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p The definition of the present historical epoch, whose main content is the transition from capitalism to socialism, gives its principal features. At various periods these features unquestionably manifest themselves in different ways, but their substance has been and remains unchanged. They may be conditionally reduced to the following.

p Our epoch is one of struggle between two opposing social systems. This struggle is being waged in the economic, political, ideological and military fields and it is being convincingly won by the new, socialist system.

p Take economics. In 1917 socialism only accounted for 3 per cent of the world industrial output. In 1937 its share rose to approximately 10 per cent, in 1950 to nearly 20 per cent and in 1968 to almost 40 per cent. But there is more to this than the socialist countries’ growing share of world industrial production. Importance attaches to trends characterising the growth of the total social product, the rate of development and the efficiency of production.

p Let us begin with the national income. In 1968 as compared with 1950 it grew 360 per cent in the Soviet Union, more than 350 per cent in Bulgaria, 170 per cent in Hungary, 260 per cent in the German Democratic Republic, over 240 per cent in Poland and nearly 190 per cent in Czechoslovakia.  [57•*  In this period the national income in the Common Market countries increased roughly 170 per cent and in the US less than 100 per cent.

p Or take the rate of growth of industrial output. It averaged 7.2 per cent throughout the world in the period 1951- 1965. In countries outside the world socialist system, the growth rate averaged 5.6 per cent, coming to 5.3 per cent in the developed capitalist states (4.4 per cent in the USA). The annual rate of growth in the socialist countries averaged 11.5 per cent, the CMEA countries showing 10.6 per cent (the USSR 10.7 per cent). This was achieved despite the certain slowing of the growth rate in the socialist countries during the five-year period from 1961 to 1965 (7.4 per cent 58 for the socialist community as a whole, 8.5 per cent in the CMEA countries, 8.6 per cent in the Soviet Union). The drop was due to a number of reasons, one of which lay in the grave difficulties in the development of agriculture. Nonetheless, during that five-year period the rate of growth of industrial production in the socialist countries exceeded the world level (6.5 per cent) and the level achieved in the developed capitalist states (5.7 per cent, with the USA showing 5.6 per cent).

p Industrial production grew rapidly in the CMEA countries in 1965-1970, the increase adding up to 49 per cent.

p The socialist countries have achieved high rates of economic development and built a highly efficient national economy based on the most advanced science and technology. Labour productivity is growing through the use of new machinery and the pattern of industry is changing as a result of the accelerated expansion of branches such as chemistry, radio electronics, instrument-making, precision machinery and heavy engineering, which determine technological progress. True, in the socialist countries much still remains to be done in this field, but the prerequisites are already on hand, making it possible to achieve considerably more progress during the next few years and to strengthen the economic positions of socialism as the most advanced social system.

p In the economic competition an important factor is that socialism is an incomparably more perfect system as regards the mode of production and the distribution and consumption of goods. It is well known that in capitalist society there is glaring inequality in the social position of its members and in the distribution of various blessings. In The Future of the French Communist Party, the General Secretary of the FCP Waldeck Rochet writes that the income of 10 per cent of the richest section of the French population is 74 times greater than the share of 10 per cent of the poorest section.  [58•* 

p The Soviet Union gets more out of production for the people than does the United States of America. Although the USSR is still behind the USA in the volume of output it uses it more effectively for the promotion of science, culture, 59 education, health and key branches of the economy. Lastly, and this is the most important point, even with a smaller volume of per capita production cultural and spiritual requirements are more fully satisfied in the USSR. When the Soviet Union reaches the US level of production it will be considerably ahead in all spheres of social life.

p In its efforts to avoid defeat in the economic sphere capitalism is compelled to adapt itself to the new conditions of the struggle between the two systems and look for ways of improving production and management. It is integrating the monopolies with the state apparatus, forming mammoth monopoly associations (conglomerates), making ever broader use of programming and forecasting in production, utilising the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution by financing technological progress and research out of the state budget, and making attempts to limit the market element and utilise elements of planning; on the international level it uses various forms of economic integration to set up international associations of monopolies. However, imperialism by no means abandons some traditional forms of sustaining economic conjuncture (carefully camouflaged intensification of exploitation, militarisation of the economy, the pillaging of undeveloped countries, and so on). In some capitalist countries this is bringing about a certain increase of social production and some improvement of the standard of living. But this concerns only some countries and only leads to a certain increase and a certain improvement. As a matter of fact, Marx, Engels and Lenin wrote of such a possibility.

