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p An analysis of the basic features of the present epoch not only brings us round to the general conclusion that the downfall of capitalism and its replacement by socialism are inevitable. It helps us to explain correctly the key sociopolitical laws and phenomena of our day.

p For the force, breadth, depth and rate of economic, social and ideological revolutionary changes the modern epoch has no precedent. It is characterised by unparalleled dynamism, swift development, rapid change of events and a considerable acceleration of progressive processes.

p It took several thousand years to replace the clan system by slave-owning society, and nearly 700 years to oust the slave-owning system in favour of feudalism. Some 300 years went by before feudalism was finally superseded by capitalism. The process of the capitalist system’s displacement by socialism has been going on for a little over 50 years. Although this process has not been consummated, the reforms that are taking place are much broader and more far- reaching than the changes that marked the appearance of preceding systems. Since the Great October Socialist Revolution the socialist system has been established in 14 countries. Today the socialist states have 26 per cent of the world’s land area and 35 per cent of its population. These figures are evidence of capitalism’s rapid supplanting by the socialist system. But this is only one side of the issue. The other side is that the rate of growth of socialist productive forces and of the qualitative improvement of the socialist mode of production is steadily gaining increasing momentum and is further aggravating all the contradictions between the new and the old world, and steps up the revolutionary movement aimed at resolving these contradictions. The conclusion to be drawn from this is that on the historical level the speed with which capitalism is being supplanted by socialism is inexorably growing, not slackening.

p To understand the dynamism of the present epoch correctly we must analyse the contradictions intrinsic to it. Why? Because contradictions are the motive forces of social development. Society develops through the solution of the 73 contradictions in it and through the surmounting of the conflict between contradictions.

p The whole history of mankind is a history of the birth, exacerbation and solution of the most diverse contradictions. In a class society these are contradictions between the productive forces and the relations of production, between the basis and the superstructure, between the ruling classes and the oppressed masses, the contradictions in the ruling elite, the contradictions between elements of the superstructure, and so forth. Acquiring the form of a social conflict, contradictions are always resolved only as a result of an acute class struggle.

p After the victory of the socialist revolution in Russia and then in other countries, new kinds of contradictions appeared in the world and, at the same time, changes took place in the scale and form of the contradictions inherent in capitalist society.

p Our epoch witnesses a complex intertwining of the most violent contradictions, among which are the contradictions between socialism and capitalism, between individual capitalist countries, in imperialist society itself, between the social nature of production and the private mode of appropriation, between the exploiters and the exploited, between peoples fighting for national independence and the oppressors, between free and oppressed peoples, between the forces of war and peace, and so on. These are economic, social and political contradictions. What, under these conditions, is the main contradiction, which determines the entire course of historical development?

p For the bourgeois system the main contradiction is that between the social nature of production and the private mode of appropriation. This contradiction is unremittingly aggravated as capitalism increasingly socialises production and centralises management. On the international level the main contradiction is between the socialist and the imperialist system.

p As a whole, capitalist society represents, at the given stage, the solution of the contradiction between labour and capital in favour of the latter. Socialist society, on the contrary, incarnates the triumph of labour over capital. We thus see two contradictions. While retaining their old relations within the capitalist system, labour and capital are 74 emerging on the world scene and acquiring a new character and a new form.

p The new character of the contradiction between labour and capital lies in the radical change of the balance of strength between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie on a world-wide scale and in the fact that the proletariat has qualitatively new possibilities of pursuing the struggle for its aims. The relationship between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie has also changed: the struggle now also manifests itself as a struggle between states, a struggle between the two systems—the socialist and the capitalist—in which the socialist system gains the upper hand more and more frequently. Therefore, with its emergence on the world scene the contradiction between labour and capital acquired considerably more force and significance than the same contradiction within capitalist society, and has become the decisive contradiction of world development.

