p A creative approach to Marxism-Leninism implies positive consistent development and enrichment of all its component parts. Without this stipulation no serious results in the social sciences can be achieved. Indeed, can economic science advance in the right direction without philosophical thought? Can one gain a knowledge of the laws of modern 272 development without knowing the history of society’s development? Similarly, the development of philosophical thought and historical science is possible only given a profound knowledge of the objective economic laws of development of modern society and a knowledge of preceding socio-economic formations. Consequently, one of the principal tasks of social scientists is to profoundly, consistently and simultaneously study, generalise and develop all the component parts of Marxist-Leninist social science.

p In the early stages of their formation and development the social sciences were more or less isolated, detached from one another. Each social science lived through its infancy, as it were, developed in its own special way. And this is quite legitimate, since mankind had not yet accumulated the knowledge needed to bring them together into a single orderly system. It should also be borne in mind that the emergence of separate social sciences was conditioned by the improvement and maturation of the social relationships in one or another country. Naturally, the historical shaping of the various social sciences tended at first to bear a geographical character, as it were.

p Classical political economy, for instance, crystallised as an independent science in England during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Its emergence there, of course, was no accident. England was the first country where bourgeois relationships developed, where the capitalist mode of production took shape and where the industrial revolution first occurred. All this gave rise to such a field of the social sciences as the bourgeois political economy of capitalism.

p The science of socialism (Utopian socialism) was largely developed in France during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. And that was no accident either. By that time capitalism had revealed not only its progressive aspects compared with feudalism, but had pretty fully displayed its exploiting, oppressive and despotic essence. Already at that time, therefore, capitalism had drawn down upon itself curses and scathing criticism. Society’s progressive forces began to seek ways towards a better and fairer system. The then undeveloped state of social relationships, however, did not make it possible to discover within bourgeois society itself a real force capable of changing it. And so there came into being Utopian socialism, the concept of 273 a socialist society in which there were to be neither exploiters nor exploited, neither rich nor poor.

p Similarly, we have the history of the emergence and shaping of German classical philosophy at the turn of the nineteenth century. Germany at that time, as we know, was a disunited feudal state which lagged far behind England and France. The central problem for Germany was the elimination of feudal disjunction while at the same time overcoming the economic, political and cultural backwardness which hampered the development of the country’s productive forces. German classical philosophy attempted in the realm of knowledge to discover the social force that would help solve this problem and to a certain extent it fulfilled its mission.

p The appearance of these three ramifications of the science of societal development were a great achievement of progressive social thought. Nevertheless, despite all the positive aspects of these sciences, they were not yet able to give a correct answer to the complex questions concerning the development of society. This was largely due, on the one hand, to the fact that they were based on idealistic metaphysical concepts steeped in a subjectivist intuitive approach to the analysis of societal development, and, on the other, to the narrow and divergent views on the various aspects of social life. In short, these sciences lacked at the time a central pivot —that of dialectical materialism, without which they could not develop in the right direction and were therefore bound to become debased and to peter out.

p Social development, however, went ahead, giving more and more scope to the development of progressive social thinking, enriching it with life’s new material, and with new facts of living practice. The working class came out into the arena of social life. Its debut as an independent political force greatly sharpened class antagonisms and whipped up the pace of social development. Stemming from this rapid progress in the historical arena there arose and developed such a progressive world-view as Marxism, which imbibed all that was rational in preceding advanced social ideas. In dialectical and historical materialism mankind received a truly scientific theory, and in the person of Marxism a truly scientific world outlook.

p In his famous article "The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism" Lenin stressed the omnipotence 274 and correctness of Marxism, of whose teaching he said: "It is comprehensive and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook.”  [274•*  He regarded Marx’s philosophical materialism, his economic theory and teaching of the class struggle in monolithic unity. These’three important components of the Marxist world-view are fused for him into an organic whole. "The application of materialist dialectics to the reshaping of all political economy from its foundation up, its application to history, natural science, philosophy and to the policy and tactics of the working class—that was what interested Marx and Engels most of all, that was where they contributed what was most essential and new, and that was what constituted the masterly advance they made in the history of revolutionary thought.”  [274•** 

p It would therefore be wrong in principle to single out any one component of Marxism and attach to it exclusive preferential significance. True, in his article "Certain Features of the Historical Development of Marxism" Lenin pointed out that Marxism, being a living guide to action, cannot but reflect the changing conditions of social life. In keeping with the changes in the concrete socio-political situation, Marxism, too, as a living doctrine, could not but have various aspects of it brought to the fore, but this in no way affects the organic correlation, unity and integrity of Marxism’s component parts.

