laws of artistic development in technology. This science studies the ways and means of creating harmony of forms, lines and colours in man's labour activity, harmony that cultivates an artistic taste in man, awakens his interest in art and teaches him to appreciate and value beauty. It must be added that working conditions satisfying aesthetic requirements help to increase labour productivity and reduce fatigue.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 7. Physical ImprovementPhysical 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, __PRINTERS_P_329_COMMENT__ 22---2775 329 enjoying the beauty of nature and taking an active part in social life only when he is healthy, physically and mentally.
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.
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.
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.
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.''
330 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 8. Communism and Freedom of the Individual __ALPHA_LVL3__ [introduction.]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.^^*^^
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.
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.
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 _-_-_
^^*^^ Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 10, p. 48.
331 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.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''.^^*^^ 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.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Freedom of theCommunism brings an unprecedented and truly gigantic extension of freedom. First and foremost it liberates man as a toiler, as the creator of material and cultural values. Socialism put an end to private _-_-_
^^*^^ K. Marx, F. Engels, Werkc, Abt. 1, B<1. 3, S. 124.
332 ownership and freed labour from exploitation, but physical work and narrow specialisation, which impedes man's all-round development, remain in socialist society. In communist society, in addition to becoming a vital inner need, labour, which will be highly automated and mechanised and based on the latest achievements in science, will become creative, attractive and easy physically. Narrow specialisation will disappear and the individual will have every opportunity freely to change his occupation. In free communist labour man will establish himself as a genuinely free and fully developed individual.Communism will bring the individual complete economic emancipation, making man free not only as a creator of material and spiritual values but also as a consumer of these values. When one has material difficulties one cannot be really free. Socialism has done much to raise the standard of living but it is not yet in a position to satisfy people's requirements fully. Communism will deliver man from material difficulties and ensure the full satisfaction of his material and spiritual requirements. As a result man will have every opportunity to engage in the most diverse fields of activity.
Communism implies the attainment of the summit of social freedom, the freedom of man as a citizen. The last elements of compulsion, of state control over the activities of man will vanish with the withering away of the state. Communist social self-administration, which will supersede the state, presupposes the active and free participation of every citizen in the administration of social affairs and in ensuring economic and cultural development.
Under communism man acquires genuine spiritual freedom, finally liberating himself from illusions and religious delusions, and his extensive knowledge raises him to an unparalleled height of human dignity as a conscious being, as the conqueror and suzerain of the mighty forces of nature, as the master of his own destiny and the destiny of free mankind. Thereby man achieves his greatest moral freedom. Liberated from the surviving morals of the old, capitalist society, man will, by habit, observe lofty rules of human association, learn to control his thoughts, feelings and behaviour freely and from inner conviction in conformity with the interests of society.
333The ideals of human freedom will thus he attained under communism, which will ensure man's genuinely free and harmonious development, satisfy his many needs as a toiler, creator, consumer and social worker and as a thinking and feeling being, and ensure the best possible application and improvement of human capabilities.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Freedom andUnder socialism, as under communism, the development of society and the freedom of the individual are interrelated. While being the foundation of the individual's freedom, social development largely depends on man, on the extent of his freedom. A free individual is responsible to society, and the suppression of this sense of responsibility is one of the main causes for many shortcomings and drawbacks. Nothing is more harmful than irresponsibility, the preaching that man is only a cog in the huge machine of society, that little depends upon him and perhaps everything will come right in the end.
Insufficient demands of man by the Party, the state, society and the individual himself give rise to irresponsibility. It is highly important that people should, feel responsible for the work assigned to them, for the people they work with and for their friends, for their country, for the purity of the air we breathe and for the clarity of the sky above us.
It should never be forgotten that even in the freest of societies, freedom of the individual is not absolute but relative. Man's thinking and actions are determined by his social surroundings. The very fact that man adheres to a certain way of thinking depends considerably on the immediate surroundings in which he lives, and on himself. Man is an active being and to a large extent his thoughts and feelings depend on how he perceives the world and on his attitude to his surroundings, to society. No matter how free an individual is, he is responsible for his actions; his actions must be dictated not by his whims but by the interests of society. However, responsibility does not in any way infringe upon the freedom of the individual, because under socialism and communism the interests of society and of the individual essentially coincide.
Society's advance towards communism brings increasing 334 freedom to the individual and this draws him into greater participation in social affairs and enhances the responsibility borne by him.