p As soon as the contradiction between socialism and capitalism appeared on the international stage after the victory of the October Revolution in Russia it began to influence the class struggle throughout the world. At the Second Comintern Congress Lenin pointed out that “in the present world situation following the imperialist war, reciprocal relations between peoples and the world political system as a whole are determined by the struggle waged by a small group of imperialist nations against the Soviet movement and the Soviet, states headed by Soviet Russia”.  [74•*  In a document prepared for that Congress he wrote: “World political developments are of necessity concentrated on a single focus—the struggle of the world bourgeoisie against the Soviet Russian Republic, around which are inevitably grouped, on the one hand, the Soviet movements of the advanced workers in all countries, and, on the other, all the national liberation movements in the colonies and among the oppressed nationalities.”  [74•** 

p At its initial stage, when the socialist state was still weak, the main contradiction of the modern world could not operate in full strength. But with the consolidation of socialism the role of this contradiction grew. It is particularly 75 vigorous today. “Global in scale, the basic contradiction between imperialism and socialism is growing deeper,”  [75•*  it is noted in the Document of the 1969 Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties. The dependence of all contemporary problems on the struggle between the two social systems has sharply mounted.

p This is due to the following circumstances. 

p —The world socialist system plays an immense role in settling the main contradiction between capitalism and socialism. Its achievements speed up the process of development, and enhance the dynamism of the epoch inasmuch as they aggravate the contradiction between socialism and capitalism on a world scale. Marxism-Leninism is the predominant ideology in the building of socialism and communism and is the guideline of millions of people waging a struggle in the capitalist countries. It allows utilising society’s efforts in a most rational manner to eradicate outworn social relations.

p —The struggle between the two systems objectively draws into the movement the broadest masses, who are the makers of history. The masses now play a considerably larger role as the subject. Far-reaching changes have taken place in the social, political and national life of many tens of countries since the Second World War, in the lifetime of a single generation. These changes were of a clearly- expressed anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist nature. They gave great scope and opened up further possibilities for the struggle against capitalism. The scale of this struggle is growing—for the forces taking part in it and for the problems it is resolving. Its subjects are no longer individual revolutionary parties but large states. It not only influences the home policies of individual groups of ruling circles but determines the basic issue of international politics and the development of capitalism as a whole.

p —The scientific and technological revolution, which requires socialist relations of production for its full development and which is being used with increasing skill in the socialist countries, is sharply exacerbating the contradiction between the social nature of labour and the private form of appropriation and, on this basis, it aggravates other 76 contradictions of capitalist society. By fundamentally changing many aspects of the production process and accelerating it, this revolution is profoundly affecting the whole of social life. It is speeding up various social processes, including society’s stratification into classes. Moreover, it is showing more and more convincingly that as a class the bourgeoisie is unnecessary and parasitical.

p This accentuation of the main contradiction of the present epoch by no means signifies that other contradictions are slackening or disappearing. The main contradiction is fundamental only in the sum total of contradictions, in their existing combination. Take the contradiction between labour and capital. It is not being overshadowed by the main contradiction, but remains a key element eroding capitalism and must be resolved. This is very important and one should not make the mistake of thinking that since the main contradiction is between the two systems, the proletariat in the capitalist countries may relax its active struggle and calmly wait for its liberation by the socialist countries. On the other hand, it is also dangerous to underrate the main contradiction of the epoch and rely solely on “one’s own strength" in the struggle against the capitalists. This can only divorce the class struggle in the capitalist countries from the global struggle between the two systems and weaken the revolutionary contingents in each country and the revolutionary movement as a whole.

p The same may be said of the other contradictions. For instance, the law of the uneven economic and political development of capitalism in the epoch of imperialism remains in full force and intensifies inter-imperialist contradictions. “The principal centres of imperialist rivalry,” L. I. Brezhnev said at the 24th Congress of the CPSU, “had distinctly taken shape by the beginning of the 1970s: they are the USA —Western Europe (chiefly the Common Market Six)—- Japan. The economic and political competition between them is steadily growing sharper.”

p The Communists cannot afford to underestimate all these contradictions, and they must make proper use of them in the class struggle. The most deep-rooted laws of social development are mirrored by the main contradiction of our epoch. Marxism-Leninism’s knowledge of this contradiction enables the revolutionary movement to chart its strategy 77 correctly and find the most effective ways and means of struggle to resolve the conflicts of modern society and hasten the triumph of socialism.

p The enemies of socialism seek to dismiss the substance of social processes and conceal from the people the significance of social contradictions and the ways of resolving them. Imperialism cannot count on success by openly proclaiming its real aims. It is, therefore, compelled to set up a whole system of ideological myths obscuring the true purport of its intentions and lulling the vigilance of the peoples. Bourgeois social science champions the decaying capitalist system, distorts the picture of our epoch, uses various theories to camouflage the main contradiction of the modern world and falsifies the political objectives of the capitalist states and the trends of the class struggle.

