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p The Great October Socialist Revolution ushered in a new era in the history of mankind. It brought with it a totally new type of state—the Soviet socialist state.

p This state became a pure dictatorship for the exploiter classes—the bourgeoisie and the landowners—and a real democracy for the working people who had been previously barred from political activity.

p Having seized power, the workers and peasants whom the so-called privileged classes had viewed with such supercilious disdain showed themselves capable of setting up their own system of administration, and building a new society devoid of class exploitation and oppression, a society in which the working people themselyes are reaping the fruits of their labour.

p The new system, as Lenin had foreseen, prevailed solely because it won the trust of the masses and because it gave them every opportunity to participate in the country’s administration.

p The young Soviet state drew its strength not from the bayonets of a handful of military, the police or the power of money, but from the support of the masses, of the workers and peasants.

p The hammer and sickle figuring in its coat of arms symbolise the unbreakable worker-peasant alliance which is the foundation of the Soviet social and state system. True, when the coat of arms was first presented to the Soviet Government for approval in 1918 its design included a sword. But Lenin sharply opposed this. “What does the 69 sword stand for?" he asked. “We are not out for conquests. A policy of conquest is absolutely alien to us; we are not attacking but repelling internal and external enemies; we are fighting a defensive war and the sword cannot be our emblem.”

p Thus, implements of peaceful labour, the hammer and sickle crossed as though in a firm and friendly handclasp betokening the strong and lasting alliance of the working class with the non-proletarian masses, particularly with the peasantry, became the emblem of the Soviet state. The Soviet socialist state is an absolutely new, higher type of state, radically differing from all the other states in history.

p Briefly, these distinctions are as follows:

p Firstly, it became the first state in the world where state power expresses the interests of the working people, i.e., of the bulk of the population. It granted genuine democracy to workers and peasants. Built by the masses, it is supported by them and serves them. In it the working people not only create the material values but, for the first time in history, hold the reins of government in their own hands and enjoy all the benefits of democracy.

p Secondly, the masses play the decisive role not only in political life but also in economic development. This has become possible because the working people have taken all public wealth into their hands. They have the right to dispose of this wealth as they think fit and direct the development of production in order to satisfy the material and cultural requirements of all members of society. Thus, economic life has become a sphere of intensive public activity for millions of people.

p Thirdly, the socialist state concentrates its chief efforts on economic and cultural construction. The state apparatus is wholly dedicated not to enforcing punitive or repressive measures but to administering the national economy, planning the organisation of production and steadily raising the level of education and culture.

p The socialist state is the chief instrument in the building of socialism and communism.

p Fourthly, the principal method of state administration is persuasion and education and not coercion or violence. The law established by the government protects the interests of the people. Consequently, persuasion and 70 education are the chief means of regulating the life of society.

p The formation of the Soviet socialist state signified a complete break with all the features of a state or society consisting of antagonistic classes. The latter state expresses the interests of a small group of exploiters and is an instrument for subjugating the people.

p This was true of the slave-owning system, where state power was in the hands of a handful of slave-owners.

p This was true of feudal society in which the nobility could do as they pleased with the peasants, who were their serfs.

p This was and is true of capitalist countries, where economic and political power is entirely in the hands of the bourgeoisie, while the state merely ensures and upholds their dominating positions.

p Although the working classes make up the bulk of the population and the principal force of social progress, they were for many centuries nothing more than an object of exploitation and oppression. They were barred from political activity and denied even elementary political rights.

p The revolutions of the past, even if they were accomplished by the masses, usually resulted in one exploiter class replacing another. But the state remained an instrument, a machine with whose help the minority oppressed the majority.

p It is natural, therefore, that the radical transformation of the nature of the state as a result of socialist revolution and the consolidation of genuine democracy for the working people, should have made the political structure of Soviet society extremely durable and stable.

p Support of the masses. A socialist state is not the master of the people but an organ of the people. It is fused with the masses and, therefore, is invincible.

p At this juncture we have come up to a question which we should like to discuss in greater detail.