p However, as a system imperialism cannot ensure, in the historical plane, steady and even economic development, curb the sporadic forces of the capitalist market and use the potentialities of the scientific and technological revolution for the benefit of society as a whole. Imperialism has all the essential attributes laid bare and formulated by Lenin in the brilliant work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Lately, imperialism has displayed new features, which have been profoundly dealt with in the documents of the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties, the 24th Congress of the CPSU and congresses of the fraternal parties. The parasitical nature and rottenness of imperialism are today more in evidence than ever before.

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p Reproduction retains its cyclic nature under imperialism as a system. As was noted at the 1969 International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties, almost no capitalist state has escaped considerable fluctuations and declines in its economy; periods of high rates of industrial growth in individual countries have alternated with low growth rates and, frequently, with production declines. Since the Second World War there have been four economic crises in the USA (1948-1949, 1953-1954, 1957-1958 and 1960-1961). For more than two years the USA has been in the grip of its fifth crisis. To some extent this is affecting the world capitalist economy. True, since the war the phases of the cycle have not concurred in time in the different countries. These crises are augmented by crises in individual industries. Lastly, an acute currency and financial crisis is shaking the capitalist system.

p Discovered by Karl Marx, the universal law of capitalist accumulation remains in operation. According to this law wealth accumulates in the capitalist world and a reserve army of labour takes shape.

p Despite the unparalleled possibilities being opened up by the present development of science and technology, capitalist society cannot deliver itself from unemployment, need and uncertainty of the morrow. In the capitalist world more and more people are finding that instead of narrowing, the gap between the growth of the volume of production and labour productivity, on the one hand, and the level of real wages is growing steadily wider, and that all the assertions of the apologists of capitalism about a “revolution in incomes" and “social partnership" are humbug. In the USA, for example, 40 per cent of the wages of all workers are swallowed by direct and indirect taxes, with the result that real wages have been declining for three years in succession. President Nixon has admitted that in the USA millions of people are living in penury and there are poverty belts. But this is the lot not only of the USA, but of other capitalist countries as well. Unemployment remains the constant companion of imperialism. In the developed capitalist countries the total unemployment figure has now reached almost 8 millions.

p This is striking evidence of capitalism’s impotence in the economic competition with socialism. But capitalism is fighting socialism not only in the economic sphere but also 61 politically, ideologically and by force of arms. Let us briefly review the results of the struggle in these spheres.

p After the October Revolution in Russia the class enemies made an attempt to suppress the revolution militarily. “The country,” Lenin wrote to Gorky on July 31, 1919, “is living in a feverish struggle against the bourgeoisie of the whole world, which is taking a frenzied revenge for its overthrow. Naturally. For the first Soviet Republic, the first blows from everywhere. Naturally.”  [61•*  Soviet Russia was attacked by the armies of 14 imperialist countries. We all know how that struggle ended. During the Second World War nazi Germany used the military potential of virtually the whole of Europe against the Soviet Union. But socialism withstood the onslaught and emerged victorious. Hence the indisputable historical conclusion: if imperialism’s attempt to crush socialism had failed then, they are all the more doomed to failure today when the forces of socialism have grown and become immeasurably stronger. This is appreciated by the imperialists themselves, who frankly admit that today they have no military advantage over the socialist camp. This, properly speaking, is the main obstacle preventing imperialism from starting another world war.