Soviet people are building the most organised society in the world, but organisation does not arise of itself. It is the result of the efforts of the Party, the government and the people themselves. The Communist Party, therefore, attaches tremendous importance to imbuing Soviet people with a lofty sense of responsibility for their work. This means cultivating the striving to work better, to safeguard public wealth, to contribute to the success of one's factory, office or collective or state farm. This cultivates respect for the noble and humane laws of Soviet society and for the principles of socialist democracy. This means fostering intolerance of those who shirk their duty to their country and sully the honour and dignity of Soviet citizens.
The sense of responsibility is heightened by strict observance of the Leninist standards of social and state activity, the further extension and improvement of socialist democracy and the drawing of more and more people into the administration of public affairs. In socialist society the sense of responsibility is cultivated by the entire system of state and mass organisations and presupposes not only moral approval or condemnation of people's behaviour but also legal compulsion. In communist society, when the summit of the freedom of the individual is attained, man will act with a sense of responsibility without compulsion. He will be guided by inner conviction. In that society law as a factor ensuring public order will wither away and the standards of communist morality will be the guide in the fulfilment of civic duties. The highest stage of the individual's moral freedom will thus be reached. Man will thus learn to be his own master and the master of his own behaviour.
__ALPHA_LVL3__ Communism---EmbodimentBy ensuring freedom of the individual and creating all the conditions for his all-round development, communism implements proletarian humanism in practice.
Proletarian, socialist humanism profoundly differs from bourgeois humanism. The latter's ideal is abstract man, 335 man in general, but when this man is closely studied lie turns out to be a bourgeois. Naturally, in a society founded on private ownership and exploitation, which this man represents, the interests of the majority are shamelessly infringed upon, while freedom and the all-round development of the individual, which pre-Marxian humanists had preached, remain nothing more than good intentions.
Scientific communism rejects the cult of the abstract man and places humanism on a practical foundation. While showing that social conditions play the decisive role in the moulding of man, scientific communism has demonstrated how to bring man real freedom, namely, by the revolutionary abolition of private ownership and exploitation and the building of the new, socialist and then communist society. The substance of socialist humanism lies in the revolutionary establishment of socialism with the purpose of en suring the freedom and all-round development of the individual.
Proletarian, socialist humanism proclaims concern, trust and respect for the toiler. It upholds human dignity and genuinely human social relations. Socialism embodies these requirements of proletarian humanism in practice, making these requirements the norm of life. Humanism is thus inseparable from socialism, and this makes it the most humane social system.
Socialism abolishes the exploitation of man by man. unemployment and poverty and ensures a steady rise of the standard of living. Socialist production serves the purpose of satisfying man's material and spiritual requirements. Socialist relations of production rest on co-- operation and mutual assistance between people. Socialism elevates labour more than any other society, making it the factor determining man's dignity and place in society. Socialism places the achievements of spiritual culture in the service of man and gives him broad social rights. For the first time in history the all-round development of the individual becomes the concern of society because being the result of people's conscious creative work this development is more successful and faster when the people themselves improve and become more politically conscious.
True, to some extent the establishment of socialism is linked up with compulsion and force, sometimes armed 336 force, with regard to exploiters. The adversaries of socialism take this as an argument that socialism is incompatible with humanism. Yet it will be readily seen that revolutionary violence and compulsion when applied against those who themselves are accustomed to resorting to brute force, namely, the exploiters, are the greatest of humane acts, for they liberate the toiler and give rise to conditions enabling him to live a truly human life and to develop and improve. Socialist humanism combines love and respect for the toiler with hate for exploitation and exploiters, for everything that prevents the working people from displaying their individuality.
The further humanisation of socialist society and of the social relations among people and the further elevation of human dignity take place during the building of communism. Humanism, which has become the cornerstone of socialist social organisation, gradually becomes the standard of the behaviour of every person and penetrates all the corners and coils of the complex social organism.
It would be wrong to picture the further humanisation of social life as a painless process devoid of contradictions. To pave the way for this process steps must be taken to eradicate bureaucracy, which distrusts man's creative strength, displays inattention and disrespect for man and adopts a formal attitude to him.
Bureaucracy is alien to the society of builders of communism, but it cannot be eradicated in one sweep. It is surmounted by day-to-day improvement of all social (primarily economic) relations, scientific leadership of all links of the social system, extension of socialist democracy, criticism and self-criticism, the development of the sense of the people's responsibility for the work assigned to them, and the consistent implementation of the Communist Party's highest principle, namely, ``Everything for man".
Socialism has elevated man and applied the principles of proletarian humanism in practice. Communism will raise man to unprecedented heights and will be the loftiest embodiment of humanism.
