p The capitalist mode of production is organically incapable of quickly eradicating the vestiges of feudalism and establishing the prerequisites for a substantially higher living standard in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The persistence of capitalism in these countries provides the imperialist states with opportunities to undermine their sovereignty, and continue and reinforce economic exploitation. Capitalism is replete with massive sacrifice and suffering, inevitably evoking new class conflicts, class struggle, and the consequent social instability, and the threat of constant imperialist intervention. Capitalism poisons the minds of men with chauvinism and racism, corrupting and alienating the peoples, sowing the seeds of hatred between them, and engendering the arms race, national strife and devastating wars.

p Socialism is the only solution for nations who really wish swiftly and resolutely to overcome economic and any other backwardness. The socialist system quickly and irreversibly eliminated the backward state of the former Russian Empire, especially Central Asia. The flourishing Soviet socialist republics and the other socialist countries are eloquent testimony to the great progressive role of socialism. A number of African and Asian countries have already started or are just starting on radical socio-economic change; some have achieved noticeable economic, scientific and technological successes. A planned economy is a great asset in obtaining dynamic economic, scientific and technological growth, but it can only be applied effectively and to the full under socialism. Virtually everyone now admits the advantages of a planned economy.

p Planning can make an impressive contribution to economic progress in countries that, under the influence of the socialist countries, are adopting the principles of planning, and where a state sector has been created. However, so long as they have not removed all possibility of capitalist or feudal interference, planning by itself cannot surmount the 222 major obstacles in the way of rapid development of the productive forces—economic colonial exploitation and the consequent pattern of national income structure. In these circumstances, the vast resources extracted from the national economy as surplus value or surplus product, partially expatriated or concentrated in the hands of an elite and largely lost to the country, are used unproductively or, at best, with little effect.

p Under socialist planning, priority is always given to items of maximum social significance. Moreover, resources are, as a rule, utilised most effectively in the best interests of the whole of the economy and for better living standards. The concerted action of all society, the purposeful involvement of every individual and the entire socialist state, mean that all efforts may be directed to tackling the most pressing tasks and quickly achieving targets of overriding importance for accelerating economic progress and the welfare of the whole nation.

p The planned socialist economy precludes economic cyclic crises. The U.S.S.R. has never experienced such crises, while these keep recurring in the capitalist countries. These crises have always weighed heavily on the backward periphery of the capitalist world, since the imperialist powers have always diverted their biggest depression troubles to their colonies. In years when the principal capitalist nations were experiencing an economic depression, the developing countries dependent on the world capitalist market were invariably hit by large and sometimes catastrophic drops of prices on their raw materials and other commodities, gluts of domestic goods, rising unemployment, reduced national income and depressed living standards. The same calamities threaten the developing countries in the future, so long as they remain dependent on the world capitalist economy.

p As the experience of even the youngest socialist nation, Cuba, testifies, socialism is able, fully and finally, to end exploitation by the imperialist monopolies, the export of a large part of their national income as profits and interest on capital, the plunder of the population, and the export of riches filched by local parasites.

The socialist mode of production and the truly democratic socialist society provide the requisites for swift progress in the economy, science and technology. Furthermore, socialist 223 relations of production, which rule out all possibility of exploitation and which involve everyone in work for the common good, provide extensive scope for the rapid development of the productive forces. Under socialism, all resources and productive forces are used with much greater effect than in any capitalist country. Socialism ensures the implementation of radical agrarian reforms, satisfaction of peasant and farmer interests, the overcoming of age-old backwardness, industrialisation, the safeguarding of the rights and interests of all working people, including the intellectuals, and solution of the national problem. In a short period of time, socialism can transform a backward impoverished country into a genuinely independent, progressive, flourishing and industrially developed nation.