p Professor Yevgeny Chekharin, D. Sc. (Phil.)

p Rapid progress of science and technology is a major objective law governing the development of socialist society. Mastering this law is an indispensable condition of building the material and technical basis of communism, whereby it will be possible to meet all the reasonable, historically formed needs of every member of society through all-round development of social production and a continuous rise in labour efficiency.

p It is commonplace that under the capitalist mode of production all means are used, even sweated labour, to increase efficiency and maximise profit. The position is quite different in socialist society, in which the interests of the working people are the most cherished interests of the state. Higher efficiency is achieved under socialism chiefly through the introduction of new machinery, sophistication of the operating plant, improved organisation of labour, and better management. Improvement of the organisation of labour is necessarily correlated with the level of the productive forces and the kind of machinery in use. At the same time, socialist organisation and management of production have a great stimulating effect on the development of the productive forces, furthering the introduction and better employment of new machinery. Technological progress depends in large measure on the successful development of science and application of its achievements in industry.

p In the Soviet Union, for instance, science and scientists enjoy a great deal of attention. This deep and constant 99 concern for science has found expression in many documents of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union—from the Draft Plan of Scientific and Technical Work, drawn up by Lenin,  [99•1  to the decisions of the 24th Congress of the CPSU. In the grim days when the destiny of the young Soviet Republic hung in the balance, Lenin clearly foresaw the role that science was to play in the future reform of Russia. He contemplated a plan of scientific and technical work on a national scale, investigation and development of the country’s natural resources, and evolved the idea of the electrification of Russia.

p The first Soviet research centres and experimental stations were launched as early as 1918, when a ScientificTechnical Department was set up under the Supreme National Economic Council to direct work on major problems concerning the rehabilitation and development of the national productive forces. Thus, from the very start of its activities in the economic sphere, the Communist Party concerned itself with providing adequate material facilities for Soviet science and set about bringing science closer to production. Now the whole world can see the fruitful results of Leninist policy, which has enabled the Soviet Union to emerge to leading positions in many fields of science and technology.

p Lenin repeatedly stressed the significance of technological progress for the building of socialism. He said that economic success “can be assured only when the Russian proletarian state effectively controls a huge industrial machine built on up-to-date technology...".  [99•2  Lenin’s famous formula, “Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country",  [99•3  is an expression of the same idea, for electrification meant putting the economic development of the Soviet state on a modern technological foundation.

p Technological advance exerts a manifold effect on every aspect of Soviet society and state. Its acceleration is a major condition for building the material and technical basis of communism. The measures for building the material and technical basis of communism, set forth in the CPSU 100 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1972/SATR278/20070704/199.tx" Programme, envisage a high rate of scientific and technical progress. They include complete electrification of the country and perfection on this basis of the techniques, technology and patterns of social production in every sector of the national economy; all-round mechanisation and greater automation of production, intensive development of economically effective new-type industries and new kinds of power and materials; and an organic fusion of science and industry. Speeding up scientific and technological progress to the greatest possible extent is a major national objective in the Soviet Union.

p By increasing the effectiveness of production and introducing new types of products advanced technology helps to promote the material well-being of the workers of socialist society. Labour tends to become intellectual, its conditions improve, and those participating in production develop new traits as their professional and general culture increases and their mental horizons broaden.

p Mechanisation and automation of production call for coordination of industrial activities to an even greater extent than before. Hence, the greater significance of collective effort. Socialism makes it possible to combine the principle of teamwork, indispensable at the modern level of science and engineering, with a free unfoldment of the creative faculties of the individual. Planning technological advances, making it economically worthwhile for the factories and other bodies to develop and introduce technical innovations, and mobilising public opinion are powerful means of inducing every worker to contribute to technical progress.

p Under socialism, all the producers, conscious of their common, vital and enduring interests, strive to increase the technical level of production as much as possible, for in socialist society it secures for them a higher living standard without threatening them with either unemployment or disqualification, or any of the other social misfortunes usual under capitalism. The building of communism presupposes extensive practical introduction of the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution, which induces qualitative changes in production technologies, the power industry, the instruments and objects of labour, the system of management, and the character of labour.

p As one of the decisive directions of the building of 101 communism, technological progress is always in the centre of attention of the Soviet state. In guiding this work the Communist Party formulates the tasks facing society at each stage. Even at the earliest stages of Soviet government Lenin sought to promote the more promising of the new developments in technology and create favourable conditions for research and development. He insisted on money, facilities and manpower being allocated for these purposes, despite the dislocated state of the economy at that time.