p Clarifying this thought, Lenin said that the 1905-07 epoch highlighted for the Russian Marxists the questions of tactics in Marxism, while the 1908-10 period brought to the fore the questions of struggle for the theoretical principles of Marxism. What Lenin intended here was to stress the significance of Marxism as a guide to action, to stress the need for a Marxist solution of definite practical problems of the epoch, which were liable to change with every new turn in history, and not that priority should be given to any one component part of Marxism.  [274•***  Lenin enriched Marxism with new deductions and postulates, always taking care to develop revolutionary theory as a whole in all its component parts.

p Take, for example, Lenin’s theory of socialist revolution. Why was Lenin able successfully to elaborate this theory 275 during the First World War? Because those years found him deeply engaged in developing the materialist theory of cognition, clarifying and elaborating the major laws of dialectics. This work found expression in his famous Philosophical Notebooks. During that period Lenin successfully developed the Marxist economic teaching. Suffice it to mention in this respect his fundamental work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. But Lenin, as we know, worked almost simultaneously on a third important problem dealt with in his famous work The State and Revolution. Only on the basis of profound and systematic development of all the component parts of Marxism could Lenin have arrived at his brilliant conclusion concerning the possibility of the socialist revolution winning initially in one or several countries.

p Or take another example. It is to Lenin that we owe the scientific substantiation of the plan for building socialism and communism, a plan which serves as a guiding star for our Party, for the working class and the whole Soviet people. But this plan, too, came into being, crystallised and assumed clear outlines only because Lenin, during the last years of his life, was intensively engaged in further developing the theoretical heritage of Marxism. He did a great deal to enrich philosophical materialism and the dialectics of social development, notably in the matter of clarifying the specific conditions for resolving contradictions under a socialist society. Lenin laid the solid foundations of the political economy of socialism. He accomplished the gigantic task of summing up the practical experience of the first years of proletarian dictatorship and developing the teaching concerning classes and the class struggle during the transition period from capitalism to socialism.

p The example of Lenin and the experience of our Party convincingly prove the need, at any historical moment, for creatively developing all the component parts of MarxismLeninism and ensuring the organic union of theory with the revolutionary practice of the masses. This equally applies to our own time, when the Party and the Soviet people are tackling complex problems in the field of politics, economics and society’s spiritual life. The unity and combined development of all the component parts of Marxist-Leninist theory and the social sciences as a whole have always been an earnest of success in developing theory. Today, with the 276 steadily growing differentiation of scientific knowledge, the need for unity, interaction and broad synthesis of knowledge becomes still more urgent and compulsive.

p It is natural, therefore, that the C.C. of the C.P.S.U. orientates social scientists on stepping up work along the whole front of scientific research so that economic, philosophic and historical thought develop together without artificial barriers. Just as natural are the Party’s insistent recommendations that the best and leading forces be concentrated on the complex and pressing problems of communist construction and the scientific and technological revolution, on preparing scientifically grounded proposals necessary for working out the policies of the Communist Party and the Soviet state and for continually improving scientific management of the processes of social life.

p The first objective covers a large complexus of problems. Life’s demand that we concentrate first of all on the study and generalisation of our rich experience in socialist and communist construction still remains as pressing as ever. We have here a wide field of activity for research work by all social scientists: historians, philosophers, economists and other representatives of the social sciences. Joint work by scientists is the truest guarantee against all possible errors in dealing with the major questions of the history of the Party and the Soviet state. Positive work of this kind will serve as a reliable base from which to actively expose the bourgeois falsifiers in philosophy, history and sociology.