p Now let us briefly consider the political aspect of our problem. Socialism defeated capitalism politically as early as 1917, and with the formation of the world socialist system it consolidated and developed this victory.  [61•**  This by no means signifies that the political struggle between capitalism and socialism has ended. It is continuing to this day and is 62 expressed, above all, in the struggle between the two systems on the international scene. The socialist community aspires to strengthen the new, socialist international relations within the framework of the world socialist system; to facilitate the progressive development of the Asian and African countries that have won national liberation; to promote the further development of the communist movement and the national liberation struggle, deepen the general crisis of capitalism and consolidate the principles of peaceful coexistence. Another aspect of socialism’s political struggle against capitalism is to abolish its survivals in the socialist countries, strengthen the socio-political system of socialism and cut short the attempts of the counter-revolution to restore capitalism. Lastly, by supporting progressive, socialist movements, the socialist countries are helping the political struggle against capitalism in the capitalist countries themselves.

p The far-reaching positive changes in the revolutionary process are accompanied by the expansion and aggravation of the ideological struggle. The ideological factors of the revolutionary process, as Marx pointed out, acquire a steadily greater significance because ideas become a material motive force of social development as soon as they capture the minds of the people. Hundreds of millions of people are guided by the teaching of Marxism-Leninism in their day-to-day activities and are advancing along the road opened and tested by the Communists.

p Marxism’s historical strength is seen by its enemies as well. Back in 1950 the French anti-communist Jean Lacroix wrote: “Marxism lives in the hearts and minds of millions of people and is the most important social movement of our epoch.”  [62•*  The well-known West German apologist of Catholicism Innocent Maria Bochenski said in one of his lectures: “Marxism-Leninism has a magical influence on millions of people.... This teaching is so attractive that it seems: communism with the aid of its spiritual weapon, Marxism- Leninism, wins a new country every few years and ... in all countries it is followed by many, including highly educated, people.”  [62•**  A typical statement is to be found in an article in the 63 American journal Time when the 1969 Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties was in session. “So the attraction of the Marxist vision,” the article said, “may persist until modern society finds a more effective way of explaining itself and its direction. And that could be a long, long time.”  [63•* 

p This is an admission not only of the majesty and invincibility of the Marxist-Leninist teaching but also of the helplessness of bourgeois ideology, which has ceased to be attractive to millions of people, to the vast majority of mankind.

p As in the day of Marx and in the day of Lenin, bourgeois propaganda attacks the great revolutionary teaching. Thousands of newspapers and radio stations are trying to defend capitalism, which is withering. The bourgeoisie is shamelessly lauding a rotten system and painstakingly concealing its ulcers. It crudely indoctrinates the masses in anti- communism.

p Notwithstanding all its shifts and dodges, bourgeois ideology is losing the battle of ideas. It cannot provide the answer to acute problems of the development of modern society. It is unable to offer ideals to young people. It cannot halt the degradation of culture and of the whole spiritual world of bourgeois society.

p We are living in the epoch of class battles of the proletariat, in the epoch of socialist revolutions. It is not the road of reforms but the road of active revolutionary change that is indicative of social development. The communist formation is engendered in revolutionary struggle, in a clash between the forces of reaction, of imperialism, and the forces of socialism. Fundamental changes and the break-up of the entire structure of exploiting society pave the way to victory in this struggle. “Socialism,” Marx said, “cannot be achieved without revolution.”  [63•**  Nothing has come or is coming of the attempts of the opportunists to prove that socialism can be achieved by some other, evolutionary way, by capitalism’s gradual “transformation”.

p The first attempt to accomplish a proletarian revolution was made by French workers. In 1871 they set up the Paris 64 Commune, whose centenary was marked by progressive people throughout the world. But the era of socialist revolutions was started by the victory of the workers and peasants of Russia in October 1917. By breaking the chain of imperialism and establishing the first socialist state in history it fundamentally changed the conditions for the struggle for socialism in the world. A proletarian revolution broke out in Finland early in 1918. In September of the same year there was a soldiers’ uprising in Bulgaria aimed at overthrowing the monarchy and forming a people’s republic. In Hungary, Bavaria and Slovakia, the bourgeois-democratic revolutions that began in October and November 1918 grew into socialist revolutions. At the close of 1918 and the beginning of 1919 power in Germany was virtually in the hands of the working class. The proletarian movement developed swiftly in Italy. A revolutionary struggle was launched by the proletariat of Yugoslavia, Poland and Austria, and a revolution broke out in China. This was a period when bourgeois power hung by a thread in many countries, when for some time only a semblance remained of the erstwhile might of the imperialist state machine. Unfortunately, all these revolutions (as later, in 1936-1939, the revolution in Spain, which grew into a socialist revolution) were crushed by the numerically superior forces of reaction.

