p In November 1967 the Soviet Union marked its 5()th anniversary.

p Historically speaking, 50 years is not a long period, but glancing back at the road covered by the U.S.S.R. we cannot but marvel at the great achievements of its people in building a new life and the socialist state.

p The Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 put power in the hands of the workers and peasants, tore Russia out of the barbarous imperialist war, into which she had been plunged by the then ruling bourgeois and landowner classes, and saved her from a national catastrophe.

p It swept away the hated capitalist system, wiped out national oppression and abolished all estate and class privileges.

p The young Soviet state proclaimed a policy of peace and started enforcing new principles in relations between peoples and countries.

p Russia, which occupies one-sixth of the land area of the globe, became the first country in the world to build socialist society.

p “We have the right to be and are proud,” Lenin wrote in the first years following the October Revolution, “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....”  [5•* 

p The road that lay before the working people was both difficult and unexplored.

p The reactionary forces repeatedly attempted to throttle Soviet rule. For this purpose they organised military campaigns, set up an economic blockade, utilised the internal economic dislocation, hatched plots and resorted to sabotage.

p Moreover, the building of socialism was tremendously impeded by Russia’s age-old economic and cultural backwardness.

p The victorious workers and peasants did not yet have practical experience either in administering the state or in building a new society.

p There was nobody from whom the Soviet people could learn. Armed with the Marxist-Leninist theory, the Communist Party knew the general road towards socialism. But it neither knew nor could know how to tackle all the problems that it would face on each sector of that road, much less did it have ready-made solutions to these problems. To use Lenin’s figurative expression, while the Rus sian bourgeoisie that came to power in February 1917 received “a well-designed and tested vehicle, a well-prepared road and well-tried appliances”, the proletariat which seized power in October 1917 had “neither vehicle, no road, absolutely nothing that had been tested beforehand”. It was precisely the Soviet Communist Party that had to blaze the trail to socialism, to build and test the “appliances” of the new society in practice.

p Lastly, for almost 30 years the Soviet Union was the world’s only socialist state and was subjected to vicious attacks by hostile capitalist countries. But the Soviet people surmounted all the difficulties and obstacles that were put up in their way.

p They have built socialist society and are confidently advancing towards communism. The Soviet Union and the entire mode of life of its people have changed beyond recognition.

p Socialism, the social system whose inevitable emergence was scientifically predicted by Marx and Engels and whose plan of building was elaborated by Lenin, has become a reality in the Soviet Union and some other countries.

p At present there are other countries whose peoples have taken the socialist road of development.

p A world socialist system has taken shape and become consolidated. It is a social, economic and political community of free, sovereign peoples advancing towards socialism and communism, united by common interests and objectives and cemented by close links of international socialist solidarity.

p Socialism has ensured unpreccdentedly rapid economic and cultural development and a steady rise of the standard of living.

p Socialist society was the first in world history to create the economic, social and political prerequisites for genuine democracy for the whole nation.

p This springs from the fact that in no other society are all sections of the people welded so closely together. Moreover, all matters of state are resolved in a genuinely democratic way, without one class exercising coercion over another.

p This book gives a broad idea of the reality of Soviet socialist democracy.

p This subject covers a very wide field. It touches the most diverse aspects of human activity because socialist democracy is intrinsic to Soviet society and is founded on popular rule, the utmost promotion of initiative and self- administration.

p This book does not claim to offer a detailed analysis of the Soviet Union’s development. The authors have concentrated only on what is basic and vital and characterises the democratic nature of the Soviet social and political system which has once and for all liberated the people from exploitation, given them broad rights and freedoms, and ensured them a life worthy of human beings and a secure future.

Particular attention has been given to the various forms in which the people administer society and the state, to the organisation and functions of the Soviets and other state organs, to the position of the individual and also to the role and place of the mass organisations in the life of the countrv.