p The second objective is the study of the ways and nature of the processes by which communist social relations are formed. Theoretical treatment of the process of improvement of socialist social relations and their development into communist relations is essential for working out practical measures in this direction. All the more as this process is an extremely complex one that does not always lend itself to exact calculation. Things here do not lie on the surface. Marxist dialectics alone supplies the only scientific method of research into social problems and phenomena. That is why the views expounded in the recent past to the effect that the previous laws of dialectics are inapplicable to the conditions of socialism are so unacceptable.

p Some philosophers, for example, maintained that under socialism unity was everything, and that contradictions lost their significance. By this means the manifestation of 277 dialectics’ basic law—the law of unity and conflict of opposites —is obscured. Obviously, it is wrong in principle to identify the contradictions under socialism with the antagonistic class contradictions in bourgeois society. The very nature of socialism excludes the existence of any class antagonisms. This does not mean, however, that the development of socialist society loses its dialectical contradictory character, that contradiction ceases to be a source of its progressive development.

p Lenin pointed out that "antagonism and contradiction are not one and the same thing. The former will disappear while the latter will remain under socialism". Hence the need for a profound, concrete study of the contradictions in real life—the economic, socio-political and ideological life of socialist society. The forming of communist relationships, too, must be approached with a dialectical gauge, bearing in mind that this process presumes the timely pinpointing and overcoming of the contradictions which arise. It is this way, and not by the wave of any magic wand, that development takes place, it is in this way and no other that the new will make its way.

p The third objective is questions relating to the further improvement of the socialist state system and the development of socialist democracy. Of tremendous theoretical and practical importance, for instance, is the question of enhancement of the Communist Party’s leading role in the life of Soviet society. The Communist Party, which came into being as an independent political party of the working class and which remains today its organised advance detachment, has at the same time become the vanguard of the whole Soviet people. Its guiding and organising influence embraces all spheres of activity of our society. It must be admitted, however, that we still have few fundamental researches giving a comprehensive analysis of the objective and subjective factors of this process and revealing the dialectical class essence and popular character of our Party. The further elaboration of Lenin’s teachings concerning the Party is a vital necessity, the honourable duty of Soviet scholars.

p A no less important question calling for profound research and scientific generalisation is the question of the socialist state. In the course of socialist and communist construction the creative, transformative role of the state is heightened, 278 some of its functions die off and others appear. Soviet scholars have devoted no few works to the problem of the Soviet state’s development. Yet the question of the creative, transformative role of the proletarian-dictatorship state as the highest type of socialist democracy still stands in need of proper treatment. The socialist democratism of the Soviet state system, as we know, is securely embodied in the Soviets of working people’s deputies. Consequently, it is important to study the activities of these bodies, to investigate the experience and ways of recruiting the broad masses into the work of administering the state. The same applies to such questions as the rule of socialist law, measures for strengthening state organisation and maintaining discipline and law and order. In this context important work has to be done in studying the social structure of socialist society in order to obtain a full picture of the nature and tendencies of the qualitative changes which our working class, our kolkhoz peasantry and Soviet intelligentsia have been undergoing.

p The fourth objective, covering a range of the most pressing problems which demand thorough investigation, is the forms and methods of socialist economic management, the scientific organisation of labour, and the content and methods of communist education of Soviet people. These problems are most closely linked with the practical activities of our Party, of the state agencies and public organisations. The treatment of these problems presents a particularly wide field to local scientists, to the scientific staff of the higher educational institutions in particular. They stand closer to practical experience and are quicker able to respond to the needs of practice in the shape of scientific recommendations concerning economic and educational measures to be applied on a district, regional or republican scale.

The progressive development of society is a regular historical process, and its cognition is only possible given a genuinely scientific theory which deals with this process in a proper and comprehensive manner. With the emergence of Marxism-Leninism mankind acquired precisely such a theory, which provides authentic knowledge having the weight of objective truth. It was from this that the party of the working class derived an exact knowledge of the historical pattern of societal development and to devise its policy, strategy and tactics on the basis of this authentic 279 scientific knowledge. All this means that with the emergence of such a genuine science of society as that of MarxismLeninism, it should be treated as a science in which there is no room for subjectivism or a dilettante approach.