p The beginning of Soviet industrialisation gave particular urgency to the problems of technical progress. Already in the resolution of the 14th Party Congress adopted on December 23, 1925, on the Central Committee’s report, the task was to “develop our socialist industry through achieving a higher level of technology".  [101•1  This statement was developed further in the directives formulated in the resolution of the 15th Party Conference “On the Economic Situation of the Soviet Union and the Tasks of the Party”, which emphasised that “the national economy is entering a new period of its development which is one of reorganising the economy on the basis of new and higher technology”,  [101•2  As one of the principal aims for industry the resolution mentioned all-round industrial rationalisation and utilisation of the latest technological achievements.

p The resolution of the 15th Party Congress “On the Directives for Drawing Up the National Economic Five-Year Plan" (1927) has a section on “Socialist Rationalisation, the Significance and Role of Mass Organisations”. It maintains that rationalisation is impossible unless a greater role is assigned to science and technology and underlines the need “to study thoroughly all the recent discoveries and inventions”. “Money should not be grudged on experiments to improve methods of work, while every encouragement must be given to the initiative of workers, technicians and engineers.”  [101•3 

p Party decisions outline concrete ways to ensure the progress of science and technology at each stage of the 102 country’s economic development. The guiding role of the Party is being particularly enhanced now that the building of the material and technical basis of communism has become an immediate economic and political task. The goal stated in the CPSU Programme is “to consolidate the advanced positions which Soviet science has won in major branches of knowledge and to take a leading place in world science in all the key fields".  [102•1  Accordingly, the Party now sets the task of all-round acceleration of scientific and technological progress. The 23rd and 24th Congresses of the CPSU gave special consideration to the ways of accomplishing this task.

p While directing the work of state bodies for the guidance of technological progress, the Party simultaneously concentrates the attention of all mass organisations on solving concrete tasks in this sphere, emphasising the need to step up the efforts of factory technical councils, scientific and technical societies, voluntary commissions for the promotion of technological progress, rationalisers’ councils, and other creative workers’ associations.

p The present revolution in science and technology forms the main arena of the economic competition between the two opposing socio-economic systems.

p As Leonid Brezhnev emphasised in his report to the 24th Congress of the CPSU, the Communist Party and the Soviet people are confronted with a task “of historical importance: organically to fuse the achievements of the scientific and technical revolution with the advantages of the socialist economic system, to unfold more broadly our own, intrinsically socialist, forms of fusing science with production".  [102•2 

p The superiority of the socialist over the capitalist system, the social reserves of the socialist system undoubtedly favour the triumph of socialism in the sphere of the present scientific and technological revolution, too. As L. I. Brezhnev said at the International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties in 1969: “Here the struggle will be a long and difficult one. And we are fully resolved to wage it in 103 earnest so as to demonstrate the superiority of socialism in this sphere as well."  [103•1 

p The scientific and technological revolution demands a higher level of research in the social sciences. Social processes are now analysed with the aid of up-to-date machines; the use of computers opens up new possibilities for research, scientific forecasting and optimisation of economic planning.

p The resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU “On Measures Towards Further Developing the Social Sciences and Increasing Their Contribution to the Building of Communism”, published in September 1967, points out the need for constructive development of theoretical problems in close conjunction with the specific tasks of the building of communism, the need for further improving the standards and effectiveness of research. One of the main lines on which social scientists are expected to concentrate their efforts is to solve problems related to the progress of technology. The social sciences must materialistically synthesise socio-revolutionary experience in the conditions of the scientific and technological revolution and all that is new in the struggle for communism, and thus develop revolutionary theory.

p In recent years Soviet researchers have stepped up investigation of the economic, political and philosophical problems relating to the building of the material and technical basis of communism, and made more intensive study of the changes in the productive forces occurring under the impact of the most recent discoveries in natural science and the development of technology, and of ways of making best use of the advantages of socialism to advance technology. Ever greater attention is being paid to the scientific elaboration of the problems of increasing the efficiency of socialist production and thus ensuring a steady growth of the people’s welfare and development of culture and every sphere of public life; to the investigation of problems of the further improvement of socialist social relationships, of the forms and methods of scientific management of the national economy on the basis of democratic centralism and a 104 consistent employment of the moral and economic incentives. Simultaneously, more is being done to elaborate theoretically such problems as the development of socialist democracy, the collective and the individual, society and the state.

The Directives of the 24th Congress of the CPSU on the Five-Year Plan of the National Economic Development of the USSR, 1971-75, provide for further development of the social sciences, and comprehensive research into social development in order to achieve scientific direction of socialist economy and to solve other problems of communist construction.