p A socialist state and its political institutions do not remain unchangeable. They constantly develop, becoming ever more democratic due to the nature of the socialist system itself. We know that the development and consolidation of socialist society is accompanied by changes in its class structure, in the forms of ownership and in the culture and 71 way of life of the people. This progressive development, naturally, leaves its imprint on the development of the state and its political institutions.

p Consequently, with the elimination of the exploiting classes and the victory of socialism in the U.S.S.R., the Soviet state entered a new period of its development.

p It began expressing the will and the interests of the whole people, of all members of socialist society without exception. Alongside the growth of its economic potential, the Soviet Union expanded and strengthened its social base, and society became more united and monolithic than ever before.

p Precisely this is the chief source of the strength of a socialist state.

p Every worker, peasant and intellectual in the U.S.S.R. can say with confidence: “We are the state.” It is the common task of all the working people of the country to develop and strengthen their state and to protect it against all encroachments.

p The powerful backing of the whole people and their unprecedented political and creative activity are the life-giving springs of the might of the Soviet social and state system.

p The development of the socialist state was the natural and logical result of the radical changes which took place in the U.S.S.R. in the period of socialist construction.

p Since the exploiting classes had disappeared and society consists solely of working people of town and country, there was no longer any need to suppress and dominate other classes.

p Consequently, one of the functions of the Soviet state, that of putting down the resistance of the exploiting classes had also disappeared, and it could now concentrate on directing economic and social processes in the interests of the people, safeguarding the rights and freedoms of citizens and strengthening law and order.

p With the victory of socialism the state of the dictatorship of the proletariat becomes a political organisation of the whole people under the leadership of the working class.

p “The state of the whole people is a new stage in the development of socialist statehood into communist public self-government. It continues the cause of the dictatorship of the proletariat—the building of communism—and 72 together with other socialist states wages a class struggle against imperialism in the international arena.”  [72•* 

p New conditions promoted the further development of Soviet democracy. From a democracy for the bulk of the population, that is, for the working people, it grew into a socialist democracy for the whole people without exceptions or limitations.

p In contemporary conditions the principal trend in the development of the socialist slate of the whole people is to further the all-round extension and perfection of democracy.

p This means ensuring the active participation of all citizens in the administration of the state, in the management of the economy and in the promotion of culture, improvement of the work of the government apparatus, and more efficient control over its activity.

p By its very nature the Soviet state, especially in the contemporary stage, is inseparable from the people, from mass organisations, from people’s control from the bottom over the activity of all the links of the administrative apparatus. For the broader and more active is the participation of the citizens in the administration, the more powerful the socialist state becomes.

p The Programme of the C.P.S.U. and the decisions of the 23rd Congress of the C.P.S.U., held in March-April 1966, are aimed at promoting the all-round development of democracy. Leonid Brezhnev, who delivered the report of the C.C. C.P.S.U. at this Congress, forcefully stressed that the Party considers itself duty bound to strengthen its bonds with the masses, promote socialist democracy and improve the work of government and mass organisations.

p We are frequently asked why does the U.S.S.R. still preserve the socialist state if class antagonisms, the principal factor which had caused its appearance, have ceased to exist?

p This is explained by the fact that there arc still many problems which can be solved only through the state.

p The Soviet socialist state has to fulfil extremely important tasks of communist construction. It must organise the building up of the material and technical basis of communism, 73 and transform socialist relations into communist relations, exercise control over the amount of work and the amount of consumption, promote the people’s welfare, protect the rights and freedoms of Soviet citizens, socialist law and order and socialist property, and instil in the people conscious discipline and a communist attitude to labour.

p In the sphere of foreign policy the state has to ensure the defence and security of the U.S.S.R., develop fraternal co-operation with the socialist countries, consistently uphold world peace and maintain normal relations with all countries irrespective of their social and economic systems. It serves the great cause of communist construction and the triumph of the finest ideals of humanity. As an organ of state power of the whole people it expresses the unity and equality of workers, peasants and intellectuals, of all nationalities of the U.S.S.R., and embodies their striving for peace and friendship among all the peoples of the world.

The stale is essential for the Soviet people and, therefore, it will survive until the complete victory of communism. The stale will wilher away lo be replaced by communisl public self-adminislration only with the building of communist society and provided socialism triumphs and consolidates its positions in the international arena.