p Anti-communist propaganda, which misrepresents the scientific definition of the modern epoch and its main contradiction, is conducted in three key directions.  [77•* 

p The first embraces the bourgeois concepts interpreting history not as a transition from one socio-economic system to another but as movement through numerous stages. The proponents of these “theories” single out external indications common to all epochs and draw formal parallels between slave uprisings and socialist revolutions, between the policies of Alexander the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte, between Buddhism and Stoicism. Some of them simplify or exaggerate some one factor of social development, for example, production. They do not wish to or cannot see the distinctions in the socio-economic conditions of the different epochs and peoples, in the motives and results of historical processes, and ignore the relationship between the productive forces and the relations of production. As a result, they see no progress in history or recognise progress only in science and technology. They repudiate the need for an expediency of the class struggle, holding that it has no prospects and is not in keeping with the laws of history.

p Underlying these “theories” is the concept of “culture 78 cycles" evolved by Oswald Spengler, a reactionary German philosopher and one of the ideological predecessors of fascism. According to Spengler, the same forms of social organisation are constantly repeated in the history of society. History, he says, represents the coexistence or sequence of cultures, each of which is inimitable and has nothing in common with other cultures. He maintains that in history it is impossible to trace the succession of individual phenomena and that it is utterly devoid of progress. He used the similarity of the external forms of various phenomena to draw unscientific conclusions and forecasts about the society of his day.

p Identical views are propounded by Arnold Toynbee, an English historian and philosopher, who is one of the present-day spokesmen of the bourgeoisie. He says that mankind has gone through a number of civilisations, which are equivalent in importance and “simultaneous from the philosophical point of view”. Instead of making a concrete analysis of the various socio-economic systems and phenomena in history, Toynbee looks for common features in them and endeavours to deduce from them laws operating regardless of space and time. In this pattern a place is reserved for the “higher being”, God, who “charted the general outline of history”. In examining the problems of the modern world, Toynbee rejects communism although he recognises its force and attraction for the rural masses of the economically undeveloped countries. According to him history proves nationalism’s inevitable triumph over any ideological theories.

p The “stages” theory of the American bourgeois scholar Walt Rostow is currently in fashion in some circles in the West. The concept propounded by Rostow is that the whole history of the world has witnessed five stages of development: traditional society, society with prerequisites for an upsurge, ascending society, mature society and mass consumer society. This classification is arrived at by comparing the development level of specific elements of production such as machinery, technology and the application of scientific discoveries in production. According to Rostow all countries were at a low stage of development approximately until 1780. Today, he says, this is still the level of most of the so-called developing countries. In the second stage, he argues, are countries whose development level conforms to 79 the level preceding the industrial revolution. He characterises the third stage by the swift development of new machinery and the beginning of intensive industrialisation. At the “mature” stage, he writes, modern industrial technology is applied in all spheres of production and this allows for the transition to the stage of mass consumption, when society focuses its effort on social welfare and the well-being of every citizen. Here Rostow’s “theory” rubs shoulders with various concepts of so-called welfare states.

p All these theories have a clear-cut objective, namely, to supplant the Marxist-Leninist concept of society’s dialectical development by a vulgar pattern of development, which ignores the real factors of human history.

p This pseudodialectical pattern excludes from the life of society not only elements of revolution but also classes and the class struggle. The diverse variants of the “stage” theory are thus an ideological barrier to understanding the actual laws governing society’s development.

p The second direction of the theoretical struggle against the laws of the modern epoch is to hide the fundamental distinction between socialism and capitalism and advance various concepts, according to which the two opposing systems are “coming together”, “merging” and “converging”.

p Some bourgeois and reformist theoreticians argue that the antithesis between capitalism and socialism is living itself out, that the two systems gradually become alike, and in future will merge into a single “integrated” system. They hold that the distinctions between the socio-political systems are no longer fundamental as a result of the scientific and technological revolution and the development of the mass media and that this makes the coexistence of ideologies possible.”  [79•* 