p Lenin, who had searchingly analysed the course of the revolutions in different countries, saw several reasons for their defeat. These included the , overwhelming military strength of the imperialist powers (“... Germany, which helped to crush the Finnish revolution”, ”. . .those giants of capitalism, Britain, France and Austria, which crushed the revolution in Hungary"  [64•* ); the treachery of the “socialists”, who in Hungary, for example, “went over to Bela Kun verbally and proclaimed themselves Communists, but who actually did not pursue a policy consonant with the dictatorship of the proletariat; they vacillated, played the coward, made advances to the bourgeoisie, and in part directly sabotaged and betrayed the proletarian revolution"  [64•** ; the lack of a firm alliance between the working class and the peasants (“In Hungary the peasants failed to help the Hungarian 65 workers and fell under the power of the landowners"  [65•* ). The objective conditions for the victory of the revolution existed in many other countries at the time but were missed on account of the weakness of the subjective factor—the absence of revolutionary proletarian parties.

p For almost three long decades the Soviet Union was encircled by capitalist countries, building socialism under incredibly difficult conditions.

p Capitalism gave rise to fascism and to the Second World War for which mankind had to pay an appalling price. The war accelerated the disintegration of capitalism and the triumph of socialism. It intensified the people’s hatred of imperialism, which had started the war, and of its most monstrous creation—fascism. The defeat of the nazi hordes, in which the principal role was played by the Soviet Union, immensely enhanced the prestige of the socialist state in the eyes of progressive people throughout the world. Favourable conditions were created in the world for the growth of the powerful forces of peace, democracy and socialism.

p Socialist revolutions triumphed in a number of countries, which together with the Soviet Union and Mongolia formed the world socialist system embracing vast territories in Europe and Asia. Despite imperialism’s efforts to strangle the revolutionary movement, a socialist revolution was consummated in Cuba, near the frontiers of the United States of America. As a matter of fact, the experience of the Cuban revolution is evidence that today the victory of the revolution is by no means linked with a country’s geographical location or its economic level.

p The main front of the class struggle has shifted to the world scene, to the scene of the struggle between the imperialist and socialist systems. However, the class battles are continuing and growing in intensity in the capitalist countries. This is borne out by the steady growth of the strike movement: the strikes in 1919-1939 involved 74.5 million people, in 1946-1959 150 million, and in 1960-1968 300 million. Strikes are a constant factor of social life in the USA, Italy, France, Japan, Britain, Canada, Spain and other countries. From 1963 to 1967 the number of 66 nationwide strikes more than doubled as compared with the 80 in the preceding five-year period.  [66•* 

p Since 1917 the history of social development has thus been one of unceasing class battles by the proletariat and its allies. This was clearly shown in the 1960s, which began with the general strike of 1959-1960 in Belgium and ended with massive action by the people in 1968-1969 in France and other countries.

p The ground for the powerful movement of May-June 1968 in France was prepared by the long struggle of the working class and the Communist Party against the Gaullist regime and the monopolies. A highlight of the 1968 movement, in which 9 million people took part only in the strikes, was, as Waldeck Rochet said at the 1969 Meeting, that “in addition to advancing its immediate economic demands, it directed a blow against the domination of national life by the monopolies and their state power. It sought deep-going democratic change in the social, economic and political spheres. It showed that the ideas of socialism have been accepted by broad sections of the working people.”  [66•** 

p In Italy the mounting strike struggle on a nation-wide scale, the great political battles and the success of the Leftwing forces at the elections were a severe blow to the attempts of the ruling class to stabilise capitalism. In Spain the struggle of the masses is increasingly undermining the 67 Franco regime. By their scale and the number of participants the latest strikes in Britain may be compared only with the general strike of 1926. The class battles of the working people, students and other social strata are gaining momentum in Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, the Federal Republic of Germany, Uruguay, Belgium, Portugal, the Scandinavian and other countries. The mass struggle is on the upswing in the United States of America, the mainstay of world imperialism.

