p Scientific discoveries and technological advances directly affect social processes by altering people’s notions of nature, society and the development of the productive forces, i.e., 65 by altering social consciousness. History shows that progressive social ideas are central to this process. Forming the front line of society’s advance, as it were, they pave the way for the progress of science, technology and social relations, speeding it on its course. Mankind’s transition from capitalism to socialism calls not only for a scientific and technological revolution but for an ideological revolution as well. The conflict between the growing productive forces and obsolete relations of production engenders new, progressive ideas which prompt people to fight those obsolete relations.

p Lenin observed that “large-scale machine industry, by concentrating large masses of workers, transforming the methods of production, and destroying all the traditional, patriarchal cloaks and screens that have obscured the relations between classes, always leads to the directing of public attention towards these relations, to attempts at public control and regulation".  [65•1  As the scientific and technological revolution goes on, all that is old and conservative in the life of classes and nations collapses, while their mode of thinking, psychology and culture undergo a change.

p New social ideas and doctrines precede social revolution, and are among its requisites. The emergence of new social theories and their effect on people’s minds, the realisation of science in the sphere of material production and reform of social relations, are merely different aspects of a single process, different ways of speeding up social progress.

p Marxist-Leninist theory, the scientific world outlook, which has synthesised and critically digested all that has been achieved by man in culture and science as well as knowledge throughout history, is the summit of progressive social thought, a natural outcome of the entire past and present development of the natural and social sciences. Since dialectical and historical materialism emerged as a science, all the social and natural sciences have increasingly felt its fructifying influence.

p Dialectical and historical materialism shines like a powerful searchlight into the yet unfathomed depths of the material world. The conclusions of materialist philosophy are as indispensable to contemporary natural science as they ever were. Elevation of science to new levels of cognition of the 66 secrets of nature, integration not only of various branches of natural science but often of the humanities too, co- operation between various sciences on problems of great social significance—all these things entail more extensive and detailed philosophic studies involving a wider range of problems. The interests of further progress of the natural sciences require that Marxist-Leninist philosophy, which is constantly developing and creative in itself, should increase its leading methodological role in their development. According to Engels, true science has always been wholly revolutionary, wholly transforming and ennobling. These are notable characteristics of Soviet science and scientists.

p Marxist science, based on dialectical and historical materialism, has existed more than a hundred years now. It reveals to mankind a new society, the most humane society in the world. Those who try to prove, in defiance of facts, that Marxism-Leninism has outlived its usefulness, are beginning to look ridiculous. Such theorists must be blind to the great developments of our own times, so complex and yet so breath-takingly bright with promise.

p Of course, as long as imperialism exists in the world, the menace of a catastrophic war remains real. The imperialists seek to keep nations in a state of constant fear. They exploit the achievements of science and technology in their class interests. The bourgeoisie spares no efforts to maintain a climate of amorality, decadence and lack of faith in man’s good qualities. It uses the scientific and technological revolution against man, dooming him to slavery and spiritual emptiness.

p With the appearance of atomic and hydrogen weapons bourgeois propagandists, eager to distract public attention from burning social problems, have started to breed an atmosphere of fear by alleging that atomic war is inevitable and that all will perish in it. They put their stakes on “atomic diplomacy”, intimidation, blackmail and moral corruption. Today the bourgeoisie has started another bogey, trying to suggest—to youth in particular—that science will finally make the human beings superfluous by substituting cybernetic machines for them. Such pessimistic predictions purporting to shift the blame for the conflicts and social ills of “Western civilisation" from the capitalist system to science and technology, far from being confined to science 67 fiction, are plentiful in many bourgeois sociologists’ writings. A few examples will suffice. Professor Kurt Schilling of Munich University writes: “Technology of the third projection, industrialism, transcends the limits of technology altogether. It is fraught, at the least, with a real danger that technology will have the ascendancy of man, instead of the opposite being true."  [67•1  To Jacques Ellul, a French sociologist, the prospects look equally black. Addressing the International Conference on Science and Technology, he said: “In the presence of technology, civilisation cannot develop. All repentance is futile; all hope of being restored to the former state is unreal."  [67•2 

p Certainly, when such forecasts come from serious scientists, not from bourgeois propaganda experts, it merely shows that they (the scientists) are bound up inextricably in bourgeois social realities. It also indicates the pressing need for a correct, Marxist-Leninist interpretation of all the significant new phenomena the modern scientific and technological revolution has given rise to.

p Scientists are under a growing obligation to preserve the individual from the corroding influence of bourgeois ideology, to uplift him spiritually and morally. Such is the task facing the progressive people everywhere. Of course, bourgeois demoralisation can be wiped out completely only through radical revolutionary social reforms, through a materialist comprehension of social development, on the basis of the Marxist-Leninist world outlook.

p Social progress is the watchword of our times, resounding in the hearts of millions of workers, peasants and all the oppressed on all continents. The striving for social progress that has swept broad social strata signifies that the millions reject the bourgeois social order with its discredited economic and political systems and the eternal “pie in the sky" of bourgeois democracy, and that they are looking for paths leading to a more equitable social order founded on socialist ideas.

In other words, the objective world situation is such that all the progressive forces, one way or another, consciously 68 or spontaneously, tend towards socialism. The significance of this objective fact cannot be overestimated. The main thing now is for progressive scientific opinion to show in what direction and by what least painful methods it is possible to attain the cherished goal of building socialism and communism on a world scale.