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p Characterising all these views, Dominique Urbany, Chairman of the Communist Party of Luxembourg, said at the 1969 Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties: “ Attempts are being made to prevail on the working class that if a bit of water is added to the wine of Marxism-Leninism and a bit of socialist flavouring to the vinegar of capitalism, they will get a beverage suitable and acceptable for all. In scientific terms this concoction is called ‘convergence’, politically it is named ’humane socialism’ and in practice it connotes collaboration with capitalism for the purpose of saving it.”  [80•* 

p The “convergence” theory is a bid to demonstrate that socialism is historically “unnatural” not by repudiating it as a socio-economic phenomenon but by proving that it is unnecessary, wrong, accidental and inconsistent with the true course of history. It distorts the history of socialism and the laws governing it.

p Abutting upon the theory of “convergence” is the “ industrial society" theory, according to which fundamentally similar processes take place in the economy of all industrially developed countries and this draws these countries together. Rostow, for instance, brackets socialism and capitalism in one and the same “industrial society" and says that the only difference between them is that socialism is a 81 less acceptable road of transition from traditional to mature society. Communism, he writes, “is a kind of disease which can belall a transitional society if it fails to organise effectively those elements within it which are prepared to get on with the job of modernisation”.  [81•* 

p One of the leading proponents of the “industrial society" theory, the West German bourgeois philosopher Eric Voegelin, maintains that “on the borderline between the 19th and the 20th century the highly developed capitalist countries were at the phase of structural social reforms, which could serve as the source of the Marxist thesis of the uncompromising .class struggle and of the revolution springing from it, of the thesis that all preceding history is a history of the class struggle”.  [81•**  The present stage of the development of industrial society is, according to Voegelin, such a “high phase of changing inter-dependence in society" that the assertions about distinctions between employers and workers and, thereby, the whole social problem are an “ outworn cliché”.

p In all its variants the “convergence” theory is designed, above all, to laud capitalism as a system, and its aim is to undermine the revolutionary determination of the Communists arid pacify the working-class movement.

p Lastly, the third line of the unscientific interpretation of the modern epoch is to divide the world into two groups of countries—“poor” and “rich”. Its purpose is to conceal the growing distinction between the highly developed capitalist states and the majority of other countries of the capitalist world. To this end all countries are classified in accordance with one indicator—their level of economic development. The differences in their socio-economic organisation, the class substance of their policies and the nature of the relations between the “poor” and the “rich” states are ignored entirely. As a result, the socialist and leading capitalist countries find themselves in one and the same group.

p The “model” for such views is set by Michael Harrington, Chairman of the Socialist Party of the USA. He recognises the existence of socialist and imperialist countries 82 and the struggle between them, but, in fact, brackets them together by examining them within the framework of the more general division into “poor” and “rich” nations. The relations between “poor” and “rich” countries, he writes, are just as unequal and unjust as the relations between the American workers and businessmen. The current trend of international economics, he opines, is widening the gulf between rich and poor countries. His forecast of the future is: “... the struggle between East and West, communism and capitalism, which has dominated international politics since the end of World War II, could come to an end—and be replaced by a conflict between the North, both Communist and capitalist, and the South, which is poor.”  [82•* 

p A variant of the “poor” and “rich” countries theory is the “modernisation” theory, which divides all countries into modern and non-modern. The non-modern category embraces economically backward countries, countries of the Third World and also the socialist countries. According to this theory all countries will be gradually modernised after the pattern of the developed capitalist states and thereby draw closer to the “modern” countries. The authors of this theory—Jean Fourastie, Raymond Aron and others—regard the present stage of development as the “second industrial revolution”, which makes the socialist revolution the “ problem of yesterday”.

p The concept of “poor” and “rich” countries does not hold water. The supplanting of class distinctions by welfare distinctions does not conform to the situation in the different countries or on the international scene. The workers of the capitalist countries live in vastly different conditions. However, this does not alter the fact that in face of capitalist exploitation they have basic common interests. On the other hand, the rulers of backward countries have interests in common with foreign monopolies though the standard of living in these countries is quite different. This division into “poor” and “rich” countries pursues the aim of diverting the workers from the struggle against the capitalists and sidetrack the struggle of the peoples of the developing countries. They thereby seek to demolish the unity between the 83 national liberation and the working-class movements and conceal the fact that the distinction must be sought not between “rich” and “poor” nations but between monopoly capital in the old and new countries, on the one hand, and the anti-monopoly and anti-imperialist forces, including and above all, the socialist countries, on the other.