p This aggravation and expansion of the class struggle, which has acquired an international character, is eroding and shaking capitalism. Pressure by the masses is fettering the forces of imperialism,- forcing it to go over to the defensive, and weakens its influence on the course of the struggle in the world. “The big battles of the working class in a number of capitalist countries,” states the Document of the 1969 Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties, “are undermining the power of the monopolies, intensifying the instability and contradictions of capitalist society. These struggles foreshadow new class battles which could lead to fundamental social change, socialist revolution, and the establishment of the power of the working class in alliance with other segments of the working people.”  [67•* 

p The present is the epoch of democratic and national revolutions, of the abolition of the colonial system. A glance at the political map of the world shows the results of the liberation struggle of the peoples against imperialism.

p In 1900 the colonial possessions of all the imperialist powers occupied a territory of 73 million square kilometres (roughly 55 per cent of the earth’s land area) and had a population of 530 millions (35 per cent of the world’s population at the time).  [67•**  In addition, many countries, while formally retaining state independence, had in fact been turned into semi-colonies. At the time of the Great October Socialist Revolution 77 per cent of the world’s territory and 66 per cent of its population were under colonial and imperialist rule. Imperialism used its colonial possessions as sources of farm products and raw materials. For centuries the capitalist system had relied on its colonies, tapping reserves from 68 them for its own growth and enrichment and for the struggle against the revolutionary movement. The peoples of the colonial countries were denied rights and kept in a state of destitution.

p As a result of the liberation movement after the Second World War more than 1,500 million people broke away from colonial captivity and over 70 countries achieved national independence. But colonial slavery has not yet been totally uprooted: it is still the lot of several tens of millions of people.

p The change of the political map has deprived capitalism of its source of fabulous profit and cheap raw materials, and of its buttress against the revolutionary movement. Take India. On the admission of the British bourgeoisie itself, India was a goldmine for Britain. The British imperialists annually wrung 150-180 million pounds sterling from that colony; ten colonial slaves worked for every Englishman. Belgium netted an annual colonial profit of hundreds of millions of dollars from the exploitation of the Congo. Immense wealth flowed to the financial magnates from other colonial countries. True, in the former colonies and semi-colonies the imperialists still have strong economic positions, but these countries are increasingly ousting the foreign monopolies and building up their own industry.

p The new states are playing a steadily larger role as a factor of the world revolutionary movement. The new economic conditions taking shape in the young sovereign states and the new international conditions as a whole are enabling them to establish increasingly more active economic and political relations not only within the capitalist system but also with countries belonging to the world socialist system.

p This explains why imperialism is so fiercely striving to preserve its influence in the former colonial and dependent countries and employs neocolonialist methods to hinder economic and social progress in the countries that have won political independence. The imperialists are imposing on these countries economic treaties and military-political pacts prejudicial to their sovereignty, exploiting them by exporting capital, dictating unequal terms in trade, manipulating prices and the exchange rate, extending loans and various forms of so-called aid and pressuring these countries through international financial organisations. This is widening the 69 gulf between the highly developed capitalist states and most of the Asian, African and Latin American countries. By encouraging reactionary nationalism, the imperialists seek to cause friction within these countries and provoke a split between them. Although this policy of imperialism has had some success, the main trend of the national liberation movement has not changed and it is establishing itself as an important feature of our epoch. “In the past decade" states the Document of the 1969 Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties, “the role of the anti-imperialist movement of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America in the world revolutionary process had continued to grow.”  [69•* 

p The present epoch witnesses the downfall of capitalism and the triumph of communism on a global scale. This springs directly from preceding features and is their concentrated expression. Therefore, without repeating what we have said, let us turn to some concrete examples of recent years which show that imperialism cannot stop the development of the forces of socialism.