[337] __ALPHA_LVL1__ FOR SOCIALISM, FOR COMMUNISMCommunism brings man Peace, Labour, Freedom. Equality, Fraternity and Happiness.
Capitalism brings man war. The imperialists plunged the world into the abyss of a world war twice in the course of only the first half of the present century. Mankind has had to pay a terrible price for the reckless policy of the imperialists: millions of people killed by bullets, hunger and epidemics, millions crippled, and tens of thousands of towns and villages reduced to ashes. Today the sinister forces of imperialist reaction are preparing a thermonuclear war, which, if it breaks out, will bring mankind incalculable suffering and misery.
In contrast to capitalism, which has made war the principal vehicle of its foreign policy, socialism has ushered in a new era in the relations between nations and states, an era of mutual trust and respect, territorial integrity, economic and political independence and non-interference in the internal affairs of countries. It is putting an end to the senseless loss of human lives and material values in unjust, predatory wars.
Socialism has become the material and political force curbing the imperialists in their attempts to start another world war. When communism is established throughout the world there will be eternal peace and all people will be delivered from fear for their future.
Capitalism has deprived man of the joy of creative labour, having turned labour into an onerous duty and a means of subsistence. Fear of hunger forces the worker to sweat for 338 the capitalist, to exhaust his physical and spiritual strength. Having turned the worker into an obedient accessory to the machine, capitalism consumes his brain and drains his physical energy. Moreover, it frequently deprives the working man of the very possibility of working---witness the many millions of unemployed in the capitalist world.
Socialism gives the working people the right to work, to engage in creative endeavour in any sphere of human activity. Having put an end to exploitation, the people of socialist society work not for the landowner or capitalist but for themselves and their society. As a result, a thoroughgoing change is taking place in the very nature of labour and in people's attitude to work. Under communism, labour, founded on the latest achievements of science and technology, will be really free and creative. It will become man's main inner need and will serve as the basis of his all-round harmonious development.
In contrast to the capitalist system, which belittles labour and the toiler, communist society elevates them. Bourgeois ideologists wax eloquent on the subject of the freedom of capitalist society, their argument being that in that society there is free enterprise and the freedom to trade. Some people (employers) own factories and trade in commodities manufactured by workers, and others (workers) have nothing save their ability to work. However, neither the employer nor the worker knows what fate has in store for the commodities or muscle power, whether there will be a demand for them, whether the former will be ruined because there will be no demand for his commodities and the latter will find himself out of work because there will be no demand for his muscles. Thus, the freedom to enter the market is thus illusory because both the employer and the worker are ruled by blind necessity, by the laws of anarchy and competition, which predominate in the society of free enterprise. In that society neither demand nor supply can be planned beforehand, and hence the lack of the freedom of choice by man, who is completely dependent upon chance. Capitalism is thus a realm of blind necessity and chance.
Socialism, on the other hand, makes it really possible to 339 control historical necessity and bring real freedom to the toiler. The socialist revolution establishes public ownership and removes class antagonisms. This eradicates the chaotic nature of the market, and people get the opportunity of consciously directing the country's economic, political and cultural development. With the triumph of socialism society accomplishes a gigantic leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom, and further progress makes this freedom broader and more diversified. Man steadily increases his control over the forces of nature and over social processes, and learns to combine his personal interests and aspirations with lofty social ideals, doing this voluntarily and consciously.
Capitalism is the enemy of democratic freedoms. Bourgeois democracy is designed only for the chosen minority, for the bourgeoisie. This is particularly true of imperialism, which displays a clear-cut trend to repeal the already curtailed bourgeois democracy and go over to outright reaction. Imperialism was the soil that bred German nazism and Japanese militarism, which caused the world so much suffering, and today it is proving to be fertile for the poisonous weeds of fascism in the U.S.A. and some other countries, thus demonstrating the worth of capitalist freedom and democracy. This freedom is only a screen for the omnipotence of the moneybags and the denial of rights to the working people. The aim of bourgeois freedom and democracy is to perpetuate the capitalist system with its private ownership and exploitation.
While imperialism is an enemy of freedom, communist society removes all the fetters from freedom. Liberated from the yoke of capitalist exploitation and division of labour, the citizen of communist society works freely and creatively in accordance with his interests and capabilities and participates actively in the administration of social affairs, thus furthering society's economic and cultural development.