p This absence of a class approach in defining the nature of our epoch and the ways of social development also characterises the “works” of the Right-wing leaders of the Social-Democratic parties. Having slid into the positions of capitalism, they slur over the substance of the main contradiction of the epoch and calumniate the Soviet Union and other socialist countries. In their writings they preach the bourgeois concept of “poor” and “rich” countries. While recognising factors of world development like the national liberation movement and the disintegration of the colonial system, they close their eyes to the causes and trends of these processes, to their anti-capitalist orientation. The thesis that modern capitalism has acquired a new character, that it has become “democratic” and serves the people is widespread among Social-Democrats. This thesis is the foundation for their theory of the “transformation of capitalism”, of its “peaceful growth" into socialism. The SocialDemocrats openly declare that the “democratic socialism" they are striving for has its roots mainly in “Christian ethics, humanism and classical philosophy”. This is recorded, for example, in the programme of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany. However, Social-Democratic ideology preaches far from abstract ideals, which turn socialism into an incorporeal ethical symbol. Its class content is obvious: renunciation of the revolutionary changes in modern society.

p In promoting their views of the nature of the modern epoch and of the principal trends of its development, Marxists-Leninists encounter not only clearly hostile interpretations but also misunderstanding and distortion of these problems in the communist movement. Among the Communists there are theoreticians who underrate imperialism’s aggressiveness, fail to see the aims of its global strategy and even deny that such a strategy exists. Others abandon the class approach in their analysis of the anti-imperialist camp and make no distinction between the Communists and the broad democratic forces although there are marked political and 84 ideological distinctions between them. Sometimes, when they speak of the contradictions between socialism and capitalism, they take socialism to mean the socialist camp and all other forces acting under socialist slogans, although many of these forces, despite the progressive significance of their struggle, cannot be the motive force of socialist development.

p The attempt to measure the processes of present-day world development with the non-class yardstick of “blocs”, and the refusal to see the fundamental difference between the aggressive imperialist groups and the alliance of socialist states fighting against imperialist oppression of peoples, for peace, democracy and socialism, likewise clash with the Marxist-Leninist analysis of the epoch. Regrettably, in some countries there are Communists, who, echoing the bourgeois apologists, speak of the widening gulf between developed and undeveloped countries without differentiating between socialist and capitalist countries, without drawing a distinction between countries that have started out on noncapitalist development and countries with a capitalist and, in some cases, a pro-fascist orientation.

p Distorting the laws of development of the modern world in the interests of the chauvinistic policies pursued by the Chinese leaders, the official press in the People’s Republic of China gives a grossly unscientific definition of the contradictions and character of our epoch which has nothing in common with reality. The theoretical and political dotage into which the authors of some articles have lapsed is shown by the fact that they regard the Soviet Union, whose entire policy from the very first day of its existence has been directed against imperialism, towards the struggle for the social liberation of peoples, friendship among nations and peace on earth, as belonging to the same camp as imperialism. The other Maoist definitions of the epoch are likewise untenable, but regrettably they are being accepted by “ Leftist" groups in some Communist parties. In the literature put out by Peking it is stated that the main contradiction of the modern epoch is between imperialism and the national liberation movement. One cannot, of course, deny the strength of this contradiction and the fact that it actuates the masses in the struggle against colonial tyranny. But the settlement of this contradiction does not lead to socialism.

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p It leads only to the downfall of the colonial system, and thus, however great its significance, only prepares the conditions for socialism. Neither can one agree with the attempts to apply mechanically to the modern epoch the definition that it is the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolutions.  [85•* 

p But life pitilessly demolishes all the theoretical constructions of the critics of the revolutionary epoch who champion an historically doomed class and offer eclectic arguments instead of a scientific analysis.

p The dynamism of our epoch will be intensified with the further change of the alignment of forces between the new and old social systems and with the aggravation of the main contradiction. The growth of the powerful torrents of the revolutionary movement and the enhancement of socialism’s influence as a result of the acceleration of the rate of social development create favourable conditions for the revolutionary struggle, give rise to new and richer combinations of objective and subjective factors of revolution and of the ways and means of accomplishing changes, and open new possibilities for creatively carrying out the specific tasks of the transition from capitalism to socialism in individual countries.

The great achievements of our epoch bear out the definition given of it by Marxism-Leninism.