p First of all, mention must be made of the war in Vietnam and in Cambodia and Laos. The fact that the United States of America, the most powerful imperialist state, cannot win that war is distinctive proof that there is a flagrant contradiction between imperialism’s aggressive plans and its ability to carry out these plans. The reasons for the failure of US policy in Vietnam are the unparalleled heroism of the Vietnamese people, the skilful leadership by their vanguard—the Working People’s Party of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam—the massive assistance to the Vietnamese people by socialist countries, above all by the Soviet Union, and the growing world-wide solidarity with the people of Vietnam.

p The imperialists have been unable to destroy the progressive regimes in Arab countries, crush the Arab liberation movement and preserve or restore their positions in the Middle East. The aggression launched by Israel, creature of world imperialism, against Arab states has broken down politically.

p Incontrovertible evidence of imperialism’s weakness is its total inability to crush heroic Cuba, the first bastion of 70 socialism in the Western Hemisphere. Neither the economic blockade nor various provocations and subversion are preventing the courageous Cuban people from building socialism 90 miles away from the USA.

p World imperialism’s plans have suffered a complete fiasco in Czechoslovakia. The socialist gains in that country have been upheld thanks to the determined action by five socialist countries, and the courageous and uncompromising struggle of the internationalist forces in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia supported by the working class, the peasants and all other honest people in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.

p The attempts of the imperialists to revise the results of the Second World War have ended in hopeless failure. Their intrigues are being successfully cut short in the German Democratic Republic and the Korean People’s Democratic Republic.

p Such are the salient facts of present-day history and they eloquently show that imperialism is unable to recover the positions it has lost or to stop or even hold up the revolutionary process.

p Does this signify that for the revolutionary movement imperialism is no longer a serious and dangerous adversary? Not at all. Imperialism remains aggressive and has not abandoned (with a risk to itself) its preparations for a war against socialist countries, particularly against the Soviet Union. Through its policy of “building bridges" and “ softening up" individual socialist countries, imperialism seeks to tear them away from the socialist community. It is sparking local conflicts, each of which is a menace to world peace. It is redoubling its efforts to maintain a neocolonialist hold on countries that have recently liberated themselves from colonial tyranny. It organises reactionary coups in countries bent on independent development. It has recourse to the most subtle means to obstruct the struggle of the working people in the capitalist countries and halt the irreversible decline of capitalism.

p Not all of imperialism’s efforts have been abortive, however. During the past few years it has succeeded in forcing a number of setbacks on the anti-imperialist forces in the different continents: But these are temporary setbacks. They have no strategic significance and affect only individual 71 sectors of the international class struggle. It would, therefore, be damaging for the revolutionary forces to underrate or overrate the imperialist threat; extremes hamstring the Communists and the working people in their anti- imperialist struggle. The 1969 Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties stressed that it was vital to activate this struggle and clearly charted its main directions: “The working class, the democratic and revolutionary forces, the peoples must unite and act jointly in order to put an end to imperialism’s criminal actions which can bring still graver suffering to mankind. To curb the aggressors and liberate mankind from imperialism is the mission of the working class, of all the anti-imperialist forces fighting for peace, democracy, national independence and socialism.”  [71•* 

p The salient features of the present epoch thus fully bear out the conclusion drawn by the Communists that this is the epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism, that the most progressive social system is moving from triumph to triumph, convincingly demonstrating its superiority over capitalism, opening new vistas for mankind and calling upon the peoples to fight for social and national liberation.

p Capitalism is doomed. It has no solution for acute social and political problems. It cannot deliver people from the threat of famine and poverty, from the threat of new wars.

p A few years before the October Revolution Lenin wrote: “On all sides, at every step one comes across problems which man is quite capable of solving immediately, but capitalism is in the way. It has amassed enormous wealth—and has made men the slaves of this wealth. It has solved the most complicated technical problems—and has blocked the application of technical improvements....

p “Civilisation, freedom and wealth under capitalism call to mind the rich glutton who is rotting alive but will not let what is young live on.

p “But the young is growing and will emerge supreme in spite of all.”  [71•** 

These words of Lenin, penetrating and full of faith in the future, inspire Communists in their revolutionary struggle for the social reshaping of the world.