Capitalism brings inequality, primarily, profound economic inequality under which without expending any labour a small section of society possesses enormous wealth, wallows in luxury and spends fabulous riches to satisfy its needs, many of which are perverted, while the majority, 340 i.e., the section that works and creates the world's values by its labour, is sometimes unable to satisfy the most elementary needs and is forced to live in poverty and ignorance. Capitalism has created immense material and spiritual values but it is unable to distribute them justly, to utilise them for the benefit of all the people. Those who own the means of production have concentrated political power in their own hands. They sit in governments, decide the destiny of millions of ordinary people and pass laws. In addition to keeping the state machine in their hands they control the means of influencing people---the press, radio, television, literature and art---using these means to maintain their economic and political power and consolidate economic and social inequality. The majority in capitalist society are virtually denied political rights and have no possibility of expressing their will let alone determining and influencing internal and foreign policy.
Communism, on the other hand, establishes complete economic and social equality for all people. Every citizen will work according to his ability and receive material and spiritual benefits according to his needs. He will have every opportunity to study and master science and culture. He will not only enjoy but will also create spiritual values and improve physically. There will be no classes in communist society, and there will be no distinction between mental and physical labour. The state will be replaced by public self-administration, and each person will have equal possibilities to direct social affairs, to direct society's economic and cultural development.
All nations urgently desire the abolition of inequality and the establishment of complete equality for all people in the world.
Capitalism rejects fraternity among people and nations. It cannot do otherwise because private ownership disunites people, making them enemies and rivals in the struggle for profits, which are the holy of holies of the capitalist. In his drive for profits the capitalist flouts all the standards of human morality, being absolutely indifferent to the fate of the people around him, of his country or of society generally. He holds his mercenary interests above all else. Extreme individualism is the basis of bourgeois morals. The 341 relations among people in capitalist society, which has not only preserved but also deepened the division of society into hostile classes, is governed by the principle of ``man is to man a wolf".
In chasing profits capitalism enslaves not only the people of its own country but also the peoples of other countries. The history of capitalism is one of colonial oppression of the majority of mankind. Until recently dozens of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America bore the heavy burden of colonialism, and to this very day many millions of people are ruled by the colonialists. Imperialism was the soil that gave rise to reactionary racist doctrines maintaining the superiority of some nations over others and serving as the theoretical grounds for aggression and colonialism.
Communism establishes fundamentally new and truly human relations among working people. These are relations of genuine fraternity, collectivism and comradely mutual assistance. In communist society man is not an enemy of man but a friend, comrade and brother. These relations are founded on the principle of ``one for all and all for one''. This is only natural because communist society is founded on public ownership, which unites working people, and ensures their unity and harmony in the decision of all problems of social life.
The lofty humanism of communist society manifests itself not only in fraternal relations between people but also in fraternal solidarity of the working people of all countries, in respect for the peoples of all states, big and small. Communism has nothing in common with nationalism, with the ideology of national exclusiveness and hostility among nations. It does not tolerate national or racial hostility, or disunity among the working people.
Capitalism is unable to ensure real happiness for all members of society. True, the proprietor, the exploiter is happy in his own way, but this is an unstable happiness because the transient society to which he belongs is unstable. Besides, this happiness is built on the misfortune of the working majority, and it is therefore misanthropic. Man cannot be happy in a society that has no future, in a society where he is dogged by setbacks and has to depend upon the twists and turns of fate, where harrowing fear of the future is 342 his constant companion in life. Man cannot be happy in a society which does not ensure all its members with material security, a society where forced labour is predominant and the majority of the people cannot enjoy the benefits of material and spiritual culture, develop their abilities and worthily apply these abilities to further their own and society's welfare.
Man cannot be happy when he is not sure of his future. In capitalist society man does not have a bright window on the future if he does not participate in the revolutionary struggle. Life in capitalist society, the English author James Aldridge noted, ``is rather dulled like a blunt knife, dulled like a worn stone, or dulled like a man who is not sure where he is or where he is going".
In socialist and communist society man knows exactly where he is and where he is going, and this is his greatest joy. Under communism man is happy because he, his interests and needs and his all-round development and improvement are the only concern of society. Man derives his greatest happiness from having the possibility and need to work for himself and others; from making the largest possible contribution to the treasure-store of world culture; from the possibility of setting himself a lofty goal and achieving it; from confidence in a future that is free from material poverty; from the possibility to improve his physical and spiritual capabilities and feel healthy and happy and the master of nature and his own powers.
Capitalism denies the working people genuine human happiness. This happiness is achieved only under communism.
Communism meets the most cherished interests and desires of the people and, as the most humane social system, it is winning the minds and hearts of millions upon millions of people in all countries.
This is its strength and the key factor of its triumph throughout the world.
[343] __ALPHA_LVL0__ The End. [END]REQUEST TO READERS
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